Kj: (grins) Okay, okay, here. It's updated :P

Toboe16: (blushes) Thanks...and yep, you do indeed have to wait, although not too long ;)

PyroHedgehog4Ever: (happy smile) Wow...four 'ness' words in one review...like you said, that's gotta be a record :P As for the update...is this soon enough for you? ;)

Secretsniper: Hee hee, thanks ;D Yeah, I do like my cliffhangers; like I say, what's a good story without them? ;)

SaffraEchidna: (smiles) Thanks; I'm glad you enjoyed it :)

Ri2: (smiles) Thanks. Uh...well, in Sonic and the others' case, I thought it was pretty much a given that they'd have something to drink as well as eat when they pause for meals :P In Tails' case...read on ;)

Awdures: Thanks, I'll try :) It's easier writing longer chapters for Sonic, purely 'cause there are more characters to play with :P I'm glad you like the OCs as well :P

Asher Tye: That's kinda the idea :P And no, it probably wasn't too smart of Raker to do something like that, but then he's not the sanest of people...he probably wouldn't think these things through ;)

FriedBrickWall: Yeah...that's one way of putting it :P

Treasurehunter:) Thanks

Tails wasn't stupid enough to try to run; he was surrounded and there was nowhere he could go except back to the prison, and he didn't think the overseers would mind that.

"What is this?" one of them demanded, pointing to the first book, the one open at the page with the map.

Tails shrugged. "Just a picture."

"It looks like a map."

Tails shrugged again. "You say so."

He sensed, rather than saw, someone else moving around to stand behind him, looking over his shoulder.

"What are you doing here?" The overseer who was speaking – the one Tails had privately dubbed Scarface, since he thought that would be what everyone else called him once the horrific bites healed – did so with a distasteful expression, as though he was soiling himself irreparably by conversing with a slave.

Tails scowled at him. If he was going to be beaten anyway, he wanted to at least deserve it. "I was sleeping. Didn't your mother ever tell you it's impolite to wake someone?"

The whip lashed across his shoulders again and he stifled an urge to yelp. Insubordination – even speaking – was something that he knew full well would never, ever be tolerated.

Scarface lunged and caught hold of Tails' jaw in a way that Sonic had often used either to get the fox's attention or, when they'd first met, to encourage him to open up a little. There was none of the tenderness in Scarface's hands that Tails was used to feeling in Sonic's, though; instead, he could feel the bones of his jaw grinding together under the pressure. Scarface stared hard at him for a couple of minutes, eyes narrowed in cold anger, then abruptly released his hold to backhand Tails savagely across the face, spinning the fox round and knocking him to the floor, then hauling him upright and shoving him towards the open book.

"Read it!"

Tails glanced around, then reluctantly picked up the book and cleared his throat.

"Gidja nomoh-con abbus dee-yee Ensel Gubble bee lan gon," he said obediently, while offering up a silent, heartfelt apology to Knuckles for his pronunciation, or lack thereof. He knew most letters were pronounced differently in Sagayan to Mobian – especially the vowels – but he had no idea what that difference was. "Yar yee garran—"

"Enough!" Another blow, not with a whip but a fist, slammed into the side of Tails' head, jarring his torn ear and setting off fireworks in his skull, knocking him to the floor. "We meant for you to read it in Mobian!"

"Hey, you didn't specify," Tails said. None of them ever knew how much it cost him to keep his voice that carefree. That had been one of Sonic's lines, hadn't it...or...Knuckles? Tails couldn't remember, and for some reason that bothered him.

"Read it in Mobian."

"Can't," Tails lied. "I don't know Sagayan."

"Don't lie!" Scarface seized him by the scruff of the neck and hauled him upright, suspending him in midair. "You know, or how else would you know what language it is?"

"Lucky guess! Now let me go!" Tails pretended to consider. "Or at least turn me round. I don't wanna stare at your ugly face the whole time."

This time the fist crashed into his stomach, hard, and Tails retched. There was nothing in his gut to come up except bile and stomach acid, but he still managed to make sure that Scarface got the worst of it. Tails got his wish then; the overseer opened his hand with a disgusted oath and backed off, staring at the rancid juices soaking his chest. The sight made the fox grin, and then they really laid into him.

Tails went limp – like most people down there who were living with pain on a daily basis, he'd learned very quickly that it hurt far less when you relaxed and let your body absorb the lashes – and brought his arms up to protect his face, especially his tender ear.

The last thing Tails saw before he blacked out was the map pointing the way to Walin Yapai. Memory kicked in and he remembered; Yapai was the Sagayan word for chaos.

Walin Yapai...the Chaos Caves...

He knew what they were digging for now. Oh man, did he know. His last conscious thought was I'm not gonna tell not gonna tell not gonna tell

Then everything went dark.

When Tails came round, he had been put face down on a soft couch. A collar and chain had been fastened around his neck, not quite tightly enough to cut off his air supply but tight enough so he could never ignore it. The other end of the chain was fastened to a ring in the wall and long enough to allow him basic changes in position, but nothing more.

"No. No!" Panic, real panic, exploded in him and he fought to escape, yanking uselessly on the chain, ignoring the pain in every part of his body.

"Hey, easy there little guy, nobody's gonna hurt you."

Tails froze rigid, for a different reason this time. That had been the very first thing Sonic had ever said to him, before they'd become friends. Tails had been hiding at the top of a coconut palm at the time, a reaction caused more by shyness than fear.

A gecko, one who Tails immediately dubbed "One-Eye" for obvious reasons, was seated on the other side of a desk that was so cluttered with papers and books that the fox had no idea how the guy managed to find anything.

"Who're you?" Tails demanded belligerently. The reptile smiled.

"Never mind that now. You must be hungry. Ice cream?"

Tails stared stonily ahead. "I'm allergic to ice cream. You gimme that stuff an' I'll probably die an' then you'll be short one slave." He wasn't allergic – at least, not in the medical sense – but he'd never been able to eat it ever since contracting a bout of salmonella from a mostly melted portion when he'd been four and a half years old. Besides, how much of a little kid did they think he was, to be made happy and friends with for a mere bowl of ice cream?

"A drink, then." One-Eye poured out a glass of water and pushed it carefully over to him. For a moment Tails sorely wanted to throw it back in his face, then common sense intervened and he took a careful sip. He hadn't had a proper drink since being thrown into that prison and had even been so desperate as to lick the walls for moisture. If the echidna logs hadn't had every page laminated (and Tails had had no idea they'd been so advanced, even back then) the dampness of the caves meant that very likely he wouldn't have been able to open the books, much less read them.

He took another mouthful, swallowing carefully. His throat hurt – not much, but a little – and he wondered dully if he was coming down with something.

"Hungry?" One-Eye said again.

"No." Tails was famished as it happened, but he could go without food a little longer. Water though...that was another matter, and he sipped at the glass again. They did give you water down there – common sense dictated that slaves who were half dead through dehydration were slaves who weren't likely to be much good at their job – but most of it was silty, filled with grit and dust.

"As you like." One-Eye continued to regard him almost benignly, and Tails felt a little afraid. He almost wished they'd whip him again; at least there he knew what to expect, what was coming. Fear of the unknown punishment was ten times worse than any beating they could have dished out.

"You know, you really gave us quite a shock when you disappeared," One-Eye added.

"I bet I did," Tails muttered sullenly. He knew full well that shock hadn't been for the reasons One-Eye would like him to believe; it had been purely because they couldn't have any slave escaping, could they? The last thing they wanted was for anyone to come along and find their sick little operations.

One-Eye moved suddenly and Tails stiffened, unable to help himself. It seemed that punishment – at least, physical punishment – wasn't what One-Eye had in mind, however; he simply lifted a book, opened it and pushed it towards Tails.

The fox looked down at it and felt his blood run cold. The echidna log, the one he'd translated, stared up at him.

See? it seemed to be saying. See what you started? You were home free; why couldn't you have just kept digging and left me behind?

Tails winced inwardly. That was the worst part of it; the fact that he'd been so close to freedom and yet he'd let himself get sidetracked. How could he have done it? How? If he'd kept digging, he'd probably have found the tunnels the echidnas had used and been safely back on Angel Island by now.

"Tell us what it says," One-Eye said pleasantly.

Tails looked up at him, eyes dark with hatred. "No."

He expected rage, fury, but not that smile, and he began to feel very afraid. Sonic had once told him that nobody smiled like that all the time unless they were insane, or sitting on the mother of all weapons. Either way, he didn't much like it.

"I didn't expect you to cooperate," One-Eye told him, "although you must be very clever to have translated this with no prior knowledge of the language."

Tails wasn't going to be caught that easily. "Anyone with half a brain could have done that."

"Perhaps, but – with all due respect – possibly not one so young." One-Eye shook his head. "I understand that you may be unduly prejudiced towards us—"

"Yeah," Tails muttered. "Whips an' chains aren't a good way to make friends."

"But necessary." One-Eye's smile broadened at Tails' surprised expression. "Ah, you expected me to deny it? How can I, when you yourself have personal experience? You seem determined to insult my intelligence with every breath – although I personally have never hurt you – but I'm not stupid enough to insult yours. I'm asking you to be reasonable; translate this for us, and you can go."

"Go where? Back to the tunnels to be your punching bag? Big deal."

One-Eye shook his head. "Oh no. I mean you can go." To illustrate the point, he turned to pull open the curtains behind him, revealing a large window which looked out into a garden of some kind. The warmth of the sun coupled with the sight of the lush vegetation was intoxicating and Tails moaned once, low down in his throat.

One-Eye and the overseer who had brought Tails there exchanged knowing looks, then One-Eye pulled the curtain shut again.

"All we want you to do is translate this entry for us." One-Eye was doing his best to make his voice coaxing and failing miserably; he and his colleagues were more used to beating cooperation out of people than encouraging it out of them. "This entry, all the other entries relating to the ancient caves and the directions mentioned on the map, and we'll let you leave."

"You want to find the Chaos Caves," Tails said, his words slurred slightly through both pain and desire for the world outside.

"Of course. We want to find them to try and put a stop to all the pain and suffering in the world."

"Most of that pain and suffering is in those tunnels," Tails answered flatly. One-Eye's friendly, encouraging smile slipped a couple of notches before being firmly hooked back onto its owner's lips.

"The people you saw there are criminals, forced to work as payment for terrible crimes. Your presence was a...mistake, that's all. We're willing to overlook it and let you go, if you just do that one small thing for us."

Tails was obstinately silent.

"We realise there are a lot of texts," One-Eye went on, mistaking – possibly innocently – Tails' silence for his being daunted at the magnitude of such a task. "We don't want all translated, just the ones pertaining to the Chaos Caves. Needless to say, you would have regular meals and my colleagues would be ordered to leave you to work at your own pace. And when you've completed this task, you would be allowed to go free."

Free! What a wonderful word that was, Tails thought fervently. Free to wander about wherever he pleased, free to eat and drink what he wanted, when he wanted, free to sleep as much as he desired, free to do whatever took his fancy. Free to go back to Angel Island and see Knuckles again. And all he had to do was tell them where to find the Chaos Caves. Tails had no doubt that they'd keep their word to him; the amount of power they could obtain from the gems in those caves was worth the freedom of one kid. Hell, they'd probably let him take a couple of others with him as well. He could be free. No more tunnels, no more labour, no more whips...even the thought of that was so desirable it made his head spin.

Tails drew in a deep, shuddering breath, hoped like hell he was making the right choice, then raised his head to look One-Eye squarely in his smiling face and said clearly, "No."

The smile dropped another few notches, and this time One-Eye didn't manage to pull it back.

"What did you say?" he said carefully.

"I said no. I'd rather live here the rest of my life than help you do anything," Tails said boldly, but his voice quavered slightly. Never to see the sun again, never to see the sky...never to see Knuckles or Sonic...

He firmed his jaw determinedly. Maybe they'd find the Chaos Caves, but he wouldn't help them. If they got hold of the power offered...Tails wasn't sure even Knuckles could stop them enslaving the rest of Mobius, if they chose. He wouldn't be the one to give that to them. He wouldn't!

One-Eye glanced over Tails' shoulder at the overseer and nodded, and the whip sliced down again.

"Now will you help us?" One-Eye asked placidly.

"No!" Tails grated.

Another nod. Another red-hot pain across his back.

"Now?"

"No!"

Nod. Slash.

"How about now?"

Tails no longer trusted himself to open his mouth without screaming in pain, and so he contented himself with a vigorous shake of the head. One-Eye sighed.

"You've proved you're clever, but you don't seem to be very intelligent. The one behind you asked for a far harsher punishment than the one that was meted out for your attack on him—"

"I never attacked him!"

Another, lighter blow, this one for speaking out of turn, Tails knew. He also knew that it would do no good to plead his case; Scarface had obviously picked him as a scapegoat. He'd seen that happen to other slaves; the overseers blamed them for everything, using them as a kind of scratching post and punchbag. Tails was sure nobody would ever get to the bottom of who had really attacked Scarface; he'd pointed the finger at the fox and so the fox would suffer the consequences.

"There are witnesses to say you did," One-Eye said complacently.

Witnesses. Tails knew that trick too. Bribe an overseer with cash, half a dozen slaves with extra food and they'd serve as witnesses to say that black was white.

"As I was saying," One-Eye continued, "a harsher punishment was devised for you. I refused to let it go through, because even we should have limits. You would be wise to reconsider your decision, before I decide to reconsider mine." As though to prove his point, he sliced one hand down through the air and Tails felt the pain of a double blow, intensifying as the whip tore the crusts off older injuries.

The fox looked up, panting, but with a savage triumph in his eyes.

"Yeah, you go ahead! You go ahead an' beat me to death, 'cause then you'll never know about it. You want to get to the Chaos Caves, well, you're gonna have to do it the hard way 'cause I'm not gonna help you. You'll kill or enslave everyone! Even Robotnik's not as bad as you are; at least he builds mechanical slaves instead of taking real live people!" Tails said stridently, conveniently forgetting to mention that this was only because mechanical slaves didn't need to eat or drink, didn't need to rest and most importantly, never, ever questioned their master's authority.

Well, almost never. Tails supposed that Omega's attempting to destroy Robotnik and everything he'd ever touched probably counted as questioning his master's authority, but then Omega was only one out of...how many?

"Would you rather Robotnik take the powers?"

"Yeah!" Tails said defiantly. "Least I know what he'd do with 'em, an' anyway, Knuckles'll stop him doing anything real bad!"

"Knuckles?" One-Eye looked fully interested now and Tails could have kicked himself. "This Knuckles may think that he or she can stop Robotnik, but if he gets the power of the Chaos Caves behind him, no force on Mobius will accomplish that."

"Chaos Caves?" Tails snorted. "Robuttnik may have the Chaos Caves, but Knux has the Master Emerald." Then he snapped his mouth shut, but it was too late; the words were out.

"The Master Emerald?" One-Eye stretched out a hand and halted the whip in midair. "I was under the impression that only the echidnas knew of such a thing."

"You know, and you're no way an echidna," Tails said as rudely as he could.

"That's very true; no race with any semblance of intelligence would agree to simply guarding such a powerful gem. It's no wonder they all died out." One-Eye considered and his single yellow orb narrowed. "Or did they? Perhaps they simply...went away."

Tails' mind worked frantically, searching for a way to make up for his colossal slip.

"Yeah, 'sright," he said. "The echidnas aren't dead, just hiding, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. I've visited the Floating Island, I've seen what they're doing. There's hundreds – no, millions of echidnas – an entire army massing for an attack on anyone trying to get to the caves! They put up loads of security measures and...and they already know what you're doing and what you're up to. I triggered them when I tunnelled to the library and they'll come in...uh...in twenty four hours unless you let me go now to convince 'em not to hurt you."

"Mmm." One-Eye looked more amused than threatened. "But like you yourself said, you have no reason to help us, due to that minor misunderstanding."

"Minor understanding?" Tails yelped. "You beat me, broke my tail an' prob'ly a load of ribs as well, let those guys down there chew on me as and when they want and you call that a minor misunderstanding?"

"Yes," One-Eye said complacently. "If I were you, I would try to avoid a major one. Once you're out, what's to stop you from bringing these echidnas here?"

"They don't take orders from someone like me."

"If that's the case, then how could you hope to stop this alleged attack?"

Tails opened and shut his mouth a couple of times, then said, "'Cause one of 'em'll listen to me an' he'll persuade the others!"

"And why would you do this, anyway?" One-Eye said, toying absently with an ornament on his desk, lifting one metal ball and letting it swing against the others, staring into the resultant motions as if hypnotised. "I feel you would be of more use to us as a hostage than a negotiator, if it does come to war with the echidnas."

Tails floundered, feeling the rug start to slide from under him. "Yeah, well...they won't...they won't waste their time jus' coming to rescue me."

The single yellow eye narrowed. "I wonder." One-Eye looked at the overseer. "Take him back down. Put him in a minor tunnel and keep him chained to the wall at all times. I doubt anyone's looking for him – the people we got him from said he had no family or friends – but just in case, I want him well hidden. The thought of rescue upsets the others; last time it happened productivity dropped by over forty percent." He looked back at Tails. "However, I'm not an evil person and so I will give you one more chance to be reasonable. You're fond of this Knuckles character, anyone can tell that by the way you looked when you mentioned his name."

Tails cringed in shame. Great. So much for playing the bold warrior, to slip up like that.

"You must miss him very much. I'm sure he probably misses you. Do what we ask and you can go home. Don't you want to see your friend Knuckles again?"

"Yeah," Tails mumbled brokenly. "Yeah, I do want to see him again." He drew in another long breath and fixed a baleful stare on the person in front of him. "And I'm gonna do that without making deals with slaver pretmans like you 'cause I'd rather stay down here than go back an' make him ashamed of me. I'm not gonna translate any texts for you, I'm not gonna tell you how to get to the Chaos Caves and get all that power, an' I don't care if I never get out of here, I'll never tell you what you wanna know! Never, never, never!"

They beat him into unconsciousness again.

Okay, so that's another chapter done(weg) If you read, please review :)