Tails crouched over a dusty control console in the dark, chewing the end of one tail as he listened to everything on his headset. Two locked vault doors stood between him and the ARK cannon now-it was charging quickly, and it was too dangerous to go inside. Even through the doors and insulated walls, he felt the growing heat of the charging plasma coils. The seawater coolant system was working beautifully.
"Charge is at fifty percent and rising," he told his friends.
"The Fellstorm is still miles away!" Amy panted. There was a crash of her hammer on metal. "How strong is the ARK cannon, anyway?"
Tails looked at the readouts on his screen. "Uh ... pretty strong. This thing could probably blow up the moon."
"If we could fire multiple times, yes," Ramussan corrected. "I'm already registering oscillation in the prisms that normally doesn't occur until after the six or seventh use. We may only get one shot, and maybe not even that."
Tails wanted to ask who had fired the cannon that many times, and at what. Then he thought of the Calamity and swallowed. Instead, he cycled through the cannon's systems, checking to see if everything was working. Everything was in the green-except for one screen.
"Ram," Tails said, "it says the focus crystal cannot be deployed. What's that mean?"
Ramussan said something in another language that sounded dirty. "That's the bit at the top of the cannon that aims the blast. It's a big crystal that has to slide out the top of the mountain. All this shelling has cracked the rock and the crystal can't deploy."
Tails's heart jolted. They needed this cannon to fire! Otherwise they had no way to stop the Fellstorm!
"What if I climbed up there?" Tails said. "Maybe I could dig it out."
"That's the only way to tell for sure what's wrong," Ramussan said. "But NME will see you. You'll become a target."
"I don't care," Tails said fiercely. "I've got to try." He packed his tools into his belt and ran for the stairs.


Rouge the Bat stirred in her hiding place. The pain in her head from Chaos ruining the chaos web was finally abating. She slowly stood and stretched. She had moved from the weight room to a room full of noisy dynamos, rising from the floor like big domes with spinning wheels inside. Whenever someone came by to look for her, she simply circled the room, keeping the dynamos between herself and discovery.
But now it was time to act. She wore a headset she had stolen from the island crew's supplies. Their chatter told her that everyone was out of the palace. The chaos girl remained inside, protected by one guard.
Rouge checked her pistol with its silencer. That wouldn't work for the chaos girl, however. For her, Tasha and Regis had devised chaos-dampening bindings. They were nasty things, handcuffs with a crystal lining that hurt Rouge just to look at it. She also had a blowgun with tranquilizer darts. She loaded it with a dart, and carrying it carefully, she set out to find the chaos girl, Maria.
She wasn't hard to find. All Rouge had to do was close her eyes and feel for the most intense center of chaos power, like locating the sun by the feel of its warmth. This sense led her down the stairs at the end of the main hall, through an antechamber filled with young chaos crystal, and to a set of huge doors with gold plates that could only be opened by island crew. The girl was behind them.
Before Rouge could decide whether to wait for someone to open the doors or to blast them open herself, footsteps and voices sounded behind her, at the top of the stairs. She quickly hid behind the clusters of chaos crystal.
It was the red echidna and a female companion, both dripping wet, but alive. Rouge frowned. The Guardian was supposed to be dead! Chaos had made all that fuss about accepting him as a sacrifice, yet here he was, disappointingly alive. She'd put a bullet in his head right now if she didn't need him to open the door.
"They need our help," Knuckles was saying as he walked by. "I've just got to check in with Maria before I go. You stay here."
The girl echidna hung her head, shivering in her wet clothes. "I wish I could fight."
Knuckles touched the gold plate. The door swung open. "You don't have to be able to fight to be strong," he told her.
The pair went inside. Rouge darted forward, caught the door before it could close, and held it open a crack.
Inside was a small pyramid crowned by the biggest emerald she had ever seen. Rouge's heart spasmed at the sight. It was the size of a boulder and probably weighed at least a ton. The math ran through her head. If a carat was two percent of a gram, and there were four hundred and fifty-three grams to a pound ... that emerald was well over a million carats. There wasn't a currency number large enough to set a value on it.
In that moment, Rouge mentally abandoned NME, her contract with Tasha, even her quest for the chaos girl. All she wanted was the big Emerald. Nothing else mattered. Yet-she shook herself. If she bailed on the mission now, Tasha would know. Better to finish, capture the girl, and so on-and claim the emerald as her pay. Yes, that would do nicely.
The chaos girl was sitting at the emerald's foot. Harsh circles ringed her eyes, as if she hadn't slept in days. But she wore a delighted smile as she spoke with Knuckles. The echidna girl stood at the pyramid's foot with her back to Rouge, presenting an easy target. The girl had been an innocent bystander before, and Rouge hadn't wanted to leave a trail of bodies. Now, though, the girl had cast her lot in with these islanders. Her life was forfeit.
As Rouge reached for her gun, a footstep scuffed on the other side of the door. The red-eyed robot who had harassed her in the jungle looked through the gap in the door at her.
For a second Rouge stared into those camera-like eyes. Then she jerked backward, intending to close the door. The robot's arm shot through the gap and caught her wrist. With iron strength he dragged her inside the emerald chamber.
Rouge drew her gun with her other hand, placed the muzzle against the robot's chest, and fired twice.
Metal fragments exploded out of the robot's back. The red eyes flickered. For a second they stared at each other. Then the robot dropped to the floor like a broken toy, releasing her arm along the way.
The noise had alerted the echidnas and the chaos girl. "Mecha!" Knuckles cried. He charged down the stairs, straight at Rouge.
She tracked him with her pistol, aiming for that white crescent on his chest. When he was halfway down the stairs, she fired.
Knuckles flinched, staggered, missed his footing, and rolled down the rest of the steps. He lay in a crumpled heap at the bottom.
"Knuckles!" the females screamed.
Rouge aimed at the echidna girl. The girl dove behind a corner of the pyramid, and the bullet merely chipped the stone. Keeping an eye on the spot, Rouge raced up the stairs two at a time, fluttering her wings for extra speed.
The chaos girl, Maria, stood there with both hands over her mouth and tears in her eyes. As Rouge approached, Maria's hands dropped to her sides, clenched into fists. "How dare you!"
Rouge pulled her blowgun out of her belt. She had to move quickly, before Maria could fight back or call for help. Rouge puffed the blowgun. The dart flew out and stuck in Maria's upper arm. Maria grabbed it and pulled it out, but the plunger had compressed on impact, delivering its payload of tranquilizer.
Maria looked at the dart and threw it aside. Her pupils were already dilating from the drug. "Why must you do this?"
"Because," Rouge said, whipping out the dampening handcuffs, "I'm being paid a lot of money for you. And luckily," she added, showing her pointed teeth in a smile, "I take my payment in gems." She tried not to let the giant emerald distract her with its alluring glow.
She cuffed Maria's wrists. The girl gasped as they cut off her connection to her own power web. Tasha had been concerned about that-the girl's web was at least as powerful as their own. But now, the girl was isolated. Weakened both by the loss of her power and the drug, she sank to her knees, reaching for the big emerald with both hands.
"Oh no you don't," Rouge said. She stooped, thrust her shoulder against the girl's stomach, and lifted her over her shoulder. It was a good thing this human was small-Rouge would need help to carry her any great distance.
As the bat carried her prisoner down the stairs, she felt Maria go limp as the tranquilizer sapped her consciousness. Rouge walked by the motionless echidna at the foot of the steps and carried Maria into one of the antechambers outside. She was not climbing that outer staircase while lugging a body.
She lowered Maria to the floor and checked her breathing. Slow and deep. Good. Rouge pulled out her communicator, which no longer needed the satellite connection to reach the Fellstorm. "Tasha, I've got the girl."
Rouge accompanied this with a selfie that showed her own face with the unconscious Maria in the background.
"Excellent!" Tasha squealed. "Give us another hour to break their paltry defense. We'll come find you when we take possession of Angel Island."
"All right," Rouge said. "I think I killed the Guardian."
"Even more excellent!" Tasha exclaimed. "Rouge, you can name your fee."
Rouge mentally hugged herself. "I'll get back to you with the numbers."
Tasha hung up. Rouge settled herself on the floor with her gun in her lap, ready to relax until NME triumphed.


Gladiolus hid behind the pyramid, fist crammed against her mouth to keep from sobbing aloud, watching the bat carry away the unconscious Maria.
Her world was falling apart. Chaos had given up, but NME looked like they were going to win. And Knuckles ... poor Knuckles!
As soon as the door closed behind the bat, Glad ran for him, scrambling on all fours around the corner of the pyramid. Knuckles lay on his side, head resting on one arm as if he was sleeping. But an ominous puddle of dark red was slowly spreading across the marble floor beneath him. Her chaos eye showed her that his aura still glowed, but it was weaker, with sick yellow edges.
Somewhere inside her, a voice started screaming. It was the part of her that had been glad to see him on the beach, that had wanted Chaos to take her instead of him, that desperately wanted his approval.
Glad pushed him onto his back and pressed her hands against the bullet hole. It was lower than she expected, below his rib cage on the right side. Lung, liver ... so many vital organs there. He drew a bubbling breath, as if his lungs were filling with fluid. She watched the blood welling through her fingers. It reminded her of the first time she had seen a wound like that-when Metal Sonic had healed Shadow of a similar injury from the same gun.
Metal Sonic!
The robot lay on the floor in the corner, his red eyes dark. Glad ran to him and shook him, trying to awaken him. She knew less about fixing robots than she did about injuries. "Mecha! Please wake up! I need your healing powers!"
To her immense delight, the robot turned his head, his eyes flickering.
"Knuckles is hurt," she said. "Can you heal him?"
The robot made a tiny motion that might have been a nod.
Glad still wore her headset, but being underwater had shorted it out. She pulled it off, shook water droplets out of it, and fiddled with the power. Nothing. She growled, stuck it back in her ear, and dragged Metal Sonic across the smooth floor to Knuckles. There she pressed the robot's yellow hand against the bullet hole.
For a long, awful minute, nothing happened. Then the emerald-shape burned into the yellow paint began to glow a little. Glad exhaled and closed her eyes. "Thank you, thank you."
She sat there a long time, watching Knuckles's face for signs of life. Metal Sonic seemed on the verge of shorting out. He couldn't seem to move, and his eyes flickered like a lightbulb in a storm. Without realizing it, Glad began talking to him.
"I'm so sorry, Mecha," she murmured, looking at the uncomfortable way she was holding his arm out to reach Knuckles. "I know you're as hurt as he is, but ... I think they can fix you? Probably? But nobody could fix Knuckles. Even if we could get him to a hospital, there's only so much they can do with holes blown in people." She looked at the two holes punched in Metal Sonic's chest and cringed. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"
No answer. He only spoke through the headset, didn't he? Gladiolus pulled it off and set it on the pyramid step. "I'm so useless. I can't even tell the others what's happening. They don't know that Maria's captured, or Knuckles is hurt, or Metal Sonic is damaged. But not Glad." Her voice took on a false cheerful tone. "Oh no, not Glad. She'd rather hide than get shot, too. Glad's a coward and that's why she's not hurt."
Without moving or opening his eyes, Knuckles said, "Will you shut up already?"
Glad flinched at the rebuke, but a shrill giggle burst from her anyway. "Fine way to tell me you're alive."
He groaned and rolled his head to one side so he could rub the back. More red smeared his glove.
"Oh no, your head!" Glad exclaimed. "I think Mecha can heal that, too."
She started to move Mecha's hand, but Knuckles grabbed both their hands and kept them in place. "No. It's healing my head, too. Leave it."
Glad looked at Knuckles's big mitt engulfing her tiny hand along with the robot's. Her heart fluttered. If only this meant that he maybe liked her a little. Shame at her warm feelings welled up and added another dimension to her discomfort. "I'm sorry," she whispered.
"Stop apologizing," Knuckles said through his teeth. "Somebody had to survive this. If she'd shot you, too, we'd all be dead right now."
"But she took Maria!" Glad wailed. "I just hid and let it happen!"
"That bat would have killed you," Knuckles said. "They want Maria, remember? They'll keep her alive. We can rescue her." He released her hand and levered himself up on his elbows, wincing. "Remind me never to fall down these stairs again. That tore me up worse than the stupid bullet." He sat up and held Mecha's hand against his wound himself. He patted the robot's forehead. "Poor guy. He was just doing his job."
The robot's eyes flicked on and for a second they gazed at each other. Then Knuckles looked at Glad. "He praises your quick thinking in getting him to me."
Glad's face warmed. She looked down. "Will he be okay?"
"Yeah," Knuckles said. "He says it damaged three parts, but those three are what allow him to walk, so he's down for now." He drew a deep breath, then coughed an alarming, wet-sounding cough.
"What do we do?" Glad whispered, horrified.
"First, I've gotta get patched up," Knuckles said, several shades paler than he had been a moment ago. "He's healing me really slowly. Then we need to figure out where that bat took Maria. We can't let her take her to the Fellstorm."


Sonic didn't mind being a fireball. In fact, it was downright fun, especially when the robots he was facing had extra fuel tanks on their backs.
The wisps helped him take his fighting skills to a whole new level. When he was fire, he ignited robots' fuel and blew holes in the jungle. When he was a yellow drill, he tore through mantis shields and armor in an unstoppable swath. When he was lightning, even the fastest wasps couldn't catch him.
Once in a while he used the lightning wisp to check in with Amy and Sticks. They were miles away, fighting robots that used the river canyon as a highway. Sometimes Sonic helped destroy the robots they were facing, other times he just dropped by to make sure they were okay.
Over the course of the afternoon, Sonic punched holes in the oncoming army. Yet they pushed across the island in an ever widening wave. They also did disturbing things like dig into the earth and construct tunnels and trenches for cover. Sonic routed one team of robots that had found a cave and were converting it to a bunker. He had to use both the drill wisp and the fireball wisp to destroy them. Yet it worried him. How many more robots were digging in and creating fortifications that he hadn't found yet?
He was also growing inexplicably tired. He didn't know it, but the moment Rouge snapped the dampening cuffs on Maria, Sonic and his friends were cut off from the Master Emerald's sustaining power. She had strengthened them, and now it had stopped.
"I gotta take more vitamins or something," Sonic panted, leaning against a tree to rest. "Is that stupid ship here yet?" He used the lightning wisp to shoot to the top of the tree for a look.
The Fellstorm loomed nearly overhead, blocking the sun, its engines a teeth-rattling hum. It was definitely over the island. It had also stopped shelling the central mountain, which Sonic found ominous. Was NME so certain of victory that they didn't feel the need to blast new doors in the palace? He missed Ramussan's inside information with a pang.
So, it was time to use the rocket wisp to fly up to the Fellstorm. And Sticks said to take Shadow. Since Sticks had been made the island's Seer, he had an almost superstitious respect for her ramblings. Too many of them had turned out right.
But where was Shadow? Sonic looked hopelessly across the jungle from his perch in the treetop, his wisps wearily clinging to his shoulders and spines. The black hedgehog could be anywhere. The whole eastern half of the island was crawling with robots. Despite Sonic's prodigious power, he couldn't stop their advance. All he had done was slow it down a little.
"Knux, we need you back, buddy," he whispered. Then he cast a worried look at the central mountain. The ARK cannon would fire from up there somewhere, but without contact with his team, he had no idea when. He had to trust to Sticks's prophecy and try to halt the Fellstorm's advance as best as he could. Frustration tormented him. He'd never lost a battle with robots before. These robots weren't particularly tough. There were just too many of them.
Suddenly, less than thirty feet away, something exploded. A cloud of smoke rolled upward through the trees.
Now, that had to be Shadow. Sonic jumped to the ground and ran toward the explosion's source.
Shadow was in the process of demolishing two mantises at once. His red stripes glowed like road flares as he raced around them, feinting and kicking. He actually blocked a blow from a razor sharp claw with one of the red stripes on his arms, which manifested an energy shield for a second.
Sonic's respect for Shadow rose several levels.
"Chaos spear!" Shadow snarled. He hurled lightning into the nearest robot's face, blowing off its head. The electricity fried its companion, too, and both robots collapsed.
Sonic whistled and clapped. "Way to go, Shads!"
The black hedgehog spun and glared at him. "What do you want?"
Sonic pointed at the Fellstorm with a thumb. "I'm storming the castle. Want to come?"
Shadow cast a hunted look at the ship overhead, which blocked the afternoon sky with its huge belly. He looked at Sonic, taking in his ragged spines, the wisps clinging to him instead of floating, the way the athletic tape hung off Sonic's limbs in tatters.
"You don't stand a chance," Shadow said. "You're tired. NME will skin you and take the chaos power from your soul."
Sonic started to laugh, then realized that Shadow had meant this literally. It felt like he had swallowed a block of ice. "Sticks said that I can't go without you."
"Sticks is a loon," Shadow spat. But he gave the Fellstorm another cautious look, as if he expected it to fall on their heads. After a second he said, "All right. We'll take them together. This is for Maria's sake, not yours."
Sonic nodded, taking the orange wisp and stroking it. It winked at him. "See you there, Shads."


Tails's arms and legs were so tired, he could barely haul himself up the final slope of Angel Island's central peak. The wind up here was fierce, alternately smashing him into the rocks and trying to snatch him off into space.
A faint path wound most of the way up the mountain, but Ramussan assured him that the ARK cannon fired from the very top. So the young fox had to claw his way up the final quarter of a mile. Sometimes he was able to gain altitude by spinning his tails like helicopter rotors and flying, but as the wind increased, this became too dangerous. The tools in his belt seemed heavier and heavier. The breath caught in his chest. This mountain did not look this high. This was lame.
But finally Tails reached a level place where there were no more hills above him. He stayed on his hands and knees to present a low profile to the wind. He'd put on his goggles hours ago, and now he blinked and caught his breath. He was on eye level with the Fellstorm. He had a dizzying view of its upper decks and the glass-lined bridge that formed a tower atop the whale head. It was moving slowly, leisurely, angling toward him and taking its time. It was the perfect shot.
He crawled across the mountaintop, hoping he was too far away for NME to notice him. Right in the middle of the mountaintop, he came to a long, deep split in the stone. It was as long as the whole mountaintop. Peering inside, Tails found himself looking down the throat of the ARK cannon to the glowing lens in the very bottom. It was miles down. He gulped and backed away. This entire mountain was hollow. What crazy engineering technology the ancients must have had!
As he crept along the length of the cannon's mouth, he found the focusing crystal that the computer couldn't deploy. Right in the center of the cannon was a honeycomb structure of some clear, glass-like material. It was laced around a glass ball the size of the Master Emerald, but clear as water. The glassy mechanism was full of dirt and cracked stone that jammed the joints. Tails pulled out a brush and began cleaning it.
"The mechanism is dirty," Tails said into his headset. "I'm cleaning it out. How's the charge, Ram?"
"Ready to fire," the AI replied. "Is the prism in good condition?"
Tails eyed the giant ball. "Looks okay. No cracks."
"I have the Fellstorm targeted. You'll have to tell me when you're clear."
"Right." Tails kept working.


Sonic landed on the Fellstorm's upper deck, his rocket form giving way to his blue hedgehog body. Shadow appeared several feet away in a sparkle of red light.
"Cheater," Sonic muttered.
The deck of the Fellstorm had a low railing around it and stretched along the ship's entire length. Ladders and access ports stood every twenty feet. Recessed alcoves hosted machine guns, currently unmanned. There were several robot guards, who rushed them as soon as they landed.
Shadow vanished. The robots fell and crashed to pieces. Shadow reappeared, sneering at Sonic. "You'll never master that, hedgehog."
"I'll get it one of these days," Sonic jeered back. "Speaking of which, how many of these NME jokers do we have to take down?"
"I have no idea," Shadow said, looking up the deck toward the bridge. "Let me check." He vanished. A second later he reappeared, panting, looking worried. "There's three Mobians in there. Two of them are the people in business suits who wanted to buy Maria from me."
This memory made Sonic's stomach lurch unpleasantly. Of course they were the ones coming to take her. Why hadn't he thought of that? Maybe it was too strange to parse business suits with assassins and armies of vicious robots.
"What should we do?" Sonic said. "I don't kill people."
"They don't have to know that," Shadow said, showing too many teeth in a grin. "Let's go kick them around, disarm them, tie them up, whatever."
Sonic tried to feel elated at this prospect. Instead, he felt ill. Smashing robots was one thing. He didn't want to think about what his wisp's drill form would do to a living person. He murmured for the wisps to wait for him outside. With nervous trills, they dropped off his shoulders and hid themselves wherever they could.
Despite his misgivings, Sonic followed Shadow's lead into rushing the bridge and smashing in through the door. The blue tiger, red wolf, and hyena turned to look at them in surprise.
"Nobody move," Shadow said. "We're-"
All three of their enemies vanished. Sonic barely had time to see this before something hit him in the back of the head and the stomach at the same time. As he fell, something whipped around his feet and hands. He hit the floor stunned and tied. Nearby, the same thing happened to Shadow.
Both hedgehogs lay on the floor, panting in shock and pain, staring at each other. The tiger, wolf, and hyena reappeared. "Well," said the blue tiger, sliding a ring onto her finger with a flashing yellow chaos crystal set in it. "It was a good try, boys." She stepped over Shadow, grabbed his jaw, and turned his face so their eyes met. The tiger smiled. "Why, hello, Shadow. So nice to see you again."
Shadow jerked his head out of her grip. "I should have killed you, Tasha."
Sonic watched this in horror. Sticks's words spun through his head. "Shadow is part of their alien organization ..."
Smiling pleasantly, Tasha stepped over Shadow and gazed down at Sonic. Sonic stared back. Tasha's fur was perfectly groomed, her stripes trimmed to exactly accent her eyes. Only a hint of white hairs around her nose gave a clue as to her age-older than she seemed. Aside from that, and the chaos crystal rings on her fingers-Sonic counted six, one in each color-she looked like a normal person. Not an evil megalomaniac who had sent Eggman running in terror.
"Hello, Sonic," Tasha said, equally pleasantly. "How nice to see you still alive. Rouge was supposed to have terminated you three days ago."
This was so unexpected that Sonic blinked. How could someone talk about murder in such a neutral tone? His misgivings about breaking in here grew.
Tasha stepped over him, too, and walked away as if they didn't matter. Sonic looked at Shadow, wide-eyed. Shadow shook his head slightly and whispered, "Shh."
Don't say a word. Right. Sonic waited in silence. He glanced around the room, hoping for a weapon. But the walls were all glass. Beneath them were control consoles and screens displaying maps and reports from the robot army. There were several well-worn command chairs where each member of NME performed their duties. No weapons. But then, all three of them wore chaos crystal and had stopped the time the instant they were threatened. Conventional weapons no longer mattered to them.
Across the room, Tasha said, "Hylee! What are their readings?"
"Off the charts," said the hyena. "Shall I start the process?"
"Not yet," said the red wolf. He walked over to the hedgehogs with a tablet computer. "Shadow's readings are significantly lower than they should be."
"They're still at twelve hundred," the hyena said acidly. "That's more than high enough."
"But he was triple that when Rouge encountered him on Bygone Island," the wolf said. "Shadow, are you perhaps not feeling well?"
Shadow said nothing.
The wolf suddenly grinned. "I know what it is. You're cut off from Maria."
Shadow stiffened. Despite his warning not to speak, he said, "Ha. Maria and I can never be separated."
"Really." The wolf nodded at Tasha. Tasha pressed a button. A wall-sized conference screen unfolded and lit up. It showed a picture of the bat taking a picture of herself. Maria lay in the background, handcuffed and unconscious.
Shadow stared at the picture. His ears lay back. The red died out of his stripes, leaving them nearly as black as the rest of his spines. His eyes glazed. For a moment Sonic thought Shadow was having a heart attack of some kind.
"No," Shadow breathed, but it was a defeated, despairing protest.
"Our agent has already secured the chaos girl," Tasha said. "Without her, you are both weakened. Hadn't you missed your chaos web?"
Sonic had no idea what she was talking about. But Shadow closed his eyes and let his head slump to the floor as if Tasha had kicked him.
Tasha grinned. "One of them noticed, anyway. Perhaps the blue one wasn't so tightly enmeshed."
Sonic couldn't hold his tongue any longer. "Enmeshed in what? This rope? Because I'm enmeshed in that really good."
The red wolf, Regis, grinned and showed his teeth. "Maybe they were never told. It's not like the Specimen to share information freely."
"Shadow's a specimen?" Sonic said, hoping his snark would jar the other hedgehog out of his stupor. "Is this, like, when you call somebody a fine specimen? Like you want to date him?"
Tasha laughed, and for a split second she looked embarrassed. "While Shadow's quite a specimen, Sonic, that's not what I meant. He and Maria operate like a single organism. We designed them that way."
Sonic raised an eyebrow to disguise the sinking of his heart. "We?"
"I used to work for GUN in my post-graduate days," Tasha said. "Project Shadow was high-risk. After the shutdown, I never could figure out where they concealed Maria. I assumed she was dead. But now ..." Tasha made a complicated gesture, the crystals glowing in her rings. "She shall join us. We shall become one."
Sonic carefully tugged at the ropes. All he needed was a wisp and he could escape. Shadow could chaos control. There was no reason to be stuck here.
But Tasha stooped and laid a bejeweled hand on Sonic's head, between his ears. "But first, we will take care of this one."