All Sonic Characters are trademarks of Sega and Archie Comics. I do not claim to own rights to any of these characters. If I make OC's later I'll let you know.

"Speaking aloud"

'Internal Monologue'

*Electrical Transmissions*

Author Notes: This story picks up right after Chapter 5 of Chaos, Order and Balance as a deviant A/U. I have a general idea where to go with this story but I'm going to see how you guys like it first. Let me know what you think. R&R Rating is subject to change if continued.

Pushed to the Brink

'I remember a blinding light; than being scooped up into someone's arms. And then, flashes of light in the sky and the drum of feet both close and far away. In the distance, a lot of voices meshed together accompanied by this constant sharp humming noise. It was everywhere. Then the world turns and the one carrying me is talking to someone. …But they're not carrying me anymore. I'm on something. And something else keeps falling on me. What are they saying? I can't hear them. It's too loud. My head… hurts. What's happening? I can't see very well; everything's so dim.'

"The enemy is overrunning our left front!" "It's hopeless!" "Run!" "Gyaaaha!" "The Kings been hit!" "No! Save the King!" "Ahhaah!" "Hold your ground!" "Help meEAhhahk!" "Run!" "Retreat!"

"Cowards! Hold your ground until the civilians can escape back to the Great Forest! Messenger! Mina. Send word to the city to evacuate everyone to the Great Forest, lead them to this spot okay? We'll buy as much time as we can. Go! Medical unit pack up. Start moving the injured to here. We're abandoning the city. Use the war—"

"Where's Soni—"

"Ove—"

'Sound's gone too now. …I'm moving again. I…I'm so…'

"How is he Doctor?"

"He's stable again. But he's in bad shape and the moving around is slowing down his healing process. It might be a while yet before he wakes up."

'Are they talking about me?'

"Can I sit with him a while?"

"I think that should be alright, just stay alert. They've been sighted in the area and we don't know when we'll need to move again."

'I've got to open my eyes.'

"I understand."

'What's happening? Hn… it's bright.'

"Tails! You're awake! Oh thank goodness."

Tails' silted eyes glance towards the voice. "Sa…Sally? What's…" He looked around the cloth tent lost for words.

Sally had gotten up and leaned in giving the young foxes' forehead a long kiss, hot tears dripped from her face as she softly rubbed his head. "I'm so glad you're alright."

"S-Sally."

"No don't try to get up. You've been hurt really badly."

"What happened? Where are we?"

Sally's eyelids hung low as she sighed. "We were raided in the night. Robotnik launched a full scale invasion. Without Nicole's shield or any warning… We put together the best resistance we could, but."

"We… lost New Mobotropolis?"

Sally nods in shame. "We were forced to evacuate everyone we could to the emergency shelter in the Great Forest. We're not sure what's happened to those who got left behind. We've had to move several times since then. A Metal Sonic and Knuckles keep finding us. Sonic and… some of the others have been doing their best to hold them at bay when they show up so we have time to get away. But we've got too many wounded and fighting them both is wearing Sonic down even though he won't admit it. We still don't know what's happened to Nicole."

Tails' ears shoot up, "What about my parents? Are they okay?"

Sally's eyes go wide for a second but draw closed as she shakes her head. Tails' ears fall against his head as tears form and run down his cheeks. Sally hugs the foxes' head to her chest. "I'm so sorry Tails." She holds him until he settles down. "Why don't you rest for now? We can talk after you're feeling a little better." She wipes the tears from his eyes and rubs his head one more time before she turns to leave. As she moves some ways off Julie-Su hails her with a wave and walks over.

"How is he?"

"Awake… and heart broken."

Julie-Su's mixed feelings are apparent. "How much does he know?"

"Only about the evacuation… and his parents so far."

"Poor thing already had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and now this."

"This is all my fault. If I'd just listened to him when he said he wanted to go right away—"

"Stop. You couldn't have known this was going to happen. If it's anyone's fault it's mine for convincing him to wait. But we both know thinking about what we can't change won't help anyone. At least he's alive. Now all we can do is be there for him so he gets better."

"You sound so much like him when you talk like that."

Julie-Su smile's a sad smile. "Where do you think I picked up all that mush?" Sally gives a similar smile and Julie-Su rests a hand on her shoulder. "Come on, we can be girly and talk about our feelings when we're safe. Rotor's waiting to see us about his camo projector. Hopefully it'll stop those two mechanical nightmares from finding us."

Sally and Julie-Su headed into Rotor's make shift workshop where the walrus was engaged in assembling a strange looking cylindrical device.

"We're here Rotor. How's the camouflage generator coming?"

"Almost done Sally, but we might have a problem."

"Please tell me it's minor."

"I'm afraid not. This machine is going to need a heavy duty power source to effectively hide us from the metal series sensors. We only have two options. Either we try to go after the chaos emeralds Nicole hid under New Mobotropolis before the invasion, or we wait until I can rig together another dimension gate so someone can try and get another chaos emerald from Feist in the Special Zone." All three wore grave faces. "I wish I had better news."

"How long would building a new gate take?" Sally asked already sure of the response.

Rotor's hands paused for a moment. "Maybe two or three weeks with the materials I can scrape together. We may even have to make a raid on Robotnik for certain parts." He continued working.

"We'd be found long before he even got close to half way Sally."

"I know that, but Sonic is the only one who could dig them up. What happens if being so close to them sets him off? We'd have no way to defend against a crazed Super Sonic."

"Maybe not. But if we don't, those two indestructible monstrosities will find us and kill us all anyway. At least between Tails' rings and the lead case we have a good shot. Plus, if I have to die, I'd rather it have been fighting then not."

Sally gave a small sigh, "I know you're right. Worrying about what might happen isn't a luxury we can afford right now. And I refuse to let Robotnik have the satisfaction of killing me either. So how do we find them if most of the radiation from the emeralds is being concealed."

Rotor picked up a sheet of paper and handed it to Sally. "Nicole printed out a set of coordinates after she hid them. I managed to grab it along with some supplies from my lab when we evacuated. With these we can figure out which building and how deep the emeralds are. Sonic can handle it from there. We just need you to give the go ahead Sal."

Sally paused to collect herself than nodded. "Alright, before anything else we'll secure a base so that our injured can heal. Then after we rest up, we'll start tackling our long list of other problems. Rotor, how fast can you be done the generator?"

"An hour or two maybe."

"Good. We'll start the dig for the emeralds tonight after dark. We'll get Sonic to dig from here, just inside the Great Forest. Figure out where we need to dig too and draw up some directions from our start zone. We'll go put together the supplies we need and fill Sonic in on the plan."

"You got it Sally."

More Notes: Also let me know if you would like me to add the first 5 chapters from the main story. I thought it would be weird to re-post them but, that's just my opinion. PM if so. ^^