SaffraEchidna: (grins) Yep, she sure does (Knuckles: At last someone is sympathetic to my feelings!) Yes, Squid. Now go sit back down on the couch and watch Wyrd Sisters.

Pyrokinetics: Heh...you sure have a lot of names :P (Knuckles: Of all the—!) Ignore him. And thanks; glad you're enjoying it :D

Kj: Sandbot? (scratches head) Don't remember mentioning a sandbot ;) As for the rest...maybe you're right and maybe you're not...you'll have to wait and see...

Awdures: Thanks :D Somehow I didn't think that Knuckles would be exactly over the moon shrieking with joy that his mother was alive ;)

Asher Tye: Heh. Yeah, if Sonic finds out, that'll be it for Knuckles ;) Hmm...maybe I should work that into the story somehow :P

Pyro Hedgehog4Ever: It does? I'm glad :P Thanks

Matri90: Thanks, I try ;)

FriedBrickWall: Okay. Serious cliffhangers will follow ;) Tails' fur...well, without getting a two-tailed fox and cratt to experiment with, I can't say for sure, but cratts themselves are a kind of deep violet all the way through (and tastewise...well, if you emptied a bag of caster sugar into a tub of golden syrup and poured a bottle of undiluted Ribena in as well, you'd get pretty close :P) ...so violet gunk plus tan/white fur...as for the Chao, probably not in this story but I'm thinking of extending my other story Rescue Complete to deal some more with the Chao ;)

My Memoirs by Me

Well. That actually wasn't too bad. Me and Amy went out for dinner, then a movie, then we went bowling and we finished off in a disco. Pretty cool. She's nice when she's not shrieking about marriage and when we just go out as friends.

Bad news; I'm now almost three hours late. I dunno where the time went; I looked at the clock when we started bowling and it was quarter to ten and when I looked again in the disco it was half past midnight. I managed to make it back to the CDA...now to just sneak upstairs without waking anyone...

--Sonic the Hedgehog

Bait's Jurnal

Sonic went owt with that girl Amy or watever her nayme is. He sed hed be bak at haf past ten but its layter than that and hes not bak. I hope hes ok.

--Bait the Jakkel

Despite his promise to Bait not to be back later than ten thirty pm, it was quarter to one when Sonic finally got back. He had, to his amazement, enjoyed himself immensely that night and even had half a mind to take Amy up on her offer of a repetition next week.

Sonic slid noiselessly up the stairs and opened the door leading to the room that he and Bait shared. One of them could quite easily have gone into Knuckles' old room, but Bait had looked so alarmed when Sonic had mentioned it that the hedgehog hadn't had the heart to pursue the subject.

Carefully, as silently as possible, Sonic stepped into the room.

A few seconds later he wondered why he'd bothered as something small, furry and extremely determined crashed into his midriff, sending him flying backwards into the opposite wall, knocking the hall table flying with a loud crash in the process.

"You're back!"

Sonic choked – Bait's greeting had been enthusiastic enough to knock the air from his lungs – and held off the jackal enough to look at him.

"Yeah, I'm back. And what the hell are you doing awake at this time?"

"Funnily enough," Espio said waspishly from his doorway, "that's just what I was asking myself."

"Then go back to sleep and you won't have to worry about it," Sonic shot back, and returned his attention to Bait, who had both big brown eyes fixed on him in an expression of mute appeal mixed with accusation.

"You been gone ages, Sonic, an' you promised me you was gonna be back at ten! Half past at the latest was your exact words an' I was waitin' an' waitin' but you never come! I thought you'd gone for good!"

Sonic took a deep breath and went back into the bedroom, Bait padding along anxiously next to him.

"How many times do we have to go through this, Bait? I'm not gonna abandon you." He jerked his head towards the bed and Bait scrambled in obediently.

"That wunt what I meant, Sonic. I wondered, yeah, but I was more scared somethin' had happened to you. Where'd you go?"

"Dinner and a movie, followed by bowling and a dance in a nightclub. And you're not my mother, Bait, so I don't have to justify my actions to you."

Bait's ears flattened. "Just what?"

"Justify. Explain."

"Oh right. An' no you don't. But when you're four hours late—!"

"Three, and if you'd been asleep you wouldn't even have known about it." Sonic handed the covers to the jackal, who took them but made no move to get underneath.

"Yeah...I was," Bait said, squirming, "but I had to get up for a drinka water an' I looked at the clock an' it was half past eleven an' I couldn't find you..." He shifted his weight embarrassedly. "I really was worried somethin' bad had happened to you."

Sonic looked at him, saw the honesty in that liquid brown gaze and relented slightly. "I know, kiddo, and I'm sorry. Get some rest; I'll see you in the morning." He paused. "Later on in the morning, anyway," he added with a grin.

In fact, it was almost afternoon by the time Sonic woke up and came into the kitchen for breakfast...or at least, brunch. Bait, who had stayed in the bedroom with Sonic until hunger had driven him out for food, was steadily munching his way through his third helping of toast and voli jam when the hedgehog entered, yawning.

"Whass to eat?"

"Toaft?" Bait offered, around a mouthful of the toast in question. On the other side of the room, sorting through the last day's takings, Espio rolled his eyes. One of those people who eat to live, not the other way around, the chameleon found Bait's large appetite almost nauseating.

"Yeah...great." Yawning again, Sonic sat down and took a piece, buttering it and adding a generous amount of voli jam before putting another piece of buttered toast on top with a satisfactory splat and biting into his sandwich.

Then (and Sonic was convinced that Espio took a perverse pleasure in upsetting everyone and generally causing as much chaos as he possibly could) the chameleon said to Bait, "I spoke to your brother this morning."

The blood drained from the jackal's face and the toast dropped from suddenly numb fingers to land on the tablecloth.

"Yeah?" He struggled to keep his voice casual and unconcerned, and even Espio had to admit that he didn't do a bad job of it. "What'd he want?"

The chameleon folded his arms and stared mockingly at Bait. "Well, he thought he might pop in later for a spot of tea and knitting. What do you think he wanted? He asked to hire the CDA to...how did he put it? Rescue his impressionable kid brother from the dangerous influence of a so-called hero who's already almost gotten him killed several times."

"Bait or Raker?" Sonic said flatly.

"Both, I imagine. He didn't manage to make our last appointment, probably due to the fact that you broke his hip but we blew him off anyway, so he's asked to reschedule for this afternoon."

"And you agreed, didn't you?" Sonic said, staring hard at Espio. "You sick, twisted—"

A shuriken flashed past his head and buried itself in the wall behind, effectively silencing him.

"Yes, I agreed. He's done nothing to anyone here—"

"Nothing?" Sonic echoed, outraged.

"Not to us. If we had to refuse everyone who offended or hurt people we know, we'd barely have any business at all."

"He has a hand in that slave ring down in those tunnels, Espio, and if he doesn't work there himself he knows people who does!"

"On'y for tradin'," Bait said hoarsely. "He used to transport the goods too, but then got high enough up to stop."

"The goods?" Sonic stared at Bait. "Bait, you're talking about people, real people who have been kidnapped or torn away from friends and family!"

Bait flattened his ears. "Yeah...'m sorry, but that's how he always said I should think of 'em, 'cause then it wunt so upsettin'."

"What, he used to take you with him?"

A nod. "Uh huh." Bait glanced away. "He used to take me an' make me watch. Said it was good trainin' so's I'd know not to annoy him. Look, you gotta remember that he ain't...he ain't sane like you are."

"Well, you're the first person who's ever called me sane, Bait," Sonic said lightly, then became serious again. "Look, what's the worst thing he could do to you now you're with me?"

"He'd kill me. Really kill, not jus' pretend kill."

"I doubt that. Believe me, there are far, far worse tortures in this world than mere death."

Bait sniffed. "What d'you know 'bout tortures? You're Sonic the hedgehog! Nobody tortured you, Sonic, not never, 'cause nobody could ever catch you!"

Sonic smiled slightly, but there was no humour in it. "Wrong. Someone did catch me, and that someone tortured me physically, emotionally, mentally...every way you can think of, incessantly, day after day for months, until all I could think about was how much I wanted to die and let the pain end."

Bait stared at him, wide-eyed. "That's why you scream an' thrash about at night?"

Sonic glanced at him, startled. "I do?"

The jackal nodded. "Uh huh. An' sometimes you talk 'bout a treadmill an' sayin' how it burns. Didja go to a gym or somethin'?"

An icy chill shot through Sonic's veins at the memory...his feet catching fire and literally being ripped apart by friction..."No. No, I never went to a gym."

"Who tortured you?"

"Robotnik." Sonic bit the word off at the end. Even now, he couldn't bring himself to think about what he'd endured in that hell. "In the end it was Knuckles and Tails who saved me."

"Yeah?" Bait looked away. "Well, they like you. You dunt know ev'rythin' that went on in Raker's gang."

"You're damn straight." Sonic knew full well that the occasional snippets he'd managed to get out of Bait didn't even come close to encompassing all of it, that there had been a lot more going on in the jackal's past that Bait didn't even trust Sonic enough to talk about.

"Sonic, how much longer's Knuckles gonna keep blamin' me for what happened to Tails?" Bait said suddenly. It was clear from his expression that this had been playing on his mind for some time now.

Sonic grinned easily. "Kiddo, the first thing you learn when you spend any amount of time with ol' Knucklehead is that the only thing harder than getting him to accept a new idea or concept is getting him to let go of an old one. It's nothing personal to you." He shrugged. "Besides, he's not stupid. He knows you helped us out down there." When the jackal looked blank, Sonic added, "When you defused that bomb, remember?"

Bait flattened his ears. "Yeah, sure I remember. If it hadn't bin for Raker, we'd all be dead. I was gonna pull the wrong cable out. Face it, Sonic, I screwed up. I dropped you in them rapids back in Aquatic Ruin Zone, I was responsible for all them people dyin' in Oil Ocean—"

"You're not still feeling bad about that, are you?" Sonic said. "Look, for the last time, it wasn't your fault."

Bait looked away, clearly unconvinced and Sonic suppressed a sigh. He'd been trying to convince Bait that Raker's destroying an entire Zone had had nothing to do with him ever since they'd first arrived in Scrap Brain Zone, and he didn't seem to be getting anywhere with it.

"Sonic?" Espio said very quietly. "You know the CDA's policy."

"Yeah. You never turn down work that pays."

"Yeah, that. And once we take a case, we finish it. You know what that means, right?"

Sonic stared coolly at Espio. "Yeah. I think I do."

"Then if I were you, Sonic, I wouldn't be around when we take this particular case." Espio tossed a small bag to the hedgehog. "This should help you get clear."

Curious, Sonic opened the bag and looked inside, then almost choked at the ten-Mobium notes inside.

"Espio, I...thanks, but I can't take your money."

"It's alright," the chameleon said with a shrug, "it isn't mine. Take it, Sonic. You're going to need it."

Sonic stared at the chameleon. In all the time he'd known him, Espio had never deliberately misled him or steered him wrong.

"Okay," he said, just as softly, then raised his voice. "Bait, let's go."

"We're leavin'?" Bait said apprehensively.

"Yeah. C'mon."

The jackal glanced longingly at the toast, then put it aside obediently and followed Sonic.

"Where're we goin'?"

"I don't know yet. Seaside Hill Zone maybe; I've heard that's nice this time of year. It's also some two thousand miles from here, but we can get on the cable car network for most of that. You might as well take that toast with you as well; it'll save us having to stop."

Bait grabbed up the toast, crammed half of it into his mouth and the other half into his bag, then glanced up at Sonic nervously.

"It's to do with Raker, right?"

Sonic shook his head. "I don't know. But Espio doesn't usually kick people out without a very good reason. And getting the hell out of here before your brother shows up seems like a good enough reason to me."

"He's gonna keep chasin' us."

"Agreed, but at the very least we can choose where to stand and fight if we have to." Sonic opened the fridge, grabbed a carton of pella juice and stuffed it into his bag. "Now either you walk or I'm gonna carry you."

Bait winced. "Nuh uh!" The last time Sonic had tried carrying Bait (or to be more accurate, towing him behind) at supersonic speed the jackal had been sick, and judging by how fast he shot over to the door, he wanted to avoid a repetition. Fair enough; it hadn't been too pleasant for Sonic either.

"Okay. Let's move." Sonic didn't know if Raker was someone who was punctual, early or late, but the thought was spinning in the back of his mind that this afternoon covered a whole range of hours, the first of which was already gone.

They didn't see any of the Chaotix on the way out, which surprised Sonic; he thought that Mighty at least would have said goodbye. The hedgehog grinned to himself. Probably out exploring again, as per usual. He was privately amazed that the armadillo had stuck around as long as he had.

Pausing at an intersection, Sonic and Bait looked over their shoulders at the CDA office. Living on the top floor had lent the Chaotix a certain advantage when it came to advertising; someone (and Sonic suspected Charmy) had fastened the red neon letters CDA to each of the four exterior walls, giving the impression that they owned the entire building as opposed to the penthouse apartment.

"You know, it's weird but I'm gonna miss that place," Sonic said lightly. Next to him, Bait squirmed, suddenly looking uneasy.

"Uh. Sonic?"

"Yeah?"

"You...uh...you never ast me when Raker liked me to blow stuff up..."

"Riiight..." Seeing Bait's expectant look, Sonic rolled his eyes. "Okay, fine. When did Raker like you to blow stuff up?"

Bait's look changed, became less expectant and more nervous. "Well...see, if summun screwed him over...kinda like your buddies back in there did when they dint meet with him that time..."

"Have you done something to the CDA?"

Bait opened his mouth – whether to confirm or deny Sonic didn't know – but at that point the CDA headquarters blew up.

Okay, 'nother chapter done :P Hope you liked it and if you read, please review ;)