Knuckles twisted in the air as he fell away below the Tornado, turning freefall into a controlled glide with a practised movement. There was a large park beneath him, woods, a lake, both odd things to find in this city which stretched as far as he could see, but there'd be cover there. Somewhere to rest, to forage, to collect his thoughts and revise his plan.

As he got lower he could see people walking in the open areas. Some looked up but their eyes were turned to the aircraft, not him. He headed for the trees, preferring to risk a minor collision than land in the open. He skimmed the topmost branches, choosing his moment to drop from his glide to snag one and swing himself round and down into the branches.

He paused where he was, crouched among the foliage, listening and watching. No one was in sight or earshot, no one seemed to have noticed him. The ground beneath the treetrunks was clear of undergrowth, no cover there, but on the upside no obvious paths either. There had been decorative flower beds once but they were overgrown now. A tangle of dandelions, goosegrass and the occasional stand of run-to-seed burdock. Knuckles smiled in relief. He'd been afraid this world would be too different for him to recognise plants but these at least were familiar and, more to the point, edible.

He dropped silently from his branch to the ground to gather them and find better cover. A tangled and ancient yew offered it and he climbed high into the branches, finding a spot secure enough to lay at length. He ate handfuls of the greens, though they were old now, past their best. He still wasn't sure of the time of year here. Not winter as he'd thought, the trees around him were all still in leaf, not just the evergreen in which he sat. The summer though was clearly well advanced.

He'd only assumed winter because there'd still been so much traffic on the street after dark, he'd assumed it was still early in the day. If people were routinely out and about so late into the night it would make it harder to search unobserved. He frowned and lay back. Resting until dark was the sensible thing to do regardless of rash promises he'd made to himself. He was thirsty, though the moisture in the plants had helped and the lake was also not really an option while crowded with picnicking humans. He closed his eyes, forced his mind as well as his body into rest.

It wasn't easy and, as automatically as his hand would have rubbed at an injury, his mind felt for the Master Emerald. He almost regretted it, the faintness and distance almost something tangible. But it was better than nothing, and eventually he slept.

The cooling night air woke him and he climbed higher in the branches to check the position of the moon but couldn't find it among the lights and tall buildings. Still low on the horizon perhaps – he was sure he hadn't slept the night through. He climbed swiftly to the ground and ran to the lake where he drank slowly, but deeply. He crouched on his haunches surveying the fringes of the park where it abruptly cut off back into concrete and brick and steel and glass. He thought about his view of it from the rooftop, from his glide. Thought about his search pattern. He could complete it, it wouldn't take long. He could move faster now after resting.

Neither Sonic nor Eggman had Chaos Emeralds during the fight, he was sure of that. Could he rule out the city entirely? Had they both already searched here? He shook his head. He'd like to, but he couldn't count on it. He rose to his feet and set out. If the Emeralds were here he'd find them.

He settled into a loping, easy run that he could maintain almost indefinitely and set out with every sense on alert to move as quickly and unobtrusively through this alien city as he could.

He found nothing but more of the same, high, dark buildings, streets that were finally almost empty, motionless vehicles, the occasional lit window or vehicle actually in motion that brought him to amazement that anyone was still awake and travelling. Once the lights of a helicopter somewhere above him sent him diving for cover. It stopped anyway and circled. Did they know he was there somehow? Night vision or heat vision, who knew what technology they had? He spotted another of the sewer covers and returned underground. There was no sign of the helicopter by the time he re-emerged and a steady, soaking rain had started.

He stood for a moment staring at the street, black and orange in the wet gleam of the streetlamps. Above him the pre-dawn grey spread across the narrow channel of sky visible even through the rain and between the canyon-like buildings. He stared up into the rain, trying to decide on his next move. There were no Chaos Emeralds here. Should he leave the city now? Before it got light? But to go where?

He was tired again, hungry and thirsty and something else as well, something that was a little like both and not exactly like either. The same sort of wanting sensation except that what he was missing wasn't food or water but was somehow related to what he'd lost in being torn from the Master Emerald's world into this one. The combination was distracting. It made it hard to think, hard to choose a course of action and he found his footsteps taking him unthinkingly back to the park.

Perhaps that was no bad thing. He knew there were safe spots there, that there was water and, short of raiding the humans' shops or homes, the only food he'd found was there. Dawn was breaking and he'd be able to forage effectively before the humans started turning up. He couldn't live for long on just the plants there, not while searching for the Emeralds as well - it took way too long to gather enough for even one full meals' worth - but another day wouldn't do much harm.

He'd drunk as much as he could and was leaving the lake, heading back into the wooded area to get out of the rain, when an engine broke the silence. He glanced up, half expecting the return of the helicopter and prepared to head for cover or back out into the city and underground which seemed the only sure way of losing it.

It wasn't the helicopter though. Instead, Eggman's pod hovered down at him, the rain sizzling off some sort of forcefield above the open cockpit. He held his ground. He couldn't fight a whole planet of armed humans but Eggman he could handle.

"What do you want?" he demanded. Perhaps he should have already attacked first but in the absence of a direct threat it was energy he didn't feel like wasting.

Eggman grunted, looking away from Knuckles to something within the pod.

"Not you," he said irritably. "You just interfere."

Knuckles couldn't entirely make sense of this. Was he talking about the fight?

"You started it," he pointed out, edging warily around to the side of the pod to be at least slightly less in the line of fire. "Stuck here or not you didn't have to attack the place."

"What are you talking about?" Eggman snapped back. "I said you interfere." He jabbed at something out of sight. "With the equipment."

Knuckles shook his head, none the wiser. "What are you doing here?"

Eggman stared back at him as if this was the stupidest question he'd ever heard.

"Looking for Chaos Emeralds – what do you you think I'm doing! But all I've found, it turns out, is you."

"I don't…"

"Understand?" Eggman finished. "Of course you don't. You've got no more grasp of science than that idiot hedgehog have you?" He pointed again inside the pod. "I can detect chaos energy from here. It should pick up the Emeralds, but so far all it's found in this city – is you."

"Oh." Knuckles looked down at his hands, curious in spite of himself.

"It's extremely irritating," Eggman added.

Knuckles snorted. Eggman's problems were a million miles from being his concern.

"Sorry to disappoint you."

Eggman surveyed him. "Speaking of disappointment… You look like you've had a rough night yourself."

His voice was a mock-sympathetic sneer and Knuckles flicked wet, bedraggled spines out of his face and glared back. "Not your business."

"No," Eggman allowed. "I suppose not. But we do both want the same thing."

"The Chaos Emeralds." Knuckles prepared to assure Eggman that he'd be getting nowhere near them if he, Knuckles, had anything to do with it, when he was brought up short by Eggman's interruption.

"To get back."

Knuckles closed his mouth again, eyeing him suspiciously.

"To get home," Eggman elaborated and the mocking tone had gone from his voice. "You must have realised that if we could gather all seven of the Chaos Emeralds, there's a fighting chance that we can somehow reverse the effect that sent us to this world."

Knuckles nodded, reluctantly - he'd been counting on exactly that.

"Do you think that's what Sonic wants as well?"

Knuckles frowned. "Why wouldn't he?"

Eggman shrugged, unconvincingly. "You tell me. He's your buddy not mine." Knuckles' reflex protest at the term was drowned out as Eggman continued at once. "I'm just telling you what I see. You want to know how Sonic spent his first night on this world?"

"How can you know that?" Knuckles glanced at the overcast sky as he spoke. Somewhere behind the cloud it was actually dawn. Time was trickling away along with his opportunity to collect food before the humans turned up, although perhaps not many would come to the park in the rain.

Eggman had pressed something within the pod and a projected image appeared in the air, distorted somewhat by the rain but clear enough. A tinny speaker relayed the sound that went along with it.

Sonic, smirking on a dark street illuminated by the lights of oncoming vehicles.

"This is camera footage from one of the law enforcement agencies on this world." Eggman explained unasked.

Knuckles ignored him, watching. On the projection Sonic laughed and, even over the poor sound quality his complete unconcern carried over.

"Oh no." Fake and unconvincing despair. "How will I ever escape?"

Knuckles rolled his eyes at this display as the picture burred into speed – the camera itself presumably mounted on either driver or vehicle which had just accelerated at the hedgehog. There was a jump or cut in the footage and the next image was the appearance of Sonic's head, upside down, leaning into the camera and still laughing, riding atop the attacking vehicle.

Knuckles found he could emphasise entirely with the driver's frustrated response.

"Hey you! This is dangerous!"

The picture snapped off.

"Doesn't look like he's too unhappy at being stuck here does he?" Eggman remarked.

The picture flicked back on for long enough to see Sonic leap back to the road ahead of his pursuers only to spin round on the spot and start pacing backwards, grinning and waving.

"It's playing with us!" came the outraged protest over the speakers.

"Turn it off," Knuckles snapped. "That's enough."

"No," Eggman said. "It's not. Not quite. Weren't you curious why their forces attacked you even though you were clearly - although accidentally - on their side in the matter of my robot?"

"No." Knuckles said, on principle, although Eggman clearly knew it for the transparent lie it was because he carried straight on, pressing a button to change the picture again.

The cars that had been chasing Sonic skidded to an ungainly emergency halt and the picture changed again. Sonic scuffled with uniformed officers before taking off in a run once again. Traffic swerving and crashing to avoid him.

"He's not making the best of first impressions is he?" Eggman remarked. "I don't suppose having the law on your tails - excuse the expression - is going to make tracking down those Emeralds any easier is it?"

Knuckles realised his fists were clenched and looked away from the projection. Why could Sonic never do anything the easy way? Could never keep his head down instead of showing off? Could never resist turning everything into a big game?

Briefly he considered the possibility that Eggman had faked the footage, but he didn't really believe that. It was too much like Sonic to be disbelieved - how many times had he seen the hedgehog pull the exact same stunts at the most ridiculous moments?

"Why do you care?" he snapped, belatedly realising how long he'd been standing here, exchanging pointless words with someone who was normally at least as likely to shoot at him as talk to him. "Sonic's not my problem, Eggman."

"Not yet."

Knuckles frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, nothing much. Just that it'll be interesting to see what happens when those Emeralds do start turning up." He pressed a button and the pod rose into the sky. "Do you really think Sonic didn't know they could be used to warp through time and space?"

Knuckles watched it out of sight, only realising after it was gone how soaked to the skin he now was and that he was standing there in full daylight. He headed for cover, trying to work out what Eggman was getting at, why he'd bothered to show him what Sonic had been up to. Just trying to distract him surely? That Sonic had landed them here by accident was all too believable but surely that was as far as it went? He couldn't have wanted this.

But something niggled at him. Maybe it was how quickly the hedgehog had made friends with the humans, or how he'd beamed happily at Amy as she'd enthused about them 'all being here together'. Something...

Knuckles' stomach grumbled and the wind sent another sheet of rain whisking across the park. He couldn't work it out right now. He had more urgent matters than either Sonic's or Eggman's motivations. He broke into a weary run, scouring the overgrown areas of the park for anything remotely worth being called breakfast and then for a hiding place. He'd think about it later, with a clearer head.