"Each of us bears his own Hell."

- Virgil, Aeneid

Something was wrong.

…

The planet hung, suspended like a jewel in a sea of ink. A single moon, pockmarked by scars, craters, and a tremendous gash, watched over the pristine orb. Closer to the atmosphere, debris clung like static charge to the tidal forces in its upper orbit. Most prominent among the wreckage, the decaying remnants of a massive space station and orbital platform continued to degrade, inching closer every year to uncontrolled reentry. Most likely, it would crash into the main continent: a vast swath of green and brown, encircled by mountains and plains. Further east, and into the darkness opposite the star system's life giving sun, another continent straddled the globe. Seen from space, no lights, no sign of life, exist to challenge the night.

This was Mobius.

And something had just gone wrong.

Between the two primary continents, floating above the smallest of the planet's major oceans, a unique geographic anomaly could be found. It was called Angel Island. Roughly tear shaped, the northern half was a verdant crescent, with jungles of giant mushrooms and rich grasslands fed by clear lakes and rivers. Here, finally, were some centers of light, of civilization… a civilization building over the regions that had been despoiled, laying infrastructure, building cities. Cities like Hydro City, Echidnapolis, and Marble Garden. To the west lay arid lands, and to the south: only burning desert.

Sandopolis.

The date is counted as three thousand, two hundred and thirty seven years after the fall of the First City and the beginning of the post-Mogulian period. Nine hundred and forty years since the first release of Perfect Chaos created the buried ruins of Sandopolis. In all those intervening centuries, only recently within the last half decade have fools and madmen once again dared to plumb the depths of that barren and haunted place. Within Sandopolis, the wrecks of strange scorpion shaped robots lie silent and inactive by rivers of endlessly shifting sand.

Things change in darkness, beside a half buried Ziggurat…

The air split, folding out and then in, the surface becoming the exterior, and the interior inverting. A cube of fresh air suddenly dispersed into the deadly stillness of the ruins, and within it, a single small form.

A single small form that shouldn't have been there in the first place.

"Hey, it didn't work!"

…

The figure winced, as if struck. "W… what… what's…?"

Clutching her chest, Lara-Su stumbled forward, trying to keep from falling. Blue black shoes sunk partly into the sand, and for a moment she flailed in the darkness. A handful of seconds passed, as she collected herself, then a glow of light finally filled the ruins as one of her hands lit up with a cool white halo. Violet hair ran down her face, forcing her to tuck some of the strands out of the way, and back in line with her echidna's dreadlocks.

"Miles?"

Embedded in her chest, a ruby red emerald shone, but offered only partial comfort.

"Miles. You… you aren't here…?" she asked, and alone in the middle of Sandopolis, got no answer.

"This is Sandopolis…" she looked around, blue-violet eyes searching and coming to a rest on the nearby ziggurat. "The Tiered Mausoleum. This is Sandpolis, Courtyard Seven, Third Circle, Fifth Column. But where is everybody?"

Pulling her shoes out of the sand, she hopped gracefully over to a solid stone pillar that had once been part of one of the city's many aqueducts. The water was long gone, and instead a trickle of sand ran down the ancient causeway. Lara-Su took another look around, and briefly entertained the notion that she was the victim of some sort of elaborate trick.

"Ok, Fiona, very funny! You almost had me there!"

Nothing.

"Fiona?" she tried again, and frowned. "Fiona? Fiona!! Miles!!"

Nothing.

Touching the chaos emerald in her chest, she concentrated hard on trying to locate him. Never before had she been unable to feel his presence through the Emerald, if not (what she was sure was) their Soultouch. Even on the other side of the planet, or in deep space, his presence had flowed into and cloaked her in its comforting glow. Like a blanket of light, he had always been there.

Now, the blanket was thin, and the glow faint.

She could still feel it – his power, flowing into her – but there was none of the warmth and love and belonging. It didn't feel like it usually did, like she was carrying a piece of his soul. Now it just felt more like a superpower battery. A sudden wave of loneliness washed over her, leaving her to drown in the bitter possibility of abandonment…

"No. I'm not alone!" She patted the emerald in her chest, nestled between her breasts. "Something just went wrong with my last Chaos Control…"

She closed her eyes and tried to remember the lecture he'd given about Parallel Universes. She remembered that he'd been building something, and Fiona had been there helping him, and she'd been staring at a comically large chalkboard covered with arcane scribbles and mathematics she couldn't begin to imagine. Tikal had been there, too, having decided to manifest herself but otherwise not contribute. Instead, the spirit of the echidna girl seemed to be doodling on a corner of the blackboard.

Bored and wanting to be involved, she had asked him something about their alternate selves, and whether they had the same gifts. Miles had pondered it for a few moments, and started talking. Unfortunately, he started by going on and on about particle and dimensional physics.

"Bla bla bla Chaos Control bla bla bla cyclic inversion bla bla bla subspace…"

"No," Lara cupped her chin as she tried to remember. "It was after that…"

"Super Emeralds…" she remembered him saying. "Something about the Super Emeralds…?"

A drizzle of sand fell from the ceiling and landed on her nose.

"Argh!!" She wailed, brushing the sand off and yelling into the empty catacombs. "I can't remember!!"

THE CYCLE OF AGES

CHAPTER ONE:

Reload (Death's Rebirth and Beginning's End)

Fire.

All I can see is fire.

It laps up from all around me, like the forked tongues of some great serpent. Everything is gone. Everything is dead. And, though I know not why, my mind tells me that I have brought about this terror. Accusations, in the form of screams and curses, assail my ears. All of Mobius… my beloved Mobius… lies in ruin. My world is now my tomb.

A flash.

And I see them. Marching amid the flames, those shadowy figures move with sudden purpose and murderous intent. I find… I find I can move them… with as little effort as one would use to move ones hand. In that moment, the urge to see what this fantasy is capable of, the need to indulge myself and drink my fill of its power… It is unbearable. Undeniable.

A flash.

Mumbled words, long lost to time. I see someone fall, and then dark vines constrict my thoughts and crush my dreams. High above, the dappled outline of trees soars upwards, disorienting me… What is this place? What are these screams that sound so much like my own? Why have I been cast into this nightmare?!

A flash.

The sky! There is something in the sky! So small, but so bright! So great!

I hear a wail of anguish… and… and…

And I awake.

I look up and see the ceiling stretch out like a black sea. A long shaft of light streams in from the nearby window, and it calms me. Groaning, I lean forward and hold my head in my hands. The memory of the dream fades into oblivion, leaving only a hollow fear and a feeling of exhaustion in its wake. My eyes squint up, but I don't cry. Not anymore.

I'm… too used to it to cry.

Nightmares.

"Why am I having them again?" I ask the darkness of the room and get no answer. "Why after so many years?"

Slowly sliding out of the bed, I pat the hard surface. It keeps the back straight and just felt… right for some reason. Looking down, I see that, sometime last night, I'd thrown my meager blanket on the floor. Picking up the crumpled cloth, I snap it out and fold, once, twice, three times… into a nice little rectangle. The shaft of light again has my attention.

It's almost morning.

Rolling my head back and forth, working the kinks out of my neck, I narrow my eyes a fraction and the darkness becomes clearer… outlines and shapes become more distinct. In the end, I'm almost surprised by the little bit of quasi-night vision I seemed to have developed. I'd always seen better than my friends on the dark, but it had never been this good. Finally facing my mirror, I see my hair and sigh exasperatedly.

"What a mess." Running my hand through the locks of hair, I untangle them into three long bangs with a few sharp pulls. Then, shaking my head a little, I notice the normally soft white fur on the side of my face, starting at my cheek and trailing down the end of my jaw. Feeling it, I confirm the fact that its getting thicker and longer. So was the normally short fur on my neck.

If things kept up, I'll need a tougher comb.

Still, it wasn't anything too unusual. The brief thought that my hair might get as thick as my tails gives me the amusing the image of one massive fur ball, like something out of a bad science fiction magazine. Laughing quietly to myself, I turn on the small light near the mirror and above the sink. Reaching for my toothbrush, I ground my teeth together and feel my jaw with my free hand. Oddly, my cheeks hurt a little, now that I think about it. Knowing my recent luck, I'd probably bit the inside of his mouth in my sleep again.

Washing the toothbrush out with a trickle of running water from the old faucet, I apply a dab of the makeshift toothpaste everyone in the village uses. It's pretty potent, nasty stuff. Almost as bad as the old school soap they were usually stuck with, made from animal fat, oil and wood ashes. Still, it was better than nothing. I quickly amended that: it was infinitely better than nothing. Opening my mouth wide, I pause.

Is it my imagination or…

Are my canines getting bigger?

"What… the…" Running my finger along the inside of my mouth, and then to the gums of my upper jaw, I press lightly against the tooth. It felt sharp. My hands fall to the sink, and I look closely at the kitsune in the mirror. The tawny fur, a sort of orange and brown, is mine. The ears and even the hair… are still familiar. But the nose, the muzzle, the tint of the eyes, growing less and less dark blue and more black… I look at the fox in the mirror, only thirteen years old, and wonder.

Who are you?

What… on Mobius… are you?

Within the Little Planet:

"Long forgotten by the Hands of Fate…"

Far beneath the surface:

"Long forgotten by those who Watch…"

Past pillar and stone:

"Long forgotten by even his Sire…"

Beyond bulwark and ancient emplacement:

"Long have I slept, long have I waited."

Upon marbled ground and etched rune:

A shadowed smile. "How time… flies…"

"Let me be clear as to the question. Are you asking whether or not the survival of the mobian people, as a race, was in jeopardy in the early thirty third century?"

"That is exactly the question, Professor."

"Then it is not an easy one to answer. The end of the Third Mobian Overlander War, or the so-called First Great War in 3229, was the first taste of true industrial style warfare in Mobian history. Both sides fought viciously, and with tenacity, because both called the war a War of Survival. Mobians believed that losing the war would reduce them to slavery or worse… extinction. At the same time, surviving Overlander records indicate a concurrent vein of thought. Modern scholars still debate how much truth can be gleaned from these documents, and how to separate fact from fantasy. …Take, for example, the Black Hands Organization, supposedly founded by the Fifth Imperial Warmaster."

"Kodos?"

"The same. An organization supposedly devoted to the annihilation of the Overlanders as a species distinct and separate from Mobians. While a great deal of evidence has been found supporting massacres of civilian populations on both sides, and atrocities we can look back on with great shame, we have never found any actual proof of the existence of the so called 'Black Hands' yet the myth continues to persist. It is my opinion that, despite the horrors of the First Great War, the overreaching threat to mobian life as a whole was actually limited. Many parts of the planet never lost a single life to the War, and some never even knew of its existence."

"That could be said for any conflict, no matter how major."

"True. Now, continuing to the tumultuous thirty-two thirties… the situation truly deteriorates. We have the successful coup in thirty-two thirty, which places the former Sixth Imperial War Master in Command, and precipitates the fall of the First Acorn Dynasty."

"Tell us your thoughts on this coup, and its leader."

"Kintobor. The Kintobors were some sort of ruling family among the overlanders, and Julian Kintobor was its black sheep. Despite scarce records, we know there was a feud within the family, and that it resulted in the exile of Julian – the older brother – and numerous other overlanders. He found asylum in the besieged Kingdom of Acorn, and worked his way to Imperial War Master in thirty two twenty eight, after only four years of service. A remarkable achievement. I've studied the strategies he used at West Island, the Southern Defensive, and Pandtern. Virtually all modern day scholars concede that the war could not have been won without him. However, his power hungry nature was obvious to all those who spent time with him, and it is a testament to the hubris of the Acorn Dynasty that they believed they could control him."

"Why do you think he was able to so easily seize power?"

"There had been an existing power vacuum for years, entirely due to the failing policies of King Maximillian the First. The agricultural overhaul in thirty two twenty five, the purging of the nobility in thirty-two eighteen, twenty one, and finally in twenty-eight had soured the vision of the Monarchy in the eyes of many of the mobian elite. The death of many supporters of the King earlier in the war had also dramatically weakened his power base inside the military itself. The situation was rife for revolution, and many people were apathetic. If Kintobor had not seized power, some other individual would have. It was inevitable. In that light it is hardly surprising that this overlander, despite his ethnicity, was able to make good use of his military power, and relative popularity, to make a move."

"Which brings us to the Second Great War."

"Yes. Often overlooked, the Second Great War was really a continuation of the first. It was during this period that the policies of the new despot, Julian Kintobor, built the foundation for the conflict to come. Lasting almost three years, and ending in thirty two thirty three, the time it took for the second overlander assault to be pushed back gave surviving pockets of Anti-Kintobor mobian resistance to organize themselves. By the time of the overlander defeat and withdrawal, the stage had been set for the Mobian War of Succession. To go back to your original question, this was the period in time when mobians, as a people, faced their greatest crisis."

"The so called 'Freedom Fighter' Era."

"Yes."

"How so, Professor?"

"During this period of just five years, the planet itself would be put into jeopardy half a dozen times. The two 'Death Egg' incidents, The Doomsday scenario, The Chaos phenomenon, and numerous other catastrophes all occurred in this relatively small frame of time, as a handful of parties vied for dominance and hegemony. For every positive advance, like the return of Echidnapolis in thirty two thirty five, there seemed to occur a number of negatives, like the return and sudden annihilation of the overlanders in thirty two thirty six. For every supposed step towards liberation, like the short-lived 'death' of Kintobor also in thirty-five, there was another attempted take-over. Self styled world conquerors like Enerjak, and Mammoth Mogul appeared and went, only to be replaced by newcomers, like the so-called 'Master Mind.'"

"Of course all this came to a head in thirty two thirty seven."

"Yes. And it was a good thing that it did. Because, while not all of my colleagues would agree with me, I am certain that then and there, in thirty two thirty seven, the very existence of our species was spoken of with a question mark… The Freedom Fighters of that Era, led by the exiled remnants of the Royal Acorn Family were holding tenuously to survival in the Great Forest of Mobius as they had for years. Guerrilla warfare had been steadily escalating since the partial leveling of Mobotropolis and the emergence of the second overlander known as Master Mind, and despite the potential for help from far off Echidnapolis, none was forthcoming. The Angel Island had plunged back into isolationism. Indeed, as any historian of the period will admit, the situation was a bleak one. As bleak as any that had come before, because the hope that had to characterized previous years was slowly but surely waning."

"And…. That seems to be all the time we have for today. Professor Punitif – Chairman of Collective Mobian History, Royal University New Mobotropolis. Thank you for your insights. I hope you can join us again sometime in the future."

"Thank you, Mr. Jihn. I'd be happy to."

"Those watching at home, please join us tomorrow, when we will be having a round table discussion with noted academic Mikhail Nosennov, of the Seminole Institute, and Laura Li of the Remington Memorial Think Tank, on Echidnapolis. The subject: 'What was the extent of Dark Legion participation in the Ducal Insurrection?'"

Knothole.

3237

Closing the door to his hut, Miles 'Tails' Prower squinted his eyes against the early morning sun. Last nights dreams had been thankfully uneventful, and for the first time in a week he had enjoyed an actual good night's sleep. Looking around, he wondered who else was up aside from himself. It wasn't that late in the day, and Rotor was always the first up. Sonic and Sally were probably still asleep. The latter could usually afford to sleep until eleven, and the former preferred to wake up around lunchtime. They were lucky.

Most mobians couldn't make their own schedules.

There was a time, just a few years ago, when he would have joined them. Of course, his only excuse for sleeping in would be that he was a growing boy, and still 'in training.' Now, despite still being only twelve (or so), the burdens of responsibility weighed more heavily on him than he would ever have imagined. On the side of his hut, he checked his mailbox; opening it with a key he kept in his dresser.

It was thin pickings, as usual.

The rudimentary postal system was one of the newer institutions to Knothole, which had undergone radical changes over the last two and a half years. Once little more than a tiny retreat in the Forest, it had grown steadily with Freedom Fighters… and then Freedom Fighter families, and then, finally, refugees and civilians from the second fall of Mobotropolis. The retreat had turned into a hamlet, and almost overnight, into a not-too-small town. The sudden increase in population from around two hundred to a little more than ten times that number had been hard to handle. As it was, Sally had taken to slowly but surely decentralizing their organization, moving more and more mobians to other secure and semi-secure villages across the former Kingdom.

Simply, Knothole was not meant to support so many animals.

Especially given its supposedly covert nature.

"Rotor…" Tails grumbled, as he picked out the most important of the five pieces of white-brown paper. It was a list of Duties and things that needed being done. The chief mechanic of Knothole had taken the liberty of dividing up the list, checking off what he planned to do, and what he expected his former apprentice to take care of. No the fox's total lack of surprise, he was on 'water treatment and reclamation' duty again. Plus, he had to fix the lighting in the East Quarter, which was on the fritz again, and a few other lesser problems.

Folding the paper, he read the other four notes.

"What's this? Invited to attend… etc… Miles' Tails' Prower."

It was an invitation to a small concert being held at the Clearing in Old Knothole, by some group of FF trainees. Tails had gotten the invite because he was one of the Founding Fathers of the Resistance, and as a formality. You invite one of the original Freedom Fighters, you have to invite them all, no matter that the 'Founding Father' is a couple years your minor.

The next bit of mail was the Thursday edition of 'The Patriot,' a mini newspaper one of the refugee mobians, a former journalist in the days of the Kingdom, had started up. Tails checked the headlines, and sighed. Nothing about him. Hardly surprising, really… but it always irked him. There was an article about the Crown Prince, another about the last raid on Robotropolis, and a bunch of editorials and other junk. Most of it was propaganda and populist nonsense. He never would've paid for a subscription, and only got the newspaper at all because he helped build its printing equipment and train its staff to maintain it. Hence, it got it for free.

"Lucky me." He droned, and read over the other two notes. One was from Sonic, and read, curtly: "Party at my place, Thurs. 10 PM. There'll be girls, so you'd better show, Big Guy."

The fox grinned and shook his head. "Sonic…"

Still, a part of him wasn't so eager to show up. He'd never had much experience or luck with the opposite sex. Plus, if Sonic was there, he would almost certainly be the center of attention, not the junior Fox Scout he sometimes hangs out with. Worse, someone might call him 'Milsey' or 'Tails-chan' or some other horrendous nickname. Last time, some girl had called him 'That Prowler Kid.' He frowned a little at the memory.

The last note was junk.

It was just an advertisement for some new arts and crafts shop on the South Side of the town. Not really worth the five or six times recycled paper it was printed on. Going back inside his hut briefly, Tails put everything but the newspaper on the drawing desk next to his bed and headed off to get a quick bit to eat. He'd recently been finding breakfasts less and less appetizing, but his hunger kept him going back to the same old thing.

"Eggs!" He demanded at the counter. "Bacon!"

The small staff were happy to comply, and Tails ate in relative peace and quiet by himself in the open air Clearing. When he was younger, just a few years ago, he had played here. He had thrown around a ball in the bright sunshine and laughed and wondered: When will I get to be a real Freedom Fighter? When will I be able to help?

On a lark, he looked around at the other mobians sitting and eating. He recognized them, knew them, at least vaguely. They were other Freedom Fighters, from other cells in other areas of the continent. They were the next batch of Freedom Fighters, ones who had lost their homes for a second time. What they weren't… were his friends. Associates and comrades in arms was about as far as it went.

Where was Bunnie?

Training cadets and trainees. The same fate Antoine had been stuck with. Rotor never ate breakfast, but Tails saw him almost every day anyway, at least. Amy Rose came and went, doing pretty much nothing of any productive use. Sonic alternated between busy on missions, and waiting between missions, bored out of his mind. Sally had a little empire to run, though at least she had more help now and wasn't nearly as hassled as she had been in past years. Knuckles and his friends were still on the newly renamed Angel Island (formerly known just as the Floating Island), and had their hands full with the Dark Legion and other off-Mobius threats.

The eggs and bacon tasted slick and fatty.

He almost gagged after the first bite, but his stomach quickly reminded him that food was just more needed fuel for the fire, and he forced it down. It was a good thing, too. He just couldn't eat cereal anymore. The last time he tried, a few weeks ago, he had thrown it up just a few minutes after forcing it down. Chewing the remains of the last overly fried egg, Tails sighed and went to work.

It didn't take long for his life to return to its routine.

"So: what've we got here?"

One of his assistants, a badger named Scott, wiped his brow with the back of his hand. Next to the animal, Knotholes' main system of water conduits and pipes crisscrossed, meeting in a junction of metal and wipes and power. Tails knew this was as much the heart of the town as the Inner Square, or the Academy or even Rotor's vaunted Power Hub. Without running water, hot and cold, and without proper treatment and recycling, the population would be in a state of panic and crisis in less than a day. Even a minor loss of efficiency or a significant leak or contamination could force a partial evacuation. If handled incorrectly, any number of problems could lead to yet more obvious clues as to Knothole's supposedly 'secret' and 'hidden' location deep in the Great Forest.

The water had to be brought in from around the town, filtered and treated, then partially recycled. Some of it returned to nature, back to the underground aquifer and the normal running above ground sources, and some of it back into the system. A related system brought in new water from those same sources, and yet another system watched both systems and monitored them for purity and needed maintenance. Tails knew all three like the back of his hand (minus the glove). He had, after all, designed it himself.

"Looks like an error in the oxidization process." Scott led his 'boss' over to the main control station for the three systems that handled the lifeblood of Knothole. "'George' isolated it in Treatment Pool Four. So Jerry and Elaine compensated, locking up the pumps to it and falling back on the redundant secondaries. It's undergoing a backwash as we speak."

"Great…" The vulpine sighed, and looked over the readings. "We're going to have to replace Filters twelve through fourteen. Probably the white sand in filter fifteen, too."

The systems were highly automated and designed to maintain peak efficiency at all times. This kept it 'stealthy,' as the environmental impact was minimal, but it also made it more complex and difficult to keep going all the time. The three systems, nicknamed Elaine (Filtration and Treatment), Jerry (Externalization and Output) and George (Coordination and Oversight) acted logically, like they were programmed to, but with no mercy for those who had to physically maintain things. The whole thing was based loosely on the vast Hydrocity Plant that, in its time, desalinated and provided water for a large swatch of the main continent.

"So this isn't a major problem, then?"

"No. … But there's something really wrong with this." Tails pointed to a flow chart on the monitor. "This happens far too often when it comes to Pool Four. I think there's something wrong with the plumbing system in the East Quarter."

"Sir?"

Tails looked at Scott closely. He could tell, just by his tone of voice, that the badger still wasn't totally comfortable being under the command of a 'little twelve year old kid.' Under his gaze, Scott gulped, feeling obviously uncomfortable.

"Don't be angry, sir," he finally said, trying to appease the fox. The he started to ramble. "I mean, I know this means we'll have to… er… you'll have to look over the whole plumbing routes and er… um… I ah…"

"I'm not angry." Tails stated, and stood to his full height. He noted with no small amusement he was just a fraction of an inch taller than the other mobian. "Do I look angry?"

"Um… yes… sir."

That was odd.

Straightening out his face, he checked. It felt relaxed. After a second or two of making sure he wasn't frowning, or looking 'angry,' he turned back to the monitor. "Whatever. Just get to work replacing those filters. Use your judgment on whether fifteen needs replacement, too. If it does, get… Mindy to do it. She needs some more experience with changing the filters."

"Sir."

"I'll get to work on double checking the network." Starting to head off, the kitsune paused, and looked over his shoulder. "Scott?"

The badger turned around completely. "Sir?"

"You don't like me, do you?"

The other mobian stood ramrod straight.

"I… Sir, I don't…"

"No." Tails blinked. This assistant of his was so transparent. His emotions and thoughts were like glass. The only real question was why the two tailed fox hadn't noticed it earlier. "No: you don't like me. You don't like that you have to take orders from me. You don't like… that you work for me… and not Rotor. And… when you talk to your friends, you tell them I'm…"

"Sir!" The badger bit his lower lip, and looked at Tails pleadingly. "I don't know who told you all that, but… but I didn't mean any of it! I was drunk! I… I was kidding! You know how it is! You say stuff you don't mean!"

"I suppose you do." Tails faced away from the badger, and started walking away.

From behind, Tails heard Scott add, in pleading tones: "I'm… I'm not fired am I?"

"Not unless that filter isn't changed by noon." Tails waved the incident off. "I don't care what you think of me. Just do your part for the cause, understood?"

"Yes." Scott spoke up. "Yes sir."

Tails heard something else mumbled under the badger's breath, softly cursing one of his drinking buddies. While outwardly calm, the fox wondered how he had guessed all that. It couldn't have just been simple observation, could it? Walking out the door, leaving the 'Reclamation and Treatment' Center behind him, he slowly took off the glove on his left hand. He had always worn gloves, just like his hero, Sonic… but lately. Lately, he had been reluctant to take them off in public. But the streets here were relatively empty and free of prying eyes.

Working the white glove off, Tails looked at the palm of his hand.

Flexing his fingers, he saw his claws – normally little stubs, like those most mobians had – retract slightly, almost like a cat's. They certainly weren't stubs anymore. Sometime over the last month, he was sure, they had gotten a little longer, and a lot sharper. They reminded him of Hershey's claws, which he had seen only once, about a week ago. He had asked her if she had them around the same time his started to come out, and she had demonstrated. But Hershey was a feline, and hers retracted all the way into her fingers. Tails' new claws just seemed to fold down a little, closer to his fingertips, where they generally didn't catch anything by accident.

"Miles? Sir?"

At the sound of a voice, he quickly put his glove back on, and faced the source of the interruption. It was a young looking squirrel, with bright blue eyes and a patch of dark black hair. He found her cute, in a familiar way, but… something else was missing about her. For some reason, he found himself sniffing the air faintly.

"Um. Yes." He snapped out of it quickly. "You… are…?"

"Jamie."

"Jamie?"

"Yes sir." He didn't detect the same hidden note of concealed resentment in her and relaxed a fraction. But the question remained: what did she want with him? Almost certainly it was a favor of some sort. No one came to him unless they needed something fixed, or some help with something.

"Well?" He prompted. "How can I help you?"

"Um…" She blushed, and looked down at her feet. "I… I was wondering…"

"Go on." He stressed. He was a busy mobian and this was eating up precious time.

"I was wondering if you would, if you didn't have anyone in mind I mean, take me, um… to Sonic's party today?"

At first, the question confused him. "You want to go…with me?"

"Yes, sir." She said shyly. "It's invite only."

His facial expression hardened. "And you know he invited me, huh? I'm your ticket in, is that it?"

"No!" She gasped. But he saw through it. There was the lie. In her eyes. In her voice. In her heartbeat and in her smell. He was 100 certain of it.

"Don't take me for a fool." He warned, but kept himself from growling. There was no sense in getting angry. She looked away from him, dejected and embarrassed. He sighed.

"I appreciate honesty, that's all," he explained, in a softer tone, hoping he didn't sound as bitter as he felt. "If you want to go, I'll take you. It isn't like I have any other plans."

"You will?" She beamed at him, and threw her arms around him. He stiffened instantly, rejecting the touch. How could this girl demean this physical gesture of affection with her falsehood? It… annoyed him. "Thank you! Thank you!"

"Whatever."

He pushed her away from him, careful not to use too much force. He'd always been pretty strong for his size, but recently… he'd learned that he really had to watch himself. He listened while she explained where she lived, in one of the older Academy dorms, expecting him to escort her to the party ('Great,' he thought, 'A wet behind the ears newb - at least I'll be doing her popularity a favor.'). He filed the information away for later.

He didn't care.

Not anymore.

He'd long ceased after… after… He scowled deeply, finally, thinking about her. That had been a mistake. It had been a mistake back then, and it was a mistake now thinking about it. He didn't care. Not anymore. It was a relief to him when he got around to looking over the drainage network and the sewage system. The problem was a complex one – two new stores in the Eastern Quarter had been abusing their water allocations, and dumping refuse and trash down the drain. Wood chips and silicates and other crap had fouled up the system.

It'd have to be cleaned out.

He'd already, with a touch too much glee, written in his report every violation of the water could he had justification for. If those bastards were found to be guilty of even half of what he wrote down, and they'd be fined up the ass. His blood boiled when he thought of how one of them had tried to bribe him, of all mobians! As if he needed anything that they had. As if he could be bought and sold like some common gutter trash…

Tails shook his head.

He was getting too angry too quickly, recently. He smiled weakly as he walked from the East Side of the town to the Inner Square. This was for the good of everyone. The rules were written and enforced because they lived a tenuous existence. A measure of freedom had to be sacrificed, to maintain secrecy. If Robotnick or Mastermind found out where Knothole was… The center of the resistance would be crushed. Everything he worked for and cared about would be lost… buried under a tide of Swatbots and badnicks and mutant freaks…

Mutant freaks.

The phrase made him laugh. He was the last mobian on the planet to go around calling anyone a 'mutant freak!' The rest of the day went by well enough. He met up with Rotor in his 'Power Hub.' The walrus, several years Tails' senior, had done well for himself. Rotor was Knothole's Senior Technician (Tails had the Junior spot), and when Knothole had expanded, quickly took advantage of the fact to expand his little workshop. They needed a greatly improved power supply and infrastructure, and Rotor had set it all up almost by himself, while everyone else had been out fighting the good fight in a more traditional fashion.

The work he had done was impressive.

When they had first met, Rotor had noticed the young fox's aptitude when it came to mechanics, and had tutored him in the basics, and eventually, the nuances. They had worked on a few joint projects, here and there, but had ultimately specialized in different fields. Rotor's passion was programming, electronics, and finding a better, more reliable and more effective deroboticizer. Tails, on the other hand, had preferred to take a more proactive approach. He dabbled in a great many things, by necessity, but his personal passion was for weapons. He built the shield and the cloak that kept a newly expanded Knothole off infrared and radio sensors. He built its new anti-aircraft array. He built the weapons of war that would win their peace. How Rotor took things from there, he didn't altogether care.

Rotor had a number of assistants helping him, but he still took time to work with his first. He and Tails got together for lunch, and compared notes on Knothole's power grid. It was at its limits, and both of them had plans for expansion. Tails wanted to try adapting some more experimental power sources to compensate, and spent his time advocating the potential benefits of copying the Ring Generator ('Too risky,' Rotor countered, 'Moving the Ring Generator isn't safe'), salvaging a power core from one of the abandoned satellites in orbit ('Setting up a launch site is too expensive and will attract too much attention'), or even harnessing the power of a chaos emerald ('Way too dangerous for a public power system, plus where are you going to get one?').

Rotor, meanwhile, proposed, as he always did, finding a new geothermal source of energy ('Too far from Knothole,' Tails pointed out more than once, 'And too vulnerable to a counterstrike') or building more wind turbines ('Too little power, given projected power requirements'). Over tuna fish sandwiches, one of the foods both actually enjoyed, Rotor finally admitted it was a moot point anyway, because by next month they'd be forced to settle for using old fossil fuel generators to supplement their power needs. It was news to Tails, who hadn't been aware that the town council had already decided on taking the cheap route.

"Its bullshit!" Rotor said, angered by the decision enough that he was willing to use that kind of language. Tails was old enough that cursing was becoming more and more… not a big deal, but both he and Rotor generally refrained from it. Rotor especially. He was normally very composed and calm.

Tails had shrugged, and quickly finished off his second sandwich.

"It was better when we could take these things right to Sal. She used to understand. And she wasn't afraid to take a few risks…" He started to rant.

"Are we remembering the same Sally Acorn, here?" Tails asked his companion and … friend. "I suppose you were fortunate enough not to hear 'it's too dangerous, Tails' or 'we can't risk it' every other day for two years."

Rotor cracked a grin. "I suppose not. Still… she was better than this … council."

Tails raised an eyebrow at that. "Oh?"

"Don't tell me you don't feel the same way." Rotor remarked, knowing the answer. "It should just be us. The originals. Running everything. No councils, no committees, no financial oversight… like the old days. But better. Because we're all better, now. More experienced."

"And how do you think that'll go over with all the mobians living here, hmm?"

"They'll accept it." Rotor shrugged. "At least until we win the war."

"Why don't you just take it to Sally, then?" Tails asked, pushing his tray away from him. He looked up into the clear blue sky, and felt like taking a quick flight to clear his mind.

"Maybe I will. She's letting these… crowds… walk all over her." Rotor sighed loudly, his large body shaking with the motion. Getting to his feet, he shook his shoulders, getting the knots out of weary muscles.

Watching him get ready to leave, Tails spoke up. "Hey. You going to Sonic's tonight?"

"Nah." Rotor shook his head. "I'm not much of a party type, you know that. I'll probably just be burning the midnight oil."

Tails thought, momentarily, about foisting off his 'date' on Rotor. It wouldn't be too hard. All it would take is telling the poor guy that a 'cute girl' he knew needed someone to take her. Rotor wasn't looking for anything serious, Tails knew, but he also knew the older mobian really did want some sort of female attention. Just like the two tailed fox, Rotor was set apart from the others because of who and what he was.

Uncommon.

"Right," Tails said, deciding not to try it. While tempting, in the end, when all was said and done, it would only make Rotor miserable. Because he cared. Tails… didn't.

"Remember to take care of the wiring problem we talked about…"

"Yeah, yeah. I'll take care of it." Tails stood up, leaving their trays on the wooden table. Someone would come and pick it up for them. That was one of the benefits of Knothole, now. They had a too large labor surplus, and so many people had little jobs. The town didn't even have a real economy, so much as a sort of quasi command economy. But the financial situation wasn't Tails' concern. What mattered was that things got done.

"Good." Rotor was satisfied with that answer. If Tails said it would get done, he knew it would. "See ya around, man."

"You too."

Tails didn't see him leave. Instead, he stepped out to the edge of the clearing, and jumped into the air. It took only a second for his twin tails to twist, and then explode into a blur of motion. He fell forward, before his trust equalized and slowly lifted him higher into the air. He'd been doing this for years, but… but it had been easier when he was little. Despite his growing muscles, his size and his ability to increase the power of his tails were not increasing in equal proportions. It was only because he's practiced boosting Sonic into the air and holding Sonic over obstacles and dangers in previous years that he had the raw power to hold himself aloft now.

But the exertion was worth it.

Catching a bit of sky, feeling the wind in his face… it was perfect. It was a slice of true freedom, the likes of which Sonic experiences only when running at full speed. Of course, Tails had never been able to match Sonic's speed, no matter how hard he tried… but he had come close more than once. The blue hedgehog was unbeatable on flat even terrain, but on uneven ground he couldn't pick up enough acceleration to break the sound barrier. Around loops, in turns, and on broken ground Tails could almost always keep pace with his idol, though he usually tired more quickly. It was pretty damn impressive, given that Sonic was five years older than him.

But this was even better.

Only Knuckles really knew how this felt, gliding over the land. Feeling himself begin to tire after only two minutes, he turned around and headed back. He flew low over the tree line by habit, to keep off of radar screens and give himself quick cover if he needed it. Approaching Knothole, he felt an urge not to fly into the place and attract attention. He already looked different. There was no need to show it off.

Diving through the canopy, he landed on the thick branch of a tree.

"The Ring Pool."

He looked down at that small body of water. After Knothole's expansion, the Ring Pool had been declared off limits to most mobians by Royal Decree. Only the original Freedom Fighters were allowed there. Tails had always enjoyed its tranquil waters, and serene beauty, especially at dawn and dusk. It reminded him of West Island.

He sniffed the air.

And felt… oddly… Protective…

"Bah." Scoffing at such a silly thing, he flipped down and landed on both feet. "I've got work to take care of. First and foremost…"

The repairs were child's play.

The sun's glare was omnipresent and relentless in its intensity.

"Can someone boost the audio on the sandstorm outside? And for Aurora's sake, add a little bass to it or something! Is it too much to ask for some halfway decent atmospherics?"

Among the dunes, several parked vehicles rested under a heavy tarmac, protected from the wind and sand. A short distance away, a large van on hovertreads sat beneath the protection of a stone awning. Ruins dotted the desert, but among these select few, there was life.

Such as it was.

"I'm getting some interference in the video feed…"

"No! It's good! Keep it!"

The building had once been part of a parade ground, back in the days of Old Dingo City. Now, the ghosts of soldiers, long dead, haunted the ruins. Or so they claimed on "Mobius' Most Haunted Castles and Ruins." In fact, the spirits of Sandopolis almost never ventured beyond the lower circles of the fallen city. Luckily, a little cinematography and dramatic acting could remedy that problem. Great Echidnapolis, removed from war and strife, and growing ever more proud of their technological and social advancement, craved exotic and sensationalist entertainment.

No matter how intellectually bland.

While actors preened and pretended, a handful of staff "lit 'em if they had 'em." Blowing smoke into the growing wind outside, an echidna with green highlights took a long drag on his cigarette. In his left hand, a half empty box of cigs displayed a logo featuring a feline silhouette in an obviously provocative pose. It was the good stuff, from the tobacco plantations in southeastern Cat Country – smooth and strong. Even the humans preferred it, or so the young echidna had heard.

"Hey."

"What's up?"

Another tiny light came and went; another coughing nail for a friend in the business. Another echidna, the same age, eschewing dreadlock highlights in favor of a pair of piercings, stood between the growing storm and the failing cinematography. Craning his neck, the new guy tried to look up past the stone overhand above them.

"Nasty outside," he observed with only a little sarcasm.

"No kidding."

"Hey, did you see that so called 'specialist' they hired for this episode?"

The two laughed.

"Yeah, the 'authority on dingo military affairs.' Here to 'identify the ghost soldiers.' What a load of crap!"

"More like some hobo they picked off the streets and dressed in some secondhand uniform!"

"Nothing sadder than an out of work soldier… Man, I tell ya: this show is too much bullshit, even for ETV. And how many 'haunted encounters' are we supposed to have, anyway? Like every cave or ruin on Mobius is full of ghosts and shit?"

"Yea! right!"

Crack.

Slowly, very slowly, the two echidnas stopped laughing and looked down at the ground near their feet. Something was sticking out of the sand blasted floor.

"Is that… a hand?"

The gloved hand, dirty but still plainly functional, lifted another couple inches out of the ground before tilting down and grabbing onto the block of solid sandstone nearby. The very sandstone the two Mobians were standing on. Slack jawed, both could only watch and stammer as an arm ripped itself free from the sand and dirt.

"It's a…. g…g g…. h…"

Then, a head emerged: pink hair and the typical dark red of most echidna. Shaking the sand from her hair, Lara popped out of the ground. Given how she had emerged, it was hardly surprising that she looked frazzled and haggard.

"Damn ghosts!" She snarled, stomping the sandy ground. "You better run! I know where you live!"

"…"

Looking up, just now noticing the two on break technicians, Lara smiled and waved. And then, without warning, she leapt into the sandstorm, disappearing within seconds.

Dangling from the lower lip of one of the men, a half finished cigarette fell.

"What the Hell?"

"Hmmm." Fingers pinched the leaf and picked it from the forest floor. Those same fingers quickly brought it up to a sensitive nose that twitched, twice, taking in sharp breaths of air. Slowly, the fingers lowered, and a lone figure stood up and looked to the west.

"Finally..."

Tempest smiled, sharp teeth visible. Breaking into a run, he made no noise tearing through the thick brush. In seconds, he leaped into the trees and disappeared.