Rusty

Part One of Six

LEGAL STUFF: This story is © 2001 to the author. The characters are the property of Sega and Archie comics, with the exception of my characters (I'm not going to write profiles until the end of these stories, they would give too much away). Distribution is highly encouraged unless you try to sell it for money or take credit for it yourself. All the normal restrictions under U.S. copyright laws (title 17, U.S. code) apply.
TIME FRAME: About ten or eleven years from the normal time frame.




          Lara-su was sitting in her father's lap again, like she had been doing for the past week since he got out of the hospital. Knuckles was relieved. He had been so afraid that his "replacements" would turn everyone he loved against him. But his beloved wife, daughter, mother, and half brother didn't care in the slightest that his hand and eye were now mechanical. But at that moment, they seemed to be the only ones.
          "You look fine," Julie-su insisted.
          "Try telling that to everyone else," Knuckles replied miserably. Everyone else at the outside tables of the restaurant were giving him looks of utmost horror. Lara-le had run after her second son Nicabar, who looked like he had found something interesting in a garbage can.
          Julie-su gave a soft chuckle. "And when was the last time you listened to everyone else?"
          Lara-su hugged him, the pizza sauce on her face smudging his vest. Knuckles sighed, knowing that all of them were right. But he was still troubled.
          Lara-le came back, whipping away whatever was on Nicabar's hands. "I don't know what I'm going to do with you," she grumbled, while Nicobar's attention wandered to a group of gathering pigeons on the sidewalk. She steered him to the table where Knuckles and Julie-su were sitting.
          Lara-le tried to make room for herself to sit which was, for an eight-months-pregnant woman, very difficult. Knuckles kept forgetting that his mother was still young enough to have children. However, when she sat down she looked almost nauseous.
          "Are you still getting sick, Mom?" He asked.
          "Sometimes," she answered, a slight pant in her voice. She smiled. "But it won't be long now," she happily patted her swollen belly.
          Nicabar ran towards the pigeons. He had hardly said anything about Knuckles' new appendages, he didn't even notice the change until his mother mentioned it to him. Nicabar didn't seem to care about anything except making mischief.
          Knuckles looked after his half brother while Lara-le and Julie-su engaged in conversation. He was getting a kick out of him pretending to be some giant creature terrorizing an imaginary town. "Boom!" Nicabar attempted a low voice as he imitated the footsteps of a monster. Maybe two pigeons scattered. "Boom!" he stepped again, and more pigeons ran off, though not very far. Nicabar was about to take another step when-
          BOOM!
          The ground under Nicabar's feet shook as he fell flat on his face. The entire flock of pigeons flew away. Lara-le cried out and ran towards him.
          Knuckles and Julie-su stood up, as well as everyone else at the restaurant. Everyone looked around, trying to figure out what could have caused the tremor. Lara-su looked up at Knuckles. "What was that, Daddy?"
          "I don't know," he answered truthfully, his eyes narrowing.
          BOOM!
          It was closer this time. "Stay with mother, Lara," Knuckles instructed as he ran to the side walk, preparing to glide-
          BOOM!
          Something slammed itself into the gravel right in front of Knuckles. He jumped back, looking at the green and brown pattern that swished into the ground. It disappeared, and then erupted close to where Nicabar and Lara-le crouched in fright.
          "DON'T MOVE!" he shouted to them, still keeping his eyes on the creature. His stomach twisted as he realized what it was.
          A sandcrawler.
          "How the Hell did that get here?" he thought. He watched the giant, worm-like snake as it searched for the body heat of a victim. Sandcrawlers lived only in the Sandopolis region, and for them to stray into a city was impossible.
          The sandcrawler continued on its way, creating a trail of craters. Lara-le got up trembling, clutching Nicabar to her. "What...was...that?" she whispered in a terrified voice.
          "Julie! My mother!" Knuckles yelled. Julie-su nodded, and ran to tend to her with Lara-su at her heels.
          "It's heading towards the dingo section!" a male echidna shouted. "Won't do any harm to us there!"
          Knuckles only had time to give him a fleeting glare with his enhanced eye before he pursued the creature.

          Dingoes scattered in panic. The creature was gaining momentum, not paying any attention to the swarms of people in its way. Knuckles frowned. It looked like it was anxious to get somewhere, seemingly not caring if it smashed someone in the process. But why would it search for food miles away from its habitat?
          His train of thought broke when the sandcrawler abruptly stopped in front of the military dormitory. It stared at it, as though considering it, and then lunged like an bolt of lightening. The roof of the building smashed on impact.
          "That wasn't nice, Bubba!" Knuckles shouted. He glided towards it as it erupted from the pavement. Knuckles waved and weaved like a pesky fly in front of the sandcrawler, which tried to follow his movement like an enchanted cobra. Knuckles tried to lure it away, but the sandcrawler seemed more interested in the building.
          It lunged again.
          Knuckles could hear the soldier's cries below him. He flew so close to the sandcrawler's hole of a mouth he could feel its breath blowing around him.
          The sandcrawler finally seemed annoyed with him. It hissed and made a move as if to try to catch him in its mighty jaws, but Knuckles was too quick. He moved out of the way just as he heard a familiar voice.
          "Hey, butt-ugly!" someone yelled below.
          Knuckles glanced down and saw that it was Archemedes. He was with an army of his fellow ants. The sandcrawler glared down and growled.
          "You want us, boy?" Archemedes taunted. "Here, come and get us!"
          Flames escaped the ants lips to form one huge fireball. The sandcrawler roared as it sensed to heat. It pounced towards the horde immediately, and the ants ran out of the way, making the sandcrawler follow. It chased after them until Knuckles could no longer hear the chaos.
          Knuckles landed on what was left of the dormitory's roof. "Is everyone okay?"
          He saw several dingo soldiers, who were bleeding and moaning and more than a bit shaken, but otherwise fine.
          General Stryker was giving orders. "You, call the medics. You, call the trucks, we need to start moving right away, and you..."
          "What just happened?" one soldier said dumbly as he clutched his bleeding leg.
          "Good question," Knuckles thought.

          The fish didn't seem to notice Vector as he swam past. He inwardly sighed. It was a slow day. He found himself trying to make the hours fly by listening to his head phones on full blast.
          A swamp dolphin peered at him almost curiously. All swamp dolphins had a greenish color over their naturally gray, long bodies. And like this one, they were all relatively small. This one must have seen a bug on a branch near the surface, since it jumped out of the water.
          "I wonder what Knux's down to," he thought as he lazily let his head bob to the surface. Nothing was happening. Maybe he would go to the city, get a bite to eat-
          "Don' move none, you'll get sacked!"
          That pulled Vector out of his stupor. He swerved around to whoever had shouted, and gawked at what he saw.
          The guy's webbed feet was standing on the water. Like it was ground beneath him. Vector looked up and saw that he was some kind of lizard. A leathery frill crept down the length of his back and ended at the tip of his long tail. He was the exact color of a swamp dolphin.
          "I'll be gettin' m' sack out de way, m' brother. You won' wanna be snared!" The creature said as he scurried on the water patch in front of him.
          "Sack? Snared?" Vector was confused.
          The creature untied something he couldn't see off the tree branches. Then he reached under the water and heaved something shimmery and almost transparent. Several small, worm-like creatures were caught in it.
          The lizard showed the net to him, his chest swelling with pride. "M' sack, m' brother! Woven so tiny, only snares de worms! Dolphins aren' bothered by it. Made it m' own self," he added.
          "You're..." Vector couldn't finish the sentence, so he just pointed.
          The creature laughed. "Special talent of de Basilisk." He tipped the hat on his head, which was made of straw and looked much too big on him. "M' name be Bongo. Who you be?"
          Vector stared at Bongo for a second, figured there was no harm in him, and replied, "My name's Vector."
          "Vect-or?" Bongo's eyes widened. "De Chaotix folk's Vect-or?"
          "Uh...yeah..." Vector confirmed warily.
          "I been hearin' bout you!" Bongo tried to pull Vector up, but then realized that he couldn't also stand on water, and just dragged him to shore. "You be workin' for dat guardian fella? I be hearin' he's a great mon..."
          Bongo pulled him onto a large rock. On it was what Vector took to be Bongo's home, which consisted of a hut and a dock. It looked like he was in the process of building something else, since there was a pile of timber on his small boat.
          "You been living here long?" Vector asked.
          "Oh no!" said Bongo, "Just moved heah. Me an' m' sister been livin' by de river for years. No' much worms dere. Too much sun."
          A young girl basilisk looked up as they passed. Her eyes were dim, like she couldn't comprehend anything around her. Vector felt a growing discomfort under her stare.
          "Dat's m' sister, Calypso," whispered Bongo when they were inside. "She hadn't been in her right mind for a long time now." Bongo left the subject very quickly. "You be hungry? I's got some cluckers here," he indicated pieces of chicken on a grill nearby.
          Vector was beginning to like Bongo. Anyone who offered food was okay in his book.

          "They're called sandcrawlers," Knuckles explained to Lara-su. Outside their home night was falling. "They seek out their prey by feeling their body heat. They usually don't stray from Sandopolis."
          "They did today," Lara-su pointed out.
          "Exactly. Which is why I'm going to meet General Stryker in Canus tomorrow."
          "Canus?" Lara-su's eyes glowed with interest.
          "An old dingo village," Knuckles explained, "known for capturing sandcrawlers."
          "Why would anyone want to capture a sandcrawler?" asked Lara-su, with a disgusted look on her face.
          "Sandopolis is almost completely barren," Knuckles was always patient with his daughters questions. "They use the sandcrawler's abilities to find food. Or if harsher times hit, they eat them." Knuckles remembered the time years ago when he was trekking through Sandopolis and was forced to resort to eating one. He shuddered. "We'll need all the help we can get on figuring out why one would attack a city."
          "Even from me, Dad?"
          Knuckles looked at his daughter, a smile forming on his face. A cleverer child he couldn't have asked for.
          "Even from you. Get some sleep now," Knuckles kissed the top of her head, "I'll be back in the morning."
          "Where are you going?"
          "To see if I can find something that can tell me why the creature acted so strangely."
          "Oh."
          Knuckles smiled. "Go kiss your mother good-night."
          As she trotted off, Knuckles knew that the way he treated his daughter like an equal was not going to go over well with his ancestors. They all believed in privacy, and that their young couldn't handle knowing the depths of their job, which Knuckles found to be a horribly patronizing attitude. He groaned and wondered whether that would be a conversation when he got there.

          Lara-su sat in bed thinking. How could she help her father? She wasn't through training. She didn't even know what a sandcrawler was before she saw one today. She felt the cool breeze sweep in from the open window.
          In the hallway she heard a soft clicking that sounded like claws scraping the floor. She was puzzled for a second. They didn't have any pets. She felt a rising panic in her chest. It sounded like some animal had gotten inside.
          "Mom?" she called.
          No answer. The clicking sound came nearer and nearer until it suddenly stopped.
          Her father had told her that some wild animals weren't interested in dead bodies, so she tried to lie down as still as she could with her eyes shut tight. She felt the moist breath and nose of the animal touching her neck, tangling into her hair. Lara-su started to form a plan. "If it tries to attack me, I'll glide outside."
          But the attack never came. Instead, she felt the creature licking her cheek gently, like it thought she was it's cub. Now Lara-su was trying to contain a fit of giggles, the creature was tickling her so much. And it purred, like it knew she was awake the whole time-
          "LARA!"
          Lara-su only caught a fleeting glimpse of the creature as it bounded out the window like a spirit. Julie-su ran to her daughter's bedside.
          "Are you alright?" her eyes went the entire length of her body, checking for blood. "Did it hurt you?"
          "No Mom," she said, trying to hide her disappointment. "What was that?"
          Julie-su looked out the window. There was nothing but darkness.
          "If it was what I thought I saw," she said slowly, "then I must be going crazy!"

          Knuckles was partially right. When he arrived at Haven they all eventually asked about Lara-su's health, but his father immediately looked at his eye and hand with shock.
          "By the Walkers," he gasped finally, "what have you done?"
          Knuckles stomach clenched into a ball. He didn't expect an attack like this from his own father. "You think I wanted this to happen? Oh, yes, please make me look like everything we fight against," he spat sarcastically.
          Locke, Thunderhawk and Sojourner stared at him for a minute longer. Spectre was the only one that didn't seem surprised.
          "Perhaps I should take Knuckles to the data room," he said, pulling Knuckles away from gawking eyes. "Come."
          They walked-or in Spectre's case, floated-down the hallway.
          Knuckles, still hurt at the way he was treated, growled, "So, you want to look at the circus freak by yourself?"
          To his surprise, Spectre chuckled. "After I lost my legs, I needed mechanical enhancements as well. Trust me when I say I know how you feel."
          Knuckles looked at the cloud of mist that always trailed behind his ancestor. He never knew that he lost his legs. Then again, he never asked.
          They reached the data room to see that it was already occupied. Sabre looked up when he heard them entering, and quickly exited out of the file he was looking at. He then abruptly got up and shuffled past Knuckles rather stiffly, not even glancing at him.
          "What was that about?" Knuckles wondered. Sabre was always one of the more polite members of the brotherhood. He figured he would have at least said hello.
          Spectre didn't answer and looked at a separate computer.
          Knuckles' curiosity got the better of him. He went to the computer Sabre had left and clicked on "previous file."
          "I thought you wanted to research something on sandcrawlers," Spectre said.
          "I do," Knuckles replied absently, staring at the screen.
          On the file he saw a picture of a very young girl of four or five years. She was the mediocre red color with hair of light brown. Her vibrant green eyes glowed with innocence. Knuckles frowned. He had the strangest feeling that he had meet her somewhere...
          "Spectre? Who is this?"
          Spectre looked up from the files he was searching through. "That's Ana-lu." He explained tonelessly. "Your father's sister."
          Knuckles' eyes widened. "My aunt?" Never in his life had he heard his father mention having a sister.
          "She would have been your aunt." Spectre was shifting through the files again. His back was toward Knuckles. "She disappeared thirty-some years ago when the legion attacked Echidnaopolis."
          There was an awkward silence. "Was she killed?" Knuckles finally asked.
          "That's one theory," Spectre replied, not meeting his gaze. "And the most likely."
          "What if she's not?"
          "Not what?"
          "Dead."
          "Oh, come now Knuckles," Spectre said reasonably. "If they were going to use her against us, they would have done so already. As far as we're concerned, the child is dead."
          The way he said it sounded final. Knuckles didn't pursue the subject. But as he shifted through the generally useless information on sandcrawlers, something tugged on the back of his brain. And it was the fact that Spectre didn't meet his eyes throughout that entire conversation.