Telera sprinted through passageways, her thoughts torn every way by the right one as she struggled to organise what was going on. Lupin had abandoned her, Fiona was dying if not dead, Tails and Sally were facing off against mutant Elias, Sonic was duelling himself… and here she was, searching through a palace she didn't recognise for a pink hedgehog who was, as Lupin had put it, more trouble than she was worth.
Paintings, murals and doorways flashed by around her, the tigress using her nose and ears to try and find her goal – Amy had been in this palace for some time, and she had spent a lot of it moving around…her trail led everywhere, but at least it was strong. A trail oft took a few days to fade, and this was fresh; she could follow this, if only she knew which one to follow!
The smell suddenly grew stronger…remarkably stronger. Telera found herself sprinting across a crossroads, and the trail terminated abruptly outside a small, wooden door. The tigress paused, pressing one ear against the rough wood, trying to ascertain who, or what, was on the other side. There was breathing….low, constant, muffled by the wood…nothing else, not that she could hear.
She slid one claw out, working it into the primitive tumbler-lock on the door, smiling to herself as she heard the familiar -click- of the door unlocking.
She inched it open slowly, wary of any possible trap, as she had been trained.
Anywhere you haven't been before is hostile. Everywhere you have been is, the only difference is you know where you're going.
Her old mentor, probably dead now, taken by the hostile wilds of Cat Country. He had trained her, not the Freedom Fighters, and she had yet to be bested with her skill in the arts. Telera blinked, and gasped, a sharp intake of breath that was uncommon in the mute girl.
The girl had just been abandoned, left in what looked to be a store cupboard, propped up in the corner. Her trousers and top had been replaced with a dark flight-suit, all zips and pockets. She seemed oblivious of her surroundings, unaware of the tigress who had just walked in, and was pacing in front of her, trying to work out what was wrong.
Something was very obviously wrong. The hedgehog's eyes were vacant, devoid of any life or feeling, unfocussed, staring into space. With no method of communicating with the others, Telera was alone in trying to solve this problem.
Well, couldn't hurt to cover all the standard bases. She slapped Amy across the cheek. Not hard, but solid.
Within the confines of her mind, within Amy's endless, painless dream, she went on, unaware of the pain and turmoil around her.
Then the dream rocked – lurched sideways, and the hedgehog felt her perceptions shudder with it. It righted itself in a moment, but it left Amy off-balance and confused.
Satisfied that it had drawn no response, the tigress snapped her fingers by the hedgehog's ears.
The wind, until now a cool breeze, switched to a hurricane impossibly fast, bringing with it a horrible, keening screech, sounding over even the howling gale of the winds. Just as when the world had tilted, it disappeared as swiftly as it had come.
Then came the pain, the memories, half-forgotten, mewling things leaking through from another time.
Tails, a glint of malice in his eyes…
Fiona, encase in crystal…
Lupin, disappearing…
Sally, struggling against a familiar behemoth…
Telera, prowling, hunting for something lost…
Sonic...fighting a shadow that threatened to claim victory over him.
That was it. Amy spun, taking in the world around her, seeing where things didn't match up, some things out of focus, others not where they should be or not there at all. It was like…like…like a dream.
Pain stabbed into her skull and she sank to her knees, crying out. The forms she had believed real seemed ethereal now, as If without presence, and she was starting to make sense of it all. Nothing around her, nothing she could see was real. Colours starting bleeding out, running from surfaces and congealing into puddles of swirling, maddening colour.
In the real world, Amy stirred, her form staggering forward, falling into Telera's arms. It was an unconscious motion; the hedgehog-girl was still encased in a dream, only just now beginning to feel the outside world once again.
That motion brought with it more memories…fur…a handshake, a welcome as she had first joined the team…The Freedom Fighters… Gravity shifted, a full ninety degrees, and objects, blurs and nothing more, started to fall past.
"This…this doesn't make any sense!" she cried out against the white noise, struggling to stand then falling to her knees over and over.
More and more memories flooded through the cracks in the mindscape, the real world replacing the pseudo-life Anima had built to conceal life from her. Great chunks of mental construction ripped itself free and fluttered away, ripping itself apart in the air even as the old thoughts and memories placed themselves back in control. Most of it was pain, recent and brutal…but it only strengthened her resolve. Amy was sure now, sure that she was going back to the real world, the real life and friends, the real Sonic, and she'd rather spend her life trying to win him over than have it faked by another.
She started to cry, tears running freely as she lay in Telera's arms, the tigress having shifted her around a bit to be more comfortable. As the last shreds of the artificial mind melted away, Amy knew exactly why she was so distraught. She had gotten angry and run away, stupidly. She had let herself get taken in by these lying bastards, and the others, now fighting to save her. The memories were not her own; they were bits and pieces pulled into her mind, her subconscious finding them threaded in the air and using them to wake her up.
"What have I done…" she mouthed, shuddering violently in a cold sweat. She had to make things right, somehow. Pushing off Telera, the tigress making no move to stop her, she clambered unsteadily to her feet, checking everything. The suit was new…but they hadn't removed her communicator, and her hammer was still connected by the same means…
"Tails. I'm alive." She said into the communicator.
"Oh for fuck-" his voice came back, then dissolved into booming thunder for a moment, the sound of cracking stone. "I don't suppose you have any idea what the fuck you've put us through, do you?" he sounded exhausted. "Fiona's near dead, Lupin betrayed us and ran, Sally and I are fighting a fucking mutant, and Sonic's fighting his bastard copy." More thunder. "And don't give me an apology now. Get back up here and put that fucking hammer to good use. You're the only one of us who hasn't spent the entire trip fighting someone, so for fuck's sake move." He sounded exhausted, not just tired, but drained of energy.
Amy looked back at Telera, but only met a blank expression. Whatever the tigress thought of the situation, she was content not to show it as vehemently as Tails was. Her hands, however, were moving, speaking.
"We have to go. He's right; Tails is almost dead on his feet and he's in the middle of a fight. He sent me after you now because he hoped that you might actually be able to help. We were coming to get you anyway, but we were going to do it when things had calmed down a bit. No time now." She pulled herself to her feet, pulling the door open again. "I'll show you the way. Come on."
To have said that Tails was exhausted and drained would be an understatement. His energy was all but used up; his remaining rings had run dry replenishing him before he had begun, or used up in his super form. His own natural energy was naught but the last dregs of force he was urging from aching, painful muscles. He was starting to think he was running on adrenalin alone, and it was most likely a very accurate guess.
Though both his efforts and Sally's, Matthias now bore another set of cuts and gashes, along with further damage to the pistons and armour covering his bulky frame, but the damage seemed to only serve to make the situation worse. With each stab and slice he got a little bit angrier, with each strike that missed he got a little more determined to hit harder and faster…and Tails was only running out of steam.
Each jump was laboured and each landing knocked the wind from him, and each strike was done with less strength behind each fresh blow. In better circumstances he would have already won, a successful chaos spear or chaos blast having ripped the giant apart. On other terms he would have called Sonic, the light-speed hedgehog ripping through him like butter. He couldn't do either; his chaos powers would not regenerate while he remained on Moebius, and to call Sonic would be to distract the hero from his own battle against Scourge.
And that was something that could not be done; the blue hedgehog almost perfectly matched the green one in terms of power and speed. One eye had to be kept on his opponent, each strike had to be blocked and countered within a split second, and the other eye had to remain fixed on the road ahead, to avoid running straight through the stone pillars, the numbers of which had dramatically increased thanks to the efforts of Tails and Sally down below.
Oh, that was another thing. Sonic couldn't slow down; if he did, he would fall off the ceiling. And yet…Sonic was enjoying himself. It was exhilarated, to be able to run at his fastest against an opponent who could keep up, and one who was so easily pissed off as well. Scourge was already seething with anger from all the jibes and taunts that had been thrown at him, while the blue Mobian just soaked up insults or let them wash over him, laughing and taunting all the way.
"So what are ya really here for?" Scourge asked finally, jinking between two uprights and slamming into Sonic's side. The strike shunted him away, but his footing remained sure and the blue hedgehog reciprocated the gesture an instant later, adding a rush of chaos energy into the mix. It was not enough to strike Scourge from the ceiling, but enough to make him stumble and lose his coordination, enough to allow Sonic to manoeuvre him into a pillar, passing round it himself.
The stone construction shattered with Scourge's passing, sending chunks of marble and limestone to the floor below. The Moebian emerged roaring in pain and anger, his shout dying in his throat as he realised his error.
He had lost sight of Sonic.
He couldn't stop running to check, he couldn't pause and look around in case he hit him or he slowed enough to drop off the roof, he didn't have time to- something rammed into his side at an impossible speed, wrenching his feet from the ceiling and dropping him towards the floor.
Scourge twisted in the air, rushing air shutting off his hearing but his eyes uninhibited.
He saw Sonic's foot a split-second before it slammed into his face, and then a moment later they hit the floor.
The impact from two hedgehogs travelling at several hundred miles per hour, supplemented by chaos energy, drove a ten foot crater hole into the floor of the throne room. Stone cracked and pillars split from the thundering crash, and even Matthias, dead as he was to the outside world, stumbled and stopped for a moment, bracing himself against the shockwave, raising one hand against the flagstones that had been ripped from the flooring.
It broke four of Scourge's ribs and his right wrist. He stared up at Sonic, grinning psychotically, and even in spite of the situation he was in, he couldn't help but throw another jibe into the mix.
"If you're her for that pink hedgehog whore, ya should probably know that she 'ain't a virgin any more, buddy." It was a grave mistake, as he soon found out as Sonic's fist cracked across his jaw, twice.
"What? You wanted first crack at her?" he grinned again through bloody teeth, spitting one out in the process. Sonic punched him again, making sure to smash his nose in with the wedding ring on his finger.
"Feels good, don't it?" Scourge asked, maintaining the grin. "My turn!" he lurched forward, smashing his forehead against the bridge of Sonic's nose. The Mobian's grip loosened a fraction and the green hedgehog swung his good arm across, catching Sonic on the temple and throwing him off him. In a moment Scourge was on his feet, spitting flecks of blood onto the floor. He had a grand total of four seconds still standing before Sonic, by now angrier than he could be bothered to say, ran into him again at full-pelt.
The greener hedgehog was still an anarchy-empowered super-fast hedgehog, and he saw Sonic coming, long enough before to allow him to twist out of the way. He jerked to the side, just enough to avoid getting run through by diamond-hard spines, but not far enough to avoid having his arm torn from its socket in a welter of blood. The would fused almost instantly from the heat and chaos energy generated, but the pain was like nothing he had ever felt before.
He sunk to his knees before a hand fastened around his neck and lifted him from the ground once again, turning him in the air so he could see Sonic once again, and this time, he didn't have the strength for insults – he was too busy gritting his remaining teeth against the pain.
"See, now you made a mistake, green-boy." Sonic snarled, his eyes flashing white. "You made me your enemy. The last word came out as a primal growl, far from Sonic's usual voice, accompanied by a surge of bright, multi-coloured flame.
"What ya gonna do?" Scourge grunted through his teeth. "You gonna kill me?"
"No, because I'm not you. Doesn't mean I can't hurt you for fucking around, though." he spun on his heel and threw the Moebian quite cleanly across the length of the room, past the embattled Tails and Sally, for him to slam into the wall.
His work done, Sonic sagged, finally feeling the drain of prolonged fighting with someone that fast. His eyes returned to their normal colour and he dropped to one knee, breathing heavily. He had to help Tails…but first…What the fuck had come over him there? He hadn't felt that angry since…since Alicia's death. And this time, this time he had enjoyed it. What was happening?
He lifted his head, trying to shake off the sadistic feelings still running through him, watching as Tails threw himself aside from another strike.
The kitsune landed painfully on his shoulder, pushing himself to his feet, grunting out halting, ragged breaths. He knew that he didn't have to wait long; Amy had the hammer, and that would be the first useful thing she had done in a long time, but first…
"Sonic…" he spoke into the comm, watching Matthias pace slowly. "When Telera gets back, take her and Sally and get out of here."
"No fucking way!" his friend called back from over the hallway, dragging himself to his feet. He should be faster…damn anarchy radiation.
Tails was too tired to shout. "Sonic…you have to go, now. Even with the chaos emerald…" he paused, rolling under another charge and firing a small orb of kinetic energy after the behemoth. "Your time is almost as limited as mine. The emerald just holds the effects…back a bit." Matthias slew to a halt just before the wall, and then the orb hit, striking the back of his head and propelling him into the wall proper. "Sally And Telera…you can get them out with chaos control, but I need Amy here to help with this, and you can't take Fiona, not in her condition."
"I'm not leaving without you, Tails." Sonic used the comm this time, seeing his friend's distress, but unable to gather enough strength to help.
"I'm not giving you the option. If you don't get them out now, you won't make it back, and none of us will get out of here alive. I'll find us a way out, don't worry. Sonic…just trust me. Please."
There was no anger in his voice by this point, only a desperate, fragmented will trying to save lives. This was what Fiona had been talking about, Tails realised in a moment of clarity; he wasn't fighting just to kill Matthias, he was fighting because if he failed, Fiona would die here. It was enough, at least, to give him one burst of energy, enough to meet the charge that he had neglected, and strike back against it.
It was not his own strength that let him retaliate, but his strength of will, the fierce hatred of his foe and the will to keep going. He threw his strike and the two met in the air, and it was Matthias' knuckles that popped with a series of sickening pops.
The force of the strike rocked Tails to his very core, every bone and fibre in his body jarred by the force of the impact and he dropped to his hands and knees, the last of his strength spent. He could only watch as the behemoth raised its fists, bellowing in a mix of rage and pain, in a last, final smash to crush the life out of him.
It came as a surprise the following roar, suddenly devoid of the rage, transmuted neatly into pure agony and accompanied by a loud cracking. The crushing blow hit home, several feet from where Tails lay, cracking cobbles and flagstones with force greatly reduced from the one that had been intended.
Had Matthias not been so intent on killing Tails, he would have noticed Telera re-enter the room, dragging someone with her. He would have known that the newcomer had seen the scene playing out, and gone to Tails' aid.
"Back off you big bastard!" He knew that voice. Tails knew that high-pitched screech that he had set aside so recently, he knew that the crack had been as something very solid and hammer-like had just slammed home against the behemoth's knee, shattering it and putting his aim off so far. It was the reason he was still Miles Prower, and not just a nondescript pile of yellow fur, bone dust and gristle. He also knew that it was the voice of the very girl they had come to rescue.
Amy had hated him for dumping her, but frankly that mattered very little now. From those flashes of memory she had realised exactly what she had done. That hate had been swiftly supplanted by fear, self-degradation and a hate for both herself – for getting them all into this mess – and against the arseholes who had brought her here.
Frankly it didn't matter that the thing she had just struck was a ten foot tall behemoth of fur, bionics and pain. He had tried to kill Tails; he had tried to kill most of them, and that was enough.
"Sonic…" Tails muttered through the comm, wincing against the pain. "Now go. Get Sally and Telera out of here."
"We've been through this-"
"Indeed…we have." Tails nodded feebly to himself, dragging his body a few feet further from the thrashing creature. "And I'm not giving you any choice. Go. I'll be fine, just do it."
"You're not fine." The hedgehog explained bluntly, making his way over.
"And it doesn't matter…you know the stakes. If you don't get back with those two, they won't get out at all, and neither will you. I don't know how I'll do it, but I'll get myself, Fiona and Amy back somehow." Tails raised one hand, motioning for both the squirrel and tigress to go to Sonic. They had both heard the conversation and understood that they couldn't sway him. He watched their shadows move as Amy dropped down beside him, tears pouring down her face.
"Tails-" she began, but he cut her off, his voice scolding.
"Don't. Just don't. In case you haven't guessed, I'm almost dead from anarchy poisoning. Fiona's almost dead and we're almost out of time. You're staying behind because you're the only one who hasn't had to fight their way here. You're going to do as I say and then we might get home. Now, will you for once do as you're fucking told?" he practically spat the words at her, but she could only nod in assent.
Regardless of his tone, of however much she wanted to shout at him for speaking to her like that, the fact that she had just put them through hell pushed past her own shortcomings.
Tails saw the agreement even as he could feel the strength draining from his limbs and he rolled onto his side, tying to conserve as much energy as possible. His breaths were laboured and slow, drawing as deeply as he could find himself able. He could feel his body degrading; it was a literal living decomposition.
"What do I do?" Amy asked, eager to make amends.
"For now…kill that bastard." He twitched in Matthias' direction, a sign which was enough for Amy.
"Sonic, get out of here! Now!" he snapped at his old friend. "I'm not telling you twice."
The hedgehog, with one arm round Sally and the other around Telera, looked at his friend, concern and nothing else evident on his features. "Good luck." He whispered. "Chaos control!" and disappeared in a warping mass of light, the dimensions around him pulled taught as the world he was in resisted the touch of chaos.
"Wait…Amy…give me the hammer." Tails felt them go, felt the ripples of chaos energy against the universe and sucked them in, using them to provide himself with a minor power boost to his own reserves of chaos energy. He would need them.
He accepted the weapon wearily, placing his hand flat against the head and willing the rings stored inside to appear. They did so, half a dozen of the glowing lifelines. They were meant to charge the EMP device, but there would be no need of that. The circles flashed as he absorbed them, each one a ripple of energy and revitalisation, giving him the strength once again haul himself upright and hand the weapon back to the pink hedgehog next to him.
"There's a lot to do." He told Amy. "so you're going to be working."
"What's first?"
"First?" he raised one hand, emerald flames flickering around them. "First, we finish off this tosser and make sure he can't get back up. Then we see exactly how Scourge found you in the first place. First thing's first." A small orb of power crystallised in his hand. "No more interruptions."