Sonic was jerked awake by the sound of a guard whacking the steel bars of the door with his sword, and watched in the torches light, as a basket containing their rations was slid into their cell.

He then turned his head to the barred cell window, making sure not to hit the now waking Cream with his dirty spines, and stared out to find the sun hadn't risen above the horizon yet. Considering it was mid spring they had at least an hour until sunrise came. That meant an hour for the group to eat before another day of labour.

Lime eyes settled upon Knuckles as he straightened out his brown shirt and walked toward the basket and looked inside.

"What we got?" Silver asked as Blaze fisted his shirt in her hand.

"Um...the usual. Bread, apples, a few pieces of what we can't exactly call meat and some water" Knuckles said as he unloaded the cloth wrapped items.

"Clean?" Rouge asked, peering into the medium jug.

"More than usual" Was the guardians reply.

They split the food and began eating, the guys had the small bits of meat. Blaze had pointed out, seeing as though they were forced to do manual labour, they needed all the strength they could get to be able to do their work. Or they'd be heading for The Ring.

Most males, and even more disgustedly, some females were thrown into the ring with Kronus' soldiers, forced to fight to the death. It was appalling but the King seemed to find it amusing.

They had finished their rations for the day and soon after the guards had pulled their cell door open. They stalked in and aimed their spears at the group "Up. Now" One ordered.

Silver cast a confused glance around the room and it was returned as they climbed to their feet. Usually the guards would open their door and they would be yanked to their feet and beaten if they weren't awake..

One of the guards pointed his spear at Shadow, who remained on the floor "I said get up!". The armour clad Mobian growled and stalked closer to the motionless hedgehog, pulling his spear back.

"Stand down, Brother" A cool voice spoke out.

All heads turned to the door to find a black hedgebat with burnt orange quills. His body was covered in a burgundy cloak, it hid his torso but it looked like he would be rather lanky though he had the muscle his brother owned, just not the broadshoulderedness. There was a lump on his back, where the cloak covered his wings. Half breeds were frowned upon here. Any half breed would be tortured then thrown into the arena to fight.

The aforementioned armoured Mobian lowered his spear and the burgundy clad hedgebat strode forward and held out a hand towards Shadow, in order to help him up.

The red striped hedgehog only glared up at the hedgebat, causing him to sigh. "Look, I know how this looks but you need to come with us, we're here to help".

Silence settled and unbelieving looks were thrown around. Cream and Tails looked at their elders in hope, could there be an escape from this place?

The armoured Mobian growled "We don't have time for this! Jason and Fauna are out there risking their lives to save this lot!".

The cloaked Mobian rounded on his brother "I am well aware of that James, but you know as well as I do that they are capable of looking after themselves".

James snorted and turned back to his men, his amber eyes glowing "If they get hurt, I'm blaming you, Eros".

"Fine by me, but they won't" Eros turned from his brother and faced Sonic "We won't hurt you but we have to leave now, we can get you back home" He paused "To Mobius".

Astonished silence settled over the group and their wide eyes slowly traveled from Eros to Sonic. The blue hedgehog studied the hedgebat closely, surely nothing worse could possibly happen to them. The worst would be them all being forced into the ring but the boys were strong fighters, they could take the girls and Tails' place and fight for them.

Slowly, Sonic nodded. "Alright, we'll go with you" A relieved smile crossed Eros' face "But first, I want proof, how do I know you aren't just screwing us over?"

Eros' smile wavered slightly before he reached into his cloak and brought out a thin golden chain, hanging from it was a golden ring. It had a pattern of a hedgehog, curled into Sonic's famous spindash attack printed on the front. Mobius' royal seal.

As if it was the master key to a command in all of their heads the team stood and allowed themselves to be shepherded out of the cell they had learnt to call home.

James and his men managed to eliminate any threat that appeared, though there were few. Sonic and friends were lead down a dark corridor, it was cobblestoned and damp, the odd drip could be heard between the ragged gasps of breath from the escapees.

Sonic's hand remained clenched around the necklace chain as his other pressed Tails close to him as they ran. Whatever this Eros had done to get them out of here, it was certainly working.

"The latch is just up ahead, it comes up right on the other side of the kingdoms boundaries. When we're out we can make a run for the forest, there's a small path that's where we'll meet the carriages" James reported.

"We need to hurry, who knows how long Fauna and Jason can keep them distracted" A dark orange hedgehog said as he held his lit torch higher, illuminating the walkway.

Eros shook his head "You know how Fauna is, she can keep a fire going for as long as we need, Jonathon, and no doubt Jason's protective side has kicked in, he will keep them both safe".

"Who's this?" Knuckles asked, moving a slightly disgusted Rouge away from a pile of questionable substances.

James laughed shortly "You don't think we can get you guys out of here if we didn't have a distraction so we could get in in the first place did you?".

"Guess not"

Soon the group came to a barred window in the ceiling and Jonathan stepped forward and reached up "Let's hope Nick kept to his promise and unlocked the drain grate" His fists wrapped round the metal bars and lifted the drain grate open.

Rouge paled slightly "Drain grate?".

"Yeah".

"So this is a sewer?"

"Yeah"

"Gross!"

"Rouge" Blaze scolded, pulling Cream closer in hope she wouldn't catch anything.

"Yeah, yeah. I know, We've had worse" The tan bat stated with a roll of her teal eyes.

"Anyway!" Eros announced gesturing towards James who was crouching with his hand at knee level, fingers woven together "Who's going first?"

No one looked too thrilled to go and after no volunteers stepped forward the dark orange hedgehog stepped forward "I'll go".

James hefted them through the hole one by one and they came out on the other side of the wall that had seemed so invincible only yesterday. Once the last of them had been heaved up they made a break for the treeline.

Through the trees Sonic's lime green eyes could spot the red velvet carriages each drawn by four beautiful horses. His eyes fell on his family's crest on the side of the carriage and a pang of nostalgia hit his stomach like a charging bull.

Two figures walked around the side of one of the carriages, one was a dark red hedgebat with amber eyes, he wore dark trousers and a loose dress shirt. Even at a distance the team could see that he was older and more sophisticated. The second was a girl. She was also a hedgebat though she had crisp white fur and her eyes were a mixture of every colour imaginable all swirled into her iris. She wore a white blouse that cut off at the shoulders, it made her fur look slightly lilac. Brown trousers and black knee high boots completed the look and a belt with a sword rested on her hip. She gave off an aura that made you want to stop and stare.

The pair looked at the group as it approached and up close Sonic could see that they both had a few scrapes and burns and in the distance they could see a pillar of smoke billowing from the castle. It wasn't hard to put two and two together.

The girl stepped forward "The horses are ready to go"

The boy next to her looked to Eros "Get them into the carriages, we need to get moving as soon as possible" He then stalked off and mounted one of the three horses that were grazing nearby.

James and Eros began sorting them into the carriages. Rouge, Knuckles and Silver in one with some of James' men and Shadow, Blaze, Cream and Tails in the other with James.

Sonic was about to follow Silver into the carriage but stopped as the strange girl appeared at the door "Hey Pretty Boy, someone wants to speak with you" She didn't wait for him and began walking off. He followed quickly and it was only when the girl opened the door did he realize there were in fact three carriages waiting for them. He stared at the door as the girl walked off and mounted one of the horses before riding up front with the boy they met her with, he was guessing they were the Fauna and Jason everyone had talked about, and Eros.

Taking a deep breath, Sonic pulled himself into the carriage and the door swung shut behind him. The windows let in enough light for him to be able to make out a cloaked figure in front of him. Past experiences made him wary and he edged away slowly but stopped when the figure raised her hands and pulled down her hood, fixing him with a pair of gentle blue eyes.

Sonic gasped and stared at the figure in shock "Mum?"