CHAPTER THREE : THE CHAO
The Tornado III flew into the dusk fog, and emerged from it. Night was falling. The three boys could see a blur figure of the moon hanging high above the deep red sky in which had a shade of purple.
“We're here! Angel Island is right down us!”Tails exclaimed.
Oh and he was absolutely right. The shrine of the Master Emerald could be seen from high up, it must be Angel Island! But something was weird. The shrine was damaged, burned. Also, some small blue-ish figure was lying on the grass...
“What happened here?”Sonic stared blankly at the ruins.
“Something.Something not good.”replied Knuckles.
“I'll be landing now, you two hold on tight!”Tails pressed the 'land' button and turned the steering.
The plane landed with a loud vroof. The blue figures that were nearer to the plane ( but of course not directly below it ) got startled. They made a screaming sound and cried.
Those were no ordinary living thing, they are the Chao!
Sonic and Knuckles hopped out from the plane first. They saw the Chao and were now carefully approaching it. “The Chao!”said Tails in a shock tone, but was ignored by the other two who had already realized what those living things was.
“Shh... Shh...”Knuckles held out his hand to one of the Chao. He petted it.
The Chao stopped crying but it still looked terrified. When it had ecovered from the shock, it ran off.
“Let's follow it.”suggested Sonic. Knuckles and Tails nodded in agreement.
Just as they were about to step out a foot, a voice, soft and weary, called out from behind a pillar, “who's there?”
Knuckles knew exactly who that voice belongs to. “Tikal, it's me, Knuckles.”
“Knuckles?”Tikal repeated, she thought it was her imagination. How could Knuckles suddenly be here? But she walked out from behind the pillar anyway.
“Oh, Knuckles!”Tikal ran towards them as soon as she realized Knuckles, “what are you – why – ?” She was so surprised she didn't even know what to say.
“Hehe... it is a long story...”Sonic directed his words to Tikal, but his attention was on Knuckles. He pointed his head to the disappearing rays of sunlight : It's getting late. We should head back.
Knuckles got his message. He said to Tikal, “C'mon, let's go. We are taking you to our college.”
“But--”Tikal wanted to say something.
However, Knuckles interrupted, “Everything is taken care of, you will have a place to stay.”
“No! What I mean is --” She tried to spoke again.
Knuckles cut her off, again. “You will be safe there.”
“NO!”Tikal's voice covered Knuckles's one this time, “WHAT ABOUT THE CHAO?!”She partly screamed.
“Oh.”The three boys faces were now full of exclamation marks. They forgotten all about the little blue fellas.
Sonic and Knuckles had no idea how to take about twenty over chao back to the college, but Tails spoke now, “Erm, the Tornado III has a special feature. But I'm not sure if it works... I never tried it before.”
Sonic and Knuckles turned to Tails. With thoughts of hope, they asked, “What feature?!”
“Well,”Tails explained, “I installed a special feature, named 'extend'. When I press the button, the Tornado III should extend and expand into a large airplane enough to fit ten people inside. And since the chao are small, they can fit in, no problem.”
“Then what the hell are you waiting for?! Press it then!”Knuckles slapped his forehead.
“Oh. Whoops.”Tails stuck his tongue out playfully. “I'll go attend to it straightaway!”
Tails ran off to the Tornado III.
“Tikal, can you gather all the chao in one place?”Knuckles asked Tikal.
“I think I can.”Tikal nodded, “I have been living with them, for... quite a while.”
“What?”Knuckles did not quite understand what she meant by “quite a while”.
But Tikal didn't answer him, she walked away to the middle of the ruins.
Tikal whistled, and spoke in a clear and loud tone, “Gather!”
Almost next to no time, twenty over Chao gather around Tikal. Sonic and Knuckles gawked in awe and mouthed a silent “woah”.
As soon as the Tornado III expanded, Tikal, along with some help from the three boys, brought the Chao up to the plane. When everything was settled, Sonic, Knuckles and Tikal each sat down on a sit.