95. Knuckles the Echidna #11
The Forgotten Tribe (Part Two of Three) - Covenant
Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Manny Galan Colors: Barry Grossman
Despite the dire circumstances, and Knuckles' anxiety, Athair proclaims that nobody is going to die today, only shouting it louder as one echidna lets go of his wife's feet to give her and his child a better chance at hanging on. To everyone's surprise, instead of falling, he floats, saved by some mystical power Athair exerts to keep him aloft. With that, the rescue effort begins, with Knuckles and Athair working together to make sure no one falls into the lava below. Knuckles dives for one echidna who's about to hit the lava, and while he catches him safely, Knuckles ends up splashing directly through the molten rock in doing so.
Yanar watches in awe from the sidelines as Athair raises everyone out of harm's way all at once, floating in the air to safety, and is amazed that Knuckles appears to have some sort of power too given how instantly his injuries healed. Once everyone is away from the lava, they make camp for the night. Meanwhile, back in Echidnaopolis, the Chaotix have run through a rainstorm (probably still the effects of the Day of Fury) to Remington's office.
Oh boy, this will go well!
That night in the echidna camp, Knuckles finally questions Athair about why he abandoned his own role as Guardian years and years ago. He begins to recount his childhood, starting with following his mother around the Floating Island learning from her all the duties of a Guardian. Once he was old enough, she did something that should look very familiar to us…
I guess this is something all Guardians go through once they came of age to take over their parent's duties. Unlike Knuckles, who was (and is) consumed with a burning need for answers, Athair was content to carry on his duties and wait for answers to come to him instead - and come they did, in the form of the Ancient Walkers whisking him away to see the group of wandering, homeless echidnas, just as Athair did to Knuckles last issue. The echidnas began to call him "Mitre," which was their title for the guide who would lead them to journey's end, at the fabled city called Albion. The Walkers then took Athair to Haven, where he met up with his mother once again, who explained that she had been "called away for a greater purpose."
Those few panels already make Janelle-Li sound like the best Guardian and parent we've seen so far, totally the opposite of Locke. She happily stepped in to take her son's place so he could go fulfill his destiny elsewhere, trusting him and helping him actively. Athair took up his place as Mitre of the tribe down on the surface, and eventually met his future wife, Crystal-La.
That's an interesting term for falling in love, "succumb to the Soultouch." Wonder if we'll hear any more on exactly what that entails…
Anyway, with Athair's mother dying, he still refused to go back to being Guardian, believing his duty as Mitre was more important, and sent his son Sabre, Knuckles' grandfather and Locke's father whom we saw before, to take up her duties instead. Sabre left angrily, believing his father was shirking his duties and his rightful place, and became the next Guardian, leaving Athair as the only one in the long line of Guardians to step down and pursue a different path. However, Athair and the tribe's troubles on the surface were not yet over…
That's pretty tragic - but keep in mind we are talking about something that could only have happened within the last ten years at most. Athair is ancient at this point. Let's assume that Mobians age at the same rate as humans, that Guardians tend to have children at the age of twenty-five, and that Crystal-La was barely eighteen when they married - with Knuckles being sixteen now, that would mean that Athair is about ninety-one years old currently, with Crystal-La being a spry young woman of seventy-three. In all possibility Athair and the others are even older, I'm not sure if there's an exact timeline of births and deaths I can check somewhere, but Athair, I get losing your wife was sad and all, but she's not a Guardian. She would have died soon anyway due to old age, and while the manner of her "death" is certainly very tragic, you spent a long, happy life of married bliss together (albeit with many hardships for the tribe along the way) and even if she's gotten her mind back now, which is certainly a possibility, if she ever gets turned back she's just going to grow a bit older and then die in a few years anyway. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh on him about this, but I do know that she was never mentioned again in the comic, meaning she's likely lost for good. Sad for Athair, but again, this is kind of like thinking Ellie's death in Up is the most tragic thing in the movie when we just saw a montage five minutes ago of her and Carl living an entire full life together up till very old age.
Anyway, back to the story - ever since then, Athair has continued to watch over his tribe and act as an agent on the Ancient Walkers' behalf, as though they were a patron deity (or deities) of sorts. Knuckles, exhausted from all that hard work of listening to Athair's stories, decides to go to bed, and in the morning awakens to find Athair gone, "following the Ancient Walkers" once again, with Yanar insisting that he's left Knuckles in charge of the tribe. Knuckles reluctantly begins to lead them, and encounters a sign indicating they're entering the Kingdom of Mercia, which if you remember was mentioned on that map of Mobius in Sonic Super Special #2, in an area vaguely analogous to Europe. He's quickly interrupted by a request from a young lady from the tribe.
So this is Mari-An, and she's a badass. Knuckles, appropriately, is impressed and even asks her somewhat jokingly if she's related to Julie-Su by any chance. Knuckles and Mari-An split up within the woods to find her two brothers, while Yanar holds the tribe in place - something which doesn't last long, as some robots appear out of nowhere and begin grabbing people, Yanar being the first. He's thrown into a dungeon with two familiar faces…
Hey Sonic and Tails! Looks like you've gotten yourself into a bit of trouble since last time we saw ya, eh? Moreover, there's a Sonic clone aiming a bow and arrow at Knuckles! We'll find out who he is and what his deal is next issue, but seriously, another Sonic clone? How many plotlines in all of Sonic media have relied on someone being mistaken for him? I'd like to think, based on this, that despite Sonic's vivid and unique appearance to us, he's actually extremely average-looking for a Mobian hedgehog, the equivalent of your typical brown-haired light-skinned medium-height male in America blending in with a sea of other similar-looking white guys. It doesn't necessarily make any sense how people mistake someone like, say, Shadow for him from a distance, given the wildly different color scheme, but I like the idea nonetheless.
