By K. M. Hollar

Second Edition

Revised August 2001

______________________________________________________________________

Introduction:

Sonic 3 and Knux is based on the Sega Genesis video game of the same title. Because of a quirk introduced into my fanfics, this takes place before the Great War, but while Sonic and Tails are only a year or so younger than they are in the rest of the stories. Time is easy to manipulate, you know.

Knuckles's side is told in first person. It should be kept in mind that he is looking back on what he did and feeling mildly ashamed of himself.

This story also explains a few things I always thought needed patching up. For instance, why Robotnik robotized his left arm. Why Tails refuses to use the chaos and super emeralds. Where Slasher comes in. Why Sonic and Knuckles are friends. How eight different zones fit on the Floating Island. When Metal Sonic was constructed and who built him. What finally happened to the Death Egg ...

What's new in the Second Edition: Some incidents have been rewritten for clarity, and 10,000 words have been removed. Hopefully this makes it easier on the reader. The story itself has not been modified.

_____________________________________________________________________

The ship plunged from the sky like a fiery comet. Flames licked through it's hull, fanned by the rushing wind screeching around it. The rockets were still going, but they were far too hot. Robotnik was losing control. He was struggling to steer the Death Egg out of its nose dive.

Robotnik brushed sweat from his forehead, tightened his grip on the flight yoke and stared through the smoke-clouded windshield. The altimeter was dropping like a stone, and he would have to either bail out or crash. He thought of his enemy, Sonic the Hedgehog, who had destroyed his ship and would escape if he landed the Death Egg. But if he crashed it would take years to rebuild the massive battlestation.

The smoke cleared. Below him was the deep blue ocean. He could splash down, cooling the overheated jets and extinguishing the fire at once without harming the Death Egg. He didn't worry about spilling the leaking rocket fuel in the sea; Robotnik never worried about such things. He flipped several switches on the dashboard to close the outside doors, then concentrated on splashdown.

The metal orb slammed into the water with such force Ivo was nearly thrown from his chair. The flames were quenched with loud hissing protests, and the rockets turned from glowing red to cool grey.

After a few moments, the Death Egg rose to the surface and rotated as the heavy rockets pulled it upright. The cockpit rolled to the surface. Robotnik was too busy shutting down unnecessary operating systems to notice. He was taking on a little water, and that was soon fixed. Heat sank back into the green levels, and the alarms stopped.

Then Robotnik realized he had a problem. Death Egg was under water and inaccessible to his rescue drones. There was another problem, too; most of the fuel had burned up, and soon his systems would go off. To refuel he would have to contact his inland ground base, Launch Base. And he was too far away to contact it with the equipment he had left. For the first time in his life, Robotnik he needed help.

The wind was light that day. It ruffled my hair as I ascended to the highest point on the island, a towering column of rock. The west face was perfect for climbing.

I pulled myself up the last few feet. The rock was worn smooth from years of exposure and also happened to be my favorite place for steering the island. I brushed off my hands and knuckles, then scanned the island. Everything looked normal and healthy--the way a good guardian wants it to look.

Then I heard it. A high, far away whistle that was growing louder by the second. I turned in a circle, searching the sky for anything unusual.

A moment later, I saw a grey sphere trailing black smoke hurtling toward the ocean. I had never seen anything like it. I put my hands on my hips and watched. My island was in no danger, a mile in the air as it was. The object looked like some sort of rocket ship. I wondered what had made it catch fire.

It hit the water. From the wave it caused, I was certain it had crumpled on impact, but five minutes later (about the time the tidal wave rolled beneath my island), it rose to the surface. There was a cloud of steam all around it from the extinguished fire. I wondered if anyone could still possibly be alive inside. "Knuckles, you're too nosey," I told myself when I realized I was considering a glide. I could fly the island over there and look down.

I had the Master emerald with me. Well, actually, a miniature. The original was deep underground in my Hidden Palace. I had changed its power into a tiny gem I could carry around. It was deep green, and I used it to steer the island.

I took it out and set it on the rock, allowing its power to flow into the ground. After an interval, I picked it up, faced the direction of the submerged ship, and held out the emerald. The Floating Island began to move. I kept my eyes trained on the dark patch in the water, which was the secret to steady flight.

I squinted against the glare of the sun on the water. The smooth patch of quicksilver was broken in the middle by the top of the motionless round craft. As I drew nearer I could make out the metal paneling surrounding the crown, a glassed-in cockpit. The ugly style of the ship made me wonder if Dr. Robotnik had built it. I had never seen him or any of his creations, but Dad had told me how he wanted to make all animals into machines and digitize the entire planet. Dad had hated him ever since his service in the Mobian Civil War. Maybe I would get to find out why.

The island was quite close by now. I lowered my arm and the island slowed. The thing was just below my line of vision, so I let my arm drop. The island stopped. I placed the emerald in a compartment in my shoe, then dove headfirst off the crag. But I didn't fall; I stretched my arms out, and my red dreadlocks caught the air. I glided smoothly across the island to the very rim, landed on my toes and looked down.

I was standing directly over the ship.It spread out and downward until the water depth blocked my view. It had burned up pretty badly, for it was black in great patches. But, to my surprise, I could see lights inside the cockpit. Could someone be alive in there ... ?

I took out the emerald again, but this time I cupped my other hand over the top of it. This caused the island to sink. I looked over the edge, watching as the ocean rose to meet the bottom of the island. I looked up at the center peak, the one I had vacated. The bottom of Floating Island was about as low as the crag was high. I had reached the limit; any lower and Floating Island would be a sinking island. Which meant that I was about a quarter of a mile up.

I took a rope and tied it to a tree, flung the other end over the edge, then slid down for a closer look at the gigantic craft. I couldn't see anybody in the cockpit from above. I reached the end of the rope five feet above the water. I was quite close to the cockpit now. I caught sight of somebody. I strained my eyes, trying to see who it was. He moved into the light, and I had my first look at the brilliant (but demented) Dr. Ivo Robotnik.

I had never seen anybody so fat in my life. He had the biggest mustache I had ever known existed. It was bright orange and it stuck out past his shoulders. It was kind of a frizzy red. Anyway, he looked tired and worn out.

He turned around and saw me, and jumped. I didn't know what to do, so I yelled, "Hey! You need help?" He motioned that he couldn't hear me. He left the cockpit. A minute later a round door opened in the top of the ship. I said again, "Hey, you need help?"

"Yes," he returned. "My ship crashed and I need help to get it out."

That was obvious enough, and I tried to think of something to say. "Well, uh, I have some ropes and stuff. I could attach them to this ship or whatever it is and haul you out."

He looked up at the island for what I thought was the first time, but he didn't seem surprised to see it. "Sounds good," he said. "And the ship is called the Death Egg."

Death Egg? What kind of a name is THAT? Aloud I said, "How do you want me to hook on the ropes?"

"Oh, there's some bars and things you could ..." He looked down and noticed the ship was underwater. "Oh well, never mind that," he finished with a sigh. "I've got some chains--I think we'd better use chains--ropes won't hold this thing. You attach them to the island, I'll take care of the attachments down here. Oh, and I'm Ivo Robotnik."

So this _is_ Robotnik, I thought. Aloud I said, "I'm Knuckles, guardian of the Floating Island."

It took us two hours to attach the Death Egg to my island with thick, sturdy chains. The doctor decided to come up on the island during transit. There wouldn't be much for him to do down below. I helped him up--he wasn't much good at climbing the rope ladder I tossed down, which came as a surprise to me. (Everyone should know how to climb.) Once there, he asked me, "So, how do you fly the island?"

"Easy," I replied, and took out the emerald. "See, this is the Master emerald."

He looked at it and raised one bushy eyebrow. "Master emerald? I've only heard of the chaos emeralds."

"Oh no," I said. "The Master is much bigger and contains more power. This is just a miniature I use it to fly the island."

He nodded. "Oh. How does it work?"

"Well, to fly the island, I do this." I knelt and set the emerald on the ground. "I let its power flow into the island," I explained, "sort of like magnetizing it. After a few minutes the island is ready." I picked it up and held it in my right hand. "Now, to move it in any direction I just hold out my arm and the island moves that way. To move down I cup my hand over the emerald. To move up, I just put my other hand underneath. Watch." I slowly cupped my left hand beneath my right hand, and the island began to ascend. Robotnik was impressed.

As I lifted the island, the chains tightened and I began to feel resistance. The Death Egg must be very heavy to create that much drag. The Master seemed to pull my arm down. The Floating Island moved very slowly to lift the ship. Meanwhile, Robotnik walked to the edge and looked down at the ship. He was practically dancing with glee.

I moved the island high enough so the Death Egg was out of the water. Still holding the emerald, I looked at Robotnik and asked, "Where do want this thing, Doc?"

"Well," he said, "I need to get it to my Launch Base where I can repair it. It's called it's a long ways inland. Do you think you could reach it?"

"Sure," I replied. "All I have to do is fly a little higher. Oh, and will you watch my height? Clearance is gonna be a bit tricky."

I lifted the island higher and we moved inland. Robotnik shouted out directions like, "Go a little higher! A little lower! Need to go about a half a mile to the right!" It was interesting, because I was steering entirely on oral directions. I would have preferred to stand on the rocky pinnacle in the middle of the island, because I have a clear view and can guess how high I am. But I had to stand on the edge with Robotnik. I didn't want to leave him unsupervised on my island.

We flew for hours, and Robotnik seemed interested in everything-- the emeralds, how the island flew, etc. He seemed intrigued with the Master emerald. I don't normally tell people how it works, but he was so excited and seemed so friendly I thought, aw, what the heck.

I told him about the Master emerald and how it flew the island, and even about the chaos emeralds. I told him more about them than he had ever known. I'm kinda dumb that way--if people are interested in what I'm telling them, I tend to say more than I mean to. I didn't know that he wanted the emeralds himself, or I wouldn't have told him a thing.

After a while, he decided to give me some info in exchange for what I had told him. He lowered his voice and asked me, "Do you know who Sonic the Hedgehog is?"

"Sonic?" I replied. "Sure. Everybody knows who Sonic is. I've even talked to him once. Nice kid."

A shadow passed over Robotnik's face, as if he was disappointed I knew who Sonic was. "Well," he continued, "I had better tell you this. Sonic's not on your side."

"What?" I said, surprised.

Robotnik went on. "Sonic's not on your side. He's after all the emeralds. He'd take them from the island, even if it sank."

Stunned, I shook my head. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure," Robotnik answered. "He wants all the emeralds because he found out what they can do. He already has all the chaos emeralds." He paused. "He was the one who wrecked the Death Egg."

This news angered me to the depths of my Guardian heart. Why would anybody want all the emeralds?

By the time we reached Launch Base, I had come to a decision. I didn't want anybody, least of all Sonic and his friends, near my island. I figured I would go into the middle of the ocean. But Robotnik had free access because I was beginning to like him. (I didn't find he was a dirty turncoat until later.)

Launch Base was _big_. It filled an entire valley. The center of the base was a single launching pad, but it had been forced into the ground so far water had nearly drowned it. What bothered me about it was that the water wasn't clear. "Why is the water black?" I asked Robotnik. He shrugged. "That's the way it's always looked."

"I mean, is the water naturally dark here, or was something spilled?"

I guess Robotnik thought I had guessed close enough. He said, "You could say I've spilled a few chemicals in the past."

I looked down at it. "It looks like more than a _few_."

"Yeah." Apparently he didn't care.

He started giving me directions about where to lower the island so Death Egg would end up on the launch pad. We got the ship unhooked and stabilized, then Robotnik said, "Thanks. Be seeing you again." He climbed down the rope ladder and was gone. Boy, did he leave me with a mindful.

I flew the island straight back out to the ocean. I didn't stop until I was around fifteen miles from shore. Then I lowered the island all the way down into the water.

I had gotten a call earlier from Hydrocity. Hydrocity is a gigantic desalination plant built under the ocean floor, so they have access to plenty of sea water. They take thousands of gallons of water and desalinate it, then pump it to the mainland. Sometimes would wind up with excess, so they'd just pump it back into the ocean. Until I came along. I have an attachment built into one corner of the island, so I land in the water to connect to the pumping station. They pump the water up to me, and it goes to the top of the waterfall. The waterfall dumps it into the river, and the river waters the island.

It didn't take that long to connect, and as I did I was thinking about Sonic wanting all the emeralds. "Man," I thought, "He must be really evil to want them all. I can't let him come near the island."

The story begins two days later ....

______________________________________________________________________

The red plane swooped over the ocean. The sun glinted off its polished wings as it looped and frolicked. Then it shot skyward, showing not only the double wings, but the twin rocket engines on the underside.

The bi-plane rolled and dove toward the ocean. As it turned upright the pilot and passenger became visible. The passenger was crouched on the upper wing. He was a stunning dark blue, and three rows of sharp spikes protruded from the back of his head and back. He called to the pilot, "Hey Tails, watch this!"

The pilot, a fox, looked up. His fur was a red-orange, and his muzzle and chest were white. "Go for it, Sonic!" he called.

Sonic thrust his feet through the handles on the paneling. He stood up and leaned forward into the wind. "Showoff!" he heard Tails yell. "See if you can stay up!" The plane angled upward. Sonic leaned forward even more, grinning. Tails was showing off, too. Tails steered the plane up, down, then straight up. Sonic moved with the plane, riding the wind. Then Tails banked abruptly, catching Sonic off balance.

Knowing he was going to fall, Sonic bounded off the wing. For one exhilarating second the wind lifted him in the plane's wake; then he resumed falling.

He had fallen off the plane before, but this time would be different. He was holding two of the chaos emeralds, which he had carried just in case. As he tumbled toward the water he struck them together. The power rush flung his arms out. He was dazzled for an instant, but when the world faded back in his vision had been enhanced five times, and he was flying.

Sonic glanced down. His arms and belly were the same color--brown and tanned--but the rest of him was glowing a hot yellow. The chaos emeralds were all circling him like electrons around a nucleus. "This is so cool," he thought.

He was skimming across the ocean, arms swept back for balance, laid almost horizontally. The toes of his red and white sneakers brushed the surface of the water, kicking up a rooster tail of foam behind him. He set his sights on the bi-plane, which was slowing down. The scream of the engines subsided to a throbbing purr, and as Super Sonic approached, the rockets assumed a hover position.

Sonic circled the waiting bi-plane, then jumped lightly onto the wing. "You won," he began, but Tails hissed, "Shh! Listen to the radio!" He turned it up, and Sonic crouched down to listen.

At first there was only static. Sonic looked at Tails. "It was pry just the wind."

Tails shook his head. "No! It was there a minute ago ..."

Sonic reached down to adjust the radio knob, but Tails slapped his hand away. "No way, buster," he snapped. "You forget what you do to machinery when you're super?"

Sonic grinned wryly, and Tails tuned the radio. Suddenly a voice came through loud and clear, saying, "I read. Must have been some interference."

Another voice replied, "I copy. As I was saying, my latest project is now operational."

Sonic and Tails looked at each other. The second voice was strangely familiar ...

"No kiddin'. Did it work the way it was supposed to?" the first voice inquired.

"Acknowledge. It is highly reliable," the second voice returned. "You are very good with programming."

"Yeah, well ... "

"What would you say to coming out here to--" (the station drifted) "--and design another robot?"

"That'd be great. And this time--Wait a minute. There's somethin' shiny out on the ocean!"

Sonic and Tails locked eyes, then looked around.

"Is it you-know-who?" the radio continued.

"It could be. Check for listeners on this frequency. They could be tuned in."

Tails hurriedly shut off the radio, then looked up at Sonic. The hedgehog peered into the distance. As Super Sonic, he could see much better than Tails could. "Yeah," he said. "You can see the Floating Island from here."

"Were they talking about us?" Tails asked, gripping the flight yoke.

"Count on it. We're the only 'shiny object' out here. Let's get to the island, like, right now!" Sonic dove off the wing and flew circles around the bi-plane as Tails returned it to flight mode. As it began to move Sonic called, "Race ya!" Tails grinned and gave him a thumbs-up.

Sonic cruised alongside as the plane picked up speed. "Okay," Tails called to him. "I'm all set! You ready?"

"Straight up!"

"Okay," Tails replied. "One, two, three--go!" He opened the throttle. Sonic put his head down and surged abreast of the bi-plane. "See ya at the island!" he yelled, and took off.

It was no contest and they knew it. Sonic was ten times faster than the bi-plane, even with rockets. He flew over the calm water, his glow reflected in its surface.

The Floating Island was about two miles away. Sonic wondered if ithad been Knuckles on the radio. Who had he been talking to? It had sounded like Robotnik. But Robotnik had been killed when the Death Egg went down! Could he have survived? And--Sonic shuddered to think of it-- was Knuckles in league with him? Sonic's mind was spinning as the island drew closer. He had heard rumors of gems on the island more powerful than the chaos emeralds. What if Robotnik got his hands on them? It would spell disaster--for the Floating Island and Mobius both. "I've gotta warn Knuckles," Sonic thought as he neared the island.

One second he was over water--the next he was over land. There wasn't much of a beach there; the jungle began in a wall of trees. Recklessly Super Sonic plunged into it. Somewhere in the south quarter was a network of narrow paths. Someone had said they were a great place to run. He dodged between palm trunks and leaped over mossy rocks.

The breath of the island hit him, and he inhaled deeply. It smelled of water, warm foliage and a sweet scent of fruit and flowers. It was almost intoxicating.

The fern-carpeted ground gave way to a sandy path. Super Sonic turned onto it and began to fly again. "Man, this is fun--miles and miles of island to explore! Tails has gotta land the plane, then--"

Sonic's thoughts were interrupted as something lunged out of the bushes. With no warning, Sonic ploughed into it and bounced off as if he had hit a brick wall. As he staggered backward, it delivered a stunning blow to Sonic's nose. It didn't hurt--invincibility took care of that-- but Sonic automatically recoiled.

The figure drove an over-sized fist into Sonic's stomach, knocking him down. Sonic sat up and saw the figure, instead of continuing the fight, was grabbing the circling chaos emeralds. As each one left its orbit, Sonic felt weaker. His glow faded back into blue, and his enhanced vision returned to normal. As it did, he recognized his attacker. Red dreadlocks, white crescent on the chest, pointed snout. "Knuckles!" Sonic yelped. The echidna leaped away, cradling the chaos emeralds in his cupped hands.

Sonic scrambled to his feet. "Knux, whadja do that for?"

Knuckles sneered at him. "Yeah, right. I know why you're here. And NOBODY needs all the emeralds."

"Neither do you," Sonic pointed out.

Knuckles frowned. "I didn't ask for a debate. this is MY island, and you and your foxy friend are not welcome. Get out."

Sonic folded his arms. "I'm not gonna leave until you give me an explanation AND my emeralds."

"You mean MY emeralds. You don't need them any more than I need to explain. Now scram." Knuckles took a threatening step forward. "Remember Sonic, you're not invincible anymore."

Sonic's eyes blazed, and his hands clenched into fists. "Neither are you, my friend," he said softly.

Sonic lunged at me, his face a mask of fury. I dodged backward, aware of the chaos emeralds in my hands. I could use them as well as he could, but if I let my guard down the instant it would take, he'd nail me. I stuck out a foot to trip him, but he avoided it. He was eyeing the emeralds in my hands. I backed away, knowing there wasn't room on the trail for fighting.

"Give 'em back, Knux," he growled.

"Over my dead body," I snapped.

Sonic crouched and held up his fists. "That can be arranged," he hissed through clenched teeth.

He sprang at me, his back arched like a cat's. I was sure Dr. Robotnik had told me the truth; Sonic would kill to get the emeralds back. I dodged him, then kicked his feet from under him. As he went down, one of his hands closed on my arm. His grip was like a vice-- he was furious. I tried to jerk away, but only succeeded in pulling him to his feet. His other fist whipped up. Instinctively I snapped my head back, but he didn't strike. Instead, his hand snaked down between mine. "Hey!" I snarled. I pulled away and saw his hand was closed. He had one! His eyes lit up and he came at me again.

Suddenly I was afraid--not for myself, but for the emeralds. I turned and ran into the woods. I crashed through a bush, stumbled over a clump of ferns, ducked through several low-hanging fronds and ran for five minutes. Panting, I ducked behind a tree. With all the noise I had been making, I couldn't tell if I was being followed. But there was nobody behind me.

With a sigh of relief I got my bearings and headed north-east.

Sonic stood on the trail, half triumphant, half crestfallen. His left hand was still clenched in a fist as he stared after Knuckles. He remembered he needed to warn him, and he had blown it big-time. He opened his hand. There on his palm, glowing softly, was the green chaos emerald. At least he had one.

The blue hedgehog, feeling his color, turned and trudged in the direction of the beach. Tails should have reached the island by now. A moment later he began to run. He felt heavy and slow, as if he had emerged from a pool after swimming for two hours. But after a few strides he felt better, and was soon cruising toward the shore.

He heard the bi-plane approach and fly inland. Sonic tracked it to a big meadow. The red bi-plane was parked in the tall grass, and Tails was climbing out of the cockpit.

"Hey, Tails," Sonic called as he walked up.

Tails turned and gave him a thumbs-up. "Hey yourself. Where you been?"

"In a fight."

"Oh. Making yourself at home, eh?"

"Well," Sonic chuckled, "not really." He reached up and ran his hand over the smooth side of his plane, then looked at Tails. "Hate to tell you this, but something's up."

Tails raised his hands in a hopeless gesture. "Oh no! Not something else!" Then he looked at Sonic eagerly. "What?"

Sonic held up the green emerald. "See this?"

Tails glanced at it. "Yeah. What about it?"

"It's the only one I've got."

The fox stared at him in horror. "What? What the heck happened?"

Sonic informed him about what had happened on the trail. They were silent a moment after he finished.

Tails said, "So, was it Knuckles on the radio?"

Sonic nodded. "I think so. But I want to know who he talking to."

"Do you think it was--" Tails hesitated to say the name "--Robotnik?"

Sonic shrugged. "I donno. It sounded like him."

"But I thought Death Egg crashed!" Tails protested.

"It did," Sonic replied quietly. "We saw it go down. But you know, that old loser has more lives than a cat. He could have escaped." He turned and looked at the jungle. "All we have to do is look for his trademark."

"You mean robots?"

"Badniks, Tails. Robotized animals. If Robotnik is here, there'll be 'bots everywhere.

Sonic pulled out his chaos emerald and tossed it from hand to hand. "It's lonely," he told his friend. "I need to get the other ones back." He nodded to the north. "Knuckles ran off that way," he said. "Maybe we could track him down."

"Get real, Sonic," Tails said. "This is a big island. Knuckles knows it like the back of his hand."

"Yeah, yeah," Sonic replied good-naturedly. "It's not like we'd get REAL lost, and if we did, well ..." He fingered the silver whistle that hung on a chain around his neck. Tails wore a similar one.

"Well," said Tails, relenting. "I guess it wouldn't hurt. Besides, we'll have one heck of a lot of exploring to do." He smiled, and his double tails switched.

"Do you think the bi-plane will be okay if we leave it here?" Sonic asked Tails, the concern for his toy etched in his voice.

The young fox looked up at it, then around at the meadow. "Sure. It's not gonna go anywhere, and all we have to do is remember that we left it on the south side of the island."

Sonic rumpled his furry head with one hand. "You're a lifesaver, kiddo. C'mon, let's juice."

Sonic bounded away, becoming a blur at once. Tails followed him, his white-tipped tails whirling.

The island rose in the center in a crag-like mountain, two thousand feet high. The waterfall poured out of its side in a white, sparkling jet that plunged down the stone face and into the riverbed below. The settling cloud of mist turned the surrounding area into a rainforest.

Their feet squelched in the moss as they made their way through. Sonic had been forced to slow to a walk, as the ground was treacherous. His companion walked behind him, tails held high to keep the mud off.

The roar of the waterfall had become a rolling, continuous sound, so loud they had to shout to make themselves heard. Through the crashing of the river came the high-pitched voices of millions of treefrogs, peeping their praise of the water. It was a joyous wracket that deadened one's hearing. Sonic and Tails trudged through it, their feet and legs spattered with mud, their lungs filled with the fragrant atmosphere, their ears flooded with tropical sounds.

"You have them?" Dr. Robotnik asked. We were standing in the woods where Doc had landed at my signal. We weren't far from the waterfall, on the opposite side from Sonic and Tails.

"Sure," I replied. Then I hesitated and added, "Well, almost all of them. Sonic fought me and got one."

Robotnik's face turned an interesting shade of purple and his mustache quivered. "You--only have--six?"

I nodded and stepped back. His hands were clenching at his sides, and I was afraid he would try to strangle me.

The doctor exhaled slowly. His face returned to its normal color, but his voice was still trembling. "We need to get it back. Do you-- think--you can?"

"Sure," I replied confidently.

I turned to go, but Ivo stopped me. "Wait, Knuckles. Give me the chaos emeralds. I'll keep them for you." He had an eager, almost hungry look in his eyes.

Something quailed in my heart--something cried, "Don't do it!" But my logical head replied, "Doc is my friend. Why shouldn't I?" I extended my cupped hands. He held out his hands; again I felt that apprehension in my guts. Again I fought it, and dropped the glowing emeralds into his hands.

We were hurled apart as if a bomb had gone off. I was flung backward into a tree. I slumped to the ground, my head whirling. After a second my vision cleared, and I saw Dr. Robotnik thirty feet away. He was propped up on one elbow, looking at something in the air. My eyes followed his, although I knew what had happened.

The six chaos emeralds were hovering about ten feet high, moving in a tight circle. With every revolution their glow increased until they were too bright to watch. Then they spiraled up into the sky and cleared the canopy, but I could see them through the leaves, shining like colored stars. They froze for an instant, then split in six directions.

I lay where I had fallen for a moment, my head still buzzing. I got up carefully. The back of my head was pounding, but other than that I felt okay. I walked over to Robotnik and helped him to his feet. He looked bewildered, still staring upwards. Then he looked down at his hands, which had been burned to blistering. "So much for that," he muttered, looking at the sky again.

"What was that?" Sonic called to Tails above the waterfall.

"What was what?" Tails shouted back, wiping the water out of his eyes.

"That flash! Didn't you see it?"

Tails shrugged. "I saw something, but I figured it was my eyes."

On impulse, Sonic pulled out his green chaos emerald. He and Tails stared as its vivid glow faded away, leaving it cold and dead. The only thing that distinguished it from any other rock was its size.

Sonic and Tails's eyes met. "Something must have happened to the others," Sonic said grimly. "We'd better find Knuckles, and fast."

I bandaged Doc's hands with alo vera, the juice inside a cactus-like plant. He insisted I needn't bother, but his hands needed tending. Privately, I think he was afraid that because it was a plant it would hurt him. Of course it didn't, and we talked as I worked. He asked me why the emeralds had separated, and I told him part of the reason. The red chaos emerald is extremely powerful, and it requires the green emerald to keep it under control when the gems are together. When I handed the emeralds to Robotnik, the red caused the others to lose balance and they scattered like repelling magnets.

What I didn't tell him was that the emeralds wouldn't do that unless they fell into the wrong hands. I should have put two and two together and realized Robotnik shouldn't be allowed to get his mitts on them, but like a fool I didn't. Instead, I was angry at Sonic.

Doc interrupted my thoughts. "So where will the emeralds end up?"

I shrugged. "Well, they fly for a while, then swap dimensions."

"Is there any way to retrieve them?" was his next question.

I nodded slowly. "Yes, but it wouldn't be easy. You see, we have no way of telling where they landed. If you have one emerald, it glows when it gets close to another. And the only person with an emerald right now is Sonic."

They had reached the edge of the rain forest and were standing on the riverbank. The waterfall spewed out of the side of the granite mountain and poured into the river like a curtain of white silk. It kicked the river into a raging, boiling torrent that roared down the channel.

Sonic and Tails washed their muddy legs and arms off, took drinks, then stood, dripping and refreshed, looking for a way to cross the river. There were no rocks they could use as stepping stones, and the only ones they could see were half submerged and covered with green moss. "I could speed across," Sonic said doubtfully, eyeing the rapids.

"Better not try it," Tails assured him.

The two stood there, puzzled. The fog the falls created put a haze over the sun, but as they stood there a breeze blew through. As the light changed, Tails touched Sonic's arm and said, "Look."

A few yards upstream was a large, old tree that leaned over the river. Its trunk twisted this way and that, and its gnarled limbs lifted its dark leaves to the sky. Its lower half was covered with thick green vines. Sonic's eyes traveled over the tree until he spotted the rope tied in its upper branches. The rope was strung across the river.

After a moment he turned to Tails. "So what do we do, walk the tightrope?"

"No," said the young fox, whose natural vision was sharper than Sonic's. "C'mon, I'll show you."

Tails raced away and Sonic followed. The fox jumped up on the base of the tree. "C'mon, let's do some tree-climbing!" Sonic started to protest, but Tails went up the tree like a two-tailed squirrel.

The top side of the old tree's slanted trunk was worn smooth, as if many other feet had passed that way. Any branches that blocked the way had been removed. But, Sonic noticed, there was always a limb nearby when he needed something to hold on to.

Before long, Sonic caught up to his companion. "See?" Tails exclaimed triumphantly, indicating the rope. It was knotted around a thick branch a few feet above their heads. From narby, the rope looked soft and frayed, as if it would snap any second. But what caught Sonic's interest was the shorter length of rope dangling from it. It was doubled around the other rope, and both ends were tied to a stick of bamboo. It was swaying back and forth, an arm's length away.

"Cool," Sonic exclaimed. "Hey Tails, I'll slide down here, and you can fly."

"No way!" Tails yelped in outrage. "I want to try it as much as you do!"

Sonic pulled the bamboo handle over, set his weight against it and pulled. The rope bounced a little, and nothing happened. "Seems strong enough," he muttered. "Why don't we swing down together? I could grab on this side, and you could take the other side. Whaddya think?"

"Sounds cool to me," Tails said. "Let's do it!"

They grabbed the handle, and at Sonic's shouted, "Go!", they leaped off the tree. The smaller rope began to slide along the larger one, swinging its passengers over the river.

Sonic looked at the white water below his red sneakers as they neared the center of the river. "I hope the rope holds," he thought.

Suddenly the smaller rope caught against something in the big one and stopped. Sonic and Tails lurched forward, then swung back and forth, the ropes bouncing.

"Great. What do we do now?" Tails said flatly.

"I donno," Sonic replied. "Can you see what we're caught on?"

Tails looked up. "There's a bunch of frayed stuff caught in the loop," he reported.

"Well," Sonic said, "let's try to bounce the rope over it."

They bounced weight up and down. The only change was that the rope slipped a few more feet.

Tails couldn't spin his tails hanging there, and it was suicide to jump off.

Sonic drew his knees up to his chest and kicked out. The swing moved an inch. "Hey, maybe this'll work," he said. He did it repeatedly, the swing moving a little each time. Sonic paused a moment, tiring. "I'm gonna try it again," he informed Tails. He pulled his knees to his chest, then kicked his hardest.

The bamboo handle split down the middle. It crumpled in Sonic's hands, and he dropped like a stone into the river. By the time he realized what had happened, he was five feet under water.

Instinctively Tails had let go of the handle as it splintered and grabbed the rope. He was dangled there, staring at the place Sonic had disappeared.

Sonic came to, aware that he was still in the water, and lodged between two mossy rocks. He didn't remember when he had passed out, but guessed it was somewhere between the third and fifth rocks he had hit. He was bruised all over, and knew he wouldn't need a drink of water for at least a week. His head and shoulders were above water, and his legs and body were wedged sideways in the rocks.

Sonic looked around. He had been carried about fifty feet, and could still see Tails, who was dangling from the rope above the river. His companion was staring anxiously downstream, unable to see his friend. Sonic waved an arm. After a moment Tails spotted him and waved back.

But there they were stuck. Tails could not get down, and Sonic could not get up. One of them had to get free to help the other. It looked hopeless for five long minutes.

The pitch of the waterfall changed. Sonic and Tails both looked up at the white plume.

The waterfall was narrowing. It looked like someone was turning off a gigantic faucet. The noise lessened, and soon the waterfall vanished. All that remained was a great wet path down the face of the cliff.

The river was slowing down its source cut off. Its roar was quieting. The furious water that had torn at Sonic and swirled against his chest was sinking lower and lower. Soon it was lapping around his ankles. Dark, bare rocks jutted up out of the riverbed, scoured clean by the water.

Sonic worked his way out of the rocks, and gingerly picked his way back toward Tails. Without the noise of the waterfall, it was strangely quiet.

"Hey Tails," he called.

"Hey Sonic," Tails replied from above. "Are you okay?"

"Sure, I'm cool," Sonic replied, wincing at the ache of a bruise on his leg. "Can you get down now?"

Tails shook his head. "Get a load of what you're standing on, Sonic. You think I'm gonna drop fifteen or twenty feet on to great big rocks?"

"Sure," Sonic said with a grin. "I did, and it didn't hurt me-- much."

The two were interrupted by the ominous click of a pistol. Sonic spun around in time to see Knuckles, about fifteen feet away, aim a laser pistol in Tails's general direction and fire. Tails dropped to the ground and lay still. Sonic gave a cry and charged at Knuckles.

Knux had not expected this. He dove for the cover of the woods, but was not quick enough. Sonic tackled him from behind and drove him to the ground. The echidna struggled, but he was no match for Sonic's panic-fury strength. The two wrestled for a long three seconds, and ended up with Sonic sitting on Knux's chest, pinning down his arms and snarling into his face. "Why'd you do it, huh? Tell me why!!"

"Why what?" Knuckles yelped.

"Why did you shoot Tails?!?"

Knuckles yelled, laughing, "I didn't shoot the fox, you idiot! I shot the rope!"

"It's true," said a voice behind Sonic.

The hedgehog went limp with relief as he recognized Tails's voice. He got off Knuckles and turned to his friend. "Tails! I thought he shot you!"

"Yeah, so I heard," Tails replied drily. He leaned forward and said in Sonic's ear, "You're blowing it with Knux again. We need to talk to him, remember?"

"Oh yeah," Sonic said, flushing slightly.

He turned to Knuckles, who was sitting up, watching them. Sonic held out a hand to him. "Uh, sorry, Knuckles."

The echidna scorned his hand and climbed to his feet. "I'll think about accepting your apology," he said insolently.

Sonic gritted his teeth inwardly. "Knuckles, we need to talk to you."

"Yeah? About what?" Knuckles folded his arms and shifted his weight to one foot.

"About the chaos emeralds."

"Really," said Knuckles. "Are you going to hand over the green one?"

Sonic shook his head. "No. It's mine. I rightfully earned it."

Knuckles looked uneasy and did not answer.

Sonic noticed this. "The green one is dead. I want to know what happened to the others."

It was quiet for a long minute, and they could hear the birds chirping in the trees.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Knuckles said lamely.

Sonic moved forward a step. "Yeah you do. It's really important, especially if the island is to survive. C'mon, Knux, you can tell us. We're your friends."

The red echidna looked uncertain. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He moved back a step, his eyes darting from Sonic's face, to Tails's and back again. He turned and looked toward the southern horizon. "Listen, I turned off the waterfall to free you. I broke my own swing to get your friend loose. Isn't that enough? I gotta go."

He turned as if to make a break for the woods, but Sonic caught his arm and stopped him. "What about the emeralds?"

Knuckles looked into his eyes and relented. "They're all lost," he said very quietly. Then he pulled free of the hedgehog's grasp and fled into the woods.

Sonic watched him go. "What was the last thing he said?" Tails asked. "I couldn't hear him."

Still staring after Knuckles, Sonic replied, "He said the emeralds are all lost."

"What's that mean?"

Sonic turned to face him. "I donno, but I'll tell you one thing-- this spells disaster, with a capital D."

"Yeah," Tails replied, his ears twisting to the south, dragging his eyes around. "And guess what? Coming right at us is the capital D."

"What?" Sonic exclaimed, whirling. He spotted the dark specks on the horizon--aircraft that were approching in a swarm. Tails looked at Sonic with a smirk. "Three guesses who built them."

Sonic shook his head. "No--it's not possible he survived. We saw his ship go down!"

"Still," Tails said calmly, "those look like badniks to me. And besides, could the guardian of the Floating Island--accidently lose six chaos emeralds?"

Sonic stood still, hands on his hips, eyes on the approaching specks. "You have a point there, little bro. And I don't think this is a good place for battling badniks. Let's speed and find someplace secure."

Tails spun his double tails in preparation for takeoff, and Sonic crouched. "Ready, Tails?"

"Ready, captain," Tails grinned, giving him a thumbs-up. "Okay," said Sonic. "We are up, over and gooonne!"

Seconds later, the only thing there were their muddy tracks on the rocks.

Dr. Robotnik had told me that burning the south quarter would remove the dead underbrush and clear it for new growth. He had warned me that his fire squad would be flying in at ten o' clock, and to be anywhere but the south quarter. But there I was, and all because of Sonic. If Sonic hadn't been carrying the green chaos emerald, I wouldn't have cared two cents that he was stuck in the river. But he was, and I, with some fool notion about saving him, had turned off the waterfall. "But because of his stupid questions," I thought, "I'm still here and the robots are coming."

I reached an open place in the woods and stopped for a breather. I glanced up at the sun. It was pretty close to ten; the fire squad would be here any minute. I couldn't see them because of the trees, but I knew they had to be nearly here. I wondered if I should have said something to Sonic and his friend. "They'll be okay," I thought.

I began to move again, heading for the mountain range in the center of the island. I could see it, towering above me through the green canopy, but I was at least a forth of a mile from the foothills. Once I hit the trail, I could follow it straight up the mountain.

I was five minutes from the trail when the robots arrived.

I could hear the crafts humming like gigantic bees. They were scattered all over. I don't know when the carnage began, but it spread like wildfire once it started.

Those robots were carrying bombs for destruction by fire. The bombs looked like a torpedo with detonator charges in the noses. They exploded on impact, spraying the area with a burning chemical.

The humming grew louder. Four of the robots, flying about ten feet above tree level, would pass right over me. They were steel blue, spherical ships. They didn't look like my idea of a robot; more like an automatic warcraft.

They didn't start firing until they were a little beyond me. They fired four bombs apiece into the air, which went up as a group, scattered, and came down one by one. They hit and exploded with a crack, igniting fires instantly. I stood aghast. You don't burn a forest with chemicals if you expect it to recuperate. What was Doc trying to do?

I was suddenly aware of my immanent danger. The woods were burning down around me; I had better take cover or be barbecued where I stood.

I ran in the direction of the trail. Getting out of the forest was foremost on my mind; everything else I pushed out to brood over later. Smoke was filling the air, and it reeked something awful because of the green leaves and chemical. Through the forest to my left was an odd golden glow. I glanced at it and felt the wind in my face. The wind off the mainland, boosted to hurricane force because of the fire, was pushing the flames inland. Not only was I in danger, my entire island was, too.

I broke through the trees and found the trail. At last I broke into a real run. The smoke around me was beginning to turn the sunlight the color of blood. The golden light behind me was growing brighter. I tried to run faster.

Without warning a tall tree ahead of me burst into flames from base to crown. I felt its heat as I tore past. If the fire is already here, I thought, then what chance do I have? "None," my mind replied. "None at all." I kept running anyway.

The smoke was so thick it looked like a heavy fog had rolled in. But fog didn't burn my throat and lungs. I began to cough and slowed to nearly a walk. I knew I would have to stop soon; I was winded, had a stitch in my side, and I needed to see where the fire was.

I topped a small rise and stopped. I rested my hands on my knees. My breath came in painful, ragged gasps, and my chest burned. "Gotta--keep going," I wheezed aloud. "Gotta get--away--from here--" But my feet refused to budge.

After a moment I forced myself to stand up and look around. What I saw frightened me. Red-gold flames were licking above the treetops. It was sweeping through the trees faster than a horse could run, springing from treetop to treetop, followed by the slower brushfire on the ground. Forgetting I didn't have any breath left, I turned and fled.

It was then I envied Sonic his speed. It felt like the world was in slow motion; everything but the fire. It was coming after me at normal speed, and the slowest way for me to get anywhere was by running. I had never noticed how long the path was. I could see the foot of the mountain up ahead, but it seemed miles away. The fire would beat me there.

I stumbled and fell. I tried to get up, but my arms and legs were too heavy. It felt good to lie still, close to the ground where the air was a clearer. My mouth and nose felt like they were padded with cotton; it was difficult to get a decent breath. I lay there for what seemed like hours, but I think it was only a few minutes. What woke me was the roar of the fire as it approached. I turned and looked at it through bleary eyes. I lacked the strength to escape.

From the other direction, back toward the peak, came a short cough. Then somebody called, "Knuckles! Knuckles! Where are you?" I didn't recognize the voice, but I knew it had to be help. My voice came out as a croak. "I'm over here!"

I sensed somebody standing over me. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and was pulled to a sitting position. He was backdropped with the fire, and I couldn't see his face. He pressed something against my nose and mouth. At first I didn't know what it was, but then I took a breath. To my surprise my lungs inflated easily; it was an oxygen mask. I held it against my face and gulped down the fresh air as the person--I guess it was a person--picked me up. I got the impression he was a lot bigger than I was.

Then he began to run, or maybe we flew. I remember looking down as the ground swept by--then I saw the fire below us. The fire in the trees had circled around and cut me off. I don't know how we got over it. Then the person laid me down on rocky ground. I could feel the sharp corners digging into my ribs. The person--I still couldn't make out who it was--rubbed my chest a little and said, "Just rest a little and keep the mask on. You'll be okay." Then he was gone. The last thing I remembered was lying there, watching clouds of smoke billow across the sky, and clutching the plastic mask to my face.

"C'mon, Tails, up there!" Sonic scrambled up the rocky hill on all fours. Tails shook the water out of his fur, then headed after him.

The two had one heck of a time with the fire. For one thing, the robots had set fire to the trees in a ring around them. Sonic had raced around and around the circle to create a strong wind. The fire was drawn in one direction, leaving gaps in its wall. The two raced out, only to find that they were in the heart of the inferno. There was no smoke, but there was no air, either.

Tails revved up and leaped into the air, crying, "C'mon, Sonic! I'll get us outta here!" Sonic locked wrists with him, and Tails flew skyward, his double tails a whirling blur. The rising hot air created a strong wind a few feet above the ground. It boosted Tails high above the treetops. There they encountered the thick, choking smoke. Tails flew through it, unable to see and almost smothered. It was the same with Sonic, although he was able to keep one eye on the ground. The glowing flames were below them for most of their flight. As Tails began to falter, Sonic spotted a blank space in the fire; a pond. "Water-- down there, Tails!" Sonic coughed. Tails stopped whirling his tails, and they descended. After a moment Sonic let go and splashed into the water. Tails joined him a second later. Neither of them could touch bottom, so they trod water for a few minutes as they kept an eye on the fire. It was sweeping inland, driven by a fierce wind. A short distance off the fire had stopped and could go no further. It was the rocky foot of the mountains in the middle of the island.

The two swam to shore and clambered up the slope, streaming water. They paused after twenty feet for a look around. The fire had spread out to the east and west. Sonic sat on a rock and watched. "Too bad," he sighed. "It was so pretty, too."

"Yeah, I know," Tails added, sitting down beside him. "NOW do you think Robotnik built those droids?"

Sonic nodded. "Yeah, He's the only person the world with 'destruction' for a middle name." He stood up, turned and looked up the hill. After a moment, he pointed and said, "Hey Tails, it that a cave up there?"

Tails looked up at the base of the mountain. "Yeah, looks like it."

"Well, let's check it out!" Sonic exclaimed, his spirit of adventure reigniting.

They climbed up the hill, picking their way among the scattered boulders. They had climbed halfway up when Sonic, who was a few yards ahead of Tails, stopped dead and hissed, "Tails!" The fox looked up in time to see a large, dark figure glide by silently, thirty yards further up. It loped along until it reached a gigantic rock outcropping a hundred yards away. It spread a pair of huge wings, leaped into the air and vanished into the smoke.

Sonic turned and looked at Tails. They both grinned and exchanged a long wink. Without another word, they continued up the slope.

It turned out the cave was a niche in the rock. The two walked into it for a look around. The air inside was relatively fresh compared to the haziness outside. The rear wall of the cave bore deep scratches, as if some clawed thing had dug into the rock. A small stream of water trickled from a hole in the ceiling. Sonic and Tails drank from it, then Sonic remarked, "Let's head out and see if Robotnik's around. I'm gonna get him for bombing the island like this."

As they turned to go, Tails grabbed Sonic's arm. "Listen. Somebody's coming." Sonic listened, but could hear nothing. He poked his head out the mouth of the cave. A second later he ducked back in. "Knuckles," he whispered. "Hug the walls. He won't see us unless he comes in here."

The two flattened themselves against opposite walls of the cave and waited. It seemed Knuckles was indeed going to enter the cave, however. He paused outside it, then slipped in. The darkness of the cave prevented him from seeing Sonic and Tails, but they could see him clearly. He was covered from head to toe in ash and dirt. He was carrying a wadded-up object in one hand. Sonic didn't recognize it until Knuckles set it on the ground. An oxygen cannister connected to a tube and mask.

The red echidna had something else in his hands, now. It looked like a chaos emerald, but was shaped differently. It lit his hands with a faint green glow. Sonic and Tails watched as he rubbed it in his hands, then tossed it to the floor of the cave. A beam of light shot from it and spiraled upward, forming a giant ring. The middle looked like liquid fire. It lit up the cave, and Knuckles would have seen Sonic and Tails had he not had eyes only for the Ring. They watched him as he picked up the breathing apparatus, then leaped through the Ring. He vanished into it, and it disappeared a second later.

The two observers stared at the place where the Ring had been.

"What was that?" Tails asked, moving away from the wall.

"I donno," Sonic replied. "Some sort of teleporter, I guess." He paused. "Well, Knuckles is gone. We'd better get out of here before he comes back."

As they stepped out into the hazy sunshine, Tails turned and looked back. "Oh, Son-ic," he sang out.

"What?" Sonic replied, turning.

Tails pointed. "The Ring is back, and Knuckles ain't with it."

"Say what?" Sonic exclaimed. He climbed back up and looked into the cave. "Sure enough," he grinned. "Let's check it out."

"What do you mean?" Tails asked. "Like, jump into it and see where it takes us?"

Sonic's only answer was the glint in his eyes and the smile on his lips.

"Oh no, Sonic! We don't know what'll happen!"

"Aw, c'mon, Tails," Sonic replied. "Where's your spirit of adventure?" As he approached the Ring, Tails muttered, "I think it fell into the river and drowned."

Sonic ignored this and reached for his friend's hand. "All right, at the count of three we'll run for it. 'Kay?"

"Okay," Tails replied reluctantly.

"One," said Sonic, eyes sparkling. "Twothreego!" Dragging Tails behind him, Sonic hurled himself through the Ring.

The orange fire-light surrounded them for an instant, then faded away.

Sonic and Tails were standing before a large glassed-in cockpit. It was completely enclosed; there was no way in or out except by teleporter. There were two pilot seats before the control panel, as well as two flight yokes. The windshield was dark.

"What in the world is this?" Tails queried.

Sonic shook his head. "Beats me. Looks like a ride. Let's sit down."

As they did, the control panel lit up with colored lights and dials. One screen flashed, "Insert identification."

Sonic looked at Tails. "Oh oh. I don't have any."

"Neither do I," Tails replied. "What does it want, your fingerprints?"

Sonic leaned forward and looked at the panel. After a few seconds he said, "Hey Tails, look at this slot right here. Guess what would fit in it."

Tails looked. "Ah ha, your emerald! What are the little panels around it for?"

"I donno. Let's try it.

Sonic dug out the green emerald and inserted it into the round slot. Its glow came back with a rush, and a loud hum filled the room. The little screen flashed, "Identification recognized. System initiated." Sonic looked at Tails and clutched the arms of his chair. "Hope we were supposed to do that," he said over the noise.

Then the darkened windshield lit up, showing a bizarre landscape.

The floor (or ground) was a brown-and-yellow checkerboard. It curved over the horizon in a bewildering fashion. But that was not all. Red and blue spheres studded the floor, each one set on the intersection of the floor squares. The blues were grouped in squares with as many as sixteen or as little as four. The reds seemed to be set up as borders. "Weird," Tails said, staring.

"Weird with a beard," Sonic agreed.

They had not finished staring when the cockpit shifted, creaked, then moved forward and down, onto the checkerboard. The little screen flashed, "Two players found. Loading dual player mode."

"Whoa, what's that supposed to mean?" Tails said.

Before Sonic could answer, a panel closed between their seats, splitting the cockpit in half. "Hey!" they yelped. The cockpit jumped, and Sonic's screen said, "Establish radio connection between pods (Y/N)?" After a quick search, Sonic located a keyboard and punched "Y".

There was a click, and from somewhere came Tails's voice. "Sonic! Sonic, are you there? What's happening?"

Not seeing a speaker anywhere, Sonic ventured aloud, "Uh, Tails?"

"Sonic! Where are you?"

"Still in the cockpit. Listen, I think this is some sort of game. I've got the main controls, but you can steer your half around. We've got some sort of radio link going, and--"

Sonic was cut short by a voice saying in two pods, "Game sequence activated. Get blue spheres. Ring amount: zero. Ring goal for level: sixty-four. Ultimate ring goal: three hundred seventy-eight. Player with most rings wins. Go."

There was the crescendoing hum of engines, and Sonic's pod started to move. He grasped the flight yoke and turned it to the left. The pod made a right-angle left turn and cruised slowly forward at five miles per hour. Sonic twisted the controls around. The pod made two right-angle turns to the left, letting Sonic see Tails's pod.

The pod was shaped like a flattened torpedo. The dark windshield curved around the front half. The outer hull was red. "I see you," Sonic said.

"I see you, too," Tails replied. "There's a big flat place along the side of yours where mine connects. Let's explore this place."

They turned their pods and ran them side by side. "I don't see any rings," Sonic said. "How are we supposed to get the rings if there aren't any?"

"Beats me," Tails answered. "It's gotta have something to do with the blue spheres ..."

The golden light surrounded them, and they felt their feet touch the ground. The brightness faded away. They were back in the same cave.

Sonic grinned and held up the red emerald. Once all the spheres had been collected, it had appeared in the slot next to the green one. He pulled out the green chaos emerald and held it up. A faint spark glowed in its middle, but it was not as bright as before. The red one was so bright it looked as if it would catch fire, and hot enough to burn, but its power was tempered by the nearness of the cool green. Sonic folded them into his glove, keeping them together so the red wouldn't overheat. Then he looked at Tails. "Two down and five to go."

"There's gotta be more teleporters someplace," Tails said, "because there has to be a way to get them back."

Sonic strode to the mouth of the cave and looked around. "Still smoky out there, " he commented. "Like I said, let's head out and see if Robotnik's anywhere around. I'm gonna get him for bombing the island."

The island had moved. The south quarter was now facing north. The wind that had been forcing the fire inland was now blowing it back on itself. The entire quadrant had been burned, leaving nothing but black, charred ruins where the tropical forest had flourished. The air had cleared somewhat, but still reeked of smoke.

Sonic decided they needed to climb higher to see any sign of Robotnik. He had spotted a plateau that ran parallel to the mountain, two hundred feet higher. They made their way along the base of the mountain, looking for a way up. They found a place where the wall had crumbled, leaving a slope that was easy to climb.

As Sonic had figured, the plateau afforded a clear view of a barren landscape of charred trees, leafless and naked. Fortunately the fire had stopped before it reached the east and west. It was odd to see the black against the wall of green.

As they surveyed the scene, Sonic realized something. "Tails! Our bi-plane!"

Tails gasped. "It must have burned!"

They stared toward the place where they had left it, hoping against hope to see its shiny red shape. But all they could see was more burned forest. After a few moments of looking, during which all hope drained away, Sonic said, "Well, I guess that's something else we have against Robotnik." He sighed heavily. "C'mon, Tails. I don't know where we're gonna go, but I bet Knux could help us."

"Yeah, but will he?" Tails muttered.

The plateau stretched around the right spur of the mountain, where it sloped down to the forest to the north and east. Sonic and Tails followed it, downhearted at the loss of their beloved little plane.

They had only walked a little ways when a shadow fell over them. They looked up to see a gigantic blimp swooping down on them. It was the typical lemon-shaped balloon with the box-like passenger compartment, with one difference. There was heavy weaponry all along the underside of the balloon.

Its engines made the ground quiver as it came closer. "What's it doing?" Tails shouted above the noise.

"I donno," Sonic called back, eyes on the ship, "but it doesn't look friendly. Let's race it and see if it'll do somethin'." He turned and raced away. Tails ran after him, calling, "What do you mean, 'do something'? Like try to shoot us down? Sonic, wait up!"

Sonic slowed a little, allowing Tails to catch up. "Is it Wing Fortress?" Tails panted as he fell into step beside his friend.

Sonic shook his head. "Nope. Wing Fortress was about five times bigger, remember? Besides, this is a zeppelin."

The humming of the engines overhead crescendoed to a roar as the ship dropped lower. Sonic and Tails listened for change as they concentrated on the terrain ahead.

The metallic whirr of door opening caught their attention. They both looked back, but Sonic spotted their danger. "Split up!" he hollered at Tails. The fox broke off to the right, and Sonic went left.

A second later a smooth, red-tipped torpedo slammed into the ground a heartbeat behind Sonic. The concussion sent him reeling out of control. He collapsed to the ground, holding his ears. Tails, a dozen feet away, saw what happened and dashed toward his friend. Another missile nosed into the ground at the spot where Tails had been. Terrified, Tails pulled Sonic to his feet. The hedgehog could stand, but his eyes were glazed. He shook his head as Tails cried, "Run, Sonic! Run!"

In reply, Sonic rammed into Tails. They rolled over and over the grassy ground, the rumble of the blimp's powerful engines shaking the earth beneath them. As they stopped, another snub-nosed torpedo impacted where they had been standing. It exploded in a plume of white smoke. Sonic pulled himself to his feet and barked, "Run again, but weave this time!" Tails looked at him, but there was no time for questions. The two charged away, dodging back and forth.

They were running out of space. The plateau had become a hill, sloping down the east side of the mountain toward the trees. Missiles were hitting the ground like hail as the pilot of the war-blimp tried to keep them from reaching the woods. But Sonic and Tails plunged into the cover of the trees, and the blimp pulled up in defeat.

Sonic kept running, even as Tails peppered him with anxious questions. He didn't stop to answer until they had reached a small lake deep in the woods. There they stopped for a breather.

"Yes, I'm fine," he answered irritably. "The shock from the bomb hurt my head for a minute, that's all."

"That's all?" Tails repeated shrilly. "Sonic, you still look sick! You sure you're okay?"

"Tails--"

They were interrupted by the whine of an engine that spelled 'Robotnik' in every way possible. Sonic and Tails exchanged a look of disgust, then looked around. "You see him?" Tails asked.

"No," Sonic said. "The trees are blocking our view. Hey, see those islands out on the lake? We could see him from there."

The 'islands' were little more than four grassy hummocks sticking out if the water. They were connected by a series of flimsy-looking log bridges. The longest bridge connected the nearest island to the shore. With Sonic leading the way, the pair crossed the bridge to the first hummock, then turned and searched the horizon for Robotnik's hovercraft.

It wasn't long in coming. The tiny, one-man craft swooped over the treetops with surprising speed. The simple ship sported a flamethrower on each side. As it drew nearer, Sonic and Tails could see Dr. Robotnik grinning beneath his bushy mustache.

"He's going to attack," Sonic said, his voice low. "Regular attack plan. Test his defences." The two moved apart a step.

The hovercraft was only six feet in diameter and oddly egg-shaped. It was covered with metal patches, repairs from earlier encounters with Sonic. But Robotnik, heedless of danger, rocketed toward Sonic. The hedgehog side-stepped, and studied the flamethrowers on the sides as the ship went by. As it circled around for another pass, Sonic called to Tails, "Hit it right in front of the flamethrower. A good jolt will knock 'em loose."

The next time around, Robotnik turned on the heat, shooting out five-foot flames. Sonic and Tails let him pass unchallenged. As their nemesis circled around for a third try, Tails said, "C'mon, Sonic! Think! There's got to be something--"

"I know, I know," Sonic cut in. "I think I have an idea." His eyes lit up with that conniving glint Tails loved to see. As Robotnik flew by, flames roaring, Sonic leaped through the air and came down on one of the flaming jets, swiveling it around sideways. The flame was directed into the engine intake on the side. Sonic bounced off and smiled as Robotnik struggled frantically to shut off the fire, then rocketed away, spluttering and furious.

Tails gave Sonic a high five, but their cheering was interrupted by a sneering voice behind them. "You morons." They turned to find Knuckles standing on the next island out. "You think that because you won this skirmish, you've won the war. Not by half, Sonic. We've only begun to fight."

"We?" Sonic interrupted.

"Yeah. We," Knux snapped. "Me'n Doc. The fun's just started, Sonic, and you havin' the green emerald ain't gonna help ya."

Tails opened his mouth, but Sonic elbowed him and he kept quiet.

"Knux," said Sonic, "we saw you carrying an oxygen mask. Where did you get it?"

Knuckles appeared surprised. "How'd you know about that? Come over here and I'll show it to you."

The tone change put them on their guard. Sonic edged onto the bridge, Tails behind him. They had reached the middle when Knux said, "Tag. You're it."

Sonic and Tails watched in frozen horror as he kicked aside a rock, revealing a small lever built into the ground. He flipped it with his toe. The bridge fell slack, dropping them into the water. Instead of water, a hole had opened up in the lake, which Sonic and Tails fell through.

Knuckles flipped the lever again. The water begam still. He turned and walked away, but had he looked up at the mountain, he would have seen a dark silhouette poised on top of a cliff, watching everything. A gust of wind carried a cloud of smoke over it, concealing it for a moment. When it cleared, the cliff was empty.

________________________________________________________________________

The pipe snaked back and forth like a water slide, half full of salty water. Sonic and Tails were swept along in the wet darkness, fighting to keep their heads above water.

The pipe swept straight down, and they splashed into a tank. Sonic hit first, and Tails landed awkwardly on top of him, driving him in deeper. They clawed their way free and surfaced a short distance apart. "You okay?" Sonic spluttered to Tails, who nodded. "Yeah, I guess. Are YOU okay?"

Sonic nodded. "I guess I'm all right, nothing broken anyway. There's a ladder over there."

The two swam to the ladder and hauled themselves out of the water, streaming. They stood on the edge of a big square water tank. It filled the little room, its metal sides against two brick walls. A deck had been built out from the edge of the hallway entrance. They could see the opening in the ceiling they had came out of, and could hear a faint whirr of generators somewhere. Everything smelled mouldy.

Sonic pulled off his gloves and wrung them out. "Bet I get sick from all the sea water I swallowed."

"Yeah," Tails added. "I won't need a drink for a week." He sat down on the yellow brick floor and took off his shoes and socks. They sat there a moment, wringing out their gloves and squeezing out their shoes.

After a few minutes they were ready to face Hydrocity. Feeling soggy, they stepped into the hallway outside the holding room. A breeze wafted through, touching their damp bodies. It carried the smell of slime and grease. "Yuck," Tails commented. "This place stinks."

Sonic nodded. "No kidding. What's that on the wall down there?"

The two walked down the hall for a look. It was a large plastic map in a dirty glass case. Its colors had faded and the corners were speckled with decay, but it was still readable. It was a floorplan of the waterworks.

It took a few minutes to decide where they were, but after a short, heated argument they figured it out. "Okay, we're right here," Sonic said, pointing to a square in the bottom of the map. It had a symbol above it, marked 'intake'. "We're on sublevel 1A. It looks like the only way out is on the next level up. So we gotta find some stairs somewhere."

Tails traced the green-marked hallway with one finger. "Maybe we could find somebody to help us. I mean, a factory has gotta have some workers, right?"

Sonic nodded. "Right, little bro. Let's see. Think we could find anybody in this room over here, the one marked 'DESAL'? It looks like it has machines and stuff in it."

"Probably. Let's go."

They walked down the hallway. The breeze in their faces was sour, as if dredged up from the depths of the plant. The corridor was made of yellow brick, and black mould grew in the cracks.

"I don't think I'll be able to drink the mainland's water again, after seeing this," Tails complained.

"Kinda turns your stomach, don't it?" Sonic agreed.

Tails looked toward the ceiling. "How do they keep the ocean out? Water's kinda heavy, ain't it?"

Sonic nodded. "The roof's pry ten or twenty feet of cement."

They walked along in silence. Tails sighed. "Why do you think Knuckles threw us down here? I mean, we didn't do anything to him."

Sonic shook his head. "I know. All I did was try to get the emeralds back. I guess the guy is just territorial. Viewed us as trespassers."

Neither spoke for a moment.

"Sonic, is Knuckles designing robots, do you think? 'Member on the radio, 'Come out here to--somewhere--and design ANOTHER robot'?"

Sonic looked keenly at Tails. "Ya know, I'll bet he is. If Robotnik got him like I think he has, then Knuckles might be doing anything. You know that saying, 'Bad company corrupts good morals.' If we don't do something, Knuckles will be handing over the title deed to Floating Island. Maybe let Robotnik use him as an experiment, even!"

The radio buzzed in my hands. I adjusted the tuning knob and tried again. "Doc, ya there?"

Robotnik's voice came through loud and clear. "Read you now, Knuckles. What were you saying?"

"I said I got Sonic and his friend off the island. They're in Hydrocity."

"Good." He sounded pleased. "Is there any way for them to return?"

"Nope," I replied. "I'm disconnected from the waterworks, and you know what happened to their plane."

"Yes," Robotnik purred. He was thinking. "Sonic still has the chaos emerald."

"Why don't you send out the new robot to get it from him?" I asked. I was curious to see our newest creation in action.

"No!" Robotnik barked. "It's too early. I don't want Sonic to know about it."

"Well," I suggested, allowing a bit of irritation into my voice, "why don't you go down and get them?"

"Oh, I don't think I can, Knux," Robotnik replied. "I've never been to the waterworks. If you took the emeralds once, you can do it again. I'll keep an eye on the island for you."

I paused, considering. It didn't feel right, somehow, leaving my island in the care of somebody I hardly knew. But what could it hurt? After all, if it hadn't been for Sonic a quarter of my island wouldn't at this moment lie in smoking ruins. If not for him, Dr. Robotnik and I would have all seven of the chaos emeralds. I couldn't think of anything I would take more pleasure in than punching Sonic out.

"Okay," I told Doc. "I'll hunt him down and get that emerald."

"Right," he replied through the radio. "I'll meet you in the level 1 intake/holding area. Out."

As I clicked off the radio, it occurred to me that for someone who had never been to Hydrocity, Robotnik knew the best place to get in. Maybe he had meant he had never been all the way through the place. Level 1 is a public area.

I touched the spikes on my knuckles for which I had been named. I couldn't wait to drive them into my rival's face ... but I would have to find him first.

"Uh, Sonic, shouldn't we be there by now?"

Sonic paused and nodded. "Well, yeah. But we haven't seen the next hallway yet."

Tails looked back. "Maybe it was that door back there."

"The map said it was a hall, not a door," Sonic insisted. "Let's keep going."

The two kept walking down the dirty corridor. Sonic was getting impatient. "It didn't look that far on the map. Are we caught in a time warp or something?"

Tails shook his head. "No, I'm telling you, we passed it already."

Irritated, Sonic turned on him. "Look--"

"Lookit!" Tails interrupted, heading off an argument. "What's that in the floor?"

Sonic turned to look. There was a big metal grate in the brick floor, and the edges met the wall on either side. The roar of water passing beneath reached their ears.

"Is it a canal?" Tails asked, looking through the grate into darkness. Sonic stood beside him. "Maybe," he offered, "but it could be anything. A pump outlet, or a well, or--" He stepped into the middle of the grate and peered downward. A rush of cool, an updraft from below met him. It was too dark to see the water.

Something struck the underside of the grate with a clang. Startled, Sonic leaped off the metal. He and Tails jumped back and stared at the grate.

The clang sounded again, softer this time. Then a pair of fingers curled around the mesh. Over the sound of the water came a throaty chuckle. Then a voice called, "Hey, anybody out there?"

Sonic answered, "Uh, yeah."

"Ah," said whoever-was-behind-the-grate. "Can you open the grating? I'm stuck down here."

Sonic and Tails walked to the grate and peered through it.

Hanging from the mesh was a crocodile. He was wet and shiny, and his eyes gleamed as he looked up at them. "Hi," he said, and gave them a toothy smile. "Open the grate, will ya?"

"Uh, how?" Sonic asked.

The crocodile nodded toward the left edge. "There should be some clamps on that side. Flip 'em up, then lift the grating."

Sonic waved Tails back and mouthed, "Stay here."

"Why?" Tails mouthed back.

"I don't trust this guy," was Sonic's silent reply. Then he clanked across the grate and crouched down next to the six-inch clamps. They were rusted solid. "The only way I could open this is with a sledgehammer," Sonic said.

"I guess I'm stuck here," the crocodile said glumly. "The current's too strong to swim any further upstream, and the exit downstream is blocked by a gate."

Sonic looked at Tails. Tails looked at the floor, thinking. Suddenly he looked up at Sonic, his eyes alight. "The emeralds!" he mouthed.

Sonic grinned as the same idea struck him. He turned to the crocodile. "Uh, would you mind turning the other way? I'm going to use a secret I have to open the latches."

"What?" the crocodile said. "Oh, I get it. If you tell me you gotta kill me, right?"

"Right," Sonic answered.

The crocodile turned his back. Sonic dug out his two emeralds. He set them both on one of the clamps, then picked up the green and backed away. The red, left without its neutralizing companion, began to glow, its heat level skyrocketing.

The metal began to sizzle and burn under the fierce heat. "Not hot enough," Tails murmured.

"Yeah it is," Sonic countered. "Wait a second."

The top layer of rust curled away like a rotten orange peel. The metal beneath glowed a dull red. "What kind of metal is this?" Sonic asked the crocodile.

"Iron," he replied without turning. "You guys burning through it?"

"Something like that."

After a few moments Sonic said, "I think it's mutilated enough." He walked up to the red emerald, now sitting in a puddle of molten metal, and dropped the green emerald on it. The red's star-like glow faded to a hot glimmer, cooling instantly. Sonic nudged the two gems out of the way with the tip of his toe, then picked them up. He set them both on the second clamp and repeated the process.

The tunnel smelled of hot metal by the time the second was melted. Sonic picked up the emeralds, then he and Tails pulled the grating open.

The crocodile gratefully climbed out of the slimy shaft. They closed the mesh with a clang, then turned to the crocodile.

He was a head taller than Sonic. He was green with a yellow belly, and a watertight cannister hung around his neck. "Hi, I'm Vector," he said. "Thanks for gettin' me outta there."

"Um, you're welcome," Sonic said. "I'm Sonic the Hedgehog, and this is Tails. What were you doing down there?"

Vector looked down. "Well, I wasn't supposed to be. I was checking on the canal, and the pavement was wet. I fell in, and the current swept me away." He looked at them. "What are you two doing down here? Nobody but personnel is allowed lower than level 1."

Sonic and Tails did their best to explain why they had fell down the pipe, but Vector was suspcious. However, when Tails asked him to show them a way out, he complied.

He marched them back down the hall to the door they had passed. "See, I told you," Tails muttered to Sonic. Vector opened the door, and they all stepped through.

The room was the same size as the one with the holding tank. But this room was scrubbed clean as a whistle. Florescent lights glared down from the ceiling. But it was what was in the room that grabbed their attention.

Four gleaming copper stills sat against either wall. They connected to a metal pipe on the ceiling that ran the length of the room and disappeared into the wall.

"What's all this?" Sonic asked, gesturing to the humming stills.

Vector looked around. "This is one of the desalination rooms. Contrary to popular belief, we do other things down here than just desal. Our biggest thing is reverse osmosis, but you never hear about that."

"What is it?" Tails asked.

"I'll tell you as we walk," Vector replied. "We've got a ways to go."

They passed through the room and entered the dim hall on the far side. It turned left and went straight for a good distance.

Vector bored them for some time with an involved explanation of how desalination and reverse osmosis worked. When he finished, Sonic asked, "Does Knuckles buy your water? You're pumping a lot up to him."

Vector shook his head. "Nope. You see, our machinery is starting to take up more space than our holding areas. A lot of times we end up with more water than we have room for. Poor management, ya see. We'd been putting it back in the ocean until Knuckles came along. He's been kind of a godsend."

"You ever met him?" Tails asked.

The crocodile shook his head. "Nope. Like to. Like to see the Floating Island, too."

Sonic had another question. "You work down here?"

Vector shrugged. "Yes and no. I'm only here for the summer. I hang around Maintenance. They let me do the underwater repair stuff."

The three walked along in silence for a while. After a moment, Vector unscrewed the thermos-like container that hung around his neck, withdrew a walkman and headphones, and put them on. After that, if Sonic and Tails had tried to talk to him they wouldn't have gotten an answer.

Thirty minutes later found them standing on a ledge next to a water chute. The chute was half-full of dark, oily-looking water. "The water's been treated with chemicals," Vector explained. "Not safe for drinking. Follow it to where it meets the canal. Follow the canal left until you find some steps. Go up those, and you'll be on level one. You'll be able to find your way out from there." Vector fingered his headphones and looked down at the water. "The current gets really strong once the other chutes meet it, and the canal is plain deadly. Stay out, stay alive, ya know?"

Sonic nodded. "Yeah, I know. Thanks."

"Hey, no problem. Got stuff to do, now. See ya!"

Vector left them. Tails stepped to the edge of the walkway. "Too bad it's so dangerous. Looks like it'd be fun to swim down."

Sonic, arms folded, said, "Yeah, too bad. Let's go."

I had met Robotnik in level one. He had said he would get 'set up', so to make sure Sonic and Tails ended up in the level one holding area. He had given me a nifty little radar device. It was a box with a screen, and it used radar to scout out your surroundings.

Nobody had seen them on level one, so I went down to sublevel 1A. It was deserted as usual, so I turned the radar up full blast. No sign of them. I actually began to worry. I knew they could both swim, but nobody could fight a current like the ones down here.

I was relieved when I picked up two blips. It looked like they were following the main waterway out to the canal. I didn't think there were any stairways down there. I had to get to them before they got to where they were going.

I pocketed the radar detector and began to run. I wasn't far from them, and if I hurried, I could reach them as one of the smaller waterways intersected the main one. Murderous thoughts filled my head. And anger. Oh, those horrible feelings! They consumed my mind and heart until I could think of nothing else. I suppose it's a good thing Sonic did what he did ...

"Remember her face when she first saw us doin' stunts on the bi- plane?"

"Oh yeah. Man, was she freaked." Tails sighed. "Too bad about our plane."

"Yeah, I know. I can't believe it burned up. Not a bit left."

"Musta been the chemicals in the bombs."

"Yeah, maybe. If the bombing was the D in disaster, then that was the I."

"Uh-huh. What do you think the other letters will be?"

"I hope we don't get to find out." Sonic slowed to a walk. "Well, here's the first intersection. Heavy current from here on out."

Two narrower channels joined the larger one. The churning water below looked more dangerous. Sonic and Tails jumped over the smaller chutes and walked on, talking. They didn't notice the figure entering the passage behind them.

Knuckles slunk along, thinking of the best way to get the emerald. He decided deception was the best course.

"Hey Sonic!"

Sonic and Tails paused and looked back. "Knuckles," Sonic growled to Tails. Aloud, he said, "Uh, hiya Knuckles."

The scarlet echidna hurried up. "Boy, am I glad I found you guys. It's really dangerous down here."

Too friendly, and he didn't look them in the eyes. Sonic and Tails' mental red flags were up and waving. Sonic cut to the heart of the matter. "Is this about the emerald?"

Knuckles hesitated, then nodded. Sonic's answer was cold and measured. "No, Knux. It's mine. Forget it."

Knuckles's reply was instanious and physical. His fist caught Sonic on the nose. Sonic fell back, eyes blazing from the pain. Knuckles moved closer, fists up. His face was dark with anger. He swung again, but Sonic dodged.

Sonic wiped his nose, and with a shock saw the red streak across the back of his hand. "Hey, you're bleeding!" Tails said, startled. "He got you! Oh Sonic--" Furious, Tails thrust his slight body between Knuckles and Sonic. "Why don't you pick on somebody your own size, jerk?"

Knuckles smiled. "Like you?"

He drew back one arm, But Sonic grabbed Tails and shoved him sideways. Tails stumbled, trying to duck Knuckles's punch, and tumbled into the water chute. Sonic went with him.

The water was only three feet deep, but the current was powerful. It carried them away from their attacker. "Run, you cowards!" he yelled. "I'm gonna get that emerald if I have to kill you both!"

Sonic looked at Tails, the blood running down his chin. "He's lost his mind." Tails nodded, and they knew that jumping into the canal had been the only thing they could have done.

I stood looking after them in the same stance as Sonic when I had stolen the emeralds--back straight, head down, hands clenched. My teeth were clenched as well; fury I had never known gripped me. I began to pursue them. I had to know where they would end up.

Sonic and Tails were dog-paddling a keep their heads above water. Sonic kept ducking his head, trying to stop his nosebleed.

The water swirled them past an adjoining waterway, and the main chute deepened. "Do you think we should get out?" Tails called. Sonic pulled himself up in the water and looked back. "Nope. Got the Red Fury on our tail. Let's get as close to the canal as we can."

Tails looked back. Knuckles was trotting down the walkway ten feet to their rear, eyes fixed on them.

"Sonic, uh, maybe you should give him the green emerald."

Sonic shook his head. "No way. The red one would go nuclear on us. Then he'd know we'd found a way to get more emeralds."

Fifteen minutes and three waterways later, with the water growing dangerous, Sonic said, "Okay, I think we'd better get out now." He grabbed at the top of the chute. He found a fingerhold somehow and pulled himself out, then looked around for Knuckles. He was nowhere in sight. Relieved and uneasy he turned to help Tails.

Tails had grabbed the edge, but wasn't strong enough to drag himself up on the walkway. Sonic pulled him out, and they looked around. The hall was empty, and the only sound was the rushing of the water in the chute.

They began to walk down the passage, their feet squelching in their shoes, ears tuned for any sound behind them. A tense thirty seconds passed.

A sharp patter of footsteps behind. They turned to see Knuckles running at them. He tackled Sonic like a football player and knocked him to the floor. Sonic went down in surprise, but didn't stay there long. He fought like a pinned wildcat, clawing, kicking and hitting. Knuckles couldn't keep him down, and in another instant they were on their feet, glaring at each other.

Tails stood against the wall, watching with fear and anger. Knuckles jumped forward, shoved Sonic backward and tripped him with a well-placed toe. Then Knuckles was on him, using his heavier body to pin his rival to the floor, blocking Sonic's wild blows while dealing them out himself.

Tails saw his chance and kicked Knuckles in the ribs, knocking the echidna sideways. Knuckles turned and carelessly socked Tails in the stomach. Tails slumped against the wall, the breath gone from his body.

In the instant it had taken, Sonic sat up, planted both feet in Knuckles's chest and kicked. Knuckles fell into the water chute with a splash.

Sonic jumped to his feet, blood running hot with battle. Knuckles was out of the fight for the time being, struggling against the current, subdued by his danger. He was swept downstream like a twig.

Sonic helped the gasping Tails to his feet. "You all right, kiddo?" Tails nodded, unable to speak. Sonic stood with him, gazing after Knuckles. As soon as Tails regained his breath, they started in that direction.

After a few minutes, their ears caught a vague roar of falling water. As they drew closer, they saw the hallway joined a long corridor. The water in the chute poured into a cement canal. Sonic and Tails stepped down into the lower room. The canal ran under the wall to the right. "Do you see Knuckles?" Sonic said to Tails. "I'd feel really bad if he drowned."

Tails looked at him. "Are you kidding? After what he just did to us?"

"C'mon, Tails, I want him to leave us alone. I don't want the guy to get killed."

Tails realized Sonic was right, and grudgingly turned to scan the canal. After a second he said, "There he is."

"Where?"

"There! See him?"

Knuckles was half in the water, the claws on his knuckles stuck in a crack in the cement. As they watched, he began to drag himself out, one fisthold at a time. "Uh oh, Tails," Sonic said, "we'd better go. Looks like he's gonna be another Red Devil."

Tails pointed and said, "Hey Sonic, there's the stairway Vector told us about!"

There was a metal staircase leading up through the ceiling. "C'mon," Sonic said. The two dashed to the stairs and clattered up them. At the top was a heavy steel door marked 'Level 1'. Sonic twisted the handle and threw his weight against it, but the door wouldn't budge. "It's locked, Tails," Sonic said grimly. He glanced at his sidekick, but Tails hadn't heard. "Tails!"

The fox jumped. "What?"

"What are you doing?"

"Sonic, a teleporter just appeared down there!"

"Where?"

"Right at the foot of the stairs--don't you see it?"

"I don't see nothin', kid. You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure, TEENAGER. Let's warp!"

"But I don't--"

Tails grabbed Sonic's hand and dashed down the steps. "Quick," he yelled, "before Knuckles gets out!" The little fox spun his double tails and jumped the last six feet, dragging Sonic. Sonic felt the teleporter catch his body and hurl him upward. The golden, sparkling light surrounded them.

The next instant they found themselves in the cockpit room. It was shut down as before. Tails turned to Sonic. "Toldja I saw one."

"Oh, knock it off," Sonic replied. "It's not my fault I couldn't see it--it was the teleporter's. Take player one. I'll be player two this time."

The two climbed into the pilot seats. Sonic handed the chaos emeralds to Tails, who placed them in two of the seven holes in the control panel. The room lurched as the power activated, and the cockpit shield opened to reveal another maze. The floor colors were blue and dark green this time, and the spheres were arranged differently.

"Two players," Sonic sang out, and waved to Tails as the panel closed between their seats. A moment later the intercom crackled to life. "Sonic, you there?"

"Sure. Where do you think I'd go?"

"Hey, the big pod is a lot nicer than the little one."

"Tell me about it."

"Yep. Okay, I'm gonna go this way. You can go that way, and don't hit the reds."

"Yes, mother."

"Oh, shut up."

The two pods split up. "Let's break the tie," Sonic said. "I didn't hear the computer for this level. How many rings for this level?"

"Uh, seventy-two."

"Heck, another even number! Oh well. I'll bet I can beat you."

"HA! You're on."

The red pods cruised around the maze, turning the squares of blue spheres to rings and collecting them into the pods' holds. They nearly wrecked collecting the last fourteen spheres, and with relief watched the red spheres fly up off the board and out of sight. The two pods reconnected, and the panel between the seats re-opened. "Who won?" Sonic asked.

Tails shrugged. "I donno yet. Oh, wait a minute, there it is."

The computer tallied up their scores and showed the results on the little screen. "Player 1 = (45+32)= 127. Player 2 = (27+32) = 59. Winner = Player 1."

"See?" Tails said. "I won.

"Yeah, yeah, but I'll win next time.

"Fat chance. Here comes the emerald."

One of the empty slots next to their emeralds began to glow. Then the light resolved itself, and there was the gold chaos emerald. The green emerald's glow was still dim, but a brighter than before.

The little screen blinked, but instead of displaying the teleporter co-coordinence, it said, "Loading level 3."

"Cool!" Sonic said. "We get another level! Hang on, Tails--here we go again!"

Dripping and cold, I hauled myself out of the canal. I was still raging mad. I crawled away from the edge and stood up, shivering. "I'm gonna get you, Sonic," I muttered. I wiped the water out of my eyes, shook it out of my hair, and started forward. I hadn't known about the access stairway to level 1, but I knew Sonic and Tails must have. I clanked up the metal steps to the door at the top.

I turned the knob and pushed. The door wouldn't budge. "They locked it," I thought hatefully. "That won't stop me--" Putting all my emotion energy behind it, I swung one fist at the doorknob. My fists had ploughed through ten feet of solid rock before, and I wasn't about to be foiled by a mere metal door. About the fifth hit the knob broke off. I stuck my hand through the hole and twisted the deadbolt gears. The lock snapped open. I pushed open the door and strode into the hall beyond. They wouldn't escape THIS time.

The red-orange light faded away, leaving Sonic and Tails standing at the foot of the grey metal stairs. Sonic said, "Well, that was convenient. Two emeralds for the price of one."

"Yeah," Tails added. "That was fun. I still can't figure out how you got more rings, though."

"Elementary, my dear Tails."

"Sure. I think you cheated."

"How could I cheat? I can barely drive!"

"Right. Well, let's get outta here."

The two clanked up the steps, only to find the previously locked door standing open, knob missing. They stared at it. "Well, I think we can safely assume Knux was here," he mumbled. "But where is he now?"

Tails shivered. "He's such a grouch, he might be anywhere, waiting for us."

"We'd better keep going. Maybe we can get out of Hydrocity without meeting him."

The two set out. The first floor was cleaner and better lit than the floor below, and only an occasional metal pipe snaked across the ceiling. The plant seemed deserted, but the further they went, the more people they saw.

Sonic stopped and asked a busy secretary how to get out of the factory. The cat was icily polite, as if she hated to be disturbed. She told him to follow the hall all the way to its end and turn right. At the end of that passage was an elevator. Sonic thanked her and he and Tails departed, slightly ruffled.

They followed her instructions, but instead of finding an elevator, there was a pair of swinging doors marked 'Personnel Only, Do Not Enter.'

Tails looked at Sonic, who shrugged and said, "She lied."

"Maybe she meant a left turn."

"Maybe." Sonic looked through the glass window in one of the doors. "It looks like some sort of processing center," he said. "The floor is about two stories down, and I think it's full of water. There's a walkway all the way around it."

"Anybody in there?"

"Just one guy. Looks like he's talking to somebody below the walkway."

"Maybe he could show us how to get out of here."

Sonic pushed the door open and stepped onto the walkway. He walked up to the lone figure, tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me, could you tell us how to get out of Hydrocity?"

The person said without turning, "Authorized Personnel only. You shouldn't be here."

"I know, but I can't get anyone to--"

The person whirled and his teeth flashed in a smile. "Hi Sonic, you want to get out of here, huh?" Knuckles. He was wearing a coat with a hood.

The blue hedgehog moved back a step, pushing Tails behind him. "We meet again, Knux," he said, trying not to show how it had startled him.

Knuckles folded his arms. "You want out?"

"Yeah."

"Give me the green chaos emerald and I'll show you."

"No."

"FINE!"

Knuckles stepped forward, grabbed Sonic's arm and shoved him against the railing. Sonic tried to struggle, but Knuckles twisted his arm up between his shoulderblades. Sonic stopped moving.

"Like it?" he hissed in Sonic's ear. Sonic could only gasp in pain. The larger echidna leaned against him, pressing his neck against the top bar of the railing. "I want the emerald," Knuckles snarled. Sonic felt him turn and growl, "Keep back, fox. I'll break his arm."

"Tails!" Sonic gasped. He was strangling, darkness beginning to close in around him. Wildly he weighed the consequences of giving Knux the emerald and being done with it.

I felt Sonic shudder. He would faint in a minute. "Weakling," I snarled. "Give it up."

I couldn't see Sonic's face, but Tails could. He was five feet away, indecision written all over him. I sneered at him. Sonic struggled weakly, wheezing a little. "Okay, I'll ... give ... you ..."

"NO!" Tails screamed. He hit me broadside, his shoulder in my ribs. I staggered, off balance, letting Sonic off the railing. I was dimly aware of his gasp, but my attention was directed to Tails. The little fox should have been a cougar. No, strike that--if he had been, he would have done me a lot more damage. He was kicking hitting, scratching, his ears flat against his skull, teeth bared. I couldn't fight back with my hands full of Sonic, so I grabbed Sonic's shoulders and shoved him over the railing.

I looked at Tails, only to have the little creep grab my arm and bite me. I knocked him to the ground in rage. He bounded to his feet, snarling. "Cool it," I said to him. "This isn't your argument."

"It is now," he snapped. "You'll never get our emeralds, you hear me? NEVER!" Tails grabbed the top of the railing and vaulted over.

[Expletive Deleted], his teeth were sharp! The bite wasn't bleeding, but I would have the half-circle mark for days. So, now it was Tails, along with Sonic, I needed to get rid of. Well, I could arrange that. Without bothering to look over the railing, I crossed the walkway to a control panel in the corner. I pulled down two levers and waited. What would happen next would be fun.

Suddenly it struck me. Tails had said emerald's'.

The water was only twenty feet below the walkway. It was fresh from the ocean. Sonic was still gasping as he trod water, eyes roaming around the pool. There was no way out; the water level should have been fifteen feet higher. As Sonic was observing this, Tails was swimming back and forth, adrenaline still pumping. "You sure you're all right, Sonic?" he asked for the third time.

Sonic looked at him. "Tails, if you ask me again I'm gonna dunk you. YES! My body is functioning properly! That includes breathing."

"Well, if you're not, I'm gonna tear Knuckles apart."

Sonic was inclined to agree with him. "No you're not. We still need to tell him--"

He stopped as the water began to swirl and churn as if fanned by a propeller. The water vibrated faintly, as if machinery were operating in the bottom of the pond. The two were swept apart.

"What is this?" Tails called above the sloshing of the water.

"I donno. The first thing that comes to mind is a shark feeding frenzy, but I don't--"

"Sonic! You really think that?"

"Naw. Try to stay above water."

The water had a definite motion--rotating clockwise in the tank. Its speed increased. The center dipped down and down, and the edges splashed up against the walls, higher and higher. The hum of machinery grew louder. Sonic and Tails were forced toward the sinking center. "Stay out of the vortex!" Sonic cried to Tails, trying to keep near the walls. Tails tried to reply, but caught a wave in the face and coughed.

Robotnik was sitting in the bottom of the tank, operating the pumps and propeller from inside his little underwater craft. He kept me filled in on the radio. "Yes, it's working, Knuckles. You're a genius. In a few minutes they will be drawn into the center."

"Then what?"

"We'll hold them there until they drown."

I rubbed the bite on my arm. "Good."

I couldn't help but think of what Tails had said. "Emeralds." Plural. It worried me. How could they have got more? Really, the emeralds themselves played in who retrieved them--usually one had to complete a sort of game or maze to earn one. But how did they do it?

I walked to the edge of the walkway and leaned over the rail. The whirlpool was going nicely. The funnel in the center was ten or fifteen feet deep; I could see the rotating blades below it. Sonic and Tails were being sucked into it. I folded my arms on the metal bar and rested my chin on them, watching. How had they got more emeralds, and how many did they have?

I lifted my radio in one hand. "Doc, they, uh ..." Something stopped me. A protective instinct, maybe.

"What was that, Knuckles?"

I cleared my throat. "They're almost to the center."

"Ah, good."

As the two were sucked closer to the vortex, my uneasiness increased. I fought it, but it just didn't seem right. I told myself I wasn't worried about them, just the emeralds. But my conscience, way down where I had buried it, was still prodding me.

They were only a couple of feet from the dip. "Doc," I said, "we shouldn't go through with this. They've still got information."

"I'm not stopping now. Only a couple more minutes and Sonic will be vanquished."

"But Doc! They--"

"You're not turning chicken on me, are you?" My face burned with shame. I shut up.

Then they were sucked below the surface in the. As they went under, I remembered the time I had found a drowned cat washed up on the beach. It was stiff and cold, and so pitifully lifeless ... I had been sick for days after I had buried it. Well, here I was, helping drown two people I knew, that I had talked to. The horror of what I was doing came over me. And I knew I couldn't do it.

I whirled and ran back to the control panel in the corner. I pushed up the two levers, then reset a few other things. Stop the propeller! No, better yet, reverse it!

The machinery roared below, and the sucking sound of the whirlpool was replaced by a huge splashing. Suddenly, the vortex turned upside down. A huge column of water shot out of the tank, bursting the grating the ceiling.

I had no idea that we were below the island, or that it was connected to that particular outlet. All I knew was, as I watched the fountain, was that Doc would not be happy.

______________________________________________________________________

The ruins of Marble Gardens were quiet that day. It was on the south side of the Floating Island. Only a mile separated it from the burned quarter, but for some mysterious reason, Robotnik had not destroyed it.

The inlet from Hydrocity had not been used in years. The opening was filled with drifted sand and grass. Suddenly a rumbling filled the air, shaking the ground. Water flooded out of the pipe, driven by the fierce pressure below. Dirt was forced out of the opening, allowing more water through; the pipe was blocked a few feet below.

Then the water exploded into the sky. The geyser rose ten feet and hung there, then sank down, pressure relieved.

As the water flowed into the nearby dry riverbed, two figures dragged themselves out of the deposited mud and water. They looked half drowned.

Sonic reached the higher ground of the grass a few feet away and stood there, hands on his knees, gasping. After a moment he straightened up and wiped the water from his eyes. "Tails!" he called.

"Over here!" came the reply. Tails was sitting in the grass near the pipe, watching the water ebb.

Sonic trudged over to him and flopped down. "Well kid," he said, "I guess this is the 'S' in Disaster."

Tails looked at him, his fur plastered to his body. "Where are we?" he asked.

Sonic rose to his feet and peered around. They were in a flat grassy plain. It stretched away into the distance for as far as they could see. To the right the ground sloped away toward a dry riverbed that now had several feet of run-off in it. Hazy purple mountains towered up in the distance. As Sonic shaded his eyes and stared southward, he saw smoke drifting into the blue sky. They were back on the Floating Island.

Sonic ran a hand over his wet head and turned. "Looks like we're back where we started."

"What?" Tails climbed to his feet.

Sonic pointed into the distance. "See? Smoke from the burned part. We're back on the Floating Island."

Tails groaned in mock horror. "Oh no! Not here again!" He shook himself like a dog, spraying water in all directions. He stood up and grinned, his fur sticking up in patches. "It wouldn't hurt to explore, I guess."

Sonic lowered his arms and wiped the drops of water from his face. "I wish you'd warn me before you do that. Let's head out."

Tails cocked his head. "Where to? Back to the burned forest?"

Sonic shook his head. "No--to the whatchamacallit over there."

On the far side of the dry streambed, parked on a couple rocks, was a flat, blue thing. "What IS that?" Tails said.

The thing was five feet across and painted a light blue. The only hint of its unusual qualities was the shiny band around its edge. It narrowed to a point at the bottom--a very broad, oversized top. Sonic rapped his knuckles on it and announced, "Ceramic."

Tails ran a hand over the rough top. "Hey Sonic, look. The top turns but the rest doesn't, like a pottery wheel. What do you think it's for?"

Sonic shrugged. "You're askin' me?"

Tails jumped up on the contraption, failing to notice the rotating surface punched in half an inch under his weight. Nothing would have happened if Sonic hadn't said, "I wonder if it's stuck in these rocks."

He shoved the top. It slid off the rocks and began to drift away, hovering an inch above the grass. As it moved, the plate under Tails's feet revolved. Tails walked in place, looking first at the thing under his feet, then at Sonic.

Sonic walked beside the slowly moving top. "Cool! How's it do that?"

"I donno--I wanna get off."

In reply, Sonic pointed over Tails's shoulder and yelled, "The blimp! Run!"

Startled, Tails broke into a run, spinning the plate beneath his feet. The top shot away, leaving Sonic bent double, laughing his head off. Tails, realizing it had been a joke, tried to jump off, but found his feet confined to the plate. A magnetic field held him there. "Sonic, I'm stuck!" he cried.

"Then get off," came the humorous reply.

"I can't! I'm stuck!"

A second later Sonic came bounding up. "Hang on little bro, I'm comin'." Before Tails could say anything, Sonic vaulted up on the top beside him. But, because the top was still moving, his feet became confined to the area of the plate. "Hey, what gives?" he said. He moved across from Tails and began to run.

"What are you doing?" Tails yelped, struggling to stay upright.

Sonic flashed a grin. "Remember when Slasher told us about the time she saw Knux shooting over the ground on a UFO? It was this thing! C'mon, help me. Let's see how fast this thing'll move."

Tails began to jog on the spinning treadmill. Sonic, on the other hand, began to pour on his blinding speed, his sneakers becoming a reddish blur. The top shot away, zig-zagging over the hilly terrain as Sonic figured out how to steer. Neither of them were affected by the sharp turns; the invisible forcefield had magnetized their bodies, so every atom on the top travelled the same direction.

"Slow down, you juggernaut!" Tails cried, frightened. "You're gonna kill us!"

"Aw, lighten up, little bro!" Sonic shouted back, breath coming in jerky gasps. "This is fun!"

"Then I'm gettin' off!" Tails jumped, ducked his head and summer- saulted off the contraption.

"Ta-ils!" Sonic yelped, looking back. He turned the top around. The orange fox was dusting himself off. He looked up as Sonic bore down on him and stood his ground, making Sonic swerve around him. As the top flew past and swung around, Tails yelled, "Last one to the ruins is a rotten egg!" He took off, a white-tipped streak, Sonic and the top hot on his heels.

Robotnik let me have it, all right. Chewed me up one side and down the other, and bit my head off so well I was surprised to find it on my shoulders afterward. Doc was furious! Turns out I had broke the propeller machine, and totally short-circuited his controls. Not to mention Sonic and Tails had been blasted out. I didn't think they would have survived, but Robotnik didn't agree.

I was back on my island, standing beside the remains of the pipe. The water had made it through, but had the two creeps it contained? I didn't see their dead bodies anywhere.

I crossed the streambed toward where I had parked the hovertop, scanning the soft ground for footprints. Sure enough, they pointed in the direction of--I looked up. The hovertop was gone. Why was I not surprised? I looked around the hilly, green countryside for the top. They couldn't have had it long enough to leave Marble Gardens, could they? Wait a minute. The ruins! That's where they were; I could bet on it.

I started walking. I didn't expect them to be friendly, but maybe I could find out where they got more emeralds.

The ancient ruins of Marble Gardens had rotted away or been swallowed by the deep grass. Pillars stood here and there, pointing toward the sky like fingers. A few half-destroyed buildings stood here or there, defying the years of decay. The ground was rough and uneven, the grass having grown over old foundations and piles of rubble.

Sonic left the top beside a chunk of rock and walked with Tails into the ruins. Unaware they stretched for miles, they vowed to explore it all. "And maybe find a ring teleporter or two," Sonic added with a grin.

I found the top where they had left it. They hadn't broke it, like I'd expected. Jerks. I didn't feel the sullen anger toward them as I had before, but my heart still held a tasteless dislike.

I climbed up on one of the stone blocks and looked around. Not seeing anything unusual, I held my breath and listened. I picked out the sounds of two voices talking. I slid off the rock and started in their direction. By my guess, they were somewhere to the north of me.

Suddenly a new sound met my ears, drowning out all others. A rumbling, groaning sound, from somewhere far below my feet. An earthquake on a floating island is not good news, but I wasn't worried. The Lava Reef caves were down there, and often this part of the island got shook up.

What bothered me was the way it felt. It wasn't a vibration. It felt like when magma forces its way toward the surface. If so, then this was the first of many.

"Whoa, did you feel that?" Sonic asked Tails, hands out for balance.

"Uh, yeah. Was it an earthquake?"

"I think so. I hope nothin's wrong with the island."

"That'd be awful, wouldn't it?"

"No kidding. It stopped. Wanna check out the palace-thing over there?"

"Sure."

The 'palace-thing' was the ruins of an ancient temple. Most of its walls were still standing, but the roof had collapsed long ago. Pillars jutted up here and there, looking grim and out of place.

The fox and hedgehog made their way up the cracked stone steps, heading for the interior. They didn't see Knuckles watching them from behind a distant pillar. He knew the ruins like the back of his hand, and knew that Sonic and Tails would probably get lost.

"Perfect," he muttered.

As Sonic and Tails entered the first roofless room, a ring teleporter blazed into sight before them. "All right!" Sonic yipped. "C'mon, Tails! Let's go get another emerald!"

"Right, Captain!"

The two of them joined hands, ran forward and leaped through the ring. It disappeared after them.

A moment later, Knuckles stepped into the room. He knew it was a dead end, so they couldn't have left it ... but where were they? The rectangular room was empty. He made his bewildered way into the room. There was nowhere for them to have hidden. He looked up at the roofless walls. Maybe Tails had air-lifted Sonic over it. Yeah, that must have been what had happened.

Knuckles walked out. The ruins were quiet for a long ten minutes, the only sound being the occasional chirp of a bird.

Suddenly Sonic and Tails appeared out of nowhere. Sonic was grinning, and Tails was jumping up and down. They had won three emeralds. As they earned the first emerald, they changed places before the pods could shut down. This triggered another round. When they beat that one, the computer announced they had a perfect score and could play the last level. They now had all the chaos emeralds.

"I don't believe we did it," Sonic gulped, looking down at his handful of emeralds. The green one was now glowing. There was also a yellow, a dark blue, a white, an orange, and a light blue.

"Oh yes," said Sonic. "Super Sonic again! But not around Knuckles."

"No, no, not around Knuckles," Tails agreed. "Gonna do it now?"

"Naw, I'll wait until I need to. C'mon, little bro, let's keep exploring. Hey, I wonder how the top would handle Super Sonic?"

The two left the room, chattering and climbing over piles of rubble. Knuckles could hear them, but couldn't seem to track them down.

Sonic and Tails entered one of the few structures that still bore a roof. The walls and supports on one side had sank into the ground. "Weird," Sonic commented, looking down at it. "I wonder why it sank here and nowhere else."

The room had several adjoining chambers, and they looked around each one. One of them contained a gigantic mural. Its colors were faded and peeled in spots, but the picture was legible. It showed a polygonal creature with sharp features and claws. One of its hands was curved around a green diamond shape. Flying toward it from the opposite direction was a spiky creature painted blue, with a sheet of yellow fire around it.

"I wonder what this is supposed to be," Tails wondered aloud.

Sonic brushed a hand across it. "It's really strange-looking," he said, "not to mention old. I wonder if it happened."

"This place is so old, who knows. What are those things?"

"You're asking me? We should ask Knuckles. He probably knows."

"On your life."

They were interrupted by a low rumble. The ground quivered underfoot. "Another quake," Tails murmured. "Sonic, let's get out of here. I'm scared."

"Fine with me, little bro."

The made their way toward the main building. The vibration continued, rattling the stone walls and sifting thin sheets of dust from the ceiling. It would either let up or get worse.

It got worse. The floor began to lurch, making them stumble against the walls and each other. Fifty pounds of dirt fell into their hallway, and cracks snaked across the ceiling. "The whole place is gonna go!" Sonic shouted, panicking. "Run, Tails!" But the quake seemed to know they were in danger. It heaved the ground up and down, forcing them to a staggering walk.

Somehow they made it to the oblong entrance room, hands and knees scratched from hard falls. Dust filled the room, dimming the light. All the world seemed to be in motion, with even the rock walls pitching and tossing. The noise of the groaning walls and rumbling earth was like something out of a nightmare. The confusion was disorienting. Where was the door?

With a crash a huge chunk of the stone ceiling fell to the ground, letting in light from above. It surprised Sonic and Tails. Neither could see the other, so Sonic yelled, "Run, Tails, get out as fast as you can!" Tails's faint acknowledgement reached his ears, so he turned and stumbled through the doorway.

As Sonic tumbled out of the building, there was a colossal cracking sound. He turned to see half the building collapse on itself, and a gust of dust puff out the doorway. He stood there a moment, watching and feeling the earthquake subside beneath his feet.

Tails hadn't come out.

The earthquake was one of the worst I had felt in a long time. I stood in an open area until it wound down, then headed for the old meeting hall. I was sure Sonic and Tails were there--

I rounded a bend just in time to see the roof collapse, taking most of the walls with it. Yeah, that building had been due to go any time.

I noticed Sonic standing before the entrance, alone. He was staring through the doorway, stock-still. Had he lost something? He leaped back into the building, and I heard him scream Tails's name. Tails was in there? Then he was dead. The whole building fell on him. Deep down I felt a sort of disappointment. Now only Sonic was left.

A moment later he re-emerged, wiping his eyes with the back of one hand. He took out something shiny in either hand and clapped them together. I jumped as his blue flashed to hot yellow. Super Sonic? He had all the emeralds? Why that no good-- But he was going back into the ruined structure. Still looking for Tails, I guessed.

Super Sonic charged into the rubble, breath catching in his throat. Tails!" he cried. He threw chunks of rock right and left, strength unlimited. He expected to see his friend's gold and white fur beneath each boulder he lifted. As he worked his way into the ruins, he saw one of the walls was still intact. It had fallen across a pillar section, leaving a narrow wedge-shaped space underneath. Oh, if only Tails were safe beneath it! What would he do without his sidekick?

He had cleared enough away to see into the two-foot gap between the fallen wall and the ground. He flung himself to his knees and peered into the dark gap, his yellow glow like a torch. His enhanced vision picked out rocks, crumpled plaster, a boulder--

"Tails!" he cried, near tears. If the fox wasn't under the wall, he was dead. There was no answer. Sonic stood up, chest heaving, looking around at the rubble. His bright eyes spotted Knuckles, fifty feet away, watching from behind a low wall. "Help me!" the hedgehog yelled at him, angry that Knuckles had been there the whole time. The echidna didn't move. Why bother?

"Sonic ..."

The voice was a whisper, but Sonic's ears caught it. He dropped to his hands and knees, peering under the wall again. "Tails?"

This time there was movement. One of Tails's hands came into view from behind a boulder. "Sonic," he whispered again, "I'm stuck."

Sonic's relief was overwhelming. He felt like laughing and crying at the same time, but instead, crawled under the wall.

He wormed his way to the boulder. Tail was pinned behind it, where the wall met the ground. "Can't breathe," he whispered to Sonic. Sonic took his hand and squeezed it. "Hang in there, little bro. Have you out in a jiffy."

He braced himself against the wall, set his feet against the boulder and pushed. The rock slid a few inches, and Sonic heard Tails suck in a breath of air as he was freed a bit.

"Think you can wiggle out?"

"No--still stuck. Another six inches."

Sonic moved the boulder a little more. Tails coughed and dragged himself out.

A moment later he and Sonic were outside. Tails's right side and arm were bruised from crushing against the rock, but other than that he was unhurt. Sonic became normal and put his arms around the little fox. Both were trembling, both were glad the other was alive, and neither wanted to spend another minute in the ruins.

It was about four o' clock by the time they left the ancient city. They were shaken and weary, and decided to rest for a while. They sat down with their backs to a low wall. The wall was only thirty feet long, as if intended to be the border for more buildings. Tails rested his head on Sonic's shoulder and closed his eyes. Sonic put an arm around him and tilted his head back against the cold stone.

They sat there for forty-five minutes. Sonic let Tails sleep, and dozed a little, himself. At last he realized his left arm and foot were asleep, so he edged away from Tails, lowering the fox's head to rest on the grass. Tails didn't stir. Sonic climbed to his feet and walked up and down, limping on his numb leg.

The sun was sinking toward the west. They had another two hours of daylight, Sonic thought. They could spend the night here. But what about dinner? He was starved, and knew Tails would be, too. Well, they could always call Slasher ...

He turned and looked at Tails, still asleep on the grass. His eyes lifted and traveled over the wall idly. It was painted with lettering and pictures in the style of the mural they had seen earlier. Suddenly he realized this was a mural, too--a continuation of the first one. He walked to the left end and studied the pictures.

The blue creature was depicted in a fighting stance, facing a red one he hadn't seen before. The next picture showed both of them with yellow flames around them, and the green diamond shape above them. There was a series of four more panels, showing them fighting. The last one depicted a yellow creature, also with a yellow flame around it, driving the two apart. Then the three stopped and faced right, toward an apparent polygonal explosion. Sonic recognized the spiky, sharp featured-creature from the other mural. It took the green diamond-shape and departed. Now the red, yellow and blue creatures seemed to help each other. They were shown in most of the pictures for the rest of the wall, but the paint and colors had worn off most of them. The last picture was a smaller copy of the first one, of the blue creature confronting the grey spiky one.

The mural stopped there, and the wall had never been finished. Sonic looked at it, wondering. Had the guardians of the Floating Island warred among themselves for possession of the emeralds? Who were the red, yellow and blue creatures? They seemed to have battled, but then joined forces to attack the grey thing. Strange. Slasher might know, and if she didn't, she could probably find out for him. Sonic touched the silver whistle that hung at his neck. Well, not just yet.

Tails's soft yawn made him turn. The fox was sitting up, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. Sonic walked over to him. "Hey, Tails. Feel better?"

"Oh yeah, lots. You sleep?"

"A little, I think."

"What do we do now?" Tails climbed to his feet and stretched.

Sonic gestured to the wall. "Get a load of that. It's a whole story."

They looked at the pictures together. Tails said, "Well gosh, it could be anything. We don't know anything about the island's history-- maybe there was a battle or something."

Sonic's reply was interrupted by an earthquake-like rumble below their feet. They looked at each other in terror, then around to make sure nothing would fall on them. The open area posed no threat. The two braced themselves to keep from falling and looked around in a secure, fearful curiosity. Suddenly Tails said, "Sonic, it's coming from over there. It's not a quake, it's--"

The grass bulged upward, and a gleaming silver spike thrust through the soil. It was followed by the small craft that carried it. Sonic and Tails stared at the hovering ship. It was Robotnik's little warcraft, the doctor himself inside. It bore a sort of heavy armor around the top half, and poised above the bubble windshield was a huge, dirty drill.

He didn't notice them at first, as he was checking his instruments. After a moment he looked up, and they saw him grin. "Uh oh," Sonic muttered. "Trouble." They watched as the heavy drill swung around to the front of the hovercraft and began to spin. "Scatter," Sonic murmured to Tails. The two waited until the craft started forward, then bolted in opposite directions.

To their surprise, Robotnik didn't pursue one or the other. Instead he smashed into the mural wall, leaving a great hole in it. Sonic felt a queer lurch in his stomach. Those pictures and symbols had stood for something. He and Tails watched as Robotnik swooped back and forth, running his drill through the bricks, destroying them.

At last only one section was left; the one with the copy of the first picture. Robotnik hovered over it, flashed a smile at Sonic and Tails, then pointed his drill downward. "No!" Sonic cried, but it was too late. The drill and craft smashed down on the remains of the wall. Then the ship pulled up and roared away westward.

Sonic looked at Tails. The fox's flattened ears and bared teeth showed he felt exactly as Sonic did. "Let's get him," the fox snarled.

"Right," Sonic agreed. But first he turned, stepped back to the remains of the wall and picked out a sliver that bore a single word written in a strange language. He thrust it into his glove hem with the emeralds, then said, "Okay, I'm ready. "Let's go get the creep."

Tails took off running, Sonic behind him. The fox twisted his double tails together as he ran, then unwound them with a snap and leaped into the air. His tails, now spinning like helicopter rotors, lifted him into the sky. Sonic leaped up at him from below, hands outstretched. Tails caught him. They had done it so often the process was routine.

Tails lifted into the air, his tails an orange blur above him. The ground fell away below, and Robotnik's ship became visible ahead against the blue and pink evening sky. "I think he's slowed down," Sonic said.

Tails nodded. "I can catch him now. Hang on!"

Robotnik wasn't paying attention to them. He slowed down and disarmed the drill, retracting it into a protective holder. Sonic and Tails exchanged a wink. They would catch him off guard this time.

"Stay low," Sonic commanded, "or he'll see us." They were now close enough to see the bolts in the silver armor plating. "Up quick," Sonic said. Tails spun his tails a little harder, and they floated up above the craft. Sonic swung his feet forward and let go of Tails, landing on the sheathed drill. With a mischievous grin he pulled out his emeralds, selected the red one, and dropped it into the drill's power insert. He pocketed the rest, then jumped off, catching Tails's hands. "Slow way down," Sonic instructed, "and let's watch the fireworks."

Robotnik's hovercraft pulled away from them. With each foot, the red chaos emerald's glow increased, heat growing. The metal inside the drill began to burn and melt, dripping into the wiring. The back end began to smoke. They watched as Robotnik looked back in surprise. He shook a fist at them, then gunned his engines and roared away, unaware that was the worst thing he could have done. Sonic and Tails watched gleefully as dark smoke began to billow out in clouds.

"Betcha he blows up," Tails said.

"Betcha he don't," Sonic returned. "He'll ditch the drill and leave. Just watch."

Sonic was right. A moment later there was a whine of machinery, and the drill and armor plating fell to the ground with a clang. "Down," Sonic said, eyes on it. "We gotta get the red."

Tails obeyed, beginning to pant. They hit the ground running, Sonic with the green emerald held high. He tossed it into the pile of smoking metal. The stone bounced to a stop next to the red, cooling it instantly. Sonic snatched them up, then cried, "C'mon Tails, we can't let him get away now!"

"Sonic, I can't fly fast enough to keep up, and you know it."

Sonic huffed loudly, gazing after the retreating ship. "Well then, I'LL carry YOU."

He struck the green and red emeralds together, changing his dark blue to a hot yellow. He knelt on the grass. "Get on, little bro, and hang on!"

Tails jumped on Sonic's back and wrapped his legs around his waist. "Don't go too fast," he begged, but his plea fell on deaf ears. Super Sonic was in a racing crouch, one hand on the ground, muscles tense. Then he was gone like a bullet from a gun.

What happened next was too swift for Tails to grasp. He had vague impressions of blurry ground, things flying by he thought were trees, and a dark patch overhead Sonic seemed intent on following. Tails couldn't understand what Sonic was saying to him over the roar of the wind, but he seemed to be sidestepping the cries to slow down. More trees, closer together. Bright lights ahead ...

Then Sonic jumped, soaring into the air. Tails hung on with the feeling he was astride a rock fired from a slingshot. They came back to the ground after an eternity, and Sonic skidded to a stop.

"You can get off now, little bro," Sonic said as his yellow glow turned green and faded to blue.

Tails couldn't move.

"Get off!" Sonic exclaimed impatiently, looking over his shoulder.

"I don't know if I can let go," Tails said through clenched teeth.

In reply, Sonic grabbed Tails's legs and pried them loose from around his waist. Tails finally let go.

All Tails's fur was blown backward. The long fur on his forehead was sticking straight up. His eyes were wide open, teeth locked, hands still curled into fists. Sonic couldn't help but chuckle as Tails looked at him.

"I told you--don't go so fast!" the fox gasped.

Sonic smiled. "Sorry. I couldn't let Robotnik get away, and then I had to jump the wall." He gestured to something behind Tails, who turned and looked.

It was a towering twenty-foot brick wall, with coils of razor wire on the top. It looked like a prison barrier. Tails blanched. "Uh oh. Sonic, I'm almost afraid to ask--where are we?"

"See for yourself."

Slowly, Tails did.

_______________________________________________________________________

The first thing Tails saw were the lights. Lights of every color. The next thing he noticed were the brightly painted buildings, then the loops of a huge roller coaster in the distance. Beyond that was the darkening evening sky.

Tails turned to Sonic in surprise. "What is this place?"

"It's called a carnival, Prower."

Sonic and Tails turned to see Knuckles approaching, wearing his customary smirk, and his body language dared Sonic to fight him. Sonic and Tails sideyed each other and backed away. Knuckles stopped and folded his arms. "I should welcome you here, but I'm not going to."

Sonic folded his arms, too. "What is your problem, Knux? Why treat us like this?"

Knuckles ignored the question. "I see you regained all the emeralds."

Tails shot a quick glance at Sonic.

Sonic nodded, gloved fingers drumming on his arm. "So I did. What's it to ya?"

"A lot. I know you won't give them to me. But you know what? The gates are locked, and I doubt you could jump the fence again. You two will stay here without food or water until you're ready to hand over the chaos emeralds." He smiled as if he were doing it for their own good.

"Why you--" Tails began, but Sonic touched his arm. "Chill, little bro." He looked Knuckles in the eye. "That could be a really bad idea."

"Why? Gonna fight me or something?"

"No. I have a friend who could make life absolutely miserable for you."

"Stop the charade."

Sonic looked at Tails. The fox lifted his silver whistle to his lips. Sonic returned his gaze to the echidna. "What do you think will happen when Tails blows that thing?"

Knuckles sneered. "Nothing. It's just an old whistle. What kind of idiot do you take me for?"

"How many kinds are there?"

"Don't change the subject. You could blow it until you turned blue and nothing would happen."

Sonic looked down at himself. "I already am blue."

Knuckles started to walk away. "Go ahead, you twerps. But you're stuck here now."

Sonic nodded to Tails. The fox drew a quick breath, then blew his whistle. It was silent, but Knuckles heard the rasp of air. He turned. "Ha! It doesn't even work!"

Tails looked at Sonic as the echidna vanished into the twilight. The hedgehog looked smug. "Don't worry, kiddo, he'll regret it. She'll make him pay, and good."

I stalked through the carnival, passing though bright pools of light, then darkness. Try to scare me with a wimpy little whistle, ha! Sonic was too goody-goody to have friends like that. I wondered what had happened to Tails; he looked like he had been standing in front of a hair-dryer. Maybe had had tried to use the emeralds the wrong way. Now THAT would have been worth seeing.

I hung a left and entered an alley between four buildings. There was little light, but I knew the way. That Sonic! What a jerk--Tails, too. Maybe Doc would let me maim them before he attacked them. Yeah, that would be fun.

Doc's ship was parked at the end of the alley. He was bent over the engines with a flashlight, but stood up as I approached. "They're here," I told him.

"Good," he replied. "Any luck?" He meant the emeralds.

"No," I said. "Sonic has all of them now, and he's not about to let them go."

Doc snapped his fingers in disappointment. "I'm not surprised. Cut the power whenever you feel like it."

"Okay. Hey, I was wondering--"

"No!" he bellowed. "Not yet! I have tests to run, and the computer still has bugs. Forget it!"

"I wasn't talking about the robot," I snapped. "I wanted to know if you'd like me to disable Sonic and Tails so your new gear would have a chance."

"Oh." He seemed surprised. "You mean beat them up?"

I nodded.

"Go ahead."

I grinned. "Thanks. I'm gonna cut the power now."

Sonic and Tails walked along, looking at the rides and attractions. Tails had his eye on the distant roller coaster. "I wanna go on that, Sonic," he said, pointing.

"Okay little bro, so do I. But it's kinda far away, and we might as well see what else there is."

"Oh, all right. But can we walk faster? It's--"

Suddenly all the lights in the park blinked and went out.

"Heck," Sonic said.

"Double heck," Tails added.

I stood near the power box in the darkness. Amazing, I thought, how the flipping of a little switch can effect an entire carnival. I squeezed my eyes shut and counted ten seconds. When I opened them, my night-vision had kicked in.

I stepped away from the building and turned toward the eastern horizon. The moon would be full tonight; I could see its rim beginning to poke up. Good. Enough light to see by, but not too much. I started back toward where I had left Sonic and Tails. I would enjoy this ...

I was halfway there when I began to feel I was being watched. "It's just the dark," I told myself. I kept moving, trying not to look around. But every so often I glanced over my shoulder. I couldn't see anybody, but something was out there. My heart told me so--it ricocheted off my ribs every time I heard a sound. I didn't like the feeling.

At last I thought, "I wouldn't feel like this unless there's someone out there. Maybe it's Sonic." I felt a red fury at that. I ducked behind some display booths, wove through them, then dove into some shrubs flanking the brick fence. I watched my trail. If it were Sonic, he would come out, look around, and move on.

But nothing happened. I think that scared me more than if I had seen whoever it was. I stepped out of the bushes, wishing I hadn't turned out the lights. "Is anybody there?" I called.

"I'm going to find Sonic and Tails," I muttered.I stepped into a display booth and grabbed one of the prizes-- a little mirror. Holding it so I could see over my shoulder, I jogged toward where I had left Sonic and Tails.

For thirty seconds nothing happened. Nothing stirred around me, and I began to think it had been my imagination. Then a shadow behind me bulged outward. I looked back, but it had vanished. "Who is that?" I demanded, angry at being frightened.

To my horror, it answered. There were no words, but the sing- song snarl it made was enough. It was close, and wasn't where I had seen it. It was all around me. It like a lion's growl, but it had a high hiss I didn't recognize. I freaked.

I bolted in the direction I had come, feet hardly touching the ground. I kept my teeth clenched so my heart wouldn't leap out of my mouth. All I could think of was, "It's going to eat me." The only reason I stopped was to catch my breath.

I didn't see anything following me, and I couldn't hear anything over the pounding in my ears. I felt a little safer. Maybe I had left it behind.

I leaned against the chain link fence at the foot of the roller coaster, staring out into the dark carnival. I didn't remember running all that way.

Three claw-tips touched my shoulders and ran down my back, tinking against the fence links. At the same time, I felt a hot breath on my neck.

Sonic and Tails, standing on the boarding platform of the roller coaster, were startled by a shrill scream. They jumped. "What--what was that?" Tails queried.

"Gosh, I donno," Sonic replied, peering in the direction it had come from. Slowly a smile spread across his face. "Hey, know what?"

"I'll bet she got to him."

"Oh man! Was that Knuckles, then?"

"Probably. SHE doesn't scream when she's stalking somebody." The two exchanged a huge grin. They had been stalked by her before.

After a moment, when they heard nothing else, the two returned their attention to the roller coaster.

Three different tracks intersected in the station, forming a clover-loop through the park. The cars were lined up nearby. "Too bad it runs on electricity," Sonic said. "It'd be neat to put it through its paces." He stared out at the dim loops and spirals of the track.

He turned to Tails, a gleam in his eyes. "Hey, remember those tracks we ran on in Robotnik's mine a couple months ago? They were old roller coaster tracks, right?"

"Oh yeah," said Tails, catching on. "Think we could do that on this thing?"

"Why not? I think I'd better go first, though."

"You? Why?"

"To make sure it's safe!" Sonic flashed a grin at his friend. Tails started to protest, but Sonic stepped onto the track and vanished down it.

The track he had chosen contained several sharp turns and drops. He could see the moon gleaming off the silver rails and guided himself by them. This worked until he entered a stretch shaded by several trees. The track swerved right. His flying feet encountered empty space, and down he fell.

The tracks were low there, so he only fell eight feet. Slightly embarrassed, Sonic picked himself up, dusted himself off and looked around. He was on the far side of the park, a few yards away from the brick and barb-wire fence. "Too bad I can't jump it," he thought. "There's just not enough room for me to get up enough speed."

He turned his attention to remounting the roller coaster. The metal struts and supports didn't look hard to climb.

He climbed five feet and stopped, as there weren't any other handholds in reach. He sat in the crook of a strut, puzzled. The blocks of moonlight spilling through the track above were confusing. Maybe he could get a foothold in those recessed bolts ...

A sound. Sonic looked down. Someone running through the maze beneath the roller coaster. He pressed himself against the main beam and held still. There was no light there, and his dark blue made him invisible.

A figure came into view. He was running, one hand outstretched to keep from smacking into the pillars. As he drew closer, Sonic could hear his ragged panting. Knuckles. A rectangle of moonlight brushed him, showing his red fur. Why was he running around beneath the roller coaster? Sonic remembered the scream they had heard.

The echidna was slowing down, head turning from side to side, but the hedgehog held still and Knuckles's eyes flashed past him. Knuckles backed up to the foot of Sonic's pillar and crouched down, trying to hide. Only his loud breathing betrayed his presence. Sonic looked down at him, close enough to touch the scarlet head, a warm glee spreading over him. "This is a very interesting situation," he thought. "He doesn't know I'm here. What can I do to him?"

My terror had run away with me twice. I wasn't aware I had screamed. The thing was big, black and shapeless, with glowing green eyes. The pupils were vertical slits, like cat eyes. Those eyes were all I could see--that and the occasional glint of white teeth.

I had ducked under the roller coaster, hoping the Thing wouldn't follow me, but it had. Between my hard gasps, I could hear it hunting. Its breath purred through its throat, giving away its location. It was coming after me, slow and determined. I gulped, trying to quiet my breathing. It was close enough to hear me.

My survival adrenaline was pumping, so when I heard a rabid snarl above me, I broke and ran, clawed my way over the chain link fence and fled into the carnival beyond. As I did, I heard an outburst of laughter. Sonic had scared me? Where the heck had HE come from? As I pondered this, I remembered his threat when he first entered the carnival. "I have a friend who could make life absolutely miserable for you." The whistle. It must have been a dog whistle, too high for us to hear. His friend was the monster that chased me? Oh gosh, then it would kill me for sure.

I sank down beside a carnival booth, exhausted. My legs felt like rubber, and my entire upper body was on fire. I leaned back against the cool wall and closed my eyes.

After a moment I heard the dreaded purring breath. As it drew nearer I had a terrible urge to open my eyes and look, or to get up and run, but I did neither. I sat where I was. It came to the edge of the building and stopped. I could hear its soft intakes of breath, then the purrs that sent chills down my spine.

It growled. I felt my heart turn over with terror, but stayed put. After another long moment it said, "Run, fool." The voice was gruff, as if it were speaking through a growl.

I opened my eyes, but it was standing around the corner, out of my line of vision. "No," I said into the darkness. I heard the slight tremor in my voice and was ashamed. "I can't run anymore, so go ahead and maul me." I closed my eyes and waited, knowing I was a goner.

The purr faded out. I heard it sigh, then say, "I admire your courage, Knuckles. I will not harm you." There was the soft thud-thud of its departing footsteps.

It left me alone the rest of the night.

"There you are, Sonic! What took you so long?"

Sonic skidded into the station, a wide grin on his face. "Hey, Tails. Here's a bit of advice; don't take this track."

"Why?"

"There's a place you can't see the railing. I fell off."

"YOU fell off? Mister sure-footed fell off?"

"Yup."

"HA! Well then, I'll take this one."

"Tails, listen to this--" But Tails had shot away down the track of his choice. Sonic watched him go, still grinning.

The fox tore along the track, occasionally rolling head over heels to increase his speed. His course was as long as Sonic's, but simpler; most of it was curves and drops. After a few minutes Tails whizzed into the station, and nearly collided with the parked cars at the far end.

Sonic helped him up. Tails was loopy from going so fast, and had to lean against the rear car. Sonic thumped him on the head. "You need to get your brakes fixed, kid."

Tails looked up at him. "Fixed? I never had any!"

Sonic chuckled, then told him about seeing Knuckles under the roller coaster. "Oh man, he jumped three feet and took off that way! He didn't touch the ground again until he hit the fence and had to climb over. You should have seen him--what a riot!"

Tails was laughing. "I wish I had been there. Serves the creep right!"

The two jumped off the platform and returned to wandering through the silent carnival. It was about eight-thirty. The western sky was a faint blue, and most of the sky was velvet black and strewn with stars. Sonic and Tails were feeling the effects of adventuring. "If I just fall over," said Tails, "with my feet sticking up, you'll know it was too late to feed me. Then I'll shrivel up like a raisin ..."

The main gates were their next stop. "If you can't jump 'em, I can," Tails said with a confident nod.

They found the brick wall and were following it when a call stopped them. "Sonic, Tails!" It was Knuckles, hurrying up to them. "C'mon, I'll get you out of here." He glanced around nervously. "Stay out of the shadows. The gates are this way." He trotted away. Sonic and Tails exchanged a suspicious glance and followed.

But true to his word, Knuckles led them out. The gates were wrought iron and painted white. Knux unlocked them and swung one open. As they stepped past him, Knuckles hissed in Sonic's ear, "I'm gonna get you for scaring me."

Sonic smirked. "So you say. But who was chasing you?"

Knuckles didn't answer. He stepped back inside the gates, locked them and walked off.

"He's ticked," Tails said.

Sonic shook his head. "The guy's been ticked since we got here. He's got a problem."

"Yeah, us."

The moon's soft light illuminated a flat, grassy stretch with woods forming the borders. A dirt road led out of the park and curved away toward the distant mountains. Sonic and Tails stepped onto it. "Let's call Slasher," Tails suggested, holding his stomach.

Before either could do anything, a throbbing hum filled the air. They scanned the starry sky. "Robotnik?" Tails asked.

"Robotnik," Sonic replied. "Kiddo, go hide in the woods. It's dark, and I don't want you getting hurt."

"You mean you don't want me to get in the way," Tails replied grumpily. But he moved off in the direction of the trees.

Just in time. Robotnik's ship swooped over the carnival wall. Sonic stood in plain sight, head thrown back defiantly.

The ship bore a new set of accessories. A brass wheel encircled the underside, studded with huge glass balls. The wheel was turning, the glass catching the moonlight. Sonic backed away as it approached, sensing the wheel was the weapon. The ship halted over the dirt road. Sonic watched as three clamps released and a gigantic marble fell from the underside. It was two feet in diameter, and its polished surface shown a translucent sea-green.

Sonic watched from a safe distance as the wheel began to spin. The glass balls glowed and sparked. Lightning began to play back and forth on the wheel, then arcked downward to the green marble. Faster and faster it flashed, blinding the spectators. A strange magnetic field began to pull all mobile objects in range toward the lightning ball.

Tails was out of range, but Sonic was sucked toward it. He fought and struggled, but the current was too strong. Suddenly he said aloud, "Why am I fighting this?" He looked up at Robotnik and yelled, "I might as well give in!" He drew out two chaos emeralds and struck them together.

His cool blue changed to hot yellow. He lunged into the center of the lightning and stood over the green marble. The lightning hit his body, but, as he was unable to conduct the charge, it bounced off and back up into the ship.

Over the crackling of the lightning, Sonic heard Robotnik bellow in rage. As the ship turned to fly away, Sonic grabbed the back end of the craft and hung on, letting the charges of his invincibility flow into the metal. Unfortunately, he was hanging against the engine and was flung off when it backfired. As Super Sonic this didn't hurt him, but by the time he scrambled to his feet again, Robotnik had escaped.

Sonic deactivated the emeralds as Tails ran out to him. "Gosh," the little fox said, "I thought he had you when you jumped in there."

Sonic nodded. "How depressing. He still escaped! Not even Super Sonic could stop him."

They stood there in silence, staring into the dark sky after the departing ship.

Sonic said, "I'm too tired to worry anymore. Let's call Slasher. She might have some news for us."

Tails nodded and covered his hears. Sonic lifted his own whistle to his lips and blew one silent blast on it. (Sonic's whistle was a lower note than Tails's, and Tails could hear it clearly.) At once there came a bird-like trill from the woods. The two looked at each other in surprise. "She's already here?" Tails asked.

They walked into the woods, looking for their friend. She found them first. The big dark form that had terrified Knuckles appeared out of nowhere. "Hi, you two," she said gruffly.

Sonic and Tails walked up to her without fear. "Hey, Slash," Sonic said. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, just causing trouble and snooping around. Nothing new. You guys wouldn't be hungry by any chance, would you?"

"Oh yeah, we're starved," Tails said.

"Good," said Slasher. "I've got a camp set up a little ways back. C'mon." The creature walked away, and Sonic and Tails followed.

The camp was only a sizeable campfire built beside a brook. They sat down beside the fire, extending their hands to its warmth.

The light revealed that Slasher was a reptilian-looking creature. She walked on her hind legs with her forearms held out. Her long, stiff tail was twice her body length. Dark brown stripes marked her light tan body, and formed big patches around her emerald green eyes. The eight-inch arched claw on either hind foot showed her species: velociraptor. But her size marked her as a mongrel--she was too large to be a purebred.

Her most noticeable feature were not her teeth or claws, however. They were the golden feathery wings folded against her sides. They were usually immaculate, but tonight they were ruffled, as if she had been flying hard all day. Sonic noticed this. "What happened to your wings, Slasher?" he asked.

She cocked her narrow head and looked down at them. "I haven't had a chance to preen them yet today. I told you I've been up to no good."

The big raptor knew Sonic and Tails well, for she had prepared a meal of big, messy chili dogs. As the two adventurers fell to, Slasher lay down across the fire from them. "My day has just about matched yours, stride for stride. Care to hear about it?"

Their mouths full, Sonic and Tails nodded.

Slasher began. "A little bird (a literal little bird) told me you two lost the emeralds by less-than-above-ground-methods, so I came on out. I arrived when the bomb squad did. I searched as fast as I could, but I couldn't find you. I did find Knuckles, however." She paused, and Sonic and Tails leaned forward.

"He was running from the fire. From where he was, he couldn't see that the wind had swept the tree fire around him and cut him off."

"What did you do?"

"Well, first I attacked one of the bomb ships. They were built for pilots because they all had oxygen masks and little tanks. I took one, flew down and found Knux. He was about dead of suffocation, but he revived when I gave him the mask. I carried him over the fire and left him in the rocks at the foot of the mountain."

"Is that when you ran past us and flew away?" Sonic asked.

"I ran past you?" Slasher said, not really surprised but pretending to be. "Figures. That's why I couldn't find you."

Sonic looked at Tails. "And that's where Knuckles got the oxygen mask. Remember, in the cave with the first teleporter?"

"Oh, yeah. What else, Slash?"

"Well, what I did next is classified," the raptor said with a wink, "but it involved getting the island turned around so the fire would go out. I was still busy with that when the Flying Battery blimp attacked you. I didn't even see it until it flew away. And then, when Robotnik showed up, I just watched, thinking you two could handle him. And you did, too. Too bad Knux is such a spoil-sport.

"I couldn't find an inlet into Hydrocity I could use, so I ended up on the far side of the island, about the time you guys got washed out. I still didn't know where you were until you blew the whistle, Tails. I came back around and Ah Ha! you were in the carnival. You two looked all right, so I tracked Knuckles back to where he met up with Robotnik. He asked his boss if he could maim you guys, and Ivo agreed. I couldn't let him do that, now could I?"

Sonic had finished eating by this time, and Tails was nearly done. Both were listening with enjoyment. "What did you do to him?" Sonic asked.

Slasher shrugged. "Oh, not much. Just followed him around until he was ready to go nuts."

"Who screamed?"

"Oh, you heard that, huh? That was him. I sneaked up behind him and traced my claws down his back."

"Gosh, no wonder!" Sonic exclaimed.

Slasher nodded. "I felt bad after our little game of Cat-and- Mouse ... he actually refused to run from me anymore. So I came back here and rustled up some grub for you two."

Tails shook his head. "I think the red-haired creep was asking for it. Anything else?"

"Just a little. Robotnik left the island tonight. He told Knux that if you defeated him again, plan B was to retreat to his secret base in the Ice Cap mountains. I can take you there in the morning, if you like."

Sonic nodded. "Fine with me. Him and Knux are up to something. Did you hear they built a robot together?"

Slasher perked up. "No. Really? How'd you learn that?"

Sonic told her what they had heard on the bi-plane's radio. She seemed concerned when he finished. "Design ANOTHER robot," the dinosaur murmured. "They could have built any number of them. Have you seen any badniks today?"

Sonic and Tails looked at each other. They had not.

Slasher growled, "Then something's up. Be careful tomorrow, guys. They might decide Ice Cap is the place to test their inventions."

The three of them straightened up their camp, then Slasher lay down again, broadside to the fire. Sonic and Tails lay down on either side, and she draped her big wings over them for warmth.

Tails was on the side facing the fire, and Sonic was on the cooler, forest side. He curled up against the raptor's warm flank and sighed. Being with Slasher was like being with a tank escort.

As he lay down, Sonic suddenly remembered something. "Hey, Slash, we saw this weird mural in Marble Gardens, and I wondered if you could read it. I don't know what language it is." He dug out the brick fragment he had been carrying and gave it to her. She took it and studied it.

"Mm, ancient inscription of some kind. It's a short word-- probably 'and' or 'the' or something. I can't read it, but maybe I can have it translated. Think Knuckles would know how to read it?"

"Naw, it's pry too old."

"You don't know that. He could be bilingual and you would never know."

Slasher set the fragment down between her forepaws and lowered her head. "Sleep, you two," she commanded. Sonic and Tails lay down obediently.

Tails was asleep in fifteen minutes, but Sonic was not. His mind was turning over the possibilities of tomorrow. Ice Cap. One of the tallest mountain ranges in Mobius, the highest peaks were locked in snow winter and summer. A ski resort had been constructed on one of the more hospitable ridges, the only sign of civilization for miles. Mountain climbers trying to conquer the highest peaks were routinely killed. No one had ever climbed Mount Neverest, the eight-mile high giant, and lived to tell the tale. The Ice Cap was avoided and feared by the Mobians.

Sonic had not heard about Robotnik's secret base, but wasn't surprised. Robotnik was always on the lookout for suitable locations to practice his illegal experiments.

And then there was Knuckles. His threat at the carnival gates came back to haunt Sonic. When would he be forced to fight him?

Slasher caught Sonic's heavy sigh. She lifted her head from her forepaws and murmured, "What's wrong, Sonic?"

"I can't sleep."

"Aren't you tired?"

"I'm exhausted. Knux told me he was going to get me for scaring him, and I'm afraid he'll have the chance tomorrow. What am I gonna do, Slash? Do I fight him?"

Now it was Slasher's turn to sigh. "Well Sonic," she said, lifting her wing to look at him, "I've seen how he's been treating you. He thinks if he pushes you around you'll give up."

"He says he wants the emeralds."

"Likely story. He'd still hate you, even if you DID give them to him. No, his problem goes deeper. He's lived here alone for years, and views you not only as trespassers, but as intruders into his life. He wants confrontation."

"So, what do I do? Challenge him?"

"No, no, anything but that. Try to hold off a fight as long as you can."

"Why?" Sonic asked, miffed. "You think he'd beat me?"

"In a word, yes."

"Slasher!"

"It's true, squirt. He's bigger, stronger and more experienced in fighting."

"But you just said he's pushing a fight."

"Yes I did. But you two are nothing more than a couple young cocks, both crowing about how good you are. His spurs are longer than yours, and he may hurt you badly." The velociraptor paused a moment, feeling Sonic relax against her side. "Remember, never give up, in or out, and you'll make it."

"I felt like all three today."

"But you didn't, and that's something. If you ever need me, I'll be close."

Slasher lowered her head and closed her emerald-green eyes. Sonic shut his eyes, too, glad to have his mind at rest. As he began to doze, lulled by the rise and fall of Slasher's side, he heard her say quietly, "Rest well. You'll need it."

Peace settled on the clearing.

_____________________________________________________________________

I was up early the next morning.

They had beat Doc, just like I'd told him, and he'd left for the Ice Cap on the mainland. He woke me up at four thirty AM via radio to tell me to come out and help him do some stuff. He didn't say what, but he dropped enough hints.

Dawn was brightening the sky as I took control of the island from the highest mountain peak. My idea was to move it closer to the coast, as I did when I went ashore.

There was a deep spot a mile from the beach where I could take the island down. In the dawn twilight I wasn't sure if I could hit it square on. I have this terror that I might crash the island into the mainland. I guess it's because I came so close to doing it when I was younger ... But I don't like to think about it.

I yawned. Being up late and getting up early was hard on my system. I looked east and drew a deep breath of the cool, fresh air. The sky was dark purple and magenta, and the mares' tails were neon pink. Red dawn, mares' tails. We were in for a storm sometime today. Great. Have to make sure I was back on the island before it broke.

I rubbed my eyes with one hand and held out my Master emerald minature with the other. Hopefully I would get a chance to rest today. If only Sonic and Tails would stay out of my hair ...

A motion caught my eye, off to the left. A large bird rising above the trees, big wings flapping. It was bigger than the sea birds that hung out around the Floating Island. And its tail was too long ... I stared. That wasn't a bird. I could see the long pinions of its wings, but there wasn't a feather on it elsewhere. A dragon? No, too small, and besides, dragons have bat wings. Weird ...

Slasher rose into the air, wings pumping. Sonic and Tails sat on her back. The two of them were experienced riders, but they still looked sleepy.

Slasher had roused them before dawn. Ice Cap was several hundred miles inland, and it was a long flight. Rising before daylight was difficult, but with the cool breeze in their faces and the morning light in their eyes, they began to wake up.

They gained altitude, spiraling up and up. Fifty feet above the trees Slasher leveled out. It only took a moment for Sonic and Tails to get their bearings. To their right was the red sunrise, and the Floating Island in shadowed splendor. To their left the sky was still dark as night. A few stars shown there, along with a silver disk of a setting moon. Ahead could be seen the edge of the island, a bright strip of ocean, and the distant mainland.

Sonic leaned to one side and looked down. Below was a part of Floating Island they hadn't seen before. Hilly, tree-filled terrain, blanketed in grey fog. "What's that?" he called to Slasher. She cocked her head and looked down. She, of course, was wide awake. "That's Mushroom Hill," she called back. "How about making that out rendezvous today for lunch?"

"Fine with me," Sonic replied.

"Me too," Tails added.

They swept over the island and left it behind. Now only the shimmering, blue-green ocean was below them. The sunrise was brightening into yellow and orange, and the wispy clouds had become blue and white. The sea under it shown gold. A faint breeze was blowing. "It's going to be nice for a while," Slasher commented, the half-light emphasizing the dark patches around her eyes. "But we'll be in for a storm later, probably around noon. If it hits while you two are on the mountain, stay in the Ice Caves. You should be all right."

"Ice Caves?" Tails ventured.

"Yes," the raptor replied without looking back. "Robotnik melted out a glacier to make his base."

They flew in silence for a while. Still sleepy, Sonic and Tails didn't say much, and Slasher didn't push conversation.

The ocean's color lightened as it neared the shore, then gave way to the sandy beach. Slasher flew over it, wings beating steadily. Soon they crossed the low coastal mountains and entered the valley. Slasher altered course and flew northwest.

Conversation turned to the day before. Sonic sorrowfully told Slasher of losing his beloved bi-plane. Slasher listened, then turned her head and looked at him. "That's strange," she said. "I wandered all over the burned section. I didn't see any pile of metal."

"You didn't?" Sonic said in surprise. "Did you fly over the meadow near the island's edge?"

"Yes I did. I thought you might have parked the plane there ... and I didn't see it. No pieces of metal, either, so it didn't explode. Where did it go?"

None of them could answer that question, and a puzzled silence reigned for a while.

A steady updraft from the valley floor lifted them up. Sonic leaned around Tails and looked down. The valley was in shadow, and the lights of a city could still be seen. It looked like part of the Milky Way had fallen to the ground. Slasher, sensing his curiosity, said, "That's Mobitropolis, the capital of the world. Don't believe the lights--the city's a lot bigger than you think."

"Gosh. Like, how big?"

Slasher waved a hand, indicating a twenty mile circle. "Oh, about that. Then there's the suburbs and everything."

"That's where my uncle lives. You ever been there?"

"Sure. It's a really nice place--for a city. You outta go sometime. It's known as a garden city, so there's almost as many trees in it as in the Great Forest, over there."

The Great Forest spread out to the south and east like a dark blanket, its edges touching the base of the foothills. Slasher motioned to the closer mountains. "Those are called the Dark Mountains. They used to be called that because during winter they were bare of snow, but now all sorts of bad people live up there."

The mountains drew nearer. Sonic and Tails enjoyed the ride. It wasn't often they rode Slasher for so long, or so high. As far as Sonic was concerned, it was pleasantest time he had had the whole trip. Tails enjoyed it because he wasn't the one flying.

Slasher's voice startled them both, for they had lapsed into silence. "We're coming to the foothills now. Hold tight, there might be some turbulence--" She was interrupted as a sharp gust blew her sideways several feet. "See what I mean? Hold on." Sonic and Tails tightened their grip. The rolling, crumpled foothills were directly ahead.

"Well," said Slasher, "now it'll get interesting. With ground so hilly there'll be some pretty good updrafts and downdrafts."

The winds the big raptor described were in effect. They hit an updraft and rode it in a circling glide. Slasher left it at twenty-one hundred feet. The foothills far below mounted upward until they were regular mountains, cloaked in dark coniferous forest. The occasional stream or river they saw looked like a shining silver thread woven through the trees.

Slasher kept soaring upward until they were above a few low- lying clouds. It was noticeably colder by this time, and there was a powdering of snow on the highest peaks. Sonic and Tails noticed that the trees were going so high and no higher. Slasher told them that that was the timber line. "Trees are smart," she commented. "They only grow up as high as they can breathe."

They hit a strong flow of air that was blowing from south to north. "Cool! Jetstream!" Slasher exclaimed. She guided herself into the wind and glided, only flapping her wings now and then for balance. "Keep a sharp eye out for snowy mountains," Slasher told her passengers. "The highest one is the Ice Cap, the one with the Ice Caves. That'll be our landing place.

Sonic and Tails peered down. The mountain tops were crowned with rock and ice. The valleys were full of mist, and the mountaintops jutted out of it, coated with rock and snow. Their ears were constantly popping from the changing altitude. Slasher was aiming to fly above all of them. "Slasher," Sonic called, "can't you fly between the mountains instead of over them?"

"Hey, there's a novel idea," Slasher said, as if the idea had just occurred to her. "I can't this trip. The Ice Caves are in the second tallest peak in this range. I have to fly way up, because the Caves are in the top of the mountain."

They lapsed into silence for a while, and watched the picturesque landscape. It felt like they were standing still, for they were moving the same speed as the wind and Slasher's wings were motionless.

Suddenly Slasher said, "Destination in sight. Please fasten your saftybelts and bring your seat back into an upright position." She snorted with laughter.

"Where?" her passengers asked.

"There," she said, nodding her head to the right. They saw a white-capped pinnacle that dwarfed the other mountains. The top was completely glaciated, but rocks shown through farther down its white and blue slopes.

After a long look Sonic said, "Gee, I don't like the looks of that mountain. And you said it's the second tallest?"

"Uh-huh. This one has the caves, but the tallest one, Mount Neverest, is a lot meaner."

"Oh, uh-huh, a lot meaner." Sonic's eyes were drawn to the mountain again. "This one looks pretty mean. I don't think I'd want to climb the other one, either."

"Relax," Slasher reassured him. "You don't have to climb it, anyway. You get to start from the top and go down. Which reminds me..." She trailed off. Tails listened to this without a word. He didn't like the looks of the mountain, either.

Slasher changed course and flew at the mountain. "The entrance is on the south face, so we don't have to circle the mountain. Good thing, my wings are getting tired." They flew a few minutes longer, then Slasher settled into a glide, aiming her slim body at a place she had marked as a landing place. "Lie down, you two, flat along my back. Good." The big wings began to close. Their speed increased. Sonic and Tails lifted their heads and were alarmed at how fast the mountain was coming at them. Tails said nothing for as long as he could stand, then cried, "Slasher, slow down!"

"No way!" was the reply. "Prepare for an abrupt halt; you'll be amazed how fast I can stop!"

Tails put his head down and shut his eyes tight, but Sonic kept watching, fearful, yet fascinated, too. It dawned on him that this was Slasher's version of 'chicken'; fly full tilt at the mountainside and stop at the last minute. He didn't realize her wings were closing until he got the feeling that Slasher was shrinking.

"Slaaasher, stop!!"

She didn't answer. Sonic tightened his grip and prepared himself for a crash.

But nothing happened. Abruptly her wings unfurled, and with a tremendous backwatering they stopped.

Slasher folded her wings to her sides, gave a dancing half-step and said, "Thank you for choosing Raptor airlines for all your travel needs. Please watch your step as you exit the plane."

Sonic and Tails still had a death-grip on her.

"C'mon, you guys, get off! Ride's over!"

They sat up and breathed a dual sigh of relief into the frosty air. Slasher watched them as they slid off, then gave a short laugh of disbelief. "You two actually thought I would crash? Don't you know how painful that would be?"

It was cold. They were on the tip-top of the mountain, for it was flat. The sun's brilliance on the white was painful to the eyes. Sonic and Tails squinted and blinked, and blew clouds of mist into the frozen air. They were cramped from riding so long, and stamped their feet and beat their arms while complaining to Slasher. "Yeah, you should ride more often," was her reply to this. "Wait a minute, I have something that'll get you warm again." The big velociraptor strode away across the snow, her clawed feet crunching in the snow. She lowered her narrow head and sniffed as she trotted back and forth.

She stopped and clawed at the snow, whistling through her teeth. "Ah-ha," they heard her say. She tugged at something, then pulled out two black objects. She banged them against the ground to knock the snow off, then tossed them to Sonic and Tails. They landed with a chunk at their feet. Sonic picked one up. It wasn't as heavy as it looked. It was three and a half feet long, and shaped like a wheel-less skateboard. One side was smooth as glass and seemed to be waxed, but the other side was rough like sandpaper. There were bindings for a pair of feet. "It's a snowboard!" Sonic exclaimed.

"Yep," Slasher replied, pleased at his surprise. "I brought them up here a while back, figured they'd come in handy. I hope you two know how to skateboard, because that's the closest you can get to snowboarding."

"I do, but Tails doesn't."

"I can, too," Tails snapped indignantly. "Just not as well as you can."

As Sonic and Tails sat down in the snow to strap on their `boards, Slasher gave them a bit of briefing.

"I didn't bring you right to the base, but a little above it. All you have to do is board down the hill until you come to a thing that looks like a trench cutting the mountain in two. It's about twenty feet deep, and the entrance to the caves is down there. I can't say exactly where, because it shifts position every so often; glacial movements, you see. Leave your snowboards at the entrance to the caves so we can find them again.

"So anyway, watch out for the obstacles inside. There are iced slopes and cliffs. I don't know how high the cliffs are, but when you stand at the top and look down it gives you the feeling the mountain is hollow. It's really deep. Some of the ice formations are dangerous, too. Particularly the stalactites. Those are loose because of Robotnik's lighting system. Let's see, there was something else, too ... oh yeah, the subterranean lakes. The lakes were made from what was left when Robotnik melted out his base. There was so much of it that he put it to use as a sort of moat. He put chemicals in the water to keep it from freezing, so there's no ice. Don't fall in, whatever you do. That water will kill you in ten seconds. Keep an eye out for badniks, too. There haven't been any lately, but you know Robotnik."

Sonic stood up on his snowboard and grinned at Slasher. "Gee, Slasher, from the way you're acting you'd think this was my first mission or something. Chill out, we'll be cool."

"Suitable lingo for an ice mountain," Slasher commented drily, then bent down to help Tails fasten his bindings. "Well, maybe I am worrying a little," Slasher admitted after a few minute's silence. "But I've explored the Ice Caves before, and you haven't."

Tails jumped up, ready to go. "Really, Slasher, we'll be fine. Anything else we should know about?"

"Not that I can think of. I'll meet you at Mushroom Hill later, around noon. If you get there ahead of me, wait for me. I've got some other things to do. Goodbye, and good luck!" With that Slasher was gone, powerful wings carrying her eastward until she was out of sight.

Tails looked questioningly at Sonic. "Mushroom Hill? Does she think we can get that far by noon? Heck, maybe you can go that fast, but I sure can't."

"Hmm, she must know something we don't," Sonic decided. "Let's go, I'm getting cold."

He awkwardly walked to the beginning of the slope and peered down. "Pure, unmarked powdersnow, and not an obstacle in sight." Beaming, he looked at Tails. "This is gonna be good!"

"Last time you said something like that," Tails retorted, "I got hurt." He too was scrutinizing the slope. "Oh well, might as well get it over with."

Tails started onto the slope and slowly got moving. Sonic started off with a jump and took off down the slope, hitting thirty miles an hour at once. He cut diagonally across the hill in front of Tails, spraying him with a cloud of powder snow. "Son-ic!!" Tails protested, but by then Sonic was out of earshot.

The hedgehog half-crouched and put his weight forward to gain still more speed. The cold wind bit into his face and arms, but he didn't care. He wanted to go even faster. Sonic angled the board straight down the hill and leaned down with it. Fifty, fifty-five, sixty-- Sonic was living up to his name. Arms out for balance, eyes watering from the wind, a cloud of snow in his wake, and the unconscious half-grin on his face showed he was enjoying every second. Man, I thought skateboarding was fun, ha! Have to ask Slasher to bring us up here again sometime--

He spotted a little hill in the snow. He swerved toward it, hit it and left the ground. As he sailed through the air, he crouched and held the edge of the board with one hand. Twenty feet later he hit the ground again and temporarily vanished amid the cloud of snow. He reappeared a moment later, streaking down the unmarked slope. He was having the time of his life.

Sonic didn't hear Tails's warning yell. He had reached the ravine Slasher had told them about. The far wall was a high icy ridge. In an instant Sonic knew he would crash and burn. This will hurt, he thought, and gritted his teeth. He left the edge so fast he didn't have time to fall and smashed into the opposite wall. As it came at him he raised his feet to deflect the blow. The snowboard took the brunt of the impact, and it seemed to Sonic that it crumpled like paper, but he hardly had time to see it. His momentum slammed his body against the wall of ice with a bone-jarring thud. He dropped to the bottom of the ravine, senseless.

Tails had been boarding with more caution, for he knew he wasn't as good as Sonic. He didn't attempt any whirlwind rides, but he couldn't help falling down at least twice. He got up both times with a layer of powdersnow coating his fur. The further he went the more confidence he gained, and he wove back and forth across the hill, enjoying the creaky swishing the snow made under his board.

After a while he paused and looked around for Sonic. He was far down the slope, and at that distance looked like a speeding black speck. Tails could also see the big blue crevice in the mountainside that Slasher had told them about. Sonic was heading toward it at incredible speed, and it didn't look like he would stop in time. Cupping his hands to his mouth, Tails screamed, "SONIC, STOP!" It was no use; he was too far away. A second later Sonic plunged into the ravine.

Fearing the worst, Tails aimed his snowboard straight down the hill and sped down, heart in his mouth. The few minutes it took to cover the slope seemed like an eternity, but he made it as fast as Sonic had. As he neared the ravine he twisted his board sideways, skidding and snow-plowing to drag himself to a halt. Panting more from fear than from exertion, he dropped to all fours and peered over the edge of the chasm.

Sonic was lying on his back in the snow, motionless.

Tails ripped off his snowboard and leaped into the ravine, using his whirling tails as a parachute. It took thirty seconds to reach the bottom of the deep canyon. It seemed an extremely long time to Tails, but at last he reached the ground. As soon as his feet hit the snow, he sprinted to Sonic. The hedgehog hadn't moved a muscle.

As Tails reached him, he groaned and opened his eyes. "Sonic! Sonic, are you all right?" Tails asked anxiously as he knelt down beside him.

Sonic stared at him uncomprehendingly. "Who are you?" he whispered.

"Me? I--I'm Tails, you know, your sidekick!"

"No you're not," Sonic replied, his voice rising a little. "Tails isn't white."

"What? I'm not--," Tails broke off as he glanced down at herself. With a relived laugh he jumped up and began to brush the snow from his fur, for he was indeed white.

Sonic chuckled and sat up, rubbing his head. "Speed's a sonic blast, but I guess I have to watch where I'm going." He looked up at the side of the gorge and noticed the whitened, cracked place where he had slammed into the wall. At the memory of his power- packed crash, he winced and slowly climbed to his feet. "Ow, man, I'm gonna be SORE. I hit the wall feet first, and it still knocked me out. Heck, my head hurts." He pointed out the impact area to Tails, then stood there, holding his head and wondering what he was forgetting. After a moment it came to him. "Hey, where's my snowboard? It should still be attached to my feet!"

"It probably vaporized on contact," Tails commented drily. They looked around, then searched the ravine, but never found a trace of it. To this day it remains a mystery as to where the snowboard went.

"Bummer," said Sonic. "I hope Slasher don't get mad at me, 'cause I really think that snowboard's gone for good."

"Too bad," said Tails. "Well, at least you weren't hurt too badly."

"Yeah, I guess," Sonic replied. "Well, the next thing is to find the entrance to the caves."

"Good idea. Which way, though?" The ravine stretched away in two directions.

Sonic stood still a few seconds, hand on his chin, thinking and scanning up and down the icy gorge. "Downhill, I think. Slasher said it shifts a few feet a year. I think glaciers move downhill, so let's check down there a-ways. If it's not there, then we'll just juice back up here and make sure we didn't miss it." Sonic crouched, dug starting blocks in the snow with his feet, and rocketed down the ravine, Tails in hot pursuit.

Several hundred feet later they skidded to a halt. Before them was a forbidding cave. It was not made of rock, but solid, packed ice. The entrance was oblong, but more than high enough for them to walk into. Icicles rimmed the top like brittle glass teeth, and a chill breeze wafted out. It was like some frozen creature breathing on them.

In spite of that, Tails was all set to walk in. Sonic grabbed his arm. "Stop, Tails. This is one of Robotnik's bases, so be very careful. Especially around unguarded entrances. This place looks a little too inviting not to be a trap."

"This place looks inviting?" Tails said incredulously.

"Yep, this is downright friendly compared to some of the places I've seen," was the reply. Cautiously Sonic approached the entry and examined it. "Ah-ha," he muttered triumphantly. "Tails, look."

Tails saw two small pipe openings in the icy ceiling, hidden in the blue shadows. "So? What's so great about those?"

"Watch." Sonic picked up a chunk of snow and tossed it under the pipes. Instantly a clear substance spurted from the pipes, but it wasn't water, for it dissolved as soon as it touched the snow with a sinister hissing. A cloud of moisture filled the air. Alarmed, Sonic jumped back, dragging Tails with him. The liquid only poured from the pipes for a few seconds, but it took a few minutes for the fog to clear.

"What was that?" Tails asked when it was clear again. "Hot water?"

"Nope, just the opposite," replied Sonic. "It wasn't even water. Did you see how it bounced when it hit the snow? I'd say it was liquid nitrogen."

"Gosh," said Tails, mildly shocked but not surprised. "Robotnik won't stop at anything if it might keep us away."

"Keep ME away, you mean," Sonic said, a little angrily. "He just thinks of you as the expendable sidekick; the tagalong pest. I'm the enemy. For some reason that really miffs me." He glared at the chemical safeguard. "Well, I'm not so easily stopped. Stay back, Tails." He bent down and began scooping into a big snowball. When it was about as big as a bowling ball he lifted it, and threw it underhand into the cave ceiling. The hard packed snow smashed into the first pipe, damaging the little robotic sensor. A minute later a second snowball crushed the other pipe.

"There," said Sonic, dusting the snow off his hands. "Now we can get in. C'mon, Tails." Together they started into the forbidding indigo depths of the Ice Caves.

The entry hall seemed to have been carved a long time ago, for ice crystals covered the ceiling with delicate, razor-edged feathers, and coated the walls with blue and green ice. There were few places the original crust could still be seen, for seasons of melting and re-freezing had erased any traces of tools. A hundred feet down the tunnel, several turns away from the entrance, the corridor seemed to be re-dug, for the walls and floor were marked with spiral ridges and grooves. It appeared to have been made with an over-sized drill. A few feet further on the floor became smooth again.

At the end the passage split into two narrow shafts. They curved away, one to the left, the other to the right. Puzzled, Sonic and Tails stood and looked down one, then the other. "Let's try the right- hand passage," Sonic suggested after a few minutes. He started to stride boldly in, but Tails caught his arm. "Wait, Sonic. This is Robotnik's base, so be careful around unguarded entrances." Sonic gave him a funny look, but proceeded with caution. It saved his life.

They walked ten feet before anything happened. Sonic was ahead, Tails nervously trailing at his elbow, when the floor beneath their feet creaked ominously. "Whoa," Sonic muttered. He swayed a little, trying to keep his balance. The snow moved again, then began to settle softly downward. "Tails, get out of here!" Sonic shouted. "Now!!" Frightened, Tails whirled around and raced back up the tunnel. Sonic lunged after him as the floor began to crumble out from under his feet. One foot sank through the paper-thin crust and encountered emptiness. Sonic saved himself by tumbling to the floor and spindashing to firmer ground. Heart hammering with terror, he scrambled to his feet and fled up the remaining tunnel to Tails.

Side by side they stood, looking back down the tunnel. Sonic grasped Tails's hand as the floor crumbled away for thirty feet up and down the hallway. It was silent for a few stunned seconds, and the only motion anywhere was snow flaking into the newly formed abyss. Tails wanted to see how deep the chasm was. He spun his double tails, rose up into the air, and flew into the floorless passage. Sonic could tell that it was deep, for Tails cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, "Hello!" The cavern below resounded with echoes. Tails came back looking nervous. "Sonic, I--uh--can't see to the bottom of that thing."

"Wonderful," Sonic said. "Suddenly I don't feel so hot about exploring a hollow glacier. If I'd walked in like I was going to, I'd be dead by now." He shivered. "Let's try the other tunnel."

The left hand passage's floor was good and solid. This hall was apparently the way to go, for there were little cold blue lights set in the ceiling among the ice crystals. The ice formations were clear and scattered the light, so only a few were needed at intervals. They had followed the tunnel around several bends before they felt the breeze. It soon became a steady wind that chilled them to the bone. "Boy," Sonic commented, "how miserable can you get? I'm freezing!"

"Literally," Tails remarked. "Which is first, frostbite or hypothermia?"

"I don't think I want to find out," Sonic said grimly. "Let's run and keep warm."

The icy floor was slick in some places and rough in others. The tunnel was sloping downward more and more with each bend and twist. The air was bitterly cold by now, and there were very few melted spots on the walls. Sonic and Tails were jogging through the corridors, trying to keep from freezing solid, and were noticing the apparent lack of opposition. No enemies. There were marks on the floor that could have only been caused by the metal treaded feet of badniks, but the robots were nowhere to be seen. The entire place was deathly still, too. There was no sound at all, but what they made themselves. "This is kinda weird," Sonic remarked. "I've been in Robotnik's bases before, and one thing they ain't is quiet."

"Maybe it's a trap," Tails suggested. "I hope not. I'm too cold to worry about a nagging bunch of robo--"

Sonic interrupted him with a gasp and nearly fell over backward trying to stop. He skidded several feet before he reached a halt. The reason was because the floor--and indeed, the whole corridor-- ended abruptly ten feet away. "Man, I need a good pair of ice cleats," Sonic panted. "My shoes just don't cut it."

Tails stopped by losing his balance and falling over. "Yeah, I know what you mean," he replied, climbing to his feet again.

Walking delicately, so as not to slip, the pair made their way to the end of the trail and looked over the cliff. What they saw was a vast empty cavern that went both up and down, and out away from them. Light filtered down from somewhere far above, but it didn't do much to the deep indigo shadows that filled the big cavern. "Wow!" Sonic breathed. "The Doc musta melted this all out. Look, this tunnel used to go right on through."

Sure enough, in the far wall was the continuation of their passage. Tails moved a few steps closer to the edge, trying to see down. "Hey Sonic, look!" Sonic looked and saw a very steep slope that seemed to be made of loose snow. It started a foot below them and dropped down into the depths.

"I betcha I could climb down that and see what's down there," Sonic said boldly, staring at the steep decline.

"Don't, Sonic. It's too dangerous," Tails said.

"That's what makes it fun," he replied cockily. He sat down on the ledge, swung his feet over, then slid down onto the slope. To his dismay his feet shot out from under him. The dim light made it look like snow, but the whole hill was iced over and slick as glass. Sonic couldn't get traction at all. He began to slide down the slippery slope, and (this one worried him) to gain speed as he went. "Tails, help!" he yelped. Tails didn't realize the whole thing was clear ice, so he jumped down onto the hill, intending to catch him. His feet went out from under him as well and he began the long slide down.

Sonic struggled to somehow get a foothold and stop himself. He was unable to, for the ice was too smooth. He couldn't even curl up in a ball for safety. Ten feet behind him, Tails was trying to stop as well, but he couldn't, either.

The slope steepened. Sonic and Tails were as helpless as novice skiers on an expert run. It'll hurt when we hit the bottom, Sonic thought grimly. The walls were fifteen feet apart and closing. Sonic was thinking they would hit the bottom any second when he saw a chunk of ice jutting out of the wall to their right.

"Tails! Try to get to that ledge!" Sonic thrashed around, trying to get the least bit of a foothold. One foot struck a rough patch of snow. As the rest of his body hit the patch, Sonic dug his feet in and jumped.

Both hands smacked down on the edge of the block. Sonic clawed his way up without hearing the soft creaking sound the ice made. Breathing hard and trembling a little, he called, "Tails, up here!" Tails wasn't close enough to the snowy patch to hit it, so as he slid past the block he reached out. Sonic held out his hand, and their palms met and locked. Sonic braced himself and pulled him up. The ice block creaked again under this added weight. A few seconds later they were both sitting on the ledge, catching their breaths.

After a few minutes rest, Tails said, "Well, what do we do now?" As if in reply, there was a sharp crack and the whole ledge shifted. "Uh-oh," they said in unison, looking at each other. Automatically they both dropped flat to keep the block from moving. In spite of that, the block tilted a little, then a lot, and with a snap it ripped loose from the wall and smashed into the icy slope. The impact sent it sliding down the decline at tremendous speed. The two reluctant riders didn't dare jump off for fear of being crushed, but neither wanted to stay on. There wasn't anything to hold onto. The block was smooth, and the only way to stay on was to lie down flat.

The cube slowly disintigrated as it raced down the icy slope, leaving a trail of white skid marks and proceeding with a screechy sound of ice on ice. Sonic lifted his head to see where they were going, and Tails saw him wince. "HECK! Hang on, Tails!" It was the bottom of the slope, a solid wall. The block slammed into it with such force that the wall caved inward amidst a shower of ice and snow. They had taken a short cut into another, older, tunnel. This passage seemed unused, for it had no lights and the floor was rough with snow that had melted and refrozen.

Darkness enveloped them as the the block hurtled through the tunnel. "Where are we, Sonic?" Tails cried in fear.

"You're asking me?" Sonic replied, his tone echoing Tails's. "I have no clue! Hang on, I have a feeling we're gonna crash!"

They felt the tunnel slope downward again. By now they were in the heart of the glacier, and it was well below zero. It was also pitch black. The noise the block was making echoed and re-echoed off the walls, making it impossible to hear anything else.

With a grating, grinding noise the chunk met a curve in the tunnel, but continued to slide, speed unabated. It was like a terrifying roller- coaster that had no end.

There was a jarring crash, and another ice wall burst outward under the onslaught of sixty thousand gallons of frozen water. They could see now; they had re-entered the lighted section of the glacier. The tunnel was wider, but was sloping downward in a steeper and steeper grade. It caused Tails to lose his grip, and if he slid off he would be run over by the frozen brick. "Sonic, help me!" Tails cried in panic. Sonic was none too secure himself, but he freed one hand enough to grab Tails's arm and haul him back up.

The shifting weight caused the block to veer into the wall. With a crash it hit the side of the corridor, nearly dislodging its passengers. Cracks appeared in its icy surface. The impact rotated the block, putting Sonic broadside to anything it mowed down. He turned his head to look for possible obstacles. His heart skipped a beat as he saw they were racing for a dead end. Sonic turned away and closed his eyes.

The wall was two feet of packed snow. The block smashed through it, but the snow slowed it down. It slammed into one wall, then the other, ricocheting back and forth, spinning like a top. With a final sickening crash it hit the wall squarely and shattered into thirty pieces.

Tails opened his eyes. He was lying on the floor, sprinkled with snow and ice. With a groan he sat up. Sonic was a few feet away, staring at the ceiling and drawing deep breaths, glad to be alive. Tails stood up, leaning against the wall for support. "Ugh, I feel like--like somebody put me through a blender. Twice." Sonic sat up and looked at him, holding his head. "And you weren't even in front. Oh man! Do I have a headache!" He closed his eyes and sat still for a moment.

A little later Sonic climbed to his feet. "I think I can walk now. Let's go." They took the first hundred feet or so at a walk, for they were quite banged up from their rough ride. The further they went, the more they loosened up and were able to travel faster.

Sonic and Tails were deep within the mountain by now. It was bitterly cold, and the steady breeze was painful. For some reason the ice crystals in the ceiling were unstable. Sonic and Tails were nervous walking under the big ones, for a loud sound brought them crashing down like glass daggers.

The tunnel went straight for three hundred yards, then turned a sharp left. Sonic and Tails rounded the bend and found themselves looking into an oblong cavern. That was not impressive; they could see the tunnel continued on the other side. But cutting the cavern in half was a subterranean lake. It was so full it seemed to be on a level with the floor, and the water was deathly still. Cautiously, thinking about thin ice, Sonic and Tails approached the edge and looked into the water. There was no bottom; the water faded away into inky blue darkness.

"Tails," Sonic said after a few minutes, "does the water--uh-- look funny to you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Look across the surface. Is it just me, or does it have a greenish tint?"

Tails squinted. "Ooo, that looks weird. But why would it be green? Only algae turns water green, and it's a little too cold for slime."

Sonic studied the surface. "No ice. That's kinda weird, because it's way below freezing in here." He thought a few seconds. "Didn't Slasher say something about chemicals in the water to keep it from freezing? That would make sense."

Tails dipped a hand in and jerked it away immediately. "Sonic, it's so cold it burns!" he exclaimed as he dried his hand and put it under his other arm to get it warm.

There wasn't any way to cross the lake; the water began at one wall and ended at the other. There were no ledges or walkways; even the walls were smooth and featureless. After checking for any possibilities and finding none, Sonic said, "Well, it looks like an airlift is the only answer. Robotnik may have thought a deadly moat would keep me out of his base, but he didn't count on you, Tails." Tails spun his tails and flew up into the air. Sonic reached up and locked hands with him. Then the two of them flew across the lake. As they did so Sonic looked down into the blue green water, trying to see the bottom. There was none, as far as he could tell. It gave him an eerie feeling, being suspended above something so bottomless.

They reached the far side without incident and encountered a new problem. The previous passages had been easy to navigate with only one tunnel to follow. But here, the tunnel branched out in three directions: right, ahead, and left. "Well Sonic, which way do we go?" Tails asked, hands on his hips.

Sonic shrugged. "Beats me." He looked down the left hand tunnel and walked down it five feet. "Not this way; the lights don't go all the way down." He emerged and looked down the right hand tunnel. The lights went down it as far as he could see, but this tunnel sloped deeper into the glacier. Something about it didn't seem right. Something made Sonic test every step he took, listen for any sound. Suddenly he whirled around and leaped out of the tunnel. "We'll take the middle tunnel," he barked. "Go, Tails!"

Sonic dragged Tails up the middle tunnel. He didn't stop until they had covered two hundred feet, and then only because Tails demanded to know what was wrong. Sonic hushed him and peered down the tunnel, listening. Everything was still. He looked Tails. "I don't think it saw me. We gotta make tracks, now!" Again, with Tails in tow, Sonic was off.

"What didn't see you?" Tails panted. "What are we running from?"

"Shut up, Tails, just run! Tell you later, when we get out of this blasted mountain."

The tunnel sloped steeply upward, and the floor was slick with ice that had melted and re-frozen. Sonic and Tails couldn't run fast on that, and had to slow to a walk. Sonic kept looking back, down the tunnel.

"What the heck was down there?" Tails asked again.

Sonic avoided his gaze. "Nothing."

"Then why are you dragging me away from it?"

"Umm ... can it wait?"

"Sonic, just tell me."

Sonic looked back down the corridor again, then said softly, "It was ... me!"

Tails stared at him. "What?"

"It was another Sonic, but it was made of metal."

"You mean like the one in the Death Egg?"

"No, that one was just a badnik. This one was--well, me! And I don't want to stick around to make its acquaintance. Let's cruise."

They took off again, spooked. They could imagine the robot in the blue gloom, making its way up the tunnel, lights flashing.

Suddenly, from all around them, there came the horrible sound of hundreds of tons of ice shifting. Sonic froze, his eyes locked on Tails's. "The glacier's moving!" he hissed. He grabbed Tails's hand and tore up the passage. As they ran the lights faded, then relit. The glacier was trembling, moaning, shifting. The tremor intensified, then subsided, then intensified again. Icy stalactites crashed down with a plink and shatter.

The tunnel turned this way and that as it corkscrewed its way up. Sonic and Tails followed it, sometimes on their feet, sometimes on all fours. The mountain had definite motion now, as the glacier slipped downhill. The walls began to crush inward, thrust by the tremendous pressure exerted by the shifting ice.

Then it was over. The glacier settled and quieted, but Sonic and Tails kept running, their adrenaline pumping. The floor was littered with glassy ice fragments, making it all the more slippery. The two had to stop at last, panting and trying to listen for any more sounds at the same time, some not necessarily caused by the ice. But the mountain was deathly still.

Sonic and Tails leaned against the wall to catch their breaths, huffing clouds of vapor into the cold air. "Well," said Sonic, "we made it."

"Yeah," Tails replied. "But I don't want to stick around anymore. Let's get out of this glacier and search the outside for the base."

"Sounds cool to me," Sonic answered. "Let's try spindashing up the tunnel and see if we can't get going." Sonic stepped away from the wall and went into a spin. Tails watched as he shot away up the tunnel, then went into a spin of his own.

The passage proceeded in a series of switchbacks, twisting this way, then that, and back again, always ascending. Sonic and Tails followed it hopefully, for it was the first tunnel they had encountered that led upward.

After an hour of this, they reached the top and found a dead end. Sonic couldn't believe it, and ran his hands up and down the wall, searching for a way through. Tails stood, hands dangling at his sides, ears and tails drooping. "Of course," he said miserably. "Of course it would be a dead end. Why not? We should have figured." Sonic spindashed and hit the wall with a thud. He bounced off it, but got up immediately. "The wall gave a little," he said. "Maybe it's like one of those blocked tunnels we rode the ice cube through. I'll see if I can smash it." Sonic slammed into the wall again and again as Tails watched. Soon he joined him. Under this double onslaught, the ice began to crack and pieces fell to the floor.

The last time Sonic hit, the wall gave way and he fell through into the next room. Tails looked through the gaping hole, and saw Sonic climbing to his feet in a passage that looked wide enough to drive a tractor through. It was much brighter with what looked like daylight. Sonic glanced around, then looked at Tails and said, "Bingo." Tails climbed through the hole and looked around.

It was the main part of Robotnik's base. At one of the tunnel was a huge cavern that seemed empty. At the other was the exit, and blazing sunlight. Sonic and Tails looked at each other. "Robotnik can wait," Sonic said, and they tore up the tunnel.

They emerged on the south slope, but further down. Here and there rocks jutted through the snow, casting blue shadows across the pure white. Looking up, they could see the peak they had started from, a giant among the other peaks and ridges. Looking downhill they could see trees; they were near from the timberline. A hard packed road led from the mouth of the cave out of sight down the mountain.

The sun on the snow after the gloom of the caves made them squint and blink. Sonic retreated into the shelter of the cave to let his eyes adjust, but Tails stayed outdoors. He couldn't bear to go back into those dark, cold, dangerous caves, so stayed outside, crunching around happily in the snow. Sonic watched him as he climbed up on a rock outcropping. As he stood at the top, he called, "Look at me, Sonic!" He raised both hands above his head in a triumphant gesture. "I, the intrepid explorer Miles Prower, have explored the Ice Caves and returned alive! I and my companion, Sonic the Hedgehog ..." The grin faded from his face as his gaze fell on something a little ways down the slope. "What the ..." he muttered as he jumped off the rock. Sonic watched him as he trotted down the hill a ways and bent over.

Then Tails gave a cry and stumbled backward. He caught himself and whirled. The look on his face was one of incredible horror and shock. "Sonic, get over here!" he cried. Startled, Sonic was there in an instant. "What?"

Tails pointed at an object in the snow, speechless with horror. Sonic walked to it. "What's wrong? It's just a--a--ahh ..." he trailed off, eyes riveted on the thing in the snow. But it wasn't something. It was someone.

It was Knuckles.

Knux seemed to have come into contact with a liquid nitrogen guard system, for he was frozen in a chunk of ice. He was half curled, and his face was frozen in surprise. The ice was crystal crystal clear, allowing every grisly detail to be observed.

Sonic didn't want to look any more, but couldn't tear his eyes away. He felt numb, petrified with shock. Time seemed to stand still, and he realized he hadn't breathed in a long time. He drew a deep, choking breath, and with a great effort closed his eyes and turned away. He couldn't think straight. He covered his eyes with one hand and stood still, trying to get a grip. Knuckles might have become a friend, and it is rather sickening to find your rival frozen and dead in the snow.

Sonic wasn't aware of how long he had stood there until Tails gently touched his hand and said, "Sonic, are--are you okay? You look like you're going to throw up."

"No to the first, yes to the second," Sonic replied. His voice had a hollow sound to it. "I--I just can't believe that he's--he's ..." Sonic covered his face with both hands.

Tails cast a glance in Knuckles's direction, then hurriedly looked away. Something drew his eyes back for a second and longer look, though. "Sonic."

The hedgehog didn't seem to hear him.

"Sonic," Tails persisted.

"What," Sonic replied heavily. It was a word, not a question.

"The ice is sitting on top of the snow."

"So." Again, it was not a question.

"So he can't have been frozen long, could he?"

Sonic spun around, glanced at Tails, then at Knuckles. Then, though he really didn't want to, he stepped over and examined the surface of the ice.

"Stand back," he said two seconds later, and his voice had a tone of authority to it. "I'm gonna break the ice."

"But won't you injure Knuckles?"

"Not if he hasn't been frozen long, now, stand back!"

Sonic leaped and came down spinning, the way he destroyed badniks. The ice shattered on impact like so much brittle glass, and clear fragments went flying.

Tails helped Sonic pull Knuckles free of the imprisoning ice. At first touch they thought he was dead, but as his face left the ice he gasped, then began coughing hard. Sonic and Tails sank to their knees to support him.

I hadn't known pain like this was possible. My head ached and my lungs cramped as I gasped air into them. My skin felt like it was about to peel off. My hands and feet were completely numb. It was all I could do to sit up. I held my head and rocked back and forth, my breathing hard and fast.

I knew it was Sonic and Tails, but I didn't care. For the moment I couldn't think of what I held against them. They had pulled me out of the ice, and I was grateful. Well, at least until Sonic tugged me to my feet and said, "Walk around. C'mon, we hafta walk around and get you warm again." I heard him say to Tails, "He's gonna get hypothermia if he doesn't have it already. Help me hold him up." All I wanted to do was sit still and rest. I was so tired ...

The two of them held my arms and began to move forward. I stumbled along with them, my numb feet aching as they encountered the ground. Oh, it was hard to move, and it hurt--

"Let me stop," I pled. "I gotta rest ..."

"No!" Sonic snapped in my face, his breath forming a cloud. "You can't stop! Keep moving!" I did, helplessly. Why did I ever leave the island? Stupid ...

They walked me up and down the snowy road. Twice more I drunkenly begged them to stop, and they refused. My brain felt like it was packed with cotton. I knew I had to keep moving, but the animal side of me wanted to lay down and sleep. Living was too much of a struggle.

The real agony started as my blood got flowing again. Feeling returned to my feet first. I felt as if I were walking on hot coals. Moving became very uncomfortable. Finding my strength was returning and my head clearing, I shook off Sonic and Tails. "I can't walk anymore," I growled at them. "My feet hurt."

I beat my arms back and forth, trying to restore circulation to my numb hands and fingers. "Feel any better?" Tails asked me.

"A little," I admitted grudgingly. Why was I feeling so sulky? There was a nagging feeling at the back of my mind, but I pushed it back. I didn't feel like thinking at the moment. Before I could stop myself, I looked at Sonic and said, "Thanks for saving me."

He and Tails both seemed surprised, but returned with, "Your welcome."

My gloves felt damp. I pulled them off and rubbed my hands together, then blew on them. I wasn't feeling so bad now. I was almost warm. Now, what was that irritating thought at the back of my mind?

It hit me like a ton of bricks. Dr. Robotnik! He wasn't here. And here was I, hanging out with Sonic and Tails. What should I do? My first reaction was, 'Run.'

I guess the look on my face changed, because Sonic grabbed Tails's arm and backed away from me. He wasn't looking for trouble, I realize now. I looked down the road, thinking of taking it down the mountain, but discarded the idea at once. Sonic could run much faster than I could. I turned and looked at the cave entrance. Ah, the south entrance! I had forgotten the transporter. I could go straight down to Launch Base and they couldn't follow!

I stumbled over the rough snow toward the caves.

Tails hadn't seen the look in Knuckles' eyes. "Hey, where do you think you're going?" he shouted, and ran after him. "Tails, no!" Sonic yelled and took off after him. "If Knuckles leads him into the cave he'll kill him," Sonic thought.

Knux pounded into down the large hall and skidded into the huge room at the far end. Where-is-it-where-is-it-Ah ha-here-it-is- He ran to a large round door, twisted the access wheel and swung it open. There was the hiss of escaping air as the pressure inside was released. Knuckles jumped inside as Tails reached the room. The young fox caught the door to keep it from closing, then peered inside.

It was a tiny room, the size and shape of the door. The wall opposite was the opening to a large pipe. It had bands of light at intervals as far as Tails could see. Knuckles was adjusting the knobs and dials that were mounted on the wall next to it. He glanced at Tails, then twisted a knob makred 'speed' all the way to the right. The pipe began to whistle as it sucked air into it. Knuckles stepped into it, curled into a ball, and whisked out of sight.

The door, drawn by the suction of the pipe, began to swing shut. Tails fought it, but it continued to move in spite of him. Suddenly someone shoved him into the room and jumped in himself. It was Sonic. The door closed with a clang that had an air of finality to it. They both stared at it, then Sonic looked around. "Where's Knuckles?"

Tails replied, "He went into the pipe."

Sonic turned and looked into it, observing the lighted rings and the sucking air. He flashed a grin at Tails. "This ain't no ordinary pipe. It's a transport tube. C'mon, let's see where Knux went."

Sonic spin-dashed into the pipe. Tails followed. There was a hum of engines and a whoosh of air, and the pipe air-blasted them through. The tube went down for a long ways in a steep decline. It leveled out and went horizontally for quite a distance. Their speed was something around a hundred miles per hour, so their trip was only fifteen minutes. Then it hurled them up and up to the surface.

The warm cement vibrated around the flat circular door in the ground, a vent beside it expelling air like a reversed vacuum cleaner. A few seconds later, the door snapped open. Two figures shot out of it, propelled by the wind, curled into compact balls for protection.

The round door slapped shut. Sonic uncoiled in midair and landed on his feet, but Tails rolled and breathlessly jumped up. Sonic gazed at their surroundings. "Wow," he said.

The Ice Cap range towered up in the north and south, a distant, misty blue. The green valley floor spread out from them, running south and west.

But to the west, like a monstrous spider crouching on the plain, was a cluster of factories and towers. A paved road snaked down from the vent outlet to the industrial zone. The morning sun, shining hazily through the mare's tails overhead, picked out other ribbons of asphalt entering the place.

Sonic shaded his eyes, and Tails said, "What is that place, Sonic?"

Sonic shrugged and squinted. "It looks like a city or something."

"You think Knuckles is anywhere around here?"

Sonic dropped his hand and looked around at the tawny hills. "I doubt it. He pry high-tailed it for that place down there."

"Let's go!"

"You said it."

I was sure they had followed me. That snoop Tails! Now they had found Launch Base, the one place Robotnik had warned me to keep secret.

I jogged down a street, showed my passcard to a sentry-bot, and ran on. I had to warn Doc. I didn't want to think about what he would do to them, and neither did I want to think about what had happened in the mountains. I was their enemy, and they had saved my life. It didn't make sense. I couldn't squelch the memory, either; the muggy weather felt wonderful, but I shivered every time I passed through shadow.

The buildings fell away and the black lake I had protested earlier stretched into the distance. I didn't look twice at it. I didn't care about the enormous ship parked on the launch pad, either. Where was Doc?

My answer came as one of the ship's rockets fired up with a screeching roar. He must be testing the rockets from the main control tower, a block to my right. I headed toward it, watching the cloud of white rocket smoke billow into the sky.

A moment later I clanked up the steel steps to the tower's door. I opened it and was met by a rush of air-conditioning. I shivered and stepped inside.

Doc was standing before the control console, reading system status printouts. He growled without looking up, "You're late." I was supposed to have met him at nine-thirty. I glanced at my watch, but it had 'frozen up'. "What time is it?" I panted.

He frowned at me over his red mustache. "Ten after."

I was forty minutes late. I gulped. It was not the best time to relate bad news.

Doc returned to watching the computer screens. I was freezing in the cool room and longed to step outside, but kept still. "Uh, Doc ... there's something I need to tell you."

"What?" he asked without turning.

"Sonic and Tails followed me from Ice Cap."

I cringed as Robotnik turned to face me. "What did you say?" he asked. I couldn't read his expression, so I repeated myself. To my surprise he only turned to face the computers again. After a moment of cold silence, he said, "I had not planned on this, but it doesn't matter. Launch Base has twice as many robots now, because of the evacuation of Ice Cap. Once Metal Sonic arrives we can concentrate all power it on the launching of Death Egg." He looked at me over his shoulder. "Use the military units to slow them down. Capture them if you can. If they reach the Death Egg, let them go. I will deal with them myself."

"You mean with that new gear I built for your hovercraft?"

"Yes. And Knuckles, if you really want to impress me, trap them."

"What kind of trap?"

He removed a small object from a drawer and flipped it to me. It was the size of an arubix cube with a keypad and liquid crystal screen. A bomb.

"Give me some instructions for this thing and I'll impress you."

A moment later I stepped into the warm sunshine. I closed the door and leaned against it, relieved to be in once piece. Doc could be unpredictable sometimes. I was sure he would have killed me ...

Something struck the inside of the door, and I jumped. Robotnik roared, "I HATE THAT HEDGEHOG!"

Quite unpredictable. I fled. He might change his mind about killing me if he saw me again.

Sonic yanked Tails into the shadow of a building. They pressed themselves against the hard wall and held still as a pair of fire cobras slithered by, red eyes scanning for intruders.

Tails slumped and closed his eyes. "Oh gosh, Sonic," he gasped. "I didn't even see them!"

Sonic was shaken. "I only heard them." He stuck his head around the corner and scanned the street. "All clear. Let's go."

It was the second time they had hidden from dangerous robots. Sonic had made the mistake of destroying one, putting the others on red alert. They fired at everything that moved. The cobras were the most common, and the most dangerous. The natives of Launch Base were black with red trim, and the evacuees of the Ice Caves were white with blue markings. The trouble was that Launch Base was swarming with them.

Sonic and Tails had spotted Death Egg in the center of the base and had heard the rocket fire. And as Robotnik had anticipated, they were heading out to see it. "We may not be able to stop liftoff," Sonic had said optimistically, "but we can stow away and cause trouble from inside, like I did before."

Getting through the streets of the factory/city was a chore. Robots stalked all angles, and several times the two found themselves fleeing before an alerted squadron. Often Sonic would whisk Tails to safety, then attack the robots for the sake of showing off his superior speed. It was good training for Robotropolis in years to come.

At last they reached the black lake. It was laced with fuel pipes, cables and high-voltage wires, all of which were suspended from poles above the water. Sonic and Tails, seeing the danger of it, scorned the bridges and hiked along the pipes, to reach the launch pad.

Before long they hit a snag. Their cement pipe angled off, instead of intersecting the next segment. They gazed across the ten feet of dark water at the other pipe. Neither wanted to brave the water, and both were reluctant to jump. Tails looked at Sonic. "Airlift?"

Sonic nodded, hands on his hips. "Only way over." He glanced back toward the shoreline, then snapped, "Robots! Down!"

They dropped flat on the pipe. Tails moved onle his eyes, as if afraid a movement would give him away. Sonic did the same. The cobras and floating security units were fifty feet away. They were perched a short way out on the biggest pipeline, but were not patrolling.

"What're they doing?" Sonic whispered.

Tails squinted. "Not much. Oh, wait! They've got a prisoner! He's all chained up, and he's got a metal bar strapped to one leg."

"You mean, like, they're gonna take him swimming?"

"Looks like it. He's scared."

"What is he?"

"I can't tell. He's wrapped from head to toe in chains."

Sonic looked at his friend, smiled and held up two chaos emeralds. Tails was horrified. "You're not gonna challenge 'em, are you?"

Sonic focused his gaze on the robots. "Of course. They don't have any backup out here, and that guy probably didn't do anything wrong. Stay here, little bro. I'll be right back."

He struck the emeralds together. His cool blue brightened to hot yellow, his spines bristled on his back, and his eyes became fierce. He stepped off the pipe and skimmed across the dark lake toward the robots.

The prisoner was standing still, heart in his mouth, staring down at the water. It would hurt to drown, but it would be quick. Robotnik had been too busy to devise a longer, more painful execution. If only his arms and legs weren't bound! He could show these robots a thing or two--

One of the robots gave a warning shout, and the group was mowed flat. The prisoner fell across the pipe and lay stunned. What was it? A star? A comet? It returned, shot through the air, plowed into the robots and hurled them into the water. As a cobra slid by the prisoner, it wrapped its metal tail around his leg, pulled itself upright and shot a jet of fire at its bright enemy. The prisoner flinched as he felt the heat on his face. The bright thing didn't mind the attack. It kicked the cobra in the head, knocking it into the water. The robot retained its hold on the prisoner's leg, and its weight began to drag him off the pipe. "Help!" he yelled.

Sonic caught the prisoner before he touched the poisoned water. He set him upright on top of the pipe, snapped the chain with super strength and unwound him. As he did he asked, "What are you? You don't have fur!"

The creature sat up, jerked the heavy metal bar off his leg and let it splash into the water. It would have sunk him deep. He looked at his rescuer. "I'm a chameleon, and my name's Espio. What the heck are you? A sunbeam?"

Sonic shook his head. "Naw, I'm a hedgehog. I'm Sonic, but at the moment I'm Super Sonic."

Espio and Sonic stood up. Espio had smooth skin, a heavy forehead, and a horn on his snout. His tail was held in a coil, and he wore a pair of faded green sneakers. He surveyed Sonic critically. "I can't glow, but I can turn yellow. Wanna see?" Without waiting for a reply, the lizard's skin turned a light yellow.

Sonic smiled. "Cool!" He took two of the chaos emeralds and struck them together, decharging himself. His yellow faded into dark blue. Espio did the same, his shade of blue matching Sonic's.

"You're a wise guy, aren't you?" said Sonic. "What are you doing in Launch Base on the execution line?"

Espio looked down. "Aw, I got caught. I got dared to sneak in here, and some robots spotted me." He looked up at Sonic. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh, I'm out for trouble, too. I crashed the Death Egg once," Sonic jerked a thumb at the gigantic ship, "and I aim to do it again."

"Alone?"

"No, with my friend Tails." Sonic turned. "Hey, Tails, come over here! You gotta meet this guy!"

Tails came flying over the water, tails a whirling blur above him. He landed beside Sonic and was introduced.

Espio turned a purple--his default color--and said, "You two are taking on Robotnik all by yourselves? Man! You been anyplace cool?"

"Oh yeah. We just got in from Ice Cap. It's way past cool, ha ha."

"We spent all yesterday on the Floating Island," Tails added.

Espio looked interested. "No kidding. You know, I've always wanted to go there and look around."

"You ought to," Sonic said with a significant glance at Tails. "Just steer clear of its guardian. He's really territorial. Know what? He's not there right now, and the island is parked real close to shore. You could check it out now."

The chameleon's eyes opened wide. "Really? Oh, cool! Care if I leave now? I've always hoped I'd get a chance like this."

"Sure, go ahead."

The lizard whirled and ran for the shore. Sonic watched him go. "Hoo boy, I just gave him permission to go on someone else's property. Knux'll hate me."

"He already does."

"Ya got a point there. Oh well. He can't hurt an island, I guess. C'mon, let's keep going."

I watched the confrontation through binoculars. Sonic and Tails had gone out of their way to stop the execution of that chameleon. "Just like they went out of their way to help YOU," my conscience said. I shoved the voice to the back of my mind. I didn't need any feelings of guilt messing up what I was about to do.

I had the detonator set to fifty seconds. I figured it would give me enough time to plant the charge and get to safety. I didn't think about what it would do to Sonic and Tails. All I thought about was how cool the explosion would look.

I slid off the pumping station roof and ran for the nearest bridge. If I hurried, I could beat them there.

There were three tall towers surrounding the Death Egg to stabilize it during launch, and connecting them were three long platforms. The pipes that crossed the lake fed into vast pumping and fueling stations beneath.

Sonic and Tails climbed onto the highest level platform and examined the machinery. They didn't notice the figure on the floor below as he watched them through the mesh floor.

The two were talking idly, but I gathered that they wanted to board the ship. Jerks. They wouldn't find any boarding stations down here. My finger itched to press the Execute button. I had no idea how powerful the charge was, otherwise I would never have considered planting it on the launch pad.

Tails said, "You think Slasher can get that weird writing translated?"

Sonic replied, "I donno. We can ask her when she picks us up, later. Too bad that mural was destroyed--it was a whole story."

I pricked up my ears. Mural? What mural with weird writing? Did they mean the one in Marble Gardens? The one that one of the first Guardians had made? And it was DESTROYED?!?

My hands knotted into fists. This was the last straw. I was going to feed that detonator to Sonic, if I had to.

As I made my way up onto the top level, the old, quiet rage returned. The one that had been born in Hydrocity as I chased them down the water duct. My lust for revenge consumed all reason ...

Sonic and Tails were wondering if they could climb one of the towers, when they heard footsteps clanking behind them. They turned. "Don't look now," Tails muttered, "but here comes our favorite person."

Knuckles stalked toward them like a dog ready to attack. His eyes were dark and burning. Sonic, remembering what Slasher had said about fighting, backed away. The echidna stopped ten feet away and lifted a black object in one hand. "Remember when I said I was going to get back at you for scaring me, Sonic?" he leered. "Here it is." He pressed the 'execute' button, flung it at Sonic and bolted.

Sonic caught it and glanced down at the ticking numbers. Suddenly he realized what he was holding. "Tails, it's a bomb!" he cried. "Run! Get off the launch pad!"

Tails darted in one direction, Sonic in another. Tails skidded to a stop and yelled, "What are you doing?"

Without slowing, Sonic yelled back, "Gonna throw it in the water! RUN!!!"

Sonic neared the edge of the pad. The bomb was like a hot coal in his hands. He wanted to throw it down and run, run, run, but he couldn't. If it went off in the open, it would kill him, Tails, Knuckles--not to mention blow up the Death Egg, which would destroy Launch Base, which would wipe out the countryside for miles around. Its shock would be buffered if it went off in the lake.

He saw the water, a dark still mirror under the grey, overcast sky. He jogged to a stop and flung the bomb with all his might. It sailed out fifty feet and plunked into the water. He whirled and pelted after Tails, who was far off, under Death Egg's underside.

What happened next was total confusion to Sonic and Tails, but I saw everything.

The bomb went off underwater, but instead of a splash, I was startled to see a tongue of flame roar out of the water and spread across the surface. With horror I realized that so many chemicals had been spilled into the water, it was more chemical than lake. The surface bore flammable fumes, which were now burning like a torch.

I was perched on a rickety lookout tower. It only stood twenty feet above the weirdly flaming water, so when the fire encircled the cement base, I knew I was trapped. I crouched down, close to the top of the tower, and found a breathing space. I sat there in a cool island of air, looking across the lake of fire. I had no way of contacting Doc, but supposed the robots would handle the fire. I wasn't worried.

Well, I wasn't worried until I saw Death Egg's rockets fire and stabilize one by one. I clapped my hands to my ears; the roar was deafening.

As the rockets warmed up, they began to viberate the ground. I felt the tower begin to rock. I balanced it with my weight, and that worked for a minute. The Death Egg began to rise, and the ground quaked. The tower swayed back and forth, its eroded underwater supports cracking. I tried to keep my balance, knowing that if I fell into the burning water it would be curtains.

The tower snapped like a matchstick. I rode it as it toppled toward the fire, terrified. An instant before impact, I recovered, leaped off and glided. The rising heat created an updraft, and I rode it with my heart in my mouth. Gosh, if I had hit the water--

I headed for shore. My first trap had nearly backfired. I needed time to think of more. I was going home.

The Death Egg roared skyward, away from the orange, smoking lake below. Sonic and Tails had climbed onto a retracted landing platform at the last minute. It was a flat sheet of metal that was pulled against the underside of the ship. There was a two-foot wide space between it and Death Egg's ugly outer hull, and Sonic and Tails had crawled into it. They were lying flat on their bellies, peeking over the edge at the retreating ground, hands clasped around their ears.

The noise was so intense neither could make themselves heard. Once Sonic touched Tails's arm and pointed to a pipe that ran across the steel above them. There was a hole punched in it, as if it had hit something during the launch. A clear fluid was pouring out of it. "Gas," Sonic mouthed to Tails.

The Death Egg rose until it was level with the Ice Cap range in the distance. Then it moved southward, toward the ocean.

They were passing over the coastal hills when their platform began to extend, lowered by the four hydraulic rods in the corners. Sonic and Tails looked at each other uneasily.

The platform lowered twenty feet and locked. The Death Egg spread out above them like a roof, the booster rockets still roaring. Sonic and Tails stood up, still holding their ears against the noise. The motion of the ship made it difficult to keep their balance.

The rockets toned down to an idle. Sonic looked back. Launch Base was still in sight--there was no reason to stop. He looked at Tails as they came to the same conclusion; Robotnik was on to them. Suddenly the openness of the platform seemed threatening. There was nowhere to hide, nothing to use as a weapon. They were trapped 5000 feet above the ground.

Tails grabbed Sonic's arm and pointed. Two doors were opening far off on the Death Egg's belly. They hung open for a few seconds, then Robotnik's ship dove out. It was decked out in scarlet armor, and two gigantic arms with hands extended in front. A low crown of metal spikes encircled the windshield. It swooped toward them, hands outstretched.

"Uh oh," Sonic said to Tails, over the subdued rumble of the rockets. "I don't like the looks of this one. Steer clear of it until I can test its defences." Tails, already frightened, backed into a corner.

Robotnik charged at Sonic, aiming the hands at him. Sonic sidestepped at the last instant, letting the ship fly by. It was fast and heavily armored. The style was different, too, a little too artistic for Robotnik. Sonic examined it as it went by again. Yes, it had a laser cannon, but that wasn't the main weapon. The main weapons were the huge metal hands that flexed as the ship moved.

"See any weaknesses?" Sonic shouted to Tails.

The fox shook his head nervously. "Be careful--it looks evil!" Tails had noticed the different craftsmanship as well.

This time, when the ship passed by and turned around, it slowed down. It flew over the platform, the hands turned toward Sonic, forcing him back. But, as the platform was only twenty feet square, Sonic didn't have much room to maneuver. He stood still, letting the ship draw close. When the clutching hands were inches away, Sonic leaped over them, landed on an arm, then jumped off the other side. As he did, he noticed a weakness.

The arms were so heavy they had to balance for the little hovercraft to carry them. With his added weight, the ship listed to one side dangerously. As it turned for another flyby, Sonic called to Tails, "The arms are too much for it! If we jump on one, it'll blow the engines! C'mon!"

Tails stepped reluctantly into the open as the boss returned.

Robotnik was no fool. He could see Sonic had found his ship's Achilles's heel. A change of action was necessary.

Sonic and Tails split up, ready to attack when the ship passed between them. But this time, as the ship swept by, it swerved and drifted left, putting itself between Sonic and Tails. To Sonic's surprise and horror, the hands were not facing him--they were reaching for Tails.

Sonic couldn't see Tails with the bulk of the boss between them, but he heard his friend cry out when the hands closed on him. The ship turned.

The fox was pinched between the metal hands with only his head visible. As the ship moved upward, he cried, "Sonic, don't let him take me! He'll kill me!"

A deadly fear washed over Sonic as he leaped for the ship, but it was too high. He stood below and watched helplessly as the ship carried Tails out over empty space and hovered. Tails, beginning to choke in the tight grip, gasped, "Sonic, he's gonna drop me!"

Before Sonic could react, the hands opened. Tails let out a shriek as he fell. But fortunately--or unfortunately--the ship's laser cannon fired a single blast, catching Tails in the upper body and sending him flying back onto the platform. He rolled to a stop and lay still, gasping. Sonic bounded to his side. "Tails!"

The fox opened his eyes fearfully. "Am I dead?"

"No. Where did he shoot you?"

Tails pulled himself to a sitting position and looked down. Stunned, he felt no pain, but saw the blood. The blast had caught him squarely in the right shoulder, and red was seeping down his chest and arm.

Tails gulped and looked up at Sonic. "Whup his tail, will you? This is gonna hurt in a minute."

Sonic stood up, eyes locked on his hurt friend. Slowly he turned to face Robotnik, who was watching. The hedgehog's head lowered and his body stiffened. "That was too much," he growled. He pulled out two chaos emeralds, held them out so his enemy could see them, then struck them together. His blue flushed to a hot yellow. He took two running steps and leaped onto Robotnik's ship.

He planted his feet firmly on either arm, pressed his electrified hands against the ship's hull and glared through the windshield at Robotnik. The two regarded each other with cold hatred, Sonic's mingled with fury.

The power of the chaos emeralds flooded into the ship, frying the engines and machinery. The ship began to falter and jerk, but Sonic stood firm, anger making him reckless. He didn't move until one of the arms split and plummeted toward the distant ground. Then he jumped back to the platform and stood over Tails, watching Robotnik retreat.

Suddenly Tails said, "Sonic, shut off the emeralds! You're frying the platform!" The hedgehog's energy was flowing through his feet, into the platform and up the support poles. The poles' machinery was sparking and smoking. Sonic decharged himself, but not before one of the poles pulled free with a grinding of metal. One corner sagged.

Tails looked at Sonic, hurting and frightened. "What do we do?"

Sonic looked around, the beginnings of panic gnawing at him. "I--I donno, we can't jump--"

"Sonic, our whistles! Blow the five signal--Slash said it's for an emergancy!"

The whistle was already in Sonic's mouth. He blew it five times as hard as he could, hoping it would carry over the noise of the rockets. Then he dropped it back to its place on the string, looked at his friend and waited.

There it was! Slasher's counter-signal, a high-pitched scream. She was on her way. Sonic peered downward. To his surprise, they were no longer over the mainland--the indigo ocean spread out below, along with the hills and plains of the Floating Island, which was resting in the water. Slasher was a winged dot, rising in large circles like a pigeon.

The huge rockets sputtered. Sonic looked back at them. Tails lifted his good arm and pointed to the ruptured fuel line, which had been leaking, unnoticed. The Death Egg was low on fuel. Sonic cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted, "Hurry, Slasher!"

Another support rod pulled free, and the platform sagged. Sonic fell to his hands and knees and crawled to Tails. He held his friend to keep him from sliding down the platform. He could see the broad ocean over his shoulder, and felt the platform sway. The remaining support poles were too weak to hold them long.

Another jolt. The two of them slid downward a few inches. Tails' eyes were closed and his teeth were clenched. "Hurry, Slasher," he whispered, half afraid a loud word would bring it all down.

"Sonic!" The wind created by Slasher's wings fanned his face. She was hovering in place, gasping for breath. He looked up at her, afraid to move. She swooped forward, grabbed him by the arm and swung him onto her back. Seeing Tails bleeding, she scooped him up and held him against her chest. Then she dove away from the platform.

The velociraptor went into a spiraling dive, retreating from the Death Egg. Sonic crouched low against her neck, watching the Floating Island grow below. Above, the Death Egg's rockets spluttered again. How long it would stay afloat was a mystery ...

_______________________________________________________________________

"Well Tails," said Slasher cheerfully, "looks like you aren't hurt as bad as I thought."

They were sitting under a spreading oak tree. It was near noon, but the sky was dim and overcast, for the forecasted storm was approaching. True to her word, Slasher had landed in Mushroom Hill. It was warm and muggy, and a fine mist hung in the hollows in the ground. Fungi grew everywhere--the tree above them had stair-step growths up its trunk.

Slasher had brought a first-aid kit, and was finishing up the bandage on Tails's shoulder and upper arm. The fox was leaning wearily against the tree, eyes closed. Sonic sat a few feet away, chin resting on his knees, miserable. The big velociraptor noticed him. "Don't look so gloomy, Sonic. Tails'll be fine. It's just a scratch, really."

Tails gingerly touched the bandage. "It will?" he asked.

Slasher nodded. "Yes. It will be sore for a while, and I wouldn't recommend an airlift anytime soon, but it will heal quickly. I've seen worse, you know." She closed the first-aid kit and stood up. "You guys feel like lunch yet?"

Tails sat up and nodded vigorously. Sonic said, "Why, do I look like it?"

Slasher stepped away, reached behind the tree and lifted a plastic bag with two sandwiches in it. She opened it and handed them out. Sonic and Tails dug in without a word.

Slasher watched them for a moment, then said, "Gee, you two are as cheerful as half a mile of bad road. Robotnik won't get far with a ruptured fuel line. Don't be pessimists."

Tails looked up and asked innocently, "What's a pessimist?"

"The opposite of an optimist."

"Well, what's that?"

Slasher winked at Sonic and crouched between them. "Let me tell you a story that explains the difference between an optimist and a pessimist. An optimist bought a hunting dog, and was told it could walk on water. So he went hunting with his pessimist friend. He shot a duck, and it fell into the middle of a lake. He told the dog to get it. Sure enough, the dog walked to the lake, sniffed, and walked across the water to get the duck. The optimist was amazed, but the pessimist said nothing. Again the optimist dropped a duck into the lake, and again the dog walked across the water to retrieve it. Not wanting to brag, the optimist said nothing to his friend until they were in the car, driving home. Then he looked at him and said, 'Notice anything unusual about my dog?' 'Yeah,' the pessimist replied. 'He can't swim.'"

Sonic and Tails groaned appreciatively. "Where do you hear this stuff?" Sonic said.

Slasher shrugged, her green eyes twinkling. "Oh, the odd places you hear jokes."

As the hedgehog and fox finished their lunch, there was a distant rumble of thunder. Slasher reared up and scanned the sky. "We're in for a storm," she remarked. There was a brief silence.

Sonic broke it with a question. "Hey Slash, make any headway with that weird language?"

She shook her narrow head. "Not yet. It's quite old, and the dialect seems unknown. Give me another day or two--I'm sure I can find some translated manuscripts, somewhere."

The big velociraptor turned and lifted her head high, sniffing at the faint breeze. Sonic and Tails watched her. After a moment she shifted her wings against her sides and said, "Knuckles is here."

The two jumped to their feet. "Where?"

"Upwind somewhere. C'mon, you two, and try not to make any noise." She glided away into the scattered trees, and Sonic and Tails followed.

Slasher led them to the edge of a dry ravine, where she dropped flat behind a stand of tall mushrooms. Sonic and Tails joined her and peered through the thick, soft stalks.

The ravine was little more than a creek, ten feet wide and five feet deep. As they watched, a section of the dirt wall across from them swung outward, revealing a doorway in the bank. Knuckles stuck his head out and scanned the area. His gaze swept their hiding place, lingered, then moved on. Deciding the area was clear, he stepped outside, revealing that the cave behind him was illuminated with an unnatural flickering light. He glanced around once more, then kicked the door shut and dashed down the ravine.

The three watched him until he vanished around a bend, then looked at each other, curiosity burning.

The door appeared airtight when closed, and unless they had known it was there, they would not have noticed it. It opened easily under Sonic's tug and swung outward, revealing an earthen passage beyond. The strange light was burning in a room at the end. The three walked through the moist passage and stepped inside.

"Oh wow," Tails breathed.

It was a ring teleporter similar to earlier ones, but was as white as snow. Its center was filled with sparkling gold light. "What's wrong with it?" Sonic asked Slasher.

She shook her narrow head. "Wrong? I don't know--it's a different color." The velociraptor carefully stepped around the glowing ring, examining it. "It looks the same as the old ones. You earned all the chaos emeralds, right?"

"Well, yeah."

"Why don't you see where it takes you? I'll stand guard in case Knux comes back."

Sonic looked at Tails and lifted his eyebrows. "You want to?"

Tails smiled. "First time we saw these things you didn't even stop to ask. I'm game if you are."

Sonic, realizing he was acting timid, grabbed Tails's good hand. "C'mon, then. So long, Slash." And dragging Tails behind him, he leaped through the center of the white ring.

They were surrounded by yellow light as it travelled at warp speed, funnelling its power through time and space. It was like flying through a dream, or looking inside the sun--

Their feet touched down. The light drained down on them like pouring sand. The brilliant gold turned green, then faded away, leaving their surroundings firm and solid. Dazzled, they stood still and looked around.

It was a great underground cavern. The ceiling vaulted up hundreds of feet to become lost in darkness. Everything--walls, floor and distant ceiling--was black basalt. They stood on a green, polished marble deck built over a section of the rough, jagged volcanic floor, as if meant to eventually fill the whole cavern. The air was cool and musty compared to Mushroom Hill. It was completely silent, and their breathing seemed noisy. Glowing crystals grew from the walls and lit the cave with a cool blue brilliance.

Sonic and Tails began to notice their immediate surroundings and realized they were standing on a gigantic crystal lens. Whatever this place was, teleporters were the preferred method of transportation.

As they stepped down, Sonic pointed across the the room and murmured, "Tails, lookit those!" Thirty feet away, built into the marble floor, was a collection of crystal pedestals. They approached on tiptoe, for it felt as if the cave was watching them.

Seven pedestals were arranged in a circle, and the biggest of the pedestals stood in the center. Each pillar was made of a different color of rock, and intricately engraved with strange writing. But the seven were empty.

The central pillar held their attention. It was three times as large as the others, and held up by clear crystal supports. Its sides were covered with writing and abstract pictures. In the top, embedded firmly in a bed of sharp green seed crystals, was the Master emerald. It was deep green, cut skillfully and four feet across. It glowed with fire in its fathomless depths.

Sonic and Tails looked at each other and breathed, "Whoa!" Sonic stepped away and turned in a circle, scanning the dim room. A light was dawning on his face. "I know where we are," he said, aware Tails knew but needing to say it aloud. "This is Knuckles's Hidden Palace. That's the Master emerald, and he's its Guardian." He whirled to Tails. "This is bad news, little bro. He might have told Robotnik where it is, already. If so, then it's a matter of time until it's stolen and the island's wrecked."

"But what if he hasn't?"

"Then he will."

"But what can we do? He's not gonna listen to us."

"Then let's go for the kingpin--Robotnik. We can slow him down, at least."

"About as much as before, which has been zip."

"Don't be a pessimist. His favorite pastime is attacking us with his boss ships. If we go on the offensive, then he'll be too busy."

"That means we'll be busy, too. He might just send in that robot Sonic to get it for him."

A shadow passed over Sonic's face, and he rubbed the back of his neck. "You got a point there." He returned to the Master emerald's pedestal and stood over it, absently gazing into its green depths. For some reason, he lifted his hand, and slowly touched the Master's smooth top.

There was a flash of light, and a thunderclap shook the cavern. Tails was flung to his knees, and covered his face with his arms. Sonic, though startled, was unaffected. He had jerked his hand away immediately, and was now standing perfectly still. A beam of light flashed from the Master emerald. He threw up a hand to shield his eyes, and it faded at once. The beam had risen and was illuminating a group of floating, gleaming objects; the chaos emeralds. It had dragged them away from him. They were rotating in a tight circle, which they had done when Robotnik had taken them without the balancing green.

"Look, Tails, look!" Sonic shouted, eyes never leaving his precious emeralds. "I see," came Tails's faint reply. The emeralds shot upward, illuminating the shadowy ceiling with their light. They hovered for an instant, then evaporated into the beam surrounding them.

A lightning bolt struck one of the empty pedestals. It vanished, leaving a grey, dead super emerald. This process was repeated six more times, each pedestal suddenly bearing an emerald. Then the light vanished, and total silence resumed.

Tails picked himself up off the floor. Sonic was frozen to the spot with his mouth open. Tails walked up to him and murmured, "What the heck was THAT?"

Sonic shook his head, eyes resting on the nearest dead emerald. "I donno. It took my emeralds and--and--" Words failed him.

They moved forward, staring at the colorless super emeralds. Each one was one-third the Master emerald's size. All were an ashy grey. If they had not been so beautifully cut, one might have thought they were quartz crystals.

"I'm afraid to touch one of them, after what just happened," Sonic whispered, for the silence of the cave seemed to dislike being broken.

"I know," Tails agreed. "Maybe we should go back."

Sonic's eyes flashed. "Not without my emeralds. I lost 'em once, and I'm not about to let Knuckles or Robotnik get their hands on them. There's got to be a way to get them back." Contrary to what he had said a moment before, Sonic touched a grey emerald.

A whoosh of air, a flash of light! Tails shielded his eyes. The beam of light that had taken the chaos emeralds had surrounded Sonic again. He pulled his hands away from the gem with an effort, as if it were difficult to move. Then he was yanked off the floor and floated two feet above the emerald. He couldn't struggle or move--all he could do was close his eyes against the brilliance.

The whiteness changed to a blue bubble around him. Then a bolt of electricity, like a power arc between a powerline and a branch, formed between the bubble and the top of the super. Sonic yelled in pain. If felt as if he were being stung by hundreds of wasps. He thrashed in the bubble, panicked, but to no avail. The power arc grew brighter, and a faint light began to shine inside the emerald. The cavern resounded with a buzzing ring.

Tails watched in a helpless horror. He could do nothing else. He saw the glow in the super emerald increase the more Sonic fought. It was draining the hedgehog of his energy.

After what seemed like an eternity (Sonic was too exhausted to struggle anymore), the arc vanished and the bubble faded out. The noise quieted, and Sonic landed on top of the gently glowing emerald, but lacked the strength to stand. He collapsed in a heap and closed his eyes. Tails ran to him. "Good grief, are you okay?"

Sonic lifted his head. "It tried to kill me," he groaned. "No, I'm not okay. I feel like I'm gonna barf."

He did not. After a moment he felt his strength returning and was able to climb down off the emerald and pedestal. Aside from feeling a bit loopy, he was all right.

It was a few minutes before they noticed the super emerald. It was green, like the Master emerald, and glowed with the same muted fire. "Where'd its color come from?" Tail demanded.

Sonic, a bit stoop-shouldered, said, "It got it from me, the stupid thing. It took my energy and put it in the emerald. You couldn't get me to touch another one with a ten-foot pole. Let's get outta here."

The glowing teleporter ring appeared and was hovering invitingly above the receiver dish. Sonic and Tails walked up to it, Sonic limping on both feet. As they reached the dish, the cavern vibrated. A rumble met their ears, coming from somewhere beyond the far wall of the cave. They gazed in its direction. The sound and slight shaking continued, sifting dust from the distant ceiling. "Wh-what's happening?" Tails ventured.

"I donno," Sonic whispered, afraid a loud word would bring the whole place down. "I hope it isn't anything wrong--with the island, I mean. Let's get outta here. I don't feel like being buried alive after being fried to death."

Slasher was standing in the hidden entrance, looking out, when they teleported in. "Come here, guys," she said. "Quick, it's almost gone." They hurried to her and followed her gaze.

A great plume of dark smoke rose above the trees, dim and distant. As they watched it faded into nothing. "What's on fire?" Tails asked.

Slasher shook her head. "Nothing. The Death Egg crashed on the island somewhere. I watched it go down. The smoke was from its engines."

Sonic looked at Tails, eyes brightening. "Hey, that's what made the cave shake! We must have been close to where Death Egg crashed!"

Slasher looked down at him. "Where did you go--and WHAT happened to YOU?"

"Hidden Palace," he replied, running a hand through his rumpled spines. "The Master emerald was there ..." He and Tails recounted their adventure.

"Hmm," said Slasher, green eyes twinkling. "I thought you'd put your finger in an electric outlet."

They stepped into the ravine and were met by a thunderclap. The sky was dark with clouds, and a cool wind was stirring. "It appears," Tails said, making his voice high and feminine, "that we are in for a small rainshower." He and Sonic exchanged snickers--it was his impression of Thelma Needlebark, a snobby nature expert.

"Small shower, ha," said Slasher. "Try big thunderstorm."

"Maybe we should stay in the cave," Tails said.

"No," Sonic protested. "What if Knux comes back?"

"I doubt it," Slasher replied, "but this ravine could flood. On my back, you two, and let's find some shelter."

She crouched and let Sonic and Tails climb on her back, then leaped gracefully out of the ditch and into the trees.

The clouds were so heavy by this time that it looked like late evening. Lightning split the sky, followed by the accompanying rolls of thunder. Once in a while lightning would strike the island with an ear- numbing crack.

The three took refuge in the lee of a leaning rock. Red and brown mushrooms circled it, some big enough to sit under. "We could use them as umbrellas," Sonic said, pointing at one.

"Yeah," Tails said, "but they're too heavy to--"

A bright flash and nature's percussion interrupted him. They clapped their hands to their ears. Once it passed, Slasher said, "That was close. Must have hit a tree."

"Or a big mushroom," Sonic quipped.

They sat in silence, watching the wind lash the trees into submission. Suddenly something like a snowball struck the ground nearby, shattering into fragments. "Hail," Slasher said. "Glad we have this rock over us."

Another hailstone struck the ground, and another. Soon they were raining down in an avalanche, striking the ground and bouncing. Most were the size of golf balls, but some were as big as baseballs. One bounced into their shelter. Sonic picked it up. It was nearly round and melted a little in his hands. Wordlessly Slasher took it from him and struck it against the ground. It split into two pieces. She lifted one. "Look, it has layers, like an onion."

"Cool," Sonic said. "Can we eat it?"

"If you want to."

Tails grabbed the other helf and began to suck on it, as did Sonic.

Rain began to slice down with the hail. They watched in silence as the storm battled it out above the island. The lightning in particular was fun to watch. It would start at one point, then branch out and ripple across the sky. "Nature provided the entertainment and the refreshments," Slasher remarked. Sonic and Tails nodded, eyes on the world around them.

What a storm! I hadn't seen one this good in years. The only storm that beat it was the hurricane I had been caught in a while back. The wind was drifting the island a bit, but I wasn't worried. As long as we weren't headed toward the mainland it was okay.

I had found shelter under a stand of five-foot mushrooms. I didn't find out until later, but I was only three hundred feet from where Sonic, Tails and their friend had holed up. I was a further from the ravine than they were, but I knew it had to be filling up. I knew from experience it wasn't a safe place to be during a storm, which is why I hadn't stuck around the teleporter chamber.

A gust of cold air struck me in the face, carrying the scent of rainwashed trees, earth and air. Ah yes, the Floating Island needed a good soaking. But no matter how hard it rained, nothing would ever grow in Sandopolis, the mini-desert of the Floating Island. Rain never made any difference to the sand ...

A roar of water interrupted my thoughts. I glanced toward the ravine. Through the grey haze of the rain, I saw the crest of a wave as it swept down the channel. Flash flood. I watched the brown water tear through the streambed, overlapping its banks and tearing at the surrounding brush.

After a moment, a figure wandered into view. At once I assumed it was Sonic or Tails, but reminded myself that they were on the Death Egg. The person was just poking along, oblivious to the rain and storm, following the stream-turned-river.

Who was that, and what was he doing on my island? I jumped to my feet, peeved and territorial. I stepped out from under the mushrooms and felt the rain bite my face and arms. Great, now I'd get soaked. My anger rising like the tide, I shielded my face and jogged toward the figure.

He didn't notice me at first, as his attention was focused on the water. He was a lizard with a long, skinny tail and a spike on his nose. He was the grey-green color of the rain. "Hey," I called over the noise of the storm.

He jumped and looked at me, then brightened up--literally--into a hot neon orange. "Hi!" he said. He grabbed my hand in both his icy ones and pumped it up and down. "I'm Espio. I'm lost. Can you help me?"

He seemed so friendly I felt the ferocity drain out of me. "Sure," I said. "C'mon, let's get out of the rain."

He followed me back to the mushrooms and sat down beside me. Both of us were drenched and shivering. I flung my wet hair out of my face and looked at him. His orange had returned to grey-green. I learned later it was the color he turned when he was cold and miserable. He wiped water out of his eyes and said, "Do you live here?"

"In Mushroom Hill?"

"Huh? No, I mean the Floating Island."

I nodded.

"Do you know--um--Knuckles?"

"Sure." I'd let him talk without telling him who I was. Maybe he was a friend of Sonic's.

He shivered and shook water off his arms. "I'd like to meet him."

"What for?"

"To ask him if I could stay here."

"How long?"

"You know. Live here."

That surprised me. "Live here? Why would you want to do that?"

He looked down, sheepish. "Oh, not for any reason, I guess. It's just so neat here. I like it here." He looked up at me hopefully. "Think he'd let me?"

I pondered his request. If I let him stay, I'd have to share my island. But the other half of me jumped at the chance. Sometimes it was lonely out here. It might be nice to have someone to talk to for a change.

"Well?" Espio pushed.

I stalled. "I donno."

"But he let YOU live here."

Argh, he had me there. I must have looked cornered, because he gave me a funny look and said, "You're Knuckles, aren't you?"

I nodded.

To my surprise, the next thing out of his mouth was, "You have a pretty island."

Flattery, but it tipped the scales. "You can stay," I told him.

He threw back his head and laughed. "I compliment you, and you tell me I can stay." He shook my hand again. "I like you, Knux. Thanks."

The thunder and lightning had moved off, and the rain, although still coming down, was slacking off. The hail had ceased long ago. The clouds were thinning, letting the warm sun shine through.

Sonic, Tails and Slasher came out of hiding. The storm hung in the north like a silver curtain, black clouds flickering with lightning. The sun picked out a rainbow in it, bright as butterfly wings. Above were two fainter echoes of its color.

The water in the ravine was sinking, they noticed. Branches and uprooted mushrooms littered the banks, water-logged and wilted. "Be glad we didn't stay down there," Slasher remarked. "I doubt we could get that door open." They stood and watched the swirling, dimpled water for a moment.

Suddenly Slasher crouched and growled, "Uh oh. Listen. Hear that?"

Sonic and Tails pricked up their ears and listened. After a moment they heard it. Over the sighing of the trees and the patter of the dying rain, came an engine's whine. "Robotnik," Tails said. "His hovercraft."

"And he's hauling," Sonic added.

"Comin' straight at us," Slasher murmured. "Hide, quick. We can follow him." They darted to the cover of the dripping trees. After a few seconds they saw the round craft zip by through the branches overhead. Slasher crouched and dropped her wings, eyes fixed on the retreating ship. Sonic and Tails mounted her, then crouched low and gripped with their knees. They knew Slasher well. Her long claws dug into the thick sod, and she was off like a shot.

Riding a dinosaur at a dead run wasn't much different from flying. Slasher's gate was fluid and smooth, but was prone to swerving sharply in mid-stride. Sonic and Tails moved with her, watching for the slight motion of her head that meant 'turn'.

A clearing appeared through the trees ahead. Robotnik's craft slowed, and so did Slasher. She jogged to a big tree and peered around it, panting. Sonic and Tails sat up and looked with her. To their surprise, the clearing had been made recently. Fallen trees and white stumps littered the area. Parked in the center was the craft responsible.

It was a certain gigantic blimp. It was anchored to the ground by thick cables, floating twenty feet from the ground. The gas-filled bag was at least 2500 feet in length, the box-like passenger's compartment half that. On the bottom of the compartment were several long robotic arms with saw-blades on the ends.

"Tails," Sonic whispered, "That's the ship that tried to shoot us down yesterday!"

"He doesn't work small, does he?" Slasher commented. "I think that one's called Flying Battery. It's like Wing Fortress number two."

"What would he need another one for?" Tails asked, letting his eyes travel up the sleek violet sides of the zeppelin.

"Think about it," Sonic said. "He wants to take over Mobius. He needs terrorist ships."

Meanwhile, Robotnik's little ship had flown to an open doorway on the bottom compartment and was maneuvering inside. "Bet he takes off," Slasher said. "You guys want to see where he goes?"

"Yeah," said Sonic, giving Tails a significant glance. "We decided we needed to go on the offensive."

Slasher darted out of hiding and ran into the blimp's shadow. "Look," she said, pointing. "You can climb up that rope and get in through that hatch up there." She indicated a thick cable, which was lashed to a thick metal hook driven into the ground. "Head on up, guys, and be careful." Sonic and Tails slid off her back. "Good luck," she said to them. "Tails, no airlifts unless it's absolutely necessary. Sonic, you look out for him. I'll be on the island, so if you need me, whistle."

The zeppelin's engines began to hum.

"Go on up, and watch out for machinery."

Sonic and Tails shimmied up the cable like a couple of squirrels. Slasher watched as they reached the hatch above, pried it open and crawled inside. They looked down at her. She waved, and they waved back. Then the big velociraptor turned and bounded out of view. Sonic and Tails backed away from the opening as the blimp, stowaways and all, unhooked and lifted into the sky.

________________________________________________________________________

"Tails!"

Sonic slammed sideways into his sidekick, flinging him to the ground. The hedgehog lay on top of the fox, shielding him from the roaring exhaust vent overhead. They were not directly under the blast, but the heated, choking fumes engulfed them.

Fortunately for Sonic, the vent shut off after a moment. He sat up, releasing Tails, coughing from the depths of his lungs. Tails stood up, his feet clanking on the metal walkway. "Sonic," he said, tugging his friend's arm, "we gotta get outta here. It'll come on again in a minute."

They were a level above the cargo hold. A long, narrow walkway stretched through half the starboard section, branching off into three other segments. Their section crossed a row of five-foot vents in the ceiling. The vent above the walkway had kicked on the moment they walked beneath it.

With Tails's help, Sonic managed to drag himself out from under the vent. He collapsed against the cold steel railing, weak from coughing. Tails crouched beside him anxiously. "Are you okay, Sonic?" Sonic could only nod. It took him ten minutes to regain his strength. "I donno what this place uses for fuel," he said as he climbed to his feet, "but its fumes ain't healthy. It's like breathing hairspray."

"Sure you're okay?"

"No. My lungs feel funny. Let's get off this stupid walkway."

The interior of Flying Battery was an air-conditioned eighty degrees, but the air was far from fresh. It was stale and tainted with exhaust. The entire ship vibrated with the action of the huge engines. There was no sensation of motion, and only blue sky could be seen outside the windows.

They spotted some steps leading through the ceiling, but could not reach them. Every time they neared them, they discovered they were a catwalk too high, or two low.

The fifth time this happened, Sonic threw up his hands in frustration. "Forget this," he said. "Let's go back to where we started."

"Easier said than done," Tails said, looking up at the steps longingly. "I'm so turned around I couldn't find my way out of a paper bag."

Sonic looked at him, half annoyed and half amused. He tousled the fox's hair. "Me too," he agreed. "Let's go back to the junction up there, and--"

"Intruders! Halt!"

Sonic and Tails jumped. There were two robots on the walkway above, peering at them through the grating. Sonic smiled maliciously. "Gotta catch us first, tinheads."

The robots raced for the junction where their catwalk intersected Sonic and Tails's.

Tails watched them. "Sonic, look how they move. They don't have hover units, but they kind of ... coast along ... "

At the moment, Sonic could care less about how the badniks moved. Their walkway was a dead end, and the only way off was the junction, which was blocked. The robots advanced cautiously toward them, side by side. "Get behind me," Sonic hissed to his companion. Tails obeyed.

There was no cover on the walkway, and the floor-to-ceiling railing prevented escape. If the robots attacked, things would get ugly. Sonic realized this in an instant. He decided to carry the fight to the badniks.

Wishing for the chaos emeralds, he darted up the walkway, his feet hardly touching it. The robots lifted their blasters, but they were too late. Sonic crashed into them, knocking them over backward. He spindashed as they hit the metal walkway, tearing them apart. He sat on them until he was certain they were offline, then climbed to his feet and dusted off his hands. An impressed Tails walked up to him.

"Man," the fox said, "they never had a chance."

"Yup," Sonic replied, throwing his head back, "I'm pretty good, all right."

Tails crouched down, examining the robots' feet. He snickered, then laughed. "Sonic, look at what's on these bots!"

Sonic looked down, then added his laughter to Tails's. "I thought they went down too easily. Did Robotnik do that on purpose?"

"Who knows what he'd do for a laugh?"

"But rollerblades on sentry bots? That's--that's kinda dumb."

"Really dumb! But funny, too."

"Hey, do they come off? That'd be cool if we could wear 'em."

Tails tugged at one of the skates. "Hey yeah, I think they do."

"Here, undo the bindings. Like this."

The two worked furiously, their fingers clumsy with excitement. At last both pairs were free. There were adjustable and made of aluminum, and weighed less than three pounds apiece.

It took them a few minutes to adjust the skates and buckle them on. Sonic coasted a few feet. "Wow, these are really nice," he said to Tails, who was still tightening his own. "Smooth as silk. Gosh, these could make a rookie 'blader into an expert in no time! Hurry up, little bro. I wanna get a move on."

Tails stood up carefully, favoring his shoulder. He rolled up to Sonic, afraid of a fall. "They ARE nice," he admitted, studying his feet.

Sonic whirled and faced the rest of the walkway. "Let's juice, Tails."

Fifteen minutes later found them up the coveted stairs and deep in the bowels of the ship. They reached an engine room full of spinning rods, pumping pistons and the smell of oil. Tails was all for going around, but Sonic plunged in, rollerblades and all.

The machinery provided lots of obstacles. Sonic leaped, dodged and wove his way through, while Tails slowed to a crawl and fell several times. Sonic made it to the hall on the far side and waited for him. "Aw Tails, you're going too slow. You might as well take off the blades and walk."

"Yeah, yeah," Tails replied as he reached the hedgehog. "I don't like obstacle courses. Give me a clear track and I'll give you a run for your money."

"Well, better get out your money, 'cause we've got a clear track. Let's juice!"

Several hallways bore the smoking traces of speeding rollerblades as Sonic and Tails burned rubber. They were coming up on another room when Sonic hit sixty. He flew into the room, only to discover vast empty space beneath his feet. "Whoa!" he yelled, voice echoing. His momentum kept him flying forward. He twisted sideways, clanged his blades into the wall, and hurled downward.

He fell for several long seconds before he reached the floor, which was rounded into a bowl. He screeched down the wall, across the floor, and up the far wall. He bladed around and around until he finally came to a stop, panting.

Tails, who had been skating as hard as his friend, had seen the hole, spun his tails and hovered, saving himself from a fall. He floated down and landed beside Sonic. The blue hedgehog stared at the distant ceiling. "Man, that was fun! Blades are the bomb!" He stooped and tightened his bindings.

Tails looked around, then froze. Sonic stood up and noticed the look on his face. "Whassamatter, little bro?"

"Shh," Tails hissed. "Listen. You hear that?"

Sonic held his breath and listened. The sound of rushing water came from somewhere below them. The sound was drawing closer by the second, moving up the walls--

Tails pointed to a spot twenty feet above their heads. Every five feet a panel had opened, revealing half a dozen pipe openings. A second later, a clear liquid squirted out.

"Rocket fuel!" Sonic yelped. "Tails, get us outta here!"

The little fox leaped into the air and hovered, tails spinning. Sonic locked wrists with him, forgetting Tails's wound. Tails winced and said nothing as he carried them upward, out of the liquid's reach. It was pouring in by the gallon and the smell was nostril-searing.

By the time they reached the doorway they had entered through, they were choking on the fumes. They landed in the passage and crawled inside, thankful for the fresh air.

It took them a while to get over their nausea. They coughed until they were bent double, trying to rid their lungs of the noxious fumes. "Boy," Tails hacked, "now I know how you felt when you breathed the exhaust. It was just our luck it was a spare fuel compartment."

Sonic drew a deep breath and said, "Either that or a trap." He climbed to his feet and coasted down the tunnel. He reached the room at the far end, which should have been the engine room. Tails heard him whistle. "Tails, we're somewhere else!"

Tails joined Sonic. Indeed, they had inadvertantly exited the fuel container through another vent. Their passage was severed by a huge metal screw, its threads a tarnished grey. It turned slowly, transferring energy from the powerful dynamos below to the engine rooms above. The hallway continued on the far side.

Sonic squinted at the screw's threads, estimating how fast it was turning and its distance from the walls. Then, without a word, he sat down and took off his rollerblades. Tails guessed what he was going to do, and removed his own, as well. They slung them over their shoulders. "'Kay, Tails," Sonic said. "I'm gonna go first. Don't trip or anything. This is kinda like playing chicken." Tails nodded. He could imagine tripping and being screwed into the ceiling.

Sonic crouched, eyes on the rotating steel threads. He shot away, leaped into the shaft, touched the screw, then landed safely in the far hall. "C'mon, Tails!" he called.

Tails ran, crossed both without trouble and joined his friend on the far side. "Well, that wasn't too bad," he panted.

Sonic nodded. "Should we blade or run?"

"Let's see what's in the next room first."

They trotted down the corridor. They entered a small circular room with three doors in the walls. Sonic tried the doorknobs and discovered that all but one were locked. "Well Tails?"

"Why don't we just open it and see what's behind it?"

"Good idea." Sonic opened the door and stuck his head in for a look. Tails watched him as he stiffened, back arched, hands gripping the side of the door like a vice.

"Sonic, whassamatter?"

Sonic jerked backward, closed the door carefully, then leaned against it, eyes wide.

Tails watched him uneasily. "What was in there?"

Sonic moved only his lips. "Metal Sonic."

"Metal Sonic? You mean that robot that freaked you out in Ice Cap this morning?"

Sonic nodded. Abruptly he leaped away from the door and whirled to face it. "Get behind me, quick!" he commanded. Tails obeyed at once.

The door swung open. Framed in the doorway stood a steel-blue robot. It was the same size as Sonic, and looked remarkably like him. Its glass eyes were black, and had glowing red rings for pupils. Its lower arms were armed with sharp metal plates that came to a point in its elbows. It gazed at Sonic with a robotic indifference.

"Who are you?" it asked. Its voice was low, metallic and sinister.

"What do you want to know for?" Sonic questioned in reply.

"So I can compute whether you are friend or foe." Metal Sonic was still relatively new to life, and had not become the twisted, hateful robot of later years.

"Will you shoot me if I tell you?"

"Perhaps. But only if you are an enemy of Dr. Robotnik."

"But what if I'm YOUR enemy?"

The robot hesitated. He did not yet have enemies of his own, and this was a new concept. "I suppose I would take you to Dr. Robotnik."

Sonic was relaxing a bit. This robot was not a badnik, but a henchmen, who were usually more predictable. A new one to the job, at that. Sonic drew himself up to his full three feet. "I'll tell you my name if you'll tell me yours."

"I am Metal Sonic, or Mecha, as some call me. And you are?"

"I am Sonic the Hedgehog. The ORIGINAL."

That was the wrong response. Mecha hissed, "So, YOU are the hedgehog for which I am named! Prepare to die, Sssonic!" The robot drew a pistol from somewhere on his person. Before he could aim it, however, Sonic went into a spin and crashed into his midsection. Metal Sonic clanked to the floor, temporarily jarring his motion control.

"Tails, get through the door he came through! Quick!" Sonic cried from where he was crouched over the robot.

Tails leaped around Sonic and hit the door. Sonic followed a split second later, slammed the door shut and snapped on the electric lock. "There," he remarked, "that should hold him off five minutes."

He sat down and thrust his feet into the rollerblades he had carried this whole time. "What are you doing?" Tails demanded.

"I got a need for speed. Put yours on, if you like."

After a moment of indecision, Tails too sat down and donned his gear.

A moment later found them gliding down the hallway. The left wall opened into a construction facility, and they could see rows and rows of robots in the making. They were only partly assembled, but looked fearsome with their huge limbs and heavy armor.

"Military force, looks like," Sonic commented. "I'm glad they aren't on-line yet."

Tails, skating a few feet behind the hedgehog, said, "Hey, Sonic, look. See that robot, close to the walkway? It has something written on it."

They coasted up to it. "SWAT-bot 1037," Sonic read aloud. "Well well."

At that moment the once-locked door flew open. Metal Sonic stood in the doorway, eyes glowing like live coals. "You!" he shouted.

Sonic and Tails looked at each other and said simultaneously, "Run."

With a clatter of metal blades on metal floor they fled down the passage. Mecha gave chase, hoverjets lifting him a foot off the floor. Sonic glanced back. "He's hot," he called to Tails. "See the door up there? Let me open it--don't you stop."

The hedgehog surged ahead in a racing skater crouch. He didn't bother to slow down, but let himself smack into the wall, hand groping for the doorknob. He jerked it open, let Tails fly through, then leaped through himself. He pulled the door shut, and heard the satisfactory thud as Metal Sonic crashed into it. This door had no lock. Sonic turned, ready to run again--

Wait, this was no hallway. It was a large rectangular room. Something about it triggered a warning in the back of his mind. He had learned never to trust large empty rooms. Tails was about to cross it, looking back. Sonic sprang forward. "Tails, don't go in the center! Stop!"

Too late. Three things happened at once. Mecha Sonic burst through the door, enraged and slightly dented. Second, two tall laser- screens came on behind and in front of Sonic and Tails, blocking them in. Third, the lights went out.

The fox and hedgehog stood in the center of the room-turned-prison. The forcefields shed a lemon-colored light, gleaming on their roller blades. Metal Sonic stood on the other side of the screen, staring through at them. Tails slipped his hand into Sonic's. "What's gonna happen?"

Sonic cast a glance at the shadowy ceiling. "I donno. Stick close--he can't get us as long as the lasers are on." He returned his gaze to Metal Sonic.

The robot turned away, looking toward the door they had come through. Over the electronic hum of the force fields, Sonic and Tails heard the clanking of approaching footsteps.

"Well well, it's Sonic and Tails, caught like rats in a trap."

Knuckles stepped into the room wearing a smirk. What caught their attention was the forcefield-like bubble that surrounded his body. Lightning flickered and danced over it, lighting his face and the area around him. "Small little rats," he continued witheringly, "with no hair and one leg."

"Where do you get your material?" Sonic said, making a face.

Knuckles gave him a plastic smile. "It is a fitting analogy, don't you think? Neither of you are going anywhere." His smile twisted into a sneer. "I assume you met our project?" He gestured to the robot beside him.

Sonic and Tails stared. "You mean YOU built him?" Tails exclaimed.

Knuckles nodded condescendingly, eyes half closed. "Me'n Doc. We finished him up and he's ready for service."

The lightning curved, flickered and danced in a continuous rhythm. Sonic pointed at it. "What's with the special effects?"

Knuckles sneered again. "This is an electronic shield. It'll protect me from anything but water and open flame. I'm wearing it so I can do THIS." He stepped forward, and to their surprise, walked through the laser screen, shield parting the beams. "Don't try to touch me," he warned.

They stood aside as he crossed the room, shield casting flickering light into the dimness. He passed through the force field on the far side. Then, with a sly glance in their direction, he swung open a panel on the wall to reveal a set of controls.

I really wanted to shut off the lasers, ditch the shield and have it out with Sonic right there, but Doc didn't want it done that way. He needed his newest invention tested. First he had asked me to try it on myself, and I refused. I had looked at the schematics. So he told me to do it on Sonic and Tails, and all I had to do was drive.

I glanced through the forcefields at Metal Sonic, but he was gone. I felt a chill. I had heard nothing. For the first time I wondered if that robot might turn out a little too well. I shrugged it off and flipped the 'on' lever. If he didn't want to watch, that was fine.

The ceiling slid apart with a whine of machinery. Sonic and Tails stared upward as a milky white lens opened behind it. It hung on a track that could slide it along the ceiling in any direction. It jolted a little as it was activated.

Sonic and Tails looked at each other. Sonic was nervous, and Tails was downright scared. Neither said a word, for that would reveal their feelings to Knuckles. They coasted apart, skates ticking on the metal floor. The big lens began to move, following Sonic. In a way he was relieved. He could handle an attack--Tails couldn't.

The lens began to blink. Probably a laser, Sonic thought. Just like in Wing Fortress, when the same thing had happened. At least he knew what to expect ...

Knuckles hit 'fire'. The lens locked, then fired a wide blue beam. Sonic barely ducked in time, and felt the intense heat on his arms. "Nah nah!" he jeered at Knuckles as it shut off. "Missed me."

Knuckles glared at him in disappointment. "We'll see about that," he snorted. He flipped a switch. The force field on one side flicked off, and another set of lasers flicked on, narrowing the arena by two feet.

Tails looked at Sonic from his place by the wall. If Knuckles changed barrier locations each time the laser fired, eventually they would both be hit. Sonic returned his gaze. "Don't worry, little bro," he said quietly. "We'll get out somehow."

Four times the laser fired, and each time it missed Sonic by an inch. Knuckles was growing frustrated. He had kept moving the force field in, but it hadn't done any good. Sonic could still dodge, even in a space six feet wide. The echidna moved the screen in one more notch, narrowing the gap to three feet. If he missed this time, then heck with it.

Sonic and Tails could have touched the force fields on either side. They stared up at the lens, like small animals waiting for a snake to strike. Sonic could only move forward or back--he dared not touch the screens. The lens moved around, its metal parts clanking as it changed directions.

Knuckles pressed 'fire'. The laser locked and fired. Sonic leaped out from under it, but one rollerblade caught on a ridge in the floor. He smacked down on his face and the beam caught him.

"Sonic!" Tails screamed. The laser, instead of shutting off immediately, continued to fire, burning into the floor. Knuckles stared for a second, his mouth hanging open. Suddenly he whirled and tripped the emergency breaker. "No," Tails heard him moan. "No no no! Not even Sonic deserves that! Doc, you liar--"

The beam flickered and went off, machinery whining in protest. Sonic was lying where he had fallen, eyes closed, floor scorched in a circle around him. Tails fell to his knees inside the smoking ring. "Sonic, are you alive? Sonic? Speak to me, bro!"

Sonic's eyelids fluttered open. Slowly he lifted his head and looked at his sidekick. "Tails," he said thickly, eyes dull with shock. He sat up and let his head droop, hands limp at his sides. Tails stared into his face worriedly. "Are you okay?"

Sonic nodded slightly, as if it hurt to move. "I guess," he said. "My head--" He lifted a hand to his forehead. Abruptly he jerked his hand away and stared at it, wide-eyed. He lifted his other hand, then opened and closed them, horror etched across his face.

"What?" Tails demanded. "What's wrong?"

Sonic leaped to his feet without answering and stared at Knuckles. Knuckles glared at him. "What? You're not hurt."

"Knux," Sonic said in a raspy whisper. "What have you done to me? My hands--"

"What about them?"

Sonic stuck his middle finger in his mouth, bit the glove and pulled out his hand. Tails and Knuckles gasped as he held it up for them to see.

It was a robot hand.

Each finger and joint was encased in metal, wire visible between the joints. The plating followed the contours and folds of his hand, extending to his wrist. He yanked off his other glove. Both hands looked the same.

Sonic clenched his metallic fists. "Knuckles, you'd better not let me out. My hands are just as tough as yours." Knuckles could only stare at those robotic limbs. His mouth had fallen open, and he shook his head slowly as he backed away. "I didn't know it would do that," he gasped. "I--I--"

I could think of nothing more to say. Robotized! What if I had waited a second later to shut off the beam? I had looked at the wrong schematics. This was a robotizer prototype, stolen from a scientist in Mobitropolis and reverse-engineered. His hands ...! Oh gosh, what had I done? Was there any way to undo it?

I punched a button on the wall. It would drain the power in the laser screens. I didn't have the heart to leave them locked up. I fled through a side door, locked it behind me, then pelted deeper into Flying Battery. My mind was reeling. Disfigured for life! I had thought it would stun him.

I hung a hard left and headed for the bridge. I had a few questions for Doc.

The force fields blinked off, and the lights came back on. Sonic continued to stare at his hands. Experimentally he snapped his fingers, making a sharp clink. He clapped his hands and listened with amazement to the clang, clang, clang. He looked at Tails. "This IS kinda cool," he said grudgingly. "It's like wearing armor."

Tails touched his shiny hand and shuddered. "Gee, Sonic. You're part robot now. Better not try to use the chaos emeralds."

"You're right," Sonic exclaimed. "I won't be able to use 'em-- they'd blow my hands off or something." He glared in the direction Knuckles had gone. "That jerk. Bet he planned it."

Carefully the hedgehog pulled his gloves back on. They covered the metal neatly; unless you knew, you could see nothing wrong with him.

The two stepped into an adjoining hall. "I wonder where Metal Sonic is," Tails said nervously.

Sonic shrugged. "On a ship this size, who knows. Let's see if we can--"

Suddenly the hall around them groaned and squeaked. The floor beneath their feet shifted. They automatically turned to go back, but an iron door slammed to the floor, cutting off retreat. The two locked eyes. "Run," Sonic commanded. He took off, and Tails followed close behind.

I burst into the cockpit, my anger burning. The shock had passed--now I was mad I had been tricked into doing something so inhuman. Robotnik swung around in his chair, and squelched the attitude out of me as he said, "Knuckles, the laser firing destroyed the platform stabilizers for floor 1C and up. The upper deck is going to retract."

I caught my breath. That was where Sonic and Tails were. I sat down in the co-pilot's seat and looked at the computer's readout. Doc was right. I looked up at him. "How long will it take to compress?"

He glanced at his watch. "About two minutes."

Tails stumbled on his rollerblades. Stubbornly he slowed down, grabbing at the buckles.

"What are you doing?" Sonic shouted from ahead.

"Taking off these darn skates," Tails exclaimed. As he pulled one free, the floor began to move. Sonic skimmed back and grabbed his good arm. His hand was ice-cold through the glove. "Get up! We gotta get outta here!"

Tails kicked off his other rollerblade. "Okay. Now I can run!"

The two raced down the long hallway, one on skates, the other on foot, but both equally frightened. Sonic held Tails's wrist to make certain he didn't trip, which was a good idea, for the lifting floor made it easy to stumble. It seemed as if the entire ship were collapsing.

Sonic glanced up at the ceiling. If the floor was moving up at an inch per second, and the ceiling was six feet up, then ... "Tails," he panted, "look for a trapdoor in the ceiling. If we can't get out of here, we're gonna get killed!"

Tails looked at the ceiling, noticing how close it was. He kept his eyes on it, letting Sonic's hand guide him down the passage.

A few long, breathless seconds passed. The floor boosted a foot higher, like a giant trash compactor. Suddenly Tails's searching gaze caught a possible exit. He pulled against Sonic's hold. "Sonic, a door!" He had spotted a round door in the ceiling with a wheel on it. Sonic hit the blades's brakes and spun around. "Where?"

They dashed back and stood beneath it. They couldn't reach it-- yet. "We'll hafta wait a minute," Sonic said, words coming between breaths. "If it's locked or something, we're sunk."

The ceiling lowered like the jaw of a giant nut-cracker, and they waited nervously. Sonic, leaped up and grabbed ahold of the wheel with a muffled clank. He jerked back and forth, dangling feet swinging wildly--Tails stood clear. "It's jammed," he grunted to his sidekick. He dropped to the floor. "Better put jam in your pockets, 'cause we're about to be toast."

Tails didn't smile. "Let's both try it when it comes down far enough."

Sonic looked at him. "That means we'll have one chance." His eyes moved upward. "Work fast, little bro."

Inch by inch the floor lifted them upward, machinery rumbling, metal grinding against metal. Sonic set his teeth grimly. This would be close. Tails watched the trapdoor as if it were made of gold. It edged closer ... closer ...

"Now!" Sonic barked. He and Tails leaped into the air and grabbed opposite ends of the wheel. "Pull right," Sonic said. "Same time as me. Go!" They jerked the wheel to the right as hard as they could. The wheel gave a little, then stuck tight. They kept pulling.

Their dangling feet touched the floor, for less than three feet were left between floor and ceiling. They looked at each other. "It opens or we die," Sonic said flatly, the noise of the retracting floor nearly drowning him out. They threw themselves into twisting the wheel, the floor giving them leverage.

With a rusty shriek the wheel gave in. The door flew upward and swung out of sight. Warm wind rushed down on them, along with bright sunlight. Without hesitating they clambered out of that death-trap.

Unfortunately, they emerged a couple feet from the backside of one of the jet engines. The turbulence hit them like an express train, impossible to stand against, ripping the breath from their bodies.

In an instant they were flung off the ship like scraps of paper. Sonic saw the tail fin of Flying Battery slide by, leaving only empty space below him.

Doc and I watched them drop past the cockpit, both doing over sixty. Then they were below us and out of sight. "They got out," I said, not bothering to disguise my relief. Doc looked at me, one hand twisting the end of his mustache thoughtfully. "Knuckles," he said, "why don't you go after them? I think I can get started on Death Egg's repairs without you."

I looked at him, wondering if my eagerness showed in my eyes. "Oh man, can I? Thanks, Doc!"

I whirled and ran for the door. Below was Sandopolis, the desert of the Floating Island. I had always wanted to 'escort' them through ...

As the door closed behind Knuckles, Robotnik spoke aloud to the cockpit. "Metal Sonic, come to the bridge." To himself, he continued, "That echidna may be a dimwit, but he's not so dense as to miss the significance of where the Death Egg crashed. I'm sure Lava Reef is near the Hidden Palace. If I can only search ..."

Metal Sonic stepped in, red eyes shimmering. "Yes, Dr. Robotnik?"

"Mecha, I want you to follow Knuckles. Watch him, but do not be seen. I want to know of his and Sonic's whereabouts while I am underground. Understand?"

"Understood. Departing now."