They were fired out of the pipe with enough force to send all three of them tumbling into the air.

Tails and Knuckles caught themselves in the air and touched down lightly a second after Sonic who landed in a crouch and bounced back upright at once, already looking around and grinning broadly in realisation.

"Well this is more like it."

He clapped Tails on the shoulder, thought of doing the same to Knuckles, then thought better of it.

Tails beamed up at him, breathless and bedraggled but eyes sparkling as he stared eagerly around at the tall buildings and colourful lights, his ears flicking with interest at the noises from all around. Traffic and music and bells and gaming machines and voices and laughter and shouting and babble from the screen and speakers all around. Knuckles was also staring about them although the look on his face was only slightly less dismayed that it had been in Chemical Plant.

"What's happening?" he asked. "Where's Eggman, what's he doing?"

Sonic looked about.

"I can't see him," he shrugged. "We'll find him though. No problem."

"But..." Knuckles had his hands halfway to his head when Sonic looked back. "The noise..."

"Just the big city, buddy. No huge robot fight on offer yet. Sorry." Sonic hesitated, certain the answer to his next words would be brushed off but unable to not check. "Are you...um… You sure you're feeling okay?"

He'd been prepared for another dismissive answer. He had not been prepared for Knuckles to leap towards him, right up in his face.

"Idiot hedgehog! Of course I'm not 'feeling okay'. What possible detail about this is 'okay'? I'm stranded down here, Eggman is chaosknowswhere doing chaosknowswhat with chaosknowswhat that I failed to stop him stealing from my Island, and everywhere we go is worse than the last place and my head hurts and it's too loud..."

The furious volume in Knuckles' voice died between the start and the end of the sentence and Sonic, who'd thrown up his arms to deflect a blow ended up catching Knuckles' shoulders in support instead.

"Okay, buddy, okay. I mean, not okay, obviously. But y'know. Take it easy. We'll fix it. Let's just take a minute. I mean, that headache? That might not be the noise – you took quite a hit before this even really kicked off and we've done nothing but get in fights since and no one's eaten and you haven't slept." Sonic spoke fast, trying to get all his arguments out in one breath before Knuckles could object.

"We don't have time," he protested, predictably.

"Yeah we do," Sonic said. "It was you who said we needed a plan before rushing off in Chem Plant wasn't it? So let's go make one. Over lunch."

Tails looked around at the orange horizon. "Supper I think."

"Whatever."

Knuckles pulled his shoulders free of the hedgehog's grip and turned away.

"I don't need you telling me what to- Why is your face on that signpost?"

Sonic ducked round to look and grinned.

"Because I'm just that cool? World famous hedgehog y'know. Let's see if we can get a feed off the back of it? We've got a choice of..." He surveyed the names on the nearest buildings. "Club Spin, or The Pink Bot. Weird name pick. Easy choice then."

Before Knuckles could object, Sonic had one arm and Tails the opposite hand and they were all marching in to Club Spin.

Sonic was poised for protest but the muted light and abrupt reduction in the noise levels seemed to persuade Knuckles against arguing. The early evening must be a slow time because they were the only customers and the both the mouse and tortoise behind the bar looked stunned at the sight of them.

Or maybe just at them specifically, because the mouse's eyes had gone wide and he was staring. The tortoise had withdrawn her head halfway into her shell.

"S-sonic?"

"The hedgehog," Sonic finished cheerfully, but the mouse was already shaking his head frantically.

"You can't be here!"

Sonic frowned, puzzled.

"It's not safe! Why would you…? You can't..."

"Sonic, what's going on?" Tails sounded anxious now too and Sonic put his hand on the fox's shoulder. "I'm not sure. We'll sort it."

He turned his attention back to the mouse.

"What's going on? You got some other blue hedgehog on the sign outside?"

"No, but… We didn't think… It was just a… I mean – haven't you seen?"

The mouse scrabbled around the side of the bar and pulled at Sonic's arm. Sonic let himself be drawn over to the window in the opposite side of the bar to where they'd entered and looked out of the window the mouse was gesturing at.

A dazzling electronic billboard dominated the view and Eggman's face dominated the billboard. It flashed for a moment then was replaced by Sonic's: "WANTED" splashed across it in big letters.

"Ah," said Sonic.

"World famous?" Knuckles asked dryly, pushing Sonic's spines aside and leaning over his shoulder to look.

"Eggman's in control here?" Sonic looked back at the mouse, and the tortoise who'd followed them over to the window. "But… your sign? 'Club Spin'? "

The mouse shrugged. "No one thought you'd show up – it was just… I don't know. It's a thing people do here now. Trying to look tough and cool. Like they're not afraid." He looked down. "When they are."

Sonic smiled. "It's okay. Look – we don't want to put anyone else in the firing line. We'll clear out. We'll fix it."

The mouse glanced up at Sonic, then across at the tortoise who gave him a tiny nod.

"No," said the mouse. "It's okay. We'll help. You must have come in because you wanted something right?"

Sonic shrugged. "Only dinner."

The mouse smiled. "We can manage that. But… uh…" He glanced nervously at the door. "Maybe a back room?"

Sonic hesitated, but one look at the others decided him. Tails, in spite of his alert interest in their surroundings, was glassy-eyed and his fur matted with sweat and grime. Knuckles looked as though there was nothing more than nerves and stubbornness keeping him on his feet. Sonic's stomach was protesting more loudly than any real bodily tiredness but even so...

"Yeah," he said. "Thanks."

The mouse stuck out his hand. "Lew," he said. "That's Cara."

The tortoise raised her hand in greeting. "I'm the chef round here. I'll get right on it."

Cara headed back behind the bar and from there through a door presumably leading to a kitchen. Lew led the other three past the window and through another door marked, 'Staff' which turned out to be a cluttered room of stored food, slightly damaged furniture and stacks of old newspapers. He pulled a table and chair from among the least damaged.

"Have a seat," he advised.

Tails plonked himself down at once, folding his tails up over his lap. Knuckles looked for a moment as though he was going to argue against the whole idea but instead sighed and subsided onto a second chair. Sonic leaned against the back of a third.

"So what happened here?"

Lew scratched behind his large ears. "I'm honestly… not sure. It happened so fast. Days. Less than that maybe. It was confusing. There was something weird about it. How fast it was, how many people went along with it. You wouldn't be safe if you went out there now Sonic, not from the people let alone the robots."

Tails drummed his fingers on the table. "Something weird," he repeated. "Weird like that jewel? Weird like whatever he was making in Chemical Plant?"

Sonic stretched, leaning on the chair. "Weird like something other than giant conquering robots, you mean."

Tails nodded.

Lew pulled a paper from the top of the nearest pile.

"I kept them to try and make sense of it. Things don't… join up… quite."

He handed a few out. "One day it's the usual stuff and then, it's all 'Eggman in charge for our own good'"

Sonic frowned. "Own good from what?"

"You. Rogue robots with some chaos-emerald-type-thing you stole for them."

Sonic's spikes bristled in instant indignation.

"I stole?!"

Tails folded back the pages to display a picture. "These are the robots we saw before right? In Green Hill after the jewel-thing did whatever it did."

Sonic and Knuckles looked and nodded.

"Yes," said Knuckles. "So that bit of it might be true."

Sonic tapped his foot, thinking it over. "He didn't seem happy with them," he allowed. "But he saw an opportunity to turn it his way anyway."

The door swung open and everyone not already standing jumped to their feet, only to see Cara enter with a huge tray of food and drinks.

"Chilli-dogs!" Sonic enthused, finally dropping into a seat.

Cara smiled. "Fast food a speciality," she said and tapped her fingers against her shell. "Not original I know..."

Sonic grinned. "Works for me." He tucked in at once, watching Tails grab one to each hand, and Knuckles cautiously sniff at another before biting in.

Sonic swallowed around an enormous bite. "So these robots, they're here too?"

Lew and Cara nodded.

"Yeah," Cara said. "Done a lot of damage. Scared a lot of people."

"And when-" Knuckles broke off, coughing and gasping and staggering to his feet. He stared at Lew and Cara accusingly and backed away. "Sonic… Don't… there's something in the food..." He coughed, eyes watering and then leapt forward to dash Tails' remaining chilli-dog from his hand and make a swipe for Sonic's.

Sonic whipped it out of the way. Torn between sympathy and laughter, he replaced it on his plate.

"You, um… You've never tasted chilli before have you?"

Tails reached for a cola and handed it to Knuckles. "Have a drink. I promise you haven't been poisoned."

Knuckles gulped the drink, sneezed violently and coughed most of it onto the floor.

Sonic winced. "No to fizzy drinks too, huh? Okay."

Cara disappeared past them and returned with a glass of milk. "Try that."

Knuckles eyed her suspiciously until Tails reached out and took a sip before handing it back.

"It's okay, see?"

Knuckles sipped it more warily than he had the cola and then in larger gulps.

"Why would you eat that? It burns!"

Sonic shrugged. "Gives it a kick." He bit back into his own 'dog to distract himself from Knuckles dismayed expression. The only thing keeping him from laughter was the fact that Knuckles' very first reaction upon genuinely believing he'd been poisoned, had been to try and warn them.

"Sorry," he said after a moment, once he was confident of not giggling. "I should have thought."

"Is that a thing you ever do?" Knuckles asked crossly, embarrassment having apparently replaced alarm.

"I'll find something a little less… hot," Cara said. "Why don't you come with me and show me what you might like?"

Knuckles followed her, casting a suspicious glance at Sonic over his shoulder.

Sonic watched him go and them dropped his head into his hands, losing the battle against laughter.

"It's not funny, Sonic!" Tails admonished him. "Poor Knuckles."

Sonic scrubbed his hands across his eyes and composed himself.

"So what have we got?" he asked as the echidna returned, now carrying a platter of what Sonic considered far too much greenery. "Eggman has the media zones under his thumb. Here and Press Garden, and has got at least some of the folks convinced that I'm the one running amok here and that he's keenly trying to contain these robots, right?"

"Yeah," said Lew. "Something about an experiment he was doing, intending to turn his inventions to the good of all, you're supposed to have interrupted and these mad robots are a side effect."

Sonic snorted. "And people buy that?"

Lew shrugged.

"It can't just be that," Sonic insisted. "Not just newspaper and TV. You can't make someone believe all this rubbish about Eggman being on their side and me the bad guy just by saying so!"

Sonic only realised quite how absolute a judgement that must have sounded when Knuckles' head came up and round whiplash fast. In spite of the speed of the reaction his eyes were slow to meet Sonic's and the expression in them when they did made Sonic want to look away.

"I mean..." he tried to pull back on the words, because Knuckles looked as though Sonic had pronounced sentence of death on him for kicking flickies. "I mean I didn't mean..."

Knuckles sighed and picked up the piece of fruit he'd dropped and bit into it half-heartedly.

"It doesn't matter, Sonic."

Sonic stared at him. Knuckles didn't look back, slumped in his seat and picking at his food.

Sonic scooted his seat closer.

"Knuckles. It matters. Why people do things matters. If their intentions are good or bad or if they've just been conned. It matters."

Knuckles glanced up. "Not as much as what they do." He returned his eyes to his food. "Or fail to do."

Sonic kicked his feet on the floor to bump his chair right up against Knuckles' and barged the echidna's shoulder with his own.

"Well then it matters that I've just rammed my sneaker in my mouth and made you think that something that's Eggman's fault is yours, doesn't it? Even though I didn't mean to. Even though I don't think so." He nudged Knuckles against, half-encouraging, half-provoking and surprised he hadn't already been swatted away. "Come ooonnnnn, don't tell me you're going to miss the chance to tell me I ran my mouth before my brain?"

There was a long pause.

"Again."

"Huh?" said Sonic.

"Again," Knuckles repeated. "You ran your mouth before your brain, again."

Sonic whooped. "That's the kind of witty repartee I'm here for!"

Knuckles shook his head, and stared back at his plate. After a moment he spoke again and his voice was quieter although less outright miserable.

"You can get people to believe anything if they don't know any better. If they haven't got any way of checking or comparing. No way of telling truth from malice. You can lie all you like and be believed."

The light filtering through the windows from the screens outside turned the room alternately lurid pink and electric blue and made the shadows leap and twist.

"He's got a point," said Cara after a moment. "This is a TV town, Sonic. You, Eggman, Chaos Emeralds, all of it, it was just stuff we'd seen on a screen or read in the paper. It wasn't real. It didn't reach anyone's actual life in a way that you could make a decision about."

"Not an informed one," Lew added.

Sonic nodded, and didn't correct their assumption that it was the locals Knuckles was talking about.

"Yeah, okay. So leaving aside the PR fire and Eggman's lies for five minutes, what else have we got? This 'thing' I'm supposed to have stolen? Any info on that? Does anyone know where these robots are?"

Lew opened his mouth but before he could speak there was a distant boom of an explosion and the wail of sirens.

"Uh… there…?"

Sonic was already on his feet and not surprised in the slightest to find Tails and Knuckles up too.

"I'm guessing it's big-robo-fight time after all then?" Tails was grinning at him, already sticking a hand out for a tow. A heartbeat later, Knuckles extended his own.

"Well, hedgehog?" he asked. "Are we going?"

Sonic grinned. "We are!"

He gripped both wrists, felt Tails' small fingers grab tightly, and Knuckles' fist close careful but unshakeable, and then he peeled off out into the street. The stacks of newsprint whirled into the air behind him.

It wasn't hard to follow the sounds, in spite of the din of the city itself and the myriad distractions presented by the gaming and gambling machines, bars and lights, and things to do and win and race and risk. Under other circumstances Sonic could have lost hours to the place, but instead he dodged over and around and up and past. Stealing little shortcuts through structures that were never meant to be traversed on foot, grabbing extra momentum from the slipstream of the trams and vehicles that criss-crossed the city in every direction.

Before long their gaining on the 'bots was confirmed by the people fleeing in the opposite direction. Mostly anyway.

"Why don't they run?" Knuckles shouted into the wind of their speed. "What's he done to them?"

Sonic glanced at those people not running. Those standing to one side or the other. They were taking photos, filming, pointing and recording. He pulled a face. Explaining that tendency to Knuckles right at this moment was going to be an utter non-starter.

"Never mind!" he shouted back instead, pointing over the crowd's head. "That's what we're after."

Above and ahead of them the robots were clustered around a TV camera-ship they seemed to have hijacked. Sonic ran towards it, considering the height and felt Tails' other hand close on his wrist.

"Sonic, d'you need me to-" Tails questions was cut off by a bang as a cluster of rockets streaked from the helicopter. Sonic cleared them in a wild bound, dragging the others with him and mentally correcting his assessment to 'hijacked and armed'.

He glanced over his shoulder but the helicopter and its attendant bots were already coming after them and firing a second volley. He put on speed. If he could keep the rockets aimed at them perhaps he could reduce the damage to the city and the self-preservation-lacking observers.

Without warning, Sonic felt Knuckles let go of his wrist. Before he could protest, Knuckles had shot up into the air, trading airspeed for altitude and slammed into one of the rockets. Sonic started in horror, for once too late to react, and waiting for the explosion that would blow Knuckles to pieces.

It never came. For a split second Knuckles was wrapped bodily around the rocket, dangling clutched tightly to itself underside with all four limbs. Then he flung his weight violently to the side, dragging the nose of the thing up and around and releasing it aimed back at the helicopter itself.

"Ha!" Sonic whooped as the missile impacted. Some of the momentum had been lost because the camera-ship merely staggered in the air and spewed smoke rather than disintegrating, but it was a start. Releasing Tails, Sonic leapt at a second missile, timing and aiming his jump not to try and simply smash it but targeting the control surfaces. He hit it accurately enough to grin and whoop once again as it pitched up and landed a second blow.

Tails had landed on all fours but sprang instantly back into motion, tackling one of the watching passers-by clear of the third missile.

Sonic ricocheted off the elevator of another rocket, watched Knuckles simply cuff another one off course and back in the direction he wanted it to go, and almost laughed at the sight of Tails now actively chasing off a gaggle of pedestrians twice his age who'd still not got the message. An exploding fragment of helicopter sliced into the spot where they'd been a moment before and Tails' outrage, even inaudible over the noise, was perfectly clear.

The locals fled.

The robots were also fleeing – away into the sky where they couldn't follow, to Sonic's infuriation – but the helicopter was coming apart entirely now. He caught Knuckles' arm to pull him out of the crash trajectory. He felt the echidna's muscles bunch under his hand but he didn't pull away and after a moment's assessment he relaxed and nodded in acknowledgement.

They stood watching the wreckage and the retreating robots as Tails rejoined them.

"We didn't catch them." Knuckles' shoulders slumped.

"Bet we made them think twice about coming back though!" Sonic said.

"And people here saw you fight them," said Tails. "Too close up!" he added with a fierce little frown. "They'll know you weren't the bad guy."

"Eggman's still here," Knuckles said. "We have to find him." He looked around the damaged but still flashing screens. "Where does all this come from?"

Sonic shrugged. "There'll be a studio somewhere. We can-"

He stopped. One of the screens was flashing red with 'Breaking News' and 'Live' scrolling across the bottom.

"Never mind… He's coming. Or… er… going."

Tails and Knuckles followed his gaze. Tails spotted it first.

"That… that's only back there..."

Knuckles looked back the way they'd come and back at the screen. A huge flying machine filled most of the view, but there was no question that the location was only a street or two back the way they'd come. Or of what was coming.

As if in confirmation the roar of engines filled the air.

Sonic stared. "We wrecked that Flying Fortress. We totalled it. How can he have rebuilt it so quickly?"

"I don't care," Knuckles cut across him. "It flies. It can get me- It can get us back to the Island. We have to get on board. We have to capture it, not destroy it."

There was no time to decide – it was on them. Sonic nodded. Other decisions could be made en route.

"Then let's go!"

They ran.