For awhile I wanted to keep most Aleutian's past in a way, a secert. But I started to realize that it only made it harder for me to write it out. So I decided to move on with what he did during that two year span after his equal's death. Also will introduce some characers by name and action only in this, but not many.

Disclaimer: I observe the rights of the creators of Sonic and all his friends.

Eyes of Control

By: Mauser

A half hour passed and Aleutian sat idly on the ground, his legs crossed under him and his back turned away from all of Knothole. With another pull of grass from the ground, which he rolled in his gloved hands, he thought of himself, his family, in particular his brother, Emi-La, and the company who seemed to want to keep him. All this began to overshadow his aching body. Every now and then, his biceps would twitch from the brutal strain that he put them through. It showed that he had never kept up with his training, letting writing and his depression consume him as a daily work out.

He wanted night to fall at that instant. He found peace in the darkness; the glimmering stars, the still air, the quiet sounds as wildlife slept in their nooks and crannies of their habitat called Mobius. It all felt so surreal in a world that was engulfed by war, and yet, in him as well. The war within himself seemed to be a losing one. He accepted defeat several months ago with what he thought he was: dark, cold, and lonely. But his white crest on his upper chest began to brighten, piercing the burning truth into his heart of who he was supposed to be...a Guardian, the same one that Emi-La had always fell in love with and felt safe with.

His friends wanted him to come in from the cold. They wanted him warm and back to his old self. It didn't happen. With each passing week that rolled into months, he stayed secluded in his house; a cave where the monster slept, weeping in his slumber. Aleutian had tried to go out and fight once, taking his Corsair to the skies, that was now busted up in his basement, to make a difference in the war. In his quest in finding something to destroy that was Eggman's or his cronies, he tried to resurrect his warrior soul in the process. But he failed when he was shot down by Eggman's new flying bots. They were faster and more aggressive than the old hoverbots that he and others had tangled with during the reign of the first Robotnick. And being on a bad anger trip didn't help neither. He was only able to down one when two others closed in on him from behind. Punching some nice big, plasma holes in his tail section, the control cables were neatly severed from his stick, and all he could do was bail out and watch his plane smolder to the ground.

He tried to glide back to the ground, but his severed lock that he lost some months back, hindered his abilities that made him careen across the ground and into a nicely positioned tree. With three busted ribs, he found himself brushing up on his escape and evasion techniques on the fly as he fought to stay low and await for one of the other Freelanders to come and rescue him. To his displeasure, it was Lopper. For five days on horseback, they made their way from the Mobian Jungle to Mathias's house for Aleutian to, yet again, get patched up. Every step that Lopper's Appallation horse made, Aleutian felt it through his three broken ribs. Every lesson and displeasure that Lopper made clear to Aleutian, it only made him furious at himself.

When he arrived home after several weeks of healing, he wrote it all in his journal. And thus, he fell even further into his depression. Somehow, Lopper and one of his other squadron mates brought his plane back home and dropped the thing in his basement instead of the Major General's place. Every time he looked at the charred, twisted ruins of his plane, which he knew Locke was probably wondering about, he put the chore of restoring the gulled mono-winged plane back to its former glorious blue-self again aside in his depression. Aleutian had the mental capacity and what other abilities he had left, mostly strength and his vision to see through things, to do the job. But he mourned constantly which took up most of his days.

And then one day, his buddy Supermarine, a brown hedgehog with a middle-class English accent, came calling at his door, minus his clipped wing fighter. He was sent to fetch Aleutian and take him out for a night on the town in Station Square. It was the first time the scarred echidna had shown his face in public, but he felt happy that he did with most of his squadron mates around. He didn't talk much or interact, though. He just sat back in a corner with them as he sipped his strong tea, being overshadowed by his black coat and his fedora. It all seemed go well until a few of his friends asked a young female lynx to go over and hopefully cheer him up with some small talk and a beautiful figure to look over. It was a bad move on their part. Aleutian only took one look at her and told her to get lost with venom in his voice. With that, he walked out of the club and into the wet and crooked streets of Station Square that Chaos had torn up only a few weeks prior. He never knew of the fight that Sonic and his brother went through to defeat that ungodly creature. He instead only contemplated more about himself than the current war.

Since that time, there went a standing rule between Aleutian and his friends; if they ventured to Station Square to hopefully make Aleutian feel better, the echidna couldn't wear his black garb, instead, only his aviator jacket and a shirt if he wanted, which he did. And in turn, they wouldn't ask a girl to go hang out with him. Aleutian would sit with them and listen to their stories of their families and past misadventures, but never of the current war. It wasn't that Aleutian said anything about it, but they all knew to shy away from the subject all together. They could see the shame on his face for not stopping this new Robotnick. Eggman as they called him.

And with that shame, his commitment to his brother and his kind vanished. When Emi-La died in his arms, his light for that drive died along with her. When he found himself at the mercy of some Swat Bots that ended up slashing at his birthmark, his shame was exchanged with the scar on his chest. With the following news of kingdoms, zones, and cities being taken control by Eggman, Aleutian felt guilty in not using his deadly skill on both flesh and machine alike, to stop the spread of tyranny.

When all self-honor seemed lost, his had attitude changed one night. Finding himself in front of his friends at the small club they frequented, he noticed that one was missing...and for the death of him, he couldn't remember who.

"Hart was killed three days ago, Aleutian," coldly explained Supermarine, breaking the unwritten rule. "He and his family were slaughtered in the middle of the night, thanks to Eggman's bloody machines."

Hearing the obituary of the racoons and his family's death sent a whimper back up from Aleutian's heart to his mind. It was his warrior soul that cried out this time, proclaiming that it had had enough of being imprisoned by Aleutian's depression.

Sometime after that, the echidna found himself seeking out an old contact that he and Emi-La had frequented in the past. Known only as Control to a very special few, she made Aleutian and Emi-La call her Mum. She was an old black panther and she liked having the two love birds working for her. Reason: they never did it for money, nor did they drop down to the level of a spy. What she had asked them to do, if they took the request, was either to do hits on certain individuals, or to rescue other Mobians from the promises of slavery. Control did have other people to do the jobs, but they were very few and far between. She could actually count the numbers on her hands and still have digits left over to add. Upon hearing who Aleutian was, she made doubly sure that she didn't give them intel' that would send the two on dark and cruel operations that they were at free-will to do or not to do. She also valued Aleutian's blood-right as Emi-La did.

And like his friends after Emi-La's death, Mum asked the same question as they all did when he came to her: "Have you gone home yet, Aleutian?" She'd asked that with a stern voice when Aleutian walked in the door to her secret sanctuary in Casino Night City the second time. Aleutian was taken aback by the statement, but he knew that she heard practically everything, like Haven did. And like his father, she withheld information, probably even more so than Locke. The reason, for which Aleutian and Emi-La totally saw the logic behind, was not to comprise other spies or operators that fought against the fat-man. The game they all played was dangerous, and to make it less dangerous if at all possible was to keep as much people from knowing about the others.

Her eyes were keen as well, living up to her Mobian ancestry of being a cat. She could see Aleutian was definitely not himself. Of course she knew that when he came to her the very first time when his scars were still fresh, looking for the whereabouts of three Overlanders and one Mobian. She never gave that information up, even if she did have it. But two years later when he came back to her again, only asking for work and not even caring about what it was, that was when she asked him the question about home. He only shook his angered face as an answer, mostly at himself for not keeping a certain promise.

"What's happened to you, Operator?" she scorned at him after his gesture. He just stood rigid in front of her desk, saying nothing.

Seeing this, along with the darkness that enveloped Aleutian with his clothes and emotions, she sat down with him and gave him a name to hopefully get him going again...Shadow the Hedgehog. Little was known about him, save that he was working for Eggman in rounding up information as well as pulling strings and money for the fat-man's operations. And in the Panther's eyes, that was all that mattered for the hedgehog to be a target.

"Kill him if you have too, but sending him to Knothole is your primary objective. Let that St. John have a chat with him," she instructed. "But for now, lets get your field craft back up to speed. Shall we?"

For four hours and with no breaks, Control filled Aleutian in on who were the players and who had come to their side after the first war, asking the echidna in-between breaks of information if he was sure that he wanted to cross over to the level of spy. Every hard nod confirmed her disappointment. She refreshed him with the workings of the Mobian underworld; who was working for who, and where they went for contacts and drops. It all soon became clear to Aleutian as it had before, the circle revolved around Eggman. Then came the good-guys, only naming off names and what species they were to Aleutian for references. Getting burned in the current state of things around Mobius was almost instant death. Somewhere along the line, Rogue came into the picture briefly, but Aleutian had a sharp mind for remembering things. Unfortunately for him, that also included his past.

Then Mum laid out the route that Aleutian needed to take to get to Shadow. The start point for him began with a shrewd and violent rabbit named Downtown Ebony Hare. But getting to him as a contact was going to be more than slight of hand. Practically overnight, Aleutian had to learn the spy-craft; knowing how and where to do dead drops, arranging secret meetings, and most importantly, how not to get burned by either the bad guys or the good guys.

He worked the drops like a pro; placing magnetic holders under hologram phone booths or park benches so either Ebony or Blackjack could pick them up. This was done after Mum had secretively gave Aleutian's name to Ebony as a new possible hit-man, of which he was in much need for. After the forth drop, Ebony wanted to make physical contact with him, asking Aleutian in a note from one of the drops to meet him in his office in the slums of Station Square.

And from there, Aleutian's life took a turn for the better...but he still didn't feel that way.

His Mom's lesson always echoed in his mind."Our decisions is what effects our destiny, Aleutian."

He plucked the last piece of grass that made a one inch section of ground bare. He stared at it as he whispered to himself as to what he was going to do next in his life. He knew what his father wanted him to do; regain his lost power that he once had before. He used it to help fight off the hoards of bots in a desperate fight that he neither won or lost. But his abilities that came to him almost out of the blue didn't save his Emee. Instead he used it to kill in a fit of rage. And after that day, he lost them, except for his sight to see through walls. That gift was in him since he was five.

His ability had saved many Mobians in rooms that mere sight alone couldn't have gotten past the constructed walls. Before he and Emi-La would make entry into a room, he would feel the walls and tell her what he saw. From there, all else went like a perfectly tuned machine. First came the entry, then loud commands to drop weapons. If that tactic failed to gain control of the situation, which in most cases it did, the shooting and beat down would commence. The end result of it all; live hostages that would go home safe, if they still had a home left, and more intelligents that went to Mum to decipher.

Operators, Mum had called the two, and it was the reason why they could call her Mum. As Control had said to them over a fine meal, "You two are like my children. I ask of you to go out in harms way, and I pray that if you do accept, that you two would come back with success and in one piece. If you of you shall die, I believe in the bottom of my heart that I will mourn your loss till the day I die." And she kept true to her feelings when Emi-La was robbed of her life.

"It's all in the past now," Aleutian whispered to himself. "Now we have a choice to make; to go with your father and do what he asks of you, and see if he has the strength to help you from yourself...or runaway from them...like you did before."

He grimaces at the thought again. He had been running away all this time in no particular direction, and it showed. He looked exhausted, felt it. The fight he instigated for no Mobianly reason than just to beat his anger out on someone, had showed how weak he was. And defeat was the end result. He took it as a lesson, but he didn't understand what the lesson was.

Aleutian felt footsteps through the ground coming towards him. He looked behind him to see a familiar white and tan skinned bat coming up beside him.

"You okay, hunk?" Rogue asked as she stood over him.

"Sore," he replied with a flat voice.

Rogue smiled for an instant before she stated that would be obvious to some, but not to Aleutian. "You don't go picking fights with him unless you are absolutely certain you can win. So how does it feel to battle someone almost like you?"

"What do you mean?" he asked her with a puzzled look that ended up tracing her impressive figure.

"Well, he's kinda moody and dark like you, Aleutian. But he is that way cause he didn't know who he was until a couple of weeks ago."

"You mean he found himself?" Aleutian asked with a hint of surprise.

Rogue placed her finger over her lips as she organized her words. "More like he found out who he is. You are you 'cause you keep wanting to runaway from yourself. Like I said back on the boat, you need to stop beating yourself up, hunk."

Aleutian nodded at her as he turned his weary mind back to the ground.

"Watch yourself around Station Square and a few other places," he blurted out to her after a moments thought. "There are people who would like to get their hands on you. I don't know who, but it was the way that Ebony gave me your information that said other people higher up on the food chain want you bad."

Rogue nodded and smiled as she leaned over to Aleutian. She spoke in his ear in a taunting whisper, "If it means anything... I wish you well." And with that he kissed him on the cheek before she turned and walked away.

Aleutian blushed as he felt a cold shiver trace down all over his body. He almost balled over from it. The way she said it to him; the whisper, the kiss, it sent him back over seven years ago when Emi-La said something to him that gave him the same feeling...

"I feel safe with you."

"What's he thinking about, dad?" asked Knuckles, watching Rogue kiss Aleutian on the cheek. He gave out a hint of a smile when his brother look to her with a bewildered face as she gracefully walked away.

"He is wondering if he wants to go through with this."

"If he doesn't, he'll be abandoning me and her," said Knuckles with a slight cold voice.

"Emi-La?" asked Locke with a curious look.

Knuckles nodded. "From what Mathias said, she made him promise her that he would return home...to us." Knuckles sighed and paused for moment, holding back his emotions. "He has a whole world to lose father if he doesn't go."

"And friends," Locke added, seeing Knuckles almost roll up into tears over his brother.

"I can't help but wonder what all he has done, father."

Locke stamped at the question with his foot that seemed to help organize his thoughts. "I wonder the same, Knuckles. I intend to find out the truth for you, and I will tell it once I hear it. That is unless he does first. I have this feeling he may open up more to you than me."

"Why?"

Locke shook his head at himself, "His bitterness doesn't lie with you."

Knuckles rolled his head over to his father upon seeing Sally, Elias, and Sonic approaching them. "Do come back with mybrother, dad...the real him."

"I will," Locke breathed out, "I will for the both of us."

"Okay, here ya' go," announced Sonic as he gave Locke a spare green pack along with Aleutian's. He had specially filled it with M.R.E.'s that he knew the two were going to need, plus other items that he knew Locke would enjoy.

"Can we have him back when you're done?" asked Elias, Sally nodding at the question as well.

"We'll see what happens first. I need one of them back on the Island to help fight," replied Locke.

"Please, Locke. I can really use him for what he knows," begged Elias.

"Like I said, We'll see what happens."

Locke bid his farewell, and with Archimedes on his shoulder and Knuckles by his side, they strolled the short void to Aleutian, who was still sitting in the middle of the field.

"It's time son. We must be on our way," proclaimed Locke in a soft, sincere voice.

Aleutian lumbered to his feet as his soreness echoed throughout his body. Knuckles walked up to him and handed him his backpack and said, "You'll be back?"

Aleutian took his tan colored pack and slung it over both of his shoulders. "I plan too," he said with a solemn but confident look.

Knuckles embraced his brother one last time as Locke went over and stood beside Aleutian. "I hope it isn't too painful for you. I can tell you've seen enough."

"I can go this last round, Knuckles" said Aleutian, his voice soft. "Thanks for looking after me, though."

Knuckles felt his eyes start to drown with his tears, "Someone has too."

Locke looked over at Archy and nodded at him, "You know where we are going?" he asked through telepathy.

"I do. Are you sure you want to do this to him? It could have adverse effects."

Locke looked at both of his sons who were bidding their final farewells with each other. "I'm sure."

"It's time," he reaffirmed.

Locke placed his left hand over Aleutian's shoulder and brought him back from Knuckles who just watched with tears in his eye. From all that he knew of his brother and all that the two of them had been through the past week and a half, he was glad that this was what Aleutian was willing to do. Knuckles wanted nothing more than to see his brother come back to his family...his real family.

He watched his brother give him a confident nod and smile as the three disappeared with Archimedes' purple smoke. When it cleared, they were all gone.

"You okay Knux?" asked Sonic as the trio walked up beside him when Knuckles' family had gone. "Man, this isn't you."

"Yea," replied Knuckles, his voice flexing with his sadness and tears, "just sometimes you need to be reminded of what makes us who we are."

The next updates won't be for a awhile, but I can tell you that Snively will finally make is apperence, and he has an idea that will prove that he is more than a lackey to Eggman. Need to edit and still write the rest of this one out still. It's becoming a juggling act in a truck with no shocks. Thanks for reading and please review.