ShadTikal4ever: thanks for reviewing, and all will be revealed in this chapter ;)
FriedBrickWall: of course I'm gonnaanswer; I LOVE feedback! Sonic universe...it's mainly the games, with the odd change here and there.
Guardian's Log No. 11457
Well. So we finally arrived. I have to admit, this place is amazing; you could sit and look at the lights in silent contemplation for hours even if you never gambled. At least, I could.
I played a few rounds of bingo. That was one hell of an experience, and I did manage to get a perfect score. If nothing else, Sonic was right about one thing; this journey has already been very profitable.
--Knuckles the Echidna
My Memoirs by Me
Okay, so maybe I screwed up the button-pushing thing in the power plant. But it turned out okay in the end; I took the lift and hitched a ride on that handle while Knuckles decided to take Tails on his back and climb all the way up the wall and out. An incredible coincidence, as that was my backup plan.
Joking aside though, we made it! It was worth it to see Knuckles' face when we arrived here. Almost worth the pain of Amy calling me...that name in front of Knux and Tails. I'm heading straight for the slot machine; fingers crossed I can win some rings or something! I saw a toolbox being gambled on the roulette wheel, maybe I can get that for Tails.
--Sonic the Hedgehog
Dear Diary,
My flying skills bug Sonic, huh? Maybe he should try aiming from about twenty feet sometime! He didn't complain when I used it to get him out of trouble. And I slow him down, like everyone who can't run at supersonic speed, and he hates having to share his food with me and he wishes I'd shut up about the stuff I'm good at? Well, he'll get his wish; I don't want to talk to him ever again! He should be happy; if I'm not there I can't bore him or endanger him or fall asleep when on watch. I dunno how much longer Knuckles'll last though; I'm kinda sorry I couldn't help him get back to the island, but I am not gonna fly the Tornado! At least, not for ages. Sonic'll understand; I must've bored him with that more than anything. If he wants it though, he's welcome to it. Same goes for Knuckles.
--Tails
The platform was deserted when Sonic arrived back, dragging a canvas bag behind him.
"Hey little bro, you'll never guess what I won on the..." He broke off, looking around. "Tails?"
"Back so soon?" Knuckles said from behind him, making the hedgehog jump. Sonic grinned.
"Yeah, well, I had to come back before I bankrupted the place. Plus the fact that hauling this—" he lifted the bag six inches off the floor, then let it drop— "makes it harder to play."
"What is it?" Knuckles said, curiosity getting the better of him. Sonic's grin broadened.
"Lotsa things, Knux. Mostly it's a toolbox. Tails has been talking about how he needs this wrench or that. I dunno much about tools, but there's bound to be some stuff in here he can use." He looked around. "Speaking of which, you seen Tails anywhere?"
The echidna blinked.
"I thought he was with you."
"What?" Sonic said, startled. "No, he went looking for somewhere to sleep, remember? He's been back; he left his stuff here." He nodded to the small bag on the floor. Knuckles shrugged.
"He's probably just riding the tables or something. He'll be back."
Sonic shook his head.
"No, he's not like that. He wouldn't just vanish without telling me."
"Well, he left a note." Knuckles lifted the paper up from underneath the bag. "This writing's almost illegible..." He squinted. "'I hope you're hippy – no, sorry, happy – I hope you're happy, Sonic, 'cause you got what you said you wanted in your journal, you'..." Knuckles broke off again, then glanced at Sonic. "I think I'll stop there. The rest of it's probably not something you want made public."
"What?" Sonic dropped the handle of the bag, staring openly. "What are you...what did he...give me that!"
He snatched the note, tearing it almost in half with the force of his action, and held it up in front of his eyes, lips moving soundlessly until he reached the last line.
"'Bye forever, Tails'. What the hell...?" He raised his eyes to Knuckles, bewildered and hurt. "What's his deal?"
Knuckles sighed. For a superhero, Sonic really could be quite dense at times.
"What do you think? He mentioned a journal. I didn't know you were keeping one, but if you are, did you say something in it that might have upset him?"
"I don't think so. In fact, I'm sure I—hang on." Sonic seized the bag containing the Chaos Emeralds and tipped it upside-down.
"Watch it," Knuckles protested, as the precious gems rolled every which way on the platform.
"Screw those rocks, Knuckles. If something's happened to Tails because of what I wrote, I'll never forgive myself." Sonic pulled his journal roughly out of the bag, opened it and flipped through pages at random. Various choice sentences seemed to leap off the page and straight into his brain.
...Tails is really bugging me though; I wish he'd at least learn the difference between land and crash...
...I had to hand over most of my food to Tails. Jeez, why can't the kid get his own food once in a while...
...talking to Tails for too long is like a verbal out-of-body experience; the kid waffles on about this piston and that and to be honest, I couldn't care less; in fact, I wish he'd just shut up...
...I'm sure he'd have tried his best, but I'd lay odds his body would've turned on him and he'd have fallen asleep at his post...
...we could have made even better time if we hadn't had to stop every two hours for Tails to rest his paws...
"Tails left his own journal behind," Knuckles said matter-of-factly, holding up the journal in question. It was a very old, very battered but clearly very well-loved exercise book; Tails had decorated both covers with pictures of Sonic. They weren't exactly masterpieces (in fact, it had taken every iota of discipline and training Knuckles possessed not to laugh himself into a coma at the sight of them) but they were clearly drawn in admiration of the hedgehog.
"You want me to read some?" Knuckles asked. He opened the book not quite at random and cleared his throat. "'Dear Diary. I saved Sonic! I actually got to save Sonic! Usually it's him bailing me out of trouble but this time he needed me and I helped him out!'." He turned a few pages. "'Dear Diary. I had a really good sleep last night because Sonic saw how tired I was and said he'd watch instead of me.'. 'Dear Diary. My tails are really aching tonight; I've done a lot of flying and I had to carry Sonic over a really deep chasm. I don't want to say anything though; I don't want him to worry about me.'." Knuckles fixed Sonic with a steely look. "Shall I go on?"
"Please don't," Sonic said, somewhat hoarsely.
"'Dear Diary'," Knuckles continued relentlessly. "'Sonic likes my invention! He really does; he said so! I'm glad; I was starting to worry that he was getting bored'." The echidna closed the book. "There's a lot more, basically extolling you and everything you do and say and wondering why I can't be more like you. I might have been insulted before this, but right now, I'm actually pretty happy about it. And you have the nerve to say my people skills suck?" He snorted. "I'm not a friendly guy by nature but I'll say this much; I never smiled at someone's face and stabbed them in the back at the same time."
There was a long silence.
"Was that the last entry?" Sonic said eventually. Knuckles shook his head.
"No, this is the last entry. I think he left this journal here on purpose for us to find." Knuckles cleared his throat. "'Dear Diary. I bug Sonic, huh? Maybe he should try aiming from about twenty feet sometime! He didn't complain when I used it to get him out of trouble. And apparently I slow him down, like everyone who can't run at supersonic speed, and he hates having to share his food with me and he wishes I'd shut up about the stuff I'm good at? Well, he'll get his wish; I don't want to talk to him ever again! He should be happy; if I'm not there I can't bore him or endanger him or fall asleep when on watch. I dunno how much longer Knuckles'll last though; I'm kinda sorry I couldn't help him get back to the island, but I am not gonna fly the Tornado! At least, not for ages. Sonic'll understand; I must've bored him with that more than anything. If he wants it though, he's welcome to it. Same goes for Knuckles. Tails'."
Sonic stared numbly into space for a few moments, then, like most people in similar situations, raced for the moral high ground.
"Well...he shouldn't have read my journal in the first place!"
Knuckles folded his arms across his chest and stared at him coldly.
"That's not the issue, Sonic. The issue is, he did and what are you going to do about it?"
"Ah, hell." Sonic sat down abruptly. "I didn't mean any of that stuff I said about him, Knux. I just...I got a little pissed off, a little frustrated. Not with him; with things in general."
"Meaning me?" Knuckles said shrewdly.
"Usually, yeah, but I was caught up in other stuff. There's some seriously strange crap going down out there. I've no idea what it is or how to deal with it and I got frustrated and I...well, I wrote some stuff that I shouldn'ta done. I didn't mean it though; the kid's my best buddy, you know? I just...hell, I guess I needed some kinda scapegoat and Tails stepped right up to the plate. But like I said, I didn't mean it; I just got a little carried away with my own crap. I never meant for Tails to read it; I swear I wouldn't hurt that little guy for the world." Sonic glanced up at Knuckles, hoping to find some hint of pity or sympathy.
There was none. The echidna's face might have been chiselled out of marble for all the emotion it revealed.
"Don't tell me, Sonic. Tell him."
"Yeah. Yeah." Sonic moved so fast he seemed to go from sitting on the ground with his head in his hands to on his feet with no intervening position. "Yeah. I'll go look for him. If anything's happened to him, I'll tear this place to the ground." There was a determined light in the hedgehog's jade eyes as he said this, and Knuckles had no doubt he was capable of carrying out his threat.
He watched as Sonic sped away to check the lower levels and sighed, shaking his head. That was Sonic all over; ninety nine percent speed, one percent rationality. And about two hundred and thirty seven percent attitude.
If I were a flying fox, where would I be? The answer to Knuckles was obvious; somewhere as high as possible.
Adding his current winnings to his own bag, Knuckles looked around. Tails had been tired, so the chances were good he wouldn't have gone too far. That either left the higher places very close to the platform, or lower ones further away. And if the kid had gone to the lower ones, both Sonic and Knuckles would have seen him. That left...ah, of course.
Smiling slightly, he crossed over to the largest pillar and began to climb. He enjoyed the exercise; climbing and gliding were to Knuckles what running was to Sonic, only there'd been precious little opportunity for the echidna to indulge himself ever since leaving his beloved island.
Pulling himself up and over onto the top, he caught sight of Tails sitting with his back to him and his smile widened into a smirk.
"So this is your idea of a good place to sleep, huh?"
Tails glared at him sullenly.
"Go away."
"Or what?" Knuckles stretched out a leisurely fist. "You gonna drag me through another cactus forest?"
It was an unfortunate choice of words; he barely had time to blink before Tails had lunged for him with open murder in his eyes. Dodging the blows almost automatically, Knuckles reached up and grabbed the fox's tails in one fist, suspending him upside down in midair.
"Any chance you're gonna be reasonable about this?" he said acidly. "Because if you're not, I'll just tie you to one of the pinball flippers down there and bounce up and down on it a few times until you are."
Tails wriggled about determinedly, still trying to get to the echidna with all four paws. It might have been funny if Knuckles hadn't been so fed up with everything that had been going on so far.
The echidna took a long, deep breath.
"Tails...what happened?"
"You know what happened!"
"If I knew, would I have asked the question?" Knuckles shook his head. "You read Sonic's journal, didn't you?"
"See? You do know!"
"He didn't mean what he wrote. You know he didn't."
Tails glared at him.
"He shouldn't've written it then!"
"Believe me, kid, right now he's wishing he hadn't." Knuckles rolled his eyes. "Look, it's just Sonic's way of letting off steam. You wrote some pretty crappy things about me in that note you left for us. D'you see me sulking and getting angry with you? And just for the record, my spines do not make my head look pointy and there's no hyphen in the word 'dickhead'."
There was a short silence.
"You can let me go now," Tails said flatly. "I'm not gonna attack you again."
"Again? Did you do it before?" Knuckles asked, smirking at the resultant glare, then lowered the fox carefully to the ground. Tails sat there despondently, pulling at the tips of his tails and not looking up.
Knuckles was, for the first time in his life, unsure what to do or say and so he opted for nothing.
"Is Sonic with you?" Tails said suddenly.
"No. That's why I'm here; he's searching the casinos and bingo slides for you and I went for this place." The echidna shook his head. "I don't care if he wants to race all over Mobius. I do, however, care if he wants to get me stranded away from the island! You're the only one who can fly the Tornado and therefore the only one who can get me home again."
"How'd you find me?"
Knuckles snorted.
"An orange and white fox with two tails sitting underneath a spotlight on a black platform? It wasn't that hard, kid, believe me. I just had to look for the highest place."
"How'd you get up here?"
"Climbed, of course. How else?"
Tails folded his arms on his knees and rested his head on them, pointedly turning away from the echidna.
"So what now? You gonna drag me kicking and yelping back to Sonic?"
"I would if I knew where he was," Knuckles said candidly. "As it is, no. But I'm not letting you out of my sight either." He shook his head. Why the hell was it always him that had to deal with Tails in these situations?
"Nobody makes you," Tails retorted.
Knuckles hadn't realised he'd spoken aloud.
"You make me, kid, every time you walk out. Frankly, I'm getting tired of it. So Sonic upset you. Big deal. You just deal with it or chew him out about it. The world's full of people who're gonna upset or bug you, and you accept that and quit running. It's called growing up."
"I was not running," Tails said with as much dignity as he could muster. "I was looking for Sonic. I wanted to hit him for what he said. I wanted to...to..."
"Yeah, I know; you couldn't stop the hurt inside so you wanted to spread it around instead." Knuckles snorted, and then sighed. He really could do without all this crap, but at least he knew how to deal with this particular problem. Raising one hand to shoulder level, palm out, he stared at Tails, who squirmed, clearly unsure whether or not the echidna was about to strike him.
"Hit me."
Tails gawked at Knuckles, not sure he'd heard right.
"Huh?"
"You heard. You want to hit someone, hit me. On the hand," Knuckles added, just in case there was any misunderstanding on this point. Judging from the expression on Tails' face, there was a hell of a lot of it on all the other points.
"You...but you..."
Knuckles sighed.
"You want me to make this easier for you? Imagine my hand is Sonic."
The resultant blow was harder than Knuckles would have given Tails credit for, but the echidna didn't flinch, didn't even blink.
"Again."
Tails didn't hesitate this time but slammed both fists into the echidna's hand.
"Again," Knuckles said sharply. "Stop screwing around and hurt me!"
Tails, who was already slightly out of breath, stared at him.
"Are you sick?"
"Yeah," Knuckles retorted, "sick of you and Sonic whining about everything. Sick of you going off in a sulk every time Sonic does, basically, what all teenaged older brothers do from time to time. You wanted an older brother? You got one, and everything that goes with him. Hit me."
Tails raised a fist, then hesitated.
"How many more times are you gonna let me whack you?"
"Would you ask Sonic that question?" Knuckles said rhetorically. "C'mon, you were all for it a few minutes ago."
"That was for Sonic, though." Tails was feeling unaccountably uneasy; he knew Knuckles well enough to know that the echidna never did anything without a very good reason, and he wasn't sure what possible reason Knuckles could have for telling him to beat him up. "You're...you."
"Well done! You worked that out all by yourself?" Knuckles shook his head and started to turn away. "Man, I knew you were too chicken to see it through."
The taunt worked better than he'd intended; he'd barely got halfway through the turn before Tails had hurled himself at him and was pummelling the still outstretched hand vigorously with all four limbs. That was something Knuckles had failed to take into account; a flying fox could kick as well as punch. In a way it was a good thing that Sonic hadn't been the one to find him. The blows weren't powerful enough to do any serious damage, but Tails was really getting into it by the end and it was only the echidna's quick reflexes that saved him from a foot to the groin.
"I said the hand!"
Tails landed with a bump, panting hard.
"Sorry."
"It's alright. Feel better?"
"No," Tails muttered.
Knuckles nodded, satisfied.
"Good. Then maybe you'll learn that violence doesn't solve everything. Sonic's annoying and sometimes he's about as sensitive to other people's feelings as a banana slug, but as far as bad points go, that's all he is. He's not spiteful or malicious; he just doesn't think. You should have seen his face when he read your note. I've never seen anyone brought down so far so fast. You wanted to hurt him back, well, you sure managed that."
Tails drew his knees up to his chest, hugging them tightly.
"Knuckles?"
"Hm?"
"Why'd he write all that stuff?"
The echidna shrugged.
"People take their anger and frustration out on other people sometimes. It's a fact of life."
"How would you know?" Tails demanded. "You're a hermit!"
Knuckles shrugged.
"Some things are pretty well-known in all societies. Believe it or not, after years of watching them, I understand people completely. Look, kid, Sonic was all for tearing the place to the ground when he found out you were gone. It was all I could do to stop him smashing every pinball machine and lift in the place."
"Yeah?" Tails wrapped both tails around himself, playing with the tips again. "So how come you're up here and he's not?"
Knuckles rolled his eyes.
"Now you're being petty."
"I don't care!"
"And you just added immaturity into the mix." The echidna folded his arms across his chest. "You wanna shoot for stupidity as well? The reason I'm up here and he's not is partly because we split up and you just happened to be in the area I was searching and partly because Sonic, for all his talents, can't climb stairs without a grapple. And if this is how you greet me, it's a damn good thing it wasn't Sonic who got here first!" he added with unusual vehemence. "Speaking of Sonic, c'mon. Let's go back down."
Tails shot him a look.
"I'm not gonna go back to Sonic!"
Knuckles took one or two deep breaths. It didn't seem to help.
"You're going if I have to tie your tails in a knot and carry you all the way down. Don't test me, kid. You'll lose every time." He shook his head. "Look, if you still wanna abandon him, go right ahead. But at least talk to him. Give him a chance to apologise."
"Why should I?"
"Even you know that's childish. If you're planning to fly away, you better have a lot of energy because I'll be hanging off your ankles." Knuckles crossed to the edge of the platform and half turned. "Are you coming or what?"
Tails hesitated, then, with a piercing look that said this was all his own idea, took off and flew gently down to where a familiar blue figure was pacing back and forth at sonic speed. Knuckles waited a couple of seconds, then leapt off the edge and glided down after him, arriving just as Sonic screeched to a halt.
"Tails!" The hedgehog's relief was almost palpable. "Tails, li'l buddy, are you okay?"
"I'm not your buddy," Tails said in sub-arctic tones.
The hurt on Sonic's face was so pronounced and so clearly genuine that even Knuckles felt a twinge of sympathy for the hedgehog.
Sonic took a deep breath.
"This is about what I wrote, huh? Tails, I didn't mean it. You know I didn't."
"All I know is that you pretended you liked me and my inventions and then laughed behind my back in your journal!"
"What?" Thunderstruck, Sonic stared at Tails. "I didn't pretend to like you; I do like you! I was just...I was angry about something and took it out on you, that's all. I'm sorry, okay?"
"Not okay! If you get bored when I talk about the stuff I like, you coulda just told me!"
"Alright!" Sonic held up both hands in surrender. "Alright, okay! Enough already; I get the point. I screwed up big time, and I didn't even mean what I wrote."
"That's what Knuckles said, but he still couldn't tell me why you wrote it!" Tails turned away from Sonic. "I'd almost rather have him as my big brother; he's an antisocial jerk but at least he's honest about it!"
"Thanks," Knuckles said sourly. "I think."
Sonic cast the echidna a look, silently pleading with him for backup, and received the tiniest of nods in reply.
"Look, kid, Sonic said things he didn't mean and so did you. That doesn't make—"
"I did mean them!" Tails burst out.
There was a very long, very painful silence.
"Okay," Sonic said at the end of it, his voice unnaturally high. "Fine. If that's really how you feel, you go, kid, and good luck to you."
Knuckles growled out several echidna curses, the mildest of which entailed a desire for both Sonic and Tails to have a brief but painfully intimate meeting with a famine-struck school of piranhas. He'd tried the subtle approach; now it was time to revert to the echidna method of settling puggle squabbles.
Reaching out, he seized Sonic in one hand, Tails in the other and cracked both their heads together with enough force to daze.
"Ow!" Sonic rubbed his skull. "Jeez, Tails, all that fur is just a cover for a head like a rock, isn't it?"
"So now it's my head that's the problem! You gonna write about that in your journal as well, huh Sonic?"
Knuckles rolled his eyes. Had he been this irritating on the journey, seeing insults in everything? If so, it was no wonder Sonic had finally snapped.
"Alright!" Releasing them, he grabbed their respective journals instead. Flipping through, he located Tails' final entry and each entry in Sonic's that had upset the fox so badly, then ripped the pages out, ignoring the protests, and threw them on the fire. "It's gone! Finished! Never happened!" He took a deep breath. "Now, for the love of the emeralds, will you two knock it off! It's like being with a pair of three-year-olds!" He looked at Tails. "You don't have to kiss, but at least make up. You both got pissed off and said things you didn't mean – Tails, unless you're either going to apologise to Sonic or tell me I'm right, you can close your damn mouth! – and if you carry on like this I'll knock you both into a pricklebush!"
"There are no pricklebushes around here," Sonic said in lofty tones.
"Rest assured that I can probably find a substitute! And you think I'm rock-stubborn." Knuckles shook his head. "It was just a screw-up. Nothing more."
"Of course."
Sonic stared at Tails.
"How did you do that without moving your lips?" he asked, and was immensely gratified to see the fox grin, albeit reluctantly.
"He didn't. I did."
The three of them looked at each other and then, one by one, turned to see where the voice had come from.
"Over here, boys."
There was something in that voice, Sonic thought. You ignored it at your peril.
Something moved in the shadows, and then the speaker stepped into the light, or at least, halfway into it. The barest hint of movement told Sonic and the other two that this stranger wasn't alone, but her friends didn't seem inclined to show themselves.
"Name's Rouge. And you are...?"
Sonic swallowed. It was suddenly very hard to concentrate.
"Uh...Sonic. Sonic the hedgehog. This is Tails and, uh, Knuckles. He's an echidna."
"Echidna?" Rouge lifted an elegant eyebrow. "Is that a fancy word for a mutant hedgehog?"
"I resent that!" Sonic and Knuckles said in the same breath, then both looked scandalised at having voiced the same thought as the other. Rouge smiled slowly, languidly, as though they were hardly worth the effort the action took.
"You have something I want, very badly as it happens. Hand it over and we'll let you live."
"Really?" Sonic drew the word out, savouring it. "What might that be?"
"You know what." Now Rouge was no longer smiling. "Give me the emeralds. Now."
Sonic stared at her, then abruptly laughed. It seemed like the only possible response.
Rouge flashed him a brief, dazzling smile, a cold expression.
"I have trouble with 'no', Sonic."
"How about 'get blunted'?" Sonic shot back, not missing a beat. "You have trouble with that as well?"
"Not as much as you're about to have." Without warning, Rouge leapt into the air, shooting towards them. The trio scattered, darting out of the way of first Rouge and then her companions.
"I got the black one!" Sonic yelled, then came face to face with the black one in question and froze. "Holy..."
It was like looking in a mirror. An inverted one, but a mirror nonetheless; the black hedgehog was almost an exact copy of Sonic himself. So alike, in fact, that Sonic hesitated before attacking.
Mistake.
By the time Sonic realised just how big a mistake, his assailant had rammed him, sending him flying off the edge of the platform.
"Sonic!" Tails shot towards him, only to find his path effectively barred by Rouge, who matched all his attempts to pass with apparently no effort, catching hold of his wrists.
"Ah ah ah; you stay put, little cub. Let the adults handle this."
"Let go! I gotta save Sonic!"
"Who?" Rouge said idly. "Oh, the blue boy? Forget about him; he's long gone. Don't worry; we'll pick up the emeralds from his body."
"No! Sonic! Sonic!" Tails writhed futilely in Rouge's iron grasp and changed tack. "Knuckles!"
On the ground, the echidna risked a brief glance up and felt his blood run cold.
Oh great! Now what?
"Annihilate! Annihilate!"
Well, that was always a viable option, Knuckles had to admit. At the moment, it was being presented by a robot that looked like one of Robotnik's mistakes. It was almost twice the size of him and armoured, armed and flashing wherever armour, weapons and lights could be crammed.
Twice the size...
Wondering if this could possibly work, and not liking to think about the consequences if it couldn't, Knuckles leapt straight up, landing on the robot and taking off again immediately. Seizing Rouge around the waist, he folded his spines and dropped, dragging her down. Tails wrenched away, pulling free and dived after Sonic much faster than Knuckles had ever seen him move before.
Something gripped Knuckles painfully tightly, lifting him as though he weighed next to nothing and smashing him into one of the crates. Instinct warned the echidna and he rolled sideways, narrowly missing a joint attack from the other three, who skidded to a stop, hovering underneath Rouge on the very edge.
Knuckles stared at them for a few seconds, hardly able to believe the opportunity Fate had just thrown into his lap, then half turned and punched as hard as he could, sending all three of them hurtling off the platform.
"Nice move," Sonic said, from where he was being supported by Tails. His voice was as light as ever, but Knuckles couldn't help paying more attention to the unusual pallor of his skin.
"Thanks." Knuckles shook his head. "Who were those guys?"
Sonic shook his head.
"I dunno. I might've met them ages ago, or they might've met me. I meet a lot of people; it's hard to keep track."
"Would these particular people have anything against you?" Knuckles asked shrewdly. Sonic shook his head.
"Uh uh. Least, probably not enough to want to slam-dunk me three miles into the ground." The hedgehog looked up at Tails. "Thanks, little bro. You can put me down now."
Tails obliged, dropping Sonic the four feet to the top of the platform and coming to hover next to him.
"So what about the others?"
Sonic shrugged and turned away.
"What does it matter? They're not gonna bother us again, not for a while. C'mon little bro, let's get clear."
He broke into a run, keeping just slow enough for the other two to match the pace without being able to overtake him, not stopping until they reached the very edge of the Casino Zones. Knuckles opened his mouth to ask just what the hell the rush was, then caught sight of what lay ahead and shut it again, his thoughts unspoken.
"I told you, didn't I?" Sonic said quietly from next to him. "Weird."
Okay, that's it for this chapter! Please take time to leave a review :)