SonicReviewer: Heh, thanks XD At the moment, Shadow is holed up safely in the Casino Zones. I'm not sure if he'll make another appearance; we'll have to see how it goes ;)

ForgotMyPassword: Thanks so much, I'm glad you like it :D And one update, as requested!

SonicReviewer14: Thanks :)

Guardian's Log no. 11516

Question: is Robotnik a devious creature with a strong sense of irony and a talent for rubbing salt into a wound?

Answer: Yes, although that's hardly a revelation. Still, I would bet what's left of my hoard that he concentrated on Green Hill Zone more than the others. After all, it's Sonic's native Zone, and not just that; it's where the whole damn mess with Robotnik began in the first place.

The trouble is, Sonic's now all fired up to go down there and try to reason with them. The fact that Robotnik will probably have sent his robots in to guard the place and be waiting for him to try just that doesn't seem to have entered his head. Besides, the people here aren't rational. If they think Sonic is trying to interfere with their reprieve from Robotnik, they'll kill him themselves.

This fight just got a lot more interesting.

-Knuckles the Echidna

My Memoirs by Me

Surrender! How can Green Hill Zone even consider surrendering? Don't they know what'll happen to them if they do?

I've got to stop them.

-Sonic the Hedgehog

Dear Diary

Wow, Green Hill Zone gave in to Robotnik? I didn't see that coming. The problem is that now Sonic wants to go back down and argue with them and I don't think that's a good idea. Robotnik's bound to be there. I know Sonic can beat him and everything but I still think it would be better to stop Robotnik first and then worry about who gave in and who didn't.

-Tails

"Will you just think about what you're saying?" Knuckles demanded.

Sonic shook his head. "There's no time. I have to get there and convince them not to do it!"

No time to think...well, that summed up Sonic's mentality pretty well as far as Knuckles was concerned.

"They already have done it, Sonic! It's a waste of time trying to rally people who have already given up the fight! If you have to talk to anyone, talk to one of the Zones that haven't surrendered yet."

The hedgehog whirled. "Yet?"

Knuckles met his gaze without flinching. "This isn't going to end with Green Hill. Robotnik's going to be all nice and friendly to them now, give them food and good weather. Very soon the rest of the Zones will follow suit in the hopes of getting the same thing. A few can stand against him – I doubt the weather's made much difference to those in Mystic Cave Zone, for example – but now one's surrendered, the others are going to follow suit pretty damn fast."

Sonic shook his head hard. "No. No, I've got to talk to them. It's never going to work!"

As Sonic sped off, Knuckles looked at Tails. "His talking to them, or their surrendering to Robotnik?"

The fox shrugged and pushed himself to his feet. Knuckles, who had been expecting something like this, picked him up and tucked him under one arm.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"To help Sonic!"

"Sonic's about to walk into a Zone full of people who are convinced that killing him or locking him up might just solve all their problems. There's not a lot of help you can be in that situation."

Tails attempted to squirm free. "I had that kinda situation every day before Sonic came along and I dealt with it okay!"

"You dealt with people who thought you were a freak and one gang who bullied you!" Knuckles said sharply. "If those people didn't see you or if they had better things to do, they ignored you completely, and I imagine a lot of the bullying stopped once Sonic showed up."

Tails scowled at Knuckles – or more precisely, at Knuckles's armpit – and didn't answer. Stifling a sigh, the echidna walked over to the Master Emerald and plonked Tails down on top of it.

"Don't move," he instructed. "I think I can find out what Sonic's doing."

"How?"

"With this." Knuckles patted the Master Emerald. "I can get a fix on anyone who has Chaos matter. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but if it does, we'll be able to see what's going on down there."

"Hunh." Tails pushed himself off and came to stand next to the echidna, peering into the green light radiating out of the huge gem. "So why can't you do that with Robotnik?"

"I probably could, except this is a two way thing and if he looked into his Emerald or Chaos matter, he'd see me looking out at him. I don't care if the morons down there see me since they'll never reach me, but I'd rather not remind Robotnik about Angel Island if it's all the same to you. It also wouldn't take much for him to try and use his own Chaos matter to spy on me. I don't want him to even suspect that's possible." Knuckles placed both hands on the Master Emerald and concentrated. The glow brightened until neither he nor Tails could look directly at it, then dimmed to reveal Sonic standing in Green Hill Zone.

"Is this what's happening right now?" Tails asked.

"Right now or as close to it as makes no odds." Knuckles closed his eyes; doing this took a lot of concentration and he was out of practice. He could understand the fox's sudden trepidation; Sonic was currently surrounded by a ring of Mobians and it didn't look like any of them were planning to throw him a party anytime soon.

"—never gonna work in a million years!" Sonic's voice was faint, but audible.

One of the people in the ring – a heavily built baboon – stepped forward. "It's his fault all this is happening! I say we kill him now!"

In the Master Emerald, the small image of Sonic folded his arms, glaring at him. "Hey, you were the one who tried to take credit for driving Robotnik out of the Jungle Zone all those years ago! You guys aren't going to listen to him, right?"

There was a silence which suggested that the guys in question might be persuaded to ignore parts of the baboon's claim – parts involving the word kill, for example – but everything else was open to negotiation. On the island, Knuckles looked up from the Master Emerald long enough to stare at Tails.

"Take credit?" he echoed.

The fox shrugged. "Sonic never mentioned anything like that to me. Green Island was his first fight though, so nobody really knew who he was then."

The image in the Master Emerald suddenly blurred, as if some cosmic entity was fiddling with the reception knob. When it coalesced into something more recognizable, Knuckles and Tails were looking at a snow-covered Zone. There was no snow falling, but the sky was dark with black clouds except for one part, which was lit with a golden light. The image only lasted a second or two, then the picture returned to Green Hill, although neither Knuckles nor Tails were looking at it.

"What was that?" Tails wanted to know.

Knuckles shook his head. The Master Emerald couldn't act independently – that was a fond superstition held by his ancestors – but it could react with the Chaos energy inside a person. If you needed it to badly enough, it would show you what you wanted to see, but it required single-minded concentration. If your mind wandered too far, you ended up with...well, with what he and Tails had just experienced.

"I don't know," he said aloud.

"Do you think it's what Sonic saw?"

The echidna was silent. It certainly fit Sonic's description of what he'd seen, but how was it possible? Knuckles was willing to admit in public that the hedgehog could sometimes be tolerable, but there was no way – no way – that he and Sonic's thoughts could run that closely to each other!

"—can't do this!" Sonic was insisting. "You can't trust Robotnik! Has he even promised you anything in exchange for this surrender?"

A heron, this one wearing the official medallion of the Zone mayor, stepped forward. "The doctor has personally guaranteed that Green Hill will receive good weather and interim supplies to make up for the crops that were lost."

"You mean the same crops he killed?" Sonic retorted. "Tell me you're kidding! Have you all forgotten what happened when he first showed up? Have you forgotten how many Mobians died? And now you wanna invite him in?"

It was impossible to pick up on moods via the Master Emerald, but Knuckles was prepared to swear that something in the crowd shifted. Seconds later, a ferret dressed in the uniform of a Zonal security officer approached with such a wretched look on his face that even Knuckles felt a pang of sympathy for him.

"Sonic the Hedgehog." He swallowed several times, then said in a hoarse voice, "The mayor would like me to inform you that you are under arrest on a charge of attempting to sabotage the Green Hill Zone."

Sonic stared at him, his jaw dangling. "I'm trying to save the Green Hill Zone, you numbskull!"

"Please do not attempt to resist. I have been ordered to take you into custody until—" the ferret swallowed again— "until Dr. Robotnik arrives to make his wishes known."

"Oh sure," Knuckles muttered to the Master Emerald. "Lock up the one guy who can actually do something about Robotnik, why don't you? That'll really help matters."

Tails, who was now hovering behind him and peering over the echidna's shoulder, swooped in to land in front of him with a doubtful look on his face.

"He hasn't done much so far."

The echidna stared at him, the shock of this statement from Tails of all people breaking his concentration, so the image in the Master Emerald faded into nothing. "Not you too!"

"No! But...he hasn't."

That was true enough. Knuckles supposed the weather would have taken its toll on Sonic as much as it had the rest of Mobius – hedgehogs didn't do well in cold temperatures – but was there something more to this? After five years of almost single-handed war against Robotnik, was it possible that the cracks were finally beginning to show? Was Sonic finally starting to tire? And honor be damned; after what had happened to Sonic in Robotnik's dungeon, Knuckles wouldn't have blamed him if he'd crawled away and hidden for the rest of his life. Sonic had never been the same after that. Oh sure, he'd regained a lot of his happy-go-lucky nature along with his feet, but the hedgehog had also grown up a lot and lost most of his childish, silly side.

It was the first time he ever had to face the consequences. The hedgehog had been grossly overconfident in his own abilities – with, even Knuckles could admit, some justification – and it was the first time they'd failed him.

Of course, they wouldn't fail him now. Sonic could break out any time he chose, but Knuckles knew the hedgehog well enough to know that he never would, not unless the situation became truly desperate. Sonic was still a reckless, irresponsible thrill-seeker, but he was law-abiding.

Exactly. He'll try and reason with them, persuade them to let him out. He's not going to try and escape under his own power, not yet, anyway.

There was another reason, of course; namely that Sonic was used to fighting machines, machines that couldn't feel pain, and the only really serious fight Sonic had ever been in had been against Knuckles, who was well able to defend himself. If he attacked an ordinary Mobian or if one got knocked down during his escape, the hedgehog would probably end up doing a whole lot more damage than he meant to.

No, to get him out, they would need a very special person. Someone who specialized in this kind of operation.

Knuckles looked up at Tails.

"Tails, I need you to stay here."

"Huh?" Tails stared at him. "Where are you going?"

"Scrap Brain."

The fox drew back a little, a wary look on his face. "Um. Knux? Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Of course I'm sure. Why wouldn't it be?"

"Because you owe Espio a lot of money," Tails answered succinctly.

"So it's about time I paid him."

"Well, sure, but if you're gonna ask him to help Sonic, he'll want cash in advance."

"He'll get it." It would take a large chunk out of his hoard, but Knuckles needed the chameleon's camouflage ability. Echidnas weren't very good at infiltration, or anything that required subtlety, for that matter. If you wanted to rescue someone, you tunneled into their prison or you punched through the wall, or both. Of course, Knuckles could still do that if it came to it, but Espio would be able to do the job far more neatly and with far less damage and no potential casualties.

"And I don't get why I can't come too!" Tails added.

"Because Angel Island doesn't move fast enough, which means I'll have to go over land and that means the express cable car, if it's still running."

The fox darted around in front of him. "That's not answering my question!"

Knuckles reached down, picked Tails up and deposited him on a broken pillar off to the side. "Fine, then. You can't come too because you're almost as well-known as Sonic. Even if they didn't suspect you of trying to organize a rescue, they'd probably give you to Robotnik as a peace offering, but I don't think many of them are going to recognize me. There are advantages to being a recluse, kid."

"Yeah, but—" Tails began. There was a stubborn look on his face that Knuckles was all too familiar with and he caught hold of the fox by the arms, silencing him.

"Stay here," he ordered. "Don't screw with me on this, Tails; Green Island's too dangerous now. I know you got guts, kid, but you're not much of a hand-to-hand fighter. I'll be back with the CDA as soon as I can."

The echidna turned and darted away through the undergrowth, heading for the edge of Angel Island. With any luck, he could glide most of the way to Scrap Brain, which would not only be far less hassle than trying to plow through the snow, but would also save him about fifty mobiums.