Act 1: A Night in the House of Insanity

Chapter 12: Into the Depths of Madness, Nero's Nightmare.

Workshop

Sonic, after a cross country run, returned back to Tails' workshop to check up on him. As he walked into the living room, he noticed a small note addressed to him from his little brother.

"Sonic, I'm out with Nero so he can help me develop my abilities. Don't know when I'll be back. Tails."

"Hope he's at least enjoying himself." Sonic thought out loud with a grin.

Back with Nero and Tails

Tails was not enjoying himself, he was actually shivering in total fear as he clung to Nero while they walked towards Dr. Reynard's office. The reason, there was a large group of ghosts walking about around them. All the ghosts were a mix of patients, who were either babbling to themselves or staring blankly into space, and caretakers, who stood watch over the patients. The two living canines proceeded to walk towards the head doctor's office. As they entered the office, Nero, after Tails walked in close behind, shut the door and looked around. The room was filthy with dust, and had a small ray of dim moonlight coming through the cracked, barred window. The furniture, like the rest of the asylum, was untouched. Nero walked around and looked over every part of the office as if he was searching for something. Tails watched closely at Nero's actions, slightly calmer since there were no ghosts in this room.

"What are you looking for?" Tails asked in a whisper.

"Anything that could be used as evidence." Nero responded, keeping his attention on his inspection.

"Evidence for what?"

"From all the ghosts we've seen, most of them were patients being escorted to the central elevator. All of them seemed drugged as well. In the main lobby, the bottom of the facility's map was painted over, covering the lower levels." The gray wolf explained.

"So from what you're saying, something happened to those patients that went down that elevator, and there was something more going on in this place."

"Exactly."

Nero was behind the desk and began to thoroughly inspect it. He opened the drawers and scanned through some documents contained within. So far, nothing seemed to come up that brought suspicion, that is, until he spotted something nailed to the underside of the desk. It was a small compartment, big enough to hold a book. In it, was a small, leather bound journal. Intrigued, Nero reached in and pulled out the dust covered journal. He began to read through its contents, scanning through the pages closely for anything incriminating. As he read through, his eyes slowly began to widen, and his expression turned to a slightly horrified look.

"Good lord…" Nero managed to choke out.

"What? What is it?" Tails asked, slightly worried. He's never seen Nero look frightened like this.

"He was taking all the money from the patients' families and keeping most of it to himself…"

Tails looked at Nero skeptically; there was something more to this that would shake Nero up.

"There's something more to that wasn't there?" The young kit asked, nervous about the answer.

"He had wendigo psychosis."

"Meaning?"

"He…he was a cannibal." Nero barely managed to say.

Tails simply paled at what he heard.

"H-he ate the p-patients?"

"The other employees were in on this too. This is why he handpicked all of them." Nero finished as he put the journal down with a solemn look. Tails was staring at Nero for a response, already dreading what the next plan of action is.

"We have to go down there."

Tails' ears immediately went flat on his head.

Ten minutes later.

Tails and Nero stood in front of the doors of the main central elevator.

"Are we?"

"Yes."

"Do we have to?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because."

"Because what?" Tails exclaimed.

"Because the cannibalistic doctor that ran this asylum hid all the money he stole."

"But what if..."

"He will be down there, or what's left of him." Nero ended the conversation when he forged a katana, and sliced the metal doors into pieces with a seemingly single swing, then dismissed his blade.

"I love doing that." Nero said as he looked down the elevator shaft. Even with his night vision, he wasn't able to see the bottom, but even so, he could feel something sinister lurking at the bottom.

"How do we get down there?" Tails asked as he looked over Nero's shoulder. The wolf he was addressing didn't say anything as he continued to look down, his face unreadable, as usual. Suddenly Nero grabbed Tails around the waist and jumped down the elevator shaft while holding on to the screaming twin-tailed fox. Shortly after jumping, Nero forged a glowing red gauntlet with claws at the fingertips, and rammed the claws into the wall, slowing their decent as well as creating a loud, screeching noise on top of Tails screaming the whole way down.

The next few seconds felt like hours to Tails as they fell down the elevator shaft. Actually, it did seem like an hour now that he thought about it.

Tails POV

….What the hell? How deep is this elevator shaft? After a few more minutes of falling, I finally stopped screaming and opened my eyes. Okay….everything is in slow motion, why the hell is everything in slow motion? I looked around, Nero had the same intense look, but it seems like he wasn't moving. I tried to turn my head but even that was going in slow motion. I finally was able to look up and see Nero's hand slowing down our fall. For some reason, there was a faint, glowing red trail along the wall. Seriously…what's going on? I was trying to figure it out till everything started to return to normal speed. we finally landed at the bottom after a few more seconds. The bottom of the elevator shaft was like any other; small, elevator sized, and dark. No surprise here. The door, naturally, was shut. I looked up at the slightly destroyed wall caused by Nero's gauntlet. On it was a barely visible red glow. Why did he leave that there? Also, I've been asking a lot of questions lately.

"Yes you have. Jeez I thought we were the smart ones." Jericho mentioned.

"You were wondering the same things."

"Oh shut up."

"By the way, where were you this whole time?"

"…"

"You were scared the whole time were you?"

"….sh-shut up."

"Ha, I knew it."

"Hey, ghosts are freaky alright?"

"Fact."

Without saying a word, I watched Nero walk up to the doors and forged another katana, ready to dice the door like he did before.

"Let's ruin his moment."

"Sure, why not?"

I saw Nero raise his blade, about to cut down the door, that is, until I brought up my hand and quickly charged Kojima energy into my hand and fired it at the door, the energy flying right past his head and blowing the doors apart. Nero quickly turned around at me with a death glare.

"What the hell man? You could've hit me!" he shouted.

"I wanted to see why you loved doing that so much, and now I know." I replied smugly.

"Owned."

"In the face."

Nero just gave me another glare and dismissed his katana. He then turned toward the opening I made and started walking down the basement hall. I, of course quickly followed. I really don't want to be alone down here.

"Hey, I'm still here."

"Oh yeah., My bad."

3rd Person.

The halls were narrow and the ceiling was dripping from leaking pipes. It seemed that the building still had running water, and since everything was never maintained, the condition obviously got worse and worse. Both Nero and Tails walked down the halls, passing storage rooms and other utilities. Nero, periodically, placed his hand on the walls, leaving a light red glow on the spot. Curious, Tails looked closely at the glowing red spots, trying to figure out what they were for.

"What are you leaving these for?" He finally asked.

"You'll see later." Nero replied as he placed another glowing spot on the wall.

The both of them finally reached the end of the hall, a set of double doors blocking the way to the large storage section of the facility. The doors were chained shut and locked with a large padlock. Nero and Tails looked at each other and then at the door, both sharing the same thought.

A few seconds later, Nero and Tails stood in the old storage room, of course after blowing the doors off its hinges with a combined Kojimic energy blast.

"What do you call that move by the way?" Tails asked.

"What move?" the gray wolf replied.

"The Kojima blasts that we did."

"Oh, actually, I never gave it much thought." Nero said as he looked down in thought.

"You remember when Sonic and I talked about Shadow?" Tails started.

"Yes, I remember."

"He does pretty much the same thing. He calls it Chaos Spear. They're two more abilities he has, Chaos Blast and Chaos Control."

"Please elaborate." Nero said, intrigued.

"Okay, Chaos Control allows him to do many things, like teleport, slow or stop time." Tails explained as they both walked around inspecting the room.

"What about Chaos Blast?"

"Chaos Blast, well, I actually never seen him perform that move, but according to what I've heard, he unleashes a large explosive blast. It pretty much destroys everything in the area around him."

"Reminds me of one of my moves, but it just creates a shockwave around me. It doesn't really do much damage, but it can push away most things. It's more of a defensive ability. I can however overcharge it to do a wider area, which then it can do damage to anything that's closer to me." Nero explained.

"What do you call that move?" Tails asked.

"Zetsumei." Nero answered.

"I'm not going to even ask what that means."

"Suit yourself." Nero just sighed. "but I have to be that thing to use it."

Tails' ears perked at hearing Nero's stray thought. "What did he mean by that?" Tails wondered.

"There's a lot more to him than we know, I believe." Jericho added.

"Check this out."

Both Jericho and Tails were knocked out of their thoughts and walked to Nero, who stood in front of a large chemical shelf.

"What's up?" the young kit asked.

"Do you see something out of place here?"

Tails looked carefully at the shelf for anything out of the ordinary. The shelf contained your everyday chemicals from cleaning solvents, drain fluid, and floor wax. There were cobwebs littering the shelf on various places. Upon closer inspection of the shelf, Tails noticed some of the cobwebs moving, as if there was an air current pushing them.

"There's something behind this shelf, isn't there?" Tails asked.

"Yes there is." Nero responded.

"We should find the mechanism to open this secret door then."

"Or we could just blast it down." Nero suggested.

Suddenly, another ghost walked up to the secret door. This one however was a ghost of a little girl, a vixen, dressed in a simple red dress. She stood before the shelf and then reached under the lowest shelf, stood back for a few seconds and then walked through the door. Tails looked at the spot where the little ghost girl was and then turned back to Nero, who held a stoic expression, as usual. Tails just shrugged his shoulders and reached under the same spot and felt a latch. He pulled it and the chemical shelf shifted back a few inches and slowly swung open, revealing a flight of stairs going deeper into the basement. Without a second thought, Nero walked down the stairs quickly. Confused, Tails followed warily. From what he can tell, something is bothering Nero. When Tails reached the bottom of the staircase, he was in another hallway. To make things worse, he lost sight of Nero. Now worried, he proceeded down the hall, hoping that he would catch up to the wolf. He continued to walk down the hall until he reached a slightly open door. Tails cautiously walked up and peeked through the door. He found Nero, standing in the middle of the room. The disturbing thing, the room was massive, and there were bones everywhere. Tails' eyes widened, and instinctively, his eyes became charged with more Kojima energy. Now that his eyes were charged with more energy, he could see that Nero wasn't the only one in the room. At the back of the room, there was another person standing, facing Nero. Upon closer inspection, the person was a hyena, wearing a vest and a doctor's coat, loafers, white gloves and a pair of round glasses. The most defining features were that he had bald spots on parts of his body where fur should normally be, and by just looking at him; he was all skin and bone.

Nero glared at the decrepit hyena with hate in his eyes.

"You must be Dr. Reynard."

The hyena just stood there and then suddenly a shadowy aura emanated from his form, a voice echoing as if from nowhere.

"You are correct."

Nero's glare intensified as the ethereal voice continued.

"Why have you come here?"

"The stories and rumors about his place pushed me to investigate." Nero responded with venom in his voice.

Tails slowly made his way into the room, trying to go unnoticed, until he felt something tug on one of his namesakes. He looked back slowly and saw the little ghost girl grabbing his tail, shaking her head as if she didn't want Tails to go in. Tails, however, was mentally freaking out. Why didn't she want him to go in and most importantly, how is this ghost able to physically grab him? The ghost then turned to Nero and Dr. Reynard and hid behind Tails. Recovering from his mental panic, Tails placed his hand on the ghost's shoulder, to reassure her that everything is going to be okay, and surprisingly, he was able to physically touch her. How was this possible? Turning back to Nero and Dr. Reynard, Tails noticed the intensity of Reynard's shadowy aura. Something was about to happen, and it wasn't going to be good. Suddenly, the aura lashed out at the bones in the room, causing them to levitate and swirl around the doctor.

Nero's POV.

I looked on in concern. I was hoping to deal with just another ghost, maybe a poltergeist, but a lich? This is too dangerous to train Tails let alone fight with him in the area. I may have to go all out.

"At least it won't be boring."

"Just give me the word and I'll massacre that freak." Kaiser snarled in my mind.

That's right, this is the only thing that can and will set him off. Even though Kaiser is the embodiment of my positive emotions, the only thing that will cause him to show rage, would be to desecrate the remains of the dead. Do that and you just earned yourself a free pass to Kaiser's Face Removal Service. You don't want a free pass to Kaiser's Face Removal Service. He provides excellent customer service in, you know, face removal. I can feel Kaiser's rage building ever so steadily. I have to end this quickly, if Kaiser gets too enraged, I'm afraid he'll separate from me and at this time, it would create the worst possible scenario.

"Vanguard." I immediately call out, my signature Dragonblades manifesting behind me. I willed all of them to levitate in a cylindrical shape around my extended arm. The Rail Formation. I only use this formation if I need to make long distance shots. If used close range, let's say that getting shot by a high-velocity blast of Kojimic energy at point blank is not pleasant. The blades began to spin around my arm, creating a red glow, charging a sphere of red Kojima energy in my hand.

3rd Person POV

As Nero charged his shot, he failed to notice some of the bones moving towards Tails' direction! Tails looked to his left and saw a dozen bones, broken and sharpened, fly at him like a hail of javelins! Tails, still shaken up by everything that went on during this night, stood still in fear as the bone javelins came at him. Suddenly, a large orange and green hammer flew through the air and knocked the bones in different directions before landing on the ground. Everyone in the room turned to the direction the hammer came from and saw an orange porcupine.

"Richter?" both Nero and Tails said.

Said porcupine just smirked and slowly walked to his hammer.

"I was looking for Reynard's secrets in this place for a while now." Richter began. "I somehow had this feeling that you guys would find it, and lo and behold! You did find it!"

Richter then walked up to the hammer and picked it up as if it was made of paper. That thing was almost twice his size! Richter looked past Nero and saw the undead doctor.

"Oh look at the creepy undead thingo! This must be the doctor. Tell me, where did you hide your stash of stolen money?"

Dr. Reynard just stood there as his shadowy aura intensified.

"I will never tell you!" his voiced echoed.

"It's probably somewhere in this room isn't it? Or maybe, behind the secret door that's behind you." Richter said smugly.

"H-how did you know!" Reynard exclaimed as he took a step back.

"If it's one thing, I can detect the vibrations through the ground like sonar. You can't hide much from a geomancer when you're underground." Richter explained.

Dr. Reynard let out an ethereal growl as his aura intensified.

"All of you will make a fine meal for me, and when I'm done with devouring your bodies, I will also devour your souls!"

"I think I pissed him off." Richter innocently stated.

"What the hell was your first clue?" Nero shouted.

As Nero's attention was on Richter, he failed to notice a single bladed bone fly in his direction. Tails noticed in the last second but before he could warn Nero, the bone already impaled through the wolf's back. Nero yelped and staggered forward, trying to grab the bone. Almost immediately, Dr. Reynard's form turned into a misty shadow and flew into the impaled bone and right into Nero's body. Nero gasped and stood frozen in place as Reynard attempted to possess him. Nero was normally immune to mind control if Kaiser was still present within him, but an entity completely entering his body and taking it over was something he can't defend himself from so easily.

Nero's mind as well as Kaiser's was racing and struggling to push Reynard out, but the amount of power the lich had was beyond what they thought. He must of devoured countless souls to gain this much power. Nero's body began shaking violently and then his hands gripped his head as his blades vanished. The wolf began to scream.

Nero and Kaiser were trying with every fiber of their being to keep Reynard from gaining control of their body, and most importantly, to keep him from releasing…it.

Tails and Richter ran up to Nero, panicking at what to do, but honestly, they have no idea what to do.

Nero and Kaiser's struggle was slowly failing, but it was all the insane hyena needed to have his influence reach a part of their being that they so desperately tried to keep locked away. The result….

….unleashing their worst nightmare.

Instantly, a hellish, dark yellow aura erupted from Nero's body, pushing back both Tails and Richter, while at the same time, forcing Reynard out of his body. The cannibal hit the ground and slowly stood, staring at Nero who still had his hands gripped to his head. Even though Reynard was forced out, Nero and Kaiser were now fighting something else.

Nero's eyes shot open and a look of absolute fear was plastered on his face. Something wanted to come out, and it wasn't going to stop until it did.

"No, no no no no…" Nero muttered.

Tails was shocked. He has never seen Nero this way before. The wolf's body was shaking violently. Then, there was a glow around his left eye, a black scar appearing over it. His pupil distorted and a yellow ring appeared in his iris.

"No please no, make it stop…!" Nero whined, struggling as much as he can, but the internal fight with Dr. Reynard mentally wore both Nero and Kaiser out.

"Make it, make it stop make it stop make it stop MAKE IT STOP!" Nero finally screamed.

Suddenly a black and yellow aura exploded out and covered his body. Nero was barely visible through all the energy; a black, hardened carapace began to form around his body. The black shell continued to grow and cover Nero's body. The shell spread and even covered his coat, gloves and boots. His tail was covered and spines grew out of his back along his spine. More, longer spines sprouted from the back of his head. It spread to his legs and feet, claws growing out of the toes. The shell finally covered his face and muzzle, extending out slightly longer and grew fang-like parts extending past his lower jaw. Through the entire ordeal, Nero was silent. He could no longer scream. His hands dropped to his sides as they too became covered and sprouted long, sharp claws at the fingertips. Nero closed his eyes as the shell covered them, unable to fight back any longer.

Tails stood in horror at what was happening to Nero. He suspected that Nero was hiding something, but never anything like this. Richter was right next to him, unable to act and unaware of what was happening. Dr. Reynard stood and watched, trying to figure out just what exactly he's unleashed.

The aura died down and what now stood before them in Nero's place was an entirely different creature. It looked like a black, armored reptilian creature with a thick, armored tail with spines growing from the back of its head and down its spine. Its elbows and knees had a spike running up its arms and legs. The hands had sharp, deadly claws as did its feet.

Suddenly, around its body, yellow patterns ran throughout its body as well as its joints began to glow. Then its eyes opened. They had solid glowing yellow sclera with black reptilian pupils. To top it off, it had four eyes, one pair above the other.

One set of eyes turned towards Richter and Tails, while the other pair turned to Dr. Reynard. It then promptly turned towards the undead hyena. Dr. Reynard didn't hesitate to levitate a few dozen sharpened bones and threw them at the creature. The creature didn't flinch as the bones just bounced off its armored carapace. It then turned towards Dr. Reynard and started to slowly walk towards him, its left arm growing an organic blade. The undead hyena wasn't going to back down and summoned his supernatural power to create a group of animated skeletons from the bones in the room. He ordered the small army to attack the creature without mercy. The skeletons charged at the creature, coming in from all sides. The creature didn't even pay any attention to the undead horde and kept walking towards the lich. Dr. Reynard just smirked as all the skeletons were within striking distance of the armored beast. Suddenly, the creature unleashed a massive, yellow energy shockwave, pushing everything back with great force. Dr. Reynard was forced back and slammed into a wall. Almost immediately, the creature impaled the hyena to the wall with its organic arm blade. The blade detached from its arm and left the lich hanging on the wall, unmoving. The creature turned around, now facing Richter and Tails.

Both mobians took a step back as the creature slowly advanced to them. They didn't know what to do. This thing took over Nero, and he's still in there somewhere, but they don't know how to get him back to his senses. Richter pulled up his hammer and got ready to fight, the only thing he can think of at the moment. The armored being sprouted an arm blade at each arm, readying itself, a set of eyes trained on both Tails and Richter, then suddenly all four eyes set on Tails. Tails began to panic more than usual until he noticed the creature start to slow down, its eyes and head started to twitch. Tails' ears perked at hearing Nero's thoughts from the creature.

"You….will…not…"

The creature's arm blades detached from its arms, the yellow parts of its body glowing brighter.

"THIS IS MY BODY!"

Suddenly, a part of the black armor shattered in its left shoulder, the creature's eyes widened and let out a deafening, ethereal roar. It was nothing like either Richter or Tails have ever heard. It sounded like the roaring of a monstrous beast mixed with the wailing sound of a crying infant. More parts of its carapace shattered, causing it to roar more intensely. It let out on last cry and the rest of the armor shattered, Nero dropping down to the ground, barely conscious. Tails ran up and knelt down by Nero, checking his condition. He was breathing, and whimpering, like he was having a nightmare. Tails let out a sigh of relief.

"Well that was anti-climactic." Richter said in disappointment, strapping his hammer on his back. He looked around the room and grabbed the staff of his hammer.

"Where did that zombie hyena go?"

Just as he said this, the lich appeared behind Richter, ready to take a bite out of his neck, that is, until a blue beam of energy blasted him across the room. Richter just stood there in shock at what almost happened. He then turned to Tails, who had his smoking hand pointed towards the hyena's direction. Just one look at Tails and one can easily tell that he was pissed.

Dr. Reynard stood up and glared at Tails, then smirked, his mouth drooling a bit.

"I will definitely enjoy eating you and that wolf!"

"No, because I won't let you. Jericho?"

Jericho separated from Tails, clearly as angry as Tails, his eyes glowing more intensely.

"With pleasure." Tails' other said.

Jericho's body began to emit a violent blue aura.

"Vanguard."

Jericho's body was covered in his aura, nearly blinding everyone in the room.

Yay, I was able to update here.

Freaken internet here sucks. At least I have a lot of free time to write and draw.

Anywho, I'm sure that you all will like Jericho's Vanguard.

Sorry if this seems rushed, but it's better than nothing.

R&R please!