Chapter 10

"Dive!" Sonic yelled to Tails, rather unnecessarily, as both of them bolted aside in different directions to avoid the repulsor shots coming from the mechs, which were just as recovered and ready as they were.

His side still stinging from the burn, the fox remembered to tell Sonic something important. "Sonic, make sure to zigzag around! They can track you otherwise!" He sounded a bit more scared than he'd thought saying that – not surprising, he decided, considering he couldn't bring himself to imagine the consequences of Sonic getting shot again.

"Gotcha! What's the plan?" Sonic replied loudly over more blasts that he avoided by rapidly changing directions, following the advice he'd received from Tails just in time.

"Get behind them and hit their back panels! It'll stun them for long enough while I fiddle with them!" The fox had to look away from Sonic as he continued talking, as he was busy jumping and sliding in-between the blasts. They were a bit more predictable now, at least to him. Hopefully Sonic would get used to it fast too…

"Okay! Both of them at once?"

"Right! We gotta coordinate!" At this point, they were on opposite sides of the room, and each bot was still fully focused on their respective targets. But it occurred to Tails that this could be used to their advantage. "Sonic, I hit your mech, you hit mine!" It was, of course, a bit more complicated than that, but he couldn't exactly go into detail with Eggman listening, and he was pretty sure great minds thought alike.

"Alright! I'm getting a feel for how these guys work, so I think I know how!" Sonic sounded as confident as he remembered, though at the corner of his eye it looked like several bolts missed the hedgehog by as little as a centimeter, which made Tails' heart skip more than a few beats. There was no way he could let that happen again!

Then there was one final memo Tails had to pass along, and he really hoped it didn't stun Sonic too much to slow him down. "Okay, but one more thing – don't hit too hard, okay? There are-there are people trapped inside these things! Real people!"

"W-what?" The hedgehog almost froze in place hearing that, and only the sheer bad memory of getting hit by those weapons again kept him leaping back and forth between the blasts. Nevertheless, he realized that this didn't change things too much – a slightly less powerful spindash was still a spindash. "A-alright, I know what to do!"

"G-great! One-eighty degrees, okay? Let's get this over with!" Please!

"Got it!" Sonic said, himself sounding a bit more tense than excited, as he flipped back onto his feet from a somersault, his eyes catching Tails on the other side of the room. As much as he usually enjoyed making a fool out of Eggman's bots, these were definitely far more agile than he was used to, and he bitterly remembered that it was a model less capable than this one that scored a hit on him before. Tails was right, he thought – they couldn't let this drag on.

Sonic began actually running again, following the same direction Tails was going, as both traveled along the curved wall. The shots were still trailing them, but from his brief experience with these bots so far, they were only going to be able to circle them for five more seconds before they got wise and shot ahead of them again, meaning they had to break their travel pattern before then.

Two, three…As Sonic performed the most nervous counting he'd ever done, he saw the perfect moment to strike, based on his and Tails' positions relative to the bots, with each that targeted one of them having their back to the other. The symmetry and timing was so good that Sonic couldn't resist a relieved grin before giving the cue. "Now!"

Intelligent as these machines were, relatively speaking, they still made the mistake of staying too close to the center of the room. Sonic and Tails jumped off the wall perpendicularly, just before the mechs could fire their predictive shots, blue and orange blur slamming into each of their backs.

As the machines keeled over, the duo scrambled to their feet again and approached their toppled opponents. Their backs showed some rather serious dents, though Tails was glad that the one Sonic hit wasn't too badly crushed. The first thing the fox thought of was to cripple the mechs' legs by smashing his tails down on them like hammers, bending them out of shape so that they wouldn't stand again. He and Sonic also made sure to tear out their weapons, though this one needed more caution, since they were attached to their arms, which contained the actual pilots' ones. Then it was time to check the pilots' conditions. Their visors were powered by servos, but with a strong enough pull he was still able to lift them back after his bare fingers found a groove around the neck just big enough to fit inside.

Getting a close look at the two pilots, which were an adult man and woman, naturally made Sonic stumble back in surprise, though the sight of the two appearing pale and hurt also unnerved Tails despite his prior knowledge. "Holy…damn you, Eggman," the hedgehog growled silently, glaring at where the mad scientist was sitting, even though at that angle the window was opaque. Eggman was staying unusually silent, though, which made Sonic wonder if he was up to something.

"Please…" the man whispered weakly, giving Tails an equally weak but desperate glance, "get us out…couldn't control…ourselves…will…self-destruct…"

That was when the beeping started, and it made every strand of his fur stiffen. Crap. "I…I'm on it!" he said, more loudly and shrilly than he'd intended, revealing what he really felt despite trying to sound assuring, "I'll get you out of there!" Immediately he tore off the damaged back panel and tossed it aside, heart racing with trepidation, but at the same time, hope. Here was his chance to really save people now. After so long, he finally could-

Tails' train of thought came to a screeching halt as he realized it. It wasn't immediate, but came after seconds of observation, each of which made the sudden revelation more and more awful as the message from his eyes forced its way to his mind, and the moment it did, all of his hope simply shriveled up and died.

Namely, that he simply didn't know what he was looking at. Worse, he should have known what he was looking at, due to its vague familiarity, but just didn't - no longer did.

He was staring at a mess of wires and circuits, technical parts that he knew had seen before in his own inventions – but three months of living on an isolated island without so much as a telephone had made him forget. He recognized the components, but just couldn't remember which was which, or which did what…where's the self-destruct mechanism? The bomb? Or power cable? Please!

"…ails? Tails!" Only when he heard Sonic calling out for him in panic did he also hear the beeping now become much more rapid. "Come on!" the hedgehog cried as he grabbed his, "we gotta move!"

Sonic pushed his feet against the ground as forcefully as possible and leapt away from the downed mechs, as much as it pained him to leave those two pilots. He aimed straight for Eggman's window, although since he was dragging along a screaming Tails, he couldn't do it in spindash mode, which was probably going to hurt, but hopefully still less than the shrapnel once they were inside. Plus, at least he could then confront Eggman and-

His muzzle landed on the reinforced, bulletproof glass with a hard, painful smack. It would have been rather comical, actually, though only Eggman actually thought so as he started laughing like a creepy impersonation of Santa Claus again, not just at the cartoon-like occurrence but also his own follow-up early Christmas present.

The duo fell to the ground with a thud just as the beeping became steady. Tails, who also got a face full of window and was knocked back into his senses, realized what was going to happen. Noticing that Sonic was still stunned – he'd been in a coma not too long ago, after all – the fox was able to put his grief for the man and woman aside for just one moment before doing the only other thing that came to mind.

The self-destruct mechanisms of the mechs activated, and the resulting explosion was similar to that of standard fragmentation grenades – not too big, but deadly enough in a room of this size, especially with the shrapnel it now sent flying around. Ignoring the ringing in his ears from the blast, Tails pushed Sonic aside all the way to the wall, as far away as he possibly could, before wrapping both his arms and namesakes around the hedgehog, and shutting his eyes.

Instantly he felt his back getting stabbed by multiple bits of shrapnel, complementing his earlier burn, which made him cry out loudly. The pain wasn't just physical, of course. He knew he had failed to save the man and woman just like he'd failed to save those – these, right here – people as three months ago, except this time it was because of neglecting his engineering knowledge, not his fighting ability, which wasn't going to help save the day here. Through the agony, he took solace in one difference between then and now – at least he'd be the one paying for his mistake here, not Sonic…

Having expected to fall unconscious or even into a coma, Tails was surprised that, several seconds later, after the ringing had stopped, he could still open his eyes, still breathe...still hurt. Apparently the blast radius hadn't been that large after all. Nevertheless, with the threat gone – not to say eliminated – he let go of the hedgehog and faced away, rolling over to his non-injured side. His adrenaline was beginning to recede, and the pain came in full force, keeping on the floor as he moaned softly.

"Tails?" he heard Sonic behind him ask quietly, gently too, who had gotten back up. "Are you-oh man…"

"Sonic…" The tears were flowing yet again. He had no will to fight them. No reason to. "They…I…they…"

"I-I know," Sonic whispered sadly as he knelt down beside his younger brother. "We can…can still save the others though," he said, with only the barest sliver of hope, "just gotta-"

A loud thud was heard behind them, and just as Sonic turned to look, the third mech that had just dropped in from the ceiling was already firing its repulsor straight at the two of them. The hedgehog would have been impressed by just how fast this ambush happened, but his only concern was for his wounded friend on the ground, who was right in the way of the incoming bolt. "No!" he shouted, scrambling to push Tails away in what was a tragically familiar scene…

"No!" Tails was now also alert enough to realize, in horror, that the same damn thing was going to happen all over again! "No, Sonic, no!"

His determination to prevent the soul-crushing nightmare from repeating itself was so strong that his strength abruptly recovered, and he instinctively used it to grab Sonic by his arms to flip him over. It worked, but not all the way. The bolt that almost struck his big head again instead hit one of his back quills – enough to make the hedgehog yelp in pain as he landed on exactly that, but not fatal.

It was, however, still enough trigger something else. The double whammy of his failure to save the two humans and Sonic almost getting killed again had finally exhausted the last of the fox's patience. He'd tried being cautious, being careful, but he had enough of holding back. In his fury, he flipped back up and charged all the way up to the mech in a zigzag pattern to avoid all of its shots at a speed not even he imagined was possible, all while ignoring his hurting body, and before it even had a chance to switch to its electric whips Tails had already sliced both weapons off with his namesakes at maximum sharpness. "God damn you!"

The next thing he knew, all six of his limbs were viciously pounding away at the mech, utterly crumpling and tearing up the armor like it were an oversized toy model, without caring that there was still someone inside. "You almost killed Sonic!" he screamed as he reached around the back, punched through the panel and tore out every component he could see, "again!"

As what remained of the machine collapsed, Tails turned his wrath to the ceiling, which he angrily suspected was hiding even more mechs waiting to drop in. One quick ascent, a crash, several crashes, some ceiling debris and several inactive mechs falling and crashing onto the ground later proved that he was right. "You killed those two people!"

Then he set his eyes on the one responsible for all of this, leaping up again in flight and smashing into the window with his spinning tails. The glass still held steady, but it was visibly cracking, and the fox used his momentum to bounce back and forth from across the room to continue hammering it. "And…I…am…" he said, spitting out one word each time he impacted the window, "going…to…"

Finally the window gave way, and Tails came crashing through the glass, a few shards of which cut him up some more, not that he noticed. "…kill you!"

His spinning tails of doom, which were supposed to slice up the overweight mad scientist, instead found only thin air. As he crashed into the ground still full of shattered glass, he looked up and saw why. Unsurprisingly, having seen what was coming from the practically rabid fox, Eggman had retreated into the elevator behind the thick steel door that led to this control room, which still had a small window for him to show his now less amused mug.

Stumbling back up to his feet – and feeling very glad he still had his shoes – Tails stepped over to the door and, rather than bothering to try the handle, pinned his spinning tails on them sideways like a saw, while shooting Eggman the nastiest, most murderous scowl he could muster. "I'm so sick of your bullcrap, Eggman!" he shouted, voice now hoarse from his earlier screaming while tears flew down his muzzle, "you kidnapped all these people, stuffed them into mechs, made sure they'd die, killed Sonic once, tried to kill Sonic again…I'm gonna…I'm gonna crack you open, you rotten egg! I'm gonna crack you open…crack you open…"

The door was thick enough that Tails' attempt to cut it open didn't faze Eggman as he simply stood there, arms crossed and grinning slightly at the fox's incoherent rambling and death threats. "My dear vulpine rival genius," he started speaking, actually sounding vaguely sympathetic while shaking his head, "or should I say, former genius. I thought I'd enjoy all this, and in a way, I still did…but this is just sad. Sure, I did all those horrible things you said I did. No point denying it. But make no mistake, Tails…" He pressed his face against the glass to be able to see the fox, and vice versa, showing his menacing grin as he continued, "I'm not the one who made you forget all about exercise while you were obsessed with machines. I'm not the one who made you forget all about simple electronics while you were obsessed with physical training. And lastly, I'm not the one who made you kill that man lying down there now. Those were all your decisions."

The fox was still frantically trying to cut down the door, but was slowing down, mainly because he was getting tired, because his wounds were stinging badly, but most all, because the doctor's words hurt. A few seconds later, he stopped trying altogether and simply slid down to his knees, head against the cold steel surface. It was pointless. The most he could do was to call Eggman out on his exercise comment, but it would be a pathetic retort at best against the harsh truth he'd just laid out. He simply lay there silently, sniffing and staring at the broken glass on the ground, which almost felt less broken than he was.

"Anyway, this has been fun, but since you've trashed my mech deployment line, it's time for me to get out of here," Eggman then said as he turned away, "at least I know my mech plan really works now. Thanks for testing them for me, by the way. Shame I can't bring these prisoners with me, so you can have them…"

He took out his PDA from his coat and pressed something on it, and soon, klaxons and red lights suddenly filled up the whole room, snapping Tails out of daze. "…if you can get them out of here within the next three minutes, that is! Hohohohoho! Until next time!"

Before the fox could respond in any way, Eggman's elevator had already begun its descent to some underground lair. There were no buttons on the wall outside to call it, and trying to pry the door open had proven futile.

Eggman isn't important now, he felt a voice inside say, you can go after him another time. Save these people. You've screwed up, but it's the least you can do.

Surprised that such a rational, well-reasoned instruction could still be produced from his frazzled mind, Tails slowly got back up, and turned around just in time to see a familiar blue blur pop up by the broken window. "Tails? What happened?" Sonic asked, gently but worrisomely, "does the alarm mean what I think it means?"

"I…Eggman got away," the fox told him flatly, not daring to make eye contact or willing to go into detail, "and, uh, yeah, we got three minutes to get these people out of here."

Sonic only rolled his eyes in response. "Great, I knew it," he said, before realizing from Tails' crumpled expression that it could be taken the wrong way, and added, "I-I mean, about Eggman, not you! That doesn't matter now. And don't worry about me, I'm fine," he added as he looked at his singed quill, before realizing how much difference it would have made if he had managed to say that before Tails went berserk. Then again, it had hurt a lot when he was first hit, and considering how the fox reacted even before that happened...

The hedgehog shook his head. Emotional issues had to be left until later. "Alright, now let's just…" He frowned as he glanced around at the arena's mezzanine, which seemed to have no real access point. "Where the heck's the entrance to this thing?"

Tails also looked in every direction for an answer, before settling on something that seemed to provide it. "Sonic, wait…" He went over to the control console that Eggman had been presiding over earlier. It had a rather large amount of buttons considering how small this base seemed to be, but it was the button to the far right labeled 'seat access' that interested him. Despite his initial hesitation, the alarms reminded him that time was short, and he pushed it. At the very least, he hoped it could open up a door or something.

It seemed to have no effect at first, but then there was the sound of gears grinding, still audible over the alarms, and the floor of the whole mezzanine, excluding the control room itself, slowly descended to the ground. The entire thing, as it turned out, was an elevator itself. As strange as that was, Tails guessed that from a design perspective it did appear be the easiest way to get all those people in there.

Speaking of people…it was only now that the prisoners were visible, all of them bounded to chairs that look like the kind found on roller coaster cars, except it was clear from their nervous struggling and screams that their restraints could only be unlocked externally. Wait, externally…he looked through the console again for hopefully some more solutions, and noticed a button labeled 'restraints', also to the right. Well, that's convenient. When he pushed it, he caused the bars holding them down on their chests to lift upwards, and even from here he could see just how relieved they were as they jumped out, and for the first time since coming here, he felt the same.

But it was too early for that yet. The duo dropped down from the control room – how exactly Eggman got himself up there from this chamber was unclear – to the floor, whereupon Tails suddenly felt very uncomfortable about getting so close to the group they'd just freed. Sure, he'd released them, but he wasn't sure if it made up for all his screw-ups before that, considering they had all witnessed it.

"Alright, guys, stay calm!" Sonic said loudly to the crowd, whose joy at being released had been rapidly replaced by the ominous alarms, "we're gonna get you out of here! Just gotta-"

"You murdered him!" A woman loudly screamed, the abruptness of which surprised Sonic into silence, "you killed my husband!"

Tails, for his part, simply stepped back from the crowd slowly. He didn't dare to look up at the crowd or how they were looking at him now. He knew exactly what the woman was talking about, and that he'd killed the man piloting the third mech for no justifiable reason beyond uncontrolled rage. He had no excuses to offer.

As the fox simply stood there in regret, the woman rushed out and gave him a hard slap. It had negligible impact compared to the effects of Eggman's weapons, yet was the one that hurt far more. "Hey!" Sonic cried out as he zoomed over to Tails' side and put his arm protectively around his neck. He wanted to add something more in response, but the woman had stated the truth about what his brother had done so bluntly that he just couldn't.

"What the hell?" some others chimed in angrily, "he just saved us!"

"He murdered my David in cold blood! Eggman didn't even force him to!" By this point the woman had rushed back to tearfully cradle the remains of the mech on the floor, whose visor had fallen off to reveal the lifeless form of the man trapped inside. Tails wasn't looking at that though, and it wasn't just because the sight would utterly break him – the woman's words already did. Great job, you've made someone you're supposed to save say the same thing to you that Eggman did.

"I'm sorry for your loss, and I know Tails lost control there, but he was going to die anyway," another man responded, "not if that self-destruct bomb was too complicated for Tails to dismantle." Ironically, the man's attempt to defend the fox only made him feel worse, considering it was simply swapping out one of his mistakes for another. One that could still doom them all, if that electronic keypad panel he was glancing at next to the entrance on the wall was any indication…

"Easy for you to say, it wasn't your family who died!" Yet another man, about the same age as the woman, shouted back.

As more and more arguments broke out within the space of a few seconds, Sonic saw how miserable it was making Tails and wasting precious time, and decided that it was enough. He was about to intervene when another voice did. "Wait, he's still alive!"

The silence was immediate as the crowd, including Sonic and a suddenly alert Tails, turned to the fallen mech. The man inside had stirred and slowly woke up, but was still weak. "What…what's going on?" he asked quietly, struggling against the armor around him before continuing, "I can't…get out of this thing…"

"Get him out of there!" The same woman who had slapped Tails cried out, but with a touch of relief rather than in complete anguish, "pry this thing open!"

Sonic and Tails were stunned by the news, but pleasantly for once, at least relatively speaking. "Alright, bud," the hedgehog said to him quietly, "I'll go help him out. Just do your thing, okay?"

"O...okay," Tails replied with a nod, sounding slightly more energetic now that he knew he wasn't a killer, even though he was still worried about the man's condition. And that aside, he still had one more problem. I don't know if this is my thing anymore, he thought, not just cynical but fearful. Everyone's lives were at stake here, and if he failed one more time, everyone here, including Sonic and himself, were dead. His own death he honestly didn't mind so much anymore, but Sonic dying yet again for real was absolutely unacceptable.

That, more than anything, was what drove him to pry the keypad panel off the wall, revealing the circuits behind. At least I still know how to do that. It wasn't that hard. All he had to do was hack the keypad or reset the combination, something he'd done before. I've done this before. I've done this before. I've done this before…

Which meant pretty much nothing here. He was still staring at a mess of wires and circuits that he didn't understand, and his heart was racing faster and faster while his mind simply stood still. "Tails?" Sonic had returned, actually looking a bit hopeful. "Guy's out of the mech suit, wasn't so hard considering how badly you cracked it. He'll be fine. How's it coming?"

The fox turned to Sonic with a look of despair that pretty much beat all others, including all of his previous ones. "I…" He swallowed, before admitting it – it wasn't going to hurt much more anyway. "…I don't know how, Sonic," he said extremely quietly, hoping nobody else could hear him, "I can't do it."

To say that Sonic was flabbergasted was an understatement. "What…?" The only good news was that he was thinking as fast as he ran, and quickly moved on to the next step despite this twist. "Hey! Anyone here know how to hack a keypad lock?" he called out to the crowd with barely concealed hesitation, hoping to the Emeralds that there was at least one security or engineering expert here, as much as it pained him to learn that his friend wasn't one anymore.

"God damn it!" A large, burly man, almost the size of Eggman himself, stepped forward, looking displeased. "I'm a security engineer! If you can't do it, let me!"

Letting out a huge sigh of relief, Sonic and Tails stepped aside to allow the guy to handle the keypad panel. After just two seconds of observation he gave an unimpressed 'hmph' and got to work, his fingers expertly pulling out wires and replugging them into different positions, among other procedures. Watching it only made Tails feel even more ashamed.

And as if that weren't enough, the man started talking. "I thought you knew how to do this, Tails," he said with evident surprise and disappointment, "This is simple stuff. Can't believe Egg-"

"Hey," Sonic cut in gently, but with a rather nasty glare, "I appreciate what you're doing, but…just shut up, okay?"

The man rolled his eyes. "Right." A scant few seconds later, though, the massive door began sliding open, to the joyful cry of many. "Alright people!" he called out, "let's haul ass!"

The entire crowd rushed through the dark corridor, some carrying the man they'd pried out of the mech, with Sonic and Tails in front. Fortunately, the keypad had opened the doors on both sides, and the exit was illuminated by the polar sunlight. The duo weren't running at their usual speeds, not just to make sure the people were keeping up, but also because Sonic had to personally escort Tails and practically push him forwards, due to how unresponsive and blank the fox was now.

Barely after the last of the group got out and stepped onto the ice was there a series of explosions that rocked the ground beneath everyone's feet, causing some surprised cries as well as the corridor they had just passed through to cave in, throwing out a huge amount of dust and smoke that everyone had to look away from. It settled rather quickly though, and once the base's implosion came to a stop, a jarring but welcome silence followed.

Other than some coughing, as far as Sonic could see, nobody was harmed from the blasts themselves. They were already shivering from the cold, but quickly gathered around the fires of the still burning robot carcasses to keep themselves up. Aside from that, he also noticed in the distant sea what seemed like a naval fleet. The military apparently had followed him and Tails here in the hopes of picking up their citizens, which Sonic supposed was an indication of a measure of trust they still had in them. In that case, he was glad that they'd managed to deliver. For the most part.

"Hey guys!" Sonic turned to see a group of freed prisoners who had come up to them. "Thanks for rescuing us. We really owe you," a young woman said.

"Yeah, you're the best!" another man said, "I know things didn't go that smoothly, but most of us still got out, at least, thanks to you."

Considering all the chaos that had occurred inside the base, Sonic had to admit he was pleasantly surprised to receive such a warm reception. "No problem, guys," he simply said with a weak smile, though after quickly glancing at the still silent fox, who had silently turned away, it disappeared. "I'd…like a moment alone, though, if you don't mind."

"Okay. Let's go get some warmth, guys. It's freezing."

Sonic went over and sat down on the mound of ice next to Tails, who was glancing down at the white surface with his namesakes wrapped around himself, not just for warmth but emotional comfort. Not that it helped much.

And knowing that talking to him so soon after the whole crisis had ended wouldn't help either, Sonic simply brought him into his lap wordlessly, gently stroking his head, while waiting for the navy ships and helicopters to arrive and pick everyone up before they themselves took off in the Tornado.