>>141503446Knuckles was a kid when that happened and explicitly didn't participate. In fact, all the people who DID kill Longclaw were killed by her own talons before they brought her down, and Sonic is mature enough to know that. It's why he sympathizes with him and says "they both lost everything that day". Note that when they initially fight, Sonic is pretty pissed at him and only calms down later when he tries to figure out why he's hunting him.
>>141503466By that point, it's clear Eggman had nothing left. Once he lost the Master Emersld, he was running the DER off of a contingency dummy system and once THAT was down, he couldn't pull any further tricks or he'd have used them to escape or stop his fall. He was basically fucked and both sides knew it.