EPISODE 8 - CRYSTAL MOUNTAIN
They had lasted through Armageddon.
In the darkness of Adramalalech's cargo holds, they had all listened as Angel Island's shattered remnants struck the planets surface. Each one sounded like a nuclear bomb going off, causing tremors that violently rocked the land to its core.
They'd made it through the worst of it, but were remaining underground to be safe. The cannon itself had been destroyed in the fallout, and with it, all power had been lost days ago. The cargo hold had turned into a shanty town of shipping containers, the darkness kept at bay from the dim glow of a few flaming drums.
Bunnie was huddled next to one of the barrels, clutching a blanket to her chest. She could see Rotor across from her, holding some nondescript circuit board up to the flames light.
"Rote," she said, quietly.
He looked up, giving her his full attention. "What is it, Bunnie?"
"Whatcha doin'?"
The walrus smirked a bit, and shook his head. "Nothing, really. I can't do anything with this board. I was just looking for… distraction, I guess." He took the panel, tossed it into the fire. It sparkled a little in the blaze, as whatever flammable components or coating it contained ignited.
"Any word from Sonic? Nicole?"
"The radio I brought down here's working," Rotor said to her. "But I can't get a signal. We're too far underground, and whatever energy that island had in it is interfering as well. I don't know what happened to them… I hope they're alright."
A loud rumble echoed through the space, making some bits of loose cement come raining out of the darkness above.
"More fallout?" Rotor pondered aloud, looking about the cavern.
"The way outta here got caved in from some of the explosions," Bunnie explained. "Folks are tryin' to blast us out of here."
"Oh…" Rotor looked at his feet. "I wonder… even if Robotnik's not alive now, is there even going to be anything left up there?"
"Only one way to find out, I guess…" Bunnie smirked. "No matter what's left up there, we've still got a home left to rebuild. That's gotta mean somethin', right?"
Rotor finally looked up at her, and smiled. "Yeah. I guess that'll be a bit more enjoyable than ruining it was."
Another explosion. Rotor got to his feet to have a look toward the cavern's entrance.
"We're through!" he heard someone shout. There was a thin shaft of pale white filtering through the cracks.
Doubling back, Rotor picked up his radio, and began running over to them.
--
Tails stood in the doorway of the hut that hid the entrance to the Brotherhood Sanctuary, looking out to the snow-covered expanse that lay before him. The sun was rising ahead, reflecting off the snow in a blaze of orange that made him squint.
Things had taken a lot longer to get ready than he'd expected; whatever that fallout was in the distance, he'd had to wait it out before he set off. But now, things had finally cleared, and the eerie green glow in the sky had been mostly extinguished.
He hefted his backpack to his shoulder, and checked over his gear one more time; he'd swapped his rather limiting robe for a tight-fitting hard leather armor, again colored jet-black aside from the Brotherhood's red branding upon the breast. He'd cut a hole out of the pants to allow his three tails to feed through and move freely, though he was still unhappy with the lack of mobility the outfit gave him as a whole. He figured it'd loosen up a little more with use.
With a final sigh, he took his first step out of the door, and the wave of cold hit him hard upon his exposed face and forearms. He'd considered turning back inside, to say his last goodbyes to the few friends he'd made here, but there was no time to lose anymore.
As it turned out, he didn't have to anyway.
"Miles…" he felt the touch upon his shoulder, and already knew who it was before he turned around. "I want to come with you."
"Why, Marr?" He asked her, turning to look into her eyes. She'd outfitted herself in much the same sort of gear. "You're safer with the Brotherhood. Christof needs you."
The lynx shook her head, grimaced. "Christof, the entire brotherhood, should be coming with us. I've never known him to make a wrong call in his time as leader here, but… this is more important than anything to do with us here. If you fail, we're next, there's no doubt about it. We are struggling, but you still need all the help you can get."
Tails' ears folded back. "But… if something were to happen…" He turned away.
Marr stared back at him. Something had lit up in her soul. "If something were to happen…?"
"To you. I'd never forgive myself."
"Please, this is important…" she told him. "All of my life, I've been searching, or waiting, for something resembling purpose to my life… a chance to change things, to do something special. In you… in your - our - cause, I believe I have found it… do you understand?"
Tails asked himself why he was so worried about her. Asked as if he didn't know the answer. But he knew.
Without another word, he took Marr gently and scooped her up in his arms. He'd seen Sonic do this so many times, and suddenly it felt like he was literally filling the hero's shoes. "Hang on tight."
--
While they traveled, they talked about everything. Marr recounted her youth when she'd played hide-and-seek in the walls of Trema, her home city, before it had been laid to waste in the Great War. Tails remembered only months ago, when he'd been running around in Knothole, playing dirt hockey with whomever had been willing. It had struck Tails before, that he'd never known anyone he shared so much in common with.
"My parents told me that when I grew up, I would change the world…" Marr sighed. Tails had slowed his flying to a brisk, smooth jog, so that the wind would not be such an imposing force upon their conversation. He could feel her body within his arms, snuggling towards his chest, and felt his own heart pounding against it.
"Where are your folks, now?" Tails asked her.
"The War…" she said, simply.
Tails slowed noticeably at this, and looked down at her. "I'm so sorry…"
"It wasn't your fault. And I feel you haven't had things any easier…"
Tails looked out to the distant hills and began to pick his pace up again. "I don't remember much of my family. We lived alone in the Great Forest. We weren't like most of the Mobian families where we had any sort of contact with anyone else. We fended for ourselves, grew our own food. One day, they had all gone to hunt. They never came back."
"Now it's me, that's sorry..."
"And it wasn't your fault, either." Tails smiled. "After I went out looking for them, I got lost in the woods. I thought I'd die… but then Sonic found me. He took me back to Knothole, taught me everything… I have him to thank for being alive now. I hope he's alright…"
"Do you know where he might be?"
"We'll try for Knothole first," Tails said to her. "You'll be the first visitor that place has seen in quite some time."
--
Night fell.
As determined as Tails was to simply go as hard and long as it took to reach Sonic and the others, his body had finally told him of its disapproval with his aspirations. He was growing fatigued, and finally slowed down. The weight of taking Marr with him was taking its toll on his stamina as well, though she was not heavy by any means.
The plain, desert mountains of the Great Unknown had finally begun to give way to the grassy plains of Mobius south. A grand lake lay up ahead, which Tails had remembered passing when he had been on the way past with Sonic before. They were still hundreds of miles away from their destination, but were finally most of the way.
"You're tired…" Marr spoke to him.
"There's not far left, now… I can make it."
Marr shook her head. "We will have an easier time traveling in the morning. We will need all of our strength tomorrow…"
"I…" Tails sighed. "You're right… okay. I'll try for that house over there."
"House?" Marr looked away from him, and squinted her eyes against the wind. In the near distance, she could indeed see an old cobblestone construct, perched on the slope looking out toward the lake. Obviously, it was long-since abandoned; the roof was missing, the walls crumbled and eroded by the ages. All the same, it looked somehow more inviting than trying to sleep out in the open.
When they finally got near, Tails slowed to a stop, and lowered Marr to the ground. She surprised herself when she stumbled as she walked, noting the numbness she felt in her legs.
"You okay?" Tails laughed, watching her.
She scowled at him for a moment, but a moment's beholding of his face turned her expression back to a smile. "Yes… I am okay. I am not used to having traveled so far without the use of my legs before."
Aside one of the mossy walls of the old house, she sat down cross-legged and watched the moonlight's play upon the calm lake waters, gently running her fingers among the untamed grass. "Wow…"
"Mm?" Tails looked out to the lake, then down at her, her light grey fur tinged with the pale blue of night.
The lynx laid herself back in the grass and drew in a long breath, gazing up at the stars. "I have never been out this far south before. The countryside here is beautiful, and the weather…"
"It's great, isn't it?" Tails smiled, sitting himself down beside her. "I love the landscape here. I couldn't imagine living anywhere else."
"Couldn't you?" Marr turned to him.
Tails caught her gaze, and regretted his words. "Well… maybe…"
She laughed out loudly, warmly. "It's alright, don't worry. I was joking."
"Oh…" the kitsune stared upon his lap, deep in thought. After a while, he got up, and strolled over to the waters edge. He reached into his backpack, and scooped a few fruit seeds out of his pouch, and touched them over with a few drops of green water. The beginnings of a plant burst forth through the sands, and from them, leaves sprouted. Within a minute, a selection of fruits had grown from the tree.
He picked one, and turned around to face Marr, who had begun walking over. "Hungry?"
She gingerly took it from his hand, and took a bite. "Thank you."
For a few moments, they stood silent together, watching the ebb and flow of the water, slowly taking in the sights and senses.
"You know…" Marr said out of nowhere, "When I was little… I liked to play hockey as well. Though we have ice instead, as you know. No one ever was around to play with me, either."
Tails chuckled. "It seems we've shared a lot of things together, without even knowing each other."
"We know each other now… we share memories. In that respect, I think we have known each other for longer than you think."
"Mm…" Tails went back to the grass, and sat down. He watched Marr sit beside him. "Heh. Maybe when this is over, we'll have a few games together."
The lynx laughed, and he could see her blush even in the dim light. "I would like that… I would like that a lot."
Tails smiled faintly, and then turned his gaze back to the lake. He took a long, deep sigh, and closed his eyes.
"What's wrong?" Marr asked him.
"Right now, I'm not sure if it's really anything wrong…" he said to her. "I feel strange…"
She rested a hand upon his arm. "Tell me what you feel…"
"I…" Tails began, feeling his heart beating harder and faster. "I can't describe. Something I've felt now for a while with you… like a maelstrom of thoughts that I couldn't place. But now, it feels like everything is coming together…" He suddenly felt dizzy. "Like something has grown inside me, some sort of serenity…"
Like the gentle waving of the lakes water, silence seemed to gently swirl around them both, carried by the warm caress of the wind.
"Miles…" Marr finally spoke.
Tails turned to her slowly. "Marr…"
She said nothing more to him. Instead, she slowly took a gentle hold of his hand. Tails slowly lifted it up to stroke her face, and realised it was trembling.
"We should sleep..." Marr whispered. Tails simply nodded, and smiled, laying her down on her back and wrapping his arms and one of his bushy tails around her.
Before they both finally fell asleep, Tails whispered, "Is everything alright?"
Marr pressed her back against his chest, and smiled contentedly to herself. "For tonight, everything is perfect."
--
It was still dark when Knuckles opened his eyes. There was the faint, ghostly streak of hazy orange and blue on the horizon, that indicated to him dawn had arrived, despite the darkness. He rolled over painfully on his side, swiping a hand out in front of him to shift the pair of skulls he'd set beside him out of the way. Sometimes he'd just stare into the empty crevices where their eyes had once been – imagined the way they'd looked at him so proudly as he was still a young echidna.
He wondered if they'd be proud of him now, after all that had happened. He had been the guardian of their ancestral home. And he'd failed to protect it. He'd struck deals with their worst enemies. He'd assisted in taking what was left of his race's history and blasting it into oblivion, the last traces of his bloodline existing only in his own body. He'd mingled with and subsequently betrayed the Mobians on the planet's surface, something that no other echidna had ever done.
No, they would not be proud... they wouldn't be proud at all.
He was strong, capable, determined. Yet, he would still have been a failure in their eyes.
He sat up slowly, feeling his arms and back crackling, discs sliding violently back into place. The impact of the crash yesterday hadn't inflicted any of them with injuries that would last more than a day or two, thankfully, but that didn't mean he wasn't hurting.
The sun was blooming slowly forth from the distant treeline, the shadows of the earth slowly curling back unto the figures that sheltered them.
He wondered if Naugus was somewhere near, watching as the sun rose. He wanted it to be his last. Today was the day Naugus the sorcerer would pay for everything he'd done.
The echidna's mind slipped back to thoughts of his family, and his society. The painful reminder that he'd not only failed them, but utterly disgraced them. But it didn't hurt him, at least, not much anymore. And it was only now that he realized why.
He was the last of his race, and he was lucky to even be alive at all. There was no future for his kind. He'd spent his life protecting his empty, desolate island. He'd spent his life protecting memories, singed and broken traces of the past. But among the surface-dwellers of Mobius, he'd found... the future. And the future, he decided, was a far more worthy thing to fight for.
With that thought, the image of Lupe at his side suddenly popped into his head, puzzling him at how that had happened. He shook his head free of the thought, albeit a little reluctantly.
He looked about himself, and saw Nicole was already awake, speaking quietly to herself as she sat upright. She'd surprised him when she said that she needed to sleep; it hadn't quite clicked in his head yet that she wasn't quite a robot. Apparently, androids needed sleep to recharge just as any living creature.
"Who are you talking to?" he said to her, not bothering to conceal his smirk.
She looked at him flatly. "At 05:37, I was able to reestablish contact with the remaining Mobians at Adramalech."
"Oh." the echidna scratched the back of his neck. He should've known Nicole wouldn't have it in her to do something so... organic, as talking to herself. "So how'd they fare?"
"There was a high number of casualties." Nicole said to him, not moving a synthetic muscle. "An even greater number are wounded. Contact with them had been unavailable previously, as a cave-in had insulated them from radio transmissions. I recommend we leave immediately to regroup with them."
"Okay..." He looked around, and saw Griff still fast asleep, slumped up against the cavern's back wall. "Where's Sonic?"
"He left earlier." Nicole told him.
Knuckles looked at the android incredulously. "What?"
"He left ea--" Nicole began to repeat, but Knuckles cut her off.
"I heard you the first time. What do you mean, he left? Where did he go?"
Nicole didn't answer him directly, but played back something she'd recorded; Sonic's voice came from her lips. "Outta my way, Nicole. I'm taking that sucker out right now, even if it means I'm going by myself. If you try to stop me, I'll flatten you. Inteleg?"
Knuckles let out a growl loud enough to wake Griff up. "That idiot!" he groaned, dragging his fingers over his face. "That kid's stupidity will be the death of all of us. And how on Mobius does he know where to find Naugus, anyway?"
Nicole stepped outside the mouth of the cave, and pointed. Knuckles followed, and looked.
In the distance, was a shimmering blue shape cut out against the hazy morning sky, a foreboding mass of dark crystal stabbing out to the sky with its sharp crags. A swirling mass of storm clouds formed a crown to the whole twisted image, striking down at the ground with serpentine shafts of lightning.
"Uh... guys?" Griff started, raising to his feet. "What's going on?"
Knuckles and Nicole both ignored him.
--
Sonic had spent the last few hours traversing the ravaged landscape as best as he could manage. His path would lead him back through the Great Forest, and out the other side -- a familiar path to him -- but it was proving a little more confusing than he'd first imagined. The destruction caused by the fallout from Angel Island had scarred the countryside with a thousand pockmarks, each one a giant, smoking, radioactive crater. Parts of the hills around him still glowed green with the residue of the Island's power, and he could feel his strength being sapped whenever he approached near one.
But finally, the wilderness around him began to grow thicker, and he was soon within the dense foliage of the Great Forest. Rock and leaves rushed past at each side, and he was forced to slow down here as the remains of fallen trees, destroyed by the previous day's chaos, threatened to end his life if he should collide with any of it at his top speed.
As he progressed through the dense woods, he began to lose his bearings, and he could feel the air getting thicker. He could feel spots of rain smacking against his face, and in the distance, he heard cacophonous booms of thunder. It seemed that nothing, not even the near-end of the world, was going to hold the weather at bay.
Suddenly, the dense shroud of canopy above him gave way to grey skies and pouring rain. He was alone, in the middle of a familiar clearing.
He took a running leap over the small creek that lay before him, and then he was walking among the remains of Knothole. If he was lucky, he'd arrive at the power ring pool to find the device at the bottom of it still functional.
He hadn't planned to stop here, but he couldn't help himself slowing to a walk. The fallout from the island had destroyed buildings and huts left and right here. The bridge over the creek was in pieces. Millions of shards of wood and clay lay strewn about the shattered village, as common as the fallen leaves.
Normally, he'd have run. Sonic never walked, never stopped, when he was by himself, in his element. But now, he stopped.
He walked past his hut, the remains of Antoine's hut. They'd both been smashed to wreckage. But beyond them, Sally's stood still. Maybe, he thought, some force beyond his comprehension had willed it to stay for him. His stomach tied itself in knots now. He stepped up to the door of her hut, gave it a gentle push and it creaked open for him.
Why am I doing this? He wondered to himself. It would've been so much easier to simply pass through the village, grab the power ring and be on his way to that mountain of crystal he'd seen in the distance.
He entered the bedroom.
The place was a mess; books had spilled across the floor from the shelves, peppered with glass from the shattered windows. But apart from that, the hut had been largely untouched.
He walked around the room slowly, running his hands over the furniture. Her bed was still unmade from when she'd last risen from it... he could almost see her still there, in his mind's eye, curled up among the sheets like he'd seen her so many times before. Or in that wooden chair in the corner, an arm draped over the back, book in her hand...
He sat down on the bed, and lay backwards. Pulled the pillow to his chest. It still smelled of her. The whole room did. And for a moment, he believed so strongly that she was right there with him.
"Sal..." he took the pillow to his mouth, his words muffling as he spoke into it. "Are you here?"
Only the pattering of the rain outside answered him.
"Sal... Sally..." he said again. He repeated her name again and again, letting his voice get more and more strained with each. Before long, it'd been reduced to a voice alien to his own, in great, heaving sobs. He could feel the warmth of his own tears streaking his face, but he didn't care. He just let it flow.
"Sally... I miss you..."
Outside, the rain was pouring down harder still. He could feel that maelstrom in his head again, that overwhelming pounding rippling through his body that hid his rational thoughts away from him. He wished it'd go away.
He hadn't heard the door creaking open again behind him. But he felt a hand resting on his shoulder now. But it wasn't Sally's hand. It was larger, stronger.
He didn't bother turning around. If it was Naugus, or some other abomination that had found him now, he didn't care if they ended him here. Maybe it'd mean he'd see Sally again. He relaxed his body completely and prepared for a swift end, his face still buried in the princess' pillow.
"Sonic... look at me."
That voice... it sounded familiar to him. But it was different...
He turned around slowly, looked upon his shoulder. Through the blur of his own tears, he spied a black-gloved hand. Slowly, he let his gaze wander skywards.
Tails' eyes widened as he saw Sonic's face slowly revealed to him. He'd never in his life, seen Sonic cry before. After all the years that he'd looked up to the blue blur, he'd never expected to be the one looking over him one day.
"How ya doing, bro?" The fox asked, with a weak smile.
Sonic's eyes shifted away, feeling disarmed. "Hey, big guy..." He glanced cautiously at the kitsune again.
The fox towered over him now, a good deal higher than he. His torso and legs were covered in black hard leather; he didn't just look like he'd grown. He'd progressed, transformed into something far beyond what anybody had expected. Sonic could sense the strength Tails carried in his frame now, from the grip of his hand to the deep-set features of his face. But in it, he could still see those bright eyes, sparkling with the youth that he remembered. "You've grown a lot since I last saw you. Looks like I'm gonna have to start calling you something else... you're soaking."
"It's wet today."
Sonic's mouth began to quiver again. "Tails... I gotta tell you something. About Sal..."
The kitsune lowered his head, eyes closed. "I know. It's alright." He pulled the hedgehog into a tight hug, and Sonic, for the first time ever, was content to just let the tears flow.
He could hear someone else speaking, a female, but he could hear an accent in her voice. "Your princess isn't gone, my friend... not forever."
Sonic looked up again, and noticed a lynx standing there. He wondered how he hadn't spotted her before. He frowned. "What do you mean, she's not gone? Don't you know what happened to her?"
"Death isn't the end. It's a transition... she's waiting for you. You'll meet each other again, I know. I can feel it..."
Sonic scowled at her.
"Sonic, this is Marr." Tails said, when he caught the hedgehog's glare. "She's my... mentor."
Marr held her hand out to him, and the hedgehog reluctantly took it. "Sonic," he told her with a sniffle. "I'm not usually like this."
"I figured." She gave him a slither of a smile. "The happenings of late have not been kind to any of us... it's alright to cry, my friend..."
Sonic was silent for a moment, shutting his eyes tight. "I'm done. Crying ain't gonna win back the planet."
"That's a little more like you, Sonic." Tails gave him a nudge. "Now... you gonna tell me what went on here? Are the others okay?"
"They'll manage. They're holed up at that big gun I told you about."
Tails' eyebrows raised. "Adramalech? What are they doing there?"
Sonic slowly rose to his feet, and gave a sigh, clenching his fists, his eyes still closed. "I'll fill ya in on all that later. In the meantime, I got one question for you, big guy..." He opened his eyes and looked at the fox. "You still a Freedom Fighter?"
"You bet."
"Then come with me, and try to keep up. I'll give you the scoop from around here on the way. Sorry, but your lady friend's gonna have to sit this out."
"You're going to take on Naugus, with just the two of you?" Marr stared at him, then turned to Tails.
The fox grimaced. "Marr... I think we'll manage. It'll be dangerous... you'll be safe if you just wait it out here. I've got a feeling the others will be on their way here by now."
"And what am I supposed to tell them?" The Lynx scowled at him. "That the both of you are just on your way to your heroic suicide? We all need to go back and regroup, before we even think of taking Naugus on!"
Sonic stepped closer to her, surprised when she didn't back down. "They'd hoofing it. I'm only here now, because of these." He pointed to his sneakers, now looking a little faded from all the abuse they'd been taking lately. "To regroup with them would take days. We don't have days. Naugus ain't gonna wait, so neither can we."
Tails sighed. "Sonic's right..."
Marr looked away. "Fine. We'll go now."
"We'll go now." Sonic told her, nodding toward Tails. "You can go back and join up with the rest of the crew. Just follow my trail back. It'll be smooth sailing from here, 'Buttnik's bots are history as of yesterday."
"What...?" Marr screwed up her nose. "Miles, please, don't tell me you're entertaining this idea!"
Tails frowned. "I don't want you to get hurt..."
"Then I'm not going to get hurt." she stammered. "And neither will you. Not while I'm at your side."
Tails shook his head. "Didn't you see what Naugus did back at the Sanctuary? I might lose, yes, but I have to risk it. We're out of time. If Naugus comes back, he'll crush us. I know his weakness. And only I can take him on. Please, I don't want to lose you..."
"Miles, if you die..." Marr's bottom lip began to quiver. "Then so do I. Please... this is why I came with you. We'll do this thing... together. If we win or lose, so be it. You have to trust me..."
The kitsune stared at her for a second, and he felt his lip quivering too. Finally, he stepped forward and hugged her. "Alright... alright..." He held onto her quivering body as tightly as he could, and finally turned to Sonic, looking at him expectantly.
The hedgehog folded his arms, pondering for a moment.
He nodded slowly. "Cool."
Tails didn't say another word, but reached into his backpack, and dropped something familiar into Sonic's outstretched hand: a power ring.
--
Crystal Mountain loomed. At first, Sonic had thought it was a fortress built upon the landscape by Naugus, out of the same damnable crystal he'd seen so much of in the Void. But it was more than just built; it had grown to join with the earth, like an insidious cancer creeping through the very soil beneath his feet. As they had traveled over the landscape to get closer to it, he had begun to wonder if they'd make it out of this alive after all. Somewhere, inside there, Naugus would be waiting for them. The air here thrummed with some kind of otherworldly pulsing, rippling through the air, chilling the hedgehog to his core.
He couldn't ever explain how he knew, but he could tell that chill wasn't just in his head. It was the screaming of the damned and the conquered.
But now, the mountain towered over them. The dark storm clouds overhead had gathered around it, swirling and crackling with lightning and thunderous booms. They were standing on a dirt path, one that wound its way right into the gaping maw in the mountain. All around, the rain poured down as if it'd rather see them drowned before they got close to that towering structure.
"Alright..." Sonic swallowed. "So, ol' Clawface is in there somewhere. You guys ready to punch it? We've only got one shot at this."
Tails shook his head. "That's not the plan. I've seen what he's like now. He's too powerful to take on directly. But I saw something the other day, when he attacked the Sanctuary... he's drawing his power from the Void. It's a living entity... the king's letter said as much, too."
Sonic's eyes widened. "The king...? You found him?"
"Yeah. But we were too late..."
The hedgehog's head lowered. "Damn..."
"It wasn't in vain. I learned that the only way we can take Naugus down is by destroying the heart of the Void... that's his power source. But..." Tails stopped.
Marr took hold of his hand. "What is it, Miles?"
The vulpine shook his head, eyes closed. "Something's wrong... I can feel it."
Sonic gave him a punch in the shoulder, making his eyes snap open. "Hey, big guy... there's no time for doubting now. We've got a job to do. If we botch this, Mobius is toast."
Tails nodded, and took a deep breath. "Right."
They approached the mouth of the cavern of blue with a great degree of trepidation. The very walls seemed to eye them with malignancy, as they stepped out of the rain and into the deep shadows.
Sonic and Tails both eyed the architecture around them closely; the crystal was that same familiar stone they'd witnessed in the Void on their own separate occasions, but there was something different about it all now. The cold blue stone glowed from the inside, threaded throughout with veins of deep, glowing red. And despite the light emanating from it, the place was deathly cold.
From somewhere inside, they could hear the empty howling of an ethereal wind, mixed in with a choir of distant, tortured moaning.
"Man..." Sonic spoke as they crept deeper into the caves. "This place makes Robotropolis look like a fun park. What's with all these villains trying to make their homes as un-homely as they can?"
"This place is alive..." Marr whispered. "That's blood running through these stones. I can feel the aura of this place... it's grown itself, out of millions of conquered souls. The sheer misery here seems to be altering the very architecture it exists in. Everything about this place repulses me."
Tails put a hand on her shoulder. "You can back out of this if you want..." Marr shook her head, and began pacing faster.
Shhhreeeiiik! The quiet moans, that seemed to be coming from the bowels of the earth, suddenly bolstered themselves to a wailing crescendo, stopping all three of them cold.
"Miles!" Marr shouted, spying a shape of ... something, suddenly come flying from seemingly nowhere, straight at Tails. The fox whirled his head and ducked with a gasp, but the thing corrected its path, making their ears ring with an otherworldly scream.
It passed right through his body and out the other side, then disappeared again inside the opposite wall. The rumbling around them dropped back to its quiet growl.
Tails clutched at his stomach, eyes wide, taking deep breaths. But he didn't feel anything else wrong, apart from the chills the event had sent through him.
"Tails?" Sonic was already at his side, checking over his body for injuries. "What on Mobius just jumped out at you? You okay?"
The kitsune nodded. "Just spooked me... I'm alright. I... don't think this place likes us much."
"Yeah, well... I'm not liking it much either. As soon as we dust Naugus, we're leveling this joint too."
Tails stared at the grime-covered ground, as he slowly began to right himself. He could feel, as well as see, something was wrong in the place around them. He looked about himself as he rose to a stand again. The craggy granite of the crystal around them was beginning to morph somehow, the patterns beginning to swell and pulse with a different kind of pattern.
He saw a twisted collage of morose faces among the rock patterns.
"COME CLOSER..." he heard a voice hissing, but it wasn't from the distance. It was right inside his head. A monotone, serpentine mass of voices. "MILES..."
Tails whirled around at Marr, eyes wide. "Did you hear that?"
The lynx' face took on a look of deep concern. "Hear what?"
"Something in this place... it's calling for me. It wants me to go further in."
"Gods..." Marr stepped up to him, wrapping her arms around him. "Miles, I'm afraid..."
"So am I..." he whispered, but then distanced himself for her, resting his hands on her arms. "But we don't quit. Too much is stake. Okay?"
Marr swallowed, and nodded.
The caverns seemed to twist and pulse organically as they ventured further in. Sonic was surprised to note that despite the size of the mountain, they were heading down, instead of up. And the deeper they went, the darker it was getting. The cold blue of the crystal began to die away as they ventured down, until only the glowing red of the veined rock lit the walls. Candles had been lit and placed upon the ground periodically in places too, making their shadows flicker eerily as they walked by them. Every now and then, Sonic could've sworn he saw faces staring at him from amongst the rock formations out the corner of his eye, but as soon as he'd turn to face them, they were gone.
With their collective fear at a fever pitch, they crept deeper down.
But soon, the cavern emptied out to a massive chamber.
"What in the name..." Sonic breathed. The statement seemed wholly inadequate to him as he spoke it, but nothing could describe the feeling that overcame him as he entered the chamber.
They found themselves standing on an elevated platform, the stone of it covered from side to side with carved runes. Marr studied them as they walked over them, and thought she'd recognised them somewhere, but she could only guess at their meaning. Looking up, the chamber seemed to stretch up forever... higher, she noted, than the mountain could possibly have been from the outside. Somewhere, at the top, she saw a pulsing red light, its caustics shimmering off the crystal walls with a malevolent gloom.
And peering over the side of that platform upon which they stood, she saw nothing but endless dark. But the way the light had so suddenly given way to the darkness down there, gave her the impression that that inky black was somehow material. The feel of the place, this far in, was so tenebrous and mournful that it was making her physically sick.
At her side, Sonic wasn't faring much better, truth be told. He thought he'd seen horror in Robotnik's roboticization plants. He thought he'd seen horror in the form of the biomechanical nightmares that Ariel had turned the Wolfpack into. But in here... the chill he got not from what he saw, but what he could sense just beyond his logical grasping, filled him with a quiet terror he'd never felt before. He wanted, more than anything, to be back outside in that pouring rain.
A long, velvet walkway stretched on before the three of them, lined at each side with dozens of burning black candles, and skulls of shapes and varieties none of them could pick out. In the middle of the path, was an enormous steel goblet, engraved with more of the runes they'd seen before, and steaming with a boiling, deep red liquid.
And finally, at the end of that twisted path, sat a raised dais, upon it resting a throne carved of that wretched veined crystal.
"This must be Naugus' throne room..." Tails said quietly.
"Right..." Sonic nodded, as he began to approach the throne. "But we're short one Naugus..."
"THAT'S RIGHT..." a voice boomed from the pulsing red above them. "THERE'S NOTHING FOR YOU ALL HERE. NOTHING BUT ENDLESS SUFFERING..."
"Heard that before... so?" Sonic screamed, looking straight up. "Just where are you at, then, huh? Why don't you show yourself instead of hiding behind the curtains like a puss?"
"HAH..." the voice growled back, making the ground beneath them vibrate. "BUT I'M LIKING THIS SO MUCH BETTER. TELL ME, HEDGEHOG, REMEMBER ALL THOSE FRIENDS OF YOURS YOU LEFT BEHIND AT THE CANNON?"
Sonic's stomach began to churn again.
"NO ANSWER? PERHAPS YOU JUST FORGOT THEM. BUT YOU'LL REMEMBER SOON ENOUGH, WHEN I'VE SPLAYED THE WALLS OF MY SANCTUM WITH THEIR GUTS. ALONG WITH YOURS."
The hedgehog recoiled with horror, realising what he'd done. "Oh no..."
"THAT'S RIGHT... RODENT. I'M ON MY WAY RIGHT NOW TO FINISH THEM ALL. AND YOU'VE LEFT THEM ALL TO DIE. JUST LIKE YOU LEFT YOUR BELOVED PRINCESS..."
Now was Tails' turn to answer. "How're you gonna do that, when we've about to cut off your lifeline? I know what's making you tick. And I'm going to destroy it! Along with you!"
"FINE. IF YOU THINK YOU CAN EVER FIND IT. BUT KNOW THIS, FOXBOY. THE HEART ISN'T THERE. IT'S SAFELY HIDDEN WHERE NO ONE WILL REACH IT. AND NOW, I BID YOU ALL FAREWELL. ENJOY YOUR DEATHS, AND PRAY THAT DEATH... IS ALL YOU MUST ENDURE."
"Miles?" Marr whispered. "What's going to happen?"
"Damn it!" Tails roared, driving his fist into the cold stone at his feet, splitting it. "I knew it... I knew Naugus wouldn't have it here..."
"Uh, guys..." Sonic started, looking towards the swirling red pool at the center of the room. "I think it's a little late to be kicking ourselves now. We've got other things to worry about..."
Tails and Marr looked on, past Sonic.
The boiling blood in the basin was starting to seethe and froth violently, spilling its foul contents across the floor...
...until amongst that carnage, they saw a figure beginning to rise.
Sonic spoke quietly. "The door. Run."
Tails scooped Marr up in his arms, and then the three of them gunned it toward the entrance from which they came.
And smacked straight into it. Where the doorway to the caverns had been, only more of that accursed veined rock stood in its place.
Marr jumped out of Tails' arms, and searched the walls desperately for anything resembling a hidden panel, but she was unsuccessful. She whirled around to face the blood basin at the center of the platform. "We're trapped..."
"Any plans, big guy?" Sonic looked to Tails.
Tails looked to the figure at the center of the room, dripping with red. It had finally emerged from the basin completely, and stepped out onto the velvet. It was a pulsing, throbbing abomination on two legs; a crude, ancient Mobian animal skeleton, its limbs coated with the bubbling red liquid. As it stepped away further from the basin which had spawned it, the blood that hovered around its bones seemed to congeal, and then began to transform to a deep red kind of rock.
The vulpine's mind and heart raced, as he stared on. Behind that golem of sorts, another was already beginning to form within the bubbling basin.
"MILESSSS..." he heard that damnable voice from before, whispering in his ear. "YOU MUST MEET WITH ME... THE VOID..."
Tails blinked. "Sonic, Marr..."
They both glanced at him, faces long.
"I'm going to open a portal to the Void. I need you to hold those... things off, while I'm working. Okay?"
Sonic nodded, and looked to Marr. "How are you at fighting?"
Marr didn't respond to him, but raised a hand, clicked her fingers. A spark of electricity crackled between her fingertips.
The hedgehog raised his brows with approval. "Cool." He nodded back to Tails. "We've got it covered, big guy. Do your stuff. And do it quick."
Tails went into a kneel, eyes shut tightly, his body beginning to glow as Marr had seen back at the Sanctuary.
Marr turned from him to the approaching blood golem, and swept her hand forth in a wide arc. A bolt of bright lightning shot forth and went straight into the creature's body. The arc struck the thing in spectacular fashion, shattering its stony red flesh, reducing it to nothing but a pile of crumbling bones. But beyond, three more emerged from the basin, dragging their feet slowly towards them. And more were following.
Sonic revved up his legs and charged headlong at the closest one. He launched himself into the air, going into a super-spin, and struck down at it with all of his momentum. The impact split the creature in two, but Sonic had to quickly roll out of the way to avoid a swing that one of the other golems was taking at him. He jumped back quickly, and landed steadily on his feet, a few meters away from the quickly growing mass of golems.
He turned around, only to see another one right upon him, that had got around somehow – and its fist was already raised high, ready to pound his skull in --
Until the body of it disintegrated, and only charred bone fell upon his body, crackling with the electric fallout from Marr's second attack. He shot her a thankful smile, and turned to charge in again.
Tails, meanwhile, could only pay a brief slither of attention to the chaos erupting around him. The sense of impending danger threatened to break his concentration and botch the spell, but he forced himself to shut out his senses and concentrate completely on his work. His body tensed up, glowing white hot with ethereal power.
The horde of golems was growing, and growing quicker than Sonic and Marr could ever hope to dispatch them. But they fought as savagely as they could anyway, in the hopes that their efforts would delay the golems' attacks long enough to let Tails complete his spell.
Sonic screamed his way into another mass, blasting them into a thousand pieces with his spinning, but was surprised to see they were no longer trying to deal with him. Instead, they were trudging on right past, making a beeline for Tails.
"Marr!" he shouted. "Get closer to Tails! They're after him!"
The lynx nodded, and destroyed two more with two more arcs of deadly lightning, fired from each of her hands. She began backpedaling, and stopped when she could feel the intense heat coming from Tails' body behind her.
Sonic reached into his backpack, and took hold of the power ring that Tails had given him back in Knothole. Feeling the power of the ring wreathing his body as it took effect, Sonic leaped into the air. He curled up into a ball, and began hammering down at the approaching golems one after the other, in an elegant ballet of sheer destruction. Coupled with Marr's continuous arcs of lightning, they were finally beginning to drive the horde back.
Then, the ring's power ran out.
Sonic felt his momentum diminish in mid-air, and fell clumsily amidst the marching crowd. Stumbling to his feet, he went into a super-spin again, and burst out of it, skidding to a halt near Marr and taking out a dozen more golems on the way.
They'd held the horde back from Tails for a good ten minutes now, but they were starting to tire. And the crowd just was getting bigger. Sonic and Marr looked at each other, and turned to the golems again, ready for their last round before they'd be crushed under the stampede.
But now, Marr felt a prickling heat at her back. She turned around, and saw Tails raise to his feet, now surrounded by a blinding white light. With an earth-shattering scream, he released his conjured-up energies, sending out a shockwave that tossed everyone in the room high into the air. Hundreds of the golems were simply thrown back like rag dolls from the blast, sailing over the edge of the chamber platform and into the black abyss. Sonic followed with them, but caught desperately onto the edge and hauled himself back on.
Marr rose to her feet, and saw the Void portal open, swirling with its patterns of purple and yellow. The sound of rushing wind and raging electricity in the air vibrated throughout every inch of her body.
"It's open! Go! Now!" she heard Tails screaming, and she quickly ran in. Sonic was already running towards it, and catapulted himself in with a final leap.
--
And within seconds, the mayhem that was erupting around them was gone. The were thrown out the other end of the portal and landed in a heap, and for a moment, they weren't bothered to get up again.
"Hey..." Sonic spoke between gasping breaths. "Who's alive?"
"Me." he heard Tails responding.
Marr piped up too, voice strained: "Me too."
"Man..." Sonic sat up, shaking his head free of the disorientation their trip through the portal had brought upon him. "That was way too close of a call. Out of a lot of close calls..."
Tails was already getting to his feet. "We've got to keep moving. If Naugus still has his powers when he's reached the others, there won't be any contest. He'll crush them..."
Sonic got up too, and fell in with him. "Yeah... but where's this heart you've been talking about?"
The three of them took a look at their new surrounds: It was the Void, indeed, but this seemed to be a different section of it to what they'd seen before. They were standing on a ridge of the blue crystal, that rose out of a vast ocean of sparkling blue. At the end of the ridge, they saw a dark structure, built of dark grey brick instead of the blue that dominated everything else in this world. In a world so alien already, seeing the structure so out of place only served to further its curiousness.
"THIS WAY..." the damning, disembodied voice returned. But not only Tails heard it this time.
Marr recoiled visibly at hearing it. "That's the voice that was speaking to you?" Tails just nodded.
"Well," Sonic said, gingerly starting off down the path. "Guess we know where we're going, then."
The ground beneath his feet began to rumble. And then threw him back, as a spire of the blue crystal erupted from it, shooting high into the air, spilling shards of the transparent rock into the air like chunks of hail.
"What'd I say?" Sonic asked nobody in particular, scratching behind his ear.
The newly formed chunk of rock stretched up above them, and out the sides of the ridge, all but blocking their path forward. Sonic strolled forward and drove his fist into it, noting the solidity of their new obstacle. "Great... now what? That's too high to get over... there's no run-up for me!"
"I can fly over that..." Tails said softly. "Whatever this thing is, it wants me. And me only. It's what told me to come to this place."
Marr swallowed hard. "And you're going to go? By yourself?"
He turned to her. "What other choice is there?" When he saw her eyes becoming glossy again, he came forward and pulled her into a tight hug again, kissing her forehead. "Don't worry. Just sit tight here with Sonic... I promise I'll be okay."
She squeezed him tightly, nodding. "Okay."
Sonic looked on gravely. "Seeya in a bit."
Tails flashed him a smile, and whirled up his namesakes. He leaped up, and in a minute or two, he'd scaled the cliff, and landed back upon the path. Rising immediately to his feet, he strode forward into the building before him.
--
After having spent so long under the ground, the sight of the sun was almost enough to bring tears to Bunnie's eyes.
She followed amongst the other Mobians around her from all around the continent, emerging from the tunnel they'd created to survey the remains of Adramalech around them. They were at ground zero; the sheer force of the cannon firing had been enough to open rifts in reinforced cement walls and dense canyon rock alike. The fallout from the island was even worse, with its massive fallout having collided with the earth and exploded in spectacular fashion, rendering much of the surrounding landscape unrecognizable.
Scars, Bunnie thought. Looking at the devastation that went on as far as she could see, it brought her the same feeling she had when she looked at her arm. Scars that wouldn't go away... not in her lifetime, at least.
Her attention turned outward when she saw Rotor striding past in the corner of her eye, talking into the radio she'd seen him with earlier. She broke into a quick jog to catch up with him.
"What's up, Rote?"
"I got in contact with Nicole earlier," he told her. "They got here a little while ago. Knuckles and Griff are with her."
Bunnie stopped. "And Sonic?"
"He..." Rotor swallowed. "...ran off to take on Naugus on his own. But as of when they last saw him, he was okay."
"Oh, boy... and Griff?"
"He's around somewhere, they said he split off to see if he could find some of his friends from the Underground Freedom Fighters."
As they began climbing up a soft incline, Bunnie felt herself shudder suddenly. A shadow had passed over her and gone again in an instant... but when she looked up to see what it was, her eyes found nothing but wispy clouds and harsh sun.
They reached the apex of the hill and looked down; Nicole and Knuckles were standing at the bottom of it. Without delay, she bolted down to greet them, throwing her arms out to catch both of them in a hug. Knuckles took the metal arm, and got the wind knocked out of him.
"You're okay!" Bunnie exclaimed.
"We have only minor injuries," Nicole nodded.
"We did, until you coathangered me." Knuckles growled. "So, you're not bitter at me anymore about your princess?"
Bunnie shook her head. "Never was, sugah. I'm just glad you came through. Y'all proved yourself to be a good Freedom Fighter in my eyes."
Rotor caught up with them. "So... what's next? We're still missing people."
"Yes..." Nicole agreed. "I suspect that Sonic is somewhat north of Knothole by now. We need to regroup with him. Is any transport available?"
"There's some vehicles underground, where we were hiding before." Rotor mentioned. "Getting them onto the surface will be a problem though, and I don't know how they'd handle this new terrain." he craned his head as he spoke, toward a road near them, covered in debris and rocked with giant craters.
"Has anyone heard from Tails in all this time?" Bunnie asked.
"Who's that?" Knuckles shot back.
"Sonic stated to me that Tails is most likely still in Mobius North," Nicole responded to Bunnie, with an obviously artificial nod.
Bunnie nodded back, slowly. "I really do hope he stayed there."
"Well," Rotor started, "We'd better get back to the hangar and see if we can get some transport out of there. We'd save a lot of time if we don't have to walk all the way back past Knothole..."
"Yeah, but I can't think of any way we'd be able to open up a way out of..." Bunnie started, then stopped suddenly, an ear pricking up.
Knuckles narrowed his eyes. "What?"
Nicole had heard it too. "Gunfire. Back at the cannon."
Bunnie and Nicole broke into a run instantly, doubling back for Adramalech. Rotor and Knuckles followed quickly, and caught up.
"What's going on?" Rotor asked, between his labored breaths. "What's there left to be shooting at?"
"I think I have some idea..." Knuckles growled. "And I think Sonic's going to be disappointed when he gets to Naugus' fortress."
"You mean...?"
"He must be already here..." Knuckles' face began to take on a strange smile.
They reached the crest of the hill again, and looked on. Naugus was hovering idly in the air, pouring molten death to all who stood in his way. The Mobians were aggressive in their attacks, but no bullet or beam of laser light seemed to quite make it to his shimmering frame.
Gradually, the gunfire began to thin out, as the Mobian troops decided it better to run for their lives than to take him on directly. Naugus was just as gleeful in his pursuit of them as he was graceful; pinning one troop to the ground with his free arm, shooting crystal spikes with the other to nail others to the walls.
"Oh, gods..." Rotor breathed. "What can we do?"
"Hide," Knuckles said, flatly. "And hope he doesn't find you." Then he began striding forward, toward the chaos below.
"Knuckles!" Bunnie called out. He paid her no heed. Something snapped in her head, as she realised what Knuckles was about to do; she took Rotor and Nicole by the hands and began running away as fast as she could.
--
In the dim light, Tails saw that the building was a shaft, that went deeper still into the darkness. The cold stone around him was lit periodically with engraved, eldritch runes that glowed a ghostly white, providing the only illumination in the dank space. A staircase spiraled all the way down the deep shaft.
As he began to descend, the quiet sense of terror inside him grew deeper still, snaking its way among his ribs, creeping up the back of his throat, ensnaring his throbbing heart. He knew, as he listened absently to his own footsteps echoing throughout the great shaft, that he'd never return from this place quite the same. He knew it had been the Void speaking to him, luring him to this place. Some intrinsic, unseen touch was at his back every step of the way, gently pushing him forward, despite the intense dread that begged every self-preserving instinct to run, and get as far away from this forsaken place as he possibly could.
He opened his hand, palm up, and willed a small ball of flame to ignite in it. The defiant flicker in his hand bathed the hard stone around him in gold, desperately fending off the darkness that threatened to swallow him.
Tails hit the bottom of the stairwell, and stepped into something wet. A deep, cavernous tunnel stretched before him, and the cold stone gave way to something all the more sinister – a pulsing, sweating kind of pulpy, veined flesh. Fighting the urge to gag, Tails pressed on, against all instinct and logic, and found himself wading through that tunnel of viscera, his feet sloshing through the thick liquid that surrounded him. What it was, he couldn't fathom; nor did he even want to guess at its putrid contents.
The tunnel gave way to a narrow cavern, and it was when he looked up, that he finally saw it.
Suspended in the air, hanging from a network of swollen tendrils, was the obsidian monstrosity, the heart of the Void. It was a dripping, pumping, obsidian mass of shiny tissue... and if corruption could take a physical form, Tails thought, this would be it.
"So..." he said aloud, as he approached. "This is it..."
"It would seem so," the heart spoke back, directly into his mind. "Are you curious, Miles? Are you afraid?"
Tails inclined his head. "I'd be a liar if I said no... but I feel you somehow already know that."
Something began to seep out of the heart, and into the swirling liquid below; a kind of dense, black mist. It wafted lazily through the air, and began to take a solid shape.
The kitsune took a good few steps back, gasping in horror.
Before him, the mist flew away, and beneath it, stood an almost identical copy of him. But it stood taller than he; more muscular, more powerful. His eyes glowered blue, suggesting Tails' own innocent glance, but only as a facade; Tails could feel the burning hatred behind it, even if he couldn't see it.
"What are you?" he whispered.
The twisted mockery of his own form threw his arms out: "What does it look like? I'm you!" It took a step forward. "I am Xul. The Void. I am you, as you could be."
Tails' eyes narrowed. His fist began to itch, and he was plenty eager to stop the conversation right here and toss the fireball he held in his hand straight at the heart.
But as soon as the thought of that entered his mind, the fire flickered out.
The specter waved a finger in the air. "Uh-uh. We'll not have that here. I hold dominion in this place... we play by my rules."
"How can this be? How can you be here? Naugus needs you on Mobius to function..."
"We are on Mobius, my friend..." Xul clasped his hands behind his back. "To be specific, we're a good few hundred miles beneath the surface of Mobius. Slowly, but surely, Mobius and the Void are growing to be more and more the same.
"I have existed for more millenia than one would care to count. The Void was once a planet, just like Mobius... I grow with it, traveling across the ages, across dimensions, subverting all life that I find to take on my own form. The Void assimilates everything it touches. The power I hold, is so immense, so far-reaching, it'd take you a lifetime before you could even begin to comprehend."
Tails cracked his neck, taking a slow breath. "What is it that you want from me?"
Xul smiled. "I need a host. To continue to exist, I need an avatar to conquer the places I travel to... to channel my energies through..."
"You have Naugus for that."
"Naugus is inferior to you." the fox's smile broadened, the glint of blue in his eyes intensifying. "Far inferior. Tell me Miles, did you ever find out what became of your family?"
Tails' eyes widened. "Wh...what?"
"Kitsune have always been the outcasts of Mobius. The freaks. The ones that were too different, too dangerous, to fit in with the rest of society. Your natural affinity for the harnessing of the supernatural and the magical is the stuff of legend! Under the order of the royal Mobotropilan crown, kitsune have been hunted and destroyed throughout the ages. There was another planet I took once, where the same thing happened. Only there, they were called 'witches'.
"And that, is why you've never seen another of your kind. Why do you think your family were living so far out, hidden in the Great Forest? Did you really think they adopted that lifestyle by choice?"
Miles "Tails" Prower could do nothing but stare.
"You, Miles. You alone have more potential in you than any other living creature upon the planet. You think you saw power in Naugus when he visited you in the Sanctuary of the Brotherhood? Even then, with my blessing... he saw something in you that had actually convinced him to flee!
"And lastly... you... are alone, Miles. Just like me. The last. The kitsune race faces total extinction. Your little Mobian friends killed your family! Them, and their sham of a society!" Xul finished the monologue with a grin, cracking his knuckles.
Tails' eyes narrowed further, to slits. "No... it can't be true."
"Have they ever given you any other explanation? Sonic probably knows about the systematic massacre of the kitsune kind. It's been quite well-documented. Sally definitely knew. Her father was all to eager to condone it while he was enjoying his early years as king, until the Mobian society at large was finally convinced they'd won their little war. Miles...
"These friends of yours... they're hiding it. They are the ones responsible. Why do you want to defend them?"
Tails stood defiant. "They found me. They raised me. I exist as I do today, because of them."
"You exist as you do because of your blood!" Xul swiped his hand forth and brought it into a clenched fist, eyeing his double with a dark passion. "All the great things in you, were passed down through your parents. You know now, with your powers, you could take them all on at once, and you'd still win. Naugus is nothing compared to what you could be... you haven't even begun to tap into your full potential! And, not to forget..." the ghost whistled absently, "If you really even are stupid enough to care a jot for your 'friends', they are minutes away from death. Naugus is already at Adramalech and he will slaughter them without mercy. I will withdraw my blessing from him, but only if you will allow me to pass it onto you."
The kitsune grimaced. He clenched a fist, trying to channel his energies into one defiant strike, but they didn't come. He felt frozen, helpless here. His eyes fell dark, obscured by the shadows and by his long locks of hair.
There was a long silence.
"Okay," he said.
Xul took another step forward, and held a hand outstretched. Dragging his heart behind him, Tails stepped over, and, looking away, took it.
His eyes widened at what happened next; the apparition disappeared into Tails' hand, driving him back a few steps. The obsidian heart above him began to beat all the more faster, and Tails began to feel something terrible stirring inside his mind.
Then, it hit him: A thousand lifetimes of torment filled his every limb, screaming through his veins. His heart began pumping like a machine gun. Every thought, every feeling, suddenly ceased to be. He could feel his blood turn black. The sensation was so intense, so enrapturing, that for all of his will and all his might, he was a slave to its desires. The oily walls that surrounded him began to peel away, and bright flashes of light, of indescribable colour, began to spill forth until they overcame his senses.
--
Knuckles stood at the crest of the hill, defiant and alone. It went against his nature to do so, but he did it anyway; usually, he would have had some ounce of control, his self-preservation instinct should've kicked in and urged him to stay as far away as possible, especially so after his last attempt at besting the demon sorcerer.
But the mere sight of the figure now made something in his mind snap. After what this creature had done to his home and his people, what Naugus was about to repeat on his newfound friends... what was there left to lose? And what did it matter if he were to give his own life for their sakes, even if it was entirely in vain?
"Naugus!" he shouted.
The thing turned its attention to him from the fleeing troops, and snorted in recognition of him. Knuckles had little doubt in his mind that he was the last of those whose feud with the beast was personal.
Naugus said nothing, but the echidna saw his blood-red eyes narrowing, and a trickle of an evil smirk growing upon the cracked skin of his twisted visage.
"You won't win against us," Knuckles said. Everyone else had cleared the area, but he knew they were watching from the shadows, cowering, trying to stay out of Naugus' sight. His voice rang through the shattered ruins around him.
The demon sneered at him, quite visibly amused. "Your attitude is very cute, little echidna. Defiant till the end. But I think we... all of us..." He turned around and raised his arms, addressing those that he knew were listening from the shadows. "We all know, that the end is soon upon you. Your efforts have been remarkable. Your brought down Robotnik, thereby saving me a great deal of work. But I've no use for you anymore."
"Then what?" Knuckles shouted back. "What happens when you've laid waste to every living thing on the planet? All you have is a trophy. A big, empty, dead trophy."
"Oh, no... I don't think you realise the full scope of my ambitions, errand boy." Naugus told him with a mocking cackle. "Mobius may be the be-all-end-all of what you know... but it's just the tip of the iceberg for me. What I have in Mobius... is a starting point. My plan goes far beyond planets, boy... don't you ever look to the stars at night, and wonder what lies beyond this little speck in that spectrum? More planets... galaxies, universes, entire realities! All perfectly ripe for the picking. And in time, I could rule it all, with the help of the Void!"
He began striding towards Knuckles, the earth shaking beneath his heels. "Today marks the first day of my conquest. You should be honoured, Knuckles, that it begins with your death."
He raised his hand high above his head and opened his palm, and perched above it Knuckles witnessed a rotating ball of blue spikes beginning to form. He didn't budge.
Naugus brought his hand down in a clenched fist. "Ha!"
The globe shot out at terrifying speed, but Knuckles had prepared himself for it. He dodged out of the way and brought himself into a roll, sprang off a nearby piece of rubble and leaped straight back at Naugus' face, sharpened barbs on his fists extended.
The demon's claw arm shot out and swatted him like a fly. His body slammed into the ground, limp and wheezing, wondering for a moment what had hit him.
"Nice try," Naugus grinned, bringing his fist up again to conjure another ball of deadly crystal. "But there's no second chances in this game. If there's a hell, I'll see you there!"
Lying on her belly upon a hill, Bunnie watched the spectacle, he stomach winding up.
Naugus brought his hand down again, ready to smash the prone echidna into a thousand bloody pieces.
Nothing came.
Knuckles opened his eyes and looked at the sorcerer, his eyes wide with surprise. "What the?"
Naugus' face started to show signs of strain. "What's happening? Xul!"
The bulging muscles in the demon's body were starting to shrivel up, the giant wings on his back peeling away to the bone. In a series of sickening crackles, the beast was starting to recede back to his old form.
Incredulous, Knuckles slowly got to his feet, and backed away. Looking to both his sides, he saw the remaining freedom fighters who'd fled before starting to come back out of their cover, guns raised at the crippled demon.
"Guess the Void got bored with you," Knuckles remarked. Slowly, symbolically, he raised his hand into the air, and the freedom fighters began to form a tight semi-circle around the floundering Naugus.
"No!" Naugus squawked pathetically between strained wheezes. "This isn't happening!"
Knuckles' hand dropped. "Fire!"
The last of the troops' gunshots rang out, and then the silence erupted with cheers of victory.
And before Knuckles realised what was going on, the rest of the Freedom Fighters had run out toward him, and he found himself hoisted upon the shoulders of the cheering crowd. Amid his confusion, he managed a smile.
The war was over.
--
Tails wondered for a moment, if he was alive or dead. He tried to remember what the last things he said to Marr and Sonic were. He couldn't, as much as he tried. He couldn't think. But he could sense something against his face. Rain.
He opened his eyes and stared up. The dark storm clouds stared back at him. He remembered the way they'd looked back at him when he was little, but now they seemed to have a different kind of leer. Like they were looking at someone else...
When he raised his head to see Sonic and Marr getting to their feet, dazed and at a loss of how they'd managed to return to the surface, safe and sound, he didn't feel relief.
"Miles!" Marr shrieked, running over to help him to his feet, and then burying her face in his chest.
He only felt... annoyance.
And he realised that not all was well. He'd made a bargain with Xul, and he was starting to pay the price. Every impulse screamed at the two 'friends' of his with hatred. They were no longer friends. They were obstacles. Or perhaps potential slaves, he hadn't decided yet.
But somehow, his mind fought back. No, that's not true. You know it's not...
He knew they were his friends, and yet he had only the compulsion to destroy them. The Void was in his blood now, and it was the Void's will that was taking control of his body... and then, he remembered something. It was desperate, and there'd be no way of going back. But he could see no alternative.
Fighting every urge to just give into the hatred and let himself carry out the very same atrocities he'd just prevented Naugus from doing, he reached into his pocket with a trembling hand and pulled out something he'd forgotten about until now – Lazar's spell computer.
He dropped it, but it didn't fall. Instead, it dropped a little and began hovering in the air, uprighting itself. "Spell codex active. Specify spell."
Tails cleared his throat, pushing Marr off of him. "Incinerate."
"Incinerate spell selected. Specify target."
The kitsune lowered his head. "Me."
"Wait... no!" Marr urged. "Miles, what's wrong? Talk to me!"
"Confirm?" the codex asked, innocent in its monotone voice.
Marr snatched it out of the air and threw it into the dirt. "Cancel!"
"Canceled."
Tails looked up at her with urgency. "You idiot! Do you realise what you've done?"
"I just stopped you from killing yourself!"she shouted back.
"You have just sealed the doom of your world! The Void is inside me! I can't control it any longer..." Tails sank to his knees ripped off his gloves and started clawing at his face. "You're all going to die. I'm going to kill everyone."
Marr was taken aback. "Please, stay with us!"
Sonic joined them with his newly regained consciousness. "Tails! Fight it man!"
Tails began to crack up. His whole body had started to convulse, but his eyes darted up to look straight at Sonic. "Why? Why fight it? It's so much easier to just let it go... besides, you know what you all did to my kind... and you never told me? Why?"
The hedgehog looked at him with dumbfounded confusion. "Hey, slow down big guy... what are you saying?"
"You!" he pointed. "Your kind! You mobians... you know I'm not one of you! You murdered all of us!"
"I don't have a clue what you're on about, bro... we're your friends, remember?" Sonic said slowly. And Tails could see he was telling the truth, but in his mind that seemed like no reason to be deterred.
"You're not my friends..." Tails spat. "You know what you've done. You're just in my way now. I see that now... you and your kind... you make me sick! Why didn't I see this before... I feel dirty..."
Tails' muscles were starting to convulse unnaturally, his fur retracting to expose crackling skin, his veins bulging out horrifically. He sank further to the ground, starting to cackle maniacally.
Sonic picked up the spell computer, slapped it with his other hand, and tossed it into the air. Like before, it hovered there. "Spell codex active. Specify spell."
"Exorcise!" Sonic said, not even sure if such a spell existed.
"Specify target."
"That won't work," Marr said, shaking her head. "It's powerful, but it's not enough to free him from something like the Void's influence."
"You got any better ideas?" Sonic shot back at her. "Miles Prower! Rip that sucker out now!"
"Confi--" the codex began, but then it processed Sonic's additional command and began working immediately. It thrummed to life, glowing brilliantly. From the lens in the side of the cylindrical device, it shot out a magnificent vortex that enveloped the kitsune from head to toe. Bits of black began to seep from Tails' body and back into the device, seemingly trying to claw their way through the air back to their host. It was a surreal sight, even after all that Sonic had seen lately.
"It's working?" he asked Marr.
"Amazingly, yes!" she gasped. "But you can encourage it. It feeds on our emotional energies... that's what comprises the essence of magic. You need to let go of your own energies to help it!"
"How!?"
"Just... let go..." Marr said softly, watching the device working. "Say everything you feel, say it any way you can..."
"Uh..." Sonic looked like his eyes were bugging out at that, but it only took him a moment to concede.
Tails was lying prone on the ground, the vortex swirling over his twitching body.
"Tails..." the hedgehog said softly. "Come back to me bro, please... I've lost so much already, after all we've been through... please..."
"Miles..." Marr joined him. "I know you're in there... I know you're fighting... and you can win this! And you will... I know you will... because that's what I want... that's what we all want."
The kitsune arched his back in silent agony, more streaks of black slowly peeling away from his flesh. Patches of hair started to grow back in places.
The lynx knelt next to him, and took his hand in hers. "And I feel I could no longer be without you... after what we've been through lately together... I've learned more in the last few months than I have in my whole life. I've learned about myself... learned what really matters."
She bowed her head and kissed Tails on the forehead. She ran a hand through the fur of his cheeks, feeling the damp upon them from a mix of the rain and now, her own tears.
"I don't know what came before, or what happens next, but I..." She sniffed. "I love you, Miles. This sounds so funny for me to say, but it's true. I love you..."
"So do I," Sonic added. "We all do."
The spell codex shone brighter than ever, and then like a crack of lightning, the last of that inky blackness was sucked from Tails' body and into the codex' eye. The device let out a high-pitched beep, and fell to the ground.
Tails slowly opened his eyes, his breathing faint, and saw Marr's eyes looking back.
"Miles?" she whispered.
The fox smiled. "Mhm."
She picked him up in her arms and held him as tightly as she could, sobbing harder than she could remember having ever done in her life, even more so than when the war had taken her family away from her so many years ago.
Sonic knelt down and patted Tails on the cheek. "Welcome back, kiddo."
"Thanks..." Tails grinned back, still catching his breath.
There was just one thing left.
Sonic got to his feet and picked up the codex laying on the ground. He looked at it curiously. "So, now what do we do with this thing?"
"Something that should've been done a long time ago," Tails told him. "Smash it to pieces."
"Sounds good to me," Sonic shrugged. He searched about himself for something good to use, and settled on a decent-sized boulder. Carefully setting the codex upon the ground, he raised the rock above his head and threw it down with all the strength he could muster.
The effect was unremarkable, but profound. The device shattered and splintered in a shower of debris. Sonic couldn't see it, but he knew that in that final act, all the thousands, millions of souls that had been condemned to suffer within the Void for so long, were now finally free to rest.
Tails slowly got to his feet, and clapped Sonic on the back. "Nice one."
Sonic couldn't help but laugh at the irony, that such a significant event had culminated with such little fanfare. "Well... that was one of the less spectacular endings I've witnessed. So, what now?"
"I dunno," Tails shrugged. "Go home, I guess. Rebuild, live life in peace and harmony, you know how it goes."
"Funnily enough," Sonic mused, looking to the parting clouds in the sky, "after all this time fighting, I can't say that I do. But I guess I could start off with a chilli-dog."
