Sonic and company are © Sega/Sonic Team. This work was brought to you by Az The Dragon with no intention of getting money out of it. I just belong the plot, the ideas in it and whatever original things there are, nothing more. Do not steal, and if you want to post this on your site, ask for permission first.

A huge thank you to my beta reader, Soupy (aka Westward-to-Alliot on DA), who helped me with more than just beta-ing (like shortening the original summary so that it could fit into summary field). I own you one, sister!

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Golden Mayhem

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Green.

Everything in that place was green.

The browns of the earth and trees' bark, the grays of the stones… even the air was tainted green in that forest.

No wonder that place was called 'Emerald Forest'…

The jungle, temperate in nature, was one of the largest on the planet Mobius. With its almost two billion acres of extension over hills and valleys, the green sea went from coast to coast and covered one third of the Northwestern Continent. The trees were tall, some even reaching over six hundred and fifty feet, with large and intricate canopies that didn't let a single ray of sun through and trunks that were over two hundred feet of circumference.

'The Forest of the Giants' was another name that fit the place very well.

Tails, a young orange fox with two tails, wasn't very happy to be in that place, but knowing where he was in the world was a fortune within misfortune. After what had happened, bring almost blasted to smithereens and then Chaos Controlled away, he wouldn't have been surprised if he had appeared into an alien world.

So, sure of his location but still completely lost and alone, he was now huddled within the cavity of one of these trees, seeking shelter from a downpour of monsoonal proportions that not even the large leaves could stop. The rain had come all of a sudden and the poor little fox was drenched and freezing, and no matter how much he rubbed his arms, he couldn't warm up.

His sky blue eyes, now used to the darker light, watched as the ground outside his raised alcove became a torrent of mud, twigs, leaves and anything the water could carry. He had never seen something like this beside Chaos' flood, and he found himself fascinated and scared by it.

If he had been in a better situation, he would have studied the entire forest and how it changed aspect during rain, but as of now he was cold, wet, hungry, lost and ultimately alone. That made Tails momentarily miss the fight with Eggman's latest robots. Not that they would be any better than this, but with them he knew what to expect. The flooding forest was all a mystery to him. For all he knew, the tree he was hiding under could lose its grip on the muddy ground and fall on his head, or be hit by lightning, or whatever that happened in that place and in that situation.

A sneeze, barely audible through the roar of all that running water, disrupted his thoughts and he brought a gloved hand to his nose. The fabric was burned and cut in places, dirty with the gray of ashes and the brown of the mud, and wet, but it was all he had at the moment. A vigorous rub of his finger on the tip of his nose later, his arm returned around his knees and under his tails, which were securely wrapped around his small body to keep him warm as much as they could.

If only Sonic was around, he would make the situation more bearable with his light comments and jokes, but thanks to what little he could remember, Tails knew that the blue hedgehog had been in the middle of that contraption when it exploded into a billion pieces and bright lights that ranged from red to yellow to white. No one could survive that blast, but for some reason, the twin tailed fox knew that his surrogate older brother had survived it.

Just like many times before that.

His eyes, which had been downcast onto the ground, glanced up when they caught a glimpse of red amongst the sea of dark greens and browns. The blurred blotch would slowly climb a tree for about fifty feet then jump away from it and glide towards another in a zigzagging course while emitting an incomprehensible call.

Curious, the young fox stood up, still keeping his arms and tails wrapped around his body, and walked to the entrance of the tree alcove, squinting his eyes to see better. It actually took him several seconds to recognize who the blotch was, and, mentally slapping himself for having forgotten that the Guardian of Angel Island had been with them during the mission, he called out to his friend with all the voice he had left.

However, when he noticed that his weak voice didn't reached the echidna's ears, Tails renounced at the warmth of both his arms and cupped his hands around his mouth. He took a deep breath, feeling the cold air puncture his throat and lungs as if it was composed of small and sharp shards of ice, and tried again.

This time he was a bit more successful in his intentions to draw the Guardian's attention, and coupled with the fact that the echidna had moved closer to his shelter, his voice reached Knuckles' ears. His tails unwound from his torso and spun around in excitement as the red male stopped and seemed to look in his direction. Tails, raising his right arm into the air, waved his hand to make himself more visible through the rain.

"Knuckles!" he called again, happier than when he was talking about the Tornado or any of his inventions. "I'm here!"

The echidna turned his head towards him and he waved into the air in reply, relieved at the sight of the young fox, and climbed another tree trunk producing a faint 'tunk tunk' sound. Tails watched as the red colored male positioned himself onto a low branch and flexed his arms and legs, gauging the distance between his position and the alcove the fox was sheltered under.

The Guardian took only a few seconds to calculate the path and then he was into the air, swerving with expertise through the rain and wind to reach his destination as the rain intensified. He was glad that he had found one of his friends, and although his movements were calm and calculated as always, his expression was set into a light frown that betrayed his usually cool demeanor.

"Tails!" he called back once he was close enough. He twisted in the air and landed with a splat on the muddy terrain in a shower of water and earth. "Are you ok? Where is Sonic?"

The echidna seemed so distressed, the young boy noted, distressed and anxious. He frowned and tilted his head to the side, a habit he always had, while he thought. Knuckles wasn't one to become anxious and distressed so easily, so, surely, something had happened. Something bad. He just hoped that whatever it was, Sonic was safe somewhere out there.

"I'm fine, Knuckles, but I don't know where Sonic, or Shadow, is. When I woke up I was alone. I tried to look around for the others, but I didn't want to get lost so I decided to stay close to where I found myself in case someone else was looking for me."

The Guardian nodded, his gloved hands squeezing the water out of his quills as he took shelter under the gigantic tree. "You've done well, Tails. If you had moved, I wouldn't have been able to find you."

The fox nodded his head and retracted towards the back of the alcove, where it was dry, and crouched down, huddling and using his tails as a blanket, "What should we do, Knuckles?" he asked after a while. "The rain is getting worse, and it's also getting late and cold..."

The echidna frowned deeply as he gazed at their shelter and the outside world. Tails had been really lucky to have found a place like this. The alcove was almost as large as a small room and the roof disappeared into the darkness of the tree's inside, while the entrance was narrow and low, letting little water get inside. Also, the inclination of the ground and the large roots of the tree stopped the water and the mud from transforming that place into a pool.

"As you said, the weather is getting worse and the day is close to an end," Knuckles replied after a short pause, "I don't like it, but it's best if we stop here for the night. If we go out now, we might not only get in severe trouble, but also catch a cold. Or worse..."

"But...what about Sonic? And Shadow?" Tails asked from his spot on the ground, torn between knowing that Knuckles was right and the need to go out and help his best friend and the other hedgehog, "We need to find them..! They might be in danger!"

The Guardian filled the air with a faint hum as he reached the wooden wall and tapped it with one of his fists, thinking. He knew that they needed to find the other two, especially since they tended to attract trouble like honey with flies, but at the same time he knew that going out in that weather, with night closing in, was nigh to suicide...

"We can't go out and look for them in this, Tails," He replied, frowning deeply, "but I'll light up a fire so that they might spot us if they are close by."

Knuckles was not entirely sure he could easily light a fire with wet wood, but he wouldn't let simple water stop him from giving the two hedgehogs a beacon to follow, not to mention that he and Tails needed it for the night...

His fist hit the inside of the trunk again, this time a bit too hard, and small pieces of creamy colored bark flew everywhere, giving Knuckles an idea. Crouching down, he started to gather what had detached from the tree and piled them as close to the entrance as possible without having the rain soak it. At the moment the mound was small, enough to be held in two cupped hands, but if he started to collect more from the trunk around him, he would be able to use the dry wood to start a fire. Then burning wet wood wouldn't be much of a problem, except for creating a lot of smoke.

But then again, smoke could alert Sonic and Shadow that someone was nearby.

Knuckles hoped, though, that all the rain wouldn't hinder the scent of burning wood too much or the two hedgehogs would be completely lost.

"Tails," he called as he walked towards the entrance to peer outside, "I'm going to gather some wood. Can you get more from the dry bark so that the pile is large enough to sustain a strong fire?"

He didn't like to go out in that weather for a second time, especially when he was starting to dry up and get comfortably warm, nor did he like to leave the young fox alone again, but he knew that he needed that wood for the night and he hadn't much time left before it was too dark to move into that hellish place.

"How long will you be gone?"

Tails was understandably uncomfortable on having to remain alone again, but he mustered all his courage and stood up to peel wooden material from the inside of the trunk where he was standing. He wasn't one to panic or get scared, but being alone was one of the few things that the young fox still feared.

"I'll be back every ten or fifteen minutes," the Guardian replied, gritting his teeth at the cold rain, "to make sure you're ok and to leave the wood I gathered. When we'll have enough, I'll light the fire."

The fox nodded and walked near the entrance, hands full of chips of dry bark, and added them to the small pile, wondering exactly how much more was needed. He wasn't an expert of surviving in the wild, but maybe he could use the rule of 'the more, the better.'

"Ok..." he replied, not too happy, but understanding. He knew that they really needed that wood, especially if their friends found them...they would need a lot of warmth and the possibility to quickly dry up even if he had never seen Sonic suffer the cold, or get ill. And Shadow...would Shadow, considering his genetic heritage and enhanced DNA, suffer like a normal Mobian? Gerald had genetically engineered him to be perfect...

"Hey, Knuckles!"

The Guardian stopped just outside the entrance of their shelter and turned around to look at the fox, brow set in a questioning expression and voice producing a small hum to tell the young boy that he was listening.

"Look out for them, ok?"

"I will, Tails," he replied with a solemn nod of his head, the water running down his forehead and almost getting into his eyes. He was used to rough weather, but that didn't mean that he liked it, and back home, on Angel Island, he had built a small shelter very close to the altar of the precious jewel known as the Master Emerald.

Turning around again to face the wild, the echidna took a step forward and looked around. The ground was almost like a raging river of mud and any twig or piece of wood had been submerged or carried away towards the bottom of the valley. The only way to gain anything to burn now was either to knock down an entire tree, which was too big even for him, or climb up and grab branches.

Sure, green wood would produce a terrible scent and a lot of smoke upon burning, but it was better than anything, and if he found dead branches…well, even better!

Walking up to the next tree, the Guardian slammed his right fist into the old trunk and gently moved it up and down to make sure it was well stuck before he repeated the action with his other hand, only this time placing it a foot above the other. Once he knew that he was firmly lodged to the tree, Knuckles placed both his feet on the wooden surface. The grasp on the wet bark wasn't the best for climbing, but thanks to his special gloves and shoes, it would be only just so hard to get up to the top.

So, small step after small step, and thanks to his experience in climbing, Knuckles took advantage of any crevice or bump on the surface of the tree to reach the top, and when those were too distant or non-present, he was forced to use only the spikes on his hands to go on. By the time he was up in the canopy, the echidna noted that the world had become a bit darker.

And that wasn't a good thing.

If he took so long to go up and down, there would be no time to gather enough wood for the night. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly to calm his racing heart and fast breathing and looked around. He was pretty high, but even with that advantage point, he could barely see the surroundings, and what he could see was a raging river of mud that ran towards the bottom of the valley.

Everything of that place was so alien to him…Sure, there was a giant forest on Angel Island too, but it was a place that he knew like the back of his hand. This…this was something he had never seen before! The flora, beside being big, had nothing in common with the Mushroom Forest back home and he had no clue what was edible, what could heal wounds or what could outright kill them.

And Knuckles disliked unexpected circumstances.

"Next time, hedgehog," he found himself growling to the empty cold air, "next time I'll… I'll… I'll tie you up and lock you into a room without windows!" Frustrated. Yes, the Guardian was completely frustrated with himself, his current predicament and Sonic for having dragged him into all this. "Did you hear me?!"

Having finally vented his pent up frustration, Knuckles took a few more seconds to look at the surroundings to see if he could spot Sonic, but upon seeing that there was no hedgehog trudging through the mud, he gave up and looked at the large branch he was on.

It was big enough to last all night if used correctly, and the large leaves could be used as a cot to sleep on once they were dry. Not too bad for being lost in the middle of a forest with no supply whatsoever…

Raising one fist into the air, Knuckles carefully took aim, then slammed his namesakes onto the rough surface with all his strength. The thick wood exploded into thousands of shards that flew everywhere through the rain, creating a beautiful, but dangerous shower of vivid light brown.

One mitted hand quickly traveled in front of violet eyes as the echidna turned his head to the side and grasped the trunk behind him. He could hear the branch groan and wood the creak, then a loud crack as the massive tree limb finally detached and fell towards the ground, leaving behind a trail of green leaves.

When the air was clear of flying splinters, Knuckles relaxed and peered down at the distant forest floor. The branch had landed close to his and Tails's improvised shelter, lifting water and mud everywhere as thin twigs broke from the severe impact. It would have been a terrifying spectacle to see from the bottom, and he hoped that Tails was ok despite the sudden appearance of this large wooden bomb.

Violet eyes narrowed slightly in a frown as the Guardian took another look at the surrounding forest in search of his friend Sonic and the not-so-friendly Shadow.

Nothing…

Still no sign of the two hedgehogs, and although the black hedgehog would be hard to spot because of the color of his pelt, the echidna was sure that he could still spot them if they were moving. After all, the forest was motionless beside the raging torrent of mud and the leaves of the occasional low tree or giant bush. The ground of the forest, beside those few elements, was barren. Even the enormous rock formations were far from each other.

Sighing in irritation, Knuckles glanced up at the sky. Although it was covered by the impenetrable canopy, he could still make out the light that came from it, and it was getting very late already. If that close to the treetops it was slightly dark, down to the ground it was quite dark. He was lucky that he had a good eyesight. Not like hedgehogs' or foxes', but still well developed thanks to his connection to the Master Emerald.

Flipping one leg over what remained of the branch, the Guardian sat sideways and let himself freely fall through the air until he was halfway down. He then spread his arms and legs and let his dreadlocked quills catch the air. The wind rushed through his body with an angry whistle and the rain hammered onto his back, but Knuckles was a master at gliding, and soon enough he was gently drifting towards the earth below, eventually landing between the fallen branch and the entrance to the shelter.

"Tails!" he called, voice raised above the normal tone so to be heard through the roar of the rain. He glanced inside, trying to have his eyes adjust faster than they could, and managed to make out the pile of dry bark sitting further inside than where he had previously put it. The young fox had probably moved it away from the entrance to prevent it from getting wet. The weather had become worse while he had been up there…

"Knuckles… is that you?"

The shaking voice of the boy came from the other end of the alcove, along a weak shuffling sound that were quickly lost to the fury of the wind that was picking up. When the fox finally realized that it was his friend and not a raging wild beast, he let out a sigh of relief and walked up to the red male, peering outside at the branch lying several feet in front of their shelter.

"You scared me!" he protested, almost pouting and becoming angry. "I thought it was a… a… something big that lived here!"

Tails's eyes were still wide and jerking left and right, in search of any possible danger, and the fur of his tails and back was standing on end, giving him the appearance of a giant fluffy plush. However, the frown on his mouth ruined the cute sight of the young boy.

Knuckles idly scratched the back of his head, feeling a bit embarrassed and guilty. "Sorry..." he quietly muttered, still not really being used to apologize to other people.

Upon hearing the apologize, the fox took a deep breath and slowly released it, relaxing and regaining his composure that was too mature for his age. His sky blue eyes looked up at the Guardian then moved to look at the large branch laying outside their shelter. He knew that the echidna wasn't good at apologizing, so that word barely muttered was enough for him. Besides, it was not that Knuckles liked to scare him to death...

"No sign of Sonic or Shadow?" Tails asked, noticing the echidna's awkward shifting. He wanted to end the tense silence as well as getting to know whether he had found any sign of the two hedgehogs.

"No, Tails." Knuckles replied, turning around to face the outside world too. "I've tried to look for them, but there's too much rain and the darkness is too thick to see beyond a couple of trees..."

The young fox sighed dejectedly, his ears flopping down. He had to agree with Knuckles... it was really dark now, and even with his sharp sight, the tree in front of them was a blurred shape while the next one was so faint that it almost blended with the background. Letting out a small murmur of unhappiness, Tails watched as the echidna walked under the rain again and grabbed the branch, starting to drag it as close to the alcove as he could.

"I'm going to break this to pieces before I lit the fire," he commented as he stopped a few feet from the entrance and broke several smaller branches off from the main one. "Is the pile of dry wood ready?"

Tails blinked out of his worried status and turned around to glance at the little mound of bark. It was two times bigger than when Knuckles had left it in his care, but he still felt that it wasn't enough. He was still collecting pieces of wood when he had been scared by the large tree-limb hitting the ground...

"I'll get more," the fox replied as he walked towards the circular wall and resumed peeling what he could. "The more, the better!"

Knuckles chuckled gently as he watched the young boy getting back to work. The kit, although as smart as he was, was still a kid at heart and he tried to hide and control his emotions and fears by keeping his mind busy with something. In this case collecting pieces of dry wood.

Once he made sure that Tails was ok, the Guardian placed a foot on top of the large branch and grabbed the broken end with both his hands. Tensing his muscles, he pulled upwards and felt the wood under him creak and shake, and when the material couldn't stand the strength of the pull anymore, it snapped with a loud sound.

Slightly jerking back once the piece of branch had broken, Knuckles found himself holding two feet of wooden limb in his hands. He examined it and grimaced, but set it to the side nonetheless. It was too long to be added to the future fire, but he would break it in two once he had the whole branch divided into similar pieces, bare of leaves and twigs.

Eventually, over half a hour passed, and Tails was done with his own task and was now dusting his hands and fur. Peeling stuff from the bark of the tree had warmed him up, but he was still wet, especially on his back and tails.

"Knuckles!" he called, moving back a step from the pile of dry bark.

Now it was one foot and a half tall and was about one wide. It was composed by creamy colored chips, most of them long a couple of inches, but sometimes there was a darker shaded one, meaning that the young boy had dug into the trunk of the tree a bit too much.

"I'm done, Knuckles!"

The echidna, still outside breaking the last pieces of wood into a reasonable size, tried to peer inside the alcove and see the completed job. By now, the darkness had become deeper and his eyes, as much as used to it that they were, couldn't peer inside the shelter, which was shrouded in deeper darkness.

"I'm coming, Tails," he said as he broke the last piece of wood and threw the resulting two into the pile next to the entrance that he had built in the previous half hour. There was enough wood to last the entire night and some of the morning, too..

Cold and wet, Knuckles walked inside the tree and bent his head to one side to let his dreads fall in front of him. They were heavy with water, but he used his large hands to squeeze the cold liquid off of them while he waited for his eyes to adjust to the new level of light within the alcove. He didn't have Tails's night vision, but he was slowly starting to be able to distinguish the young fox from the wall at his back.

"I got enough wood to last for the whole night and some of the morning," he explained as he tilted his head to the other side and repeated the procedure of squeezing water out of his red quills. "It's fresh wood so it's going to make a lot of smoke, but we won't be freezing and we'll be able to get dry more quickly than we would without a fire."

The young fox nodded his head, "I hope it's enough," he explained as he motioned the pile of peeled wood sitting in a place that wasn't close to the tree's trunk or its entrance. "There isn't much dry wood that I can easily take off from the inside of the tree…"

Knuckles, now with his eyes adjusted to the level of darkness within their shelter, grabbed a strand of dry wood from the future fireplace and kneeled onto the ground, dust and earth immediately getting attached to his legs and itching annoyingly. He then grabbed a small, polished stick that he had previously made out of a tiny branch and started to concentrate.

He wasn't sure who had taught him that trick, or if there had been someone to teach him, but he knew that by concentrating and focusing his energy onto the stick and hitting it onto the other piece with strength, the energy would explode and produce a flame, although tiny. Very handy when you had nothing but wet wood at your disposal.

When the echidna had collected the right amount of energy onto the tip of the stick, he sharply hit the two pieces of wood together and this produced a shower of sparks that gave life to a small flame. It gently danced into the air currents, created by the breaths of the two Mobians and its warm orange-yellow light cast the much of the darkness away.

The young fox turned his head away and groaned. Although he was glad that their refuge had lightened up, his eyes, used to the darkness, had hurt at the sudden shower of light.

"Are you ok, Tails?" Knuckles asked, concerned, as he carefully put the lit piece of wood at the bottom of the small pile. By gently blowing on it, the echidna soon started a larger fire that fully illuminated the alcove and released a sweet warmness that both creatures relaxed upon feeling.

"Yes, I was just taken by surprise. I'll be fine in a moment…"

Large hands grabbed Tails' smaller ones to stop the young boy from rubbing his eyes and the Guardian made him sit close to the warm fire. "Don't rub them, Tails," he warned with a soft voice, almost parental, "you'll only hurt yourself more."

The young fox paused and looked at the older male with squinting eyes. He had never heard Knuckles talk like that to anyone. He wondered if it was just the echidna's instinct kicking in or because his rival, Sonic, was absent so he was opening up more…

"Thanks…" he eventually replied, slowly getting used to the new level of light. Having a sharp night vision was a double edged weapon in the end. He could see very well in deep darkness, but it always took him a while to adjust to bright light, and if the change was sudden, he would be blind for as long as his eyes hurt.

The Guardian nodded and released Tails' hands, pausing only a moment to further check if he was really alright, then walked outside to quickly grab some wood. The fire had become strong enough to burn even the wet logs.

"Once it's morning, and depending on the weather, we'll set out in search of Sonic and Shadow, or at least the exit to this place." Knuckles explained as he placed the seven logs close to the fireplace, so that they would dry up a bit, while he slowly put the eighth on top of the fire.

Small pops and cracks resounded into the air as the water within the logs boiled, filling the refuge with a pungent scent and a veil of white smoke. But even if their noses tingled for the smell of green burning wood, the two Mobians were happy that it was warmer inside.

Tails' blue eyes gazed at the fire and the dancing flames and wriggling sparkles slowly drew the young boy's mind into a light trance. Sounds and voices resurfaced, soon followed by blurred and confused images. Unable to wake up from that vision, and feeling too detached from them to be scared, he let the memories return to him.

There had been a fight, savage and chaotic, with dangerous mechs, bullets and lasers flying around, trying to kill them and protect Eggman's latest invention. He, Tails, was hidden behind a secondary console, occasionally glancing at the battle, as he was working on turning the power off to all the machines in the room as fast as he could.

Knuckles was trying to do the same thing, only that he was using his fists, and seemed to have a bit more of luck in it. Every time one of his fists sunk into the weak metal of a component within the room, there was a loud whine and then the machinery stopped working. Unfortunately, these machines seemed to have nothing to do with the one that they had to stop, and this seemed to further frustrate the red echidna. Sometimes Tails could hear him scream in anger and tear to pieces anything that came within his reach.

He knew that there had been Sonic and Shadow too with them, but the memories of where they were and what they were doing was too blurred and confused. The few images that he could collect were too bright to make out anything, as if he had been staring directly at a white sun, and sounds were blotted out by this loud fizzling and crackling accompanied by an everlasting, horrible scream of pain.

"Tails! Are you ok?!"

When Knuckles' reassuring voice broke through his visions, the young boy found himself huddled on himself with his hands firmly pressed against his ears to block those awful sounds. He looked up at the Guardian with searching eyes, mouth faintly moving to form words that would not come out of his throat. The experience had been traumatic for him, and the more he tried to make heads and tails of what he had witnessed, the more he felt confused and worried.

The echidna placed his strong hands onto the kit's shoulders and the gesture seemed to calm the kid down. Still, Knuckles observed, Tails had troubles with coping with whatever he had remembered, so he sat down in front of his young friend, cross-legged, and gazed at him with the kindest eyes his experience permitted him to have.

Although he was far from being an expert on how to reassure a kid, his expression and relaxed stance helped the twin-tailed fox regain his voice and slow his breathing back to a normal pace. His orange fur was still all on end, though, giving Tails such a puffed up look that many would instantly awe at and crush the kid into a vicious hug of love.

"Are you ok, Tails?" the Guardian asked again, voice less concerned than before, but still worried for what had happened. "What happened?"

Sure, he was a loner and a tough warrior, but the young fox was his friend now, like it or not, and deep down he wanted to help him even if he didn't know how.

Tails took several moments before he was able to reply to the questions he had been given, and during this time his eyes looked everywhere but towards Knuckles. It was a sign of uncertainty, the echidna knew, so he remained silent and waited for the other to feel ready to talk.

"Knuckles…" Tails eventually managed to say with soft voice, "The scream… Do you remember who was screaming?"

The echidna paused and focused on his memories. He could remember entering that awful and dark base with Tails, Sonic, and Shadow, he could remember following the blue hedgehog as he navigated through the place by merely following his instinct, but he also found out that the more he advanced within his memory, the more those memories became blurred and scattered, eventually leaving only few bright images and confused sounds.

"I… can remember fighting something…" he stated, brow furrowed, "but everything else is… confused… too confused to make out something…"

It felt so strange for Knuckles to not be able to remember a fight. He was someone that could notice small things and remember them years later, but this time his memory just failed him. Maybe meditation could help him remember…

"I remember being behind a console, trying to shut down everything…" Tails resumed, making the Guardian snap out of his thoughts and focus back onto him. "You were taking your anger and frustration out onto whatever came in front of you, be it just a piece of machinery or a robot. And then… and then there was this scream…"

The young fox rubbed at his temples, trying to sedate his oncoming headache as he tried to better visualize what he could remember. "The next thing I remember is waking up in this forest…"

Violet eyes watched intently for a few seconds longer, then the echidna stood up and grabbed a log from the pile of wood he had carried inside before Tails had screamed. A swing of his arm later, and the piece of branch landed into the fire, popping and fizzling as soon as the water in it reached the boiling point.

"I think our confused memories and partial loss of them are connected to what happened inside that room…" Knuckles said as he went back to sit next to the kit. "Perhaps it was what took us here…"

Tails turned his head to look at the Guardian and gently hummed in thought. The older male had a point when he said that their memories had been twisted by whatever it had been…

"Could it be… could it be a Chaos Control that took us here?"

Silence fell between the two for several seconds as the echidna considered this new possibility. Tails could be right because, although Chaos Energy was something that could do anything, like destroy or create, the only thing that he knew that could carry them from one point of the planet to another the way they had been was indeed the Chaos Control that the two hedgehogs had mastered over time.

But had this Chaos Control been accidental or had it been made on purpose by Sonic, or Shadow, to save them from something worse than a memory loss?

"I'm worried about Sonic, Knuckles…" Tails said after a while, breaking the silence, "I know he can take care of him, same with Shadow, but…"

Knuckles couldn't blame the young boy for being worried. Both hedgehogs were their friends, even if one was a pest and the other was more of a loner, and even he, the seasoned Guardian of Angel Island who had lived his entire life alone until some years ago, was worried.

His mitted hands clenched as he looked out of their shelter's entrance, eyes narrowed at the darkness. "They'll be fine, Tails…" He wasn't that sure of it himself, but Sonic and Shadow had to be fine, or they wouldn't be who they were.

The young fox nodded his head and sighed, knowing that worrying wouldn't help. "You are right. They'll be fine. It's Sonic and Shadow we're talking about, after all." He smiled a bit and shifted closer to the fireplace, loving the warmth that it gave off.

Eventually, hours passed with them idly chatting from time to time about things like food, old battles or new inventions by the young fox. Knuckles hardly understood what Tails would talk about when he was mentioning his discoveries in the engineering field, but he politely listened anyway and tried his best to appear interested. No wonder Sonic quickly tired when the kid was talking… there were hundreds of technical words that only he understood...

Tails, however, was fond of everything the echidna told him. From legends to how he could track the Master Emerald down from any point of the planet. The kid, the Guardian observed, surely loved to learn new things, and this made him smile a little despite their situation…

"So the Master Emerald and the Chaos Emeralds have a different energy signature despite being composed by the same energy?"

"Yeah," Knuckles replied, nodding his head and making his dreaded quills gently dance in the air. "Although they have the same energy principle, the Master Emerald's energy is different from the seven Chaos Emeralds, like two sides of the same coin. They are two different things, but they are part of the same---"

The Guardian suddenly stopped his explanation and stood up, facing the darkness that pervaded the outside world. He couldn't see nor hear anything, but his ability to sense Chaos Energy told him that there was something heavy with it that was moving towards them. Perhaps it was one of their friends holding a Chaos Emerald, but he wasn't ruling out the possibility that it could be very well something else…something big and deadly…

After all, Mobius, the same planet that the humans called 'Earth' for a reason he didn't know nor was interested in, was filled with creatures infused with the mystical energy of the Chaos Emeralds. Sonic was one of them, but Chaos, the watery creature that his people referred to as the 'God of Destruction,' was the perfect example that fit the category.

Tails had gone from his chipper self to a worried little creature that hung around the protection the fire gave. "Knuckles..?" he asked, voice low in an unconscious effort to not attract whatever the echidna had felt, "who's there?"

His vulpine ears moved forwards to full attention when a loud rustle reached his fine hearing despite the loud rain, then, within seconds, they were folded back against his skull, his racing heart booming into them while his tails swished nervously behind him, ready to rotate and make their owner airborne at the smallest danger.

Knuckles did not reply, but his fists tightened as he readied them for a possible fight, until…

Until something glinted faintly into the darkness and rain, reflecting the warm light of the hearth and illuminating small details of the surroundings for a brief moment. Leaves, rocks and wood were showered in a gentle golden yellow glow, and the Guardian paused in his worry. The color he had just seen for a brief moment reminded him of something he knew well but that were rare to find.

Rings…

But although rings could explain the Chaos Energy source, they would only spin in place and not move through space unless they were moved. Moving them, however, required special machinery that only Eggman himself had, and as much as he focused, the echidna couldn't hear any noise coming from a machine.

Curious as to what it was, Knuckles grabbed a small log that was burning at one end from the fire and walked back to the entrance, moving the makeshift torch to see better. The glint reappeared in a different position than before, and when it lit the surroundings for a bit longer, his purple eyes caught a figure carrying the shiny object.

The moment of visibility had been really brief, but it was all it took for the Guardian to recognize who it had been before said person slipped on the ground and disappeared behind something, taking with him the source of the glinting.

Calm and collected as ever, but with racing heart, Knuckles threw the log he was holding back into the fire and rushed out of the shelter with a reassuring word to Tails that everything was fine. As he quickly navigated through the rain and natural obstacles, the echidna finally reached his destination and let his eyes adjust to the new level of darkness.

Shadow was hanging onto a small branch belonging to a bush with his right hand while his feet were trying to find a hold onto the muddy slope, without success. He was tired and shivering from the cold, but he was firmly set on not letting his grasp go. Neither on that branch nor on what -or better, who- he was holding with his other hand.

Not wasting any more precious seconds, the Guardian grabbed the hedgehog's stretched arm by the wrist and, once he felt that his feet were firmly planted onto the ground, he pulled the black male up and onto the solid surface of the rock formation he was standing on.

With all the darkness surrounding them, Knuckles had no idea of how Shadow was, but the loud grunt and the heaped posture hinted that the hedgehog was wounded, or at least hurting enough for the pain to be nearly unbearable. He would have offered help, but he knew that dark colored male would have brushed it off with a loud snort.

Instead, his gloved hands reached for what Shadow was holding so firmly and pulled up, finding himself face to face with another creature that he knew well. His voice filled the air with his name and the other hedgehog looked up, red eyes shining faintly into the darkness with Chaos Energy.

"He's been…" he paused to cough, "…unconscious since I woke up…"

His voice sounded weak and tired, and the echidna looked back at him with veiled concern. The explosion and whatever had happened next had took an heavier toll on him than both him and Tails put together. Knuckles's brow frowned as he watched the black and red streaked hedgehog lay down onto the uncomfortable rock on his left side, breathing shallowly.

In the extremely dim light that shone from the shelter, located not so far away from where they where standing, the echidna noticed an odd line running from the middle of his side to down close to his right knee. Puzzled, Knuckles crouched down and hovered a hand over the hedgehog's body to touch the strange detail, but was halted by Shadow himself, who weakly swatted the offending appendage away.

"Don't touch me…" he murmured, slowly sitting up, "I can take care of myself…"

Grunting again, Shadow regained a sitting position and blearily looked down at his hands. One was limply resting against his left thigh while the other, the right one, was still clasped around his friend and rival's wrists. It was as if his fingers were cemented in that position and his nerves had been cut off…

Fighting the urge to lay down and sleep, the dark colored hedgehog forced his fingers open and let go of Sonic's arm, feeling a sudden drop in his energy, making him realize that he had been using the other hedgehog's own energy to stay conscious and aimlessly trudge through the flooding forest without feeling pain.

Now that the physical connection with his close rival had been severed, his right side was burning in pain, flesh uncomfortably pulling at lacerated nerves and blood copiously gushing out anew. It looked like Sonic's enormous supply of Chaos Energy, even if turbulent and angry, was doing more than just keeping him awake and walking.

Shadow slowly turned his head to look at the illuminated shelter and mused how easy he could reach it if he grabbed Sonic again. The blood would stop and he would be able to stand again…

Yet, as much as he told himself to reach out for Sonic's arm, his mind simply found itself focusing on how blurred the orange light of the fire was becoming. He would fight it and for a few seconds the world returned to be as sharp as usual, but every time he attained a clear image, his eyes unfocused again and more than before.

Confused and tired, Shadow returned his gaze back to where he knew the Guardian was standing, finding nothing but darkness and a faint voice calling to him. The words were distant and incomprehensible, but he had the clear feeling that the red echidna was trying to keep him awake. Knuckles was shaking him too, but he was so out of it that to him it felt more lulling than waking.

It wasn't long until his eyes dropped shut and his mind slipped into unconsciousness.