Knuckles had noted it from his initial glide over the city after leaving Sonic, that glitter of blue on the horizon that meant sea coast. He hadn't consciously picked it as a direction when he eventually left the city, although he didn't regret it. He had no real means of knowing where the Emeralds had ended up after all so chance and instinct were as good a guide as any. When he was close enough he'd know, until then it did no harm to let his feet carry him to the tiniest bit of familiarity that the scatter of offshore islands represented. Away from the city's busy beaches, the ground rose gradually until he was loping along clifftops and it was empty enough of people for his to feel happy moving by daylight. The tide was low and several of what he'd taken for islands were linked by dripping causeways although none of the beachgoers from further down the coast seemed to have been inclined to visit them. Knuckles did feel so inclined but checked his first impulse, doubting that instinct and then doubting the doubt itself.

It wasn't that acting on instinct bothered him, he was long used to that and doubly so when it came to matters of chaos. It wasn't his instinct he doubted, it was his judgement. Could he be certain he wasn't wasting his time here just because the view was less jarring to his eyes than the cities of this world, just because of how the springy clifftop grass felt almost comforting underfoot? Just because those tiny almost-islands would be at least quiet while he searched?

He sighed. Did it matter? He had to search somewhere after all so where was the harm? Even if it was self-indulgent. He stood at the cliff edge surveying the nearest of them then leapt into a glide, letting the sea breeze hitting the cliff carry him up and over the short distance to land amid the sharp-stemmed marramgrass that fringed the little islet. Keeping his back to the mainland, he walked uphill until the bedrock out-climbed the sand dunes and he could descend the other side. It was indeed pleasantly quiet here but there was nothing for him. It was barren, waterless, no trace of an Emerald.

He moved on, back to the causeway, back to the mainland, up the coast. By sunset he'd thoroughly explored four of them and was hot and tired and frustrated. The fifth though was larger and had scrubby bushes which spoke perhaps of freshwater. The tide had long since turned and the causeways were narrowing but he could reach one more, and if as he suspected there was water, and some level of plantlife it might be a secure place to spend the night. He climbed from the causeway slowly, legs heavy with weariness and stumbling on the loose rock in a way he knew he'd never normally stumble. This pace of search was not sustainable. He knew it, but how could he not search with everything he had to get back? He pressed on. The wind direction had reversed with the cooling evening, the brisk sea breeze replaced with a gentler wind at his back as he climbed away from the mainland. It was still exposed here though. Perhaps on this rockier islet there would be a cave or sheltered overhang he could rest in. He skirted the cliff edge, thoughtfully.

Whatever cover or water or edibles might be here however, what there wasn't was a Chaos Emerald. Another empty patch of land that was all. He rounded a small headland and stopped abruptly at a visual intrusion as abrupt and startlingly as if it had been a physical blow. Startlingly in its unwelcome familiarity. It was an Eggman robot - a small one, a flying drone of sorts, one of a type they'd too often encountered as basic defensive measures. It was motionless on the ground, damaged perhaps or deactivated, or neither and just waiting for his approach.

Knuckles watched it for long minutes but there was no movement and he moved closer in caution until he could be certain it was indeed damaged, half an engine was missing on the side where it lay tipped on ragged turf. The device was scorched but the grass was not and Knuckles frowned. Had it been transported here already damaged at the same time as them? What else had if so? Eggman had at least some of his resources that much was clear. Did the fact they'd all ended up relatively close to one another mean that perhaps the Emeralds weren't too far either? Did he dare hope?

As he was standing, wondering, a sound snapped his attention round, back to the seawards cliff. Sound, then movement and he was running in reaction at once. Where there was one robot they could be more and he couldn't count on any more having been finished off in advance.

Not a robot he realised as the cause of the sound broke cover, but one of the humans - also armed, raising a weapon at his approach and shouting at him to stop.

He already had too much momentum for that even if he'd been inclined to obey and Knuckles ducked beneath the line of fire of the subsequent shot and barrelled into the taller creature, sending them both to the ground, barely a yard from the cliff edge. A second bang, ear-ringingly loud at zero range made him kick out blindly even before a searing pain across the side of his chest and there was a scream that wasn't his.

Gasping, he rolled back to his feet unhindered to check on the injury. Unhindered because he was abruptly alone and after a second to regroup he leaned over the drop, hand clamped against his injured side to look down. He wasn't entirely sure why he was checking. It was more than not wanting to be ambushed. Even in his role as Guardian he'd so rarely had to kill that he discovered it was an uncomfortable thought that this time he might have without even intending it.

The drop looked survivable to him and indeed the human lay awkwardly on the rocky, narrow skirt of the islet, moving but one leg broken - visibly so even from this distance. It was a female, Knuckles noted abstractly, and she'd kept hold of her weapon in the fall, something he gave her more credit for than the fact she promptly aimed it up at his head, which he rapidly withdrew.

He stood back a step and took a longer look at his own injury. It wasn't deep. The bullet had passed beneath his raised arm to graze a bloody, scorched track across his side, a handspan below his armpit. He'd need to keep it clean but that was all. Even with the chaos energy of his link to the Master Emerald at a distant low ebb it would heal easily.

The human had come off worse. And would be worse off still when the rapidly incoming tide rose over the rocks.

Knuckles grimaced and looked back across the islet at the causeway, already ankle deep in water. If he himself was leaving here tonight he had minutes to do it. But if he hadn't intended to kill her then he couldn't very well leave her to drown and the odds of her making it up even so small a cliff with a broken leg seemed slim.

"Hey!" He approached the cliff cautiously, shouting, not being so rash as to present a target this time. "If you don't want to stay down there, throw that weapon into the sea."

No answer. Perhaps she was mulling it over.

"Tide's coming in," Knuckles pointed out.

Another moment and then a call came back.

"Okay."

Knuckles listened for a splash but really the noise of the sea against the rocks was too loud to be sure. He poked his head over carefully, ready to withdraw in a split second. The human had her hands in the air. He could see no sign of the weapon. There was a radio and an oversized pair of binoculars hanging from a strap across her shoulder, now snagged and twisted awkwardly.

He pointed. "Get rid of the radio."

She shook her head. "No radio means no pick-up. You think I want to stay out here with a broken leg? Or are you going to cart me all the way home?"

Knuckles frowned. "You're here for a reason if you have a radio. Someone will notice you haven't checked in. I don't plan on being here when that happens and I don't plan on you calling them down on me while we're stuck here waiting for the tide. Get rid of it."

She shook her head. "They won't look for days. Maybe a week. Radio silence in case it was picked up."

The first wave lapped over the rock but neither that nor the pain audible in her voice was enough to make her change her mind it seemed. She was telling the truth.

"Picked up by who?" Knuckles asked.

She looked genuinely surprised at that. "Who d'you think? Why d'you think I'm here? Watching that base of course. We need intelligence and a larger party would have attracted attention."

Knuckles looked back at the robot.

"You're watching Eggman?" But there was no base here, nothing but this tiny islet and that one broken robot. Wasn't there?

The human nodded. "You're going to claim you didn't know? That you're here by accident?"

Knuckles didn't answer. He didn't intend to make any claims at all one way or another. But if it was the truth then a week was more than ample time for her to die here if he did leave her without communications, so he sighed.

"Okay. Keep the radio. If you try and use it before I get out of here it will not end well."

She nodded. "Gotcha."

Knuckles nodded. "Fine."

Warily, he started down the cliffside. It was an easy climb but he couldn't help the unease at turning his back on the human down there.

Nothing untoward happened however and she propped herself up to a sitting position as he approached, putting them close to eye level.

"So what's the plan for getting me back up?" she asked.

Knuckles shrugged. "You hold on. I climb."

She blinked. "You'll be able to carry me?"

"Easily."

Getting started was awkward but once he was climbing there was no difficulty about carrying the human. She hung on firmly and didn't need telling not to grab his neck or spines. They arrived at the top in under a minute.

"Thanks, I suppose," she said. "Why d'you do it?"

Knuckles thought that ought to be obvious for any number of reasons. "I thought you were a robot. You're not. And this is your world not mine. And I'm no safer or closer to home with you dead than alive. And I don't need any more reasons for your people to look for me."

"Hmm. Well that's specific at least. So now what?"

Also obvious. "We wait for the tide to go back out."

Knuckles sat down at a sufficient distance to give him time to be back to his feet first should she try to close the distance. He wanted to check on his bullet wound, but didn't want to draw attention to it. It should have stopped bleeding by now but he doubted the climb had helped.

The human stared at him. "So that's it? You're just going to sit there 'til morning?"

"Yes."

If he paid attention he could sense the chaos energy distantly, a burning tingle overlaid on the injury itself but the human was interrupting again and his concentration was broken.

"I've got a cache of supplies near here. Rations, water-"

"Spare weapons?" Knuckles cut her off. "No."

She ignored this and went on. "-First aid kit. Which I personally would really appreciate the use of and you do know that you're bleeding don't you?"

Knuckles grimaced but it gave him the opening to check on it himself. It was oozing more than bleeding outright, but it had been noticed after all and the woman was still talking.

"You said you attacked me because you thought I was a robot. One of Eggman's? Are you absolutely sure we're not on the same side?"

"You tell me," Knuckles said. "You and yours were the ones pointing guns."

"Yeah, well giant robots and alien talking animals picking fights with the police tend to make people a bit trigger happy!"

Knuckles scowled. He had picked no fights. Eggman obviously had launched a near-immediate attack, and Sonic just didn't seem to be able to help himself or stay out of trouble. Any doubts he might still have harboured about the truth of what Eggman had shown him of the hedgehog's arrival were done away with at any rate.

The thought of the pair of them triggered a memory of something else the human woman had said.

"You said you were here watching Eggman," he said. "Where. How?"

The human looked wary.

"You want to convince me we might be on the same side, that's the way to do it," Knuckles told her.

"So you are enemies?"

"He's Sonic's enemy. I have other concerns. But he does seem to interfere with them frequently, yes."

"And you're not going to tell me what those 'concerns' are, right?" The human shifted position uncomfortably. "I get it. Well, for what it's worth, he's got a base out there on an island just offshore, we were monitoring with overflights but he's got something there that knocks them right down so it's kinda hard. Best we can do is the old mark one eyeball from here. Well, mark one eyeball plus the long range telescopic gear that's with my kit. We can see what comes and goes, get an advance warning, that's all."

Knuckles considered this, wondering if there was any way to ask whether there'd been any sign of Chaos Emeralds without giving away their importance. Reluctantly he decided there wasn't.

"Thank you," he said instead. "It's not much but it's information I didn't have before."

The human smiled. "So are we on the same side?"

"Neither of us is on Eggman's side." Knuckles allowed.

"Good. So about those supplies…"

Knuckles considered it. If he went himself there was little risk. She was going nowhere fast and he could simply leave behind anything he didn't like the look of. The sky was darkening fast and the combination of injury, and hunger would make it a long night.

"Tell me where it is," he allowed. "You - stay put."

Even with the supplies it was a long night. Knuckles had cleaned and bandaged the gunshot wound, but was wary of the food and warier of the human's painkillers, he took none himself and distrusted how sound asleep the woman seemed on them. How effective were they? Would she be capable of attacking him if he dozed?

He sat awake instead, watching the stars move slowly across the sky, waiting for the dawn and tide to release them from this place. The woman was still sleeping when the causeway emerged dripping from the receding tide. So deeply that it crossed Knuckles' mind to wonder - but no, she was breathing. He checked. And then he left.

Which way? He needed water, food, sleep. He needed to keep searching. If he stuck to the coast he could maybe find a river, perhaps he could fish and solve two of the problems at least. Or would the fastest solution be to raid one of the human houses? It would have to be stealthy if he did that - he wasn't in much shape for a fight. He was tired, breathless from the pace he was maintaining when it should have been easy. His breathing was too fast, too shallow, but deeper breaths made the wound on his side burn, tugged at the bandage there.

Without meaning to he reached as he always would have for the supportive energy of the Master Emerald, and missed his grasp on it as he kept missing his step on the uneven ground. Stumbling with the weariness and distance of it. So far away. Everything was harder here. Even surviving, much less decision making. He started to sink to the ground, but he if rested now without solving at least the supplies problem he'd soon be too weak to go on at all and that was not an option.

He kept walking through the morning, until engines overhead gave him pause - the woman's helicopter returning for her?

No.

Eggman.

Inbound from that island base no doubt. Knuckles considered running for the treeline, but his legs ached and dragged and in any case he remembered the man's comment about how he showed up to the tracking system. He watched his approach instead. If he wanted a fight he'd just have to do what he could.

The pod heeled round and Eggman brought it to a halt facing Knuckles who came to a reluctant stop.

"Well?" Knuckles demanded. "Now what?"

"Just curious if you've had a chance to think about what I said."

Knuckles sought for a suitably dismissive answer, something that would hide how hard he'd had to try not to, but before he'd responded Eggman was already looking him up and down.

"It certainly doesn't look as though you've slept on it. "

"Shut up." Knuckles knew how unthreatening that must sound at the moment and sure enough Eggman ignored it.

"Crabby are we? Feeling a bit down in the dumps? A bit homesick maybe? It won't surprise you to hear that Sonic isn't, will it? He thinks this world's a lot more fun than ours."

"Fun?" Knuckles said flatly. On some level he knew Eggman was goading him, had to be, couldn't really have any interest in his well-being, but at the same time it was so very easy to imagine Sonic saying it. How many times had Sonic dragged him into things he claimed would be 'fun'? Nagged at him to come down from the Island, roped him into some escapade or another, acted genuinely surprised at his reluctance or his desire to be back home? Teased him about his responsibilities there.

"Fun," Eggman repeated. "And apparently, according to Sonic if we don't agree, it's our tough luck."

Knuckles shook his head doubtfully. But how many times had he lost his temper with the hedgehog and had it shrugged off?

No.

This was too much to be put down to a lark. Even for Sonic. Surely?

But Eggman was still talking. "I told you last time. Sonic knew this would happen. He found out I collected all the Chaos Emeralds because I was afraid of what he might do if he got a hold of them."

Knuckles glared at him. "Afraid you wouldn't get to do it first more likely!"

Eggman shrugged. "If I was going to rip open a hole in reality I'd make rather more certain I wasn't standing at ground zero at the time, don't you think? So I set up defences. But there was no stopping Sonic. No matter who got hurt. Did he stop when the fox's plane went in? Did he help? Or did you have to do that for him?"

He didn't give Knuckles time to answer before going on.

"He was more interested in getting those Emeralds, than who got hurt for it. He destroyed my controls and sent us all here."

"By accident…" Knuckles trailed. Wanting to believe it. Sure he did believe it. Hoped he believed it.

"Believe that if you like," Eggman said, as though he'd read his mind. "But ask yourself how fast Sonic could search this world if he was really trying. Why is it just you out here running yourself into the dirt alone?"

Knuckles would have answered that he'd chosen to search on his own but Eggman's pod was rising back into the air.

"Even I've found one faster than he has."

"What?" Knuckles' attention snapped back to him at once, shock dispelling weariness with instant adrenaline. "What do you mean?"

But there was no answer and he was forced to watch the pod disappear, faster through the air than he could run over the terrain.

After a moment he headed off in the same direction. With no better leads, what choice did he have?