Chapter Twenty-Three: The Terrors of Headspace
Tails knew that flying to Sonic's destination was not an option, but that didn't make being carried by him any less painful.
Sonic was trying to take it easy this time around, keeping to a leisurely sixty miles an hour, but the wind still sliced Tails worse than any knife ever could, and it was a miracle he hadn't blacked out from the agony yet. Sonic, despite his pain, was too focused to have the urge to stop.
After what felt like far too long, they finally reached their destination, and Sonic set Tails down as gently as possible. On the horizon loomed their target: a brightly glowing, almost formless structure, from which tendrils shot out further than either of them could follow. The whole thing pulsed to a rhythm neither of them could hear, and within its luminous walls, they could make out the forms of their respective viruses moving around.
"Wait here," Sonic told Tails. "I'll get this under control."
"Hold on," Tails said. "Not to be rude, but are you nuts? You can't take both of them on alone!"
"I won't know if I never try," Sonic replied, "and it's our best shot. They're controlling my body from there, no doubt about it. If I can get in and subdue both of them, or at least stall them long enough to gain control for a few seconds, I can use the mind ray they kept talking about to get everyone else in here. Then, we can take them down for good."
"I'll help," Tails said. "There has to be something I can do."
"Tails, you're too injured to fight," Sonic said. "If I don't make it and you're still in there, they're capturing you again, and probably adding you to the list of their victims. If you're out here and I die, at least you have a chance at escaping, even if it's still pretty slim."
Before Tails could say another thing, Sonic waved goodbye for what might have been the final time to his best friend in the world. "Wish me luck."
Then, in a streak of blue, he was gone.
Tails' replica knew something was up the second he saw his speedy counterpart dash into the room, shoeless and waving his arms around like a madman.
When Sonic's imitation stopped, he only could choke out two breathless words. "They escaped!"
The creature even turned away from the controls to viciously growl at his semi-duplicate. "Sonic, are you kidding me? You had one job! And don't bother trying to spin some stupid tale about how it's not your fault and blah blah blah. I don't give a damn what happened in there, you still failed at the one freaking task I expected even you to get right."
"Don't worry," stammered the now-cowering Sonic imitation. "It won't happen again!"
The mockery of Tails merely groaned. "And what happened to your shoes?"
"I'd prefer not to get into detail about that," Sonic's replica replied. "The point is, they're probably on their way, and we need to be able to fight them off!"
"We should be fine," his counterpart said. "The two of us have more ranged attacks than either of them do, and they might pull the sappy 'you can still be saved' thing and not kill us when they think they have us beat. I wouldn't be too worried."
"I still am," Sonic's virus replied. "I already know what a crazy Sonic is capable of, and it's not going to be fun when he unleashes it on us."
Suddenly, there was a noise akin to a small explosion, and the real Sonic barreled into the room, a crazed look in his eyes and a snarl that spooked even the viruses locked on his face.
"Look who's back," he hissed. "And with no chains to save your sorry butts this time."
Tails' clone knew better than to let this fight degrade into a trash-talking competition, so he shushed the other creature before yelling, "You attack head-on, I'll try to blindside him!"
After dashing out of the way of Sonic's first Spin Dash, his virus asked, "Well, then who's taking the controls?"
"We'll figure that out after he's dead," Tails' replica replied. "Make yourself useful and help me kill him!"
"With pleasure," Sonic's replica said. And with that, he changed up his first Spin Dash, screeching his battle cry to the heavens.
When Elise finally emerged into the light, she didn't know if she was alive or dead.
She'd been trapped in what felt like an empty void for an indeterminate amount of time, alongside the rest of the village. It initially looked like they were just being kept, until the first one disappeared, that was. One by one, they kept screeching in agony before vanishing, and with every one, Elise hoped she wouldn't be next.
Then, just as quickly as it had started, it stopped, and the scene was gone in a blinding flash.
In an instant, she found herself curled in the fetal position, uncomfortable but very much alive. However, when she got to her feet, it was clear that more people had been killed in that room- they were still slumped over, bodies twisted into seemingly-impossible shapes, eyes dull and listless. None of them were bleeding or missing limbs, but that didn't stop the scene from causing Elise to bend over and start vomiting.
Several waves of nausea later, she didn't feel much better, but at least she had a clear grasp of her surroundings. A good chunk of the remaining villagers had gotten up, and those who were still down all looked like they'd be there until someone else moved them. Sonic and all the others were standing in a cluster about twenty meters away, breathing and blinking being the only indications that they were still alive.
That changed quickly. As she watched, all of them except for Sonic and Tails snapped back to life. They each whipped their heads around, probably going through the same sensual overload that Elise had just broken free from.
Knuckles, Sticks, and Eggman all looked queasy, but Shadow, Rouge, and Metal Sonic had gotten through the forceful warp without a problem. As Eggman leaned over, hoping not to paint the ground with his sizable lunch, Shadow stared at the scene with a calculating eye. "Wait… are we back?"
"It sure looks like it," Rouge replied. "So, now that we're here, what's the plan?"
Then, Sonic caught them all off guard by throwing one hell of a punch.
At himself.
He went flying backwards, knocking Tails' limp body over, but Tails didn't even try to push him off. He just lay there as Sonic rolled and thrashed and threw punches at nothing.
The crowd started backing away, but Elise couldn't break eye contact with the creature, even as it kept moving closer to her. By the time she'd finally managed to work up the urge to run, it was almost too late.
Before, Sonic's attacks had all been physical, which meant unless you were really close to him, you'd be fine. However, the turning point came when he was less than ten feet away: his hands became shrouded with that terrifying red glow, growing brighter and brighter as Elise stood rooted to the spot until he fired-
And fortunately, missed Elise by mere inches. That was enough to break her out of her trance with the rest of the crowd, and they all abandoned any sense of order and started to flee screaming. Elise ran away in a blind terror, dodging left and right at pure random, not even caring that her shoes were probably ruined and her legs searing.
She didn't want to be the hero here. All she wanted to do was survive.
Inside Sonic's head, the pandemonium was even worse.
Used to big, slow creatures and the fodder Eggman threw his way, Sonic wasn't very prepared for multiple beings as intelligent and powerful as this tag-teaming on him. While he wasn't outright losing yet, he most certainly wasn't winning.
Both of his adversaries fired lasers at once, forcing Sonic to leap out of the way before launching a homing attack of his own. Tails' virus smirked and flew higher, causing Sonic to miss. It was all he could do to land on his feet.
Tails' replica dive-bombed him on the spot. Sonic dashed forward to avoid the attack, but his attacker managed to pull up before he crash-landed and prepared himself for a second attempt. At the same time, his own duplicate Spin Dashed right at him, forcing Sonic to jump.
"That's it," Tails' duplicate yelled. "Sonic, do that again! I'll be able to hit him while he's in the air!"
To try and counter that, Sonic started up a Spin Dash of his own, slamming into his replica as hard as he could. Both of them growled, struggling to accelerate enough to overpower their foe, neither of them willing to give an inch. It would have gone that way a lot longer, but Tails had fired up yet another laser, aiming at- and hitting- Sonic.
The real Sonic.
In a split second, his side was seared in a perfect circle, a feat Sonic would have been impressed by if the creature hadn't been trying to murder him. With no other options, Sonic changed his direction to get out from in front of his duplicate, who surged forward and nearly crashed into a wall before stopping himself.
Sonic spared a moment to glance up at Tails' clone. The real Tails would have been tired after so long in the air, but this thing didn't seem bothered. He didn't have time to ask himself any questions about it, though, as Tails attempted to dive-bomb him again, coming much closer this time but still missing.
Sonic coasted to a stop, panting heavily, his side stinging, his legs burning. He knew he had to end this soon. If he kept tiring like this, either he'd be forced to surrender or he'd be killed with a lucky attack, and his opponents weren't running out of energy anytime soon.
He threw his all into another Spin Dash while his clone was still recovering from the last one, but it was dodged with ease. Sonic couldn't slow down in time, and he crashed hard into the wall.
He somehow managed to stand up, but everything hurt. When his two adversaries fired their lasers again, he barely managed to dodge, the soles of his sneakers becoming singed in the process. He landed hard, barely avoiding spraining an ankle on impact.
Sonic only wanted a split second to catch his breath. Unfortunately for him, a split second was all it took to end the fight. His clone blindsided him, sending him flying across the room at an almost painful speed. When he hit the floor, he'd fallen from so high he bounced a few times before rolling to a stop.
Every cell in Sonic's sort-of-brain was screaming in agony. His vision was tinged with black. He couldn't even form words.
That didn't stop his clones from charging up to him, sinister grins etched on their faces. Sonic held up his hands in a feeble defense, but it wasn't going to save him this time.
It seemed like it was all over.
Until suddenly, it wasn't.
It started as nothing more than a light thumping sound, which caused everyone to whip their heads around trying to figure out what the heck was going on. Then, Sonic saw the cause. At that moment, the scariest scenarios Sonic had thought would come out of this started to play out in his head.
"Hello, friends," Tails said in a tired voice, having just taken the controls. "Remember me?"
With the way things were going, Sonic was at serious risk of killing himself or someone else, even though Amy was the only member of the crowd who had remained behind.
His movements had only become more violent the longer his apparent seizure continued, and now he was firing lasers in random directions that the others had to dodge constantly. He'd even begun making noise, too- a high-pitched, strangled scream that sounded like a newborn trapped in a blender.
Rouge had shocked him with her taser multiple times, trying to get him to stay still, but that wound up doing absolutely nothing. His lasers made it so that no one wanted to risk restraining him, but it looked more and more like they'd have no other choice.
But just as Shadow prepared to charge in and hold him down, it all stopped. It wasn't even a gradual stop- one second, he was screeching and flailing and firing lasers, and the next, he'd fallen dead still.
Knuckles, somehow, was the first to address the scenario. "Well, what do we do now?"
To everyone's surprise, Sonic was the first one to respond. To their even bigger surprise, what he said was, "Guys! It's Tails! Do you have the- OW!" Sonic flung himself backwards, hitting his head hard. The ground was fairly soft, but that didn't decrease the odds of him getting a nasty concussion. Before he even got up, he added, "Do you have the mind gun?"
"No, you do," Eggman answered. Then, he turned to the others. "Wait, is that actually Tails?"
Sonic stood up in a rush, almost toppling over again in the process. "Yes, it is, I'm fighting for control in here! I just need to get you here to help!"
"Wait," Sticks said. "What are you talking about?"
"No time," Sonic added. He quickly pressed two buttons on the mind gun still clutched tightly in his hand, then pointed the device at Sticks. "Stay still!"
"Wait, why do you need me to-" Sticks' question was abruptly cut off as the device fired, hitting her with a beam of light an eerily similar shade to the lasers. There was no flash of light afterwards, no boom, not even a confirmation from the device. The only indication that it worked was that Sticks was no longer moving.
Sonic jumped about eight feet straight up after that, landing flat on his face. His nose broke with a sickly crunching sound, however, the gun wasn't damaged, and Sonic continued to talk even as his mouth filled with dirt. "I just warped her consciousness into here! I'm going to do the same to you!"
Eggman raised his hand, even though that was utterly pointless. "Do we have a say in this?"
"No," Sonic said, shortly before firing at him as well, repeating the process. "As for everyone else, they need to look for the glowing structure! It's-" he was cut off once more for a few seconds with a groan of pain and a violent lurch from Sonic- "It's impossible to miss!"
With four more quick bursts of fire from the device, the others had all been hit, and they'd joined Sticks and Eggman in Sonic's head, prepared to fight to the death.
Meanwhile, Amy, the only one still left in her own body, stared at the scene with tearful eyes.
"Come on, guys," she whispered. "Please come back to me…"
Review Zone, Act XXII:
-Saul'keth: Thanks for taking the time to leave a review! Yeah, I think there's something pretty similar to that on the Evil Overlord list (which if you haven't looked up, you should), it only makes sense.
-Darkness-InA-Ninja: Thanks for taking the time to leave a review, and the compliment! He's probably too busy now to do much more performing, though.
-Linz2: Thanks for taking the time to leave a review! Here's to hoping their efforts aren't fruitless.
