Sorry for the three day delay, but my energies aren't quite up to par. Must be because I'm on vacation, and it seems my mind decided to go too. This bites; I've been wanting to finish this whole story while I had the time...and I HAD the time. I hope I can hammer out the next two chapters and soon before my travels resume. But this chapter marks FIVE MORE to go!!

Again, taking care of bogging down you all with long chapters to light ones for a change, here is the next installment. Not much else to say until the bottom. So you all enjoy.

Disclaimer; (yet again) I own nothing of the original characters of Sonic and his crew, except my own, and through persona.

The Wilt of a Limping Leopard

By: Mauser

They were close enough to make nervous hairs stand amongst Christian's sweat drenched furred body. There was no organization to the bots charge from what the echidna could see through the now magnified eye piece of the heavy, shouldered plasma launcher. But neither was the heavy gasping, harrowed faced mobians struggling to squeeze out what endurance they had left in their bodies and souls to keep running to what seemed liked to the end of the world. The line had taken on a blotched figure in the barren open plains, and Christian and Mikhail had been part of the center until the brown, lumbering echidna peeled himself away with the beagle in tow, throwing all his burning ligaments into a straining kneeling position on his right knee, barely keeping the plasma launcher leveled on his shoulder. From here he could see where the line ended. A hundred meters behind a limping female lynx were the bots, the lead four armed with a few plasma launchers while the rest trailing in the dust cloud armed with everything else to turn the Great Plains into a cutting board.

His index finger slid across the trigger. The hum of the plasma launcher pitched beside his right ear. Sweat poured across his eye, making him flinch when the salt stung under his eye-lid, cause him to pull his head away to rub away the discomfort.

"Hurry up, echidna!" came Mikhail's panicked growl from behind him, finding it to be suffocated with a growing soft whining roar gliding just off to their right.

It was like taking a breath when his eyes deviated slightly, looking over the mud colored launcher's tube and even a little higher to take in a low flying transport's shape lofting its way straight over him. Nose turning up like a rude person might to a bland remark, from what little Christian knew of fixed winged aircraft he could descry the large slats of the aircraft's flaps being fully extended, and the smooth underside now protruding with the extending landing gear. But all this faded when his eye met the eye piece once more, feeling the crushing jolt from his heart commanding him to squeeze the trigger at once.

The tube shuddered violently over his shoulder. Heat pelted his head, face and neck from the onset of the plasma orb's shrieking flight, but holding his eye true against the scope, watching, with the tedious grip of anxiety clinging to his stomach; the straight path of his shot before gravity started to pull at the jumble of superheated electron charged ions down, exploding just left of the small horde of bots; one aiming its own plasma launcher to the sky. The one that ordered Christian to shot.

The blast had no fanfare of fire and carnage, pluming up dust mixed with black smoke and a sharp half moon shockwave that signaled the eruption of the plasma round. It shatter a single bot's metallic anatomy into ribbons of raining scrap metal while tossing its running partner sideways like a marble with limbs into an adjacent bot, both disappearing into scattering pieces of their own demise, and the last blown off its feet. Christian starred as the bot tumbled off to the right, stopped, and ceased to move further. A single blink later was conjoined with the murmured BOOM of his successful shot. Then screams from beside him echoed with it, only to be added by the transport's engines howling from overhead.

Looking through the scope brought on more pangs of aghast. Blinking in the far, upper right corner of the holow graphic display was a cylinder with a dimple at one end suffused with an X atop it. When the shadow of the transport passed over the crowd was when he and Mikhail had the sinking feeling finally settle into the bawls of his heart. Dropping the launcher, he turned around and found Mikhail kneeling beside him to the left. "It's done, and so are we."

Mikhail tried to protest but Christian was already up and grabbing under the beagle's arm, thrusting him on his feet and pushing him forward. "What now?" he asked once up to pace.

Holding silent solidified into a religion. The running band of refugee's swung further to the south like a flock of migratory sparrows, chasing down the landing transport that to Christian's pain, just seemed to hang in the air. In fact it was getting away from them.

"Find Lemeans, Mikhail!" he shouted back behind.

"I don't think he can fly much better."

Shrugging sympathetically, Christian nodded. "Just get him, and rush him forward–"

A confident voice spun his head over his left shoulder. "It'll be fine." Knuckles' smile brightened to Christian's dismay. Then he heard the transport's engines power up, commanding his attention to the front of him. A larger bellowing dust cloud engulfed the tall tail section of the Lifter. Christian only realizing that the thing did indeed land, he still wasn't happy the marathon was being extended.

"Nice of them to overshoot us."

Knuckles' bleak visage of comfort left instantly with a scowl. "Hey, it's either this or nothing. Not like they can stop the thing in mid-air and ease it down."

"Then why does it sound like their taking back off?"

Christian's testy voice pinned at Knuckles for an instant. But it was only an instant when the tail figure of the Turbo Lifter reemerged from the dust cloud, back peddling across the sandy plain like coming out from a vale. Its engines were screaming to the verge that Knuckles thought they were going to explode under the immense strain. Dust devils formed from the intake fans, connecting ground and machine with cyclones from the back-draft of air being sucked in from the rear.

"Did I mention it comes with reverse?" Knuckles said evenly to his surprise, hoping at first he could've sound like Sonic. Pumping his legs faster, the Guardian put distance from Christian but close to the head of the fleeing line. The ramp was slowly coming down when he took the lead, checking behind him that even in the face of triumph the trailing mobians behind were staggering.

The engines had died, snapping Knuckles head forward. The ramp was not fully extended to the ground when the Lifter slid to a stop over it's heavy proportioned tires. A meter further and he could see figures bustling down from the incline. Checking over his shoulder one more time caught Antoine in his torn blue tunic pulling ahead of a cluster and trampling his way to the lead mob. Sonic had once told him that he knew when things were about to be over with because 'Twan, somehow decided to be cool and put a huge effort into retreating to safety. There was no doubt to Knuckles that this was true. For when he turned his head forward, he was met by three approaching beaver's; all armed and all ready for the beat down.

"Sir," shouted the closest to the echidna, his beret was square over his head while his green bandoleer slapped against his chestnut furred chest. "Misses St. John told us you're being chased from the rear."

A harping scream resounded straight behind Knuckles, making him close his eyes just for a second when his brain identified the voice like he would if asked a quizzical question about mathematics. It was Antoine: "Zhere botz behind us!"

Just when Knuckles slowed to a stop, and St. John's sent calvary did the same, the coyote had steamed his way past them all and clamored up the ramp. "I wonder if Sonic would point out that things never do change?" A female chipmunk with a baby holding onto to her neck passed the four, with her presence barking to Knuckles to get his head back on the situation. "We got wounded coming in," he panted, his fear coming out on top of his sensible self. "Go back there, and help as many as you can inside."

"Da!" hollered Mikhail's thick Slavic voice from behind. Knuckles strayed an eye over his shoulder to see the beagle had Lemeans straddled in his arms; cane and all. "My good friend Christian put bump in road between us and them."

"And it was very gracious of you two, Mikey," Lemeans commended with a strained, even voice, Mikhail placing him on his feet and cane. "However," he started to continue, looking around him, seeing hustling bodies trickling beside him running up the ramp, "aside from the formalities, we need to be ready when the last foot is stamped inside."

A narrowed frown from the beaver standing in front of Knuckles. Lemeans took note of the four chevrons gleaming from the beret. "Sir, my men can put down the pursuers–"

"Where's your officer, Sergeant?" Lemeans virulently demanded. Knuckles thought the leopard's black spots where going to start glowing red.

Vinous came with a voice that poured in the air steeply, drowning all malice, but leaving a bitter after taste of Hershey's profound authority, turning Lemeans' gaze to the inside of the transport. For Knuckles, her tone wasn't gruff enough to be Julie-Su's.

"I'm not an officer, but I do count as one."

Lemeans held his swallow from the acidic gaze the calico cat had bewildered him with, reading himself to fire off his observation as quickly as possible. "Madam, I'm sure you're fully aware of how vital that this transport stays in one piece?" She nodded, backing herself against the inner fuselage to let four hard breathing Mobians run past her. "Then I ask you to have what force you brought with her and keep the enemy from coming within plasma launcher range."

Hershey looked out from her elevated perch above Lemeans on the ramp through her goggles, turned back to a degree that Lemeans saw the blaster pistol holstered at her back, then witnessed her affirming face nod. "Sargent, position your mean close to the Turbo-Lifter. Knuckles,"–the Guardian looked to her with locked eyes–"you see any stragglers, go to 'em."

But what was all said started to unravel at Lemeans' very feet. A bear had appeared amongst the second cluster of mobians, hobbling a sloth, looking near death if he wasn't already knocking on death's door step. The creature looked poorest of the poor and this aura of self-deserving sympathy lured two of the armed troopers to place their blaster rifles somewhere inside the large transports before they quickly hustled down the ramp and gently took the pale looking sloth from the boy's back. It was when the boy had disappeared inside the plane that Lemeans' world became focused. He could hear the twin turbine engines whining idly. He could see the sweat stained fur bodies of the people that past him, their skin glistening if any showed, their clothing drenched as if they where running for shelter from a rain storm. He felt his legs burning under his aching feet, never realizing until now how tired he was. Maybe this was the reward he was receiving...to finally rest when the full weight of his exhaustion was awaiting.

But he couldn't just yet, he told himself forcefully. Stabbing his cane on the formidable hot, tan soil, he limbed towards the ramp, almost getting trampled on when an aged female fox nearly ran into him, her head pointed behind her. And that's where Lemeans' went as well, stopping just shy from entering the plane itself. Dust eroded into a kicked up cloud, silhouetting the Eggbots' round contour behind it. The tail end of the last running batch was well ahead of the coming droids. It wasn't enough to make him sigh, but Lemeans felt the tension beginning to leave some.

"Start handing out water," decried a deep male voice. Lemeans stepped further inside the transport to witness the Sargent administering the order, his arms full of canteens with a hord of foreign hands reaching up for them. To the left side was the sloth, his hand getting an intravenous needle and a line placed in him with another battle hardened beaver holding the bladder of saline up high.

Christian's voice startled before sobering him from his gazing stance. "Gang way, Lemeans."

The leopard pushed himself up against the wall, reaching up over his head to grab a static line for parachuters, almost becoming surprised that Knothole did such things, when Christian with Bridget helping him, brought a pig looking too thin that his muscle mass may not hold himself up if he stood, the echidna and lynx carrying him by the feet and legs. And to Lemeans' dismay another trooper, the leopard counting him number four, placed his rifle on the deck and motioned for the Sargent to bring up a new intravenous set.

"This one needs fluids and possibly oxygen, sir!" Lemeans herd the beaver shout out to his Sargent.

Coming from his back, Lemeans turning over his cane to the left side of the plane, was Hershey's issue voice. "Just get the I.V's started, and strap them down." It was all that could be done, Lemeans concluded rightfully, watching the cat placing a few of some now very happy kids on the long red canvas bench while weaving web belts across their waists.

A tug at his shirt brought his attention around to Christian.

"Hey, Lemeans..."

The leopard followed Christian's hard, attuned gaze over the heads of the bunching stragglers trying to push themselves over the ramp. Lemeans had to sidestep some to make room, but his eyes never jostled from what Christian's had locked on.

"Hey, we need help over here!"

Flinching from the grunted shout, Lemeans' drifted his head stiffly from one horror filled sight to the next coming on the ramp. A lone wolf cub in his early teens was bringing a roughly bandaged girl zebra, dragging her underneath her arms, her shoed feet and dress dragging across the ground.

Lemeans was already laboring his way to the boy, finding Mikhail was already helping the lad when he approached him.

"Peter, where's your twin sister?" the leopard asked in a cautious, however worrisome tone flexing from his hunched position.

The young wolf hesitated for a moment, trying to catch his breath so his face could melt in fright. "I-I don't know. She was with me carrying Misses Hambert, but she said she saw David go down or something."

"No," shouted the chipmunk's voice from the center of the plane. Lemeans turned to find David amongst the larger group of mobians sitting on the metal floor. "No, I'm fine, it was one of the others that got wounded from the flying Eggpawn that pinned us down."

And that was the threshing claw of terror that Lemeans felt mauling from the sight he was now looking again towards. "Dear Aurora."

She was far enough away to put everyone in danger if they waited for her. And even then, at her pace and the mobian body Lemeans could see her struggling to inch forward across her shoulder, sending anyone to get them would still put the bots in launching range. He looked to Christian, but already found the brown furred echidna moving away from him and eyeing for one of the troopers discarded blaster rifles leaning against the fuselage. With widening eyes tugging at his face and mind, Lemeans hastily turned to Hershey, but not saying a word to her as he limped to her back. Stabbing the deck with his cane and holding himself up right as he could steady himself, he took his free right hand and gripped the blaster pistol strapped to Hershery's back, slid his thumb across to the snap...and pulled the pistol out from the holster, pushing the girl at her back.

Hershey swore she was picking up her husbands accent when on reflex she shouted, "Hey!" She felt something slide from her back, and upon reaching back, feeling and finding her pistol wasn't in its holster, she turned around to only see a lame, flicking tail disappearing in the onrushing mobians blocking her view.

For Lemeans, the leopard's last look of the girl's chocolate eyes seemed to encrust his decision that now he couldn't turn back. He'd broken a rule; "You don't take another person's pistol when their helping you." And that line had brought him to Christian, the echidna's face solid in fortitude, reason...purpose. One Lemeans was ashamed to cast away when he threw his cane up at the former Echidna Security Team Officer's chest, crushing the blaster rifle he held against him.

"Stay here, Christian," Lemeans said cooly, but with a flex of anger.

Lemeans saw the echidna's face cringe as if acid burned him. "I'm not taking anymore selfish orders from–"

"Listen well, boy...!" Lemeans held his embolden pause until Christian's even stare sobered some. "You're wife is at the bottom of something, Christian. If it wasn't for her and her brother being taken, we wouldn't have been freed because the message our saviors came to find involved your family." Lemeans saw his words struck the chord he was aiming to hear from Christian's eyes. "They've helped us, now you help them with what you know." Closing the small distance between them, Lemeans placed his head on Christian's. "Stay here; cover the escape." And with a fast turn to cut off any idea to argue with him, the leopard was beating his cane out of the plane. He didn't turn to see Christian stunned or even stiff with grief. Not even to hear if he said goodbye.

Now he was on the hunt for another echidna; one he knew was possibly by now seeing the already unfolding situation just beyond the last cluster of fleeing mobians. Lemeans already knew how far the girl wolf had to travel, and weighing in that she was getting further away from the pack, crimped his gut harder, bringing on a sudden fear that filled his inner conscience, yelling at him to limp faster. Why this was all tugging at his mind now he couldn't fathom, nor did he care. His right hand passed the blaster pistol to his left; the crimson fur of Knuckles' back was starting to stiffen from his muscles readying to propel him forward–he had seen the girl and the mobian she was struggling to support. Lemeans' breathing was elevated, his pulse rate echoing in his ears...his right hand inching up to his breast pocket. Was he going to make it? Could he make in even if he gave out a longer stride?

His right hand slammed against Knuckles' chest atop his white crest, stopping the Guardian right before his moment to run. Looking down in surprise, the echidna darted his head over to see Lemeans' eyes fixed to his like steel. Between his chest and Lemeans' palm, scratching against his silk red fur was a paper envelope. Not taking the hint, or in Knuckles case, taking it and throwing it back, he tried to push forward, never budging a muscular inch from the leopard's forceful hand pressing against his chest, his eyes wide in a gaze that was more haunting than commanding.

"Do you remember that little saying I asked you this morning?" Lemeans' asked, his voice stern in a tone like he was asking for a new friend.

Knuckles strayed his eyes to the girl slaving to keep her pace...the bots were fast approaching. "If–if..."

Lemeans' finished where the Guardian was stammering:

"If a worm doesn't eat an apple?"

The pressure was rotting at his brain, Knuckles looking on, puzzled but anxious.

"If a worm doesn't eat an apple, then he reads a book." Lemeans turned his head slightly to see the girl and the ebbing bots behind her. "If a worm eats an apple, then he reads a book!" he struggled to repeat, driving his attention back to the echidna in front of him. He never felt or thought but his face had gone pale in pleading. "Knuckles, remember this when you get to Edgewood," he said grievously. "The ferret you saw get killed yesterday...Justin!?" –he saw Knuckles nod, his pose had weakening from his ready state to bolt–"His father is a trusted friend of mine. I can't tell you what he does, or how he does it, but I trust you to deliver this envelope to him." Lemeans' gaze left the Guardian's awestruck countenance, descried the laboring girl's, then pulled his head back around. "It's dire that you hand this off. Friends of mine and some of St. John's are in serious danger."

"Why me!?"

"Because I trusted someone a long time who you resemble very much." The short pause felt like an eternity had gone by two fold. "He was an echidna...like you. Very much like you. Not in fur or body, but in purpose, resolve and soul." Did he understand? "Okay?..." The gulp wasn't assuring but he couldn't have everything. "And when you deliver the message and these people, you forget about me, and you forget about what you saw here. You keep it to yourself and away from the ones you love. Do you understand me?"

Knuckles clutched the paper at his chest but held true to Lemeans' hand. "What you are doing?" he asked in a soft, almost quivering tone.

The way Lemeans' said it, softer, almost breathing it, but in a tone of vain Knuckles never knew could be conceived in a voice, made the Guardian loosen his grip to the leopard's hand:

"My sentence...for all my deeds."

His pivot around to the north took his cold stare away from Knuckles, leaving the chill they both felt hanging in the hot arid heat. Taking the pistol back in his right and working his wooden cane with sheer will power, Lemeans maneuvered his stare at the girl. Her pointed ears could be seen; the prairie dog she had across her shoulder; the bots closing behind them. Four steps and five landings with his cane saw the last mobian pass him to freedom. His strides were increasingly harder to muster. But the girls blue eyes were becoming clear to his. Stopping, he looked back to Knuckles, finding the young echidna giving out his motivating hands to help the last refugee's. For Lemeans that was all he could see him; his white mitts waving in the air while his red fur glimmered in the X-ray heat.

The girl's labored breathing flowed to his ears, beckoning him to turn his attention to her. His eyes fell on the closing Eggbot, its broadsword rasing over its head with both hands, ready to cut her and the mobian down.

Dropping down across his cane, Lemeans grunted as he desperately tried to lower his injured left leg at the knee, springing his right leg behind him all the while placing his right forearm over his left wrist that held his cane like a supporting poll in a shrine. Closing his left eye and focusing his right down the post sight of Hershey's pistol, his finger stroked the trigger as gently as he could. The lone shot kicked from his hand...sailing to the bots' head where upon the driving inertia of the bolt knocked the driod backwards, its legs leaving the ground, its whole body still moving forward from its own momentum until it landed on the dirt plain, tumbling over itself until it lifelessly ceased to move.

The next Eggbot that his wandering eyes targeted came just to the left of the one he'd slain, possessing nothing but its arms and legs. A slight adjustment in its direction just by moving his right foot over slightly and Lemeans pulled his index finger back twice, both rounds landing square at the torso but having the second shot cause the dead tumble of the bot to the ground.

"Lemeans!" cried out the girl. He didn't see that she'd struggle beside him, and still moving. He was going to tell her to keep going, tell her she doesn't need to worry about him but to go. It was, though, the prairie dog helping her push his own weight, his left leg bleeding profusely from a large gash that claimed his ragged blue jeans over his tan, now blood soaked fur coat, that looked to Lemeans.

"Go child...go–don't...don't look back."

Eyes forward, and finger ready at the trigger, his training from ten years past came to him painstakingly slow. Twisting to the right lined up a Eggbot posed to touch off its plasma arm. Lemeans fired off a shot but to his greater anxiety it only smudged the bots' paint. Taking better care over his cane and left arm, his second shot landed just above the chest, spinning the bot over in its termination.

And behind it came the terror he was waiting for. An Eggbot with a plasma launcher riding over its shoulder exhumed itself from the thinly spread group assaulting Lemeans. The bot stopped, Lemeans twisting further to the right to get a better shot at him, halting suddenly when the twinging burn of his left leg grabbed him to cease. His thigh cried in pain, begging him to reposition his weight, but he couldn't listen. With his eyes watering, his arm starting to quiver, he could only force the order for his finger to squeeze–

The blaster bucked in his hand and the bolt sliced at the bots' left arm, its launcher aimed at the transport until the driving shot spun him around, pointing the tube at its comrades that were changing their assault to Lemeans. And the launcher rocketed a red plasma orb at the ground, thundering a blast that erupted dirt, fire and robotic pieces in the air.

But the explosive force was too close to Lemeans. Under the added weight his cane snapped under him, releasing its support and sending its master to the quaking ground. He could hear noises. A ringing pitch at first but then it faded to light droplets of metal landing on the very ground beside him. Specs of dirt had lodged in his eyes, fighting the fiercest battle between tears and his eyelids to open. His heart was beating faster than he ever knew it could. Then he heard a whining pitch.

The struggle to open his eyes favored his sight to see the girl getting helped on the ramp and in the wake of the transport was the sign its engines were firing up–jet wash was starting to kick up the loose–

He felt heavy, running footsteps pounding up to him, making him roll over in haste, finding that the pistol was still attached to his right hand, bringing it up to level three shots at a green Eggbot that was nearly on top of him. When it fell, it nearly crushed his leg.

Using what was left of his cane, Lemeans climbed to his feet, placing as much of his weight on his right leg to try to hop–falling quickly as soon as he tried. And when his senses became attuned again, he found himself seeing a bot sprinting through the lingering dust cloud he helped stir up, broadsword in its hands. Taking his cane and jutting it to the Mobian soil, he stood as fast as he could, bringing the pistol around and aimed the front sight at center mass before squeezing the trigger. The shot went wide, missing the bot completely. Working for a second, Lemeans jerked the trigger back this time, but his body turned cold when the pistol didn't buck in his hand. He forced the trigger back again...and all was still. Turning the pistol briefly over, he looked at it with a mild disappointment that boardered closely to grief. His peripheral vision heightened, descrying the charging Eggbot, its sword posed for an underhand slice from its right side.

Yet, from seeing this, something sang in his mind to turn around, to drop the pistol as he slowly limped around, that something even telling him to drop his snapped cane, like he was discarding his worldly possessions and letting Mobius have them for charity. He didn't want to see it coming. The tension in his mind, yelling, screaming for him to run trembled immensely through his body. Deep down his primal instincts for survival were unraveling in his gut. It forced to him to take a step with his right, to drag his long ago shattered leg when he was just ten years old, climbing a tree; remembering the call of his mother crying up to him. He didn't listen until he fell.

Maybe that was why he wasn't panicking, dragging himself away from the fright, the apprehensive anticipation. His dilated eyes focused on the open ramp of the Turbo-Lifter. It hadn't risen. He tried to wave his hand up, motioning for them to go ahead, but the fidgeting hand never left its place bestride his waist. The heavy pounding behind him grew angered, closer. The voice in his mind growing fainter with another drag of his left foot, single stride with his right. And yet he breathed normally. Not even a pant in desperation left his dry lips.

His last step saw to his eyes shutting in defeat, shooting open in sheer pain when his back muscles caved viciously in a sharp spasm of pain, and his chest cracking open with violet blood spurting from the rammed sword that jutted from his breast plate. Lemeans' urge to breath was met with his teeth chattering, his lungs wrenching to flex for air, finding the initial reflex conceding into a moaning gurgle. His muscles were fighting his will power to surrender, calling upon Mobius to help him settle to the ground in the dripping pool of his life's elixir beneath him. The bot saw to this, Lemeans spurting up blood from his mouth when the driod twisted the sword in his chest and yanked it out from his back, taking the leopard's freewill from his body. But yet it was the sword holding him upright, watching his knees buckle the instant the pain gripped his mind and smashed his brain and him to the tan floor of Mobius.

"Rosebud..." he gurgled in a faint whisper, rolling over like a tossed linen from a bed onto his left side, gasping for air, but none inflating his drowning lungs. Every beat of his heart became slower, muffled, feeling this from the single beats intensifying the throes of his throbbing chest wall. Then the pain began to fade with the lightness of a gentle touch of a feather. But his mind had to have been drifting, perhaps explaining why he repeated something so significant to the hot, smoked air around him. "Rosebud," he trembled out, still in a whisper, but maturing into a whimper. A ringing sound resounded with it, his eyes looking forward, seeing the transport was starting to move while its ramp closed...the bot charging towards it with its blood ridden sword, Lemeans' mind smiling knowing it was futile. "I'm coming Rosebud," he fought to say, still holding his knowing smile. "I'm coming too, Cookie."

And he was smiling when darkness took hold of the spark in his eyes.

Christian was close to squeezing the trigger of the rifle. His right eye was centered on the scope, centering the crosshair on the bot. He fidgeted. The Lifter picked up speed. The ramp was closing with a aghast groan.

A white mitt gently weighed the rifle down away from Christian's face.

The perspective brought on his tears, watching the sealing of the ramp thin the outside world into a dimmed light...watching Lemean's hunched over body blink out with it as a speck in the tan world they were leaving; straying a hand up over his head to hang on to the static line when the plane angled up in its climb. And to his great bewilderment, all had become silent, save for the heaving engines. No shouts of triumph, no applause of thanks...and worst to him, no sighs of great relief. The whole compartment just laid silent.

"Christian..."

He didn't turn his head, holding his fixed, harsh stare of remorse at the closed ramp.

"Christian," said Knuckles again, laying his mitt on the brown echidna's left shoulder. This got him to turn, but sullenly. And even then none of them spoke. Christian just laid his eyes on the floor, searching for a empty spot to sit amongst the closely huddled mass he helped to free. Yet he still didn't feel victorious. Finding a nook on the red canvas bench, he waded his way cautiously, placing the rifle on the floor after fingering the safety and sat down. Then he finally sighed.

"Knuckles," called out Hershey, leaning her head over from the raised cockpit entrance.

The Guardian stepped carefully in any spot his shoes could fit in while holding on to the static line for support, crossing the bay tediously and bracing the narrow walls to climb the four steep steps, and peering into the cockpit. "We need to go back for Sonic," he said, finding the request more of a reminder.

"Tails has him," Rotor replied from the right seat. "And welcome aboard, Knux."

A disdained sigh broiled the air. "I'm going to beat the ever-living snot out of him for leaving us!" Knuckles bit down, however disciplined. "Where was he?"

"Chill, Knuckles," Rotor said almost scathing, which surprised Knuckles completely, never hearing the walrus actually lash out in anger. "Sonic had his own trouble...probably should thank him for leading away a few of those flying Eggbots." Knuckles watched Rotor check over his right shoulder, then the instrument panel, then back to him. "Where we going?" he asked very calmly, like their previous conversation never transpired.

Knuckles turned back inside the crowed bay. "David?"

The chipmunk stood up. "Yes," he answered breathlessly.

"Where's Edgewood?"

"On the edge of the Great Forest. About hundred miles east from here."

"How far east," Rotor asked, leaning over.

"I'm not sure, but I'm telling you its on the very edge of the forest."

Rotor turned to Hershey, who was almost dwarfed in the large padded, olive green seat she was sitting in, her right hand on the twin throttles and her left leveling the control yoke. "Looks like its dead reckoning flying from here. Bank east but keep a southernly direction."

She nodded, then looked behind her to Knuckles. "Better hold onto something. My turns can be a little jerky."

Placing his right foot on the right wall and bracing his back against the wall behind him, he felt his world roll slightly when Hershey banked the plane to the right. When the horizon became an inclining hill and the passing ground that was turning green from its tan state moved across the cockpit window like a picture on a moving slide, Knuckles drifted his entire gaze back to the bay. The stillness of everyone around him was astonishing to his silent-self. He didn't hear a cry of sorrow exhume from the huddled mobians. Their fur color ranged from black to pale, filling the spectrum with yellow, brown, and the occasional odd green or purple.

Yet his eyes were yearning with a color that wasn't at all present. He didn't realize this until he has asked himself why he'd taken great care into seeing every patch of fur and skin, species and seasoned face. Turning his head back inside the cabin, trying to ignore the background whine of the turbine engines, bracing himself for a jolt that seemed the plane hit a rock, Knuckles felt his heart sink when his mouth opened.

"Where's Julie-Su?"

My dear editor nearly cried from Lemeans' death. After the final cut, she just might go all the way. Personally, I love editing than I do writing now; I can go back and really clean up and refine the chapter and dialog better than trying to come up with on the very fly. But now, I've run out of edits to do, so I need to make some more.

Sara: Thank you for the very kind words. I'm doing my utmost best to keep the story flowing and powerful. I've been trying new things to keep the action moving, though I still have doubts if it's really needed. I'm also glad you've checked out Knuckles Haven. I'm there on the board and sometimes colaberate with other story writers. With that said, Knuckles Haven is where Aleutian first appeared and the sites creator pushing me to keep it going. Really they are the same story, but tamed down. So here, we get the full inner workings of my brain that's mostly geared for true life, while I have to write "censored" versions there. To find the fan-fan-art, look for the the art's page in the "fan's section" and find "Professor Ken," the same cool and incredibly talented and intelligent minded writer and reviewer here.

Azure Inu: Glad to see you review again and glad to see you are keeping up with my works. And thanks for your kind review (and letting me know I didn't fudge it up.)