A/N: I'm sure everyone knows that all Sonic Characters belong to Sonic Team, Sega, and who ever made them. And I'm sorry for adding in those 'Echidna' guards in the first chapter; back then I knew little about Knuckles and him being the last Echidna. Excuse my mistakes and I'll get on with the story.

Ch. 4

Ebano had been walking for ages now. The sun filtered through the trees and harmed not his back, but distracted him from the darkness of the trees. He had soon gotten lost in the forest, in her mind he had counted how much times he had stumbled on roots, nearly fallen in a river, got attacked by bugs, and gone in complete circles, but had soon lost count from doing those things so many times. He finally got tired and sat down on a tree stump to rest his legs. He traced his finger along the many lines of the stump as he pondered what he was going to do. Should he move on out and try to get at least some where on this place, or stay and wait for something….anything.

Almost as soon as he had thought that thought, he heard something rustle in the bushes. He stood up and walked over to the bush, eyeing it suspiciously as the rustling thing hesitated, sensing the suspicious Ebano walking closer. Ebano reached out a hand to try and grab the thing in the bush, which let out a little yelp and leaped backwards out of the bush.

It was a rat. A rat which was quite large, but still small enough for Ebano to pick it up by it's tail and lift it up only a few feet from his face. He inspected the rat, which was making hopeless attempts to squirm from Ebano's strong clutches. It had fur of milky white, with grey splotches long his back and front. It had black, beady eyes, which were facing towards Ebano.

"Well, well, what do we have here? A rat. And a sneaky one, too. You were following me, weren't you?"

Ebano hissed, holding the rat close to his face. As much as the rat squirmed, he couldn't escape the powerful Echidna's claws. Finally the fur ball spoke, in a high-pitched, quivering voice,

"V-very, very sorry, your Echidna-ness, I w-was only following orders…"

Ebano growled, letting the rat drop to the ground, in which it bowed deeply.

"Very many thanks for sparing me; I shall be on my way now!"

He squeaked quickly, but before he could scamper away, Ebano stepped on the rat's tail, causing the rat to squeak in pain from having his tail squashed.

"I still haven't forgiven you for spying on me, you dirty little sneak. Who gave you those orders, squirmy one?"

The Rat squeaked, and he opened his mouth to explain to Ebano everything…

A/N: Oooo, cliffy-hanger! It isn't going to get better, because the next chapter is about Marfil, but anywhom, feel free to give ideas in you're reviews! Anything above criticism –cough-flames-cough- is spat on, used for toilet paper, and hanged proudly in the Hall of Shame.