The shop had a little chime that warbled when someone entered. It was a sound almost lost amid the steady tik-tok beats of the clocks inside. The small workshop was full of them: a line of grandfather clocks beat out a deliberate rhythm, the wall behind them decorated with a multitude of smaller timepieces. The methodical tune they made sounded like a disjointed song; a melody of metal arms, turning in time.

Rouge found it a little off putting, but Tails seemed to grow more quietly excited by the mechanics of it all. They had identified "Marie" as a teacher at one of the District's nightschools, where she worked as part of an "acculturation" program for newcomers who came to Chemical Plant looking for work. From there, it had been easy to backtrack and see where she lived. It was a mated business and residence, run by her husband, a man with the clever alias of "Andreas."

Following her lead, and impressed by her abilities, Tails had soon forgotten all about how she had extorted him earlier. He'd made quite a fuss at the time, but they both knew that she delicately skirted that line between inconvenience and imposition. She hadn't asked for anything that she knew he couldn't, and wouldn't, really mind giving. With payments decided, he patiently let her work her magic.

This close to the end, Rouge thought briefly about the whole scheme.

She had certainly struck a cord with him, and if anything, he seemed more impressed than angry or annoyed at having someone see through what he planned. The kitsune, Miles Prower, was quite a different animal than she had initially expected. That little run in they had had before had opened her eyes to the fact. She had always pictured him as just being Sonic's helpful sidekick, giving him pointers on where to go and occasionally assisting with some techy problem. She never gave much thought to what he wanted, or what he did, when he wasn't with the blue hedgehog hero.

Her talk with Tempest had been invaluable in the planning of the resulting enterprise. It was really only then that she had put together all the pieces of information she had gathered together, forming a coherent and believable whole. Before that little chat, it had been almost too shocking to contemplate. Finally talking to him, confronting him, she was absolutely certain in her conclusions. There was a determined, convicted side to him that he kept well hidden.

It suited her purposes nicely.

Inside the shop, she let Tails assume the lead. This was for him, after all. There was an older vulpine sitting near the counter, fixing one of the wall mounted clocks. It was analog, like virtually everything in the store. Rouge could guess that the pocket watches and 'antique' clocks were fairly popular among the well off, if only as a status symbol. More parochial types, with little access to reliable power supplies, probably also saw the benefits.

The craftsman looked up and Rouge saw right away that he had a prosthetic left eye. It wasn't very attractive, but it was functional: a round eyepiece covered part of the fox's face, colored black with a single line of glass in the middle. Behind it, optics switched and cycled. Reaching up to his eye, the older mobian used his middle finger to slide a black coverslip into place over the lens. Now all black, it looked almost like an eyepatch. Standing, he then appraised the two arrivals with a single keen dark blue eye.

"Can I help you?" he asked, in a firm authoritative voice.

"Are you Andreas?" Tails asked, assuming a firm tone of his own. His voice wasn't as deep at the older mobian's, having a younger more lyrical tenor tone to it, but if anything it left his words feeling more expressive than intended.

"I am," the older mobian responded. "Do I know you?"

"I'm Miles," Tails stated, simply. "Amadeus."

Andreas' one good eye widened slightly, and he subtly tilted his head to look behind this young upstart. It only took a moment to realize what he was looking for, there.

"I don't know what you're…" he started to say.

Then Tails' namesakes un-fused, turning back to their natural state. It was a little strange seeing it. Rouge still couldn't understand how he did it, but then, she didn't know how anyone could fly using their tails either (which Tails obviously did). Instead of baffling herself with the details, the bat girl just chalked it up to general weirdness and chaos based superpowers… which she had seen more than her share of over the years.

"It really is me," Tails assured him. "You are Amadeus, aren't you?"

"Miles," he said, satisfied, but not with any great relief. The two stood there, facing each other for a long time. To herself, Rouge began to worry if there was some sort of bad blood between them. How many years had it been, since Tails had thought his parents killed by the Battlebird Armada?

"Yes," Amadeus finally said. "I am."

Neither moved an inch, not until Tails haltingly held out his hand.

"Sir," he said.

Amadeus took the offered hand in his own sealing them in a handshake. For a moment, it seemed that was all the reunion would amount to. Then the older vulpine pulled Tails in closer and wrapped one arm around his shoulder. It was a somewhat stiff embrace, hardly what Rouge had expected to see, but it was starting to become clear that Amadeus wasn't the more emotionally expressive of creatures. The hug lasted only a moment, and then they parted ways.

"I'm surprised to see you here, boy… or," he corrected himself. "You must be old enough now… Miles."

"I'm more surprised that you're alive," Tails replied. "What happened? Why didn't you contact me?"

"That's… it's a long story, Miles," Amadeus walked over to the front of the store, closing and locking the door. When he came back, he sighed. "Your mother will want to see you. We can explain it then."

He led them to the back of the store, but not to the stairs leading up. Instead, he walked past that, to the basement door tucked under the staircase. The door was heavy and strong, built to take a fairly serious pounding. It opened up only to reveal a flight of stone steps, well maintained and well lit.

As they walked down, Rouge saw a glimmer of emotion flash across Tails' face.

"You ok?" she leaned over to whisper.

"I honestly don't know…" he whispered back.

She could tell he was conflicted about this meeting, and that he probably had been for some time. Rouge could sort of understand why. She'd often imagined meeting her mother again, after so many years (assuming she was even still alive). She barely remembered her – the old bat's face was hazy and plain looking, after a decade's absence from her mind.

Rouge had never really gotten along well with her mother. Tuyet Nu My had been her name. She had chosen to stay behind in Cat Country with the rest of the Phyllostomid Tribe, living in (what Rouge now considered) fetid jungle squalor. A blood drinker from the Religious Caste, Rouge remembered her mother as stern and cruel, always ready to beat her disobedient daughter with a rod of sharp edged reeds.

Her father, Quoc Quan Than, had been the only light in that place. He often went to trade with the humans, and Rouge couldn't remember a time when she didn't admire his sharp wit and sense of adventure. He always brought back some little trinket or another from his trips, and very often, it was a little gemstone or piece of jewelry. Rouge still had his gifts, and they were still her most treasured possessions. He was the one who took her away from the savage life of the Tribe and brought her to civilization, where she could grow up and be whatever she wanted to.

Losing him had been devastating…

After he died, she rarely ever entertained the thought of going to see her lost mother. The meeting would have been awkward and likely unfriendly. Rouge could see some of that here, between Tails and his father. They had parted ways a decade ago, the same amount of time between Rouge and her mother. Amadeus struck her as a hard nosed military man, strict and short on praise. She could also tell that Tails admired him, nonetheless. For someone whose temperament leads them to immerse themselves in work, perhaps that was only natural.

At the bottom of the steps, Rouge saw "Marie," or Rosemary, rather. She looked just like the program had predicted, and just like the surveillance scans indicated. Wearing a lilac colored dress, she looked good despite being in her forties (just past mobian middle age), but Rouge could also see a look of surprise and a hint of fear in her eyes when they came downstairs.

"Do not worry, my dear," Amadeus spoke up as he led them away from the stairs. The basement was mostly empty, except for some older clocks and boxes of spare parts. A screen and a storage room were also obvious. Rosemary stood by one of those now, a loot of worry slowly fading, only to be replaced by one of shock and joy.

"Miles!" she gasped, running towards them, her past concern forgotten.

She received her adopted son with much more warmth and undisguised affection, and Rouge saw him close his eyes in silent, triumphant elation as they hugged. For her part, the she-bat couldn't help but wonder just what Rosemary was doing down here, and why she looked so frightened when someone came to interrupt her. Amadeus, though far less obvious about it, also made a quick glance towards the store room and the screened off area…

"My love, you've grown so much! Look at you!" Rosemary gushed over him, holding him at arm's length. "Oh, Miles! But..."

"What?" the kitsune asked, eyes almost tearing up.

"What did you do to your hair?" she tried to smooth over his bangs. "It's a complete mess! Amadeus, dear, do you have a comb?"

"Again with the hair…" Tails mumbled as his one time adopted mother tried (in vain) to separate his three hair bangs. They were pretty resilient.

"You look so handsome!" Rosemary smoothed out the hair behind his head, (which he normally cut, ever since that first adventure with Sonic, since it tended to get natty and wild) and took a long look at him. He smiled belatedly at the motherly praise.

"You look great too…" he said, holding her. It was clear that he'd started to say 'mom' at the end of the sentence, but couldn't quite manage.

"Rosemary," her husband said. "We have to tell him."

"What about her?" the woman turned her eyes to Rouge, and they suddenly began to look rather keen. The bat girl hadn't really given her presence much thought, except that it would be amusing to watch what happened.

"She's with me," Tails spoke up, before Rouge got the chance. "You can trust her."

Miles' support was unexpected, and Rouge blinked a few times in incredulous surprise. Did he really think he could trust her? No: that didn't seem like him, not the him that she thought she knew. He had to simply be putting his parents at ease. After all, she had seen this much already. Besides, maybe he did trust her in a way. She already had more than enough to blackmail him, and she had already agreed not to. Maybe it wasn't so much 'trust' as a test. She couldn't well do anything to the Prower family without putting their own deal (and perhaps her life) in jeopardy.

"Is she your…?" Rosemary ventured to say, a little anxiously.

"Lover?" Rouge interrupted, sidling up to her 'boyfriend.' "Most definitely."

A tremble ran down the kitsune's body at the close, all too intimate contact.

"Yes. Well…" he muttered. "That is to say…"

"I'm happy for you both!" Rosemary said, though to Rouge she didn't exactly sound very pleased with the match up. Tails probably missed the inflection, since he was still trying to compose himself. Amadeus said nothing, instead choosing to look silently skeptical.

"Rouge, please."

"Sure thing, loverboy…" she let him go, and he visibly relaxed.

"We need to talk," Tails said, getting to the heart of things. "I'd like to know… a lot of things, but… why…? Why are you here? Why didn't you… contact me?"

Amadeus retrieved a quartet of folding chairs, first giving one to his wife, and then their two guests. When all four of them were seated, the two older mobians glanced at one another, trying to determine who would answer and probably what they would say. Rosemary ultimately looked down at her hands, and it became clear that, for now, Amadeus would do the explaining for them.

"Miles," he said. "How much do you know of us, from the war?"

"Next to nothing," the younger fox admitted. "You served in the army, but there aren't any records where."

"Did you speak to any of the veterans of Mobotropolis?"

"No…" Tails admitted. "I spoke to the King. To the General Staff…"

"Records can be changed, Miles. …By those who wish to bury history." Amadeus took a deep breath.

"I served as Lord General of the Army for four years under King Maximilian I, directly subordinate to the Warlord at the time, Kodos, and Chief of the Army, D'Coolette. In that time, I fought from the Eastern Shores and the Overlander colonies to the Siege of Mobotropolis itself. I saw the greatest wartime loss of life since the Civil Wars. I saw our people rally, from the brink of destruction and defeat. I saw… our survival… resting on the shoulders of a human, who claimed to wish for peace and coexistence."

"Robotnick." Tails snarled.

"Yes. Julian," Amadeus said the name with clear familiarity. "Understand that he was our savior, then. We thought him a man who forsook the genocidal madness of his own people, his own family, to ensure that Mobians survived free, in their own lands. Many of us thought him a new Nate Morgan, a human who could transcend race and bring us a new golden age."

Amadeus took another deep breath, as if the recollection pained him. Rosemary placed a hand on his own, giving him a gentle supportive squeeze. He slowly nodded in appreciation.

"Miles," he finally said. "The reason my name was wiped from the records… was because I aided Julian during the coup of 3230."

"… what…?" Tails asked, a cold tone entering his voice.

"The King was unpopular, and Julian was a war hero…" Amadeus tried to explain, his one good eye taking on a distant look. "How we hated Maximilian… he had purged many of our friends, imprisoned those who served him but failed to meet his unrealistic expectations. His meddling during the war cost thousands of lives. He promised us glory, Miles… and led us to a charnel house…"

Tails sat, ramrod straight, listening.

Amadeus continued, determined to finish, "Julian banished Kodos, and most of us knew he had gotten rid of that madman, Ixis Naugus, too. He saved us on the battlefield, and… so when he began plotting a coup, to replace the monarchy with a democracy, like the humans had…. we believed him. I believed him. He told us that first, we would form a ruling oligarchy, and from there, we would slowly introduce reforms. We would make peace with the humans, because they had always feared and hated the Acorn Kings."

"You…" Tails bit off what he was about to say, switching instead to, "So you went into exile?"

"We had no choice," Rosemary replied, speaking up for her husband. "Miles, please understand… the royal system was corrupt, broken, wrong-headed. It was King Maximilian's greed that led us to war in the first place. We thought we were doing what was best for our people…"

"After the coup," Amadeus picked up. "It quickly became clear that the Oligarchy wasn't about to relinquish power. Soon, Julian built a new army, one that answered only to him. He began rounding mobians up, converting them… the other oligarchs were picked off, and the war started again. I took Rosemary, and we fled to the southwest."

"It was there that we found you," his wife added. "Now you see why we couldn't contact you, when we found out you were alive."

Tails processed this, a distraught look on his face. Is whole life, he had been fighting Robotnick. Now, to find out that the only mobians he considered family… that they had helped that same man seize power… he looked nothing less than shell shocked. For a moment, watching him, Rouge felt the impulse to reach over and… do what? She wasn't sure. Physical contact wasn't something he responded well to, she had learned.

Tails' tails glanced across the floor, cutting several long grooves in the hardwood.

"The Battlebirds…" he finally said. "Their records led me here."

Rouge could see what he meant to say: 'Don't tell me you were working with them, too.'

Amadeus fielded the question with some anxiousness. "After the attack, we… we had been told that you died. We worked for them for two years, and then they resettled us… they wanted to use us to spread propaganda. We… agreed. Rosemary's health was poor, and I needed to get her away from them."

"We went to Casino Night," Rosemary said. "A few months later, the Armada broke up. We didn't find out that you had taken them down… not until much later, and by then, you were working for the King himself."

"But the contact… with Admiral Tao…"

"Rosemary," Amadeus said. "You may as well show him."

The middle aged female nodded hesitantly, stood up, and walked to the screened off area of the basement.

"Show me what?" Tails asked.

His former step father coughed, catching his breath. "Admiral Tao and his Armada often smuggled up and down the coast. We had them bring in some supplies we needed. Printing equipment."

"Printing equipment?" Rouge repeated. "For…? Oh!"

"For what?" Tails obviously had trouble putting it all together. "What good is…?"

Rosemary returned, holding several pamphlets and newsletters. They seemed wholly unremarkable, up until she handed copies of them to her step-son and his batty 'girlfriend.' Tails read them quickly, a sense of realization dawning on his features. Rouge had already guessed what the printed materials were, even before she saw them up close.

The first was a paper depicting a conversation between a husband and wife. They were having a back and forth argument, ostensibly over the dinner table, about the role of the monarchy and government. The wife took the position (almost to the point of blindness and naiveté) that the King could do no wrong, that he had a divine right to rule, and that the monarchy was an indispensable part of the government. The husband, wiser and more worldly than his wife, argued that the monarchy was a burden, that it was obsolete, and that it had to be removed for the people to prosper.

Rouge was familiar with these bits of literature. They were circulated widely among the lower classes, especially, where an academic treatise would be less well received. The papers were always anonymous, and GUN had frequently worked to aid distribution, since it wasn't in the interests of the organization for the Kingdom of Acorn to grow too strong. It had always been human policy to oppose the rise of a hegemonic power on Mobius Major.

This particular piece that Rosemary offered them dealt less with the role of the King, and more with the corruption of the nobility and the abuses of landowners. It proposed a re-distribution of land and wealth, abolition of the guild system, and universal education for all classes. This sort of literature in particular always enraged the King and his supporters. The Royals could not rule without the nobility, and the nobility could not function without the guild system and the proper distribution of charters for land. For the mobian peasants and workers, however, reading this likely evoked some very different reactions.

"This is…" Tails finished reading through the piece, looking up at his step-parents and barely managing more than a whisper. "This is seditious literature…"

"Don't tell me," Rouge speculated, pointing first at Amadeus and then at Rosemary. "That you're Richard and Mary Roe?"

"Actually," the wife replied. "I am Richard."

Amadeus grumbled a bit. "I actually write for Mary Roe."

Rouge leaned back in her chair. This was just soooo juicy!

"It's an honor to meet you!" She reached over to shake Rosemary's hand. "I especially liked your conversation on the universality of mobian rights… You know, the humans…"

"This is sedition!!" Tails suddenly roared, standing up. The papers in his hands crumpled as they balled into fists. For all his furor, the young kitsune had tears in his eyes. Rosemary shrunk back, a look of shame clouding her face, but Amadeus stood and walked right up to the furious kitsune.

"Boy…"

"I've given my life fighting the man you helped raise to power! I've sold my soul helping the monarchy you want to tear down!" Miles snarled, canines bared as he stared his one time stepfather in the face. "Don't you dare call me boy."

"You'll have to ask yourself, Miles," Amadeus replied, coldly. "Do you serve the King? Or the people? What is more precious to you?"

Miles' tails bristled, flexing into a million blades and then back again.

Then, he took a step back, letting the crushed paper fall to his feet.

"Miles…" Rosemary started to say. "Please…"

"No," he cut her off. "You should have died. Both of you."

And then he turned and left.

"This guy isn't playing fair!"

Metal Sonic hovered in midair, patiently scanning the area. Currently less mobile, Shadow and Sonic seemed to be in the verge of panic (or at least, in Shadow's case, losing his proverbial cool). Metal's sensors had recorded an increase in average ambient temperature of more than one hundred percent. This had little to no effect on the robot's insulated chassis, but the robot's two partners were less well off.

Only their unusual, chaos-empowered resilience kept them from roasting in their own skins. It was a rather amusing image for Metal, and he quickly calculated whether he should just fly off and leave them… but then his Compliance Protocols kicked in, and he realized such idle speculation was a waste of CPU processing power. Doctor Robotnick had explicitly left orders to "aid Shadow the Hedgehog" and to "protect the interests of the Eggman Empire."

Worse, he had his Principal Directives to adhere to: "Directive One: the unit shall follow the orders of Doctor Robotnick. Directive Two: the unit shall not injure Doctor Robotnick or allow harm to come to him. Directive Three: the unit shall ensure its own existence." This clearly outlined the given orders, particularly "aid Shadow the Hedgehog," and placed them on a higher level of priority to Metal's own survival. More vexing still, "protect the interests of the Eggman Empire" was vague enough to cause a conflict.

What did: "protect the interests of the Eggman Empire" mean in this context?

Surely, ensuring the death of Sonic the Hedgehog would fall under protecting "the interests of the Eggman Empire." At the same time, it would also scuttle the peace process that was required to buy time and activate Perfect Defense Fortress Helios. Then there was the Last Order: "acquire or destroy any artifacts or technology," so long as it did not conflict with the previous two orders.

Metal Sonic turned his formidable suite of sensors to scanning, for one last time, the room around them. The fires seemed to be fed from an ethereal source, but their heat was very real. That same otherworldly energy source also seemed to be animating the spherical astrolabe that Sonic and Shadow found themselves trapped within. Extending his senses into the real of Chaos Waveforms, Metal saw a tapestry of lines fall over the room – indeed, this entire world.

Most importantly, it confirmed that certain patterns radiated from the glowing high high above them. This was the 'Ifrit' entity that Sonic had loudly declaimed as being 'unfair.' The rest of Sonic's tirade had amounted to: 'what kind of bad guy just sits there and roasts someone? Launch an attack or something. What a boring way to die!' Metal could only hope that, when the time finally came, he could kill Sonic in a particularly mundane fashion, if only to further piss the annoying hedgehog hero off.

'It seems there is no avoiding it,' Metal thought bitterly.

Holding out his right hand, he made the appropriate modifications. Metal and polymers morphed and reconfigured as nanites rebuilt his arm before overheating and slouching off in a shower of faint dust. Replacing most of the appendage was a blue and yellow cannon with a wide nozzle along with two tubes that wound up the rest of the arm.

"Shadow," he said, flying down to where the black hedgehog stood still in the center platform, thinking over his options. He gave Metal a quick look, as if to ask, 'What is it?'

"Do not move," Metal commanded, taking aim with his arm. A fountain of black material shot out, plastering Shadow literally head to toe. Wiping it out of his eyes and away from his mouth, Shadow sneered and winced as Metal flew around and shot him in the back, too.

"What are you doing?" he asked, and then he took a moment to stare at his hands. "Is this…?"

Metal ignored him and flew up to where Sonic was madly jumping from one spinning ring to the next, trying to get at the flying flaming orb above them. So intent was he on this, that he didn't even notice when Metal came up behind him and hosed him down. Yelping, the blue one quickly lost his footing and fell. The robot double zipped around, until he was face to face with the falling hedgehog, before spraying him over with more than a little gusto.

"You son of a…!" Sonic cursed, or started to. Then Metal grabbed his hand and flew up, swiftly and efficiently depositing him next to Shadow.

"Wipe it off your eyes and mouth," Shadow advised.

Not a surprise: Sonic started with his mouth.

"What is this gunk?" he yelled, just after clearing it away from his lips. "It smells like a month old chilidog!"

"Eiklar," Shadow said, holding up his hand. The sticky goo had hardened, forming a layer that covered his entire body.

"What supposed to mean anything to me?" Sonic asked, watching the stuff harden on him, too. "And do you know it looks like you have a racing stripe on your head?"

Shadow sighed. "You do, too."

"What?! Really?" Scrunching up his face in disgust, Sonic tried to wipe over the top of his head. "Is it a cool looking racing stripe?"

"I remember this material from the ARK," Shadow explained, hoping to bypass the whole 'racing stripe' discussion. "It's a sort of insulating foam, designed to protect people from radiation and temperature extremes in space."

"Ok, now you sound like Tails," Sonic replied. "So it keeps you cool, right? Cool!"

"We must target the spherical manifestation of chaos energy above us," Metal recommended, still hovering casually nearby. "My sensors indicate that it has non-solid eutectic properties. We must strike it at the same time, from opposing angles, to have any effect."

"You're slipping, Metal," Sonic said, sounding serious for once. "I actually understood that last part."

Shadow sighed. "I can't wait until this mission is over…"

Above them, the blazing Ifrit burned hot and oppressive, like a tiny sun.

"We are clear on our objectives," Metal said, looking upwards. "Let us proceed."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

He was just leaving. Just like that. Rouge followed, partly out of curiosity, and partly out of concern. If they were going to work together, she'd much rather not have him be as moody as Knuckles or as tortured and angst filled as Shadow. Besides, how he had left back there: it rubbed her the wrong way on a whole bunch of levels.

Tails walking pace was fairly rigorous, and the moment he hit the crowds returning from their shifts at work he growled and jumped clear over them. Rouge watched him go with more than a little irritation. Jumping and flapping her wings, she followed as he leapt from wall to wall, to a flagpole, and then up onto a high roof. Where he thought he was going, she had no idea. Did he think he could just run back to Knothole and forget the trip had ever happened?

Maybe he did.

Watching his back as he ran along the roof and took a flying leap, she remembered some of his old personality profile. GUN had identified that he profoundly disliked facing scenarios with complex emotional situations. His mindset was stuck in black and white, right and wrong, cause and effect. When a situation presented itself that was possibly lose-lose, or that he found to be mired in shades of gray, he simply ignored it and focused on something else.

"Where do you think you're going?" Rouge called, taking wing and flying up to where he had just disappeared.

They'd quickly gone from street level, to one of Chemical Plant's old abandoned towers. No one lived in the dangerous structure; it was just a weave of tubes and scaffolding, designed for robots to work around. Disrepair and the elements now worked to slowly bring it down. She was probably the only mobian for miles that could follow him up here.

"I'm going back to my work." She saw him standing at the edge of the building, on one of the pipes, about to take off. He could fly faster than she could, when he wanted to. It was already growing dark, and the sky was still cloudy and threatening rain.

"It was a mistake to come here," he concluded. "I've wasted too much time."

"And here Tempest told me you'd grown up into a man."

His shoulders clenched; the comment had gotten to him.

"Go on then," she said, urging him. "Run away from your problems. You and Sonic are so fast… I'm sure they'll never catch up to you."

"I wouldn't have enjoyed winning or losing the game if it had been against her."

"So you preferred to not play at all."

"Exactly."

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked, not turning around. He sounded angry and hurt and betrayed. "This wasn't what I came here for!"

"What did you think would happen?" Rouge asked, taking a few steps towards him. "That they'd hug you and tell you they loved you and how proud they were of you, but that they'd be cardboard cutouts in your background? That whenever you were confused, you could run to them and they'd make things all better?"

She saw him reach up to his face, his hand running through his hair.

"I just…" he struggled to say it. "I just want… what Sonic has…"

Jules and Bernadette, and his uncle Charles.

"What Knuckles has…"

The Brotherhood of Guardians, as dysfunctional as they were.

"What everyone has except me!" His tails suddenly thrashed around behind him, slicing grooves in the metal supports thick enough to fit someone's hand in. "I came here thinking: finally! Finally! It was MY turn! But they're… and they betrayed…"

"Who?" Rouge asked, "The King? …Or you?"

He stood at the edge, slowly shaking his head.

"…me," he admitted, voice low and hushed. "I just wanted to bring them back, to show everyone that I… I…" he cut himself off. "But that's stupid, isn't it? Even now, trying to be like him."

"All my life, I've been like that. Never once has it worked out right." He turned and fell back, sitting against one of the metal tubes that arched up into the air. "You'd think I'd have learned better by now."

Throwing his head back, he stared up at the night sky.

"I always thought they'd died. Years later, when I was in trouble, or when I didn't know what to do, I'd remember how that man, someone who called himself my father… how he stood in front of me with just his fists against a whole platoon of Battlebirds. I was tired from running back to the village from West Island, where I saw the fire, and I thought: 'Dad can handle this.' For just a second, I thought: 'Dad can handle this. He'll protect me.'"

Tails let out a choked laugh.

"And then they shot him. And m… and Rosemary screamed, and hugged me, and I tried to push her away, but I didn't want to hurt her…" He winced, tears welling up in his eyes. "And she turned me around and told me not to worry. And then they hit her from behind, and there was blood all over… I should have pushed her away. I should have done something. But I just… watched. That was the first time I think I killed someone."

He hid his eyes behind his hand.

"He was just… some Battlebird with a stupid blue helmet. I broke my hand, I hit him so hard. Snapped his neck. I don't remember much after that… they tranquilized me, took me away. Put me to work." He chuckled weakly again. "I don't know how many I killed when I turned on the Armada two years later. Hundreds, maybe. By then I could barely even remember my parents' faces."

"All I really remembered," he said, in the end. "Was what they taught me: protect what you love. Fight if you have to. Now they're alive… but do I have to fight them, or protect them?"

He moved his hand, and saw Rouge sitting next to him.

"Let me tell you something," she said, hugging one of her legs to her chest. "My father took me from my mother's Tribe when I was seven or eight. I barely remember. He was the only family I had. I loved him more than anything… and he died when I was fourteen. It was his job, but he took it because a mobian without a job in human territory… well, you know."

"I didn't stop crying and blaming myself for a long time," she continued, closing her eyes and taking a deep sigh. "I always thought that if I found out who had killed him, I'd get revenge. Years later, working on a different case for GUN, I picked up some details. I found out how he died and who killed him."

"It turned out my father… had been doing some stuff on the side, and it had caught up to him on the job. Figuring that out, I blamed him instead. I blamed him for being careless, for being greedy, for being an idiot, for leaving me all alone. I think I even tried to hate him… but no matter how flawed he was, no matter how imperfect, he was still my father. I still loved him… and treasured the memories I had of him."

"Do you treasure the memories you have of them?" she asked, her eyes meeting his. "Or do you really wish they'd died?"

Deep blue eyes hid behind ochre eyelids. Tails nodded slowly, very slowly, and looked away to the city below them. Fixing the three curving bangs of hair that literally shot out from his forehead, he visibly calmed.

"You're right, of course…"

Rouge smiled at him, aquamarine eyes sparkling. "Of course I'm right!"

He 'hmmfed.'

"I still don't know what to do about them," he admitted.

"I don't think they quite know what to do about you, either."

He gave her a strange, appreciative stare. "You have an unusual way of looking at things, you know that?"

"I'll assume you meant to say: 'Rouge, you have the unique ability to see things other people miss.'"

A little hesitantly, he smiled. It was a mellow, unguarded smile that she hadn't seen on him before. It wasn't happy, but it was… sympathetic. For a moment, the young adult kitsune looked like a boy again, realizing he had found something new and unique, baffling and exciting at the same time. He laughed softly and turned away again.

"Rouge…"

"Hm?"

"What would you have done if I hadn't agreed to your terms?"

"I'd have flown away and done my best to ruin you."

And he laughed again.

Silver ran through the ancient gardens at a clip most mobians couldn't match. He was no Sonic or even Knuckles when it came to speed, but he knew he was pretty fast. Just his luck, he wasn't fast enough.

"I said I was sorry! You don't have to run away from me!"

"I'm not running away from you!" he yelled over his shoulder. "I just have somewhere to…"

SLAM

Cue the introduction of the side of his face and half of his body with a rather unyielding stone pillar. Falling to the ground, Silver closed his eyes and tried to pretend that this whole mission was just a bad dream. Any second now, he would wake up, shake his head at having such a bothersome dream, and go take a nice long shower. Any second now.

"You really should be more careful."

He opened his eyes, and saw the pink hedgehog girl from before, this time offering her hand to help him up. She was another strange local from this timeline. Who grabs onto someone in the middle of nowhere, all but tackling them to the ground, not even checking to see who they barreled into for like ten or twelve seconds? Only after taking a good close look at him did this "Amy Rose" girl finally realize that, being a white colored hedgehog with a totally different arrangement of quills, Silver was not the guy she was looking for.

He took her hand, not surprised at all by her strength as she easily pulled him up. The girl was definitely strong, probably stronger than Blaze (with a bigger bust to boot – and why had THAT thought gotten in his head?!). Silver hit his head a few times for good measure. Bad thoughts. Very bad. Behave!

"Where are we, anyway?" Amy asked, slowly turning around in a circle.

"I can't believe you just jumped through the Ring Gate…" Silver said, but kept his voice a little low. "Don't you look before you leap?"

"Not once you said Sonic went in here!" Amy declared with a pump of her fist. "This time, I'll help him out for sure!"

"He's the…" Silver took a long breath. "I'm sure you think he's great, but is it really worth risking your life?"

As far as Silver could tell, this girl had no real powers to speak of. Except the power to glomp onto random hedgehogs and defy logic.

"You," she said, poking him in the chest with a finger. "Have never been in love, have you? So you can't imagine why I'd come to help my Sonic!"

"Can't argue with that logic…" Silver replied, deadpan.

Suddenly her face was a lot closer, like a few inches away.

"Um…!" he mumbled and coughed. Personal space, please?

"Why are you here, anyway…" Amy's mercurial attitude turned suspicious. "You aren't working for Robotnick or someone bad, are you?"

Silver blinked, hard.

"Ah… actually… I'm one of Sonic's many fans!" he explained (a little forcibly), shooting his fist into the air. "I'm here to help him out, too! Yeah!"

"If that's the case," Amy decided, crossing her arms and nodding sagely to herself. "Then I'll allow you to team up with me."

"Gee. Thanks…"

"Now!" Amy swiftly pointed in an apparently random direction. "I say we go this way! I've got a feeling Sonic's over there!"

"I'm actually pretty sure the Trigger… Sonic… is this way," Silver slowly said, recoiling a bit at her angry glare.

"Really?" she asked, rhetorically. "And what makes you think your Sonic sense is better than mine?"

"Well…" Silver bit his lip. "There is that." He pointed at a towering pillar of flame that rose up from the Zone's main building.

"Hey!" Amy just saw it, snapping her fingers. "How did I miss that?"

"Do you need glasses or something?"

"Absolutely not! They make me look like a librarian!" Amy ran off towards the palace. "Let's go!"

Sighing, Silver quickly caught up.

Sonic and Shadow slammed into the burning orb from both sides, sending a shockwave of fire and force out from the impact point. Ifrit, if it could even be called alive, gave no hint of injury. However, it had come to realize that simply heating up the room was no longer an effective option. Ceramic tiles detached from the walls, and shrouded by fire, they formed into shapes: whips, a spiked sphere, a blade, a square.

These flaming instruments shot out in every direction, barreling through the air in pursuit of the room's three occupants. Streaks of black dodged and weaved, hopping off the burning walls and the spinning astrolabe, or simply zipping through the air in erratic zig-zags. Another two came together, one flying up through the air, the other falling from above.

They crashed together like cymbals.

Ifrit reeled.

"INSIGNIFICANT PESTS!" his voice roared. "SOLARIS GIVES ME STRENGTH!"

The blazing orb shrunk and began to spin, flying higher into the air. The spinning armillary sphere also began to rise, accompanied by gouts of flame that shot up from the chamber and into the sky. As it rose, the previously stable platform in the center began to also spin. Higher and higher it went, until it broke free of the confines of the burning room. Even then, Sonic and Shadow took turns, throwing each other at the blazing Ifrit while Metal zipped in from the opposite side.

"YOU SHALL NOT HAVE HER!" Ifrit roared, zipping past the furious assaults and into the churning heard of the astrolabe. Colliding with the central platform, it transformed into a spherical fireball. Lines of light spread across the six spinning circles that made up the giant instrument, and the whole construct began to light up. Some began to glow a snowy blue, while others turned red hot.

Pushed to the brink, Metal, Sonic and Shadow landed on a nearby roof.

"Well, at least he's angry," Sonic noted, with some satisfaction. "Any moment now he'll leave some kind of obvious opening we can exploit seven or eight times. Then we can attack his weak point for massive damage!"

Metal and Shadow stared at the blue hedgehog.

They just stared.

"What?" Sonic asked. "What'd I say?"

"BURN, YOU PAWNS OF MEPHILES! BURN!"

"Oh! Here he comes!"

That he did. The now massive burning construct that was the Ifrit moved through the sky like a small planet, the spinning arcs and disks unleashing cracks of lightning and waves of flame. The three hedgehogs (or rather, two and one robot) shot off in different directions as lances of light and arcs of electricity tore up the palace around them, raining destruction from every angle.

The sphere attacked from every angle at once, and the three speedsters soon found themselves overwhelmed. Again and again, they tried to hit the sphere, only to barely avoid a blast of lightning or a coil of fire. Metal finally resorted to firing with an arm mounted laser, for what little good it did. A moment later, Ifrit's energies seemed to pause, contracting… before exploding in a titanic spherical wave of crackling fire and electricity.

Shadow and Sonic curled into balls, barely riding the edge of the shockwave. They landed next to each other, the protective Eiklar layer on their bodies smoking from the impact. A plume of fire descended, forcing them into a run. A second later, Metal flew alongside, his left arm damaged and sparking.

"Looks like we need a plan," Sonic yelled, looking from one to the other. "I hope you aren't relying on me to come up with one!"

"Heaven forbid," Shadow replied, but had no ideas of his own.

Metal remained silent.

"Ok. It can't be helped," Sonic decided, jumping over a collapsing section of the roof as he ran. "I want you two to give me your power."

"No!" "Definitely not." came the chorus.

"W… why not?" Sonic seemed almost hurt. "Come on, guys! Don't be like that! What about all the bonding we've had over the last hour or so?"

Another lightning bolt blasted into the ground just behind them.

"Eh?" Sonic asked again, wiggling his eyebrows.

"… still no." "My response is unchanged."

"You guys no fun at all! Looks like we do it the hard way…" Sonic suddenly turned around and started running backwards. "Yo! Ifrit! Didn't I see your mother on a box of matches?"

And with that, Sonic stopped, changed direction, and ran right towards the giant flaming sphere. Shadow watched him go with almost morbid fascination.

"Has he lost his mind?"

"No," Metal replied. "This is pretty normal. I will take the left."

Shadow nodded.

They split, and circled around. The great Ifrit rained more fire and death, but Sonic moved with unmatched speed and agility, dodging between the strikes and jumping boldly at the floating entity. At the same time, Shadow and Metal flew in from opposite angles, exploding out from hiding beneath the roof.

The three slammed into Ifrit's outermost arc with a deafening boom. Less than a second later, the great sphere's power convulsed, and another spherical explosion sent all three flying. Metal Sonic arced gracefully through the air, trailing burning debris. Shadow slammed into a tiled roof, smashing right through it. Sonic hit another roof at a different angle, skidding along the surface as he rolled. Large chips and flakes of the Eiklar heat resistant material that Metal had given him fell from his arms and legs.

"THOSE WHO SEEK THE HOLY LIGHT OF SOLARIS…"

Ifrit's surface crackled with a growing electrical charge.

"SHALL BE REDUCED TO ASHES!!"

"Master…" a voice whispered, feminine and sweet; nothing like the thunderous boom of the monstrous Ifrit. Sonic's eyes barely opened, and he tried to move.

"Your chance" the small voice whispered. "This is it…"

"Don't you DARE HURT HIM!!" A totally different voice, shrill, loud, and belonging to a very different girl, forced his eyes wide open. Amy seemed to be flying through the air, brandishing her Piko hammer. What she was doing here (obviously she had followed him as usual) quickly became replaced with: how on Mobius did she pick up so much speed?

A blast of lightning shot from Ifrit's spinning quarters, hitting her hammer with a fountain of light and energy. A normal instrument would have been reduced to slag, and her along with it, but Amy's hammer was a gift from the Acorn Kings to their vassals in Mercia. It was made of and imbued with the power of the Source, a counterpart to the Sword of Acorns. The result was a weapon far more formidable and resilient than it would appear. Amy kept going, trailing blue contrails of lightning behind her, until she crashed into the outermost ring of the Ifrit's astrolabe.

"USELESS!"

The sphere pulsed, and she screamed, flying away from the point of impact.

"Amy!" Sonic yelled, forcing himself back onto his feet. Running, he just barely made it in time to catch her before she hit the ground. Amazingly, though Ifrit's blow had knocked her unconscious, she otherwise seemed unhurt. Her Piko hammer had to have absorbed most of the force. Otherwise, he suspected there wouldn't have been much left for him to rescue.

Hundreds of feet above them, Ifrit burned, remorseless and untouchable.

'Her hammer…' Sonic thought, looking for it.

Metal Sonic floated down, holding Shadow by his shoulder. Both looked pretty beat up, but then Sonic could guess that he didn't look any better. Cradling Amy in his arms, Sonic's ever present smile trickled away. Carefully putting her down, he faced his two enemies-turned-allies.

"THIS…"

Ifrit began to convulse again.

"IS YOUR TWILIGHT."

"I don't think so!" Sonic yelled at the seemingly unstoppable entity. Jumping straight into the air, he reached upward and felt a hand clasp around his wrist. Metal's engines roared as he climbed higher holding both Sonic and Shadow, the latter in his nearly destroyed left arm. The Ifrit unleashed a handful of attacks, but Metal's maneuvering was unpredictable and erratic and he climbed higher and higher.

Stopping just short of a serpentine river of fire, Metal hit the brakes and immediately began to spin. A blue and black blur flew from his grip, followed by a pitch blank duplicate. A second later, the robot reeled as a bolt of lightning hit it square in the chest. Engine catching fire, Metal Sonic fell, burning, from the sky.

At the same time, Sonic spun towards the Ifrit, pushing all the remaining energy he had into his last desperate homing attack. Praying he could stay on target, counting on the unique extrasensory "persistent eyesight" he had even when tucked into a ball, he saw his target. He hit it hard, and felt just a little give…

Rolling out of the way, Sonic saw the head of Amy's hammer now firmly wedged into a deep crack in the Ifrit Astrolabe's outermost ring. Metal's timing, and his homing attack, had been just about perfect. Sonic fell through the air, body nearly exhausted, when he saw Shadow hit the exact same spot. The black hedgehog finished what Amy and Sonic had started. He hit the head of the hammer and with a great and resounding crash; he broke through the Ifrit's barrier.

Shadow continued, now using the hammer in front of him like a wrecking ball. He passed by one, then another, of the swirling circles that made up the burning armillary sphere. A thinner one spun, getting in the way, but Shadow crashed through it with the last of his momentum. Tumbling limply through the innermost core, he slammed right into the central platform.

"YOU CAN NOT…"

Shadow placed his palms flat on the burning discus.

"Chaos Spear."

Far below, Sonic watched with tired eyes as the Ifrit's spinning construct of a body tore apart. Massive burning pieces crashed to the ground, leveling buildings and flattening pristine gardens. A pinprick of flame in the middle of the sky shook furiously as it burned out.

"THE KEY… MUST… not… be turned…"

And then, with barely a fizzle, the voice was gone.

The last thing Amy really remembered was flying through the air, propelled by some unknown force, her hammer held tightly in her hands. Everything after that became dreamlike, surreal, and just as easily forgotten. One moment she had been fighting and the next… she awoke in a hospital. How much, she wondered, had been real and how much had just been her imagination?

Breathing slowly, she tried to get up but found a hand gently restraining her. How she wished it had been Sonic waiting there, a look of worry and concern on his face for her. Instead, it was just some nurse she didn't recognize.

"Easy does it, Miss Rose…"

"Where's Sonic?" she asked right off the bat. "Is he ok?"

"He's fine," the nurse responded, smiling supportively. "He was the one who brought you in."

Amy closed her eyes, imaging him carrying her into the hospital, crying for help. It was a nice little daydream, even if probably wasn't terribly accurate. She had been so worried about him; her own injuries seemed less than irrelevant. As great as he was, she had seen him in trouble, and knew something had to be done. Even if it was dangerous. Even if it was…

"Don't be an idiot! You can't go out there! It's suicide!"

"I can't just watch while he gets hurt!" She tore her arm out of the strange silver hedgehog's grip. "I don't care what you think! I don't care how dangerous it is!"

"I know he's important to you…"

"No! You don't! He's everything to me!"

"You'll get hurt if you go out there."

"And I'd hate myself if I did nothing! You can just stay here and hide if you want, but I'm going!"

She didn't want to think of it as suicidal, but it had been reckless. Why didn't anyone really understand what he meant to her? Why didn't Sonic himself understand?

"You never told Sonic, did you, Tails?"

He turned his head and 'hmfed'

"Of course not."

"Why?"

"Because… while Sonic loves Sally, I do think he likes you. If he knew… what had happened… he'd have to choose."

Amy frowned. "And you think he'd choose you?"

Why wasn't Sonic here?

"Well aren't you the lucky one! You picked the one guy you'll never have!"

He had to care, too. He had to, because if he didn't… then that just made her pretty pathetic, now didn't it? Even if it wasn't love, there had to be something there between them. She loved him! There was no way something that powerful could just go unrequited. Even if Tails hated her for it, or resented her for it… even if everyone laughed at her for being so stupid, she had to believe that there was something between them.

"Sonic…" she whispered. Why wasn't he here?

Then she saw something leaning against the wall, just to the side of her bed. The nurse had been standing next to and partly in front of it before, but now Amy could see it: the hilt of her Piko Piko Hammer. Had she dropped it before? Yes, she had to have, when she blacked out. It looked none the worse for wear at least, and… she reached over, hand trembling.

There was a small note tied to it with string.

Nervously licking her lips, she undid the little knot and held the letter in her hands. It was unmarked on the outside, but she knew who it was from. Holding it tightly to her chest, she opened it with the utmost care.

Ames

Warmth flooded through her body at just the nickname.

Ames

Thanks for the help! You really saved our hedgehog bacon! I tried to get Metal and Shadow to sign this note too, but they're both jerks and didn't want to. Anyway, get better soon.

I'll see you later.

-- Sonic the You Know What

Next time, be more careful tho'

Tails was wrong. Sonic did care! Even if he was with Sally, or any other girl, he still cared! Amy knew it! Tears of joy streamed down her face. She'd been useful, and Sonic had even acknowledged it!

"It's only a matter of time, Sonic!" she hugged the letter to her chest again. "I'll make you mine!"

Silver squinted his eyes as he entered Mephiles' makeshift headquarters. It wasn't much to look at: just some ancient human laboratory, long since abandoned. Most of the facility, even when reactivated, worked solely on emergency power. This left the remaining halls perpetually bathed in an eerie reddish glow.

As an originally human designed structure, Silver found the whole place rather uncomfortable. The ceilings were too high and he had to crane his neck to try and read any of the normally eye-level information plaques that broke up the monotony of one hallway after another. Not that he could really read them anyway. Everything was faded with age and covered in a fine layer of dust.

Heading towards Mephiles' Cloister, the architecture began to change.

Concrete became replaced by stone and mortar, enduring despite its age. In more than a few places, metal supports stuck out, reinforcing the structure. Silver had been down this particular route several times, but only now did he see a parallel to the inner cloister's architecture. It reminded him right away of the domed areas of the palace in that alternate Special Zone.

This was the lowest level of the complex, and obviously the oldest. Silver could guess that the concrete sections had been built much later, possibly as part of an excavation project. The innermost structure was very simple in layout: there was a large central area that looked like it had been cut out of a naturally occurring cavern, and three smaller antechambers. Lastly, there was a single entrance-slash-exit.

Silver entered the central chamber without fanfare. It was just a big empty space, really. The only things of note that stuck out were the electric lights and the small generator he and Blaze had brought down for their own use. Mephiles never seemed to mind the darkness (or the light). Silver could see him, sitting as still as a statue in the tiny antechamber built into the furthermost wall.

"He isn't here yet."

"Blaze!" Silver said, a happy feeling tinting his tone of voice. Sure enough, he saw his best friend and teammate leaning casually against the wall behind him. She could be very stealthy when she wanted, and he hadn't seen or even sensed her until she spoke up and surprised him.

"How did things go?" Blaze inquired, holding a small bag in her right hand.

"Pretty easy," he replied, holding up his prize.

"All that trouble for an old bronze lamp?"

"Weird, huh?" Silver shrugged. "Guess its part of the ritual. Maybe we're going to seal Iblis in it or something?"

"In a lamp?" Blaze quirked an imperious eyebrow. "Maybe Mephiles just has bad taste in silverware."

Silver laughed lightly. "Maybe. But you wouldn't believe the commotion the other guys caused back there. They almost brought a wall down on me with all the fighting! And there was this girl…"

Blaze made a mysterious smile. "A girl?"

"Come crazy… Sonic… fan-girl or… I don't know. It was really weird. She thought I was the Trigger, and she jumped me. Right out of the blue, too! I'm amazed she didn't break my ribs."

"She thought you were the Iblis Trigger?" Blaze asked, pushing off of the wall. "Well, he is quite popular in this time period. It sounds like you've discovered a good way to meet girls."

"Yeah right! We'll see how popular he is with the ladies when they find out he releases Iblis…" Silver gave a disgusted snort. "And I'm not even the same color. And my quills are different. I don't know how anyone can say I look like him."

"Well…" Blaze answered, playfully. "They say all hedgehogs look the same…"

He caught on and happily joined in.

"I'll have you know," he put on a lecturing tone, "Hedgehogs have more diversity than you felines do!"

"Hey!"

"You know it's true. There are green hedgehogs. When was the last time you saw a green feline?"

"You're making that up! Green?"

He crossed the fingers of his left hand. "Swear to the Maker."

"We have calico…"

"You can't compare calico to green."

"What about purple?" Blaze gestured to herself. "Don't tell me there are purple hedgehogs."

"Actually," Silver said, wisely cupping his chin. "I'm pretty sure there are."

"You are making this up!"

"I'm not!"

"Well, Professor," she began to say, grabbing the hand from under his chin. "Why don't you…"

She never finished her sentence – the sound of something heavy, like a stone falling to the ground, cut her short. She immediately backed off, and Silver turned around to see why. Mephiles was back. Easing off his granite throne, he flexed the joints of his outwardly organic body. Silver and Blaze both knew what lay beneath the appearance of flesh: blue crystal and black blood.

Mephiles made cracking sounds as he stood, fingers curling and head rolling back and forth on his neck. He took a few slow steps before rediscovering, or maybe before 'remembering' was more accurate, how to use his current body properly. Blaze and Silver immediately parted and adopted a serious, professional demeanor. Mephiles had never actually rebuked them for fooling around or anything like that… but there was something about him, something devoid of humor or recreation. His apathy and disinterest made those near him similarly put off.

"You have it," he stated, holding out his hand. "I knew you would not fail, Silver. This world may still be saved."

"I got it…" Silver held out the worthless looking old lamp. It was clean, at least. Even when he'd found it, it looked like it had been polished to a shine just the day before.

"Can't imagine what you'd want with it, though," he added.

"Erazor's Lamp…" Mephiles said, almost reverently, as he lifted the old bronze artifact out of Silver's hands. "It is but one of many prisons built by Melchisedec."

"Melchisedec?" Blaze asked, listening in. The name was unfamiliar to her, and Silver had certainly never heard it before.

Mephiles' eyes became like smoldering ingots of gold. "The very one who sealed Iblis… and the one who created her… Melchisedec. Erazor was his pawn. It was he who drove Iblis to become the creature you know."

"So…" Blaze ventured. "This Melchisedec created Iblis, and Erazor helped somehow?"

"He drove her to madness with his lies," Mephiles explained (though not very clearly). Holding the lamp up to eye level, he glared into its smooth surface. "I will use Erazor's power to undo Melchisedec's work… and destroy 'Iblis' forever."

"Did anyone see you, Silver?" The Dark then asked, eyeing the young time traveler. "I hope you were discrete."

"Ah…" Silver scratched his head, a sure sign he was hiding something (at least to Blaze). "No one important. The Trigger didn't see me, if that's what you're worried about..."

Mephiles eyes narrowed, just a tiny bit.

"No. This is fine." He then turned his attention to Blaze. "And you?"

Blaze swung around her carrying case, and reached inside.

"Not a problem," the feline said, holding out a large diamond-like gemstone literally pulsing with inner fire. "I think I had less trouble than Silver did."

It was a Super Emerald.

"Very good…!" Mephiles face, if he had a mouth, would have broadened into a smile. "Only one thing remains, and then, children, we shall have our… new and better future…"

"Rings?"

Shadow stood in front of the Eggman, eyes half closed. He was only half paying attention to his 'Master,' his mind dwelling on the meeting with Mephiles he had had only hours before. The strange entity had mentioned something about a "Burning Key" and it had seemed somewhat surprised that Shadow hadn't had it. Shadow still didn't know what it had been talking about. They had searched the remains of the Ifrit, and Metal had scanned the palace for anything of value. There was no "Burning Key."

But then, hadn't the Ifrit itself said, "The key must not be turned?"

At this point, if Mephiles wanted it so badly, he could look for it himself.

"How strange… these aren't Power Rings. Not of the usual sort! And such strange colors!"

Eggman currently held two of the Rings in his hands. As a human (albeit a slightly misbegotten one), he would normally find it impossible to interact with a Chaos Energy Ring. Examining them closely, he made some mental deductions and calculations before coming to an unspoken conclusion and putting the two rings back in their metal case. Closing the lid, he tested to make sure it was secure before patting the lid affectionately and turning his eyes back to his most reliable henchman.

"Good job, Shadow!" he said, with some difficulty. Praise was rare from the mad Doctor.

Shadow felt nothing but indifference.

"However…" Robotnick continued. "It would have been nice to get the full set."

"It seemed like the diplomatic response," Shadow replied, but without any real emotion. "Sonic and this other girl only got three of the Rings. I thought… we could use them?"

"To power Helios?" Eggman assumed, correctly in this case. "I may be able to. I've never seen anything like them!"

He didn't get too ahead of himself.

"Time will tell," the human decided, cackling happily at the prospect of some new and interesting research. "I will begin experiments immediately!"

Shadow's mind was elsewhere. "You sound excited, Doctor."

"Why, I suppose I am!" Eggman snatched up the case and headed off, deeper into his maze of labs and workshops. Feeling particularly magnanimous, he yelled over his shoulder, "Feel free to take the day off!"

Thinking it over, Professor Robotnick's Ultimate Life Form decided to simply turn in and get some rest. It had been a long and… wearying day.

The sun shone over Chemical Plant, the last of the rain falling the night before. On the lower levels, workers shuffled off to their daytime shifts while the weary night crowd dragged themselves back to their crowded residences and block dormitories. Stores opened, and a train whistled before starting up towards Casino Night.

They met on that high perch they alone could reach.

"A nice morning."

"It is," Tails agreed. He sat at the edge of the piping tower, feet dangling off the side. Rouge sat down next to him, both of them still in their "undercover" plain clothes. Tails had his namesakes uncoiled, but they seemed to be at peace; only the white tips moved restlessly in the wind.

The two of them sat in silence for a long while, just watching the world revolve around them. This high up, with a strong breeze coming in from the ocean, the air was noticeably easier to breathe. From their height, they could see the city in a different daytime light: as a great patchwork of light. Pools of chemicals and a million twisting pipes and tubes reflected every color of the rainbow.

It really was like no other city on Mobius.

"So what did you decide, anyway?" she asked, leaning towards him a bit.

"As if I didn't know you were listening in on us the whole time," he quipped. "You heard every word."

"Not every word…"

He smiled, leaning back onto his elbows.

"I thought about it, and you know… Sonic always used to say, 'live and let live.' I guess that's his philosophy. I never thought I had one myself, but…" He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

When he opened them, his eyes were clear, without doubt or regret.

"I think… everyone should be able to fly with their own wings, and in their own ways. Me, you, my parents… everyone."

"That's awfully laid back of you," Rouge said, poking him verbally. "Can you really fight, thinking that?"

A smile parted Miles Prower's lips, revealing sharp kitsune teeth.

"Yeah. I think I can."

--Notes Chapter 8--

This chapter took a while to write and a full week or so to finish tweaking and proofing. I'm very happy with the result, though. It was originally simply too serious and drama-filled a chapter, so I expanded the Sonic-Metal-Shadow team up, using the action and a bit of silly comedy to break up the Tails-Rouge Amadeus-Rosemary stuff. The end result is much better than my initial plan.

I should talk briefly about two things here:

The first is Amadeus and Rosemary. Both are characters picked up from the comic continuity. In the original ACO they didn't appear at all, but I retconned some stuff to fit them into the Reload. In the comic continuity, they were actually kidnapped by aliens (Yes. Aliens) shortly after Tails was born. They came back, and after learning to like the "democrazy" of the aliens that kidnapped them, they decided to apply it to the mobians back home as well.

Per COA, they're a bit more socialistic but have similar aims. One can justly guess that they played a role in the mini Civil War that erupted in the Southern regions during "COA: New World Order." Here, I kept them together with Miles for longer, and made them in many ways more significant. He actually recognized them as family, and remembered them, and all they had done for him, even if they weren't his flesh and blood. If remembering his birth parents dying was traumatic, discovering the mobians he truly thought of as family alive, but opposed to the group he fought for, was even worse (hence his rather callous reaction).

Which brings us to Tails and Rouge. The original story did have this pairing, under circumstances that some would call "duress." It was never meant to be a true pairing, in the sense that they loved each other, or even became committed to each other. It was a convenient thing (they used one another for different reasons). I'm hoping to explore this more naturalistically here in the Reload. Ideally, it'll come out well, and without seeming either forced (literally) or overly unwieldy.

Rouge's major role in this is to be a counterweight to Tails in a way that Cream and Sally can't be. Cream is naturally too submissive, out of deference (to authority), respect, and engrained politeness. Sally has the burden of being someone he respects, but also someone he had trouble relating to, now that their big-sister/younger-brother relationship is upended. I'm trying to write Rouge as aggressive, intelligent and often flirty to the point of discomfort, but at the same time, as someone determined, responsible, and with good (albeit self-interested) intentions.

I just hope I can get everything in order before the story ends. Chapter 9, the finale, is coming up next.