Chapter 21: Levitating

"Here you are." Sonic looked up when Knuckles handed him a small bowl. The hedgehog took it from his hand and placed it in his lap. It was warm and the smell that hung in the entire room was even stronger now.

Sonic had slept through most of the day and when he'd wakened up it had been to just that same smell. A scent that reminded him of vanilla pudding. In fact, the stuff in the bowl was some kind of pudding, but it contained little corns that looked like some sort of round, tiny rice to Sonic. Maybe it even was something like that. The hedgehog dug his spoon into the pudding and tried it.

He brightened. It was very sweet and really had an aftertaste of vanilla that lingered on in his mouth even after he'd swallowed. "Wow, that's good," he exclaimed, taking another spoonful. "Whasit?"

Knuckles smirked. "One of the few warm recipes I know." He sat down next to where Sonic was leaning against the stone wall aside of the small fireplace.

Sonic swallowed, licking his lips. "I think you really need to share it."

Knuckles stirred his own pudding. "I'm afraid that wouldn't help you much; the main component is a cereal that only grows on Angel Island."

"Too bad." Sonic quit the small talk at that point, he was starving and the pudding was too good to risk letting it become cold.

Aside of offering another bowlful of the stuff when Sonic finished his first Knuckles accepted the silence, eating his own food and when he was done he just sat and watched the hedgehog eat his. It was only when Sonic was done and leaned back against the wall that he spoke up. "You look better."

"So?" Sonic raised a brow.

Knuckles shrugged, face a careful mask that was impossible to look through. It was quite a leap from the self-loathing guilt that had stood in his eyes when Sonic had fallen asleep earlier. "That's good."

Sonic smiled, reminding himself that Knuckles had not slept the day away as he had and that he'd presumably spent this day beating himself up. He needed Knuckles as much as Knuckles needed him and Tails needed them both, so he figured he should try and cut the echidna some slack. "I suppose," he agreed softly.

The echidna still insisted to take a look at Sonic's injuries and all protests the hedgehog gave about this being not necessary at all fell on deaf ears. In the end Sonic had to admit to himself that his shoulder felt better after Knuckles had cleaned the wounds, placed some herbs he claimed were good for them over the cuts and replaced the bandages. Not that Sonic was about to say that aloud.

Instead, he grinned at the echidna who was putting his medicine stuff away to where it belonged, a small attempt at familiar playful banter. "Are you done with me now, doc?"

Knuckles arched an eyebrow, looking over his shoulder. "Almost. As soon as I get you back into bed," he said and Sonic noticed he didn't seem to be that much in the mood for banter.

"Aw, really? Man, I've been there for forever today," the hedgehog complained, attempt number two. He'd never been one to give up when a first attempt didn't work out right away.

The guardian turned around to face him, arms folding on his chest. "Perhaps you have, but we might very well need you in a fit shape for fighting tomorrow. In case you've forgotten, you've been rather far from anything like that recently, and I sure as heck won't be going around waiting for you," he pointed out dryly, sharply.

Sonic flinched, beginning to lose his fragile leash on humour and temper. "You won't need to wait for me, I betcha."

Knuckles however seemed to appreciate the retort more than anything Sonic had tried before. He nodded. "Fine." He sat next to the fire and took a slow breath in a visible effort to center himself. "I know you want to get to Tails as soon as possible. Believe me, so do I. But for now all we can do is wait until we get there and make sure we're prepared."

"Yeah." Sonic sighed heavily, probably to Knuckles' endless surprise really laying down on the bed. He settled down with his good hand under his neck and pulled the covers up to his chest. Finding the echidna openly stare at him, he shot a frowning look back. "Here, I'm resting. But don't you think you're rid of me, 'cause I bet I can't sleep now."

Knuckles shrugged. Sonic supposed he figured he'd gotten a lot more than he'd expected, so he kept quiet about it. "You wanna talk then?"

The hedgehog nodded just to make a point. He didn't want to talk. He knew Knuckles didn't want to talk either, but he knew both of them needed to talk, and Knuckles wouldn't be the one to start, so that task fell to him. "Guess so. What else can we do while we're hanging here?" His gaze moved from Knuckles to the shadows the fire caused to dance over the rocky ceiling and he decided to not take the most direct and painful plunge for their both sake. Maybe some stalling was in order. Nobody would gain anything if they made this a snarking match as they used to. "What do you think someone does that for?"

"Does what?" Knuckles leaned with his shoulder against the wall next to him, relaxing slightly, if confusedly, at Sonic's evasive choice of topic. Probably he'd expected him to round right on him and stab his finger in the most sore spot.

"Lock me into your shiny rock to take my place." Sonic flicked his ears. "I mean, why'd you want to be someone else? What do you get out of that?"

The echidna shrugged and shook his head. "I don't have any clue, Sonic. Makes no sense to me why someone would want to be you… It'd kinda suck eating nothing but chili dogs…"

Sonic chuckled, throwing Knuckles a look of surprise. "Was that a joke?"

"Might have been." Knuckles pulled one foot closer to his body, popped his elbow up in his knee and leaned his face into his hand. "Why?"

The hedgehog lazily waved his hand. "I dunno. You don't often joke when things are… serious. That's more like my part, I guess."

Knuckles grunted. "You bet." He shifted a little in the warmth around the fireplace. "It's my fault," he said quietly.

Sonic lifted his head, turning towards him. Here they were, then. He'd not even needed to prod him for it. Still, feigning ignorance served wonders if you wanted Knuckles to spill his guts before whatever he'd bottled up would eat him alive. Determined, Sonic called on his admittedly less than great acting skills and intoned an innocent "What?" that dived in for the kill without his friend even realizing it.

"It's my fault," Knuckles repeated, blindly taking the bait. "About Tails, I mean. I should have thought of him, but I didn't. I was too busy wondering about the Master Emerald… and then when I got you out of it, I failed to see the consequences, that we've taken an enemy with us instead of you. I didn't realize the connection until you came up with it today and I should have. I should have been clever enough to see that if you're here with me, that imposter we've been hunting and that stole the Emerald is now with Tails. But I was too dumb to see it and if something happens to Tails…" Knuckles broke off and swallowed dryly. "This time I can't go and blame it on somebody else. I've been an idiot and if something bad happens to Tails it's my fault alone. You'd think I'd have learned by now, but I'm not better than others before me."

"Others before you?", Sonic prompted when his friend cut himself off.

"Other guardians," Knuckles elaborated bitterly, but willingly enough. "We do that. Maybe it's a guardian thing. Or an echidna thing. We sit up here, on our petty little island and care about our own little problems, never about the world at large. I –"

"Ah, stop it," Sonic interrupted, more sharply than he'd intended and obviously unexpectedly enough for Knuckles to raise his head and stare at him. "You're better than that, and you know it. You care about the world. I've been around when you've been with me, just as Tails was, to save the world, and not just your little island."

"But I didn't, Sonic!", Knuckles snapped back at him, eyes fiery and fists balled up at his sides. "I didn't look beyond my own nose! Not just once! The moment I was back here, I didn't once stop to think about the bigger picture! All I thought about was the Master Emerald and that there was something wrong with it and that I needed to fix it!"

"There was something wrong with it," Sonic allowed with a fully faked sense of calm. Nobody won if they both lost it here. Maybe it was good he was still too tired to find the energy to be angry with the echidna.

The comment stalled Knuckles for just a second. "Yes, sure, there was something wrong with it! You were in it! And that meant you couldn't be with Tails! But even after I figured that out, I didn't stop to think it through just one step further! Even after I got you out, and knew for sure you were here, and not with Tails, I never thought of it! You had to think of it, and you thought of it still half delirious with whatever was in that dart! I didn't even think of it without anything messing with my head!"

"Oh, wasn't there?! Something messing with your head!? There was a Master Emerald of all things messing with your head, Knuckles! And while it probably always does in a way, you said yourself it was nothing like normal!" Sonic fixed his gaze to his friend's. "When was the last time you slept, for real, I mean? Had a decent meal?"

Knuckles blinked, slowly, and for a frightful second there Sonic thought the carefully constructed façade was crumbling right before his eyes, then Knuckles caught himself with a steadying breath, even though his fingers clenched so hard that it hurt looking at the faint tremors in his fists. "That's not an excuse," the echidna said, more quietly again and his voice shook enough that Sonic could hear it. Briefly the hedgehog wished he would actually lose his grip on himself and punch or break something, anything; it would be easier to watch than this.

"It's an explanation," he said gently.

"That's not the same."

"No. It is not. But it's important to know why you made a mistake, so you don't make it again." For a surreal moment Sonic found he felt like he did back when Tails had been smaller and looked up to him for guidance on all sorts of small and big problems. The tone still came naturally, even towards Knuckles. Maybe you couldn't stop being a big brother in a moment such as this.

"It's still my fault," Knuckles argued dejectedly. "If Tails is hurt –" He didn't try to finish the sentence.

For a moment silence hung heavily in the cave of Knuckles' houseroom. Sonic was chewing his bottom lip, watching Knuckles stare at the floor in front of him. "We'll save him, Knuckles," the hedgehog said quietly then.

"What if we're too late?" The guardian didn't look up. "What if he's –"

"He's fine," Sonic interrupted, sounding even somewhat confident about it.

Knuckles glanced over to him. "How can you know?"

"Because I…" Sonic sighed. "Because I can't imagine he's injured, or worse. He just… has to be okay, you know?"

Knuckles nodded silently.

For several minutes nobody spoke. Knuckles turned Sonic's last words around in his head. He knew the feeling, though he'd rarely felt that way about a person. He was feeling that way now, and suddenly, for an odd moment, if seemed weird to him that he'd before most of the time worried about a sacred gemstone. But normally you didn't need to worry about Tails much 'cause the fox was clever enough to stay out of the most dangerous situations, and his only other actually close friend wasn't the type of person you bothered worrying about outside of the situations he was facing certain doom in form of some super-powered entity. Knuckles just wasn't used to worrying about people, and if he came into a situation where he did worry about his friends, it kept confusing him. Sonic's attempts to pep-talk him aside, it stayed his fault, and he would have to deal with his guilt as it came to it.

"Do you think Eggman's behind this?" Sonic's question, spoken into the silent room, startled Knuckles out of his pondering.

"Dunno. I mean, we've seen a few robots at that base where the Emerald was, but it's not really like Eggman to just silently sneak around, sedate you from behind and let us get away with the Master Emerald and that fake Sonic person." The echidna frowned deeply, struggling to surface enough from the dark place in his mind to wrap his thoughts around Sonic's new chosen topic of conversation.

"No, it's nothing like him," Sonic agreed. "He'd make a real show out of it. He'd have maybe set a trap up for us to capture us all in that base, not just me, and he'd put us all into your glowing rock. That way, he could keep the Emerald and be rid of all of us. Much better for that world domination thing of his, right?"

Knuckles studied his friend. "Sometimes it worries me you know him so well. You have been fighting each other for too long, I guess…"

"Uh, you think?" Sonic waved his hand a little again. "I think it's all about knowing your enemy and stuff…"

The echidna just briefly inclined his head. "It's still weirding me out sometimes."

"Whatever." Sonic turned back to the flickers overhead. "But all that 'fake Sonic person', as you so nicely labeled him, did was seal me away and take my place. He let you have the Master Emerald and didn't bother at all what you did with it after you got it back. I mean, did he really just steal the Emerald to have something to put me in? Whatever happened to spooky, cold dungeons you throw your enemies in?"

The statement earned Sonic another very weird look. "You'd have preferred to be locked in some cold dungeon instead?"

Sonic nodded, suddenly dead serious. "Sometimes, heck yes. I tell you, that pitch dark labyrinth was one of the scariest places I've been to in my life. I was sure there was something there, and it was going to eat me." He shuddered at the memory.

"Uh-huh." Knuckles knew he still looked weirded-out.

A moment passed in awkward silence, then Sonic cleared his throat. "I guess we've settled for now that we don't think Eggman's behind this."

Knuckles shrugged. "But who locks you away, only to go with Tails pretending they're you? They didn't even bother about me and the Emerald, or you stuck inside of it, after that…"

"I guess they thought they're rid of me for good. At least until someone breaks the Emerald, and they couldn't know it'd be practically begging you to do that so soon." Sonic shifted a little on the bed. "But if they were after me only to seal me into the shiny stone, and didn't care at all what you did… what do they want with Tails? Why did they go with him? Just to pretend I haven't disappeared? Tails knows me better than anyone, he'll find out quickly I'm not real. I mean, that fake Sonic is not real. I mean… you get it."

Knuckles smirked for a second. "Yes, I get you." The echidna sat a little more upright again. "What if the two of us were just obstacles? I mean, you got locked away in the Master, I was easily occupied with restoring it after I got it back and you being locked, and that left Tails an easy target. But why Tails? I mean, aside of being a really nice guy… What could Tails be useful for if you want to take over the world or something? Granted they're out for that kind of thing, of course."

"I bet they are. It's always about this kind of stuff." Sonic grimaced. "But I don't know. Tails can't really do any chaos control or great fighting for them. He's best with making plans or building stuff. Wouldn't it make more sense kidnapping you and force you to use the Master Emerald for them?"

Knuckles shrugged rather helplessly and frustrated. Right now he wished they'd taken him. He'd willingly endure any torture just if it meant Tails wouldn't have to. "I don't know. For some reason, they took Tails, not one of us, and it doesn't make sense."

Wearily Sonic ran a hand down his face and sighed. "Nothing makes sense recently…"

"No," Knuckles agreed, picking up a stick that had been leaning against the wall and turned it over in his hands. "Let's just hope they need Tails for something. They can't do anything to harm him if they really need him."

Sonic nodded, through half-lidded eyes staring at the ceiling. "Yeah…"

Once more, silence fell over the cave. Nobody really knew what to say anymore. Knuckles watched the fire, every now and then using the stick to stir it and keep it high. He distantly heard Sonic yawn quietly. "Maybe we're worrying too much," the echidna spoke up again. "Maybe they're just out to run around as you and steal stuff from GUN again."

A moment passed before Sonic answered at all. "You don't really believe that," he murmured.

"No," Knuckles admitted. "Guess I was just trying to take on your part and tell us everything's fine." A light chuckle came from the hedgehog, but he didn't seem to feel like commenting actually.

Trying his best to shift his mind elsewhere but concerns about their young friend and whoever they were up against, the guardian forced his concentration back to all the things Sonic had told him about where he'd been earlier, about all these weird places. He'd never thought it could be like that inside the Master Emerald. If he was being honest, he hadn't even really believed anyone but Tikal or Chaos could exist in there.

Knuckles poked his stick into the fire, shifting the wood in the fireplace and keeping the flames from going further down. "I still don't believe it," he said quietly, gazing into the orange and deep red of the ambers. "After all this time I've been here as the Master Emerald's guardian, I still seem to find something new out about it. There seems to be so much I don't know… and I guess it's making me nervous that somewhere out there is someone who knows more about the Master than me. We have to find them. I need to know how they could do something to the Emerald nobody has done in centuries and it still seemed so easy to them. I thought there were no living person and no historical record about sealing someone inside the Emerald. I was wrong, and again that there's so much I still don't know after all these years would have almost been fatal." The echidna stirred the fire again. "Do you think there still are records about the Master Emerald left, even after thousands of years? I always used to think most knowledge was lost, but I guess we have to think again now, Sonic. … Sonic?"

There came no reply from the blue hedgehog and when Knuckles turned his head, Sonic's chest was falling and rising evenly with deep breaths. At some point during Knuckles' not exactly lengthy monologue his friend had fallen asleep.

The red echidna slowly shook his head. He wasn't even sure if he wasn't glad Sonic had not heard what he'd said. Heck, he wasn't even sure if he'd been really talking to Sonic and not to himself…

With a small sigh Knuckles put down the stick and instead shoved some fresh pieces of wood into the fire that were quickly consumed by the flames, then he stood up, throwing another short glance at the sleeping hedgehog. He supposed he was still weary from loss of blood and what one could probably reasonably call a hangover from whatever he'd been injected with, and while Knuckles had not exactly been planning to lull him into sleep with his talking, he wasn't really minding this result.

Quietly the guardian walked out of the room. He'd just briefly check on the Emerald and the course of the island again, and then he'd also hit the hay. If their concerns turned out anything like justified, they'd both need their strength tomorrow.

The cave was still dark when Sonic woke up. For a moment he lay on his back and stared at the dark ceiling, listening to Knuckles' quiet breathing, then he realized he was more awake than he remembered being in a while and there was no way he could go back to sleep no matter the probably early hour.

He crawled out of bed and spent two minutes trying to locate his shoes in the semi-dark room without making too much noise. Admittedly he felt almost guilty at the sight of Knuckles curled up next to the fireplace on the floor while he'd had the bed. It wasn't that he could change it and the echidna had insisted he stayed in the bed, but he could at least try not to wake him before sunrise even.

When he finally found his footwear in a corner, Sonic snuck out into Angel Island's quiet morning. The air was cool and fresh with just a mild wind going that rustled the fallen leaves as well as the ones yet remaining on the trees. The Eastern horizon was turning deep blue with a streak of yellow while towards the west it was still almost completely dark and a small amount of stubborn stars twinkled between a few clouds.

Sonic fell into a slow jog along a narrow path winding through the forest, his footsteps causing tiny thumps on ground that was damp with dew and his breath was steaming mists in the cool air. The light got brighter by the minute and after a short time Sonic could clearly see his path and the forest around. One by one, the birds woke up as well and began to sing their morning songs.

Not really having a goal, Sonic just let his feet carry him, from the forest out onto hills with high grass back into another forest. The wind smelled of a thousand things and it was intoxicating to run through a real place, with real wind and real smells and a real sunrise. Sonic smiled broadly. He'd so missed this… and while he'd never really given the whole concept much thought or felt attached to Angel Island, he felt like having come home.

He slowed to a walk a good half an hour later when his randomly chosen directions led him to the Temple of Chaos. The rising sun stood over the forest surrounding the clearing with the altar like a giant ball of glowing orange and its reddish, soft light painted the stone wall and pillars of the temple in almost golden hues.

Slowly Sonic walked between them until he reached the stairway and climbed it up. From the top you could overlook the hills with their lush green meadows and the forests shining in autumn's bright colors as well as the rough mountains in the island's center and the blindingly white glaciers near their tops.

Sonic admired the panorama for several minutes before he became aware of the warmth in his back. He turned around, facing the Master Emerald's green glow and folding his arms. It felt weird to him now. Well, actually it had always been weird, but it was as if something had changed about it. Or maybe he'd changed. It didn't make sense.

"What do you intend to see in it?"

Sonic jumped at the voice behind him and whirled around. Behind him stood Knuckles, a small smile curving his lips at having startled Sonic like that, and to the hedgehog's surprise he didn't look mad to find him here at all like he sometimes used to.

The blue hedgehog shrugged. "Dunno. What do you see in it?"

Knuckles' face turned serious as he stepped up to Sonic's side, violet eyes reflecting the Master Emerald's light. "It's difficult to explain. Sometimes I see the whole world in it. Sometimes nothing at all."

Sonic frowned at the guardian's reply. "Ah."

The red echidna released a breath with a small huff. "You know, sometimes I'm sure it chooses what to show. It showed me the Egg Carrier when I needed to find the last missing shards and I really found them there."

"Does it… know the future?" Sonic looked between Knuckles and the Emerald.

"I don't know. It might." Knuckles wasn't looking at him anymore, his gaze lost in the green glow of the gem. "It shows events from the past sometimes. I haven't yet seen something that happened afterwards, but the Emeralds exist out of time and space in a way. If a Chaos Emerald can get to the future, maybe it's fair to assume the Master knows something about it." The guardian slightly shook his head and his eyes returned to look at Sonic. "What did you see?"

Sonic gave a light shrug. "Nothing now. But when I was away, there was this wall and it showed a lot of things, most of the time things I didn't know. Maybe I'll get to know them in the future?"

"You might. The future isn't fixed, though, everything we do changes it constantly. The future of five minutes ago is something that maybe never comes to be now." Knuckles waved a hand dismissively.

"But –"

"Let it go. Whatever you saw in it, don't let it mess up your mind." A soft smile was on Knuckles' face. "The Emerald's ways are complex and nobody will probably ever understand them completely. In the end, the Master is, like the Seven, chaos by nature and it will always stay chaos."

Sonic nodded slowly. "Yeah… I guess."

Knuckles nodded back at him. "How long have you been here?"

"Just a few minutes before you came. I've been taking a run." Sonic smiled a little. "You know, it's great to be back."

"I guess." Knuckles smiled too. Sonic was glad to notice the morose mood of yesterday seemed to have lifted. The echidna looked between Sonic and the Emerald for a second and turned towards the stairs. "Take your time here." There was an odd understanding tone to his words. "We're almost there tough."

Sonic stood and watched the echidna slowly descend the stairway. He leaves me here to look at his Emerald. It felt like a privilege… in a weird way. "Knuckles, wait."

The echidna turned around. "What's it?"

"I…" Sonic awkwardly ran a hand through his quills. "I don't think I said it yet. I… know how much this," he wanted to say 'thing' but it wouldn't come out, "Emerald means to you and… y'know, thank you for breaking it to save me."

Knuckles nodded at him and a small smile was on his face. His eyes locked with Sonic's and for a second the hedgehog could see into his mind. He smiled back, knowing that, as weird as it was, no more words needed to be said.

He turned back to the Emerald. "Don't forget me… and next time, try being nicer to your visitors." For an instant the Master Emerald's glow pulsed up brighter. Sonic raised a brow. "I hope that was a yes." He turned around and followed Knuckles down the stairs.

The guardian wore a smirk as they continued out of the temple together.

Sonic grinned at him. "What?"

"Nothing. It wasn't exactly my business." The echidna grinned too.

Sonic twitched his ears. "How about we pick up some breakfast and go kick some bad guy's butt?"

Knuckles nodded with an odd mixture of grimness and humour. "Count me in."

When Angel Island's thick forest fell behind them, Sonic was still chewing on a yellow fruit he had never seen before. It had roughly the shape of an apple, but it was almost twice as large and so sweet it was almost too much to take. It wasn't too bad though and the blue hedgehog was so insanely hungry that he didn't care much about what it was he got to fill his growling stomach with.

"Are you sure this is the shortest way to the edge?", he asked between bites.

Knuckles shot him a glare. "I am sure, hedgehog. This is my island. In fact, it's not exactly the closest way to the edge from the temple, but the shortest way to the part of the edge that'll be closest to the Mystic Ruin's coast."

Sonic took another bite of the fruit. "Yeah, yeah, chill out. I didn't mean to shove something up your grumpy rearside. I'm just…" He broke of, not willing to admit how nervous for Tails he was directly into Knuckles' face.

"I know." The echidna's reply wasn't as much grumbled as Sonic had expected and the blue hedgehog realized his friend was probably just as aware of the heavy tension as he was himself… and also of the fact neither of them knew how to really deal with it. But Knuckles seemed to know as well that picking a fight just because of their both stressed-out mood wouldn't get them anywhere.

For a moment Sonic silently ate the rest of his fruit. If nobody said something, the other one couldn't be ticked off by it, right? Well, most people probably would find constant silence from their companion unnerving as well, but Sonic had never made that experience with Knuckles. Probably it was because the echidna had spent most of his life alone without anyone talking to him that he seemed to find constant silence less annoying than people talking, especially if the talking person happened to be a blue hedgehog. Sonic himself didn't, he would have loved to talk, he just wasn't sure if it would get him anywhere.

Luckily Knuckles was the one breaking the silence. "See that cliff over there?"

Sonic looked up. About 50 meters in front of them, the ground abruptly ended. A rocky outcrop hung over the edge for another maybe ten meters. "Yup, see it."

"We'll get down from there," Knuckles said, walking ahead of Sonic and climbing onto the rocks.

Sonic caught up with him when they reached the very edge and gazed down. Directly below was the blue sea, seemingly far away. As he looked a little further, he caught sight of the ragged rocks forming the coastline of the Mystic Ruins zone. The fog typical for autumn mornings hung over the hills as a white coat, only the higher mountains slightly more inland stuck out their tops.

It was only now that he looked down that Sonic realized they were way too high to just hop off the island as he'd thought they would. "Aren't we a little, you know, high?", he asked skeptically, cocking a brow at Knuckles next to him.

The echidna shrugged lightly. "Well, sorry, this is as low as I can get us. The island doesn't end at the edge you know, it has a socket that's about 300 meters high and it's already brushing the water now. Even if I wanted to immerge it and dare getting it stuck, I wouldn't get us much lower 'cause the sea is already pretty shallow here. Going any lower over the ocean or even worse over land would not help us and risk serious damage to the island and what is below it."

Sonic frowned. "It survived falling a couple times without any serious damage, didn't it?"

Knuckles ground his teeth. "Yes. Maybe. It was pure luck it wasn't anywhere over land or too shallow or deep waters when it fell."

"Okay, I see, we can't get any lower, fine." Sonic took half a step back. "But I see two problems here."

The echidna's violet eyes narrowed at him. "So?"

Sonic shrugged, trying to take Knuckles' mood easy. "Problem A is that if I just jump down here, I'll most likely break a few bones or worse after such a fall. You do remember I can't fly, right?" Knuckles just kept looking at him and Sonic continued. "Problem B, even if I survive the fall without any actual injury, I've been lucky before y'know… From this position," he pointed down, "if the fall isn't going to kill me off, I'm gonna drown."

To Sonic's surprise, Knuckles grinned a little now. "Do you think I went through the trouble you gave me the past few days, coddled you up and all that to throw you over the edge and retrieve you as hedgehog pancake or feed the fish with you?"

Sonic folded his arms, trying to find out if he found the echidna's words funny or not. "Then how does me killing myself fit into your awesome plans?"

Knuckles shrugged lightly. "Who said you'd have to jump?"

Sonic scratched his ear. His injured shoulder felt a little stiff and stung as he did. "Didn't we say we'd jump off the edge? If not, why are we even here?"

"Yeah, we said we jump. What happened to the teamwork idea you spoke so highly off a while ago?" Actual amusement sparkled in Knuckles' eyes for a second.

"Teamwork, huh?" Sonic leaned forwards and gazed at the ocean and rocks several hundred meters below. "How's your teamwork gonna help us here?"

"Oh, it's simple. All you have to do is hold on tight and enjoy the ride…"

Sonic frowned at his friend. "Huh?"