The Second Saga

Sotsu: Chaotix

Chapter 12: Enter the Floating Island


The two echidnas stood on a peak that looked up toward the Floating Island. The wind blew about them as rain clouds began to collect below.

"You can fly, right?" Knuckles asked, his arms were shielding his face from the wind. 

"Not like you. Though I guess I should be able to," Sotsu replied as he looked down.

"Doesn’t matter let’s just get going," Knuckles said as he took a few steps then took off toward the Floating Island.


Sotsu focused on the air. It would serve as a path up… he jumped and the air pushed him, he looked as though he were flying like Knuckles.

"Damn this is scary," Sotsu said as he looked at the clouds below. 

"Just don’t look down," Knuckles shouted back toward Sotsu.

"Why that’s like defying the reality that’s there. Almost like a form of blind optimism," Sotsu replied as he caught up with Knuckles.

"You’re not a very happy person are you?" Knuckles said as he looked at Sotsu struggling to keep his bag of stuff from falling. 

"Nothing to really be happy about. I like that I’ve been given a second chance at life. But then again, I’m still the same person," Sotsu said, smiling at the actual irony at the situation. Though it wasn’t exactly apparent, it was ironic.

"Hmmm. Well nothing I can do to change that," Knuckles replied.

"No one can except myself."

"Hey watch out!" Knuckles shouted as Sotsu almost ran into the edge of the Floating Island. Knuckles pulled Sotsu up with him as they landed on the island.

"You’ve gotta be more careful," Knuckles said.

"Bah… I get sidetracked easily," Sotsu said as he straightened his coat.

"Well were here, the Floating Island. Your future home," Knuckles announced as he began to head off.

"So where now?" Sotsu asked as he caught up with Knuckles.

"Well I guess we’ll head to Echidnaopolis. I believe that’s where most everyone is staying for the time being."


Soon enough they reached the place. It was nothing compared to Robotropolis. But it at least was sane. 

They headed down a few blocks and into an apartment complex. Ascending a few flights of stair and to a room near the end of a hallway. 


"They can be a little wild sometimes but there good people," Knuckles said as he opened the door and let Sotsu in, then entered and shut the door.

"It’s quiet. I wonder where they could be?" Knuckles said entering the living room. He noticed a small note on the wooden table that was set in the middle of the room.

It was a nice place, soft blue carpet, matching blue furniture. White wallpaper, and even a balcony that over looked the street ahead.

"Feel free to make yourself comfortable. I’m sure they’ll be here anytime soon. Note says they went out for a while," Knuckles said as he sat down.

"Wow it’s hard to believe all of this. First I get sucked into a portal, which leads to Mobius. Now I find myself in a city that was hidden in a dimensional rift of some sort for several hundred years," Sotsu said.

"Yeah this must be a lot for you. I thought being a Guardian was hard enough. Let alone a person from another world that became a Guardian. What was stuff like back on Earth for you?"

"Horrible. I’m glad I’m here. Hey what happened to the Dark Legion anyway? I never did figure out?"

"How you do know about the Dark Legion?"

"Back on Earth they had a comic book series based around you. Heh, back on Earth Sonic was a video game," Sotsu had to prevent himself at laughing at how ridiculous this whole situation is. 

"Really? That’s weird. What’d they have in the comics?" 

"Nothing much. Just mostly the Dark Legion stuff and when Dimitri came back."

"Oh."

There was a long silence. Sotsu guessed that Knuckles was going over those events in his head. About what happened around those times, when he began to learn about his family and his people’s past.

Some shouting was heard from the hallway, like someone was arguing.

"I guess there here," Knuckles said as he walked over to open the door.

Sotsu stood up and waited patiently for the Chaotix. He always had a habit of having to try and be as polite as possible. It wasn’t essentially a bad thing, but some people thought he was strange sometimes because of how he acted.

"I told you I…." Vector stopped in the door as he saw the black echidna standing in the living room.

"You didn’t tell us we had company Knux," Vector said as he stepped into the living room.

"Hi’a I’m Vector!" the croc said shaking Sotsu’s hand.

"I’m Sotsu. Nice to meet you."

Knuckles closed the door once everyone was in.

"Who’s he?" Julie-Su asked Knuckles quietly.

"I explain later. Right now I just want to introduce everyone," Knuckles replied. 

By the time Knuckles had said that, Sotsu had already greeted everyone and they had already went about doing their business. Knuckles looked over at Sotsu who was just standing there and gave Knuckles a shrug.

"Okay never mind," Knuckles said.

"Well what now?" Sotsu said as he scratched his head. 

"Hi, I’m Julie-Su," she said shaking Sotsu’s hand.

"Sotsu, nice to meet you," Sotsu said.

"Well you can unpack your stuff in our guest room," Knuckles said showing Sotsu down the small hallway and into a bland white room. 

The room already had a bed and a dresser and closet. It also had a window over looking a good section of the area. 

Sotsu unpacked his stuff and looked over what he had brought. He didn’t really need the dresser though since all he had was his one suit. But he could put his CD Player in there, at least it’s come place to keep it. Sotsu took out the paper pad and pencil and began to write stuff he might need. Some other clothes would be nice… and a toothbrush and toothpaste. Some money might be good for starters though.

Sotsu placed the paper on the dresser as a reminded to find a job. Hey wait… if I’m a Guardian… isn’t that my job? Knuckles doesn’t have a job though. 

Sotsu walked out of the room and looked about. The only person who’s presence was apparent was Vector’s who was watching TV in the living room.

"This has gone from action to sitcom," Sotsu said under his breath as he approached the living room. He stood at the side of the sofa for a few seconds, not wanting to interrupt Vector. 


"Oh hey Sotsu," Vector finally said noticing the black echidna.

"Did you want to watch something?" he added as he lifted the remote.

"No I was just walking around. I’m not used to this place," Sotsu as he walked aimlessly toward the kitchen.

"Ok well. If you need any help finding your way around I’m here," Vector said flipping through a few channels.


Sotsu walked into the kitchen and looked at the various cabinets. Something caught his eye.

"Hi Espio," Sotsu said toward an open wall.

"Dangit both you and Knuckles can always find me. How do you guys do it?" Espio said as he uncloaked himself. 

"Ancient echidna secret," Sotsu replied matter-of-factly.

"Is it okay if I grab something to eat?" Sotsu asked. Sotsu always had a problem with not being able to invite himself into other people’s food storage, unlike all of his friends back on Earth.

"Yeah sure you live here now so help yourself. Long as you don’t have an appetite like Mighty I don’t think we’ll have to worry," Espio said as he cloaked himself again and went into the living room.

While Sotsu looked through the assortment of food in the refrigerator he heard Vector shout at Espio for scaring him half to death. 


Later Sotsu sat in his room playing the guitar. He cursed at himself as he tried to play "Dust in the Wind" but found it impossible do to his anatomy. Knuckles came in to check up on Sotsu.

"What’s going on?" Knuckles asked as he opened the door.

"Nothing I’m just having trouble adjusting to playing guitar like this," Sotsu answered lifting his ungloved hands.

"Oh yeah. Major drawback on the echidna’s part. I unsure what I should say to the guys about you. They’ve noticed that you’re not exactly normal," Knuckles explained.

"Well you could tell them just to ask me if they have any questions. I don’t think it’d be any particular uproar if they figured out that I’m from Earth."

"Well it’s not only that. The Brotherhood might find this as a disturbance."

"We’ll see what happens then when the time comes," Sotsu said, trying to work out a C cord.

"Well if you say so," Knuckles said as he began to head out of the door. 

"If you need anything I’m just a few rooms down," he added as he left.

Sotsu let his guitar disappear. He sat silent for a few minutes before he noticed that his window had blown open. Wait… there was no wind. He looked up just in time to see a ninja type form jump down from the ceiling on to him. He was armed with a small dagger and jabbed at Sotsu’s head. Sotsu jerked his head to the side as the small blade punctured his bed. Sotsu jammed his hand around the small figure’s neck and slammed him into the floor and held him there. The dagger was cropped to the floor and Sotsu used his other hand to pin the guys arm down.

"Mind telling me what you’re doing?" Sotsu asked.

"I was sent here to kill you," the figure replied. His voice was a little muffled because of the cloth covering his face.

"Who sent you?" Sotsu questioned.

"Why should I answer to you?" the figure grabbed a small shuriken out of it’s tunic and threw it upward at Sotsu. Sotsu leaned back and fell over as the shuriken passed him. The figure jumped out of the window and got away.

"God dang stupid ninja’s. Always inviting themselves in," Sotsu said as he closed and latched the window. 

Sotsu looked over to were the shuriken rested. He picked it up and inspected it. Maybe Knuckles can help me.

There were various shouts and sounds coming from the other rooms. Knuckles ran out to the apartment’s hallway. Vector suddenly flew out of his room and hit the wall headfirst. A ninja flipped out of the doorway and attempted to stab Vector with a small dagger. Sotsu quickly popped off a shadow blast and knocked the ninja unconscious.

"Thanks. But we’ve gotta help the others," Vector said as he got up.

"You do that. I’ll go check on Knuckles in his room," Sotsu said as he headed for the apartment room door. He made it into the hallway that led to the other apartment rooms. 

A few ninjas stood guard in the hallway. They saw Sotsu exiting and they began to toss shurikens at him. The salvo of metal zipper by Sotsu as he tumbled and got to one knee and produced two small black pistols. The ninjas unleashed another salvo of shurikens. Sotsu jumped backwards firing wildly at the group, when he hit the ground he somersaulted backwards and got back up. He had shot all of them in the legs. 

"You… will pay for this!" one of the ninjas shouted.

"No, you’ll tell me who you work for," Sotsu said as he stood over the group.

"Go to hell!" the same one spat.

"Now I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do this," Sotsu said as he charged a ball of shadow material in his left hand.

"I’ll die before I answer to you!" the same one exclaimed.

"You sacrifice is meaningless," Sotsu said coldly as he dropped the shadow material on the ninja. 

It spread over him and caused the same reaction as Kevin had done before.


"Not only will I kill him if none of you speak, but I’ll kill all of you. Each one will suffer a worse death then the previous," Sotsu said in his emotionless fashion. 

"The… the... Dark Legion!" one said frantically.

"Well, then wasn’t that easy?" Sotsu said releasing the first ninja from the shadow material.

"Ok then that’s all I needed you guys for, have a nice time," Sotsu said as he rolled each one down the staircase with his foot.


Sotsu knocked on the door to Knuckles room. No reply. He knocked again a little harder this time.

"Knuckles are you in there?" Sotsu asked, worried they might be in trouble.


There was a loud bang in the hallway. Sotsu looked over to see… that it was only one of the ninjas flying out of the Chaotix’s room, and hit the wall with a loud thump.

"Er… forgive me for this," Sotsu said as he produced a lock pick and used it on the door. 

After a few seconds of fiddling with the lock the door swung open. It was quiet. Knuckles came to the bedroom to see that the window had been opened. None of the lights were on. There was a note on the dresser.

"Dear Choatix,


I have your Guardian. If you are reading this then I’m sure you have taken out all of my assassins. If you wish the safe return of your Guardian then come to the Echidnaopolis Clock Tower tomorrow morning. Come alone and bring ten thousand Echidna Credits. Failure to do so will result in the death of Knuckles and Julie-Su. 

Head of the Dark Legion,

Kragok 

P.S. You might want to get out of the building before the bomb goes off."

"Why would any wasn’t ten thousand credits? Why not like a million? Yeah thanks. Now where is it?" Sotsu asked as he looked about. He stayed quiet for a few seconds and heard a distant beeping. 

Sotsu headed over to the dresser and pulled out the top drawer reveling a small metal box. 

"Great, now lemme see," Sotsu said as he popped off the lathes on the box and opened the lid.

Several wires crisscrossed all over. A digital display showed two minutes in red lights. Sotsu began humming the action theme from Metal Gear Solid.

Sotsu gave up trying to figure the thing out and carefully lifted the bomb from it’s current position. Sotsu got to the window and flew out heading upward above the buildings.

He only had a few seconds left before he chucked the bomb up and dashed downward. A huge red blast lit the sky for a few seconds with an ear shattering bang which broke several windows on the higher buildings.

Sotsu landed on the roof and almost tumbled over as the building shook a little from the explosion. 

"I hate loud noises," Sotsu said as he steadied himself. Though he wondered why he said that, no one was hear, and no one would care either.

"Why am I talking to myself? Arg… I’m going insane!" Sotsu shouted. 

The police finally arrived a few minutes later and began to take the assassins into the paddy wagons. Constable Remmington began to talk with the Chaotix. When Sotsu arrived he showed the note to Remmington. After a brief talk with his involvement with the Chaotix Constable Remmington left.

"So why does Kragok need ten thousand credits for? Why not like a million?" Mighty asked.

"I think it’s a trap," Espio replied.

"Well either way we have to go," Sotsu said.

"He’s right. We go in there and be bust the Dark Legionaries in the nose and escape with Knuckles and Julie-Su," Vector said enthusiastically.

"Well first of all. I think we should come up with a plan," Sotsu said.

"I just did," Vector snapped. Sotsu looked at him blankly.

"What?" Vector asked. 


-Nicholas D. Wolfwood-