A few days later, Artemis the wolf sat on the floor in the armory, surrounded by a chirping, floating, colorful crowd of wisps. She was tossing them pellets, and they reacted exactly like a flock of pigeons when tossed bread - a flashing, rushing free for all.

She grinned and stroked the nearest wisp, a pudgy green hover wisp with fat tentacles. "Don't be so greedy! Everybody needs food, not just you."

The wisp burped and settled on her knee, blinking its single eye sleepily.

The door creaked open behind her. Artemis glanced up to see Honir the jackal slipping inside. He regarded Artemis and the wisps with astonishment. "I didn't know they ate food."

"I don't know if they do in the wild," Artemis replied, "but these do." She smiled, glad to see him. "How're you feeling?"

The jackal's bandages had been removed, and aside from his fur being a little rough, he looked healed. He flexed his formerly bandaged arm. "Good enough for covert missions. I'm supposed to practice using wispons. Commander's orders."

Artemis gestured at the colorful weapons hanging on the walls, the shape of each mimicking the shape of the wisp it belonged to. "Take your pick. I'd recommend lightning for beginners. But meteor is very nice, too."

The jackal edged through the wisps, careful not to step on them. They whisked aside with cheerful chirps. Artemis watched him. He still moved carefully, favoring his arm and side a little too much. For some reason she liked him, trusted him, even. She mentally scolded herself for misplaced pack instinct. Her subconscious was embracing the entire Resistance as her new pack, even though there wasn't a wolf in the bunch. Honir was the only canine, and he had been in Willow Springs. She couldn't help but slot him into her mental pack. Hopefully nobody found any of this out. They'd think she was only a particularly loyal soldier.

As Honir lifted down the lightning wispon, Artemis said timidly, "Why do you need wispons? I thought you were a spy."

He smiled a little and looked down, embarrassed. "Well. There's an argument going on right now. I'll need to be armed no matter which way it goes."

"An argument?" Artemis sat up straighter, throwing a handful of pellets at the wisps. There was a small explosion of color as they scrambled and flew after them.

Honir returned the lightning wispon to its hook and lifted a meteor wispon instead. "Eggman's army - the real one, not the illusions - is staging at the border, preparing to cross into Adabat."

Artemis stroked the fat wisp dozing on her knee, her ears laying back. "I kept hoping that driving Infinite off might have discouraged Eggman."

"Apparently not." Honir lifted the drill wispon and hefted it in his weak arm. Finding it too heavy, he put it back. "The other half of the argument is that we get the Sol emeralds back. King Tenoc and his daughter have always used them to defend their country, and without them, they fear Eggman's might."

"How would we do that?" Artemis said. "Eggman could have locked them up anywhere."

"He took them to Metropolis," Honir replied. "We have field agents there who witnessed the exchange between Infinite and Eggman. They're somewhere in the vaults below the Egg Tower."

"Metropolis," Artemis said flatly. "Capital of Eggmanland? Somebody wants us to sneak into Metropolis and rob Eggman?"

Honir held up a finger. "Eggman's forces are preparing to invade Adabat. His city is practically empty. If we attack him as he attacks Adabat, we'll catch him off guard. As far as I know, nobody has ever flanked him like that before."

"So," Artemis said slowly, "you're on the side that wants to invade Metropolis."

Honir shrugged with a sad smile. "Sitting here is suicide. Attacking Metropolis is slightly less certain suicide. I honestly think a small team has a better chance than a full frontal assault, but Knuckles is determined to win for once."

Artemis threw the last of the pellets to the wisps and stood up, wiping her hands on her pants. "Either way, we're going to be in a fight."

"Yep," Honir said. "What do you think of the void wispon?"

They fell to discussing the pros and cons of the various wispons. As they talked, Artemis sensed there was something else that Honir was worried about, but he wouldn't talk about it. He spoke lightly enough, but there was a deep sadness in his voice, in the set of his ears, in the way he stood with his shoulders slightly hunched.

As Honir settled on the meteor wispon and coaxed its wisp inside, Artemis ventured, "Is something wrong?"

Honir sighed. He gazed at his wispon for a long moment, as if considering what to say. Finally he looked up, still with that sad smile. "You've always been kind to me, Artemis. All of you have. And I'm fairly certain that attacking Metropolis will get you all killed. And I ... I don't want to see you die."

She gazed at him, some of his sadness spreading to her. "You honestly think so?"

He nodded. "I never expected to make friends here in the Resistance. I expected more backstabbing, the way the jackals operate. Instead, everyone treats each other fairly. Loyalty and trust is expected. I feel like I've come home. I don't want to lose that due to one fatal mistake."

Artemis picked up a lightning wispon, trying to hide how awkward this made her feel. "It might not be a mistake. What if we win? It'll be a terrible blow to Eggman if we capture his own city."

"I know." Honir nodded. "That's the problem. The stakes are horribly high. If we win, we win big. If we lose, we lose big."

They walked out of the bunker together, through the trees to where a firing range had been set up in a clearing. They practiced shooting a couple of targets nailed to trees. Artemis had grown comfortable with a lightning wisp, but Honir was awful. His freshly-healed arm was too weak to support the wispon's weight, and he couldn't hold it steady long enough to hit anything. They traded weapons, and he was equally bad with the lightning wispon.

They were taking a rest, Honir flopped against a tree trunk, when both Sonics and Tails walked out, carrying wispons and arguing.

"If we hit him fast and hard," young Sonic was saying, "we can totally win. I've been through Metropolis before. I know what it's like."

"Yeah, nine years ago," older Sonic countered. "It's really built up since then. There's a huge civilian population. Attacking Eggman is one thing, but I'm not going after civilians."

"Nobody's going after civilians!" young Sonic exclaimed. "Look, Eggman runs everything from the tower. We sneak in, capture that, get the Sol emeralds back, no big deal."

"And meet Infinite," older Sonic pointed out. "Got a plan for him?"

"He'll be here, attacking Adabat," young Sonic said with a wave of a hand. "Eggman doesn't change tactics that much."

"Until he does," older Sonic snapped. He spun and fired a meteor wispon at a target, putting four rounds through the center. "You know what? I'm staying here. Adabat needs me. You go to Metropolis, get shot up, whatever."

"I'll capture Eggman's tower and bring back the Sol emeralds," young Sonic said. "And you'll be like, 'Gee, younger me, you used to be awesome,' and I'll be like, 'Yeah, it's too bad I grow up to be such a wimp'."

Older Sonic bared his teeth. "I'm not a wimp! I've been through hell!"

"So?" Young Sonic said. "What, did Eggman take away your courage?"

Older Sonic stood there for a moment, spines bristling. Then he dashed away without another word.

Tails gazed after him. "I wish you'd lay off him, Sonic."

Young Sonic spread his arms. "He's turned into such a wuss! And that's going to be me! I think flanking Eggman is a great idea, and he's acting like we're marching straight to the Death Egg."

Artemis and Honir watched this exchange in bemusement.

Artemis said, "Excuse me, but ... how are there two Sonics?"

"Time travel," young Sonic said.

"Dimension hopping," Tails said at the same time.

Honir climbed to his feet, brushing grass off his black fur. "Wait ... how is that possible?"

"I chased the Phantom Ruby here," young Sonic said. "It screwed up my world, then it opened a portal and came here."

Honir pursed his lips and whistled a low, surprised note. "But ... I thought the Phantom Ruby only made illusions."

Young Sonic poked himself. "I feel pretty real. I'm not a construct, if you're wondering. We already tested it."

"So," Artemis said slowly, "you're from the past?" This threw out her reckoning completely. Despite Sonic's lecture about equality, she still considered him as ranking higher than herself. But here was another Sonic, younger, cockier, more inexperienced. Where did he fit in the ranking? Artemis had no idea.

Honir's perceptions had been shattered, too. He simply stood there and gaped. After a moment he closed his mouth and muttered, "It shouldn't be possible. It only deceives - right?" One hand wandered to his chest and he scratched the fur, as if expecting to feel something else.

Artemis saw the gesture, saw the look on Honir's face. He's a spy ...

Realization crystallized in her mind. Honir was Infinite without the mask and crystal. A construct, infiltrating the Resistance from the inside.

A crazy rush of emotions blasted through her - fear, anger at herself for not seeing the obvious, confusion at how nice he seemed, indecision about what to do. Should she confront him right there? What if she was wrong and he was a real jackal? He had just been talking about finding friends, and if she was wrong and got him kicked out of the Resistance, she'd confirm his expectations of being stabbed in the back.

No, she had no proof. She'd watch and wait to see what he did next. If he was Infinite, he'd be goading them into choosing the course of action that would get them wiped out the quickest.

All this passed through Artemis's head over the course of two seconds. Tails and young Sonic were debating the capabilities of the Phantom Ruby. Honir was still absently scratching his chest. He glanced at Artemis and dropped his hand to his side. "Just got the bandages off," he said with an embarrassed smile.

That's right, he had been hurt and bandaged. Constructs couldn't take damage, could they? Sonic and Shadow had beaten up Infinite, but Honir had been hurt long before that, back in the Acorn Kingdom.

As a test, Artemis said, "Does the Ruby only deceive, then?"

"I thought so," Honir replied. "Now, I'm not so sure." He grimaced and lifted the wispon. "Back to the grind." He returned to target practice, missing the target by several feet.

Artemis watched Honir closely after that, even going so far as to follow him around. But this was tricky to do, because she soon found herself assigned to Fox Squad again and preparing to leave for Metropolis. Shadow had volunteered to take a squad there via chaos control, and he was closeted in the command room, drawing up plans and strategies.

"So you're going, then?" Honir said, when Artemis went to the armory to suit up. He was there, too, looking gloomy in a bulletproof vest and helmet.

"I've been assigned," Artemis said stiffly, not sure how much to tell a potential traitor. She sorted through the rack of armored vests until she found one in her size.

"I'm helping defend Zamon," Honir said, head and tail drooping. "We get older Sonic. You get younger Sonic."

Artemis shot him a quick look, trying to read his expression. "What, do you think we have a chance?"

"Maybe," Honir said. "I've heard that Zamon is getting help from Chun-nan, but it may not arrive for another few days. You guys, on the other hand ... you've got no backup."

"This is a quick strike," Artemis said. "We've got to get those emeralds back." She drew a deep breath and tried to push through her suspicion. "Have you been to Metropolis? Any advice?"

Honir bowed his head a moment in thought. "Well. If you get separated from the others, or if there's stronger defenses than you thought, there's a certain tower you can fall back to. It's the Avian Building, where they have one of their colleges. They have airships that can get you out of the city quickly. It has a whole park in a dome on top, so you can't miss it."

"Thanks." Artemis made a mental note to avoid that building, since it was probably a trap. "What'll you do if Infinite shows up down here?"

Honir shrugged. "Save as many people as I can, I suppose."

Artemis remembered seeing him carrying a young Mobian cat out of the ruins of Willow Springs. He could have been Infinite then, too, but wearing a different face. It didn't make sense for him to try to kill her one second and help her the next, but then, spies were all about deception and lies.

She slapped him on the back, secretly checking to see if he felt solid. He did. "Well, stay alive, and we'll have a good laugh together when this is over with."

He nodded and gave her a searching look. "Be careful, Artemis. Don't believe everything you see."

"I'm calling it 'Operation Big Wave'," Knuckles said, facing his assembled troops outside the bunker. "Eggman's forces are staging at the Adabat border, preparing to cross and invade Zamon. He's not defending his own city of Meteopolis. Fox, Eagle, and Lion squads, you will chaos control to Metropolis and take Eggman's tower. We need those Sol emeralds back."

The soldiers listened closely, gripping their wispons. There were only seventy-five of them, but Knuckles assured them that they would be enough.

"Remember," the big red echidna said, "you don't have to capture the whole city. Only the Egg Tower. Shadow will set you down just outside the perimeter defenses. There are robot guards, but you can handle them. Inside, the emeralds are being kept somewhere in the lowest levels. We don't have any more intel than that, I'm afraid. Get in, get out. Rendezvous outside the tower at the north gate for extraction."

A soldier beside Artemis raised a hand. "What about Infinite?"

"Princess Blaze claims to have injured him," Knuckles replied with a savage grin. "He should be out of commission for a while. If not, chances are good that he'll be with the invasion force at the border. Eggman's standard strategy is to send Infinite ahead to soften up the defenses before he brings in his Egg Titans."

And if Infinite met them in Metropolis instead? But Knuckles didn't address that. Artemis tightened her grip on her meteor wispon.

After a few more words of encouragement, Knuckles dismissed them. Shadow stepped forward. "Hands on shoulders. Chaos control works in a chain, people. Everyone touches everyone else." Once they were ready, Shadow laid a hand on the nearest soldier's arm. "Chaos control!"

The world blurred and shifted. The green and brown of the jungle was replaced by the blue and white of metal and concrete. Artemis blinked and looked around.

Shadow had set them down in an alley between two buildings, where the locals were less likely to see them appear. It was a warm, bright afternoon, and the jungle humidity was missing. Artemis inhaled with delight, relishing the dry air in her lungs.

Skyscrapers towered all around, turning the streets into man-made canyons. They were clean, gleaming skyscrapers that reflected the blue mountains in the distance. Artemis had expected a dark, smoky city filled with pollution and robots.

Filling the sky a block away was the Egg Tower. It was a massive building, a hundred stories tall and taking up a whole city block by itself. A helicopter was just landing far, far up on its top.

"Wait here," Shadow said. "I'm going to scout the defenses."

"I was going to do that," young Sonic said.

The two hedgehogs stared at each other, two unbending egos clashing.

"You get back last, I'm leaving you," Shadow warned, and vanished in a chaos control. Young Sonic laughed and ran off.

Artemis shook her head. This whole mission made her uneasy. When pack leaders disagreed so intensely, it usually meant trouble for the lower ranks.

Young Sonic reappeared a few seconds before Shadow did. "No ground level entrance, guys, but there's some balconies on the third floor."

Shadow reappeared and glared at young Sonic, obviously disappointed to see him back already. "The main entrance is underground. Follow me. We'll destroy robots as we go."

Young Sonic pointed. "But we could grapple up to those balconies."

Shadow snarled at him, black spines bristling. "Who's in charge of this mission?"

"Not me!" young Sonic laughed, and dashed away.

Teeth bared, Shadow led the rush on the Egg Tower.

For a while, everything went well. Artemis helped destroy robots that stood guard, and they engaged in several short, hot firefights. It seemed that Eggman hadn't expected assault on his home base, and although the robots on guard were powerful, there weren't many of them.

A sniper up on a neighboring building had Fox Squad hiding behind a series of pillars, unable to move. Shadow had moved on with Lion and Eagle squads, and was too busy fighting around the other side of the building to deal with the sniper.

A green bird named Jet looked at Artemis. "What do you think? Flank him?"

"I'm good with my grapple," Artemis said. "Keep him distracted."

Jet nodded and dashed along the line of pillars, ducking in and out of cover. The sniper fired and barely missed, the huge slug tearing a chunk of concrete out of a pillar.

Artemis fired her grapple at a satellite dish on the rooftop across the street and sailed upward. The sniper robot was crouched at the roof's edge, curled over a gun longer than the robot was tall. It glanced up in surprise as Artemis blasted it with her meteor wispon.

Her team, below, broke out of cover and ran after the other squads. Rather than be left behind, Artemis swung on her grapple after them.

Someone fell in beside her in midair. Artemis found herself eye to eye with Infinite. The masked monster was flying along above the street, in silent pursuit of her squad. She swung beside him on her grapple, and for a second they looked at each other.

Her heart stuttered with panic. She had never been so close to him before, able to see her own reflection in his polished helmet. Was Honir hiding under there, laughing at her for trusting him? The red eye under the mask certainly widened in startled recognition.

Knuckles had been wrong. Infinite had stayed in Metropolis this time.

Infinite raised one hand. A globe of red energy filled his palm. It pulsed and the world turned red. An awful electronic ringing noise filled Artemis's head.

Then she was falling, her grapple cord gone slack - falling upward into the sky. She screamed and flailed, trying to right herself in the air. The ground had become a ceiling, the buildings hanging from it like stalactites. Below her was bottomless blue void, with clouds sprinkling it. How had Infinite done this? He had reversed gravity itself! Below, her companions screamed as they, too, fell into the sky.

Her grapple caught on a railing. Gasping, Artemis hauled herself in. Over the radio in her helmet, Vector the crocodile was yelling, "What was that? What just happened?"

"It was Infinite," Artemis panted, hauling herself along the railing, aiming for a doorway into the Egg Tower. "He used the Phantom Ruby on us."

The intercom broke into hysterical shouting. Artemis crawled through a doorway and sat on the ceiling of an alcove just inside. The ceiling here was nothing but ornamental arches, and crossing them would be difficult. Artemis swung across on her grapple instead. She slipped, lost her hold, crashed through a window, and once more fell into the endless abyss of the sky -

Infinite was there, below her in the sky, once more with his hands full of red energy. As she fell toward him, he laughed - a dark, cruel chuckle. The Phantom Ruby pulsed.

Gravity switched again, but this time perpendicular to the ground. Artemis fell sideways and landed on the side of the Egg Tower. All the buildings seemed to lay in her path like logs in a river, built weirdly sideways.

"Our troops are scattering," Shadow's voice said in the radio in her helmet. "I can't keep them together."

"Everybody, fall back!" Vector said. "I mean ... if you can. It's all gone sideways."

Artemis ran along the building, looking for an open window, a doorway, anything. Infinite would switch gravity back any minute, and she'd fall to her death. A mixture of terror and fury pounded inside her. How dare Infinite do this to them. How dare he!

She rounded a corner and halted, a scream catching in her throat.

Rearing above the buildings was a giant Infinite. His body and limbs had been stretched to impossible length, and his masked head was the side of a house. His single eye flicked toward Artemis. One awful clawed hand swung in her direction.

The young wolf leaped into space as the giant hand smashed into the building, shattering glass and sending mortar flying. She grappled onto a vent sticking out of a neighboring building and swung across the void between. There was plenty of time to study the giant, slender Infinite, the way he watched her, the way he moved with deceptive slowness.

Don't believe everything you see.

Gravity reverted to normal. Suddenly the ground was downward, as it had always been. Artemis was swinging between buildings, but now her arc was too low. She crashed into the pavement and rolled until she hit a curb. Her helmet made a cracking sound. Stars exploded inside her head. The world went dark and quiet for a while.

When she awoke, everything was quiet. No radio chatter. No crazy Phantom Ruby noise. The magenta wolf sat up with a groan. Her helmet poked her. She pulled it off and found that the outer metal layer had split when she crashed. Her head ached, but at least she was alive. Slowly Artemis climbed to her feet, looking around for the giant Infinite. There was no sign of it.

"Hello?" she said into the radio in the helmet. "Anybody?"

Silence. They must have fled or been killed. She'd been abandoned once more. Desolation settled over her. This kept happening, every time they met Infinite. He was too crazy strong. Reversing gravity? None of them knew he could do that.

The Egg Tower stood nearby, taunting her with its polished glass and steel. She could still try to get inside and retrieve the emeralds. There was even a broken window on the second floor, perhaps made by herself when gravity had been changing. Or maybe giant Infinite's claw. How much of that had been real? She had no idea.

She grappled onto the broken window and swung into it, her arm and shoulder aching from using it so much. There were no robots, no people. The whole tower was empty and silent. Artemis crouched in a hallway, looking and listening.

Something warm was in her pocket. The tiny Ruby. She pulled it out. It was glowing and flickering a little, the way it did when she used it to summon her forest. She must still be inside the Phantom Ruby's construct. No wonder she was totally alone. Infinite had isolated her on purpose.

Two could play at that game. Artemis gripped the tiny Ruby and focused on her forest: that beautiful forest with the hanging moss, the flowers, the singing birds.

The electronic noise of the Phantom Ruby blasted her ears. The walls wavered and fizzed before her eyes. They changed into trees for a moment, then returned to being walls. The Phantom Ruby was too strong for her little gem to break out. In the hazy, wavering, in-between world, she saw Infinite stalking toward her. He was actually walking, head lowered, fists clenched.

She reached for her wispon, but it wasn't on her belt. She had lost it somewhere. Infinite was coming for her and she was unarmed.

Artemis ran along the hallway and ducked into a side room. This was a large space, maybe intended for offices. Sunny windows lined one side of the room with a view of the Metropolis skyline. There was nothing else but white floor and echoing, empty space.

And suddenly, Infinite was there, too.