Okay, so after another futile round of Sonic Heroes (I'm probably going to give up completely on Team Sonic unless I can find a downloadable saved game for the PC version...shame, really, whoever designed the compulsory homing attack puzzles should be beaten vigorously with a giant mallet :P) I'm in a writing mood. Plus I've reached that stage where I want to press on and finish this so I can start work on the next one ;)

Kj: Yep, I agree...question is, will it happen?

FriedBrickWall: Read again; Knuckles DID get the shoes :P He didn't get a chance to go anywhere with them, but he got them. (Knuckles: What's Koolaid?) Haven't a clue, Knux; never heard of it. Some kind of dye or drink, I guess :S

Saffra: I agree; it's something nobody ever expects to hear. And yep, I got it done quickly (mostly because I'd already written most of it back in Chapter 3 or 4 :P) I'm glad I got the effect I was going for though; the idea of an un-Soniclike Sonic ;) And...hmm, what did happen to Tails' salad? (Tails: That's what I wanna know!) Not sure. Maybe he got it with the Chaotix ;)

Ri2: Yeah...I think Sonic would agree with you, maybe he would have been better off dead.

Samantha27: A few chapters for you, a couple of months for the characters ;) As for the reunion between Sonic and Tails...well, it will happen, eventually :P

PyroHedgehog4ever: weg Thanks; I like Sonic's personality change as well...kinda. Well, he was fun to write, anyway ;)

TC Chan: blushes Thanks; I'm glad I was able to surprise you :P

Matri90: Thanks, and it's updated ;)

Treasurehunter: I'll do my best!

Guardian's Log no. 11466

This is bad. Worse than bad. It's whirling like a twister in my mind at the minute, so let me see if I can't get it down straight.

One: Sonic is alive. I know I mentioned this in the last entry, but it's too damn incredible to let lie.

Two: Sonic is crippled. Robotnik basically forced him to run his feet ragged.

Three: Sonic's given up. All he does now is sit there and wait to die. I'm damn glad Tails wasn't with me to see him like this; poor kid's suffered enough already...and something tells me there's still enough of Sonic in there not to want Tails to see him at anything less than sheer perfection.

Four: It would have been better for all concerned if Sonic really had died in that accident.

Five: How the hell am I ever going to tell Tails about this?

--Knuckles the Echidna

Dear Diary

So these are Knuckles' friends. I think I can see why he never told anyone about them. I wish I knew where he was though; that bee said he'd gone to Robotnik's fortress, but he wouldn't go without me, would he?

Would he?

--Tails

Knuckles didn't bother to think; his reaction was automatic. Without looking, he struck behind him only to find his fist seized in a powerful hold. Twisting around, he lashed out with the other hand, only to encounter the same problem.

There was a ripple in the air and Espio appeared, still holding Knuckles' fists tightly.

"Will you quit shadow-boxing long enough for me to stop you losing your hands entirely!"

Knuckles stared at him, then let out a breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding.

"Espio, you wanna warn me before you sneak up like that? What are you doing here?"

"Saving you, it looks like."

Knuckles snorted.

"Right. And that's why you threatened to kill me if I made one more move, huh?"

"I didn't. I said you'd be dead if you made one more move. Robotnik has that switch protected by infrared triggers." The chameleon released Knuckles and stepped back. "There are times when it pays to be a reptile, Knux. Mighty asked me to come get you back; your little friend's woken up, eaten about twice his own bodyweight and all he's been saying is asking where you are."

Knuckles shook his head, barely taking any of this in.

"You'll never guess who's here," he said hoarsely.

"Sonic?" Espio smiled quietly at the echidna's expression. "I imagine that means I'm right."

"How the hell did you—"

"You told me you and the kid never found a body. You'd have found something that was left, no matter how far he fell, unless something caught him before he landed. The force would have snapped his spine like a twig, so physical catching was out of the question. But he could still be teleported with no ill effects."

"No ill effects?" Knuckles echoed. The image of Sonic – never far from his mind – arose in front of his eyes, the scars, the burns, most of all his damn feet, and he snorted. Sonic had suffered plenty of ill effects alright.

"Not from the teleportation itself," Espio said, with a look that said he knew all too well what had passed through the echidna's mind.

"You knew? You knew all along and you let me go in unaware?"

"I did not know; I suspected." Espio glanced to his left. "Are you planning to get him out?"

"Of course I damn well am! You don't imagine I'm gonna abandon him, do you? He..." Knuckles shook his head. "Robotnik crippled him."

"Are you surprised?"

"What? Yes!"

"Why?" When Knuckles didn't answer, Espio shook his head. "You're as honourable as they come, Knux, and like so many honourable people, you're also as naïve as they come. Sonic was too dangerous a captive all the time he was as fast as he was. If I took a prisoner like that, I'd cripple him as well, just like I'd cut off your hands or the kid's tails."

Knuckles stared at the chameleon as though he'd never seen him before. For the first time he realised that nobody – himself included – knew anything about Espio's past, about his life prior to the Chaotix.

"How does that make you any different from Robotnik?"

"Point one, I never claimed to be different from him," Espio said coolly. "Point two, I am different from him in the sense that while I would do all those things, I wouldn't actually enjoy it." He paused. "We have to get out of here," he added.

"Not without Sonic."

"Don't pretend to be more stupid and obstinate than you are, Knuckles. Sonic's beyond help, at least at the moment. Besides, how are you going to explain to the kid when you turn up with his hero, magically resurrected?"

Knuckles hesitated. Breaking the news to Tails was something he was seriously dreading.

"Espio, you're not seriously telling me to turn my back on Sonic?" he said stridently. "To leave him to die here?"

"Yes!" Espio's voice rose to match Knuckles'. "You can't carry him and fight your way out, assuming you could get through the glass! And incidentally, that switch you were so determined to push doesn't open the cells. It causes a robot the size of a small tank to drop on top of you."

Knuckles eyed him warily.

"Yeah? How do you know?"

"Experience."

The echidna shook his head.

"Say what you like; I am not walking out and abandoning Sonic!"

"You have no choice! You can't do anything to help him right now and there's no point in arguing about it further!"

"You're the one arguing about it, not me!"

"I'm saying how things have to be, Knuckles. I'm not arguing about Sonic; I'm telling you!"

"Would you both mind not arguing about me somewhere else?" Sonic's voice came from further down the corridor, a clear stamp of irritation in it. "Some of us are trying to sleep."

Espio looked at Knuckles.

"I rest my case. C'mon. Let's get out while we still can. You want to get Sonic out, fine, but you can't do that when you're locked up with him."

Knuckles glanced in Sonic's direction.

"I don't know the way—"

"There's a back way. Come on." Espio actually went so far as to grab the echidna by one arm and pull. Caught off guard, Knuckles stumbled after him and towards a dark hole in the wall.

"The air ducts?" Knuckles stared. "Espio, that's so cliché!"

"For a good reason. This particular duct takes you all the way out if you know the route. Follow me."

Knuckles took one last look over his shoulder at Sonic's form. The hedgehog had closed his eyes again – either asleep or faking – and so Knuckles reluctantly followed Espio into the duct.

Neither of them spoke until they reached the Chaotix cave; Espio had camouflaged himself again and Knuckles was torn between shock at Sonic's appearance, fury at Espio for persuading him to leave, fury at himself for giving into said persuasion and most of all, apprehension about how Tails was going to handle this latest development.

I guess I'll find out soon enough, he thought grimly, catching sight of a familiar tan and white furry figure.

"Knuckles!" Tails rushed towards him and buried the startled echidna in a hug that almost knocked him off his feet. "You're okay!"

Knuckles shifted uncomfortably and unwound the fox's arms from his waist.

"Yeah, okay kid, okay, don't overdo the welcome wagon."

Tails backed off and glowered at him.

"Don't you ever do that again! I was worried sick! Next time you wanna go invade Robotnik's fort, you take me too, understand?"

There was the faintest whisper of scales on stone as Espio slid past, followed by a low chuckle.

"Oh sure, real funny!" Knuckles said, glowering in the chameleon's direction.

"You could've left a note!" Tails added.

"I told the Chaotix to tell you where I was."

"Why didn't you wait and tell me yourself?"

"Because I knew you wouldn't have let me go without you, and I wanted to spy the place out on my own."

Tails looked up at him accusingly.

"That was still a lousy thing to do, Knux, leave me here. I thought you'd gone for good."

"I told the Chaotix—"

"That bee said you'd gone to try and wipe out Robotnik on your own and that you probably weren't going to survive."

"He told you what?" Knuckles looked around. "Charmy!" There was no response and the echidna scowled. "When I get my hands on that no-good, amoeba-brained, flower f—!" Knuckles caught sight of Tails' attentive expression and hastily changed what he'd been about to say— "friendly ball of fuzz...!" He let the sentence trail off threateningly and stalked through into the cave that served the Chaotix as a relaxation area, Tails jogging next to and around him, pelting him with questions.

"Well? What happened? What'd you see? When are we going? How we gonna take Robotnik down?"

"Shut up!" Knuckles roared, bringing one arm around to backhand the fox squarely across the jaw, sending him flying. Collapsing onto the couch, he dropped his head into his hands and snarled in frustration, a guttural sound torn apart by anguish. How? How could he have got it so wrong about Sonic?

For a long time, Tails lay where Knuckles had knocked him, shaking all over. He'd never, never been struck in anger like that before. Even when Knuckles had been doing his utmost to dispose of Sonic and Tails, believing them to be after the Master Emerald, he'd never laid a finger on Tails. The fox didn't think he'd ever seen the echidna so enraged before, and certainly not with him.

Eventually, after long minutes had gone past without another word or move from Knuckles, Tails pulled himself shakily to his feet and padded over to sit down next to him, wanting but not quite daring to make physical contact.

"Knuckles?"

The look Knuckles turned on him was so pained and haggard that Tails recoiled, afraid that the echidna was going to strike him again. Knuckles stared for a few minutes, then memory appeared to nudge him as he caught sight of Tails' gently swelling face and he shook his head slowly.

"Oh hell, kid, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. C'mere." For the first time since they'd been travelling together, Knuckles pulled Tails into a rough hug, feeling the kid's body quivering against him.

Tails shifted away enough to look up at the echidna, eyes so huge they seemed to fill his entire face. He wasn't crying (although there was an unnatural brightness in his eyes that the echidna tactfully refrained from mentioning) but it was obvious this was due to pure determination.

"Knux, what'd I do?"

Knuckles shook his head again. "You didn't do anything, kid."

"Then why'd you hit me?" When it seemed Knuckles wasn't going to lash out again, Tails ventured another question. "What'd you see in Robotnik's place?"

Knuckles shot him a look. "What makes you think I saw anything?"

Tails snorted. "Puh-leeze. I may be a kid but I'm not dumb. You saw something that freaked you out big time. Some kind of secret weapon?"

"No," Knuckles said tersely, although he supposed that the sight of Sonic as he was could well destroy Tails. "Nothing like that. It was...I saw some of Robotnik's prisoners, that's all."

"Anyone you know?"

Hell yeah. "Kinda." Knuckles winced; he hated having to lie or even conceal part of the truth.

"Knux?" Tails pushed himself away from the echidna and looked up at him. "Knux, who'd you see?"

Knuckles opened his mouth, then shut it again.

"You wanna tell him," Espio said from somewhere in the direction of the door, "or shall I?"

"No! Get out!"

"Fine." There was no obvious movement, but something told Knuckles that the chameleon was no longer there.

"Knux?" Seriously worried now, Tails tugged on the echidna's arm. "What's going on?"

Knuckles took a long, deep breath. It was better for the kid to hear it from him now than for him to come face to face with Sonic.

"Tails...maybe you better sit down."

"Uh." Tails frowned up at him quizzically. "I am sitting down."

"Huh? Oh yeah. Right." Knuckles inhaled. "Tails. Tails, I...it's Sonic."

Tails sucked in his breath.

"What about Sonic?"

Knuckles turned his head away.

"He's there. In Robotnik's prison. Alive."

Tails slipped off the couch and backed away, shaking his head from side to side.

"That's not funny, Knuckles!"

"Of course it's not funny. It's not supposed to be funny."

"You're just—you said...no. No." Tails stared at him, still shaking his head. "You're crazy."

"Am I?" Knuckles threw the sneakers onto the floor between them and Tails' eyes opened so wide they seemed to fill his whole face.

"You...but you said he was dead."

"I was wrong." Knuckles massaged his forehead tiredly. It had taken a hell of a lot of work to convince Tails that Sonic had died in that fall, and now he could foresee even more work to convince him of the opposite. "I was wrong. I screwed up, okay? I screwed up big time. Sonic's alive."

Tails hesitated.

"You wouldn't kid about this, right? Right?"

"Not in a million years."

"He's okay? Really okay?"

Knuckles took another deep breath.

"I didn't say he was okay, Tails. I said he was alive, and a prisoner."

The fox bounded into the air and stayed there, hovering on an eye level with the echidna.

"We gotta get him out! He'd do the same for either of us!"

Correction; would have done the same, Knuckles thought grimly. He didn't know but he had a nasty suspicion that the current Sonic would leave them to their own devices.

"It's not gonna be that simple, kid," he said aloud. "Sonic's...hurt. Badly hurt."

Tails came back down with a bump.

"You're not working up to telling me he's dead after all, are you?"

"No, he's alive, and I think he'll stay that way for a long time if Robotnik has anything to do with it. But Tails, he's...he won't be able to run out. He doesn't have any feet."

Tails sat down hard, eyes so huge they seemed to fill his entire face.

"What?"

"He's not a pretty sight. He can't walk, he definitely can't run and if there's a part of him Robotnik hasn't maimed in some way short of his eyes I don't know what it is." Knuckles hesitated, unsure of how to proceed. "And he's...changed," he added finally. "He's not the Sonic you remember. He's given up."

Tails shook his head violently.

"Sonic would never give up! It's just some trick to fool Robotnik."

Knuckles opened his mouth, then closed it again. That was an interpretation that genuinely hadn't occurred to him, but he didn't believe it for one minute. You couldn't fake the dead expression he'd seen in Sonic's eyes.

"No, kid. He's not faking it. He...if you'd seen him, you'd know."

Tails stared hard at the echidna.

"How do I know this isn't some trick?"

"Have I ever given you a reason not to trust me, Tails? Don't answer that." Knuckles took a deep breath. "I'm not telling you this to trick you, or to try and convince you not to help Sonic—"

"As if you could!"

"—I'm telling you to try and prepare you for what you're gonna find. Because I swear blind, swear by the Master Emerald, that the Sonic in that fortress is not the same Sonic as the one that fell off the rail."

"Yes, and whose fault's that?"

Knuckles jerked his hand out of Tails' grasp with an angry look. "Don't start that again, Tails! It's nobody's fault. It's like if Sonic went into the sea and got eaten by a shark. Who would you blame then?"

"Depends on who chased him in!" Tails said, glowering at Knuckles, who sighed.

"I get it. It's Let's-Blame-The-Echidna-For-Everything Day again, huh? You want to play games like this, play 'em on your own. Only don't say I didn't warn you when you come face to face with him."

"You should've thought of this, Knuckles! You saw that robot try to zap me away! You should've thought that maybe Robotnik sent it to the canyons in case Sonic blasted himself out that big cannon and ground backwards to make fun of you and went off the edge of the rail and fell close enough for the robot to zap him!"

"Oh yes. How incredibly short-sighted of me." Knuckles shook his head. "Screw this. When you're ready to talk about this calmly and rationally, then I'll listen."

"You just told me Sonic's alive after convincing me he was dead and you expect me to be calm and rational?" Tails said stridently.

"I expect you to try and hold it together! I managed."

"Oh sure," Tails muttered. "Tell that to my aching jaw."

Knuckles flinched as though the fox's words were physically painful.

"You know I didn't mean to do that, Tails," he said quietly.

"All I know is that all this time Sonic's been alive and we coulda helped him and I was right about him not dying and my head hurts and you went to spy on Robotnik and left me here with a bunch of raving lunatics and I thought you'd abandoned me and...and I should've looked harder for him, Knuckles." Whatever energy had been fuelling Tails during this tirade abruptly left him and the fox sat down hard on the floor, hugging his knees and staring at nothing.

Knuckles swore mentally. This was all he needed, for Tails to revert to the whole fetal thing again. He knelt down next to the fox – something in him said he should hug the kid again, try and coax him out of his funk, but he found he couldn't bring himself to do it – and dropped a hand on his shoulder.

"Tails..."

Tails twisted around and buried his face in Knuckles' chest, causing the startled echidna to jerk away instinctively. Hell, but it creeped him out when the kid did that! Who'd died and made him the brother-figure, anyway?

Well...initially Sonic, but that wasn't the point!

Knuckles cleared his throat and shifted, hoping that Tails would take the hint. He didn't. Damn!

Eventually, after what seemed like a lifetime to the echidna but which was in reality only a few seconds, Tails backed away to grab the echidna's hand, which wasn't much of an improvement as far as Knuckles was concerned.

"C'mon." He tugged hard, to no avail – Tails would probably dislocate his own shoulders before managing to budge Knuckles an inch if the echidna decided he didn't want to move – gave up and seized the other hand in the hopes that this one might be more cooperative. It wasn't, and Tails stopped yanking long enough to glare at Knuckles. "Knux, c'mon!"

"Come on where?" Knuckles yielded enough to let Tails haul him upright before putting on the brakes again. Giving up, the fox fixed him with a look that was half determined, half appealing.

"Where d'you think? If Sonic really is in there, we gotta get him out!"

"He won't thank you for it," Knuckles warned.

"Who cares? He didn't thank me when I saved him back in Bridge Zone either. Knux, if you don't move right now I'm gonna go without you."

"Alright. Fine. I'm moving." Knuckles stepped away from Tails. "I'm moving. See?"

Tails jammed paws on hips and scowled, while wondering for the first time if Knuckles actually did have a sense of humour.

"Very funny, Knucklehead! Now quit circling like a dizzy bug and move to the door!"

Knuckles stopped moving with a sigh and sat down on the couch instead.

"Tails, we should wait until Robotnik's guard is down." It sounded lame even to him.

"His guard?" Tails all but shrieked at him. "Knuckles, he's a paranoid megalomaniac bent on taking over the world who thinks everyone else is equally bent on killing him! When exactly do you expect this guard of his to be down?"

"Alright. Alright." Knuckles held up his hands. "Bad idea. I admit it. But I still say that he's more likely to expect another attack now that he knows we know Sonic's in there."

Tails took off, namesakes whirring so frantically in random directions that Knuckles was amazed they didn't get tangled up.

"Suppose Robotnik decides to kill Sonic? Suppose he decides to move? Suppose he followed you back and his bots are outside the door and about to attack right now?"

"And suppose you stop beating your tails like a caffeinated beaver having a panic attack and we actually think about this?" Knuckles interjected sharply.

"Sonic never thought about anything!"

"Yeah, I know Sonic doesn't think, Tails, and that goes a long way towards explaining our current situation! But I still say it's pushing our luck to go back not three hours after I've only just got out."

"And tomorrow you'll say the same thing. Knux, maybe Robotnik is gonna kill him. Maybe he doesn't wanna take the chance that you're gonna rescue him."

"No, he wants Sonic kept alive," Knuckles said, although Tails' words had sparked off a doubt in his mind. Robotnik was more than capable of such a thing, and he'd had a couple months' worth of fun out of Sonic, after all. "But it's a two hour journey, and you look pretty tired."

"I'm fine!" Tails protested. "See?" In an effort to prove how tired he wasn't, he started circling at top speed until Knuckles reached up and fielded him neatly out of the air.

"Yeah, alright kid, you've made your point. Now cut it out; you're making me nauseous."

Tails stopped wriggling in the echidna's hold and folded his arms, glaring.

"We're gonna get Sonic out, and if you back out of your promise, I'll go on my own."

"If you don't start acting sensibly, you're damn straight you'll go on your own," Knuckles said candidly. "If – just if, mind – if I agreed to this crackpot scheme of yours—"

"You did agree!"

"I said I'd help you take Robotnik down, and I will. But if we're going to do this damn crazy thing, let's not do it this damn crazy way." Knuckles considered. "If I put you down, do you promise not to race off on a suicide mission the instant your feet touch the floor?"

Tails considered his options, then seemed to realise that Knuckles wouldn't take no for an answer; he nodded and Knuckles lowered him gently to the ground.

"We gotta go though," Tails said stubbornly, after Knuckles didn't show any signs of racing out to wreak vengeance on Robotnik. "We gotta take him down and fast, before he does something worse to Sonic."

"I doubt he could do anything worse to Sonic than what he's already done."

"All the more reason to get him! Knuckles, if we don't go now it might be too late! We have to get rid of Robotnik once and for all and destroy his base and smash his bots and—"

Knuckles sighed and scooped the fox up again.

"Any chance you're gonna calm down in the near future?" he said, not very hopefully.

"Only when you tell me we're going," Tails said stubbornly, twisting around in an effort to free himself and when this didn't work—

"Don't even think about it!" Knuckles said sharply, noticing Tails' jaws hovering close to the echidna's arm.

Tails planted both arms on his hips and glowered.

"Fine! But we're gonna go out there, right?"

"Yeah. Yeah, we're gonna go out there. Only not right now."

"Yes, now!" With a superhuman effort, Tails wrenched out of the echidna's grasp, the slight flaw in this plan only becoming apparent when he crashed to the ground.

"No!" Knuckles seized him again by the wrists, not painfully, but tightly enough to get the fox's undivided attention. "Tonight."

Tails, who had looked all set to rush out the door again, hesitated.

"Tonight?"

"Tonight."

Okay, another chapter done! If you read, please review :D