A long-awaited update to Hero Of Sorts. I plan on finishing this arc up pretty soon, but you shouldn't expect too much after that. There are future arcs planned, but... those will appear only in the distant future. We're still going to twelve chapters here, so I'm not done yet. Enjoy.

Tails landed just outside the small house, making sure he was as silent as possible. He had no idea what Zak was actually capable of, and he wanted to give his opponent as little time to prepare as he could. He moved quietly to the back of the house and opened the cellar doors, jumping down into the darkness. No light came on to greet him, and no voice called from the shadows. Perhaps nobody was home. Tails smiled, closing the doors behind him. If Zak wasn't here, he would just have to wait for him to return.

He walked to where he remembered the stairs to be and cautiously stepped up to the door at the top. He went through the door and closed it behind him without a sound, then started to take a look around. If he was going to be setting a trap, he wanted to know the place as well as he could.

The door to the cellar came out into a hallway, and under a flight of stairs. The stairs led up to a balcony that ran across above the hall, and Tails could see another three doors behind the balcony's railing. At one end of the hallway was the front door, and at the other end was an open door leading into a kitchen. In the middle of the hall, opposite the bottom of the stairs, was a closed door that led to the living room. He had seen it through the front window a number of times, so he knew what it looked like.

He turned to go into the kitchen, but stopped when he heard a sound through the wall beside him. Something was moving. It wasn't much sound, but it was enough to tell him that he wasn't alone. He could only hope he still had the element of surprise. As quietly as was within his abilities, he stepped over to the wall and put his ear up to it. The noise had stopped. Whatever it was, he guessed it was gone.

A slender arm appeared beside him, punching through the wall. Long, sharp claws grabbed onto his shoulder. Another arm just like the first smashed through on his other side and wrapped around his torso. Then they pulled him through the wall and into the room on the other side.

Amidst a cloud of dust, Tails stumbled to his feet. He tried to look around and find whoever had attacked him, but the air hadn't yet cleared. The room he had been pulled into was dark, so he couldn't see anything at all. Then, at the back of the room, he spotted two electric blue eyes staring at him from the black.

"Who are you?" It was all he could think of, and really all he needed to know.

The eyes blinked, and the owner of the eyes stepped forward slowly. "Who am I, Darling Tails? True, it hasn't been that long since we last met."

The light from the hallway finally made it through the dust cloud, giving Tails a good glimpse of his attacker. Her claws were long and sharp, gleaming as if they were metal, and her eyes were glowing bright blue. Other than that, Tails would have thought she was Fiona.

Tails backed out into the hall, remembering back to the robotic duplicates. "So... you're the last one of Zak's pawns."

She frowned and shook her head. "Those stupid machines were built for the purpose of finding the portal. Now that they have finished their job, they are no longer necessary. They were... my creations. I am not a pawn."

"Then you're the original."

She half-closed her eyes for a few seconds. "Original... ah, yes. Yes I am. I was the first of my kind, created many years ago by Robotnik. Zak promised me this chance to see you again... Tails."

Now Tails understood. "Oh... you. Auto-Fiona."

"Call me that if you will. You didn't think you could just leave me there on that island, and no one would ever find me, did you? I have to admit, I thought about your actions afterward. I thought about them for years. There wasn't much else to do, rusted in place. I came to the conclusion that you were right, and I didn't have to follow Robotnik's commands. But then you never came back."

She stalked towards Tails angrily. "Then he showed up. He freed me and built me up. Made me into a fully grown girl, and then he told me where you were and what you were doing. It's been years, Tails, and you haven't given me a single thought. I think we have some catching up to do. Don't you agree?"

Suddenly, she lunged forward, her claws reaching out to grab him. Tails jumped out of the way, letting her bury her claws into the wall behind him. He lashed out with his twin tails, striking at her arms in an attempt to disable them. She ripped her hands out of the wall and caught his tails in her claws.

"Tell me, Tails. Were you just going to leave me on that island forever? Was it because I wasn't a real person?" She pulled on his tails, pulling him closer to her. "Was it too much trouble to try and fix me? Was I worth so little to you that you never even returned just to see me?"

He pulled his tails back to him, stunning her with his sudden movement that trapped her against his chest. He cleared his throat, getting her attention. "So let me get this straight. You agreed to build a robotic army for Zak because he promised that you would get to see me?" She nodded. "And your initial plan was to kill me?"

"I never wanted to kill you... I just wanted to make you understand what you did to me."

His tails drifted back behind him and he stepped back from her. "Good. You've made your point. I understand. But right now, I need to stop Zak from opening that portal. I may need your help."

She shook her head, backing away from him. "No, you don't understand. I don't want to kill you, but that doesn't mean I want to help you. I want you alive so that you can suffer, Tails. You're not getting any help from me. I want that portal open. Zak is going to unleash hell, and I want to see what you think of it."

"Oh..." He sighed, then nodded. "So you're an obstacle blocking my way to my goal." Chaos energy crackled around his hand as he prepared for battle. "Then we are fighting."

Tails launched a blast of chaos energy at her, but she stepped to the side. The green flame shattered a small section of the floor behind her. She jumped in the air, dodging another blast that smashed through into the kitchen, and kicked off the wall beside her. Another small explosion put a hole in the wall where she had been a moment before. She landed on her hands beside Tails, spinning and kicking him into the wall. He went crashing through the wall and into the living room.

Shaking away the sudden dizziness, Tails stood up and looked around. It didn't take long to find Auto-Fiona, as she leaped through the new hole in the wall and straight for him. He fell onto his back, catching her with his feet and using her momentum to send her into the wall on the other side of the room. Her head went through the wall, and he figured she would be stuck for a moment, so he ran back into the hallway.

He heard the sound of wood splintering and guessed that she had freed herself. Looking up, he spotted a hanging light fixture above the hall, easily within arm's reach from the balcony. He grinned as an idea came to him, then jumped up to the balcony just as she charged out into the hall. He climbed over the railing and looked down. She glared up at him.

"Don't think this is over so soon, Tails! I'm more powerful than you realize!"

"Is that so?" He fired a bolt of green lightning at the spot on the ceiling where the lights were attached, severing the connection. It fell, and she was directly under it.

She simply raised her hand and a flash of bright green erupted from her palm, destroying the fixture. Shrapnel landed around her as she pulled her hand back down to her side. "I told you. He gave me a new body. Weaponization was a necessity."