Author's Note: This is set after 'Mirror Image' although it's not strictly necessary to read that first in order to follow the story. The important parts of that fic are discussed here so you should be able to follow it without reading my previous fic.

IMPORTANT: This is not a straightforward 'A follows B follows C' fic. There is a lot of mystery and lots of events happening concurrently. Things are not always as they seem and a lot of events defy explanation until later chapters. Foreshadowing and double-meanings are everywhere and earlier chapters should be revaluated once the context is fully understood. If you are not the sort of reader who enjoys having their head played with, proceed with caution. If you are, this should be right up your alley. The important thing is that you enjoy it :)

~O~

I - Aftershock

Through a sprawling labyrinth of narrow corridors and twisted pipes, rusting valves, snaking cables and grates hissing with steam came the cobalt bullet, the blur that was Sonic the Hedgehog. The shadows of the corridor thrashed around beneath frantically flashing and spinning orange lights, and from within the chaotic swirling darkness lurched distorted shapes eager to grab him, their forms gleaming with metal and crackling with electricity.

Each attacker resembled a Mobian, but with different parts of their bodies fused with misshapen hunks of metal that contorted into unnatural positions. Their eyes flickered with cold and artificial blue and a synthesised howl erupted from their mouths. Sonic dodged the wild swings of the latest assailant, knocking them down with a swift kick to the face.

"How many of these things are there?" he moaned.

"We are legion!" a rasping voice gloated through a loudspeaker, a hint of electronic distortion echoing through the corridor. "Soon you too will be among our number, along with all of Mobius! Submit to the inevitable, and cease this pointless conflict!"

Sonic rolled his eyes, "Wow, I've known you for less than a day and I'm already sick of hearing your annoying-ass voice."

The voice belonged to a mysterious villain calling himself Cyberius. Earlier that day, he had hijacked every television, radio broadcast and computer screen with a message to the world. Framed in shadow except for a single glowing blue eye, his grinding electronic voice delivered a warning to Mobius: before the day was out they would all be enslaved to his will, and his so-called 'machine empire' would reign supreme over Mobius.

Sonic found himself more upset by the interruption to his Saturday morning cartoons than by the threat. With his usual brand of energetic heroism coursing through him, he tasked Tails with tracking Cyberius down.

It hadn't taken Tails very long to find the source of the broadcast signal; Cyberius' affinity for machinery had proved no match for the young fox's skill. They tracked his location to a disused power plant and set off right away to track him down.

When they arrived at the dilapidated facility languishing in a rain-soaked muddy field in the middle of nowhere, the source of Cyberius' threat became clear: a huge antenna, towering above the sprawl of rusting buildings and generators and illuminating the skies above with flashes of lightning. Tails conducted a scan of the area, and concluded in terms that Sonic couldn't quite follow that the antenna would somehow cause everyone on Mobius to become mindless cyborgs.

Sonic didn't need to know how such a thing could be possible, he just knew that the notion sounded bad, and it was his job to stop bad things from happening. They split up; Tails soaring into the air to sabotage the antenna while Sonic charged through the facility to find Cyberius. Sonic wasn't concerned about leaving Tails alone; he knew his little buddy could handle anything that came his way.

Sonic continued to blitz through the ruined plant, effortlessly sweeping aside the cyborg army trying to impede his progress. Eventually he forced his way into a wide open courtyard overlooked by darkened offices with broken windows. He stood directly beneath the wide base of the radio antenna, and looking up towards the top made his head swim. Through the rain pouring down on him he could see bolts of lightning crackling across the dark clouds above, and in the distance he caught sight of an orange shape crawling across the sky towards the top.

"You're too late, Sonic!" Cyberius' voice thundered out from the loudspeakers. "You can't stop the new world order; you can't stop the age of machines from coming to pass!"

Sonic looked around, frantically searching for the source of the smug voice. At last he spotted a light spilling out of a window high above him, the silhouette of a figure visible. Without hesitation Sonic dashed into the building on the ground floor and up the decaying stairwell. He kicked a mouldy wooden door with such force that it collapsed into splinters and dust, then leapt into the small room.

The office bore little furniture, save for a cheap-looking wooden chair and table, upon which stood the microphone used to taunt him. Cyberius stood beside it; a white rabbit, lean and tall with a calculating look in his glowing blue eyes. He held a long metal pole in his right hand, crowned by a gleaming metal orb. The left side of his face bore no fur or skin, exposing a metal skull, and tangles of wires snaked in and out of his skin and down his neck, meeting with the layers of metal plates that covered his left arm and transformed it into a monstrous claw.

"It's over, Cyberius!" said Sonic, pointing at him. "We've come to shut you down for good!"

Cyberius said nothing, but grinned in answer to Sonic's challenge. He raised the claw up with on open palm, and with a flick of his wrist the arm surged with electricity. Sonic almost jumped back, but he regained his composure and charged Cyberius down. The deadly arm swung for him, shaking the room with thunderous bursts whenever it missed and struck the floor. The size of the room limited Sonic's speed, but the great bulk of the arm slowed Cyberius down, allowing Sonic to duck and weave underneath it, rolling across the floor and bouncing from the walls even as they creaked beneath his feet. In his desperation Cyberius' blows became more forceful, but he overbalanced himself, allowing Sonic to strike him lightning-fast with a kick to the chest. The cyborg flew across the room and hit the opposite wall hard enough to crack it, before slumping over unconscious in a shower of plaster.

"What's the matter, Cyby?" said Sonic as he dusted himself off. "Can't handle a little power surge?"

Darn, I wish Tails had heard that one, he thought. Remembering Tails he called him up on his wrist communicator.

"Tails, are you okay?" he asked into the device. "What's happening up there?"

"I'm okay," Tails' voice came through, surrounded by static and the roar of the lightning, "I just need to make some – OW!" A bang ripped through the comm, and Sonic's heart jumped instantly into panic mode.

"Tails? Tails, are you okay?!"

"I'm fine," Tails said, and Sonic felt his nerves settling back down, "just a little shock, that's all. What about you? Did you find Cyberius?"

"Oh, I found him alright." Sonic smirked at his fallen foe. "He won't be any more trouble."

"I hope you didn't hurt him too much," Tails half-joked. "I'm nearly done here, just got to adjust this and… voila!"

The deafening roar of the thunder grew briefly louder, before suddenly ceasing. All around Sonic, the hum of engines and generators wound down, giving off an almost disappointed tone as they faded to silence. Through the window Sonic saw the swirling clouds above the antenna begin to dissipate, the sun shining through the fading haze as the ferocious rain ebbed away into a barely noticeable drizzle.

"You did it, Tails!" Sonic cried. "You saved Mobius!"

"You mean we saved Mobius, Sonic," Tails radioed back. "We're a team, remember."

Sonic chuckled. "I won't forget it. We'll always be a team, right until the end." Even though Tails appeared as a distant orange blob at the top of the mast, Sonic knew in his heart the boy would be smiling.

Behind him he heard a wheezing, buzzing cough, and he turned to see Cyberius arising from his blackout. Sonic marched over to him, standing firm above the defeated villain.

"Don't get up," growled Sonic. "You'll have plenty of time to stand once we throw you in jail."

Cyberius laughed through his cough, and he fixed his digitised blue irises on Sonic, his gaze piercing right through him.

"You can't stop the rise of the machines," he hissed. "One day we will overthrow all flesh; the blood of billions will oil the gears of the eternal engine. It shall come to pass."

"Blah, blah, blah. I've heard it all before, buddy. You villains are nothing but talk."

"If that's what you think…" said Cyberius, grinning. He thrust his metal claw through the floorboards, pulling it back out gripping a bundle of thick cables. "Then you're in for a shock!"

Lightning poured from Cyberius' claw, flowing into the cables and flooding the room with sparks. The lights flickered frantically before the bulbs shattered, and the floor flashed into flames. Sonic hesitated, unsure of what Cyberius hoped to achieve. The rabbit laughed a distorted screeching laugh that sounded like a siren, while his eyes flashed from blue to yellow then red. The rampaging electricity surged back along the claw, crawling across Cyberius' body and setting his fur alight. Sonic's stomach heaved as he watched the rabbit's skin begin to melt, revealing the metal skeleton underneath.

Sonic noticed the staff pointing at him a nanosecond too late to react.

A bright flash of light in his eyes, followed by a stinging, burning sensation in his chest, followed by the sound of glass breaking. Sonic's eyes adjusted in time for him to see the office window rapidly moving away from him. He tried to right himself, and managed to turn over just before he collided with the concrete in the yard below. A sharp pain shot up through his legs as he hit the ground running, and after only a few steps he toppled forward, sprawling out face down in a puddle.

He gasped, clutching at his chest. Looking down he saw the edges of his fur singed by the blast, and the stinging sensation lingered deep within him, throwing his heartbeat into disarray. While he struggled to regain his breath, the ground beneath him shook with the sound of metal scraping against stone.

Rolling onto his back, Sonic saw Cyberius standing over him. Against the newly blue skies the robot cast an imposing silhouette. He stood caked in the smoking remnants of his own flesh, with only half his skull remaining, save for a bionic eye hanging by wires. His other eye glowed blood red, firmly fixed on Sonic. He raised the claw up with the fingers splayed, sparks jumping between the digits. Sonic realised what was about to happen.

He rolled to the side, narrowly dodging the claw as it smashed into the concrete. Cyberius brought the claw down again and again, each strike followed by a blinding flash and crack of lightning. Sonic continued to roll away from the blows, but struggled to find an opening to rise to his feet. After avoiding another strike by mere inches, Sonic noticed the attacks cease.

The talons of Cyberius' claw had become embedded in the stone floor of the yard. As he struggled to free it, Sonic took the opportunity to roll backwards over his shoulder on onto his feet. The pain in his chest intensified, but the elation of imminent victory served to numb it.

"Ooh, bad luck, Cyber-dude," Sonic said, using a soft chuckle to hide his strained breathing. "I hear that's quite a common problem with the 'Death-Claw 3000.' You should get that thing serviced more often."

Cyberius stopped struggling to free himself, looking up at Sonic wearing the closest thing a robotic rabbit skull could get to a smug grin.

"What are you smirking about?" asked Sonic. That's when he noticed the water dripping from his own fur, and saw the puddle he had just spent the last thirty seconds rolling in around his feet.

"Oh sh-"

Agony shot through every part of his body in an instant. As the volts poured into him his muscles spasmed violently and his teeth clenched together so tightly they felt like they might crack. The smell of burning fur filled his nostrils, and his ears filled with a deafening, piercing whine.

After what felt like hours of torture he felt himself being thrown backwards, and he came down hard on his back. Through eyes blurry with moisture he saw smoke rising from his own body, and the distorted outline of a metal monster standing over him.

As his eyes cleared, he saw a familiar orange shape hovering in the sky above his foe.

"Sonic!" cried Tails. "The Emerald, quickly!"

Pain clung to every movement he made, but Sonic fought through it to bring his arm up behind his head. Reaching into his quills he took hold of something hard and cold. When he wrenched his arm back out, he held in his hand a perfectly smooth crystal that shone with an intense yellow hue: a Chaos Emerald.

"What?" asked Cyberius, in a tone more mocking than incredulous. "What do you hope to achieve with that? A single Chaos Emerald is but a child's toy compared to the power I wield!"

In the sky above Tails frantically searched through his satchel, and Sonic felt his own strength failing him.

You better hope this works, Tails, he thought, If it doesn't I'm definitely gonna come back as a ghost and haunt you. I'm gonna haunt you so hard you won't even be able to floss without performing an exorcism first.

"Sonic!" Tails yelled. "Catch this!"

Tails tossed a small silver box towards Sonic, and as it neared him Sonic brought his left arm up to snatch it from the air before holding it against the emerald.

"How about this for a child's toy? Playtime's over!" Please work, or those are gonna be some really lame last words…

The box whined, and the golden hue of the Emerald glowed brighter and brighter, increasing faster and faster until it became a blinding ball of light in Sonic's hands. He closed his eyes, unable to look at it anymore, and the heat grew in intensity, burning him through his gloves. With his hands shaking with pain, Sonic screamed.

Then it stopped. The heat vanished in an instant, and the inside of Sonic's eyelids no longer glowed with bloodshot capillaries. Even the weight of the Emerald melted away in Sonic's hands. The Emerald had vanished.

But it didn't matter, for Sonic felt the energy generated by Tails' device flowing into him. The power of the Emerald washed over him, soothing his pain and breathing new life into him. His whole body trembled as the power fired up his muscles and sent his adrenaline racing. Through some unseen means he rose into the air, his body righting itself on its own, and he opened his eyes to see his fur glowing with bright yellow light.

"Impossible!" said Cyberius, stepping backwards, his eye wide, its camera lens narrowing. "You can't channel a Super Form with just one Chaos Emerald! No-one can!"

"You can when your kid brother's a certified genius!" said Sonic, smirking. "Sorry if that 'does not compute!'" Despite his wise-cracks Sonic felt uneasy; he couldn't see Tails above him in the sky anymore, nor anywhere nearby.

Cyberius lowered his staff, baring his metallic teeth. "It doesn't matter how you managed it! I'll destroy you anyway!"

A bolt of lightning shot out from the orb, snaking through the air towards Sonic. The golden hedgehog simply raised his left hand with his palm outward in front of him. The bolt surged into his glove, but Sonic didn't flinch at all, instead condensing the electricity into a ball in his hand and closing his fingers around it. With a flick of his wrist he opened his hand again, sending the blast back towards Cyberius. The arc of lightning smashed into him, sending the robot staggering backwards. Snarling, he recovered his balance before lunging forward with his claw curled into a fist bigger than Sonic's entire head.

Sonic held up his right arm and caught the punch, stopping it dead without moving an inch from his position. Cyberius tried to pull his arm back, but Sonic held it in place with the lightest of grips. Cyberius' robot skull expressed the cybernetic equivalent of absolute terror; Sonic, however, merely smirked.

He raised his left leg up to chest height and planted his foot squarely in the centre of Cyberius' torso, and with a slight twist he wrenched the monstrous arm from its socket in a shower of shrapnel and sparking wires. Cyberius fell backwards, his eye blinking frantically. Sonic tossed aside the arm and hovered over to where his enemy lay. The robot rabbit feebly tried to bring the staff to bear, but Sonic snatched it from his hand and snapped the metal bar over his knee like a twig. Dropping to the floor he stood over Cyberius with his fist ready to strike.

"Enough!" cried Cyberius, covering his face with his remaining hand, "I yield! I cannot hope to defeat you. Please, no more, no more, no mor-"

The red light of Cyberius' eyes faded away to black, and he slumped to the ground. Sonic lowered his fist, feeling slightly deflated that the battle was over, and that Cyberius had perished so suddenly; he hadn't meant for him to die, but he figured that he overestimated his resilience.

Before he could contemplate his situation further, he heard a shrill beep from beneath him, growing louder and faster by the second. Looking down, Sonic realised the sound came from with Cyberius' frame.

Sonic shook his head. "Son of a… seriously? The old 'taking you with me' routine? Come on, Cyby, you can do better than a tired cliché like that, can't you?"

The beeping continued to grow in pitch and speed. Sonic shrugged his shoulders, picked up the robot with one hand and tossed it into the sky. Within moments it had cleared the height of the radio mast, and a second later it exploded, filling the sky with fire and a deep rumbling sound.

Sonic dusted off his hands. "Well, that's that. Another wannabe supervillain added to Sonic's collection of kicked butts!"

He looked around the courtyard, but could see no sign of Tails.

"Tails?" he called out, worry creeping into his voice. "Where are you, little buddy?"

No response came back to him, and Sonic could feel his spine beginning to tingle.

"We won, Tails! No need to hide anymore; come on out and let's celebrate!"

Again, he received no reply. With the echo of the explosion fading fast, the only sound Sonic could hear was the steady thump of his heart and his own shortening breaths. His nerves crawled underneath his skin, and he laughed uneasily to himself.

"V-very funny, Tails! You got me good! Now where-"

The briefest flash of orange caught his eye in one of the ground floor windows on the opposite side of the courtyard. Slightly further along the wall, Sonic saw a door standing slightly ajar, and he made the connection. With his composure returning he drifted slowly through the air across the yard and towards the door, his body still glowing with gold.

He pushed his way through the door into a long corridor. "There you are! Why are you hiding, Tails? You had me worried for a moment there."

Tails stood in the centre of the hallway, frozen to the spot. His eyes were wide open with pupils like pinpricks, his brow ratcheted upwards and knotted, his expression locked into terror. Sonic looked over his own shoulder, expecting to see some terrible monstrosity looming over them both, but the corridor behind him stood empty. He saw Tails trembling where he stood, the same panic-stricken look on his face.

He felt his earlier apprehension begin to return. "Tails? What is it? What's wrong?" He ceased levitating and dropped to the floor, taking a step forward with his hand outstretched.

Tails screamed, his mouth opening wide and releasing a piercing shriek that reverberated off the walls of the hallway. Even as Sonic covered his ears, the fox continued to scream, his face contorted with horror.

"Tails!" Sonic yelled over the din. "What the heck's got into you?"

He took a few more steps forward, hoping to put a comforting hand on the boy's shoulder. Tails stopped screaming and clumsily ran away, staggering down the corridor like he was drunk, stumbling into walls, tripping over his own feet and swatting at thin air. Sonic ran after him, his heart beating furiously in panic.

"No!" Tails yelled. "No, no, no! Get away from me, get away from me!"

"Tails, wait! Tell me what's wrong!"

Tails tripped and fell on his front. "Please! Please don't kill me! I don't wanna die!"

Sonic caught up to him, reaching down to roll Tails onto his back so he could make eye contact in an attempt to get through to his little brother.

"Tails, it's me! It's Sonic! Your best bud, remember? Your Sonic's here now, everything going to be okay."

But Tails continued to thrash around on the floor and flail his arms in a futile attempt to bat Sonic's arms away. His eyes streamed with tears and his mouth quivered in its horrified gape.

"No! Please, no! Don't hurt me anymore! Don't hurt me!"

He sobbed incoherently, and Sonic stepped away from him, unable to process what he was seeing. Here he stood with ultimate power coursing through his veins, yet as he watched Tails roll on the ground screaming and clawing at his own face, Sonic felt more powerless than ever before in his entire life.

He fell to his knees with his fingers against his temples, his heart breaking from the sight of his friend in such despair. The power of the Emeralds slowly seeped out of him, and his golden fur dimmed until it became a familiar shade of blue. Sonic noticed a cloak of silence fall around him, and realised Tails had stopped screaming.

He looked up to see Tails lying completely still, no longer rocking back and forth but still with his hands covering his face. Sonic's heartache eased, his sorrow replaced with concern about the new development. He leapt to his feet and crept slowly over to where Tails lay.

"T-Tails? Can you hear me?"

At first he gave no reply, and Sonic's heart sank further into his chest. He took a step forward, when he heard Tails mumbling beneath his gloves, and eerie calm permeating his voice.

"Shadow…" he whispered, "Shadow, where are you? Please, I need you…"

Sonic nearly fell over in shock. Why was his best friend asking after Shadow, of all people?

"No, Tails. It's not Shadow, it's Sonic. Don't you remember?"

"Shadow, please," Tails continued, "I need you here. I need you here…" his hands slipped away from his face, revealing his tightly closed eyelids. His arms grew limp and flopped to his side, while his head turned like he was drifting off to sleep.

"…to save me."

Then Tails fell silent, and Sonic's fear returned. He fell to his knees, grasped Tails by the shoulders and shook him firmly. A moment later Tails' eyes snapped open, and he sat bolt upright.

"Wha-? What's going on? Where am I?"

Sonic breathed a sigh of relief; seeing Tails restored to normal quashed any doubts and fears in an instant. He laughed as elation took hold of him, before throwing his arms around the confused fox and embracing him, his eyes holding back tears of joy..

"Tails, I'm so glad you're alright! I was so worried about you."

"What's happening, Sonic?" asked Tails, trying to gently push him away. "Did we get captured? We got captured, didn't we? Oh shoot, I knew I should have re-calibrated the Emerald Amplifier before we left. Now the whole world is gonna get cyborg-ified because of me."

Sonic pulled away from the hug and looked Tails in the eye. "It's okay, your device worked like a charm."

"You managed to go Super?"

"I sure did." He ruffled Tails' bangs. "All thanks to you, little buddy."

"Yeah, yeah." Tails pushed Sonic's hand away and rolled his eyes as he rose to his feet. "But why are we in this corridor? What happened to Cyberius?"

"He's dead," said Sonic. Tails' face dropped.

"Sonic! You didn't-?"

"No, of course not!" Sonic snapped, indignant at the suggestion. "He decided he'd rather blow himself up than let me capture him alive."

"Oh, that's…" Tails looked away, his lips pursed. "That's his own fault then, I guess. What about the Emerald?"

"It vanished just before I went Super."

Tails scratched his chin. "I thought that might happen, The Chaos Emeralds tend to react erratically if too much stress is put on them. That's why they tend to teleport away after you use them to go Super. At least it didn't explode, or worse."

"Worse?" asked Sonic, raising a curious eyebrow. Tails looked sheepishly at the floor, holding his hands behind his back and kicking one leg back and forth.

"There was a teeny, tiny chance, that using the Amplifier to channel seven Chaos Emeralds' worth of power through just one might… theoretically, you understand… might have caused a chain reaction that would have ripped apart the entire space-time continuum. But that was only one possibility… and a really small one at that. I wasn't worried about it."

"You're joking, right?" said Sonic, but he knew Tails well enough to know that he wasn't.

"Okay, I'll just remind myself to have nightmares about that later," he continued. Tails laughed and smiled warmly, and Sonic felt that warmth wash over him. But even though he felt glad to have his best friend back to his old self, his mind kept drifting back to what had happened.

He'd never seen Tails act like that before; Tails got scared of some things from time to time, but he'd always fought through it when the time came to step up to the plate. Sonic even admired the way Tails shrugged off his fear of lightning to disable the tower, feeling slightly ashamed that if Cyberius had been hiding underwater the mission would have ended in disaster as his own fears paralysed him. So to see the brave little fox half-mad with terror at something Sonic couldn't even see deeply unsettled him. He desperately wanted to ask Tails about it, but feared the wrong word might cause him to freak out again.

"Tails? What's the last thing you remember before you woke up here?"

"Hmm," said Tails, scratching his chin again. "I remember tossing you the Amplifier. Then the Emerald grew really bright, so I covered my eyes and…" he shrugged, "that's it. That's all I remember."

"Are you sure that's everything?"

"Yeah. Why? Did something happen?"

Sonic rubbed the back of his head, trying to avoid the inquisitive stare of his friend. "Umm… it's nothing, don't worry about it."

"Okay…" said Tails, clearly unconvinced. Sonic wanted to drop the subject entirely and avoid an uncomfortable situation, but his own curiosity kept nagging at him.

"What do you think of Shadow?" he asked quickly, leaving Tails blinking in surprise.

"Shadow? Well I guess I like him more since you two became friends, but he's still kind of a… a dick, you know? He hardly talks to me, and he always looks down his nose at me, like he thinks I'm beneath him."

"He looks at everyone that way, even me. I tell ya, I honestly don't know what's going on with us. Since the Doppelganger Crisis we've had this weird kind of friendship going on. I like him, but I also hate him just as much, and I know he feels the same way; it makes my head hurt something fierce."

"At least you're not at each other's throats all the time now. Anyway, what's my opinion of Shadow got to do with anything?"

Sonic avoided Tails' gaze again "It doesn't matter. Just curious, is all. Let's hurry up and get out of here."

Tails nodded, and before long they found themselves speeding along the open plain in the direction of Station Square. As Sonic watched Tails soar through the air just ahead of him, he found himself unable to clear his thoughts of questions.

During the Doppelganger Crisis not six months earlier he had grown closer to Shadow than he had ever thought possible. It didn't feel right to refer to them as mere friends; they had connected on a deeper level that surpassed any kind of companionship he knew. They had an intangible connection to one another, almost as if their very souls had become inexorably intertwined. Shadow felt less like a friend and more like another part of himself; the reverse side of the coin of which he himself was but one face. The concept he found hard to reconcile in his mind, let alone express to anyone else.

But Tails' relationship with Shadow remained much the same, even if they saw much more of each other these days, Sonic could hardly call them friends; after all his friendship with Rouge hadn't changed much since then.

So why had his best friend, in what seemed to be his darkest hour, been calling for someone he barely even liked instead of him? Why did the thought of Shadow seem to calm Tails down?

With Tails' memory of that moment nowhere to be seen, Sonic knew there was only one way he would find the answer, and it wasn't a conversation he was looking forward to having.

He would have to ask Shadow himself.

~O~