PyroHedgehog4Ever: You'll find out about the fatality in due time ;) As for how I keep track of the storylines...hmm, sometimes I wonder that myself :P And...no, I don't think Knuckles would be happier to meet his mother; he's pleased but not exactly happy since he's more or less in shock at the fact ;)

Kj: Thanks, glad you liked it :)

Asher Tye: Thanks. Buildings go boom...I love that :D And the one who bit the dust...you'll find out :P

Shadow-spawn180: (blushes) Thanks. You'll find out who died in the next chapter ;) As to the rest of it...you'll have to wait and see :P

Toboe16: Yeah...poor Bait. As to the footsteps...erm...if you say so :P

FriedBrickWall: (jaw drops) It's not accepting reviews? (panics then calms down) Hm...wonder why :S Anyway, as for the casualty, you'll find out next chapter :P And (belated) Happy Valentine's Day to you too :D

Guardian's Log no. 11488

So Robotnik traded bodies with my mother. Wait, that didn't come out right. I meant he traded a robot body (and later real bones) for my mother's living body. I don't fully understand why, but I guess a lot of what he does defies explanation.

I'm still a little dazed from what's happened. I don't know what to think. Part of me's glad, but the other part of me wishes Lara-Le had never arrived, callous as that may seem. Isn't my life complicated enough without family members coming back from the dead?

--Knuckles the Echidna

Dear Diary

I'm not sure what to make of Knuckles' mum. She seems nice, but...I dunno. I get the same kinda feeling I got from some of those kids in Emerald Hill Zone when I was a little cub; they were only ever nice to me when they were leading up to something nasty.

On the other hand, she escaped Robotnik. I guess that's something, and she's all bloody so he must have tortured her, and for years. Maybe she's just suffering from that like Sonic did.

--Tails

The ornament on Knuckles' windowsill was one of the only possessions he really prized; it had belonged to his father Locke and was all he had to remind him of the older echidna.

It was also one of those vague shapes, called "art" by some, "an expression of torment/sadness/joy/love" by others and "some new-fangled doohickey" by Mighty when he'd first seen it. Made entirely of clay that was painted white on top and black on the base, it would be hard pushed to call it anything other than a three dimensional squiggle...although if Knuckles had ever seen a kneading attachment for a mixer, he might have compared the two.

At the moment, however, he was too busy staring down at the floor, or to be precise, that part of the floor which now held the broken remains of his treasured ornament.

Knuckles stared at the shattered figurine for a long, long time, then unbolted and yanked the front door open.

"TAILS!"

"Huh?" The voice came from above and Knuckles glanced up to see Tails lying on the roof. "Whassup Knux?"

"You get yourself down here right now!"

Alarmed now, Tails obeyed, wincing slightly as the drop jarred his injuries. "Knux, why're you mad? What'd I do?"

"Inside!" Knuckles only just stopped himself shoving the fox, reminding himself that Tails was still badly hurt.

Tails obeyed with as much speed as his battered body would allow, fixing a look on Knuckles that was half confused, half appealing. "Knux, what's wrong?"

"This!" Knuckles pointed to the shattered ornament. Tails followed his finger and his eyes widened.

"Ooh. Did you break it?"

"Did I—no I damn well didn't! Unlike you, I don't go out through the window! Tails, you swore to me that you were going to use the door!"

"Huh?" Big-eyed, Tails stared at Knuckles. "I did, Knux, honest. I wouldn't break that ornament on purpose, you know that."

The echidna shook his head. "I didn't say you did it on purpose. I just said you did it."

"But...Knux, I haven't gone out the window. I used the door."

Knuckles sighed. "How dumb do you think I am, Tails? I suppose after you walked out the door you clambered back in and bolted it again from the inside?"

"I can't reach the top bolt."

"You climbed up to the roof, kid. You could have climbed up there."

Tails started to shake his head, then stopped.

"Memory coming back, is it?" Knuckles said coolly.

"Uh uh. But...Knux, I forgot 'bout attacking you. Maybe I forgot 'bout that as well. If I did, I'm real sorry, you gotta believe me; I'd never do anything to upset you or make you mad, honest."

Knuckles heaved a sigh. "Alright kid. Go on back to your nap."

Tails shook his head. "I think I'll go for a...a..." He racked his brains for the Sagayan word for walk and eventually came up with, "a bana-ma."

Knuckles rolled his eyes. "That's the verb, not the noun, but okay." He couldn't suppress a slight smile; Tails had taken it upon himself to learn the echidna language not long ago, and even Knuckles had to admit he was making good progress.

"A bala?" Tails guessed again as they came out to where Lara-Le was sitting on a rock.

"That's butterfly," Knuckles said wryly. "Go on, kid, go for your walk. I'll see you later."

"I'm not sure I approve of your teaching that fox our language," Lara-Le said, glancing in the direction Tails had taken; a direction leading to Ice Cap Zone.

"I didn't," Knuckles said shortly. "He taught himself."

Lara-Le sighed, the sigh of a parent forced into an unpleasant duty. "Knuckles, you remember the lessons I taught you when you were a puggle?"

The echidna folded his arms stubbornly. "Which lessons would those be, Lara-Le? You taught me so many. Let's see...never look away from the Master Emerald, never allow anyone who wasn't a Guardian or Guardian-in-training to see it, never use its power unless in an emergency...hmm, I don't remember you ever telling me not to allow a two-tailed fox kid to teach himself Sagayan out of the old echidna logs."

Lara-Le stared. "What old echidna logs?"

Knuckles smirked slightly. "Tails found the caves of the ancients, and the logs. He taught himself to read our language..." His voice trailed off; he didn't feel comfortable with the use of the word our. For almost his entire life, it had only ever been me, mine.

"Show me!"

The echidna shook his head. "I can't. Tails is the only one who knows where they are."

"Then make him show us!"

Knuckles stared at Lara-Le and allowed the barest edge to creep into his voice. "Tails is my friend, Lara-Le. I don't make my friends do anything, and in this case I wouldn't if I did. That poor kid still has screaming nightmares about the time he spent down there. I'm not going to ask him to go back."

Lara-Le shook her head. "You wouldn't have to leave him there, Knuckles. I'm sure there's a family on Mobius who'd take him in."

Knuckles curled his lip. "That's what this is all about, huh? You don't care about any ancient texts; you just want Tails off Angel Island, although he's never done anything to you."

"Outsiders are not permitted here. You know that."

"I know I'm the Guardian, Lara-Le, and the master of Angel Island. If I say Tails stays, he stays."

Lara-Le folded her arms coldly. "What about your duty? Are you refusing to remain loyal to your own people?"

Knuckles whirled. "Hey, I'm not the one who's been alive all these years and couldn't be bothered to make contact, mother, so don't talk to me about loyalty!"

"Knuckles!"

"Don't Knuckles me, Lara-Le. Sonic has destroyed a lot of Robotnik's bases over the years, and freed all the prisoners before now. To me that says you've most likely been free and wandering around doing your own thing for ten years and yet you couldn't even be bothered to get in touch somehow, to tell me you were alright."

Lara-Le, who had paled at her son's vehemence, stood up rather suddenly. "Because I knew if I came back you'd react like this!"

"Then why the hell didn't you just stay gone?" Knuckles shot back, before he could stop himself.

Lara-Le shifted. "Because...I couldn't stay gone, Knuckles. I still love you, you must know that."

The echidna looked away curtly. "Yeah, well, I don't love you, Lara-Le. Not because of anything you've said or done, but because I don't know you. Maybe I could get to love you, but that's going to take time. I was six years old when you supposedly died, heartbroken and terrified at the time and now you waltz back into my life ten years later and say you didn't die, you just left. How am I supposed to feel about that? Happy?"

Lara-Le's mouth opened and shut a few times but no sound came out. Eventually she said, "You should be at the shrine, Knuckles. Why aren't you guarding the Master Emerald?"

It was only with a supreme effort that Knuckles managed to refrain from grabbing his mother and shaking her until her teeth rattled. Instead he gave a harsh bark of laughter.

"Is that all you have to say to me, Lara-Le? After all this time, all you want to know is why I'm not living by the shrine twenty four seven? Tell me honestly; did you come to check on me or the Master Emerald?"

"Both," Lara-Le admitted. "But—"

Tails' high yelp from down the track cut her off, and Knuckles started towards the sound, only to have Lara-Le grab his arm.

"Leave him! Your duty is to protect the Master Emerald, no matter what the cost! He's just a fox, Knuckles. Get back to guarding the Master Emerald."

Knuckles stared at Lara-Le, who suddenly seemed to realise that she'd made a tactical error.

"The Master Emerald?" he repeated very softly. "Lara-Le, it's a damn rock. Go into the mountains. There's millions of them."

The backhand slap rocked his head back and to one side. Knuckles was too large and too heavy for his mother's hand to send him tail over snout into a pricklebush like it had when he was a puggle, but it was still a force to be reckoned with. Before he knew what he was doing, he'd slapped her back, hard.

"Things have changed, Lara-Le," he said flatly. "I'm not a puggle any more."

Whirling, he stalked off into the undergrowth, following the direction of Tails' yelps.

It didn't take him long to find the fox. Tails hadn't been moving very fast, and apparently hadn't been paying attention to where he was going either; he'd wandered onto a crumbling cliff and was currently hanging one-handed over the river Buragu, renowned among echidnas for being the only place on Mobius where iksors still swam...or right now, jumped in an effort to take a chunk out of the furry meal above them. Hurling himself to the ground, Knuckles seized Tails by the good wrist and hauled him out of reach.

"Knux!" Tails attempted to clamber up the echidna's body in an effort to escape, looking over his shoulder.

"Tails, quit wriggling!" Knuckles said sharply as he half backed, half fell away from the edge. "I'm not gonna drop you."

"Knux, what're those things?"

"Iksors," the echidna said flatly. "Kinda like a cross between dolphins and piranhas. I'm not sure how they've survived as long as they have, considering they've eaten everything organic that was ever in that river, but I guess they must have worked something out. They're most likely cannibals, but they'll take a bite out of anything dumb enough to fall into their river."

Tails edged to the brink of the cliff, looking down at the multicoloured fish. "But Knux, they're so pretty."

One determined iksor leapt a full five feet out of the water, razor teeth snapping futilely at the air, and Tails jerked back reflexively.

"Pretty? Sure, I guess," Knuckles said flatly. "They're also vicious, deadly and can reduce a grown echidna to nothing in five seconds flat."

Tails shivered. "I jus' wanted a closer look, 'sall. I've never seen...what did you call them? Iksors? I've never seen iksors before."

"You won't have done. They became extinct on Mobius – at least the surface – some three hundred years ago." Knuckles looked down at the fish. "They are pretty, Tails, sure, but so's an erupting volcano in its own way."

Tails squinted at Knuckles, seeing him properly for the first time. "Are you okay, Knux?"

"What?" The echidna's voice was edgy. "Yeah. Why?"

"You got a red bit on your face jus' there." Tails pointed carefully. "Kinda like a heat rash." He squinted. "Actually, it's more like someone whacked you right in the—"

"You know, it would be a very good thing for both of us if you did not finish that sentence," Knuckles informed the fox through clenched teeth.

"But did someone—"

"Tails!" Knuckles cast about for a safe change of subject and found one. "Are you okay? The iksors didn't bite you?"

Tails snorted. "Like one could do any damage out the water."

Knuckles swatted him lightly on the shoulder. "Don't dismiss them so easily, Tails. Iksors have a narcotic saliva; in other words, one bite and the bitten area goes numb in about half a second. If that area's a foot..." He let the sentence trail off impressively.

Tails winced and Knuckles kicked himself. To paraphrase Sonic, he hadn't brought the kid all this way to terrorise him.

Catching sight of a certain tree, inspiration struck Knuckles.

"Here." Pulling a vivid orange fruit off the branch, he tossed it at Tails.

The fox caught it reflexively and eyed it with open suspicion. "What's this?"

"A suma fruit. They only grow on Angel Island and they're coming into season. Try it."

Tails sniffed the suma once or twice, then took an enormous bite and promptly choked.

"Oh man, Knux, that's bitter!"

"Well...yeah," the echidna said, keeping his tone as neutral as possible. "That could be because you're supposed to peel 'em first."

Tails glowered at him. "You could've said!"

"Sorry, kid. I thought it was obvious." Knuckles hesitated, then sighed. "Tails, this blanking out of events—"

"I'm fine, Knux! Honest!"

The echidna sighed again. "Kid, I'm sick of saying this, so this'll be the last time. You need to talk about whatever's freaking you out. I'm not gonna push you. I'm just going to tell you that I'll listen whenever you're ready. Anytime; I don't care if you want to wake me up in the small hours or what, understand?"

Tails shivered, then nodded.

"In the meantime, try to stay out of Ice Cap Zone, okay? I didn't save you from slavers and mercenaries just to have you die of hypothermia. Why can't you stay in Red Mountain or something?"

Tails flattened his ears. "Nuh uh! I...I don't like caves, Knux. Not any more. Ice Cap's cool 'cause it's outside, it's starry an' I can see the dancing lights."

Knuckles rolled his eyes. "You can see those anywhere on Angel Island, Tails, at least until we drift out of the northern polar region!"

"I know...but they reflect off the snow. Knux, I'd make a tent or something but that'd just make me feel all closed in again."

Knuckles opened his mouth, then closed it as something struck him.

"You could use clear tarpaulin, if we could find any," he offered. "That'd keep you warm and dry and you'd still be able to see the sky.

He'd gone a good three yards before he realised that Tails was no longer keeping pace with him. Turning, Knuckles saw the fox standing there, jaw dangling.

"Knux, that's brilliant! Where can we get some?"

"I'll ask the CDA." Knuckles would have gone himself if it cheered the fox up. "They can usually find anything they want. Until then, we're going back to the hut. If you don't want to sleep inside, fine, but you can at least sleep in a warmer Zone."

Tails hesitated. "I'm real tired, Knux. Carry me?"

The echidna folded his arms and stared hard at Tails. "Why should I carry you when you have two perfectly good feet of your own? Why do you think people have legs and feet in the first place?"

"Um..." Tails pretended to consider for all of three seconds. "To wrap 'round the waist of really cool echidnas who're gonna give them a ride back to the hut?"

Knuckles' mouth twitched. "Hmph. Full marks for originality and quick thinking, I guess." He rolled his eyes. "Alright, come on." He reached down and hoisted Tails into the air. "But don't get any cute ideas about making this a habit, Tails! I'm not a transport vehicle."

Tails peered over Knuckles' shoulder. "You could be. We could give you roller blades an' strap a jet propulsion engine to your butt."

"You would too, wouldn't you?"

Tails nodded eagerly. "Uh huh. An' then we could fasten a sled or something behind you!" He squinted at Knuckles. "Solid red's kinda boring though. Maybe we could paint racing stripes on your head and around your spines."

"And maybe I could dump you on your behind in this muddy puddle, let your tail get infected and gangrenous and call Sonic in to spindash it off."

Tails giggled. "Sonic wouldn't slice it off before when I asked him, so I doubt he'd do it now."

Knuckles prised the fox off him and held him at arm's length to look into his face. "You asked Sonic to cut off one of your tails?"

Tails nodded. "Uh huh, when I was real young. He refused. I'm kinda glad about that really; life wouldn't be the same without being able to fly."

"Tails, why the hell would you—actually, on second thoughts, I don't think I want to know." Knuckles shifted his grip and resumed walking.

By the time they made it back to the hut, Tails was already asleep. Lara-Le rose to meet them.

"Knuckles, you're back. I managed to bring in some food for you." She nodded towards a pile of pellas. Knuckles shot them a look, then lowered Tails gently to the ground.

"Give 'em to the kid, when he wakes up. I have to get back to guarding the Master Emerald."

Lara-Le flinched as Knuckles fired her own words back at her. "Knuckles...what I said earlier, I was...listen, I came to warn you about something."

"First you came to check on me, then you tell me you actually came to see the Master Emerald, now you're saying you came to warn me," Knuckles sniped. "Jeez, Lara-Le, would it be too much to ask if you could make up your mind?"

His mother tensed. "You might make more of an effort, Knuckles."

"To do what?" Knuckles said incredulously. "Let's just get the facts together, shall we? You left me ten years ago, left me to think you were dead. You then mysteriously reappear after those ten years have passed and expect everything to be the same as it was when you left it. Well, guess what, Lara-Le? It's damn well not!"

"Robotnik is planning something."

"He's an evil genius stroke mad scientist bent on taking over the world," Knuckles said flatly. "When is he ever not planning something?"

Lara-Le folded her arms. "This one might work, Knuckles. He's got a new agent, one who goes by the name Daimeri. Nobody knows much about this agent, but apparently he or she is very familiar with Angel Island! Robotnik plans to use Daimeri to steal the Master Emerald."

"And you think...what? You think that Tails is a secret agent?" Knuckles snorted. "Fat chance! The kid hates Robotnik even more than you or I do."

"I'm just saying you should be on guard, Knuckles. You're the Guardian, and it's best if you don't take anyone on blind faith."

"I never do," Knuckles shot back. "Thanks for the warning, but if you'll excuse me, I'm late for my shift." This was said with a biting sarcasm that wasn't lost on Lara-Le, who averted her gaze.

Spinning around, Knuckles strode away towards the Master Emerald. Terrible as it might have seemed, he was beginning to wish his mother had never showed up.

He'd been gone for at least three hours when Tails jerked awake, sitting bolt upright and wincing as the action caused pain to shoot through his body. Something had woken him, hadn't it, some kind of...not a dream, but more like a vision...he'd been on Angel Island, but an Angel Island as it must have been in its glory days, filled with echidna warriors. Tails had been surprised, and more than a little relieved, when none of them attacked him. He'd met a female echidna, one who was...was...Tails frowned as he tried to remember. Something had clicked in his mind while he'd been there, though, something that he realised had been bothering him for a while now.

Trying to puzzle out how best to handle this latest development, Tails abruptly got to his feet and padded over to where Lara-Le was sitting with a glass of water.

"C'n I ask you something?" he said abruptly.

Lara-Le shot him a slightly nervous look – the solemn expression on Tails' face was one that most people learned to dread – then nodded.

"Of course. What do you want to know?"

"Robotnik swapped your body with a robot, right?"

"Yes."

"How come?" When Lara-Le looked perplexed, Tails plunged ahead. "'Cause Knux said you supposedly died ten years ago, but Robotnik on'y appeared on the scene four or five years ago. So how could he've swapped you when he didn't even exist back then?"

Lara-Le continued to stare at Tails for a few minutes, then suddenly smiled. "Tails, I think I feel like taking a walk. Come with me."

Tails took half a step back. "You're not gonna go past the icky fish are you?"

"Icky...? Oh, the iksors? No, I'm not." Lara-Le stood up. "Come with me, Tails," she repeated.

Somewhat warily, Tails obeyed, following the echidna down an overgrown path – which Lara-Le cleared for him with a modicum of effort – and up into the mountains. His injuries meant he was gasping for breath before they were more than halfway there, but Lara-Le never slowed, never stopped, never even looked around until they were in the mouth of a cave, and even then it was only because Tails had said, "No."

"Why not? It's perfectly safe."

The fox shook his head stubbornly. "I don't like caves, not any more. Whatever you wanna talk about, we can talk here. Dunno why we couldn't've talked back at the hut either," he muttered, not quite under his breath.

"Tails, trust me. Knuckles trusts me, and you trust him, don't you?" When Tails nodded, albeit hesitantly, Lara-Le's smile broadened. "Good. Come on."

Nervously, Tails followed her into the cave. The darkness was helped by the phosphorescent crystals placed in the walls, but he still wasn't happy.

"Who put these here?" he asked suddenly, pointing to the crystals. Lara-Le didn't even look around as she answered, "I did. Those crystals will glow naturally in the dark forever. This is where we used to live when Knuckles was a puggle." She paused in the mouth of another tunnel, this one culminating rather abruptly in a sheer drop. "Don't tell my son I brought you here. He's so territorial, he may not like it, but I think you need to understand." Lara-Le pointed. "Look down there."

Somewhat hesitantly, Tails obeyed, peering over the edge of the precipice to see the bones of an echidna, lying where they had been impaled on the spikes below years before.

"Knuckles' father Locke," Lara-Le said simply. "He was the Guardian before Knuckles, only he got caught in one of his own traps."

Tails never knew how he was suddenly able to see to the heart of the matter, but he knew that the realisation which flashed into his head at that point was very, very real.

"You killed him," he said softly.

"He was weak. He couldn't see the true potential of the Master Emerald, what it could achieve." Lara-Le's eyes glittered with a diamond fever as she strode towards Tails, who backed away, matching her step for step. "Make no mistake, I have waited eleven years for this. I cannot, will not allow some trumped-up cub with ideas of grandeur to ruin it! Do you understand me?"

Tails' back hit a wall and he yelped as it jarred his sore tail.

"I'll tell Knuckles," he panted. "I'll tell him and he'll throw you off the Island."

"Go right ahead." Now Lara-Le looked distinctly bored. "Who do you think he'll trust more, a whiny brat who's done nothing but take up his time and resources without giving anything back, or his own mother? After all, everyone knows that echidnas are completely open and honest, particularly with each other."

Tails hunched back, noticing for the first time that echidnas were also larger and stronger than foxes, especially young ones.

"What're you gonna do with us? Me an' Knux?"

"Oh, there's no need to be concerned about Knuckles. Why should I hurt my own son?"

"You hurt his father." Tails winced as Lara-Le leaned in, seizing him by the shoulders. The grip itself was almost gentle, until you took into account that it was pressing his broken tail hard against the wall.

"Locke's death was a necessity, and a regrettable one. I truly never intended for Knuckles to find his body, at least, not so soon after death. But Knuckles' father was weak, unable to see past the end of his snout. Those Emeralds, including the Master Emerald, endow their wielder with godlike powers. He took the duties seriously, insisting that we shouldn't use those powers. Pah!" Lara-Le spat onto the ground. "I'm sure Knuckles will be a little more cooperative, but if he isn't then there's always room for one more on those spikes. In fact, I think it would have a certain kind of poetic justice, don't you?" She lunged, shifting her grip on Tails to around his throat, and lowered her voice. "So you just think about that, little cub. Think about it long and hard, and think about all the things I can do to you if you cross me."

Tails fought down an urge to struggle and managed to look her squarely in the eyes.

"I'm not scared of you," he lied boldly.

"Well, we'll have to do something about that, won't we? And soon, because I rather feel that my son is going to want you gone any minute now. He is the Guardian of the Master Emerald. He's got better, more important things to do than play errand-puggle for some spoilt kid like you." Lara-Le shook her head. "Take my advice. Get off the island. You're not welcome here, you've never been welcome here and you never will be either." She shifted her hold. "Leave this place before Knuckles decides to drop the act he's put on for you. My son is not known for either patience or kindness."

"You're lying! And Knuckles will believe me; he helped me loads of times before—"

"Proving nothing except that you must have been a serious nuisance to him." Lara-Le leaned in closer to speak softly into Tails' ear. "I'm being nice, furball. I can be nasty, if you want. Would you like that? I know the place where they shattered your tail, the place Knuckles had to drag you out of because you were too pathetic to escape yourself. I know where that place is. Would you like me to send you back there?"

Tails' ears flattened. He'd seen what happened to runaways in the tunnels. He couldn't go back. He couldn't!

"If that's what I gotta do to stop you hurting Knux, then sure!" he said boldly, and hoped that Lara-Le didn't pick up on the quiver in his voice. Judging from the cool smile on her face, however, he was out of luck.

"You still don't understand, do you? Alright, let me set it out in layman's terms for you, cub; if you put any more screwed up ideas in my son's head, or if I think you're putting any more screwed up ideas in his head, I will toss you back into the tunnels and send Knuckles with you. Nobody is going to stand in my way."

Tails stared at her. "You'd do that to your own son?"

"When you consider what I did to his father, isn't that something of a moot point?" Lara-Le said.

The pain from the fox's broken tail was almost blacking him out, but Tails fought grimly to retain consciousness; something inside him said that if he passed out, he'd never come round again.

"I'll help Knux. You take one step towards him an' I'll save him an' take him away!"

Lara-Le laughed. "Take him today if you want! You think I care? But you'll have a job convincing him why you want him to leave his home and his mother so soon after he's been reunited with her. Almost as much of a job as you'll have convincing him that you're not just jealous of me and trying to come between a mother and her child."

Tails struck.

It wasn't a very hard or fast blow, and it only worked because it caught Lara-Le completely and utterly off guard. It was also well-aimed enough to hit one of the echidna's sensitive areas – Knuckles had finally given in and showed Tails where these were when the fox had first been staying on Angel Island – and Lara-Le snatched her hands away from his shoulders with an oath. Pushing past her, Tails bolted for the exit.

He'd got all of ten feet when Lara-Le caught him in a painful grip.

"Good joke, little cub," she said very softly. "But like all jokes, it wouldn't be as funny a second time. Do you understand me?"

Tails yelped as she grabbed his broken wrist and twisted it, grinding it.

"I said do you understand?"

Tails tried to speak and couldn't, so settled for nodding once.

"Good." Lara-Le twisted the wrist a little further. "See that you don't forget it. Of course, if you want to leave Angel Island – which you never should have been permitted to set foot on in the first place – you can go right ahead."

In an agony of desperation, Tails fastened his teeth into Lara-Le's arm, sinking them in until the echidna released him to backhand him viciously across the face, sending him flying to hit his head against the rock floor with an audible crack.

"If Knux knew you did that—" he began, rubbing his sore skull hard.

"Try telling him," Lara-Le said coolly. "He'd never believe you in a million years. But if you really like my son, Tails, and don't want both you and him to get sent down into those tunnels, you'd do well to keep that spiteful mouth of yours shut." Crossing the floor, she grabbed him – this time by his good arm – and hauled him up. "Now, here's what's going to happen. You and I are going to walk back to Knuckles and act like nothing's wrong. One word out of place from you and you'll both be gone, and if you think I wouldn't do it, think again. Alright?"

Tails nodded mutinously.

"Good." Lara-Le jerked her head towards the cave. "Let's go."

Tails half expected the echidna to throw him off a cliff on the journey back, but to his surprise, Lara-Le didn't lay a finger on him. He supposed rather bitterly that she didn't need to; she'd made her point and there was no real way Tails could refute it.

Knuckles was back at the hut when they returned, and Tails' heart leapt.

You can expose her, something inside him whispered. Tell Knux what she did to you. Tell him what she threatened to do to him.

Almost immediately another voice spoke up, one which sounded a lot like Knuckles. Yeah? And you'll be proving that...how? Hallucinations are all you need for Knux to really believe you've gone round the twist.

"Where've you two been?" Knuckles said idly. Lara-Le smiled.

"Oh, me and your little friend here were just having a walk and a chat, getting to know each other." She turned the friendly smile on Tails. "Isn't that right, Tails?"

Tails swallowed. He couldn't let her send Knuckles to the tunnels to become a slave, he couldn't.

"Yeah," he said hoarsely. "Yeah, that's right."

Okay, so that's another chapter done ;) Hope you liked it and if you read, please review!