Cosmo was pinching the bridge of her nose, trying without success to stem the flow of blood pouring out from it. I can't think of a fitting punishment for that girl right now, she thought bitterly, reaching out for her comlink, but then the world was rent apart by a flash of deepest purple light, accompanied by a scream of pain, and then she thought, I guess I've found one.
Whirling around, the Seedrian emitted a gasp of shock when she saw Sonic, standing stock still with one hand pinning an invisible person to a tree. "Donic!" she cried, silently cursing when she realized her nose was broken. "Are you albight?"
Sonic immediately spun around, and his expression of self-disgust morphed into one of horror when he took in her blood-coated face. "Cosmo!" he gasped, crossing the distance between them in less than a second. "Shit, your face! Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," she managed to say, pinching the bridge of her nose again. "Bud – de oders -"
Sonic had already gone, sprinting towards the place where Rouge had slammed against an evergreen tree. Cosmo staggered off towards where she knew Tails was lying slumped in a mass of bushes, each stride bringing with it a groan of pain from her abused muscles, but she put her suffering aside when she located Tails, a thin trickle of blood cascading down his forehead, his breathing laboured, shallow. Her eyes widening in panic, Cosmo seized the fox by the ankles and began to drag him out of the shrubbery, but no sooner had she disentangled him than Sonic appeared at her side, growling impatiently as he swung Tails over one shoulder, and she over the other, and dashed towards the center of the clearing, depositing the pair of them beside the unconscious Rouge and Knuckles. Cosmo opened her mouth to protest to being rendered useless like this, but then there was a flash of deepest purple light, and then pain in her nose was gone, as was the burning in her muscles.
"Thanks," she muttered, wiping the blood off of her face on the back of her hand. Sonic nodded, rolling back on the balls of his feet, anxiety etched upon his face as he stared down at their unconscious friends, but Cosmo doubted if he was registering what he was seeing; his mind was undoubtedly focused upon Amy, their final quest, and how she was imprisoned far away from her, like a sitting duck waiting for Illumina-
"Sonic!" Cosmo cried, her eyes snapping back into focus. "We've got to wake them up! We have no time to waste!"
Sonic nodded, then bent over Knuckles, shaking his shoulder roughly. Cream and Cheese wandered over and settled themselves beside Rouge, politely asking for her to wake up, and Cosmo sank down to her knees beside Tails, shaking his shoulder gently.
"Tails," she hissed, her eyes bright with anxiety as she slapped him gently on the cheek. "Tails, wake up, we've got to go!"
It took them several minutes to wake up the three of them, but eventually, everyone was alert, though Rouge had needed a minute to calm down after being woken up by 'an annoying squirt' as she had put it.
"Okay," Tails addressed the group at large, not looking up from his furious tapping on his comlink. "Amy is fifteen miles west and three miles north of where we are now. It looks like it's just open space, so we probably won't have to worry about getting separated again."
Sonic nodded, looking impatient to get going. "Rouge," he said, turning to face the bat. "Do you mind carrying Knuckles?"
"Not at all," purred Rouge, throwing Knuckles an angelic look, and Cosmo was forced to turn her back on the pair, her lips pressed tightly together to suppress her laughter.
"Can we play 'I Spy' again, Tails?" squealed Cream, tugging on Tails' elbow and jumping up and down with excitement.
"Maybe," Tails muttered, scooping Cream up and turning to look at Sonic and Cosmo over his shoulder. "More like, 'I Spy Knuckles and Rouge making out'."
At this, Sonic and Cosmo burst into laughter, causing Rouge to hiss angrily and leap into the air, Knuckles caught up in her arms. Their laughter only petered away when Tails, Cream and Cheese had become nothing more than black specks against the dawn sky, and then the seriousness of the situation set in once more, prompting Sonic to sling Cosmo over his shoulder and take off with a supersonic burst of sound, able to easily navigate the forest now that the sun was rising.
Will we be too late? Cosmo couldn't help but wonder, her hands clasped around Sonic's shoulder. Will Illumina have already gotten to Amy? She's had plenty of time, and if Amy's who she's been after all along, what's to say the pair of them haven't been gone for hours? Then, Why is it that the person we need to save the most is always the last we get to?
But Cosmo couldn't help but think that Lumina might have enchanted Amy's prison the most heavily, that the Maginaire had expected Illumina to go after her. Perhaps Amy is more central to all this than we know, Cosmo mused, her eyes sliding closed as she contemplated their situation. But why, why, couldn't Lumina have told us everything we needed to know back in the Tornado?
"Cosmo, check your comlink!" Sonic's urgent shout tore her from her thoughts, and, with a huge start, Cosmo was wrenched back to the present. With a gasp of alarm, she twisted her wrist around so that she could see her comlink's screen, and she was shocked to see that, after five minutes' impossibly fast sprinting, they were already halfway to their destination. At this rate, they would reach Amy in ten minutes, a journey that would take the others at least three times as long.
"We're halfway there, Sonic," she informed the hedgehog, who merely nodded, clearly too stressed to talk.
I can't imagine what he's going through right now, Cosmo thought, casting a sorrowful look at the back of Sonic's head. Well, actually I can, but still, the situation is more tense right now than it was back in the Temple of Light. And at least I didn't have to watch Tails die right before my eyes-
"Howdy," Rouge's voice tore Cosmo away from her thoughts, and with an alarmed cry she turned her head to face the bat, who looked immensely pleased with herself as she sped alongside Sonic.
"Wha – Rouge?" Sonic shouted, rearing his head back in alarm as he took in the thief and her passenger. "But...how are you -?"
"What's up, Sonic?" Tails asked from behind them, and with a shout, Sonic put on a burst of sound and sprinted away from the two airborne creatures, whose sudden appearance seemed to be too much for him. Laughing softly, Rouge kept pace with him easily, her wings beating so fast that they were no more distinct than two black streaks.
"Relax, hedgehog," the thief murmured, enjoyment etched upon her face. "There's no need to lose your pants."
"Not that you're wearing any," noted Knuckles, and the two of them snorted with laughter. Sonic, who had already heard the joke once that day, rolled his eyes and attempted to direct the conversation away from the subject.
"How are you keeping up?" he demanded, sounding slightly panicked. Cosmo, too, was intrigued, for she was certain that the energy to naturally travel faster than the speed of sound was absent in any being except for Sonic.
"Power tablets," Tails informed them, and both Sonic and Cosmo's heads swivelled around to face the fox. "It was Rouge's idea, and we wouldn't have had to use them at all if you didn't run like a maniac."
Sonic opened his mouth to respond, but Cream giggled shrilly and Tails waved him down, a slight smile upon his face. "It's alright, Sonic. And anyways, we've still got two tablets left, but only for emergency use."
"How the hell did you make those things, Tails?" Knuckles demanded from Rouge's arms, sounding slightly disgruntled at not being offered a Chaos Emerald. To Cosmo's surprise, the fox shifted uncomfortably, averting his eyes from Sonic's, and he answered very fast, as though getting the facts out quickly would make it less unpleasant for them to hear.
"Well...I, um...developed them just after Chaos shattered the Master Emerald. You were unconscious," he added, forcing himself to meet Sonic's eyes guiltily. "-and Amy almost bit my head off when I suggested it, but –"
"Stop babbling, Tails," Knuckles cut across the fox in a warning voice. "Tell us what's in those tablets."
Tails gulped nervously, then, looking quickly around the assembled group, cleared his throat and said, "Well...I...um...I took some of your DNA Sonic, so it's sorta like when you take a fake Chaos Emerald, you gain your abilities for half an hour."
"Urgh!" Rouge cried theatrically, pretending to swoon at the fox's words. "You mean I ate part of him?"
"Gross," Sonic hissed, mocking disgust as he turned to face Tails. "You let her eat part of me?"
Everyone laughed, though Tails' was slightly nervous, and Cosmo, still smiling, twisted her wrist around to check on their progress, only to have the grin freeze when she realized they had passed their mark.
"STOP!" she shouted, and Sonic immediately froze, his limbs suspended comically in mid-step. "We've gone too far!"
Like a bullet from a gun, Sonic turned around and sprinted away from where Rouge and Tails had fallen out of the air in surprise, outstripping both sound and light in his haste to reach the place where Amy was waiting for them.
"Okay!" Cosmo managed to choke out through lips rippling with G force. Sonic dug his heels into the ground to halt his chaotic progress, splattering them both with muck. Cosmo slid off Sonic's back, wiping sand-coloured dirt from her eyes, spitting out a mouthful of the stuff as Rouge, Knuckles, Tails, Cream and Cheese alighted around them.
"Thanks for the short notice," Rouge grumbled, clearly disgruntled, but Cosmo merely shrugged unconcernedly; the time for pleasantries had come and gone.
"So where is Amy?" Knuckles asked, gazing around the empty space around them, probing the rapidly shrinking shadows for the sign of a brightly coloured crystal, looking thoroughly unimpressed.
"I'd bet she's either in the sky, like Cream was, or underground," Tails offered, his bright blue eyes scanning the cloudless orangy-pink sky above them, a trace of fear in his eyes when he took in the absence of their bright pink friend. "Rouge, Cream, let's check it out."
The latters nodded and made to jump into the air, but there was a loud squelching sound, and the three Mobians found that they could not jump into the air. "What the -?" Rouge muttered, trying without success to pull her white boots free of the thick sandy mud beneath them. Suddenly, Sonic's eyes widened with comprehension, and he exchanged a panicked look with Tails before gasping, "Quicksand!"
On that word, everyone proceeded to explode into panic as loudly as they could; Cream squealed shrilly, already submerged up to her waist, while Cheese wailed, "Chao Chao!" over and over again while pulling on one of her floppy ears. Rouge and Tails hopped up and down, wings and tails flapping frantically as they attempted to hoist their owners into the air, and Sonic attempted to run out of the quicksand, but to no avail. Knuckles bent over and tried to yank his legs free, lost his balance and fell onto his rear, where he proceeded to sink faster than Cream.
Soon, everyone was submerged up to their chests – and in Cream's and Knuckles' cases, their necks – by which time the panicking had stopped, for each member of the group realized that escape was, for once, impossible.
"KNUCKLES!" screamed Rouge, and she seized a handful of the echidna's hair and yanked on it harshly, only to release him when he yelled in pain. Meanwhile, the combined efforts of Sonic, Tails, Cosmo and Cheese were not enough to pull an almost totally obscured Cream from out of the quicksand.
"Hold your breath, Cream!" Tails yelled, releasing the rabbit's ears as her mouth became submerged. Brown eyes huge with panic, Cream sank out of view, and Cheese, wailing as he held onto one of his friend's ears, vanished as well. Rouge let out an agonized sob as Knuckles disappeared as well, and Cosmo, feeling her neck slip under, tilted her head to face the sky, thinking, This is it. We are about to die. Illumina has already come and gone, and Amy's with her. She left a trace of her magic to lure us here, and placed the quicksand so that we would suffocate.
Just as her face was about to slip under, she felt her feet break through what seemed to be the bottom of the quicksand, and they dangled in what she thought was empty space. She only had time to exchange a panicked look with Tails before her head slipped under, and she forced her eyes shut, reaching one hand up to cover her mouth and nose, forcing herself not to panic, trying not to examine the possibility that she was about to die.
For a moment she hung there, the inescapable wetness that was the quicksand crushing against her from all sides. And then, just when she was about to suck in a breath, she slipped through the quicksand, falling out into empty space. It was cold and damp, and then she had landed on a slimy, jagged rocky surface that sloped steeply downwards. It took her a moment to realize that she was screaming, and she promptly clamped a hand over her mouth, for it did no good to scream, something she had long since learned-
Suddenly, the slide flattened out, and Cosmo was ejected from it with impossible speed, slamming hard into something very furry with a surprised "Oof!"
"Get off of me!" came Knuckles' muffled grunt from beneath her, and Cosmo immediately rolled off of him, moaning in pain.
"Sorry!" she stammered, groping through the blackness for the echidna's hand. "I didn't mean to knock you – OW!"
For someone had just slammed into her and Knuckles with a "Woah!" of surprise, knocking the pair of them off of their feet.
"Get off!" growled Knuckles, rolling out from beneath the newcomer.
"Knuckles?" hissed Tails from on top of her.
"Tails!" Cosmo gasped out, trying to shove the fox off of her, (he was sort of heavy). "Do you mind?"
"Sorry!" he stammered, rolling off her. Breathing heavily, Cosmo allowed him to help her to her feet, massaging her ribs.
"Is someone there?" came Cream's voice from somewhere behind them, sounding scared.
"Cream!" whispered Cosmo and Tails, feeling their way towards the rabbit, but then there was a rush of air and Cosmo found herself sandwiched between the floor and two heavy bodies.
"Dammit, get off!" protested Knuckles, squirming out from between her and the newcomer.
"Knuckles?" Rouge murmured, sounding intrigued.
"Rouge!" Knuckles hissed, instantly alert.
"Can you please get off?" whispered Cosmo, shoving valiantly against Rouge's body – she was heavier than Tails.
"Sorry, kiddo," Rouge apologized, leaping off of her. Cosmo groaned and sat up, just in time to hear someone give a surprised "WHOAH!" as they were ejected from the slide, and by the sounds of it, they slammed into another set of bodies.
Knuckles was swearing, having been knocked over yet again, and Sonic was muttering, "Damn, sorry Knucklehead."
"Sonic?" Tails hissed, from somewhere nearby.
"Tails?" Sonic demanded, apparently rolling off of Knuckles.
"Sonic?" Rouge hissed.
"Rouge?"
"Rouge is here?" Cream whispered from behind Cosmo.
"Squirt?" the thief murmured, sounding overwhelmed.
"Wait, where's Cheese?" Sonic demanded, alarmed.
"Chao, Chao!" piped up the Chao.
"Wait, what about Cosmo?" Rouge muttered.
"Right here," Cosmo grumbled, annoyed that it had taken them so long to remember her.
"Hang on, where's -" began Sonic, but then Knuckles exploded, "RIGHT HERE! PLEASE, DON'T START THAT AGAIN!"
There was silence for a minute, during which Knuckles' shout echoed off the underground walls, and then Sonic broke it, his voice tauntingly snide. "Sure thing, Knucky. If it's hurting your poor brain, that is."
"Why you -"
"Does anyone have a match?" Rouge cut across Knuckles' retort with a slight smile in her voice.
"I can go one better," Tails offered, and Cosmo could hear him tapping furiously on his comlink. How he could see in the darkness was anyone's guess, but then, a wide arc of dazzling white light had appeared before them, aimed slowly into everyone's faces by Tails. When it became apparent that everyone was present, he directed it at the walls of their underground surroundings, revealing them to be in a large, roughly circular room with slimy coal black walls and sinister stalactites hanging from the ceiling.
"So, where's Amy?" Knuckles asked from beside Tails, still looking slightly angry. The fox shook his head, frowning slightly.
"I don't know. According to the scanner, we're in the Maginaryworld energy right now, so we're going to have to look for her in the dark."
"Oh ha-ha," Knuckles muttered sarcastically, but no one paid him any attention; Rouge, however, cocked her head to one side and opened her mouth wide, staring at a spot in the blackness. Cosmo threw her a questioning look and then Rouge, a smile spreading across her face, turned to face the group at large, all of them looking thoroughly mystified.
"We're headed that way," she informed them, pointing to a spot in the wall, and Tails, his eyes widening in comprehension, gasped, "Echolocation!"
Rouge winked at the fox, and then continued. "Get ready to get dirty, boys and girls; we're going to have to crawl."
Sonic was not particularly afraid of tight, enclosed spaces, but he was teetering on the brink of an explosion of anger at what was happening right now; the others had insisted that he crawl with the rest of them, that it would be too dangerous for him to go alone. Sonic snorted, unimpressed, and Tails threw him an alarmed look over his shoulder; dangerous might as well have been his middle name.
But he had been outvoted, and so now he was crawling at a pace that a snail could outstrip with ease, fuming silently. Rouge was in the lead, claiming that they would be lost without her echolocation, radiating smugness; Tails came next, having to do more of a crouched run than a crawl, for he was in charge of lighting the path before them up so that Rouge did not have to rely entirely upon her special talent. Next came Sonic, followed by Cosmo, then Cream, Cheese and Knuckles. He had not wanted Cream and Cheese to accompany them at all, for they would be prime targets as hostages in the coming battle, but Cosmo had protested to leaving them behind in the main chamber and hypocritically refused to watch them herself. So Cream, much to her smugness, was crawling along behind him right now, unable to comprehend the danger she was slowly approaching.
They don't belong here at all, Sonic thought, wiping grime from his eyes. They're way too young, I should have taken them to Tails' workshop, at the very least. For God's sake, they're hardly out of diapers! And Cosmo probably shouldn't be here, either, he added as an afterthought. She didn't sign up for this, and she's no fighter; at least Knuckles and Tails were in this from the start. Rouge saw what Illumina can do, and she's still sticking with us, and Amy...Amy's up ahead right now, waiting to be rescued. By the gods, we had better reach her.
Rouge's gasp of wonder tore him violently from his thoughts; fearing attack, Sonic's eyes snapped back into focus, shifting around in search of her cause of alarm. It took him a second, but then he realized that there was a dazzling white light with thousands of individual sparks inside it emanating out from around the corner, mingling with the light from Tails' comlink. It took every single ounce of his willpower to keep himself from shoving Rouge and Tails out of his way and sprinting towards the place where Amy was, and he contented himself with a hiss of, "Go! Go!"
The excited, rapid breathing of his friends echoing off the walls behind him, Sonic followed Rouge around the corner, and was unable to stifle a gasp; the light had become blinding, obscuring absolutely everything, despite his frantic probes for a sign of Amy hidden in its brightness. Suddenly, Rouge threw herself forwards, her wings unfurling from her sides, and seconds later, Tails followed her. Sonic was about to shout in alarm when the light before him cleared to reveal a decent sized circular hole right in front of him, looking down into a vast, cylindrical stone room. With a grunt of effort, Sonic launched himself off of his perch, turning a controlled somersault as he did so and landing lightly on his feet beside where Rouge and Tails were brushing themselves off.
Immediately, he probed their new surroundings; the stone ceiling was about twenty feet above them, and the entire space had clearly been carved magically. The dazzling white light bounced off the walls in weird, disco ball-like patterns, giving the room an unfittingly cheery feeling. But Sonic was not paying any attention to this; his eyes had long since zeroed in on what was in the center of the room.
Upon a rough stone altar sat a clump of pristinely white crystals, hundreds of tiny ones littering the base of the main one, which was six feet high. Suspended inside it was, at long last, Amy, her eyes closed, standing upright just like everyone else had been, no longer a burnt, black colour, but returned to her usual light pink. Her gloved hands were resting against the surface of her prison at chest level as though she were trying to shove it off...as though she were aware of the direness of their situation.
"Ve-e-ry nice," Rouge commented, enunciating each syllable with a slight whistle in her voice. Sonic was anchored back into the present by her comment, and he turned to see that the bat, just like him, was staring at Amy, though she was not regarding her crystal as an obstacle, but treasure.
Knuckles, Cosmo, Cream and Cheese had landed around him, all of them coated in grime, each wearing an expression that perfectly portrayed their emotions, for this final challenge, freeing their last friend, had a different meaning to each of them; to Rouge, it meant repaying her debt; to Knuckles, it meant a big fight; to Tails, it was making sure no one died this time; to Cosmo, it meant revenge upon Illumina; to Cream and Cheese, it was proving their usefulness. But to Sonic, it meant finally seeing Amy alive again.
Sonic's eyes flickered around the room, probing the shadows, searching for confirmation that they were alone. It legitimately seemed like there was no one else in the room but them, no one visible at least. The thought did not calm him.
"Alright, listen up," he hissed, when he decided there was nothing else he could do for the situation. "I have no idea why Illumina's not here right now, but I'm sure that that Epona girl set up a trap before she died. Rouge, Knuckles, you're with me; we're going to try to get the crystal. Cream, Cheese, Cosmo and Tails, stick to the shadows. If there's anything in here, they're going to be concentrating on trying to stop us from reaching Amy, so you should be safe if you're perfectly quiet."
The seriousness of his voice was such that not even Tails protested to being left behind, and, as one, the group of non-fighters backed against the wall, immediately becoming immersed in shadows and reduced to nothing more than silhouettes. Sonic took a slow, deep breath through his nose, then turned to face Knuckles and Rouge, both of whom looked perfectly calm, relaxed, anticipating expressions on their faces. What did they have to be afraid of? After all, there was no one in the room but them...right?
"I'll touch the crystal," Sonic announced, looking seriously into each of his friends' eyes. "When that happens, I'll have no idea what's going on here, so you two are going to have to cover for me."
"Sure thing," Rouge nodded, winking slyly at him.
"Gotcha," Knuckles grunted, biceps flexing. Sonic stared at them both for a minute, then clapped Knuckles on the shoulder and clasped hands briefly with Rouge.
"Then let's do this," he growled, launching himself forwards in the direction of Amy's crystal.
But, inevitably, something happened, for Sonic had never really thought that Illumina had no plan, that they had not merely beaten her to it. And after all, where's the fun in an easy win?
"Now Sonic, you're going to ruin all my fun!" cried a horribly familiar voice, a captivating mix of stardust and sunlight trapped in sound form, emanating out from the shadows. At the sound of the voice, Sonic skidded to a halt, Rouge and Knuckles rocketing to stops beside him, an action he would soon come to regret immensely, his eyes fixed upon the shadows where the voice had sounded from. Like a ghost, Illumina melted out from her hiding place, her beautiful face transported with joy, pale white hands clasped beneath her chin. In a graceful swirl of her robes, the goddess of Maginaryworld vanished, reappearing instantly in front of Amy's crystal, hiding it almost completely from view.
Sonic glared into his enemy's beatific face, absolute hatred coursing through him; he had not come all this way, witnessed the death and rebirth of all of his friends but one, just to be stopped by the power-crazed vulture before him. Biting back a growl, Sonic slipped into a half-crouch, while Rouge snorted and hissed, "So. You're Illumina."
Illumina tore her eyes away from Sonic's to stare amusedly at Rouge. "Yes. I'm Illumina. Didn't Epona warn you not to stick around, bat? I seem to remember that -"
"Epona won't be giving anyone stupid warnings ever again," Sonic snarled, and Illumina's eyes snapped back onto his face, narrowing with hate.
"You fool," she scoffed softly, shaking her head from side to side. "Did you really think you killed Epona? Hmph! Oh, you robbed her of her powers," she hissed, and the goddess' face didn't look quite so lovely anymore. "but I have helped her regain them, and she is far from dead. It was my unfortunate duty to deny her her revenge." An evil gleam came into the goddess' eyes on the last word.
Knuckles couldn't seem to help himself. "What are you going to do?" he snarled, flexing his muscles menacingly.
Illumina, untroubled, turned her body to the side, letting her eyes slide closed as she tilted her head towards the ground, one hand clasped over her chest. "I'm going to destroy your planet," she said softly, her voice as deceptively innocent as a sly child's. "I feel like that is fitting enough revenge for my humiliation. You can still save it, however," she turned her body so that it was facing Amy's crystal, while she looked over her shoulder at Sonic, her eyes dancing maliciously, taunting him. "because there's nothing of interest for you here. Believe me, there's nothing here worth throwing your lives away for."
"NO!" Sonic roared, extending one hand, his face frozen in shock, but it was too late; Illumina reached out and placed her thin hand upon the surface of Amy's crystal, and with a burst of silver light, the pair of them had vanished.
No, he thought in a dead, hollow voice, collapsing onto his knees, hand still outstretched, eyes still fixed upon the place where the two most pursued people in his life hand vanished. I'm dreaming, this isn't happening, nothing this horrible could possibly be real...
But it was happening; Amy and Illumina had slipped through his fingers once again, gone undoubtedly to Maginaryworld, and this time, he could not follow them, for he did not have his powers to create a portal to the dream world or Lumina to help him create one. And with that realization, the tears that had been brimming in his eyes overflowed, streaking down his cheeks, but he forced himself to remain silent as he mourned this latest, momentous loss. Curling the fingers of his outstretched hand into his palm, Sonic pounded the ground with his fist, clenching his eyes shut. The door that he had slammed shut on the memory of Amy's death suddenly flew open, and Sonic, drained of the strength to force it shut, allowed the anguish to wash over him, to consume him, and he sank down, down, down into blackness, remembering...
Amy's face was streaked with tears as she looked up at him, and his subconsciousness, realizing what was going on, reeled, screaming at him, demanding that he seize the girl before him and sprint away.
"Oh Sonic, I just can't do it!" she cried, whirling away from the mysterious twinkling golden mist that was hanging unobtrusively before them. "I just can't say goodbye!"
With an agonized sob, she flung her arms around him, shaking with sorrow, and Sonic tried to pull away, while his subconsciousness struggled more violently than before, screaming warnings at him as it uncovered what his final friend was hiding from him. He let her stay there, only because he was too weak from the loss of his every other friend to try to pry her off. Eventually, she raised her face up to look at him, and there was such a heartbreaking expression on her face that he automatically reached up and put a gloved hand to her face.
"My destiny," she whispered, her eyes sliding closed, apparently unable to look him in the eye as she spoke. "Is to help you get as close to Illumina as possible, not to help her destroy the world. But if we want Illumina to die, I have to also."
Sonic felt as though Amy were speaking to him from across an ocean of horror, the thunderous crashing of what could have been waves berating his ears. He stared at Amy, his brain grinding to a halt, preferring to wallow in incomprehension than examine the agonizing revelation her words were inducing.
"W-what?" he asked in bewilderment, his voice weak. "W-why?"
"Because that's what Cosmo said," Amy whispered, her eyes sliding open once more, the picture of utmost pain. "And if we can't trust Cosmo, we can't trust anybody."
She made to disentangle herself from him, something she would never willingly do, not unless it was absolutely necessary. Sonic let her go, for his grip on her had gone from iron bars to broken twigs. He stared at her, refusing to listen to the truth that was screaming at him from behind a door he had slammed shut in its face.
"Please, Amy," he whispered, his voice pleading, something that had never been present in his voice before. "We can find another way in or something, you don't have to die –"
"We don't have time to find another way in," Amy responded gently, reaching out to touch his face with her fingertips. "It's the only way," she added, her eyes sliding closed. "And believe me, if it wasn't, I couldn't bear to do this. You're my best friend, Sonic, and the only hope Mobius has left."
She leaned in and kissed him swiftly on the cheek, while she pressed something into one of his hands, curling his fingers closed around it, and then she was gone, her blackened form sprinting towards the golden mist, which suddenly looked a lot more threatening. Sonic stood there, frozen, his mouth open in a silent shout of horror, one hand outstretched towards her retreating form, towards the girl who loved him, the one who was willing to give up everything for him, the only friend he had left-
Amy did not look back at him as she passed through the mist; it parted to allow her to pass through it, and her form instantly became nothing more than a shadow, one to join the six other figures who looked strangely familiar. For a moment, her shadowy form hovered there, and then, Sonic's mind was seized by a bright white light, with Amy's ghostly form hovering before him. She was no longer a burned and charred black, her dress ripped and tattered, but as perfectly pristine as she had been before they had entered the plain.
"I'll be with Cosmo and the others, now," she told him, her dark green eyes sparkling, whether with tears or happiness she did not know. "But sometimes, you've gotta do things you would normally never do, for the sake of Mobius. You've gotta go on and face Illumina. Please," her voice became no louder than a whisper, and a single tear rolled down her pink cheek. "For Tails and Cream and the others. For me."
She blew him a kiss and winked roguishly, and then her ghostly form faded into non-existence, the white light cleared so that he was once more standing in Eggman's vehicle hangar.
No, he wasn't in Eggman's vehicle hangar, he was in a cave, hundreds of meters below ground-
Amy Rose had left the vehicle hangar, had left Mobius...had left Sonic. Forever.
No, she was not gone forever. Illumina had taken her, he could still save her, but only if he moved, if he breathed-
He could not move. He was frozen with shock, staring at the place where his last, best friend had vanished, his eyes huge with horror, unable to comprehend how he was still alive, when something so horrible had just happened-
Sonic was jarred sharply back into the present when someone brushed his cheek with the back of his hand. Giving a little start, he looked up, and saw that none other than Lumina Flowlight was floating above him, her beautiful features marred by her sorrow, her crystalline blue eyes sparkling with tears, mouth curving into a shaky half-smile. Knuckles and Rouge stood on either side of him, both having the dignity to look subdued, while Tails' eyes were clenched shut, though he was not quite able to stem the flow of his tears. Cosmo stood beside him, tears pouring silently down her face as she stared at Sonic with anguished eyes, while Cream and Cheese had collapsed upon the floor, faces buried in their hands, shoulders heaving with sobs.
The sight of them all standing there, each lost in the horribleness of what had just happened, coupled with his own impossible sorrow, was too much for Sonic; he was shouting before he could quite comprehend how it had happened.
"WHY DID YOU HAVE TO PUT EVERYONE SO FAR AWAY, LUMINA?" he roared, jabbing an accusing finger at the Maginaire who was inches from his face. Everyone flinched at the anger in his voice, but he was past caring; his discretion for other people's feelings had deserted him the moment Amy had. "IF WE HADN'T SPENT THE WHOLE NIGHT RUNNING AROUND MOBIUS LOOKING FOR EVERYBODY, WE'D HAVE AMY WITH US RIGHT NOW! BUT INSTEAD...INSTEAD, ILLUMINA'S GOT HER, AND WHO KNOWS WHAT...WHAT..."
He paused, breathing heavily, straining to catch his breath; shouting felt good, passing the blame onto someone else was easier than shouldering the vast majority of it that was directed at him. He had not finished yet, and was going to start shouting once more the moment he caught his breath, but Lumina capitalized on his temporary silence to plead her own case.
"I'm sorry Sonic," she whispered, and her tinkling voice perfectly portrayed the emotion. "I truly am. But please, let me explain.
"I think Cosmo told everyone that I returned you all to life by imprisoning you in magical crystals; in Cosmo's case, however, she was returned immediately to life, which was particularly easy, because her body had been destroyed, which meant that I could relocate her wherever I wanted.
"With everyone else, it was not as easy; their spirits returned to their places they had died, and since we needed to help you immediately, returning anyone else was...undesirable. So you see, I did not choose the places to imprison your friends; Fate did.
"As for Amy...well...I'm sure you've noticed that the crystals are incredibly strong. Forgive me for being immodest, but I'm rather good at magic, and since I anticipated that Illumina would try to reach Amy, I cast very heavy enchantments around it. Breaking those is beyond Illumina; she does not have the capacity to do what must be done to get past them. The crystal will withstand everything she throws at it, be it physical or magical.
"But if, in the impossible event that she does break my enchantments, Illumina is in for a big disappointment. Amy is, as you saw, dead, her soul has not yet been returned to her body. And I am afraid that that is precisely what she is after; her soul."
"Her soul?" Rouge asked sceptically, raising an eyebrow. "Why?"
"There will be plenty of time to discuss this later!" Lumina cried, a little too quickly. "Mobius is in danger right now, and unless we hurry, we will not be able to save anyone!"
Sonic couldn't help but selfishly think that saving Amy was more important right now, though he knew that, at the moment, doing such a thing was impossible right now, and if the Maginaire was telling the truth – as she undoubtedly was – they needed to hurry, or there would not be a Maginaryworld to return to.
"Alright," Sonic said, storing the mystery of Lumina's change of subject away for later studying. "Let's go. But how are we supposed to get out of here."
Lumina, as with everything else, seemed to have an answer; raising her arms up above her head, she closed her eyes and, in a voice that rung with power, cried, "UP!"
Though Sonic had expected something bizarre to happen, he had not thought the room would mirror Lumina's command so literally; with a low, rumbling roar, the rocky ceiling above them grinded backwards to reveal ominous, endless black clouds, all rumbling loudly as they rolled across the sky. Before the others could utter more than gasps of shock and wonder, the ground beneath them shuddered and launched itself upwards, ferrying them towards the surface with impressive speed. In less than a second, they were at surface level, and this time, everyone gave cries of utmost horror.
"No!" gasped Cosmo, sounding appalled.
"How...how could she?" demanded Tails, quivering with both fear and rage.
"Crafty bitch," muttered Rouge, whistling in a woefully impressed way.
Mobius had been bordering on dawn when they had been sucked under the quicksand, the sky a pinkish orange hue. But now, it had transformed into an endless expanse of cloud cover, all of them pitch black, not a square inch of sky visible, the sun completely blocked out. Mobius City was visible from where they were standing, and hanging above it was a gigantic, violently lavender cloud that resembled a hurricane and maelstrom slammed into one. It churned and rolled, violent white bolts of jagged lightning lashing out at random moments and pummelling their city. In the middle of the cloud was a gaping black hole, from which the lightning seemed to be emanating from.
"By the gods," Sonic breathed, his eyes widening in horror as he took in the horrific sight. "We have to go!"
"Tell me about it!" growled Knuckles, sounding alarmed, and without another word, the group departed, Rouge, Knuckles, Tails, Cream, Cheese and Lumina jumping into the air and streaking forwards, while Sonic seized Cosmo and, with no time to sling her onto his back, carried her in the same fashion he usually carried Amy, his eyes fixed upon the city, though his mind was far away.
So close, he thought, clenching his fists in anger at the memory of Illumina's narrow escape. I can't believe I stopped for her! And thanks to me, Amy's that creep's prisoner! A moment's mental silence, then, Is Lumina wrong? Does Illumina really know how to break through her enchantments? Having the power of the sun on her side couldn't hurt...
He couldn't but think that, though he despised himself for it, that Lumina's magic was nowhere near as powerful as Illumina's, and that, with enough time, the goddess would be over to overcome the little Maginaire's obstacles. The last words Illumina had spoken to him rang as clearly through his mind as though she were standing right next to him.
'Believe me, there's nothing here worth throwing your lives away for.'
Was it true? Was Amy already too far gone to be saved?
"Dammit, if I can't save Amy, I will save Mobius!" Sonic growled, his words instantly whipped away by the ferocious wind.
"Sonic?" Cosmo gasped, sounding alarmed. "Are you...are you crying?"
Sonic's head jerked violently as he remembered he was not alone, then put one hand to his face to feel it. To his surprise, he found that it was wet with salt water. Hastily, he brushed the moisture away, but Cosmo had seen it, and with a little, empathetic gasp, she wrapped her slim arms around his shoulders with some difficulty, in what was a somewhat awkward hug.
"Don't worry, Sonic," the Seedrian murmured, her eyes over bright as she fixed them upon his. "Illumina will pay for this. She has to. And we'll make her."
"It's...it's too dangerous for everyone to go," Sonic muttered pathetically, wrenching his gaze away from the Seedrian and fixing them upon the fast-approaching city, being savaged by a storm conjured by the very being they were headed to do battle with.
"Don't be stupid," Cosmo snapped, though her voice was not angry. "You don't have to do everything alone. Place your trust in your friends, Sonic; we will not fail you."
It took him a moment, but suddenly, humility coursed through him; how could he have considered trying to take on Illumina on his own? There was strength in numbers, as he should have learned by now. And then, quite suddenly, he felt as though an immense weight had been lifted from off of his chest, making him feel ten pounds lighter and infinitely more hopeful.
Narrowing his eyes and smiling slightly, Sonic shook his head in disdain as he thought, Believe me, Illumina; there was something in that cave worth throwing my life away for.
Rouge ground her teeth together, her eyes fixed upon the city, only kept going by the knowledge that her home's future depended on her reaching the metropolis. "What's happening?" she managed to shout over the suddenly deafening winds, fighting to keep herself from being flipped over.
Lumina alone seemed to be able to navigate the sky without any difficulty, and she was tiny. Taking in a deep breath, she pointed unnecessarily at the vast storm cloud and shouted, "We've got to hurry! The storm is growing incredibly fast; at this rate, all of northern Mobius will be covered within the next two hours, which gives us very little time to do what must be done!"
"Which is what?" Rouge demanded, bowing her head against the uproarious wind.
Lumina shot upwards and twisted around so that she was flying backwards, her great crystalline blue eyes vast as she shouted, "That is a magical storm! Anything and everything that gets sucked into it will be transported to the frozen outer regions of my world. Death is imminent and inescapable."
"AND YOU'RE FLYING US TOWARDS THAT THING?" Knuckles shouted from her arms, sounding exasperated, and Rouge couldn't help but laugh.
Lumina was untroubled. "Don't worry. I have enough magic in me to alter the course of the storm for one second, and one second only. That storm was created by Maginaryworld energy, and so it can therefore be traced back to Maginaryworld! During that one second, I will be able to alter the place where the portal deposits everything to where Illumina is; the Temple of Light! Since the storm is born of Illumina's energy, I think that when and if we kill her, the storm dies with her!"
"And will everyone who got sucked in come back when that happens?" Rouge shouted, but this time, Lumina did not have an answer for her.
"I cannot say for sure," the Maginaire cried, shaking her head to emphasize her uncertainty. "But you can be certain that if we do not kill Illumina, no one will ever see anything every again!"
Fair enough, thought Rouge, smiling wryly. The odds are always stacked against us. Why would this, the time when the odds are most important, be any different.
Eventually, they had reached the outskirts of the city, by which time the winds had grown so impossible to navigate that Rouge, drenched to the bone and ready to snap at the first person to speak to her, gave up her attempts to keep airborne. Lumina, agreeing with her, flitted off to warn Tails, while the bat folded her wings and allowed herself to drop, exhausted, back to the ground.
Tails, Cream and Cheese had a shorter distance to drop than her, and so they reached the ground first. Lumina wasted no time in babbling and launched straight into briefing. Pointing once more at the magical storm, she cried, "I cannot take everyone with me to Maginaryworld via teleportation. This forces us to take option two; the storm.
"My powers are only so strong; the storm, however, will strengthen as long as Illumina is alive. If the storm continues to grow at its present rate – which it should – we only have four minutes to reach the center of the city. Is everyone ready?"
Do we have a choice? Rouge thought, but she shouted, "YES!" with the rest of the group. As one, they set off at a sprint, and Sonic, clearly unwilling to take any chances, scooped up Cosmo, Cream and Cheese and slung them over his back, leading their group in their advance.
It was chaos. Rain was falling so thick and fast that the sewers were overflowing, and it felt like a million rice grains were pounding her on the back, hurled at them by an invisible giant. The wind roared so loudly and viciously that the rain appeared to be flying upwards, deafening her, and with her considerable hearing, Rouge suspected that her ears would be ringing for days.
Every building was lying in ruins, crumbled to rubble from the constant pounding at the hands of lightning. Shards of glass flew through the air like daggers, whooshing sinisterly. The sidewalk had deep gorges ripped in it, battered beyond repair. Cars tumbled end over end like barrels rolling down a hill, glass shattered, trailing oil, dousing everything with its contents. Newspapers were ripped apart before their eyes, lampposts were ripped out of the ground like toothpicks, billboards swept through the air, rippling like flying carpets, and all around them were animals, all screaming in terror, pushing and shoving and trampling each other in their haste to get away from the center of the city, some desperately calling out for friends, others succumbing because of the sheer numbers. Every few seconds, a handful of these unfortunate creatures were swept off the ground and launched skywards, pulled towards the center of the maliciously cackling storm like ants caught in orbit, all screaming shrilly. Most were sucked out of sight, but a few managed to latch onto the few remaining upright ruins of buildings, calling out desperately for help that would not come.
It was as though hell had come to Mobius, determined to wreck as much havoc as it could before it was forced back into submission.
One thing remained constant throughout the entire trip; as Rouge battled her way forwards with the others, the animals gave them a wide berth, too terrified to recognize them as the heroes that they were, only sparing them enough thought to categorize them as lunatics with clear death wishes, running towards certain, painful doom.
How long it took them she did not know, but eventually, they reached the city's center, their group still intact and every member still alive, having managed to avoid being swept up into the air. Rouge could barely see three feet in front of her, but she knew that, despite the distortion caused by the relentless rain, everyone was drenched to the bone and equally disgruntled.
Through the pounding rain, Rouge saw Lumina raise one hand into the air, folding up five fingers; clearly, not even she could shout over the din, but her message was clear; five fingers, five seconds. Then four, then-
Suddenly, Rouge was hoisted into the air with gut-wrenching force, pulled upwards by an impossible, irresistible force that no one had a hope of denying. Her screams were lost with the wind as she tumbled end over end, rising like a helium balloon, her limbs smacking into the bodies of those who were flying with her, whether friend or not she did not know-
And then, as abruptly as she had started rising, her progress was halted, for she felt an agonizing tug on her midriff before she was anchored to the ground. Feeling extremely disoriented, Rouge looked down, and saw that a rope fashioned entirely of light had fastened itself around her stomach, keeping her from rising any further like a child holding onto a balloon. The others were similarly bound to the ground, all of them looking completely bewildered.
Lumina, the theif thought, strangely calm.
Sure enough, the little Maginaire, who had managed to halt her progress without the help of a rope, was floating some ten feet away from them, her arms held high above her head, bright blue eyes transformed into glowing golden spheres of power as she shouted, "I CALL UPON THE POWERS OF LOVE AND NATURE TO HELP ME TAKE THESE CREATURES TO VANQUISH THE ONE WHO HAS INFECTED THEIR LAND WITH DARKNESS! SPIRITS OF THE LIGHT, LEND ME YOUR POWER!"
It was a scene that was only comparable to one in a fantasy book; the gaping black hole in the center of the cloud seemed to pulse, and then, with a supernova-class explosion of noise that rent the air apart, twelve pillars of plasmatic blue light shot out of its center, spiralling and twisting in an impossibly graceful dance as they plummeted downwards. Meanwhile, a circle of the same coloured light had appeared far below the Maginaire, with twelve glowing black symbols Rouge could not understand pulsating in the places of the numbers on a clock. Each pillar of light slammed onto a different symbol, each impact causing a gong-like boom that put the thunderclaps to shame. The beams began to widen with noise like laser beams being fired, growing wider and wider until they were a single streak of light, and Lumina was lost inside its depths.
Suddenly, both Sonic and Knuckles were cut loose from their strands of light, and they tumbled head over heels towards the pillar, causing the places they had vanished to ripple like water. Before Rouge could scream, before she could think, she was slammed forcefully into Tails, Cosmo, Cream and Cheese, and suddenly, the golden ropes that were binding them together formed a makeshift cage around them, the bars thickening until the world outside was lost from view.
Abruptly, impossibly, Rouge was exhausted. Such a feeling should have been impossible at such a time, and yet it was possible, and not only that, it was the only real thing in the world now-
Rouge was unconscious before you could say 'Wow'.
Illumina was, quite simply furious.
She was so mad, in fact, that she threw back her head and screamed, holding the ridiculously high note for a ridiculously high time.
The cause of her frustration was, of course, Amy Rose, who, to her further enragement, was still unconscious. She had thought that any spell of Lumina's could be easily unravelled, that such an enchantment would have been child's play.
Epona had been watching the entire process, and though she had not moved a muscle, Illumina would have rather had the messenger dancing around the Temple. Anything was better than the infuriatingly smug smile she had been wearing during the last fifteen minutes.
The messenger had reported that the members of Sonic the Hedgehog's clan had merely touched the surface of each crystal and, after several moments, the captured animal had been sprung free. So Illumina had touched Amy Rose's crystal, only to be presented with a vision, a vision of her defeat from a bystander's point of view. A defeat that had occurred in this very Temple, brought about by the combined efforts of Sonic the Hedgehog, Cosmo the Seedrian, and Amy Rose.
Something that was born more so out of her errors than their triumphs.
And though she had been infuriated, she was sure that the crystal would quiver in the face of her magical abilities. She had tried shattering it, burning it, electrocuting it, freezing it, melting it and smashing it. She had dropped it from a great height, kicked, punched, screamed, swore, threatened, begged, cried, tried to flatten it, increased the pressure on it, decreased the pressure on it, sucked all the air out of the room, shot lightning bolts at it, directed the force of an atomic bomb into its center, and when none of those had worked, she had thrown it across the room, but that did not help, and or had she expected it to.
She had even had Epona try, but the servant was no more successful than she had been.
How intolerable is this, that this girl defies me even in her sleep? Illumina thought, quivering with rage, and then, quite abruptly, she could take no more. "EPONA!" she screeched, turning upon her messenger, literally spitting fire with rage. "TAKE THIS GIRL OUT OF MY SIGHT! HAVE VOID EXTRACT HER FROM THIS CRYSTAL, OR I WILL HAVE HIM KILLED. GO!"
"Yes, my lady," murmured Epona, the same superior smile upon her face and, with a mock bow, she and Amy Rose vanished in a crack of white light.
Fuming silently, Illumina stormed over to her ornate golden throne and threw herself into it, her fingers drumming a tattoo into its arm rest. It was essential to have the girl removed from her crystal, for once she had her out, she had her soul. And once she had her soul, she had the moon's power.
Of course, this was all depending on the words Sonic the Hedgehog had spoken to her in Robotnik's base had been true; that Amy's love for him was the source of her power. Possessing her soul meant that, technically, she possessed her love for him.
But to do that, I need the crystal! Illumina thought, barely restraining herself from screaming once more. How is it that Lumina has confounded even me? Has she made it so that only I cannot open it? No, that's impossible; Epona couldn't open it either. Perhaps only a Mobian? Or maybe only a member of that ridiculous hedgehog's group...
The fact that she had, for once, failed to overcome a magical barrier frightened Illumina; was Amy Rose the one thing she could not master? Surely not, Illumina snorted aloud at the very prospect. Love does not conquer deadly skill. Only books can get away with waffling that crap.
But a nagging voice at the back of her head thought otherwise. They've killed you before, it whispered, and the faces of Sonic and Amy flashed before her eyes. What's to say they won't do it again?
"Very well," Illumina muttered aloud, her eyes fixed upon the Precious Stone. "If I cannot master her, I will kill her. But first I must have the crystal opened. And to do that, I need Sonic the Hedgehog."
So Illumina closed her eyes, became as still as possible, and began to plot.