Oh, how things are looking better! Another chapter up and two more to go on the chopping as soon as I get to them. But it also means I'm running behind. Doing the next drafts now, but as always, hard going at times. But with this chapter came help with the one I'm currently working on. A lot of times I need to go back to some of my older chapters just to keep the same mood, and also to make sure I don't reitter things already said.

But that said; this has become one of my favorites, but was also one with too many mistakes. I was trying out some new things, but my editor marked them out and pretty much said, "try again." However, the clean-up was it and it looks better.

Sara...I give credit to thee for this chapter. You've expressed your fondness many times with how you like this story just by me revisiting the old comics in their context, and bring out things we've all wondered about, but never really saw. So in effect, this is your chapter. I needed something like this as a filler and as something to pull on peoples heartstrings while pulling Locke and Aleutian closer. I really hope you enjoy this one as I did writing. For me, when I was done, I felt myself come away with a different point of view then how I started this chapter. The title of this chapter is taken from another John LeCarre' novel called, "Absolute Friends." But this has a different meaning which I hope you all will grasp.

This chapter also comes on a special occasion. Aleutian has turned one year old as of last month, and what better to disclose that then by this chapter. I'm steadily bringing him back; and he deserves it.

Now to the disclaimer...uge: I own nothing in the way of the original cast of the game and comics.

Please enjoy.

(Yes, Sara, PM means personal message)

Absolute Wants

By: Mauser

Green was trapped underneath the surface of the stream. Aalge, waving like fine fur atop the rocks with every heave, punch and thus, reprieved of strength from the undercurrents that flowed north and west rather than south. The beauty that resembled waves of thick grass in a gale with the absent of its radiant glow, Locke saw much of the Master Emerald in the gliding tributary. What he at first thought was a hollow he and Aleutian were venturing down had become a sort of pause for recreation and rest in a somber valley. The last hour of their walk had fallen to silence due in part of the terrain becoming more obtuse and steep, allowing more of their oxygen to be used for their muscles and not their vocal cords. And as they traveled higher, the air became thin, as expected, but as Locke understood, and wondered if Aleutian did as well, that he as a race of Echidna's from Angel Island had over time had gotten used to such high elevations and could breathe the air without struggling to do so.

Thus, he could stand comfortably and gaze at his son's back, gently breathing, watching every detail of Aleutian's shoulder blades move under his fur and skin, as he worked his arms in refilling his water-bladder in the stream. His jacket and pack were beside him on the grass, for there wasn't anything in the way of mud, more so of fresh green grass and leaves. The stream coasted in an abstract manner along the shore under a ledge, of which, Aleutian was looking down upon while squatting on the balls of his feet.

As Locke peered up to judge the other side of the small shore, he echoed his voice in his head for the fire ant on his right shoulder to hear:

"They grow so fast," he said with fondness reverberating soundly. It seemed to him only yesterday, at times, that he was holding not an infant Knuckles in his arms, but Aleutian. His own image came back to him warmly, as the current day. The little guy kicking as he slept in his arms. The fits of coughs as with any new born calling him to get up from beside Lara-Le to make sure he was alright. The few nights he rocked him back to sleep afterwards. His first word...mommy. If destiny and duty hadn't been the interference, Locke was sure the family wouldn't have been broken but would have become like any other–a house to keep watch over and not worried with a war; but instead, what's for dinner.

Alas, the white crest on his chest, like his forefathers and now his sons who also had it etched in their fur, said otherwise of what he could hold as a family. He lightly shook his head, pushing away the thought that their birthrights were burdens of his wishes and wants. It was criminal to think it. No...the crime was crouched down before him. He should have been there for him.

And to his despair, he was learning about his son through his blemishes and tears, when the current teachings should've been brought out under much simpler times and simpler ages. But he smiled through it all. Aleutian had become an Echindian. Flesh, fur and blood was the testament to this image Locke saw. It was Aleutian's never dying determination to strive for what he asked of him, watching him willingly cast away a life just by purging his hands of his guns, and now, upon seeing him after yesterday, wanting what he ran away from to become. Locke was absolutely sure Aleutian had grown to be what he was born to be. Him!

A Guardian.

He just never knew it...but he was always committed to it.

Archimedes lad silent, for he saw the thoughts rolling through Locke's mind on his face, and thus it was fitting he didn't speak. He too was entranced at the laboring Guardian before them.

Locke thought to speak, controlling his voice so as to not break the fragile tranquility of the forest around them, but he thought better of it. And to his reprieve and delight, it was Aleutian who broke the silence.

"You might want to think about filling your canteens here. I don't remember if there was another stream or spring close by after this. Speaking of which." Aleutian stood up and glanced to the west with a musing expression, "there's, I think, a tree we can use to cross over the stream without getting our feet wet about a few miles or more from here. That's if I remember where we are."

"Have confidence in yourself, lad," Archy said plainly.

"I do, but," Aleutian glanced around at the two towering mountains around him and the thinly cut valley in front of him. The vegetation and trees engrossed a good portion of his vision but he could still see the next sharp curve through the branches and the next mountainous obstacle afterwards, "it's all grown up since then, and it's been awhile since I've been out here."

"Like you have," Locke smiled, seeing his moment come to pass.

Aleutian shifted to his father, offering a smile that Locke had been wanting to see and feel for long time. "Yea...I thought I was growing up on Mathias' boat, fighting Robotnick and all, but my true bearings in life did come from out here, dad."

"And where did they point to?" Locke asked, still holding his composure and warmth for his son.

The quick glance at his shoes was all the time Aleutian gave for thought. "Her," he said, and for Locke's growing affection and aspiration for his son's strengthening health, Aleutian said it with an uplifting smile.

Under which, Locke stepped up to his son and clasped him on both shoulders. Aleutian didn't cower this time to his tears, but looked on as Locke did as well. "I'm proud of you, Aleutian. Never mind what I had said years ago...I am proud of you. I may have been angry when you didn't come back, but what Athair said about you taking your duty to heart and trying to get Emi-La back to the tribe, I couldn't help but feel that you never really had ran away from who you are. You never went back on your teachings because of it; instead, you fulfilled them with her being your test." Locke touched his head on Aleutian's. "Don't ever think you couldn't have been a Guardian because you didn't complete your training and lessons. Don't ever once think it! You've always been and you always will."

Aleutian swallowed his tightened throat away, feeling something come to him through the closeness of his father's eyes. "And now?..."

"And now," Locke said. "And now, we move on." He glanced past, up behind Aleutian. "What's beyond that mountain?"

Aleutian turned away from his father's beared face and he too stared up the sloping wall. "More of the same. We are in the Badlands, and it's only going to get worse. I think a few valley's do open up a little ways from here, but we need to cross the water, and like I said, it's about a few miles down there," he pointed out, gesturing his head to the west once more.

Turning completely away, Aleutian began to rummage up his things, starting with his water-bladder, putting it back in its insulated pouch that rode up against his back when he placed it back on. He then grabbed his jacket, stared at it for a time and considered putting it on. The temperature wasn't scorching as before, thanks to being a few thousand feet above sea-level, but he still didn't want to fall over from a heat stroke.

Locke strode passed him as he lowered his jacket above his waist. "Getting water?" Aleutian asked evenly.

"Nope!"

And after shouting his mirthful comment, Locke took a step over the bank and set his foot on top of the flowing stream.

"It's deep, dad!"

With a shake of his head and a casting glare to the other side, Locke found a small path between a rock and a large trunk of an oak tree whereupon to hopefully traverse the mountain easily when he got across. "Don't worry about it." And he took another step on the stream.

Aleutian watched on in amazement, his eyes becoming wider as his father took five more additional steps, his boots lifting droplets of water from the surface tension on the treads, while the bottom of his tribal robe not once was splattered with a speck of water from the splash. The elder Guardian never sank to the bottom! Locke just strolled across the surface as if he were walking on solid, flat ground. And once he reached the other shore, he pivoted around to see his dumbfounded son staring on, his jacket firmly clasped in his hands until his bewildered mind caused him to drop it at his shoes.

"You coming?" Locke asked, his face was without expression, but inwardly, he was laughing it up.

Aleutian swivelled his head around in disbelief; not at what his father did, but at his request. He then looked to him, his brows showing his surprise. "What do 'ya mean, coming? How am I supposed to do that?"

A deliberate, slow shake of the head followed under a disapproving glare as Locke set off, again, and began to cross the steam. The pace this time was a little faster and his stride more of a gaiting march. When he stepped onto the shore once again, he paused in front of his son. "The same way you saw through that tree yesterday–concentration and your will to do it."

Aleutian shot his left arm out towards the stream. "But this is different!"

"It's no different than your strength, or your ability to see past barriers."

"Oh," Aleutian said, his face twisting as if he had been tricked, and started to back away from Locke. "Now I see."

Locke pressured forward, never letting an inch get between him and his son. "Hey, you said you're ready. Don't let this little trial stopyou. Think of it as the path to unlock yourself–"

"That's easier said than done, Locke," Archy poignantly said.

"And why should it be?"Locke countered under an accusing tone, still looking at Aleutian and not the fire ant on his shoulder.

To his surprise, he heard Archimedes' sigh over the telepathy. "I watched him twist the neck off an Overlander and burn another one with said powers, Locke."

The fight to keep his eyes keen with his son's was a winning battle, but the fear and terror that wrenched in his stomach never faltered, but only intensified. "What...?"

"Don't let the past keep you from your true self, Aleutian," Archy said thoughtfully. "You did it to save your life and you did it through your rage! That is all it was, and all it shall be."

Aleutian darted his eyes to the fire ant. "Precisely, all it was was my rage," came his embittered reply. "I was out of control, and you know it!"

"Remember, I helped. I gave my all to force my voice in your head just to warn you. And the rage I saw was what I came to expect to come from your family. Under your circumstances, you performed what anyone in your blood soaked position and abilities would have done!"

"That's enough, Archy!" Locke shouted to the air, bringing his eyes this time over to his shoulder. "Either stop, or leave, I don't care, but I'm wanting to put all this aside and keep the pain away from him."

The Aussie hat turned along with his apologetic glare. But Aleutian saw the detrimental odds being waged, and he was very aware of the conversation that was going on without him having to listen to a freely spoken word. He still remembered the hammer voice of Archimedes thundering in his psyche. The warning was just, but the ant's telepathy nearly brought him further to his knees. He could still remember the burning pain of his cuts and gashes. He could still–

He shook his head to force his long nightmare back to the furthest reaches of his mind where he wanted it to stay forever until he died. The notion of "why now" came after he felt the twinge in his heart ceasing to beat it faster. His answer, as he looked further away from Locke and Archimedes, came to him almost in despair: he now totally respected what his father was doing for him. And why that notion all of sudden? After feeling passed his inner turmoil and his loathing of his father, that answer came as a whisper of reflection, and it too came as suddenly as the first. "You did come back to get me!"

Locke fired his looming eyes to his son as he heard his voice over his embittered indifference with Archimedes. "What?"

"You have made true on my offer, dad. You are here, and I am not at home. But yet, I did come home, and still, you came to get me." He stole a glance to the ground in his bewilderment. His gaze didn't last long, tracing his father's boots and robe back to his firmly loving eyes. "Is this irony? Is this a bad joke?"

"It's a lesson to all of us, son," Locke offered. "As you didn't come on your own to keep her promise, but with Knuckles helping you, it was Lara-Le who made me take your offer. Can you fathom the lesson now?"

Aleutian shook his head with somber eyes, his hands limp by his side.

"Things work out, Aleutian. No matter how dire our situation, and no matter how much we promise ourselves we won't bow down to defeat and hold on to our premonition that the other will prevail on our request...things work out if the cause is virtuous." Locke took the last step and again placed his warming hands over his son's shoulders. "Do you understand...do you believe in that outlook?"

He did. It had shown for so long now that what Locke had just said was the final clincher to bring everything in full circle to an honest affirmation of the here and now. As he cast his eyes toward their shoes in thought, he sighed brightly. "I've felt it, dad. The first rescue me and Emi-La did got a girl killed 'cause we weren't quick enough and we were to inexperienced. It hurt us...so much so, we were thinking of quitting altogether."

"What made you two stop that idea?" Locke asked gratefully.

"A panther."

"Oh?" Locke gauged quizzically. Oddly enough, the image he was looking for in his son's head of who he'd mention...only came as dull amber eyes in the dead of darkness. It was unnerving.

Aleutian snuffed and shrugged. "She told us, 'it will all be alright. This won't be the first or the last. It is sad that we can't save them all, but' as she put it, 'if we save one, that is one life that will flourish.'"

"You are a Guardian," Locke said softly. And after looking at his son for a long moment with affirming eyes, he walked back towards the water, and again, he stepped out from the bank and crossed atop the surface.

"This panther," Locke shouted as he reached the shoreline and spun around. "What was she to you?"

"Our handler...and she still is. But I don't think she'll mind if I put myself on the shelf."

"Really? Why's that?" Locke pondered, but he perhaps knew the answer already.

A slight smile. It was enough. "She's been wanting me to go home as it is."

Locke chuckled thoughtfully, but lowered his face in seriousness to show he was waiting.

Sighing for courage, Aleutian picked his things up at the bank, and stood at the edge. Looking down, he was captivated briefly at the waving aalge under the stream, and was entranced soon after with his own reflection. His smile...he hadn't seen it in so long.

"So how do I do this?" he asked after looking up to address his father.

Locke let a smug grin come across his lips and walked out to the stream, but stopped in the middle, still perched on the surface. "First, a clear mind."

"Well, that's a given."

Locke nodded with pinched lips. "Yes, but it's how you clear it, andwhy you have to clear it that you need to understand."

A moment passed, and Aleutian felt empty for an explanation to give. So he shrugged his hands. "I'm listening."

"Are you? To what?" Jolting his head back, the younger Guardian glared at his dad at the meaning of his question. "Look inside you, Aleutian. What is it that you want?"

"To cross the water without getting drenched," Aleutian retorted smartly.

"Nice try," Locke said, dismissively. "Now what does your soul want? What does your inner drive tell you?" Aleutian's eyes seemed to brighten with revelation. "What do your feelings tell you?"

Clarity of his inner-self became a foreshadow all of a sudden. Aleutian at times thought he had looked deep inside his heart before, once to sell himself the idea to runaway, other times whether to go home or stay where he was to aid in a conquest. But what his father was asking him now dwelled on his mind, and conquered his understanding of the concept of soul-searching that he did have. Once upon time, Lopper had asked something like this once before, but it was never this in depth. Never this close to touching one's own soul. Why Aleutian felt Knuckles was better than the two. Knuckles had grown up with only his soul as his guiding voice once Locke had left. Aleutian had friends to help...but many were long gone. None to help, and his fault to those that were, in that he didn't listen.

But was he hearing it now? If he was, it came as mere peep at best. "Or am I still not listening? Where do I really begin?"

He let the riddle gleam across the tranquil void to his father, for he knew his thoughts had already floated to him.

"Feel for it, son. Let it become a distant thunder for a storm you want...not fear."

"But a storm in me isn't what I want. I've been fighting for it to go away," Aleutian said distressingly. "So what should I want?"

"Ahh," Locke smiled broadly. "That's the question you really needed to ask yourself. What should you want? To not get wet? For a shortcut? Or are your wants far more reaching than what is in front of you?"

Locke's tone was firm, but teaching. For a moment, Aleutian swore he was with Lopper again, but his father grandly polluted that image. And he didn't speak with informal paraphrases. Consequently, it was all making him think on his feet again, and more so into a thoughtful abyss. He never looked into different aspects such as this. Wants? What he had perceived before had now shown to be too trivial for the current undertaking. Did he have to feel for them? A thunder for a distant storm? To feel for it.

A spark...he lifted his eyes when the conclusion came raining in. He needed a spark. And he needed to remember just how it felt. Why? "Because I want it!"

"Then rekindle it if you can remember," Locke suggested confidently.

"But that was two years ago," Aleutian protested. "And even then it came to me out of the blue."

"And that was you coming of age, Aleutian. The time when your abilities were coming into their right, and you growing aware of them. Even if you couldn't think of it consciously, they were sparking in you because you wanted something to happen deep inside you." Locke sighed deeply, and thoughtfully. "If you can touch it once more, if you find that desire...then you can walk on water. Then you can walk the world over."

Aleutian frowned with face that seemed to have awakened, and Locke had this notion he knew from what. "Then how can I touch it if I had before, dad?"

Locke smiled earnestly. "Think back to when you felt a passion. A strong passion that resembles love."

A pensive dour expression engulfed his son's face. One Locke was hurt by because he knew what he had just asked Aleutian to do was quite possibly revisit a past pain that they all wanted to see let go and be forgotten. "But don't revisit them. Think of better times...happier moments. Think of Emi-La, son."

But the choice Aleutian found, and allowed himself to bare was not of his equal but of another friend. A male fox. Kyle! He could see his quipping smile and his happy-go-lucky attitude protruding with it. Yes...Aleutian unknowingly twinkled his own smile after finding the smell of diesel filter back into his mind. And Kyle talking away as the sound. It was with his bright voice that Aleutian saw himself watching an unspent torpedo being pulled out from the aft tube. Two other crewmen, he remembered, were yanking the thing out, but he let his focus go to the smoothed, orange fur coated fox, dressed in a light blue working shirt with grease and oil stains littered all over it, and dark, heavy pants lining his legs above his boots. Kyle had been his classmate for ages, but only took over from his own father a few years after Aleutian began patrolling on the Plunger. The fox joked around with Aleutian enough to cause Laraine, their one and only teacher, to throw fits. Aleutian swore if they hadn't had the control to stop, she would've collapsed from a heart attack. Being an adolescent–in Aleutian's case, pretending to be one–was a hell of a lot of fun, and at Kyle's expense at times.

It was Kyle who helped him assimilate into his new life among the Plunger's offspring. It was Kyle's dead corpse he awoke to after things went black over two years ago. But it was Kyle that became the spark to want to save him.

The sharp snap of a weak link in the supporting chain rang in the enclosed hull and froze everyone cold just from pure instinct. However, gravity was still working in all this, and Kyle was crouched under the fish, checking for clearances and possible damages. In the instant it took one to blink, Aleutian was the only living thing moving, reaching out with his hands to do anything to stop a two ton torpedo from falling on Kyle. But to the amazement of the on looking crew, and to his absolute astonishment...the torpedo stopped suddenly, hanging in the air, weightless over Kyle's cowering ears. The world had ceased to move in all the calamity, just enough for Kyle to roll away from under it, and hardly enough time until Aleutian lost his bleak concentration of his passionate grasp to his inner power. His connection to the Master Emerald.

He could still hear the heavy clang of the torpedo hitting the grated floor.

And feeling the tenseness of his muscles from the residual incorporeal sound, somewhere in this tightness, he felt a burning, gripping sensation, lashing at his nerves and charging heart. And he wanted to hold on to it.

"Give-in to it, son," Locke breathed. "Don't just hold on to it; give-in. Embrace it."

"But how?" came Aleutian's timid voice.

Locke's eyes grew stern, but all the same, loving.

"Your resolve. It's what has burned so brightly inside of you, that it is your lost key to unlocking your very soul. Open the box...set it free for all time."

"But I'm afraid to."

"Don't be. Open it and come out here with me. It won't take control of you, for you have control of yourself. I'm here to show you how."

Setting foot at the edge, Aleutian let a out long breath and inhaled deeply. The impossible was before him.

But he choose not to see it.

His father was beyond that.

And he looked to him without any notion of obstacles.

He stepped out...and he felt his soul drown in his fortitude to see his wants achieved.

In his second step, his shoes were lapped by the water. With his third, his heart was beating brilliantly. And his forth step brought him closer to the object he know he has been wanting. For his last brought him to his father.

And he embraced him.

"I love you, dad!" he said proudly at Locke's chest. "It has been my want to say that I love you."

Locke squeezed him harder and felt the warmth they had both been missing come through it. "As I do you. I always have, and I always will. You are my son and my wanthas always been to stand beside you. And things just seemed to work out."

As they stood, locked in the affection that only a father and son could understand. The emerald stream raced around their shoes and boots, the trickling sound magnifying what Archy saw as one closure coming to past, and yet, another door was still waiting to be shut. What he reflected at that instance was a young echidna still growing up from the few times he saw him, and a father still there, embracing the changes even when age had become matured.

"I've always had faith in you, son," Locke whispered, releasing Aleutian. "You will always have faith in us."

Aleutian gleamed back at his father. "Let's get across, pop. Let's see what else I still have."

Alas, it won't be until about a month or more before I can post of the next updates. But things are going to heat up. What comes next is my flashpoint. And one you all will see.

Please review, tell me how I'm doing, and I shall seek what I can to reward you.