Guardian's Choice Written by: JudasFm E-mail: judasfm@Writing.Com -------------------------------------------- Rating: PG-13 for content and occasional mild swearing Summary: Injured and alone in a strange world, Knuckles is nursed back to health by a young girl. When he discovers her disturbing secret, honour demands he help her in return, but honour also demands he go back to his duty on Angel Island. How can he choose, and why is Shadow so determined to use the Chaotix to get hold of this human? -------------------------------------------- 1. Prologue -------------------------------------------- Pain. Much pain. Too much damn pain, in fact. Knuckles forced his eyes open the barest slit. It didn't seem to help. He still couldn't see anything. There was...something, he could remember smashing through a mountain to stop Tails from crashing – that kid really ought to learn to fly straight – and seeing a slow, white-hot barrier radiating out in all directions from Chaos Control. Not a barrier. An explosion. Knuckles groaned aloud. He'd told Tails and Amy that Sonic's actions were pure overkill. Now it seemed like they were all paying the price for the hedgehog's vanity; if it could be destroyed, Sonic had to prove he could destroy it. There was a word for people like him; selfish. The echidna paused. That was all very well, but... ...but it didn't help him solve the problem of what had happened. He had no idea where he was; none of the smells or sounds were remotely familiar, resulting in a totally alien environment. Practically any zone on Mobius except his own Angel Island would have fitted this description, but he couldn't help feeling that there was something more to this. There! Light! Like most echidnas, Knuckles didn't see too well in the dark, but the twin pinpricks of light were too bright not to pick out. They appeared to be moving in a somewhat erratic pattern; he wasn't sure if they were heading for him or not. Eggman? Gotta be. Dammit, where was Sonic? Just when that hedgehog's kamikaze behaviour might have come in handy, it was impossible to find him! It usually was when you particularly wanted to. Something hard clipped the echidna's foot and spun him over and he realised two things simultaneously; firstly, that the sky above was like nothing he'd ever seen on Mobius, and secondly, that the explosion combined with the power of the Chaos Emeralds must have pushed him into a completely alien world. Unfortunately, both realisations were driven clean out of his head by the impact. -------------------------------------------- 2. Awakening -------------------------------------------- My name is Knuckles. I'm the last of the echidna, and the guardian of the Master Emerald. And let's get one thing straight; I don't like you, whoever you are. I don't like you, I don't trust you, and I don't want anything to do with you. I work alone. I do things my way and leave other people to do things theirs. So long as they don't interfere with me or my duty, they're of no consequence to me. Got it? Good. Just wanted to clear that up before we went any further. I'm here through Sonic's mistake. Never heard of Sonic the Hedgehog? Lucky you. I wish to the Master Emerald I never had. Good news? Sonic's on the side of freedom and justice. Bad news? He also happens to be on the side of recklessness, thrill-seeking and irresponsibility. The kid wouldn't know maturity if it cut off his spines, and 'kid' is the word when it comes to that one. Where is here? I wish I knew. All I know is that I'm in more pain than I thought existed and wherever this place is, it ain't home. --Knuckles the Echidna A wet crunch which sounded almost identical to someone putting their foot through a rotten log reached Knuckles' ears at the exact same moment that black pain rocketed up through his left leg. He was no stranger to the odd bump or scratch, but this was so far out of the realms of those that it was almost coming back the other way. Stars pinwheeled crazily in and out of his vision, so that for a few moments Knuckles was muggy and disorientated enough to wonder whether he was looking at the ground or the sky. Gritting his teeth, he reached down to feel the leg, to try and ascertain the extent of the damage. Big mistake. He hadn't thought that the agony could increase any more, but somehow it happened. His head swimming in a red haze, Knuckles somehow managed to turn his head to one side before vomiting helplessly. He heard footsteps from behind. Instinct took over and he struggled to get to his feet, to fight off this intruder, but his leg wouldn't obey him. Every muscle completely rigid, he growled a warning to whoever was coming up behind him. Hands caught under his armpits and half lifted him, pulling him along the rough ground, causing the agony to reach white-hot explosion point before Knuckles' brain obviously decided he'd suffered enough and, mercifully, he greyed out. When he came to, he was lying on his back in a small room that reeked of damp and decay. The walls, floor and ceiling were all made of the same kind of harsh, pitted grey stone, and there was a heavy looking door in one wall. A lonely window was situated in another wall, too high up for him to reach. Eggman? He supposed it might have been, but there were certain things that didn't fit. Whoever had pulled him in hadn't felt like a robot, and the doctor's cells tended to be metallic in nature, with as much hi-tech wizardry as could be crammed into the surroundings. A six by six room with a big door wasn't his style, somehow. Interesting contrast, though. Whoever had brought him here obviously hadn't wanted him getting away, but they hadn't bothered to chain him. Then again, with a broken leg, they probably wouldn't need to, Knuckles reflected rather sourly. He wasn't going anywhere just yet unless his captors were kind enough to put him on a cart and give him a push...and given the indignity of that, he thought he'd rather stay here and die a warrior's death. The sound of muffled voices came from outside the door. Acting more through instinct than design, Knuckles shut both eyes and forced himself to relax. About the only advantage he could have from this position was surprise, and he meant to use it to the full. The door opened and slammed hard. Adrenaline flooded Knuckles' body, sending a fresh wave of pain through it, but he held himself motionless, forced his breathing to remain slow and regular. Light footsteps sounded nearby and Knuckles opened one eye the barest slit. It wasn't much, but it showed him enough. As soon as his captor came close enough, he seized an ankle and flipped, hard. The small flaw in this plan came crashing down on Knuckles at about the same time his captor did, although possibly not as hard. Teeth clenched against the new implosion of agony, the echidna lifted the stranger and threw them away. There was enough pride left in him to mutter under his breath, "I meant to do that," before he turned his head to stare at whoever had come in. "What the hell kind of creature are you?" Knuckles demanded, his normal stoicism momentarily deserting him. He'd never seen anything like it, although he supposed it bore a strange kind of resemblance to Robotnik, albeit a lot smaller. Certainly the same kind of species; it had obviously evolved from some sort of primate. Actually, now that he thought about it, what the hell kind of creature was Robotnik? He'd never seen another one like him anywhere on Mobius. Fair enough, so most of his expertise on the planet's local flora and fauna was confined to Angel Island, but on his brief excursions to the surface, he hadn't found another of the same race. His visitor, who had backed away at the sound of his voice, stopped and stared at him. "Wow! You can talk?" "Wow! So can you?" Knuckles said in cruel but accurate mimicry; his leg was giving him hell and he was in no mood to play at being a serene lake of tranquillity now. "Although you haven't answered my question. What are you?" The alien – he didn't know what else to call it – looked a little wary, as far as he could fathom its facial expressions. "Uh. I was gonna ask you the same thing." Knuckles took a long, deep breath. "My name is Knuckles. I'm the last of the echidna, and the guardian of the Master Emerald." Judging from the alien's expressions, this didn't mean very much to it. That was good – it meant he hadn't been captured by Robotnik – but on the other hand, how could he impress on this thing the importance of his going home immediately? "I hope I didn't hurt you," the thing said suddenly. "When I pulled you in, I mean." "Next time you break your leg, creature, I'll come drag you over some rough terrain. Then you can find out just how much you didn't hurt me." It chewed its bottom lip. Knuckles didn't have a clue what that was supposed to mean – although judging from the submissive body language, he could guess either shame or fear – but it didn't really matter. "What are you?" he repeated, his patience wearing thin. His leg was throbbing angrily, and every now and then his breathing would jar it. "I'm...uh...I guess I'm a girl." "You guess? Don't you know?" A vigorous nod. Knuckles wasn't sure whether it was in response to the first question or the second, and couldn't face asking. "Okay. A gurrl. I've not heard of that species before, but that's not surprising. What do you want from me?" The creature looked a little taken aback. "I don't want anything from you." "Then why'd you drag me in here?" "You broke your leg. It needed fixing." Knuckles risked looking at the broken limb, noticing for the first time that a crude and not very good splint had been strapped to it. The echidna could see where the material had been taped together, as well as the splint itself, which appeared to have been broken two or three times, and he let his head fall back. Great. I'm being nursed back to health by the local alien klutz. He took a deep breath. Might as well find out all he could while he was here. "Are you male or female?" Its look became puzzled. "I just said; I'm a gurrl." "I heard you. That's not—" Knuckles paused, a new idea occurring to him. "Your species is asexual?" "What?" The echidna closed his eyes, praying to a god he didn't believe in for patience he knew he'd never have. "Alright, let's take this back a step. How do your kind reproduce? Do you at least know the meaning of that word?" he added, not quite under his breath. Apparently it did; its face lit up with sudden comprehension. "Oh, that." It shrugged, indicating the matter was of little or no importance. "A gurrl and a bhoy get together and the bhoy puts his—" "Yes, good, I think I've got it now," Knuckles cut in, overriding her. It seemed he'd made a slight error in translation along the way somehow. "So...what are you? What's your species called?" "We're humans." Knuckles frowned at it, more thoughtfully than angrily. "So...you're a female? A female mammal?" "Uh. I, um, I guess so." It – no, she – giggled embarrassedly. "We don't think of ourselves as mammals, but...yeah, we are." "If you're female, where are your milk glands?" "My what?" The human looked at him askance, and Knuckles tried to work out why. Maybe it was a taboo subject. Nice one. Less than half an hour awake and you've already insulted your rescuer. And you accuse Sonic of recklessness? Thinking of Sonic deepened the echidna's frown. Had Sonic or any of the others made it? He hoped they had, in a grudging sort of way; while Sonic's endless cockiness and his tendency to get into fights just for kicks ground Knuckles' nerves on more than one occasion, he'd never wanted the hedgehog dead. "Are you hungry?" Now that she mentioned it, Knuckles didn't know how he could have failed to notice the angry gnawing in his abdomen before now. "No," he said, and his stomach promptly made him a liar by choosing that moment to rumble loudly. "A little," he amended noncommittally. If the human was willing to drop and overlook an offensive subject, he could take a hint. "What kind of stuff do you eat? I might be able to get you something." "I don't do charity," Knuckles said icily. The human looked at him. "Do you do starvation?" Put like that, of course...Knuckles took a deep breath. He supposed he could make it up later somehow, try and get something to offer in exchange for the food, although he had no idea what he could offer these things that would be considered valuable. "Fine. What've you got?" "Uh. Maybe...if you just tell me what you eat, I can try and get it for you. How's that sound?" It sounded pretty damn cack-handed to Knuckles, but he found he didn't have the strength to argue. "Fine," he said again. "Almost anything, but nothing too spicy or too brightly coloured." That was one of nature's strongest rules; if it looks fluorescent, it's poisonous. The spicy part was Knuckles' own personal rule; Sonic had persuaded him to try a chili dog once, and once had been more than enough. "Okay." The human seemed half relieved, half apprehensive. "Uh. I can't get it for you just yet; you're gonna have to wait until the others have, um, finished." "Then why the hell did you offer it to me?" Knuckles grated. "Oh, we can get it later. We just have to wait until the others are done, like I said." Pack mentality, Knuckles thought with a shadow of contempt. Strange, though; usually young ones were at the forefront of any pack feeding. Still, there was no accounting for species, and he had more pressing concerns than alien sociology. It seemed his life was solely in the hands of a young female human, thanks to Sonic's screw-up back at Chaos Control. Knuckles let his head drop back onto the hard floor with an audible crack, barely noticing the pain, and groaned aloud, wishing (not for the first time) that he'd never heard of Tails, Robotnik, and most of all Sonic the Hedgehog. -------------------------------------------- 3. Night -------------------------------------------- To quote one of the ancient echidna philosophers: I'm in some really deep crap this time. My left leg's broken in about three places by the looks of it. That unnerves me a little; if it sets wrong in this strange place, I'll be crippled forever, and how the hell can I guard the Master Emerald then? So. I'm in an alien building, on an alien world and being looked after by an immature alien female...immature as in young, not Sonic. From what I can ascertain, she doesn't seem overly hostile; instead she seems to regard me as some kind of pet. Once my leg gets better, I'll have to disabuse her of that notion. In the meantime, she's gone for food. I don't mind admitting I'm pretty hungry. There are plenty of insects crawling about in this room though; maybe they'd make good eating. I'm too big to be able to live on them like I did as a puggle – unless I spent every hour of every day foraging for them – but that's no reason why I can't have the odd snack. --Knuckles the Echidna Knuckles was not having a good night. It had started out fine, or as fine a night as an echidna with a broken leg can reasonably expect to have when stranded on an alien world. He'd done his best to stay awake, but the foggy daze of his mind had taken control and he'd half slept, half passed out on the cold floor. His dreams had been dark; a confused jumble of memories, fears and not-quite random images that lasted until something pressed into the small of his back, and he jerked awake with a very un-guardian like yelp. There was the sound of something scrabbling rapidly away from him and the human's voice came from the darkness. "I'm sorry! I forgot about your leg. Are you okay?" "Screw my leg; you're freezing!" The echidna shook his head. "Have you people discovered fire yet, or do you just try and snuggle up next to your unfriendly neighbourhood alien for warmth?" "I didn't mean to, honest. I just...I fell asleep and...well...you know." Knuckles did. A body automatically sought out the nearest source of warmth wherever it was, and in this case the nearest source happened to be him. He supposed he couldn't reasonably blame the human for what her instincts did when she was asleep. "Are you hungry?" "Depends," Knuckles said acidly. "Is there actually food on offer now, or do I have to wait until I fall asleep again?" "Oh, I got the food okay. But, well, when I got back you were asleep and I didn't want to wake you. Here." She held out what looked like a large piece of white meat. Knuckles took it and sniffed warily. No, not meat; it smelt like fish. In fact, it smelt a little too much like fish. Another general rule of thumb was that the stronger it smelled, the more likely it was to have an adverse effect. The human seemed to understand his distaste – maybe these creatures had empathic abilities? – because she scuffed one toe along the floor, her whole posture one of embarrassment. "Okay, it's not much, but honestly, it was the best there was. I found mine earlier." Found. A strange choice of words, Knuckles thought. Perhaps these people were foragers. In which case, it would be rude to turn the food down; what he was holding might well represent a day's meal for them. If they were deliberately trying to insult him by feeding him their leftovers, though, echidna pride dictated he shouldn't eat a bite. It also dictated that he should hunt them through their own territory and beat nine kinds of crap out of them to teach them some respect, but he was damned if he'd try anything like that until his leg got better. Which it probably won't for a long time if you don't keep your strength up. Knuckles chewed a small piece of fish experimentally. It actually wasn't too bad. "It's nicer hot," the human said. "Cold's fine," Knuckles said around a larger mouthful, feeling that perhaps he was being somewhat ungrateful; after all, as far as he could tell, nobody had made this human help him. "Are you..." The human hesitated, then said, "Are you in pain?" Knuckles paused mid-chew, then swallowed grimly. "Well, let's think about this, shall we? I have fallen who knows how far, only to land in your territory and break my leg in about three separate places on impact, then be dragged over some damn rough terrain and thrown onto a concrete floor. So...yes, I would say I'm in a respectable amount of pain. Why?" "I brought you these." The human held out her hand, and Knuckles could just about make out the white pills in the dim light. He shook his head. "I don't do drugs." "They're not drugs! They're legal, honest." "They're not damn sugar cubes, human." Knuckles turned away from the girl, away from temptation. As an echidna, he was deeply insulted that she would even offer such things to him, but for once bit his tongue. Fairness was the key principle in echidna society, and it wasn't fair to expect a baby alien to understand the finer details of that society. He thought she had probably meant to be kind, after all. "They're not drugs," the human repeated. Knuckles simply snorted and didn't bother dignifiying that with an answer. After a short pause the girl said, "Uh...do you mind if I have them then? Only I haven't had any in ages." "I rest my case," Knuckles said flatly. "You do what you want. I want no part of that crap." He paused as the human's words sank in. "Are you in pain?" He could no longer make her out clearly in the darkness, but he had a feeling she'd shrugged. "Jus' a little. I fell down on the way back here." "You're taking drugs to alleviate the pain of a single fall?" Well, maybe these human creatures were particularly delicate, or she'd fallen on a sensitive area; Knuckles himself remembered when he'd been running full pelt along a tree branch on Angel Island, slipped and straddled it hard. It had taken a full two hours before he could walk properly again, and he'd still been sore the next day. The human shrugged and didn't answer. Putting both pills into her mouth, she grimaced at the taste, then managed to chew and swallow them down. "What is this stuff, anyway?" Knuckles said, taking another bite out of the food. If he couldn't get out yet, he might as well put the time to good use and find out as much as he could about this world and its ways. "Some kind of fish?" "Cod. It was the best I could find. I asked everyone I could think of what echidnas ate and they all said insects." Knuckles recoiled inwardly. While it was true that echidnas were perfectly capable of digesting insects, most of them had moved onto larger food by the time they were about two – more because of their body's increasing demands for energy than personal tastes – and Knuckles was nearly ten times that age. Not to mention the fact that he had no idea which insects might be poisonous here. Apparently humans didn't eat bugs, and that was another consideration; the human had assured him that the food was safe, but there was no guarantee that what was safe for a human was safe for an echidna. If parts of his normal diet would poison her, wasn't it a fair assumption that parts of hers might poison him? "I can probably find you some if you don't mind waiting," the human added. "I do, and roughly how many insects do you think would it take to fill me up?" Knuckles shook his head. "Thanks, but no. Unless you have bugs the size of that fish, you'd be catching 'em all day." "Maybe, if you want, I could—" "What I want," Knuckles said through gritted teeth, "is some peace and quiet so I can get some sleep! Think you can manage that?" Evidently she could; the girl shut her mouth with a snap and lay down, curling into a ball away from him. Even as the echidna watched, her breathing gradually deepened, becoming slow and regular. Knuckles himself lay there, eyes open and staring at the ceiling, one arm under his head. His leg was pulsing now, sending fresh waves of white-hot pain up his entire body at regular intervals and he almost regretted turning down the painkillers. He was intrigued by the human in spite of himself. She seemed to be an odd mix of nerves and sympathy, and he wasn't entirely sure what her opinion of him was. She's only a kid. What does it matter what she thinks of me? Once this leg's better, I'll leave and probably we'll never lay eyes on each other again. Knuckles frowned. There was something not quite right about this whole thing... Yeah. And what's not right about it is your being laid up here with a broken leg while Sonic and the others are most likely running around having the time of their lives. The echidna closed his eyes, not wholly convinced but too tired to turn the matter over further. Despite his exhaustion, sleep was a long time coming. -------------------------------------------- 4. Week One -------------------------------------------- That was...unexpected. These creatures seem a lot more intelligent than I first gave them credit for. I have to admit, I'm a little curious about this human; she's the only one I've seen, yet most parents won't leave their young alone for very long. Maybe they sleep separately; that's strange, but not unheard of. I wonder if they've grasped the concept of naming? Probably; she didn't seem too confused by my own name. One thing really puzzles me; they've mastered the idea of clothing – if this human's clothes can really be called that; as far as I can make out, she sleeps in them and never changes them – and yet there's not a blanket to be seen in this room. Parents usually do for their offspring what they won't do for themselves, so where are the covers? This world is cold at night, and it's not that much warmer during the day either! This race also seems to have mastered the concept of narcotic addiction. The human offered me some human drug, some form of painkiller. My reaction to this offer wasn't an echidna's typical reaction, but since an echidna's typical reaction to such an insult would usually involve my fist making a brief but very intimate acquaintance with her face, I think she got the better end of the deal. Actually, I think I was very gracious in my refusal, all things considered. --Knuckles the Echidna Day One When Knuckles woke up, the human was gone, but he was pleased to note that she'd left some food and – more importantly – something to drink, a pale yellowish-grey liquid. He sniffed it cautiously. It smelled slightly tangy, and crisp. Probably some kind of fruit juice. Knuckles took a sip and brightened; it was slightly strange, but incredibly refreshing. The food he left for a while; it was a slim triangle of something that had the colour of a biscuit or piece of bread and the consistency of a rock. Just looking at it sent the human up a reluctant notch in Knuckles' estimation. Any creature with jaws and teeth that could handle that deserved respect. In the end he poured a generous measure of the fruit juice into the plate and put the biscuit there in the hopes it would soften it up. "Now what?" he said aloud. It was good to hear a voice, even his own. He didn't exactly thrive on quiet; Angel Island had plenty of background noises even if there was very little actual conversation. Was he the only one there? It seemed unlikely; the blast had radiated outwards from Chaos Control, so it was a fair bet that whatever hit him had hit Sonic as well, and possibly that rabbit he'd gone in to save, whatever her name was. Milk? Yogurt? Some kind of dairy product, that was for sure. Great. I'm stranded on an alien world, and somewhere out there is a psychotic hedgehog and a baby rabbit whose best grasp of reality is that Eggman does 'bad and horrid things'. What did I ever do to deserve this? Knuckles shook his head. "Whatever it was, I'm sorry already!" he said aloud. There was no answer – not that that was much of a surprise – and he sighed, then reached out for the food. The biscuit had soaked up the juice and was actually quite good now, if somewhat sticky. There was a yellow part of it that tasted like old tree bark, but it was better than nothing. How long? he wondered. How long am I going to be stuck here? The answer was obvious; until he could walk out himself. But how long would that take? Knuckles took another cautious bite of the food, while thinking grimly that if he got food poisoning from this crap, someone was going to suffer, and the knowledge that it would probably be him did nothing to ease his mind. He closed his eyes. He was still famished, but more than that, he was exhausted. Pain and cold had prevented him from getting a good night's sleep, and he had the nagging feeling that things were likely to get far worse before they got better. The sound of the door opening and slamming jerked him out of a sleep he'd never really intended to take, and he opened his eyes reflexively, wincing as pain stabbed through his leg. "You're awake?" the human said. "I am now," Knuckles muttered ungraciously. He frowned at a fresh-looking bruise on the human's arm. "How'd you get that?" She shrugged, not looking at him. "I burnt the dinner." "The..." Knuckles' frown deepened and he pointed to the arm. "That's a bruise, not a burn." "I fell down on the way here." Again? Knuckles thought but didn't say. It wasn't his business; if the human took the odd tumble, so what? The human held out some of the same pills she'd offered him before. "Do you want some?" "Did I want some yesterday?" "Uh...no." "Then what makes you think I've changed my mind?" Knuckles grated. Although they made frequent use of natural medicine, it was considered a serious insult in echidna society to offer drugs to someone. It implied they were too weak to handle the pain on their own. The worst part of it was, his leg currently felt like it had been pounded full of rusty nails and was hurting so much he was almost tempted to accept the human's offer, and that would never do. Besides, who said they were really painkillers? The girl seemed strangely determined to get them down his throat and Knuckles frowned slightly. Maybe they were some kind of tranquilliser or mind-altering substance. The echidna gave a mental nod. That figured. He'd have to play this very much by ear, see what happened in the next few days. Day Two Knuckles was reluctant to eat breakfast that morning, firstly because furry food wasn't high on his list of favourites and secondly because the thoughts he'd had yesterday had become very real concerns today. Was the human above slipping those damn pills into his food or drink? And if she did, considering he had no idea how things were supposed to taste on this world, how would he know? He supposed he could refuse to eat until she'd taken a bite out of everything she offered to him, but that probably wouldn't do much good; from what he'd been able to see, she was more than happy to plug that crap into her own body. Eventually, Knuckles' stomach rebelled against his common sense and persuaded him to pick up the...whatever it had been, and turn it around until he found a part that was slightly less furry than the rest of it. Working with his spikes, he dug into the food, scraping the mould off until the substance below was just about visible. Unfortunately, it was also rock hard and there was nothing to drink, which meant no way of softening short of extensive licking and sucking, neither of which held much appeal. Something about this food encouraged you to hold your nose and gulp it quickly, not linger over the taste. Frustrated, Knuckles hurled it onto the ground, watching as it bounced straight up into the air and eventually came to rest by his hand. His hunger now fully awake, Knuckles could no more sleep than he could dance around the room on his broken leg. There was nothing to do except stare at the ceiling, or the wall; the window was too high up for him to see out, and apart from the occasional cloud or bird, showed an endless expanse of blue. It was quite possibly the most boring experience of Knuckles' life, and it followed that by the time the human got back that evening (and jeez, why'd she always have to enter in such a headlong fashion?) the echidna was in no angelic mood. "Call this food?" he practically snarled, throwing the item across the room. The human ducked – although Knuckles genuinely hadn't been aiming for her – then shrugged. "Sorry. It was all I could find." There was something in her tone that made Knuckles uneasy; it wasn't defiance so much as...as...resignation. Yeah. That was it. He supposed she must have been expecting it all day and, to his surprise, suddenly felt ashamed. Guardians didn't take out their anger and frustration on others; they were stoical, completely impassive at all times. "Yeah. Well. It's been a pretty crappy day." That was as close as Knuckles' pride would allow him to get to an actual apology. He cleared his throat. "What about you?" The human shrugged. "Normal." "Which is what? I'm not exactly up to speed with my study of alien mammals." The human cocked her head on one side curiously. "Aren't echidnas mammals?" "We're...complicated." Knuckles had only the vaguest idea of his species' life cycle; the topics of sex and reproduction had never been high on his educational cards, perhaps because his parents had known they wouldn't be all that high on his personal ones either. "We hatch from eggs and live in our mother's pouch for about a week, then come out and feed on her milk until we move onto solids. I guess you could call us mammals, if you had to call us anything." There was a somewhat puzzled silence, and Knuckles took a deep breath. "Look, I need you to do something for me. I want some kind of stiff pole I can use as a splint. This one's alright, but it needs to be in one piece if I'm to heal right." "Uh." The human hesitated. "Would bamboo work?" "If I knew what bamboo was, I could probably tell you," Knuckles retorted. "Is it straight?" She nodded. “It’ll do, then. When can you get it for me?" A small shrug. "I don't know. I'll try tomorrow, but I can't promise." Knuckles considered. Tomorrow would be ideal, but even he could understand that this human had probably already been neglecting her own duties (whatever they might be) to help him. It would be shameful to push it any further. "Alright. Tomorrow if you can. If not...I'll have to wait for it." In fairness to him, Knuckles did try to disguise the frustration in his voice, but even he could tell he didn't do a very good job. Certainly not if the human's face was anything to go by. Screw it. It's not her leg we're talking about here. But still...Knuckles couldn't help but feel a slight twinge of guilt. There's something strange about you, he thought suddenly, eyeing the human suspiciously. There's something strange and I'm damned if I know what it is, but it's there. Seeing her return his stare, he shifted his gaze elsewhere, mind still working furiously. What the hell was going on here? Day Three Knuckles opened his eyes and sat up slowly, stretching. The action pulled on the ripped leg muscles, causing him to growl in pain, but he'd be damned if he did nothing but lie on his back all day. He looked around. No food, but four pieces of pale yellow wood – no, more like giant reeds, Knuckles amended – had been piled up next to him. Gingerly, the echidna picked one up and bent it. It seemed pretty pliable. Not the best quality in a splint, but it would do well enough. By the time the human returned, Knuckles had – at the cost of considerable pain to himself – removed the makeshift splint and fixed up a more efficient one. He'd also poured most of the water the human had left over it; while he eschewed painkillers, he wasn't stupid enough to run the risk of infection. He could imagine only too well what it would feel like for his leg to rot off on this strange world. "Did it work?" she asked. "Yeah," Knuckles grated through teeth clenched with the pain. Had he thought his leg was in agony before? He was wrong. Now it was agony, a dull pounding that was almost blacking him out in its intensity. "Do you want any—" "—drugs?" Knuckles cut in acerbically. "No. How many times do I have to turn 'em down before you take the hint?" She shrugged, clearly unoffended. In that, Knuckles supposed she was better-natured than another echidna. Of course, another echidna would understand well enough not to make such an offer in the first place. "I know you hate them, but I thought your leg'd be worse than usual tonight if you'd done the splint. I'd rather offer and have it thrown in my face than think of you lying in agony and too proud to ask." Knuckles felt his jaw drop, then abruptly snap closed again. The kid had a damn good point. "Thanks," he said, more quietly than usual, "but no thanks. My culture doesn't allow for drugs." His culture! That was a laugh! There was only one thing left of the once great echidna culture, and Knuckles was it. For the first time, he wondered what had happened to the others; his mother had died before he'd grown old enough to ask her and his father...well, Knuckles barely remembered him at all. It seemed to be the right thing to say, though; the human's face cleared and she nodded understandingly. Knuckles groaned inwardly. He'd have one hell of a debt to pay off to this female when all was said and done, not only for the nursing but for every insult he'd given her – intentionally or not – and for every incident of dishonourable behaviour he'd displayed. At the rate he was going, he'd be lucky to get out of there before dying of old age. Day Four Breakfast was a poor affair that morning, so poor that Knuckles had seriously considered hauling himself to his feet and hopping out to try and scrounge something himself. He supposed the human was doing her best, but half a stale fruit and a piece of...well, he supposed you could call it cheese, if only because bricks didn't usually come in that colour, wasn't anywhere near enough what he needed. Healing burned up energy so fast that Knuckles spent most of his time in a state of ravening hunger even when there was plenty of food...which occurred just about never, now that he thought about it. Some kind of insect with a glossy brown carapace scurried across the floor. It was the largest bug Knuckles had seen on this world. Working on the basis that if it didn't look like it would glow in the dark, it was probably safe to eat, the echidna crunched it up. Not bad. Certainly better than that fruit, at any rate. Another two followed it, and went the way of the first. Maybe the bugs had a nest or something nearby. Perhaps they were like big termites. Termites...Knuckles sighed wistfully at the thought. Yeah. Termites, like the ones back on Angel Island, capable of building mounds that were at least three times the size of him, chock-full of industry and a tireless work ethic. And protein. Termites for protein, worms for amino acids and grasshoppers for flavour. Yeah. That would be good. Knuckles groaned aloud; now he really was hungry! He supposed he could live well enough on these brown bugs, but they weren't a patch on home cuisine, such as it was. On the other hand, they didn't seem particularly organised, or particularly smart; they kept coming and coming for about half an hour before the influx petered out, much to the echidna's chagrin. Had he eaten the whole colony? Apart from the greed and inconvenience this would cause – no more bugs to eat – suppose they'd been part of an endangered species? Knuckles considered this, then shrugged. It probably wasn't so; the human would have warned him if they had been protected. If it was a nest structure, like termites, they'd probably be back. Hopefully sooner rather than later. An idea entered his head and he reached out, driving his spikes into the wall. To his gratification, they caught and held firmly. At least he could climb. Yeah? You wanna take bets on how that leg of yours is going to feel after it's been banged against the wall a few times? Knuckles shivered involuntarily. No, he most certainly did not. I have to get back. It's my mission to guard the Master Emerald, and nothing in this screwed up world is going to keep me from doing my job. His eyes dragged themselves closed against his will. He hated sleeping during the daylight hours, considered it a sign of extreme weakness, but the pain in his leg had been too severe for him to snatch more than a few hours during the night. Surely a few minutes wouldn't hurt... Knuckles slept, and didn't wake up until the door clicked open and the human stepped in cautiously. One look at her face was enough for even the still somewhat groggy Knuckles; it was obvious she was worried about another welcome like the one she'd got two days ago. The echidna rolled his eyes. "You don't have to sneak like that; I'm not going to throw anything at you." There's nothing to throw, for one thing, he thought but didn't say. He wasn't sure yet if the human race had a sense of humour. The girl didn't seem wholly convinced; she kept a respectable distance from him, her whole posture seeming to say I've heard that one before. "Sorry. I meant to get you some food but I...didn't have time." Knuckles shrugged. "It's alright. I had some of those insects that keep crawling around in here. They don't seem to learn; they keep coming back for more." That was an idea that hadn't occurred to him; if the food wasn't any use as food, it could be used as bait. The bugs seemed to like it well enough. The human's expression shifted, switching rapidly between revolted and – could it be relieved? "You ate the roaches?" "Is that what they're called? Yes, I did. I wondered if they might be an endangered species at one point, but that was after I'd finished the majority of them. You didn't expect me to sit here and starve, did you?" "You ate the roaches?" Knuckles raised cool eye ridges. "Do you have hearing difficulties, human? Yes. I ate the roaches. Not what I'm used to, admittedly, but not bad either." "You ate the roaches?" The echidna rolled his eyes. "Yes, I think we've established that by now, don't you? At least, I hope we have, because I'm getting damn tired of repeating myself. I. Ate. The. Roaches. So what?" His earlier concern returned. "Wait...they're not an endangered or protected species, are they?" She shook her head, still staring at him. "Then why are you looking at me like that?" "They're...roaches. They're disgusting!" Knuckles considered. "They did have a slightly bitter aftertaste, but it wasn't that bad." A thought struck him. "They're not poisonous, are they?" She shook her head again. "Can we change the subject, please?" she said finally, in a somewhat faint-sounding voice. "You're making me feel funny. What...what did you do today? Anything?" Knuckles rolled his eyes. "Yeah. I did a weird alien dance followed by a series of backflips around the room. What do you think I did today? I sat here eating roaches and staring at these four walls." The echidna considered. "I thought about dragging myself up to take a look out the window as well," he added, "but I must've fallen asleep." This was nothing short of a direct lie – Knuckles wasn't stupid enough to do anything that could damage his leg further – but he wanted to gage the human's reaction. He was not disappointed. “You what?” The girl stared at him openly. Judging from her expression, Knuckles might have suggested copulation. “You can’t! Are you mad?” “No, just sick of being stuck here!” Knuckles answered, more sharply than he’d intended. He caught sight of the human’s expression and sighed. “Look, you’ve helped me out a lot, and don’t think I’ve forgotten it. But I need something a little more stimulating than concrete walls to stare at all day.” “Yes, but…but you could be seen! If they find you, they'll kill you! Or sell you, or eat you or...or..." "Or what?" "I don't know!" The human covered her face, her voice cracking. "I don't know! But they won't let you stay. They'll kill me if they find out I've been helping you!" "Yeah?" Knuckles twisted around gradually, because any sudden movements made his leg throb unbearably, and fixed the human with a sharp look. "So why are you helping me, if it's such a heinous crime?" The girl opened and closed her mouth several times, then abruptly turned away. She'd probably understood crime, Knuckles thought sourly, but he really should have drawn the line at heinous. Maybe there was another way to tackle this. "What do you want?" he said suddenly. "What?" "In exchange for doing all this for me. You don't risk your life for someone for no reason, not if there's nothing in it for you." "Maybe you don't." "Nobody does. Not unless you really know the person." Knuckles shrugged. "Fact of life, kid. Deal with it." "I'm helping you." "Back to what do you want for it." The echidna raised an eye ridge. "Or if you want it in simpler terms, what made you do it?" She hesitated, then shrugged. "Well...you were wearing boots and gloves, right?" Knuckles brought one hand up to his head, wondering as he did so if Tails had ever been this way with Sonic. If he had been, and if Sonic had been able to put up with it then the hedgehog was a lot tougher than Knuckles had given him credit for. "So...?" he said in leaden tones. Another shrug. "So you're obviously intelligent. So I didn't like the idea of them putting you in some cage or circus just to look at and point at. And you needed help." Knuckles gave up. His head and leg were both hurting, and he was tired. If the kid wasn't going to spill tonight, then fine. After all, it wasn't like he was in any hurry. "You got a name?" he said suddenly. He supposed he might as well learn it; they were probably going to be seeing quite a lot of each other in the not-so-distant future. The human glanced away, seemingly embarrassed. Why? Were names sacred? Knuckles had heard of more than one society that believed that; you only ever asked a person's name if you were planning to court them. "My intentions are honourable," he assured her. If the look on her face was anything to go by, she now thought he was completely loopy, but he couldn't help that. Allowances would probably be made if he had violated some taboo; after all, he could hardly be expected to have learned the intricacies of human society in the short time he'd been there. "Rina." It was a whisper barely on the edge of hearing. "I'm Rina." Day Five Food was liquid that day; a mug of something called chicken soup, which had tasted so good that Knuckles had half a mind to ask Rina for the recipe when she got back, and another mug of something called hot chocolate, which had given the echidna the mother of all sugar rushes, but had almost been worth it for the taste. That one really could be classed as a drug, Knuckles thought as he ran one ungloved finger around the mug in an effort to get the residue. Best to steer clear of it in future, no matter how nice it was. Rina had mentioned last night that she wanted to vary his diet, keep him from getting bored or suffering from a lack of one vitamin or another from eating the same food. Knuckles had been surprised at this evidence of thoughtfulness, and appreciative. Hot meals were near impossible to get hold of for some reason, as was food that wasn't leftovers. Another reason to value this chocolate stuff, Knuckles thought, examining the mug to see if he’d missed any of it. Abruptly he realised what he was doing and dropped the mug as if it had burned him. Jeez, but that chocolate was some pretty powerful crap! He was already craving more of the stuff. The echidna shook his head grimly, then rolled the mug away to the other side of the room. It took a little more effort and discipline than he’d anticipated, and he tightened his lips. Best to kick the habit now, before it got out of control. If the scattered snatches of conversation were anything to go by, this stuff was almost all humans talked about. Great. My life is in the hands of a bunch of stoned hippies. Why me? He’d have to ask Rina about this drug stuff. Maybe then he could get some idea of why she was helping him; did she want him as a prisoner? A slave? A – the emeralds forbid! – a pet? The idea occurred that maybe she and her kind viewed him as some kind of god or demon, but that idea was rapidly dismissed. From what he’d seen, the creatures were semi-civilised at best, but they were intelligent and advanced enough to comprehend the idea of aliens. Whether or not they were advanced enough to have left the whole concept of religion and superstition behind them was another matter, but the human hadn’t seemed overly afraid of him. On the other hand, maybe that was simply because she was young. Knuckles had no idea what the maturity rate of these things was, or how close Rina was to adulthood, but if she was a very young human, it was more than possible that the thought of his being hostile would never enter her head. The echidna growled softly in frustration. Too many questions, and nobody to answer them except a baby human. What technological level were these animals at? Were they the dominant race on this planet? Come to think of it, what was this planet? Perhaps he could talk to Rina, quiz her. He doubted she’d be much help, at least as far as answering his questions went, but it was a fair bet she’d know a hell of a lot more about this place than he would. The echidna shifted his weight, provoking another burst of pain from his complaining leg. “Cut that out,” he told it sternly, then realised what he was doing and groaned inwardly. This place was really starting to get to him. Unless he watched himself closely, he'd most likely end up going completely insane before the week was out. Assuming he lived that long, of course. Day Six No food that morning. Knuckles was wavering between irritation at this fact and resignation; he supposed if these creatures were foragers, food would be pretty scarce. Not only foragers either, he mused somewhat sourly, but apparently foragers with poor digestion; from what he'd been able to work out, if it wasn't cooked or prepared or sorted neatly, humans couldn't hack it. Looking around, he saw that Rina had left a couple of books next to him. More through sheer boredom than curiosity, Knuckles picked one up and leafed through it and then, out of habit, he started to think about his…what? Hostess? Captor? Rina, she’d said her name was. An interesting name, exotic and somewhat primitive. Knuckles was slightly surprised that the girl hadn't yet taken the liberty of changing his own name; usually it was either shortened to Knux or brightly lengthened again to Knucklehead. If a society understood the basics of naming, it surely understood the concept of nicknaming? He replaced one book and picked up the other, then a slow smile spread across his face. A book of maps, huh? Clever girl. Not just any book of maps, but one that was divided into thermal regions, water depth and which had what were probably cities marked clearly in each…zone, he supposed. That told Knuckles a hell of a lot; this race was more technologically sophisticated than he’d first supposed. If the data was to be believed – and he didn’t think that the humans would have several books of false information put by just in case an alien happened to drop in – they’d mastered space travel. A few of those images could only have been obtained from a satellite. Knuckles continued studying the book, the maps in it, trying to memorise each one. If nothing else, it could be useful, and it served as a very useful distraction. So useful, in fact, that he didn’t even realise how much time had elapsed before Rina pushed the door open and came in. “You’re a little late tonight, aren’t you?” Knuckles said by way of greeting, not looking up from the book, although it had been getting progressively darker for the last few hours.. “I had to get the eggs in.” “Eggs? To eat?” Rina nodded, and Knuckles mentally updated his categorisation of her race from forager to scavenger. “Well, they’d’ve been alright,” he said irritably. “Why couldn’t you’ve brought one or two in here?” "I thought about it but then I asked around and they said that too many eggs can be bad for you." Rina ducked her head embarrassedly. "I thought...you already have a bad leg, you probably didn't want your stomach packing up as well." "It's not the stomach that packs up," Knuckles said darkly. He'd learned that lesson the hard way. Rina frowned quizzically. "What does pack up, then?" Knuckles opened his mouth, then shut it again. It was practically unheard-of for him to back down from a challenge, but something about teaching a human child the nutritional basics especially re bowel movements and constipation thwarted even him. "Ask your parents," he said spinelessly. Rina looked away and didn’t answer. Day Seven Breakfast had been a veritable feast that morning; a soft reddish-yellow fruit that Rina said was called a nektreen which – for once – hadn't seemed spoiled in some way, a slice of bread that was still reasonably soft and a mug of vegetable soup. That last one hadn't been as good as the chicken, but it wasn't bad. Although Knuckles wasn't exactly full at the end of it, it did take the edge off his hunger. Maybe he could get some more nektreens; they were by far the best fruit he'd tasted here. Actually, now that he thought about it, what did Rina eat? He'd never seen her at mealtimes, such as they were in this place. He supposed she ate with the rest of her...what? Family? Pack? Herd? Knuckles still wasn't sure what the social structure of these animals was. The grinding agony in his leg was still as fierce as ever, but Knuckles didn't bother about it. Pain was a fact of life. When it happened, you dealt with it. If it was obtained honourably, the other echidnas would tend you. If it wasn't, you were probably better off dead, anyway; cowardice and dishonour had no place in echidna society. At least, so he vaguely remembered being taught. The lack of other echidnas on the island meant he'd never seen such values put into practice. Knuckles wasn't sure whether falling into another world and breaking one's leg upon landing counted as honourable, dishonourable or just plain stupid, but that no longer mattered. Closing his eyes, he brought one arm across his face, trying to draw on the power of the Master Emerald. It was the first time he'd attempted this since he'd left his island. To his relief, the power was there. It was faint – hardly surprising, given the circumstances – but it was there. Concentrating, Knuckles tried to tap into the seventh power, that of truth. In theory, he could use it to know how long it would take his broken leg to heal. In reality, it was an incredibly rare occurrence; out of all the times Knuckles had tried to draw on this facet of its power, it had worked a grand total of twice. He could never quite work out why he couldn't use the power of the seventh emerald as easily as he could the other six. How long? he thought wretchedly. How long until my leg heals and I can get out of this place? Three weeks. The echidna didn't open his eyes – doing so would have broken the somewhat tenuous connection – but stayed in exactly the same position in the hopes that he'd get something more. He didn't, and after a couple of minutes withdrew his arm with a grimace. Now he had a pounding headache to add to his troubles. Three weeks. Three long, long weeks, and somehow Knuckles knew that those three weeks were counting from today. The power of the Master Emerald would speed up the healing process as much as possible, but he was far too distant from it now to get the full benefit. Damn! If only he'd been quick enough to flare his spines, this could all have been avoided! The door opened and Knuckles immediately feigned sleep; he didn't feel up to dealing with Rina just then. After all, he had three damn weeks to talk to her. "Knuckles? Are you awake?" What the hell does she expect me to say, no? Knuckles wondered irritably. There was the faintest rustle of material and the echidna cracked one eye open the barest slit – purely to see if this noise represented a threat to him – saw the dark bruises that mottled the girl's skin and closed it again. How the hell was he ever going to survive three weeks? -------------------------------------------- 5. Week Two -------------------------------------------- So. What have I learned? Firstly, this human is called Rina. I don't know if they have last names or not – or maybe that is her last name – but Rina'll do. Secondly, this race is a master of narcotic addiction. I suffered a mild attack myself with the strange drug known as chocolate. I think we have the same thing on Mobius, but I've never been in a position to indulge in it. Not that I want any more chocolate, of course, no more of that sweet, creamy, delicious—oh crap, Knuckles, get a grip! It's a damn food! Thirdly, eating the insects called roaches is not considered socially acceptable among humans, no matter how good they taste. Something else I've learned – or rather, sensed – is that there's something seriously strange about this human. I have no idea about their social structure, but from what I've read in that book Rina was good enough to fetch for me – not the maps, the other one – they have a family unit similar to a lot of those on Mobius. So where's Rina's family? She also seemed pretty unnerved at the idea of my being seen. Query: who is this 'they' that she was talking about when she kept saying that 'they' would kill me? I don't have any answers at the minute. Whenever I do find an answer, it leads to about three more questions. I'm going to have to redouble my efforts to learn about this world; the more I know, the easier things are going to be when I get out of here. --Knuckles the Echidna Day Eight Rina was gone when Knuckles woke up, much to his relief. A little of the human went a very long way. Knuckles had never bothered asking where she went all day; humans had human business, and that was no concern of his. All he really cared about was that she left a cold patch on his back when she got up; although she went to sleep a respectable distance from him, somehow she always wound up against him by morning. Knuckles didn't really object to this – the kid couldn't control what her instincts made her do in her sleep and besides, it wasn't wholly unpleasant to have a kind of living, breathing hot water bottle snuggle itself against you, especially in a place as cold as this one – but it did make mornings a bitch. He supposed vaguely that it wasn't good for her to be doing this, that she'd only have to reacclimatise herself to the cold when he left. Maybe he should train himself to edge away or ask Rina for a barrier or something. But damn it all to hell, it was freezing at night! And shivering burnt up calories incredibly quickly, calories that Knuckles needed to keep his strength up. There'd been no breakfast that morning; no bread, no soup and, to the echidna's disappointment, no more nektreens either, although Rina had left an encyclopedia behind this time. Knuckles had to hand it to the girl; she seemed to know exactly what kind of books would prove most useful. Maybe she could grab him a biology textbook at some point, or a sociology one; if these humans were the dominant species, then he wanted to know as much as he could about them. The encyclopedia was good for defining things but wasn't so hot on people. By the time Rina got back, Knuckles was halfway through the Ms and still going strong, even in the fading light. "I managed to get this for you." Rina pushed over a fork along with an almost-full plastic container of what Knuckles had learned from the encyclopedia was called lasagne and then dropped to the floor, running her hands through short and unevenly cut hair and closing her eyes, her expression one of near exhaustion. Abruptly she opened them again and sat up. "I saw the news today. Well, it was news from over a week ago now; it was on the video." "So what?" Knuckles was more interested in stuffing cold lasagne into his mouth than listening to Rina's latest catalogue of woes; if the news was anything to go by, all the humans ever seemed to do was murder each other and have wars, with the occasional traffic accident to break up the monotony. Given how bent on self-destruction they all seemed to be, it was a miracle that the things were still around at all. "C'n I ask you a question?" "You just did." "Is there a blue, very fast hedgehog where you come from?" Knuckles shot her a look and dropped his forkful of lasagne back into the container. "Yeah. How'd you know?" "I saw him on the news. He was racing the S-team and went supersu...supe..." "Supersonic?" Knuckles said dryly. Overkill, Sonic. Just like always. Well, at least I know I'm not alone here. "Was this far from here?" Rina nodded. "Yeah. It was over in the States." "The States." Knuckles considered, thinking back to the book he'd read, and made an educated guess. "The United States of America?" Rina nodded again. "Uh huh. A place called Station Square. I'm not too sure where exactly in America that is though." "What country's this?" "England. UK." "Oh great!" Knuckles shoved the lasagne away irritably; he'd just lost his appetite. "Not only am I stuck here, I'm stuck here thousands of miles from the rest of my friends!" Rina shot a look at the lasagne. "Are you gonna eat that?" "Knock yourself out," Knuckles muttered, then sighed. "Least I know they're there. I'll get to that place soon enough." "How d'you know?" Rina said around a mouthful of pasta. Knuckles looked at her levelly. "I want to go back, and what I want, I get, human. No matter what the cost, no matter how long it takes or how hard it is, I get it. This is no different." Rina swallowed, then shrugged, not looking at him. "Okay. 'S just...well, if you have to stay somewhere or something, you could always stay here." For once, Knuckles bit down the first reply which came to his lips – that he would rather piss in a hornets' nest – and contented himself with nodding tightly. "Yeah. I'll remember." Not that he had anything against Rina; she was irritating sometimes, but that could easily be chalked up to immaturity. No, it was this whole place. Something about it made the echidna's skin crawl and he couldn't wait to get out. Day Nine Knuckles gulped down several mouthfuls of the food Rina had brought back that evening. It didn't taste particularly good, but it was filling and that was the main thing. "Would it violate some kind of strange human taboo," he said abruptly, "if I were to ask you how old you are?" "Uh...not unless I was an adult," Rina said. Knuckles blinked – he hadn't been serious, at least, not wholly – then fixed her with a look. "And are you?" he said, in a tone of voice which said he already knew the answer. Rina shook her head. "No. I'm ten." "Ten what? Years? Months?" The human giggled. "Years, of course. If I was ten months, I'd just be a baby. I'll be an adult when I'm eighteen though." Rina considered. "Well. Sixteen really. The only things you can do here at eighteen that you can't do at sixteen is drink and vote. And marry, I guess." Knuckles stared at her. He knew about marriage – while echidnas never bothered with such a pointless custom, he knew many other Mobians did – but the meaning of the other two eluded him. "What, you're not allowed to drink?" "Not alcohol." "Ah." That made sense. They had alcohol on Mobius, although echidna culture forbade him from ever getting involved with drugs, legal or otherwise, and alcohol fell broadly into this category. "What about vote? What do you vote for?" "Prime Minister. That's like the guy in charge of the country." "Good guy or bad guy?" Knuckles didn't much like the idea of one person having power over an entire country. Then again, countries didn't really exist in Mobius; you only had the Zones and those only to stop people getting completely lost. Rina shrugged. "I dunno. I'm only ten, remember?" Ten years old. That might have meant a lot more to Knuckles if he knew how fast humans matured. The encyclopedia had been surprisingly vague about human reproduction and maturity, probably on the not unreasonable basis that the only people who'd ever read it would be other humans who doubtless knew all about that. "So...you become an adult when you're sixteen or eighteen?" "Eighteen." It had never occurred to the echidna that you could put a benchmark on maturity; although he didn't go in for socialising, he'd met a couple of kids on his rare visits away from the island that were more mature than their parents in many ways. Maturity was determined by the experiences in life, not the length of it. Either these creatures weren't as civilised as he thought (and jeez, how much more would he have to re-evaluate his impression of them?) or they had one hell of an exact maturation rate. "What about you?" Rina said, blushing slightly. "How old are you?" "Doesn't asking me that violate your taboo?" "Only if you were a human." Good point, Knuckles conceded. Aloud he said, "Sixteen, then." Something buzzed past him and he caught it automatically, then started to put it to his mouth. "Don't eat that!" Rina practically shrieked. Startled, Knuckles jerked away, still holding the bug between two fingers. "Why not?" "It'll sting your tongue or your throat and you'll swell up and die!" There was a pause, during which Knuckles very carefully placed the insect on the floor and gave it a friendly flick into the air, making a mental note to cross stripy bugs from the list of edible food. He wasn't really hungry, anyway; he was snack-eating. Rina had brought him three eggs, a slice of bread that had been liberally plastered in something called marjreen and liberal portions of some kind of cold vegetable that had been deep fried in animal fat and golden coloured rings. Knuckles had wolfed it all down, with the end result that his hunger was no longer a problem...although he was starting to worry about his cholesterol level. Day Ten "Knuckles?" Knuckles didn't say anything, merely looked at Rina. The girl lay on her stomach, tracing patterns on the concrete floor with one finger. "Where do you live? Back on your own planet, I mean?" The echidna's gaze sharpened suspiciously, but Rina didn't alter her position. He supposed it wasn't that unreasonable a question, given the circumstances. Besides, it wasn't like she'd ever get there. "Angel Island." Rina sighed wistfully. "That sounds like a nice place. Is it?" "It's alright." Truth to tell, Knuckles had never considered his home to be good or bad; it was simply the place where he'd spend the rest of his life guarding the Master Emerald. He knew Sonic and the others tended to ridicule – or worse, pity – what they saw as glorified imprisonment, but a sacred duty made life a hell of a lot simpler. Besides, echidnas weren't nomadic by nature, and Knuckles had been quite content at the prospect of growing old and eventually dying on the island. The only thing that continued to weigh on his mind was the fate of the Master Emerald; he was the last of the echidna race and when he died, there would be no more guardians. He supposed he'd have to rig up some damned impressive traps and decoys before that day, but it still didn't seem like enough. "Do you live in a house with your family?" "A cave up in the mountains. My family are dead. I'm the last of the echidnas." "Wow." Rina stared at him. "So...when you die, your race will be extinct?" "I guess." Knuckles frowned slightly. He'd never thought of it like that before; the lack of other echidnas hadn't been good or bad as far as he was concerned, it was just the way things were, and his devotion to his duty had precluded all other things. That devotion had grown more through pride than anything. Little Knuckles had been just four years old when his father had died, leaving him the official guardian. His mother had impressed on him the importance of his task, and had helped him take shifts for two years before she'd passed away as well, and Knuckles had been completely on his own. He'd been determined not to let his youth stand in the way of his efficiency and so had guarded the Master Emerald with a devotion that was almost slavelike in its intensity. That had lasted all of three days and four nights before his body had finally mutinied and dropped him to the ground to get some sleep. He'd been a little more sensible after that, but pride and the desire to stick to his duty no matter what had been firmly planted in him. He did explore the island until he knew it as well as his own name, but he never ventured far from the Master Emerald. Thinking about the Master Emerald reminded him of all the days he'd spent outside in front of it, in all weathers, and that reminded him of how stuffy it was in there. "How do you open that window?" he said suddenly. Rina shrugged. "Easy." She crossed to the corner and picked up a metal pole that was almost rusted through – Knuckles had considered it for a splint before noticing the eroded sharp edges and thinking better of it – then wedged it just under the sill and walked up it to the window, opening it easily. "Impressive," Knuckles commented, and meant it. Walking up something like that wasn't easy. Rina flushed, looking pleased, then reached out to shut the window again. "Leave it!" Knuckles ordered, a little more sharply than he'd intended. Rina hesitated, then jumped neatly down to the ground again. "Well, okay, but we gotta shut it again before going to sleep." "Oh great," Knuckles muttered. "That's gonna give us about ten minutes. Why should we shut it?" Rina shook her head. "I already said, we can't let them find you here!" "How's opening the window gonna make it easier for them to find me?" "Uh." Rina shifted her weight embarrassedly, rubbing the back of her neck. "Well...see, I didn't wanna tell you this, Knuckles, 'cause I thought you might be embarrassed, but the thing is that you...uh...you kind of, well..." She took a deep breath and plunged on. "You kind of snore." The echidna's jaw dropped. "I what?" "Snore," Rina repeated. "They might hear you up at the house." Knuckles stared at her. "You don't mean to say that I'm that loud?" "Well. Only once. But once would be enough if they heard you. And, uh, you do do it almost every night." For one of the rare moments in his life, Knuckles was speechless. He'd never thought of himself as a noisy sleeper – understandable, really, since until now there had never been anyone sleeping close enough to point the fact out – and couldn't help feeling strangely insulted. He was the Guardian of the Master Emerald, and Guardians of Master Emeralds weren't supposed to do something as common and everyday as snoring! Particularly not as loudly as this human was implying. It was...was...it was undignified was what it was! "Every night?" he said disbelievingly. "Um...almost. You didn't do it last night, if that makes you feel better." It didn't really, but Knuckles had to concede that it wasn't a bad effort. Grumbling under his breath, he settled down. At least ten minutes was better than nothing. And he didn't snore! Day Eleven "You were right," Rina said as soon as she got back that evening. Knuckles glanced at her. "Right about what?" "You really do eat bugs. I looked echidnas up on the web." "The what?" "Worldwide web. You know." Rina stopped. "Oh...maybe you don't. Do you have computers and internet access on your world?" "What access?" As Rina opened her mouth, Knuckles shook his head. "Forget it; I don't think I want to know. What did this web thing say about me?" "That you're a kind of spiny anteater." "Spiny anteater?" Knuckles echoed, and rolled his eyes. "Oh great. My entire species and culture reduced to a two-word blurb. You didn't happen to notice what it said about hedgehogs, did you?" Rina blinked. "Small, noisy mammals that eat everything in sight." Knuckles paused, then smirked. "Well, it got that one right, at least." He couldn't wait to tell Sonic about that. "Why'd you look it up, anyway?" "'Cause I couldn't believe you actually ate bugs." Knuckles raised cool eye ridges. "Why not? You've seen me do it." He nodded towards the slim book Rina was holding. "What is that?" "Maths." Rina tossed the book to one side and hugged her knees to her chest. "I can't even get the first question, let alone the others, and I don't see what the point is. I mean, I'm never gonna have to multiply two thousand five hundred and sixty two by thirty eight when I'm grown up, so why should I do it now?" "It's not for the student to dictate the lesson to the teacher," Knuckles said automatically. It had been one of his mother's pet phrases whenever he'd voiced similar complaints. "Is that the first problem?" Rina nodded despondently. "Yeah. And the others are just as bad." "Hm," Knuckles muttered, no longer listening, eyes slightly glazed. Let's see...eight twos are sixteen, carry the one... "I know the teacher explained it loads of times, but I was tired and I didn't get it." "Yeah." Twenty thousand four hundred and ninety six...add a nought underneath, three twos are six, three sixes eighteen, carry one... "Bet you didn't have to learn it," Rina muttered. "Yeah," Knuckles said again, in the same automatic tones. So that's twenty thousand four hundred and ninety six plus seventy six thousand eight hundred and sixty...six and nought is six, nine and six is fifteen, carry the one... "Course, there's one kid who can do those kind of things in under a minute without a calculator, but—" "Ninety seven thousand three hundred and fifty six," Knuckles said suddenly, making her jump. She stared at him. "What?" "Ninety seven thousand three hundred and fifty six. That's your answer." Helping a young human with her homework wasn't exactly the diversion Knuckles had had in mind, but in situations like this, you took what you could get. "Ninety seven…hang on." Rina grabbed her book. "Are you sure?" "Pretty sure," Knuckles said evenly, "and even a wrong answer's better than none. Why don't you ask your parents to help you anyway, instead of bugging me with it?" Rina dropped her gaze and didn't answer. Knuckles had half expected this – that was why he'd brought up the subject in the first place – but he was still almost bursting his brain trying to figure out why. Maybe he'd been wrong in his initial assessment of them. Maybe this species did have honour. Maybe Rina's own parents had shamed themselves irretrievably and she'd been taken away from them and placed with these. That had happened quite a lot in echidna society, before they'd found more civilised means of dealing with such transgressions...which had admittedly been few and far between. Honour and courage were everything to an echidna. Maybe Rina's parents (or foster parents or whatever) were of the kind that blamed the child for the parents' crimes. That was a lot of maybes, Knuckles knew, but he kept his mouth shut. The echidna culture was his only benchmark for dealing with these aliens, and if someone had shamed themselves so badly, it was considered highly impolite to talk about them to their family, since it reminded them of the disgrace. You learned from such things, then you buried them and pretended they'd never happened. Well, Knuckles could keep quiet on that subject. The Master Emerald knew he hadn't been trying to shame the kid, just get to the bottom of whatever it was that was going on. It looked like he'd have to rethink his tactics. Day Twelve The click of the door opening woke Knuckles and he blinked groggily. "You back already?" he said without thinking, then lifted his head to see who was standing there and, for one of the very few times in his life, felt his jaw drop with an audible clang. "Espio?" The chameleon nodded coolly to him and started pacing around the small room. It was only with a supreme effort of will that Knuckles managed to avoid tripping him up in a bid to gain his attention. At that moment, the echidna was too glad to see him to worry about how he might have got there. He'd even have welcomed Sonic, just to see that he really wasn't alone. "So you are here," Espio said "Yeah. Yeah, I'm—" The echidna struggled to his feet, wobbling crazily, not daring to put weight on his injured leg yet. Reaching out, he rammed his spikes into the wall. That was better. "How the hell...what are you..." He shook his head, pure relief making him almost dizzy. If Knuckles had been far more relaxed about physical demonstrations, he would have hugged him. "I'm here for the human." "Rina?" Knuckles shook his head again, fighting to clear the sleep from it. "What's she to you?" "And what's she to you?" "Oh crud, Espio, let's not play the cross-examination game now. I just want a straight answer, and no, I can't afford to pay for it," Knuckles added. "Then I can't remember it." Espio sniffed the air and winced. "I'll tell you this much for free though; this place stinks." Knuckles opened his mouth to make a retort along the lines of You don't say, then stopped. Espio wasn't given to making obvious statements; he tended to shun the blunt approach in favour of crypticism. It was about the only area where he and Knuckles differed. "What do you want with the kid?" Knuckles repeated. Espio shrugged. "I don't want her; Shadow does." "Shadow?" Knuckles stared openly at the chameleon. He'd met Shadow once or twice and the hedgehog had struck him as being reticent to the point of sullenness. "Yes, Shadow. I think we got pushed through to the same world, but split up on entry. You, me and Shadow wound up here, and Sonic ended up in America. And I shouldn't worry too much; this girl's family aren't likely to miss her." Knuckles snorted. "How would you know?" "I studied these creatures." Espio shrugged again. "It's nothing personal, Knuckles, just business. Shadow wants her removed from here and brought to the place where we're staying." The echidna lurched forward, hopping in front of Espio as best he could, ignoring the pain that shot up his leg with the jarring motion. He didn't like to think about how he was going to lie back down again. "Why?" he demanded. Espio started to step around, but Knuckles moved with him. "What does Shadow want with this human?" Espio stared hard at him. "Sorry, Knuckles. All client information is strictly confidential, you know that." "She saved my life, Espio, and I need her to get me back on my feet. I'm not going to let you take her until you tell me why Shadow's so interested in her. And it had better be a damn good reason!" Espio shrugged. "You know Shadow, Knuckles. Why do you think he's so interested in her? He's angsty, bitter and private, but he apparently has a sense of obligation to certain people. People who fit this human's description. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about." Knuckles didn't, and resented the fact enormously. "Young and female?" he hazarded. There was a silence. "You really don't know?" Espio said at the end of it. When Knuckles shook his head, Espio smiled very slightly. "You know why they made you guardian, Knuckles?" "I'm the last of the echidna." "You're too innocent to have been anything else. If people aren't after the Master Emerald, you find it hard to believe they can be evil." The chameleon shrugged. "Now me, I'd believe anything of anyone, so long as there was evidence. And there's plenty. I've been watching this family for some time now." When Knuckles continued to gaze at him in a bemused fashion, Espio said with uncharacteristic irritation, "Alright, let me try this. Haven't you noticed anything, ah, unusual about her?" "I don't know," Knuckles said candidly. "I've never met another human puggle, so how can I know what's unusual and what's not?" "Bruises. Plenty of them." The echidna hesitated, remembering how he'd seen Rina's body, the livid marks all over it. "She fell down." "Sure she did," Espio drawled. "If I'd had nine kinds of hell beaten out of me, I think I'd fall down as well." Knuckles frowned, perplexed. "What? Get to the point, for once; you're not making any sense. Rina's kind exist in a family unit. If there was anything like that, her folks would protect her. Parents of all species get a little pissy about their offspring being attacked, and it's not like she's even fully matured yet." Espio chuckled quietly. "Ohhh, you really have been studying these creatures, haven't you? Why don't you take it that one step further, Knuckles? If she keeps coming in bruised from top to tail and her parents aren't doing anything about it, does that suggest anything to you?" Knuckles shook his head, not in denial but to clear it. Yes, it did suggest something to him, but that something was too crazy to be anywhere near true. "What are you saying? Her own parents did this?" "These creatures are on an incredibly low social scale. I've been studying them excessively. It doesn't seem so unusual." "What..." Knuckles shook his head again. He was feeling extremely wrong-footed, and didn't much like it. "You're kidding, right?" "Do I look like I'm kidding?" No, Knuckles had to admit that he didn't. He and Espio were similar in many ways; both had a certain militaristic bearing, both had a natural disdain for society and people and both had a very strict sense of honour. Neither of them would lie or spread malicious gossip; if Espio said this was happening, then it was happening. "If you don't believe me, Knuckles," Espio said, "ask her yourself. I've seen it with my own eyes. Don't tell me you haven't at least suspected." Knuckles hadn't, purely because he'd never heard of such a thing. Admittedly physical discipline wasn't unheard-of among echidnas; Knuckles himself had a vivid memory of skipping guard duties to go rooting for termites when he'd been a very young puggle, and of getting a blow from his irate mother that had knocked him tail over snout into a pricklebush. But that had been nothing more than a single blow, a punishment which even he had acknowledged at the time was richly deserved (despite the fact it had taken him two hours to pull all the thorns out of himself). In the normal course of things, his mother had explained, all puggles were (no, Knuckles corrected himself, had been) raised by pretty much the whole community. It would have been considered extremely dishonourable – not to mention physically dangerous – to attack one of them. And yet...and yet Knuckles had heard things about other animals. Some predators abandoned their young to starve – on the basis that they could have several more reproductive seasons, so any one litter or nest or clutch or whatever was expendable – and some birds threw their siblings out of nests just to make room for themselves. Was it really that strange? "Why?" he said aloud. Espio shrugged. "She's too slow. She's too fast. The food she cooks is too hot, or not hot enough. She's too quiet and sulking or a constant nuisance with her chatter. These creatures don't seem to need a reason; it's enough that she's there. They're savages at best, Knuckles; you shouldn't have got involved." There was no obvious reproof in the chameleon's tone, but something in it still stung Knuckles into replying. "You think I chose to break my leg? Savage or not, this human helped me. I need her, and you can tell Shadow that if he wants her, he's gonna have to come through me." "Yes," Espio responded coolly, "you and your shattered leg." "My shattered leg which would be a lot worse if it wasn't for the human that your client wants so badly." Knuckles snorted. "And you still haven't told me why." "And I can't, because I don't know the answer myself. Shadow likes being mysterious, or had you forgotten that?" Knuckles snorted. No, he certainly had not. After creation, Shadow had been subjected to a harsh training regime that verged on the brutally sadistic. It had left him with an exceptionally suspicious nature, a bitterness ranging right back to something that none of the others had ever got to the bottom of, and a tendency to avoid cities and medical or military facilities like the plague. It had also left him with a tendency to stand up for people in similar situations, although nobody could ever get him to admit it. Sonic had once remarked that ol' Shadow was something of a romantic at heart, one who had been seized by the idea of being a mysterious rescuer in black. He'd had to run very fast after saying it, but at the time Knuckles had thought the description strangely apt. "Who else came through?" he said suddenly. Espio shrugged. "You. Me. Sonic. Shadow. I don't know about the others; they might've been dumped with Sonic. I didn't even know you were here until I opened the door. You gave me the shock of my life; I come looking for a human and find you instead." "Where are you going to take her?" Knuckles said flatly. "If you manage to get her." Espio shrugged again. "That's not my problem. We were hired to find and remove her, that's all." "We?" Knuckles pounced on the word, hardly daring to hope. "The others are with you?" He wasn't fooled by Espio's supposed slip; the chameleon didn't make mistakes. "Charmy? Vector?" "They're around. We're staying in one of the caves. Nice enough place, if you don't mind the tourists. Vector's been swimming almost constantly in the pools and scaring the crap out of them; they kept shrieking about alligators." Knuckles smirked. Vector's temper, famous among those who knew him, had a tendency to not flare up so much as explode whenever anyone referred to him as an alligator. Knuckles had never been able to figure out exactly why. Must be a reptile thing. "I brought this over." Espio tossed a tightly wadded blanket into the corner. "Not that you need it, I'm sure, but if the kid gets a cold she could pass it onto you." The barest hint of a smile appeared on the echidna's face. "You know me too well, Espio." "Yes, I believe I do," Espio said calmly, and vanished. The mysterious and dramatic effect of this was only slightly spoiled when he had to open the door in order to leave. Knuckles shook his head wryly, the slight smile broadening into a grin. If he was honest, he had no idea what Espio might have been doing close enough to Chaos Control to get sucked through, but he was too relieved to care. Shadow's interest in the human was cause for concern, but not serious; after all, Espio had left peacefully enough without her. Knuckles settled back to wait for Rina. One thing was certain; this day had been a lot more interesting than all the rest put together. "How'd the maths go?" Knuckles asked as soon as Rina came in. The girl's jaw visibly dropped and she stared at him. "Uh. Great. Are you feeling okay?" "Why shouldn't I be?" In fact, Knuckles was feeling considerably better than just okay; seeing Espio, knowing he wasn't alone in this hell had done wonders for his temper. Rina scuffed one toe along the floor as she answered, "'Cause you usually don't bother to remember what happened the day before, let alone ask about it. Is your leg better?" "Not yet. Give it another week or so and it'll be fine." "A week?" Rina stared at him. "Broken legs don't heal in a week!" "It'll be three at the end of next week, human, and that's long enough. I heal quickly." Knuckles was damned if he was going to tell her about the Master Emerald; Rina wasn't that good an ally. "No, one of my friends dropped in." He'd never call Espio a friend to his face, just as Espio would never refer to him in such terms, but both of them knew it was the only word for it. Knuckles knew as well as he knew his own name that Espio had been just as glad and relieved to see him as the echidna had been. Then again, I'd have welcomed Sonic in this place. The Chaotix Detective Agency was more than he'd have ever dared to hope for, though. With the possible exception of Charmy – who drove Knuckles up the wall after about ten minutes – he was good friends with the CDA and its members...and ex-members, he thought wryly, remembering Mighty. Rina's jaw dropped. "Your friends? Here?" "Yeah. Well, one of 'em, anyway." Knuckles stretched out leisurely, easy and comfortable in his own mind for the first time since he'd arrived in this crazy world. "Any food?" Rina shook her head. "Sorry. I looked but there was nothing there." She lay down on the floor, resting her head on her arm. Knuckles didn't attempt to talk to her, either to remonstrate or reassure; the kid was obviously exhausted and probably wouldn't register his words anyway. Even as he watched, her eyelids seemed to drag themselves closed. Within minutes, she was asleep. Day Thirteen Knuckles himself hadn't got much sleep last night – his meeting with Espio was far too fresh in his mind – and he was trying to figure out how to broach the subject with Rina, who had got back surprisingly early that day. As a conversation starter, "Hey, kid, are your parents knocking the crap out of you?" seemed to lack a certain something, although he was damned if he could put a name to it. Instead of the usual echidna approach to problems – which could best be summed up in the phrase 'head down and charge' – Knuckles decided, for a change, to try subtlety. This was more through boredom than anything else; with only blank concrete walls to stare at, his brain was deprived of activity (not to mention sleep) and it was entertaining in a mind-numbing sort of way to work out a completely new strategy. "What's it like outside?" he said suddenly, in the tones of one who is just making idle conversation. Rina, who had learned that Knuckles never spoke to her except on matters of utmost importance (and even then, only maybe) looked amazed. "Big. I've never really been outside the house. Well, not unless you count school." Knuckles shrugged. "That'll do. Tell me what the house is like." Rina looked at him, a slight wariness in her eyes. "Why do you want to know?" "No reason, really. I'm just curious," Knuckles said, which wasn't a total lie. An alien civilisation...he was curious about their ways and society. He wondered if it would be possible to take a look around this human house before he left. "If I were to open that door—" he nodded towards the door in question— "what would I see?" Rina shrugged. "A path leading to the house." "A rock path, wet, dry, flat, raised, what?" "Ground cover – tarmac – and it's flat. It's dry too; there's not been any rain here for ages." So they had weather similar to that of Mobius here. That alone was worth knowing. "Dry and rough?" Knuckles hazarded. "Good grip on the surface?" Rina nodded, clearly puzzled. Knuckles grabbed hold of a roach and crunched it between his teeth – there hadn't been any food that day – and pretended to consider. "Hmm. So if it's dry and rough and easy to walk on, and it's not been raining and there are no loose rocks and it's utterly flat, how do you always manage to fall down on your way back here?" Was it his imagination, or had Rina paled slightly? "I'm just clumsy, that's all." "Yeah, that's what I thought at first," Knuckles agreed, "and the young of all races tend to fall more than the adults, but after you managed to walk up that pole to the window, I changed my mind." There was no imagining now; Rina's skin was chalk white. "You set me up? How could you?" "I did no such thing, at least, not at first. I gave you every chance to tell me yourself. You refused, and I still wanted to find out the truth." Knuckles met her gaze squarely, unabashed. "And I told you before; what I want, I get. No matter what the cost. Plus the fact I really did want the window open," he added more to himself than the girl. "It's too damn musty in here." Rina's hands curled into fists. For a moment Knuckles was honestly concerned that she was going to attack him; although he doubted she could do much damage, she was more than intelligent enough to go for his broken leg, and he didn't want to think about how much that would hurt. He was a little taken aback; he'd allowed for recriminations, insults, even plain old fury for his deceit and was honest enough to admit that he deserved all three, but an out-and-out physical assault hadn't been on the cards. "I wouldn't," he advised her quietly. "I really wouldn't." If she hit him he wasn't sure he'd be able to control his instincts in time to avoid hitting her back, and if he hit her, even a light blow, he thought he'd probably shatter her skull. Leaning back, he strived for a nonchalant tone. "I don't much care if you want to lie to me, human, but you might at least do a good job of it." Rina stared daggers at him. "I don't lie!" "Glad to hear it. How'd you get those bruises?" He saw the brief struggle in Rina's eyes before she said stubbornly, "I fell down. On the grass outside, on my way back." "I see. The grass marked you all over your back, cut the back of your arm open and left a bruise on your face in the shape of a damn hand." Knuckles snorted. "Why don't you try saying something like a giant robot beat the crap out of you? I might believe that." Particularly if Eggman's here, he added grimly in the privacy of his own mind. Rina pushed hair out of her eyes, still glaring. "Alright, it was a giant robot! Happy now?" "Not really, no," Knuckles said candidly. "Well, I'm sorry! I didn't have to bring you in, you know, and I didn't have to get all that stuff for you, and I didn't have to try and help you fix your leg, and I didn't have to spend hours doing extra chores so's I could get you food as well as me and all you've done is complain about everything and I wish I'd left you to die now!" Rina paused for breath, angry tears sparkling in her eyes, then abruptly whirled and stormed across to the other side of the room – an action that would have been a lot more effective if it had taken her more than three steps – and refused to say another word. Day Fourteen There was no food that day either, and Knuckles wasn't sure if this was because there really was no food or because Rina was trying to punish him for yesterday's fiasco. Has she forgotten I eat bugs? he wondered, picking up a roach and examining it thoughtfully before biting it in two. Admittedly this was the first he'd seen all day, and Rina was due back any second, but— The door crashed open, rebounded off Knuckles' foot (fortunately not the injured one) and slammed shut again. The echidna barely had time to register what had happened before Rina had flung herself onto the ground, oblivious to the hard surface and burst into tears. For a long time, Knuckles just stared at her. This was due more to perplexity than callousness; for one of the very few times in his life, he honestly had no idea how to proceed. He was surprised to find that half of him was more than a little concerned – the other half was busy being equally surprised that these creatures could cry like the ones back home – but as far as the appropriate action went...he was totally lost. Echidnas didn't cry, so he couldn't even treat her like he would a puggle. Actually, he had no idea how he'd treat a puggle in this situation either. Eventually he settled for, "Why are you crying?" Not the best opening gambit, he had to admit, but he couldn't for the life of him come up with a better one. It was hard to make anything out through the sobs, but eventually he managed to discern the words, "I'm not!" and rolled his eyes. "Right. You humans often decide to wail and squirt water out of your eyes, do you?" The echidna took a long, deep breath. "Has this got anything to do with what I said yesterday? Because if it has—" "No!" Well, Knuckles thought, that much at least was a relief. "Then what—" he began. "I don't want to talk about it and you can't trick it out of me!" Rina rolled away, tears soaking her cheeks and hair. "Just shut up and leave me alone!" Knuckles shrugged, not wanting to admit how much the barb about trickery had stung. "Whatever." There was a silence, broken only by Rina's stormy sobs. Eventually they dwindled into rapid, hoarse breathing and the occasional hiccup. Waiting until he was sure she had finished, Knuckles said, "Did the ground beat you up again, kid?" Rina glared at him through swollen eyes. "If you think you're gonna trick me like yesterday, you can—" "No, Rina." Knuckles' unexpected use of her name silenced the human and she gulped air, throat working spasmodically, still staring as Knuckles went on. "No more tricks. I'm not gonna try and persuade or manipulate it out of you. I'm just gonna ask you straight. Was I right yesterday? Was I right in what I said?" Rina looked away. "Who told you, Knuckles? I know you never saw it so who told you?" "A friend. The same one who showed up yesterday, actually. He's been watching this place for a while now." Knuckles thought about telling her that he himself had seen the bruises on the girl's skin, then decided against it. Let Rina think she'd been clever enough to conceal her little secret. In a way she had; of all the things Knuckles had suspected, something like this had never even begun to cross his mind and if Espio hadn't dropped his bombshell, it never would have either. Rina hugged her knees to her chest. "What friend? Is he...he's not still here, is he?" Knuckles started to say no, then stopped. Since it was Espio they were talking about, who knew? "I don't think so," he said instead, then took a deep breath. He had something to say, and putting it off was only going to make it harder. "Look. I've been thinking long and hard about what you said last night—" Rina cringed, flushing in embarrassment. "Knuckles, I didn't mean all that stuff. I was just...I was kinda upset." Knuckles shook his head. "Then you damn well should have meant it, because you had every right to say it. You've helped and been helping me out big time, and you were right; I've hardly been appreciative." He dug his spikes into the wall, hauling himself upright and balancing on his one good leg. It was a lot easier this time than it had been before, although that didn't help the additional wave of pain the exercise caused him and he sighed. "I'm sorry, okay? I screwed up." That was the one thing any echidna dreaded having to say, but Knuckles was nothing if not honest, with himself as well as other people. He supposed it could be considered fair penance for provoking Rina's outburst last night. Rina shook her head. "'Sokay. You don't have to apologise." "No, I do. I've behaved...dishonourably." There, he'd admitted it. The most heinous crime in echidna society and he'd just admitted to it. Knuckles' only piss-poor consolation was that at least he could blame it partly on the pain of his injury, after all, it was clouding his mind a little— He growled in frustration and slammed a fist into the wall, creating a hole the size of a saucer. A Guardian did not, was not permitted to make excuses. They made no difference; you did something or you didn't. "You've been in pain though," Rina said, and Knuckles got the feeling that in her own odd sort of way, she was attempting to comfort him. "No excuse," he grated. "I wanted to offer you those painkillers, but you seemed to get mad whenever I mentioned it and so I stopped." Rina considered. "It was for the best anyway. I think they were starting to wonder where the stuff was going. You can only do so many trips to the cabinet before they start getting suspicious." Knuckles hesitated, then told himself what the hell. "You feel up to taking another trip to that cabinet?" he asked, voice studiously neutral. Rina eyed him warily. "You mean you want the painkillers now?" "No!" Knuckles said, a little more sharply than he'd intended. "I mean, no. I need something to help with this leg, some kind of disinfectant." Now Rina looked positively alarmed. "You have an infection?" "Don't think so. But I don't want one either. With all due respect, the last thing I want is to have my broken bone heal and still be stuck here for another few weeks with gangrene." Knuckles started to add that the idea of the amputation which would probably follow such an infection didn't really grab him either, but thought better of it. Rina shifted her weight dubiously. "I'm not sure. I think I can get something, but it'll take a while. Can you wait?" "Like I have a choice." Picking up the encyclopedia, Knuckles opened it at the Ps and started to read. -------------------------------------------- 6. Week Three -------------------------------------------- So I'm not alone. Espio's here, along with the rest of the CDA...thank the emeralds! If I'm honest, I wasn't looking forward to striking out on my own, particularly since I've no idea where to go. And something's telling me I better make up my mind fast, because I'm running out of time. Not that Rina would see it that way. Hell no. On that subject, the past week has really been an eye-opener for me, in more ways than one. First of all, getting reamed out by a kid is...well, I can count the number of times it's happened on one hand if you include Tails. Getting reamed out by a kid who also happens to be 100 in the right is even stranger. One more week. One more week and I'm out of this hell. Dammit, I wish Espio had never said what he said! I was fine, everything was fine, and I was perfectly set to walk out and forget about this human...or at least, to get on with things without having to worry about her. Now I don't think I can manage that no matter how hard I try. To make matters worse, even if I did want to do something – and who's to say what's going on isn't normal behaviour for humans? – I wouldn't even know where to start. Why Shadow? This is beyond strange; I know Shadow and Espio are semi-friendly (though neither of them would ever admit to such a thing) but I didn't think the rest of the CDA would go along with something like this. Especially Vector; that crocodile's 'tough guy' exterior is only slightly more dubious than his taste in music. --Knuckles the Echidna Day Fifteen Rina was unusually subdued that day, and Knuckles was left to wonder if she was still angry over their argument a couple of days ago. He sighed. Getting nursed by a human puggle was bad enough. But getting nursed by a sulky human puggle... When Rina finally entered the room, she did so in a somewhat haphazard fashion, tripping and almost falling (but not, Knuckles was pleased to note, spilling any of the liquid from the mug she was nursing). "If you're trying to convince me that you're clumsy after all, it's not gonna work," he told her bluntly, then nodded towards the delicious-smelling mug. "That for me?" Rina didn't answer, just glanced at him in a vague fashion. "Hello?" His gloves didn't exactly make snapping his fingers easy, but Knuckles did his best. "Mobius to human? You in there?" "What?" Rina blinked, then his words appeared to register. "Oh. Yes. Here. You said you liked chicken soup, so I managed to get some for you." "Hey, no kidding!" Pleased, Knuckles grabbed the mug and took a huge swallow, then yelped as it scalded his mouth and throat. "Er...yeah, I only just made it so it might still be a little warm." "No kidding," Knuckles said in entirely different tones, teeth gritted against the pain. Lifting the mug to his mouth, he blew on it and sipped cautiously. Rina shook her head, almost as if fighting to dislodge a troublesome thought, then lay down, head pillowed on one arm. Listening to her hoarse, rapid breathing, Knuckles could have kicked himself for not realising it sooner. Groaning inwardly, he took one last gulp of the soup, summoned all the discipline and willpower he could muster and forced himself to push it towards Rina. "Here." Rina stared at it, then at him. "You don't...isn't it okay?" "It's fine, kid, but you're not. I don't pretend to be an expert on human biology, but even I can tell you're sick. Drink. It'll do you good." Rina shook her head. "You need it." "You need it more, kid, and I'm not used to taking no for an answer." Knuckles frowned slightly. "What've you eaten today?" Another shake of the head. "Nothing?" Knuckles guessed, the barest hint of incredulity edging his tones, then muttered something under his breath re the stubbornness of humans and without thinking dug one set of spikes into the wall and pulled himself to his feet, swaying slightly. "Where do your parents keep the medicine?" Rina went chalk white. "You can't. They'll kill me." "Then they can damn well kill me as well. What am I looking for?" The girl moved to bar the door (like she could really stop me going anywhere I wanted to, Knuckles thought wryly) and fixed him with a pleading look. "Don't. Please. Anyway, you can't get into the house, Knuckles. The door's locked." Knuckles cracked his namesakes casually. "Not a problem." "You can't walk right yet, and if they find you and you can't get away...someone'd get hurt!" The echidna snorted. Someone probably wouldn't be him. "Don't," Rina repeated softly. "Please." Knuckles hesitated, then turned away irritably. "If you're not better in the morning, I'm getting you some whether you like it or not," he informed her, then lowered himself carefully to the ground and closed his eyes. Now make it happen, he thought grimly. Day Sixteen Knuckles sat against the wall and scrunched thoughtfully at the apple Rina had fetched for breakfast that morning. He'd have to do something about her, and not entirely because the kid's coughing had kept him awake for most of the night. The echidna was arrogant, hotheaded, wild and stubborn enough to border on egotistical, but he wasn't cruel. He was, however, considerably distressed to realise just how much he wanted to do this. How had the welfare of one human kid come to mean so much so damn fast? Rina had been right though. His leg was a lot better – Knuckles privately thought the bones had all but knitted now, which surprised him, given their distance from the Master Emerald – but he didn't like the idea of putting a great deal of weight on it for any length of time. Give it a couple of days, though, and who knows? Well, even if he couldn't get into the house undetected, he knew someone who could. Finishing his apple, Knuckles pulled himself upright and hopped over to the window. He did try putting weight on his bad leg a couple of times, but the pain that washed over him made him reluctant to repeat the experiment, although it was no longer threatening to black him out like before. Digging both sets of spikes into the wall, the echidna hauled himself up it until he reached the window. Pulling himself level with it, he unlatched it and pushed it open cautiously, then his curiosity got the better of him and he looked out at the smooth lawn beyond, at the multicoloured flowers that grew in the borders and at the trees beyond. All strange, all exotic (well, except perhaps for the grass; that stuff seemed to be the same wherever you went). It actually wasn't all that special, being little more than a typical garden for that neighbourhood – unlike the one next door, it didn't even have a fish pond – but after more than two weeks with nothing to look at but concrete walls this was similar to paradise, and for a long while Knuckles did nothing but stare, drinking in the scene. Eventually, the memory of why he'd clambered the wall in the first place managed to regain his attention and putting the spikes of one hand into his mouth, he whistled loudly and climbed back to the ground to wait. A few minutes later, the window was pulled wider by an invisible hand and something dropped gracefully next to him. "There has got to be a more dignified way for you to request a meeting with me, Knux," Espio said, sounding peeved, or at least as close to it as he ever got. The echidna glowered at him. "My leg's a lot better, thankyou for asking. And I want to talk to you about Rina." "Withdrawing your protection?" "You wish, Espio. No. I still don't know what Shadow wants with some human and until I do, I am not letting you have her." "Then we have nothing further to talk about." Espio turned to go, but Knuckles restrained him by the simple procedure of grabbing him by the tail and yanking. He did it a little harder than he intended and brought the chameleon down on top of him, yelling as Espio crashed onto his bad leg. "Serve you right," Espio told him, then pulled himself upright. "Alright, fine. You wanna talk? Talk. What about this Rina?" "She's sick," Knuckles said. "And you're concerned she'll pass that sickness onto you?" "No," retorted Knuckles, who hadn't been until Espio had mentioned it, "but I want to fix her up. I don't know what human medicine consists of, but you say you've been inside..." "Yeah." "So you know their house." "What about it?" Knuckles rolled his eyes, letting out a guttural noise of frustration. "Quit playing dumb and get raiding! Her parents shouldn't bother you; they're—" "Watching TV," Espio cut across. "I know. I know their movements better than they do." "Good. Get going. I want as many different types of medicine as you can get. I don't know what kinds they have, but I want them." Espio eyed Knuckles askance. "Knux, don't you think you're getting a little too fond of this human?" "What? No! She helped me, that's all, and I pay my debts. She needs medicine, and I can get it for her. Or to be more precise, you can get it for me and I can pass it on. Now move!" Espio opened his mouth, caught sight of the grim expression on Knuckles' face and shut it again. "Alright man. Your funeral." He vanished, and Knuckles settled back against the wall. The chameleon didn't keep him waiting long. No more than ten minutes had elapsed before Espio reappeared, laden down with bottles and cartons and somewhat out of breath. "That is the last time I do you a favour, Knuckles!" he said, glaring at the echidna and uncurling his tail to drop the bottle to the floor. "That family has half a damn pharmacy in there!" "Is that all the medication they have?" "Not a quarter, but you can get the rest yourself." Espio dumped the cartons in his arms on the ground. "But I'd go when the humans aren't around. I met the male outside." "Rina's father?" Knuckles wondered. Espio shrugged. "Who else? I didn't stick around long; he's something of a jerk." The echidna raised an eye ridge. Espio tended towards gross understatements; it was a fair assumption that if he used an expression like 'something of a jerk', then this person was already several miles beyond the asshole horizon and accelerating fast. "You mean he actually saw you?" He snorted. "You're losing your touch." "I let him," Espio said, refusing to rise. "I wanted to see what reaction I got." "Yeah? And what reaction did you get?" "Well, I won't repeat it word for word, but the polite version was along the lines of get out of my garden, you goddamned freak." The echidna winced. Insulting Espio was only slightly less stupid than insulting Knuckles himself. "What'd you say?" "Nothing. I just camouflaged myself and walked away. He's still waving a stick about in the hopes of hitting me." Espio snorted. "Idiot. Where's this human of yours, anyway?" "Out and not due back for hours." The barest hint of a grim smile appeared on the chameleon's face. "But of course you won't tell me exactly where or when, because you're afraid I'll show up and snatch her." "I won't tell you where because I don't know, and I won't tell you when because...yeah, I don't want you waiting to grab her." "It doesn't matter, you know," Espio remarked, apparently to the ceiling. "If I don't fulfil the contract, Vector will. Or Charmy." Knuckles crossed over to stand in Espio's path and grip the chameleon by the shoulders. "You do, and you're off the Island. All of you." Espio jerked back, and Knuckles was exceedingly gratified to notice that he'd shattered the chameleon's composure. "You wouldn't dare!" "Why not? I am the Guardian, in case you'd forgotten that little fact. If fulfilling your contract is more important than getting home again, go right ahead and take her." Then start running and hope I never catch up with you. The last words weren't spoken aloud. They didn't need to be. A slow smile appeared on Espio's face. "Well. Seems we've reached something of an impasse, since I can't imagine Vector liking the sound of either. And I don't like the sound of Vector not liking the sound of something." Knuckles shrugged. "Lift the contract and everything'll be back to normal." "You know damn well I can't do that. I'm not in charge of the CDA; Vector is. He's the only one who can lift a contract, and we've never done that." "You did once." Espio stiffened. "That never happened, Knuckles!" "Jeez, Espio, Mighty still lives on the same island as you. You can't keep pretending he doesn't exist because of one incident." "The only reason he still lives on Angel Island is because you stuck your oar in!" "I did what?" Knuckles said, dangerously soft now. "Let me remind you that I happened to be leader of the Chaotix before it started interfering with my duty as Guardian. And yeah, Mighty is still on the Island and he can stay there as long as he likes. You got a problem with it, go find somewhere else for your HQ." "Where is that 'dillo, anyway?" "I'm not saying. You'll only try and hunt him down again." Knuckles shook his head. "Look, thanks for the stuff. But I stand by what I say; you want to stay on the Island, you leave Rina alone. You can tell Vector that from me." "Oh, I will, don't worry." A somewhat enigmatic smile appeared on Espio's face, then he vanished. Knuckles grimaced. He wished the chameleon wouldn't do that; a person could never tell whether he was gone or not. Sitting down, he pulled a bottle of some kind of reddish-brown liquid towards him and started to read the instructions. Just how big was a teaspoonanyway? Not bad, he allowed, once he'd finished. Cough mixture, throat sweets, and an assortment of other medicines. The door clicked open and he glanced around, startled. Rina was unusually early. Looking at her, the echidna could see why; she was visibly shivering and had almost no colour in her face at all...although that could have been due to the shock of seeing the medication spread out in front of her. "Where'd this come from?" Her voice was hoarse, barely audible. Knuckles shrugged. "Remember that friend I told you about? I got him to fetch it." Rina looked at Knuckles, shivering slightly. "They'll catch your friend. If they see him, they'll catch him." "Don't bet on it, kid. Sneaking around is what he does." The echidna tossed a tube of lozenges at her. "Here. You can have two of these every four hours." That had been something of a stumbling block for Knuckles; the time limit. While echidnas understood the concept of time, and clocks, they had little use for those concepts themselves. You ate when you were hungry, you slept when you were tired and you trained or exercised in between. Relaxation and leisure time only occurred in the evening, when you'd done your duty for the day and you could take time for yourself. Of course, Knuckles supposed that it could well be different for all those echidnas who didn't happen to be Guardian of the Master Emerald, but that was his timetable. Actually, was a human hour the same as a Mobian one? Knuckles' internal clock was still on Mobian time; he couldn't tell how much time had passed in human terms. Rina shook her head. "It's okay. I don't usually bother with stuff like that. I'll take a few now and see if they work." "Oh right. That'd be all I need, for you to die of an overdose while you're with me." Knuckles shook his head. "Here. I think you need a mouthful of this as well." He rolled the medicine bottle towards her and she winced. "Uh uh! That stuff tastes like...like diarrhea!" Knuckles looked at her askance. "Kid, you're not seriously telling me you ever—" "No!" Rina returned his look with one of pure disgust. "But it tastes like what I think it would taste like if I did." "Right..." Knuckles blinked a few times, trying and – perhaps understandably – failing to make sense of this, then cracked the bottle open and held it out. "Well, have a mouthful anyway and give me back those lozenges. I don't want you getting any sicker." Rina's look shifted; if it was anything to go by, Knuckles might as well have asked her to drink poison – then she took the bottle and swallowed a mouthful, shuddering violently before collapsing sideways onto the floor, spilling the precious liquid across the floor. Concerned, Knuckles reached out, then hesitated. She was still breathing; it was likely she'd dropped through exhaustion. Well, let her sleep. He'd keep watch, and if anyone came looking for her there would be more than one unconscious body in this pitifully small room. Day Seventeen "Are you very rich?" Rina asked that evening, as soon as she was inside. Knuckles snorted. "No. I don't have a cent to my name. I don't need money; I have everything I need. Why?" "'Cause I was watching the news again and it said that people had dug up this massive giant emerald. I was wondering if it might've come with you, 'sall." Knuckles stared at her, heart beating painfully fast. "Giant emerald?" Chaos Emerald? "Here?" Rina nodded. "Yeah. Uh. Is the flying island yours as well?" She regretted asking that a moment later when Knuckles surged to his feet, and the little fact that his bad leg almost dumped him on his behind again did nothing to lessen the effect. "What flying island?" Rina edged away slightly before answering, "Well...it was also on the news that a plane was flying to France and it almost crashed into a floating island." The whole island was transported to this world? Knuckles stared, unable to believe it, and yet...and yet, with the Master Emerald being on that island, it made a twisted kind of sense. Well, at least he could do his duty. The echidna supposed he could get up there, with the help of the Chaotix. "Was there anything else on this news?" he said. "They think the island was travelling, but then it stopped. It's almost directly above us. They're planning to send soldiers to have a look." "Over my dead body," Knuckles said tightly and limped over to the door. "Wait—where are you going?" "Where do you think? If they think they can waltz onto my island and waltz off again, they are in for a very, very big surprise." "They won't go yet." Rina darted to stand between him and the door. "Honest they won't. They gotta get ready and get sorted. You can stay a little longer." Knuckles folded his arms and stared coldly at her. "You know, kid, I'm starting to think you don't want to let me go." Rina shook her head. "It's not...well, I don't, but—" "Ah." Knuckles unfolded his arms and shifted his weight meaningfully. "Tell me something; you really think you can stop me?" Rina shook her head but didn't answer. It was late at night, and she'd only just got back; judging from her appearance, her health was deteriorating rapidly. "You said a week. You said you couldn't leave for another week." Knuckles started to protest this, then stopped. He vaguely remembered saying something along those lines – although certainly not in so many words! – and hell, he owed the kid after all. "Perhaps." He hesitated, then growled something unprintable under his breath. "Alright, fine. You want me to stay, I'll stay. For another day, at least." He'd have to trust to the traps and pitfalls he'd rigged to protect the Master Emerald. It could look after itself for a little longer... Day Eighteen Knuckles finished the encyclopedia and pushed it to one side, then amused himself by trying to remember at least ten human terms from each letter of the alphabet until Rina came in. To his alarm, she looked and sounded even worse than she had before. Whatever virus had a hold of her wasn't letting go easily. "Get that down you," he said, pushing over a covered bowl. Espio had had a very busy day, and Knuckles reflected rather sourly that he was likely to be paying off the Chaotix for months after this. Rina shook her head. "I can't, my throat hurts too much." "It's soup, kid. You can just pour it down." "What about you?" "I've eaten." He had too; Espio had paid him a visit that morning with what amounted to half a corner shop and for the first time since arriving, Knuckles had stuffed himself to bursting point. He didn't eat as much as usual; his stomach must have shrunk during his stay. Hardly surprising when you considered the pitiful meals it had been getting. Knuckles still wasn't sure what his current standing was with the Chaotix; he'd been half expecting a visit from an enraged Vector, demanding to know just who the hell Knuckles thought he was to interfere. The echidna smiled slightly; that really would be an encounter and a half, particularly if someone happened along to see. Rina lifted the cover – it had kept the soup just warm enough to gulp – and smelt it warily. "What kind is it?" "Oxtail." Knuckles didn't know what that meant, but Espio had assured him it was one of the healthier soups. "Where'd the bowls come from?" "My friend brought them. Drink." Knuckles hoped she wouldn't press the matter any further; Espio tended to make rather excessive use of what he called his 'product redistribution methods', known to everyone else as the five-finger discount. Rina took a small sip, then swallowed it in several rapid gulps. Knuckles could see her wincing with each one and was privately very relieved that Espio had brought the throat sweets. He offered her one now, and Rina clutched hold of the packet like a lifeline. "Only one," Knuckles warned. Rina's earlier comment about not bothering with correct dosages had stuck in his mind and he kept having visions of her lying dead, vomit trickling from the corner of her mouth. Rina didn't answer but slipped one into her mouth and then curled up onto the floor, sucking hard, and closed her eyes. Knuckles groaned quietly. First a possible overdose, and now the kid was running the risk of choking in her sleep. How had he ever let himself get involved with this? Day Nineteen Knuckles made a circuit of the room that had been his home for almost three weeks, trying to get his body used to movement again. His muscles had started atrophying – it only took three days of inactivity for that to happen to a human, according to the encyclopedia. Knuckles wasn't altogether sure what the cutoff period was for echidnas, but he thought it was a lot shorter than three weeks. The door swung open at that point, almost hitting him in the snout, and he shoved back reflexively, slamming it and almost trapping Rina's fingers. "Sorry," he muttered. "Didn't know it was you." Even to him, it sounded pathetic; who else could it have been? Rina stared at him. "Your leg's fixed. You're...are you leaving?" "Yeah." For some strange reason, Knuckles was reluctant to go, at least just then. Surely one more night wouldn't hurt...? He shook his head, angry at himself and his loss of discipline. "I don't belong here," he said, more harshly than he intended. "I have to find a way home." Rina's mouth worked furiously for a few minutes before blurting, "Can I ask you something?" "If you make it quick." Knuckles tested the bad leg. It'd do. "Take me with you?" If Sonic had been there, he would have shaken the girl's hand. Knuckles, who had remained stoic and impassive throughout every joke and prank the hedgehog could think up, was now looking as though he'd been goosed with an ice cube. "Are you insane?" he managed finally. "I don't belong in your world and you don't belong in mine." "How do you know?" Rina pleaded. "Can't I just try it?" Knuckles, who had been pacing rapidly, whirled so fast the girl took an involuntary step back. "You don't get it! This isn't some school outing! You come with me, it's for good. You'd never see your family or friends again, you'd never see your home. It's insane!" Knuckles repeated for good measure and then realised something that was even more insane; he was actually considering it. Rina reached out and seized one of the echidna's hands in both of hers, careful to avoid the spikes. "Knuckles, please. Just give me one chance?" Knuckles stared hard at the small hands, more through utter perplexity than hostility. He genuinely had no intention of harming the child, but he'd never had anyone just grab him like this before either. Echidnas weren't a touchy-feely race by anyone's standards; hugging and holding hands just didn't feature in their relationships. "Why?" he said eventually. "Like I said, this isn't a day trip. Are you so desperate you'll turn your back on your friends, let them worry themselves sick about you?" Rina looked away and mumbled something. "What?" The girl fixed him with a pained look. "I said I don't have any friends, okay?" She looked away again. "The other kids at school think I'm weird and I'm not allowed to bring them back here, so they won't have anything to do with me." There was a long silence. "I didn't know that," Knuckles said eventually. Rina shrugged, still not looking at him. "'Sokay. So...can I come? Please?" Knuckles took a deep breath, then expelled it in a sigh. "I'll think about it, kid. I still don't think it'd work in a million years, but...yeah, I'll think about it." Think about how to refuse graciously, that is, he added in the privacy of his own mind. Day Twenty Knuckles hmphed and dropped his forehead into one hand, massaging it tiredly. He'd been awake most of last night, replaying Rina's incredible request over and over in his mind. Take her with him? Knuckles owed her, sure, but this much? The broken leg wouldn't have killed him. He would have survived and healed without her help. Besides, these creatures appeared to have no concept of honour; surely it wasn't a crime to refuse, just as killing to eat didn't constitute murder. It is, something inside him whispered. These creatures may have no concept of honour, but you do, and if you walk out now you'll do it with a stain on that honour, because like it or not, you owe that human your safety, maybe even your life. Knuckles got silently to his feet, testing his weight. The leg was stiff and still quite painful, but it was working again. He could walk out just fine under his own steam. And you could still take her with you, right Knuckles? The echidna sat down again slowly, back against the wall and legs drawn up to his chest, and rested his chin on one hand in an unconscious imitation of Rodin's Thinker. Of all the things that Rina could have asked – and he was prepared to deliver on most of them; Knuckles believed in paying his debts – that had come as a complete curve ball, although not as big a one as the comment about not having any friends. Even Knuckles had friends. Most (all) of them were or had been involved with the Chaotix Detective Agency, which suited the echidna just fine since it meant he didn't have to socialise with them more than about once every six months at most, but they were still friends and Knuckles was honest enough to admit that their get-togethers did him the world of good. That wasn't the issue, though. Bottom line, Rina had helped him. She'd trusted him, when she knew nothing about what he was or where he came from; she'd just helped him because he needed help and she could give it, without a thought for herself or what would have most likely happened if he'd been discovered. Exactly. She did that for you and you're going to abandon her. Knuckles shifted his weight. He was, to his own private astonishment, ashamed of himself. You're running away. No. No, I'm not. She wouldn't survive on Mobius anyway. She belongs with her own kind. Knuckles shook his head irritably. He couldn't quite convince himself. Every time he tried, all that he could think of was their conversation, and Espio's remarks. Knuckles never runs from a fight. Yeah? Well, you're running from this one. And you better understand why; you're not running because you think fighting would cause more harm than good or because you think you can't win. No, you're running because you're too frightened of being ribbed, of losing your tough-guy image because you helped a kid. 'Helped' wasn't quite the right word for it in Knuckles' opinion; what this involved would be more along the lines of fostering, and he was damned if he'd get caught up in that lark! What did he know about raising humans? "I wouldn't be any trouble, honest," Rina said, making him jump; he hadn't even noticed she'd arrived. "You could dump me anywhere and forget about me and I'd never tell anyone I saw you, never. If your island does move, I could ride it until we get to another country and then jump off." Knuckles hesitated. It would certainly make it easier... He shook his head, furious at himself. "Forget it, kid. It'd never work out." "You don't know until you try." Oh great, Knuckles thought grimly. Now she decides to grow a backbone. "How the hell do you plan to survive away from your family? You're not even fully matured yet." Rina went very pale and then, just as the echidna was starting to regret his harsh words, said, "If you don't plan to do all the stuff that they do, it can't be too hard." That was a good point, Knuckles conceded; the kid would undoubtedly be safer away from them. "And besides, if the island does fly, like I said you could just drop me off somewhere in the next country." Knuckles gave a harsh bark of laughter. "Oh, just like that? Turn left at Scotland, go straight and take the first right after the ocean and I'll settle in the first country I land in?" Rina looked away, hurt. "You don't have to be like that about it." No, Knuckles reflected, he didn't. "I'll think about it," he said eventually. Damn! Rina glanced away. "I've heard that one before." "Not from me." Knuckles got to his feet, testing his weight again, and Rina's head snapped around to focus on him again. "Knuckles? You're not gonna go when I'm asleep, are you? You're not gonna go without me?" "I might if you don't quit nagging me to take you along," the echidna retorted, although not too severely. "Promise you won't sneak off? Even if you don't take me, promise I'm not gonna just come back and find you gone?" That had occurred to Knuckles, although he didn't think he could go through with it. Well, he could, but it would mean chalking up another count of dishonour. "I promise," he said flatly. "I'll stick around long enough to say goodbye, at least." Rina looked away. She hadn't missed the implication; you didn't say goodbye to someone you were planning to take along. Knuckles leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest and stared at the door. One more day... Day Twenty-One So what are you going to do? That was the question that had been buzzing around and around in Knuckles' head all night and most of the day, and he still didn't have an answer. "Leave her," he said aloud, then wished he hadn't. It seemed so final. He didn't want to take her with him. No, that wasn't strictly accurate; he didn't think he could take her with him. Aiding and abetting a ten-year-old human wasn't something that would go down very well, least of all with her parents; Knuckles strongly suspected they'd possess a kind of dog-in-the-manger attitude towards their daughter. Yeah. They might treat her like crap, but they're not about to let her go without a fight either. Plus the fact that if he took her, there was a damn good chance the Chaotix would have her the second his back was turned. Knuckles knew them well enough to know that none of them would actively hurt her, but chances were good that they wouldn't 'forget' what they'd been hired to do, either. It was one of Vector's key rules; you never, ever went back on a contract unless it conflicted with your own morality. And Knuckles was damn sure that said morality didn't extend to humans. If he'd made the connection between Rina's species and Eggman's, it was a given that the Chaotix would have done as well. Looks like she's damned if I do, damned if I don't. Knuckles groaned aloud. Why couldn't life go back to being simple? Back to when he only had to worry about guarding the Master Emerald and not bother about caring too much about some beaten up kid? The echidna sighed. He was getting nowhere, and he was getting there too slowly as well. If he'd been back on Angel Island, and if there had been other echidnas around, he would have gone to an elder for guidance; his mother had made sure he understood about the ways and culture of his people, even though she'd known he'd never meet any of them. Right here and now, asking for advice didn't look like it was going to be an option, and he didn't particularly want to risk sparking off a chain of events he couldn't control. Can't ask Rina about the process either; it's not worth giving the poor kid false hope. The door clicked open and Rina entered. Relief spread across her face as soon as she caught sight of him. "I thought you might've left." "After I promised not to?" Knuckles snorted. "Don't you see me nice." Rina flushed. "I'm sorry. It's just...after yesterday, I know you want to leave and I thought you might've...never mind. Sorry." Knuckles grunted in response and relapsed into thought. "Suppose," he said reluctantly, after ten minutes had gone by in total silence, "suppose I agreed to this crackpot, Sonic-brained scheme of yours?" Rina sucked in her breath, looking scared and hopeful all at once, an expression that both elated and depressed Knuckles. "I'm not saying I am," he added, "I'm just saying...convince me." Rina took a deep breath, then expelled it and looked away, clearly racking her brains. Knuckles didn't push her. The very least he could do was let her plead her case in her own time and words. "If you agreed," Rina said, sounding like she was weighing up every single word before speaking, "if you agreed, then I'd live on the island with you, right?" "You'd stay on the island," Knuckles corrected her. "Cross me, piss me off, get in my way or do anything else to make me think it's not gonna work out, and I'd put you off in the next country and I don't care what it is." Rina nodded. "Okay. So I'd stay on the island all the time I didn't upset you, right?" "Yeah. And that's something else you should think about; what I have is fine for my kind but might not work for humans. I don't know about your dietary requirements, and there aren't any houses on the island." That wasn't strictly true; there were a few dwellings in and around Carnival Night Zone and the Chaotix all had their own places (although there was no way Knuckles would let Rina in there, for her own safety) and Knuckles himself had a hut that he spent the winter in, but he didn't want the kid thinking she could just walk into a cushy little number. Rina didn't look at him as she answered, "That's okay. I've been kept here for my whole life, so I'm used to not having beds and stuff. Long's I don't get locked up again, I'll be fine." "You won't get locked up," Knuckles said, and then realised that he'd actually decided to do it, that he was really going to take this human with him. He crossed over to the window, hardly limping at all now, and stared at Rina's house, waiting. As soon as the light went out, he turned back to Rina, who had fallen asleep, and shook her. The girl jerked awake. "Wha..." "Get on your feet, kid," Knuckles said quietly. "We're leaving." -------------------------------------------- 7. Angel Island -------------------------------------------- I've gone temporarily insane. That's the only possible explanation. Well, not the only one; the other involves the possibility of Rina slipping some kind of mind-altering substance into my food, but since I've been eating stuff that Espio found for the past few days, that's not likely to be it. So, to summarise, I have taken a human puggle out of her home, away from her family and onto Angel Island. Charmy got us back. I didn't know he could warp between flowers, but it's a useful skill. Little strange though, watching a bee plant a loud, smacking kiss on a flower. I guess I never thought about the bee part of 'the birds and the bees'. Anyway, we're back on Angel Island. Unfortunately, Charmy and Espio insisted on coming...or rather, Espio insisted on coming and Charmy wouldn't be left behind. Not sure about Vector; Espio said he might be joining us later, as soon as he's done playing Terrify The Tourists. So now I have a human on my hands. What am I going to do with her, and how the hell can I convince the Chaotix to leave her alone? --Knuckles the Echidna The sound of voices dragged Rina out of a deep sleep. Lying still, she thought back, trying to remember what had happened. Knuckles had agreed to take her, that much she recalled, and he'd said something about going to his friends, but Rina had fallen asleep halfway through that explanation and hadn't heard any more. "What is it?" someone said from above her, in a voice which could either belong to a high-pitched boy or a very deep-voiced girl. "A human." That was Knuckles, and Rina's nerves eased the tiniest bit. If he was there, there couldn't be too much of a problem. "A wha-a-at?" the first speaker said, his (her?) voice even squeakier than before. "You know Eggman? Same race, only an immature female." "Fine." That voice was similar to Knuckles', but huskier and put Rina immediately in mind of a Sam Spade type character. "So we kill it." "You should talk," Squeaker said. "You were the one fighting to save it!" "That was on Knuckles' orders!" Now Husky-Voice sounded distinctly put out. "And it also had something to do with the little fact that we have a contract to fulfil, or had you two forgotten that?" "Damn straight," Knuckles said. "She saved me, Espio, and I pay my debts. That's all." "Yeah?" the one called Espio answered tersely. "So where does your bringing her to Angel Island fit into this? Especially since you once said, and I quote, that if anyone else turned up you'd dropkick 'em off the edge yourself." Rina heard Knuckles walk around, the slight drag in his footsteps from his not-quite healed leg. "Am I or am I not the Guardian here?" Espio met the echidna's gaze stubbornly. "That depends, Knux. Are you or are you not out of your ever-lovin' mind? You're a prat! What do we know about raising humans?" "She's not here as a pet, Espio." Now there was a definite edge to Knuckles' voice that hadn't been there before. "You can't expect us to believe she's here as an ally either!" "She needed help." "And you need to bring the Master Emerald back to Mobius and myself and the rest of the CDA need to fulfil a certain contract, so it doesn't look like any of us are going to get what we want, does it?" "Does that mean you're waiving that contract?" "No!" A booted foot nudged Rina's shoulder but with no real force behind it. "We need her." There was the barest hint of impatience in Knuckles' voice as he answered, "And like I told you before, Espio; you can't have her! If Shadow wants her that badly, he can damn well come and get her himself." "That's not a good invitation to make to that guy, Knuckles. You know that." "I'll take that chance." There was the muted thud of footsteps as the echidna started to walk away. "I'm going to go check on a couple things. Keep an eye on her. If I come back and find her gone, or injured in any way—" Espio snorted. "Please. You really think I'd take her when your back's turned? "I know damn well you would! You've turned sneaking into a fine art, and walking around invisible just to fulfil your screwed up contract is not acceptable!" "You never complained before," Espio pointed out, with a lot more truth than Knuckles was prepared to admit. "If I find her gone, you will regret it and I will very shortly be wearing an interesting eyeball-shaped necklace!" Knuckles glared at both the Chaotix. "You got that?" Rina didn't hear any reply, but they must have nodded because Knuckles said, "Good!" There was the sound of footsteps as he strode away. Rina, attuned to the moods of other people from the weight of their footsteps, cringed inwardly; Knuckles sounded pretty heated about something. Maybe coming here had been a mistake. Opening her eyes slowly, warily, Rina sat up and looked around. There was no sign of Squeaker or the one called Espio; maybe they'd left her. Maybe she could find Knuckles, ask him what was going on. Getting to her feet, Rina started towards the path. "Stop right there," a voice from behind instructed, the same low, husky voice she'd heard earlier. It wasn't angry or even unpleasant, but it did manage to carry overtones which said that disobeying it would be a very, very bad idea. Rina spun around. There was no sign of anyone. Maybe I imagined it, or it could just be a recording. By way of experiment, she took another step forward. "I said stop." There was a blur of motion and something exploded past her head, missing it by the merest fraction of an inch, and bit deep into one of the tree trunks. A shuriken...or to be more accurate, a shuriken the size of a wheel. Rina froze, hardly daring to breathe, then slowly turned to face the still empty clearing. "The next one goes in your spine, human. Stay exactly where you are and don't move unless you're either coming back to where you were or on a death wish." Rina swallowed, then wished she hadn't as the motion made her sore throat hurt. "Where are you?" she said hoarsely. "Right here." The voice was low, menacing and about three inches away from her ear. Rina jerked away and glanced around to where it had come from. "I can't see you." There was a slight rustle, and the speaker faded into view. Rina stared at him. "You're...pink." The words were out before she could stop herself. "Magenta," Espio corrected her coolly. "It's rude to stare at people, human, or don't your kind have manners?" Rina barely registered the insult; she was staring at Espio. A hot-pink reptile with boots, gloves, a snout horn and curly tail wasn't an everyday acquaintance...then again, she supposed that neither was a bright red echidna. "Sorry. I've just...I've never seen a...whatever you are before." "I wish I could say the same." As Rina glanced back at the path leading to the forest, Espio sighed, a sound comprised of pure boredom. "Human, Knuckles instructed me to keep an eye on you and I can do that whether you're alive or dead." "Am I a prisoner?" Rina asked, as respectfully as she could. "If you hadn't helped Knuckles, we would have thrown you off the island as soon as we learned what you were," Espio answered steadily, and also somewhat evasively. Damn that echidna! What the hell was Knuckles playing at, interfering in Chaotix business? Rina couldn't tear her gaze away from the shuriken. "Where is Knuckles?" "Out. Said he had some things to take care of. I imagine he's glad to be home and revisiting all his old haunts." Espio eyed her with obvious suspicion, then relented slightly. He wasn't, by nature, cruel. "If you want to pick some fruit to eat or get a drink from the stream, go ahead. But don't try anything cute like running." He pulled out another shuriken and toyed with it deliberately before glancing up at her. "I'll take your leg off at the knee before you get more than three steps. You want food or water, take it, but slowly." Espio tossed the shuriken into the air, catching it deftly. "I tend to make fast, involuntary throwing movements if I'm startled." He was surprised and pleased to note that the thing was inclined to cooperate; it took a small drink, selected a fruit from a branch that overhung the centre of the clearing and then promptly blew the chameleon's mind by offering him another fruit. "I don't take gifts from enemies," he said, although not as curtly as he would have liked; something in the human's gesture had touched him. He hadn't known the creatures possessed a sense of generosity. Of course, they might not. This might be some effort to trick him. Rina looked at him and took a wary bite out of the fruit. "Why am I your enemy?" Espio snorted. "Don't insult my intelligence with your cheap parlour games, human." The girl shook her head. "I'm not. I've never seen you before. I don't remember upsetting you, so why do you hate me?" "Don't flatter yourself; you're not worth my hatred. But you are a human, and that's reason enough not to trust you." A slight shiver ran through Rina's body, although she found she wasn't actually afraid. Even though the chameleon's attitude was unfriendly bordering on hostile, she sensed that he wasn't interested in hurting her unless she tried to leave. Something jolted her memory and she sat up suddenly. "Who's Eggman?" Espio's gaze sharpened, became – if such a thing was possible – even more wary. "Where did you hear that name?" Rina hesitated and briefly considered bluffing, then caught sight of the shuriken which Espio had – perhaps inadvertently – begun toying with again and thought better of it. "I...when you were talking, I was only pretending to sleep. I wanted to—" "To what? Spy on us?" Rina took a deep breath. "What did you mean by a contract?" A new light appeared in the chameleon's eyes, a cool, mocking expression. "Sorry," he said, in tones which slandered his every word. "Like I told Knuckles, all client information is strictly confidential." "Yes, but you were talking about me. Is it..." Rina swallowed. "Is it a...you know." "Assassination?" Espio said coolly. "No. We don't take cases like that." "No?" Rina looked the chameleon straight in the face. "So...what kind of cases do you take?" Espio shrugged. He supposed if anyone had a right to know, it was the human. "I'm part of a detective agency. We were hired to find you and get you out of your home." "You were?" Rina took a small step away. "Well...I'm out, so your job's done, right?" The chameleon smiled. It wasn't a friendly expression. "Nice try, human. But it ain't that simple. Getting you out was only half the deal. Our client wants you brought straight to him, and we don't get paid until then." "Why? Who is it?" Rina paled. "It's not my dad, is it?" "No, although I can see why you might ask me that." Espio shrugged. "Like I said to Knux; it's nothing personal, just business." "And like Knux said to you," Knuckles said with leaden sarcasm from the edge of the clearing, "not a chance in hell." Espio snorted. "Whatever," he said dismissively, although there was a glint in his eyes that said We'll see about that. Then he vanished. Rina glanced at Knuckles apprehensively. "How long've you been there?" "Long enough." The girl squirmed slightly. "Uh...did you hear what Espio said? Before, I mean?" "Yeah, I heard. And how Espio chewed you out for spying and managed to keep a straight face at the same time, I'll never know." Rina hesitated, then took the plunge. Espio hadn't answered this, but..."Who's Eggman?" "A seriously nasty piece of work. He's a human like you, and the only one we've ever seen back home. You can understand why Espio doesn't exactly trust you." "Espio's a chameleon, isn't he?" Knuckles blinked. "Yeah. How d'you know that?" Rina shrugged. "I thought he looked a bit like a lizard, and then I saw that curly tail and I was sure." "Wonderful," Espio said dryly from behind Rina, making her jump. "All this time honing my skills, working on my accomplishments and how do I get identified? By my butt." Knuckles hid a smirk. Espio's tail had recently been a source of amusement to Charmy, who had amused himself by playing with it ("Curly...straight! Curly...straight!") before the chameleon had finally snapped and told him that the next time he did that, Espio would yank the bee's stinger out to see if doing so really would rip out all the insides. Charmy had reportedly lost interest in teasing Espio after that. "That's why he turns invisible, isn't it?" Rina added. "No, that's how he turns invisible. Why is because he's a ninja who likes nothing more than showing off." Knuckles took a deep breath. "Look, kid, I'll straighten things out with Espio, with the Chaotix, but it'll take time. Find somewhere to hide out until it's sorted. Hydrocity, maybe; they seem to stay away from that one." Rina shot him a nervous look. "A city?" "Yeah. An underwater city, but there's plenty of breathing spaces." Knuckles eyed her somewhat askance. "Humans swim, right?" Rina nodded. "Good." Knuckles pointed to a path, one that twined into the woods. "Go down there and you'll come to a tunnel. There's a slight drop at the end, but nothing major. You want to watch for some of the currents, and if you get trapped underwater there's plenty of air outlets; just pick a large bubble and inhale it." "Aren't..." Rina swallowed. "Aren't you coming?" "I have more important things to do. I said I'd take you with me; I never said I'd keep you with me." "But you want me to go to Hydrocity?" Knuckles shrugged. "I think it'd be the safest place. But you go where you like, kid; I'm not your keeper." He paused. "Wait, that's not true." Striding over to a line of trees, ones whose pale bark was marred by red splotches, he rested one hand on a trunk. "These trees surround a sacred zone." Knuckles refrained from using the name 'hidden palace', guessing rightly that it would send the human's curiosity levels through the roof. Instead, he stared hard at her, lowering his voice to intense tones. "The area inside is out of bounds. You do not ever want me to find you in there. Understand?" Rina nodded without hesitating. Knuckles had to admit, there was something to be said for the kid's discipline, if not for the methods used to obtain it...methods he was still having difficulty getting his head around. "Good," he said aloud. "Get going. I'll come find you as soon as I've got rid of the contract." Without waiting to see if she obeyed, he turned and strode off into the forbidden zone. He was already starting to regret his decision to bring Rina along, not because he hadn't chosen to but because she was forcing him to piss off both Shadow and the Chaotix, neither of which he really wanted to pick a fight with. Left alone, Rina hurried down the path Knuckles had indicated, limping slightly and hoping Espio wouldn't show up; something about the chameleon freaked her out big time. It didn't take her long to reach the entrance Knuckles had mentioned; the dark tunnel sloping steeply down could be nothing else. Water from somewhere was gushing out of a pipe set in the ceiling and coursing down the stone. It looked like a water slide. Rina wasn't sure how she'd get out again, but if there was one way in and out, there must be others. Taking a deep breath, she seated herself on the edge of the ramp and pushed off, sliding into the darkness. -------------------------------------------- 8. Chaos Prophecy -------------------------------------------- I don't know what it is about Rina that she can throw everything into chaos; she's not rude, she's not aggressive and she accepts things without complaining either. But so far Espio's pissed off with me, Charmy's nowhere to be found, I may have a seriously angry Vector arriving any minute to pick a fight with me and Shadow's likely to declare war on the whole island if I don't give in. And it isn't even lunchtime yet. Espio thinks I'm, quote, "a prat" and "out of my ever-lovin' mind". Well, that's just one ninja chameleon's opinion, and for his information, I'd do the same thing again. Besides, despite what I just said, Shadow's not gonna worry about Rina. Well, I don't think he's gonna worry. Not too much. I mean...one human kid isn't going to bug him; Shadow'll probably forget all about her and fixate on some other human. Probably. Espio's right; I'm a prat. --Knuckles the Echidna Knuckles inhaled deeply. It was wonderful to be home again, even if that home was floating above an alien planet. "Why's she here?" The echidna looked up to where Charmy was sitting in a tree and felt his good mood promptly disappear. "Oh, don't you start," he said waspishly. "Rina is here and here she will stay until either she or I decide otherwise. And tell Vector from me that he can put that in his walkman and play it!" "I'm sure he'll be delighted," Espio said from behind Knuckles. The echidna whirled. "Since when do I answer to the Chaotix, anyway?" Espio examined one gloved hand minutely, not looking up as he said, "It was a smart move, Knuckles, sending your human pet into Hydrocity. But it only bought her a few hours. Vector'll find her, you must know that." The chameleon looked up, meeting Knuckles' gaze squarely. "Humans don't swim very well, Knuckles. Not compared to crocs." Knuckles' eyes narrowed into slits. "Let's get one thing clear; I did not get the kid out of that hell for you to terrorise her!" "Who said anything about terrorising?" Espio asked idly. "We don't plan on hurting her, Knux, just on passing her over to our client." "And you can't tell me honestly that your so-called client isn't planning on hurting her either." Espio studied Knuckles for a few minutes, then sighed. "Look, Knuckles, I know Shadow. He's many things, but he's not deliberately sadistic." "Just accidentally, is that it? If you're not gonna raid that termite mound, Espio, get out the way and let me have a turn." "Can you get your mind off food for one minute?" Espio demanded caustically as he stepped aside. "You've gotten worse than Vector. You were wolfing down a fish when I saw you this morning, Charmy said he saw you eat your way through two jars of honey and a half-pounder cheeseburger and you've been grubbing for termites ever since." Knuckles froze mid-munch, several of the termites in question beating a hasty retreat off his glove, then he sucked them up anyway. "You would too, if you'd been stuck down there and not knowing where your next meal was coming from." "Oh, cry me a river," Espio snapped. "You really think we wouldn't have got you out if you'd asked? Charmy could have flown you with no problem." "Wrong; Charmy would only have flown me for a few seconds, since he gets on my nerves so much that I'd have punched him out after that, and I didn't much fancy dropping onto my broken leg." Espio opened his mouth, shut it again, then said, "Alright, fair point. But on the subject of food, have you thought about how much this kid's likely to eat?" Knuckles stared coldly at the chameleon. "You really are scraping the bottom of the barrel, aren't you, Espio?" He shook his head. "Give me a break; Angel Island supports Vector's appetite, never mind some human's." "Someone call me?" Vector stepped into the clearing, dragging what looked like half a supermarket behind him on a grille. "Thought we'd have us a barbecue," he added in response to the looks. Knuckles rolled his eyes. Given how many barbecues and club nights the Chaotix seemed to indulge in, it was no wonder they'd been kicked out of their office for not paying the rent. "You got a contract with Shadow," he said curtly. "Yeah, 'sright." Vector snapped up a raw steak in one bite and reached for another. "So?" "Lose it." Vector choked. "Say what?" "You wanna stay on Angel Island?" Knuckles said curtly. "You'll lose the contract. Put the blame on me if you want, but I'm not letting you take that kid to Shadow; the Master Emerald alone knows what he'll do with her. You may be in charge of Chaotix, but I'm the one who says who can stay here and who can't." "Yes, well, let's talk about that, shall we?" Espio said in dangerous tones. Knuckles closed his eyes. "No, Espio. I will not tell any of you where Mighty is, so quit asking." "He screwed us over," the chameleon said darkly. "He made a mistake, that's all. You can keep him out the Chaotix if you want, but I'm not gonna let you—" "Knux!" Charmy zipped into the clearing, flew around Knuckles' head twice and came to rest in a tree. "Knux, I'm so glad I found you!" "That's not hard," Espio muttered, "seeing as how he hasn't moved since the last time you saw him." "Ignoring you, Espie! Knux, I got news! It's Shadow; he's coming and he wants to talk to you!" Message safely delivered, Charmy zoomed down to grab a flower and then flew back to his tree, licking the petals happily. "Are you sure it's Shadow?" Knuckles said, the disbelief strong enough to penetrate even Charmy's thick skin. The bee shot him a withering look. "You know some other black and red hedgehog who zooms around on hoverskates?" Knuckles closed his eyes with a grimace. He'd really hoped that Shadow would at least have given him the rest of the day off before whirling into his life again. "How's his mood?" "Ooh...smouldering, but if you don't sort this out now, I think it'll take the next step up to explosion." Knuckles shook his head. "How the hell did he find out about all this so soon, anyway?" Charmy gave him another, even more withering look. "Puh-leeze! You said we were to cancel the contract and to blame you. Shadow wants to talk to you about it." The bee scratched his head. "I think he's mad at you. I told him what you said and he just said What and cut the transmission." "Well." Espio was smirking slightly now. "You did hint that you'd take on Shadow for this human, Knuckles. Guess it's time to put your money where your mouth is, huh?" "You don't have to stay," Knuckles said pointedly. At the speed Shadow travels, if he'd left five minutes ago, that puts his approximate ETA at...oh, any second now. "Oh, I know," Espio said in smooth tones. "But Knuckles versus Shadow...I wouldn't miss this for the world. It's better than TV; you wouldn't believe some of the trash these humans show on their channels." There was a sensation of rapid movement and Shadow stopped a mere three inches away from Knuckles, who backed off reflexively and hated himself for doing so. "You told them to cancel the contract." There was no obvious anger in Shadow's voice, but that didn't mean anything; as far as the hedgehog was concerned, anger wasn't a prerequisite for killing. "Damn straight. Why the hell do you want that kid so badly?" Knuckles demanded. Shadow regarded him impassively. "Why do you?" Knuckles met the dark hedgehog's gaze without flinching, determined not to be the one to break. "You have no idea who or what she is, do you?" Shadow said at last. "A human?" Knuckles said sarcastically. It seemed the obvious answer. Shadow turned away, staring into space. "And it shall come to pass that one unlike all shall be born at the appointed hour when the final Guardian takes up his sacred duty. This one shall be like unto his exact opposite in race and unite the servers in their place. What was done shall be undone, when night's own rays obscure the sun." Knuckles took a deep breath. "Okay. First of all, making things rhyme doesn't make them more impressive. Secondly, Rina is female. Thirdly, what the hell is all that supposed to mean, anyway?" "His exact opposite may well refer to you, Knuckles." "Where does it say that humans are the exact opposite of echidnas?" "Shut up and let me speak." Shadow folded his arms across his chest. "Point one. One unlike all, if you take that to mean all Mobians, then Rina fits the bill." "Yeah? So does every other human on this weird planet. You going to ask the Chaotix to bring them up here? Because it's cramped enough." "Born at the appointed hour when the final Guardian takes up his sacred duty. That's you, Knuckles. You're the last of the echidnas and therefore the final Guardian. You're sixteen years old and you took up your sacred duty when you were six, ten years ago. Rina is ten years old." "Coincidence," Knuckles said flatly. "Like unto his exact opposite in race...we've covered that." "We damn well haven't!" Shadow sighed. "Fine. Who's your greatest enemy?" "I was gonna say Eggman," Knuckles said, eyeing the black hedgehog with suspicion verging on loathing, "but right now I'm wavering." "You could say that Eggman was your exact opposite. You want to protect the Master Emerald, he wants to steal it. You want peace, he wants war." Knuckles snorted. "He doesn't want either any more than I do. I guard the Master Emerald. I don't care if there's a war on or not." "Eggman's morals are also opposite to yours. You believe in honour and integrity, he lies through his back teeth as a matter of course." Knuckles raised a cold eye ridge. "Funny. Personally I'd have said he lies through his back passage; that's what I usually hear when he talks." "Rina is the same race as Eggman," Shadow went on, ignoring Knuckles. "And the servers?" Knuckles asked with heavy sarcasm. "The servers are the seven chaos." There was a short pause. "What?" Knuckles said at the end of it, when it became clear Shadow wasn't going to elaborate. "Thinking isn't your strong point, is it, Knuckles?" The echidna bristled. "Maybe not, but if you're looking for someone who can hit you with a tree, I'll be happy to oblige. Particularly if you carry on like this," he added under his breath. "I'm talking about the seven Chaos Emeralds. Whenever they come together away from the Master Emerald, they scatter. You know this. Only one can unite and wield them." "And you think Rina is that one?" Knuckles laughed. It seemed like the only possible response. "Get real." "I am real, Knuckles. So very real. Yes, I think Rina is that one." "Rina is just an abused kid who helped me out and asked me to take her with me in return. I did it firstly because I don't believe anyone should have to endure the kind of crap she was putting up with and secondly because I owed her big time and that was what she wanted in exchange; just to come with me." "Proving what I've been saying all along; she's drawn to this place." "If I'd been going rail-grinding down Bullet Canyon, she'd have come, Shadow. She just wanted to get out, and I don't blame her. But she's nothing special, certainly nothing like what you're implying." There was a silence so taut that the air between them practically hummed. "And even if I were so crazy as to let you just take her," Knuckles added, "just what would you do with her, anyway?" He paused. "But let's assume that I believe you and say, go on then, Shadow, take Rina away with you." The hedgehog's eyes narrowed ever so slightly. "Let us assume that." "And let's assume that you take me at my word and take her away. What then can we assume you'll do with her? Because I find it damn hard to believe you're doing this out of the goodness of your heart, since I doubt you have any concept of either." "And what exactly would you know about that yourself, Knuckles? You wouldn't give a dead body a funeral unless there was something in it for you." Knuckles stiffened. "Alright. You want to take Rina because you think she's some kind of biological Chaos Control as foretold in a prophecy – which I think you just made up to get what you want – but you still haven't told me what you plan on doing with her." Shadow folded his arms impassively. "She can create Chaos Control. She can handle all the Chaos Emeralds. Eggman will want her." Knuckles struck, missing Shadow by feet to crush the wall instead as the hedgehog darted out the way. Undaunted, breathing heavily, the echidna turned, fists clenched. "You dare." "Proving my point. If you didn't know what she was, why would you be so determined to keep her from me?" Knuckles shook his head slowly. "Go to hell. You're insane; I may not want to babysit the kid myself, but I'll be damned if I let you have her for your handler Eggman." Shadow smiled. It wasn't something Knuckles could ever remember seeing him do before, and it made him uneasy. "Ohh, this goes way above Eggman, Knuckles – he doesn't even know about this prophecy – particularly since he's pretty busy at the moment." "Busy?" Knuckles echoed. "Busy doing what?" A shrug. "Trying to take over the world and create the Eggman Empire, as usual. He's not very original, but he is determined. As am I." The cold eyes narrowed. "Let me give you a piece of advice; you can either help me or step back and let me find the human myself. But do not try and stand in my way." Knuckles opened his mouth to say he'd stand wherever he damn well pleased, then he thought of a better retort and smirked. "You want the kid? Fine. Go ahead, take her." He waited until Shadow had gone all of four steps away before adding, "She's in Hydrocity. Also known as the underwater maze." The hedgehog half turned and Knuckles was immensely pleased to see that Shadow now looked edgy. "Underwater?" "'Sright." Knuckles' smirk broadened. "Don't tell me you've been cursed with Sonic's hydrophobia as well as his looks? Or have you? Afraid to get your hoverskates wet, is that it?" Twin fires appeared to blaze in Shadow's eyes as he hissed, "I'm afraid of nothing." "Then you're either a liar or terminally dumb," Knuckles said succinctly. "Even Sonic's not arrogant enough to deny his fears." Shadow pulled out a weapon. It looked like artillery, but Knuckles couldn't pinpoint it any more exactly than that. "Don't make me use this, Knuckles." "Don't make me make you." Curiosity whetted, the echidna nodded towards the weapon. "What is it, anyway?" "A 96 Beretta. Humans have some ingenious devices, at least when it comes to murder. They're a savage, brutal, sadistic race, and your pet will be no different when she matures." "If she matures." "Ah." Shadow raised the barrel of the gun to point at the sky. "That's a different matter entirely, of course. You're planning to put her down? You know I can't allow you to do that." Knuckles shifted his weight calmly. "Are you planning to murder me, Shadow?" "Do I need to?" Shadow shook his head. "I've no quarrel with you. I've no quarrel with the human either, if it comes to that. But if Eggman finds out about her..." He let the sentence trail off. Knuckles snorted. "You said yourself that Eggman's too busy trying to take over the world to bother with us. You prove to me that this kid's who you claim she is – which I still don't believe – and maybe I'll listen to you. Until then, and probably afterwards as well, Rina stays here. At least I know I can keep Eggman and his lies away." "Of course," Shadow said smoothly. "Your keeping Eggman and his lies away worked out well enough the last few times, didn't it? Tell me again, how exactly did you stop Sonic and Tails from stealing the Master Emerald?" Knuckles jerked as though he'd been stung. "That was an honest enough mistake!" "Of course," Shadow said again. "And I'm sure the three incidents afterwards were equally honest mistakes. Face it, Knuckles, your track record with Eggman isn't exactly good." Knuckles stared at him. "Whose side are you on, Shadow?" he said suddenly. "Really on, I mean?" "My own." Knuckles hesitated. "Just say I bought into this prophecy crap. There are probably hundreds – no, thousands – of human females who were born at the same time as Rina." "Agreed, but not many who appear in a Chaos Emerald." "Appear in a what?" "See for yourself." Shadow held out the green jewel. Knuckles looked into its depths for long moments. "I don't see anything." "Think about leaving this planet." Knuckles obliged. Instantly the gem lit up from within, almost bright enough to dazzle them, then faded, leaving yellow afterimages on the echidna's retinas. A picture of Rina appeared. It was only there for a few seconds, but it was undoubtedly the human. "Now are you convinced?" Shadow said calmly. Knuckles raised his head to meet the hedgehog's gaze squarely. "You might have caused that image to appear yourself to trick me. No. I'm not convinced and there's no way in hell I'm giving in to your crazy request either." "It wasn't a request." When the echidna continued to glare at him, arms folded stubbornly, Shadow shifted his weight slightly. "Perhaps I should warn you, Knuckles; I have trouble with no." "Yeah? What about get blunted, you flying technicolour freak of nature? You have trouble with that as well?" Shadow's eyes narrowed until they were little more than blazing slits. "I'll pretend that you didn't say that, Guardian." Knuckles shook his head. "We're going in circles. You have some crazy idea that Rina's this human in some old prophecy, which I don't buy into since that would be too much of a coincidence. I've told you where to find her, even though you still haven't told me what you plan on doing with her—" "I don't know," Shadow snarled at him. "If I did, I wouldn't waste my time sending these fools for her!" There was the barest suggestion of the air shifting and Knuckles knew without looking that Espio had pulled out a shuriken. "Say what?" the chameleon said softly. "You heard." Shadow dismissed the Chaotix as unimportant and turned his attention back to Knuckles. "I figured maybe you knew. After all, you spent a lot of time with her, and you helped her." "I spent a lot of time with her because I broke my damn leg and I helped her because she helped me!" Knuckles said stridently. He was sick of explaining this to people. "If you're not going to chase after her now, then get the hell off my island." Shadow glanced in the direction of Hydrocity, then back at Knuckles. "This isn't over, echidna. Not by a long shot. If you won't bring her to me, I will tear this island apart piece by piece until I find her." He turned and sped away, so fast that he'd vanished before either Knuckles or the Chaotix had fully registered his departure. "This has to be the dumbest thing you've ever done, Knuckles," Espio said from behind the echidna, "and that includes the incident with the balloons and the wool scarf." "Butt out, Espio," Knuckles said flatly. "The contract's lifted and that's all you care about. And if money's so important to the Chaotix, I'll pay what Shadow owes you." "You can't. Shadow didn't promise us money. He said he'd use the Chaos Emeralds to send us home. All of us, him and the human included." Knuckles froze, then very slowly turned to stare at him. "What?" "You heard." Espio was too disciplined to lose his temper, but it was obvious that it was hanging by a thread. "He was gonna send us home. Our real home, not Mobius." "The Special Zone?" "You got it. We only stayed in Mobius so long because we decided we were needed there." "Yes, and you only decided you were needed on Mobius because you happened to be wanted back in the Special Zone! You don't imagine that's changed, do you?" "We wanted to take the chance." Vector spoke somewhat indistinctly around a mouthful of steak. "Get blunted?" said Charmy, who was sometimes slow to catch up. "Hedgehog insult," Knuckles said shortly. "Sonic taught it to me. Well, shouted it at me." "Wait until he hears what we're gonna shout at you," Espio said in sub-arctic tones. Knuckles opened his mouth to call the chameleon out on that comment, then shut it again; he was tired and it wasn't worth it. With a sigh, the echidna turned and headed for Hydrocity. Maybe he'd got lucky, maybe Rina had been hit by the wall defences and was no longer his problem. Knuckles shook his head irritably. That was no way to think; it wasn't the kid's fault any of this had happened...at least, not directly. But still...there were days when he really, really wished that somebody else was the Guardian.