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Silver is on Angel Island.
Truth be, Knuckles doesn’t have much of an opinion on the kid. They haven’t interacted all that much, and the only “one on one” interaction Knuckles had with him was back during that strange event with the Ifrit. Knuckles thought he was some crazy nut, believing the Chao to be the secret to saving the world or something, and Knuckles can’t say Silver’s had much of a chance to make him re-evaluate his first impressions.
He’s an alright guy, though. He’s a little too cocky for Knuckles’s tastes, a little too haughty and self-righteous, a little too outright dickish at times. But he does seem to have a good heart, and he seems genuinely invested in saving his future, so Knuckles doesn’t find too many faults with him in the end. Just annoying. Knuckles has put up with worse from Sonic’s friends.
(Mainly Jet. And Shadow. But mostly Jet. Chaos only knows why Sonic lets that guy linger around.)
Silver arrives on Angel Island looking worse for wear. His quills are mused and half singed, his eyes are exhausted, and his boots are scuffed and dull. Knuckles watches him from afar as he wanders across the island, mumbling and complaining to himself before he stumbles right into one of Knuckles’s traps.
A rope sweeps him off his feet, and Silver goes flying into the air, dangling off a tree limb by the ankle. “Sonic, you dick. He didn’t warn me about this kind of stuff lying around.”
With an annoyed flick of his wrist, Silver uses his telekinesis to untie the rope around his ankle. He didn’t seem to think the action through, because when the rope lets go of his ankle, Silver crashes face first into the dirt, forgetting to catch himself. He grumbles a few obscenities and Knuckles can’t help but snicker.
Slipping past a few bushes, Knuckles makes his presence known. He’s a bit wary over Silver being here- there are few people who visit Angel Island other than Sonic, Tails, and Amy, and most come along with at least one of those three. Anyone else is suspected to have malicious intentions. Even other friends of Sonic.
(Rouge is a friend, after all, and she wouldn’t hesitate to snatch that emerald and leave Angel Island careening into the ocean. Really, Knuckles doesn’t understand the sort of people Sonic befriends (and is careful to avoid the idea that he befriended her, too.))
“What are you doing here?” He asks without preamble.
Silver glances up and quickly stumbles to his feet, brushing aside all the dirt on his knees as he frantically tries to look respectable. Knuckles watches him but keeps an impassive expression. “Oh! Well, Sonic and I just got done defeating Eggman Nega’s latest plot, and I mentioned to him that I’ve never visited Angel Island in my future. Tails and him dropped me off here to visit.”
Silver peers around, eyes staring at the mile high trees and the vibrant flowers. “It’s beautiful here. I understand the desire to protect a place like this.”
Knuckles folds his arms. “Angel Island isn’t exactly a tourist hot spot. Now get lost, kid.”
“Come on!” Silver puts his hands together, batting his eyes. “Just a small look around. I’ll be quick. I have my own future to get back to, anyway.”
Knuckles taps his fingers on his arm, contemplating the proposition. “You get an hour, and I’ll be by your side every minute of the way.”
“Sweet!”
Knuckles ends up leading the way, hoping that the sightseeing will make Silver’s time here fly and Knuckles will get back to his usual nap. Silver’s stamina is weak despite the power of his telekinesis, and he struggles to keep up with Knuckles’s brisk walk, but he doesn’t dare ask for a break.
Half the time, Silver’s tripping over his own feet, too busy looking at the sights around him to pay attention. Knuckles’s pride swells a bit; surface dwellers are always amazed by the glory of Angel Island, and it does stoke his pride a bit. He’s the one who’s been taking care of this island for nearly a decade all on his own, after all.
Silver’s eyes take in the absolute stunning beauty of Knuckles’s home. He’s enthralled by the giant and bouncy mushrooms of Mushroom Hill, the shimmering reflection of Marble Garden Zone, the architecture of the Sky Sanctuary (Knuckles doesn’t let him inside, though, no matter how much he whines), the decadent snow blanketing Ice Cap Zone, and the beautiful Azure Lake.
They’re roaming through Hydrocity at the moment, avoiding the water as best they can. Knuckles loves this zone, but isn’t fond of getting his shoes wet for no reason. He only has so many pairs of shoes and socks, after all.
“Huh.”
Silver’s quiet voice catches his attention. Silver’s peering over at the carvings towards the top of the ruins, eyes centered straight on a few statues littering the site. Hedgehog like creatures stare across the horizon, peering down at both of them like specs of dust.
“Have these always been here?” Silver asks, averting his gaze to peer at the sunrise. “I thought only echidnas settled here.”
“My clan slayed many who opposed them. It’s possible that a tribe of hedgehogs lived here before they conquered the land.”
It’s the only explanation Knuckles can figure out. There’s not a single other carving of another animal besides hedgehogs or Echidnas on this island, and those hedgehog statues looked far older than anything else on the island. There’s plenty of Chaos energy enhanced technology around the island, too, which Knuckles had long ago assumed was forged by his ancestors. But if Chaos’s wrath had struck and nearly slayed them all, would the emeralds truly be so kind to allow them to harmonize Chaos and technology?
Knuckles doesn’t think so.
Silver appears contemplative for a few moments. “Angel Island was destroyed in my bad future. Sank all the way to the bottom of the ocean, along with thousands of inhabitants.”
That last line strikes Knuckles as odd. “Thousands of inhabitants?”
Silver bites his lip. “A lot can change in two hundred years, Knuckles.” He pauses. “Or even one.”
Knuckles wants to prod, wants to ask more about the future Silver knows about, wants to find out if this ever present loneliness he’s felt since his parents disappeared, since he became the very last of a dying tribe, would ever go away. But Silver doesn’t quite grant him that mercy, offers only a few crumbs of hope before squinting his eyes at the distance, pointing towards the far end of the island, “Oh, we haven’t explored over there yet! Let’s keep going!”
Knuckles decides to continue. Perhaps, when Knuckles had been living on this island all by his lonesome, burdened with a curse from a god of old, burdened with being the last of his people from a disaster he had no influence in, he would have asked more questions. He would have begged for more details, for proof that one day he would escape the mundanity and isolation of his crushing duty, that one day he might make a friend, that one day Angel Island could be bustling with life and people like him instead of being so stiflingly large and empty.
But Knuckles is not six nor twelve anymore. Knuckles is sixteen, and has met many people, befriended even a few of them, and Angel Island is not quite as stifling as it once was, not quite so empty. Knuckles can make peace with the concept that one day, it might be even fuller, and that he can't know the details of that incident right now.
They slither along the island, Silver patiently listening to a few of the stories Knuckles has, either fables from ages ago, stories passed down to him from times long before this island was even floating, to more recent battles between Sonic, Knuckles, and Eggman, and a few stories in between. Silver asks all the right questions, listens and nods his head, but there’s something terribly soft in his expression when Knuckles occasionally mentions life before Sonic and his friends.
“The apocalypse was barren,” Silver says, gently. “Barren in environment, and barren socially. You don’t meet a lot of people at the end of the world. I mostly raised myself. And then later on, I became a time traveler to fix the past. I get what you’re talking about. Sort of.”
Knuckles furrows his brows but looks away. It’s a sad sort of realization, to know that your present will become another’s future. That the world doesn't change enough to save people from your old sorrows.
“Does your future ever become bright?” Silver stops.
They’re right next to the hidden palace. Knuckles is about to suggest going inside when they strike up this conversation, and there’s a very serious expression on Silver’s face that has Knuckles stopping in his tracks right next to him. They peer at each other for a few moments, before Silver gives him a quiet smile. “It will, one day.”
It’s not a real answer, but Knuckles nods along anyway, and states, “We’ll make sure of it.”
He continues his walk, without waiting for Silver, but he manages to pick up in his intentions quick enough that he isn’t left behind. Knuckles opens the entrance to the palace and begins to wander aimlessly, cutting through shortcuts and vague corridors, Silver right at his heels.
It’s one of the oldest parts of the island here, with ruins even older than the ones down in Station Square. Knuckles has spent countless hours, days, weeks here in this palace, wandering fingers brushing against cracked and sparkling mosaics, eyes roaming the ancient pictures of battles and figures and disasters. He can’t read much of the inscriptions, despite years of trying to decode his own language. He was only five or six when his parents disappeared, after all. Not old enough to be completely literate.
He often wonders about this palace. It’s one of the oldest things on this island, and it seems to incorporate much of the old Echidna architecture and art styles. Simplistic mosaics and caricatures line many of the surfaces, but not all. There are some portraits sculpted in near life likeness, some architectural feats that make Knuckles wonder, on occasion, just whose palace this used to be.
Pachacamac’s, legends whisper. Maybe, once it had been. But was it always his? Knuckles will never know for sure.
Silver stops in place. Knuckles hears his thick boots come to a quiet halt, and Knuckles turns, finding Silver staring up at the mural of Perfect Chaos, in all his blue tiled glory, lashing about and destroying his very people, captured in class and clay and beads, weathered by touch and time. Knuckles’s heart clenches at the sight, at the reminder of a mistake that ebbs into the present, at the sight of a product of one mistake creating a domino effect of hell and apocalypse.
“Perfect Chaos...” Silver’s voice is perhaps the quietest Knuckles has ever heard it. His eyes are set right on the beast that slayed Knuckles’s people, the beast that let its own hatred consume its heart, little better than the greed that consumed Pachacamac’s.
Often, the best intentions give way to creating the worst scenarios. Sonic once mentioned that the opposite can be true, too, however.
“There’s stories in the future, that it once resurfaced, along with other ancient entities, like Gaia and Illumina and Solaris.” Silver pauses, then continues, “I didn’t use to believe in gods like them. Beings of mighty power... they watched our world burn, and did nothing about it. It seemed too horribly malicious. I didn’t want to believe the world worked that way.”
“Often, gods themselves cause much strife.”
There’s a wry smile on Silver’s face at Knuckles’s remark. “Certainly.”
“Chaos himself destroyed my people. You ever heard that story?”
“I get told different versions of it.” There’s a strange look in his eye. “Tell it again to me, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“The Knuckles Clan wasn’t always so violent. But when Pachacamac came into power, the stability and peace was shattered by his lust for land and power. He turned our people into warriors and conquered and conquested all the land he could roam. He came across this island, hearing rumors of mystical gems of miracles. Tikal, his daughter, found them first. She attempted to keep them a secret from him, befriending the guardian of the emeralds. Chaos.”
Knuckles stands beside Silver, peering up at Perfect Chaos. The beast gazes down at him with laser focus, eyes of literal beads staring at him with beady eyes. They shimmer in the torchlight.
Knuckles knows that Sonic managed to soothe his heart, that Chaos was now calm and kind, just as he had been with Tikal. But Knuckles knows what he is capable of, knows the strife his people suffered through for thousands of years because of one misdeed from ancestors long dead or forgotten, knows the malice and hatred he once had in his heart, and how it has infected the lives of his people for thousands of years. How the past has seeped into the present because of his actions.
“It goes as well as you expect.”
Knuckles is content with Chaos’s fate. It doesn’t mean he’s completely made amends with the creature that destroyed his future.
“Pachacamac finds the emeralds. Tikal attempts to stop him from stealing them, but is overpowered by his men. His men, in their reckless abandon to attack the shrine and recover the Chaos emeralds, end up harming some of the Chao who lived there. They invoked Chaos’s wrath, and so overcome with rage and malice, Chaos used the negative energy of the emeralds to become Perfect Chaos, obliterating Pachacamac and his men then and there, striking down as many Echidnas as he could. In the span of perhaps hours, my people undergo a near extinction wide event. The entire world nearly ended.”
Silver is watching him with stormy eyes.
“Tikal does the only thing she can think of. She seals Perfect Chaos into the Master Emerald, along with herself. Chaos’s rage festers over the course of four thousand years, however. The battle is paused, not finished.”
“They say Sonic once battled Perfect Chaos.”
Silver watches Knuckles. The air is thick. His eyes glimmer like torchlight, flickering like the cutting blade of a flame’s tongue.
“He did. Twice.”
Knuckles can still remember the awe he felt that day, watching his best friend defeat the very god that killed his clan, that brutally murdered more than eighty percent of his ancestors in a single blow. The awe in his heart and soul at watching Chaos’s rage be quelled by a fourteen year old boy who had no connection to either of their pasts, who had no reason to be kind to a creature who wanted nothing more than to destroy the very world he fights so hard to protect, who decided to take the time to fix the problem instead of simply slaying.
Often, Knuckles finds that he forgets the other facets to Sonic. He’s not unlike those Chaos emeralds, with many sides and angles few take the time to truly admire.
Often, Knuckles forgets his power, his might, his potential. And often, Knuckles forgets his kindness.
Sonic offered Perfect Chaos a hand, just like he will to Shadow, to Silver, to Blaze, to Jet, to countless more. Because they had good in them, but were simply led astray by a single mistake, by a conniving manipulator. Sonic has no tolerance for injustices, even injustice imposed on those he was fighting.
And once upon a time, Knuckles was once given that same hand, the one that rips apart metal monsters, that delicately picks flowers, that gives and takes, that slays and saves. Knuckles had been led astray by one mistake, and Sonic was willing to give him a second chance.
Just as he will do to Perfect Chaos, years later. An entity overcome by a single mistake.
Knuckles squeezes his eyes shut. “Once, with the aid of the Chaos emeralds. He soothed Perfect Chaos’s heart, which had been festering in turmoil for thousands of years. He stopped the apocalypse, stopped the deity that killed my people. The only harm caused was the flooding of Station Square. Not even a single casualty occurred that day.”
He can feel Silver’s eyes burning into him. “Twice, about a few months ago. Sonic’s birthday party, you recall. The monstrous devourer of time had sucked in Perfect Chaos, along with you and Shadow.”
Silence stretches between the two of them for a long while. “He didn’t even need the Chaos emeralds that second time.”
They remain silent, staring at the mural before them. Perfect Chaos stares them both down. There’s nothing but pure hate in his expression, vitriol venom in the form of beads and glass and clay. It towers over them, a looming shadow, casting a spell of darkness over the two weary survivors.
Knuckles turns his back on the creature. He became kinder, better, but Knuckles can not so easily forgive and forget. Not him. Never him.
Knuckles continues down the corridor, and Silver’s gentle footsteps carry after. Torches flicker in the winds of their movements, tiles shift and floorboards creek. The palace is haunted, Knuckles is certain of that. Haunted with spirits of his people, or the people they once slayed... Knuckles is not certain which. But they are restless and ill at ease, trapped in this fraying house of old pious, in these ruins, in a past long forgotten by everyone but him.
Perhaps he isn’t unlike those ghosts, after all.
The gleam of another mosaic catches his attention, even though he knows what it is before he even sees it. Squares of glass in patterns Knuckles has long since memorized invade his vision like Eggman’s armada. Knuckles stops in place, staring down the one mural that gives him almost as much heartache and woe as Perfect Chaos’s.
Silver is at his side, and like a laser beam, his eyes are on the mural, directly aimed at the shimmering figure in blue and gold. Another man, with a mustache, is holding a large emerald, while seven golden blurs move in formation behind him.
“Do you know what this is?” Silver asks.
“Do you?”
“A mural of a man with a mustache and what looks like a blue hedgehog.”
“... so you know what it is?”
“You could say that.”
It’s a question that’s been itching under his skin, like maggots squirming beneath his fur. “Is it a mural of the past, or the future?”
Silver has a melancholic look in his eye as he peers at the blue figure. “I’m not sure there’s much of a difference for me.”
Knuckles crosses his arms, looking away. “I get it.”
They remain there for a few moments, still as statues, until Knuckles uncrosses his arms and begins to walk off. The rest of the tour is in complete and utter silence, until Knuckles is climbing the stairs to the emerald shrine, and Silver stops halfway up the stairs.
“Your future gets better,” Silver says, very quietly. “I can’t tell you a whole lot. Don’t wanna make a false prophecy or whatever. But it does get better.”
Silver peers into the Master Emerald behind him. “It’s something I always wished someone would tell me. I don’t need the details. I just want to make sure my actions are leaving an impact.”
Knuckles snorts. “What good is knowing my future becomes good, when the world still ends and the future still ends up in ruins?”
“Remember? The future will be saved. Eventually.” Silver peers out across the entire island. The trees sway, the animals call and answer, the wind plays, the sun shines, and the sky is a brilliant blue. “Some day, the future is going to look exactly like this. Some day, our people won’t know the kind of strife we used to know. It’s just about making sure it happens.”
“Are you speaking from experience?”
Silver grins, walking away from Knuckles to face the Master Emerald. He’s only a few inches away from Knuckles’s pride and joy, and Knuckles can’t help the unease slithering into his bones at the sight of anyone near his responsibility. He’s let the wrong people in before.
“Come on, half the fun in experiencing time is watching it bloom. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Knuckles wouldn’t, but he understands the concept. Sonic says the same thing, after all. Doesn’t particularly care for spoilers, and shuts down any talk of the future with Silver any time he’s around. “What’s the point in experiencing a story if you already know the ending? Half the point is the journey, anyway.”
“Your future’s going to be better, too.” Knuckles stares him in the eye. “I’ll make sure of it.”
There’s a bittersweet laugh on Silver’s tongue. “I know you will. Give me a boost, won’t you? The emeralds aren’t always fond of me, despite sending me on so many errands.”
Knuckles places his palms flat on the surface of the emerald, Silver mimicking him a moment later. Ancient energy pulses beneath his fingers, electric and sharp, pure Chaos thrumming beneath his veins. It’s times like these, when he attempts to communicate with the Master Emerald, that Knuckles wonders how Sonic can control the seven servers, can control the essence of chaos itself.
“The servers are the seven Chaos emeralds. Chaos is power, enriched by the heart. The controller is the one who unifies the Chaos. Please, allow my friend a safe passage home.”
The emeralds don’t always listen to him. Most times, they ignore him. Perhaps its because of the four thousand year tear in the trust between Echidnas and the emeralds, forged from the mistake of a greedy Echidna and a wrathful agent of Chaos. Perhaps the emeralds simply don’t like him.
The Master Emerald can’t emote, but Knuckles feels the equivalent of it sighing. Electricity hums, and the emerald glows a bit brighter.
Silver grins. “See you next apocalypse, Knuckles. Chaos control!”
A flash of white, a surge of energy, and Silver disappears. The sun keeps shining, the animals keep playing, the world keeps spinning.
And thus, Knuckles is alone once more.