Knuckles the Echidna

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 (1994)
All his life Knuckles has served as a guardian for an ancient relic called Master Emerald. Knuckles doesn’t know exactly why he has to perform this mission or what exactly lies behind it, but he guards the artifact with all his vigilance and zeal. Master Emerald’s altar is located on a flying island called Angel Island. It is the Master Emerald that keeps the island in the air and if it is stolen, the island will immediately collapse into the water. One day, after one of his defeats from the hero named Sonic the Hedgehog, evil Dr. Ivo Robotnik, who wants to build his empire using an army of robots, lands on Angel Island. There he immediately finds a Master Emerald, which was a perfect energy source for Robotnik’s greatest creation – a giant space station named Death Egg. Master Emerald was even more powerful than the Chaos Emeralds, which Doctor was trying to find before. Despite his power, Knuckles is rather gullible, so Robotnik convinces the echidna that Sonic and his best friend Miles “Tails” Prower are trying to steal the Master Emerald, thus turning Knuckles against the heroes. Soon, Sonic and Tails arrive on Angel Island and are immediately attacked by Knuckles, who takes the 7 Chaos Emeralds from the heroes and hides them around the island. Sonic and Tails pursue Knuckles and Robotnik, recovering the Chaos Emeralds along the way. After destroying the Launch Base, surreptitiously stalking Knuckles, the heroes find a portal to the Master Emerald, which they use to enhance the Chaos Emeralds to Super Emeralds. Using their power, Sonic uses the Hyper Sonic form and Tails uses the Super Tails form. Together the heroes defeat Knuckles in a duel on the altar of the Master Emerald, but Robotnik takes advantage of this to steal the relic. Realizing his mistake, Knuckles helps the heroes to pursue the doctor, and Sonic and Tails, in the process defeating another iteration of Metal Sonic – Neo Metal Sonic, make their way to the Death Egg rebuilt with the help of Master Emerald and defeat the Doctor, returning Master Emerald to it’s guardian. Knuckles thanks Sonic and Tails while Angel Island soars into the sky again. 

Sonic & Knuckles (1994)
After the defeat of Dr. Robotnik, however, many of the evil doctor’s robots and machines remained on the island. One robot, called Egg Robo, had enough intelligence to replace Dr. Robotnik and rebuild an army of robots and weapons itself. After dropping bombs on Knuckles, Egg Robo steals the Master Emerald, forcing echidna to go in pursuit. On the way, Knuckles finds seven Chaos Emeralds and applies them, activating the form of Super Knuckles. After destroying Launch Base, Knuckles enhances the Chaos Emeralds on the Master Emerald altar, turning them into Super Emeralds. Using their power, Knuckles transforms into his Hyper Knuckles form. Eventually, Knuckles catches up with Egg Robo at Sky Sanctuary, but is trapped by the robot. Suddenly, Neo Metal Sonic appears and attacks Knuckles. Echidna manages to escape at the last second, and Neo Metal Sonic destroys Egg Robo instead of Knuckles. The echidna defeats Neo Metal Sonic in combat, but the robot doesn’t give up and absorbs the energy of the Master Emerald, taking some kind of Super Form. Absorbing the artifact’s power destabilizes Angel Island and it begins to fall. With difficulty, Knuckles defeats Neo Metal Sonic and the Sky Sanctuary begins to collapse. It is only by using Hyper Knuckles form that the echidna manages to save the Master Emerald from falling into the ocean. After his victory, Knuckles returns Master Emerald to its altar and restores peace to Angel Island.

Knuckles’ Chaotix (1995)
A mysterious island suddenly appears in the middle of the ocean. Wanting to discover the nature of this event, Knuckles visits the island, but he didn’t expect that it is already captured by Robotnik, who was searching for the Master Emerald. After exploring a bit, Knuckles finds Espio the Chameleon, captured by a mechanism named Combi Catcher and releases him. Together, Knuckles and Espio releases another heroes, such as Mighty the Armadillo, Vector the Crocodile, Charmy Bee, and robots Heavy and Bomb. Together, they’re making multiple attacks on Robotnik’s bases, destroying his robots powered up with Dark Rings and collecting Chaos Rings in the process. After being defeated several times, Robotnik uses his best robot – Metal Sonic to defeat the heroes. After Metal Sonic was defeated, Robotnik decides to power him up with a Dark Ring, and with that Metal Sonic transforms into Metal Sonic Kai. Even so, he was defeated by the heroes. After achieving the good ending, the player can see Sonic the Hedgehog along with Miles “Tails” Prower flying on the plane to the Island. 

Sonic Adventure (1998)
The considerably matured Knuckles rests as before at the altar of the Master Emerald on Angel Island. Suddenly, the Master Emerald exploded and a mysterious jelly-like creature emerged from it. Knuckles attacks the alien but it escapes while Angel Island falls into water. Wanting to return things to normal, Knuckles decides to find pieces of Master Emerald and for this he sets out on a journey on Angel Island as well as Station Square. At Station Square, Knuckles suddenly encounters Dr. Robotnik and sees a shiny object in the villain’s hands. Knuckles thinks it was a shard of Master Emerald, so he follows the Doctor. Alas, it turned out to be only a Chaos Emerald, but Robotnik didn’t just let Knuckles go and unleashed the very jelly-like creature whose name was Chaos on the echidna. Knuckles defeats Chaos and Robotnik tells him that Chaos is an ancient god of destruction, capable of absorbing Chaos Emeralds. Once Chaos absorbs them all, he becomes invincible. Also, Robotnik hints that Sonic is also looking for shards of Master Emerald, provoking Knuckles against Sonic. Pretty soon, Knuckles finds Sonic and Tails and notices a shiny object in Sonic’s hands. Thinking it’s a shard of Master Emerald, Knuckles attacks Sonic and Tails and in the process they drop the shiny objects, which again turn out to be Chaos Emeralds. Robotnik takes advantage of that, surfacing from his hiding place and stealing the Chaos Emeralds, giving them to Chaos. Together, Knuckles, Sonic and Tails defeat Chaos and, while Sonic and Tails go in pursuit of Robotnik, Knuckles continues to search for shards of Master Emerald. While searching, Knuckles regularly sees visions from antiquity in which the echidna Tikal tries to stop the war between echidnas Knuckles Clan, led by her father, and Chaos, who lives on Angel Island on the Master Emerald altar along with a brood of Chao. Based on the visions, Knuckles Clan attacked the altar and destroyed many Chao, causing Chaos to go on a rampage that nearly destroyed the entire world. The monster was stopped by Tikal, sealing him in Master Emerald.

Soon, Knuckles gathers most of the shards on Master Emerald’s altar, but some pieces are still missing. The incomplete Master Emerald shows Knuckles a vision, letting him know that the remaining shards are on a giant Robotnik’s airship called the Egg Carrier. After following one of Robotnik’s robots, Knuckles finds the villain’s base and infiltrates the Egg Carrier. The ship takes off and in flight Knuckles finally finds all the fragments and is about to leave, when suddenly he notices Chaos has already absorbed 6 Chaos Emeralds. Knuckles rushes into the fight, but Sonic has already defeated the monster, laughing at how slow Knuckles is. After winning, Sonic chases Robotnik, never realizing that he didn’t finish the monster. Chaos was still alive and ready to fight, so Knuckles is given a chance to avenge the destruction of Master Emerald. Knuckles defeats Chaos in combat and takes six Chaos Emeralds. After taking the shards and Emeralds to the altar, Knuckles finally restores the Master Emerald and Angel Island soars again.

Soon, however, the Island falls again for unknown reasons. Knuckles decides to consult with Sonic, but before he can even leave the altar, he notices an injured Robotnik. Trying to find out what happened, Knuckles finds himself attacked from behind by Chaos and is defeated. Chaos steals the six Chaos Emeralds and after finding the last one transforms into Perfect Chaos. Overwhelmed by anger and despair, Perfect Chaos tries to destroy the world and sinks Station Square. Robotnik, on his second Egg Carrier tries to stop the monster, but is defeated. The red spirit that has been with the heroes all along sending them visions about the past materializes next to Sonic, turning out to be that exact girl who lived many years ago named Tikal. Tikal was a friend of Chaos, but she saw no other way but to re-seal Chaos into Master Emerald forever, but Sonic flatly refuses this option. Sonic believes that this approach won’t solve the problem and Chaos’s hatred won’t go anywhere, so using the positive power of the Chaos Emeralds Sonic becomes Super Sonic and defeats Perfect Chaos in battle. The weakened Chaos speaks to Tikal and she manages to extinguish the pain and rage of the distraught monster. After thanking the heroes, Tikal and Chaos return to Master Emerald, while Knuckles continues to guard it on the Angel Island which is floating again.

Sonic Adventure 2 (2001)
Master Emerald is threatened by a thief named Rouge the Bat, who wants to get her hands on the jewel at any cost. In the process, she began to argue with Knuckles, which distracted them both and allowed Dr. Robotnik (who has officially taken on the nickname Dr. Eggman) to suddenly appear to grab the Emerald. Knuckles, to prevent the theft of the Master Emerald, smashes it to reassemble it later. Rouge and Knuckles begin a race to collect the pieces of the Master Emerald. After traveling a long way and collecting almost all the pieces, Knuckles suddenly finds himself in town, where he meets Tails and Sonic’s other friend Amy Rose. It turns out that while Knuckles was busy looking for the shards, a lot happened. First, Sonic was framed by a mysterious hedgehog named Shadow, for which Sonic was imprisoned. Shadow was apparently working with Dr. Eggman and soon after confronting both of them, Dr. Eggman announces that he is capable of destroying the entire planet unless its inhabitants surrender to the mercy of the Eggman Empire within 24 hours. To demonstrate his serious intentions, Eggman uses an energy beam to destroy half the moon. The heroes assume that Eggman is using the power of the Chaos Emeralds, so using the Emerald possessed by Tails, they learn that the other 6 Emeralds are in space. By sneaking into the President’s limousine, who’s talking to Eggman at this moment, Sonic and Tails manage to find out that the villain is on the Space Colony Ark. While Sonic and Tails were figuring out Robotnik’s location, Knuckles and Amy followed Eggman (and also strumbled upon Rouge, who had been working with him). By doing that, they found out the location of the villains’ base. Together, Knuckles, Sonic, Tails and Amy steal a rocket from the doctor and head for the colony. 

During flight, a crash occurs and the cargo compartment of the rocket opens, causing all the collected fragments of the Master Emerald to scatter across the Ark. Knuckles goes in search of them and comes face to face with Rouge, this time in combat. During the fight, Rouge falls off a narrow bridge and nearly falls into the lava, but Knuckles catches her at the last second. Rouge tries to put the event down as a joke, but ends up giving the shards she collected to Knuckles. Having recovered the Master Emerald, Knuckles rushes to the aid of the others when he suddenly sees a flash of light from which Sonic emerges. Apparently, Sonic almost died, but by copying Shadow’s teleportation ability called Chaos Control, managed to survive. Sonic asks Knuckles to take care of Tails and Amy and goes off to destroy Eggman’s weapon. In the end Sonic destroys Eggman’s weapon from the outside, preventing the shot. However, despite his best efforts, Eggman still manages to insert the last Chaos Emerald into the weapon and the colony’s system uses their energy to send the colony into the planet and destroy all life on it. The heroes and villains unite to stop the colony from falling, but an Ultimate Life Form prototype, the Biolizard, stands in their way. Taking the form of Super Sonic and Super Shadow, the hedgehogs defeat the monster, but Shadow heroically dies in battle. All the heroes bid farewell to Shadow and word of his sacrifice spreads throughout the planet he saved.

Sonic Heroes (2003)
Neo Metal Sonic decides to avenge defeat by Sonic’s hands by capturing Eggman’s Empire and all its robots, taking the doctor himself as a prisoner in a process. As Team Sonic, Knuckles, Sonic and Tails defeat the mighty fleet of robots, but after copying DNA of Knuckles, Sonic, Tails, Chaos and the now returned from the dead Shadow, Metal Sonic becomes the Metal Overlord, a completely invincible and unbeatable monster. Team Dark, Team Chaotix and Team Rose distract the Metal Overlord while Knuckles, Sonic and Tails use the Chaos Emeralds to take their Super forms. With the power of the Emeralds, the heroes manage to defeat the monster and things return to normal.

Sonic Battle (2003)
Sonic, while walking on Emerald Beach, suddenly discovers a robot. Trying to figure out what it is, Sonic picks up the robot when it demands a demonstration of power. Without thinking long, Sonic shows a couple of his techniques to the robot and it declares an established “link”. Under the impression that the robot is broken, Sonic takes the robot to the Tails lab, but on the way he meets Rouge the Bat, a thief with a strange interest in the robot, as well as Shadow, who attacks Sonic. Sonic defeats Shadow and the black hedgehog leaves, telling Sonic to keep an eye on the robot. Tails analyzes the robot and discovers that it is a very powerful machine, capable of absorbing Chaos Emeralds thus becoming stronger, as well as copying the fighting techniques of other fighters. Sonic finds this very cool and decides to upgrade the robot to the max. Sonic gives the robot the name Emerl, and they begin their adventure together. In the process, Emerl forms his own personality and he builds a very friendly relationship with Sonic, Tails, Rouge, Knuckles, Amy, Cream the Rabbit and even Shadow. Knuckles, in particular, became a brother to Emerl, teaching the robot to be not only soft and kind, but also brutal and able to stand up for himself. But it also turns out that when Emerl absorbs all the Chaos Emeralds, he will get out of control and destroy the whole world. Shadow, using a program left by Dr. Gerald Robotnik, disables the system and Emerl safely absorbs the seventh Chaos Emerald. Soon, however, due to the severe emotional turmoil caused by Eggman’s deception, Emerl goes out of control and triggers the system to destroy the world. Sonic has to fight Emerl and inflict severe damage on the robot. Emerl, defeated, says goodbye to Sonic and explodes. It turns out that Dr. Gerald Robotnik has embedded a program in Emerl that will explode him if he tries to destroy the planet. The heroes grieve for Emerl and say goodbye to him. They still believe that Emerl lives in the shards of the Chaos Emeralds, and when all the wars and conflicts in the world are over, Emerl will return to his friends.

Sonic Rivals (2006)
The Master Emerald suddenly disappears from Knuckles right in front of his eyes for unknown reasons. Trying to figure out what happened, Knuckles goes in search of Eggman. While searching, Knuckles encounters Sonic, Shadow, and a mysterious white hedgehog named Silver the Hedgehog, who clearly knows something about what’s going on. After several races and battles, Eggman tells Knuckles that he turned Master Emerald into a card in the future, using a special artefact in a form of camera. Since the Master Emerald is a unique object existing in all times simultaneously, its disappearance in the future caused its disappearance in the past as well. In the end, with the help of Sonic, Tails and even Silver, Knuckles manages to defeat Eggman and reclaim the Master Emerald.

Sonic Rivals 2 (2007)
The Master Emerald again appears to be stolen and Knuckles have to look for it again. In the process of his searches, he meets Rouge, who received an order to collect all the Chaos Emeralds. Rouge asks Knuckles for help in this task and using the Eggman’s Emerald Detector they’re going on the search for the Master Emerald and the Chaos Emeralds. In the process, they had to fight Eggman and the mighty Ifrit, which only strengthened Knuckles and Rouge’s friendship, but in the end it appeared that all this time Master Emerald was inside the Emerald Detector the duo was using. 

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood (2008)
Knuckles, Sonic, Tails and Amy, supported by GUN forces storm Eggman’s fortress and seemingly kill the evil doctor. After defeating the Doctor, Sonic disappears for almost half a year. After this time, the world was invaded by mysterious warriors, immediately nicknamed Marauders. They stole six of the Chaos Emeralds and defeated the military in battle. Tails prepares a trap for the Marauders, and the bait is Knuckles, who possesses the last Chaos Emerald. In spite of all the preparations, the trap is turned off and Knuckles, fighting like a beast and defeating many Marauders, is defeated and captured in the end. Soon, Sonic and his team release Knuckles from captivity and the echidna joins the team to protect the Master Emerald, which was apparently the next target of the Marauders. It turns out that the Marauders are an ancient, high-tech echidna clan exiled to another world called Nocturnus. They stole the Master Emerald and the Chaos Emeralds in order to use the jewels’ power to open a portal back to the world, then take it over. Knuckles is absolutely shocked and frustrated with that information, since he always believed he was the last echidna in the world. One of the Nocturnus, a female warrior named Shade, sided with the heroes because she thought the actions of their clan leader Imperator Ix were wrong. Knuckles and Shade interact a lot and become friends, and Knuckles develops a liking for Nocturnus. Being the last echidna, Knuckles really wanted to believe that he would be able to turn Nocturnus to good and prevent their destruction. In the end, Knuckles and Shade stood before Imperator Ix and Lord Nocturnus invites Knuckles to join them. Forced to choose between his fellow echidnas and the protection of Master Emerald, Knuckles chooses the Master Emerald and attacks Imperator Ix. Together, the team defeats the villain and brings Master Emerald and the Chaos Emeralds back home. 

Sonic Forces (2017)
A powerful new villain named Infinite attacks Sonic. With the help of Metal Sonic, Chaos, Shadow, and Zavok (leader of the Zeti), Infinite manages to defeat Sonic and the hedgehog finds himself captured by Eggman. Together, Eggman and Infinite take over 99% of the world with little or no resistance. Only faint echoes of The Resistance, led by Knuckles, fought the invaders, though unsuccessfully. One of the victims of Eggman’s attack finds the courage to join the Resistance and immediately, nicknamed “Rookie”, is assigned to help free Sonic, who happens to have been held captive on Death Egg the entire time. In the end, The Resistance manages to rescue Sonic from captivity and he joins them. Sonic and Rookie destroy Eggman’s factory in the desert and work well together. Soon, Tails joins the Resistance as well, along with Classic Sonic, who has come from another dimenstion to help fight the villains. Both Sonics, with considerable help from the Rookie, defeat Eggman and Infinite, after which The Resistance set out together to rebuild the ruined world. 

Sonic Frontiers (2022)
Once again exploring the ruins of the Sky Sanctuary, Knuckles finds the ruins of an ancient portal that seems strangely unfamiliar to him. After touching the portal, Knuckles teleports to the Starfall Islands, where he is immediately attacked by Sage, an artificial intelligence created by Dr. Eggman to take over Cyberspace, built by a civilization of Ancients, that predates the echidnas. Sage seals Knuckles in Cyberspace and he becomes a prisoner, unable to escape. Soon, following a signal from the Chaos Emeralds, Sonic, Tails and Amy are also trapped in Cyberspace. Sonic finds himself the only one able to escape Cyberspace. After he succeeds, he appears on one of the Starfall Islands, namely Kronos Island, where a mysterious voice in his head suddenly speaks to him, assuring him that Sonic must defeat the three mighty Titans in order to save Knuckles, Tails and Amy. Following the voice’s instructions, Sonic begins his journey to Kronos Island, where he encounters Sage. Sage pits the Titans against Sonic, and Sonic is forced to flee from them.

On Ares Island, Sonic finds Knuckles and, although Sonic cannot free him from Cyberspace, they can communicate. In the process of talking, Knuckles tells Sonic that he feels very lonely being the last echidna on the planet. In addition, Knuckles is jealous of Sonic’s free-spirited lifestyle. Sonic suggests that Knuckles try to be freer and uninhibited, and Knuckles agrees.

After defeating all the Titans, Sonic finds himself consumed by the Cybercorruption caused by his attempt to save his friends, but Knuckles, Tails and Amy are saved. The friends manage to save Sonic from Cybercorruption, but it turns out that all along the mysterious voice belonged to an ancient galactic evil sealed by the Ancients in Cyberspace, and by defeating the Titans, Sonic has released this evil into the world. Sonic and Eggman have to team up to find the Chaos Emeralds on Ouranos Island, so Sonic and Sage scour the entire island. Finally, having collected all the Chaos Emeralds with Eggman and Sage’s help, Super Sonic faces off against the final Titan (namely Supreme), in which the evil entity has been sealed. Super Sonic defeats Supreme, but the evil entity moves into the Moon and uses it as it’s temporary body. Sage takes control of Supreme and joins Super Sonic in attacking the Moon. Super Sonic and Sage succeed in destroying the Moon along with the evil sealed within it, but in the process Sage has to sacrifice her life. Sonic returns to his friends and together they leave Starfall Islands. Knuckles, Tails and Amy rethink a lot in the process and decide to separate from Sonic and go on their own adventures. Sonic, though sadly, sees his friends off, sincerely wishing them well.