The tall, stormy clouds around them rose from a solid undercast but there was no avoiding the descent through it. Sonic's glider plunged into the dark dampness flanked by Tails and Knuckles. Almost instantly the moisture froze on their fur and Sonic shivered once, convulsively before his attention was totally consumed by maintaining control of the glider. It was hard to keep a sense of up and down as the air currents alternatively slammed his chest hard against the control bar and then threatened to rip it away from him all together. He looked round for Tails in time to see him tumbled right over in the air, heard Knuckles shout something that was snatched away by the wind before the echidna himself disappeared in the all encompassing fog.

There was nothing he could do for either of them and the realisation was worse than the biting cold and snatched at his stomach more than the turbulence. Sonic gritted his teeth and heaved the control bar in tight, diving for the base of the cloud.

He burst out into clear air and a dull flat light, with the glider canted over in a turn he hadn't realised he was making. He tugged on the bar and forced the wing level, his arms protesting at the unaccustomed force needed. The sky around him was empty and his heart sank until movement caught the corner of his eye. A flash of orange fur against the overcast above him.

Tails.

And Sonic grinned for the kid's cleverness for Tails wasn't flying at all. He was skydiving. Arms and legs spread, letting gravity bring him down out of the unflyable conditions. As Sonic watched, the fox drew his limbs in and again span his tails up to speed and slowed in the air.

Seconds later Knuckles also plunged out of the cloud, tumbling and shaking his head violently, scattering chunks of ice from his quills before stabilising his glide. He circled a moment before diving to position himself just off Sonic's left wingtip.

They reached the ground, landing with various degrees of stumble. Knuckles caught the glider's wing as Sonic struggled out from underneath it, and cast it aside. Frost coated all of their fur, turning it white before their time but Sonic was too weary and cold to even summon a joke about how ridiculously ancient it made then look. The wind was still biting and even Tails with his thicker fur was shivering.

"We need shelter," Knuckles said. "Or a fire."

"Or both." Tails' teeth were chattering.

Knuckles nodded and pointed. "There's buildings over there."

Sonic glanced over.

"Ruins, Knux. There's ruins over there."

Knuckles shrugged. "You want to stand here and debate it or you want to get out of the wind."

A few snowflakes spiralled past in the icy wind and Sonic grimaced. "Okay. We try your ruins I guess."

The ruins were more massive, and more intact up close than they'd looked from afar. Weathered green marble dominated the facade, broken up here and there with creamy pillars, carvings and huge arched windows, some still retaining cloudy glass panes. Climbing plants in vivid purple twined into the cracks and here and there had pulled down the facing, exposing lighter stone beneath.

"Do you know this place?" Knuckles asked.

Sonic shook his head. "Not exactly here, no. We didn't come that far east east on that ship so we're near Press Garden I think but the place looks abandoned. No tourists gonna come ogle even really big ruins in this weather, I guess."

Tails' ears twitched. "It's not abandoned..." He frowned in concentration. "I can hear noises."

"Good." Sonic said. "Nice little hot snack stand, map seller, some snow-globe shaker of the place to buy…"

"Which way?" Knuckles asked Tails, giving no indication he'd even heard Sonic's input..

"Not sure. Echoes are odd here. From inside I think."

Knuckles headed towards the nearest archway with Tails following and Sonic shrugged and went after them. If nothing else it would be out of the biting wind.

The inside was not what he'd expected.

"Yeah, so – not abandoned then?"

"Not a tourist site either," Tails added.

Inside the shell of the building crates and machine parts were stacked almost as high as the walls themselves. The formed corridors and roofless rooms of their own, turning the interior into a maze.

The noises Tails had heard from outside were audible to everyone now, and they were mechanical as well. A distant metallic chattering.

"That's… odd," Tails frowned.

Sonic nodded. "Not exactly your typical industrial building is it? Something's up."

"You think Eggman's been here." Knuckles frowned, trailing a hand along the lichened wall. "That he's invaded this place?"

Sonic shrugged. "Maybe. Let's see."

Without warning Knuckles swung a spiked fist into one of the crates, puncturing then tearing upwards and open. Splinters flew and Sonic ducked, lifting his head in time to see Knuckles lifting out, of all things, stacks of newsprint.

Tails plucked the topmost one off the pile and handed the second one to Sonic.

"Oh. That's..."

"Not my good side?" Sonic asked.

"More propaganda," Tails said, reading the headline before making a face and discarding it. "Same stuff as in Studiopolis. You're to blame for it, blah blah blah. They're calling the gem-thing a 'phantom ruby'."

Sonic made a face, making no move to read his own paper. "Well that's nice and ominous. And what am I supposed to be doing with it exactly?"

"Does it matter?" Knuckles cut across them both. "If Eggman's here we need to stop him. If this is where he's churning out lies we need to stop that. We need to move."

Sonic dropped the paper back on the heap. "I can get behind that."

Tails skimmed the rest of the page. "Nothing helpful anyway."

They headed off through the labyrinth of corridors and balconies and crates. The clattering grew louder and soon they were running amid machinery as well.

"He's extended the presses out into the ruins," Sonic called. "Taking this PR business a bit far isn't he?"

Knuckles scowled. "It's a desecration. These buildings are ancient, they deserve more respect."

Sonic glanced back over his shoulder, surprised at the vehemence which Knuckles was currently taking out on a couple of lethal-looking robots which were very quickly reduced to scrap.

Sonic leapt at the three that moved to take their place, still talking.

"I wouldn't take it personally, Knux. It's his standard M.O."

Knuckles frown only deepened. "I know."

The next bot hit the opposite wall still intact but with enough force to scatter into bit at the impact.

Tails ducked the flying pieces and leapt up from his crouch to tackle another in mid air, sending it spinning into a pair of cogs which crunched to a splintering halt as most of a robot found itself lodged between the teeth of the coupling.

A horrific metallic grinding sound echoed through the building, loud enough to make Sonic and Tails flatten their ears and Knuckles clap his hands to his head. The abrupt stoppage had obviously had a knock-on effect and the shriek of stripping gears and engines crashing to a halt or abruptly over-speeding as connecting parts cracked away was deafening.

Tails' eyes were wide at the scale of the damage but Sonic lowered his hands from his ears and applauded.

He stopped at the drone of another approaching bot, louder now in the silence following the stilling of the press.

It raced into view and Sonic's spines stood on end at the sight.

"I think we ticked it off," Tails said faintly.

Knuckles raised his fists and Sonic could only conclude that it was sheer habit because landing on punch on this thing looked likely to result in lost limbs. It was less robot and more flying buzz-saw and before Sonic could get any further than that assessment one whirling blade shot out from the machine. It lashed out way further than he would have guessed and so fast he was almost surprised to find that reflex had carried him out of reach before any thought at all had kicked in.

"Keep your distance!"

He called the warning, and Tails shot roof-wards, but Knuckles was already moving in and Sonic had to fight the urge to close his eyes as the echidna jumped straight at the blade. He dodged it by inches, grabbed the arm carrying it, and yanked it down to the stone. Sparks flew and the kickback from the impact as the blade smashed to a stop, sent the machine flying in one direction and Knuckles in the other. He reeled back to his feet as the machine drew back taking aim with the other blade.

Panic leant even more speed than usual to Sonic's movement because Knuckles was dazed, not even looking in the right direction, and the blade was a whistling lethal blur. Sonic span up and into the back of the thing, before flinging himself behind a crate of machine parts as the undamaged blade lashed out again, targeting him this time. It hit more metal instead and there was another shriek of tearing metal and parts and shards flew in all directions.

The robot wobbled in the air, and the arm holding the blade trembled for all the world like someone who'd had a nasty sting off a bat in a ball game and Tails dropped bodily on top of it from his hover sending it pancaking to the floor.

Sonic hurdled the crate he'd taken cover behind and reached the robot a second before Knuckles, still blinking slightly dizzily, swung for it.

Pieces flew for the last time and for a moment they all stood there feeling just as giddy, staring at the wreckage.

"I feel like I should count if I've still got all my arms, legs and tails."

Sonic pulled Tails into a hug. "You're not wrong. You okay, Knux?"

Knuckles nodded slowly.

"Yes. But as far as shelter goes I think we need to look again."

Sonic laughed, relief making it louder than it would normally have been.

"Fair point. Let's get out of here. I think we've at least put a serious crimp in Eggman's marketing machine."


It was snowing heavily and Sonic hesitated at the doorway while Tails glanced at the clouds.

"That's going to get worse not better. Unless we want to dig in for a stay we need to go now."

"I agree," Knuckles said.

They ran until the underfoot conditions became too treacherous and then walked until Sonic began to wonder if they'd made a mistake in venturing out. Snow fell heavily and though the wind had dropped at last, that only meant the snow settled more quickly. Before too much longer they were wading instead of walking.

Knuckles pushed his way ahead, and Sonic swallowed his pride and let him. Tails alternated flying alongside, avoiding the problem completely or, when he tired, dropping down to walk at the back of the line where the snow was trudged flat.

Sonic's stomach grumbled and Tails laughed but then added. "Me too!"

Knuckles glanced over his shoulder and detoured from his straight line course to a low growing bare shrub when long red berries still grew. He swiped a hand up the branch, brushed thorns and the few dried-up purplish leaves from his glove and held the remaining berries out.

Sonic made a face. "You sure about these? Not exactly your normal stomping ground."

In answer, Knuckles palmed the whole handful into his mouth.

"So that'll be a yes?" Sonic picked warily between the thorns until he had a comparable handful.

Knuckles swallowed his mouthful. "If I gave you a list of identifying features would you know what to do with it?"

Sonic shrugged. "Probably not." He popped a berry in his mouth. "It's fine. I trust you."

Knuckles looked slightly taken aback and Sonic couldn't stop himself from answering it this time.

"C'mon, I can't expect you to have my back on the lethal robot fighting endeavours but then poison me can I?"

Knuckles shook his head, slowly. "I suppose not."

Sonic slapped him on the back. "Although to be fair, these taste absolutely rubbish."

Knuckles shrugged. "They're edible. I sincerely hope we're not going to be out here long enough to be tired of the taste."

Sonic grinned, even the handful of fairly indifferent food lifting his spirits. "We won't be. I can see a light – look."

In a brief pause in the snow a light was indeed visible in the distance a flickering orange glow. Sonic resumed high-stepping through the snow at Knuckles' side with Tails close on his heels as they headed towards it. By the time the reached the source of the light – an intricate stone and glass lantern as large as a brazier – another was visible beyond it.

"There's a road or something under here," Sonic said, holding his hands up to the glass for the hint of heat that made it through. "Roads lead somewhere. I say we follow it."

No one objected and they followed the line of lights.

Sonic had been bored of the pace some time ago and quickly tired of the novelty of spotting the next lamp along. He watched Knuckles for a few seconds as he detoured from the road to the berry shrubs once again. There was something habitual about it. Not something new. Something he was used to.

"So what're the winters like up with you?" Sonic asked to kill the time.

Knuckles shrugged. "Survivable. With care."

That sounded like a calculated understatement to Sonic and he would have said so but, but Knuckles was still talking.

"This isn't winter though. The berries are last year's, but the blossom on those trees isn't."

He bent down and swept his hand through the snow until he found the curb of the road. A ragged-leaved plant was growing there, green beneath the layer of snow.

"And this isn't."

Knuckles pulled a handful free and first tasted then ate it.

Tails looked curiously at them both. "A freak spring snow? Or something weird?"

"Something weird," Sonic guessed. "Could a chaos-" He stopped, remembering Knuckles' refusal to answer those kind of questions earlier.

"Chaos energy can affect the weather and climate, yes," Knuckles volunteered however.

Tails was frowning now. "And this 'phantom ruby'? Lew, back in Studiopolis, said the timing of things had been odd. And things had happened too fast."

"You think this ruby is a type of time stone?" Sonic frowned as well. One time travel runaround had been more than enough. "But Little Planet is gone. We stopped all that happening."

Tails shrugged and Knuckles looked between the two of them. Sonic expected questions but all Knuckles said was, "If there's any chance at all that Eggman has access to time travel then we have to stop him."

Sonic rolled his eyes. "What do you think the plan has been all this time?"

Knuckles scowled at him but didn't answer. Instead he continued to tread down the snow along their route until further ruins came into sight. Sonic followed, scooping up a handful of the plant Knuckles had been eating out of curiosity. It was not what he'd expected after the berries. Instead it was crisp and peppery.

"This isn't bad!"

Knuckles glanced over his shoulder. "They say the flavour is stronger when it grows in harder ground."

"Mmhmm. Who's they?" Sonic asked with his mouth full. It was an idle, conversation making, almost flippant question but Knuckles' face grew tense again and he looked away.

"No one, I suppose. It's just a story."

Sonic caught him up and overtook to walk backwards in the snow. "I like a story."

Knuckles sighed. "I'm not a storyteller. It's just a teaching tale anyway, how to forage, a moral - 'hard times make strong people', a bit of Island history – how it ended up with none of the orchards or arable lands of the surface, just… that sort of thing."

"Kinda heavy for a bedtime story," Sonic couldn't help saying. "That what echidna parents tuck their kids into bed to?"

Knuckles' face darkened further. "I don't know." He hesitated before adding. "But it reads like a story for puggles, yes."

Sonic stopped long enough for Knuckles to walk straight past him and stared at the back of his head wondering how a simple story had gotten to him so much. Tails was quicker to work out the problem and elbowed his way between then to slip his hand into Knuckles'.

"No one read me stories either," he said. "Not 'til I met Sonic."

Sonic made a face behind both their backs, realising he'd put his foot in it once again.

"Sorry," he said. "What happened?"

Knuckles didn't look back. "I don't know," he repeated.

Sonic pushed his way back through the snow to walk beside Knuckles on the other side to Tails.

"That's rough."

Knuckles shrugged and something in the set of his expression told Sonic not to press for further details. In any case they were coming up on further ruins again and everyone's attention was soon on might might be within instead of the stilted conversation.

The ruins were were in a worse state, arches fallen here and there and ice coating every surface. A flash of metal caught Sonic's eye and he pointed at a device embedded in the wall.

"Eggman's been here." A faint mist rose from a nozzle and Sonic watched it, keeping warily out of range.

"What is it?" Knuckles eyed it.

"Let's not find out."

The next half-standing building they entered was even colder than outside and Sonic frowned. Blocks of ice were stacked here.

"There's rings in them." Tails pointed. "Weird."

Sonic gave a lone block a shove, sliding it across the slippery floor.

"I guess that's one way to move them without them going ping!" He leapt at the block, smashing it and feeling a surge of warmth as the rings within released their energy to him. He grinned. "Mine now!"

Tails grinned back and leapt at another block, collecting the rings within before joining Knuckles as he surveyed the room. More of the devices they'd seen outside lined the walls and Sonic was about to tell them to back off when the faint mist blossomed in an instant to a huge plume of icy fog.

Sonic was already moving and collided with both of them in a full body tackle that knocked the breath out of him and rattled every bone in his body. Cold so extreme it burned flared through every limb and he found himself entirely unable to take a second breath, unable to move, unable to so much as blink. The sheer burning cold was the only thing that existed. Blurry colours moved before his vision, but greyness crept in from the edges, unconsciousness threatening and the relentless cold was like being eaten alive.

Then came a smash which felt as though it might as well have been his actual skull and he was sprawled on the icy floor slabs. Air burned his throat as he gasped it down.

"Get more rings."

It was Knuckles' voice, Sonic belatedly realised. Knuckles' hands hauling him back up onto uncooperative, shaking legs and dragging him across the room. Pushing him towards another ice block and all but dropping him into the rings that cascaded free as Tails pounded on it.

Sonic gasped in mixed shock and relief and Knuckles pulled him back to his feet.

"Walk," Knuckles said and Tails tucked himself in under Sonic's shoulder on his other side.

The fox squeezed Sonic tightly, fading fear written all over his face. "You need to keep moving and keep warm. We've used all the rings here, we need to find more."

"Lucky there were any," Sonic managed.

"Lucky you were messing about with them before you got hit," Knuckles said. He shifted his arm where it looped around Sonic, supporting him as they staggered in search of more rings. "And Tails and I were lucky you saw that blast coming."

Sonic grinned through the shivers. "No problem. It's what we do."

Knuckles didn't answer but Sonic could almost hear him thinking that one through.

"Rings." Sonic pointed before the silence could get too long.

He collected them and the next set, and was walking then running under his own power before they got much further.

Which was just as well because before they had gone very much further there was an almighty crash and something flew at them in a blur of motion.

All three of them flung themselves to the floor to avoid it and looked up together.

"It's one of those robots that got changed," Tails said.

Tails was right although it didn't move like a robot. Instead it sprang around them and flaunted what looked like a sword, almost as though it was inviting an attack. As though it was taunting them.

"Be careful," Knuckles said, but Sonic had seen it already – the weapon trailed the same freezing mist as the Eggman's devices.

"Let him try that in mid air!" Sonic jumped back to his feet as the robot leapt past them again spinning in the air itself and scattering throwing stars which made the other dive clear. Sonic hit the robot dead centre and it landed, reeling, the weapon loose at its side. Knuckles and Tails were on it in an instant, Knuckles swinging it for it with a fist while Tails yanked the weapon free and then turned it back against the bot. Ice formed almost instantly and there was a deafening noise of metal under pressure.

Sonic landed a second blow and parts scattered. The robot leapt over them once more but didn't return to the attack. Instead it fled. Moving nimbly and swiftly over the ice and snow.

Sonic clapped Tails on the back. "So are you some sort of fox ninja now? That was awesome!"

Tails grinned but Knuckles was frowning in the direction the robot had taken.

"Did you ever see a robot with a sense of self preservation before?"

Sonic made a face. "They are weird aren't they?"

He bounced on the spot, adrenaline have apparently finished the work the rings had started. "Are we moving on then?"

They headed for the nearest archway until Tails pulled them up short.

"Someone's here."

An electronic tone filled the air and peering around the archway Sonic recognised the rotund shape of Eggman. He was hurriedly entering something into a computer terminal which stood incongruous in the ruins. A holographic projection hovered above it and Sonic hissed through his teeth at the sight.

"That's Little Planet," Tails whispered urgently in his ear.

"Yeah," Sonic agreed, eyeing the rest of the projection. "And worse."

He raised his voice. "Hey, Eggy! Your cheap knock-off metal hedgehog didn't work any other time – don't you learn?"

Eggman half turned towards them, startled but not looking at all alarmed. He brought a hand down on the console and the world spun once again.