Among Wolves

by benignmilitancy

"In this world, you must be a wolf among wolves. Either you dominate the pack, or fall to teeth and claws." [Chronicles 2 WIP.] It took Eggman seven years to conquer Sonic's world; they have less than seven days to take it back. With a Nocturnus armament sworn to protect the Empire at all costs, the race for the Chaos Emeralds is on, while a dark force spreads its sinister roots.

1. Chapter 1

Among Wolves

---

I.

Sunshine warmed her for the first time in forty centuries.

For Shade, the phenomenon bordered on impossible. Nothing could have beamed down through the high walls of the Nocturne cathedral; here the only light came from flickering torches set upon bronze sconces, their eerie glow echoed by the High Praetorians who stalked these cloisters and the distant stars they'd named themselves after, fleetingly cold at best.

And here it was. A true, warming luminescence. The last time this kind of light touched Nocturne's stones was on the eve of their takeover: a day long awaited but condemned to failure. That last sunset, though it painted the sky exquisite in shimmering bands of crimson and gold, had reflected her own surrender back at her, eventually yielding to the darkness it sank into.

Argus came and made its will known. For the next four millennia her clan lived, fought and trained in a place light seldom dared reach. Eternal dim, not enough to deprive but just enough to make one crave the closeness of a flame; the Cage denied them even that basic nourishment to punish them further.

As much as she'd tried to forget it, she couldn't. Her craving for warmth grew with each slow churning of the cosmos. No amount of sconces or armament glow could alleviate her need to feel the sun trickle through her fingers, even if all this hope would amount to was for naught.

Now when she closed her eyes, some part of that hope was restored. She could feel the light as her teammates must have felt it: a soothing, honeyed warmth, at once thick and cleansing. Her wounds began to lift from their broken tissue as it grazed the delicate skin of her eyelids, calming the anxious throb pounding inside her head.

Surely she must have known it sometime before this, in that past life when the simple things didn't hold such power to astonish her; something dormant within her recognized it as the light of all things peaceful and pleasant.

That light came from the blue hedgehog, now golden, who rippled soft whorls of Chaos energy from his metal-sheen body while he panted from exertion. He clenched his fists, widened his stance, and braced himself for one more unseen blow. His ruby irises darted in search of his missing opponent.

Somewhere within the shadows her lord laughed. The sound quivered throughout the great cloister, growing in magnitude across the widening gulf that separated him from them. In the span of one held breath she heard the true intent of his heart. Here she heard everything: the ticking of clocks and gears he had set into motion, Nocturne's distinct machinations, the minute but incalculable erosion of the years.

Sonic's shoes clinked cobblestone as he wafted to the floor.

It would have been foolish of her to deem the fight finished. The fight was never finished with Ix. Her suspicions grew into certainties when another light pinpricked suddenly in the darkness at the end of the hallway.

As Sonic squinted at it, her hackles rose.

A white dot ringed gold in its center rippled outward. Within it one red eye emerged, saw them, blinked—this she swore true with her life—and surged forth, claiming walls and ancient tapestries of long-ago times, eating and thrashing and devouring Nocturne's insides, crumbling everything it touched, mindlessly indiscriminate as it raced toward them.

She threw up a shielding hand. Through the gaps in her fingers she startled to see Gizoid limbs and roasted stones tumble forth, knocked along by an invisible force. From them she glanced up, dread squeezing a fist inside her gut. Nocturne swayed its vaulted ceiling unnaturally to the left, dry mortar grinding against ancient stone in an exhausted growl. Silt coated them in ashen sheets, raining dust. Its walls creaked and wheezed air as if any minute now it would topple on itself.

The skeletons of broken Gizoids danced. This was no sunshine, no welcoming light.

Shade looked from her home to Sonic, Sonic to her home.

Drew in her breath to scream—

"Run!"

No time. Fire slammed out of the darkness and an unbearable heat killed her voice: her lord channeled a funnel with such terrible ferocity it seared through her vision, bathed her blind. Light and heat lashed against invisible walls of air like hellish tides splashing over a dam.

Without thinking Shade threw herself over her nearest teammate.

Tails did not resist her, seeming to have understood her intent. As the fire flared over them, he gasped inside her embrace, squeezing his eyes shut and coughing harsh breaths against the warm stone. When she covered his mouth with her hand so he would not inhale the smoke, he gagged, bucking instinctively against her to be let free.

A lick of hot air rode up the grooves of her spine like a salamander, and she shuddered. She tightened her grip on his shoulders, refusing to let the fire eat him. More came and went, swarming in droves, collecting sweat along her flesh.

Soon her own throat clenched painfully and she was also deprived of air, thirsting for it; the blood pounded in her head and nausea loomed in the smell of her charring armor; it seemed all there was and all there ever would be was this overbearing heat, stealing everything from them in return for what they had stolen from her lord.

Sonic stood in the midst of it monstrously calm. He braced his hands to deflect the maelstrom with his own energy, ignoring the sheer heat that would have otherwise devoured him. The fire slammed and whorled and lashed its burning heads in an attempt to reach him, and screams abounded as the team thought he was going to be swallowed whole. Still he remained, his silhouette cutting stark shadows at the fringe of her vision.

He smirked as fireflies zipped past.

"Nice firecrackers! They'd probably work better if you pointed 'em up, though!"

Sonic grabbed the fire right then, held it in his hands and laughed. Laughed before tossing the entire wall of flame upwards as if he'd caught a serve, and kicked the volley through the cathedral roof.

There was a moment, airless, as she watched the volley burst through stone. Her heart gave a squirm and quieted.

The oppressive heat vanished, returned to darkness and coolness and thickening smoke; the salamanders wisped away with the impact that blasted through the nave, sucked out almost entirely. The fire ebbed from a hungry blaze into a dim white ribbon and faded among the stars, leaving spots to pulse in her vision.

Most of all, Tails was able to breathe again. He sat up coughing, one hand flown to massage his throat. She relented him his freedom in a mixture of caution and amazement, her one hand poised at his shoulder, uncertain if he would need additional support.

Her gaze drew toward the stars that now shone down through the empty gap in the ceiling. Her other teammates did the same, tentative, amazed, confused, grateful.

Sonic wagged a finger. "Now how 'bout you put the sparklers down and we talk this over?"

"Lowly maggots," Ix swept a fiery arc with his scepter, "begone! I'll make dust of you all!"

Sonic chuckled. "Wanna bet?"

Once more they collided twin forces of nature, thunder gnashing against fire, which only left Knuckles to ask in the background, "Is everyone all right?"

Shade rubbed Tails' back, his head cradled between his arms while he breathed in fits and starts. It worried her that even as his inhalations slowed, they remained shaky, uneven.

"Come on," she urged quietly, "we've got to get moving."

"I know … " The kit tried his best to stand, but buckling knees hindered any progress he might have made through sheer will alone. He grasped the stone wall, squeezed his eyes shut and let out another dry cough.

" … Shade?" he asked, his voice cracked. "I … don't feel so … " He wobbled, prompting her to catch him and lower him gently.

"Tails?"

Amplified by the sudden clarity the silence provided, a girl's voice rent the air. Amy jogged across the ash-ridden carpet, setting aside her hammer as she knelt beside them. She placed a hand on the boy's head, rustling the singe graying his matted fur. He groaned at her touch, fluttering his eyelids shut.

She looked Shade full in the face with her mouth drawn wide. "What's wrong with him?"

Shade looked around. The team had coalesced around them; while Sonic kept her lord at bay, the team arrived through the dim, all bearing varying mixtures of hardness and wear from battle.

Her comrades. People she would fight for, if it meant a chance to be free.

"Smoke inhalation. But we can't help him unless we find a way out of here."

Rouge glanced at Shadow, who nodded tersely and teleported both himself and Omega out. It faintly occurred to Shade that he still retained Scylla's Chaos Emerald.

Knuckles snapped his neck towards the dissipation. "Heck's he going?"

Rouge impatiently waved him off as Amy slipped one hand under Tails' skull, cradling it close to her, to allow the team healer to do her diagnostic work. Cream pressed one ear against his small chest, her brows drawn tight in concentration while Cheese hovered nervously beside her. "Cool your jets. We gotta wrap this up."

"What about Sonic?" Amy asked, and just then they flinched; a portion of a nearby wall collapsed from a psychic strike, turned to a pile of rubble. "We can't just leave him here! This place is gonna fall apart any minute now!"

"You're not wrong." Shadow reappeared, walking toward them. "We're borrowing time at this point. The ship's fine, but the cathedral's infrastructure won't endure this battery for much longer. We've got to get topside, Sonic or no Sonic."

Rouge opened her mouth to answer him when the rabbit shot up, grabbing her friend's hand. "Amy? Mr. Tails isn't breathing!"

Shade began for the cloister. This fight had to end before anyone else got hurt.

"Wrong way, Shade." A strong hand gripped her arm, followed by a narrowing of purple irises. "You're not gonna reason with him."

She nodded while also shrugging him off. She knew Sonic's stubborn streak. Knuckles complained often enough about it, which judging by the frequency was something of a given fact, even going so far as to warn her to stay out of his way.

The ceiling groaned.

Shade withdrew her leech blades. "Get him out of here before he inhales more," she said, pointing at Tails, "and get to the ship, all of you. I'll try and settle this quickly."

No one protested.

Ash scuffed in clouds around her boots, its sound pounding in tandem with her accelerated pulse. As the thunder grew near, danger prickled her senses into salience. Chaos energy swarmed Nocturne—good and evil clashed so aggressively against each other that the cathedral itself, formerly an impregnable bastion, seemed to wheeze from the strain.

She ran past a pillar the moment Sonic sprang from it, moving too quickly to register her in the shadows. Stones rained out from his blast and a reflexive flash of her leech blades, poised at a cross-swing, took care of those that would have pelted her.

How could anyone find two combatants amidst all this commotion? Their bobbing and weaving was only marked by their taunts.

A throaty chuckle escaped the hedgehog. "What's the matter, Snow White? Got no prince to kiss?"

He grabbed Ix's robes and hurled him overhead at the throne, a heavy structure which toppled over with a resounding crash the moment his opponent slammed into it. In return a bolt of plasma sizzled his former location, turning it to singe. As Sonic leapt on him, the two exchanged a flurry of strikes and kicks that blurred into a mingle of light.

That was why she could only watch in horror as her lord somehow sighted her, smiled—and knowing his audience would appreciate the show, thrust the head of his scepter into Sonic's stomach. The arc caught his torso, and the resultant energy catapulted him towards the wall.

She jumped as Sonic slammed through it with enough force that cracked the stone in a halo of breakage, causing loose chunks to crumble down en masse. Beyond that hole resided darkness, a familiar void. He was gone, for the time being.

"Shade." Ix drifted down to meet her level, a deranged glint showing in his milky eyes. "How lovely to see you again."

She bristled, her every muscle strung to their snapping points. Her breath caught and she fought to swallow it back down upon hearing the voice that had commanded her body and mind for ages, endless ages. She couldn't resist heeding its call, not even now, when the very sound of its slow, sneering cadence made her nerves tingle.

When they saved the N'rrgal from declaring war on the Zoah colony, the Queen Mother had grown uncharacteristically somber. Enough, at least, to reflect briefly upon the nature of the Emerald she'd bequeathed them in gratitude.

Its power, she hissed in her regal voice, was magnified through its bearer. Because the N'rrgal were a peaceful, quiet people, no longer eager to war now that their spawning pools had been restored, and the Queen possessed irrefutable proof of her lord's treason, the power the Queen felt was like starlight.

A slow, tranquil twinkle passed from the Queen's viscous hands unto Sonic's. An inner light within the gem pulsed in accordance to her desire for amnesty, and it was then that Shade realized the truth; Ix may have lied, may have fostered war and belligerence for his own twisted aims. But it was the Emerald that decided to enact those desires, that drew upon the content of one's soul just as much as its wielder called upon its power.

It shouldn't have surprised her that her lord emitted a different kind of heat than Sonic. It prickled him, crawled up the lengths of his robes with sulfur and vengeful flame.

He tipped his head. "Tell me, why did you take these pains to see me again, hmm? Did you crawl all the way back here just to save your pride?"

This wasn't him. She knew it wasn't him. The him that she had known was now as empty and devoid of substance as this cathedral that called itself their home, just an echo of its true self, a pale echo. Logic dictated guilt shouldn't follow her for excising a ghost.

A dark chuckle haunted the dusty air as a predatory smile curled his lips. "Of course not. You have no pride."

He flew up one fist and telepathically caught the strike she hurled at him, that cursed energy shield of his igniting her leech blade. Light spurted from the collision like blood from a wound. Pink gouged into green to no avail, thrashed against it and—

No!

With a flick of his hand, a jagged bolt split her blade in half. Yet another grind of his fist crushed it entirely. She snarled and leapt toward him herself, just to be repelled by a flaring of his self-made corona.

Her determination to cease the battle made her foolish. Shade hurried to retrieve the scraps of her blade, to cover Sonic's prone form, when the butt of his scepter slammed down onto her hand, hissing pure energy against the material of her glove.

She cried out and shoved it away, knocked it backwards, cradled her fist to herself. As the searing pain ebbed she looked back upon him like a wounded predator, bristled from equal parts spite and impotency.

"I see now," Ix drawled. "Perhaps you wish to surrender these amoebic lives as atonement for your treachery against me? How very … piteous of you."

She resisted the shiver that scurried up her flesh as his words melted into a deep, deluded laugh, one that brought to mind Knuckles' words before they infiltrated the cathedral.

Some people just want the world, no matter what it takes.

She'd never wanted this. To conquer the world had never been her dream—but in a feverish fit of self-delusion, her lord had forsaken her for that, discarding everything they'd built in the process. For a single selfish desire he'd cast her aside. Deemed her exile. Unworthy.

None of these had hurt more than her failure to recognize the danger that had been brewing beside her for the past four thousand years. During their travels, she'd had time to reflect on her loss since being saved, and in her meditations she had realized an incredibly clear but painful truth—her lord held no intention of living in their old world. It became exactly as Nestor told her so very long ago. A man who lives for battle is ill-equipped to harvest peace; he would trample his own crops just to sow the seeds of dissent.

The time for doubt had passed. Rising on her feet, she sauntered forth, clutching her wrist to staunch the throbbing in her hand.

"Stand aside," she said. "I don't have time to play your games anymore."

"So you say, little bug." His teeth showed in a horrible grin as he called her again by her pet name, now coming from his lips a twisted mockery. "So you say."

How dare he. Even after all this time, how dare he. She tightened her grip on her remaining blade until the blood rushed from her quaking knuckles, their tremor strong enough to rattle the handle.

She chanced another step to retrieve her fallen blade and walked against the crackling fire, which only deepened her resolve to keep going. He could burn her, but she would prevail, if just inches at a time.

He chuckled at her attempt at bravado, tapping one finger luxuriously against his scepter handle. "Will you strike me, Shade? With that paltry toy?" A tsk, as if she should have known better.

Her remaining leech blade clattered before him.

For the first time, he seemed genuinely taken off-guard.

"What are you doing?"

"You can't own me if I don't belong to you." The distant sounds of laser fire pierced the silence outside. Sonic was fast approaching, and her window of opportunity vanishing. "All this wasted time … I should have heeded Nestor's advice."

A spark of shock widened his pupilless eyes even more. It was a name he'd truly believed he'd never hear again; just hearing her whisper it morphed his expression into a hateful, paranoid mask.

"Don't you dare, Shade. Don't you dare come before me and try to claim righteousness. Not after all you've done in my name."

The light from him blistered an accusatory fire, one she couldn't look directly into without being burned. "I know, Lord. I've committed too many sins. Which is why, as of this moment … " She swallowed. "I am nameless."

"I should have known. You're nothing more than the dirt you came from, and I was an utter fool to think I could mold you into something more! Shade!" He devolved into ranting as she turned her back on him, ignoring the clench in her throat as she heard a name she could now no longer respond to, as custom demanded. As it must.

"Turn around and heed me this instant, you stupid, worthless girl—what kind of blatant idiot do you take me for? Do you truly believe I'll fall for the same trick twice? Do you believe for a single moment they'll protect you, the liar, the traitor—"

To her astonishment, his furious strikes against her dissipated midair. Some energy shield absorbed them, faintly shimmering at its edges like the delicate iridescence of a bubble. She looked toward a gallery window, where Sonic had climbed through and was propped against the sill like a nosy neighborhood gossip. He had a weary grin on his face as he tossed a thumb toward Ix.

" … Someone's got a lot of air in the tires, huh, Shade?"

She pressed a hand to her heart, her head lowered. She tried not to focus on how his impact would have otherwise killed him in his normal form, given how hard he struck the stones, and indeed bruises darkened gold fur where they'd scraped him on the way out. But Sonic must have been thinking something entirely different, for he found it prudent to wink and give her a thumbs-up anyway.

They couldn't converse for long. Rumbling quaked, making them backpedal from the steep cracks forming in the floor.

"The enemy and the traitor wish to die together," sneered Ix, his voice echoing from seemingly all directions around them. "How poetic. Let me make this your final resting place to commemorate, so you won't be utterly forgotten!"

He burst through the crevasse's heart, and they beheld his flaming cocoon as it dislodged stones from the floor: tendrils of light wove around the floating detritus and the radiant figure suspended inside.

Sonic replaced his weary grin with a fiercer one, pumping a fist to himself. "Haha, yeah! About time you stepped up your game!" With a softer backwards glance, he added: "Stay back, okay? I'll be out in no time."

Shade walked a few steps in front of him, shaking her head as she studied the orb. "Sonic, don't." Her voice was hoarse from smoke. "Forget your ego. You must leave this fight."

Was there a hint of disappointment on his face when she said that? No; she must have been imagining things. "How come? I thought the whole point was to beat him and get the Emeralds back, save the universe—you know, the usual? Heads up!"

They dodged a strike that scorched the carpet.

"You don't understand," Shade pressed. "He'll drag you under if you aren't careful."

"Heck, I'm always careful! It's this big boy who keeps dropping bombs all over the place!" Grinning, he spun around to address the Imperator with an irreverence she'd never dream of using in his presence. How could he think this a game, child's play? How could he come so close to destruction and still choose to smile? "I'd say we're just getting the party started, aren't we, Ixnay?"

Just then, echoed distantly through the great hall, Knuckles screamed: "Sonic, you moron, we gotta go! Tails is hurt!"

The pause provided all the time her lord needed to land a proper blow. Energy waves slammed the two of them backwards, skipping their bodies across the floor like stones, tumbling and rolling them till they came to a stop at the partition just beneath the balcony, all to the raucous sound of Ix's laughter.

"Ha! Your self-indulgence is going to be the death of you, worm!"

Sonic spat out dust, sniffed and gnashed his teeth. Moments later he blasted toward Ix and careened off, again and again, now pounding against her lord's barrier like a fleet of burning arrows fired against a shield wall, relentlessly striking flames from all angles. Those traces of humor had dissipated from him like Ix's strikes.

So it wasn't the battle that forged his resolve … it was the threat of loss. The kit whose hair Shade saw him ruffle: that image of buoyancy turned hard, now transformed.

She decided to seize her opportunity as he was deflected once more, thrusting out her hand for him to catch. "You can't approach him from here. If you can get me to him, we can end this quickly!"

"Sounds good to me," he replied. "Let's go!"

Shade felt her hand snatched and her body plucked into the air. Sparks trailed and ripped up the cords of fabric still holding the cathedral's stolen tapestries together.

Sonic tossed her up, and curled into her hands as she held them above her head, throwing the room into a ferocious blaze the faster he spun. She'd held him like this in combat, enough times to know he contained the force of a projectile. Grasping him in his super form was like holding a miniature sun between her hands, with all of its power waiting yet to be released.

Ix looked at her one last time.

(don't think about it don't hear his voice)

She blinked, and Nocturne—not this pale imitation but true Nocturne—appeared before her. Her lord stood in resplendent robes, his expression once kind, once wise, his throne a temple of sandstone and moss lit by that last dying sunset.

"You don't understand.

"When you swore your life to me, it became mine.

"Your first breath and your last …

"Shade … "

She squeezed her eyes shut.

And threw Sonic with all her might.

(Forgive me, my lord.)

The next thing she knew—

Singe on the carpet, a ring of blackened stones. Those were all that remained of the illusion. Even so, a terrible emptiness gnawed at her, and she clenched her jaws to keep her vision from blurring while she knelt panting on the floor. It had to be done. It had to be done.

Beside her, he shivered.

" … Sonic?"

"Heh," he said, managing a smile. "Don't worry. This always happens."

A flaring of the light forced her back. It burned almost too brilliantly for her to bear for a moment before dimming, the Emeralds' considerable power ebbing away from his body.

The golden sheen swirled away from his blue fur like a powerful tide receding from shore, his quills dipping into their usual weighty downward curves and his body sagging back into gravity's mold: a process he accepted with a grace she could only envy. If she'd had access to that kind of power, she'd never wish to let go.

Let go it did, back to its mysterious source. Slowly that wonderful sunshine returned inside him, its healing warmth wafting away from her, and with it, the feeling that everything would be set aright.

Sonic exhaled as the last golden star extinguished above his head. And soon he radiated no more light, becoming the same dull substances as her and the elements that surrounded them. Same as the darkness and the charred tapestries and the flickering cold torches her lord left them to inherit. Smoke lingered in the shattered throne room like the empty aftermath of a nightmare.

Vibrant green eyes cracked open, full of concern. "You okay?"

She stood up, and he glanced toward the end of the hallway. More stones were crumbling down, but it all seemed distant, of no true consequence.

Sonic inhaled deeply. "Tails … "

Her shaking head prompted him to knit his brows together, and he took her hand to help himself up.

"Okay," he said. "Let's beat it the heck home."

---

That somber mood endured for the next few hours as the Blue Cyclone did its thankless job of carrying them out of the Twilight Cage.

Amy perched herself at the foot of Tails' cot. She peered down into his slumbering face, exhaustion thorough on hers. At the head of his mattress sat an oxygen concentrator; the mask attached to his muzzle rose and fell with the steady rhythm of his chest.

She placed a hand on his head, gingerly brushing his fur between her fingers.

Get some rest, little brother. You need it.

She wanted to talk, to make sure things would be okay. Words failed her every time Sonic turned, though, so she sat until he would be ready. Every once in a while something broke her reverie, some glimpse of activity she hoped might provide her an opportunity to speak; usually it was just Cream, who wandered in and out of the room to update this bit of info on the computer or fix that corner of the pillow that refused to stay pert.

She looked toward Sonic pacing in aimless lines in front of them, waiting for a break in Tails' condition. The grit from the cathedral clung to the bottom of his soles and scraped the floor each time he turned.

Amy waited, wondering if she should say anything. At length she couldn't take it anymore; she said his name, making him stop. "Sonic?"

Unfortunately, this small bit of courage was rendered moot when the door slid open.

"I'm tellin' ya, I don't need stitches!"

"Keep walking, soldier."

Grumbling abounded as Rouge prodded Knuckles in the back with two fingers, boredly, to multiply the echidna's frustration. Cream followed them, swinging a small metal box like a lunch pail at her side. Cheese floated in last, carrying a pile of rumpled linens.

"Let me help you with that, Cheese. Those are finicky." Amy took the Chao and settled him in her lap, gathering the cloth to be folded.

Cream wheeled out a portable ladder from an inbuilt closet and climbed up to open an upper-level cabinet, trailing her finger along a door rack stocked with bottles. She selected one, dropped down and placed it on a desk beside the metal kit.

Knuckles grumpily plopped onto a stool in the corner while she put her things away, muttering irate comments to himself. Rouge, ever helpful, squeezed his shoulder.

"Comfy?"

"Hmph." He sniffed. "I don't get this. I get roughed up all the time and no one ever needs to poke anything through my— What are you doing with that?" he asked, catching a flash of steel as the rabbit dug through the kit's provisions. "Cream, that's a heck of a lot bigger than a mosquito bite!" Sonic coughed into his fist. "Yeah, and what're you laughing at?"

It soon became clear that Cream had asked Rouge to keep Knuckles company for a good reason: to anchor a nonchalant hand to his shoulder and keep him from bailing out at the sight of her preparing an alcohol swab. "This will sting a tiny bit. Maybe if you looked the other way and sang your favorite song? That's what Mother always tells me to do when I have to get shots."

"Right, let me just belt one ou—ow!" Cream yelped apologies as he clamped a hand over his arm, nearly spilling the alcohol. "Be careful with that!"

Rouge shrugged at the others during his rant-filled procedure. "Scared of needles. Figures." Her gaze settled upon Tails. "Kid got hit pretty hard, didn't he?" Silence. "He'll be okay."

Sonic smoothed down his top quill. "Thanks, Rouge."

The closing of the cut on his arm passed more quickly than they anticipated, for by the time they looked back Cream was already bundling up the kit and heading for the other room.

Rouge smirked. "You're free to go, you big baby."

Knuckles wound up his good bicep, his temper renewed as he glared at her. "Who you callin' a baby?"

"You." She gave him a light bump with her hip. "G'wan and play. Let these kids have some peace and quiet for once."

"Alright, fine. Just quit shoving me around!"

"Hon, no one likes it when I start shoving. Now make like a good boy and maybe she'll make me burp you later."

"Rouge!"

The door closed once more, their endless banter fading behind its heavy material. Sonic turned back awkwardly toward Amy. "Did you, uh … say something?"

"Ah—" She folded the last linen for Cheese while he patted down a crease on a pile beside them, concentrating on the task at hand. "Yeah. I heard someone coming and wanted to know who." Heat surged through her cheeks, and she berated herself for bucking her fleeting nerve. If this were any other time, you'd be talking his ear off.

"Oh," Sonic said. "In case we had to practice our emergency parachute drills or something?"

"Oh, ha, ha. You'd probably jump out the window if you saw Shadow walk in here instead of Knuckles, wouldn't you?"

"Watch him get jabbed with a needle and laugh? You bet I'm splittin'. Gee-ronimo!"

She was too tired to laugh, but they did at least share muted smiles before returning to the pretense.

Beyond the door, Amy heard Cream, her high voice reminding Shadow to keep drinking liquids and Knuckles not to pick at the stitches, taking inventory of scrapes that would need to be cleaned and bandaged.

How long had she been at this, tirelessly taking care of everyone else? A medic's work was never done, Cream once declared, and she was glad she took this duty seriously enough. For as much as they got knocked down and dragged out, they needed that exact sort of dedication. But between her and Sonic, she was starting to worry about the fervor with which the girl tried to keep busy and sew up the crew's constantly unraveling seams. Sonic agreed, too, in so many words. She posed the question the minute Cream showed behind the door once more.

"Cream, you've been running yourself ragged. Why don't you take a break?"

"Oh, no! We're fine. Aren't we, Cheese?" Nodding vigorously, her Chao companion fluttered to her side. "Pardon me for interrupting, but it's time to move Mr. Tails so the computer can record his vitals again. Would you like to get something to eat in the meantime?"

Sonic looked over his shoulder before turning again, his voice soft. "You go on ahead. I gotta watch my girlish figure."

"You sure?" Amy asked. "You really should try to keep up your strength … " She didn't dare say After you were almost beaten to a pulp.

"It's okay, Ames. Think I'll stay here for a while. I'm not real hungry, anyway."

Yikes. She nibbled a corner of her thumb. Usually he can't wait for dinner.

She stood, bundling the linens around her arms. Well, no matter if these two ran themselves into the ground; they needed nourishment and that they'd get, even if it meant she'd have to spoon-feed it to them. She tried a more pleasant tone than the one in her head, however. "How about a treat? You guys want some hot cocoa?"

Cream and Cheese brightened at the mention of cocoa. "Yes, please! With extra marshmallows, if you would!"

"Coming right up!" Before leaving, she silently caught Cream's attention and mouthed the words Watch him please, pointing at his back. The rabbit seemed confused at first, but nodded soon enough.

"Er … how about we brighten this room up a bit? It's grown awfully dim in here." When she clapped her hands, a soft glow from overhead sconces filled the room. Past the Blue Cyclone's cockpit and before the bunk beds was a small vestibule where a first-aid station resided, and the mild light made things easier to see. "Ah, there we are! Much better."

Shoved against the wall were two inbuilt cabinets which were stocked with medicines and compress bandages. A desk sat between them, with a diagnostic computer currently slumbering in hibernation mode.

Some of the handier features that Tails had the foresight to install were collapsible cots. Because they would see various stains, they could also be cleansed via hydraulic sterilization if hooked back into the wall. Sonic didn't completely understand how the process worked—when did he ever?—but he could hear the air-spray tubes hum as Cream input the wall-mounted code to bring one down.

The tubes withdrew and a fresh cot emerged from the wall about a foot off the floor, fitting into place with a small click. To him the mattress smelled just like newly laundered clothes. He was sorely tempted to fling himself onto it, especially after weeks of rolling around in dust and sweat. Just curl up next to his buddy and snooze like a rock, sleep off this whole thing, wake up with fur stuck to his cheek and Tails would be laughing at him like always …

Her work done, Cream began smoothing out the bed.

"I got 'im," Sonic said, scooping up Tails and tucking him inside the new bed, taking care not to pull on any wires. "In ya go, bud. Nice and snug."

His smile faded a bit as he pulled the blanket around his shoulders.

… wish you could hear us, buddy …

Cream unraveled a coil of plastic tubing and attached one end to Tails' concentrator. An empty tuber embedded within its center bore a bead. She slowly turned the knob until the bead jumped up toward an appropriate marking. Then Cheese carried over the laptop, which she connected to the concentrator with another cable.

"The computer says this'll help him breathe until I find the right medicine," she explained, eyes widening as she remembered something. "Oh! But I forgot, the oxygen treatments are stored in the refrigerator. Would you please go get a fresh one?"

"No problem." One small issue nagged him.

The door was stuck.

The Blue Cyclone might have originally belonged to Eggman, but it was Tails who had made it something more habitable. Among the myriad things he and the doc had accomplished in their engineering spree, he'd updated its automated systems, ensuring the ship would be able to take care of itself based on the code he wrote—and for the most part it had been, a fact of which the young kit had been appropriately proud.

Not that he doubted his little bro's capabilities: heaven knew they'd pushed him through more than one close scrape. But Tails sometimes overlooked small details that would have been obvious to less prodigious minds; something as mundane as a jammed door would have likely slipped his mind during his rush to get this thing spaceborne.

Sonic decided a Luddite approach would better suit the task, and punted his shoulder against the door to little avail.

"Mr. Sonic!" Cream tapped frantically on the keyboard. "Something's wrong with the—oh!"

A massive groan rent the air; the ship tilted at a sharp angle and she tumbled over, prompting him to catch her before she could hit the wall along with the computer.

"You okay?"

His ears pricked, seeking the source of the quakes that trembled through the floor. Seconds later, sirens ripped through the air, bathing the room in red light. Just beyond the door they heard a high-pitched cry and a shattering of porcelain as another rumble convulsed through the ship.

Sonic hit his palms against the door. "Amy, are you all right? What's going on out there?"

"I don't know—something must have pushed us through! It's—"

The ship seemed to turn on itself. Shutters meant to protect port windows from outside damage turned their own deadbolts, while the emergency exits at both sides of the cockpit locked of their own accord. Through the chaos in the other room he heard Knuckles yell Jeez! and Shade, her voice faint but startled from her self-imposed meditation at the other end of the hull: What's happening?

Sonic's ears picked up a shuddering hiss. He whirled around.

Tails!

He yanked him away from the cot and cradled him close as it folded back inside the wall, wincing at a few cables that snapped off just before the hatch sealed completely. Cream stared in bewilderment, clutching a severed tube that hissed out air. Even the damaged laptop flickered once before burning out its pixels to a blank screen.

Silence reigned, followed by a resonant voice that cut through it like a knife.

"Why, helloooo there, my fine technicolor friends!"

Eggman.

"What a pleasant surprise! Did you all enjoy your space vacation?" Here he chuckled: "I must say you're looking positively swell with those nasty scrapes and bruises, aren't you? Did those mean old Marauders kick sand in your faces?"

Cream whispered, "Why is he so loud?"

"Didn't come with a mute button."

Yeah, he thought. If only it were that simple.

Knuckles demanded: "What did you do?"

"Ah-ah! A genius never conquers and tells." Apparently someone had rushed for the controls and jostled them, deepening his laugh. "Nor does he disable the onboard defense systems he built with the intent to trap his dearest teammates inside! Perish the thought."

Multiple voices roared over this, ranging from Knuckles' indignation to Omega's threats of destruction and Shadow's bitter condemnation. Among them, Shade decided to speak. "Let it be known," she said, a hint of ice chilling her voice, "that only a coward rescinds his word."

"Ouch! Be still, my wounded heart," Eggman said. "First of all, 'princess of traitors,' I made no such promise you all keep flapping your gums about. Second, a word to the wise? Don't butt into my business before you start lecturing me on what's cowardly."

Sonic froze. The words Eggman used—there was no possible way he could have known about the rumor that had spread throughout the Twilight Cage, that Shade hadn't just deserted Ix but absconded her clan gladly. Despite the black-hole sized gaps in logic that would have entailed, the denizens were all too happy to believe she'd served as an informant against him, having defected to their side.

He recalled the mocking way the cathedral's prefect, Scylla, had laughed when he'd called her the name she hated most, "princess of traitors." The name set a muscle in her jaw rock-hard each time she heard it repeated. He'd heard it again over the comm link before Shade called the shrieking Gizoid a madman.

Scylla laughed harder.

There was a crash, a shattering of the signal. Bits and pieces of chaos screamed through the microphone. A fight so heinous even Tails couldn't discern its outcome ensued until a grainy silence sounded: Knuckles wearily telling Shade, "Don't do that again."

He looked down at Tails in his lap. Pale and still.

(forget your ego Sonic)

(I betrayed Lord Ix)

(he'll drag you under if you aren't careful)

"You've got one heck of a nerve!" Now it was Amy's turn to lead the diatribe. "When we find you—"

Once again, he waved them off with the same flippant disregard. "Now, now, what we've got here is nothing more than a simple failure to communicate. All that time locked in the Cage must have made your blood boil. You're so doped up on fighting juice you couldn't think straight if you tried, poor lambs!"

"Hey—" Amy began hotly, but stopped as he likely raised a hand.

"Did I do a bad thing while you were away? Well, that depends on who you talk to." His grin widened; or at least, Sonic imagined so. "Hard as this may be to believe, I do have a life, you know. No thanks to someone oh-so-conveniently losing the Master Emerald and pile-driving an island straight into my city … not naming names, Knucklehead—" eliciting a growl from Knuckles' end, "—I had to rebuild. But I would very much appreciate it if you got your facts straight before you started browbeating me for imaginary crimes. Because the fact is … "

Sonic inwardly suppressed a groan. Anything was better than listening to him go on and on. "Cream, do you have Tails?" he asked, and turned. About time he and Egghead had a little chat. "Stay here, okay?"

Leaving Tails to her care, he returned to the jammed door, a tiny sliver of light now slicing through the room. A few kicks leveled at its bottom rail uncurled a corner just enough to form a gap for him to squeeze his body through. Amy ran over to him and grasped his arm, helping him across the broken shards on the floor a bit needlessly.

Upon seeing him, the man in the monitor grinned. It was as if he was waiting for him to arrive, and to see him here; behind him, potbellied marble statues of himself stood at attention in an opulent office setting. Complete with a lush carpet and stained glass windows lit by a roaring fire, the flagrant display gave Sonic just the slightest pause.

Was it him, or did Eggman appear as changed as his environment? Not just the attire, thicker goggles and a jumpsuit hemmed with gold trim; he didn't recall those faint patches of silver woven into his bushy mustache, either, nor the wispy crow's feet etched at the edges of his eyes. He also had what appeared to be a mechanical brace fitted over the sleeve of his left wrist, the aperture in its center glowing a faint green. Arthritis, or a roboticist's tacky fashion choice? All of these pointed to a larger question in his mind.

Just how long were we gone?

Either way, the same kind of ugly showed when he flashed his teeth. "Oho, so he did make it after all! How are you, old chum? I was beginning to wonder if you'd show up."

"And miss this?" Sonic shook his head. "Not a chance."

Amy's fingers dug into his forearm.

"Famous last words," replied the doctor. "Frankly, I don't even know why your little ragtag crew is getting angry at me, because as far as I'm concerned my clocks run on schedule. You, however … "

Eggman lifted his wrist and pressed his fingers inside a groove embedded inside his brace. The pressure activated the ominous light, which blinked once and turned scarlet.

"Well, let's just say you're late for a very important date."

An explosion hammered the starboard and threw everyone against the port. Emergency warnings from the cabin's interior systems added to the klaxon outside, making the sheer noise unbearable. The ship bowed sharply to the right and knocked over provisions with a resounding crash, scattering glass and metal and conjuring even more chaos as shouts bubbled up and hands were yanked to keep people from falling debris.

The copilot's chair careened towards the locked emergency exit and put a dent in the heavy metal. One rotor sputtered out, and the screen delivered an engine failure message—why wasn't the backup coming on? Did he control that, too?

"Oops," Eggman cried. "Have fun tumbling down the rabbit hole, kiddies!"

A final ta-ta ground the last of the salt in their wounds before erasing the screen to a gaudy test pattern. What's more, they all heard turrets being swung their way upon the scientist's command.

"Ready!"

"Get us out of here!" Knuckles demanded as Sonic leapt over them, making a beeline once more for the med bay. "C'mon, Sonic, he's aiming the cannons! We've got to bail!"

Sonic hooked his fingers under the door's sliver and yanked it open, his heart thudding louder with each passing second.

"Cream?" he called amidst the screaming of the sirens. "Tails? Where—"

Fallen supplies, gutted machinery and shattered vials abounded in the room. The ladder had broken in half, one of its wheels spinning frantic orbits from a fractured leg; a cabinet bent oblique barred his path. He breathed a tiny sigh of relief when he glimpsed Cream sitting in the corner with Tails and Cheese gathered in her lap.

"We know," she said quietly. Cheese shook his head, and she placed a reassuring hand over him. "Will we have to leave?"

As he crawled under, he noticed she had strapped a first-aid kit to her back. No trace of fear lingered in her wide brown eyes, just simple expectation … and he couldn't help but be a little perturbed. The Twilight Cage had taught her to be ready for any outcome.

"Yeah," he said, grabbing her hand to help her up, "but Eggface is always blowin' smoke." Or so he hoped. "Help me find some stuff to get ready, okay? I don't know what medicine Tails needs."

"Okay."

Kicking it once to loose the locked doors, he ransacked the overturned cabinet. What else did you use to treat smoke inhalation?

He looked down as his foot nudged a duffel knapsack they'd used to gather artifacts. Five of the seven Emeralds gleamed inside: one Shade had relented to Shadow, and one he'd given to Cream for safekeeping after they'd washed up Charyb. He began stuffing provisions indiscriminately inside, covering up their ethereal glow with a speed and recklessness one could only attribute to a supersonic hedgehog, while the rest of the team formed contingency plans in the next room.

"Shadow, no," Rouge was saying. "You've already spent enough of your energy. Don't—"

"Cream?" Amy called. A flurry of voices rushed in at once, all clamoring to be heard.

"—locked up in here, and Tails had to reinforce the—"

"—can't you do something?"

"—verexert yourse—"

"—risk I'll have—"

"—what's happening to—"

"—is he—"

"—rybody off now, Sonic—"

"Aim!"

More turrets heaved toward the ship, making Shadow growl. Rouge reprimanded him, yanking his other wrist down as one inhibitor ring clinked to the floor.

"Chaos—"

"Shadow, don't you dare!"

"Con—"

"—warp this ship and we'll beat you silly!"

Taking Tails over his shoulder, he coaxed Cream and Cheese through the gap in the door and crawled back out behind them.

"All right, listen up," he said, peering between confused faces as he jogged toward an emergency exit, "Eggman wants us to scatter, so we need to stick together. Pair up with someone who can get you to safety and stay low." Before anyone could reply he tightened his hold on Tails, kicked the door hatch and sent it careening hundreds of feet below, where it hit the street with an ungodly shriek. "Everybody move!"

Gales screamed into the sagging cabin and while the others filed out, Amy whirled around. Was he really going to jump with Tails still unconscious? "What about—"

He shifted the kit's weight to his left shoulder, shimmying the knapsack down his other arm and offering the strap to Cream. "I need to ask a big favor: take the Emeralds to a safe place, and I'll meet up with you later. Can you do that?"

"We won't let you down, Mr. Sonic. Come on, Amy, Cheese. It's time to leave." She grabbed Amy's hand, fluttering out.

Amy blinked back the smoky wind that ruffled her. Doubt lingered in her heart where she touched it.

"Sonic … "

He didn't hear her whisper, though he did reach behind himself and curl his index finger around a sliding metal pin.

"We'll be alright," he told the angry sky as he tugged at the ripcord. "We always are."

---

Blacking out sucked.

Falling from a height, striking dirt or metal or the curb—it all yielded the same result. When consciousness swam back to him it always made him nauseous, that swarm of color and sound loud enough to overwhelm his senses.

Sonic didn't consider himself a stranger to unconsciousness, however brief his skirmishes with it may have been, but his familiarity still didn't make the experience any more pleasant, especially considering how often Eggman called upon it as a quieting tactic. Only time he was still—exactly why he hated it.

The singe of laser-ignited fuel pricked his nostrils when a small, frantic hand grabbed his shoulder and shook him awake.

"Mr. Sonic!"

Blurred shapes came into view, peering down at him through a red haze. It took him a minute to register the face behind the voice.

" … Cream?" He shot up. "Where's—"

"I don't know," the little girl said, twisting her ribbon. "After that blast, everyone got separated by these awful robots, and … " She bit her lip and studied her smoke-scuffed shoes, unable to say more. And for good reason. This place was Metropolis with a vengeance.

Time seemed to follow a weird rhythm here. Without any discernible sun or moon to make the distinction, they could have been here hours or mere minutes. Spotlights waved needle-like beams through the crimson sky, piercing holes in thick anthracite clouds as they drifted past. They wouldn't find what they sought aiming at the clouds, Sonic knew, but it was all being done for the sole purpose to impress and intimidate. Coincidentally Eggman's two favorite hobbies.

The atmosphere contained a murky underwater quality, swaying to and fro in thick crests. Amidst a trenchline of factories and energy outposts stood the fat man's base, a bald thousand-ton head sitting atop an equally impossible lattice. Burning yellow eyes and a three-pronged mustache conspired into a wild grin anyone could see for miles around. It bore the smoke and the smudge with glee, viewing its domain from its implacable perch.

In the sky just beyond lingered a scar of the exhaust where the ship had taken a nosedive. He tried to follow its possible trajectory, guess at a crash site, when a sharp pang in his head drew his attention away.

He furrowed his brow, touching a cut that had formed somewhere over his eye. His fingers brushed a scaly patch above the wound, and he panicked slightly, thinking it a tough layer of scar tissue that had built there, before he tapped on it and realized that it was in actuality a stiff bandage Cream must have salvaged from the wreckage.

She glanced worriedly at him. Poor girl was never satisfied with her handiwork.

Sonic asked: "How long've you two been here?"

Cream took a moment to silently confer with Cheese behind her hand. A question mark briefly formed over Cheese's head before rabbit and Chao turned toward him, bowing in unison. "We're sorry. Neither of us can remember. But we do know you've been asleep for a long time."

A long time … again, in a place like this that could have meant anything. As he scratched his ear, he surveyed his own memory and came up short.

"Did—"

"Yes." She dug into her dress pocket, and soon enough the sharp facets of a green Emerald gleamed at him from within the confines of her palm. "Well … Just this one." She withdrew it suddenly, exclaiming: "Do you think the others have found good places to hide? It'll be dark out soon, and—"

(Tails. Tails is still sick where is he Tails)

He offered a wan smile and ruffled her hair. "Hey, no worries. We'll find them together, you and me, eh? It'll be our own adventure."

"Mhm."

Lukewarm; he tried a more humorous tone. "Eggman can't scare us, right? You could poke a hole in 'im and let him zip around the room."

She nodded, and he finally stood up.

That fortress … the ugly one. Once on his feet he scrutinized it a little closer. One of its yellow lights was winking, blinking one of its pupils. It ejected a spot of black that took off into the sky.

He grabbed Cream's hand and turned before she could see, their steps pattering the concrete.

"Yeah," he said. "No worries."

---

A voice called out to him.

Shadow …

This voice he heard had no meaning, no discernible origin. All he knew was that it was somewhere within, and it carried his name through his emergent mind, faint and numinous, like a weak gust of wind crept through an open window.

Shadow.

He felt cold.

He breathed in mortar dust, coughing slightly as it irritated his lungs. When he blinked, he came into contact with green eyes. Eyes of a Gizoid. A thin beam of red pierced the darkness and repelled those bright green eyes.

Get down.

His body flattened itself on instinct. The beam flew inches above him, hit its target and shattered into such a brilliant explosion that it shot his thoughts back into reality. The abstraction he witnessed morphed into the sight of Omega's flamethrower snarling back a Gizoid as it guarded a limp partner sprawled across the pavement.

Give up, Omega commanded. I have destroyed your leader. Surrender now or be annihilated.

The smoke-encrusted Gizoid twitched its head at an unnatural angle and slaked off sparks—a fatal glitch inflicted by a gash in the side of its skull. Emitting an electronic hiss, it lurched with its head aimed low to butt the other robot.

This tactic failed, utterly; Omega knocked it back with a secondary round from his chain gun, leaving it to tumble over its partner.

He turned. You are fortunate I found you before they did.

Shadow looked down in curiosity before clutching his head, riding out a pang that squeezed his skull. "Ugh … My head—why is it—"

The source is most likely a concussion. Caution advised, or else chances of remission will increase drastically.

"Lovely." As if he couldn't get enough of being comatose. Meanwhile, the strange voice in his mind intensified as he stared at the carnage, sputtering indeterminate white noise in between stabs of pain. Moments passed, and by some small bit of luck it faded out into Omega's drone.

I could not recover your inhibitor ring.

"Don't worry about it. We've got bigger fish to fry."

What do aquatic life forms have to do with our current circumstances?

"More than you think," Shadow said. "For example, a fish out of water must locate another source before it suffocates." Rising slowly, he began walking north, tracking over the rubble toward a distant spotlight. "We've been misplaced as well, into a cesspool of strange energies."

His hand stiffened, prompting him to scowl down at his palm and massage the feeling back into it until his fingers could bend again.

This isn't good. His ring was missing. Energy would now leak from him at a rate he couldn't predict or regulate … and if he didn't practice caution, virtually anything could take that place, fill that void. It was how the Professor decided his body would maintain homeostasis in the face of such an event, for better or worse.

I've examined these buildings for signs of change, Omega added. Soil samples of the external environment report a denudation rate of 30.83 millimeters per year. According to my data, however, the outer structures of these edifices have eroded at a fourth of that rate.

He dropped his palm to his side. "They're not as abandoned as they appear, you mean."

Plausible, but inconclusive. More investigation is needed.

During their time in the Twilight Cage, Shadow had heard Omega refuse sample analysis for incompatibility reasons (many materials that hailed from the other dimension moving at too fine a frequency for him to analyze), but here he wondered if that meant there was a secret purpose for these artificial buildings, or Omega truly couldn't explain the gap. Was it possibly both at once?

"Aren't we in Metropolis?"

That is an incomplete assertion. All we may infer is this is not the Twilight Cage.

A voice beyond them said: "For your sake, you should have stayed there."

They whipped around as someone emerged, stalking over the rubble. Dense echoes ground under the boots of a Nocturnus.

Of all creatures. Shadow raised his fists, slacking slightly when the Nocturnus raised a hand in truce, palm faced outward, and shouldered between them. There he knelt before the broken Gizoids, his motions calculated and tense as he placed the head back on the inert body of one.

"Not that it matters to you," said the Nocturnus, punctuating his words with a sharp twist that locked the head into place, "but Gizoids also have souls. As sacred protectors, they are bound to us."

Dissatisfied with the result, he shook his head at the carnage, but would have to make do with what little survived. He repeated this process with its twin and then, rummaging through the sides of their skulls, withdrew two tiny chips. He pinched one between his thumb and forefinger and regarded it with the delicacy one would a seashell, his head reclined at a soft angle.

"Even so, you should be commended. You continue to astonish us with your lack of … restraint?" he asked pointedly, "I suppose is the nicest way you primitives would put it?"

Shadow thought, I'll show you primitive, but decided to remain civil for the time being. "Who are you?"

"Someone you're going to regret knowing." He turned, and more eyes pierced the cloud of dust behind him. "I am the Consul, second only to the Doctor himself. And these Gizoids you so carelessly slaughtered here," gesturing to the broken robots, "were two of our city's most thorough sentries. Yet you somehow can't bring it within yourself to care, can you?"

He was liking this punk's tone less with every word he spoke. "For your health, I wouldn't advise you to make us your enemies."

"Indeed. My heart just skipped a beat hearing that." He thrust a gloved finger at Shadow's chest. "Listen to me now, you boor. You destroyed something of ours, and while normally I'd be content to return the favor and go my merry way, this is a special case. The Doctor wants his Gizoid back."

Omega marched forth, towering above him. I am not a Gizoid.

The Consul drifted his head up, boredly, then dropped it as if he hadn't seen him at all. "I'll admit it doesn't bear the markings of one. But I'm not here to argue, because as I have said, a Gizoid is a sacred protector bound to us, and only to us. Are you beginning to understand, or need I repeat myself endlessly? Perhaps it would behoove you if I spoke in mon. O. Syll. A. Bles?"

Laughter murmured out of a few scouts. Shadow had heard superior insults from Sonic—who still thought "Faker" was a valid putdown—so he brushed these paltry attempts aside. "You're pretty nuts yourself if you think I'll let you walk off with Omega. Who also has a minor inconvenience called 'free will.' It'll make your mission a lot harder than it needs to be."

"That's nice you believe so. Because I don't recall asking its permission."

Circuitry screamed when a bright green dagger plunged into Omega's carapace, peeling apart shrieking metal as the Nocturnus dragged it down and stuffed a chip inside. To Shadow's confusion, the dagger drew back up and fizzled out into dust. The wound itself clotted and sealed the fissure just as quickly as it had been inflicted. What it left behind was a dripping scar of molten steel and liquid energy. Meanwhile, the arm Omega had lifted to lash out now seemed rusted shut, unable to move.

Shadow rushed to his side, slamming his fist against the wall when he saw his ally rendered motionless. "Damn you! What did you do to him?"

"Nothing that wouldn't have happened eventually."

He sneered. "Wrong answer."

He hurled a brick at the boy's head at a speed that would have dropped him unconscious had the Consul not deflected it, crouched behind a leech blade positioned vertically.

Sprinting over, he knocked the blade out of that grip with a scissor kick and used the opening to pummel his fists numerous times into the boy's chest, until something snapped and that odd green substance pooled around his knuckles; he could barely feel it burning over the din in his head. He crushed the boy's grip in his and continued whaling. His blood pounded in his ears. He wanted them more than gone, and released his opponent before support could converge on them.

Breathing hard as spots pulsed hard in his vision, he said, "Omega, if you can hear me: aim for that pipe!"

Sh … dow.

Straining against his electrical bounds, Omega gave a broken squawk and fired off a single round. A hole punctured the metal of a rusted pipe lining the eave where the hedgehog pointed, and a smatter of oil splashed down, coating the Nocturnus who stood underneath.

"Excellent," he said, turning toward these sad excuses as they swarmed around him. "As for you—"

Shadow lashed a low kick at the ground, aiming his heel straight at the rush. A large flame jettisoned out of the spurt his heel spit and exploded in a wall of vapor.

However, the shield was temporary at best, a stopgap measure, and they were bearing up much faster than he'd have credited them for—

"Go!" was all he managed to shout to Omega before the pavement slammed against him, rocks biting into his flesh as someone's weight knocked him to the ground.

Fingers reeking of scorched oil clamped around his face and shoved him down. He jerked aside to avoid strikes that gnawed the stone inches beside his head, the boy's leech blade streaming out ribbons of fiery steam with each blind stab.

"I'm not letting you off that easily!"

"Don't sound so certain." Shadow grasped the echidna's wrist and wrenched the muscle back with his thumb to loosen his grip; as he cried out, he balled his fists together and drove them into his chest before any more blows could connect.

The boy staggered back, but he was still tottering on his feet. To Shadow, that made him fair game. The next swing descended in a tight overhead arc—too high an arc would have opened his vitals for attack—and he parried with a kick.

Their exchanges didn't go without consequence. The energy from the Consul's weapons had latched on in a way Shadow couldn't shake. A small whorl slipped from one of the blades, fanned out from his fingertips and flowed up his arms into the tips of his quills, spiking and ribboning before crawling down his spine.

It felt like an electrocution, only with its initial jolt slowed down to such a massive degree that its heat pooled out, thrilling his blood, squeezing fingers around his heart as it pumped. His entire upper body radiated a film of hot green light, and it distanced the world from him, slowed it down.

His mind still registered danger, however. When he raised his fist to block a strike, a shock hurtled out and repelled the both of them. He saw his opponent float away and eyed the phenomenon with a mixture of caution and curiosity.

Once the shock ejected that energy, it gave time leave to resume. Movement that once seemed suspended in a liquid sort of clarity now blurred: the Consul who was once floating now bashed into the opposite wall, his body juddering thoroughly as a sharp crack announced his impact. Shadow flinched as his jaw smacked mortar with the force of a baseball bat, searing white through his vision.

They lay for the next few moments atop the rubble, stunned, while around them swam the repetitive clamor of auto fire and close shaves. Omega had broken free of the chip's influence for the time being, though his movements were rigid, locked in his joints.

Shadow winced. Omega, wait, you're not completely healed. Don't go it alone. Slapping his vulnerable hand to the brick, which tingled along with his sore jaw, he recovered his footing.

Motion flurried in his peripheral vision. Energy flared against his inhibitor ring, the resulting friction spraying sparks into the air.

"Your weapons aren't standard fare … They run on the energy of the Emeralds," Shadow said, panting between words. "But that's impossible. Sonic—" He trailed off.

The Consul barked, "Sonic what?"

He shoved the boy aside and sprinted toward his ally. He grabbed Omega by the wrist and led him along, his heavy body thankfully floating from the remainder of his thrusters.

"Pick up the pace, Omega. We've got to find the others before they do."

---

"That's right, chickens, run back home to your daddy! Maybe he'll teach you a few manners while he's at it!"

With a huff Amy chased the drones to the curb. If they thought they could harass them like this and get off scot-free, they clearly had another thing coming.

They eluded her just as they rounded the corner. She broke out into a sprint and vaulted a nearby fence to close the gap. Planting her feet on the landing, she pitched her hammer at them with all the strength she could muster.

The blow only destroyed one of four, but one was more than enough to send the message. Her hammer arced wide and landed true; metal and wire puffed apart, fluttering down in short-lived fiery whorls.

Rage flamed her cheeks from within. Amy stood panting, clutching the edges of her skirt, while seconds later her Piko dropped to the concrete with a solid thud.

She wasn't angry; she was livid. Who did Eggman think he was? If she could tear this city down just to prove a point to that old man's smug face plastered everywhere, mocking them around every corner, she would.

Even so, something urged her to return immediately to the one-way street and monitor Tails, to retrieve her hammer and jog back around the corner before more sentries spotted her and harassed them. Making matters worse was that these were the kind to tote guns and all too happily chop you into bits. If she hadn't roused when she had, they might have turned them into kibble. She swore, if they'd so much as touched a hair on his head …

Amy balled her fists, pumping them in front of her as her rubber soles slapped the pavement. This anger felt different. It wasn't the same kind that arose when Sonic forgot their dates or when someone said something careless to her—those subsided with time, softened by perspective. This one felt like a fire had blossomed inside her chest, clamoring to be set free. And to be frank, it scared her that she'd let it loose so easily.

Normally she would have reacted to her own outburst with surprise, perhaps even a little embarrassment. But anger kept you alert to danger, she supposed, and as long as it sustained her, she could do without her ladylike scruples nagging her to temper that instinct.

For now, survival would have to trump some measure of inhibition and civility. Her angry thoughts pushed aside the dreadful ones, and for the time being she would let them fill her mind, fill those awful, empty spaces where fear would otherwise crawl inside. Once believed, fear would never let go.

She climbed back over the chainlink and slowed her pace. Tails was still huddled where she'd found him, against a small stack of concrete. She feared moving him from should sudden motion exacerbate his state. He showed no outward sign of injury, but you could never tell with these sorts of things. She knelt and shook him gently.

"Tails, wake up," she begged. "Please, wake up … "

He remained motionless at her touch, making her wish desperately Cream were here to assess the damage. She'd inhaled some of the smoke, too, though she was still relatively healthy.

As a matter of fact, she was certain they all had. But because they'd been closest to the epicenter of the fight, Tails and Shade had received the full-brunt of Ix's magical inferno. While Shade's respirator filtered out most of the sulfurous cocktail, he had inhaled the fumes whole. She could only begin to imagine what kind of damage they must be wreaking now.

Amy whispered an advance apology, "Sorry, Tails," and pinched the inside of one of his ears. Thank heaven, his pulse was still strong enough to respond to her ministration, throbbing against her fingers. She then monitored him for breath, feeling his chest as it rose shakily against her hand. He could breathe on his own, but it seemed with some measure of difficulty. He still needed that concentrator.

Briefly Amy glanced around her surroundings, nibbling on her thumb in nervous concentration. But what? The concentrator might have been destroyed in the blast, and equipment like that probably wasn't available here, if at all.

Pushing herself up, she ran to the chainlink fence and hooked her fingers through the gaps, peering around the corner. There had to be a solution. She couldn't just leave him here like this.

The carnage scattered on the curb caught her eye, and she sprinted over the fence toward it. Maybe she could use those parts to make something halfway more useful than those stupid drones. Even if she wasn't the handiest, it'd suffice for a short time. She nudged the carnage with the toe of her boot, scowling at the insignia stamped on its curve.

Don't even get me started on him. Kneeling down, she unscrewed the thin plastic cover from the carapace the way one would remove a thermos lid, copying the way she'd seen Tails do many times. However, she misjudged the hike the drone's internal temperature took when its engine had exploded. The immediate consequence was that the cover jumped out of her hands, hissing steam.

"Ahh! Hot, hot!" She pinched its outermost edge and alternated between frantically blowing on it and waving it out until the white patches bubbling on the plastic ebbed away. Now for something to pierce it through … a propeller blade?

Good as good does.

Using the blade's flat end, she punched seven small holes through the plastic, five forming a crude star pattern on its face. She tucked the cloth against the cup's innermost layer, to trap smog and unnecessary particles, and pulled out two strips through the holes she punched through the sides to form a rudimentary mask-like filter. It wasn't her best, but given that she had minutes at best to get this done she couldn't exactly nitpick her own handiwork.

She returned with the supplies cradled in her arms, and assembled them in front of Tails' listless body. After nestling the impromptu respirator over his mouth, she tied the knot behind his head and jerked both ends snug.

"This is what we used to do when the dust storms rolled in," she said, her mind conjuring up images of yellow silt rolling along Never Lake's shore. "If it worked for us, I don't see why it shouldn't work for you, too, right? … Right."

In truth, Amy was working from a vague memory of childhood: snatches of ideas and incomplete chunks of information. She was far from certain she'd connected all the pieces correctly, though only time would tell her if she had.

She leaned back against the brick and hugged her knees to her chest. Her solution wasn't perfect in the least—nor effective without the reinforcement of proper medical attention, the existence of which … she highly doubted in Eggman's twisted little playground—but she had to dilute the risk of this polluted air further damaging his airways. As her own caregivers used to say: an ounce of prevention was worth a pound of cure.

Burying her head into her skirt, Amy tried smiling to herself. She tried to picture him in a different backdrop instead, a more comfortable one. As much as it wasn't the case, she wanted to believe that he'd nodded off over blueprints again and was slumbering at his desk with a blanket draped over his shoulders. She would switch off his lamplight, and Stanley, his faithful flower and part-time control experiment, would be flourishing in his protective glass bubble at his side.

"Hey." She caught the disc as it slipped and refastened it. "I don't care how dorky you think it looks, keep it on. No need to breathe in more of this nasty stuff."

Often she was told she had a special touch when it came to caring for the ill, which was usually due to observers thinking that sickness obeyed her whims when she knew there was no real secret to it at all. You just had to listen to what the sickness was telling you, no matter how much it might hurt to hear the answer. Listen and wait.

She just hoped she wouldn't have to wait for long.

He stirred after what seemed an eternity. His eyes cracked open, blinked once and widened a little as they adjusted to the smoggy atmosphere. Murky blue swam toward awareness.

"Son … ic." Tails took a small, juddering breath and squeezed his eyes shut before easing them open again, as if forcing out the memory of a bad dream.

She flinched at his sudden jolt. He glanced in every direction, bristling the more aware he became of his surroundings. Given the things that had happened to them in the past few hours, she could hardly blame him. When he finally looked back at her, guileless and full of curiosity, she felt as though she were a lone straw floating in the ocean. "Wh—where's—"

A lone straw she'd have to be. She wrapped him inside a hug, and didn't let go.

"Amy?"

She nodded, dreading the question now more than ever.

"Just … " His breath hissed, too softly buried under flimsy plastic. " … where are we?"

---

Rouge tapped her chin while she drifted, her wings maintaining a gentle flap behind her.

"Mmm, sweetie. Hate to break it to you, but we can't have Halloween every day."

"I know you have an Emerald."

Couldn't if she tried.

"Sorry if you don't like it," she said, waving the scout away with a flick of her wrist, "but I'm tellin' the truth. I don't have any candy. And even if I did, I don't like to share." She narrowed her eyes as he stepped forth. "Why don't you try the nice people down the street?"

As he walked, he flicked out his own wrist. A leech blade unfurled from the motion like a fan, curving out into its usual glowing arc.

She fluttered down and tucked in her wings. Smirking, she beckoned him with one finger. Ladies never declined an invitation to tango.

Rouge waited for the boy to charge, lifted one knee and snapped back a terse heel-kick. She built upon the opportunity that blow provided to propel herself off the ground, grinding up another kick that sent the leech blade flying away and flipped her around in a cartwheel. As a result her heels barreled again into the echidna's helm, one-two, with enough force to drop it like a sack of rocks.

She stuck the landing with her arms outstretched while her wings eased her back down, a fine film of dust pluming around her heels.

Rappels whined down the walls.

She piqued a brow at the reinforcement. "Yeesh. Neighbors gave you too many raisins or what?"

Just then an explosion rocked everyone off their feet, scattering bricks in such a frenzy it sent them scurrying for the perpetrator.

Aw, shoot. What now?

When the smoke cleared, Rouge was relieved to find Omega march in through the haze instead of some crazy incendiary cavalry. The grenade launcher embedded in his left arm whorled smoke, and his titanium armor deflected their retaliatory strikes with ease.

Crimson optics trained on her.

Rouge located. A whirring clank replaced his grenade launcher with his regularly-clawed fist, which he used to pluck a brick off his shoulder.When in doubt, decimate all remaining structures.

Climbing back up, she placed her hands on her hips, beaming at him. "Am I glad to see you, too, fella. Trick or treat was getting pretty boring without ya." Her gaze wandering, she noted the jagged scar running down the center of his carapace. "Hey, did you … "

"Out of the way!"

Shadow's shout was followed by an echidna flying backward, coming to a hard thud on the concrete before her.

"Huh," Rouge said. "Made a new friend?"

"Hardly," the Nocturnus spat, spinning out of the way before Shadow could hammer his foot down. "The Doctor's Gizoid is an eminent part of his plans, and I'd rather take a thousand blows before I let you creatures defile it further!"

Sorry to say, kiddo, she thought, you've thrown down a gauntlet he couldn't refuse. "Sounds like someone's got an awful high opinion of us."

"This one seems to be suffering a delusion of grandeur," Shadow said, "says his name is the Consul and he works for the Doctor."

"Consul?" Rouge asked. "Couldn't have come up with anything better?"

He wheeled around and fired a burning dart from a collapsible mechanism attached to his wrist. Shadow caught the projectile heartbeats before it could pierce Rouge's left wing, crushing it into smoldering energy with his fist.

The Consul tilted his head. "You're one to speak."

Snarling, Shadow cast the dust aside and pounced on him.

Priority one cleared: engage priority two. Omega deployed a bomb that splashed rebar and scattered the rest.

"So rescuing me, that was just a side-note to the main attraction?"

We came as soon as I detected your heat signature.

"That's what I love about you, Omega," she said. "You know just what to say to melt a girl's heart."

---

A streak zigzagged the decrepit skyline, slashing bright blue into red.

Shingles broke under his heels and skidded off the eaves of factories as he pounced between rooftops, his trek accompanied by the steady flapping of a rabbit's ears.

"I'm not seeing anyone yet, Mr. Sonic." Cream shielded her eyes, scanning the cityscape for any possible sign of their friends, while he vaulted over a chimney flue that billowed smoke. She pulled out the Emerald, disappointed to find it still as dim as when she'd rescued it from the gutter. "Do you suppose they've all scattered?"

Sonic mistimed his second jump a little too late to properly answer her. Another flue gusted up smoke and coated him in a heady mixture of ash and chemicals, making him cough and shake his head to ward off the taste. This stuff was vile. Hopefully he wouldn't have to maintain a steady diet of it.

"Just keep your eyes peeled," he encouraged, "they couldn't have gone far!"

Cream seemed a bit unsure of this, but then nodded firmly. "Right!"

"Surprise, sunshine! Did you miss me?"

Above them, light glittered through the murky veil. A wide beam pierced the dust and spread over the concrete, throwing up hunks of stone. Sonic leapt between the fallout and snatched Cream away before they could smash her down. His speed helped them evade the flames that erupted in its wake.

A humanoid mech the size of a small house marched its way through the haze. Black armored plates reinforced its fuselage, while thrusters in its soles puffed green exhaust with each step it took. Burly arms with spike-knuckled fists bore semi-circular rotors with propeller blades laid inside the wrists. Light flowed in rivets toward its glowing center and out its dragon-like eyes, pupilless and unforgiving as it swept the terrain.

EGG PHANTOM
MK II.

Propping his rabbit companion upright, Sonic shielded his eyes and whistled flippantly. "I knew you were a big boy and all before, doc, but did ya finally hatch?"

"Laugh all you want, Sonic! Did you really think I was going to sit back and twiddle my thumbs while you ran around my city willy-nilly?" Eggman asked, his voice reverberating through an amplifier. "I wasn't just blowing hot air back there, you know!"

Without any more warning than that, another wave slammed out and bisected the landing they were standing on. Steel girders burst and popped like bone, screeching out a horrible grinding noise before collapsing into the street simply as more heaps of discarded rust.

Its skeleton dribbled molten liquid when Sonic reappeared at the opposite end of the street, Cream and Cheese in arms, his heels scuffing up dust.

"That how you wanna play?"

He pounced the moment the mech recoiled its fist, spinning so hard the blood in his head throbbed. His quills buzzed against tough metal, spitting sparks into the air, and he ground against with the friction between them shrieked like a buzzsaw forced through a cinderblock. Eventually, it won out and he was repelled; Sonic landed hard on his back, grunting on the concrete before Cream.

"Eager to get spanked, are we?" Eggman cried. "Now fork over that Emerald, or I will crush you where you stand!"

Two small pairs of hands helped him on his feet; unfortunately, things were beginning to slide in and out of focus for him, swimming in duplicates. "How does he—" Cream began, but soon tucked the Emerald behind her back.

"Hah! Too little too late!" Laughter followed them through the streets as the scientist fired up the thrusters. "Pound the asphalt all you want, kiddies: there's nowhere I won't find you!"

The noise snapped Sonic out of his daze. He would have fought gladly if he didn't think there was also a chance he'd inadvertently hurt Cream in the process.

She yanked his glove cuff, calling his attention toward a narrow rut jailed between two buildings. "Look!"

Cream pointed, and Sonic dove inside. Call it a rabbit's natural burrowing instinct, she'd sensed that the Phantom would probably be hard-pressed to jam its nose through the constricted alleyways. Problem was, most streets they encountered afterward were short and jagged, ending in potholes or roadblocks created by fallen rubble, no thanks to the doc's itchy trigger finger.

Sonic climbed up the scaffold of what appeared to be an abandoned office complex, and stowed inside a room where they could gain a measure of reprieve from the chaos.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

They jolted, Cream pulling Cheese under a desk as two V-shaped dents punched through the ceiling, pouring light into the dim. An enormous boom rattled them, followed by yet another.

The force of the second blow splintered the rafters and rained dust over them, snapping brittle pipes that were inlaid into the joists. By some small bit of luck, the load-bearing supports managed to remain upright, although these too were starting to groan in a way that made his skin crawl …

"Oh, ho! You're not gonna like this part, hedgehog!"

He ducked to the whistle of a shell cracking through the air, and grimaced at the blow's aftershock that trembled clean through to his kidneys. Rotary engines bore the hum of something coming alive. Yeah, he knew this part way too well. "Cover your eyes! You too, Cheese—"

Outside, a thin fissure cracked across the sky like lighting. Heartbeats passed before white brilliance spewed through the windows and engulfed the room.

Twisting away, he threw his arm over his eyes to shield them from the next sudden flare. Great, add a threat of blindness to the mix. If they stayed inside, Eggman would keep deploying flashbangs to smoke them out. Would they fare any better outside?

He squinted at his environment until he came across a flaking, rusted sign just a few short feet the hall. Amid dangling wires was a crash door marked: FIRE EXIT. He shimmied on his stomach toward it, fists clenched as he strained his ears. A rafter bending above spurred him to hurry Cream over.

She scooted across the room with Cheese clinging to her shoulder, hugging the wall underneath the windows, mimicking his belly crawl, until the madman with the microphone shouted: "You want to do this the hard way? Fine! Don't say I didn't warn you!"

"Over here," Sonic whispered. They slipped through the exit onto a ladder hatch on the opposite side of the complex, sneaking under the cover of impending footfalls. The Phantom stalked the edifices, sweeping its beam through the shadows between them for vital signs.

He lowered his foot on a faulty rung, and froze as it cracked and clattered into the street.

One green eye flashed toward them, heralding an unnerving grin like the world's deadliest Cheshire cat. Oh, no. No, no, no—

"Gimme a break!" The rest of the ladder crashed down with a loud, rippling bang. He grabbed Cream by the hand and shot down the rungs as they crumbled behind him, resulting in a disastrous cacophony of noise that advertised them better than neon signs strapped to their backs.

Sure enough, the Phantom rounded the corner but seconds later, breathing noxious exhaust down their necks.

"That guy just doesn't know when to call it quits, does he?" Sonic turned while running and leapfrogged a potshot. "Cream! Can you set me up?"

"We'll try our best!"

"All right," he said, "let's show Eggman how to party!"

---

For every Nocturnus they beat back, three more sprang into place. They had an inexhaustible supply, or else they were restored into fighting shape too quickly to be depleted through sheer combat alone. In either case, the other side was edging them out for the time being. Climbing through openings, tagging others in, indiscernible combatants dancing that same lethal harmony, more and more poured out, maintaining the illusion of heightened numbers. And Sparky—there was no way she would give this green-gills any sort of dignity calling him Consul of all things—well, Sparky was enjoying the spectacle, wasn't he, yanking the strings here?

They inched backward, unconsciously gravitated toward the same center, until hedgehog quills met bat wings and titanium armor.

"Shadow," Rouge asked, "you feeling okay?"

"Never better."

"Then let's drop the curtain on these weirdos."

She tossed him her Emerald, and as its glow intensified in his hands, Omega retained second thoughts. Is that advisable?

"Only one way to find out." Shadow hefted the Emerald above his head. "Chaos—!"

His command delivered them near a dumpster, its guts torn open and the lot before it strewn with robot parts, though she was hard-pressed to say if the teleportation had done that or if that was its natural state of disrepair.

Her cheek mashed against concrete, Rouge lifted her head. "Shadow?" Knocked out cold on the pavement, stabbing fear into her guts. Oh, no, maybe he wasn't fully recovered …

Query, Omega said. Why did you push his limitations?

She had no good answer, shaking him. "Shadow? You said you were fine, you jerk! You'd better not have been lying!"

He blinked awake, to her supreme relief and frustration. "Keep it down," he mumbled. "They'll hear."

As if on cue, a drone zipped past. Next came the pealing echoes of an explosion softened by distance. Smoke catapulted from a building just over the horizon; these created enough of an impetus for Omega to follow. These Marauders must be stopped.

"Don't go too far without us," Rouge said. "Sleeping Beauty and I need a word over here."

Shadow looked up at her as she crossed her arms. "What?"

"You know 'what.' Now that Sparky and his school of hardknocks are out of the picture, you can answer my questions."

He pressed a hand to his temple, taking a moment to steady himself. "Then ask."

"Drop the backsass, hon. Doesn't suit you." Taking a long, rueful look at Omega's back, she dropped her tone to a whisper. "When that kid was ranting about Omega back there, he called him a Giz—"

Rouge pinched her lips thin as another explosion trembled out and Shadow turned. How convenient for him, this place fell apart at just the right intervals to warrant the distraction. One of the kids was likely trashing the place. Big Blue, maybe, or Knuckles taking his temper out on the old man's machines. But that wasn't the point right now.

"—a Gizoid. He meant like the ones we fought in the cathedral, right?" she asked. "And … 'defile'? Who talks like that?"

"Beats me," Shadow said. "But far be it to make sense of anything they say."

His recalcitrance made her bear up. "Shadow, now's not the time for riddles. Omega's got a nasty scar on his gut, you can barely stand, and I know you boys better than to think you got that way by cuddling kittens."

"Maybe you should substitute 'Nocturnus' for 'kittens,' then."

"Please. You think they could be bothered to grow claws that sharp?" Explosion number three broadcast a faint puff. She grabbed his arm and whirled him around to face her, forcing him to keep his attention steady. "Listen, I need to know what that Consul guy said. Every word. If he's a link to the old man … "

"He's nothing. The Doctor wants us to know what he's done, he'll show of his own accord."

"If he's a link to the doc," she continued, "and the rest of the world is—"

He must have been as disturbed by that possibility as she was, because he stared her directly in the eye, unflinching in his stoicism. "I'm telling you the truth," he said. "He didn't say anything worth noting. He appeared and we fought. The rest you already know."

She had a suspicion that wasn't the end of the story. Far from. They were interrupted by Omega too shortly to continue this conversation much further, however.

Shadow has awakened, he announced. His matter-of-fact tone belied relief this was the case, and naturally this confused Shadow. "My eyes have been just as open as yours. Did I miss something?"

"Yeah." Rouge tipped her chin at him. "Pinch your arm and we'll know for sure."

Shadow looked between his teammates, unsure if the two of them were sharing another one of their dry private jokes. "Why would—" He closed his mouth and shook his head, having decided it wasn't worth his time to indulge such folly. " … I don't particularly enjoy being unconscious, if that's what you're implying."

"Right." Rouge floated back up and stuck a light landing on the dumpster, her heels thudding into the hollow metal sheet. Sitting upon it with crossed legs as if she were too regal to stand atop one, she looked to the west, studying the flickering of distant lights in the horizon where Eggman held reign. "Nothing gets past you, does it, Sheriff?"

He responded with a mere hmph and knocked the dust from his shoulders.

Fortunately, their less-than-companionable silence didn't last for long when Omega returned to the shade they inhabited. Rouge's commentary amuses but is irrelevant. Well, pardon moi was her indignant retort. Inquiring status of Ultimate Life Form.

Omega didn't wait for an answer; he took Shadow's wrist and examined its vital signs through a red laser. Either he hadn't successfully convinced him that he was fine, or something else may have been awry.

"He's breathing, if that's what you mean," Rouge said. "Whether he's still the 'ultimate' is up for debate." Some dispiriting thought must have struck her then, for she briefly turned aside and muttered to herself, "Ultimate pighead, maybe."

Both sensitive ears and auditory processors detected her sour note.

I do not understand.

Shadow had to echo his bemusement. "What'd I do?"

He wouldn't get a fully attentive response at this point. Rouge folded her arms, still scanning the horizon for some clue neither of them was yet privy to. Soon her posture followed suit: her shoulders squared more rigidly than they had moments before, and she tapped her heart-shaped toe against the air. "It's never what you do, hon, it's what you don't do. In this case, thinking you could run around the neighborhood without your limiter and slip it past us. Omega?"

Indeed. Temperature range has hiked in this area.

Shadow balked. "You were taking my temperature?"

"Yep. And now you're whining about it, just like a little kid." Rouge propped her chin in her palm. "I swear, the two of you get into more trouble when you're left alone … "

We must install safety measures to prevent overexertion.

Safety measures. The accused couldn't help but sigh, running his free hand over his head. He hated it when they double-teamed him. "Should I skip the reading and receive my punishment now?"

"Mm, not yet. You could always try for a jury of your peers."

"Not much of a trial if the both of them throw the book at you." He coughed into his palm, bringing up smoke in the fabric of his glove: a leftover gift from Ix's magical curse. His memory reminded him how the fox had inhaled the most. A pale slumberer, oblivious to the Doctor's mutiny. Sonic's fists tightening as the Doctor spoke …

Her lips twitched too sharply upward in her soot-stained face for him to believe it was anything less than sly acknowledgement. And yet a slight contradiction inhabited even that mask; some underlying emotion he couldn't name kept him from fully buying the act. She smiled in an effort to preserve something of her old self, before drawing her attention back to the sky.

"It doesn't mean anything, you know." Shadow took his hand back from Omega, which trembled a bit as he curled his individual fingers into a fist. Extending his senses through wandering tendrils of energy, he broke them off with a harsh breath, having strained himself to feel nothing.

This smog is no accident, I'm sure of it … though they must use that fake energy to mask something even bigger.

Rouge flicked him in the back with a light kick. "Says you."

"I do say." He glanced around, every direction seeming murky. "Just because I can't feel its presence doesn't mean it's vanished. This place is about as clear as a mud puddle."

A fourth explosion, this time much nearer than its predecessors, made Omega head for the adjoining street. Abnormal energy fluctuations detected fifty meters west. Initiating pursuit.

"Now look what you did," Rouge said. "Commander ain't gonna be happy to hear you forked your job over to tech support. … if he's still here, that is," she added to herself. Both the relics she'd been assigned to recover and her communicator had been destroyed in the blast, rendering her link to GUN near nonexistent. "We're gonna have to hoof it to HQ soon, get a proper debriefing on this Eggman situation. Maybe Omega can clear out the Nocturnus along the way. Get a little payback for that scar."

She sighed as the prince stood idle, massaging his wrist. Whether his tender feelings were still hurt over the babysitting quip or he hadn't finished mulling over Sparky, she couldn't tell. You didn't need a ruined world to keep you busy; between Omega raring to bust heads and Shadow refusing to talk, they'd keep her plenty occupied.

"Well, c'mon, sleepyhead. You gonna brood all day or you gonna join us? We've got some creeps to take down."

She waited a moment, her face softened at his silence.

They seldom worried about losing him. Shadow looked after her drifting form, then sauntered out of the ruined alley. When he at last broke out into a gliding skate, his hovershoes rippled the air underneath them.

---

"Missed me!"

Soil scraped around his heels. He jumped off the rooftop and clasped Cream's hands in midair. "One more time!"

She flew back up towards the mech as it challenged them to land a hit. Whirling around, she gained more velocity upon each orbit, the air stinging them as it slapped their bodies. At the height of their spin, she released him with a grunt. "Go!"

Sonic tore through nothing once more, his landing rough as he rolled belly-first across the eave. No matter how much speed he poured at it, the Phantom faded out of existence at the critical moment. It was like nocking arrows at an invisible target; all of them bound to miss. As it wavered back in, it advanced on him, creeping, until a rock temporarily halted it, puffing in its face.

"Eggman!" came an infuriated shout from the street below. "You and me, right here, right now!"

Thankfully, the distraction lured the doc's attention. Reaching up with a finger, he wiped away the rubble from the Phantom's cornea as if a wistful tear had accrued there. "Well, well, if it isn't our good pal Knuckles come out to play! Aren't you cute when you can barely form sentences?"

Another rock puffed its hull. "Try me, Eggman!"

"How can I say no to such charm?" Wheeling around to face the echidna, the Phantom aimed its fist, which rotated ninety degrees counterlockwise and locked within its socket.

Sonic scrambled over the rooftop edge. "Knuckles!" he called as Cream and Cheese floated down, holding onto each of his arms to keep him from falling. Dust whirled thickly around them, ruffling their fur. "You don't have to do this!"

"Stay out of my way, Sonic! Or else you're gonna get—"

They were interrupted by a short-lived flame that blew forth and launched the fist at him. Pillars of silt sprang from the impact, tiding high on either side.

"That all ya got?" Knuckles gruffed. He pushed forth, perspiration snaking his brow while he muscled against its sheer force. His heels dug into the ground as he was forced backward, carving ruts into the dusty stone where he refused to budge. After a few moments of struggle he pummeled a hole through a rivet, damaging the mech's forefinger and snapping it back against the joint. "Come on! I've smashed toys that were stronger than this!"

"Oh, dear. I'd hate for you to be bored!" The doctor's tone was gleeful. "Why don't we crank things up a notch?"

"Wha—" Its remaining metal fingers pried open and clamped around his body. "Let go of me!" He began squirming and beating against his prison.

"Knuckles!" Sonic and Cream cried in tandem, but it was too late. An electric beam shot out of the Phantom's empty joint, deploying a large magnet that reattached its fist with a metallic clang. With an overhand heave the mech swung it wildly around, as if its fist with Knuckles encased inside was little more than a yo-yo on a string.

Despite the limping of its broken finger, the Phantom drew back its sparking beam. Bare volts snaked across its cables. "Now," demanded the scientist, "someone had better cough up an Emerald, or I walk the dog!"

Before anyone could even reply, however, Eggman snapped the beam like a whip; it arched sharply and its aftershock trembled the air so forcefully that for a moment, the dust lifted from the ground. The building it smashed into vomited rubble, revealing dilapidated, sparking insides. Electricity thrashed the air and shattered bricks rained down, enough to make Cream grab Cheese and huddle behind Sonic for protection.

"Round and round he goes, where he stops, nobody knows!" Revolving the mech's torso like some demented carousel operator, Eggman pitched Knuckles, a distant boom marking his landing.

A soft, quivering murmur briefly drew Sonic's attention. Cream was rocking Cheese as he shook his head with his eyes scrimped shut. "You two okay?"

She nodded, and climbed silently onto his back. He thought he heard a hint of a sniffle as he took off: though they knew Knuckles wouldn't go down that easily, neither one of them could bear to watch him suffer.

Dodging swings as they crashed down, Sonic hopped up a series of windowsills until he reached the damaged one where Knuckles had landed. He formed a foothold with his hands outside the sill and helped Cream through the open window, where she scanned the area.

"Cheese says he's under there," she said, pointing. He jogged over and shoved aside the rocks, revealing a battered Knuckles, who coughed.

"You alright?"

"Peachy," he said, and groaned when he saw Cream. "Aw, jeez, you had to drag the kid into this, too?"

"She found me. And besides, I wasn't the one chuckin' rocks at Egghead like a maniac."

Knuckles worked his legs out of the rubble, pulling himself out. He refused to take Sonic's hand. "For good reason. I didn't exactly see you winning that fight out there."

Sonic shook his head. "Ya know, Chuckles, sometimes I just don't know about you."

"Oh, get off your high horse, Sonic," Knuckles said, stabbing a thumb toward himself. "Least I tried to do something instead of running in circles like a big blue chicken."

"Sticks and stones? Really?"

"Yeah, really! Why don't I get some and break your—"

Cream thrust her hands out, halting them just as they lunged for each other. "Stop it, you two," she commanded in a voice that was oddly reminiscent of her mother's. Cheese flew in their faces, Chao-ing sharp reprimands. "Fighting like this will only help Dr. Eggman. Mr. Knuckles, your stitches—"

He shut his mouth, looking away. "I'm fine, kid." He coughed. "We're fine. We're just bein' dumb."

"Yeah," Sonic said, rubbing his own arm, "our bad." Narrowing his eyes, he asked: "What'd he do?"

Knuckles still seemed reticent, unwilling to meet his gaze. Eventually he upturned his fist, revealing a dark blue Emerald.

"Was lucky I could find even this," he said. "I couldn't find Shade or the Master Emerald, and when I tried to look, I saw a hunk of land I didn't recognize. Apparently I didn't recognize it for a reason." His jaw knotted, and his hand curled tight around the Emerald. "He took everything, Sonic. Even the altar's gone."

"We can't let him get away with this," Cream cried passionately, startling the other two. "If he took the Master Emerald, there's no telling what else he might do. We've got to act before any more harm can be done!"

They stiffened at taunts from outside. The sound of Eggman's voice turned Knuckles' expression sour. "He sure loves to hear himself talk, doesn't he?"

Cream brightened. "Mr. Sonic says he didn't come with a mute button."

"Yeah, no kidding," Knuckles said, turning with a heavy sigh. "Well, Sonic, what do you say? Truce?"

He took Red's fist and pumped it as hard as he could. "Just follow my lead."

---

"Sonic!" The mech stabbed its broken finger at the building. "I know you're in there!" Air fwiped as it wheeled its other wrist, swinging its heavy magnet in taut circles. "Don't make me drag you out by your knobby blue ankles!"

"All right, all right! Yeesh!"

A dusty crimson shoe slapped itself onto a weakened sill. The wobbling of said knobby blue ankle followed, testing its integrity. He gripped the scaffold near the window, heaving himself up before the wooden plank crumbled off entirely, and climbed up several rungs when a sonorous boom went off, blossoming white throughout his vision.

An imperceptible sidestep helped him avoid the Phantom's magnet heartbeats before it smashed through the scaffold.

More dirty tricks, though for Eggman it was business as usual. He rubbed the vision back into one watering eye until the residue from the latest flashbang dissolved behind his fist. His ears were swimming, and not even in the good way after being whipped around by the wind. If he was going to freefall, he should have just packed the darn parachute like he'd told Amy.

Out the window we go, Sonic ol' buddy boy. Gee-ronimo.

Still, a familiar grin curved his lips as he squatted on the mech's collar, close enough to knock on the glass of one of the pupils. Muffled echoes of the old man cursing him out emanated just beyond the thick material.

Sucking his breath in till his lungs were full to burst, he cupped a hand around his mouth. "Yo, Eggman!" he shouted at the cockpit, slapping the glass. "Nice strobes, but I betcha couldn't hit the broad side of a barn in this thing! How many eye tests you gotta fail to drive it?"

Something bounced off the dark glass within the cockpit, confirming his suspicions; a wicked little thing Tails would have called the Larsen effect. Typically Eggman made his mechs soundproof from within the cockpit, and when they weren't, his run-of-the-mill speakers would have been rendered silent from flashbangs due to overexertion issues. He couldn't rant and run missiles at the same time, after all.

But hearing him rant made Sonic think the eyes pulled double-duty, not just to protect the cockpit but to amplify the signal from the microphone. Hollering a friendly challenge into it would refract that feedback and give the doc the grandest earache of his life. And if it did that—

"Oh, Dr. EGG-MAAAAAAN!"

—a rabbit squeal pitched at full-blast would hurt.

His grin turned the slightest bit sour as ugly feedback shrieked out. From within, the doc clapped both hands over his ears, stamping his boot against the floor to drown out the shock.

Cream hovered behind the mech, her flapping ears carrying her body as she gave Knuckles a thumbs-up.

"That's it!" The Phantom blindly smashed a fist into the ground. The sapphire Emerald flashed as it soared away from Knuckles, and Eggman seized it, swatting Cream away before she could scramble for it.

"Cream!" Sonic shouted. He and Knuckles saw her fly toward the ground at the same time, screaming. Enraged, the echidna threw retaliatory punches into the mech's shin while he ran to catch her.

The screaming stopped.

His heart pounding against his throat, Sonic forced himself to look up.

Curled up in a fetal position, she protected Cheese's body with her own. But that wasn't the true oddity, nor the thing that made chills erupt on his arms—that lay in the fact that she was cushioned by a luminescent aura that covered her from head to toe.

That wasn't to say she'd stopped moving. In fact, if he didn't know better, he'd say she was still hurtling toward the ground but her pace had slowed down significantly to a crawl, like a single drop of water whose frames had stopped just short of the crucial burst by a high-speed camera.

He felt shaken, as though something powerful had just interceded, and if he didn't stop gawking now that clemency would be wasted. Her ears drooped while he jogged over to catch her, and as the mysterious glow faded, let it ease her into his arms. She squeezed her eyes open, blinking hard.

"Cream." His voice cracked. "Cheese. Are you hurt?"

"The Emerald … " she murmured, producing it from her pocket and staring at it in amazement. "The Emerald protected us."

Sonic nodded solemnly. The Emeralds were capable of amazing feats; it was even said they performed miracles when reunited, though for him those very miracles were standard fare that came with playing hero. Nothing they'd done before had struck him as this eerie, this coincidental.

Come to think of it, Knuckles should have had been a lot more banged up than he'd been thrown through a window. Had his Emerald helped him in a similar manner?

Cream squirmed as Knuckles evaded various strikes. "Is he still fighting? We've got to help him!"

"Not all of us." Mortal fear flashed across her face, and he set her down. "Listen, Cream. If we keep this up, Eggman might never stop."

"Then isn't it all the more reason for us to stay?" she implored. He winced his eyes shut as she and Cheese appealed to him with clasped hands. "It's far too dangerous for any one of us to take him on alone! I know we can get through it if we just stick together, I just know it. Please, won't you let us help?"

Taking a quivering breath, he shook his head. "It's—" he began. "Not—"

"Mr. Sonic?"

He pressed his fist against his temple, his teeth grinding tight enough to burn. There it was again, that pain, blurring and shifting his focus. When he withdrew his fist, the old bandage Cream had applied now stuck to his glove. He'd have hated to think what would have happened if she hadn't had that Emerald on her …

"I'm sorry." Tails' slumbering face drifted into his mind, a mental image he kept sealed away for another time. The thought of them being alone in this place twisted knots in his stomach, but— "Knuckles was right, I shouldn't have dragged you into this. But there is one more thing you can do."

"What is it?"

Kneeling down, he placed the Emerald back in her hand, securing her other hand over it to cement the idea in her mind that she was now to be its protector.

Cream looked back up, awe and curiosity shimmering in her large eyes.

"Where do we go?"

"As far away from here as you can get."

He could handle trepidation, could grin off pain. He wasn't prepared for her reaction, blinking as he was enveloped in a soft hug. "Thank you for doing what you could, Mr. Sonic. We know you're trying your best."

His eyes widened. We know you're trying your best. Hearing those words spoken aloud tightened a lump in his throat. Her courage, not allowing fear to claim her but to fight in spite of it, lifted his spirits, and he wished he could do more to return the favor. He squeezed back, giving Cheese a thumbs-up. "Thanks, Cream. And Cheese, you help her kick some major butt out there, okay?"

They took off in branching directions. Sonic purposefully kicked up more dust in his tread than was necessary to cloak Cream's departure and to minimize the risk of Eggman calling their bluff. "Knuckles," he called. "Come on! Let's finish this!"

The echidna recoiled, showing a dent in the plating that he'd failed to turn into a hole. "What do you think I've been trying to do? Punching this thing's harder than cutting diamonds with your teeth!"

"Don't get discouraged! You took out one gun, maybe we can decommission the re—"

"Not a half-bad plan!" Eggman piped in. "But is that the very best you can come up with?" He pointed thumbs-down; a flashbang splashed between the two and hurtled up chunks of curb before Sonic could even finish.

He reeled to the image of Knuckles flailing his fists about, swarmed by that same odd aura that had saved Cream. The energy wove tendrils around him and formed a cocoon, sealing him inside. When he blinked again, nothing was there.

"What … " He patted the ground where Knuckles had stood, warm dust trickling between his fingers. Wisps trembled on the breeze of incoming footsteps. "What did you … "

"Oh, don't get sappy. He's been teleported, you flat-footed cretin." The Phantom lashed its chain behind itself. "Now it's just you and me, no more annoyances,no more distractions. And I need to repay you for giving me hearing damage."

A gust of wind flew up in front of the mech, strong enough to make it wobble on its heels for a moment. Eggman only chuckled as he corrected its stance, while on the outside a frantic blue hornet's nest whirled around him, seeking any weak point at all with grave intent. One would never show.

"How disappointing: seems you haven't learned any new tricks. Unfortunately for you, I have!"

Sonic leapt for the cockpit but was intercepted. Two massive robotic hands flashed together and smashed him inside, searing pain through his body.

With speed he'd have never attributed to a mech that size, Eggman followed that with a right hook that punted him into a nearby brick wall. His impact sloughed off a fine layer of dust caked to the mortar, shock echoing throughout every fiber of his body.

Could honestly say he'd been through worse, but heck if he remembered it through the sloshing in his head. This cat-and-mouse was nothing new to him, but it was also beginning to wear down on him.

He lay stunned, warm blood churning in his ears as the mech pinched him by the ankle of his sneaker and dangled him upside-down.

Eggman flicked him backwards like a sheaf of paper. "What to do, hedgehog, what to do? I can't have you running amok, after all, and we certainly can't play hide and seek … "

"Like you did with Knuckles?" His lips curled through a cough. "How about you hide and I count to ten billion?"

"Ha!" The hand shook him, rattling his teeth. "You wish you had that much time to waste."

He knew he'd regret asking, but he hoped curiosity wouldn't kill the hedgehog after all. "What do you mean?"

"Dearie me, has no one broken the good news yet? It's been seven years since we last chatted." —seven? "In fact, you could say I've been getting an 'itch' to squash some impertinent hedgehog!"

With that he dropped Sonic on the ground and stomped the curb full-force.

Of course, the doctor didn't expect his foe to relinquish the fight so easily to that salvo; no, this was only the beginning, the opening note, the first line of something much grander. Nothing remained there but crumbled pieces of limestone. Hydraulic thrusters inside the Phantom's sole hissed as he removed it from the crater.

Sonic knelt beside the wreckage, his stare rigid as his jaw.

"You telling the truth?"

The mech threw its arms histrionically wide; his gaze darted toward the finger that Knuckles had damaged, especially since it now limped at a heavier angle and seemed close to falling off altogether. If he could just cut it away, burrow inside its circuitry a little more … "Do you see my nose growing?"

"Tell you the truth, doc, I don't think it ever stopped." Slipping one thumb under his glove cuff, he snapped it taut, slaking grime from the material. "'sides, your track record ain't exactly been squeaky-clean in that department."

Butting heads forces you to know your nemesis more thoroughly than you'd like. He'd fought Eggman for a long time, enough to know that one of his more peculiar habits—and there were many—was managing to turn every criticism into a compliment where none were intended; even if seven years had passed, this one trait remained ingrained within the man's ego.

"Why, Sonic, I'm insulted you'd even suggest such a thing. And to think after all this time apart, you'd have been happy to see me for the novelty, if nothing else! It's always good to change things up a bit, isn't it?"

He leapt again, only to wisp through hot air. The Phantom reappeared behind him and shot out a backhand, pummeling his body into the cement and forcing grit to bite painfully through the crevices in his teeth. Rolling over quickly, he growled and spun away just as the Doctor crushed oversized soles into the ground.

"Those Marauders may have been good, but did they ever keep you on your toes? Or didn't they put enough heart into it?"

All this meant he wanted to drag out the big guns, which he did with a flourish. The mech tapped two fingers to its mouth as if to kiss them before pointing—their metal caps popped open and auto fire exploded out of them, forcing Sonic to dodge his way across the street. Heat flared against his skin with every step he smacked against the concrete.

"That's right!" the doc squealed over the din. "With love from me to you, you little rat! Now dance like you mean it!"

Sonic tried to recalibrate himself. Losing face is just what he wants you to do, stay calm, just focus; the ground's markings rushed past much more quickly than he anticipated. One particular bullet ricocheted so close against his ankle that he could have sworn it shaved off some follicles.

Focus. No matter his mental commands, the blurriness in his head was growing worse, making his usually keen eyesight unreliable, so amputating that thing's bunk finger with one good clean shot was out of the question. If he couldn't hit it outright, he'd have to force Eggman to lie in the bed he'd made.

He pushed himself till sweat rained off him. He'd rarely let himself get this worked up, but this time there could be no holding back; he whipped around the block in taut circles to conjure a tornado from the nearby pollution. It was sluggish at its start, but once the gale gained traction it hefted up a jumble of rock, brick and piping, plucking detritus off just about every corner; bits of scrap metal twirled and slashed through the wind; even the greasy smoke that clung in thick tufts to the ground began to mold itself to prevailing gusts that edged around the mech. Soon that air funneled down into a vortex. Roaring like an awakened beast. Faster and faster.

Chunks of an ancient oil rig sailed apart with a definite crack; the Phantom's fist snapped it in half before it could deal even a lick of damage."Well, that was hardly entertaining," Eggman said. "At least throw a pie or something!"

That remark dropped the match onto his simmering temper. Sonic blazed up the rig's broken spine and soared into the air while the tornado swirled dozens of yards below him, bricks and metal hurling past at potentially lethal velocities. His ears pricked to the shuddering hiss of the turrets completing their charge. In mere heartbeats they were going to lash out, and who knew what sick kinda game of double Dutch he'd have to play then?

"Honestly now, the greater part of a decade and you still think I fell off the turnip truck? What kind of doddering old man do you take me for?" Eggman asked. "With this ground-penetrating radar I can pick up on your every thought, including the one to send the brat away. Brilliant idea, may I add—out of the frying pan with her!" He laughed. "But even then I would have known. You're far less irritating without your fans cheering you on.

"Sometimes you've got to lose a little to get ahead, Sonic," he continued. "Emeralds call each other, and I like to think I've gained a bit more patience for their shenanigans since the last time you stole them from me. Besides, why would I go to all this trouble of pestering you just for one measly Emerald when I can bide my time and multiply my dividends?"

He curled up and slammed into one rotary engine, feeling his spines practically tear back material as he struggled to burrow against it.

"Couldn't tell ya!" he shouted over the pealing of metal. His tongue seeped a bitter taste that he couldn't name. "Having a go for old times' sake?"

"To send you a message; this is my house you've stepped in, and if you act like a rat while you're inside it, you're going to get treated like one: smashed, mangled, and exterminated!"

He felt the control loosed from him and was knocked back once more, splashing through the gale only to end up on its other turbulent side. Sonic flipped onto his stomach to catch a glint of dangerous light surfacing through the blackened tide, and ran.

His only consolation was that Cream and Knuckles weren't here to be caught in the crossfire. He wasn't sure what he would do if Eggman kept blocking the gates, so what other choice did he have but to fight? His pride stupidly advised him to wait it out, to keep him occupied until a better plan occurred, to call some bluff or cry foul on some miscalculation that never showed, hoping that the doc was just blowing smoke here because Eggman revels in all the attention he can get even if it's blowing crap up in his face

Adrenaline kept him going, raw speed tightened his calves. Bullets gnawed the concrete at his heels, pelting dust and deafness in his ears. His heart pulsed in time with his fragmented thoughts.

He knew there was a slim chance this all could have just been an act. Maybe everything wasn't as it seemed.

Maybe. Maybe. But that massive doubt told him otherwise, because suddenly the doc was no longer ranting, raving, taunting or yanking his chain. Not even trying to boil his blood. There was nothing in this huge metallic dystopia to retort or deflect, none of that verbal pingpong both opponents had grown to enjoy almost as much as the battle itself. There was just the flash, echo and bang of mortars being evaded. Turrets wheezed out discharge, resculpting the decrepit landscape, and with nothing left to say he knew he had to

(move)

A blazing thrill stabbed him in the guts as he narrowly vaulted more bullets erupted from the fore.

In an empty square there stood a pole, jaggedly sticking from the ground where an old PA system used to reside. Sonic grabbed it and circled around its fulcrum, till the metal whined in its socket and the friction threatened to singe his gloves. Bowing to speed, sparks ground against the speakers. He spun until the world around him lost form and shape and the air became the hot wind that drove him on.

With a rusty groan the metal bent at a steep angle and at last broke free, slingshotting him toward the man who claimed the world and brandished it like a stolen toy.

Eggman wanted him to play the game?

Just watch.

---

"Wait," Rouge whispered harshly, grabbing Shadow's wrist. "Do you want to get riddled with holes?"

"There isn't exactly a key," he replied. He clutched the chainlink fence that separated the alley from the entrance to a sealed-off tunnel where Omega had pinpointed the energy readings. She was getting a bad feeling that he was going to tear it carelessly open in a few seconds. "Besides, they already know we're here."

"Right, and that's why we should invite ourselves in asking the neighbors for more cups of shrapnel. Get your butt back here, Omega," she yanked on his rod belt, halting him. "Listen up, hotshots. I know you've got a beef with them and I won't get in the way of that, but do you really think barging in guns blazing is a good—"

"Idea? Not very. But you so seldom seem to have those, it'd be a waste to grieve."

She rolled her eyes in exasperation as soldiers appeared on the overpass, spearheaded by none other than Sparky himself. "Today is just not our day, is it?"

They pushed the outfit as far back as the alley, where Rouge had hoped to force them into the same bottleneck they'd once been trapped in. There they could reduce the chaos into more manageable components. Although this plan deeply opposed their desire to "teach them a lesson," Shadow and Omega agreed to behave as long as the Nocturnus didn't step out of line.

Whatever that meant. She was far savvier than to take their begrudged word for it. The boys rarely upheld a promise they had no intention of keeping.

Maybe that was why half the alley lay in shambles.

Bless their hearts.

Rouge dropped low before ducking a wild swing from another indiscriminate leech blade and returned the favor with a solid kick to the head. While she preferred to engage her opponents one-on-one, parrying their slashing blades with high kicks, (a self-satisfied huff and "That all?" often punctuating her altercations) Shadow and Omega's strategy focused more on inflicting as much humiliation as they could, against as many as they could lay their hands on, in retaliation for whatever slight the Consul had committed against them.

Turning around, she caught glimpse of a golden circlet in the echidna's hand. "Shadow, isn't that—"

"You want this?" asked the Consul. "Suit yourselves."

Setting it gingerly on the ground, he hooked one finger through the metal and rolled it in a deceptively straight line towards them. Shadow's ear twitched as it splashed through oil and scraped the cement, clinking to a stop against his skate.

"Fetch."

It exploded.

The ring blinked one tiny red pinprick that wasn't previously visible—the detonation chip shaped too much like a certain face for her liking—shrilled, and blew a hole that rocketed concrete to the sky.

Eventually one soldier pulled back from the others. "Where'd they go?"

A forceful sigh slid through the Consul's vocoder. "Moron." But he added nothing more. He nudged the smoldering crater with the toe of his boot, kicking aside the empty debris before conceding the fool may have had a point.

The quiet street betrayed no signs of living presence. Sewers puffed smoke like cauldrons, his mask not allowing him to broadcast his perplexity while he furrowed his brow. Something was wrong here.

His teeth ground on edge when slow applause sounded behind him, followed by a sultry voice.

"Brava, Sparky."

The outfit whipped around to find the three very much alive. To say Shadow looked angered right then would have been a severe understatement … but at least now Rouge understood the reason for his battle thirst.

"Nice magic trick. Luckily, Shadow here can make anyone disappear."

He caught in the bat's hand a glimmer too bright for spotlights. Twin leech blades sprouted from his wrists.

"The Emerald!" he ordered, "get the Emerald!"

Shadow cursed under his breath as reinforcement converged on her in an instant. "Rouge! Give me the Emerald again!"

"You're not gonna do anything stupid, are you?"

"Don't ask, just do it!"

"Oh, really? Bark another order in my ear and you're gonna wake up sore, soldier boy."

"Please!"

"Fine." She heaved the gem at him in an overhand pitch and was burdened under Nocturnus. "But don't you dare waste your energy this time, or I'm really going to kick your—"

"I know what I'm doing."

"Whatever you say, sugar." Ultimate pighead strikes again. She delivered a swift chop to the sternum and dropped a would-be flanker. "Omega, you holding up alright?"

Another round screamed out of his wrist and caused a water pipe to burst, gushing torrents into the street that unfortunately contacted nothing but air. These worthless Marauders are starting to annoy me.

"Makes two of us, then."

"Count it three." Shadow swept away a bevy of Nocturnus with a well-timed Chaos Spear, then threw the Emerald back into her care.

When his bombs ran out, Omega switched to automatic fire until both chain guns clicked empty. Primary ammunition depleted, he lamented.Wasted on nothing. It didn't help that a Nocturnus seized upon this opportunity to encircle him in a mocking dance fraught with energy.

"Why don't you come with us, Gizoid?" He dodged a claw the robot lashed out. Just as Omega lurched again, he disappeared, whirling in his periphery. "We'll make you stronger, better!"

"Have you gone mad?" the Consul asked. "Don't engage the Gizoid in this state!"

The command was apt, as Omega reacted by plowing his fist through the concrete immuring the tunnel and bringing down a veritable landslide to flush out those who rushed his way. How many walls must I decimate before you get the point?

Shadow stopped in the middle of a punch and shoved the Consul down once more. "Omega!" he shouted. "Forget this! Teach them a lesson!"

Affirmative.

Reverting his claws to their base states, he launched twin rappelling hooks that latched onto the Consul's helm and the taunting Nocturnus'. Swinging them overhead, he cracked them together and threw them down.

Rouge had participated in enough brawls to know that everyone ceasing their sound and fury meant something had taken a very grave turn. Even Omega was still, waiting, watching. Shadow stood slowly from his kneeling position, an errant smoke-bearing wind ruffling his quills.

She held her breath, finally seeing the reason why the other Nocturnus were edging away. So incandescent it glowed, a green substance sputtered out from their armor, turning the neon light effused within a dull gray. As it leaked onto the concrete, it effervesced the stone in a soft, frothy loam.

"Consul," the other soldier cried weakly, "help me."

Much to her surprise, he responded to the plea. He heaved himself up and crawled over to the side of the one who was struggling to lift a hand. It dropped to the ground, soliciting a muttered curse.

Dropping his head, he shook the soldier sharply out of his reverie. "For your sake, stop. I can't think if you're blubbering." With great effort, as if lifting a car instead of an inert body, he turned the soldier over, revealing a small orb embedded between the suit's pauldrons. It was split down the middle, deprived of fuel excepting a few drops of concentrate that hadn't managed yet to escape. Liquid freely swarmed the Nocturnus' back.

The soldier moaned. "Don't leave me here with him."

Shadow barred Omega from advancing.

As his superior examined the further damage done to his charge, Rouge swore she detected signs of the soldier struggling to move inside his armor and failing to miserable results. Even so, a fuel leakage shouldn't have crippled them that much.

"Did you hear me?" Panic bristled his voice. "I said don't leave me here with him!"

The Consul shook him harder this time. "How do you suppose I do that, Teukros, throw you over my shoulder? You want me to listen to you when you couldn't spare me the same courtesy? Maybe you fools should keep him company!" Spinning around, he barked at the others, making her flinch vicariously on their behalf: "It'd certainly take a load off my back!"

His words made her realize—these people, they weren't just fighting for Eggman, for the hope of spoils. They were fighting with that hardwired instinct ingrained in all Nocturnus, to overpower, to bully and conquer, and here they had finally met someone who wouldn't lie down to that. Somehow, they feared what they couldn't intimidate … they feared Shadow.

The Consul looked down at his charge and stood heavily, smearing oil into the bottom of his helm as he ground the heel of his palm into it. "Besides," he said, the anger in his voice now wavering into doubt, "you know I … "

His chest heaving with ragged inhalations, he stopped, and went utterly still.

For the next few moments the alley became so quiescent, so rigidly dead, that she could feel the phantom sensations of this city rise in their place: the smoke stretching from holes in the pavement, the lungs of distant machinery that strained to breathe within it, the hum of pipes that carried fuel throughout the district like veins. Her heart beat saliently against her chest, the muscle throbbing blood in time with the eerie light pulsing in his armor.

He turned slowly around, facing Omega. The material in his gloves creaked as he drew out one leech blade, his grip so tight now it rattled the blade. The glow along its curve spilled out, its whorls burning like a flame about to extinguish.

"That's it," Shadow whispered.

The echidna ran full-tilt toward them.

Rouge stepped forth only to find her teammates had formed a shield in front of her, anticipating the clash with a clarity she would otherwise have envied. The boys never told her anything.

"What did you do?"

"It's not what you do," Shadow said, "it's what you don't do."

If looks could kill, she thought, he'd no longer have been immortal.

---

"Okay, help me out here. Was it bigger than this thing?"

Tails shook his head.

"Not bigger than the squiggly antenna, all right." Another tidbit bounced onto the discard pile as Amy pawed through the garbage. Eventually she pulled out something that resembled a broken jury rig and twirled its loose ends in front of herself. "What about this thing? It's kinda small … ish."

Nilch.

She sighed. "You sure?"

More insistent.

"Gosh, you're so picky … How big was it again?" She held her hands with their palms facing one another as if cradling a balloon between them. "Smaller?" Slowly she deflated the balloon until Tails confirmed its size with another nod. "I think I saw something like that, hang on … was it …

"No, wait! It's this thing." She pulled out the correct component, brandishing her acquisition with a flourish. "Gotcha, ya little poop! Thought you could hide from Amy Rose, couldn't you?" Tossing it to Tails, she laughed. "Lucky for you, I don't suck at charades."

A warm wind beckoned her upward gaze. Curiously, the stacks emitted from the factory flues on the horizon pulled together, edged toward a vortex she couldn't see.

Her breath halted in her lungs. Sonic?

She rubbed her eyes and the black wisps cleared, wafting down in calm drifts. Whatever was happening on the other side of town was more exciting (more dangerous, she corrected herself) than digging through the trash for parts to cobble together a working communicator. From that, something approached, though it seemed too bright to be a drone.

She squinted. "Cream?" Jumping to her feet, she pumped her arms in vigorous arcs. "Hey! Down here!"

"Amy?" Cream grounded herself quickly. "Behind you!"

Pivoting around, she came face-to-face with a Nocturnus bolting straight toward them.

Panic fluttered in her chest. What on earth were they doing here? Had some of them managed to chase them through the Twilight Cage? And if this one had escaped, how many more were there?

Brandishing her hammer, Amy shoved Tails in the back with her free hand. Now couldn't be the time to play twenty questions with the enemy. "Get in the house. Hurry!" She then blocked the Nocturnus' path with an outstretched arm, allowing Cream and Cheese to sprint inside the nearby tenement. "Hey, pal, didn't you hear? No visitors welcome."

He slowed his pace, unsheathing twin blades. "Don't I know it," he replied. "Primitive."

They surged for each other at the same time.

"Whoa!" Amy backpedaled, her swing halted mid-step as green light shaved air hairbreadths from her nose. "That's no fair!"

"Neither is having to fight someone so inexperienced. Yet here I am." The scout shot his foot up and with a sharp sting loosening her hand, her Piko flew overhead. She was parried by a cross-swing when she reached for it.

"My hammer! Give it back—"

"Amy, come on!" Tails croaked in a voice that startled Cream, offering his hand through the open door.

With a desperate glance backward, she lunged for it, only to be intercepted by a fist the Nocturnus shot out. He seized her by the ankle and dragged her down, causing her to tumble halfway on the threshold and land on her stomach with a brief scream.

Cream cried out. She and Tails rushed in time to grab hold of each one of her hands, though it took their doubled strength just to keep him at bay.

"Oh, now you asked for it—let go of me, you creep!" Amy bucked and thrashed, stabbing at the Nocturnus with the heel of her free boot but failing to contact armor. After a few moments of struggling like this she couldn't take the tension pulling her from both ends. "Don't stretch me, you guys! I'm not a piece of taffy!"

"We're—really sorry," Tails wheezed.

The Nocturnus drew back a blade.

Her mien tight, Cream unleashed a firm command: "Sic!"

Cheese shot onto him in a frenzy, breaking his hold as he attempted to smack the Chao away. Amy tumbled into their laps. Cheese evaded a downwards chop and flew back in, and Tails shoved the door into its jamb, snapping the deadbolt into place.

That wasn't the end, though. Far from. Amy glimpsed behind her shoulder and gasped; she threw herself over Cream as the front window panes shattered around them. The Nocturnus vaulted the wreckage and leapt onto the carpet, the dust that rose flouring his jackboots.

As the curtains flapped against the hot, liberated wind, he studied them the way a predator would study prey. Rising to a full stand, he flicked out his retractable leech blades. The motion shot a chill down Cream's spine.

He ran toward them.

To their horror, Tails also turned and ran. Amy pulled Cream up and the two stowed inside a staircase closet nearby, Cheese latching the flimsy clasp just in time for a leech blade to gouge a major rut in the door.

"Tails, what're you doing?" Amy cried, then pointed. "Quick, start putting things against the door!"

They scurried behind a bureau and strained to bar its weight against the siege, though that did little to alleviate the flurry of slashes and cuts the scout leveled at the door, each one poking more light through the dark. Cream shoved out one deep gash and covered the hole with her hands while Amy pressed her back against the bureau to keep it from budging on its hind legs.

Bang. The girls ducked their heads to avoid another gash, loosening the bureau's hold as it rocked. Bang. Splinters rose on the fringes of the lacerations like bristled hairs. Each passing moment weakened the door's structure a little more.

"What do we do?" Cream asked. "We can't hold him forever!"

Amy grimaced. "We're gonna fight if we have to," she said. "On the count of three. Ready?"

She had just drawn in a breath to begin when the door snapped back on its hinges and flew wide open. Their visitor barged through.

"Cream!"

Amy rushed in front of her, wielding the door's pitiful remains as a shield as the blade crashed down. A horrendous crack and a shower of splinters made Cream wrench away, fearing the worst. But by some miracle the door held; they were still alive, though terrified.

Amy clutched its jagged halves, now little more than two glorified planks in her hands. She stared dismally at them, fighting off tremors of incredulity while the scout addressed them.

"If you didn't wish to get hurt, you should have kept to yourselves." He pointed at Cream, who flinched. "Where is the other one?"

"Like we'd tell you," said Amy.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard." She turned away while the scout took the opportunity to encircle her, unwilling to let them slip from his sights; as he did, small pieces of wood crunched inside her tightening fists.

With a stout flick that was no means friendly, he knocked Amy's hand open and scattered the chips to the floor. Cream gaped in the closet's darkness, clasping both hands over her mouth.

"Either you play nice, little girl, or not at all."

That sparked the fuse. Amy barreled forth with her free fist—and when he countered by catching it just as it flew for his head, she used the opening to drive a knee between his ribs. Several jabs followed, speed blurring motion, but it became difficult to register every individual blow through those that ensued.

She fought ferociously without her hammer, even though it became painfully clear from her various outcries that it hurt her hands to even drive scuffs into the echidna's armor. During a careless overhand punch he seized hold of her wrists, headbutted her twice and left her to slump against the wall.

"Amy," Cream cried. Climbing over the bureau, she grabbed her friend's hand and the two watched the scout backflip onto the balcony above them. Leaning in a catlike crouch, he cocked his head, his soft chuckle emitting static.

"All too easy."

Just then a grinding howl erupted from his suit. Amy instinctively hugged the others, the three of them huddling together to block out the electric banshee scream that shrilled unforgiving in their ears.

Inch by inch, gravity bore down on the scout. The leech blade in his left hand fell, followed by the right.

As the sound wore on, slowly, almost reluctantly, he staggered back and dropped to a steep kneel against the railing, grunting in pain. The light in his blades blinked gray for a moment before he managed to fumble his grip around one handle.

When the noise ceased there was a terse moment, dust wandering in through the hazy red outside. Compressed panting sounded much like crackling feedback. Cream shuddered until she felt Amy's embrace pull away.

Tails appeared from the far corner. One eye winced shut and his right hand plugged a finger in his ear. In his left, he aimed a strange black device that looked like a rib-handled spot torch attached to a trigger.

The scout leapt for him and he pulled the trigger again, unleashing another sonic barrage that knocked him back, cracking one of the railing pillars under his weight.

"You little freak!" A strangled cry tore from his throat as the scout whipped his blade around. "You're gonna pay for that!"

Instead of eliminating its target, however, it shattered a nearby terra cotta pot into pieces. The brittle foliage it contained fell with steam curling from their shriveled blooms. Unperturbed, Tails kept the device aimed steady as if nothing had happened at all.

Amy seized the opportunity to act. Leaping up the stairwell, she elbowed the scout into the wall and kicked his other blade off the balcony before he could scramble another offense.

"Buddy, the only freak I see around here is you," she said, "and you're gonna get yours if you don't knock it off! Hit him again, Tails!"

She pointed and the mysterious process was repeated. Immediately the scout relented and doubled over. His hands clutched at his temples as he once again sank to a kneel on the floor, struggling simply to maintain his bodily composure.

Cream found no pleasure in the thought of any living being receiving pain. No matter how deeply their evil may have merited it, the concept remained foreign to her and always would. But she knew that sometimes giving pain was all one could do to ward the proverbial torch that would stave off the wolves—and, was it wrong to say she felt relieved?

Her mind recalled Knuckles, stuck under the rubble, being thrown about at Dr. Eggman's whim like a toy. Maybe if she acted now, she could prevent more people from getting hurt—

"Cheese, now!" Balling up her Chao, she pitched him forth. As he tried to swat him away she leapt up with a high kick, punting him into the carpet's folds. The three converged on him, ready to pounce at once, but this time he lay inert.

There was a rough snort. "I don't need to waste it on you," the scout said, and disappeared in a flash of light.

The silence that followed suffocated.

" … Cream?" Tails called tentatively, and coughed into his fist, his voice rough in his throat like gravel. "Amy? You okay?"

"Better than that jerk's gonna be, that's for sure." Amy hmphed once in their guest's former direction, wrinkling her nose in no subtle attempt to broadcast her distaste. She'd always disliked the Nocturnus one way or another, thinking them too arrogant for their own good. She was rubbing one arm idly, though, so perhaps she hadn't been entirely unmoved by the scout's admonition.

"Amy … " Cream said, "you're hurt."

"I am?" She touched a patch of fur over her left eye that had started to swell and grow a shade more purple than her natural pink. "Gosh, I guess so. I'm just glad he didn't knock any of my teeth out. How embarrassing would that be?"

She also caught patches of a rusty hue stiffening the material of her gloves. "Your hands, too—" she began, but was dismissed with a weak smile while Amy rubbed at her knuckles with one finger.

"Don't worry about it. He fought too much like a wuss to make it hurt, anyway."

Deciding that Amy wanted her to be satisfied with that response—though on the inside she couldn't help but cringe—Cream looked back to Tails, who had perched himself on the top step and was examining the device's components with a similarly detached fugue. It seemed everyone was now winding down, splintering off into their own thoughts. Not that she would blame anyone. Exhaustion slowed her limbs where with Sonic at her side, adrenaline had been an almost constant spark within them.

Cheese wriggled his way under her wrist, nudging close to the Emerald hidden in her dress pocket. His timid Cha-o as he nuzzled his cheek against it was quiet but weary.

Cream stroked his head. "I know, Cheese. You did very well with helping us." She gave him one last reassuring squeeze before setting him airborne. Cheese yawned and rubbed both nubby arms over his eyes, and she took the opportunity to adjust his grimy, crooked ribbon. What would Mr. Sonic say in a situation like this? Something like— "Just a little while longer, okay?"

"Someone must have lived here." Amy's voice cut the silence at last. "Look. They didn't even have time to take their pictures with them."

The young girl turned to see what her friend was pointing to. A painting lay propped against the wall in the corner, its frame warped, its canvas slashed apart and its insides peeled out, yellow sheafs curling stiffly outward. Beneath it glinted small shards of glass.

Though she couldn't imagine who would have been able to salvage a painting that damaged, she said, "Those poor people."

Amy ran a finger along an old radial telephone that sat on a gnashed side table just below the ruined painting, drawing a single line of cleanliness in its black plastic casing. Her mouth twisted into a grimace as she tried to rub the dust from her fingers. "They're probably better off not living near Eggman, though. I know I wouldn't want him as my neighbor."

Cream glanced softly up at Cheese, sharing the same unspoken thought they'd had ever since they went up into space. They'd left home to save the world, a priority which always topped their list no matter how they diced it, but … this painting … this faded carpet whitened by years of boot tread … Its gold-tasseled diamond pattern reminded her of something she would have knit.

She hadn't truly realized how cold it could get on a spaceship, had she? She hadn't thought to check. She hadn't thought of anything. Hadn't changed her clothes, hadn't packed a lunch, hadn't gotten a coat or a scarf or a toothbrush, crayons or her favorite pillow. Hadn't fixed Cheese's crooked ribbon after Sonic had graciously carried him back to her from his entrapment inside a dusty temple. Her mother's counter was bereft of a note …

We just … left …

Her throat constricted while Amy unlocked the deadbolt and retrieved her hammer outside. She shook her head, knowing she must continue to be brave for the team's welfare, if just for a bit longer. It wouldn't do anyone any good not to keep their wits about them, if their most recent skirmish was anything to go by. Besides … it wasn't as though one house represented every house. Right?

She looked at Cheese as his wings beat back dust motes. Then slipped her hand inside her dress pocket and squeezed the Emerald she'd tucked there for safekeeping, pressing her fingers against the glass to feel its reassuring warmth press back. Sonic entrusted her to guard it from that awful Eggman, and she was determined not to fail him again.

A sacred gem could only do so much, though.

Mama …

The door squeaked open. "The Nocturnus keep leaving their stuff lying around like this, I bet Tails'll feel like a kid in a candy store." Amy's voice startled her out of her reverie, prompting her to stuff the Emerald back down and smooth her pocket.

But that was what she usually did when she was nervous: talked too much to fill Cream's lack of conversation. It wasn't anything out of the ordinary, so why did she feel jittery as well?

Despite knowing that Amy wouldn't have seen it at all, Cream still suffered a twinge of guilt at having to hide the gem. It wasn't that she didn't trust her friends—but if that scout had laid eyes upon the jewel, the situation could have had a much different outcome. She wasn't sure if she'd have been able to bear it, if …

Keeping artifacts with the potential for unlimited power inevitably gave some people control issues, but Cream hadn't a self-serving bone in her body to consider anything but its welfare. She imagined having to hold the Emerald away from a bunch of snatching hands.

Playing what-if would only compromise that. The only way to keep it safe was to keep it close … and, she hoped, with any luck, her friends would understand.

Amy decided to venture elsewhere. She picked up the fallen leech blade by its handle, gently blew off a whorl of steam pealing from its curved edge, and turned it to examine both sides. "Weird when it doesn't glow like that. What do you think it actually does?"

"Ummm." Although she knew Amy was simply making idle conversation, she preferred not to explore the implications of this one, judging from the flowers crushed underneath the remains of the shattered terra cotta. "Maybe we ought to leave it alone until Tails says it's safe."

"That would be wise, wouldn't it." She dropped the blade with a sigh. Useless now. "I just wish Sonic were here." She let that thought trail off, her voice much softer as she studied the way the light trickled through the hole in the window. "I hope he's safe."

"Amy … " Cream said. "I—"

She had traipsed up the stairs. "Tails, where's your mask?" A quick glance found it sitting on the carpet beside him. Picking it up by its plastic strip, she dangled it in front of him so it blocked his view of his work. "Here, you crazy lil' poop. Put it back on." He shrugged it away. "Tails."

"Don't need it," he hoarsed as he wiggled a screw loose with his thumb. "'m okay."

"Like heck you are!"

"Fine," he insisted. "Really."

"Oh, yeah? Prove it. Sing the alphabet." Amy put one hand on her hip. "Backwards."

Cream wandered up the steps, cradling Cheese in her arms. "Mr. Tails, you ought to take care of your voice. You can lose it if you're not careful."

He looked confused. "But—"

Amy bore up on him, arms crossed behind her back. "Listen here, little brother," she said sweetly, laying a delicate glimpse of steel upon the last word, "there are two ways we can do this. Either you take that mask and put it back on like you're supposed to, and keep it on, or I staple it to your big fat head and we won't have to keep bugging you about it." Batted her eyelashes with a smile, the picture of innocence. "No pressure."

He shook his head and flinched as the plastic cup smacked him softly in the back of the head.

Amy stuck her tongue out at him, making Cream giggle in spite of herself. "Dork."

---

The Consul swung, cutting air.

"If you kept your eyes open, maybe you could hit something." Shadow ground his fists toward himself and then shoved them out.

It was like a wall of air had caught the Nocturnus and exploded, propelling him back, pelting him with debris. He flew back into the crowd, which caught him and likewise shoved him back into the fight.

A flurry of strikes lit the encroaching dim. The Consul kept swinging, blindly, furiously, only to nick a small wound on his cheek.

"Huh. Not bad." He wiped the light smatter of blood and flicked it away with a terse whip of his hand, a cutting smirk curling the corners of his lips. "Shame you'll have to wait a hundred years to do it again."

"You're absolutely right," said the Consul. His voice was like flint, each word striking hard upon the other. "But who holds the numbers here?"

"Hmph. There's no strength in numbers."

"I'll have to have that carved on your tombstone, creature. Vee, fall back! Forward front, move!"

He saw them advance around them, the statues come to life, renewed in their vigor. Pouring out into the street to fight them tirelessly, with no end in sight, again and again—

All he did was throw out his hand, with no conscious intent behind the gesture. But this time, a much more reckless, blinding burst of light thundered out, flaring them back. He stooped low, shuddering.

"Shadow!" Rouge ran to his side. "What happened?"

He wavered under her shoulder. "Don't know … " Shaking his head, he pressed his trembling hand to the concrete. "I don't … "

"I'm no soothsayer, but I can tell you what's going to happen here and now." The Consul tossed aside his leech blades and unsheathed his energy dagger. "You thieves are going to get buried together!"

Rouge scowled. "Honey, you've got no idea what a real thief can do."

She flew in carrying Omega, having tagged them in his stead. Taking on not only the Consul but the rest of the armament, amid a sea of unstable energy eager to maim.

Shadow leaned against a sheet of torn chainlink, breathing hard. More lashing claws, more kicks demanding extra exertion, more dances wreathed with energy. The paroxysm left him weaker and heavier than he could ever remember being, his limbs aching for rest. But he couldn't have the others fighting his battles.

Clambering up, he walked forth on unsteady feet. He poised his finger at the clasp of his remaining inhibitor.

"Rouge," he ordered, "take Omega and stand back. I'm going to wipe the floor with these pests and their self-appointed king."

Rouge's eyes widened. Meanwhile, the Consul sidled in front of Teukros, his stance coiled to take the hit while he wielded his dagger. "Have at it, creature. Don't look surprised when we bite back."

"Noted."

Shadow kept his inhibitor on, instead deciding his naked hand could still make do. If this fake energy operated anything like its real counterpart, it could be manipulated. It could be stolen. He thrust his palm outward, fingers crimped. Only one way to confirm his hypothesis.

At first, a few Nocturnus simply laughed: their ignorance mixed with condescension.

Soon that laughter dissolved.

Shadow crushed his hand toward himself. The dagger dissolved, and the light in the Consul's armor swarmed out like a liquid jet, swirling in plumes toward him, orbiting his hand.

The echidna grunted as his energy depleted and plunged, his body suddenly too heavy and rigid to move from its place cemented to the ground. He snapped his head up as a translucent shadow blanketed him.

"You still want to play games, Consul?"

He kept his hand as steady as he could, not daring to agitate the energy but not wanting to relinquish control either.

More flowed out. The process grew an instinct of its own, like moths fluttering thoughtlessly toward a beacon.

This strange energy linked them in a way that felt like the boundary between their thoughts was negligible. From the boy himself, there was nothing but a bitter anger so hot it prickled. Even with the exchange tipping in Shadow's favor, he could feel grainy limestone stab into his kneecaps as lucidly if he knelt there himself. How sheer air could crush the flesh at a moment's notice.

He pushed forth. His arm burned, but he jerked his fist again and the common thread they shared yanked the Consul forth like a helpless marionette, forcing him to kneel low in front of his men. The boy inside shivered, humiliation and ire pumping his heart.

Please don't.

A different voice in his mind startled Shadow. A more desperate voice. Fearful. Concerned.

(crying?)

(since when do Nocturnus cry)

Maybe it was an illusion, some trick between ear and brain, but he swore from the one called Teukros he'd heard muffled, shuddering breaths begging him not to, not to harm the Consul, he didn't know what he was doing. But he couldn't let go, couldn't stop, couldn't breathe until the danger threatening them all was eliminated.

(please don't leave me here)

Another voice. "Hey. Stop this. Stop it. What are you doing? This isn't good for you. Snap out of it!" Forever his voice of temperance, Rouge shook him out of his trance. Upon her touch the link severed, the tether that had anchored the Consul now slithered loose. Pure spite sprang him to his feet, and he intended to repay the favor in full.

Shadow's gut instinct overrode his reason. He put up a hand to shield her from the impending swing. With a cold shock he realized he'd raised the wrong one again, the wrong channel for the energy to flow through—and couldn't correct the error until some foreign thought commanded Away! and another, even bigger explosion of light erupted from him, engulfing everything.

He wrenched away just in time for Rouge to yell something at him, but he could only hear it as a deep-sea diver registered voices through water. A murky impression of a panicked noise, too late to perceive the danger apparent to those on the outside, those not submerged, those who fear from above the surface.

There was a deafening silence.

"Rouge?"

A hiss answered as coherence swam back to him; in his periphery, a droplet of liquid energy cut a rivulet through concrete and frothed small white bubbles, forcing him to sit up. Asphalt stank in his nostrils, smoldered in a blackened ring of singe around him, and as he shifted, streaks of ash trickled from him as if he too had burned. Just like the aftermath of Ix's magic …

(but that's not possible, it can't be)

At his foot lay a motionless Nocturnus, energy splashed around its armor. The Consul? No, Teukros. Light pulsed through his rivets, though dim. Slow in its cadence.

He touched the helm in a safe place, which hummed and announced in a calm female voice: Auto-recovery in progress.

Truth be told, he'd never witnessed one unconscious before. The vanquished usually disappeared in a convenient blip, called back to the Cage. The soldier inside would be fine as long as he had energy to spare, but … he raised his naked hand, unable to feel anything within but a prickling residue.

Everyone's vanished. That gnawing sensation of dread made him clench his fist. He had to control the tremors now or else they'd deepen with time.

"Rouge?" he asked with a little more force, his voice echoing off the walls.

Buzzing caught his attention.

"Omega," he breathed, clambering toward the robot that slumped against a pile of broken cement and chainlink. Steam purled in wisps from a gash in the back of his headpiece. Shadow grasped his shoulders, jostling him. "Omega, I'm here. Say something." Only feedback from a severed radio connection replied. His fault. His fault. "Omega! … damn it … "

He bowed his head.

And in the remaining silence, the radio crackled.

---

Glass splintered as he slammed against a window. The shock doubled the rattle in his frame when someone else crashed into him.

"Get off me!" He shoved the sentry aside and leapt to his feet, which knocked over a bucket of mops and sent ammonia dribbling through gummed crevices in the tile floor. Electricity flickered in and out from a blown florescent panel in the ceiling, and a steel door before them held a sign stamped in yellow-black stripes. MAINTENANCE.

"What in … " He snapped his head up. "That thing induced Chaos Control again. Where did it go?"

"Consul, I don't detect any alternate vital signs in this area."

"Nor I."

"Are you telling me it blew itself up? Is that what you're saying?" He tore off his helm and crushed it between his hands. "Damn it! This wasn't supposed to be some wild goose chase!"

"Please, don't be angry—"

"Oh, indeed. Tell me to heel. See how well that fares for you." Contempt glittered in his pale eyes. "Just look at the wonders it did for Teukros."

"He didn't have the—"

"I know!" He hurled his helm at the wall and hooded his face with both hands, taking a moment to collect his breath. His ribs ached, and already he felt thoroughly battered. Teukros had always protected him in situations like this, even when it became clear he no longer needed such help.

A threat nearly unraveled them today and he didn't reciprocate that trust, didn't protect him as he was supposed to. His words to Teukros instead oozed anger and fear instead of comfort …

"Consul," said the sentry. "If I may offer a suggestion?"

He said nothing.

"What about gas? Certainly they can't escape inhalants."

"Hmph." He pinched his lips together. "Right now I'd sooner trust a child with a bomb." With a terse sigh he trudged across the room and picked up his helm, dusting off its coating of glass bits. "Gas is only a stopgap measure at best, much too unreliable. We need to force them on a path toward us while making them think they're doing it of their own accord. We need to cut off pipelines."

"Can we afford that kind of waste? … The Doctor will be immensely unhappy if we touch the coolants."

"Which is why we're not going to, are we?" A sharp slap upside the head corrected the sentry. "I'm talking about staunching the outflow. Separating the recyclers from the distribution centers so they don't—for heaven's sake, why am I even talking to you about this? Where's Teukros when you need him?"

The guard spoke up then, brave soul. "Dry them out, you mean."

"That's the general idea, very good," said the Consul. "Make them seek fresh water where we want them to." He paused from refitting his helm as a stray glimmer caught his eye.

That creature's precious Chaos Emerald was wedged inside a gap, in a sealed hatch in the floor beneath a sparking circuit breaker which led to an underground electrical closet. A bolt of electricity skittered across the glass.

He shouldered his way between the others. "Move aside or get fried." Grabbing a broom from a nearby supply cart, he stuck the plastic handle under the jamb, the heavy door straining under his efforts.

He ground his teeth together and pushed against the sheer resistance, now magnified by his compromised armor. Come on, you stupid thing, do your duty and move. He snatched the Emerald before the handle could snap off completely, which it did just as the cover slammed shut, revealing in its brief flash someone trapped inside.

The bat.

He narrowed his eyes. Why hadn't her vitals registered? Perhaps their monitors needed finetuning, but given that she was lying so close to exposed circuitry, there was a possibility however slight—

He whirled around. "What are you waiting for, a song and dance? Check to see if she's still breathing!"

They froze until he made a lunge, which moved their feet. Those he managed to snatch seldom liked the experience.

It took four of them to pry open the same hatch and two more to extract her. Once she was dragged out and laid on the floor, the guard placed two fingers against her carotid and delivered a curt diagnosis. "Simple unconsciousness."

He exhaled somewhat. So there was a pulse; didn't mean they were in the clear. As much as he tried to convince himself it was the bat's fault for stepping in his way, he couldn't help but feel responsible. Despite the reckless choices of that thing she called a friend, she couldn't control where she wound up, and, if he'd suffered the misfortune of landing a few mere feet away, he could have laid there in her stead … even Teukros, perhaps.

"Is that all? How very silly of me to worry," said the Consul, placing the Emerald over his heart with a note of sour cheer. "Gods know nothing unfortunate has ever happened to an unconscious person. But just because you survived this long with your brain pickling in a jar doesn't mean others can." The sentry snickered until he shut them up with a death glare. "I suppose we've got to get her detained before she rouses." He rubbed his shoulder where she'd kicked him, still a bit sore. Shame that power had to be put to waste defending something utterly unworthy of such protection.

(Stop it with the sentiment, you fool. Teukros is fine. Focus.)

"And the hedgehog?" the sentry asked. Behind him, the guard swept another supply cart clean to form a temporary gurney for the bat.

"What about it?"

"It could be a problem if it's wandering the premises."

"It's not going to," he replied testily, tossing the broom's severed half to the floor. "Without the Emerald, it won't have the energy. I doubt it will even be able to walk."

(Don't sound so certain.
You know that thing could draw power from you
and it will not stop
until you are all like)

"Teukros?" asked the sentry.

He stiffened. "All the Doctor wanted was for us to implant the killcode. The rest was optional. Judging by how you all reacted, I'd say his reasoning was apt. This was an absolute disaster."

"His reserves may not last—"

"What a coincidence! Neither do your silences." Go ahead, laugh. He could use the distraction. "He'll be fine until nightfall, if you're so worried about it. Now does anyone else have any more brilliant gems to add, or can we move this along?" he asked impatiently, turning to the guard as he finished his work. "Provided your friends don't fail the simple task of locking up a warm body, you can take the Emerald to the dispersion chamber and make sure it's secured. Today's nonsense is not going to happen again, do you—"

The unit who had taken the Emerald pointed at him. "Consul?"

Indignation flared inside him as he cocked back one fist … followed by something more sinister when he realized one of the pauldrons connected to the energy converter embedded between his shoulderblades had dislodged.

He jerked his arm once, twice. It moved loosely; its lower point had stabbed inwards where that Black Arms creature had blown him into the wall, puncturing the orb nestled within. As a result, the fuel's liquid concentrate was leaking out of it at a slow bleed.

They all seemed to watch in tandem as one droplet glided down his elbow, heedless, and hissed on the floor.

"Consul," the guard said again, "are you—"

"Fine." He staunched more from following by clamping a fist around his arm, and cocked his head. "Happy?"

---

Water dripped.

Shade's consciousness shivered alive the precise moment an icy plunge stabbed her cheek. The droplet trickled a path inside the grooves of her armor, chilling the flesh it contacted.

She looked down amidst a tinkling of cables. Her helm sat on the floor below her, surrounded by a pool of water fed by a neglected pipe leak. As she reached toward it, she realized metal restraints kept her bolted to the wall. Gripping her fists tight, she bucked her arms against them, until—

"Wake up, straggler."

The restraints unhooked from their sockets, leaving her to sprawl to her knees.

A Nocturnus stood before her, trailed by a caravan of solemn souls. Smoke and dried oil caked their armor. One of them carried an Emerald and averted his gaze as soon as he detected her stare.

Their leader was young, even younger than she to be delivering orders. To her growing curiosity, he was also clutching his left arm as if it were broken. When he bent down and picked up her helm, she saw the four circles on his own, the largest in the center bisected, indicating his station—which station? It was like a strange language, uncannily similar to her own, but garbled enough that it might as well have been foreign.

He threw her helm at her. "Listen here. Whatever foolishness you may believe, your allotment doesn't renew through osmosis. Get your tail to a working station before any more idiocy breaks out today."

He then grunted slightly, gripped his arm with a little more force and lumbered to one side, as if a weight on his opposite shoulder leaned him askew and made him tilt in a drunken sort of way. Apparently he wasn't fond of the sensation, for he barked at the others to keep up or be left behind.

Shade couldn't help but bristle at the irreverence. Did they all speak like this? Or did they do it when they thought none of higher rank was monitoring their every word?

Whoever she'd become in this current life, she didn't know. What she did know was that Procurator Shade would not have stood to be addressed in such a manner. She of the Nocturnus, second but to the Imperator himself, would have renewed his understanding of the pecking order, not for sake of her own pride, but so everything once more became painfully lucid.

She noted something else. The leader shrugged off help and departed without the rest of his caravan; an odd substance trickled down the back of his arm and onto the metal walkway, its trail sporadic and jagged like blood, though it hissed like steam.

Once they disappeared, she took the time to gain more insight on her surroundings. An intricate network of pipes and fans sprouted from the ceiling, whirring together in some sort of industrial labyrinth.

With bated breath she walked toward the viewing window and beheld the ancient altar of Chaos. Though she'd never seen it before, even she knew something about it had been leeched, gone awry. Its battered pillars stood within a pool of silvery liquid that encompassed the entire floor, contact with which was circumvented via catwalks and sliding platforms.

Mirror-like, the pool showed green at its rippling edges, warping the reflections of the Nocturnus who passed it by. Cables floated atop the surface as they cascaded down the altar's watery steps, their thick rubber sheaths seeming to pulse slightly to her.

The Master Emerald sat in its center, the source of the green fuel. Was it her, or did the Emerald's glow throb weakly, almost anemically? Something within it had faded, for its light struggled to maintain even a feeble hold on the room, as more soldiers garbed in strange armor swarmed around it like worker ants.

"It's this way."

"What is?"

"The refueling station," the soldier said, the one who'd averted himself. "This one doesn't function the way it used to." The Emerald burned bright in his hand, a small sun of its own. Its glow pulsed softly in time with the Master Emerald's, its inner core dimming and flaring as if called to join the host's mysterious synchronicity. "Provided you haven't already exceeded your allotment, of course."

Shade deliberated her choices, scant though they were.

"Yes, er. I must be more lost than I believed." Locking her helm into place, she decided to follow along. Going undetected as a fraud was better than being exposed from undue pride, and truth be told she hadn't the slightest idea where to begin searching for the others. The Emerald would serve her no purpose in this quest, but judging from the ruthless way the Doctor so attempted to drain its controller, she supposed it also had to be kept from his grasp. "Would you mind leading me there?"

Time did not favor her now. Her warp belt had to hold out until she finished her business here. Maybe this refueling station would aid her in that regard. She had to grasp that hope, cling tight.

The soldier gave but a solemn nod. When he turned and began down the corridor, she noticed an oddity on him she neglected to comment: a curved tail.

They began up an ascending walkway that was bordered on the right by more thick glass when her escort stopped. He stared at the Master Emerald for what seemed a bit too long, deliberating something. Whatever occurred to him must not have been a terribly pressing matter, however, for he went on carrying the smaller Emerald without another word.

As they walked through this strange habitat the Doctor had built, she reflected upon the name the leader had sneered at her. Straggler. A name reserved for incompetent fools, called out in passing and probably wouldn't be given another thought. It was most likely already forgotten.

All anyone had in this world was their name. By rescinding hers, she'd abandoned her place at Ix's side. Try as she might to deny it, some piece of her had been lost back at Nocturne. She could not respond to it, would not respond, had shed it and cast it aside and was now insubstantial in its absence. Given the current state of the world, it probably didn't matter.

Did it?

Shade discarded that thought as they crossed the long, razor-like shadows cast by the pillars above them. Several doors admitted them through a bevy of labs.

In one particularly cold room, frost crunched their steps. Here stasis tubes contained robots shaped like hedgehogs in various stages of evolution, each incarnation more virulent than the last, growing away from its organic base toward more snarling, belligerent designs. Looking at them, she couldn't help but think the Doctor's hatred of Sonic had grown into something more sinister than a mere rivalry as he once said.

Motion stirred underneath the floor's frosty tiles. Though blurred, she caught someone pushing a gurney atop which lay a white shape … Rouge? … and on another, a red splash, Knuckles … They disappeared around a corner, behind a heavily fortified door where two guards stood posted.

Shade waited until the soldier ahead of her busied himself entering a door code to strike. He reacted more quickly than she anticipated, however, and tried to roll her off his back.

Bucking him, she clamped her legs around his waist and drove her weight down on him, which shoved him against the glass and knocked the Emerald out of his hand.

She nailed her elbow into the vulnerable plane between his shoulderblades, took his own leech blade as it arced out and held it tight against his throat.

"Don't—"

"Then don't give me a reason to," Shade said. "Who do you work for? Are you a defector?" And when he didn't answer: "Where are they taking them?"

She didn't know what kind of response she expected. Instinctive hostility, maybe. The ferocious calm he exhibited under the light's humming edge as it approached him reminded her of Sonic … who could have been anywhere now in this factory. Anywhere in this forsaken city. She pressed harder.

The soldier squirmed a little from the extra application, but otherwise remained impassive. "Unfortunately," he managed, "I wouldn't know any of that."

"Why not?"

"Because I can really only tell you one thing."

She hesitated—an error under other circumstances her lord would have berated her for.

But …

She was nameless, wasn't she? The maxims and the customs, the war protocols, they no longer applied here in the Doctor's world, under the protection of false Nocturnus. She may have had no name among her own people, but neither did they.

Shade relented her hold just enough to allow the unknown soldier purchase, figuring she could stamp him down if he threatened combat. She wasn't prepared for what actually happened: where instead he lifted his helm to reveal a chameleon's somber face. In his reflection in the cracked glass, his eyes glowed the same sun yellow as the Emerald on the floor.

"My name," he said, "is Espio."