Kj: Heh, I know :P I am cruel sometimes ;) As for the 'mother of all fights'...well, it's the first time Sonic's really taken serious damage from Knuckles, and besides, you know he likes to play things up a little ;)
Awdures: Thanks :D As far as Robotnik's behaviour goes I think it's a little bit of both ;) He doesn't think Sonic will actually take that final step, but he doesn't want to give the hedgehog the upper hand by seeming weak or frightened either ;)
Private somebody:) Thanks, I'm glad you think so :D Sonic vs Robotnik, yeah, I love writing that, just letting the two personalities ricochet off each other. And...yeah, about the only really predictable thing in most of my fics is that there'll be a cliffhanger ;)
Riven: (grins) Thanks :D And the Void...well, given what a large part it plays in the sequel, I had to bring it back :P
Maverick87: Heh, I'm not sure Sonic or Robotnik would agree with that :P And I'm in that "finish it" mode now; there are only a couple more chapters to go before the end of this one (and the sequel begins :P)
Shadow-spawn180: Yep ;) And I've had a couple of people demand to know what was happening with the Void, so I thought it was about time it made a comeback :P "Slammed into"...it is sort of a figure of speech, yeah...in much the same way as someone can slam into water :P
Asher Tye: Thanks :) As for Bait's getting patched up...heh, you'll see in time :P
FriedBrickWall: Noodles? (laughs) Love it! You will find out about the 'crazy' joke very soon, I promise :P As for which of the Sonic games I've beaten...well, I've beaten Sonic 1 (Master System) Sonic 2 (Genesis) Sonic Adventure DX and Sonic Heroes (PC) The others...I've kind of beaten Sonic 3/Sonic and Knuckles...I tended to use the level select feature where possible ;)
Draxidean Icefire T: Thanks :D Raker...hmm, I think you're right; 'demonic' is a very good way of putting it ;)
Taryn Wander'r: (Sonic: Damn right it's hard!) Thanks :) Two guys and a baby...ooh, very tempting :P I have the next two stories in the series mapped out in my head, so maybe :P
Parslie: (blushes) Thanks; glad you like it :)
Momi-chan: (blushes again) Thanks, I try my best :P The Sagayan language...yes, I did kind of make it up. It's partly based on Tok Pisin (which is a dialect from Papua New Guinea) and partly based on two Aboriginal dialects (Kamilaroi and Wagiman; I'm obsessed with languages too) Basically I look up the words I want (or the closest I can get) take that word and change it to put my own spin on it...and other words I pretty much make up :P I want to build a Sonic website at some point (and someone commented that they'd like to see a Sagayan-English dictionary :P) so I'll probably incorporate it there ;)
TC Chan: Thanks :) As far as a character walk out goes...well, the closest I've come to it is Knuckles feeling terrified of getting more hugs from Tails...poor lil echidna doesn't know how to handle that :P
Toboe16: Heh, no worries :P And you shall find out about Knux's choice in due course ;)
Guardian's Log no. 11491
I have just had to choose between saving the life of my mother and that of one of my closest friends. Lara-Le's words made up my mind in the end. She's right; loyalty to family takes precedent over all others.
But...I'm sorry. I've no idea why, given the crap that went down between us just before the incident, but I'm still sorry.
--Knuckles the Echidna
Knuckles didn't know how long he'd been kneeling on the edge of the cliff, didn't, in fact, have any memory of kneeling down to begin with. The guilt and anguish which had been twisting and roaring through every nerve in his body had blocked everything else out, everything except Lara-Le's words.
Your loyalty is to your family, not some person you barely even know.
"You're damn straight," Knuckles whispered as Tails clung to him, shaking all over.
Honour was satisfied. After almost thirteen years, honour was finally satisfied. Echidna law dictated that if a parent was murdered, it fell to the child to avenge him or her, and Knuckles supposed he'd done that. It wasn't the death he would have wanted for Lara-Le if he'd been in a position to choose – he genuinely hadn't wanted her to suffer – but it still amounted to the same thing.
Eventually, when Knuckles could trust himself to talk without howling, he cleared his throat.
"C'mon kid," he said quietly. "Let's go back to the hut."
Tails didn't answer, but he didn't fight either, didn't, in fact, react in any way. Knuckles wondered dully if this was something to worry about – the kid had been much the same way after Sonic's supposed death – then found he couldn't bring himself to care.
The journey back to the hut seemed to take twice as long as usual, and Knuckles wasn't sure if he was glad or sorry when they finally reached it. At least all the time he'd been walking he'd been able to distance himself from his own mental turmoil.
Placing Tails on the bed, he started to move towards the other end of it to sit down when small arms wound themselves determinedly around Knuckles' waist and held on. Startled, the echidna glanced down to see Tails' huge blue eyes fixed on him in mute appeal.
"You don't want me to move," he guessed.
The fox shook his head violently and Knuckles sighed. "Kid, I'm gonna stay right here in this hut, I swear."
The eyes narrowed, became more watchful and distrusting and Tails tightened his hold.
"Tails," Knuckles said flatly, "let go."
No reaction.
"I'll stay here if that's what you want, but right now what I want is to sit down, and I can't do that all the time you're clinging to me like a limpet. Let go of me."
Still nothing. Knuckles might as well have been talking to the bed for all the response he got. He shrugged. "Fine. We'll do it the hard way."
Reaching down, he calmly and methodically unwound the fox's arms, holding Tails off long enough to settle himself on the bed next to him...although the fact that the fox then wrapped both arms around Knuckles' neck and squeezed almost tightly enough to cut off the echidna's air supply didn't seem to be much of a fair trade. No matter what he said, Tails still clung to Knuckles tightly, still trembled. The echidna gave up trying to persuade the fox to let go and instead cast about for some way to get the kid talking.
"You really thought I was gonna drop you?" he said at last.
A nod. Knuckles could feel a distinct heat on his skin as well, and suspected that Tails wasn't just quivering from the cold and his own fear.
For the first time in his life, the echidna was utterly helpless and he didn't much like the feeling. At that moment, he would have given almost anything for Sonic to have been here, to have comforted Tails. What did you do in a situation like this, and how did you do it?
One thing was for sure; Knuckles wanted to get Tails talking before Sonic left the Egg Carrier. The echidna wasn't afraid of Sonic by any means, but even he didn't much fancy the prospect of facing the hedgehog and telling him that Sonic's beloved little brother had been driven into a near-catatonic state by Knuckles himself, no matter how indirectly.
"You've had a pretty screwed up life, huh kid?" Knuckles said aloud, more to himself than to Tails. "First those incidents with the bullies, then you got sucked into a war zone with Sonic, then the hedgehog upped and died on you, and then screwed you over in Robotnik's fortress, then you wound up as a slave and now this. Damn, you're not even into double digits yet."
Tails didn't answer, but one ear flicked to let the echidna know he was listening. Encouraged, Knuckles kept talking.
"I guess if I was Sonic, this would be the point where I'd rock you or pet you and tell you that it was gonna be okay, but I can't do that. Nobody ever did it for me when I was your age, and now I can't do it at mine. But I think I can say that it's going to be alright now."
Tails shifted bright blue eyes to look up at him. "Knux? Knux, I'm so sorry—"
The echidna closed his own eyes. "No, kid, I'm sorry. I should've listened to you, it's just...it was..."
"I thought you were gonna drop me," Tails said, his voice barely audible. "I thought you were gonna let me fall. I thought you were gonna choose your mother."
"I chose you, didn't I?" Knuckles drew in a long, shuddering breath and couldn't find the words to go on. He'd been in a position to observe what the kid hadn't, had seen how Lara-Le had been reaching for Tails, trying to drag him out of her son's grasp, and Knuckles had seized the fox in both hands without a second thought.
"I'm sorry," Tails said again, his voice now muffled against the echidna's shoulder. His shaking had subsided, although he didn't show any inclination to loosen the choke hold around Knuckles' neck and waist. No one and nothing could match Knuckles for power (well, except possibly Mighty) but what Tails lacked in strength he made up for in determination. "I shouldn'ta left. I knew what she was gonna do."
"You came back, though," Knuckles said quietly. "Even though you thought I was gonna have you committed, you still came back. That took guts, kid. A lot of guts."
"She said that you'd believe whatever she said 'cause echidnas don't lie. She said that if I got in the way she'd send me back to that place an' send you with me. I didn't wanna take that risk so I couldn't stay here but I wasn't gonna let her win no matter what happened. I'd've died first."
Yeah, you would, Knuckles thought numbly. Lara-Le had murdered his father, the echidna she'd been mated with for some ten years before Knuckles himself had arrived on the scene. She was hardly likely to think twice about a kid like Tails.
"Knux, do you think I'm crazy?" Tails asked suddenly. "'Cause I really did see and hear you and Lara-Le talking."
"No, kid, I don't. I believe you saw someone. It just wasn't me." Knuckles hesitated, then told himself what the hell and said very quietly, "How'd you find out about my father?"
"Lara-Le told me about it. Took me to where your father's body was on all those spikes. Uh." Tails offered up the one crumb of comfort he had. "She did say she felt bad that you found him so soon. She wanted you to wait until he'd decomposed so's you didn't have to see all the blood and shattered bones and where the carrion bugs and birds had dug out his eyes and...and...this isn't helping you feel better, is it?"
"No. But thanks for trying."
"Oh." Tails leaned against Knuckles' ribs, enjoying a feeling of security he hadn't felt since Lara-Le had first turned up that fateful day. "What would make you feel better?"
Knuckles didn't know. It had been bad enough coping with his mother's supposed death the first time, but at least then it hadn't been his fault.
"Forget it," he said at last. "I coped with it once. I can do it again."
Tails pushed himself away and fixed Knuckles with an expression that was almost comically stern.
"Don't give me that, Knucklehead! I know how it feels! I know how it felt after Sonic so don't try and pretend you're being a big brave warrior 'cause I won't believe you!"
Knuckles scowled at Tails. In his own way, the fox was helping him a great deal, if only by being there for the echidna to vent his feelings on. "Ask me if I care what you believe."
"You do an' you know it!" Tails retorted, scowling back at the echidna. "I know it hurts, Knux, an' I don't believe that you're totally sure about believing that you made the right choice when you picked me an' not her to save so don't expect me to believe that you believe you're sure you're not hurting, 'cause I'm sure you are!"
"What?" Knuckles said, after a couple of seconds had gone by.
Tails rolled his eyes in exasperation of all things adult (and echidna) and settled for hugging Knuckles tightly.
"Feel better?"
"No," the echidna said candidly, "I'm feeling freaked, like I always do when you do that to me without warning."
"You might dodge if I warned you," the fox pointed out. "An' you don't warn someone when you're about to do something like that, you jus' do it. An' I like hugging you anyway, 'cause you're more..." Tails faltered. He had been about to say cuddly, but if you tried to put Knuckles and cuddly together, it didn't work no matter how much you twisted it around.
"I'm more what?" Knuckles said, an edge in his voice that said he wasn't sure he wanted to know.
"Well...you don't have quills like Sonic does," Tails improvised, "so there's almost no chance I'm gonna get my fingers sliced off 'less you get a chainsaw." He hesitated. "You don't have a chainsaw, right Knux?"
Knuckles rolled his eyes. "Not unless you left one here before you went gallivanting down to the surface, no."
Tails flattened his ears. "I didn't gallivant, Knuckles, you know that." Natural inquisitiveness overtook bad memories and he added, "How do you gallivant, anyway?"
"I don't know. It's not something I ever wanted to do."
"Knuckles?"
"Yeah?"
"C'n I stay here? Just for a while?" Tails caught hold of Knuckles' arm and dragged it around his shoulders, clinging to it like grim death and leaning against the echidna's ribs. "I know I broke your stuff, but I just wanna stay for a bit. I'll stay out your way, I promise, but...well, I got nowhere else to go. Just 'til my tail gets better and I can fly again, then I'll leave and never come back, I promise." He half turned, snuggling back against the echidna and pulled his arm further across, using it as a blanket. "Miss you though," Knuckles heard him mumble, and shook his head.
"Tails, you stay here as long as you want."
Tails didn't reply, but Knuckles felt the fox's grip tighten convulsively.
"You're staying too, right Knux?" Tails said eventually.
"Yeah. Yeah, kid, I'm not going anywhere, not after the hell I had to go through to get back here."
The echidna didn't know how long he and Tails sat there, both lost in their own thoughts, but the moons had moved quite a way across the sky before Tails said drowsily, "Knux?"
"Yeah?"
"Tell me a story?"
Knuckles closed his eyes. "Not now, kid." Most of his stories had come from Lara-Le, and he didn't want to be reminded of her.
"Okay." Tails' voice was subdued, but there was something in it which said he understood. "What're we gonna do now, Knux?"
The echidna took a long, deep breath. "Go on as normal, I guess."
Tails fixed him with a look. "But things aren't normal, Knux, are they? It's like you said to Lara-Le; you can't pretend stuff never happened."
"No." Knuckles looked away, spoke very quietly. "I know." He opened his mouth to say something else, although he had no idea what, when lightning pain shot through his head and he winced, sucking in his breath with an audible hiss.
"Knux?" Tails frowned perplexedly. "Knux, are you okay?"
"Yeah," Knuckles lied. "Fine."
The pain came again, more intense this time, and Knuckles half snarled with the agony.
"No," he said instead. "We have to get out of here."
Tails' eyes widened, then he nodded and started to get to his feet. He'd made it about halfway before Knuckles seized him, swung him into his arms and ran for the door.
"Knuckles!" Tails looked over the echidna's shoulder and went rigid. "Knux, it's the Void!"
"I know," Knuckles said through clenched teeth. He did know too, had known since that first pain.
Picking up the pace, he sprinted up the track leading to Ice Cap Zone. He just hoped like hell he and Tails made it in time.
"Knuckles!" Tails shrieked the word, almost into the echidna's ear. "Knuckles, look!"
Knuckles whirled, caught sight of the Egg Carrier as it entered the Void and felt his blood run cold.
Sonic!
"Knux, Sonic wasn't on that thing, was he?" Tails looked up into Knuckles' face, begging for a negative answer. "He wasn't, was he?"
Knuckles met Tails' gaze very quietly. "He was, kid. I'm sorry."
"But...but...KNUCKLES!"
The echidna winced. "You yell in my ear like that one more time and I'll dump you on your behind!"
"The Egg Carrier's gone!"
"What?" Startled, no longer angry, Knuckles looked back.
"Where'd it go? It jus' went into the Void an' vanished."
"I don't know, kid, and right now we got more important things to worry about." Leaping over a snowdrift, Knuckles landed squarely on the waiting snowboard and leaned forward as it raced down the slope.
Tails closed his eyes. Last time he'd attempted to snowboard, it had taken him thirty minutes to dig himself out of the snowdrift, and he didn't much fancy repeating the experience.
Knuckles, however, had been snowboarding down this slope ever since he'd been old enough to balance properly, and, timing his move to perfection, crouched down and jumped off the snowboard and into a cave that was halfway up the mountain, and currently filled with his stuff. He'd also moved the Master Emerald there; if there was a problem, he wanted to be with the gem.
Nerves forgotten, Tails wriggled until the echidna let him down, then stared about with huge eyes.
"This is your hoard, Knux?"
"Yeah," Knuckles said shortly.
"Wow." Tails looked around at the gold, the jewels and the artifacts. Knuckles was far more interested in one-of-a-kind objects than in obtaining his thousandth jewel, as the vast amount of statuettes, pictures and what looked like tribal masks bore witness...not that Knuckles' preference was unusual. Echidnas had been known for being like dragons with their hoards, only a lot more picky.
"You got a crown? Cool!" Tails snatched up the emerald-encrusted gold circlet and placed it on his head, where it promptly dropped over one ear. Remembering too late that hoards were sacred, that you weren't permitted to see them without the owner's consent, much less handle them, he pulled it off hastily. "Uh...sorry Knux. Guess I got a little carried away."
Knuckles, who had gone completely rigid at Tails' irreverence, relaxed with a visible effort.
"It's okay." He forced the words out through stiff lips; Tails hadn't meant any harm, after all.
But damn, his hoard was his hoard!
"You gotta be richer than Sonic with all this stuff," Tails said, reaching out towards an almost perfect diamond the size of his fist before remembering and snatching his hand away again.
"Richer than Sonic?" Knuckles snorted. "That can't be hard."
Tails fixed him with a solemn look. "Nuh uh, Knux; he's got millions. The publishing and manufacturing house in Metropolis Zone pays him royalties on everything they sell with him in it an' they been doing that since he first met me. I was only four and he took me to Metropolis Zone and they gave him a cheque for a quarter of a million Mobiums and he put it in a bank and they've been giving him royalties ever since."
Knuckles stared. He'd had no idea...if Sonic was getting even just one Mobium per item sold, he'd be raking it in.
And he doesn't have a home, so he doesn't have to worry about paying bills...
Well, at least that explained how the hedgehog always seemed to have a limitless supply of cash. Hell, the interest alone must be phenomenal.
"Knuckles?" Tails looked up at him. "The Void can't get in here, can it?"
"I don't know." Knuckles caught hold of the fox with one arm and rested the other on the Master Emerald. He wondered if it was enough to protect the island, wondered how painful dying in the Void was. Very, at least if the tortured expressions on the bodies of its victims had been anything to go by.
The Master Emerald glowed suddenly, and Knuckles felt its power surge through him and into Tails, who yelped loudly and struggled to break out of the echidna's hold.
"Tails, no!" Knuckles tightened his hold; if the fox left the protection of the Master Emerald, he would die. "Tough it out, kid!"
Through the now blinding green light, he felt Tails push closer to him and for once Knuckles didn't object, even welcomed the contact.
For his part, Tails was in more pain than he'd ever thought could exist in the world, even worse than when they'd broken his tail and wrist back down in the tunnels. He could feel every single hair on his body as a separate nerve ending, could feel a kind of incandescent heat surging rhythmically through his body like a pulse, getting stronger and more agonising with every beat.
Knuckles, who never felt the power of the Master Emerald as anything stronger than a mild attack of pins and needles, shifted his arm around Tails, holding the fox close to him as the room they were in started to shake.
"Knux, what's happening?" Tails yelled above the noise.
"It's the Master Emerald! It's trying to shield the whole of Angel Island!" Knuckles had no doubt that it could do it either, but he wasn't sure how long it would be before he and Tails could leave the massive gem.
It was a full ten minutes before Knuckles knew instinctively that it was safe to pull away from the Master Emerald. Next to him, Tails' body abruptly went limp, ears flat against his skull.
"Is it gone?" he said hoarsely.
"The Void?" Knuckles said, almost too quietly to hear. "Yeah, kid. It's gone."
"And...and Sonic?"
The echidna shook his head very slowly. "I don't know. The Egg Carrier vanished, didn't it? Maybe Sonic's safe."
Tails looked up at Knuckles. "But he's still with Robotnik, isn't he?"
"Yeah. Yeah, he is."
The fox shivered. "Knux, what if Robotnik cripples him again?"
Knuckles hesitated. "If he does, he does," he said finally.
"You'll help him, right? Right?"
"Yeah." Knuckles rubbed the fox's shoulder. "Yeah, I will. If it comes to it." Something struck him and he frowned suddenly. "Hey."
Tails looked up at him nervously. "What?"
"You're healed."
The fox blinked groggily. "I am?"
"Yeah. How's your tail feeling?"
Tails tried to wiggle it experimentally, then beamed up at the echidna. "It works!" The beam dropped off his face as he added, "But…how?"
"The Chaos energy," Knuckles said, glancing at the Master Emerald, the glow from it having dimmed to a mere ember, then back at Tails. "Guess it patched you up."
Tails hesitated. "Should I thank it?"
"It's a rock, not a nurse," the echidna said succinctly. "I guess something must have triggered it to heal you as well as protect the Island."
Tails frowned. "So how come you didn't use it before?"
Knuckles rolled his eyes – it wasn't the first time Tails had brought this up – then sighed. "Because it needs time to recharge! The Chaos power isn't infinite, kid."
As if in agreement, the last vestiges of power faded from the Master Emerald and Angel Island started to fall.
Okay, so that was Knuckles' choice for you :P Happy now? Anyway, next chapter is the final one (at least for this story) and in the meantime, if you read this one, please review!