"Wake up!"

            Even before his eyes opened, he'd lashed out with a fist. Only by dodging back was Rouge able to avoid it.

            When she landed, his eyes were open; he kept his arm extended and looked at her. "What do you want?"

            "Some Guardian you are," she said, sneering. "I could have had you dead."

            Knuckles' voice was steady, but the way his face betrayed his anger. "Do you intentionally try to piss me off, or does it just come naturally?"

            "It must be my aura of superiority," she said. "It's all because of your inherent insecurity."

            "Insecure? Me? If I'm insecure, I'm dead."

            She laughed. "So you're secure with me here?"

            "Your conceit knows no limit," he said, rising. "Let's just say I can't feel TOO nervous about you."

            "I think I'll take that as an insult!" she said. "You don't fear me enough!"

            He simply shrugged. "That's your decision. So, what's this about a map?"

            "I was just thinking that it's hard to treasure-hunt if I don't know what's here. A map would make things simple. After all, I can't spend all my time just scrounging in the dirt. The secret to treasure hunting is finding where other people scrounged in the dirt, then picking up after them. I need a map to learn where those places are. Are there any old mines around here? How about tombs to raid?"

            "There are both of those, actually. The tombs probably aren't such a good idea, though."

            "Why not?" she teased. "Are they echidna tombs, and you're soft about it?"

            "I am NOT soft. I don't know what kind of tombs they are, and frankly I don't care. They're dead. But I don't like it when they go walking on me."

            A chill ran up Rouge's spine. "When the dead go walking?"

            "Sure. Whoever's buried there isn't very happy about it. Every once in a while the dead get together and wander around, looking for someone to take their frustration out on. Those times, I usually just stay far away from there."

            There was a long pause as Rouge considered it. Then Knuckles smiled. "What's wrong? Are you scared?"

            She turned disdainfully. "Every grave I've ever robbed has been 'haunted', but I've never met a ghost. So you can understand some skepticism on my part."

            "You've never visited these graves. Anyway, the mines are probably a better bet. A map is out of the question, though. There's just too much risk."

            "Risk again. Just how secure are you?"

            "Not as secure as I want to be."

            "Just perfect, then," she said. "You don't fear me enough to be insecure, but you don't trust me enough to be secure. Is there a term for that?"

            Knuckles stroked his chin thoughtfully. "Wariness? Caution? Guardedness?"

            "If any of those were the case, I would never catch you sleeping."

            "But if it's none of those, you'd have your map."

            'Stalemate,' Rouge thought. 'So named because it's stale.'

            "Well then," she said, "will you guide me to these mines of yours?"

            "Not of mine," he said.

            "Then whose are they?"

            "I don't know. On the other paw, I can't say I expect them to come back and claim them, so the mines could be mine if I wanted them to be."

            Odd. Rouge couldn't grasp his reasoning. "Why don't you want them to be yours?"

            "What good would it do? They have no value to me. I can't do anything with them, and I can't sell them off to get something else, so they're essentially worthless."

            "But… any place where there are jewels… I mean, it's a mine! How can you not want jewels?"

            "I don't have your fetish, Rouge."

            "It's not a fetish!"

            He grinned. "Right, and now you're gonna tell me it's perfectly logical to be obsessed with jewels."

            "Hardly," she said, mind working furiously. "But… it's a fetish we both have. You have one over that big green stone."

            "That is not the same thing!"

            "Not all fetishes are created equal?"

            "Something like that."

            "You're right. Unlike you, I LIKE my fetish!"

            Knuckles rolled his eyes, but with something of a smile. Rouge smiled broadly—she'd nailed him, and they both knew it.

            Rouge felt a hint of the tingle again, and immediately drew a conclusion from it. She'd gotten the feeling through her defeat of him. As before, his weakness produced this in her.

            Someday soon, she would find the opening she needed. She would find some soft spot—some gap in his defenses. Then she would be in like a flood and consume him.

            Maybe, after that, she might be content.

            "I told you, I'm not sure if I'll be able to spot it from the air."

            "How can you not spot a mine from the air?"

            "I don't know what it would look like."

            Rouge huffed at Knuckles. He was being stubborn again. Although he'd agreed to show her to a mine, he didn't want to take the fastest route to the mine, her helicopter.

            "What, are you scared of copters?"

            "No."

            "Did you have a bad experience with a copter once? Did one of your parents?"

            "NO!"

            Rouge almost smiled—then stopped. She wanted to slap herself—to think she'd almost missed it!

            Knuckles was irritable, of course, and she'd expected a harsh reaction to that jibe. But all her jobs had taught her a thing or two on how to read people. Subtle differences in intonation and gesture often revealed peoples' true minds without their realizing it. Many were the people undone by subconscious physical reactions to stress differentiating lies and truths.

            Rouge was by no means an expert at this, and usually could only rely on it when she wasn't participating in the conversation. But Knuckles was so overt in his emotions and shameless in his physique that her ability was exaggerated. The minnow's king if it's up against plankton.

            Something in his voice—the dilation of his eyes—different factors showed Knuckles' reaction had been too harsh. Something Rouge had said had struck a nerve. What was it?

            Rouge filed it away for future reference.

            "Why did you bring a copter, anyway?" Knuckles said, trying to fill the silence.

            "Huh?" Rouge hadn't quite caught up yet.

            "A helicopter. It seems odd for you. Kind of—well, loud. You strike me as more of a slinker. You didn't need a copter last time."

            "Last time was a grab and run," she said. "It wasn't necessary. This time I needed the lift to bring my equipment, but I still wanted to come alone. And I am not a slinker."

            "You wanted to come alone? Why, embarrassed at what someone else might see?"

            "I can't imagine what you're implying by that!"

            "Me beating you."

            "As I said, I can't imagine!"

            Knuckles laughed, and Rouge smiled too. It was fun to match wits with him—their mutual arrogance provided such a nice dynamic.

            What the--?

            How--?

            It was the content-tingle!

            Why now? Rouge didn't understand. 'Well,' she thought, 'I get it because of Knuckles' weakness, right? Well, I'd just told him he couldn't beat me—that's what caused it.'

            No, it wasn't, and she knew it.

            Far from making her feel good, this time the tingle was unnerving. Where was it coming from? It was disrupting her theories. If it just popped up out of nowhere, how was she supposed to reproduce it later?

            Knuckles must have noticed her silence, because he spoke up. "Something wrong?"

            "No," she lied. "And we can forget about the copter. It's too loud anyway, it hurts my ears."

            He shook his head. "So you kept pressuring me about it—why? Just to be contrary?"

             "For your sake," she said. "I thought you might enjoy something new."

            "Really? Rouge, you considered me. I'm touched."

            She laughed, but not whole-heartedly. 'That wasn't just a joke,' she thought. 'He felt something like that—even just a little bit, it was there.'

            She smiled. 'He DOES like me.'

            "So," she said, "why did you go against the copter so much?"

            "I'm not gonna change what I said," he said. "It's just not useful, and it's bothersome. More trouble than it's worth."

            "So it's not the copter itself?"

            He looked at her as if he couldn't grasp what she was thinking. "What's with all these weird questions?"

            "Nothing," she lied, then laughed. "It's rich when YOU call someone weird."

            "Hey, I just said the questions were weird. And at least I don't have six limbs!"

            "Six limbs are very useful," she countered.

            "So are knuckle-barbs, but we were just going by weird and not-weird, right?"

            "Do you honestly think that by weird I was referring only to physical?"

            "If we're talking about head cases, you lose more ground, 'cause your weirdness is mostly mental anyway!"

            She scoffed at him. "What a weirdo."

            He laughed. "Are you ready to go?"

            "Are you ready to lead me?"

            "Any time."

            "I was waiting on you."

            "Then you're dumb."

            "And you're not cooperating."

            "Given the choice between dumb and non-cooperative, I'll take non-cooperative anytime."

            'He beat me to that one,' Rouge thought, smiling wryly.

            "Follow me," he said. He led her towards the mountains.

            'And now he beat me again.'

TO BE CONTINUED…