Hello all and welcome.

Not the regular editing format I'm used to doing here, but I'm trying to keep you all hanging TOO MUCH!

Not really much here to say but enjoy and please review but I had a major hassle with the title of the chapter. In the end, I wanted to go back to the quote that helped brought me this story. Well, the origin of it.

Disclaimer: I own nothing of Sonic the Hedgehog and his friends.

Hurt

By Mauser

"I hope she's okay."

Knuckles' thought felt more transposed to the image he saw himself become: back resting on the narrow entrance from the large cargo room to the spacious cockpit cabin just a foot from him, arms folded tight against his chest, chin residing on his white crest of guardianship, lastly, his purple eyes lost in a solidarity his body and mind matched...pain of foreboding premonitions. But for him, he was experience all of this with deep sympathy squeezing out of his heart. The dread if worst fears are realized. The scarcity of hope that was becoming even harder to find. The lost feeling of not knowing if one could cope with restarting life. The darkening light of self-perseverance in the wake of a complete let-go. This had all transposed to him; in the flesh and in his driving heart. Yet, as he sighed beneath his breath, he knew his eyes were conveying sympathy, only regretting that he was glad he didn't have to suffer from it this round. He could look at all that he had felt before with an uneasiness that actually came with ease, for he was in the freedom that the individual creature surrounded by the still, pooled souls didn't know he was watching him. With every breath that seemed to be exhaled with a unnoticeable sob to the inexperienced eye, every fall of the chest that hunched the back over the body in inner distress, Knuckles knew exactly what Christian was going through. He knew exactly what the feeling of not knowing someone he truly cared about was dead, or struggling to stay alive.

He could read that very thought from Christian's straining, however, emotionless face.

"I hope she's okay."

His vocal chords had a soft stream excite them, jolting his senses to the forefront.

"Hey, Christian." Knuckles' voice didn't lift a head. "Hey, EST officer Christian!" he nearly shouted over the constant whine of the engines. But it did the trick, though. The brown echidna's head rose slowly, lifting away from his chest and from what Knuckles could see, his gloom. And like giving a reward for this, he lowered his voice with his head. "Need you for a 'sec."

Christian lumbered to his feet and wadded through the huddled mass before him, stepping lightly Knuckles observed, perhaps meticulously so not to trample on anymore feelings he had left. It was at this brief moment in transition that Knuckles reworked the gears in his head, subduing all the past conflicts and tribulations to why Lemeans worked so hard to keep this one and only echidna in the Plain's camp alive and present. When this lone echidna stepped onto the first of three steps up to Knuckles, did the Guardian relax his stance and gave more room so Christian's timid voice could reach the ears that really mattered.

"Yes, Guardian?" Christian greeted with a undergrowth of sorrow lacing his heavy tone.

"Please, man," Knuckles waved, "you can cut that out here."

A knitted brow in confusion. "Then why did you call me?"

Knuckles held his breath for maybe a second, and Christian caught it, his stare dissipating between them. "The reason why we came here–"

The weighted voice of Rotor plowed through the soft undertone each echidna was now trying to score. "Hey, what's this about 'why we came here?'"

Turning his head over his shoulder to the cockpit, and grabbing Christian by the arm, Knuckles spoke to the two occupants in the cabin, hosting the brown echidna so Hershey and Rotor could see his face. "This is Christian...his wife was taken two days ago."

"Two days?" Hershey said in a musing voice, almost startled when she stole a look to Christian and Knuckles. "That was when we intercepted–"

"Yeah, we know," Knuckles jumped in, skipping past the already trivial, but glad he really wasn't going to have to remind. "Rotor? Did you all get anything new from that encryption?"

A shake of the walrus' head, though his eyes were forward across the windscreen. "Just tid-bits of simple words, nothing more conclusive."

With all this, Knuckles lowered his voice to squeeze in the one word he knew was still fresh on their minds. "And Chameleon?"

"Nothing new on that either," Rotor replied. He was ready to add the recent few messages until a inhaling breath asked for a pause:

"I might," said Christian almost below a whisper laced with something resembling fortitude.

This got what Knuckles was aiming for in reaction; Rotor jerked his head over, nearly taking the yoke with him, while Hershey's full attention was grabbed in a whisk and now forcing her chocolate eyes to pierce through her goggles.

In turn, Knuckles brought his even face to Christian. "Okay, from the top, man."

Watching the brown echidna swallow almost hurt, but seeing his determination come back from it was nearly exhilarating. "The day before you came, we were forced to watch ten other mobains get executed because two of your people wanted to break out."

"What people? Ours? From Knothole?" Hershey asked–almost spitting rapidly–coming from what Knuckles knew contributed to her husband's better interests.

A nod from the brown echidna's head.

"Any names?" Hershey shot next.

"They said they were from Knothole but they kept their names close to themselves." Christian turned his head back to the cargo floor, Knuckles watching his arms lay still down at his sides, as if the former-EST officer stripping away what little defense he had in against his inner-tranquility while gathering courage to inflict himself with a coming pain. "All I know is that they seemed really hard pressed to get out...and fast."

Rotor faced him with an honest look of caring, though his voice reflected cause for alarm. "Did you think it had anything to do with the cipher or our problem?"

A shake from Christian's head, but this time exhuming a puzzled look across his muzzle. "Cipher? I don't know anything about a cipher expect what the Guardian has told me–and that isn't much." Waiting, he saw the walrus got the rut of his observation before he continued. "But..." He swallowed the tightness down in his throat when Kripta's scared, fleeting face flashed in his mind. "I think my wife and my brother-in-law might have something to do with it."

From the corner of his eyes Knuckles witnessed Rotor and Hershey doing a meek double take between them while still focusing on the controls all the while he moved closer to Christian with a crisper stare. Knuckles really wasn't liking the coming drilling he was about to press on to this shattered EST officer, but he knew he had to keep what ever ball Christian was on going for a larger sake than his feelings. "And when did this happen?...Before or after the executions?"

"After?" Christian replied, his stare holding away from the Guardian, his teeth becoming gritted.

"And this was being watched?"

A quick but distant voice. "Always."

Rotor shoved his face inside the entrance way from the cockpit. "Which means so was your prisonbreak!"

Knuckles for a brief instance rolled his eyes. "Yeah...but."

The Guardian's held sentence motioned Hershey to look at him. "Yeah, but what?"

"You don't know about the fueling depot, do you?" Knuckles snorted, leaning back on the small metal wall.

"No, what fueling depot?"

Christian answered gravely. "We've been drilled and lately refining fuel for most of Eggman's Eggfleet. The fueling process was a new gig as of a week ago. Two ships came in and left about two days ago."

Knuckles added with a minuet snarl, "And Sonic said he saw four more coming in for some go-go juice,"

"Okay," Rotor put in resignedly, keeping his head forward this time, "so what does this have to do with Chameleon? Is this just a side operation? Something to divert us?"

But his head didn't stay locked at the windscreen when Christian's emotionless voice slithered inside the cockpit.

"My wife and brother-in-law are Chameleons."

If Hershey was aiming for a plainer voice, she failed with a leaking shrill that came behind it from the snap of her head to the echidnas. "Say what!?" She saw her snip bark coward Christian's head, eyes seeking the floor. "And they were taken?" she asked with a compassionate voice she felt gifted to have drawn up.

"Yes," Christian replied, nearly breaking down.

"Okay," Rotor said, twitching his head back and forth from the instrument panel to Christian and Knuckles, and back again, "so what would Eggman want with two chameleons?"

A short pause from the four seemed to be an intruder rather than a reprieve. Watching Christian didn't help Knuckles psyche either as he was trying to remember some far flung observation from the night before. The brown echidna's muzzle was turning pale, his body dramatically looking frail all the while Knuckles felt helpless to stop it. But it did help him remember one factor.

"Sickness; a different voice."

"You said you were all being watched during the executions?" Knuckles had asked almost under his breath.

Christian released a shallow nod. "Yes...a voice was telling us all this would happen again. But it didn't sound right," he said on a puzzled note, looking up to the Guardian.

A low monotone voice enforced Knuckles' searching eyes. "Yeah, David had said it sounded nasally."

Another nod from Christian mixed with sureness this time. "Yea, he did. And even with those poor speakers at the camp, it didn't even sound like Eggman if he was sick." He turned his attention to Knuckles, eyes looking for a past enlightenment. "What was it Antoine had said last night? It sounded like someone else–"

THUMP!!

Knuckles shifted his body just as fast as his mind was sprung to find where the muffled thud had come from. No sooner had his eyes peered to the left side of where his senses pinpointed to the origin, to that of what had etched in his mind, and dispelling of what for the longest time he swore he was the only capable person in the world to be known for such a look, was that of Hershey: She was flexing her left fist, wrestling her fingers to break the ball her hand had become while attempting to resettle it back on the yoke with her other hand. Her heavy breathing was just faint enough to hear, her mouth open to seep in the air as her lips and teeth were on the verge of chattering. And her stare could have melted the glass in front of her, much less dissolve every atom that composed her goggles.

And her voice could have liquified the hardest of metals known on Mobius. Soft to the touch of the ears, but jagged to those he heard it:

"Not again."

Christian's voice nearly rattled Knuckles. "What do you mean, not again?"

Hershey's eyes faltered, nearly shutting them in despair who only Knuckles and Rotor were beginning to understand why. "He's doing it again," she cringed, her voice laying into a seethe.

"Don't be quick to judge, Hershey," Rotor said under a quieter, optimistic tone.

A timid shake of her head. "No, Rotor. Not with him. Not with what he did to me. Not with how he left us."

Christian stepped up to the cockpit, his eyes burning. "Hey, my wife is involved with this–Mind leveling!"

But he was ignored.

"Hershey, we don't know for sure," Rotor replied on a note of reflex. "It could have been a bot with a bad voice box for all we know."

A tilt of her head that brought her scathing eyes to the walrus. "I won't put it past him, Rotor. He has more treachery up his sleeves than what Ivo could possibly ever possess in his girth." A quick inhale. "I'm sure my husband would bet the royal jewels on it too."

Christian raised his voice, his head darting to the walrus and over to the calico cat. "Who are we talking about?"

Knuckles voice was tempered. "A lackey!" –Christian's head turned to look over his shoulder at the stiffened Guardian, his arms folding at his chest– "A very dangerous lackey."

"A lackey?" Christian peered back inside the cockpit. "How's a lackey dangerous...specially from the voice I heard? Sounds like he could never amount to anything."

Hershey's head rolled over to the brown echidna like a watch jewel. Christian had never seen any graver eyes. "He has...he's killed his uncle once before, and in the process, nearly whipped us out and killed our Heiress, Princess Sally. He's as much of a weasel as a certain bounty hunter we know."

Knuckle wrestled for an even voice, "I'd bump him up above Nack with the way this is going,"

Rotor's head fidgeted. "Yeah, where is this going? We have two chameleons that have been taken," –He leaned over to Christian– "my apologies, friend." And it was met with a subtle nod, but not one to crack the anger in the EST officer's face. "Okay, yes that is a match with the cipher, but it doesn't explain why he's using two ciphers–" Rotor's stop at mid-sentence grabbed Christian's and Hershey's attention. When the walrus nodded to himself he brought his voice a little deeper, squirming in his seat as if bracing himself to expel it:

"Two ciphers–one we can read, one we can't."

Hershey brought her eyes to Rotor. "It's two prong, Rotor. It always has with him. One Eggman can read, one he can't."

Like if his head was floating moss on a turbulent shore, Rotor's nodding head came in ripples. "Yeah, Hershey...he's at it again." With a quick glance over to the right wing, he went on, "We need to tell Knothole of this fast."

"Not until we get there," Hershey observed in a steep voice. "We say anything over unsecured transmission, we could start whatever is going on faster. We need to drop our cargo and break for Knothole as soon as mobian possible."

"Okay," Rotor said nodding his head, "and hope Shadow and Espio find something."

Knuckles voice hammered in surprise. "Say what? Where's Espy, and what's his he doing with Shadow!?"

Hershey and Rotor traded glances with each other before Hershey became the victor and broke away to Knuckles. "Geoff has them chasing after the cipher."

Rotor jumped in, almost sounding excited. "Yeah, we were able to get a good idea where many of those messages were going, but it wasn't pinpoint. Hershey's husband though–and I'd hate to be interrogated by him," –Hershey nearly laughed– "got Shadow's head to remember something and put him on a warpath."

"In essence," Hershey interjected calmly, "Geoffrey has Shadow out looking for revenge but with a purpose for us."

With wide eyes filled with astonishment, and mouth trying not to gap open, Knuckles voice flowed with shock. "How did he manage that, and got Espio to go along."

Hershey's smirk held a knowing twinkle in her face. "My husband is gifted." And with that thought, her head turned to another of her Geoffrey's kind. "Christian, right?" The brown echidna nodded his head before looking back to Knuckles for assurance, which was given with motivating purple hues. "Christian, I hope you understand of the questions I'm about to ask you, but we need to narrow down a few other things before we go head long into what we are fearing–you understand?" A quick, but shaky nod. "Okay, how did you three get captured?"

From the way Christian had hunched his back and lowered his head, Knuckles wasn't sure if he needed to shove him to go for the questions.

A weak voice came from the brown echidna's lips. "We and a few of the many other species on Angel Island were just trying to survive while resisting Eggman's and the Dingoes' rule. We had no way to connect to the Legion or of that with the Brotherhood."

"How did you get separated from the EST?" Knuckles asked in an avuncular tone.

He could see the pain the question brought to Christian; the stripped officer nearly buckled to the floor from the memory. "The fall of Echidnaolopis." His voice choked, tears trying to fall. "Everything happened so fast, all I could think was to get my family and at least try to get them to an evacuation zone and hold the line there. But as soon as I got Kripta and her brother Anzio, most of the city was overtaken by the bots and Dingos." His voice shuttered as did his body from his crumbling emotions. "Guardian...there were dead everywhere...and I couldn't do a thing but run out of the city. I didn't leave my post. I was under order's by Constable Remington to get my family and anyone else I could find and lead them to an evacuation zone. But there were none...there was nothing."

Knuckles was about to place a warming mitt over Christian's shoulder, but Hershey pressed her voice through the cockpit. "And how did you all get captured?"

A shake of his head to bring on his next irritable memories. "The Eggbots had tracked us down from a few raids I helped orchestrate. By the time we were grabbing our weapons they'd killed at least half of the population I'd helped save." He brought his eyes up and over to Knuckles. "It ended just as fast as it began, Guardian. They brought in their transport ships, shackled us and took us to the mainland."

"How many echidnas went with you?" Knuckles asked, his mind now weighing on the sake of his own people. He was now hating this questioning more the Christian knew. It was the charge and picture of his failure to his people.

"It was just me, Guardian. I was the only echidna taken...the other four that fled with me...I don't know."

"And where did they take you from there?" Hershey went on, her head straight at the windscreen. If she'd look at him one more time, she'd stop herself from asking anymore. She had to be distant from emotions. She had to be distant from compassion. Other lives were on the line.

"Straight to the Great Plains. It's were all combatants are sent." A shallow gulp. "Lemeans told me when I arrived that Eggman figured the strong would be better suited for labor rather than his Egg-grapes."

Knuckles poked in before Hershey could continue. "Then why all the children and mothers?"

"They've been sent there for the past month. From what Justin and David said they were all from Edgewood. How they got captured, I don't know."

"Okay," Hershey broke in, "so how long have you been there?"

"Two months, milady."

"Just two?" Hershey asked in surprise, however her voice leaning.

"Yes, milady, just two months."

A moment passed in silence for Hershey, her eyes rolling with her mind. "Alright, that I needed."

"So, am I through?" Christian asked Hershey in a relieved tone?

"Yea, you can go back and have a seat, sir."

Turning his back to her and Rotor he said, "I hope I had helped."

"You did, Christian," Rotor replied encouraging for the echidna's soul. "You were of great service to us in this. You've opened a lot of doors."

A nod was all he could manage before stepping down.

Knuckles was there, finally offering his mitt to his shoulder with gracious, tuned eyes. "You gonna be alright?"

"I don't know...I'm praying she's alive, but I don't know if my touch to her has left me. I just don't know."

The tears came. For the life of Knuckles the tears came and he wished his would come too. But something held them back; something had more control over his own inner emotions that being outward was a far off place to reach. So, he just squeezed Christian's shoulder a little harder, tried to give him a smile but it falling short of the mark, and held to the other echidna until he had stepped away.

Knuckles didn't have the heart to look back to see if Christian just dropped where he stood or reclaimed his seat on the canvas bench beside Mikhail. Instead, he took the two needed steps to press his mug inside the cockpit. Hershey was still smoldering while Rotor went to sightseeing over the right wing, Knuckles guessing correctly that the walrus was also putting logic to its paces. "So what does all this mean?" the Guardian finally asked.

"I don't know," Hershey slipped in with a pensive voice. "If they were there for two months, then...I don't know, Knuckles. I want to say spur of the moment of Snively's part–but this could be a long awaited hatched plan, possibly thought through while he was soaking up the space with us. But..." Hershey wavered her head before casting a stare over the left wing. "I don't know. I'm not him, and I'm glad for that."

From there, silence, save for the twin turbine engines at a steady run. Between the three of them not one stare, glance, or nod was exchanged. Only eyes forward, looking to the higher clouds above them in exchange for troubled thoughts. The horizon had a haze that seemed to signal where the curvature of Mobius began however obscuring the shallow crest to either side of the windscreen. From Knuckles' stance, both his arms supporting him like a bridge across the two pilot seats, he could see the land was beginning to flatten again, remembering that David had said they were to fly over a canyon of some kind before getting to Edgewood. That bit was ending; the large patch of flat white dirt, or sand, was just ahead from the tawny formations they were passing...and beyond that, clear bright but dark green.

A chirp blurted from the console, bringing with the sound a red flashing light from the deep center of the console.

"Transmission," Rotor announced almost as a scoff.

"If it's Amadeus, don't say a thing about Snively," Hershey practically ordered.

"Don't have to tell me twice," Rotor countered, reaching over with his right hand and pushing down the blinking light.

A jingle Knuckles knew there was no hope for a song to be made by it followed, and with it a loud and irritated voice:

"Okay, I just got done grilling Sonic! Is one of his cohorts around over there?" thundered in Amadeus Prower.

Knuckles inhaled to qual his coming rage. "Hey, you know what, just open the door and I'll fly home from here," he droned, stopping his coming conviction when he hand twitch and Lemeans' letter scratched at his fur under his mitt.

The reaction from the two bystanders was almost comical, if not done out of sympathy: both heads had turned to him, trying hard not to roll their eyes. Though looking at him it was Hershey with an air of wanting to be absent from what was coming who stole the show to bring a serious act. "Knuckles is here with us on the bridge."

"What were my orders from the other day?" Amadeus cued in like he was physically there and just spied Knuckles between Hershey and Rotor in a dwindling crowd.

Crossing his arms firmly across his chest, the Guardian beamed a harder gaze than what he knew Amadeus was possibly possessing. If the fox wanted condescending attributes, he was going to get them from the best player on the planet. "Things had changed," he replied after the moment it took to apply a stiff structure of his body.

"And I understand," came the General's reply, this time sounding a little calmer and rewarding. "But I can't stress as to have some patients. If they suspect we can trace their messages or have some of their ciphers figured out–"

"Yea, I know, General: they blast the satellites and they redo the codes," Knuckles cut-in taking a step further to place himself in the cockpit, looking at the console with sharpening eyes–if that was where the mike was. "I might have been hatched during the day, but I wasn't hatched yesterday. We did what we had to do, and what we've been doing before I helped yank you back here to take over."

There was a silence that both Hershey and Rotor wondered if Amadeus had clicked off the comm-link and silently bided weather Tails was hearing his father for the first time cursing to make a sailor blush. But a heavy sigh came through the speaker. "Forgive me Guardian...but the situation on Mobius has changed–and this fox hasn't adapted yet."

A slow nod came from Knuckles, but he knew his voice had to tell Prower that he had accepted his apology. "We need to talk about this on the ground," he said in soft tone almost like silk.

"I can assure that will happen," came Amadeus' not so subtle tone. Knuckles felt it was more ordained as a promise and not a threat.

"Anyways..." returned Prower's voice but filtered of any enriched argument tones. "Tail's needs to speak with you."

A short air of stillness to allow cleaner breaths to be heard from Rotor and Hershey before a quieter, however vigilant younger voice jumped from the overhead speaker above Rotor. "Hey guys, you need to start dropping to about five-thousand feet, and adjust heading to..." Knuckles's eyes drifted up to the speaker as he knew Tails was looking down at his gauges from whatever craft he was in. For once, he thought he had a flicker of sympathy for Sonic riding with all three male Prowers. "Or is it the other way around...poor guys."

"Adjust to heading one-two-one, Rotor."

The only girl leaned forward at the instrument panel. "Tails, it's Heshey, we're is this Edgewood. A guy named David gave us a few general directions–"

Amadeus' voice cut in a little excited–taking on a different person in Knuckles' ears. "We have it in the data banks. Had to request it from Nicole, this place and file are old."

"But you know about this place?" Hershey nearly gasped.

"Knew about it...Edgewood was a refugee colony I helped establish during the first shots of the Great War." A soft chuckle echoed from the speaker. "I'm actually surprised it's still a thriving village from what Nicole had said about it."

The sound of fur, flesh, bone and fur again bounced through the cock-pit with an exaggerated grunt. When Knuckles' head turned with Rotor's, they both saw Hershey's hand slapping up against her forehead. "Yeah, now I remember...Edgewood. Geoffrey said there was a little town he was devastated that he couldn't help at the very edge of the Great Forest," she said, sounding absentmindedly, removing her hand from her brow. "Only could a few times. Said he remembered the place from something his dad, Ian, had said."

"Geoffrey's father was more optimistic than I, or the King was about our situation. He was almost deathly wrong." Amadeus' voice left with a suddenness that attuned Knuckles' more than it was–realizing now that he was leaning in further beside Hershey and Rotor with his mitts clasped at either seat. He could hear voices being rapidly exchanged. "Hey, Tails is telling me we need to cut the chatter," Amadeus returned, sounding a little more plain.

Hershey had by now glanced over her left shoulder and was looking down. "Yeah, roger that, Prower. Got you on our left wing now."

"Okay, it's not to far from here. There's a large bare clearing from the canyons east of the canyons we're flying over now and then the beginnings of the Great Forest. Shouldn't be hard to miss any of the structures from there."

"Roger," Rotor replied this time, picking up his hand from the yoke and placing his thumb on the red light he'd pressed early directly in front of him. "Turbo-Lifter out." And he pressed it and the static and Amadeus' voice went silent.

"Well, that went better than I was dreading," Hershey scoffed almost immediately.

With his head still forward, scanning with his lavender eyes at the coming green expanse, Knuckles said with a low, blunt voice, "It isn't over, yet."

Negative gravitation forces felt like a strong hand, lifting up at his stomach and gradually shoving it skyward toward's his heart. For a moment, the Guardian thought it was some form of punishment until he felt his body began to sway left toward Hershey, his eyes searching down at her arms and hands to see them pushing the yoke forward towards the panel and turning the twin handles to the right. The horizon had dipped and banked, like traveling up-hill on an up-sloping bank towards the south in an easterly direction. The textures of the land were of a vibrancy that Knuckles for the time his eyes had finally took in the sight of the ebbing white sand, to tawny earth, to a darkening shade of green that exploded further out to a point that the blue overcast of the curvature of the atmosphere and the ground of mobius met. It all seemed to be of on plain of twin existence that the line was faintly hard to see. The sun was starting her last leg to darkness. To obscurity. And he felt the natural waning of his sense and physical strength eloping into fatigue. How he wanted to stay awake and alert. He wanted to fall asleep when she returned. It was his now dying purpose in this day before it ended.

And with his mind freshly tracing over her pink, fur texture and physic, his voice was already escaping away from his lips. "Any word from Julie-Su?"

Just the way Hershey had responded and with such quickness begged Knuckles to wonder if she had forgotten the pang in his heart. "No, nothing. Probably won't until they either get back to Knothole or they are back on our side of the hemisphere."

He slumped. He sighed breathlessly. His arms at his shoulder cuffs began to burn with the added stress he was inducing himself to. But he kept his weak position straddled between the seats as his form of torture to deviate the pain away from his suffocating heart.

"Hey, I see it," said Rotor brightly, throwing his hand and index finger out to the windscreen. "One, o'clock."

With the help of Rotor's enthraled voice, Knuckles pressed up on the seats' backs and rose to pan his eyes to the right. Amongst the green he was entranced with before, speckles of tan and white didn't match the foliage backdrop. But from his vantage point and still being far away that was all he could discern. "Are you sure?" Knuckles asked, soon after kicking himself even after asking the same question already.

"Red," Rotor began, the Guardian smiling as the walrus did his best Sonic impression, "I'm way past sure that's Edgewood."

Hershey let in on a more grievous tone. "Better sit in the back and strap in. That landing we did out in the Great Plains was a little rough, and we were light."

Turning his head back, and making a displeasing, innocent face at his choices before returning looking back to the black and white cat. "Yeah, sure."

He moved off the steps with as much grace as a stocky shouldered football player might mingle in a quilt show. Wyn came to mind with his own movements. Within two steps he was surrounded at his calves and knees with much different souls he didn't remember rescuing from the half hour that had since past. They looked warmer with bliss than scarred from their ordeals. They seemed rested, like they were ready for an ordinary day at some common job. Not beaten, tattered...beyond the reaches of hope. Over the dull roar of the twin turbine engines he swore he heard laughter. He swore his attuned eyes were picking out smiles and conversations. But dismayed that it was all scattered before him.

With another sweep of his eyes a truer picture came to him; they were all the same people. Still he could pick out glum faces and bodies akin to disintegrated rocks, still holding the shape of mobians large and small, but wrecked with the tiredness, the despair he thought had vanished. Why didn't those few smiles permeate in the air and uplift the rest of the people? Was it him being the one obstructing this? He could picture himself standing like he was, and the picture did bother him; stiff with uncertainty, closed with his emotions.

And when he saw himself clunch his white mitts into bold fist in frustration, he felt the top of his hand get scratched. "Paper. The envelope!" he shouted straight to himself. His fingers worked faster than his brain, pinching gently just inside the cuff at his wrist and pulling out Lemean's last mark on the world. Looking at the front with his furrowed purple eyes he didn't see anything handwritten on the front. Flipping it around revealed a tiny "X" in the center where the sealed flap met the body of the envelope. But lifting it just a degree higher in the air, and with the light just right, he could see the transparent shadow of the content inside. It was almost completely flush with the edges of the envelope itself, not even a centimeter to spare.

A shudder and rapidly followed by more negative G forces raced up from his feet nearly forcing him to sit down. Balance almost to the four winds, he instinctively threw his free right hand behind in a long sweep and caught the wall, and himself, before he fell flat on his back at the menacing knives that were the steps up to the cockpit. Pivoting around, he sought after the left side of the entryway and started stepping carefully in the small patches of holes. First he tip-toed past a male fox and jaguar girl that Knuckles for the brief moment he witnessed them were a couple, holding hands, cuddling with their chins and cheeks over each other. Then three steps brought him over and nearly on top of an old–and with a disgruntled gruff with closed eyes–resigned brown male kangaroo. "Sorry," Knuckles innocently apologized, in which nothing was relaid of acceptance.

From the cockpit he heard Rotor's voice as his right hand braced at the wall. "Throttles to half." And just before the inevitable sound of the engines expunging the loud whines into a softer chorus, Knuckles found the closest and opened spot on the course, textured metal floor and sat down, crossing his legs to make the most of the cramped space.

Plopping down, he was greeted with an earnest smile from a young, and to a degree of freakishly thin, female coyote. Her fur was a combination of a dark yellow, tawny, and black in a kind of morbid ink block, and her flowing long stringy brunet hair crying for a washing Her clothes, like all the others around him, where little more than rags ready to be used as kindle to start a fire, much less keep one going.

And she was mother. The girl's smile echoed this when her face was lite up when Knuckles had sat down before she swept the happiness below her to young coyote baby boy sitting in the open space surrounded by her crossed legs–of which Knuckles was almost embarrassed and ashamed to look at due to seeing more of them than he wanted. But he couldn't help the situation of her outfit.

All he could was cut loose with smile; straight at her without saying a word and then down to the toddler. The kid didn't have a shirt on but he seemed to be lucky enough to have a pair of shorts. He was wide eyed, Knuckles saw, looking at this strange long haired, red being in front of him and his mother, not knowing or caring that the hair was actually flesh and fur embodying tissue and blood. And the kid's eyes widen further, almost bulging, and Knuckles witnessed the twisting frown than he knew his face was starting to mold into. "Oh, no!"

Just before he could change his face into a smile, or at least bring his hands up to calm the little boy, the wails came crashing at him like a water spicate unleashing it's cold, nerve shattering force upon him.

"Oh, Josh..." the mother said in a shushing voice, bouncing the little coyote on her the edges of her knees.

"What did I do?" Knuckles asked a bit frightened and guilty.

The mother shook her face absently. "Oh, nothing," she said, tucking her face and muzzle around to Josh's to nuzzle him. "You just get scarred quickly, that's all."

"Or maybe I'm just bad with kids?" Knuckles echoed to himself. Kneecaps, his half baby brother, resounded–and at some points–ached at his mind.

"Gear down!" shouted Hershey's voice from afar.

The groan of hydraulic motors pushed through the stifling air and even over Josh's crying. The engines than began to drown in a dim quietness.

"Flaps down two notches," he overheard Rotor's voice. Looking around the corner, Knuckles was amazed of how in control he was over Hershey.

When he swung his head back around he noticed the coyote mother was singing to Josh, who had now quieted and was looking to smile.

"More flaps," Rotor announced, causing Knuckles to peer back over his shoulder. "Watch your airspeed."

"I am this time," rebuked Hershey.

"Don't tell she doesn't do this often?" Knuckles asked almost in protest.

Hershey strayed a barbing look at Knuckles. "It's my forth time, Knux. Do you mind?"

He shrugged. "I do now." And just as she turned back around: "Please don't kill us."

Not waiting to see the murderous scorn coming his way, the Guardian faced back to the kid and his mother, flashing his tongue between his teeth under wide, mischievous eyes. This time the kid giggled, but the mother wasn't smiling. "What?" Knuckles said after retrieving his continence. "It's just encouragement."

The tilt of heard brought on her disapproving face and narrowed eyes.

"Throttles back, Hershey," Rotor barked this round.

The engines seemed to have died with a whimper that was the only evidence that they were still running.

"Flare–flare—flare, Hershey!"

Knuckles felt as if he was going to slid straight to the cargo ramp when Hershey had to have jerked the nose up. And just before he could get his breath back from the near fall the Turbo-Lifter slammed to the ground, then what his senses knew was back up into the air before straightening his tale and waited for the next slam. It came, and he nearly felt his lungs run out his nostrils.

"Reverse engines!"

A roar began to beat down on the side of the fuselage. Knuckles felt his back force up against the wall as the Lifter was brought to a slow stop–wondering for a split second if the mobians in front of him were going to pile right on top and crush his body. When motion had ceased and the engines dying for sure, Knuckles realized he had to breathe if he wanted to live for another minute. With wandering eyes and two gulps down he climbed to his shoes. "Well?" he asked.

Hershey stepped through the cockpit entrance and down on the cargo deck. "We're here!" she bolster with a wide smile.

The rush of cheering voices had Knuckles in awe before a grin leapt from his lips.

Tails had described to him of what school was like at one time or another. He told him that, "You are cooked up all stupid day as they try to spoon feed you all this junk that you will never use in your life, and when they release from school, you just want to run away and cling to Aunt Sally for the rest of the day...begging her not to throw you back in the morning." But Knuckles remembered Tails looking at him with a very straight and puzzled face, asking him why he had asked him what school was like. He reflected the time very fondly; him, Julie-Su and the Chaotix had finally found their place in Knothole, and he had just walked Tails from this school that Sally said she was too busy to escort Miles from so he wouldn't run off and not do his homework. And he remembered fondly that he didn't answer. He remembered the crushing feeling he had that at his age, he had to ask what school life was like from Tails. For he never had been to one. He was a Guardian...Locke taught him the things Miles was learning...

And then he had to learn them on his own...on his own.

But here, in front of him was why he had remembered his and Tails' little walk back to the kit-fox's hut and into the books–which he know realized he was helping Miles cheat by snapping the answer like he was in some sort of contest to prove he was actually smart. It was the running from school after being released that helped him put what Tails had said into perspective.

"But there are so many Aunt Sallies, here."

Children led mothers to fathers. Fathers led by their children to mothers they thought were dead. Mothers calling out names...many left unanswered with hearts wrenching screams and cries. He wanted to close his eyes but he forced himself instead to look away. With eyes still wide open, he descried St. John's sent beavers holding the old and sick, helping them to other open arms...to others who could help.

A girl's shrieking, crying voice grabbed Knuckles' attention from the sidelines he laid claim to. "Mikhail—MIKHAIL!"

Out from the mass of bodies, many being held by compassionate beings, others finding none but sitting down and enjoying something Knuckles was still puzzled about, and what had darted through the gaps he could see through was a running girl; a pure white wolf, her face raining tears, glistening in the yellow hue to Knuckles' left, her dress and flannel shirt that of a farmer's bride, and her arms and legs muscular to match. And just as his eyes had finally fixated on her, Mikhail was suddenly into view, arms wide open, his face on the verge of crying. And he nearly was struck to the ground when the girl swallowed him in her arms at full speed.

"Tania! My love!" Knuckles strained to hear Mikhail shout out as the beagle held his love and twirled her around in a small circle. "Did you miss me, Da?"

"Da, my Slavic dog, husband," Tania curtly replied in a hep of laughs and cries. And yet, she didn't have an accent like Mikhail. "I thought you were dead...left me for that woman goddess." Just as Knuckles was about to see Mikhail reply, she laced the lips of her love with hers that buckled his knees and sent both beagle and wolf to the grass.

"I never would've guessed," Knuckles said aimlessly and in shock at himself.

A rougher voiced boomed over his own, loaded with authority, strained with disappointment.

"Knuckles the Echidna, you have a lot of explaining."

Lowering his head, and a good stare at his white crescent at his chest did Knuckles slowly turn, his face emotionless, save for the anger he felt wanting to breathe out of ever strain of fiery fur. The eye patch of General Amadeus Prower was perhaps the only object on him that could seriously have any chance of matching or defeating Knuckles' stone posture.

"You realize what you, Sonic and Antoine could have jeopardized?" Amadeus thrust out with a lung full of bitter air. He marched right up to Knuckles and jabbed his finger straight into the Guardian's chest. "There's a reason why I'm making these suggestions in holding back!"

Knuckles' tone was cool but forceful. "Point taken; suggested." Leaning into Amadeus, he locked eyes straight at to him, yet Amadeus was two inches taller. He was on the verge of calling the seasoned fox the most vulgaris word of a rectum. "Tell me, General, are there any other wars you plan on losing, 'cause I want you to name 'em and I'll make sure I'm not involved!"

"You all could've come back and grabbed St. John and a lot more force," Amadeus fired back, casting aside Knuckles indirect insult at his own horrors of war. "You could have saved a lot more lives–"

"We didn't have a choice, sir," snapped the Guardian. He pursued his mind for ammunition for the coming counterstrike. What he found had almost melted his emotions and him to the grassy floor. The blotted bodies from yesterday was haunting him to a mental wreck.

But Amadeus didn't see the disturbed face that flashed by. To the fox it had the same look of Knuckles being incense. "No choice? Okay, what prompted that? What prompted you all to forget about the boogie and to call out a stronger force?"

He cringed visible. "How about a mass grave I rolled into?"–Amadeus' stance faltered, making him step back; he didn't feel his face collapse in a sympathetic rictus– "How about seeing a kid no more my age die in protecting us?" Knuckles laid further in with his tight voice, though holding his ground. "Is that enough for a snap decision, General." He waited for a pause, if not for another reaction. Amadeus was absolutely silent. Only the rejoicing mobians behind him were the sounds. "You know I can get better battle advice from my equal than you."

Prower had to will his hands to come up to ease down the burning echidna. "Alright," he said, his voice still exerting command, "look, son..." Holding his breath, he settled on his thoughts. "I know full well what you're going through, Knuckles," –Amadeus strained his good eye at him– "Guardian."

Knuckles' head sank like a rock in soft mud to one side, and with it he turned away from Amadeus where his right shoulder aligned at him and his back was to the falling sun, crossing his arms. "You're not my father, so don't call me son." And yet, to Knuckles, Tails' father was acting just like Locke.

It didn't perturb Amadeus one bit. The General maneuvered just as easily to come around and be nose-to-nose to the echidna. "Knuckles, I've seen the blotted bodies–I've seen friends die–I've seen people get blown apart right in front of my eyes!"

"But you still know your civilization is still alive," Knuckles seethed in. "I don't know about mine."

Tightening his jaw was all he could do not place his full trump card on the table. But Knuckles wasn't leaving him any choice. He wanted to break it to him about what he knew of the other Guardian with a sit down chat. He wanted to tell him of the hidden honors buried in Aleutian's past. But Knuckles wasn't leaving him any choice. And like picking up from the same rhetoric the younger Guardian was trying to dodge, he kept rolling with it:

"And your brother has seen the same horrors of war and battle as me."

Knuckles expression turned to frozen nitrogen. "What did you say...?"

Amadeus shook his head, beating past his temper before laying his eye back at Knuckles. "Your brother, Aleutian, has seen the same horrors as I have, Knuckles." A curt pause for refocus. "And if he's seen what I've seen, and did what I had to do, then he's had the same dreams, the same flashbacks–"

Knuckles shouted further than the top of his lungs, "How do you know this!?"

Amadeus could almost see tears welling up. He was stone stiff to reply upon witnessing this.

"You leave him outta this, you hear me!?" the Guardian went on, pointed his right mitt straight at Amadeus' blue tunic, and kept pounding. "You don't ever talk to me about my brother that way when I hardly know him!"

A matching face, but arms tucking under themselves. "Then calm yourself, Guardian. I'm trying to help and I know you are too."

"Then stay outta my way–in fact stay out of our way! That's the best way you can help us!"

"Knuckles," Amadeus interjected, "I'm trying to do my job described and asked by the King!"

A mocking swivel of his head, dreads nearly waving. "Oh, I see...protecting your title. Now we're all doomed thanks to your ego."

"Not as fast as your headstrong temper!"

Knuckles kept his eyes locked to Amadeus' lone glaring irus, though finding his hard face screwing into a smirk "Unfortunately for you it runs in the family."

"And what I found out from today, it sure does," Amadeus slowly slipped in with a raised brow, like he was pressing his saber gently into an Overlander's rib cage for a long, painful...vengeful death.

Unfolding his arms, Knuckles stepped the last step right up to Amadeus' chest. All he had to do at this point was push him down from however he answered. And to his surprise, the fox didn't back down one iota. "What are you hiding from me?"

Amadeus could see the slow burning fuse disappearing away from Knuckles' lavender eyes, not knowing what was going to happen if it burned out. So he took a breath and leveled his vocal cords as he was hoping from the onset to possess when he thought he was going to have this conversation in the first place. "Knuckles, I was asked by the King to go and investigate something your brother had punched on a map two days ago. Your father was present when Aleutian did this."

"But did Elias tell him that he was sending you to find out," Knuckles' asked, his tone holding steady, but his eyes were loosening their focal hold.

Amadeus with ease shook his head. "No. He didn't make his decision until the morning after."

"The morning after?" spat Knuckles. And to Amadeus' surprised, he backed off with it. "The morning after?" he repeated, this time more as an accusing decry. "The same morning when you gave us our mission to head out here?"

Amadeus only nodded slightly, his ears flickering between the cheering and cries, and if the Turbo-Lifter was firing back up, or if Tails was calling for him.

"Were you going to tell me about this!?"

"I was," Prower echoed back.

"When? Before or after?"

Amadeus tried rather hard not to roll his head and eyes. "On better terms and sitting down."

But for Knuckles, it wasn't the answer he was seeking. He took a long breath in, tilting his chin slightly at his chest. "I meant did you ever plan to tell me before you left, or were you even going to bother to ask me to go along?"

To lie to him had finally crossed Amadeus' mind...and Knuckles could see the thoughts rolling through fox's head. He didn't need a full set of eyes on the other party to know what was going on. He'd seen this played out so many times, and has lived with the damage it's all done every time. What had always hurt the worst was it was done by his own father...and always for his own good. It was at this time and silence between him and Miles Prower's father that Knuckles had never thought he'd be considering of leaving the Freedom Fighters to their own war, and returning home to face off with his father. Locke he could take getting lied to. His feelings of being hurt have all but desensitized him from his inner sanctum...knowing more times than what should be reasonable that the truth would come out and he'd be the one better for it. But as his being now stood–and from what he felt his body slowing lowering into his natural fighting stance that he seemed to always carrying in his everyday life, his face had melted to that of more than a frown; to a full contour of anger and pain–his inner soul wasn't going to take anything his father had done to him from the people and friends he was depending on to live and to fight another day. And what his face was shouting to Amadeus:

"Don't you dare lie to me!–"

Hershey's clean, famine voice charged up with authority broke Knuckles thoughts and the fox's stare."General Amadeus Prower...that's enough."

Before Knuckles could turn around, he was called out to. "Guardian, you need help?" He almost pivoted to address to Christian. He had almost told what he heard as the whole back-up squad in his favor to get lost and let him handle Amadeus...but just over the fox's shoulder, his attention went numb directly to something else he couldn't quite get, however felt something from it beckoning him.

"Excuse me," he blurted out, shoving beside Amadeus so quickly, the General was afraid to strain his neck if he'd follow him with his head.

"What...where's he going?" Amadeus asked just as puzzled as Christian had appeared when his eye drifted to the entourage in front of him. Sonic was shoulder to shoulder to Hershey's right while Rotor and Merlin, his hands nestled inside his sleeves out in front of him, were taking up the rear behind Christian.

"Probably off to save your life," Sonic said snidely. "General, dude, Sal should give you a metal for going toe-ta-toe with the Rad-Red and coming out stock clean!"

Amadeus shook it off. "You know what, I'll have Geoffrey and Princess Sally talk to him–"

"And they're going to agree with me," Hershey jumped in with the straightest of tones. "There is a lot going on here General you haven't the clue about. What all has transpired today and yesterday, General, I'm fully backing. And next, you will refrain yourself from talking down at any of the chaotix."

A quick glance to his brother. "Merlin?" he'd asked as if requesting for defense.

The elder fox roved his head in side his cloaked hood. "Amadeus," he said, hands leaving his sleeves and drifting towards the brown echidna in front of him, "you need to listen to this young man..." He looked to the brown echidna. "Christian, is it?"

The closer he walked, his arms straight out at his sides, fists balled, he could make out the taller of the trio looking on at the unannounced festivities. It was what caught Knuckles eyes to begin with: they were just standing there, the middle one his arms crossed while the other two where trolling the ground and wooden houses around them as if they were looking for a blind-mobian's lost money. At first he thought when he saw them behind Amadeus' angered body that these three were just standing away from everything while the rest of the town-dwellers could find their loved ones and leave others to be helped off the Turbo Lifter. But with a second stray of his attention to this steadfast trio, he noticed that they had taken on this lying-and-waiting posture. Knuckles has seen this before; reflected that he's held the same stance, watching things, ready to pounce on whatever he was waiting for to show itself. And somewhere between his counters and beatings from and to Amadeus, he remembered Lemeans' words:

"Father of Justin...a ferret."

As his steps drew him closer to the more of the round, kempt dwellings interspersed amongst formidable giant redwoods and tall walnut and maple trees that were the first line of sentry to the inner sanctum of the Great Forest, he could make out the mobian in the middle as the creature to deliver Lemeans' last written words. He stood in the middle. Taller, although Knuckles was judging this from a little more than ten meters away now, and his references were known smaller species beside his destination: a lightly brown furred shrew inside the baggy grey button shirt tucked into a pair of black heavy fabric pants. Standing left was a female sea otter, her dark and white furred face lean, yet her blue loose fitting jumpsuit, her sleeves rolled up, made it seem she was a few pounds heavier. She lacked any follicles on her head, but her feminine eyes looking worried at the crowd behind Knuckles made up for it.

But it was the ferret, his hands blacker than night but lightened into a pale texture at his forearms, that was the focus of Knuckles' direction and trained eyes. A half height taller than him, his casting eyes also telling worry while the rest of his continence stared on like asuffering predator, lying...waiting for its merciful death on its own terms. He had a firm chest under his somber lurid shirt. His hands gripped at his biceps while his arms were crossed, though his short ears at the top of his head where the only anatomy twitching. Knuckles saw with another three steps he was listening, the Shrew talking to him while all were looking on. He was still far away to make out any of the words until he planted his foot to the floor after he checked his shoulder. The words yanked his eyes over harder than he anticipated his reflexes to do:

"...I'm sure he's okay, Eric. He's probably helping the others that are still in the transport."

Knuckles' heart clutched at his throat upon seeing the ferret speak; his eyes never flinched.

"We would've seen him by now, councilman." The Guardian saw him sigh, chest slumping. "I'm not even sure if this is his same camp."

He wasn't more than six paces away from them. Heat was building at his neck and he was sure it wasn't from the setting sun behind him. Just hearing this overbearing looking ferret even speak had his courage going astray. The wink notion of who the subject possibly was made him want to forget about Lemeans' request nestled under his left mitt and make an about-face and continue his duel with Amadeus.

But his feet had carried him three steps further...and he was committed when the otter showered her hazel eyes upon him.

He stopped, arms firmly at his side, fists balled. His toned chest was pushing in and out with an anxiety he never thought could exist.

And his heart snapped aloud his inner cry of anguish when she spoke to him:

"Are you from the transport?"

He said nothing, staring at them what he hope wasn't eyes vacant of life.

"Are you from the Plain's Camp?" she asked. He wished she hadn't slightly kneeled to him, her head tilting in waiting for his answer.

His mind went blank. Not even a notion of inner feeling exhumed from his heart until he blinked and took in a short breath. "If...if a bookworm..." It was at the edge of lips, wanting separation to claim a part of the world. He could her Lemeans' voice over his. Yet, he held it back, his eye ambling between the girl's face, the shrew's and then back to Eric. Why was it so hard? Even his half brother could repeat this. But his lips laid shut. Locked with one part of him decrying they remained locked for the rest of eternity. He didn't want to kill their hope. What he was about to say was going to snuff it out. Did Lemeans' knew what he was asking of him; to do this along with delivering his message? Did the leopard have any forethought of how he might feel...if he was capable to fulfil his obligation?

But a scratching feeling jarred his eyes not to look down to his left hand but instead up to the ferret. When feeling of his self and body fought back the numbness of his thoughts, he felt his thumb and finger pinching at the white envelope, bringing it out from under his mitt.

And his lips were unlocked...his voice narrowed, soft.

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

The shrew had only turned his head from the Guardian's riddle, looking at the otter, who'd only leaned back in, her eyes vacant of any reaction.

But it was the directed party whom had dropped his arms down close to his waist, hands folding on top of each other, and face softening, yet, shifting from waiting for hopeful news...to a powerful stare of sorrow mixed hauntingly with a phantom pain.

"Councilman?" the ferret said as dryly as the plain Knuckles had come from. He never looked to see if he got the shrew's attention. "Councilmen, I think our newcomers need welcoming now." Then his head finally moved and gazed upon the otter. "You can help him, Crystal, and you might be able to find Justin there." She met his gaze, her's softening to a silent protest. "Please?" he begged in a voice like an undercurrent in a drifting stream.

And she was swept away with it. Stepping between Knuckles and Eric, she went over and gently took the shrew by the arm. "Come, Councilmen. I'll take you to them."

"We shouldn't be in the way until their done. Besides, the mayor has met with the girl who looks to be in charge," the Councilmen replied.

Eric responded with a reasoning voice. "Sir, I think these people need all the warming faces we can give them. Please..."

Knuckles could see it in the shrew's eyes that something was up; just his head turning to the ferret and then over to him, but with cynical drawn eyes. "Alright," he said under a conceding sigh. "Alright, let's go, Crystal." A few steps further. "I swear you need to train your man more. Not a place for a male to ask his wife to lead another man astray."

A smirk formed under the ferret's frown. He was watching the two mobians leave and it had drawn Knuckles attention, he too looking on as the otter had taken hold of the shrew's arm a little firmer and was talking to–

"–He reads a book."

Knuckles' head didn't snap back around nor did it resist. As his eyes adjusted to where the warning voice had come from, he felt his courage come back with the ferret's nodding head.

"Where's Cane?"

The standing Guardian shook his head ridiculously. "Cane?" He held the envelope out. "I was told to give this to a ferret..." He felt his throat tighten. "Justin's father."

"From who?" the ferret countered, as if the last phrase meant nothing. Had he the wrong ferret?

"No...He answered the riddle."

"Lemeans," he replied in a matching voice.

Eric took the envelope from Knuckles' hand gently. "And where is he?" he asked rapidly. His voice was now grave. When Knuckles didn't answer, he looked down to him after examining the back of the envelope. "Lemeans...where is he? Why did he trust you to give me this message."

To his own discomfort, his reply came out like he was on autopilot. Like he was losing control of himself somehow. "He didn't make it." –The ferret eyed him more directly; almost like he was hurt– "He died in helping us."

The ferret's mouth was gapping just enough to let air slip in.

Knuckles held his ground, watching then Eric opening the envelope and taking out the message, reading it with fast eyes before crumbling it devastatingly in his hands. For a split second, he thought he saw the ferret cringe in grief before his face turned away.

"What was asked of you is done. You can go back now," the ferret said resignedly.

He felt like he was being dismissed, brushed away from a table he hadn't yet sat down to. "Hey wait ah minute! I came to you with this and your rejecting me. I saw this guy die and after delivering his last written words you just want me to up-and-go?"

A narrowed glance. "Yes." And the ferret slowly turned around.

Knuckles stepped forward. "Hey," lunged out his barking voice, "don't you dare turn your back on me. I have questions!"

"Don't we all," the ferret said as he started to move away.

A step forward more with a tightening face. "He said I looked like someone he knew." Even with his inner thoughts ramming around his head, he saw the ferret suddenly stopping. "He said I remembered of someone he trusted." He eased a breath in to calm his voice. "And I know there isn't many echidna's roaming around here."

The ferret gave a daunting gaze across his shoulder. "I wouldn't know him. And I couldn't tell you if I did." He straightened his head, sighing dismissively. "Besides, what interest do you have over one of your own kind?"

The Guardian nearly launched himself at him, holding himself back by almost collapsing his chest to quell the inner rage boiling over. "Their my people. Is that enough?"

But something inside him was telling him there was more even in his own question of why he wanted to know. Lemeans' address about someone that looked just like him...who he'd trusted...because he was like him.

The ferret's back hunch just a degree that Knuckles felt a slight feeling of victory coming from it. Eric turned, slowly returning to the echidna, surprising him when he knelt down on one knee.

His eyes were blue, but Knuckles was reading an unwelcoming undertone inside them.

"You seem to value life, young sir," Eric said, his face suddenly softening, his voice being that of embracing. Knuckles didn't nod nor even move from his still position. His soul was shuddering. "If it's so, then I beg you to return and forget all of this." The echidna's jaw nearly became unhinged. "You go on and live your life and embrace the comfort and freedom that you have saved others."

His mouth tightened in protest. "But it's not over with for me."

"It is," Eric gently forced back, "you need to forget about what you did, what you've said to me, and what you've delivered." A breath passed between the both of them. "And you need to forget about this lone echidna that Lemeans was talking about. The leopard was old, and quite possibly in his time in captivity he was going senile."

Knuckles eyes widen from disbelief of what he was hearing. "How can you say that? Look what he's done."

A shake of the ferret's head. "I can, because I know what has to be protected. I'm protecting life in telling you to forget and move on with your life." Knuckles could see himself in the ferret's eyes almost wanting to shout his displeasure. "You need to forget about all of this and live your life."

"I can't forget this!"

"Maybe not of the people you've brought here, but I need you to forget about me, the message, Lemeans...let what I said about him become reason and let the message be blank." He inched closer to Knuckles' muzzle. "You could jeopardize a lot more lives than you know if you don't forget."

It left him blank, and the slit in his open mouth showed that it had. Just before his thoughts got organized, just before more questions came to him that he would keep to himself, Eric placed his hand on his shoulder and like a light wind pushing a windmill blade, had turned him around, his face warming in the setting orange sun, his eyes finding familiar faces amongst the crowd. Faces that pulled him back from somewhere his heart suddenly felt relieved from leaving. And a slight push at his back began his journey back to fortunate friends.

The steps he took came sluggish and stiff, but by a few meters Knuckles was well at full speed from what his hanging soul would allow. But as he began to make out Sonic's face coming towards him, two days past had rushed into his mind...with it a face.

"Sir," he said, peering over where his biceps met his shoulder blade with one eye. The ferret was still watching him, standing now...still making sure he was on his way. "Justin." The ferret rose his head bowing in waiting. "He saved me and my friends from getting discovered." Knuckles stopped himself to swallow down his longing feelings. "He saved us with his life...he was a hero to us."

The ferret's lips were pulled apart. He stood solidly still until a lone escaped from his head. From which Knuckles returned his head straight forward and with that he continued on.

It seemed like a mile had passed when Sonic's blue fur had finally beat back the orange overbearing setting sun. But the thoughts that passed his mind could've rounded the world a dozen times. Why did he want him to forget? Who's lives where he saving? "Why all of this?"

"Yo, Rad?" Sonic's merry voice lifted his head some.

"What's been happenin'?" the echidna merely echoed his reply.

The hedgehog-of-subdued speed stopped in front of Knuckles before shifting to his right side. "Well, sort of the same-oh-same-oh." The Guardian could see Sonic looking off to the sunset, realizing he was watching Hershey talking with a tall ram dressed in something that looked like a tie-less suit covered with a robe. "Hershey's got Amadeus' head straight, so the heat's off us. She's jaw-jabbing to the mayor of Edgewood right now."

"About what?" Knuckles asked, still looking forward.

"Again, same-oh-same-oh; congratulating the heros, we're taking a few sick people back with us because they don't have the top notch doc we do–" He eyed Knuckles when the Guardian snorted. "–and we're juicing real soon with your new echidna friend now as the new superstar of this code thingy we were sent here for in the first place." Glancing at Knux again, he loosened his face and asked, "So what were you talking to that dude about?"

The echidna let out a tensioned sigh. "Remember that guy yesterday that was killed...the one I had to hold you down so you wouldn't blow our cover just to issue some captial-bot-punishment?"

Sonic nodded, his voice lacking its known coolness. "Yeah?"

A shaking head, eyes drifting to the grassy ground. "I just told his father."

The wind floated the silence.

"Man..." Sonic crossed his arms. "How'd ya know it was him."

Knuckles lips dripped his reply. "Call it a hunch."

He felt Sonic's hand rest upon his shoulder. "Dude, what's with you? Even doing what you did, you still come back a little happier. Shoot Red, we did what we've been doing since we were really kids...heck, since we had started fighting, and then after we jabbed elbows and made up."

And Knuckles remembered those fun, growing and dangerous times well. He actually missed them. Was this how Aleutian felt; why his soul was lost and battered?

"I don't know, Sonic. Maybe I just want to go home."

"Ah, enough cake for one day, eh, Knux?" Sonic chided.

Knuckles shrug, giving his best smirk. "Hey, I said I wanted a piece...can you let me endure the indigestion?"

A chuckle sprouted from Sonic. "Yeah, take all you want."

And again there was silence between them for a good while.

"Hey, Sonic," Knuckles said in a steady tone. The blue blur looked to him, arms still crossed. "Thanks for backing me up back there with Amadeus."

He couldn't believe Sonic snorted as he rolled his head away from him. "Yep, there is definitely something wrong with you. When have you ever thank moi for backing you up?"

Eyes rolling, he returned, "Don't get used to it."

A jab straight at his arm. "See, there's the Chuckles I remember."

Before Knuckles could eye him jeeringly, Sonic had already stepped away with a bounce under his feet. "Come on, Rad. We need to go home and let St. John sort this mess out."

Knuckles sighed before he followed Sonic off into the sunset. And he smiled. It all actually felt that everything was coming to a peaceful close.

"Home...Julie."

"–ten–eleven–twelve–thirteen–fourteen–"

Of all the colorful things out in the woods, and far enough away from Knothole City and anyone, Marian had never understood why her mother had said daises were nothing but a weed to her flower garden. She may be six, but a weed was a weed and a flower was a flower.

So here she was, a thoughtful young ground squirrel, sitting with crossed legs in an open small meadow surrounded by the Great Forest's tallest residence: walnuts, maples, and in front of her a good shuttle run and back, an pine, its truck etched with deep fishers in the bark, large enough that she'd need a grown up to help with the rest of her class to circle it while holding hands, picking daises for her mom's cooking dinner. The setting sun behind her was at the time she'd always loved, low enough to still brightly illuminate the world for her to play in, but far enough down to the horizon, almost shadowed by it, to were school had become a mere forethought until night came, when she'd be snuggled into bed and reminded by a kiss on her brow from mom that school was just a wink away. Her dress was basking in it's purple top and yellow knee length skirt in the falling sun. Even her purple slippers were gleaming between the grass stains.

"–sixteen–eighteen–nineteen, Isabel! I counted nineteen, Isabel!" she giggled proudly to a dear companion only she could see...and only she could tell her truest of feelings to without getting disapproving faces.

"Let's see," she thoughtful quizzed herself, companion in good company, the unicorn's nuzzle and white horn bowing down to help Marian examine her collection, "we have, one, two...um–four, five, six, eight...er, seven, nine, ten, eleven daisies, Isabel. I think we need two more to make a dozen."

A bird chirped over head and the gentle wind swayed the branches further above her, creating dancing shadows all around her. And somewhere in this small clutter of Aurora's ensemble, Isabel agreed with her.

"Well, which ones should we get?" she asked, looking up at her flying and riding traveler to places only they knew where to go and find. "Okay," she replied, hearing the answer lightly whispered in her pointed ear, "the one in front of me. But we better not count the peddles," she insisted in a cautioning tone, "Mom should be calling for us shortly for dinner, and we want to surprise her that I got a dozen flowers for her."

The white peddled daisy stood up next to her right thigh, its green stem pushing its yellow circle up to great her. Plucking was simple like all the others had been. She took it up to her smiling face and examined every pollen pud she could see with her green eyes, admiring beauty though she was so young to comprehend its true nature. When she gathered it was the best flower she's collect so far, she nestled further with a smile, and drifted over to her cluttered collection to her left.

"Okay, one more Isabel," she giggled helplessly to her friend. And the wind replied to her, Isabel's sought words coming to her, sparking her attention and imagination to look ahead of her; to hear and see their next calling.

It was by far the prettiest and elegant of all the daisies she's picked by herself. To her captive eyes it was its lonesomeness that brought yearning to her mind, calling to her to place it with its friends. One time in school, she had upset a few of her dearest friends, calling them names out of fun rather than spit, and she remembered what all that caused; loneliness, tears...loss of trust. She had felt like this lone daisy swaying in the subtle motion of air by itself in the small grassy opening, the large pine dwarfing behind it. She felt to champion its longing for companionship, to help it find friends because it grew up where no others would.

"I can get it, Isabel. It's not to far for me," she assured her unicorn that had asked if it could retrieve it for her.

The smile on her face had finally subsided to her effort movements to journey to her last daisy. It really wasn't far, but her face was saying otherwise. It had strained some when she had unfolded her legs and tucked them under her, lips broadening into a pensive grin when she started towards its swaying white pedals on her hands and knees. Her dress caught a few times in the juggle of movement but she stopped not even briefly to unfurl her skirt from her knees. Three unicorn like steps and she was closer...her face brightening once more. A bird sang again in a course tone, and Maria herd it flew away overhead. But her eyes never deviated from her new adventure; to free the flower so mom could see what she's saved. A hereon; she and Isabel.

Her hand out, fingers closing for the pinch, and the flower was just a few inches away. Closer her hand drifted towards it...

...And it moved. It twitched in front of her. It twitched so suddenly that Marian brought her hand back.

"Isabel, now come on. You shouldn't tease me," she scolded, looking up at the open air in front of her, only seeing the blue sky and puffy clouds that laid just under the heavy branches of the pine tree.

Her smile back, and her attention on the daisy, she again drifted her fingers to it...but only to stop when the flower twitched again, and it was a little more violent than the last twitch. The thought of scolding Isabel again came to her but she stopped from chiding her companion when the daisy began to rock side to side, bouncing around on its stem suddenly, its white pedals flutter forcefully as if they might fly off. Air moved around her, it disturbed her dress and brown hair some, but not as ruthless as the daisy was enduring. If she needed to be a hereon she needed to act before the daisy lost its pedals, she quickly thought. Reaching forward she aimed her thumb and index finger just below the flower's body at the stem. She was almost there–

–The yellow cone of the daisy's center did something Marian had never imagine it could do...even in her most treasured worlds and landscapes. It started to shrink. As her green eyes witnessed this, her limps freezing from the sight, her vision saw the white pedals slowly began to point downwards but not falling off. And just as her fingers started to inch away from this curious scene unfolding in front of her, she gazed on, watching the stem coil slowly like it was becoming a length of string falling to the ground, sinking upon each level of itself until the full body of the pedestal flattened onto its stem and then the grassy floor...and it kept going, the grass around it bending their green, thin stems upon themselves, laying prone into a rectangle.

And the rectangle had collapsed the soft dirt and roots underneath to an inch in depth.

She looked up, eyes searching out things her imagination was trying to grasp. She didn't see anything but the air. Not even a new roving friend came to her vision. Just the air.

Glancing back down at the large rectangle depression, her eyes drifted just off to her left, she felt her face loose its smile. A second rectangular depression, not a foot and a half beside the one that had collapsed her last daisy, soaked into her mind.

"Isabel?"

Her voice was so soft she couldn't hear the tremble in it.

When her widened, puzzled eyes guided her head up, she was met with the blue sky and the patchy fluffy clouds. There was nothing. Only the wind.

But where are the birds. She didn't hear them...she only heard and felt the wind.

"Isabel?" came her drifting voice, feeling the wind softly touch her around cheek and temples.

Not a chirp from the birds; not even a whisper from her friend...

Her head jerked over her shoulder...far enough over that a muffled sound of peeling lettuce rang from her. And when a sigh slipped from her lips, her body became limp, coiling over to her right side, sinking down upon her stomach, until she was lying flat, her legs tucked under her, her back flat on the grass as her arms lay beside her...

...her face staring up into the sky...and like the snap she never felt protrude her body, her eyes focused, opened...seeing black.

I hope my argument with Amadeus' and Knuckles was very heated and struck a lot of chords amongst you. Knowing how teens rebel and knowing Knuckles' character and all he's gone through brought out that scene in a way I never thought I could do. One, Amadeus' being the grown up but this time not the all knowing adult. And two; Knuckles being himself, and being an echidna for one.

In saying that, and asking y'all if I brought the undercovering of Snively to the forefront, but not exposing his intenstions to Knothole expcept their bad, easily and not really rushed, of I did a good job in that end?

And how was the last scene?

If it left a bad taste in your mouth, I will make my confession about how I felt writing it.

Until then, the conclusion...and no aurthor's interruptions when it's done.

Mauser