Saffra: Heh...thanks. Like I said, I tend to write chunks and paragraphs in advance so when the time comes I can just cut'n'paste ;)

Ryopon: Okay, I'm writing, I'm writing (cowers from awesome kitsune powers) (Knuckles: You have no pride, do you?)

Kdizz: Heh heh. Alright, where would you like me to have left it:P Admittedly not the most intense or suspenseful of cliffhangers, but hey, it's early days yet ;)

FriedBrickWall: Okay, I'll do my best! (Knuckles: Great. A wild goose chase. Why do I let myself get roped into these things?) Knux, stop whining; you know you like Tails really. (Knuckles: Hmph!)

Matri90: Thanks, I will ;)

Samantha27: (laughs) Yep, I can turn things out pretty fast when I need to ;) Anyway, this idea's been burning in my brain for ages now, so I was glad to get it out ;) Glad you're enjoying it :P

Ri2: Why indeed? (Knuckles: See? I told you it wasn't just me!)

PyroHedgehog4Ever: Aha...suspense, suspense, the toolbox of the trade. At least, my trade...

BlueCheetah: (blushes) Thanks. And...yeah, the first chapter is usually short ;) Besides, it was a good cliffhanger to leave it on...I couldn't resist ;)

Toboe16: (blushes again) Thanks, I hope so :)

TC Chan: I know. I am evil indeed. And if you really wanna read about that particular conversation between Knuckles and Tails...reading your review I had to go off and write that conversation, so maybe I can slot it in somewhere ;)

Guardian's Log no. 11472

What was that all about? Tails isn't the kind of guy who asks for help, at least, not like that. Is it some kind of trick? But how...no. No, the Master Emerald can't lie. It's Tails. The question is, where is he?

Actually, the question is how the hell can I get him out, but I'm working up to that. Tails...if something's happened to that kid, whoever's responsible is going to wish they'd never laid eyes on him when I catch them.

The only problem is, I have no idea where Tails is. I wish I did. I really wish I did, but the only way I'll know is if he tells me in one of those visions. Part of me wants another one, but the other part of me doesn't want to see him like that. I don't know enough people on Mobius to ask either.

Man, there's never a hyperactive blue hedgehog around when you need one!

--Knuckles the Echidna

My Memoirs by Me

"If you're gonna keep being such an ungrateful jerk, then you can go to hell! I'll go stay with Knuckles for a bit; at least he can be bothered to look out for me! He was right; you've changed. You've changed from a hero who kept laughing no matter what people said or did to him into a sad, pathetic, bitter freight marn!"

That's the last thing Tails said to me. I'm not too sure about the freight marn bit, but it sure sounded that way. That was before Knuckles healed me and I've not seen the kid since. I thought he was with Knuckles, but now...after the dreams I've been having, I'm not so sure.

I'm heading back to Angel Island. Maybe Knux can help shed some light on this.

--Sonic the Hedgehog

The image of Tails stayed with the echidna for the rest of the day, and was there when something woke him in the middle of the night as well. Damn, where was the kid? More's to the point, what the hell had happened to him?

Knuckles had been surprised and more than a little disturbed to realise just how important Tails had become to him. His conduct at the shrine...Knuckles had never even sneezed on the Master Emerald before, let alone struck it. Yet one glimpse of Tails supposedly in trouble, and everything else went by the board.

He sighed. Maybe his mother had been right all those years ago; Guardians shouldn't have friends, not if they wanted to discharge their duties adequately.

Hoping that some fresh air would help him to sleep, Knuckles got to his feet and crossed over to the door of his small hut – the winters on Angel Island were too cold at night to sleep out – and opened it. A light breeze blew in, carrying with it the scent of smoke, and the echidna stiffened. Fire? On the Island? Robotnik?

No longer sleepy, Knuckles broke into a jog, following the smell down the path towards a sheltered clearing.

"Knux, hi!" From in the middle of the clearing, stretched out in front of a large campfire, Sonic waved a branch at him. "Wanna marshmallow?"

"No," the echidna said, too surprised to be gracious. "What are you doing here?"

"Came to see you, didn't I?" Sonic yelped as the marshmallow burst into flames, then blew it out hurriedly and took a bite, crunching loudly. "Oh man, I can never get these things done medium rare," Knuckles heard him complain, and refrained from comment. Sonic's culinary skills outside of everything bar chili dogs were the stuff legends – at least, all the ones that dealt with poisoning – were made of. Sonic had tried cooking once on their last journey, and even Tails hadn't been able to find anything complimentary to say about the result, while Knuckles had commented that if he'd wanted to eat charcoal, he'd have ordered it.

"What do you want?" he said.

"Right now, a non-crunchy marshmallow would be favourite, Knuckles-ol'-buddy-ol'-pal. But since I know you wouldn't lower yourself to help out a buddy who's just come all this way and is near dead from hunger..." Sonic's voice trailed off to give Knuckles time to contradict him, then when the echidna remained stubbornly silent, he sighed and went on. "That's not all, though."

"I didn't think it could be. You've come a hell of a long way just to make marshmallow briquettes. What do you really want, Sonic?"

Sonic, who had bristled at the mention of marshmallow briquettes, hesitated and then sighed again.

"I been having these dreams."

Was it his imagination, or had Knuckles frozen?

"Oh yeah?" the echidna said noncommittally.

Sonic took a deep breath.

"Knuckles, where's Tails? Have you seen him?"

The echidna stared, then slowly shook his head.

"No. I thought he was with you."

"He was, but...he left. I was fine for a couple weeks after that, but like I said, then I started having these dreams. Knux, if he's come to you and asked you to hide him, then fine. I'll respect that and I won't go looking for him, won't even ask you about him. But if he's really here and you're lying to cover for him, at least tell me, set my mind at rest."

Knuckles shook his head again.

"I can't do that, Sonic, because the kid's really not here. If he was, I'd know; nothing comes onto Angel Island without my knowledge." He frowned slightly. "You mentioned dreams, didn't you? What kind?"

Sonic shivered.

"I keep seeing him. He's battered and bloody and in chains and he always says the same thing; help me, I can't get out." Sonic dropped his head into his hands. "Before you healed me, Tails and me had a fight; I accused him of pitying me and said if that was all he thought of me now he could piss off and find someone else to idolise. I was dumb, I was over-sensitive and Tails just stared at me, then turned and walked off." He managed a rueful smile. "I don't blame him. I was behaving like an asshole." The smile vanished, leaving a tortured expression. "But damn, Knuckles, if he got into trouble because of that dumb fight...oh hell." He looked up and frowned slightly. "Are you okay? You look a little tense."

That was something of an understatement, as Knuckles was now staring at Sonic with every muscle in his body so tight he was quivering slightly.

"He what?"

Sonic sighed. "Don't chew me out over that, okay Knux? Please don't, because I've been doing that every hour of every day and trust me, there is nothing you can say or do that can make me feel worse than I do right now."

Knuckles shook his head.

"No, it's...Tails really says that?"

"Yeah." Sonic's eyes narrowed slightly. "Why?"

The echidna looked away into the flames.

"I've seen him too. Not in a dream; he always appears in the Master Emerald, and he always says pretty much the same thing; help me, Knuckles, please help me, I can't get out."

"Wow." Sonic shifted his weight back, staring openly. "What the hell's going on, Knux?"

Knuckles sighed. He'd had a lot of time to wonder about that, and he thought he'd come up with a possible answer.

"This is just a theory, you understand—" he began.

"Fine," Sonic said immediately. "Theorise."

"I don't think Tails knows he's doing it. I think we're getting a kind of one-way link into his thoughts or maybe his dreams without his being aware of it. Does he call you by name at all?"

Sonic shook his head.

"No, it's always you he wants. That's why I came here; I thought he might be with you or you might have rescued him or something, since he's calling your name and not mine." He smiled sadly. "Can't blame him really."

"Snap out of it," the echidna told him brusquely. "And Tails is just repeating the same thing over and over, which means he can't hear us. He had a Chaos Emerald, maybe that has something to do with it."

Sonic shook his head again.

"If it did, then Robotnik would be getting the same dreams or visions as we are."

"Who's to say he isn't? Then again, maybe Robotnik's the one responsible."

Another shake of the head.

"No, I don't think so. It sounds almost as though the kid's...well..."

Knuckles finished the sentence. "A slave."

Sonic shuddered, looking as though the echidna had just uttered a particularly disgusting swearword. Slaves were not mentioned on Mobius, were not mentionable.

"Yeah, that. And the doc doesn't go in for slavery, at least, not of anything with a pulse. He builds robots for everything he needs; they're usually faster and stronger than your average Mobian, they don't require food or rest, there's no chance of a rebellion and nobody'll bother rescuing machines either."

"But he does sometimes roboticise people."

"Yeah, but I don't think that's what he did to Tails. He didn't do it to me." Sonic shook his head. "Don't you remember what he said back in his fortress? If he got hold of Tails, he'd turn him into a fox fur. I don't think he likes the idea of having someone as smart as him on the loose. No, I think we can cross Robotnik off the list."

Knuckles stared at him hard. "Are you saying that because you believe it, or because you're frightened of winding up in his prison again?"

There was a long, long silence, then Sonic abruptly got up and walked to the edge of the clearing.

"Let me tell you something about fear, Knuckles," he said hoarsely. "You don't know what it's like, not real fear. Real fear is when you're completely and utterly helpless, and you hear someone screaming in pain and all you can do is try and make yourself as inconspicuous as possible and hope like hell that you're not next, knowing that every poor guy who goes up before you is just bringing your tormentors one step closer to you. You just lie completely and utterly still, knowing there's nothing you can do to defend yourself or anyone else, knowing that those terrified and agonised screams are gonna be the last thing you ever hear and praying that they're not your own. Yeah. I'm frightened and I'm not ashamed to admit it either. I still dream about it every single night. I still hear the screams. At least, I did until Tails came into my dreams instead. Given how things are, I'm not sure that's much of a tradeoff, since I now get to wonder if he's going through the same things I did and worse, if he wound up in that because he was upset after that fight we had and wasn't thinking straight. You know what? On the way here, I saw this burning house. People were screaming and racing everywhere and then someone saw me and said...well..."

"Let me guess," Knuckles said succinctly. "Hooray, Sonic's here, he'll save us all?"

The hedgehog glanced over his shoulder at him and his lips twitched. "Well...something like that, yeah. And before, I'd have gone racing in, saved everyone and then gone on my way. This time, I just thought...why? You got a ladder out the back. You got water; hell, they had a stream right next to them! Why should I save you? Save yourselves; I have other things to do. I almost kept on going."

"But you didn't. What are they going to remember about you, Sonic; the fact that you hesitated for a microsecond or the fact that you saved each and every one of them? Hell, they probably all think that you hesitated to think of the best way of saving them all."

Sonic looked away again. "All I'm saying is that you don't get over torture or depression like a cold, Knux. That's like saying you get over a person's death the second the funeral's over. And Tails..."

Knuckles rolled his eyes. "Okay, fine. So you had a blazing row with the kid and upset him...again," he couldn't resist adding. Sonic flushed but said nothing. "So now we're both getting these weird dreams or visions and—"

"—we've no idea what they mean." Sonic whirled and started pacing at supersonic speed before skidding to a five-hundred yard stop that blew out the campfire. "Argh! Why can't visions be explicit? You know; hey Sonic, go with Knuckles to rescue Tails, he's in the passage under Mt. Faliath, third cave on the right, you can't miss it and watch out for the twenty foot beetle that's guarding him, but it's okay 'cause he's hydrophobic!"

"So are you, which means that wouldn't be much help even if it was true," Knuckles said flatly. He paused. "Do you have any idea where the kid is at all?"

Sonic shrugged. "Somewhere with a lot of rock. I get the feeling he's in a cave, but more than one. You know, like a network. There's not just him either; there's a whole bunch of people in the same boat as he is."

Knuckles looked up from where he was trying to relight the fire. "You saw all this?"

"Hell no! I just...well, I dunno how to explain it, Knux. It's like a feeling, you know? A sense. Like I'm inside his head."

"Yeah? So why haven't I got those feelings?" Knuckles was being sarcastic, but Sonic took him seriously, frowning as he considered.

"Maybe because Tails is reaching you through a middle agent; ie, the Master Emerald. With me, it seems to be going right into my head." Sonic thought a little longer. "Or maybe I'm going into Tails'. I can't tell."

"Great." Knuckles hauled himself onto a moss-covered boulder and sat down on it irritably, then grabbed a branch and speared two or three marshmallows and held them in the recovered flames, turning them gently. On the other side, Sonic followed suit. "Well, next time you go into Tails' head or he goes into yours, any chance you could ask him where he is and cut down on a hell of a lot of legwork?"

Sonic's marshmallow burst into flames again and the hedgehog stared at it morosely for a few seconds before blowing it out and crunching it up. Swallowing with an obvious effort, he shook his head.

"Knuckles, has it ever occurred to you that Tails himself may not know where he is? If that's the case, how's he supposed to tell us?"

The echidna grimaced, withdrawing his own perfectly browned marshmallows and chewing on one thoughtfully, ignoring the pleading look Sonic threw him.

"Didn't he say where he was going?"

"Oh sure. He said he was gonna come stay with you for a bit. Why d'you think I came straight here as soon as I got those dreams?"

"Hm." Knuckles considered. "I still say Robotnik's behind this."

"That's what you said about the nothing-void, remember?"

"You said that, Sonic."

"Yeah, exactly, and I was wrong. Besides, like I said, I'm getting the definite feeling that Tails is in a cave. Robotnik's not the camping out sort. He wasn't even before it all went cratt-shaped."

"Well, you oughta know."

Sonic ignored the jibe as he said, "And anyway, like I said, he doesn't enslave living people." Leaning over, he tugged one of Knuckles' marshmallows off the echidna's branch and popped it into his mouth, chewing. "Oh man, that's good. How the hell do you do that? I mean, it's not like you sit around campfires like this on a regular basis."

"Will you stop thinking about food at a time like this! All you seem to do is eat and sleep!"

Sonic snorted, not taking offence. "Hey, for your information, racing at supersonic speeds burns up and therefore requires a hell of a lot of energy! Anyway, don't change the subject, Knux; we're talking about Tails. I know what he said to me, but did he mention anything to you before leaving?"

Knuckles frowned, trying to remember.

"Yeah...he said something about the Emerald Hill Zone."

Sonic blinked.

"He's going back there?"

"Yeah. What's wrong with it? Angel Island's passed over it a few times. Nice looking place."

"Tails grew up there, at least until he was big enough to walk out. He didn't have a very happy childhood, Knux."

"No?" Curious now, the echidna leaned back on his hands, extending and crossing his legs at the ankle. "How so?"

Sonic shrugged. "His folks died when he was a very young cub. The other kids used to pick on and make fun of him because he liked building stuff. Then he met me and all that changed, but he'd never have thought about going back to Emerald Hill Zone alone."

Knuckles got to his feet abruptly. "Alright, fine. So we got a starting point. We're practically over the Emerald Hill Zone right now, so there's no harm in looking around and asking. You coming?"

Sonic hesitated, the green eyes clouding over. Knuckles didn't have to ask to know what was going through the hedgehog's mind; the months of torture he'd suffered at the hands of Robotnik would be enough to make anyone hesitate.

"No," Sonic said finally. "No, I'm...no. I can't." He turned away. "Not again," Knuckles heard him mutter and shrugged.

"No? Pity. I'd've paid good money to see that reunion, Sonic."

"You wanna see me back there?"

Knuckles shook his head. "No, I just want to see Robotnik's face when you show up looking like nothing happened."

Sonic paused, and Knuckles was pleased to see him considering the idea. He'd known that would appeal to Sonic; it was a hell of a weight off his mind to know that Robotnik hadn't managed to break the hedgehog entirely.

"Can you fix me?" Sonic said suddenly. "If...you know."

"If he cripples you again?" the echidna said with brutal honesty. "Yeah, if Robotnik messes you up again, I can fix you." Knuckles stressed the word Robotnik ever so slightly, letting the hedgehog know in an oblique way that he wasn't going to pull Sonic's head out of its owner's ribcage every time he got hurt thrill-seeking.

"Or his bots?"

Knuckles stared in disbelief, then laughed.

"C'mon Sonic; when have you ever been in danger from them?" He shook his head. "I'm supposed to be the ultra-cautious one, not you."

"You're not the one Robotnik tortured."

"True," Knuckles conceded. Looking at Sonic now, it was almost impossible to believe that once the hedgehog had been crippled, beaten almost to death and utterly defeated. "But maybe you oughta focus less on the negative and more on the positive."

"Like what?" Sonic demanded.

The Master Emerald's gone insane, Knuckles thought grimly. It's put me in a position where I'm actually pleading with Sonic to take risks. Aloud he said, "Well...for one thing, being tortured made you a virtual recluse for a time, which meant that you didn't have to teach your little brother about the birds and the bees."

Sonic gaped at him for a full minute, then his lips twitched.

"You don't mean—"

"Oh yeah," Knuckles said bitterly. "There I am, eating lunch, perfectly happy and minding my own business and Tails picks that moment to ask me where babies come from."

Sonic fell back, howling with laughter.

"Oh man, I'd have paid good money to hear that particular discussion!" he managed at last, wiping tears from his eyes. "What'd you say?"

"I can't remember," Knuckles lied, who remembered all too well and had even started to see the funny side of parts of it, "but...I...uh, I don't think I made a very good job of it."

Sonic shook his head, still grinning broadly.

"No? C'mon Knux; gimme details! What happened?" He paused. "Given you've never had a girlfriend, how'd you get to know about such things, anyway?"

"My mother wasn't embarrassed to talk about those things, Sonic, and it was a good few years before I even figured out what some of the words meant. By then she was dead."

Sonic whistled softly. "Man, that's rough. How old were you? Three? Four?"

"No, Sonic, that was when my father died. I managed to keep my mother for a couple more years; I was six when she died." Knuckles started towards the path. "C'mon."

"What about the Island?"

"No problem. I parked it here to see if I could spot the kid. It'll stay until I get back."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Sonic zipped forward to stand in front of Knuckles. "Back up. You can park this thing? Like a vehicle?"

"Yeah. Park, steer, reverse and change altitude."

"Way cool!"

"Sure," Knuckles said flatly. "C'mon Sonic, if you're coming. The sooner we find Tails, the sooner things can get back to normal around here."

"Oh, Knux." Sonic circled the echidna three times before slinging a companionable arm across Knuckles' shoulders. "Knux, Knux, Knux, Knux, Knux. Normality is so overrated."

The echidna shot him a dirty look. "Remind me again why I agreed to restore you to your old self, Sonic?"

"'Cause Mobius finds me more lovable that way?"

"Oh dream on!"

Sonic pretended to consider. "Hm. Could it be because Knuckles, nowhere-near-omnipotent Guardian of the Master Emerald, actually wanted to do something for someone else?"

"You talking about a two-tailed someone else, perchance?"

"Mm, perhaps, yes, perhaps. You did mention something about doing it for Tails since I'd been such a jerk." Sonic shrugged. "But hey, I'm not proud. I'm on too much of a high to be proud." As though to illustrate the point, he exploded into action again, weaving in and out of the trees.

Knuckles rolled his eyes and kept walking.

Okay, so that's Chapter Two done (no kidding :P Told you it'd be longer ;)) If you read, please review :D