Tails had been happy when Equinus and Fillia had joined the Freedom Fighters several months ago. Ever since the Sauropods had left he'd been the only person his age until Fillia showed up, and it was a lot easier to have fun when he didn't have to play by himself. Unfortunately, Fillia kept getting ideas that Tails was pretty sure neither Aunt Sally or Aunt Rosie would approve of, and more often than not he was right. Nevertheless he kept following her on these adventures, and sharing in the punishment when they got caught. She was the only person his age, after all, and it didn't make sense to get her angry at him. Then neither of them would have anybody to play with.

Today Tails had been the one to pick what they would do, and he had decided that they would go exploring, following the river that ran near Knothole so that they could find their way back when it started to get dark. There was actually a lot to see along the river's edge, and more than enough things to do to keep the attention of two ten-year-olds for a day or so. Thus, the two youngsters had been spending several long hours happily engaged and, much to the relief of Sally and Rosie had they known it, keeping out of trouble. It was early afternoon as Fillia and Tails found a small cliff running near the river's edge, and they began to check out the shallow holes and grottoes burrowed into the rocky shore.

"Hey, Fillia," called out Tails from his position near the slow-moving water, "come and check this out."

"What is it Tails?" asked the filly as she left the smooth river rock she was examining to see the strange object the young fox kit was holding.

"I don't know," said Tails, holding the odd-shaped thing up for his friend's inspection. "It looks like an arrowhead."

When Fillia saw the carved shape in Tails' hand, she gasped, and took it gently into her own hands for a closer look. It did look a lot like the arrowheads that her brother made when he needed them. But instead of being made of plain flint or rock like Equinus', this arrowhead was made of a strange crystal that seemed almost to glow with it's own inner light. Fillia held it up into the sunlight, and suddenly both she and Tails were dazzled by the spray of rainbow light that covered them and the woods all around in scintillating iridescence.

"It's beautiful," gasped Fillia, knowing her words weren't nearly enough to describe the wonderful treasure they had found. Tails only nodded in agreement, awestruck by the glorious rays of light surrounding them, painting their bodies and the whole world as far as they could see in a multitude of colors, many of which he didn't even have a name for.

Eventually the sun went behind a cloud and the colors faded away, breaking the spell. Fillia and Tails stared at each other, and then Fillia wordlessly stuck the crystal arrowhead into the little satchel on her shoulder. She had brought it to carry anything they found that seemed interesting, though they had never anticipated something like this.

"Where do you think it came from?" asked Fillia.

"I dunno," said Tails, "but I'll bet they didn't lose it on purpose."

Fillia nodded agreement. Such a treasure as that was far too valuable to throw away.

* * *

"I still cannot believe you shoot perfectly good arrow away!"

Shrike/Quiver grinned down at Slip, then rubbed the scales on the top of his head against their grain. He scowled at that and rubbed them back the other way.

"I also wish you quit doing that. It irritating."

The tall Gryphon laughed!

"I'm sorry Slip, it's just that I've, I mean Quiver's, never been this tall before. I couldn't see that your head scales wiggled more than on the rest of you from where I was before."

Slip folded his arms grumpily.

"My scales not 'wig-gil,'" he insisted. After staring up at the Quiver/Slip for a moment or two, though, he shook his head, giving up. It was obvious that there was no reasoning with this strange new creature that was both friend and stranger at the same time.

It had been almost four days since they had reached the resting place of Shrike, the Gryphon, member of the Last Legion. Four long days since his mountain lion friend had been endowed with the weight and power of the Mantle of the Last Legion. In that time her wings, which had been only large enough at the start for her to glide downward like a parachute, had grown enough for her to float on updrafts, keeping aloft much like a hang-glider, provided she had enough altitude to begin with. Where at the start of the change her feathers had covered only her eagle's head and her wrists, and of course her wings, now they ran down her chest and back, the gold feathers merging into gold fur at her waist. To top it all off, she had been growing, and now she stood almost six-and-a-half feet tall and her body rippled with hard muscle. Slip had been worried about this growth, because it had forced them both to hunt a great deal for the food to fuel these changes, but now the growing seemed to have finally leveled off. Her wings were still growing slowly but steadily, though, but they no longer needed to spend quite so much time eating. Her eagle's head had a pair of feather-tufted ears, and her front paws had become the talons of a great eagle, and to look at her now, compared to the pretty but fairly ordinary mountain lion she had been before, was to take one's breath away.

Slip found his friend beautiful and wonderful, a creature that seemed impossible and yet stared him in the face, defying possibility. Shrike was a creature to be loved and feared, and Slip found himself doing both. That, of course, brought up Slip's one major sadness: he missed Quiver. As Quiver had been changing physically, she would from time to time drift into a sort of dreamlike state from which Slip could never awaken her until she was ready to come back into reality. Each time she emerged from these states she would seem a little bit further removed from the one he had called Quiver, and steadily more like the creature he now called Shrike. She now answered to both names with equal comfort, so far into the role she now had to play had she fallen. But Slip could tell that, unlike her physical growth, she was still undergoing rather large changes in her spirit and mind. He knew the changes were necessary, for he understood in a deep and instinctual way that the Last Legion was truly the only hope for Mobius, the only way to keep tragedies like the death of the Tree of Ages from happening again. Yet, every time he saw Shrike/Quiver enter one of her trances, he couldn't help but wonder if he would recognize the being that would awake, or if she would recognize him. The thought sent chills through his body, and he decided that he didn't dare dwell on them for too long lest they crush his will to continue helping his friend.

Quiver/Shrike patted her friend on the back, almost knocking him over, then turned and pointed to the tree line just ahead of them.

"I told you before, Slip, I didn't waste that arrow," she said. "It's a seeker arrow, like the one that found me. It'll take us to where we need to go. Just trust me on this."

"Not got much choice," grumbled Slip. "Follow you or go live in swamp again. Great choice."

Just yesterday they had been walking along the edge of the Great Swamp, not going in any particular direction, catching game when they could find some that had escaped the Tentacle Terror they had killed so recently. At the thing's death the life of the Swamp seemed to have revitalized, and so it wasn't too hard to find enough to eat. The whole world of Mobius was like that: able to recover at an amazing speed, no matter how grievous the wound. As a case in point, before they had left the base of Glass Mountain, four long days ago, Slip had gone to see to the fire-gutted corpse of the Tree of Ages, to mourn and to see if anything could be recovered. To his surprise and wonder, he found that all around the charred stump, poking up through the ash that coated the valley floor, were a multitude of little green shoots arranged in a ring around the old Tree of Ages. They were a testament to the power of Mobius to reclaim life from death. Slip vowed later to return and transplant the saplings to places where they would be of the most use. If the world was to be healed, there would be a need for such powerful things as the Tree of Ages, and thus her seedlings would need to be spread all across the face of Mobius to mend the polluted ruin that had accumulated with the reign of the robots. But the fulfillment of that vow would have to wait for a time. For now both he and Quiver/Shrike were needed elsewhere, as there was a war going on, and certainly somewhere in the world there would still be those who fought against the robots. The city of Mobotropolis seemed like the best place to start their search for such warriors, and so they had begun their journey by skirting the edge of the Great Swamp. As they traveled by the swamp they lived off the plentiful life found therein, and slowly worked their way around the wetlands until they could reach the wide plains that would eventually flow into woodlands, and from there eventually into the city of Mobotropolis itself.

It was when they had set up camp last night near the outer perimeter of the swamp that Shrike/Quiver had decided to try and use her traditional weapon. Seating herself, Quiver/Shrike took out the strong and carefully-carved bow along with a strand of strange cord that glittered like liquid fire. Slip didn't doubt that he would have never been able to budge the massive bow, no matter how hard he tried, let alone get the glowing string around the ends. Yet, with only a little effort, the Gryphon bent and strung her bow, then fitted an arrow to the string to test the spring. He suspected that when the change was finally complete Shrike would be able to string her bow without even thinking about it.

As Slip watched the Gryphon playing with her bow, he frowned as she stood and took a long-shafted arrow from the quiver that lay nearby and drew it far back, stretching the bow almost in half as she aimed off into the distance. With a loud twang from the string, the arrow flew into the closing darkness. With a start, Slip realized that the arrow she had just sent off was one of the crystal-headed ones, rare treasures indeed, and he had very nearly spoken crossly to his friend at the waste. Still, he kept himself in check, and it was not until that morning when they had started off again, this time in a new direction, that he had said anything about the arrow. Now it was afternoon, and they had traveled for miles towards a destination neither of them knew or could even guess, following the path of the seeker arrow as the impressions of its flight came to Quiver/Shrike, telling her the path they had to follow.

"It seems to be leading us towards that river," said Shrike/Quiver, pointing to a clear brook that could be seen as a ribbon of blue a number of miles away. Slip could only guess how she knew where an arrow had gone after it had left her sight but he decided that it wasn't his concern, just so long as it worked.

"Long way," commented Slip as he looked out to the river.

"No sense in complaining, Slip," chuckled Quiver/Shrike. "We need to go there, and the only way to do it is with what we were given at birth."

"Not complaining," sighed Slip tiredly. "Just a little tired. Going to be much tired when we get there. We better start now. We get there sooner, we rest sooner."

Shrike/Quiver laughed.

"That makes sense, Slip," she chuckled. "That really does make sense."

* * *

As the darkness of night closed on the hidden village of Knothole, home of the Freedom Fighters of Robotropolis, Fillia and Tails made their way back into the cluster of huts. Almost immediately after entering the village, they were found by Aunt Rosie.

"Fillia, Tails, good to see you back," said the elderly matron with a bright smile. "I hope you had fun today and didn't get into any mischief." Then she leaned forward and peered at the pair of youngsters through her thick glasses, taking a whiff of the air around them. "It certainly smells as though you had fun. You both need baths."

"Aw, Aunt Rosie," whined Tails and Fillia in unison, the only defense of the young when they are confronted with irrefutable evidence. But it was to no avail against Rosie, who was a seasoned child-raising veteran, and soon both kit and filly found themselves in tow behind their surrogate Aunt as she led them off to the bathing area. Some time later, when they both had brushed their fur and teeth and were ready for bed, Rosie began to get their report of the day. She did this every night to find out what had gone on in the lives of her two youngest charges, right before either she or Princess Sally read them a bedtime story and then tucked them into bed for the night.

"It was real neat, Aunt Rosie," Tails was saying. "We went exploring by the river today, and we saw all sorts of neat stuff. And the neatest thing of all was when we found . . ."

Fillia gave a loud cough then, and Tails blinked as he realized what he had been saying.

"Um, uh, found these really neat smooth river rocks," he finished lamely, knowing that Rosie wouldn't be fooled. He gave an apologetic look at Fillia, who just gave a sigh and shrugged her shoulders. Aunt Rosie seemed to know everything, anyway. It would only have been a matter of time before she found out.

"Really?" said Aunt Rosie with a pleasant smile. "May I see these rocks?"

"Er, well, we kinda left 'em back where we found them, Aunt Rosie," said Fillia, looking uncomfortable. Both she and Tails knew it was useless to try and lie to Rosie. Still, that didn't mean that they couldn't keep a few secrets.

"Well, I'm sure that you found lots of other treasures, then," said Rosie, walking over to the side of Fillia's bed to pick up the satchel the filly had put on her night stand. She held the satchel up so that both Tails and Fillia could see it, making them squirm uncomfortably. "May I see what you picked up?"

"Um, we really didn't pick up a whole lot today, Aunt Rosie," said Tails quickly. This was true, since nothing had compared to the one treasure they had found.

"Oh?" said the elderly Mobian, "Well, then what you did pick up must be very special indeed. I'd really like to see it, if you don't mind."

Of course, both Fillia and Tails knew what "If you don't mind," really meant. Since neither of them could stand up to Aunt Rosie in a contest of wills and hope to win, they finally gave in.

"Aunt Rosie," began Tails, "we found it on the edge of the river, and it was really pretty, so . . ."

"So we picked it up and brought it back here," continued Fillia. "We didn't know if it belonged to anybody, but nobody was around, and we, well . . ."

"We wanted to keep it," finished the kit, his eyes and Fillia's looking down, not meeting Rosie's.

Frowning, Rosie opened the satchel and reached inside.

"What do you mean, children? What's this 'it' you keep . . . goodness." This last word was a breathless gasp as Rosie lifted the crystal into the light of the single candle she was going to use to read to her charges a little later. The yellow flame was caught and splintered into a thousand shards of rainbow light, filling the little hut with more colors than she had ever seen, shining down on her and the two beds where Tails and Fillia lay in scintillating rays. Blinking back a tear, Rosie gently put the crystal back inside the satchel, then took a long breath to steady herself. Finding her voice, she turned to the young people before her.

"Children, I don't know what to say. It's beautiful, whatever it is, and I can see why you want to keep it to yourselves. But you both know that we're going to have to see if anyone is looking for it. I've taught you about honesty, and we're going to stick to what I've tried to teach you. Still, I think that if anyone is looking for something like that they'll show up real soon, if at all. Until they do, though, I'll let you keep the treasure. Do you promise to take good care of it while you've got it, so the owners will know you're responsible people?"

"Yes Aunt Rosie," said both youngsters in unison, nodding their heads.

Rosie smiled at them both.

"All right then. Now, what story would you like me to tell?"

* * *

"These woods are pretty," murmured Quiver as they walked. "They're so peaceful. I think that if I get the chance I might want to move here from the mountains."

Slip gave a slight hiss.

"Miss my swamp. Trees nice, but it too dry. Besides, you move here, people wonder why mountain lion . . . eagle . . . why you not where you supposed to be."

Shrike chuckled at Slip's trouble in placing her species.

"I really don't care what people think, Slip. I used to, but that's not a part of me anymore." She looked up towards the green canopy, enjoying the way the sun felt on her glittering feathers. "I wonder what happens to the Last Legion when their fight is over?"

Slip shrugged, and looked a little sad.

"Don't know, Quee-fur. Never heard bedtime stories." Then he smiled. "But we find out when we win fight with robots. We fight them dead."

The two Mobians stopped for the night on the bank of the river, and when the morning came Shrike led them upstream along its shore until they had come upon the Great Forest. Yesterday, a little before they reached the river, Shrike had paused as though confused for a short while, but the moment passed quickly. She explained to Slip that someone or something must have picked up the arrow because it was moving. Thus they had continued following the river steadily deeper into the forest, easily crossing the small brooks that fed the slow-moving current as they came to them. At a little past midday Shrike paused on the bank of the river and walked to where a slight ledge had been cut into a rock jutting out of the bank. Though neither of the young Mobians could have known it this was the same spot where Fillia and Tails had been yesterday when they found the arrowhead.

"The arrow landed here, Slip," said Quiver, bending to look at the sandy bank, startling a few of the birds who had built nests into holes in the rock. She brushed away some of the clean white sand and pulled out the battered shaft of her arrow. "The head must have broken off when it landed. No," she looked at the rock face, touching the surface, "it hit here and broke off on the rock. That means that whoever has it now must have found it here."

"Then we follow them to where arrowhead is," stated Slip with a shrug. "You track them like before, we find them fast."

Quiver shook her head.

"The power of the seeker arrow doesn't work like that, Slip. It keeps going until it lands where it needs to. I can track it that far, but no further. It seems that the arrow meant for us to meet whoever found it, but how we're going to find them now is beyond me."

Slip grinned, hissing in amusement.

"Bad thing about beak is bad sense of smell," he chuckled. Then he bent to the ground and began to examine the soft, moist earth carefully, his tongue darting out to 'taste' the air. "My smell still great."

Quiver walked up to him, bent over, and sniffed under the lizard's arm. She straightened quickly and put her fingers over her nose.

"That's a matter of opinion, Slip," she said teasingly. "You need a bath."

"You been out of water long as I," replied Slip, never turning his attention from his task. "And you part mammal, make you stink more."

Quiver tossed her head haughtily.

"Felines bathe themselves," she said in as regal a voice as she could manage. Slip looked up at her and grinned.

"Maybe, but your tongue now eagle's. Hard to bathe with that." With that he put his hand over his nose, mimicking her gesture. Quiver laughed, giving him a playful swat that, though she tried to be gentle, still almost knocked him over. "Careful," he reminded her, "you stronger than before." Then he pointed to a slight indentation in the grass at their feet. "Someone here, scent about one day old. Not animal, so must be people. They young, too, by the smell." He got onto all fours and began to flick his tongue out some more as he crawled around slowly, looking very much like his quadruped reptilian ancestors. After a while he nodded then stood up and pointed. "They go that way."

Shrike grinned.

"Then 'that way' is where we shall go as well."

* * *

Fillia was puzzling over the varied tracks she found on the forest floor. Her brother had been teaching her about tracking, or trying to at least, but she hadn't paid as much attention as he would have liked. Thus, she was having difficulty finding the path that Tails had made as he went to take his turn hiding in their game of hide-and-go-seek. Since Rosie was busy taking a nap, Tails and Fillia had been allowed to quit their chores and go play. Fillia had been the one to choose their game for the day, and she had settled on hide-and-go-seek. They were both very good at this game, because they both realized that it was the same kind of 'game' that the Freedom Fighters were playing with Robotnik. Hence, they took it very seriously, even when they were having fun, and gradually became very good at moving quietly and using camouflage, and became very observant as well when they were seeking. Their game having gone on for several hours now, both of them taking several turns hiding and seeking, the sun was starting to get low in the sky, and they had both decided to have just one most round before going back to Knothole.

"Now, if I were a two-tailed fox that could fly," mused Fillia out loud as she walked through the woods, "where would I hide?"

There were any number of possibilities, and choosing just one would have been impossible if they hadn't decided to keep their hiding range within a fairly close distance to Knothole. Fillia looked at the tracks again, and finally decided to follow the river that she and Tails had been exploring yesterday. As she thought of possible hiding places, she remembered a little waterfall that they had come across with a little space behind it where a person could hide without getting wet.

"Oh, I've got you now, Tails," Fillia chortled to herself, running beside the streambed.

As she came upon the waterfall, she grinned and jumped down onto the sandy bank a short distance below the grassy turf, walking up to the little cataract confidently. She glanced at the sand around the dark opening that led behind the fall, and almost laughed as she saw fresh sneakerprints.

"You might as well come out now, Tails," she called, "I know you're in there."

Nobody answered, and Fillia frowned. Tails usually gave up when he knew he was caught. She glanced down at the tracks again, following them back a little way, and was puzzled to see that they didn't come from the direction she had taken, but instead came from farther on into the woods. Confused, Fillia walked up to the space behind the waterfall and peered inside. To her shock, a hand reached out and pulled her inside! She gave a short scream, but had it cut off by a hand pressed over her mouth. Struggling out of the grip of her assailant, she turned to look into the face of Tails.

"That wasn't funny . . ." she started angrily, but then grew quiet as the fox put his finger to his lips. As she looked at Tails, Fillia realized that he was breathing heavily, and he looked scared. "What is it?" she whispered.

"There were strangers in the woods," whispered Tails. "A tall one and a short one. They kept stopping while one of them smelled the ground. Fillia," Tails looked around in fright, "they were tracking us! They were following the path we took yesterday! I was going back to Knothole to warn the others, but the tall one saw me and they both started to chase me. Somehow I lost them in the woods, but they kept following me anyway, so I hid in here."

Fillia's eyes had grown wide with fright at this, and she peered outside their hiding place at the deceptively peaceful woods.

"Do you think they'll find us here?" she asked.

Tails shrugged, and they both settled back into the darkness, holding each other tight for support and comfort. How long they huddled there in the shadows, starting at every noise, neither of them could tell. But at long last, after the day had passed far into night, the two youngsters mustered up enough courage to slip quietly from their hiding place and begin to make their way home through the familiar woods, making certain they kept to the shadows all the way. But as they came about halfway to Knothole, Fillia fell forward with a scream. Tails spun to see what had happened, only to find himself wrapped into the strong arms of some unseen attacker. After a short struggle, Tails saw the smaller stranger he had seen before, its features hidden in shadow, pin Fillia on her stomach, holding her arms behind her back.

"You got that one, Slip?" said a voice that made Tails jump. The voice was female, though the arms that held the fox were stronger than any female he had ever known, and didn't sound at all threatening. Actually, if he hadn't been attacked by the owner of the voice, he would have thought it was bright and cheerful.

"Got this one," hissed the smaller assailant. "Has much fight for one so young."

"We've got friends that'll fight a lot harder than that if you don't let us go!" yelled Fillia, still struggling futilely in the strong grasp of her captor.

"Perhaps you do, little one," said the tall being who held Tails, "but I don't think they'll want to fight us."

"Who are you? What do you want?" asked Tails in a quiet voice. "And why were you chasing me?"

"She a legend, I a lizard, we want arrowhead, because you ran," hissed the smaller figure. "You smell like ones who picked it up, so we follow you." Tails looked at him more closely as he stopped struggling, and saw that the creature was indeed reptilian. "If you no run, I let you up," it hissed at Fillia. Fillia tried to struggle some more until she realized that it was quite futile, and finally nodded her agreement. The lizard was off her back in a flash, surprising both the young Mobians with his speed. Any ideas of escape by running that Fillia might have had vanished immediately when she saw the lizard move. She knew she wouldn't get far. The one holding Tails set him down gently, and he turned to face the tall being.

"Wow," he gasped, his jaw dropping. "A real live griffin."

The gryphon smiled down at the fox kit, and reached down with one talon to ruffle his head fur.

"You're a smart kid," she chuckled. "My name's Shrike, what's yours?"

"Tails," said Tails, gazing up in awe at the golden creature. "I didn't know there were any real griffins. I thought you were just stories."

"She story character, all right," hissed the lizard. "She Last Legion."

"Last Legion?" gasped Fillia. "My brother . . ." then she caught herself and fell quiet. Both lizard and gryphon turned to look at the young filly.

"What about your brother, little one?" asked the tall mythic, frowning.

"My name's Fillia," insisted the equine, "and it's none of your business. What're you doing in these woods? Do you work for Robotnik?"

"Fillia . . ." began Tails, but she silenced him with a look.

Both the lizard and the gryphon began to chuckle.

"She suspicious," the lizard hiss-laughed, "smart girl." He grinned at her, showing a mouth full of sharp teeth. "We very suspicious people."

"Slip, don't scare the child," chided Shrike, walking over to put a hand on the lizard's shoulder. The beautiful creature knelt in front of Fillia, looking the girl in the eyes. "Please tell me about your brother. If it has something to do with the Last Legion, then it's very important that I know about it."

Fillia couldn't help but find herself starting to trust this tall, powerful, and wonderful being that had sprung to life from the stories she had been told since as early as she could remember. But still she held onto her suspicion. After all, these were strangers, and gryphon or not, she couldn't know if they were really friendly or just pretending.

"I . . . I don't talk to strangers," she insisted finally. "How do I know you don't work for Robotnik?"

The gryphon smiled kindly.

"When was the first time that you heard the tales of the Last Legion?" she asked, her voice as soft as her downy under-feathers. Fillia was taken aback by the question.

"I guess as long as I can remember," she said after a little thought. "Aunt Rosie always told us the stories, 'cause she remembered 'em best. We didn't have 'em in any books, so it all came from out of her head."

"If you've heard stories about me for that long," said the gryphon, "then I don't think I'm much of a stranger. As for working for Robotnik," the golden creature growled deep in her throat, "I remember that monster all too well. Stopping him is the reason I've come back, and the rest of the Last Legion with me. Now please, Fillia, tell me about your brother. I need to know."

"Well," said Fillia, hesitating for a moment as she looked into the large, honest eyes of the gryphon, "all right. I'll tell you everything I know."

With that, Fillia told Shrike and Slip all that had happened so recently, starting with the raid on the refinery. Both she and Tails then had to explain about how Robotnik had taken over Mobotropolis, turning it into Robotropolis and making all its people into the metal zombies that both Slip and Shrike had seen all too often around their own homes. Learning of the loss of the Royal City saddened Shrike, but she forced herself to keep herself under control. After all, it wouldn't do to have a gryphon cry. Fillia continued with her story, with Tails adding details when he thought they were needed. She told how she had been captured and almost taken to the Roboticizing Center, and how the Underground Mobians worked with her brother and an owl named Oracle to save her. Shrike gasped when she heard about Oracle, but had Fillia continue. The young equine then explained how Oracle had said that her brother was going to help bring back the Last Legion, starting with Paladin, the unicorn. She finished by telling how she and Tails had found the crystal arrowhead the previous day, and how they had taken it home with them. Tails and Fillia looked sheepish.

"I guess if the crystal's yours," said Tails reluctantly as he scuffed his feet, "then we'll have to give it back."

Shrike grinned.

"You like my little toy, I take it?"

Both of the youngsters nodded.

"Then you may keep it," said the gryphon. "It would take too much work to make a proper shaft for it again anyway."

Slip shook his head, rolling his eyes heavenward.

"All good and fine," he muttered, "but now what we do? If no more Mobotropolis, we no have place to go."

Shrike gave a long sigh, and looked around the clearing.

"Give me some room," she said, pulling a long-shafted arrow from her quiver.

Slip and the young Freedom Fighters stood back and watched in wonder as the gryphon held the arrow out at arm's length, and then released it. Instead of dropping, however, the arrow stayed suspended in midair. Shrike whispered something under her breath, and the arrow began to spin, slowly at first, but gradually increasing in speed until it moved too fast for the three other Mobians to see more than a faint blur in the air. They all jumped in surprise as the gryphon gave a mighty screech-roar, the sound mingling of eagle and lion's cries. At this, the arrow came to an abrupt stop, pointing toward the northeast, and then dropped to the ground. Shrike picked it up and put the arrow away, nodding to herself.

"How you do that?" asked Slip, staring at the one he used to call Quiver in wonder.

Shrike shrugged.

"I don't know. It just came naturally. But now I know where we need to go. And these two," she pointed at Tails and Fillia, "need to come with us."

"Huh?" Tails gasped.

"Why us?" asked Fillia.

Shrike frowned in thought, and finally gave a shrug.

"I don't know, really. All I know is that Slip and I will need you. The arrow tells me that Oracle doesn't need me yet, and so I'm going to go wake up Basilisk, the Cockatrice. That means we're going to the Great Desert, and we're leaving right now."

"But . . . but we can't just leave," exclaimed Fillia.

"Yeah," chimed in Tails. "They'll get worried about us back at Knothole."

"I agree," hissed Slip from beside them, making Fillia and Tails jump. "It not right to take them away from family."

"I'm sorry," said Shrike, "but I only know what we need to do, and we need to leave now if we're going to be on time."

"On time?" asked Tails. "What do you mean?"

"It's hard to explain, Tails," said the gryphon, scratching her head. "I've only recently woken up, and things are still hazy for me. The reason that I know that we need to go now is because I can feel the future a little. Something bad is coming, something big, and if we don't leave now we're not going to get back in time to stop it. Don't ask me how I know this, I just do. You'll just have to trust me."

"But what about our friends?" asked Fillia. "They're going to wonder what happened to us."

Shrike scratched her head again, frowning, and then her face cleared as an idea came to her. She reached down and pulled out the arrow she had just used, then reached into another pouch on her quiver and drew out a scrap of animal hide and a piece of charcoal. She handed the hide and charcoal to Tails, since he was closest to her.

"I keep these for message sending," she explained. "Write a short message to your friends. Tell them that the Last Legion is coming back, and the gryphon needed your help. Hurry, though. We don't have much time."

Tails nodded and began to write as quickly as he could, writing what he had been told and then adding that he was fine. Then he and Fillia signed their names and handed the charcoal pencil and scrap of hide back to Shrike. The gryphon tucked the charcoal away, and then wrapped the parchment around the shaft of her arrow. Taking her long bow from her shoulder, she strung it with only a slight effort and fitted the arrow to the glittering string.

"Which way is this Knothole you mentioned?" she asked, raising the bow. Fillia and Tails pointed, and Shrike took aim and fired her arrow off into the dark woods. "They should get the arrow in a matter of minutes," she said a little smugly as she slung the bow onto her back. "Now come, we have a long way to go before morning."