Knuckles and Rouge

5 - Reappearing Act

Knuckles rematerialized in midair, again not getting the chance to catch himself via gliding.

At least he got to slightly brace himself this time...

To his surprise (and less relief than he'd like to admit), he was alone. His surroundings, however, were a massive change from those of the castle.

Towering trees engulfed him and proved to be the main highlight of this dense forest with choking levels of humidity.

The biggest of said trees gave hin an easy starting point when it came to where to go.

The question remained, though: just where was he?

At that moment, his communicator buzzed.

"...ckles... Knuckles, are you there?"

It was Tails. He almost cracked a smile at his familiar voice (that wasn't Rouge). Knocking the gadget around a little helped clear up the signal.

"What happened out there?"

The fox boy listened carefully as Knuckles got him up to speed. The gears were clearly turning in his friend's head, though he couldn't hope to understand most of what he was saying. Even Sonic himself admitted to him once couldn't actually parse out his brainy talk and just kind of nodded along, and the two were practically joined at the hip!

"Hmm..." Tails sounded concerned.

"What...is...it...?" Knuckles had started running, if only to cover some ground while he waited. It wasn't particularly fun, as he already felt like he was drowning in the moist air.

"You're not gonna believe this..."

The echidna winced. "Might as...well shoot."

"I've been keeping tabs on your journey using your communicators since you left..."

"And...?"

The hesitation in his next statement made Knuckles' heart race even more.

"I...I can't track your location. At all."

His blood ran cold. "What?!"

---

On her end, Rouge found herself speechless for the first time in a while. Not that she has much of a choice at the moment.

With an angry desert sun trying tp force her to her knees, talking would have been a waste of her now precious energy.

Her communicator was working just fine, however. She had to hand it to the kid: he sure knew his way around this stuff. It was a shame that he turned down that offer from GUN...

Feeling lightheaded from thirst, she popped a hydration pill from her belt in her mouth.

Judging by what she'd just heard from the other two, they were just about on their own.

That was just great.

Just as she was debating whether or not to fly to some ruins in the distance, the ground began to shake.

"Huh?" Looking around, she just managed to instinctively fly out of the way as a hand erupted from the ground below her. She had no words for what soon stood before her.

After picking her jaw off the ground, she stared at the giant jeweled behemoth in front of her before whispering to the two boys.

"Don't look now boys, but I've got the sneaking suspicion that Queenie brought us some company..."