Z is one of our favourites to play with, he's the mischievous kid that gets everyone to go along with his shenanigans haha. He loves playing pranks and getting on people's nerves, but no one can ever truly get upset because he's equally sweet as well. He also has plant powers (that we forgot about for while 😅)
Here's a messy little doodle of him!! - aaphant
The backstory of a lot of these Knuckleses tends to fluctuate a little, but we've consistently agreed that Z was born thousands of years ago while the Knuckles clan were still around and thriving. He was chosen at a young age to be infused with great amounts of the Master Emerald's energy, and was taken from his parents and raised just to take part in the power transferring ceremony.
It went wrong. Disastrously wrong. His body could not contain the power that the Echidna Priests tried to infuse him with, leading to his death. His body was buried and forgotten about as thousands of years went by and the echidnas eventually faced extinction. But no one knew that under the earth, Z's body was kept intact by the power that still saturated his bones. The Master Emerald protected him for all those years.
One day, he woke up. Alone.
There's a lot more to this of course, but we can't reveal everything all at once ahah!
The initial idea for Z in the Echidna's Parade Discord came from an au idea ramble from aphantimes. Just the vague idea of a Knuckles that was killed centuries ago and kept intact and eventually revived by the Master Emerald. At first he was characterised as being around the same age as Game Knuckles, and had a strangely detached personality, barely reacting to finding out he's a walking corpse. A very far cry from our current mischievous little kid!! The story evolved a LOT with many different contributors from the server and we eventually got the Z we have now!
hello!! I have a question and a tiny headcannon of mine but I think gnarly kind of gets little episodes of voices in his head like they get too loud and he panics a bit but I wanted to know if he’s told anyone about the trees talking to him or the voices he hears in his world to the other knuckles
Gnarly was one of the very first Knuckles to get pulled into the Sanctuary because his high sensitivity to chaos energy allowed him to 'hear' the trees. The presence of the shard didn't help either, the prisms energy runs on a different 'frequency' to chaos energy and further messes with his head.
It gets especially bad after it rains, the whole jungle becomes louder and he struggles to get rest after a storm.
The constant noise was incredibly distressing and gave him a headache that pretty much never goes away.
When he first gets to the Sanctuary he experiences true peace for the first time. The Sanctuary is a place brimming with chaos energy, but unlike the Boscage Maze where it's like Gnarly is hearing hundreds of voices at once or like he's got bees buzzing around in his head, it's simply a soft soothing hum.
Him hearing the trees would've come up pretty early on as the sudden lack of overwhelming stimuli was the first thing on his mind. However, Modern was one of the first Knuckles to realise what exactly was going on with Gnarly, quickly picking up the similarities between the overwhelming feeling of sensing every single shard of the Master Emerald at the same time, and Gnarly's talk of everything being too loud. Soon after that he, along with some of the other Knuckles with high sensitivity would work to help Gnarly deal with and find way to tune out what he was sensing.
~~ Night
~~~
Qwerty wrote a little bit for Gnarly's arrival in the Sanctuary:
Before Gnarly even opened his eyes, he knew something was different. He sniffed the air, and the familiar scent of Boscage Maze was gone. No earthy musk. No fresh moss. No overgrown trees or scent of flowers.
He couldn't place what he did smell. It was . . . different. Subdued.
There was something else.
The constant hum in his mind was gone. The noise, the pressure, the buzz and vibrations that almost translated to sound and drove itself into his ears day in and day out, and had for years was gone. Replaced with a different kind of sound. A different kind of hum. A soft one, almost soothing.
He opened his eyes.
What met him wasn't the overgrown trees of Boscage Maze. There was no bright sun overhead. No branches reaching for him, wanting to pull him into the thick overgrowth.
There were walls. And a high ceiling. And . . . a green glow, high above.
He sat up, a hand to his head. Normally, back home, he would move very slowly first thing after waking. It took a while for his head to adjust to the sounds in his mind. They were louder and more 'insistent' when he was awake.
But it took him a moment to realize that his head didn't hurt. That there was no pounding, no sound.
For the first time in as long as he could remember, his head didn't hurt.
And he could think.
Tears pricked his eyes as this realization settled in. He wasn't home, this was a strange place that he didn't recognize, or understand how he got here.
But he didn't feel like he was being smothered under the weight of whatever the trees back home were doing to him. He could breathe. He could think.
Are any of the Knuckles a pure bean? If so, can we get a story featuring him?
We do indeed have some pure bean Knuckles.
The adorable and endearing, (yet often mischievous) Little Z.
The cheerful and engaging, Lavender!
The supportive and caring big bro, Boom!
The dragon with the spirit of a golden retriever, Quetzal!
These four are almost never seen angry and never hide that soft heart that almost all Knuckles' share. If someone's having a day or feeling bit down, one of these four will be more than willing to assist with kiddy shenanigans, a cheerful attitude, the big bro vibes or some dragon mandated rest.
And then we have some honorary pure beans in our quieter and more timid, Jax, Gnarly and Yunuen who aren't quite the same as the four above, but these three are unlikely to start a fight or behave aggressively. (These three have been through a lot and must be handled with care)
Now, please enjoy a little wholesome story featuring Z and Lavender, under the cut. ~~ Night
The idea struck Lavender out of nowhere, and whatever was previously on the table was shoved aside in favour of a collection of art and craft supplies. She laid out the pens, pencils and thread in a manner that was messy, but organised to her. She then got to work, smiling all the while.
Her task was simple, but it was going to be a long one. Create a handmade, custom accessory for every Knuckles here. They may all be versions of the same person, but each of them were unique and would need careful thought put into what she made, and while she didn't know now what she was going to make everyone she hoped she'd work it out along the way.
Her first idea was for her sister, she liked things to be practical and serve a purpose, so a band to tie back her spines would do just fine. And while her sister would be fine with just a plain band, Lavender absolutely had to add some flare. Some nice traditional echidna designs would make a wonderful addition.
After about an hour it started to dawn on her that she may have bitten off more than she could chew. With only one gift completed and no solid plans for anyone else, she was stumped and the last fifteen minutes had been spent twirling a pencil around in her ungloved claws. She likely would have spent fifteen more minutes doing nothing but twirling the pencil around if she had not gotten distracted by the sound of little feet moving in an uneven gait in her direction. The closer the footsteps came the more she was able to make out the sound of laughter as well as annoyed, piratey yells that could only come from one echidna.
Little Z came round the corner moments later with the same mischievous grin and giggle he always wore after a prank went off successfully. She had to commend his skill in pranking, and if one of the prank wars between her and her sister ever made it's way here she would certainly be recruiting the little zombie onto her team before her sister got the chance to.
Lavender peered around the corner expecting to see Dread run in grumbling about whatever mischief Z got up to but her action only made Z giggle even harder.
"If you're looking for Dread, he won't be following."
"He won't be?"
"Uh-uh. I got him with a bucket of soapy water. He's gotta go rinse himself now."
Lavender grew a smile to match Little Z's. Dread did smell awful rather often, it was like he took pride in poor hygiene sometimes. "Well you've saved our noses for a while. Well done, Z." She stood up and gave a little silly bow to Z, which he promptly returned in just as silly of a way
"So that's what I've been up to," He swung his arms back and forth as he spoke. "What are you doing?"
Lavender returned her gaze to her craft and huffed. She wanted it to be a surprise to all, but there was no point in hiding it now that Z was here.
"I wanted to make nice accessories for you all. But now I'm completely stumped. I haven't been here long enough to make anything as special and personalized as i made for my sister."
The little zombie somehow became even more excited and began to bounce on his heels "Oh! Oh! I can help! I know lots of little things the other Knuckles like!"
Lavender perked up and hope that she would actually accomplish this project filled her with energy. "Oh please tell me, i've been stuck for so long on this!"
"Don't worry, I got this!" Z shuffled over, grabbing some paper and pencil on the way and stood next to her. "Nile likes to be all fancy and formal. We gotta make him something that uses lots of traditional markings."
"Ooh and Ren likes to hang round the garden doesn't he? Lets make him something flowery he can put on his hat or something!"
"Good idea! For Cyber we'll have to make it a decoration since he wont be able to wear it, OH! and also I got a great Idea for Wachowski!" The two's voices became almost unintelligible to all but each other from the pure excitement coursing through them and many ideas quickly began to get scribbled down and the project was reignited.
Many hours, an one unfortunate incident with glitter later, and all the gifts were completed.
how'd boom knuckles go to the sanctuary? what was his first thought? did he feel as though he struggled to fit in?
Boom was actually one of the first ones pulled in, mostly because of his calmer demeanor, and more emotionally aware mindset.
Okay, hold on, let's back up a bit.
The Sanctuary, in its original conception, was a place the Master Emerald could tend to the more, shall we say, troubled of her guardians across the universes. (Gnarly, Dread, and Jax being the most obvious examples of this.) Boom would also fit in that category, since our headcanon is that they all suffer from not having a ME in their worlds. The ME's presence keeps the various Knuckleses calm and level-headed (for the most part), and those who don't have one suffer various consequences, such as Boom's spacy thinking, Dread's selfishness and obsessive/possessive mindset, and Gnarly's anxiety. (The Prism Shards didn't help the latter two, either.) So the ME simply wanted a place to pull these outliers, and help them feel more like the Knuckles they should be.
Cyber was created as a kind of AI holographic liaison between the ME and the Knux. He works to keep everything calm and orderly in the Sanctuary.
When Dread arrived, Cyber discovered him to be a bit more than the AI could handle, and pulled Boom in to help de-escalate the pirate's angry freak out.
I have a ficlet in mind that goes through the entire ordeal, but my brain's been a bit mush lately, so I haven't gotten it written yet. But it's coming.
Ironically, Boom's, shall we say, "childlike" mindset allowed him to accept what was going on quicker than most. He's a 'roll with the punches' kinda Knuckles, so it really didn't phase him all that much once he understood what was going on. "A place with a bunch of different mes?? All right!"
He's one of my favorites to play with, and I have a few scenes from Discord with him I need to clean up and post.
