ARAAT5: Resurrection

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A Rose And A Thorn 5: Resurrection

Co-Written by Harley Quinn hyenaholic and Froggy22651

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Harley: Some of you might have noticed that the ARAAT4 has been ‘bumped’, as it were. There is a simple reason for this – it was still on the front page, and I just couldn’t update happily my other stuff without knowing about all the formatting errors in it. Places where Mirage was talking in contractions, spelling errors that a spellcheck doesn’t pick up, places where there were commas in front of quotation marks, places where thoughts weren’t in italics, and even places where I’d forgotten to put in pull stops.

Froggy: My god Harley, but you’re grammatically anal.

Harley: Thanks, Froggy. It took me about three hours last night and an hour this morning. Now, moving on...

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Chapter Five: Mission to Angel Island

The next afternoon, Club Rouge was utterly devoid of the life it had the night before. No bright lights, no thumping music, no roar of conversation, shouts, and catcalls, no thick scents, no scantily clad women on stage. It was empty asides from the few employees cleaning and readying the place and the club owner. Quilla didn't bother with concealing his appearance during this visit, the full extent of his injuries and mechanical replacements showing. He walked past the various workers, ignoring their wide-eyed stares, searching for Rouge. She wasn't hard to find, and there were no bouncers in his way this time, "Hello again, Rouge. I trust you are ready to go?"

Rouge smirked and stood up. For the first time, Quilla saw the pregnancy bump properly, "Of course," she said smoothly, "I can easily fly us both up to Angel Island."

"Actually I thought we'd take the aircraft I've got ready,” said Quilla, who looked curiously at her swollen belly, "Are you sure you are up to this?" he asked her.

Rouge glared at him, "That's why you're here, isn't it?" she asked him, "To make my job easier and provide a distraction."

The echidna glared right back, his metal eye seeming to glow brighter. He wasn't one to back down, "I am.” It had to be said.

"Then let's get going to this aircraft you're talking about," Rouge told him.

Nodding once, Quilla turned and led her towards the exit of the club. Leaving it behind them, Rouge got her first look at the aircraft Quilla mentioned, parked near the sidewalk. Vaguely egg-shaped, painted a deep blue, and lacking wings of any kind, it was obviously an advanced piece of equipment, even more so than most of GUN's stuff. It already was going through its pre-flight preparation and opening the door and ramp to the cockpit as they approached it, following the commands sent by Quilla's implants. The echidna didn't even have to touch a control to fly it if he so wished. "You like it?" he asked casually over his shoulder.

"Quilla, I don't know how to say this," Rouge said, "But this is a ship belonging to Doctor Eggman Robotnik, the prospective world dictator. If you stole it from him, I don't want to be in it when he blows you up. Or did he lend it to you?" she asked him.

Giving a small, tight smile, the echidna lifted his mechanical arm for her to clearly see, "Where did you think I got this, hmm?" Quilla stepped up the metal ramp into the aircraft, his steel-plated feet sounding loud against it.

"Just checking," Rouge said, following him up the ramp, "But if you did steal it, you are in seriously deep shit. Just some friendly advice." She didn't seem to have any problem with Doctor Eggman himself though.

Then again, he hadn't expected her to. Those motivated by greed didn't care about politics as long as it didn't affect their desires. If anything, having Eggman as a leader would only give Rouge many more lucrative job opportunities. "I appreciate it,” Quilla told her, taking a seat inside the craft. The ramp retracted and the door sealed behind them. Shining his red eye towards the cockpit, the hovercraft lifted into the air and took off on its preset course to intercept Angel Island. As he opened a nearby compartment, searching for something, Quilla said, "There are a number of weapons and devices you might find useful for your end of the mission. The cargo hold should be more than sufficient to store the Master Emerald once you have taken it."

"If you do your job well enough, we won't need weapons," Rouge told him sharply, "Now tell me, how do you plan to distract Knuckles?"

"I'm sure that merely showing up will keep the guardian's attention focused on me,” he replied with a shrug, "Failing that, we could just beat the snot out of each other while you take the gem."

"But no killing, Quilla," Rouge said firmly, "Knuckles is a nice guy."

"I understand,” the echidna told her with a nod, "No permanent damage, force being a last resort." The echidna found what he was searching for, pulling out a few small tins. Opening them up, he began to smear the different coloured substances on his head and quills. Warpaint.

"Eh?" Rouge looked up, "Makeup? What's that for?"

"Warpaint,” he answered without looking at her, focused on the task at hand, "It’s a tradition for ancient echidna warriors. It’s cultural... and it makes the warrior more fearsome in battle."

Rouge shrugged, clearly not understanding nor seeing any significance in it. She merely sat back in her seat, "Well, wake me when we're there," she told him. She shut her eyes and almost instantly dropped into a light doze.

Quilla mentally shrugged and resumed painting his fur, readying himself for the confrontation ahead. Despite the confidence he had shown to Rouge, the truth was that he had no idea what to expect, and he didn't know what exactly he would do when it happened.

~~~

Some hours later, reaching down to take her arm with his cold, mechanical hand, Quilla gently shook Rouge, rumbling, "We're there. It’s time to make our move."

Rouge jolted awake, and nodded, blinking the sleep from her eyes quickly, "Drop off on the edge of the island. Get as far away from the Egg-O-Matic as you can. I'll fly to the Emerald Shrine. Knuckles will go to you, since you'll be the one breaking the alarms."

Nodding, Quilla glanced at the control panel, setting their course for the island edge. It didn't matter which part; he just needed to draw the other echidna to them. Once there, the cyborg opened the cockpit doors and leapt out, landing on the floating island, the hovering aircraft above him. Throwing Rouge a salute, he turned and began to walk towards the interior, his senses alert to signs of an attack. He had the odd feeling that he had been on that island before... and when he really thought about it, he supposed that he had, long, long ago...

~~~

As usual, Knuckles the Echidna was diligently guarding the Master Emerald and its awesome power on top of the massive, floating, mystical landmass of Angel Island, sitting on the emerald's shrine, his eyes closed in meditation. What was different than usual, though, was that he had company, and not of the unfriendly and thieving type. Tails had set up a small lab next to the emerald altar for extended visits to the island, which he had been taking more and more of. The two-tailed fox seemed to enjoy the quiet and privacy that the island provided and had formed a closer friendship with the island's guardian. Knuckles, of course, had wondered what caused this change in the kit's behaviour, but he certainly wasn't complaining. Anymore, at least. He pretended to just tolerate the fox's presence, but that was just the usual cover for his real feelings on the matter, that it was a relief to have someone other than himself and a big, glowing rock to talk to.

Tails was walking up to Knuckles right now, holding some maps of Angel Island in his hand. He said it was part of his new study on the Master Emerald, and specifically Mirage's powers. He'd been trying to persuade her to come up, but she had utterly refused, insisting that it wasn't important and didn't he have better things to do than bug her... It was all a fake anyway, he knew that. He liked being around Knuckles. He liked how Knuckles didn't treat him like a little kid - he was 15 now - and he liked how Knuckles didn't have a huge, bloated sense of self-importance. But most of all, he was aware that he liked Knuckles. Ever since he'd told the red echidna about his concerns about his sexuality, the echidna hadn't treated him any differently in the slightest. He took a seat at the foot of the altar, and spread out the map he was looking at; this one specifically was of Sandopolis.

Knuckles opened one eye, taking a peek at what the young fox was working on, "Hmm, you've been mapping the Sandopolis?" he asked, finally uttering a sound after hours of silence. Sandopolis was not a place the red-furred echidna liked to venture to, and he avoiding entering the darkened temples there. Knuckles, stubborn as he was, feared very few things, but among those things were the ghosts of the temples of Sandopolis.

"Well, some of Angel Island's greatest secrets are hidden in Sandopolis," Tails explained, "I mean, if anybody understood the hieroglyphics it would be a lot easier... but I thought that if we could find out more about your people, we could find out more about... well, everything. Especially the Master Emerald."

Knuckles had never really concerned himself with the past of his people. They never seemed all that important to him. His duty was to the Master Emerald; it was the first thing he ever remembered. Only after the incident with Chaos did the ancient echidnas come to his attention, but he became content with the fact that he would probably never know the whole truth about why he was given his duty. Still, more knowledge about the Master Emerald's power had his complete attention, "What have you learned from there so far?" he asked the fox.

"Not a lot," Tails said, "Like I said, the hieroglyphics are old. What I have learnt is that the pyramids were built before the echidnas became powerful. And they're not tombs. They're monuments. Ways to show off a pharaoh's power and wealth. And the ghosts are said to be the ghosts of the slaves who died in their construction. But the Master Emerald and the Chaos Emeralds are even older than them," he finished.

"I get the feeling that they are older than everything,” the echidna pointed out. He had always assumed that the echidnas had built Sandopolis. The fact that they didn't surprised him. Angel Island was full of secrets, him not the least of them.

"Could be," Tails told him, "But the people who came here seemed to worship Chaos. They thought he was another god."

"Considering what he was capable of, I'm not surprised,” replied Knuckles. He reached up and rubbed the top of his head. The events of Chaos' attack on Station Square were still fresh in his mind, even though they had happened seven years ago now. When one lived as quiet a life as he did, such events stood out for a long time. Slowly, the echidna stood up and stretched. He walked down the steps to Tails' side and sat beside the fox, his violet eyes focused on the map.

Tails shifted aside a little to make room for the larger male, "See, there's loads of pyramids and temples in Sandopolis," he said, "But a lot of them are hidden by sand. And the sand's become hard, so it's not exactly like digging at the seaside. But from these old maps I found, the oldest temples look like they're in some kind of pattern."

Knuckles reached over with his gloved hand and traced the patterns on the map which Tails had indicated, any possible meaning in them flying right over the echidna's head. Thinking was the fox's job. His was beating things up.

Tails wriggled a little closer to Knuckles, "The pyramids seem to be pretty randomly placed," he said, "But the temples... four temples dedicated to Chaos can be used to draw the symbol in ancient Sandopolisian for him on a map! That can't be an accident! And-" he stopped. A thin, wailing noise was sounding, "Intruder alert..." he sighed.

A pity. Knuckles had been enjoying Tails' presentation. The echidna leapt to his feet and smashed his fists together. "An intruder, eh? Well they better have a very good reason for being here, or I'm going to make them sorry!"

Tails sighed. He knew already knew by now that nothing he did or said was going to change Knuckles' mind, "Good luck, Knuckles," he told the red echidna.

Nodding and giving a quiet growl, the echidna began to take off... but something compelled him to stay, to hesitate. Turning back around, he asked, "Hey, Tails... you want to come along with me on this one?" Such a thing coming out of his mouth was odd indeed. He never asked for help in anything.

A huge smile spread over Tails' face, "Okay, Knuckles!" But it vanished suddenly, "But I don't want to hurt anybody..." he said awkwardly.

"Eh, don't worry,” the echidna assured him, "If any hurting has to be done, I'll be the one to do it." He smiled at that thought, a rather wicked looking grin which Tails remembered from their first encounter a long time ago when he was helping Eggman. The creepy smile left Knuckles, and he added, "Just stay close and try not to be seen. This isn't like when you go running with Sonic; stealth is your greatest weapon. In fact... you could probably watch from the air while I sneak through the forest. You have a walkie-talkie or something that we could talk with?"

"I have better than that," Tails picked up the maps and ran into his lab, snatching up two radios. They were small enough to fit in your ear. He returned to Knuckles and handed him one, "Put it in your ear," he told him, "And try not to lose it."

Slowly and with difficulty, Knuckles managed to fit the device in his ear. "Alright,” he said with a smirk, "We're ready to go. This guy is somewhere in the forest, right? Well, you stay above the trees and lead me to him and drop down behind him if he causes trouble, alright? You don't have to hurt him, just distract him."

"Um... right..." Tails said, looking worried, "Listen, I don't really know anything about tracking..."

The echidna patted him on the shoulder. "You've got the advantage of a high point of view. I'm the one who has to deal with ground level. It'll be easy. Come on!" Energetic and ready for a fight, the echidna turned and moved in the direction of their intruder, slipping into the forest and hiding among the shadows of the trees as he continued forward... not an easy task for one whose fur was bright red.

Tails frowned nervously and went into flight, looking around. But it was no easier to see into the forest from above; too many trees obscured his view. All he could see was a shadow moving below him, "Knuckles, there's somebody moving below me," he said, "He's coming towards you."

Knuckles nodded and made his way towards the intruder, being as quiet as he... "I know you're out there, guardian!" spoke the intruder, "Show yourself!" How did he know? The guy must be a damn good tracker if he could detect the Guardian of Angel Island. Or it was just a coincidence and he was calling it out now to get his attention. Smirking, Knuckles drew closer and closer to get a look at his foe... and suddenly went as still as a statue, getting a look at the intruder. He was an echidna. A cyborg echidna, yes, but an echidna nonetheless. How could this be? He thought that he was the last one! Throwing caution to the wind, the guardian stepped out of cover to face the stranger.

"I'll leave this part to you, Knuckles," Tails told him from above. He still couldn't see who was down there.

Quilla stood still and silent as the other echidna stepped out into the open, his expression exactly what the cyborg himself was feeling in that moment; confusion, astonishment, and a vague, distant hope. He scanned the red-furred being before him, noting every detail: the colour of his fur and eyes, the bizarre claws on his hands, the birthmark around his neck... Quilla had his doubts before, but now, looking at him, he knew that he was seeing his and Mirage's son, all grown up, appearing far younger than he should. As he searched his mind for what to say, Knuckles made the first move.

"You... you're an echidna?" the younger of the two asked.

Quilla nodded and answered simply, "Mostly."

For once, Knuckles was at a complete loss for what to do. This was not just another thief; this was perhaps the only other living member of his species. He might have all the answers which had been nagging ay the back of Knuckles' mind since childhood, "H-how?" he managed, "Who are you? What are you doing here?"

Standing tall and proud, the midnight blue echidna spoke again, "My name is Quilla, and if what I am told is true, yours is Knuckles. I came looking here for you, the only other of our kind that I have heard of," Technically, it wasn't a lie. He really did come here for Knuckles. The Master Emerald was Rouge's priority; family was Quilla's, "I'm sure you have a lot of questions, as do I."

That was the understatement of the century. Suddenly, Knuckles couldn't ask enough. He started with the ones most on his mind, utterly forgetting his duty in favour of curiosity and a buried longing to be accepted among peers, "Who am I? Why am I here guarding that damn rock? Do you know what happened to our people?"

All of them were valid questions, "By all means, we should not even exist,” began Quilla, trying to answer his son's questions as best as he could, "Our people went extinct thousands of years ago, wiped out by the wrath of a water demon."

"But then how...?" began to ask Knuckles.

Quilla finished it for him, "...do we exist? The answer lies over a half century in the past with an experiment conducted on the space colony ARK. An experiment in cloning extinct species."

Rouge was flying some way above the island, and she saw Tails looking down into the forest, listening in on the conversation. Drat that boy! He was always coming up here now! He would certainly tell Knuckles she was here - the boy had an unerring sense of morality that was almost as bad as Cream's. She flew down silently, and hovering behind Tails, she placed one hand over his mouth, silencing him with less than a squeak. The other hand found the pressure point it was searching for, and the small fox sighed and passed out. She caught him in her arms and flew with him towards the Master Emerald.

Shocked, Knuckles took a step back, shooting an accusing glance at the blue stranger. "Are you telling me that I'm the clone of some dead guy?"

Quilla sharply shook his head. "No, not at all. I'm the one who is a clone. I was the experiment on the ARK, cloned from the DNA of the nephew of the echidna chieftan, Pachacamac. I was grown in a tube. You had a natural birth... more or less. I know this because... I know this is going to be a shock to you, but... Knuckles, I am your father."

Suddenly, Knuckles felt the need to sit down and did so on the nearest fallen tree. He sat there silently for a moment, staring up at his supposed father in shock, trying to grasp what he was being told. He was the son of some clone from the same place Shadow was created? "Father..." he whispered, but soon he spoke louder, his volume rising with his anger, "Was this all your idea? Did you leave me on this island to guard that rock? Did you abandon me to be alone for the rest of my life?!"

"No!" was Quilla's immediate and defensive response, "I never intended for this to happen, Knuckles! I don't even know how you survived, much less ended up guarding the Master Emerald. The last time I saw you was when you were a baby in a space capsule being launched towards the Earth. The ARK was being attacked; your mother and I hoped that you would have a chance of surviving if we sent you to Earth. Well... you did, son. Your mother wasn't as lucky. GUN slew her and did this to me!" The dark blue echidna gestured to his collection of scars and mechanical replacements.

Rouge arrived at the Master Emerald - and with nary a Knucklehead in sight. She'd tried diversions before, but nothing would divert Knuckles like a blast from the past. She put Tails down on the grass - he'd wake up in about twenty minutes - and walked up the altar steps, gazing at the world's largest emerald. It was probably sacrilegious or something, to leave it all alone on this island in the sky with nobody to appreciate it. She wasn't going to use its power for evil. She didn't plan to sell it. She was just going to admire it in her collection. This was how she rationalised its theft.

His metal hand clinching into a fist, Quilla stepped closer, growling, "GUN ruined both of our lives, son! They took everything I ever cared for and left you exiled here! Well it doesn't have to be that way any longer. I'm going to make them pay for what they've done! Join me, Knuckles. Leave this place with me and help me fight them! We can make sure that this never happens to another family; we can make a difference!"

Knuckles shook his head, feeling dizzy and conflicted, "No. No, I can't do that. I've got to guard the Master Emerald..."

Quilla cut him off, "The Master Emerald doesn't matter to me. What matters is family. I want to have one again, and I'm sure you do to. Please, Knuckles. You're all I have left of your mother, and I don't want you to waste your life staring at some rock."

"I... I…" Knuckles looked up at his father. "I want to know more. Tell me about mother..."

Quilla swallowed and nodded his head. This would be the hardest part for him, "Your mother was another experiment on the ARK, designed to wield the energies of the Master Emerald. She was a hybrid, part hedgehog, part cat, part something else. Her name was Mirage..."

Knuckles eyes widened, and his head snapped up, "Wait! What did you...?"

Rouge lifted the huge emerald from its plinth and carried it down the stairs. As she rested briefly at the base of the altar, Tails woke up groggily. He looked at the bat, and then at the jewel, and then his brain clicked into gear again, "Knuckles!" he shouted, sitting up, "It's Rouge! Rouge is stealing the Master Emerald! Quilla is just a divers-ugh!"

Rouge kicked him hard in the back of the head, and took off in a hurry, heading straight for the escape pod. Damn that boy!

Tails' message came through loud and clear. The red echidna's eyes narrowed in anger, and he snarled in rage, "You liar!" he shouted, getting to his feet, "You think I'm going to fall for that shit?! You're just doing this to steal the emerald!"

Quilla started to deny this, started to try and explain his actions, tried to say that Rouge taking the Master Emerald was a necessity, part of their plan to stop GUN together, but his son would have none of it. Knuckles leapt at Quilla, tackling him to the ground, smashing his face viciously in anger.

Tails managed to get to his feet, blood trickling from the back of his head. He took off and tried to follow Rouge, but burdened as she was with the Master Emerald, the bat hadn't just been kicked in the head. He could barely fly in a straight line, but he tried to follow her anyway.

Quilla hadn't been hit this hard since... since his fight with Shadow, actually. It felt like being hit in the head with a sledgehammer. He was dazed under the assault from his own son. He wondered if the boy was going to kill him, feeling betrayed by his ‘lies’. He supposed it was no less than he deserved. GUN couldn't have all the blame in the ARK disaster; Quilla had his fair share as well. He had his own part in Mirage's death. It would be right for him to die there. But one thing drove him to fight back, to survive. He still had to defeat GUN. He still had to help Mirage's clone. His steel hand wrapped tightly around the throat of the red echidna. Knuckles' eyes bulged as he shifted from fighting Quilla to fighting for a breath. Struggling in a futile effort to unwrap the iron vice from around his neck, Knuckles was distracted. Taking advantage of this and using the immense strength of his arm, the blue echidna lifted him up and hurled him hard into the nearest tree. Knuckles slumped to the ground, his eyes rolling back into his head, falling into unconsciousness.

Tails gave up flying after Rouge, and drifted to the forest floor - right in front of Quilla. He looked up at the terrifying echidna, and summoned up all of his bravery, "Don't you dare hurt Knuckles!" he shouted, standing between him and the dark blue echidna, "He's my friend! How could you lie to him like that?" The kitsune wiped blood away from his own face.

Quilla looked down curiously at the two-tailed fox, insulted by the kit's accusations, "I did not lie to him,” he insisted, "I just wasn't given enough time to tell him everything." Reaching up with his organic hand, Quilla wiped blood off his own face.

The fox glared at him, courage in his terrified eyes, "I don't care if you're his father or not! Go away! Go back down to Earth with Rouge! I'm sure she'll let you look at her big rock sometimes..." he added, venomously. Then he turned away and bent down to the unconscious Knuckles, "Please Knuckles, wake up," he pleaded with the red echidna, ignoring Quilla.

Quilla felt like defending himself, felt like explaining why he distracted Knuckles, why he had to do this to take down GUN. Then he looked down at his fallen son and his pleading friend, and shame washed over the blue warrior. He felt like he should apologize. He couldn't, though. And so, his cheeks burning in shame, Quilla turned and ran away toward the aircraft, a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

Rouge had just managed to fit the Emerald into the back of the Egg-O-Matic. She had thrown out the weapons, toolboxes, and the first aid kit to make it fit, and was ready to take off when Quilla arrived. She opened the door again, "Come on, come on!" she snapped, "I don't have all day!"

Quilla didn't give any reply of his own, simply stepping aboard the ship and electronically giving it commands. The door and cargo bay shut, the engines engaged, and the aircraft took off away from Angel Island on a course back to the city and Rouge's club. He sat down and sank into a chair heavily, sighing.

Rouge's face broke into a huge grin of jubilation. It took her a few minutes to realise that Quilla didn't share in her elation, "Hey, chin up!" she told him, "I have the Master Emerald, and you'll get your information!"

Quilla blinked. The information, the reason he did all of this in the first place. He sat up straighter, saying, "Yes, the information... I need information of the leaders of GUN, especially the location at which they meet during an emergency."

"I'll get a printout for you," Rouge told him, still grinning wildly. She sat back in her seat, and fell into a light sleep.

Looking out the window back the way they came, Quilla believed he would never do that again.

~~~

Harley: Did I say it was my birthday on Thursday? Well, it was, and I got all kinds of Sonic things. Including Sonic Adventure DX and Sonic Heroes for the PC, and a joypad!