Kj: (blushes) Thanks, glad you liked it (and were disturbed by it :P)

Awdures: Thanks :) I do my best

Maverick87: Thanks :D Bait getting personal revenge...tempting but at the minute it's not on the cards :P Sorry

Shadow-spawn180: (blushes again) Wow, thanks :D Creepy...yep, that's kinda what I was going for :P As for Raker's medical form (laughs hysterically) Oh boy...I can just see him writing something like that as well :P

FriedBrickWall: Cliffhangers...you'll have to wait and see :P It is harder to spin them out when stories merge, though this one seems to have been less about cliffhangers and more about the story itself ;)

Matri90: Thanks, glad you liked it :D As to the rest...I've no idea :P

Private somebody: Thanks :) Sonic's reunion with Caud came as something of an unplanned surprise to me (though I had a lot of fun writing it :P) As to Raker...no, he really isn't somebody you want to turn your back on ;)

Space Tails: (weg) Thanks :P Man, I love Raker (from a writing point of view) And Sonic will indeed get his hands on him...soon...

Guardian's Log no. 11490

I don't like this. I don't like this at all. The accusation Tails made towards Lara-Le...then again, she wasn't exactly honourable towards him either. The very thought of dumping Tails in some home or hospital makes me angry! After all we've been through together, Lara-Le expects me to just toss him aside like an empty pella shell? Not in a thousand years.

I'm going to find Tails though. I'm going to find him and take him to Sonic or the CDA, not on a permanent basis of course, but just until Lara-Le and I come to an agreement.

--Knuckles the Echidna

Dear Diary

Knuckles is going to put me in a home or a nuthouse; he said so himself. I'm not going. I have to beat him to Mushroom Hill Zone and get the Tornado!

I just hope I can find Sonic. And I hope he'll agree to help me.

--Tails

Knuckles emerged from the Ice Cap Zone, dusting ice crystals off his hands. He'd just spent the last four hours moving his hoard from Sky Sanctuary to a recently excavated cave at the bottom of the ice ramps. It was annoying, and a chore he could have done without, but he wasn't leaving it to Lara-Le's mercy any longer than he absolutely had to. He'd done it with a clear conscience as well; hoards were the only secret it was considered honourable to keep from other echidnas.

The echidna stretched, yawning. He'd also spent most of the time before moving his hoard guarding it. He didn't believe Tails would steal it (although he knew full well the fox would love to see it) but he didn't think Lara-Le was above stealing and framing Tails for it.

As though thinking of him had conjured him, a small amount of snow spattered the echidna on the head and he glanced up just in time to see two familiar tails whisk over the top of the small mountain.

"Hey Tails!" Clambering up, Knuckles came to sit next to the fox, who was panting rather alarmingly. "What are you doing way up here?"

Tails yelped, tried to scramble away, accidentally put his paw in a snowdrift and turned a full somersault before coming to land on his back.

Reaching down, Knuckles attempted to help Tails to his feet, but got a set of teeth buried in his hand for his efforts and jerked back, swearing. He wasn't the only one to suffer; Tails' mouth had inadvertently closed over one of Knuckles' spikes and the fox yelped again before sitting down and attempting to wash the blood out of his mouth with snow.

Still nursing his injured hand, Knuckles stared at Tails. "Damn, kid, what was that for?" He shook his head. "You know, maybe Lara-Le's right. Maybe I should have you committed."

It was said purely for effect and nothing more, but to Tails it was all the confirmation he needed and he started to run again, only to fall headlong into the same snowdrift a second time.

Watching the fox's struggles to right himself, Knuckles folded his arms. "If all you're going to do is bite me, kid, you can get yourself out of that one."

After two or three minutes had passed, Tails' struggles becoming more and more frenzied with each one, finally Knuckles relented.

"Oh, alright. Come here."

Reaching down, he plunged one fist into the snow and felt around until he located Tails' one good namesake. Grabbing hold of it, he pulled the fox out and to safety, despite Tails' frantic scrabbling at the ground with his three good paws.

"Kid, what the hell's gotten into you?" Keeping a secure hold on Tails' tail – it was about the only place he could grab where Tails couldn't bite him – Knuckles stared hard at the fox. "What are you doing here, anyway?"

"Nothing!" Tails struggled uselessly for a few minutes. "Leggo!"

Knuckles studied him. "Only if you promise to a) not run off without talking to me first and b) tell me what the hell you think you're doing up here!"

Tails wriggled for a few more seconds before saying, "Okay, okay, I promise, now lemme go!"

Sighing, the echidna released him.

"Tails, don't even think about it!" he ordered sharply, seeing the fox's gaze stray to the path and his muscles tense in readiness. "Now come here, sit down and tell me where the hell you thought you were going!"

"Nowhere!" Tails said quickly. "I was just exploring! Just thought I'd revisit the places me and Sonic went to!" He stressed Sonic's name ever so slightly, reminding the echidna that if Knuckles did have the fox committed, Sonic at least would have something to say about it. "Not going to Mushroom Hill Zone though! Nuh uh! No way, Knux. Not going anywhere near Mushroom Hill Zone! So you c'n stop guarding me 'cause I'm not going there, no chance!"

Knuckles stared at him, wondering seriously for the first time if Tails' mind really had been knocked off kilter by his sufferings. "Tails, why should I care if you go to Mushroom Hill Zone or not? What's in Mushroom Hill, anyway?"

"Nothing! Well, nothing 'cept mushrooms an' I'm allergic to mushrooms! Yeah!"

Knuckles folded his arms. "Nice try." He knew for a fact that if it hadn't been for Sonic, Tails would probably have eaten the entire Zone all by himself. "What's really in Mushroom Hill?"

"Nothing!" Tails said again. "Specially not the Tornado, Knux. Nuh uh. The Tornado's not in Mushroom Hill Zone an' that's why I'm not going to it!" Replaying this in his mind and seeing it didn't sound quite the way he'd planned it, Tails hastily added, "Not that I wanna go to the Tornado anyway, Knux. Nuh uh. Not me."

"Riiight..." Knuckles looked askance at the fox for a few minutes. "Well, I'm glad I found you, anyway."

Tails flattened his ears. "How come?"

"Partly because – although this possibility probably never occurred to you, Tails – I have been damn worried about you, and partly because I want to talk to you about something."

Tails edged away. "Yeah? What?"

"I have to sort some things out with Lara-Le, Tails, and until I do I think it would be better for you if you stayed on the surface of Mobius. Just for a while."

Tails' ears flattened even more. "You got somewhere in mind?"

"I do as it happens. A couple of somewheres." Knuckles stood up. "C'mon, let's go."

"No!" Panicked now, Tails shoved Knuckles away, an action that did nothing except knock the echidna slightly off balance.

It did have another unexpected outcome, though, in that the foot Knuckles moved back to save himself inadvertently came down on a patch of ice, and before the echidna had time to realise what had happened he was falling off the mountain.

Really frightened now at what he'd done – he hadn't intended to hurt the echidna, just knock him down long enough to escape – Tails edged away, eyes huge and ears flat against his head. Suppose Knuckles was dead? Suppose he'd killed him? Even Sonic wouldn't help him if he'd turned into a murderer.

Turning, Tails raced away, heart hammering in his ribs. How had it ever come to this?

A few minutes later, a familiar red figure, now somewhat battered, clambered over the edge a second time and lay there on his back, breathing hoarsely.

At this point, Knuckles was in an advanced state of what was technically known among Mobius' more learned citizens as royal pissed-offness. He was also seriously starting to wonder if Lara-Le might not be right about Tails; Knuckles was sure Tails had nothing against him personally, or at least, certainly not enough for him to throw the echidna off a mountain.

Knuckles sighed. He had to hand it to Sonic; this foster parenting thing was much harder than it looked.

Then he got to his feet and headed after Tails.

It didn't take him long to catch up. The fox had run a little too fast and caught his ankle in a crevice, twisting it badly and now could only limp along. Admittedly he was limping pretty fast, Knuckles allowed, but nowhere near fast enough to outdistance a fully healthy echidna. Especially when that echidna could glide over all the little pitfalls as Knuckles was now doing.

"You know, for someone who's so determined not to go to Mushroom Hill Zone, you sure seem to be heading that way," he called as soon as he drew level with the top of Tails' head. Tails jerked as though he'd been stung and tried to pick up the pace but failed and only succeeded in tripping over a tree root and going flat on his face.

Knuckles glided in to land next to Tails and hauled him upright.

"Are you going to be sensible now?" he demanded. "Because I'm getting damn tired of chasing you all over Angel Island! I know full well you're heading for Mushroom Hill, so would it be asking too much for you to tell me why you're going there and why you're so determined for me not to follow you?"

"Let me go! An' I'm not going anywhere, Knuckles, 'specially not to Mushroom Hill Zone!"

"Too right you're not," Knuckles said coolly, "since I'm not letting you go until I get a full explanation."

"Well..." Tails scuffed a toe on the ground.

"I don't think the answer's in your sneakers, kid," Knuckles informed him acerbically after three full minutes had gone by. When no answer was forthcoming, he sighed. "C'mon Tails, talk to me. Usually I can't shut you up for more than about four seconds at a time, so why am I getting the silent treatment now?"

"Jus' are," Tails mumbled.

"Yeah, I can see I 'just are'!" Knuckles retorted, with far more emphasis than grammar. "What I want to know is why, and neither of us are moving from this spot until you tell me."

"Well..." Tails started again, then stopped.

"Yeah?"

"Well...I'm definitely not going to the Tornado. In fact, I dunno where it is!"

Knuckles closed his eyes. Master Emerald, give me strength! Without opening them, he said, "Last I checked it was in the passage underneath the first counterweight."

Tails glared at him. "You think I'm such a dumb pilot that I'd park it there? No way, Knucklehead! It's on the cliff above the wind switch!"

Opening his eyes again, Knuckles fixed Tails with a look. "Oh, so you do know where it is."

"Nuh uh! I...it just..." Tails floundered. "Uh. It was a lucky guess."

Knuckles took a long, deep breath. "Tails...do you want to take the Tornado and leave Angel Island?"

"NO!" Tails yelped, then seemed to realise he'd spoken too quickly and too loudly. "I mean...uh...no."

"If you want to leave, kid, you can. I'm not holding you prisoner. But I don't think it's asking too much to know why."

"Because you're gonna put me in a home for wild kids an' I'm not gonna go!" Tails said, voice rising as he struggled to pull out of Knuckles' hold.

"I'm not gonna put you in a home, kid."

"A nuthouse, then! Knux, let go! Please!" Tails was sobbing now, something which alarmed the echidna. Tails almost never cried.

"Tails, I'm not going to put you in a home or a nuthouse, as you put it. Now calm down."

Instead, Tails twisted away from him, trying everything in his power to escape before finally running out of energy and lying quiescent and trembling in Knuckles' hold.

"What the hell," Knuckles said slowly, separating each word clearly and distinctly from its fellows, "is going on?"

"Knuckles." Tails' voice was hoarse, broken even. He wanted more than anything to turn and bury his head in Knuckles' chest, to have the echidna stroke his fur or at least tell him it was going to be alright – Tails knew Knuckles well enough by now to know he wasn't the stroking, soothing type – but if he did that he'd never escape. That was tantamount to surrender, and he couldn't; he had to be strong.

Tails coughed, tried again. "Knuckles...just let me go. Please."

He braced himself for the refusal, steeled himself to fight, really fight, but instead Knuckles just said quietly, "Okay, kid. Okay." Releasing him, the echidna stepped back, and Tails gathered all his strength and bolted.

Knuckles stood there and didn't move until he heard the sound of the Tornado's engines, saw the plane flying away from the island. Tails' accusation of Lara-Le back in Hidden Palace Zone had set wheels turning and the more he thought about it, the more it made a twisted kind of sense.

What had happened to his father? For over ten years Knuckles had done his best to forget, now he tried to remember. Why hadn't Locke glided to safety, or climbed?

There was only one person who could answer that, and that was Lara-Le herself. Groaning inwardly – a confrontation with his mother wasn't what Knuckles wanted, not on top of Tails' odd behaviour – he set off for a transporter to the Hidden Palace, wondering how the hell he was going to broach the top with her. At the moment, the one that was most likely to yield a result was if he tried to trap her into a confession. Echidnas weren't known for subtlety or duplicity, and male echidnas were more blunt than females. It was unlikely that Lara-Le would suspect anything other than open honesty.

Knuckles sighed. He hated having to play it this way, but as a conversation opener, "Hey mum, did you kill dad?" wasn't going to yield any results except possibly a smack upside the head.

Arriving at Hidden Palace, he found Lara-Le standing in front of the Master Emerald in a guard's stance that was so exaggerated it was almost funny.

"You're back then," she said coolly, in Sagayan.

"Yeah, I'm back," Knuckles answered in the same language, "and I want to talk to you."

Lara-Le stretched. "Go ahead."

"Did you tell Tails about how things were? Back when we were a family?"

Lara-Le blinked, then apparently decided that the question was harmless enough. "No, never. I don't gossip about Sagayan matters with outsiders, Knuckles."

Half turning away as though the answer was of no real consequence to him, Knuckles said quietly, "Then how did Tails find out about my father?"

Lara-Le shrugged. "You must have told him and forgotten about it."

"I don't forget," Knuckles answered, "and I was never able to bring myself to talk about it, until now. I don't even like thinking about it."

Another shrug. "Then why do so now, Knuckles? The past belongs in the past."

Knuckles took a deep breath and threw caution to the winds. "How did Locke die?"

Lara-Le met her son's stare calmly, almost mockingly. "He had an accident and fell."

"Accident-accident, or accident-deliberate?"

His mother's eyes widened. "Are you seriously accusing me of murdering your father?"

"Should I be?"

Lara-Le was silent for a few minutes, then she said abruptly, "It's that fox brat put this in your head, isn't it? When I get hold of him I'll..."

"Kill him?" Knuckles suggested very quietly. His mind was whirling frantically. No, Tails couldn't be right about Locke's death! He just couldn't!

Could he?

"I'll do the Guardian's duty, since you seem to have neglected it all these years. Any outsider who sets foot onto our sacred lands or who lays eyes on the Master Emerald must die. You know that. The Master Emerald's never mattered to you, anyone could see that, but I won't break the trust that our ancestors placed in us."

An idea struck Knuckles, one he wished he'd thought of when Tails had still been there. Grabbing hold of his mother's wrist, he seized the red Chaos Emerald in his other hand, yanking it out of its place around the Master Emerald.

"What are you doing?" Lara-Le demanded, fighting to pull out of her son's hold. That, more than anything, made up Knuckles' mind; his mother knew the Emeralds as well as he did and so knew full well what he was doing. The Emerald Knuckles held was the one representing truth; when used, if anyone lied or even concealed part of the truth, light would flare from inside.

Knuckles ignored his mother's protests and struggles. He could always apologise for the insult later, if it turned out he was wrong about her. Reaching out, he pressed the face of the Emerald against her cheek.

"Did you kill my father or have anything at all to do with his death?" he demanded. Please, please, don't let it be true.

Lara-Le thrashed around for a few minutes, then suddenly seemed to realise that Knuckles would not take silence for an answer; she stopped moving, relaxed in his hold and smiled at him almost serenely.

"What if I did?"

Knuckles' hands dropped off her shoulders seemingly of their own accord and he backed off slowly, shaking his head.

"No. You're not..." He stared at her, saw the truth in her eyes and had to grab onto the wall for support. "For the love of the Emeralds, why?"

"That's why. Your weak fool of a father couldn't see the true potential of the Chaos Emeralds. Our race could have thrived, could have prospered! We could have ruled Mobius! But no, Locke had to guard them around the clock. When he found out what I wanted, he wouldn't even let me near them. Me! His own partner! I couldn't have him talking to you when you got old enough to understand, so I took...steps. After that I decided to start setting things in motion down on the surface."

"Are you really Lara-Le?" Knuckles said suddenly.

"Yes. It took me two years to set up my 'death', but it was worth it." Lara-Le shook her head. "You've forgotten your own history. The Sagayan race had technology far in advance of the surface dwellers; I built a model, put it in place and left." She shrugged, clearly unrepentant. "As I said, it was worth it."

There was a long, long silence.

"Daimeri." Suddenly Knuckles understood, wondered how the hell he could have been stupid enough to miss it all this time. "Daimeri. Dead female."

Lara-Le smiled at him. "Yes. I did consider daigun-tja, dead mother, but I thought you might twig. To be honest, I thought you'd twig daimeri long before now. Robotnik agreed there was a certain ironic justice to the name. He and I are very good friends, Knuckles; how do you think he found out about the Master Emerald in the first place?"

"If you think Robotnik'll let you live much longer—" Knuckles began hoarsely.

"Oh, but he will. You see, he knows I'm not interested in ruling Mobius, so there's no chance I'm going to usurp him." Lara-Le shrugged. "I help him out, he lets me live on his Egg Carrier. It's a good arrangement, Knuckles."

Knuckles shook his head, fighting to clear it. He'd never suspected anything like this. He was prepared to believe Lara-Le had driven Tails off – even as a puggle, Knuckles had had no illusions about his mother's feeling of superiority to non-echidnas – but this...no.

Questions raced through his mind, chasing each other in circles, and Knuckles asked the first one he managed to pin down. "Are there other echidnas? Did Tails really see a puggle down in the mines?"

"You'll have to ask him that yourself, Knuckles. But...yes, there is a puggle down in the mines. There were two but one died."

"How do you know?"

Lara-Le waved a hand impatiently. "I know because I put them there. I inseminated myself five years ago – don't ask me how—"

"I wasn't going to!" Knuckles said fervently.

"—although I hadn't planned on twins," Lara-Le admitted. "Still, no matter. The male died three weeks in, but as far as I know the female is still alive."

"Tails said it was a male." Knuckles forced the words out through numb lips. Bad enough to think of an echidna down there, but family...

"And how would Tails know?" Lara-Le said coolly. "I imagine he didn't stop to ask."

Knuckles had to admit she had a point there; male and female puggles looked almost identical until they started to develop. It was more than possible that Tails had simply made a mistake.

"But then...that means the puggle down there...she's my...my..."

"Sis-ter," Lara-Le said slowly and condescendingly, "yes, that's right, Knuckles. She'll do for my purposes."

"If you think for one minute I'm going to let you do whatever you're plotting—"

"Oh, you will, Knuckles, you will." Lara-Le smiled very much in the manner of someone about to play their ace. "Because if you don't, I'll see Tails back in the mines and not only that, I'll fix things so he thinks it was you who put him there."

An answering smile appeared on Knuckles' face. "You'll have to find him first." He shrugged. "For the last time, Lara-Le, he's my friend, not my pet or my slave. I found him heading for Mushroom Hill Zone. When I asked him where he was going, he said he wanted to leave Angel Island, so I let him. He's probably on Mobius and chattering away to Sonic even now." The smile abruptly disappeared off his face as he added, "And I may still trust you now but if I find out for certain that you had anything to do with this, I swear by the Master Emerald that you will never leave this island alive!"

"If Tails said anything, he was lying," Lara-Le said flatly, mind racing. Her ace had just been trumped, and trumped in style.

"I trust him implicitly," Knuckles answered, biting off the words at the end.

"Like I said before, Knuckles," Lara-Le said, smiling again, "as the Guardian of the Master Emerald, it's best if you don't take anyone on blind faith." Pulling out a dagger, she hurled it at Knuckles, burying it up to the hilt in his shoulder. Leaning in close, she whispered into his ear, "Especially not me."

Well, might as well leave it here ;) Hope you enjoyed it and if you read, please review!