"There is no great genius without some touch of madness."
- Seneca (5 BC - 65 AD)

Tails stood before Sally, unrepentant.

On her desk rested one of his newest designs. It was obviously fresh out of the Fab, even before the final layer of radar absorbent paint could be added. Watching Sally, pace, reading her reaction as she read his, he wondered who had told her about it. City wide electronic and military security arrangements were his domain. It was possible that Rotor had spilled the proverbial beans while the system was still being set up, but Tails found it more likely that Sally had men spying on his department. The thought of it made his left eyebrow twitch.

"Was there a reason you pulled me away from my work?" he finally asked.

"This, obviously!" she gestured to the device on her desk. It resembled a sphere with three petal-like wings. "This… I don't even know how to describe this!"

"It's a surveillance system," he explained, as if stating the most obvious thing in the world.

"It's a Spy-Eye!" Sally paced up to him, pointing at the machine.

"I take offense at that," Tails replied, holding up his hand and starting to tick off his fingers. "First, my Observation Platforms represent a far more versatile and efficient means of information gathering. The sensor package has been greatly increased without an appreciable increase in weight…"

"You took one of Robotnick's designs, Tails!" Sally yelled. He wondered if her Freedom Fighter Command office was soundproofed. "One of his designs! You… you want to use it on your own people?"

She was mad, he could see.

He closed his eyes. "There is no other efficient means of patrolling the areas outside of our direct oversight. The Ring. The Badlands. The Old Road. The Scar. These regions teem with threats equal to those in both Robotropolis and Megalopolis."

"Tails, you can't…!"

He opened his eyes, then, like chips of blue ice. "You don't have to. But I do. You don't want to. But I do. Since we don't have enough men, machines must make due."

She shook her head. "Did my father put you up to this?"

"His Majesty the King told me, and I quote, 'You may do what you feel necessary. I don't wish to know the details.'"

Sally made a choked, angry sound, before turning and resting her hands on her desk. Behind her, Tails tilted his head slightly.

"Let me handle these sorts of things, Aunt Sally," he said, lowering his voice slightly. "Do you remember when the refugees started flocking to Knothole, and no one knew what to do? Do you remember the smell of shit on the streets? The fighting over food? The panic whenever anyone thought they saw a SWATbot or robian they didn't recognize? Do you remember the fear in the air?"

Her body shook, ever so slightly, and he could tell that she did.

"It couldn't have been easy for you or the others. Sonic hasn't here. I wasn't here. When I came back, and I told you I could fix things… that I could build new sewage and water treatment systems, that I could power the city and still keep it hidden… you were skeptical then, too. You've always been skeptical of technology, but it's only a tool."

He stood next to her now, and with both hands he carefully picked up the Observation Platform. It did resemble a Spy-Eye, superficially. That couldn't really be helped. The propulsion system was almost the exact same.

"If you trust me, Aunt Sally, let me use this tool. To find the enemies of Knothole." He turned his head slightly, to look her in the eye. "Imagine the costs of our failure."

"I don't like this," she replied, palms balling into fists against her desk. "I don't think this is right…"

"Sally," he said, and gently put one of his hands on her own. "Who says you even knew about it? Just let me handle messy stuff like this. …Trust me?"

For a few seconds, she waffled.

But…

"I do trust you," she relented. "But please keep them out of the city itself."

He smiled.

"I never intended anything less."

THE CYCLE OF AGES

CHAPTER FIVE:

Some Touch of Madness (Dances in Twilight)

The Badlands

The raider base had once been the village of Newton, deep within the fertile breadbasket of the Kingdom of Acorn. It now lay just south of the disputed territories, between human occupied Megalopolis and the mobian occupied southern peninsula. It was a crossroads between those two regions and Knothole and Robotropolis to the west. A vast plain dotted by ruins and broken only occasionally by rolling hills, it was also a hub for bandits and raiders. Some were nomads, riding from suffering village to village, exacting tribute. Others were semi-legitimate and had once been villages themselves before supplanting their lifestyle by less than legal means. Three thousand feet above one particular ex-village, an OP-3 blinked.

Twenty minutes later, there were six of them in the air.

The vehicles were the first sign that something was wrong. In three minutes, all fifteen were a burning wreck, their fuel lines severed and set aflame by pinpoint lasers striking with surgical precision. Moments later, canisters launched from unknown locations began to smoke and hiss, filling the air with fumes… and the raiders' eyes with tears, their exposed membranes burning. A flying transport with ground troops landed soon after, amid the confusion. They burned the crops – illegal narcotics – freed those locals from other villages who had been forced into cultivating them, and proceeded with a wholesale arrest of the entire population. They would be processed en route and eventually delivered into the King's Justice.

Tails, however, had lost interest in them by that point. What the King chose to do with his dissidents and criminals wasn't the fox's business or his concern. What mattered was that he had had a successful test of the Vigilance System. As elusive as the Rogues and the two Others were, and as connected as they were to the underground outside of Knothole jurisdiction, he had had no choice but to up the ante.

It was like a hunt.

'Test Number One… successful,' he concluded. And proceeded to Test Number Two; this time the target was a suspected Robian chop-shop in The Ring. Now, as a rule, Tails had never judged those remains as robians, either due to their not wanting to risk the still imperfect de-roboticization process, or due to having family and friends unwilling to take that risk. The Process was free, provided to any and all by the Freedom Fighters themselves, so it simply came down to choice, which Tails could respect. However, he felt no remorse for those robians who went off on their own, got damaged, and then needed special repairs.

This was because the 'special repairs' robians needed in the field generally came from other robians. It was unsavory, and it made later de-roboticization all but impossible using current technology. Then there was the fact that he considered robians, even in their inorganic forms, to be sentient living beings. There was a reason why organ harvesting was illegal. Chop Shops weren't a high priority target for the Kingdom, but Tails felt it was time and effort well spent.

He watched as the OP-3s vertically enveloped the encampment, assembling remote evidence of the activities within. Most of the grizzly work went on in doors, inside a large tent-like facility, but snap shots of mobians and robians wheeling out 'spare parts' spoke more than a thousand words. Tails watched and waited, until everything was in place.

"Very well," he whispered into the microphone headset he wore. "Execute."

He watched on the banks of screens.

Was this Justice? Tails had no doubt that some would be tempted to call it that. In truth, he was simply cleaning house. The right and wrong of it was irrelevant. There were clouds in the sky. Miles Prower would sweep them all away.

The third test came at last: it was a trial of the passive surveillance routines built into the individual OP-3s. Each one carried a limited synthetic intelligence (no where near true AI level), and when it found something potentially troubling or interesting, it routed the alert and the alert level to the main servers in Knothole. Here, technicians would confirm the alerts. For added redundancy, and to assuage any of Sally's lingering concerns, he also had Nicole patched in remotely.

"Nicole. What is the operational status at present?"

Her preferred holographic representation was that of a green eyed teenage lynx. For her benefit, Tails had taken the liberty of installing a small holographic projector near his new Command Architecture Workstation. For all practical intents and purposes, Nicole would be the real backbone of the Vigilance System. To his surprise, the 'female' AI had accepted the job without apprehension. She appeared then, wearing a violet body hugging dress that shifted with numbers and variables.

"System is operating at 12 of capacity. Forty two drones currently on line. Twelve drones are under fabrication and outfitting. Recharge station is at 99.9 percent. Currently processing eleven violations."

"Eleven?" Tails asked, raising an eyebrow. "Already?"

My, how dirty the sky was; he had a lot of work to see to.

"Do you have any other requests, Tails?" Nicole asked, her lithe holographic form looking up at him.

"Hmm. I would like to be kept notified of any Class-4 disturbances or alerts," he replied, and then glanced away. "About the other day… Nicole. I'm sorry for that."

She shyly stared down at her feet.

"It was a little awkward," she admitted. "But it wasn't the first time someone tried to look at those files."

"The future…" Tails mused, allowing a creeping hint of doubt to enter his voice. "Tied to the past as it is, can we really change anything? For better or for worse? Or are we just trapped in this infinite causality? Moving forward but going no where?"

Nicole processed what he said, and held out her hand in sympathy.

"No one can say for certain whether the future we head towards is the 'best' one. Averting one tragedy may only cause others, worse ones, further along the line," she said, and despite being an AI, he could feel that she felt for him. She had to know what he suspected… about his parents.

"You know, Nicole…" he finally decided. "I'm glad I never saw those files. About my past or my future. I don't want to know what I've done, or will do."

"Miles," Nicole quickly caught herself. "Tails. I know you'll do what you feel is right. That's all anyone can ask of you."

"What I feel is right, huh?" he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "And if I become hated for it? And if I hate myself for it?"

At that, she was silent.

"Listen to me, worrying about things like an old man!" He snorted in unveiled disgust and got up out of his chair. "I'm going to take care of a few other things. You know how to contact me."

Nicole watched him go, a plaintive on her artificial features. Sometimes, she knew exactly how he felt. And she knew exactly how he would feel. But like her, he had his role to play, and there was no way now to recast it.

The Ring.

Silver the Hedgehog had expected the past to be better than the future. It was proving to be a major disappointment. He'd run into many more mobians over the last week or so than he had in the previous couple years, but they weren't exactly the sort he sought out in the first place. The mobians here were alive, even winning their war, but they were at each other's throats to a degree he'd never expected. He was stating to think that his future, as terrible as it was, had sheltered him from a lot of other evil as well.

Looking outside, he saw fires dotting the road, lighting it up against the darkening sky. Somewhere in the distance, a fire fight broke out, and it was impossible to tell who it was between. As far as he could tell, this close to Robotropolis, there were always Freedom Fighter fighting Eggman robots… and rival gangs fighting each other, and gangs fighting robots, and random people fighting each other. Recently, even the informal cease fire between the gangs and the FF had strained.

The apartment he shared with Blaze was a lot better than what most mobians here had. There was running water, even if he didn't dare to drink it without boiling first, and even plumbing. Some locally generated electricity fed the meager lights that hung, threadbare, overhead. A loud thump-thump came from overhead, shaking one of the lights gangling out of its fixture.

He kept a small radio on in the main room, mostly to ensure that everyone knew someone was present, and didn't try to squat or break in. There were a few underground stations, including one broadcasting propaganda from 'The Resistance and the Government in Exile.' The strongest station, dominating a range of air waves, came from Robotropolis itself. From within the city, voices called for mobians to turn themselves over for roboticization, freeing themselves from 'want and hunger, despair and all the weaknesses of the flesh.' It promised an electronic utopia, claiming that those who joined migrated to a silicon paradise.

It was a strange time.

Silver spun as he heard a distinctive knock at the door. Lifting one finger from across the room, Silver telekinetically undid the trio of locks on the door. Blaze entered, carrying a brown paper bag with a tear in it. He never said as much, but seeing her come back safe and sound always brought a huge feeling of relief to him. Saying as much would have just seemed strange, since she was the leader of their little duo, and tended to looking after him far more than he looked after her. She wore a hood and brown traveling cloak, all local stuff they'd gotten when they first arrived.

Putting the brown bag down on the rough old table in the middle of the room, Blaze reached up to pull back her hood. Her hair, normally styled upwards, was now too long, and ran down past her shoulder blades. The tiny jewel in the middle of her forehead remained unchanged, just as it always had. Walking over, Silver helped take out some of what she'd brought 'home.'

"What's this?" he asked, holding up a tightly wrapped foil package. It felt hot.

"That's for me. They had some fish today," she said, offering him a rare smile. "It'd be a nice change of pace…"

Silver screwed up his face in distaste. "Ugh! Fish! Don't know how you can stomach that stuff."

She held up another box, also warm. "Sweet buns. 'I don't know how you can stomach this stuff.'"

"Blaze!" Silver's eyes lit up with stars. Sweet buns! "You're the greatest ever! Have I told you that before?"

"You have," she replied, handing it over. "But there's nothing wrong with reiterating it."

She also unpacked a few vegetables, and a handful of canned meats and preserves. Some were obviously homemade, coming from nearby farms and villages, while others looked more sophisticated: vacuum sealed in plastic. Two large bottles followed. They had re-used them many times, and tonight, it looked like Blaze had gotten them some sweetened lemonade. Silver wondered how much Blaze had paid for all of it, but then guessed that no matter how much she had paid, he's have ended up spending three times as much. The barter system simply wasn't kind to the time traveling hedgehog.

The last thing Blaze retrieved was a deck of cards. "What was that game from the bar called?"

"Pazaak?" Silver asked, and chuckled. "Yeah. They play it a little different here. Guess they haven't invented Flip or Double cards yet. Want me to teach you?"

Blaze nodded.

"I'd be happy to!" Silver took the deck. It was a bit scuffed up, but it had the requisite ten number cards, and special face cards. He and Blaze ate, in between his explanations of how to play (and how to win), while the radio picked up on some pre-war music. It reminded him of how they'd first met, back in the future.

They'd both been trying to fight Iblis back then, but doing it individually. Blaze came from Cat Country, and he came from burned out the eastern coast of Mobius Minor. He had been fighting the demon as it approached a costal village, and, in trying to finish it off for good, he had ended up overwhelmed and injured. Blaze had intervened, saving his life in the process, and drawing the monster back into the wilderness. The village had been saved, at least for the moment, and it had been the first near victory over Iblis he had ever seen. Of course, nothing changed the fact that Iblis was immortal, and impossible to destroy for good.

Still, they had traveled together, on and off, ever since that day.

"Ace!" Blaze flipped over the card, revealing the ace of spades. "I win, don't I?"

Silver counted the cards laid out before them. Blaze's ace gave her a solid twenty. The laughed, playing another hand; they took turns being dealer, and while Blaze shuffled, Silver finished his dinner. In an hour, the two were finishing up. Blaze had proven to be a quick study, though he knew her serious but shy persona meant she'd probably never play the game with anyone besides him.

"Hey, Blaze…" he said, shuffling the deck for a fresh round. "Did you ever, kind of… have second thoughts about all this?"

"We've been down this road before, Silver," she replied, sipping at the bottled juice she'd bargained for at the market earlier. "Mephiles knows what he's doing. We just have to have a little faith in him."

"I guess," Silver conceded. "But all these criminals…"

"It isn't like we can ask anyone else for help here. Especially since The Trigger is some kind of worldwide hero…" She shook her head in open disbelief. "And the Trigger's enemies are even worse! There're no other options."

She made sense. The same kind of sense Mephiles made.

"It'll be worth it when we stop Iblis," he decided, hoping he sounded more convinced than he actually was.

Blaze smiled: a quiet confident grin. "Exactly."

That night, while Blaze slept in what passed for the bedroom, Silver rolled off the couch and stared out the window. The sky was clear and dark, and despite the light pollution from Robotropolis, he could see the stars bright as pinpricks against a black and infinite sheet. For a while, he just watched, soaking it all in.

Then he heard a scream.

Turning his attention back to the street, he saw a mobian, a black feline, being forced into a car. Two males, he couldn't make them out in the dark, seemed to have her by the shoulders. Silver frowned; she was probably a prostitute. He'd heard of such things, but never really seen them until his lovely little trip into the past. He hardly noticed his eyes narrowing as he watched them force her into the car and start to drive off.

'It isn't my business…' he reasoned, even as he rolled up the window. 'This all happened in the past, anyway. I shouldn't interfere.'

Drifting down to the street corner, he started to run.

'Yeah right, I shouldn't interfere!'

Cream rushed to prep her gear.

She had sent him a personal request to play a role in the 'ongoing security crisis' and his response had come hours later, in the form of a curt communiqué. He had said, in only a few more words, that he needed soldiers 'he could trust' to help run certain operations, and that he could use someone as backup on an 'interesting bit of news that just came up.' Gathering her standard Freedom Fighter kit, Cream headed over to their meeting point, zipping up her combat vest even as she flew out the door.

As per his orders, she told no one. Cream found him waiting for her near the old city hangar, where many of his vehicles were kept in storage. He seemed to be twirling a power ring around his index finger, but quickly tucked it away when she showed up. Unlike all the other times she had seen him he wore a full length jacket over his body, light brown in color.

"MAC-2?" he asked, seeing her weapon. Unlike before, she'd quickly fastened on the underslung grenade launcher, too. "Looks like you're expecting trouble."

A small smirk came and went on his features. The Mobian Assault Carbine mark II was his weapon. He had brought the original versions to the Freedom Fighters from Station Square, where he had paid for much of their construction and procurement out of his own pocket. The rest had come as part of the de facto alliance between the Kingdom and that human government neared completion. It was a shortened version of the MAF's now standard-issue assault rifle, fitting the need of the Freedom Fighters for a lightweight, compact carbine with rifle level firepower. The barrel was shortened, and the solid stock was replaced by a folding metal one. Cream kept the screw-on silencer in one of her pockets.

"Should I be expecting trouble?" she asked, unperturbed. In fact, it was starting to sound exciting.

Then, he did smirk. "Almost definitely…"

They took one of the armored motorcycles from before, but this time she sat with him like she had originally hoped. Holding onto him as they sped across the landscape, Cream allowed herself a moment's relaxation. He wasn't exactly like she'd expected him to be – Tails that was – but he was close. As much as she respected Sonic for all he'd done, she'd always known that Tails had been what really turned the war around for most of the normal, non-chaos-powered mobians. He had brought them weapons and tactics and hope, even if they were rented from the humans that most mobians held hatred and contempt for. Mobian society had been developing an acute anti-technology bias that he had pushed back against. And once exposed to it, few had wanted to give it up, even as they resented the very mobian who crammed it down their throats.

For a long time, she had had dreams about him. They had started rather abruptly, years ago, before she had even been certified for training, much less combat. It was hard to tell why. She hadn't even seen him by that point, and Bunnie didn't write home that much either. When she had heard of him, and even seen him a few times in passing, back when she was a raw recruit, it had reinforced her drive to excel. Cream wouldn't go so far as to say she was a Freedom Fighter because of him, but she was alive because of what he had done: kick some sense into the movement.

And even if no one else thought so, she thought he was cute, to boot!

The Ring, again. She recognized the route; it took them past the Breeding Grounds nightclub, and deeper into the old suburbs. They soon left the sound of music behind them as Tails turned the vehicle slightly, heading towards a mostly intact chateau. Hedgerows rose up on all sides as they grew closer. A grand old fountain gradually emerged, long since dried up but nonetheless imposing in stature. Statues stood in relief, great figures with hands outstretched towards the heavens, children at their feet with laurels and flowers.

Tails parked behind the fountain, and they slid off.

"What now?" she asked, looking over the creepy looking villa. The windows were boarded up, but a faint light from inside shone through the cracks in the massive front door. Dark, dying trees, all branches and no leaves, flanked the sides. She looked around, to the left and right, but found no other obvious lights.

"Back off about a hundred meters and wait for me," he said, heading towards the entrance.

"That's it?" she called after him. "But what about…?"

"If I need you..." He paused, and turned slightly so she could see his face. "You'll notice."

She didn't argue. "Yes, sir."

"Don't worry so much," he added, and went up to the doors. They creaked and groaned as he opened them, and then he stepped inside and out of sight.

Inside the chateau loomed a curved double staircase leading up to a second floor. Tails passed under it, heading for the light. His ears twitched at the sound of voices, and weight shifting on wood. He counted off in his head, and then opened another set of smaller doors. Here, at last, he came face to face with the source of the light: the room inside had modular light posts set up in the four corners, bathing it in an ample glow. Drapes covered the walls, hastily adorned with paintings. The floor was recently swept, and Tails' red, white and black boots made a distinct tap-tap sound as the steel soles, built for grinding, hit the colored tile. The mosaic underfoot was of the Source of All granting power to the First King, Alexander the Golden.

In the center of the room, legs crossed and reclining on a perfectly clean couch, sat a single male lynx. He wore a plain white shirt and tie, and black pants. An empty holster and chest strap led Tails' eyes to the firearm resting on the table in front of him. Tails recognized it instantly: a GAST M30S. It was a locked breech, delayed recoil operated, double action semi-automatic handgun in use by the Royal Secret Service and only issued in extremely limited numbers. The 'S' designation stood for 'Special,' indicating a specific variant made just for the RSS. The gun was light weight, capable of very swift reloading, and produced relatively low sound with an attached suppressor. This one also seemed to have an extended clip loaded.

The presence of the weapon sent a simple message: 'We have people in the Royal Secret Service. We can get weapons only they should have. We're not to be screwed around with.'

"Let's talk business," the lynx said, indicating the couch opposite his, with two ottomans for reclining one's feet on. Sliding one of the ottomans off to the side, Tails sat down on it, hands on his knees.

"I'm listening."

"How long have you been a… Freedom Fighter?" The lynx asked, obviously not meaning for the question to be answered. "Eight years? Is that about right? …I bet it is."

"Something like that," Tails conceded.

"I can respect that. You've done some good work. In fact…" he offered the fox a sympathetic smile. "We're more alike than you probably think. And I owe you a lot, given the business I'm in. That we're in."

"The business we're in?"

"That's right," the lynx said, nodding congenially. "The business we're in. Except you operate on a whole other level than I do. I can arm gangs and individuals, even villages. I have a special discount for villages! But you. You! You arm entire movements. How many tons of weapons flow through your hands, and I bet you hardly give them a second thought!"

"I give them more thought than you think," Tails replied, coolly.

"I suppose that may be so," the lynx agreed. "I look up to you, in a way. I would have never even dared to approach the humans to negotiate an arms deal. But you have that genius intellect of yours. I remember being in Knothole, once. You did this charity thing – you played chess against twenty other mobians, at the same time. That was amazing, I thought. I could never do that!"

"You opened up new horizons!" the lynx continued, gesturing with his right hand. "And where the Freedom Fighters went, fighting those Eggman monstrosities, people like myself followed. The mobians you protected want to protect themselves, after all. And they want all the things this war has taken from them, besides simple security. The concept of luxury… is universal."

"Very entrepreneurial," Tails replied.

"I like the Freedom Fighters, I really do," the lynx admitted, resting his hands on his crossed legs. "I want you to know that. Don't think there aren't a lot of people in my organization – and others! – that appreciate what you've all done for us."

He held up a hand, and one finger. "But…!"

"We simply can't sit by while you move against us, either. We've fought, too. Fought hard, to carve out a life out here. We didn't all have hidden facilities in the Great Forest to run back to. We didn't have magical chaos powers." The lynx closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "With our teeth and our claws, we survived and made lives for ourselves. We have lifestyles of our own, and families to support. So…"

"How am I to take it when you do something like this?" he asked, sounding more hurt than anything else. "Your movement has felt free to use us in the past. I thought we had an understanding, Knothole and The Ring. You fight the good fight, even in our backyard if you have to, but you leave us alone to conduct business as we see fit. Now this! Raids? A Fixer facility? A… pharmaceutical enterprise? Why? Why would you do this?"

Tails didn't respond at first. He seemed to be digesting the lynx's words. He even nodded slightly, finding himself agreeing, and even sympathetic, to some of what he had heard. Across from the fox, the lynx sensed that Tails was thinking it over.

"We don't have to be enemies," he added, and with no small amount of flair, he retrieved a small, clear bottle. "This is overland brandy. Right now, this is one of the more expensive drinks on the planet, outside of human territory. Share it with me, and we'll work out a deal we can both live with."

"What could you offer me?" Tails asked, finally speaking up.

"Anything you want. Money. Women. Artifacts! …Information."

"On your clients?"

"Now, now," the lynx waggled his finger. "I wouldn't be in business if I played kiss and tell."

"Of course not."

"I'm prepared to give you a cut. We are." The lynx smiled; the smile of a salesman. "5, off the top. Of everything. We have men working in Internal Finance. We can route it all to an account in Echidnapolis. No one will ever know, and when the war is over, you'll be one of the richest mobians on the planet. You can even raid one or two places, once in a while… to keep up appearances."

Tails nodded in apparent acquiescence. "That's all very generous. If you were me, you'd probably accept."

"I would, if I were you."

"And I would accept… if I were you." Tails pointed at the lynx. "But I'm not you. I don't negotiate or compromise my principles. And I don't negotiate… when I can win, instead."

The lynx's cordial demeanor shifted instantly into a deep scowl. "Win? You think you can win? You've just signed your own death warrant." He spoke into one of the buttons on his shirt. "It looks like the deal has fallen through. Captain Anderson?"

"Ohhhh…" Tails stood up, craning his neck back and forth. "I was wondering what his name was."

The first of them stormed in from behind. Tails slid his foot in front of the ottoman he had just been sitting on, and kicked it back behind him, hitting the mercenary as he entered the room. The soldier of fortune fell back into one of his comrades, submachine gun firing wildly. Tails then took that same foot, brought it up and around, and slammed it into the table between himself and the underworld negotiator. The other end of the table immediately came up, hitting the lynx on the wrist as he reached for his weapon, and throwing the GAST M30S into the air.

Tails caught it with his right hand and immediately took a step to the side, pivoting as he took aim at another mercenary crashing in through a false part of the drape-covered wall. The bullet tore into his hand, followed by another that blew out his knee, sending him sprawling and screaming in pain. Tails then turned, again, and aimed upwards at the ceiling. The sound of heavy boots could be heard, and he fired upwards, two times, and then two more. Two heavy weights hit the floor, but no more footfalls.

Tails' tails spun, covering his sides almost from head to toe. Bullets hit them, only to ricochet. Shifting his stance and using his tails as shields, Tails advanced on two mercenaries who had broken in through another wall. The GAST barked, over and over, and the men fell to the ground, clutching their legs and arms. He then turned around, completely, and fired in the other direction, silencing another weapon firing from behind the cover of the wall.

More noise came from the original entrance to the room; Tails turned to face it, his namesake's shifting to block and cover his front. Behind him, the lynx scrambled to get away. Tails spared two shots and blew out his right knee. Then the last two mercenaries busted in through the main doors, having finally either tossed aside or stepped over their two wounded comrades. The first down, like so many others, to a trio of bullets aimed at his legs. He slumped and the mobian behind him pushed, using him partly as a shield. Tails rushed in, taking one last shot, before facing the onrush of automatic fire.

Lowering his smoking tails, he grabbed the mercenary's gun with his left hand, around the slide, and twisted, breaking the soldier's finger. Tails then slammed his palm into the large mobian's chest, sending his back crashing into the wall. Grabbing the mercenary's vest, the kitsune fox followed up with a throw that send him clean across the room, crashing into and knocking over the couch the negotiator had once been sitting on. Ejecting the GAST's now empty extended clip, Tails held it in two hands and took it apart with a simple motion. Letting the pieces fall to the ground at his feet, he rolled his shoulders.

"So," he asked, looking around the room at the wounded and beaten mobians. "Which one of you is Captain Anderson?"

Clutching his leg, the lynx laughed.

"… Ah!" Tails slowly turned around again.

He should have smelt them coming.

"I see."

But he had gotten sloppy, and forgotten.

The body of one of the mercenaries by the front door flew through the room, followed by another. Taking their place was a creature, not flesh and blood, but metal and conductive fluid. It took on the shape of a mobian, but with sharp angles and solid surfaces. No crude construct, it was composed of so called biosteel – the unusual metal resulting from the roboticization process.

"Robians," Tails said the word, but without contempt. He reached into his jacket for the first time. "Well, you chose to be here, didn't you?"

Normal bullets would still have been somewhat effective against a robian, even a war-mod robian like one could encounter deeper in Robotropolis territory. But up-armored as these were, one had to rely on more specialized equipment to make a quick fight of things. The weapon Tails retrieved from his person was carbine length, but with an unusual bullpup configuration; with a horizontally mounted, vertically loaded box magazine. This gave it a stocky, stubby, box-like appearance. There seemed to be no other attachments, be it a scope or flash suppressor. The phrase "I'd Love 2" was written on the side in black.

Holding the weapon up to his shoulder, Tails braced himself, took aim and fired.

Captain Anderson had time to get off a single shot from his arm mounted cannon. Then an expanding crater in the middle of the robian's chest appeared, the force of the impact kicking the synthetic lifeform like a mule. Its feet actually left the ground. Tails fired again, blowing another crater in its torso, just a few inches from the original point of impact. A third round punched clean through and tossed the robian onto its back.

"Oh…?" Tails took a step back, and rubbed his shoulder with his left hand. It came back bloody. He'd been nicked, and the recoil from using the rifle had further opened the wound. Not that it mattered.

"You know," he said aloud. That robian had been pretty tough, himself. "Maybe I should have kept the AP ammo loaded instead?"

Tails pivoted, and saw the lynx negotiator squeezing through the back door, heading towards the dried up pool behind the house. Lowering his weapon, he walked around the fallen couch, and towards the door. Casually opening it, he followed the wounded mobian outside.

"You brought this on yourself, you know," Tails said, taking his time. The lynx continued to crawl towards the empty pool. Once, the villa would have had a beautiful back yard, stretching into gardens. Now it was just an overgrown maze. He assumed that was where his quarry was headed.

"Why not come along quietly?" Tails asked, just about caught up now. "I know you've dealt with the Rogues and their cohorts. You're going to tell me everything I want to know about…"

That was when the flood lights turned on.

"Hello there," came a familiar voice, far behind the blinding light. Tails partly covered his eyes, as they began to adjust. He counted: one, two, three. Three battle mechs. There also appeared to be at least thirty SWATbots in attendance. Sitting in the pilot seat of the centermost mech, Snively seemed to be rather enjoying himself.

Tails licked his lower lip.

"Snively." He didn't try and spin a colorful nickname. That was more Sonic's shtick. "It's been a while. How you holding up?"

"Oh, you know," the lead mech said, tilting its anthropomorphic and stylized head. "The usual."

"No rest for the wicked, huh?"

"Afraid not."

"I didn't expect you'd get an invite to this little house party," Tails continued, glancing at the wounded lynx. He seemed a little shocked by the recent arrivals himself.

"I was supposed to wait for some kind of signal," Snively explained. "But you know me. I'm impatient. And I was going to kill all you furry freaks anyway."

"Making a deal with you…"

"I know," Snively drolly replied. "Not too smart, are they?"

Tails' namesakes started to save back and forth, like snakes eager to strike. Normally, the situation would have left him at least a little panicked. Things that didn't go as planned usually had that effect on him. But this time… this time, he felt his blood boiling with excitement. One could say that the little scuffle before had gotten his engine going, so to speak. He leveled his Carbine Custom 'Love' Type 2 at the lead mech.

"Let's have some fun."

The man in ten meter tall battle armor chuckled.

"Yes. Let's!"