Kj: Thanks, I'll try ;)

Awdures: Heh, thanks. That's my plan in a nutshell; post the final chapter and the sequel :P

Pyro Hedgehog4Ever: Ah, but Daimeri has a platoon of robots to wipe out Angel Island, remember? Why should she go there herself:P You'll find out who tries to split Tails and Knux up in due time ;)

FriedBrickWall: Heh, okay ;) (Knuckles: Like I would!) And you'll find out about this one very soon :P

Riven K. Daniel: (beats off fangirls with giant marshmallow club) Okay, how's that:P

Moonpaw7: Thanks :D

SaffraEchidna: Hee hee (evil grin) Thanks; glad you liked it :D And a Happy New Year to you too :)

Toboe16: Well...if I'm gonna have more Bait (which I might or might not do, depending on reviewers' wishes ;)) I gotta have more Raker :P Besides, I love writing him; he's so deliciously evil (weg)

Guardian's Log no. 11485

Well, so I'm going home again. How many times have I written that in these logs? I never want to leave Angel Island again, no matter what kind of 'weird thing' Sonic's found or how battered Tails looks, I am staying put and if anything wants to kill me or wants rescuing, then it can damn well come to me! I'm sick of doing the legwork!

Sonic left the CDA and is currently heading for Seaside Hill Zone with Bait. I guess Sonic's right; the kid does need time to chill and relax. Bottom line though, I don't expect to see either of them back anytime soon, and let the record show that Bait is not welcome on Angel Island. Yes, I know he did help us find Tails, but I can't forgive the fact that he also made the kid disappear in the first place.

In other news, Tails is with me. So long as he doesn't ask me to explain the facts of life again, we should get on just fine. I guess I did kinda miss him last time he left.

Not that I'd ever admit it to him, of course.

--Knuckles the Echidna

Dear Diary

I think it's sinking in that I'm free again. Out of the mines, out of everything and going back to Angel Island. I still get really bad dreams, but at least I'm safe here. Nobody except Sonic knows Angel Island even exists.

--Tails

"What's wrong with you now?" Knuckles demanded. He was tired – Tails was either refusing point blank to sleep or, when his body finally mutinied and put him out, suffering from horrific nightmares which usually woke the echidna up – and in no mood to be pleasant.

Tails, who had stopped, rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. "Knux?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I get my toolbox? Please?" When the echidna stared at him, Tails ducked his head. "It's buried real near here. 'S just...I'd feel better if I had it."

"You don't still carry that old thing around with you, do you?"

"I did...right up until they—" Tails broke off. "Doesn't matter. Forget it."

Knuckles shrugged. "You want it, kid, go ahead and get it. I'm just surprised it's lasted as long as it has; the bag wasn't in the best condition when I passed it on to you and that was before you'd lugged it all over Mobius."

"Knux...c'n you dig it up if I show you where? Please? I'd do it but..." Tails held up his broken wrist. The echidna glanced at it and softened slightly.

"Yeah, okay. Where'd you bury it?" He started digging in the place Tails pointed to, then paused. "Why'd you bury it, if it comes to that?" Reaching down, he pulled out a dark green bundle and handed it to Tails, who grabbed onto it like a lifeline, clutching it tightly to his chest.

The fox fixed Knuckles with a wretched look. "They wrecked it, Knux. Before I was dragged off to that place, they wrecked my toolbox an' I had to bury it to stop them doing it again."

The echidna whistled softly. That toolbox was Tails' pride and joy; apart from being exceptionally good quality in its own right, it was the last thing Sonic had given him before being taken prisoner by Robotnik.

Poor kid. That must have destroyed him.

"Did you manage to save anything?" he asked quietly.

"Well, sorta." Tails rummaged in the canvas bag the tools were kept in, or what was left of it. It had been slashed beyond repair, all the pockets for the tools torn out from their seams. Most of the tools were still in reasonably good condition – Knuckles suspected that this was due more to their resilience than any kindness on the part of the perpetrators – but the hacksaw had been snapped and twisted beyond recognition and the handles of the tools had been hacked and broken wherever possible.

That wasn't the worst of it, though. There was a dark stain on the canvas, and even after all this time the faint but distinct smell of urine was enough to tell the echidna what had happened.

"Damn." Sickened, Knuckles turned away. After fighting Robotnik, he was no stranger to the concept of hostility, but he'd never encountered pure spite and malice at such a low level before, even from the doctor.

"I didn't wanna dump it at first, but after they did this I wanted to make sure they couldn't do it again. They kept smashing the stuff I made too." Sadly, Tails took out a mess of fragile glass and components, then looked up at Knuckles. "Can I take it with me? Please?"

"Yeah. Yeah, alright." Knuckles shook his head. "You should have come to me for help."

Tails glared at him. "I fight my own battles, Knucklehead!"

"I don't mean you should have asked me to deal with them. But face it, kid, you know nothing about fighting a real opponent that's not mechanical."

"I said I fight my own battles, with no help from anybody!"

The echidna snorted. "Don't be dumb. You think I'd have managed to protect the Master Emerald this long if I'd refused to let my parents train me?" He rubbed his jaw reminiscently. "Not that I ever would; my mother had one hell of a right hook on her. I learned that lesson the hard way and once was enough."

Tails' jaw dropped. "She hit you?"

"Oh yeah. Sent me right into a pricklebush."

"Wow." Still clutching his toolbox, the fox wriggled in next to Knuckles' side. "Did it hurt?"

The echidna glanced down at him. "Well, it was hard enough to knock me head over heels into a bush covered in inch long spines, so yeah, it did hurt me a little," he said with heavy sarcasm. "Like I said, it only happened once."

Tails shook his head. "I told you, Knux, I fight my own battles."

Knuckles snorted. "Yeah? That worked out pretty good last time, didn't it?" When the fox paled and looked away, Knuckles continued in a slightly softer tone. "You don't wanna talk about it yet, that's fine. But tell me one thing, Tails, and then I'll leave you in peace. How the hell'd you wind up there?"

Tails looked away and didn't answer.

"Sonic told me about the fight you two had before I fixed him up," Knuckles added, in the hopes that this might give the kid a starting point.

"He did?" Tails looked up at the echidna nervously. "What else did he tell you? Did he tell you what...what I said?"

"He said you called him a pretman." Knuckles shook his head. "Where did you even learn that word? I know damn well I never taught it to you!"

Tails shifted his weight. "Well...you kinda did. I heard you muttering it in your sleep one night. You were muttering something else about Robotnik too, so I guessed it wasn't a compliment."

Knuckles regarded him steadily. "If Sonic had been an echidna he would have called you out for an insult like that, Tails, and I doubt you'd have walked away."

"No way Sonic would have done, either," Tails muttered, not quite under his breath. "Not looking like he did."

"Tails!"

"Well, he wouldn't."

The echidna stepped away. "If all you're going to do is whine, you can do it by yourself. Or you can grow up and come with me to Angel Island. I parked it just above here."

The fox's jaw dropped. "You can park the island?" he said, unwittingly echoing Sonic's identical comment when Knuckles had revealed this little fact to him.

"Yeah. C'mon. I want to change your bandages." Tails hesitated and the echidna played his trump card. "Of course, if you don't want any lactoberries—"

"Lactoberries?" Tails bounded up eagerly, thoughts of first aid forgotten. "Are they in season again?"

"They're always in season up there, one way or another. I got some chocolate flavoured ones, if you're interested."

Tails snorted. "There's no such thing as chocolate flavoured lactoberries, Knux, and you know it."

"There is if you manage to breed the bush to the right tree." Knuckles considered. "The strawberry ones weren't so successful though."

"Hmm." Tails considered. "You might have more luck with a pella tree."

"True, but I'm not sure how a pella-flavoured milkshake would taste, and frankly I can't be bothered to experiment."

Tails frowned slightly. "Is this ethical?"

"Well, crossbreeding between separate species was banned to try and prevent mental problems, but let's face it; shrubs and trees are never going to be known as great intellectuals." Knuckles pulled out the purple Chaos Emerald and Tails stared at it.

"I thought you only brought the red one."

"You did?" Knuckles said with an uncharacteristic gleam in his eyes. "Funny, that. So did Sonic."

"What's it do?"

"It's the teleportation one. I figured we might need to get out in a hurry and besides, how else are we supposed to get up to Angel Island? C'mon." Knuckles caught hold of Tails' good arm and focused, channeling the Emerald's power. Dots appeared in front of his eyes, like the kind you got when you fainted, only these cleared after a few minutes to reveal the Mushroom Hill Zone. Looking around, Tails relaxed fully for the first time in months.

"We're going, right Knux?"

"Yeah. Yeah, the island's moving."

"Cool." Tails looked around. "So where're the lactoberries? You did say chocolate flavoured, right?"

The echidna rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I did. And they're scattered around this Zone; I think there was a bush behind those mushrooms."

"Alright!" Seemingly forgetting his injuries, Tails shoved the toolbox into Knuckles' chest and raced off. The echidna shook his head...it was easy to see that Tails' ordeal in the tunnels hadn't affected his mind.

At least, not much, he amended, remembering the screaming nightmares the fox had been getting every night, nightmares that were so bad Tails usually refused point blank to go to sleep and did everything he could to avoid it, from sidetracking Knuckles to holding his own eyelids open with his fingers. The echidna was half hoping that being safe on Angel Island would help the kid get some proper rest.

In the meantime, I better stop him before he makes himself sick, Knuckles thought grimly; Tails had found the lactoberry bush but his injuries were making it a little hard for him to reach the white oval shapes.

Lactoberries had a soft outer shell that tasted a little like bread, and a liquid inside that was bubbly, frothy and tasted almost exactly like milk. They crossbred with other plants with perfect willingness, if not positive enthusiasm, and the end result was a liquid flavoured like a fruit or leaf. Too many were poisonous (although not toxic enough to do more than give you acute indigestion) but the odd two or three didn't hurt. They only grew on Angel Island, and on his first visit, Tails had promptly developed an addiction bordering on obsession for them.

Reaching out, Knuckles pulled a section of the bush towards Tails, then tugged a ripe berry off the stem.

"Here." He handed it to Tails, who bit into it, spilling the milk inside everywhere. "Oh, you're going to smell great when that dries," the echidna added, smirking slightly. Tails made a muffled sound around his mouthful, then finished the berry and followed it with another before attempting to simultaneously lick and suck the spilt milk out of his fur.

"You're that hungry?" Knuckles said, somewhat taken aback by the fox's voracity.

A vigorous nod and muffled reply which sounded roughly like, "Yfmstrvn," was the only answer as Tails gulped down the milk and started on the shell.

"Tails?" Knuckles reached out for the berry. "Tails, trust me, you don't wanna eat too many of those; they tend to—" He broke off as his glove brushed against the fox's hand and Tails half turned, teeth bared in a snarl. Knuckles held up both hands in surrender and backed off; he had no wish to court death a second time if Tails was going feral. "Alright, kid. Find out for yourself."

It took three more lactoberries before Tails' slurping slowed, and another two before he pronounced himself full. Staring at him, Knuckles shook his head.

"Jeez, kid, anyone would think you hadn't eaten since your last meal in there."

Suddenly sleepy, Tails yawned widely. "Knux, c'n I go to sleep?"

The echidna blinked. "What're you asking me for? You want to sleep, you sleep. There're more comfortable places though. C'mon." He led the fox through the Zone and towards his small hut. Inside, he pointed at the sofa. "Go on, lie down on that and get some rest."

Almost sleepwalking now, Tails padded over and curled up on Knuckles' sofa, closing his eyes. Within seconds he was asleep and snoring gently.

Knuckles glanced down at him, then went to fetch a thick blanket from the cupboard; even on Angel Island the winters were too cold for comfort.

Emerging from his hut – he didn't want to be too far away in case Tails had another nightmare – Knuckles climbed up a nearby cliff and paused at the top to stare down over his island.

Damn, it's good to be home.

Breaking into a run, he launched himself off the edge and felt the air catch and suspend him. Pure ecstasy filled the echidna; how long had it been since he'd simply glided for the pleasure of it, rather than as a means of getting from A to B?

Circling over his hut, his gaze fell upon the Marble Garden Zone and he smiled slightly. Yeah. That would be good, to visit there; he hadn't been in that Zone for a while.

Changing course, he glided in a straight line, spilling air as he went so that he landed not too far from the entrance; it wouldn't do to vanish for longer than a couple of hours, not with Tails back in the hut.

That was the theory, at least. In fact it was five and a half hours before Knuckles returned, feeling more than a little guilty. In all fairness, he hadn't intended to stay away; he'd come across a fallen log in the river that had been accumulating other debris behind it and stopped to clear the mess. He'd almost done it as well; it needed an hour or so's more work doing to it, but it had gotten too dark to see properly, and there was Tails...oh boy. The kid had seriously overdosed on lactoberries, and Knuckles really wasn't looking forward to the night ahead.

Speaking of which...he glanced at the sky, doing a few rapid calculations.

Let's see, he ate the berries six hours ago...yes, that should be it... He sighed. Five, four, three, two, one—

From inside the hut, Tails yelped suddenly, a yelp that was more surprise than pain. That would change soon enough, Knuckles knew. With a sigh, he trudged inside and over to the fox.

"Hey kid."

"Knux?" Tails tried to focus on him in the gloom. "Knux, my gut hurts." Another stabbing pain shot through him and he winced.

"Yeah. Too many lactoberries screws up your insides." Knuckles shrugged. "Nothing you can do except wait for them to leave your system."

Tails groaned, curling up and holding his stomach. "Bet you never had this problem."

"Hell no." There was the barest hint of a gleam in the echidna's eyes as he added, "And if you ever call up my mother in a séance and she tells you I ate six lactoberries and spent the entire night wailing loud enough for my father to hear me up at the Master Emerald, she's exaggerating."

Tails tried to imagine a wailing Knuckles and found he couldn't. His imagination rebelled.

"How old were you?"

"Not very. It's one of my earliest memories; I'd say about three, maybe a little younger."

"You wailed?" Tails echoed.

"I said that was an exaggeration, okay?" Knuckles said testily.

In fact, it was something of an understatement.Echidna puggles were known for being extremely loud and vocal about pretty much everything, and little Knuckles had been louder and more vocal than most. The concept of suffering in silence didn't hold much water with any echidna under the age of about five; an upset puggle sounded a lot like a foghorn with hiccups, only louder and more penetrating. Echidna puggles also had a very simple view of such things; whenever something hurt or upset them they just opened their mouths as wide as they could and bawled until the problem had been dealt with by a long-suffering adult.

Another cramp shot through Tails' stomach and he yelped, ears flat against his skull, body quivering slightly.

"I am never eating another one of those things!" he managed to get out in between cramps. Knuckles snorted.

"Yeah, I know the feeling. I was never as keen on them after that. A couple don't hurt, but you ate seven on the trot."

"You could've warned me!"

"I would have if you'd given me enough time between berries," Knuckles retorted. "But oh no, you just had to keep stuffing more into that mouth of yours."

"I was hungry, Knuckles!" Tails' face contorted in another spasm and Knuckles saw a thin dribble of red where the fox had bitten his lip. "They didn't feed us much in...back there. Least, not stuff you'd want to eat."

"I figured as much when I saw how fast those berries went down. Like I said, I tried to warn you, but you'd already gulped down four...not to mention the little fact that you warned me off your food in no uncertain terms."

"You could've still told me!"

"If I'd have persisted, kid, I'd bet everything I own, including the Master Emerald, that you'd have lunged for my throat."

"You could've ducked," Tails muttered.

"Sorry kid, but I like my throat. I didn't want to get it bitten through."

Tails shuddered as another cramp racked his body.

"Yeah, but I'd never really bite you, Knux. You know that, right?"

"All I know, kid, is that you tried to chew me up back in that place. I didn't want an encore and when you showed me your teeth, I thought I was about to get one." Knuckles considered. "It was my own fault, I guess; I should've known better than to make any kind of contact with you if you're gonna be like that."

"'S not that." Tails' body jerked, his back arching off the bed. "'S...you got food and you hung onto it. I was...I'm sorry, just don't remind me, okay? 'Cause that...only makes me feel worse."

Knuckles snickered. "Tails, I doubt that even Robotnik could do or say anything to make you feel worse than you do right now."

"Am I gonna die?"

"Not from lactoberry poisoning, no. If you'd eaten twenty or thirty you might do, but I doubt even your appetite's large enough to handle that many."

Tails thrashed around suddenly, in the grip of another spasm, then went limp and stared at the echidna, breathing rapidly.

"I'm gonna be sick, aren't I?" Inwardly Tails hoped not; he hated to puke worse than anything, but that was usually how things worked, wasn't it? You ate something bad, you threw it up.

"No, you're not going to be sick," Knuckles said, and that might have reassured the fox had he not then added, "It tends to come out the other end."

Tails blanched, ears flat. "Gross!"

"But true. Still painful?"

A nod. "Thirsty..."

Knuckles rolled his eyes. "Alright, wait there. I'll go get you some water." He didn't know if it would help at all, but his mother had given him water towards the end of the night. Knuckles had gulped it all down, and a few seconds later hadn't fallen asleep so much as passed out. Even at that young age, he'd had a nagging suspicion that there had been something else in that drink besides mere water.

Actually, now that he thought about it...no. No, resist temptation. But on his way back with the water, Knuckles noticed the seida plant he kept on one windowsill was in bloom. And...well, everyone knew that seida seeds were a powerful soporific, right? Still, he'd never grown them indoors before...he had to make sure the seeds were just as good, right? Right?

Tails yelped loudly from behind, causing the echidna jump and make up his mind. Reaching out, he pulled off two of the pale green oval seeds, crushed them and dropped them into the water. They foamed briefly for a couple of minutes, then dissolved.

Telling himself there was nothing else he could do – and there wasn't; there was no cure for a lactoberry overdose except waiting – Knuckles handed the water to Tails.

"Here. Drink, it'll make you feel better." Or at least knock you out until the worst of it's over, he added in the privacy of his own mind.

Tails grabbed the glass, spilling some of it over the sofa, then gulped it down. A few seconds later, his eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed.

"Thank the Emeralds for that," Knuckles muttered. Maybe it was somewhat underhanded, but it had worked a treat. And besides, what else could he have done?

Tails gave a contented little sigh and burrowed deeper into the blankets. Next to him, Knuckles sat down and dropped his head into his hands.

Why is it that whenever I agree to one of Sonic's crackpot schemes, I wind up saddled with this kid?

Okay, that's it ;) Out of interest though, do you guys want all Knuckles and Tails or do you want some Sonic and Bait thrown in as well? (Okay, so they're probably going to show up anyway...the only question is how much:P) If you read, please review :D