Chapter 4: Sanity's Edge

Author's Note: FFNet ate my formatting after a quick edit. Sorry.

When he teleported into the village, she wasn't there.

When he walked over to the elder and asked him where he could find someone, she wasn't there.

When the little girl he'd met ten years before told him where he had to go and hoisted a toddler on her hip, she wasn't there.

When he set out toward the Temple, she wasn't there.

Cream wasn't there. Nor was…

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He was shivering, so Chip landed on his head, hugging his top spine tightly. "I'll keep you warm, Sonic."

"Thanks, Chip."

Chip slid down to look into Sonic's green eyes, shining in the cold, his face seeming almost as blue as the rest of him as they made their way down the mountain. "What's been eating you? Ever since you got sick at Amy's house you've been all sad and stuff. And you bit your hand."

"I fell into it."

Chip glared.

"I just had to scream and I didn't want you guys to hear, ok? Look, this is hard. I had all these friends, and in a moment they were all gone. And now they're back and there's just so much. All the missed time. All the guilt. Finding out they've become these powerful people while I'm gone and I'm not even as good as I was when I left." Sonic spat into the snow.

Chip frowned, sliding down further. "I'm sure you're better than you were!"

"No. I'm even more of a jerk than I used to be."

Chip flew up, in front of Sonic, hovering in front of him. "But you're wiser than you were, aren't you? And you know… what you want out of life better?"

"I guess." Sonic frowned, but then stopped in his tracks.

"Come on Sonic! Cheer up! We'll get through this and then you can get with Amy and—"

"I don't want to get with Amy, but do you hear that? And did you feel that energy?"

Chip cocked his head to the side. "Do I hear what?" He could see the mountain over them, snow seeming to waver in the distant heights under the cool blue sunlight.

"That sound. I hear something… I don't know what it is."

"Is it that snow moving?" Chip pointed behind Sonic.

"What?" Sonic turned suddenly and swore. "Avalanche!" Sonic grabbed Chip around the waist and ran off, pulling him close to his own chest like a football.

"Avalanche! What's an Avalanche!"

"Snow trying to kill us!" Sonic panted, leaping over a fallen tree.

"Why would it try to kill us?" Chip demanded, indignant.

"It doesn't think, Chip! It just falls because a vibration in the mountain set it loose!"

Sonic ducked behind a rock and continued running. Now Chip was starting to hear the hum, no, the roar of the snow coming down on them.

"Sonic! It's going to get us!"

"I know! Shut up so I can run!"

As roar became deafening, Chip could feel the snow starting to reach him, as the feeling of doom set in, Sonic suddenly veered to the right, and everything went dark. It took Chip a moment to adjust from light to none to see that they were in a glimmering cave of ice, shining in the dim light… until, that is, the avalanche covered the entrance, snow coming in toward them with nowhere else to go. Sonic kept running for what seemed like miles in the darkness before he collapsed, panting, sliding across the ice.

"What was that?" Chip asked, landing on him.

"Deliberate. That was deliberate. There was an emerald involved, I could feel it. Someone," he panted, "is trying to kill me."

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They arrived quickly, thanks to the teleport. What he was not expecting, however, was to be routed directly to the throne room. Yvon shivered in… something. At first, as his heart sped up, he thought it was fear, but then the pressure in his face told him it was hate instead.

She, however, seemed completely unphased, even relieved. She bowed low. "Your Imperial Majesty, I thank you for your warm welcome in the light of my husband's indiscretion. He has told me his side of the story, and now, if it pleases you, I would like to hear yours."

Yvon bowed too, looking under his eyebrow at the bespectacled man, trying not to growl. Doing this to Amy when she had something far more important to pay attention to…

"Oh? And what, pray tell, would my side of the story matter, Dr. Rose?"

Amy frowned. "Majesty, permission to speak freely?"

"Always granted, Dr. Rose. Given your husband's indiscretion I suppose you are my most loyal follower."

"If Sonic were the king and had said and done about Shadow's big mouth the things you've done, I'd have already smitten him down to the ground." She hissed. "The only reason I haven't done that to you is because I completely understand where you're coming from. So I'm going to say this. I want to know what happened to put it in context, but I know Shadow. If he really wanted you dead, he would have already done it."

Ivo leaned forward, glasses glinting blue.

"Shadow, who thinks nothing of blowing up the whole world for Maria. Shadow, who stole a chaos emerald right out of the ship we took to the comet. Who fought Sonic in front of the aliens, not because he liked the aliens, but because he wanted Sonic to know that he was the ultimate." Amy took a step forward. "Shadow is NOT afraid of you!" she shouted, throwing her arms out, "and if he thought you need to die he would take care of it! But he's confided in me," Amy added, speaking more softly, "That he hopes you live a good long while once it's fixed so you can see what a farce your empire is."

"And you feel the same as him?"

"No." Amy growled. "You have grown as a person so much since your coup. You've changed for the better, even more than I have. But you still lapse back to the man who kidnapped me on the Little Planet all those years ago. You still have a mean streak, an ego that has to be fed. I beg of you, don't sacrifice my husband, YOUR COUSIN, to that ego. He's not himself. He's sick, and he's tired, and he's… changing."

The Emperor stood, buttons glimmering as the light changed. She saw his hand twitch, and a number of soldiers came into the room. "And tell me, Amy, what happens if I don't give in to your pleas?"

"I'm powerless, your majesty," she answered meekly, softly, looking down. Yvon, however, could see the grin on her face, seeming almost fanged despite the bluntness of her teeth. "But… I don' think our savior would be too happy. I mean, you already tried to kill him so many times." Amy shifted a foot back shyly. "If you imprisoned or executed his most loyal servant," she added. "I'm certain he wouldn't take that sitting down."

There was a collective gasp from the guards and from the Emperor; his scepter rattled to the floor and rolled to Amy's feet. "It can't be," he said, though Yvon thought he seemed to be smiling.

"It is." Amy looked up, raising her hands into the air, smiling as she stared up into the mock sun of the throne room. "Sonic the Hedgheog lives!"

The guards erupted into cheers, and Eggman stood silent a long time. Finally, he sighed with relief. "I… I see. How good to hear. I only hope he can forgive me for what I've done."

"I'm sure he'd be more inclined to forgive you if you showed him some signs that you were changed. "

"Very well. In light of Shadow's comments I can't allow him to continue to be my guard. However, he has expressed his fullest confidence in our mission." Eggman turned to his guards. "I hereby decree that Shadow is to assume the royal duty of the protection of the Gaia Temple of Eggmanland. Among his duties will be the escort of the Hero of Gaia to the Emerald Shrine. I also hereby forbid him to be in my presence without the escort of Dr. Rose and a guard of my choosing until his health and well-being are examined and established to my and Dr. Rose's satisfaction."

Amy dropped to her knees. "My eternal gratitude, my liege."

"But tell me, Amy," he said, approaching her, kneeling by her. "Tell me, as protégé to mentor. Why did you not tell me of his arrival when you first discovered it?"

Amy looked up to him. "Ivo," she cooed softly, "How could we know how you would take it, or how he would? We had to wait until we knew at least one of you was ready. We're your friends, Ivo." She reached out and took his hand, rubbing the back of it with her thumb. "We wanted make it right. I'm just sorry I had to let it go to save Shadow like that. But that's what Sonic would want me to do."

He smiled, glasses falling on his nose, revealing teary teal eyes. "All the terrible things I've done to you, and still you find friendship in your heart."

"All the terrible things I did following Sonic, and he told me he was proud of me." She wiped a tear from her own face. "Least I can do is help another sinner who put himself before love."

They both stood, smiling, and the Emperor rubbed a hand over his bald head. "My cousin needs your caring ministrations, Dr. Rose. Please see to him now. You may go."

"Thank you my liege." She curtsied again. "We remember your generosity." She turned and marched out of the throne room, and Yvon followed her closely as she went to her quarters in the palace. As they marched into the cool blue space, through to a red upholstered office, she pulled a barreled pin from her spines and inserted it into the computer at the desk in the office area. An image of half of the Emperor's left eye and his temple popped onto the screen.

"look at that, Yvon. It's teal. His eyes are a different color. Just like…"

He nodded, understanding. "So all that stuff about forgiveness and being his friend was just…"

"Oh Yvon." Amy chuckled, putting her hands on her hips. "Just because I don't trust him as far as I can throw him doesn't mean I don't care!"

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He swore as the ice rained down around him, sharp, piercing.

Beneath him, clinging to his churning stomach, was Chip, screaming furiously. The cold ice burned at his tender claws as he ran across the ice and snow. Behind him were crystalline screams as chunks of ice rained down. Ahead of him in the snow every so often he'd catch sight of a little dart…

He leapt onto an ice floe in the river running through the cave, jumping off it, trying to make the next, screaming in terror. He tried to banish the thought of the water from his mind, not to see himself sinking, feel it in his lungs. He tried not to think of the labyrinth, the chemical plant, the aqueduct on Angel Island…

A dart stuck in his back and he screamed, missing the floe, catching it with his claws as water washed in around his spines and fur. Chip screamed as he hit the ice, and Sonic scrambled to his feet, running to the end of the floe and jumping again. This time, however, he climbed up top and grabbed a chunk of ice, throwing it at his attacker. He saw the little blue ball hit darker blue figure, which plummeted toward the ground with a pitiful little scream before flying away.

"Chip, can you pull that dart out of my back?" He asked.

Chip flew off his stomach and went around to grab the dart. "Sure," he said.

"Man, that was weird."

"What was?" There was a sudden, searing pain in Sonic's back, and he screamed.

"Didn't you hear her voice? The assassin was—is—a woman. "

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"Tell me of your progress, Cream."

"I haven't been able to find him, father," She responded over the screen, frowning. With the furry hood around her face he could barely see it, except for her little orange eyes, gleaming sadly. "There was an avalanche, that slowed me, and a partial collapse in the cave in which I think they've taken shelter."

"You wouldn't be lying to me like the others, would you?" he tried his best to smile sweetly, to pierce through the hate he knew she felt.

"Of course not, father. It would be rude to lie," was her response, along with an eerie, cheery smile he knew she could not possibly mean.

Moments like this made him miss Ergo and Gamma.

"You're a good daughter and a wonderful princess, Cream. I am so proud of you."

She pulled her coat a little tighter around herself. "Thank you, father."

He studied her sweet, false, smiling face, and tried to smile warmly, tried to be proud. She really was a model princess. He knew she didn't care a whit for him, but he hoped his approval would at least mean something. It was as he studied her brow, her eyes for some sign that she was pleased when he noticed something strange.

"Daughter… why is there blue on your forehead?"

"I don't know…" she whined, suddenly seeming genuinely shaken. He saw her shoulder twitch and the camera began to shake back and forth, too even to be natural. "There's an earthquake! I gotta go! Bye Daddy!" She never called him Daddy.

The transmission ended.

"What on earth is that girl up to?"

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He lay on a blanket in the snow, shivering blue against red against blue.

"Ok, Chip, in the pack there should be a little packet of antiseptic wipes," Sonic coached. "I need you to find them."

Chip dug through the bag until he found the paper packaging. "OK, what do I do with it?"

"Tear it open and wipe the wound with it." Sonic stiffened beneath Chip's feet. "I'll brace myself, maybe even cry out, because that hurts."

Chip didn't like the idea of hurting Sonic, but it was necessary, right? So he pressed the wipe into the gaping, bleeding hole. Sonic screamed, twitching beneath him, and Chip gasped, and pressed harder. Sonic was so big and scary and he was able to hurt him? It was kind of cool. And didn't Sonic say he'd failed him last time, that Sonic was the reason he couldn't remember now? So maybe he deserved it. So maybe Chip would press a little harder, and Sonic would twitch a little more.

"OW! CHIP! STOP!"

But it's so fun?

"CHIP!" Sonic bucked up, sending Chip flying. "Ouch! Chip, what were you doing?"

Chip pulled his head out of the snow. "I don't know. I… I just… you said it was supposed to hurt," he lied, "And I was supposed to clean it, so I started scrubbing. "

Sonic propped himself up on his elbows. "What the hell, Chip? Don't… Don't make any more guesses, OK? You could hurt me."

"Sure, Sonic," Chip murmured sheepishly, oddly satisfied that he'd put Sonic in a position of weakness.

"Now, could you please put that gauze on the wound?" Sonic lay back down, and Chip flew back over. He looked at the little hole, before finally saying, "Wouldn't one of those little sticky ones work?"

"If you think it's small enough, go for it, buddy," Sonic offered, nervous.

So Chip grabbed one of the little sticky ones and peeled the paper. He hoped he'd get to take it off Sonic when it was healed, so he could see him squirm again. As he peeled off the waxy covering, he wondered what it was that made him feel so angry… angry with Sonic in particular. He liked Sonic, he'd love Sonic to be his friend, and he decided he'd stop anyone who tried to hurt him. But… he wanted to hurt him. All to himself. Wanted power, wanted Sonic to be in his control, to be a part of him…

"Chip? Buddy? You gonna put that bandage on?"

He pressed the bandage onto Sonic's back gently, rubbing his fingers over its two adhesive wings. "Sorry. I was afraid I was going to hurt you again."

"Hey, given what I put you through, I guess it's fair."

Chip smiled to himself, letting a small sigh of relief. See, it's ok! Even Sonic thinks so.

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She made her way through the caves, over the river, trying to find him.

She hopped from floe to floe, carrying herself on the drafts with her wide ears, brown winter clothing stowed carefully in the blue pack on her back. Camouflage was important on this mission; she couldn't allow him to see. Not even to see her coming, lest he might see who she were. And if he were to escape and remember identity, she'd be in a world of trouble, friendless and alone. Except for Chocola, of course, but he wasn't much conversation.

She didn't expect something to hit her in the back, searing through the blue suit she wore into her bare flesh, burning. It startled her so much she plummeted into the flowing, brackish water. She swam toward the surface desperately, shivering as she went, and pulled herself up onto one of the icebergs, looking around for the offender.

Floating in the air surrounded by sunlight in a hole in the cavern was a beautiful creature, like a bird, an angel, floating, made of beautiful white light. She struggled to focus in the cold, looking, to finally discover that it appeared to be a tiny phoenix, like the kind she used to give to Cheese to make him a strong chao. It looked at her with strange green eyes and swung its tail, sending a blast of emerald light in her direction.

Cream screamed as she was hit, dropping below the surface, back into the freezing water. As she surfaced this time, more easily, she tried to wrap her mind around what she saw. It was a phoenix, but behaving like one of the Dark Gaia creatures. It was light, white and green, it wasn't the same color as the evil. As she wrangled with it in her mind, she pulled herself back onto the shore, only to find a strange white giant, like an angel, standing in the sunlight, glimmering, hand pointed at her like a sword of doom.

She pulled a dart and threw it at the creature, only to watch it go completely through as if nothing had happened. Then it took its turn, slapping at her with its grotesque sword-like hand, sending her flying with a quake of pain and splashing into the cold glass water. She surfaced with more effort to find more and more of the monsters pulling themselves out of the snow, glowing white and green, glimmering in the midday sun as it filtered through a thin layer of ice atop the cave.

She ran into the shadows.

They didn't follow.

"I've got to get out of here," she decided, and ran away.

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So they made their way through the cave, finally finding their way to the last door before the shrine. She watched him assemble the tablet, watched the tiny creature work some kind of magic that opened the doors. She threw a dart and watched him jump as it breezed past him as it opened, lodging itself in the shrine walls in front of him.

But she was the one surprised as Sonic turned, smiling, apparently unshaken.

"Hey Cream! Long time, no see," he sneered. "Mind tellin' me why you're playing pin the spine on the werehog?"

The rabbit didn't answer, only grunting as she flung a dart at him. He caught it a claw, discarding it.

"Not a great way to greet an old friend. Did Eggman send you here to finish me off? Want all the glory to himself?"

She growled at him. "He'd kill me if he knew what I were doing."

"So why are you, Cream? What happened to the polite little hero I knew?"

She whipped Chocola out of her pack and flung him at Sonic. Unprepared, he fell to his feet, grunting. She stepped toward him confidently, breathing deep, teeth bared, wiping the blue paint from her brow.

"Choco?" the chao asked, looking at Sonic.

"This is all your fault, Sonic" she growled, voice staying level despite the rapid heaving of her chest.

"It wasn't intentional, I promise you that." He climbed to his feet, setting Chocola down gently. The little brown chao scurried away from the fight.

Cream pulled out more of her darts. "You left us alone… with him."

"I didn't mean to, Cream."

She advanced on him. "My mother had to marry him to save us. He killed the vice president. They all started falling at his feet, begging forgiveness, begging help. Knuckles was first."

Sonic thought about revealing the genius of Knuckles' plan, but decided not to out his true allegiance. "You guys did what you thought you had to do to save the world in my absence. And you did a good job! I'm pretty happy with old Egghead's work."

Cream flew at him, lunging, wing-ears flapping. She stuck out her fist to throw a punch, and it caught him unprepared, right in the jaw. She looked at his face and something seemed to snap in his green eyes; a dark look came onto his face, a snarl on his white lips. He grabbed both of her ears, squeezing with his claws, swinging his arms and whipping her down.

She screamed and moaned, pulling her eyes up as quickly as possible to see the look on his face. His expression seemed to melt as she lay there, looking, just as she planned.

"When I fix the world, Cream, you can do whatever you want to me. Maybe even kill me." He walked over, planting a boot into her chest. "But if you kill me, Knuckles will kill you. And if Knuckles kills you, Eggman will have him executed. And if he does that, Rouge will assassinate him, and his followers will kill her. And there will be no one left to turn Eggmanland back into the U.F., because Amy and Shadow will be too sad that you and I are dead. And your mother will be crying, and Dark Gaia will win."

She spat at him, hitting his leg. "How do you know Dark Gaia will win if you're dead? You couldn't stop him last time."

"I've had ten years to figure out what I did wrong, and this time my friends will be at my side." He lifted his foot. "Will you be among them? Or will you be just another enemy I have to stop? " Sonic took a deep breath. "I don't care that you're a girl, or that you're only sixteen, or that you were a little girl calling everyone Mister last time I saw you, Cream. Anyone who can hurt me that bad and keep at it when I try to save the world is going to be my enemy."

She tried to kick him, but he caught her foot in a claw, digging in. She looked at his claw on her foot, trying to figure out the best way to tear his fingers from their bases when she noticed it: a bandage, wrapped around his wrist and the lower part of the claw, tattered and torn, bloody on the wrist side.

He tried to kill himself, she thought.

She thought back to all the time they'd spent together, with the other teams, with Blaze. His laughing, smiling face, she thought he never cared about anything, it didn't matter. But then she looked at that bandage again, realizing here was something at stake for Sonic, thinking of how horrified Tails would be.

"Mr. Sonic!" She tore her foot from his claw, ignoring the pain raking down it, threw herself into his arms.

"Cream."

"I'm so sorry! I should never have… let me bandage you!"

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They were laughing and smiling together, working on fixing each other's wounds, chatting about old times. Chip could hardly believe that only a few minutes ago she'd been trying to kill him. It was like something broke in her heart, something that let her forgive. He didn't understand what it was that made her feel that way, what it was changed. He saw her look at Sonic's hand, the hand Amy had bandaged because he bit himself. When she had asked him, Sonic had murmured something about muffling a scream, something about a nightmare. How would a little nightmare, a little bandage, change her mind? He thought she must have had a pretty big reason to decide to kill him. He thought a lot of things.

"So I fell, and I could feel the magma burning," Sonic decided. "Then something lifted me up. I woke up in Apotos with burn scars and no idea where I was, and this little bracelet on my wrist." He held up his other claw, showing off a strange loop with a green orb on the end. "I… I think it was Chip's necklace. He left it with me, to protect me. He forgave me." Sonic smiled sheepishly.

"But you didn't forgive yourself," Cream added sadly.

"I still don't forgive myself. I didn't eat for a week. I just… wandered in the shadows, made my way back to Eggmanland." Sonic shook his head. "I was going to throw myself at Eggman in one final fight, destroy him, but then I saw what he was doing with the Gaia Generators—now they're called suppressors. It's like, he was doing a better job stopping Dark Gaia than I was. I had given up hope when Shadow found me, hid me, forced some food down my throat. He kept me a secret from Amy for weeks, at my request."

Cream leaned forward. "Why would you keep yourself from Amy?"

Sonic sighed, lying back in the snow. "I thought she'd do what you did. I thought she'd kill me for failing her." He scratched his head. "But Shadow, he knew what I was going through. His fried Maria died in front of him and there wasn't a thing he could do. He was responsible and he was helpless. I felt like I could tell him anything."

Cream's eyes went wide, and Chip settled in the groove between Sonic's waist and arm with fear. This one was crazy, he decided; if she looked like she was going to wig out, he was going to get close to Sonic.

"What? You don't trust Shadow? I trust Shadow."

"Uh, Sonic?" She whimpered.

"What is it, Cream?"

"What's that thing coming out of the doorway?"

Chip and Sonic turned to see a great dragon coming through the shrine door at them.

"Not the Moray again!" Sonic stood.

"What's a Moray?" Cream and Chip asked together.

The creature stood up at full height, revealing its lack of legs. As it did, Sonic narrated, "It's some kind of freaky eel thing, only this one is like a legendary thing. It was possessed by Dark Gaia last time…"

It came out into the light to be seen, glimmering a beautiful pale green, smooth surfaced and shining. Then, like a hammer, it threw itself down near Sonic and Chip, and the two rolled to the side to avoid it.

"What is this thing?"

"It's a temple guardian!" Sonic ran over to the base where it stuck out of the ice and began slashing at it with his claws. "Cream, I want you throw your darts at it! Chip, keep us—"

The creature threw Sonic out into the sunlight filtering in from above. With a horrified shout he began to change before Chip's eyes, switching from the werehog into the hedgehog of daytime.

Cream took that as her cue, leaping into the air and driving a pair of darts into the creature's shining eyes. It roared and bucked her off, but Chip was ready, swinging Sonic's bag into its head. That gave Sonic time to kick a ball of stone into its face.

"We're going to beat it!" Cream shouted, descending upon it from above and raking darts down its side.

Sonic ran into the shadows toward it, fighting to continue as the change came over him… but the creature retreated, roaring. Finally Sonic announced, "Where did it go?" But that was all he could say before he collapsed in the snow, laughing. "It doesn't matter. Let's fix Holoska."

It was Cream this time, who carried the emerald into the Shrine, and Cream who placed the dark blue gem onto the altar. Cream carried Sonic out of the cave through a sunlit hole over head, and Cream apologized profusely.

And it was Sonic who rested in the arms of a hero, relieved to have been rescued, or was he? Chip could never read his face the way he could other people's.

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He thought he might vomit as the connection went through.

It wasn't nervousness,e xactly. He wasn't afraid of Eggman, or of what Eggman might do. No, in the end, Eggman wasn't the one who'd nearly roasted him. And yet he was afraid—of what? He thought of a half remembered dream in which Eggman crashed and Sonic laughed. He thought of that sick, satisfying, Dark Gaia fantasy of throwing Eggman into the depths of the Earth, hearing him scream in fear.

"He doesn't deserve this power, he's unworthy," came a thought from the depths of Sonic's mind, a thought that seemed to dance on the sunbeam filtering in the window.

A distressing thought, Sonic decided, from one who tries not to criticize others.

"I'm afraid of myself," he murmured voicelessly, and Cream nodded to him, seeming to understand.

Then came a low tone, and the video chat connected. Sonic pulled tighter around himself the blanket that the villagers had given him as the image of Eggman appeared on the screen.

"Sonic! My admirable adversary," came his jovial voice, but his pince-nez quivered on his red nose. "How grateful I am to see you, at long last, safe and well."

Sonic felt his own frowning face soften at the sight of the lines across the Emperor's face, the bags under his eyes, the pallor of his face, the ratty thinness of his moustache and goatee. He managed to whimper, gently, "Heh. Never thought I'd be this happy to see your ugly mug, Egghead."

Then came the familiar grin, wide and toothy, spreading across his round face. But gone was the malice, the control. It was a look of relief, like the look Eggman had worn when he'd learned of his grandfather's attempts to save the world. "Amy told me. I… I'm so glad you're alive. I was afraid I had been the cause of your death."

He gasped, surprised. "She told you?"

"Of course!" Eggman cheered, posturing, "That's what a loyal subject does. She begged for mercy toward Shadow on your behalf." Eggman frowned, eyes still smiling. "He said some treasonous things, you see."

Sonic grimaced, standing up, letting the blanket fall from his shoulders.

"Listen to me, Egghead, and listen good," he growled, bashing his fists into the desk. "I haven't exactly made my peace with what happened ten years ago, but I'm willing to put that aside until our friends—and I mean they are OUR friends—are safe."

Eggman frowned. Was it anger? Was it sadness? Sonic didn't know, and wasn't sure he cared.

"But I don't feel like one, dealing with your little crown fantasy power trip, or two, having my friends threatened." Sonic crossed his arms, glaring. "If you have to, tell yourself I'm the King of the Little Planet, fine, but we're allies, not ruler and subject, so don't go posturing on me."

Eggman peered at him over mirrored glasses, teal eyes narrowed, pince-nez jumping. "I can accept that for now… your majesty. I just hope that you are behaving as a King Arthur ought, and not one of his nights, say, Lancelot?"

Cream laughed in the background, but Sonic felt his chest tighten. He wondered how Eggman could possibly know, what might even give Eggman an inkling that he'd return some of Amy's affections? Has he been watching? Sonic thought.

"I guess I'm only Arthur in as much that it was really Galahad that took the sword out of the stone." Sonic grinned, bluffing.

"Regardless, I'm sure your Mordred would be happy to see you."

Sonic barely suppressed an eyeroll. What was that supposed to mean? Tails?

He leaned in. "So, how do you know what I've been reading?" He immediately regretted laughing, as Eggman pushed his glasses up his nose.

"You think I don't look at the library records of subjects who think I ought to die?"

Sonic ignored is unease, asking, "No, I mean, how'd you know that was me and not him?"

"He doesn't read… classics, Sonic."

Sonic blinked. He was certain there was some deeper meaning in Eggman's words, as there often were as of late But what was he getting at? Was he saying that Sonic was more sophisticated, or was there something else there? He tried to push it from his mind, to focus on the task at hand, especially as he felt Cream's hand on his shoulder, prompting him.

"So, uh, what next? In this whole world saving thing?"

He shook his head, disappointed at how teenage he sounded.

"Cream will escort you to Chun-nan and return home to aid in our fallback measures." He grinned at Sonic, dryly purring, "I hope you understand."

Sonic frowned, and Eggman continued.

"Espio is waiting for you there."

"Just Espio? Not he whole Chaotix? Or should I say, the whole team of Imperial Inquisitors?"

Eggman looked away, as if reading something. "No, I'm afraid Vector has taken ill. Young Charmy is caring for him."

"Right. Hope he's better soon." Sonic forced a yawn. "I've been on my feet all day. I wanna get to Chun-nan before nighfall, so I'm gonna let you go and talk to you later. Sayonara, Egghead!"

"Good night, Sonic."

Sonic ended the transmission and collapsed onto the terminal, shaking with rage. It took Cream several minutes to rouse him.