Homeward Bound

Sonic was in his element.

Vector had been right on the money. The common’s hall was rocking. The group of punk echidnas that had greeted Vector warmly as the group entered had happily agreed to share the stage, and their instruments, with the newcomers.

“Any friend of Vec’s…” The spiky-haired lead guitarist had smiled as he handed over his beloved instrument to the hedgehog, with the assurance that it would come to no harm.

Manic had somehow managed to pull a high-tech drum kit from the pendant around his neck, which had flabbergasted all present, and proceeded to fill the air with a deafening cacophony of drumbeats and cymbal crashes.

It hadn’t taken Sonic long to convince his otherworldly brother to join him in an impromptu performance of a song he’d been working on for sometime. Manic seemed to catch on to his wavelength extremely quickly, laying down a beat that perfectly complemented the song despite having never heard it before.

But then, in a way, the pair had been playing together for years.

Vector had equally quickly joined in, providing backing vocals. The crocodile’s slightly husky tones contrasted nicely with Sonic’s high, clear tenor. It was obvious, that with proper training, Sonic could easily join the operatic set if he chose to. But at the moment, he was pure rock and roll, singing at the top of his lungs.

“Well, I don’t show off, don’t criticize
“I’m just livin’ by my own feelings
“And I won’t give in, won’t compromise
“I just only have a steadfast heart of gold

“I don’t know why, I can’t leave though it might be tough
“But I ain’t out of control, just livin’ by my word
“Don’t ask me why, I don’t need a reason
“I got my way, my own way

“It doesn’t matter now what happens I will never give up the fight
“There is no way I will run away from all of my frights
“’Long as the voice inside me say go, I will always keep on running
“There is no way to stop me from going to the very top

“It doesn’t matter who is wrong and who is right

“Well, I won’t look back I don’t need to
“Time won’t wait and I got so much to do
“Where do I stop, it’s all a blur and so unclear
“Well, I don’t know but I can’t be wrong

“This fight is not for anybody, this is purely for myself
“There is no way I'm gonna give up ‘til the very end
“I can’t tell what is wrong and what is right, I’ve got to find the answer
“But until I do there’s no way I will ever give up

“Place all your bets an the one you think is right

He broke into an enthusiastic guitar solo, the echidna bass player and Manic backing him up.

“It doesn’t matter now what happens I will never give up the fight
“There is no way I will run away from all of my frights
“Long as the voice inside me say go, I will always keep on running
“There is no way to stop me from going to the very top

He finished with a typical Sonic flourish, sliding on his knees across the highly polished floor as he hit the final note, eyes closed tightly as the music echoed inside his head. He opened them to find himself staring at two pairs of boots. One simple brown leather, the other highly sophisticated teal green.

“Hey, Knux.” He smiled as he looked up at the red echidna’s bemused face. “Like the music?”

Knuckles arched a brow, a mischievous smirk curling his muzzle. “Is that what you call it?” He asked, offering the hedgehog a hand.

“Everyone’s a critic.” Sonic mumbled as Knuckles easily pulled him to his feet.

Sonia was extremely relieved to see the pair together, obviously having worked things out between them. It still felt strange to see them though, she still couldn’t help thinking of him as hers…

Julie-Su noticed her look. She raised a brow and cocked a smile that eerily mirrored the echidna by her side.

‘Guess they really were made for each other…’ she sighed.

“Hey, Knuckles.” Vector called out as he approached. “Got a message for you from the Ice Princess.”

“You know she’d probably flatten you if she knew you called her that.” Mighty pointed out.

“Nah.” Julie-Su smiled. “She’d probably agree with him.”

“She really doesn’t like guys?” Sonic asked.

“She doesn’t like the whole romance thing.” Julie-Su explained. “She says it’s just a big waste of time. That it’d take her away from her work. And she has other…reasons.” She sighed, glancing shyly at Knuckles. “But then…there was a time when I felt the same way…”

“Okay, okay.” Vector held his hands up. “Enough with the mushy stuff. She said, and I quote… ‘When you see Knuckles tell him to put his bloody pager on. I don’t want to have to hunt him down when I get this thing finished’.”

“What…‘thing’?” Knuckles asked with a frown.

“She’s working on something to send those two home.” Vector jerked a thumb at Sonia and Manic.

“How long she been working on it?” Julie-Su asked.

“Couple of hours.” Vector told them.

“She should be nearly finished then.” She looked at Knuckles who had dug out the afore mentioned pager from one of his pockets. He studied it for a moment.

“Nothing yet.” He said as he dropped it back in his pocket.

“Oh, and she wanted you to call her ASAP.” Vector said to Julie-Su.

She raised a brow. “About what?”

“Beats me.” Vector shrugged.

“Here.” Knuckles handed her a small mobile phone that he’d fished out of yet another pocket.

“You got the kitchen sink in there?” Sonic asked.

“I don’t know.” Knuckles admitted. “I don’t think I’ve checked all the pockets.” He began patting himself down. “Could be one in here somewhere…”

“Hey, dude.” Manic said cheerfully. A slightly embarrassed look came over his features. “I was wonderin’…if I could maybe ask you something?”

“What?” Knuckles asked with more than a hint of uncertainty due to the hedgehog’s obvious trepidation.

“I was just wonderin’…how the heck it is that you can fly.”

“I don’t fly…” Knuckles began.

“I glide.” Sonic finished for him. The smug hedgehog was rewarded with a look that indicated the echidna was not at all amused. “Well…you do say it a lot.”

“Well excuse me for setting things straight.” Knuckles grumbled. “It’s NOT flying. Flying is a highly sophisticated mechanical process. Gliding is…”

“Falling with style!” Vector beamed.

“Something like that.” Knuckles threw him a sideward glance. “I can’t ‘take off’, that’s why I have to climb something to launch myself. And if there’s no wind I can’t stay aloft…”

“But I’ve seen you take off.” Sally said. Knuckles frowned at her, confused. “After that whole mecha madness thing.” She explained. “You and Sonic…had words…you weren’t exactly friends then…and you lifted into the air under your own power.”

“Yeah…” Sonic nodded. “I vaguely remember that…though not much else of what happened…” He looked down at his sneakers. It wasn’t a time in his life he liked to think about. He’d completely lost his free will, almost turned his friends over to his greatest enemy…

He looked up to find Knuckles watching him, his dark eyes full of unspoken empathy. Knuckles had, after all, been through a similar experience.

“That was anger induced levitation.” Knuckles informed them. “Back then, whenever I got ticked off, the Chaos powers I didn’t even know I had would kick in to help me out.”

“So you’re saying it was basically a Chaos powered version of ‘Screw you guys, I’m going home’?” Vector asked with a raised brow.

“Essentially.” Knuckles agreed. “Though I think I might have phrased it a little more tactfully.”

“But all this doesn’t answer Manic’s question.” Julie-Su pointed out, having finished her conversation with her burgundy-furred friend. “How exactly do you do it?” She asked as she handed back the telephone.

“Yeah.” Manic said. “It’s a pretty cool ability. And if our Knux can do it, it’d really help in our fight against Robotnik.”

“He doesn’t glide?” Knuckles frowned.

“Nuh-uh.” Manic confirmed.

“Odd…” Sonic mumbled. “All the other versions of Knuckles I’ve met have been able to do it…”

“Maybe he doesn’t know he can. Maybe nobody ever taught him how.” Julie-Su suggested. “It’s not like it’s something you just decide to do one day. And Sonia told me that there’s only one other echidna on your world.”

“Yeah.” Manic nodded. “Athair.”

“If he’s anything like the one we had here, my other self wouldn’t have gotten much out of him.” Knuckles sighed.

“Well…if you tell me how it’s done…maybe I can tell Knux, and he can pick it up.” Manic suggested hopefully.

“I’m not sure.” Knuckles admitted. “I’ve never really thought about it. It’s kinda instinctive. Dad must have taught me at some point. Like Julie-Su said, it’s not something you just decide to do. Jumping off something really high and hoping you miss the ground.”

“But it’s something you’re going to have to pass on some day, right?” Sally asked. “You’re title IS hereditary. You’ll have to teach your own child one day.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay.” Knuckles mumbled, an obvious flush of red on his cheeks.

“Yeah.” Julie-Su agreed. “Knuckles is way too uncomfortable even thinking about things like that. And besides…” She slipped a hand beneath his spines, running a finger lightly across the spot she’d recently found on his neck. He flinched and pulled away from her, throwing her an almost scathing look as his cheeks burned even brighter. She just smirked. “Making him blush is MY job.”

“Are you quite finished?” He asked in a low, almost threatening voice.

“I think so.” She smirked. “For now.”

Knuckles turned back to the questioning hedgehog. “As Guardian…ah…your Knuckles IS Guardian of the Floating Island, right?” Manic nodded. “As Guardian I have a bond with the Emerald, it’s been forged through the generations. I can call on its power, use it, sorta make it my own.”

“So you ask it to help you defy the laws of gravity?” Manic asked in way of clarity.

“Pretty much.” Knuckles confirmed. “It takes practice, and I’ve got to be careful. Use too much and we’d have barbequed echidna. But once he establishes that initial connection I’m guessing he’d be able to do it too. But start out slow. Have him jump off something that’s not too far from the ground.”

“Like the top of our van?” Manic suggested.

“Yeah, that’d probably be an okay height.” Knuckles nodded. “But park it next to something soft…or water.”

“Yeah,” Manic agreed. “We don’t want echidna pancakes either.”

While the pair discussed the fundamentals of Guardian gliding in greater detail, Sonia approached Julie-Su.

“I take it everything’s okay with you two now?” She asked quietly.

“As okay as it ever is.” Julie-Su said with a sad smile. “But your little piece of advice came in handy.”

“It worked?”

“Yep.” Julie-Su’s smile brightened. “And you were right…just like a kitten.”

~~~~~~

Several hours later, after another impromptu jam session with the group of punk echidnas, the Chaotix and their guests returned to EST headquarters. They were directed to the lower sub-basement where Ellie-Za had built an impressive, if somewhat haphazard, looking device.

“Nice piece of modern sculpture.” Vector commented as he studied the conglomeration of tubes, circuit boards, wires and rods. Ellie-Za decided to take her usual approach when it came to dealing with Vector. She ignored him.

“So what do you call this thing?” Sonic asked.

“I don’t call it anything.” She replied. “Why bother to name something that, in all likelihood, will only be used once?” She looked at Julie-Su with a raised brow. “You got it?”

“Yeah…” Julie-Su said a little reluctantly.

“I know what it means to you, but as I told you, it won’t hurt it.” Ellie-Za sighed. “And it’d take weeks to grow a new one. And I get the feeling that these two would really like to get home.”

“Yeah…I know…you’re right.” She reached inside her vest and pulled out the Chaos Crystal. It was glowing softly, due to its close proximity to Knuckles.

“What the heck is that?” Sonia asked, a little nervous at its luminance, as Julie-Su handed it over to her friend.

“A Chaos Crystal.”

“It’s pretty.” Manic said, eyeing it appreciatively. “Is it worth much?”

“It’s the only one of its kind.” Ellie-Za told him.

“So it’d be worth quite a bit, then?”

“Manic!” Sonia looked at her brother, scolding him with her eyes. Despite having been fighting for justice for so long, there were still times when his past life got the better of him.

“Not really. At least not in the traditional sense.” Ellie-Za said. “It may be the only one, but I could grow as many as I like, if I needed to.”

“You can grow rocks?” Vector asked suspiciously.

“It’s not a rock, it’s a crystal.” Ellie-Za informed him. “I made it in the first place.”

“And the other two…” Knuckles mumbled, looking down at the floor between his feet.

“Back when my alliances were a little…questionable…”

“Made for what?” Sonia asked, even though it was obvious that the original purpose was perhaps not that pleasant, especially for Knuckles.

“They were designed to absorb and channel the organic Chaos energy that Knuckles generates.” Ellie-Za explained as she began fixing the crystal into the place she’d designed for it. “Knuckles can use that energy to open portals to just about anywhere on Mobius, as long as he’s been there before, but I figure he’s gonna need an extra bit of oomph to open a portal to your home dimension…”

“But he hasn’t been there.” Sonia pointed out. “You said he can only open a portal to somewhere he’s been.”

“But he HAS been there.” She countered. “In a manner of speaking.”

“My counterpart.” Knuckles concluded.

“Yes.” Ellie-Za nodded. “I’ve got this thing calibrated to the extra dimensional pulse that these two are giving off. If you can focus on that otherworldly you, together, you and the machine should be able to punch a temporary hole in the fabric of time/space right to him.”

“How convenient.” Vector smirked.

“It’s always nice to see a familiar face, right Sonia?” Julie-Su asked with a raised brow.

“Okay.” Knuckles sighed. “What do I have to do?”

“Just take a hold of these…” Ellie-Za tapped one of two small handles. “And do whatever it is you do to open those portals of yours, all the while focusing on ‘yourself’…the machine’ll do the rest.”

Knuckles stepped up to the machine with a great deal of trepidation. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Ellie-Za’s creation, it was his own powers he wasn’t sure of. To punch through into another dimension was going to take a huge effort and he wasn’t sure he could manage it, not without tapping into the power he didn’t want to reveal…

He gripped the handles and closed his eyes, concentrating on an image of himself that he was drawing from Sonia and Manic’s minds, their sense of who he was, what he was. It was only the slightest touch, it was a talent he hadn’t really explored, one he’d only recently become aware of. One of many he’d learnt of during his…absence…

And he didn’t like invading other beings minds. He sought out only feelings. He could sense how much they cared for his otherworldly self, especially Sonia. Her feelings for his other self were akin to Julie-Su’s for him.

“Okay, Knuckles.” He heard Ellie-Za say. “Contraption’s just about charged.” He could hear her frantically taping away at keys of a computer terminal, working on some last minute computations or entering some new data she’d just thought of. Nobody was exactly sure how her creations worked, only that they did. He heard the machine hum to life around him, felt the surge of Chaos energy above his head as it fired in whatever way it had been designed to.

He opened his eyes to see the portal forming. He’d never actually seen it happen before. He was always so deep in concentration when he created them, he’d never had the chance to actually watch one unfold. Now he could see why the others looked on them with such awe.

“I told you I could feel something.” Knuckles was startled to hear a voice that echoed his own.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Sonic’s voice answered it. “You’re a smarty everyday.” Knuckles glanced at the hedgehog, even though he knew he hadn’t spoken. “Whoa.” The other Sonic went on. “This thing is wild! But what is it.”

“It’s an inter-dimensional portal.” Manic beamed at his brother as the portal unfurled and the pair could be clearly seen. “What do you think it is?”

“Manic?” Sonic stared at him in disbelief as he and Knuckles stepped throw the swirling emerald maelstrom. “You’re okay?”

“Never better, dude.” Manic assured him as he threw his arms around his brother.

“Where’s Sonia?” He asked.

“Right here.” She told him as she joined her brothers. Smiling at her Knuckles, she pulled him into the group hug.

“I do so love a family reunion.” Vector said with a fake sob.

“Now that’s a good looking hedgehog.” Sonic said brightly to his otherworldly self.

“Hey!” The other beamed. “It’s my green-eyed self! How ya doin’?”

“Not too bad…”

“I hate to break this up.” Knuckles raised a brow at the almost identical pair of hedgehogs. “But I can’t keep this thing open for ever!”

“You don’t have to.” Ellie-Za told him. “The machine’ll hold it.”

“That’s good.” Knuckles sighed as he released the handles.

The other Knuckles’ head had turned sharply at the sound of his own voice. His eyes widened at what he saw. He stepped towards him, searching the other’s face and form. The similarities were apparent. And so were the differences.

Julie-Su looked at them too. Sonia’s Knuckles was just as she’d described him. Not quite as tall, or as broad across the shoulders. And a little thicker round the middle…

He actually looked much like Knuckles had when she first met him a little less than two years ago. Until now, she hadn’t really noticed just how much he’d changed. By the look on his face she could tell that he hadn’t realised it either.

The shorter Knuckles, Sonia’s Knuckles, was actually beginning to look a little uncomfortable in the presence of his more powerfully built self. As he looked into those dark eyes, so much like his own, he saw something…

Something that frightened him.

He could see pain there. Suffering. He could tell that this version of himself had been through horrors he couldn’t even begin to imagine.

“Yo! Knux!” Manic called. The echidnas both turned their attention to the green hedgehog. “Ah…MY Knux…” He clarified. “Time to go.”

“We can’t thank you enough.” Sonia said.

“You’re thanking us for dropping you in a polluted war zone?” Vector asked.

“Maybe it is dirty, dangerous and full of perils.” Sonia smiled. “But it’s home.” She hooked her arm through her Knuckles’, pulling him with her towards the portal. As she pulled him away from his other self he noticed Julie-Su and Ellie-Za. He was more than a little startled to see females of his own species. Cute ones too.

“Who’s that?” He asked, indicating Julie-Su who had stepped up to his other self with a smile.

“She’s taken.” Sonia informed him coldly.

“What about the other one?”

“Knuckles!” Sonia was shocked. He was usually so shy. Then he smirked at her. She shook her head. “You’ve been hanging around Sonic too long. Good thing you’ve got me back to keep you in line.”

“You wish.” He countered.

The other dimensional Sonic chuckled. “It’s good to have the family back together.” He said as he watched his sister pull the echidna that was almost as much a brother to him now as Manic, through the green glowing vortex to their own world. “There’s nothing quite like it.” He put one sneaker back onto his home soil.

“Keep fighting the good fight, dude.” Sonic gave the thumbs up to his departing self.

“You too, dude.”

The quartet stepped through the emerald doorway, back to their own world. It shrank to a pinpoint behind them, leaving no evidence behind of their visit.

~~~~~~

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Knuckles asked.

“I think it’s way past time, don’t you?” Julie-Su looked at him, obviously nervous.

“You don’t have to…” He gently touched her face. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

“For crying out loud, Knuckles.” She growled at him. “Will you stop acting like it’s the end of the world!? I’ve put this off long enough. I appreciate your concern…” She smiled.

“But she IS my sister.”

They looked at the heavy door to the EST minimum-security prison.

“You want me to come in with you?”

“I don’t think she really needs to be faced with the Guardian.” Julie-Su pointed out. “Prison’s been freaking her out enough from what I’ve heard. Besides…” She looked up at him with a wicked smirk. “Doesn’t she have a THING for you?”

“What do you mean?” Knuckles asked, his cheeks already beginning to burn.

“Sonic, Sally, the guys…” she raised a brow. “They all said she was flirting like mad with you…”

“Julie-Su…” He said softly. “That’s really not a time in my life I like to think about.”

Her smile faded. She hadn’t even been thinking about that, she had just been trying to get that flush to his cheeks again. “I didn’t…”

“I know…” He countered before she could say anymore. “Go see your sister. I’ll be here for you if you need me.”

She smiled as him.

“I know.”