The Adventures of Knuckles and Hawk

"The Adventures of Knuckles and Hawk" (ナックルズ！怒りの鉄拳 Nakkuruzu! Ikari no Tekken?, lit. "Knuckles! Clenched Fists of Anger") is the seventeenth episode of the anime series, Sonic X. It first aired on 27 July 2003 and 24 January 2004 in Japan and the United States respectively.

Appearances
Characters:
 * Sonic the Hedgehog
 * Miles "Tails" Prower
 * Knuckles the Echidna
 * Tikal
 * Amy Rose
 * Rouge the Bat
 * Hawk
 * Bruiser Boys
 * Li Yan
 * Doctor Eggman
 * Decoe
 * Bocoe
 * E-91 Lady Ninja

Japanese version

 * "SONIC DRIVE" - Opening theme
 * "The Shining Road" - Closing theme

English version

 * "Gotta Go Fast" - Opening theme (USA and CAN)
 * "Sonic X" - Opening theme (AUS, NZ and UK)
 * "Gotta Go Fast" (shortened) - Closing theme

Plot
Knuckles retells the story of his adventures that are seen in the episode which first took place a couple of months ago. He first discovers some ancient ruins and enters in to investigate until he hears a voice of someone begging for help. Knuckles smashes his way through the ruins and rescues a trapped man named Hawk and they both escaped from the ruins. Knuckles soon discovers two weeks later that Hawk has retrieved a treasure from those ruins that both the echidna and Hawk are looking for: a red Chaos Emerald.

Curious as ever, Knuckles decides to pay a visit to his new friend who lives in Oriental City. He first stops at a bar, bringing a lot of attention by the customers in there, including Decoe and Bocoe who are both disguised. Knuckles questions the bar-server for the whereabouts of Hawk but he replies that he knows nothing about it. Some men, known as the "Bruiser Boys", in the bar then engaged a fight against Knuckles until Li Yan intervenes who says he will lead Knuckles to Hawk. Meanwhile the disguised Decoe and Bocoe return back to the Egg Fort and explained everything to Dr. Eggman what they heard. The doctor then proceeds to carry out his plans by choosing a robot from his Selection Machine.

Meanwhile, Li Yan leads Knuckles into a building and tricks Knuckles by activating a trapdoor under Knuckles' feet, causing him to fall through a passage which led him into Hawk's cell. Hawk, as surprised as ever, told him that he did found a Chaos Emerald but fortunately managed to hide it before being imprisoned. Just before Hawk is about to say where he hid the emerald, Knuckles covers Hawk's mouth before he could finish his sentence, realizing that every sound they make is recorded since Knuckles is pointing to a speaker in the cell. The two quickly got into a conversation in order to change the subject with Hawk mainly discussing about the lifestyle experience in the cell. Afterwards, Knuckles yelled at the speaker at the top of his voice causing Li Yan recording to pass out. The Bruiser Boys come to his aid and then quickly ran to the cell where Knuckles and Hawk are imprisoned only to realize that the duo escaped. Running away from the prison, Knuckles and Hawk rode on a rickshaw.

Not realizing that Rouge the Bat is following them, the two travelers arrive at the old factory district of the oriental city and walked towards what seems to be an abandoned subway tunnel. While Rouge follows them, she suddenly gets struck by the rickshaw driver. Soon, Hawk is able to excavate the Chaos Emerald with his bare hands. However, Eggman intervenes and demands the Chaos Emerald. Knuckles proceeds to attack him but it appears to be a hologram which fizzled quickly on contact. The next thing that happens is that Hawk begs for help when the rickshaw driver launches a chain at Hawk's hand. From the sound of Eggman's voice, the rickshaw driver reveals herself as Eggman's new robot E-91 Lady Ninja: a robotic "kunoicihi", or Lady Ninja. Knuckles engages a fight with Lady Ninja only to cause the ground above to collapse into the subway tunnel.

Fortunately, Knuckles and Hawk escaped from the landslide alive but the Chaos Emerald remains buried beneath the rocks. Back at Hawk's home, Knuckles discovers two metallic claws which are his trademark "Shovel Claws". Returning back to the collision site with his newly equipped Shovel Claws, he burrows through the rocks and not long, he retrieves the Chaos Emerald but Hawk is then kidnapped. Bokkun flies by, sending a message from Dr. Eggman who demands the Chaos Emerald in exchange for Hawk.

Later that night, Knuckles climbs to the top of the building where Lady Ninja awaits him and Hawk is seen tied to the edge of a crane out in the open air. Knuckles throws the bag holding the Emerald into the air, but then a card gets tossed with timing to knock it away from Lady Ninja's hands; Rouge is seen to have thrown the card. As Rouge and Lady Ninja pursue the Emerald, Knuckles uses the fight as an opportunity to rescue Hawk. As Lady Ninja demands it, Rouge grabs a weapon and shoots the robot but Lady Ninja throws a shuriken that cuts open the bag, leaving it to drop back down to the ground. Knuckles knocks away the Emerald before Lady Ninja but he crashes into a wall. Hawk grabs the Emerald and runs while the robot turns towards his direction and launches a chain towards him. Knuckles tosses a plate which deflected the chain right back at Lady Ninja, striking her down.

As Hawk continues to flee away from the scenery, he finds himself a dead-end. Frozen with fear, the Emerald mysteriously disappears out of his hands and Lady Ninja steps out of the shadow, thanking him and proceeds to run until Knuckles stops the robot in her tracks. The two have a fight and Knuckles gets paralyzed with Lady Ninja's static strings. Hawk however, splashes water on the robot, short-circuiting her and Knuckles delivers the final blow by launching an uppercut into the air. Knuckles shakes hands with Hawk and during the next day, Knuckles proceeds to leave Oriental City with the Chaos Emerald while Hawk tearfully bedes farewell, the echidna promises to return to the city someday. While holding onto his Chaos Emerald, Knuckles receives a vision of the Master Emerald's altar in Angel Island with a female voice saying "The servers are the seven Chaos...". The episode ends as Knuckles mutters to himself what the phase means to him.

Regional differences

 * The following scenes have been edited:


 * In the Japanese version, when Hawk is held hostage, Knuckles gives the female ninja the emerald to free Hawk and when he tosses the emerald to the female ninja, a "Thank You" card flies at the emerald to make it miss the ninja's hand. This scene is extended in the English version, which shows Rouge throwing the "Thank You" card at the emerald.
 * In the English dub, the two second flashback of Amy and Tails watching the Chaos Control explosion from "Chaos Control Freaks" was cut.
 * In the English dub, the four seconds flashback of the Chaos Control explosion enveloping Big the Cat from "Chaos Control Freaks" was cut.
 * In the Japanese version, when discovering the bug device, Knuckles talks about how the food in this city is delicious, with Hawk joining in on about tons of foods and that some of them are fatty. In the English dub, Knuckles talks about how cozy the jail cell is while Hawk talks about baked beans and how they were bad a few days ago.
 * In the Japanese version, Eggman introduced E-91 with the following comment: "Sometimes she's a driver... sometimes she's a female guard... and sometimes she's a sexy dancer! But her true identity is E-91, Ku-no-i-chi!". In the English dub, Eggman just says not to judge by appearances.
 * In the English dub, some of the Chinese text are erased from the headline in the news report and replaced with "BUILDING COLLAPSE!".
 * In the English dub, the label on the box that's next to Hawk when he is trapped in the alley is changed from white Chinese text into a "no fire" symbol in the English dub.

Trivia

 * Sonic and his friends do not appear in this episode, although Sonic was mentioned in this episode, plus Tails and Amy were seen in a flashback.
 * When the episode first aired in the English version, in the ending where Knuckles stands in front of the Master Emerald shrine, a female voice is heard, "Seven Chaos Emeralds, the mystery will be revealed". With Knuckles repeating the words and wondering what it meant. When it aired the second time, the voice is slightly different and it says, "The servers are the seven chaos." It it unknown why this change was made.
 * This might have been because 4Kids finally realized that the series is based on Sonic Adventure;  "The servers are the seven Chaos" is a quote from that game.
 * Despite the English version of animes normally censor firearms, Rouge is seen holding a gun in both the Japanese and English versions.