Rebell: Thanks :D And don't worry, all will become clear(er) regarding the switch in time ;)

Jarkes: I did say at the beginning of this story that some things might not make sense if you hadn't read the prequel Into the Void (and since that covers the Master Emerald story, I'm assuming you haven't ;)) For a rough summary, Espio doesn't need the Master Emerald and didn't send Scarface to get it (there's no way either of them would take orders from the other!) He's keeping it safe for Knuckles.

Taranea: Yep, I do ;) Though I'm aiming to concentrate mostly on Sonic and Shadow's stories…

TC chan: Thanks. Hmm…I never thought about bringing Espio's mother into the equation. Maybe I should :P As far as Tails goes, you'll find out what happened to him soon enough…

Pyro Hedgehog: I sure hope so :)

Asher Tye: Well, I did always have it in my mind that Scarface was the more 'normal' chameleon ;) And…yes, is it a Robotnik scheme, or is something else going on? Heh.

Matt Lans: Oh yeah, Knux is not going to be happy :P

Milette Tails Prower: Thanks :) Yeah, I like Espio; he's so different from the rest of the Sonic characters...

CalliopeMused: Thanks, glad you liked it :D

Ray Tails2 Prower: Thanks :D You'll see Tails soon...probably in about three or four chapters ;)

Guardian's Log no. 11505

This isn't easy for me to say, but...well, I really think I've underestimated Sonic all this time. To go through all that (and more) to protect Tails, and then manage to drag himself back...that took guts and far more strength than I would have given him credit for. There's more to that hedgehog than meets the eye.

I have to wonder exactly what – if anything – Sonic saw when we were...indisposed. I've caught him looking at me recently and I don't much like his expression.

--Knuckles the Echidna

My Memoirs by Me

Oh man, oh man, oh man. Poor Knuckles. Poor, poor Knuckles. I knew he was the last of his kind and I knew he saw his mother's dead body, but I guess I never stopped to think about what that actually meant. It's just always been, yeah, you're Knux and you're a proud guy who can be a jerk at times, oh yeah, and you got no parents, join the club.

Let's see...she died when he was six and we first met when I was twelve and he was thirteen...oh man. Seven years. Seven years completely on his own with nobody to see or talk to. I don't know how he handled that without going insane. At least with Tails there were other people around. That's...to spend seven years without seeing another living soul...man, I can't envisage that. I really can't. Poor guy must have been one lonely little kid. Granted he's not the most extroverted of people, but it's one thing to decide you're gonna become a hermit and another to have no choice.

I wish I knew what to do. Not just about Knuckles but in general; I don't know what Robotnik's planning with these duplicates. Is he going to make an army or what?

--Sonic the Hedgehog

"Fine!" The nurse, a slightly chubby aardvark who had only just qualified and had already decided they weren't paying her enough for this, slammed the blood pressure cuff back onto her tray of instruments, making them rattle. "Be that way! Just don't blame me if something goes wrong!"

Knuckles scowled at her from his bed. "Don't worry, I won't!"

"Good!" Turning on her heel, the nurse flounced out, slamming the door behind her.

"You really are not an easy patient, are you?" Sonic remarked, grinning.

The echidna growled something in Sagayan under his breath. Not understanding the words, but fully grasping their meaning, Sonic's grin broadened.

"Temper temper. Look Knux, the quicker they patch us up, the quicker we can get out and back looking for Tails." Sonic rummaged in the tray the nurse had left behind before extracting the blood pressure cuff and attempting to wrap it around his arm. "Little help here?"

The echidna eyed him in disbelief. "You know how to take a blood pressure reading?"

Sonic grinned at him. "Well, you may not believe this, Knux, but I've spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals in my life."

"Oh, I believe you," Knuckles muttered under his breath.

"Yeah, so I used to let the medical students practise on me and I must've picked up a little. Could you put your finger right there?"

Knuckles obliged, watching as Sonic squeezed the bulb to tighten the cuff.

"One oh five over seventy three. Okay." Releasing it, the hedgehog bent over the pad to fill in the numbers.

"What does that actually mean?" Knuckles asked after a few minutes.

"Not a clue," Sonic answered cheerfully. "But they want to know, so it's gotta be important."

The echidna watched the hedgehog for a few seconds as Sonic scanned the rest of the form. He supposed it wasn't too strange that someone like Sonic should have a better than rudimentary grasp of first aid and medical science; with the hedgehog's lifestyle, it was practically a necessity. It was just damn odd to see him actually put it into practice.

"You just picked that up from eavesdropping on medical students?"

"Sure. I mean, they were using me as a dummy so the least they could do was explain how it worked. I just asked and they gave me my own private lesson."

Knuckles fell silent again. He could well believe Sonic had 'just asked'; the hedgehog was almost as curious about things as Tails was, and he took a genuine interest in what people had to tell him.

But it was still damn odd to see him playing doctors!

"Why the hell are we here?" he demanded.

Sonic pretended to think. "Because warping through the ghost ring made...us..." He tailed off, no longer jocular as he studied Knuckles, remembering what he'd seen.

"What?" the echidna demanded after Sonic had been staring at him for a good few minutes.

The hedgehog blinked. "Huh? Oh. Nothing. I was just thinking…sucks to be you."

Knuckles shot him a narrow-eyed look, wondering again just where Sonic had been during their shared unconsciousness.

"Yeah, well...whatever," he said at last. "Do you plan on leaving here anytime soon, or are we just going to sit around eating hospital food for the rest of the year?"

Sonic put his head on one side as he considered it. "Well...while I do need to store enough chilli dogs to see me through the winter—ow!" He backed off rapidly, rubbing the arm that Knuckles had just swatted. "What did I say now?"

"Don't you care that Tails is in trouble?"

Sonic sighed. They'd been talking in circles on this particular subject for the entire duration of their five day sojourn in hospital, and he was more than a little tired of it.

"How many times? Yes, I care, but trashing the place isn't going to change anything."

"No, the only thing that'll do that is going after him!" Knuckles spun away and stalked over to the door, then paused long enough to look over his shoulder. "And I plan to do just that, Sonic!"

Striding through, he slammed the door behind him, leaving the hedgehog alone in their hospital room.

"Damn," Sonic muttered, not quite under his breath. "Hey Knucklehead! Wait up!"

It took twenty minutes for them to sign themselves out, and another ten before they managed to get down from the large mesa that housed Sky High Zone's only hospital.

"I wish," Knuckles said to the world at large through clenched teeth, "that they would get some proper steps put in here!"

"What do you care?" Sonic demanded from somewhere underneath as they climbed down the rope ladder. "You fall, you just glide. I'm the one that's gonna go splat!"

As though to prove his point, a much frayed rung gave way beneath his foot and Sonic slipped, clutching at the sides of the ladder and causing it to swing crazily.

"What're you playing at?" Knuckles barked.

Sonic shook his head. "The hell with this, Knux. I'll see you at the bottom!"

"What? What are you—"

Loosening his grip on the sides of the ladder until he was barely holding it, Sonic kicked both feet free and hurtled towards the ground. He was examining his gloves when Knuckles joined him.

"Ow. Rope burn."

"So what now?"

"Hey, you're the one who decided he was gonna go AWOL and drag his hedgehog buddy along for the ride," Sonic pointed out, grinning. "You tell me."

Knuckles frowned slightly. "Yeah. Well, our doubles aren't here. Maybe we should take a cable car."

"Okay. Where to?"

"Anywhere but here."

Sonic shrugged. "Suits me. Now we just have to find out where the nearest stop is."

Turning, he scanned the expanse of mesas and rope bridges that made up the Zone. There were a few people up and about, although not many. With the lifestyle in Sky High Zone, if you saw anyone up before seven in the morning it was only because they hadn't gone to bed yet.

Well, there were a few exceptions to that, Sonic mused as he crossed one of the numerous rope bridges that spanned the ravines at fifty foot intervals. Reaching out, he tapped a passing robin on the shoulder.

"'Scuse me; where's the nearest cable car station?"

The bird tried and failed to focus on him, then hiccupped two or three times and wandered off again.

Sonic rolled his eyes. "That's the only thing I hate about this Zone; nobody ever recovers enough from last night's party to answer a simple question!"

Knuckles frowned as they made their way over another rope bridge. "You must've got here somehow."

"Oh sure; me and Tails took the Tornado, only now it looks like the other me did the same thing. We can't go there on foot 'cause there's too much water so we're gonna have to take the cable car."

"Go where?" Knuckles demanded.

"Back to Scrap Brain. Tails and me were staying with the CDA and I wanna find out if they've seen me recently."

The echidna stopped to fix Sonic with an old-fashioned look. "What, you can't remember that far back?"

"Not me me, the other me. Me mark two. They might've seen you as well and I know they'll have seen Tails."

"Unless Robotnik's planning something."

"Hey, I can handle Robotnik," Sonic said immediately. He glanced around for someone else to ask directions from before eventually giving it up as a bad job. "Damn. Remind me never to get locked up and duplicated in this Zone again. Guess we'll have to move onto the next one."

The way down proved easier to find than either of them expected; Sky High Zone was at least well signed, if nothing else. A flight of stairs, broad enough to drive a truck up, wound down the side of one of the mountains, framed on one side by well-polished banisters.

"Oh yeah!" Vaulting onto the rail, Sonic balanced there and quirked an eye ridge at Knuckles. "You coming?"

The echidna stared at him. "You do know there's a four mile drop on one side, don't you?"

"That's what makes it fun!"

"After what happened last time you went grinding—"

"That did not happen because I was grinding; it happened because we decided to jump into a giant cannon and fire it!"

"If you say so," answered Knuckles, who was clearly having trouble with Sonic's use of the word we.

"I do. C'mon, I'll race you!"

The echidna slammed one fist into the mountain, carving out a chunk of rock.

"How the hell can you think of games when those things are out there?"

Sonic scratched his head, grinning. "Well, since they are out there, that's all the more reason to get moving as quickly as possible, right?"

Without waiting for a reply, he twisted round on the rails, accelerating around the tight curve and out of sight before Knuckles had a chance to stop him.

The grind down was faster than even Sonic was used to; the railing had been carefully waxed with the end result that the hedgehog flew feet first off the end and crashed into a rubber pillar.

"Hate to say I told you so—" Knuckles began as he glided down to join Sonic.

"No you don't."

"—but I told you so."

Sonic glared at the echidna and struggled to his feet.

"What hit me, anyway?"

Craning his neck back, he studied the pillar more attentively. A magenta sign with big blue letters designed to look like they were made of bubbles was mounted on top and announced that they were coming into Aqua Lake Zone.

Seeing the ornate water features and lakes beyond, Sonic groaned.

"Water. Why is it always water?"

"You know, Sonic, you really ought to do something about that phobia of yours."

"Have done," Sonic said instantly.

"I don't mean stay as far away from H2O as you can." Brushing past him, Knuckles cannonballed into the nearest lake and came up ten feet away, treading water.

"Why not? Works a treat." Sonic eyed the lake as though it was pure acid and edged around it, every muscle tense.

"It just seems odd to me that you've faced down killer robots at least ten times your size, you've been fighting Robotnik ever since he first showed up and you're still alive, you've been imprisoned, tortured, shot at, crippled, injured more times than I can count—"

"Four, you mean?"

"—and yet if someone throws a bucket of water on you, you crumple," Knuckles finished, ignoring Sonic's comment with a huge effort.

"I can't help it! I just hate the stuff; it's wet, it's cold and you can drown in it."

"Speak for yourself." Knuckles twisted over and dived towards the bottom. He was a surprisingly agile swimmer when the mood took him; even Sonic could see that.

A glint of light at the far point of the lake caught Sonic's eye and he stared at it, frowning. Turning his head, he studied the sun that was just visible in a small patch of blue sky.

Carefully Sonic walked forward, so focused on this phenomenon that he failed to notice the glint of metal from a smaller lake further away.

The sun's reflection off the water was...dull, muted somehow. Staring at it, Sonic felt a quiver run down his spine.

That's not right. The sun shouldn't reflect that way off water; it only does that on—

"KNUX!" Sonic put everything he had into the yell; it was loud enough to startle a flock of birds out of a small copse.

The echidna surfaced, treading water. "What?"

"Knuckles, get out of there." Sonic wasn't yelling now; his voice was soft, disbelieving as he stared at the lake.

"What are you—"

"Do it! Get out now, before it's too late!"

Something in the hedgehog's tone penetrated; Knuckles swam over and hoisted himself out, glaring at Sonic and shivering as the cold air hit his wet fur.

"Just what is your problem, hedgehog?"

By way of an answer, Sonic raised a hand to point at the lake. Even as they watched, the ice that Sonic had seen form at the far end spread towards them with increasing speed until the entire surface of the water was solid. The final part was so fast that the ripples caused by Knuckles' exit remained frozen in place.

The echidna stared at it.

"If you hadn't been outside watching..."

"Hydrophobia has its uses," Sonic answered very quietly, breath misting in the suddenly frigid air. He shook his head. "Have you ever seen anything like that, Knux?"

To his surprise, Knuckles nodded. "Yeah. Angel Island's been over the polar regions a couple times; the entire sea freezes in the winter like that. But I've never heard of it happening here. This is supposed to be a damn tropical island!"

A slow handclap from off to their left drew their attention to the only lake not frozen solid, although the inky blackness of the water probably wasn't much of an improvement.

"You!" Sonic stared at the person, speech momentarily deserting him.

Robotnik smirked at them from his Egg-O-Matic. "Who were you expecting? Your little fox friend, perhaps?"

"If you've so much as breathed on Tails, Robuttnik—!"

"My dear Sonic, I haven't touched your flea-ridden sidekick. I just came down here to try something out; I didn't expect to see you here."

This much at least was the truth; when Robotnik had imprisoned Sonic and Knuckles, he'd worked out that the odds were they'd escape sooner or later, but he hadn't expected them to manage it for another three days.

"Yeah?" Sonic matched the doctor's expression. "Well, you know what they say; can't keep a good hedgehog down."

"Yes, I've noticed," Robotnik answered with delicate sarcasm. "So what happens now, Sonic? Are you planning to attack me? Because if you think I'm coming out of this water all the time you're around, you're crazier than even I thought."

Sonic folded his arms. "I've fought you underwater before, doc. This time'll be no different."

"Do you really think I'll make it that easy for you?" Robotnik shook his head, clicking his tongue pityingly. "Dear me, Sonic; you must have a very low opinion of my intelligence."

"Well, if you've only just figured that out, then I'd say it's justified." Sonic hopped from one foot to the other impatiently and then almost went over on his back; the ice had spread from the lakes to the shore. Glaring at Knuckles in a way that dared the echidna to comment, he righted himself and took a few careful steps towards the doctor. "And if you think we're gonna let you get away with your damn duplicates…"

Robotnik chuckled. "I'm afraid I can't allow you to interfere, Sonic."

"Yeah?" Sonic raised an eye ridge. "And you'll be stopping us how, doc?"

"Like this, of course." Robotnik's Egg-O-Matic slid silently beneath the inky water, the black liquid concealing it completely. There was a short pause, then something sleek and metallic rose up. In appearance, it was similar to an elongated torpedo, albeit one with a functioning tail. Metallic panels covered every inch save for the control room at the front, from where Robotnik looked out at the world through huge oval windows on either side.

The doctor's voice reverberated over hidden loudspeakers. "Meet the Egg Whale, Sonic."

There was a stunned silence as the pair of them stared at the huge machine in the lake.

"Well, go on then," Knuckles said flatly, nudging Sonic forward. "Handle it."

Well, there you have it ;) Hope you enjoyed it and if you read, please review :)