Knuckles the Echidna

**Knuckles the Echidna** (ナックルズ・ザ・エキドゥナ, *Nakkurusu za Ekiduna*) is an anthropomorphic, wild and tough echidna from Angel Island. Personality-wise, he is stubborn and doesn't adapt easily. Once, when he was just lonely traveler, he and Sonic the Hedgehog were rivals, but their differences have been resolved. Despite this, he is rather often irritated or annoyed of Sonic's free spirit (Rouge the Bat once stated that Knuckles had an "inferiority complex"). He is famous as a treasure hunter, a master of every and all martial arts, who is very skilled at a wide variety of many martial art forms and serves as the muscle of Team Sonic.

Headstrong and edgy, Knuckles seems to be getten easily angered, has a fearsome temper with a "chip on his shoulder", and gets annoyed fast about things on the background, but still aloof, tough, and independent, but he still has his soft spots too: he loves nature and is extremely loyal to his friends.

Knuckles' primary ability and dominant traits are his superhuman strength, his arms are so powerful that he can shatter rocks, and the two spikes on each of his knuckle-like gloves, from which his name is derived from, which he can use to climb up walls with ease. He can also trap the wind under his dreadlocks to glide through the air. He also carries a signature Item called the "Shovel Claws", which he uses to dig with ease.

"*Without us? But you know how much I like punching things.*"

—Knuckles the Echidna.

## Appearance

*Voice actor:* Travis Willingham (English), Nobutoshi Canna (Japanese), Sébastien Desjours (French), Maurizio Merluzzo (Italian), Claus-Peter Damitz (German), Sergio Mesa (Spanish)
Knuckles is a red echidna and tan skinned with violet eyes. He has a white crescent symbol on his chest. Knuckles wears two white spiked gloves and red and yellow shoes with green cuffs that were based on the Jamaican flag, like how Sonic's shoes were probably based on the American flag. He was born and originally grew up on Angel Island, but now lives in a cave located at the Scrapyard where he exercises regularly to keep in shape.

He is known to wearing a brown cowboy hat most of the time. The hat has a blue line around with yellow rounds with red five-pointed stars on them. Knuckles is also seen keeping a light-colored travel bag with him (which he would carry on in case of he or along with his team is going somewhere) and keeping blue sun-glasses on mostly for the harder sun lighting.

### In Present Time

His height is 110 cm. (3 ft., 7 in.) 40 kg. (88 lbs.).

### Possible Future

Knuckles closely resembles his own present counterpart in overall characteristics, but is quite drastically different in terms of physical proportions. He is much larger than all of his team-mates, standing over a head taller than Sonic, and is considerably more muscular. He has an incredibly large torso, broad shoulders and thick muscular arms, making him very top-heavy, and possesses as well longer legs and quills.

For attire, Knuckles wears a two pair of red and yellow shoes, designed with wrap-like markings, that have green cuffs and grey metal plates on top. He also has white sports tape wrapped around his hands and knuckle-spikes, the lower half of his arms and legs, and his biceps, making him similar to a Muay Thai boxer.

## Personality

Knuckles is described as a "punch-first-and-keep-punching-until-you-need-a-punch-break" kind of echidna, and the best solution to a problem for him is to smash it to pieces. He is likewise a force to be reckoned with. He is brave, determined and strong of character, but tends to be rather cocky and get into trouble. Knuckles fancies himself very heroic and important which is not entirely without reason, though he can exaggerate his own recollection of his accomplishments.

While he still displays some brooding, headstrong and stubborn attitude, he is, in fact, shown of being better to acknowledge his shortcomings and displays more personal restraint and better social interaction. He still displays some rivalry towards Sonic and tries to hide his feelings of being impressed with Sonic's abilities by saying phrases like, *"You weren't half-bad."* or *"Thanks for the help, not that I needed it!"*.

Also, Knuckles has gotten even better about social ingenuity and is more suspicious concerning Eggman's trickery. Often, Knuckles displays a distrusting demeanor towards strangers and people he thinks has questionable motives, making him rather aggressive towards the person(s) in question; this behavior is not without its reasons however. Despite this, however, Knuckles is often willing to go with Sonic and company on their adventures whenever his help is needed.

Knuckles is the opposite of Sonic: he is stubborn, likes to take his own time and very naïve. He is also just a bit goofy and easily distracted to the point where he is drawn to things as simple as shiny objects.

Though he is cool and determined in battle, Knuckles has an extremely, very, violent, short temper which can easily flare up when he thinks he has been insulted, wronged, tricked or is just confused, and is difficult to talk to or reason with when he is angry. Though his wild temper has often been known to get him into trouble, such as in his interactions with Rouge the Bat, Knuckles has also learned to use it to his advantage by channeling it into his fighting skills and fighting whoever might be threatening his friends or his home.

Despite his rough personality and tough façade though, Knuckles does have a soft spot: he loves nature and is incredibly loyal to his friends. Knuckles is heroic, brave and kind-hearted, being devoted to helping others in trouble, who is always willing to help his friends out in tight situations and will do anything to protect them. Knuckles also has a friendly side, especially towards his friends, or when he's in a good mood. He is also very selfless, risking his life to save anyone, as well as comforting them in a tough situation, even if they are a villain or enemy.

Though not dull-witted, Knuckles is of mediocre intelligence, he seem to know how to repair machines and planes during the time when he's seen repairing the Tornado.

He is prone to rash and ill-advised actions, and is not the one to pick complex strategies. Instead, he often chooses force to be the solution, pushing himself through obstacles while focusing on his goal and ignoring other factors along the way. When in his right element, however, Knuckles can be rather quite clever and sneaky, such as setting several successful traps for an animal or enemy.

Knuckles is said to be shy or uncomfortable around women, which can be backed up by the way which makes him act uncomfortable around girls like Amy, Blaze, and Rouge.

## Relationships

### Friends/Allies

* Thomas Jones
* Team Sonic
	+ Sonic the Hedgehog (Best Friend & Rival)
	+ Tails the Fox (Best Friend)
* Sticks the Badger
* T-Pup
* Buddy Bot
* Team Rose
	+ Amy Rose
	+ Big the Cat
	+ Cream the Rabbit
	+ Cheese the Chao
* Team Chaotix
	+ Vector the Crocodile
	+ Espio the Chameleon
	+ Charmy Bee
* G.U.N.
	+ G.U.N Commander
	+ Hope Robotnik
	+ Topaz
	+ Foxwell Fowler
* Mighty the Armadillo
* Ray the Flying Squirrel
* Moss the Sloth
* Silver the Hedgehog
* Blaze the Cat
* Marine the Raccoon
* Christopher Thorndyke
* Thomas Jones
* Tikal the Echidna
* Charles the Hedgehog
* Vanilla the Rabbit
* Rotor the Walrus
* Bunnie the Rabbot
* Emeral
* Princess Elise the Third
* Shahra the Genie
* Chip (Great Friend)
* Relic the Pika
* Fixit
* Dillon Pickle
* Wisps
	+ Yacker
* NiGHTS
* Shade the Echidna
* Shard the Metal Sonic
* Honey the Cat
* Thorn the Lop
* King Puff
* Queen Angelica
* Striker the Mantis Shrimp
* Echo
* Coral the Beta
* Pearly the Manta Ray
* Razor the Shark
* Crusher the Chao
* Ponies
* Princess Celestia
* Princess Luna
* Princess Cadance
* Twilight Sparkle
* Applejack
* Rarity
* Fluttershy
* Rainbow Dash
* Pinkie Pie
* Dragons
	+ Spyro
	+ Spike
	+ King Warfang
* Dragon Sages
* Cliff
* Q-N-C
* MAIA
* Chef Woody
* Perci
* Foreman Fred
* Doc Ginger
* Hayward
* Pokey
* Hokey
* Tucker
* Salty
* Pepper
* The Ancients
	+ Chronicler
* Freedom Fighters
	+ Sally Acorn
	+ Antoine D'Coolette
	+ Julie-Su

### Family

* Knuckles (Human counterpart)
* Tikal the Echidna (unknown)
* Pachacamac the Echidna (Possible ancestor)
* Athair the Echidna (|great-grandfather)
* Crystal-La (great-grandmother)
* Sabre the Echidna (paternal grandfather)
* Jenna-Lu (paternal grandmother)
* Locke the Echidna (father)
* Lara-Le (mother)
* Kneecaps the Echidna (brother)
* Edmund (fore-father)
* Edmund (Silver's future) (possible descendant)
* Sinbad the Sailor (Arabian Nights counterpart)
* Sir Gawain (Camelot counterpart)
* young Knuckles (Past self)
* Knuckles (Nexus dimensional counterpart)

### Neutral

* Mayor Fink
* Fastidious Beaver
* Team Dark
	+ Shadow the Hedgehog
	+ Rouge the Bat
	+ E-123 Omega
* Thrash the Tasmanian Devil
* Ghost Girl
* Chaos/Perfect Chaos
* E-102 Gamma
* Team Hooligans
	+ Nack the Weasel
	+ Bark the Polarbear
	+ Bean the Dynamite
* Gogobas
* Babylon Rogues
	+ Jet the Hawk
	+ Wave the Swallow
	+ Storm the Albatross
* Breezie the Hedgehog

### Rivals

* Sonic the Hedgehog (friendly old rival)
* Metal Knuckles
* Thrash the Tasmanian Devil (arch-rival)
* Rouge the Bat
* Storm the Albatross (rival in Extreme Gear)

### Enemies

* Eggman Empire
	+ Dr. Eggman
	+ Decoe
	+ Bocoe
	+ Bokkun
	+ Jack Robotnik
	+ Orbot
	+ Cubot
	+ Shadow Androids
* Metal Series
	+ Metal Sonic
	+ Metal Tails
	+ Metal Knuckles (robotic doppelgänger)
	+ Metal Amy
	+ Metal Blaze
	+ Metal Scourge
* E-Series
	+ E-100 Alpha
	+ E-113 Xi
* Egg Army
	+ Thunderbolt
* Ghosts
	+ King Boom Boo
	+ Boo/Boom Boo
	+ Bandanna Ghost
	+ Bow Tie Ghost
* Julian Snively
* Weasel Bandits
* T.W. Barker
* Willy Walrus
* Scourge the Hedgehog
* Fiona Fox
* Biolizard
* Nocturnus Clan
	+ Imperator Ix
* Black Arms
	+ Black Doom
		- Doom's Eye
	+ Black Death
		- Death's Eye
	+ Eclipse the Darkling
* Dark Arms
	+ Blurk
	+ Cyzer
	+ Cregal
	+ Rhygenta
* Solaris
	+ Mephiles the Dark
	+ Iblis
* Ifrit
* Dark Gaia
* Nega-Mother Wisp
* The Time Eater
* Dr. Eggman Nega
* Silver Sonic
* Nightmarens
* The Deadly Six
	+ Zavok (leader)
	+ Zomom
	+ Zeena
	+ Master Zik (founder)
	+ Zazz
	+ Zor
* Lyric the Last Ancient
* Driller Worm

## Abilities and Powers

Like Sonic, Knuckles is able to move fast from place to place, being able to jump high levels and having good fighting skills.

During his journeys and treasure adventures, Knuckles has gained much knowledge and is aware of many things, including the volcanic actions on the north pole.

When in battle, Knuckles' fighting skills is a true force to be reckoned with, as they can be as fearsome to his enemies as his temper. Knuckles mainly relies on his spiked fists to their fullest, using strong and powerful punches, such as powerpacked jabs or piercing uppercuts, to deal damaging blows to his opponents. He is also fast enough to avoid Shadow's Chaos Spears.

### Strength

Knuckles' trademark and domain ability is his incredibly immense amounts of superhuman physical strength, so vast that it enables him to accomplish incredible feats, such as smash and shatter large rocks and boulders to smithereens with his bare fists, hold back Sonic and Shadow's Spin Attack, punch holes through thick steel, tear apart tri-polymer alloy and lift, swing around, objects more times his own size and weight without effort and he could even throw the Mongroun which weights 20.050 tons. His super strength seems to lie in his upper body, particularly in his arms and hands. Knuckles' strength is believed to be equal to Sonic's mundane speed (Mach 1), which would make him able to lift and press 100 metric tons, making him physically stronger than all other characters. Knuckles' strength seems to lie in his upper body, particularly in his arms and fists, the later of which are noted to be as hard as rock.

### Physical Abilities

Like most other characters in the series, Knuckles is quite fast on his feet, being able to run at superhuman speeds, even being able to keeping up with Sonic and Tails' running speed. However, like Tails, he is not quite as fast as Sonic or Shadow at their maximum speed and he runs fairly slow by comparison. Additionally, his high speed does not seem to extend to his upper body, and he has been noted to have slow movements in combat. Over time, Knuckles began to lose some of his speed, but also gain a lot more power.

Knuckles also possess incredible, but near-maximized, physical endurances and durability to match up his strength, and is capable of taking as much major punishments as he is able to deal out, even being able to survive a bomb exploding right in front of him, getting a bump from hitting a falling boulder with his head and was only dazed after being stomped halfway into the ground by the Big Boy. Knuckles is as well strong enough to hold out against an army of robots without rest.

Unlike Sonic, Knuckles is a very experienced swimmer, due to his interest of being a treasure hunter, and can swim to incredible depths and with both great speed and skill.

Knuckles is also shown to have sharp reflexes and acrobatic skills, being able to do special tricks and movements while in mid-air, though he is not nearly as acrobatic as Sonic or Shadow are. To make up for his lack of agility, however, Knuckles possesses a wide range of movement abilities.

By stretching his arms and legs outwards while airborne, Knuckles can catch the current under his dreadlock-like spines, allowing him to glide over long distances through mid-air and can do so with great control over his movements, although it is shown to bemore akin to flying for unknown reasons.

Also, by using the spikes on his gloves he wears, Knuckles can attach himself to walls and climb onto walls or up any kind of surface with ease, no matter the material.

Knuckles is also a proficient burrower by using the Shovel Claws, able to dig into any wall or floor and excels at tunneling through subterranean regions with great speed, even in the hottest furnace of the volcano.

Knuckles also the uncanny ability to sense the Chaos Energy of the Chaos Emeralds from a distance, or objects similar to them, such as the Sol Emeralds. Like Sonic and Shadow, Knuckles can also harness the power of the Chaos Emeralds to empower himself.

### Combat Skills

Knuckles is a very powerful and fierce fighter. He is a master of a wide variety of martial arts, focusing on hand-to-hand combat, and is capable of taking on even the most powerful of opponents without rest, such as when he was able to take down several of the military trained Nocturnus Clan soldiers. Even more so, he has been able to fight Sonic the Hedgehog to a standstill on several occasions. Also, Tails notes that anyone capable of beating Knuckles in a fight must be very powerful and dangerous, a testament of his amazing fighting abilities.

#### Fighting Style

When in battle, Knuckles makes the most use of his powerful arms and fists to take on his foes, with his specialty lying in punching moves where he uses his spiked fists to their fullest. In terms of fighting style, Knuckles' focuses specially on power, using strong and powerful punches, such as power-packed jabs or piercing uppercuts, to deal damaging blows to his opponents. Once he catches an opponent in his combos, he keep them trapped by keeping up his strikes, not allowing his opponents a chance to counterattack. For stronger strikes, Knuckles tend to build up momentum with his fists by swinging them around, before hitting his opponent with full force. In his Major Eruption move in *Sonic Battle*, Knuckles takes advantage of his burrowing abilities, hiding underground and hitting opponents with an uppercut as he leaps out when his opponent least expects it.

#### Techniques and Moves

Knuckles' various moves and techniques revolves around his trademark Punch Attack, where he attacks his opponents with various punching combos, including surrounding his fists with fire. His Spiral Upper attack allows him to strike foes that are above him with a spinning uppercut, and his Drill Claw attack sends him spiraling down on his foes from above. For wider impacts, Knuckles can use either his Hammer Punch or Knuckle Slam to create wide tremors or explosions that effect everything within their effect range.

Knuckles has also been shown being able to use Sonic's trademark Spin Attack and Spin Dash to curl himself up and spin into a spiky ball when in motion that can damage, destroy or mow down many obstacles or foes or even burrow underground. He does, however, not use these moves or their variants, such as the Homing Attack, as often as Sonic and Shadow do.

When gliding, Knuckles can also use his Grinding Knuckles Attack in a conjunction with his movements, using the spikes on his fists to damage any foes he comes into contact with during his descend. With his Maximum Heat Knuckles Attack, Knuckles glides through air at high speeds, destroying any foes within his attack range.

### Attacks

* Boost Mode
* Climb
* Dash Punch
* Dig
* Double Punch
* Drill Claw
* Fire Combination
* Fire Dunk
* Fireball Jump
* Fist Screw
* Gail Meteor
* Glide
* Gravity Control
* Gravity Dive
* Grinding Knuckles Attack
* Ground Shaker
* Guard
* Hammer Attack
* Hammer Punch
* Hard Line (requires Shadow and Shade)
* Head Slide
* Homing Attack
* Jump Dash
* Knuckles Express (requires Shadow)
* Knuckles Punch
* Knuckles Sandwich (requires Sonic and Amy)
* Knuckle Slam
* Maximum Heat Knuckles Attack
* Meteor Crush
* Mid-Air Trick Actions
* Power Flash
* Punch Attack
* Quake Punch
* Revolver Slam (requires Sonic)
* Roar
* Rock Free-Fall
* Screwdriver
* Sonic Overdrive (Team Blast that requires Sonic and Tails)
* Spin Attack
* Spin Dash
* Spin Jump
* Spinning Back punch
* Spiral Attack
* Spiral Upper
* Tag Action
* Thunder Arrow
* Triangle Dive
* Uppercut
* Volcanic Dunk

### Skills

* Super strength
* Super speed
* Enhanced durability
* Wall climbing
* High acrobatic skills and reflexes
* Burrowing
* Limited geokinesis
* Gliding
* Grinding
* Hand-to-hand combat skills
* World class treasure hunter skills
* World-class Extreme Gear rider
* Experienced swimmer
* Controlling the Master Emerald
* Sensing the Chaos Emeralds
* Harnessing Chaos Energy
	+ Hyper Mode initiation
	+ Super transformation

### Miscellaneous Skills

Knuckles is expert treasure hunter, which is shown during his several hunts for Emerald Shards, and can be considered one of the best treasure hunters in the world, if no the best. While not exactly highly intelligent, he seem to know how to repair machines and planes during the time when he's seen repairing the Tornado.

Knuckles has been shown to possess some mystical abilities of his own on several occasions, such as some limited geokinetic abilities, such as harnessing elemental earth energies to protect or heal himself, or calling forth meteor-like rocks from above to strike his opponents, which is described as "supernatural control of earth". Also, he can call forth lightning bolts called Thunder Arrows to strike and stunt his opponents.

Knuckles has also proven himself to be a skilled Extreme Gear, having shown himself a worthy competitor against many of the world's best Extreme Gear riders. To best put his skills in perspective, Knuckles was able to beat Storm the Albatross in a race, who is a part of the world's best Extreme Gear rider team, the Babylon Rogues. When riding his Extreme Gear at high speeds, Knuckles can bash his way through certain obstacles effortlessly, and, when someone gets near him on their Extreme Gear, he can engage in close combat with his opponents, without losing control over his Extreme Gear.

### Transformations

Like Sonic and Shadow, Knuckles has the ability to power up into stronger forms of himself, usually by using Chaos Energy from the Chaos Emeralds and Super Emeralds. These transformations grants Knuckles overall improved physical abilities, such as greater strength and speed, and abilities he did not have access to before.

#### Super Knuckles

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With the seven Chaos Emeralds, Knuckles is able to become **Super Knuckles**. In this mode, Knuckles glows Pink, as opposed to most other character's Golden glow. When Knuckles is in his Super State, he gains invincibility and all his powers and natural abilities are enhanced up to their full limit. Super Knuckles is several times faster and more powerful, and can climb walls twice as fast and fly.

### Weaknesses

Despite being a powerhouse in close combat, as stated by Sonic, only Knuckles' certain fighting moves are slow and easy to read, making Knuckles more vulnerable to those who give themselves time to read his moves.