The ropes had been tied to immobilise not further injure, but that had been a day and a night ago and Knuckles could no longer support his own weight on his feet all of the time and he sagged against the ropes. Hanging in them until they bit in too tightly and then locking his knees to press back against the post to take the weight off them until he tired and fell forward again. Around dawn someone had retied the ropes which helped a bit at the cost of further limiting his range of movement. He'd been too slow to open his eyes and look round to see who.

He left his eyes closed, the daylight was painful and the expressions when people looked at him only slightly less so. Though he'd heard no one this morning. Anyone who wanted him dead was either working up the nerve, or seeing if anyone else would do it first, or waiting for time to do it for them.

Abruptly, a blow to the forehead turned his vision starry even with his eyes already shut.

Someone had acted after all. Blood ran down his face, into his eyes and mouth. He spat. Salt and copper. Another blow to the side of his face. His ribs. He forced his eyes open, but saw no one. Another blow and something fell at his feet. A stone, Someone was throwing stones.

Or more than one someone because the next blow was from the other side and there were voices.

"Bet you daren't!"

"No? Watch me."

The voices were belligerent. Young, but that meant nothing, Knuckles knew. He'd been young the first time he fought off attackers on the Island. Youth could be as ruthless as age.

He thought he was prepared for one last, fatal attack. He was however utterly unprepared for someone to pull hard on his tail and laugh.

Incongruous, trivial and he cried out anyway because after hours of standing his back was a dull, hot ache and this yank at the base of his spine was like another blow.

His own pained cry was followed by another, angry one. Shaski's voice and after the past few days it was pure instinct to flinch away from that voice especially raised in anger and Knuckles had already reacted, throwing himself against the ropes before conscious thought kicked in and he stilled, registering what he was seeing.

Shaski was marching a teenaged echidna round from behind Knuckles, his fist clamped on a handful of the boy's spines. He brought him to a halt in front of Knuckles, drew his own knife from his belt and slapped it into the boy's hand.

"Well?" he demanded as the boy stared between them, looking terrified. "Are you going to kill him?"

He waited long moments until it was obvious that the answer was 'no', then snatched the knife back from the boy's limp hand.

"You kill him, you help him or you leave him the hell alone." He gave the boy a shove and he fled.

Shaski stood watching him go. Knuckles watched him in turn, unable to account for his intervention. Shaski turned away from the direction the boy had taken and must have picked up on Knuckles' confusion because he answered the unspoken question.

"The trial is live or die," he said roughly, almost angrily. "Not two more days of battery."

Knuckles fought to speak because there was something else he couldn't work out.

"Why hasn't anyone already..." he ran out of breath but Shaski had guessed the question anyway.

"Why has nobody killed you already?" Shaski stared at him intently. "Do you really not know?" His voice sharpened. "How many have you killed to defend your controller?"

Muzzily, Knuckles tried to see the connection. If what they'd been telling him was true about his memory he had no way of answering accurately in any case. Even knowing the risk of attackers returning or telling other about the Island he always - as far as he knew he had always - tried to drive off rather than kill. But not at the cost of a direct threat to the Emerald's or the Island's safety and so the answer was not zero.

"Well?"

Shaski didn't seem likely to take silence for an answer.

"Three." Three that he knew for certain. Three not counting those he'd sent away wounded badly enough they might well have succumbed before reaching wherever they called home. Three not counting those whose aircraft he'd seen descending from the Island pouring smoke or sparks.

Shaski didn't contest the number.

"And was it easy?" he demanded. "You were right, they were wrong, they were a threat - so you must have believed. So was it easy?"

"No."

Knuckles remembered all three faces, both the names he'd overheard. The first had been alone and he'd never learned his name. They'd fought at the edge of the Island, it had almost been an accident that he went over. In realisation, Knuckles had grabbed for him a moment too late. The other two had been together and startlingly well prepared and armed. Knuckles had been forced to run in the end, bleeding, gasping, staggering ahead of them, triggering trap after trap behind himself. He'd only heard one of them, Bracken, scream as he died, but the other, Jaspar, he'd looked straight at. For a moment they were at a standstill, Knuckles' back literally against the wall before he pushed away from it and stepped forward onto the pressure-plate that triggered the bridge collapse. He'd had time to see the sheer panic in Jaspar's eyes before he vanished into the darkness.

"No?" Shaski asked. "And were any of them already tied up and dying in front of you?"

"No."

"You have a low opinion of us, guardian if you expect us to kill so much more easily than even you do."

Knuckles didn't have the breath or energy for justifications so only watched as Shaski turned his back and walked away again.


The dog looked at the photo and raised an ear in curiosity.

"So who is he? A relative?"

Sonic resisted the urge to snap back an indignant retort. Plenty of people confused hedgehogs with porcupines though both species found it downright rude, and Sonic supposed extending that confusion to an unfamiliar species like an echidna was not entirely unexpected. Spines were spines to some people.

He ran his hand over his own and sighed.

"No. Just a friend. So have you seen him?"

"Nope," the dog didn't bother to take a second look at the photo. "I'd remember, Not too many bright red porcupines to the dozen are there?"

Sonic gritted his teeth and reminded himself there was absolutely no point complicating matters with Knuckles' actual species. "You'll ask around though? Quietly?"

"Sure thing." The dog looked up, noticing Sonic's tension for the first time. "People will want to help, Sonic. They remember what this zone would have been if you hadn't helped us."

They probably had a better idea than Sonic himself did he reflected. He'd blazed through here the first time - the destruction of the base and bots almost incidental to where he was trying to reach. He hadn't even remembered the name - Sharp- of the dog who'd led the resistance against Robotnik here until Amy had reminded him.

He forced himself to smile.

"Be easier if we could slap up some big posters though," Sharp said.

Sonic shook his head. "No. Absolutely not - it can't get back to Robotnik that he's missing."

"Need to know, eh?" Sharp shrugged amiably. "Well, I'm not asking - you know your business. I know who can be trusted to find out quietly, don't you worry."

"Thanks."

Sonic turned to leave and was interrupted by the beep of the radio. He fished it from the backpack and thumbed transmit.

"Sonic. Go ahead."

Vector's voice crackled through the handset.

"Hey, Sonic, are you somewhere you can talk?"

Sonic looked around. "No. Wait a sec."

He lowered the handset and turned to Sharp.

"I gotta move, Thanks."

Sharp raised a hand. "No prob, I'll let you know if I hear anything."

Sonic nodded then turned and accelerated out of town, skidding to a stop well outside on a currently empty dirt road. He raised the handset again.

"Now I can. What is it?"

"I've had to pull Charmy off searching and get him back up here. This place is too dangerous right now without someone who can fly. Amy went down off a bridge just this morning which I know used to be solid."

Shock shot through Sonic. "Is she alright? What's she even doing up there?"

"Bit bruised, only luck her foot caught in the rope though. We're having Charmy play escort every time someone needs to go anywhere now. Tails brought Amy up - she wanted to check on the written stuff here that Knuckles has been going through. Thinks there might be something in that to say where he went - if he went on purpose."

"Okay. Keep Charmy with you then, I'll manage down here - have you heard from Tails since?"

"No."

A crackle of static and Tails voice joined the frequency.

"I'm here, Sonic. I've been leaving the radio tuned, listening in."

"Good." Sonic said. "What's news?"

"Nothing much yet. Power drain on the Master Emerald still reads as high, but it's not fluctuating as much. Vector - what's it like up there?"

"Dark," said Vector, flatly. There was a pause. "Creepy, actually. And..." A longer pause. "Listen, we are sure - aren't we - that Knuckles can't still be up here somewhere?"

Sonic frowned. "Sure as we can be. Why?"

"Well, you're going to think I'm nuts and Espio says it's just the wind in the tunnels but sometimes... There's noises."

"Noises?" Tails sound as confused as Sonic felt. "From where? The Emerald?"

"It's hard to tell. The echoes here are weird, that's why Esp reckons it's just the wind but it doesn't always sound like the wind. The first time I heard it I went looking for the others because I thought one of them must have been hurt. I swear, guys, sometimes it sounds just like there's someone up here screaming. Outside or in the next tunnel over but you never find anything when you look. I don't mind telling you it's giving me the heebie jeebies."

There was another long pause, clearly no one had much idea what to do with this information. Tails spoke first.

"And what about the Island itself? Is it stable?"

"Mostly," Vector grunted. "There were some pretty big quakes after we arrived but they seem to have calmed down. It's a bit... up and down though. Sinks fast enough to notice then sort of recovers and we're going back up again."

"That makes sense," Tails said. "Tallies with my readings of the Emerald anyway. I'm working on trying to make the equipment portable. I'm hoping I'll get different reading from different places and be able to find where the power drain is coming from."

"Well keep at it,"Sonic said. "For now I don't see what else we can do."

"Sonic," Tails jumped back in as Sonic was about to put the radio away. "There's something else. Vector wondered if Knuckles was still on the Island - if he was we couldn't find him, but... Chaos and Tikal were trapped inside the Emerald. What if the sounds Vector heard were..."

Sonic sighed. "Tails, if Knuckles has somehow got himself stuck in the Emerald then I really don't know what we can do. Let's rule everything else out first okay?"

"Okay. Talk later then," Tails' voice was quiet and Sonic couldn't find any reassurance to offer. He rubbed his forehead and tried not to think of this new possible problem. They were chasing enough wild geese all over the planet as it was.


Sunset. At least Knuckles thought it was sunset, his vision had been fading in and out, or maybe he'd been unconscious again. It was no longer possible to tell the difference. He felt distanced, senses numbed, detached, drifting in and out of darkness. It was real sunset though, it was colder, he was shivering. So why did his skin still feel flushed and burning beneath his fur? His head pounded, pulse hammering in his temples. Fast, too fast, way too fast. Pins and needles in his arms and legs where he hung in the ropes. It didn't matter much, he was too dizzy to stand even if he'd had the strength.

His concentration came and went. When it came he pushed back against the Master Emerald which was only another enemy now, forcing him to endure what should be long over with. When his concentration or consciousness waned he felt it rally; fighting back, forcing his blood to flow, his heart to beat, his lungs to drag air in and out.

They were right to be disgusted, the echidnas here. It was deeply unnatural, this tormented twilight lingering. His body was not his own. That was as clear as daylight to him by now. It was the Master's and it held him as tightly and relentlessly as the ropes around him. Clutching and pinning him to this life. Urging him with every beat of his frenzied pulse to accept it, to take up the power, to destroy this place, to escape, to return to the Island, to the sky, to the shrine of the Emeralds.

He knew exactly how it would feel if he did. How the warmth and strength of it would flow through his aching, shaking body. His eyes drifted shut. It would be so easy. He knew exactly how easy it would be to draw down that power and be damned to the consequences,

And he forced his eyes open again because he knew something else as well. He knew that his control, eroded by pain and injury and exhaustion and by his tumbled, conflicted emotions would be inadequate to the task of moderating that power. Chaos energy had a way of distorting the intentions of even the purest of heart and mind and at the moment his heart and mind were nothing but fear and anger and regret. The Master would use those the only way it knew, it would tear apart those who had torn at its Guardian and blot out this place so it would never be a threat again. Knuckles would not have the strength to stop it. Not if he let it begin.

Someone touched his shoulder and, although his eyes were wide open he was so lost in his thoughts and his vision so clouded, he hadn't seen them approach, couldn't focus on them now. He'd jumped at the touch and the movement sent shooting pains through every limb. He was sure he'd cried out, but no sound escaped his dry throat. Someone was speaking but he couldn't seem to process the sounds either. Someone had their hand under his muzzle tipping his head back. Helping him? Exposing his throat for a blade? He couldn't tell.

In any case he found he could muster nothing but relief for either prospect.