Disclaimer: I own no one, except for the random characters that are most likely not important.

Chapter -1: Too Polite?

An Echidna was walking through the streets of a small village near a small forest. He walked with hands in his pockets and his footsteps measuring a perfectly equal distance from each other. He glanced around and saw that pretty much everyone on the streets was staring at him. Well, he didn't blame them. Maybe it was his somewhat ornate blue military clothes, or his rectangular glasses that glowed a different color upon a change of angle with the sun, or his unusual height, or even that his hair was a sort of golden brown; from what he'd seen in this village, black, brown, and even blue fur were common, but apparently his fur color was unusual. He then got hungry and walked over to the nearest vendor.

He surveyed the stands for the most crisp and ripe apple. He picked one up and asked the vendor, "How much?" "One Dollop," said the Vendor. The Echidna remained silent. "What, too cheap for you? Fine, two dollops." "It's not that," said the Echidna. "I'm just curious: What kind of animal are you?"

"Hey, can we please skip the everyday pleasantries and get on with business?"

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry. I see you have many customers waiting for you, my mammalian friend." He motioned behind him to emphasize that no one was there.

"Five dollops!" said the vendor, getting annoyed. "Watch your mouth around here, Smart Aleck. Saying the wrong thing, especially in that sarcastic tone of yours—"

"My name is not 'Aleck'."

"Well, then, what is your name, hmm?"

"Can we please skip the everyday pleasantries and get on with business?" said the Echidna, reaching into his pocket.

Getting frustrated, the vendor stood up. "Okay, I've just about had it with—" Then the Echidna held out a silver coin. "…Silver?"

"I'm sorry, but I don't seem to have this 'dollop' currency of yours, but…"

The vendor took it and held it up to the sun to see. "Is it real?" he asked. "Bite it," said the Echidna. The vendor scowled. "That's for gold." "Oh, is that what you call it?" The vendor rolled his eyes. "So, what, you want all of my fruit?"

The Echidna chuckled. "No, I just felt that this would pay for the time I wasted." He saluted the vendor with the apple in his hand, took a bite and went on his way. "Too polite…" the vendor grumbled.

The vendor was looking at the silver coin, having not seen something so valuable in a long time. The markings on it did not math their language, and even the year did not match. Suddenly a shadowy figure blocked the sun. "What's that you've got there, Carlisle?"

"None of your business, Preston!" said the vendor, trying to hide the coin. Preston was a huge, brown Fox who wore a red and green uniform, and was accompanied by five others, all of which surrounded Carlisle the fruit vendor. Preston grabbed his arm and took the silver coin. Preston chuckled. "Looks like you've been holding out on us, eh?" He then shoved Carlisle.

The golden Echidna had not gone far and he looked back at the elevating conflict. There was a mother and her child close by, so he asked, "Who are those people harassing the vendor?" The mother was about to answer, but the child spoke instead, "Those're mean, evil monsters!" "Jimmy! Not so loud! They'll hear you!" The Echidna Looked back at the fruit stand. The "monsters" were beating the vendor up. He smirked and began to walk towards them.

Before long, all of Carlisle's profits for the day had been literally beaten out of him. Preston was dissatisfied with how much that exactly was. Carlisle was covered in blood and could barely move. "This will pay nicely," said Preston, "for the amount of my time you wasted." He turned to leave, but in his way was a Echidna wearing blue clothing, eating an apple. Preston waited a second for the man to move aside, but he didn't move. 'What disrespect! He isn't even looking me in the eye!' Preston thought. He growled. The Echidna jerked a bit in response and looked up into Preston's eyes. Although surprised, the Echidna held no fear in his eyes, nor any malice against him. "Oh, excuse me," said the Echidna finally. "Am I in your way?" Preston's face scrunched up and his face flushed with anger. No one, and seriously, NO ONE had dared to speak so casually to him, not even his subordinates! "Yes, you are," he said, teeth clenched.

"Well, I'm not very fat. I'm actually pretty thin. I'm sure someone as… 'smart' as you can find your way around me." He turned away from Preston to some random direction and continued with his apple.

Not looking directly into his superior's eyes.

Speaking to him in a casual manner

Indirectly calling him dumb

Refusal to obey orders

Ignoring him

'Must be a new guy, but I'll set him straight!' he thought.

"MOVE!!" Preston yelled.

"Oh, I'm sorry. If I'm being such a nuisance to you, I guess I should just move," said the Echidna. He noticed that all activity in the marketplace stopped and all eyes were on him.

"Yes, you should!"

"But then again…" the crowd got tense. He could feel it. "I love being a nuisance." He turned again to eat his apple as the crowd gasped and murmured.

Preston roared and did an uppercut to the Echidna, but he found that he missed and the Echidna was leaning against the wall, still eating the apple. "Oh, great," said Preston. "Don't tell me you can move at super-sonic speeds…"

"No," said the Echidna. "Your roar clearly gave away that you were going to attack, and your temper had you try and attack as quickly and as powerfully as possible." He got off the wall and started to pace a little. "Based on both of our positions, the quickest jab you could do would be an uppercut. Also, I watched you beat that poor fruit vendor to a pulp. You grabbed with your left hand and punched with your right, indicating that you're right-handed, meaning that your best upper cut would be with your right hand. I stood only a couple of paces front of you, but my center of mass was slightly more to your left, making it all the more easier to dodge, and make it look like it was a piece of cake. However, in reality, it really is." The crowd let off an impressed murmur. He noticed that the "monster's" lackeys were slowly surrounding him, but he pretended not to notice.

"You're smarter than you look, new guy," said Preston, slightly impressed but much more embarrassed and enraged.

"And you're not as smart as you look, and that's saying something; your strategy is just as good as any monster's—oh, I see why some of these people call you monsters!" He saw a mother hide her child from Preston's view.

Preston growled and gave a sort of signal. Preston's men popped out of random places, further surrounding the echidna, and a couple of archers stood on the tops of buildings with bows at the ready.

The Echidna pushed up his glasses. With the way he pushed them, they gave off a menacing glare that didn't blind, but intimidated. "Oh, so you want to fight?" he said nonchalantly.

Preston the fox drew his great-sword and roared again. It was apparently a signal, as the two archers fired. The Echidna took only a couple steps forward and he missed both arrows. The archers seemed surprised and the Echidna explained, "The best way to avoid an archer's arrow is not to move back, but to move in a line perpendicular to the archer's line of fire. That works best with one archer, and there are two of you, but you're positioned on the exactly the same line, and I can't believe you didn't try and attack me while I was vulnerable! Turbulence!"

The archers were sent flying by two pseudo-tornadoes. Preston laughed. "Haha! We have a magician amongst us!" everyone (except the crowd of civilians) laughed. The Echidna scowled. One of the archers had fallen to his death already, and the other had fallen onto the fence of a nearby stable, and he was having a slow, painful death.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," said the Echidna, "but I believe 'magicians' are merely illusionists."

"Um, yeah, they kinda are."

"Well, I, sir, am a man of science. However, I do know a few tricks. Want to see them?" the Echidna raised an arm and closed his eyes.

"O, Heavenly spring, grant me the power of thine purity!" A puddle formed around one of them and it grew larger. The man panicked. "Oh, calm down," said the Echidna, and he did. Then, huge bubbles appeared and one of them engulfed the man and he started floating. A few impressed cheers came from both the civilians and Preston's small army, but then, the Echidna smirked.

"Blessed Drops!"

The supposedly harmless bubbles then burst in high-pressured streams of water, killing all who surrounded them.

Some of the ones left alive charged at him. He easily dodged their blows and was nice enough to block one of their swords from killing another. He staggered back a bit, clutching the resulting wound. He was a great military officer, but he was not used to fighting close combat. He yelled to the civilians, "Run!"

The battle continued as the civilians ran for cover. He eventually had enough room to cast another spell. "O Lord of the Earth, let your Fangs destroy my enemy! Ground Dasher!" Spikes that were too sharp to be called stalagmites erupted from the ground and killed the ones closest to him. Others came up from behind and he quickly raised his arm to cast another spell. "Oh, Flames of Hell, rise up and imprison my enemies in a cage of fire! Infernal Prison!" Then, a spiral of runes shot up from a rune that appeared on the ground and there was nothing left of those soldiers. More kept coming at him. 'Looks like I'll have to take out the leader as usual,' he thought.

He jumped over them and started towards Preston. Preston had learned not to leave himself open as he had before, so he dropped his big sword and drew a smaller one and slashed as the Echidna jumped at him, completely surprised at the second weapon.

Preston smiled triumphantly, but he saw that the Echidna had blocked his attack with some sort of spear. 'What!?' He thought. 'Where the hell did that come from!?' Then, in a flash, the spear disappeared and the Echidna kicked him to the side. Preston was slammed into a wall and the Echidna stuck his landing. He looked around. The enemies left alive were exhausted, and didn't dare try to attack him. "Your soldiers are exhausted already? That just shows how corrupt your 'leader' is," he said. In a flash, the spear appeared again in his hand and he aimed it at Preston's neck. The echidna's face remained indifferent while Preston's was filled with fear for his life. "You're a terrible soldier," the Echidna said. The spear disappeared and the Echidna started walking out of the town.

"Hey!" yelled Preston. The echidna stopped and looked back at him. "…Why aren't you going to finish me off?" The Echidna was silent for a while. "Mainly because I pity your sorry existence." Preston got angry, but he kept calm. The echidna was cruel, but he didn't want them to know that he was really trying to stop his killing streak. He had already caused enough trouble in his own world…

"I see why you don't trust polite people," said the Echidna to Carlisle, who had regained consciousness in the midst of the battle. It was on that note that the Golden Brown echidna finally left the village in peace.

Preston then got up. "Okay, now that that's taken care of—" He then saw many of the civilians surrounding him, with Carlisle in front. "H-hey," said Preston, starting to get afraid again. "Y-you know what happens when you go against your leaders!" Carlisle spoke up. "You're not our leader. Not anymore."

As the Echidna walked down the dirt path, he heard a clamor coming from the village he had just left. However, the ignored it and kept walking.

--

"Where is he!?" said a red-haired human, getting impatient waiting for the Colonel. "Calm down, Luke," said a woman who was quietly sitting next to the impatient one. "Colonel said he had something important to do."

"OH, SHUT UP, TEAR!" said Luke. "We're so close to home, after so long, and then the Colonel just has to do something 'important'!"

"Luke, it's not always about you," scolded a tall, handsome guy who was leaning against the wall. "But the Miners' Town isn't going to collapse that quickly, so have some patience, will ya?"

"But, Guy, all he said to me was that he was going to check out if Baticul had any records of Akzeriuth's mining processes, and that wouldn't take very long… I'm getting worried…" said a young girl who wore a rag doll on her back like a backpack and had huge pigtails.

"GRAAHH!! He's just holding us back!!" yelled Luke. "I'm heading out to the Air-Cars now! Wait around forever if you want, but I'm going to save Akzeriuth because I'm the ambassador!" Everyone groaned. Ever since the King, Luke's Uncle, gave him the title of Ambassador, Luke has been bragging about it to no end.

"Fine," said Tear. "You go ahead and get yourself killed."

"Are you saying I can't defend myself!?"

"I'm saying you won't survive in that factory alone!"

"Then let's go!!"

"No. We're waiting for the Colonel!"

"We're going through the factory!"

"We're waiting!"

"We're going!"

"Waiting!!"

"Going!!"

"SHUT UP!!" said Guy, interjecting. "Okay, if you guys could shut up for a minute—"

Then Tear and Luke said simultaneously, "But s/he started it!"

Guy sighed. "You know what, let's go to the factory." Luke cheered and headed towards the Air-Cars. The rest started to follow him, but Tear said to Guy, "but what about the Colonel?" "He'll be fine," reassured Guy. "But think about it: would you rather consent with Luke on this one, or Stick around and listen to all his whining?"

Tear thought a moment. "Good point," she said, "but I'm still worried…"

Oh noes! Will the Colonel ever be found??

Just kidding. You know where he is already :P Yes, I turned Jade into a Sonic character. Deal with it, as the others will become anthros as well :P

Okay, Chronology: if it isn't obvious, this takes place just before the party enters the factory to sneak out of Baticul, where they would meet Natalia. Oh, and don't worry, Sonic and the crew will appear soon enough :P

There will be some parings, but all I'm going to say is that they involve Jade and Anise. Interpret however you want!! You are most likely wrong! XD

Oh, I also may have done the incantations incorrectly; I only borrowed the game from my friend and I wrote this story after I returned it, but whatever.

Acknowledgements: none… oh, I thank the Tales Series for being so AWESOME!!!