Teltonmentra: Thanks, glad you enjoyed it :)

Kj: Yep, Vector...all the other characters are a little too important to kill off :P Sonic's comment...I'll leave that to your imagination. As to updating quickly or slowly, I make no promises either way; my fics are updated when they're updated ;)

Toboe16: (grins evilly) Thanks...that's kind of the effect I was going for :P

Maverick87: (blushes) Wow...thanks :) I'm glad you like my stuff :D

Pyro Hedgehog4Ever: (grins again) Heh heh...thanks; I love it when I surprise people ;)

Shadow-spawn180: (blushes some more) Thanks :D Yep, Vector died...so far he's done absolutely nothing in most of my fics (with one exception) and so he was the logical choice ;) Raker...in a way I think Raker's more evil than Robotnik, since it's the Rakers of this world that nobody finds out about until it's too late. I don't think there's much of a backstory to Raker's behaviour; he's just completely and utterly sadistic ;)

Matt Lans: Heh, thanks :P Raker voodoo doll...ooh, now there's an interesting thought :D

Asher Tye: Yes...timeline-wise, this story takes place after Caves, which took place after Secrets, which took place either after or roughly alongside Sonic Heroes. Make sense? ;) And thanks, I'm glad you liked it (and very glad you like Bait as well :P) As to whether Sonic will be in time...who knows?

FriedBrickWall: Heh, I know you don't ;) Sonic and the letter...you'll have to keep reading to find out :P (Raker: Oh, don't worry; I'm not going to kill Bait...yet. He's more fun when he's alive.)

Guardian's Log no. 11489

Well, that went well. I got slapped by my mother, almost chewed by iksors and had to act as a fox transport, and all before dinner. Lara-Le didn't want me to save Tails – apparently guarding the Master Emerald is more important – but I insisted.

Speaking of Tails, he's been pretty jumpy lately. I asked him what was wrong and he damn near yelped at me. I wonder if Lara-Le said something to upset him?

--Knuckles the Echidna

Dear Diary

I can't let Knux be sold as a slave, no way. I didn't know Lara-Le was gonna be so mean, and I didn't know she murdered Knux's father either. I gotta find a way to tell Knuckles about her and make him believe me before it's too late!

I wonder if Sonic would help me?

--Tails

Tails looked around. He was back in Emerald Hill Zone, standing in the cove where the Tornado had crash-landed four and a half years ago. There was no sign of the plane, but Tails noticed a very familiar blue figure standing there looking out to sea, and he raced up to him.

"Sonic!"

The hedgehog turned and stared in disbelief. "Tails?"

"Sonic, oh boy, am I glad to see you! Everything's going wrong, Sonic, you gotta help me—"

"Forget it."

The shock of this was so great that Tails actually took a couple of steps back. "W-what?"

"I said forget it. You want my help, kid, you should have thought of that before you picked Knuckles over me. So go talk to your echidna friend. I'm sure he'll help you out." A cold smile appeared on the hedgehog's face. "After all, remember what you said back in Robotnik's fortress? I'm nothing, remember?"

Tails fell back a few more steps. "Sonic...I didn't mean that...c'mon Sonic, please, I need your help." He reached out with his good hand and took hold of the hedgehog's. "Please."

Sonic yanked his hand out of Tails' grasp and backhanded him viciously. "Piss off, you little freak."

Tails' ears flattened. He'd never thought Sonic would say that to him, even in Robotnik's fortress he'd never imagined Sonic would cross that line.

He opened his mouth to protest, but something sliced into his back and he spun with a yelp to see Scarface standing there, closing in as he...

...woke up, gasping and shaking all over. Disorientated, Tails stared wildly around him, the tropical sun half blinding him. He was...where was he?

Memory came back and he closed his eyes, sagging with relief.

"Jus' a dream," he mumbled to himself. "'Sokay, it was jus' a dream." He'd got into the habit of comforting himself like this down in the mines, and it helped a little.

Knuckles had been in a bad mood all morning, mostly due to Tails' having shattered a bowl. There was no question of mistaken identity or 'maybe he did, maybe he didn't' this time; the echidna had actually seen the fox do it. Fair enough, it had been accidental – Tails had been trying to balance one thing too many – but that still didn't change the fact that it had happened.

For his part, Tails had spent the entire morning hiding on top of the hut again, not daring to draw the echidna's attention to him. He supposed he must have dozed off.

The sound of raised voices came from inside the hut, then the door opened and slammed as Knuckles strode out, clearly furious. Tails cringed; Knuckles and Lara-Le had been arguing a lot lately. Part of him didn't mind this – the more they argued, the more likely Knuckles was to throw her off Angel Island – but part of him dreaded it; whenever they fought, Knuckles' mood took a nosedive.

Half sliding down, Tails set off at a run. He didn't want to get in Knuckles' way, and he didn't want to be left alone with Lara-Le either.

Slowing down as he reached the outskirts of a forest, he dived between the trees and went to seek sanctuary in the Marble Garden Zone.

It took a good few hours before Knuckles thought to look for him, another two before he realised Tails wasn't in the Ice Cap Zone, and it was almost midnight before the echidna finally admitted defeat and returned home, intending to pick up the search again in the morning. Another vicious argument with Lara-Le – this time with Knuckles accusing her of cowardice, a killing insult in echidna society – had driven him out of the hut again and, for want of something better to do, he'd resumed his search.

It took another three hours before the echidna – who was gliding over the island at this point – spotted what looked like a small tan and white fluffy ball curled up under a tree in the Marble Garden Zone. Relief almost caused him to drop out the sky and he circled, coming in to land next to the fox.

"Tails! Tails, are you alright?"

No answer. Knuckles reached out and gave the fluffy ball an experimental nudge. "Tails?"

"I'm sleeping." The answer was muffled, but there. "Go 'way."

"I'm not going anywhere, kid. This is my island, in case you'd forgotten. What are you doing here?"

"Sleeping," the ball repeated.

"Tails, if you don't uncurl and talk to me this instant I'll push you down the hill! Why are you here?"

"'Cause you don't want me in the Ice Cap Zone 'cause it's too cold and you don't want me in your hut 'cause I break stuff." Tails poked his head halfway out. "Knux, I'm real tired. Wanna sleep."

"You can sleep back at the hut, kid." Damn, he should have thought of this before! Marble Garden was usually warm, almost tropical, but Angel Island happened to be drifting through the northernmost part of Mobius' hemisphere and the Zones – except for Lava Reef and Red Mountain – were inches deep in snow. So was Tails, now Knuckles noticed it.

The fox shook his head. "'M not gonna go back to the hut, Knux. Jus' gonna sleep right here..." His voice drifted off and he closed his eyes.

"You're not." Knuckles scooped Tails into his arms – something made difficult by the fact that Tails flatly refused to uncurl – and winced at the coldness of the fox's body. "Dammit, kid, how long have you been out here?"

A shrug. "Since you got mad at me for breaking the bowl."

"Tails, I know you, and I refuse to believe you'd run away just because I was a little short with you!"

Tails half shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Knux, I wanna stay here."

"If you stay here in these temperatures, Tails, you'll die."

"Don't care. It's private, an' there's no way she c'n get up here without me knowing."

Knuckles, who had been about to jump onto a running transport, stopped dead and stared down at the small bundle in his arms.

"That's what this is about? You've been hiding from Lara-Le?" He shook his head. "For the love of the Emeralds, Tails, why? I know she's a little...aloof, but she's just another echidna like me."

Twisting his head away, Tails mumbled something that sounded like, "Yeah, I know."

"Oh." Knuckles stepped onto the transport and started running on the spot, moving it up and along. "Oh, I see."

"'S not that I don't like you, Knux—"

"Right, you just use me for free bed and board, is that it?"

"No!" Tails uncurled unexpectedly and Knuckles almost fumbled him. "I'd never do that to anyone, Knux, least of all you! 'S jus'...stuff."

Knuckles stared at Tails, stared for a long time.

"Tails?" he said softly. "Tails, what happened to your face?"

Tails flattened his ears and half turned to bury the face in question in Knuckles' chest. "I dunno what you're talking about, Knux."

"Tails..." Now the voice held a definite warning.

"I don't!"

"Your jaw's so swollen it's practically doubled in size. You haven't done anything crazy like trying to snowboard or anything, have you?"

"N...yes! Yeah, that's it, Knux, I went snowboarding an' fell an' whacked my face on the ice! Pretty dumb, huh?"

Knuckles abruptly reversed direction, causing the transport to slow down drastically and finally stop and start sinking. Fixing the fox with a sharp look, he answered, "Yeah, that's dumb. Almost as dumb as thinking I'm going to buy some crackpot story like that one. Tails, what really happened?"

Tails flattened his ears. "I can't say, Knux."

The transport ricocheted off a currently frozen fountain and then off the opposite pillar, and it says something both for Knuckles' concern and his sense of balance that he hardly even noticed.

"Tails, what's going on?" he said at last. "Ever since we got back, you've been acting—" He broke off.

"Go ahead, Knux!" Tails all but shouted at the startled echidna. "Go ahead an' say it! I've been acting crazy!"

Knuckles half turned on the transporter, steering it away from a set of spikes on the ground. "Alright, I will! You have been acting crazy, kid; first you spend hours in the freezing cold, risking hypothermia and the Emeralds know what else, then you almost kill yourself in the Buragu river with those iksors, and that's on top of your going feral and trying to rip people to pieces!"

"You got no idea, Knucklehead!" Tails yelled, the combined fear and hurt finally boiling over. "You think you know everything but you don't! You got no idea what went on down there!"

"How the hell can I have," Knuckles shot back angrily, "when you refuse to talk about it?"

"Some things shouldn't be talked about, Knux!"

"Fine! But if that's really how you feel, then you can't turn around and accuse people of not knowing about them!"

Tails struggled uselessly. "Why didn't you jus' leave me? Lara-Le was right; you don't want me here, not really, so why didn't you jus' leave me down there?"

Knuckles stared at him. "What do you mean, Lara-Le was right? Has she been spreading lies about me?"

Tails kicked once, viciously, and managed to land a blow in Knuckles' groin. Swearing, the echidna dropped him, but somehow managed to keep a firm hold on his arm.

"That's exactly what I mean, Knucklehead," Tails choked; he'd landed on his broken tail and the pain was making him dizzy. "All you care about is you, you, you! You don't wanna know what she said or what she did, all you wanna know is whether or not she was rude about you!"

"Tails." Knuckles dropped to his knees next to the fox, a terrible possibility running through his mind. "Tails, did Lara-Le hit you?"

Tails pressed his lips together and looked away. "I'm not saying, Knuckles. You wanna hang onto your vision of her as the perfect mum an' wonderful echidna, you go ahead an' do that. I wanna leave Angel Island, Knux, before you throw me off."

"I'm not going to throw you off, kid, and neither of us is going anywhere until you tell me what the hell's going on."

"Oh sure! I tell you, you tell her an' she jus'...jus'..." Tails looked up at the echidna, blue eyes so full of anguish that Knuckles found he couldn't look away. "Knux...I don't wanna go back to that place, not ever, and I don't want you to end up there."

Knuckles shook his head. "Tails, have you lost your mind? What are you talking about?"

Tails swallowed. "How'd your dad die?" he said suddenly.

Knuckles shot him a sharp look. "What makes you ask that?"

The fox shrugged. "Jus' curious. I mean, you were wrong 'bout your mum, so is it possible you're wrong about your dad too?"

"No it's not, and we're not talking about my father, Tails; we're talking about what you were talking about. You're not going to go back to that place, and I'm sure as hell not going to end up as a slave there. Talk to me, Tails. Trust me; I'm many things, but I've never been a backstabber."

Tails clammed up again. "C'n we go visit Hidden Palace?"

Swearing inwardly – he'd been so close! – Knuckles answered, "If that's what it'll take to get you talking, then yeah." At least the Hidden Palace Zone was warm; it was just beyond the Lava Reef Zone, close enough to get the heat without the danger.

Tails closed his eyes, half turning to snuggle into the warmth of the echidna's body. By the time they reached Hidden Palace, Tails was sound asleep, curled up into as much of a ball as his injuries would allow. With a sigh, Knuckles sat down on the top of the steps leading to the shrine, and waited.

It didn't take long. Tails whimpered, stirred and when this failed to make his current nightmare stop, started thrashing around instead. Catching hold of the fox's shoulder, Knuckles shook him hard.

"Tails! Wake up!"

Tails yelped, startled, and jerked awake. "I didn't mean to! I'll…I…" He broke off, looking around in confusion. "Where…"

"Better now?" Knuckles said, a little tersely. He didn't object to the kid lashing out and kicking and punching the surrounding air when he was having a particularly vivid nightmare, and he supposed he didn't really object to the kid using him as a mattress, but he did object to Tails putting the two together.

Tails blinked up at him, then went limp with relief. "Knuckles?"

"Yeah." Damn, why did the kid have to say his name every other sentence? Didn't Tails know who he was by now?

Tails yawned widely, and half turned to rest his head on the echidna's chest.

"If you start thrashing again, you can damn well sleep on the floor!" Knuckles said acerbically.

"Nuh uh." Tails slid down, winding both arms around the echidna's waist. Knuckles, who came from a singularly undemonstrative race and culture, and who would have been considered impassive even by their standards, shifted away. Tails doing this when he was being carried or sleeping was…well, Knuckles didn't feel comfortable about it, but he didn't do anything to discourage the fox. Tails doing it when he was awake…no. No, that wasn't right.

"Tails?" Knuckles said, somewhat hoarsely. "Tails, why do you keep doing this?"

Tails blinked up at him. "Doing what, Knux?"

"This." Knuckles couldn't bring himself to say the words hugging me. "Just…this."

Tails frowned in perplexity, not about the question so much as the reason Knuckles was asking it.

"Well, 'cause I like you, Knux. You're cool."

Knuckles shifted his weight some more. "What does your liking me have to do with your treating me like a plush toy every chance you get?"

Tails blinked again. "That's what you do when you like someone, Knux, you hug them."

"Twenty four seven?"

"No, but when you like someone an' you're close by and they're feeling down or you're feeling down, or you just wanna, you give them a hug, you know that."

"I don't." Knuckles' voice was a little shorter than he'd intended. "I've never had anyone up here that I liked, certainly not enough to hug them."

Tails stared. "But…you musta had someone, Knux. What 'bout your family?" He paused. "What about your family?" he asked, in a slightly different tone. "You never talk about them, Knux, not ever."

"Fine." Knuckles bit the word off at the end. He wasn't sure if this was a better subject than that of physical affection – and speaking of which, Tails still hadn't let go of him – but he was more than willing to take a chance. "What do you want to know?"

"Do you have a brother? Or a sister?"

"No. I used to want one when I was a puggle, but it never happened. Looking back on it, I think I'm glad. Next question."

Tails yawned. "Okay. Knuckles, who's Tikal?"

Knuckles froze in pure shock. "Where did you hear that name? The old echidna logs?"

Tails shook his head. "Uh uh. Well, yeah, I did but I had a dream about her a couple nights ago. She said that it really is your mum here, but that she's been lying to you."

"Yeah?" Feeling it couldn't hurt to humour the kid, Knuckles said, "And did, uh, Tikal say anything else?"

"She said something I shoulda figured out ages ago, Knux."

"Yeah? What?"

"Lara-Le didn't go ten years ago because she was taken prisoner by Robotnik, 'cause Robotnik didn't exist ten years ago. I dunno what happened but it wasn't Robotnik."

Knuckles took a deep breath. "Tails, no offence, but I'd say one of Robotnik's minions is more likely to have visions than you. If you figured all this out, then fine, but don't dress it up, okay?"

Tails sighed loudly. "She said you'd say that. She also told me to give you a message."

Knuckles raised a sceptical eye ridge. "Yeah? And what message would that be?"

Fixing the echidna with a determined look, Tails said, "Ngin-ny stiatok bi-maleng."

The sceptical look disappeared from Knuckles' face and he stared at Tails, for once utterly speechless. Tails' Sagayan was…well, his pronunciation and reading skills were both excellent, but as far as speaking it went, he still only knew about fifty words, and he could only string about two or three of them together at a push. This fluent communication in itself was enough to give Knuckles pause.

It was what Tails had said that really shook the echidna, however. Roughly translated, it meant, This is a matter of honour and in echidna society, those six words carried almost as much weight as a Chaos Emerald. Knuckles had never taught or intended to teach Tails – or indeed anyone – about this particular custom, since it was open to abuse by non-echidnas; anything prefaced or concluded with this phrase was a) the complete truth and b) to receive the listener's full cooperation if that listener didn't want to besmirch his own honour.

He opened his mouth to ask Tails exactly what the hell was going on, but at that point someone shrieked, "Sacrilege!" from the Lava Reef entrance and he closed his mouth in surprise, his thoughts unspoken.

Lara-Le stood there, staring furiously from Knuckles to Tails and back to Knuckles again.

"How dare you! You bring an outsider, a non-echidna to see the Master Emerald! You have violated everything your duty stands for!"

Taking a deep breath, Knuckles closed his eyes and said tiredly, "Lara-Le, for the love of the Emeralds, shut up. Yes, I did bring Tails here. He's been here before and I trust him completely."

"You may only ever reveal the location of the shrine to other echidnas, Knuckles!"

"Are there other echidnas?" Knuckles asked bluntly. Lara-Le hesitated, then the fight seemed to leave her; she slumped and leaned against a pillar.

"No. You were right about that, at least. You and I are the only ones left."

"Tails said he saw a puggle down in the mines."

"Tails said, Tails said. Who are you going to believe, Knuckles, some dumb fox brat or your own mother?"

Knuckles stared at her, then said icily, "I'll believe the dumb fox brat, if it's all the same to you."

Tails scowled at him. "Love you too, Knux."

There was a silence.

"I never should have left," Lara-Le said abruptly. "I thought you were mature enough to cope, but I was clearly mistaken."

"Mature enough to cope?" Knuckles all but shrieked at her. "I was six years old! How the hell was I supposed to be able to cope with being left all alone on this island with nobody to talk to, nobody to even see day in and day out? I was a little kid, Lara-Le! What you did was beyond wrong and you know it!"

"I think you're forgetting I was taken prisoner," Lara-Le said icily.

"I think you're forgetting that that's not what you said two minutes ago," Knuckles shot back. "I don't know where you got to, and I don't know why you really abandoned your family and your duty, but I know one thing; I wish to the Master Emerald that you'd never come back!"

"That," Lara-Le informed him in sub-arctic tones, "makes two of us."

Knuckles turned away. "Get out."

Judging from Lara-Le's expression, he might as well have pissed on the Master Emerald.

"What did you say to me?"

The other echidna whirled. "You heard me! You come back after all these years and cause chaos everywhere you go, and I'm not having you upsetting or frightening Tails anymore!"

Lara-Le folded her arms. "Tails is a kid, Knuckles, and clearly a deeply disturbed and traumatised one at that. He doesn't know what he's saying or doing half the time; he's admitted as much to you himself." She took a deep breath. "Look...I was wandering Mobius for a while, and there are several psychiatric hospitals, or homes that are used to dealing with wild kids. Maybe Tails would be better off in one of them."

Tails flattened his ears. "Knux, I don't wanna go in a home!"

Lara-Le fixed him with a chilly smile. "Young ones rarely know what's good for them, Tails, or what's good for others either." This last was said with subtle overtones of menace that sent a chill down Tails' back, then the echidna turned to Knuckles. "They could pick him up tomorrow, or we could drop him off, no problem."

Knuckles stared at her, momentarily speechless, then abruptly brought one arm across in a savage backhand that knocked Lara-Le off her feet.

Across the room, Tails tried to curl tighter. He knew echidnas were a more physical race than others, but he still hated seeing Knuckles and Lara-Le fighting.

"You're not the guardian, Lara-Le. You never were, and you have no authority on Angel Island. You abandoned your family, abandoned your home and lost any honour you might still have had when you threatened an eight year old kid."

"Honour?" Lara-Le laughed aloud. "Do you really still believe in all that archaic crap?"

Looking her straight in the eye, Knuckles said quietly, "You were the one who taught me about it."

Lara-Le shook her head, clicking her tongue. "Knuckles, Knuckles, Knuckles. Of course I had to keep up appearances, for your father's sake. That doesn't mean I believed in what I was saying. As for Tails, I know for a fact that your hoard will more than cover expenses."

"You've been to my hoard?" Knuckles said very quietly. Next to him, Tails sucked in his breath with a sharp hiss. Information about an echidna's hoard, including its amount and location, was the only secret echidnas kept from each other. Even Tails had never seen Knuckles' hoard, had no idea where it might be; when he'd asked, Knuckles' reaction had been so volatile that Tails had hastily withdrawn the question. It was normal for an echidna to wonder about another echidna's hoard (and back when the echidna population had been larger, most echidnas had taken a positive pleasure in hinting about the rarity of their treasures) but for an echidna to visit another's hoard was roughly the equivalent of sleeping in that other's bed.

"A lot of that hoard happens to be mine," Lara-Le retorted rather caustically, "so of course I've been to it. You should really have moved it, Knuckles; that hidden room under the bridge in Sky Sanctuary is almost full by now."

Tails cringed in preparation for the explosion. It wasn't unknown for echidnas to share or combine hoards (offspring inherited from their parents or, if there were no offspring, the hoard of a dead echidna was considered free for the taking by whoever managed to find it) but you never, never told anyone – much less a non-echidna – where someone else's hoard was to be found.

Something struck him then, struck him hard and he straightened abruptly.

"I know what you're doing," he said to Lara-Le. Knuckles, who had been studying the pillars and wondering how much structural damage it would do to the Hidden Palace if he were to rip one loose from its moorings and hit Lara-Le with it, blinked over to the fox.

"What?"

Emboldened by Knuckles' support, Tails planted his good hand on one hip and, still addressing Lara-Le, said boldly, "You're trying to tempt me into going to that hoard and stealing from it so Knuckles'll get rid of me. Well, I got news for you; I don't want his old hoard. Knux found that stuff, so Knux can keep it fair and square. He doesn't steal my treasures, so I'm not gonna steal his! And you can put that in your punchbag an' hit it, pretmeri!"

"Tails!" Knuckles said, but the reproach was more automatic than genuine.

"She killed your father, Knux!" Carried away now, both by a desire to protect Knuckles and his own fear, Tails' voice ran on, towing the rest of him behind it like an old tin can. "You musta wondered how Locke fell down onto those spikes, when he must've known Angel Island as well as you do, 'specially the caves you all lived in! Well, he didn't fall! He was pushed!"

Lara-Le looked at Knuckles. "You see? Completely delusional."

"I wonder." Knuckles stared back at her, unconvinced. "The kid's many things, but he's not a liar or a gossip."

"I'm not saying he's a liar; I'm saying he's psychologically unbalanced. I mean, after everything he's been through, it must have affected him deeply, Knuckles. He's very young and you don't know the first thing about how to handle disturbed kids."

The temperature of the echidna's gaze dropped a full ten degrees. It was fundamentally logical – if anyone had a right to be pushed over the edge by pain and suffering, it was Tails – and he was intelligent enough to know that everything Tails had seen and been through in his short life would leave its mark, but he didn't believe for one moment that the kid was actually disturbed. Disturbing, sure, particularly when he went around asking questions – Knuckles still grew cold all over when he thought of their discussion on the facts of life – and admittedly Tails' occasional lapses into feral behaviour worried the echidna deeply (not least because it was usually him who was on the receiving end) but not disturbed.

"I'm not nuts, Knux," Tails pleaded. "Honest. She told me herself what she did to Locke."

Knuckles swallowed once. "Tails, leave us alone, okay?"

Tails took a step back. "But Knux—"

"Go on." The echidna jerked his head towards the exit. "Nobody's going to put you in a home or have you committed, I promise you that much."

Tails opened his mouth, then shut it again and walked away, slowly. In his current condition he wanted to wait for Knuckles in the Sky Sanctuary Zone, not brave the Lava Reef, but he knew full well how Lara-Le would interpret that, and he was sure that she wasn't above stealing from Knuckles' hoard and blaming him.

Looking down at the lava swirling beneath him, he found he couldn't bring himself to go any further. He was tired, worried both about Lara-Le and being underground – with the exception of the red glow on the rock walls, this was too much like the mines for his liking – and at least it was warm here. Lying down, he dozed off.

He didn't know how long he slept for, but when he woke up he could hear Knuckles and Lara-Le still arguing. Yawning, he got to his feet and padded back towards them, then froze as he heard Lara-Le say, "It wouldn't be permanent, Knuckles. Just…for a few months or so, and the hospital I have in mind specialises in treating ferals."

"Well…" Knuckles seemed reluctant. "Well, maybe it would be for the best."

An icy hand closed around Tails' heart. Knuckles had betrayed him, betrayed his trust! Worse, he'd broken a promise.

"You'd better be the one to do it, Knuckles. He trusts you and you seem able to handle him. You can get him to come along without any fuss, can't you?"

Knuckles took a deep breath, then expelled it in a sigh. "Yeah. Sure. Assuming he doesn't take off in that plane of his. Maybe I better go keep watch in Mushroom Hill Zone, just in case."

Tails flattened his ears. The Tornado! He'd forgotten all about that; Sonic had brought it when he'd come to get Knuckles to rescue him, only he'd left it, hadn't he? Yeah, he'd left it when Knuckles lowered the island to let him and Sonic off that way…

Sonic! The thought leapt into Tails' mind. Sonic would help him, surely?

The dream he'd had yesterday morning flicked through his mind and he hesitated. Sonic had no real reason to help him, not after the way he'd acted. Maybe he'd just behave like he had back in Robotnik's fortress.

Tails looked over his shoulder at Knuckles and Lara-Le and made his decision.

Back in Hidden Palace, Knuckles' face suddenly melted and dissolved into Robotnik's image, which glanced at the echidna and raised his eyebrows.

"Did he hear, Daimeri?"

Lara-Le crossed over to the exit and saw Tails racing away as fast as his legs would carry him, then turned back to the hologram.

"He heard," she reported, smirking.

Okay, so that's chapter 10 done :D Hope you liked it and if you read, please review :P