"Shame about these going dead," said Talon, stroking a dead Super Emerald. "Do you know why they did, sir?" The anteater looked across the room at Knuckles, who was seated in front of the Master Emerald pedestal, chin resting on his crossed arms, eyes travelling over the engraved characters there. "I thought I knew," Knuckles replied without turning, "but now I'm not so sure."

Talon had a cloth in one hand and a jar of polish in the other. He set about scrubbing the nearest super emerald. They seemed to tarnish much faster when they weren't glowing. He hummed tunelessly as he worked, perfectly content to be in Knuckles's presence in the sanctuary of Hidden Palace. He had seen enough of Knothole to last him for months.

Knuckles rested his teeth idly on his arm as he read the inscriptions on the pedestal. He had become so adept at reading Old Mobian that he didn't even have to translate it in his head anymore. He was re-reading the section on charging a super emerald, although he knew it by heart. It just didn't work.

Max appeared in the entrance in small form. He bounced to Talon and watched him scrub an emerald.

"Where's Chimera, Max?" Knuckles called without moving his eyes from the pedestal.

"He's asleep in the sun on top," Max replied. "He was cold." Knuckles nodded. Chimera had not yet recovered from the shock of being blown out of Cragclaw the previous week, and spent most of his time napping in some warm place.

Knuckles's thoughts wandered to Sonic. The hedgehog and his chao had been ill ever since arriving back home, and they, too spent a lot of time sleeping. Sonic had begun to feel reasonably better, but still had a dizzy spell whenever he thought about the conditioning. Velocity, being a chao with a genetic structure meant for learning and changing forms, had been adversely affected. Often he would forget things, and sections of his long-range memory seemed to have been erased. He spoke of the biotic army with terror.

But the rescue of Sonic had not been the only thing they had accomplished, Knuckles reflected. When they arrived home, they found the biotics abandoning Riverbase and wandering about, purposeless. A transmitter of some kind in Cragclaw had been destroyed, severing their mind-link. They had no idea how to fight, and the Freedom Fighters destroyed them all and reclaimed Riverbase.

When Knuckles, Talon and their chao arrived on the Floating Island, glad to be home and ready for a rest, they were greeted by the worried Chaotix. Apparently the mysterious video camera-bot had been seen again, surveying the island. Knuckles set out to find it with a ferocious Chimera on his heels, but neither ever glimpsed it.

Max watched Talon work at the super emerald, his head cocked to one side like a puppy. After a moment he asked, "Which one was green?"

"The one closest to the Master emerald," said Talon, indicating it with a jerk of his head. "Don't touch it in large form. It'll make you sick like when Chimera first touched his emerald."

"Okay Talon," said Max, bouncing across the glossy marble floor toward the formerly green emerald.

Knuckles turned his head and looked at Talon. "How do you know what the super emeralds would do?"

"Chalcon told me, sir," Talon replied, scrubbing vigorously. "He's studying it as much as he can. He told me some things when Slasher was away."

"Where's he reading it?" Knuckles asked, rising to his feet. "All documentation on the power stones are on this island."

Talon looked at him blankly. "He just said it was in a book. Where would Slasher come by such things, sir?"

Knuckles shook his head. "I don't know, but I'm going to ask her. Max, what are you doing?"

Max was sitting on top of a dull emerald, flippers pressed against it, staring hard into its heart. Deep within the stone, a dim light was flickering. When Knuckles spoke, Max looked up and the light died. "What?"

"What are you doing?" Knuckles repeated.

Max looked down at the gemstone under his feet. "I was trying to make it glow, but you made me lose my concentration."

Knuckles had picked up Max and was stroking him before the implications of this sank in. He froze, his big hand in mid-stroke. "Talon," he exclaimed, whirling. "The chao! The chao need to charge the supers!"

Talon dipped his rag in the polish and looked at Knuckles. "If Max could, he would have already. I think the other five chao would have to be present."

"Talon, you and your chao are geniuses," Knuckles said warmly, setting Max on the floor.

"Chalcon is, really," said Max cheerfully. "He told me to try that."

"I'm going to Knothole right now," said Knuckles, striding toward the door. "We'll get these things charged yet."

An hour later the echidna was back, very gloomy. Talon had finished his work by this time, and was curled up in a corner in the outer chamber of Hidden Palace, feeding coconut to Max and Chimera to keep them from fighting.

"Nobody can come today," said Knuckles, walking over and picking up Chimera, who flung his arms around his master's neck and tried to throttle him. Knuckles had to pry him loose before he could continue. "They're off fighting a battle. The biotics made a move to take the upper Mobitropolis valley."

"I want to go!" Chimera exclaimed.

"No way," Knuckles replied calmly. "They're already gone."

"Will they need us?" Talon asked anxiously, standing up.

"They might," said Knuckles. "I want you chao to get a good night's sleep because we might get called out tomorrow."

But the island chao were not requested. For one thing, Chimera was still injured and there was no water for Max. For another, the Freedom Fighters lost.

Their army was a ragtag bunch of poorly-equipped volunteers. The Black Claw was an army thousands strong, each unit trained to slaughter, governed by one mind. The battle lasted three days, and at the end the Freedom Fighters retreated. They had lost again, and there was no Cragclaw to demolish this time. Sally bemoaned the state the country had fallen into after Robotnik had taken Mobitropolis. There was no country anymore; there were only cities that governed the land about them the best they could. A war like this revealed how ripe Mobius was for such a thing.

Sonic looked blank when Sally explained this to him. After a moment of looking bewildered, the hedgehog said, "I hate politics."

Evidently Sonic wasn't the only one who didn't understand. The chao were given a lesson in recent history and government, and while they grasped some concepts, such as laws, a monarchy or republic was beyond them. "I don't see what all this has to do with the biotics," said Pilot, fluttering her chao wings.

"It's not making our side any stronger," Zinc agreed. "We got pounded out there."

"Sally?" Chalcon said shyly.

She turned from the large map on the easel and smiled at him. "What is it, Chalcon?"

"Well," said the little blue chao, "I was thinking that we lost because we haven't played our strengths. The Freedom Fighters, I mean."

Sally looked at him, her smile fading into a serious look. "What do you mean?" The other chao also stared at Chalcon, all ears.

"The Freedom Fighters never waged war before," said Chalcon, gazing steadily at Sally. "Sonic told me that when Dr. Robotnik occupied Robotropolis, you ran sabotage missions to cripple him, because you would have been flattened in a frontal assault."

"That's right."

"We should do the same thing now. Let's find something the biotics use, like a factory, and blow it up."

Sally stared down at Chalcon, a funny look on her face. The other chao watched her, wondering if she were angry. Instead she scooped up Chalcon, kissed him and set him back down. "Chalcon, you're a genius. I'm done, you guys, class dismissed!" She dashed from the room.

"Gee Chalcon, I hope you're right," said Velocity.

"Have I ever been wrong before?" Chalcon asked.

The other chao looked at each other. So far, he had not.

The Freedom Fighters began a run of good luck. They spied, hacked, travelled and established alliances, and along the way dealt several painful blows to the biotics.

Hundreds of miles to the north, near the Sea of Ice, was a giant biotic construction facility. Prisoners were sent to it by the truckload, and emerged weeks later as ferocious, mindless cyborgs. A single flag flew from its tower; a red rectangle with a black raptor claw stamped on it.

The Freedom Fighters struck hard and pulled out. Taking a cue from Chimera, they located the hydrogen tank storage-apparently it was a main ingredient in biometal-set charges on them and fled.

The explosion was 'something fine', as the chao put it. The factory burned to the ground with many internal explosions as other chemicals caught fire. The chao attacked the fleeing biotics, and few escaped. Even Velocity lent a fang, although he went bonkers whenever a biotic came close. It seemed that the nearer one drew, the louder and clearer became the voices of the network in his head. "They tell me things," he whimpered to Sonic afterward. "Their Master always knows it's me, and says that he's going to kill all the freeminds because they are an inferior lifeform. Sonic, CAN he kill everyone in the world?" Sonic replied in the negative, although doubtfully. He could not exactly hear the network when he go close to a biotic, but he got a strange feeling he described as "a chemical smell, like film."

Other factories and a repair facility met the same fate as the first. Once Max, thinking of Cragclaw, engineered an ingenious attack, re-routing a stream to flood an underground facility. During the fight that followed ("It's exactly like cockroaches crawling out of a flooded pipe!"), it was discovered that biotics could not communicate underwater.

Then the Black Claw struck twice, one blow mild, the other heavy. The heavy blow fell far to the south in an unexpected direction. The Freedom Fighter looked on in amusement as the biotics attacked, not Sapphire City, but Robotnik's Final Egg fortress deep in the jungle.

It was a ferocious battle. Robotnik had built an army of robots nearly as tough as the biotics themselves, and for two weeks the armies battled, day and night without rest. "Good ol' Doc!" Knuckles exclaimed. "Show 'em what for!" All the Freedom Fighters were inclined to feel kindly toward their old enemy, who seemed like a pompous old grandfather compared to the merciless Black Claw.

One army or the other hard to triumph. The biotics, slightly stronger than the war-bots, eventually won out. Final Egg and all the equipment within fell to the Black Claw, and the original biotic raptor was home again.

The mild blow fell much, much closer to home, and while cruel, it was not fatal.

Slasher had been away all day on a scouting mission somewhere in the Dark Mountains to the east. No one thought much of it when she did not return before nightfall; the big raptor often took several days to thoroughly complete her mission. Sometime late that night she returned, for the next morning she was shut in her hut. The odd thing was that she wouldn't let anyone see her, not even Chalcon, who took it personally.

It was noon before the big raptor unlocked her door, and only then because Sonic had hammered on it for half an hour. She opened the door a crack and peered at him with one green eye. Sonic looked quite fierce. "Slasher, let me in! I thought only Tails did this!" Without a word she opened the door and stood aside. Chalcon ducked in with Sonic.

Sonic looked around, expecting to see blood, but the hut was immaculate as usual, and Slasher looked perfectly healthy. The velociraptor folded her arms and looked at him in irritation. "There. You've seen me. Don't say a word-I know I'm disfigured."

Sonic blinked and looked at her, his anger ebbing. She hadn't a scratch on her, and her wings were groomed and sleek as they always were. "You're kidding, Slash," he said, venturing a smile. "There's nothing wrong with you.

Slasher made an angry clicking sound. "Can't you see? Look!" She spread a wing for him to see. Chalcon saw it first and gasped, but it took Sonic a second longer to grasp what he was seeing. Her wing was three feet shorter. The primary or 'finger' feathers had been cut in a neat line, with almost surgical precision. She refolded that wing and lifted the other to show him the cut feathers there, too, then paced up and down. Sonic had never seen the big raptor so ashamed and angry. "Can you still fly?" he asked.

She spun about to face him. "No! I can't fly! Don't you know what it means to have your wings clipped? I might as well be beating the air with golf clubs!"

"You can't fly?"

"No!" the raptor raged. "I won't be able to fly until my wings molt this fall and new feathers grow. They clipped my wings!"

"Who did?"

"Who do you think? The biotics. They ambushed me and held me down, and out came the shears. Then they let me go, and I swear they were laughing." She snarled at the memory and beat her wings. Sonic ducked. He knew what a clout from one of those felt like. "But I can still use them," she growled, stalking to and fro. "I can still beat somebody's head in with one blow. Sonic, go away and let me cool off."

The hedgehog slipped outside, wondering vaguely if Chalcon would be safe with her. To his surprise, Tails was standing just outside the door with Pilot in his arms. Both pairs of eyes were wide. "What happened to Slasher?" Tails whispered.

Sonic drew him across the road to the cover of a tree and told his sidekick of the raptor's misfortune. "Bummer," murmured Pilot. "I always liked watching her fly. So she can't fly until her feathers regrow?"

"Nope," Sonic replied. "It looks like it's up to you and Tails to do our aerial work from now on."

"Elleno and Chimera can fly," Tails pointed out.

"Not for very great distances," Pilot replied. "We tried once. Chimera flies real fast for a little way, then burns out. Elleno's jetpack is attached to her, so when she gets tired, it gets tired."

"Hi Sonic," came Velocity's voice from the ground.

Sonic jumped and saw his chao in small form standing near his ankle. "Where'd you come from?"

"I ran," said the indigo chao, his eyes shifting to Pilot. Pilot looked startled for a fraction of a second, then the look was masked at once.

"Sonic," said Velocity, "Zephyer and Zinc are having a big fight. You should come listen."

"I'm not gonna eavesdrop," Sonic said indignantly.

"You can't help it," Velocity replied with a grim smile. "You can hear them a mile away. C'mon!" He tugged at his master's knee. Sonic shrugged and walked off, Tails at his heels.

Velocity was right; Zephyer and Zinc were audible all the way down the street. People were staring curiously in the direction of their hut, and Elleno was standing unabashed outside the door, listening. She looked up as Sonic and Tails approached. "It's nothing very serious," she told them in disappointment as they walked up. "Zephyer's going on about how Zinc got hurt in Cragclaw, and he's saying he wasn't. That's all." But Sonic, Velocity, Tails and Pilot could hear for themselves.

"He attacked you, I saw him! That was Robo Knux!"

"You saw wrong, there wasn't anything near me. That robot never touched me, I swear!"

"But I saw him kneeling over you!"

"I'm telling you, he was flying by and you saw wrong!"

"I did not, Zinc! Why can't you just admit it?"

"There's nothing to admit! I'm right and you're wrong, that's all!"

The door banged open and Zinc barreled out into the sun in large form, his robotic eyes shimmering in fury. He stopped and glared at his audience, then stormed off in an embarrassed huff.

Zephyer appeared at the door, face flushed. She noticed the eavesdroppers at once. "You guys want something?"

"Not really," said Sonic casually. "We just heard a lot of noise and wondered what was up."

The echidna gave an exasperated sigh. "It's Zinc. He got hurt by a biotic when were were leaving Cragclaw. I'm sure he was bleeding-there was something all over the floor. He was limping as we ran. Then we got separated and Robo Knux found him, and when we ran again, Zinc wasn't limping at all. It doesn't make sense." This was news to Sonic and Tails, for they had been en-route to Knothole at the time.

"Maybe the robot erased his memory," said a voice. Sonic turned and saw Nash standing behind him, a look of interest in his yellow eyes. The bandage was gone from his head, and there was only a little patch of gauze on his chest. He could have passed for his future self in a second. Sonic's eyes narrowed in hatred. "What would you know?"

"I know enough not to underestimate the Black Claw," Nash replied, sensing Sonic's hostility. "At least I didn't end up as part of their network."

"I did not!" Sonic snarled, the spines on his back bristling. "I couldn't help it, and neither could Velocity!"

The cougar and hedgehog glowered at each other a moment, then Nash deliberately turned his back on Sonic. "As I was saying," he said to Zephyer, "the robot may have been carrying some of the Black Claw's technology, and shocked your chao with it. That could explain why he doesn't remember."

Zephyer glanced at Sonic to see the hedgehog whirl and stamp away, Velocity at his heels. Tails stayed put, looking from Sonic to Nash and back again, confused.

"You might be right," said Zephyer, folding her arms. "It's really weird for Zinc to get so angry."

Nash looked around, saw Sonic was gone and lowered his voice. "What is it about me that he hates?"

Zephyer glanced after Sonic and debated telling Nash the truth. No, she had better not. Who would believe it? "You remind him of somebody who tried to kill him once," she replied simply. "Just ignore him. He'll get over it."

Nash nodded and sighed. "It's like he holds me responsible for selling out Riverbase. But that was Kit's doing, not mine." He patted Pilot's head gently and walked away.

Tails approached Zephyer. "I don't see how he can be the Nash that came here, demanding the eighth chaos emerald. He's too nice!"

"I know," Zephyer replied softly. "If Sonic doesn't watch it, he'll make the future come true just by being a jerk."