"Excuse me, but just what are you doing?"

Lara-Su glanced over her shoulder, behind the large throw pillow she currently found herself lounging on. It wasn't actually a throw pillow, but it was fancy looking and comfy enough to suffice. Popping a sweet flavored honey cake into her mouth, she munched on it quite happily, doing nothing more than waving quietly to the man standing behind her.

Merlin, ageless though he was, seemed well able to contain his shock at seeing a stranger intruding on his Outer Sanctum. It was simply not a place one would stumble upon or even break into. It was a dimensional construct located deep within the infinite vortexes of the Chaos Force.

"Hope ya don't mind, but I let myself in," Lara remarked, going back to staring at one of his scrying mirrors. It was one of only three Silver Speculum in existence; each one individually older than any modern civilization. The surface of the mirror was actually composed of an ever-shifting pool of mercury. Lara was snapping her fingers, clicking past one image after another like it was a TV.

Merlin glared at the girl as she nibbled on another honey cake.

"Would you mind not eating those?" he asked, reigning in his temper.

"What? These?" Lara slid the oval cake into her mouth and happily chewed away at it. "But they're sooo good!"

Merlin stared at her impassively.

"That may be so," he admitted, slowly blinking and letting out a weary sigh. "However, you are aware that you are eating the preserved remains of the Great Fire Ant Statesman and Philosopher, Epaminondas, yes? The one you may have read about in grade school?"

Lara stared at him for a few seconds, as if to ask: 'Really? You expect me to fall for that?'

He nodded once.

Slowly lifting the lid of the "tin" she had found the sweets in, Lara noticed tiny writing all around the sides. Inadvertently swallowing what was left in her mouth, she carefully closed the "tin" and handed it over.

"There's… still some left…"

Merlin's left eye twitched.

"Just sayin'" Lara stuck out her tongue and groaned. "Gross. I should've known you'd keep weird stuff like that lying around."

"Lara-Su," Merlin said, ignoring her transgressions against the long deceased for the time being (and carefully placing the formerly sealed tomb of Epaminondas onto a nearby shelf). "You shouldn't be here."

"What? Shouldn't be here, as in, in the past? Or here, as in, in your living room?"

"Annoying girl," Merlin growled, sitting cross legged on the floor near her. "If you know enough to get here, you must know who I am. I do not recognize the Emerald you carry within you, so I would guess that you are from an immediate future, where I have succeeded in creating another Chosen One, but where that Chosen One has not yet finished my Great Work."

"Right as always, old man," Lara admitted, bowing her head to him in imitation respect. "Some 'Great Work' you laid out for us, though. More like 'great punishment' or something."

"Great Work is never easy, and seldom pleasant."

"I know. You've said it before… I mean you'll say it again." Lara groaned and rolled her eyes. "Man, I hate time travel! Anyway: you know who I am and you know why I'm here, right?"

Merlin cupped his hands in his lap. "You are the second Lara-Su to time travel into the past, so yes, I know who you are. I did not know you had an Emerald from a future dimension until just now. Your power has always clouded my sight, wreathed as it is by previously unknown energies. I assume they derive from the boy, Miles."

Lara nodded. That wouldn't be much of a secret by this point in time.

"You must be either the first or the last he saw fit to bless with an Emerald," Merlin speculated. "The latter seems obvious: you are from roughly two decades in the future, while Miles will reach his Time of Becoming within one or two years. However, it is also possible that you will be the first he gives an Emerald to, if you become the center of another temporal paradox."

Lara smirked at his (accurate) reasoning. "Should I say which one it is?"

"No need," Merlin replied, smiling a bit now. "I have foreseen all these eventualities."

"Didn't foresee me eating poor old Epanomidas or whatever his name was…"

Merlin gave her a slightly vexed stare.

"Why do you think you are here, Lara-Su?"

"First tell me why you didn't contact me before?"

Merlin cocked his head to the side in confusion. "Why would I feel the need to?"

Lara glared at him, mouth agape. "I'm from the future. The future! I could have… could have…!"

"But you didn't," he observed. "Just as I knew you wouldn't. Though I will admit that you coming here was a surprise."

Lara tried for a few more seconds to think up a counter argument before giving up. "Fine. Fine. The creepy old man is always right. I've learned my lesson. Don't think I'll forget all this trouble, though."

"Don't think I will forget either, child," Merlin's calm demeanor took on a decidedly malevolent shade. Lara sighed, resisting the impulse to be brow beaten by the ancient master. Luckily, exposure in the future had taught her that he wasn't omnipotent by any means, and she had faith that her unique status afforded her a few additional layers of insulation from his potential wrath.

"Way I figure it, I was tossed back because of someone else with a Sol Emerald," Lara explained, and tapped the small ruby embedded in her chest. "One of these babies. Something funky happened and I ended up getting sucked back here. All I know for sure is that it didn't happen on purpose, since Miles from my time didn't do it, you didn't do it in this time, and if Miles was around in the future, he wouldn't have let it happen."

Lara tapped the side of her temple as she continued, "Ok. So I get sent back here because someone's fooling around in the past, and they have a Sol Emerald. Problem is I don't know who it is. It isn't anyone I know who has an Emerald, so they're probably from further along in the future than I am. In fact, there are at least two of them, plus this other guy, who I just bet you'll remember: name's Mephiles."

"Ah," Merlin said with some resignation. "Him."

"Another blast from the past, huh? Just like The Devourer?"

"Thankfully not as difficult to contain."

"Let me guess: an old student of yours? Hence how he knows the time travel trick?"

Merlin rolled his eyes at her impudent tone. "At the time, Mephiles was a very promising young man…"

"Haven't you ever wondered just why all your 'prize pupils' end up crazy or evil?" Lara asked, redundantly. Of course he had, and of course he knew why.

"Regardless," Merlin didn't dignify the attempted change in topic with a response. "Yes, I know all about Mephiles. And Erazor, and the incident with Iblis, who I tried so hard to save… sadly, while curing the body is fairly simple, even I can not fix a fractured mind."

"Yeah, I heard about some of that too. So he's up and around now, you know?"

Merlin scratched his chin in thought. "I was not aware of that… I see! He is using the Sol Emerald to hide from me…"

"And he's trying to hook back up with his crazy ex girlfriend or whatever Iblis was." Lara waggled her fingers so they touched. "Merge with her or something creepy like that. Sounds like a stalker to me."

"He wishes to become Solaris," Merlin surmised. "I remember it well. It was a good plan."

Lara raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Good?"

"Well. Clever is a better word," Merlin conceded. "Then it is good that you are here. I don't dare interact with any of the Sol Emeralds directly, not without their Master present. The reaction would be… quite disastrous."

"I'll take care of it," Lara assured him. "I didn't come here hoping you'd solve everything for me with a wink of the eye and a waggle of the nose. I just want to get some information."

Merlin nodded in agreement. "Very well. You wish to know how one would go about releasing Iblis and then merging with her?"

Lara snapped her fingers and pointed at him. "Bingo!"

"Quite simple," Merlin explained. "I was loathe to try and destroy Iblis at the time. She was the first Chosen One I had tried to… coax into forming according to my designs. Instead, I arranged for her to be sealed within a prison that came to be called the Ark of the Cosmos. I then split it into five sections, and scattered them around the world. In time, they came into the safekeeping of different civilizations."

Merlin quickly realized he was rehashing ancient history, and coughed, correcting himself.

"But never mind that." He dismissed the history lesson he had already been mentally preparing to lecture. "One would first need to reassemble the Ark of the Cosmos and fuse the pieces back together. This is relatively simple: the Ark is designed to reform itself, but only in the presence of my own Chaos Energy. None of the other sets of Emeralds are compatible."

"After that, one must recover the Burning Key from its Guardian. Since you're a servant of one of my students, you must suspect what the key and the Guardian are…" Merlin trailed off.

Lara frowned. "Knowing you, the Guardian was probably some high priest or something you enslaved, and the Key is probably some innocent person you had horribly sacrificed."

Merlin scoffed at her tone of voice. "These are how our powers work."

"And this is exactly why you drive everyone insane or evil!"

"Feh," Merlin scoffed again, dismissing the argument as silly. It was simply how things were. There was no choice in the matter. "I needed a guardian who would be zealous and loyal, so I created one using the souls of the Ifrit priesthood. They volunteered for the task when it became clear that Iblis was out of control. The Key needed something more special; fortunately Iblis had a younger sister named Shahra …"

"You used this girl's little sister to imprison her?" Lara asked, very nearly shocked speechless. "You - you…!"

Merlin smirked, for once showing a hint of his true, terrible nature. "Oh, and can you say you and your Master have done no worse?"

Lara bit back a response. Echidnapolis came to mind, with all the guilt she still felt for what they had felt needed to be done. She was complicit in it, and would be until the day she died.

"I thought as much," Merlin said, seeing the pained expression on her face. "A word of advice: accept the nature of your existence. Do not fight it."

Lara glared at the ancient entity. "And here's a word of advice for you: don't expect things to go the way you want."

Merlin shrugged at that. "No matter. I needed something Iblis would not try and destroy, even in her enraged state. Shahra was the only viable option. Her soul should be sealed within a golden ring, in the same zone as the Ifrit Guardian. Only Shahra can open or repair the reassembled Ark of the Cosmos."

"What about Erazor?" Lara asked. "I found something called Erazor's Lamp had recently been sold on the black market somewhere in the Ring. I know he was involved."

"Erazor was just a pawn I used to keep Mephiles out of the way while I sealed Iblis…" Merlin paused to think about the significance of his lamp going missing. "It is possible Mephiles thinks he can use Erazor to open the Ark, but that would never work. Erazor is nothing but a powerless husk. No. Only Shahra can actually open Iblis' prison."

"Ok," Lara said, holding up her hands for him to stop. "Let's say I get back either Shahra's Ring or the Ark of the Cosmos. What then?"

"If a new Chosen One is on the horizon, I will hold onto the artifacts themselves," Merlin replied, slowly getting back up to his feet. "Only together can we fully destroy them by negating the Chaos Energies of Iblis herself."

"Another damn mess you want Miles to clean up for you…" Lara hissed.

Merlin glowered at the young echidna Guardian but walked away without giving her the courtesy of a response. Lara-Su sighed and rested her face in her hands. Ixis had been right, just like she knew he had been, and Merlin was as much of a bastard as she knew he was. Peeking out over the tips of her fingers, she stared at the shifting liquid metal of the scrying portal. Merlin was right about one thing: there was no point dwelling on the injustices of the past. She had faith that Miles would set things right in the future, which meant she had to do her part to help him.

On the scrying screen, a flash of images passed by: faces, blood, a great fleet, a battle that would scar the land. She had her work cut out for her, but so did Miles. Things were finally approaching the critical moment, when the fate of the future would be decided. Lara steeled herself, cursing her natural impulse to intervene.

She was the His First, and she was here for a reason.

Miles would have to fight his own battles.

Aya Florentine looked over the topographic projections for the upcoming battle. It was shaping up to be a real mess. Helios was slowly inching up from the south now, looming over the battlefield of Starlight City like a small moon. Around it, the Eggman had assembled a Combined Fleet composed of nearly all his remaining air assets. Initial Recon indicated at least sixteen enemy cruisers in formation and no less than sixty enemy destroyers arranged into four wings of fifteen each. A virtual blanket of drone fighters buzzed around the distant Flying City, numbering over a thousand.

Aya felt the palms of her hands grow sweaty in anticipation.

To the north, the Kingdom of Acorn was still pulling together its scattered fleet assets. Most were salvaged Eggman craft, but a few used hulls purchased from GUN under the previous administration. The Blue Typhoon was the only particularly war worthy cruiser in their arsenal, in Aya's professional opinion, but they had a good number of light craft in the air, too. Airborne Warning and Control estimated they could have as many as eleven destroyers supporting their four cruisers. It was unknown whether they would actually join the fight or wait for both sides to be engaged with each other.

Aya's own forces were formed up in battle echelons behind Miles' Pirated Armada. He had his ships formed into a wide crescent, providing cover for the GUN Renmnant behind him. He had managed a real coup: twelve of the Eggman's newest fleet standard cruisers and twenty three destroyers. Added to that, there was the newly rechristened Egg Carrier: now the Nor'easter. Then, of course, there were the ships of the GUN Remnant, in the form of eight cruisers and ten destroyers.

Over the last few hours, even more forces had entered into the equation in the form of dozens of independent dingo mercenary companies and even a handful of Battlebird Armada vessels. Most arrived in glorified transports or light craft, nothing truly suited for proper fleet battle. Aya had them waiting as a special reserve. They would be needed, along with the Fleet's commando ships, to break through the Helios Shield once it had been taken down. Only then, with Helios crippled, could the rest of the fleet burn the whole thing down to molten slag.

It was going to be one hell of a fight, whether the Kingdom joined in or not.

"Captain!" a junior officer called from his position in one of the Flag Bridge's communication terminals. "Captain! Detecting enemy thermals. They're warming up their engines and heading our way."

"Detecting long range cruise missile salvo with drone escorts!"

"Registering enemy ECM and ECCM!"

"Status of the enemy Battlestation?"

"Stationary!"

Aya clasped her hands behind her back.

"This is it, gentlemen," she said, and raised her voice to make sure everyone on the flag bridge could hear her. "This is it. Signal the Captains! Advance to battle lines Beta-Beta-Four. For Station Square! For GUN! For Overland!"

Tails stood at the prow of the Nor'easter, namesakes swishing in the wind behind him. Rolling a bittersweet mint candy between his teeth, resisting the urge to bite down on it, he tried to ignore the lingering pain in his shoulders. He'd taken advantage of the GUN medical staff to make the alterations to the implants when it became clear he couldn't manage it himself like he'd originally planned. Another couple hours of rest would probably help where the application of ring based healing had failed, but there wasn't any more time.

Thirty four hours.

There was still plenty of time for the plan to work, but the effective window of opportunity was still quite narrow. There was simply no time for more rest. Things would just have to play out as fortune intended. Reaching up to the transparent red eyepiece mounted on the right side of his face, the young kitsune's eyes narrowed in recognition. All around him, the sky was dark with airships.

"I see it," he spoke into a small microphone attached to the eyepiece. "No. Do not open fire. Open the forward port shield quarter and let them land. I'll deal with it."

Aya sounded less than pleased by the order.

"I understand your concern. As I said: I'll deal with it. I'll deal with them."

Tails watched, arms crossed as a tiny plane weaved past swarms of drones and jet powered fighters. Naturally, Tails recognized it instantly. He would know that plane in his sleep. It was the original Tornado, or what was left of it after all these years and all those times it had gotten shot down and patched up. He watched as the plane's pilot jerkily took it into a slow approach. Tails shook his head sadly: the Tornado was a gentle lady, and she needed a light touch.

Sonic was manhandling her.

"How I wish…" Tails gathered Ring energy in the palm of his right hand. Coils of it wrapped around his fingers, forming first into golden rings and then into blue and silver circuitry. Leveling his arm at the plane as it slowly eased over the tip of the Nor'easter's prow, he grimaced in pain.

"How I wish I didn't have to do this," he said, and fired.

A bootleg chaos Spear – his "Ring Spear" – exploded from the palm of his hand and hit the plane right in the engine casing's weakest spot, tearing apart vulnerable fuel lines and nearly splitting the painstakingly rebuilt biplane in half. Not surprisingly, a blue blur zipped out of the wreckage before it could crash into the armored deck plate of the former Egg Carrier.

More surprisingly, the blue blur was not alone.

"Tch." Tails chomped down on the last of his mint candy. It was his favorite, too, and he'd indulged in a full roll over the last day to help relax. Now it was gone, and given the company, so was his hope for an uneventful confrontation. Sonic by himself would have been annoying, but not unexpected.

Sonic, Knuckles, and Sally made things troublesome.

The three stood on the vast deck of the flying supercarrier, glaring at their host with indignation over being shot down. They obviously didn't appreciate that he had shot them down inside the ship shield rather than letting them splatter into it, or get blown away by anti-aircraft fire and plummet more than a kilometer to the ground. If he wanted them dead, he'd have simply let Aya open fire on the slow little biplane. Well: it wasn't like everything had to go his way, now did it?

"Yo," he said, waving to his three uninvited guests.

"Tails!" Sonic yelled. "What's going on here man? We…"

"Not a step closer," Tails warned, standing impassively in one spot. "Sally's old man sent you to get my Emerald, didn't he? If that's the case, if that's why you're here, Sonic, then it'd be best not to talk like we're pals. Same goes for you, Knuckles. Though it is nice to see you again. How's Julie?"

"She's fine," Knuckles replied, dusting off his arms. It seemed he still had a few bits of the Tornado on him. "How's Rouge?"

Tails friendly smile didn't fade. "That was a bit of a low blow."

"Is she the reason you did this?" Sally guessed, speaking up. She virtually had to yell to be heard over the roar of the wind. "We know she took advantage of you, Tails! What happened in Knothole wasn't your fault!"

The kitsune chuckled and shook his head.

"Sorry, 'Aunt Sally,' but it seems you've misjudged me again." He held out his hands, and coils of ring energy ran up and down his arms. "I told Rouge where the Emerald was. I wanted Shadow to take it. It was my fault."

Sally reeled, as if struck.

Sonic was speechless.

"Why?" Knuckles roared. "What were you thinking?!"

"I was thinking: what cowards you all were." Tails tilted his head to the side and sneered at the three of them. "You, for hiding on your precious Island. You, for agreeing to that joke of a peace conference. And even you, Sonic, for not having the courage to kill. Just. One. Man. Why did I do it? Because I knew I had to."

"T-Tails!" Sonic snarled, finally getting angry. "People are dead because of you!"

"That's true." Miles eyes were shadowed as he admitted it. "That's one hundred percent true. And more are going to die. Because of me. But I'll end the killing, too. I'll end it with one man's death. And then you three can all go home happy, and your precious hands won't be stained with blood. Isn't that what you want?"

He looked up at them, blue eyes wide.

"Isn't it what you secretly wanted all along? To win this war without compromising your principles?! To win without killing the one man you secretly feel you can't live without? I was there when Zonic said you needed an Eggman as much as Eggman needed you! Sally, I was there when you said you wanted to win the war, but only if you could win it 'right.' Knuckles, I was there when you said the safety of the Island came first!"

"Every single one of you standing here," he said, pointing from Sonic, to Sally, to Knuckles. "Is a Source cursed hypocrite! Not a single one of you has ever done anything to end this war: to really END it. Go ahead and judge me. Hate me if you want to. But keep out of my way."

Knuckles growled and tensed to attack, but Sonic held out his hand.

"Tails," he said expression and voice totally serious. "Do you mean all that?"

Miles' brows kneaded into a frown, and he nodded slowly.

"Yeah," the kitsune replied. "I do. You three are like family to me, but you've let this whole thing drag on for too long. Every one of you has lived your life by your own moral code. I'm doing the same thing right now for myself."

"Bunnie and Antoine were nearly killed!" Sally cried. "Don't you care?!"

"Of course I do," he yelled back. "But I needed Shadow to take that Emerald, and I needed Knothole to wake up and get out from under its shell. It was a mistake to have built it for you in the first place."

Sally gritted her teeth and looked away, tears in her eyes.

Tails didn't turn away from her grief.

"What's done is done. Nothing can stop what I've set in motion." Miles turned his eyes on Sonic. "Not even you. I'll ask this once: I let you land here so I could talk to you. Walk away. For the sake of all our years of friendship, walk away from this fight, Sonic."

"I…" Sonic clearly seemed to be struggling with his own feelings. "I can't! Damnit, Tails! What if Shadow gets this Emerald, too?"

Tails grin grew wide enough to show teeth.

"I dearly hope he tries!"

"You're off your rocker, kid!" Knuckles took a step forward.

"Says the guy whose been duped and mind controlled how many times?" Tails quipped back. "Yet here I am, one of your oldest friends, and you'd rather fight then trust my judgment?"

That stopped Knuckles cold.

"All I'm asking for is a little faith. Just a bit of the faith you have in each other. Just a bit of the faith you always said you had in me all along."

Sonic and Knuckles both paused, considering what the third member of the Triple Threat had said. Tails' words rung true: they had said that they trusted one another. They had said that they trusted him. For all their faults and misunderstandings, for all the fights and brawls over the years, it was true: they did trust each other with their lives, their loved ones, their hopes and their dreams for the future.

"Tails," Sally spoke now, seeing that the two others were paralyzed. "We do trust you. We do. But this isn't right. It's too risky, and… and you have to think of the big picture. Even if that conference was been a mistake, trying to save those people… it was the right thing to do. What you have to do now is work with us, not against us! You have to give us the Emerald. You have to trust us with the Emerald."

Tails frowned; if only Sally hadn't been here, he could probably have talked Sonic and Knuckles down. Just his luck she decided to come along. He had been hoping she was still bed ridden. Unfortunately, her words had struck a cord with both Sonic and Knuckles and it was looking like a confrontation was basically turning inevitable.

"I can't… you don't understand. I need the Emerald to stay where it is, and I can't have you three just standing around out here." He sighed. "It looks like talking isn't going to get us anywhere."

"Tails!" Sally yelled, trying again to convince him. "This doesn't…"

"It does." Tails slammed his boot down on the airship's armored hull. "METAL SONIC!!"

In seconds, a hailstorm of metal erupted from armored sections within the Carrier's hull. Dozens of flying E-class badniks took to the air, painted with splashes of yellow and red and blue and black. Some landed, others hovered; all boasted a threatening assortment of ranged weaponry. Amid them, a familiar form landed at the head of the pack. Once all cobalt blue, Metal Sonic now sported a crude swirl of yellow and white over his right eye, in the form of two entwined tails, marking his subordination to a new master.

Metal Sonic's optics flared red.

"Metal Sonic Mark Four. Online." The robot turned to its master. "Priority?"

"What else?" Tails asked. "Priority One: Hedgehog."

"FIRE!"

Lances of light strobed against the blue sky, nearly lost amid the short lived tumult of hundreds of exploding missiles; dense buzzing schools of drone fighters flocked in intricate, computer controlled patterns, blossoming points of fire from laser impacts dyed the sky with red and orange. The first major causality of the collision of fleets went up with a thunderous explosion that could be seen almost over the horizon.

To Nicole-Typhoon, it was the most beautiful carnage she had ever seen.

She relayed a live stream of it to Nicole-Knothole. If her sister saw fit, and N-T guessed that she would, this was something the people of that city could do well to see. Everyone knew that the war was back on. Everyone knew that the wasted time they'd spent negotiating had given the enemy time to bolster his forces Everyone knew that, without their City Shield, they were vulnerable.

It could be useful to show them that the fight could still be won, too.

Sally didn't get involved in the fight, something for which all three of the boys were silently thankful. It wasn't that they doubted she could take care of herself, but with only a little conceit, all three felt she would have been biting off more than she could chew butting in. Sonic and Metal were just blurs of motion, clashing and crashing like cerulean waves across the surface of the Carrier.

Tails and Knuckles, in contrast, had barely moved a muscle.

"Last chance to back down, kid," Knuckles said, flexing his neck and working the kinks out of his muscles.

Tails' tails lashed behind him, eager to draw blood.

"Don't hold it against me when I beat you," the fox replied.

Knuckles smirked. Without another word, he charged in, pumping his right fist as he punched. Tails juked back, twisting and slipping away from the echidna's hammer blows with grace and ease. Standing back, Sally watched the fight with trepidation. Close combat was Knuckles specialty; his insane strength and toughness made him (arguably) one of the world's best fighters. His style was relatively simple and straightforward: hit harder, faster, and simply soak up anything your opponent threw at you.

Soon, Knuckles started using his left arm as well, jabbing at ever increasing speeds. He and Tails circled as the Guardian attacked and the kitsune evaded. This was the same tactic Sonic used in his fights with the red echidna – keep dodging, using superior speed to force his stronger opponent to overextend, and then strike. Out of habit, Knuckles kept his eyes on Tails' feet. Sonic always attacked using broad movements, utilizing his spines or his feet.

Sure enough, when Tails finally counterattacked, he did so by kicking low to the back of Knuckles' right shin, aiming to twist his hamstring. The Guardian was ready for it, drew back his foot across the metal ground, and lunged into a fight ending uppercut. Only to have Tails nimbly pivot away from the strike, grab him by the wrist and elbow, and flip him onto his back. Knuckles hit the ground with a grunt but quickly recovered, rolling to the side and back into the balls of his feet before an armor padded knee could slam into him from a prone position.

"Thinking I'll fight like Sonic is a mistake," Tails warned.

"Obviously," Knuckles agreed, raising his fists.

He took three short steps into range, and the two started fighting, this time for real. Knuckles' white gloves became a near blur as he struck, again and again, at his more agile kitsune opponent. This time, Tails did more than just dodge. Right off the bat, he lunged in, seized Knuckles by the shoulder and elbow, and tried to flip him onto his back. More prepared for a close combat throw, the echidna Guardian ducked out of the grapple and swung into a backhand. Tails dodged it by a hairsbreadth, and struck low with one of his tails. Knuckles jumped, avoiding having his knee sliced open.

For a third time, the two clashed, and Sally winced as a nearby explosion lit up the sky. This wasn't from any of the personal battles going on; this was from the escalating air war that was being waged all around them. Streams of plasma fire and the fading smoke contrails of hundreds of missiles surrounded them. Stray fire from enemies and allies alike splashed against the Nor'easter's heavy duty shields. Turrets the size of houses fired nearby through momentary gaps in the shield bubble, adding a period deafening roar to the strain of the fighting around her.

Knuckles grimaced as Tails got in another clean hit, only to dance just slightly out of range of a retaliatory fist. It hurt the echidna's pride more than his body. It was an extremely rare occurrence to fight someone who could last this long in direct hand to hand, and despite Tails' warning earlier, Knuckles could help but fight the fox like he was used to fighting Sonic. Except that Tails wasn't Sonic. Sonic would bounce around, and Knuckles knew to use that as a cue to either make a counterattack or defend himself.

Tails was much harder to read.

The fox's movements were very precise, very calculated, and he attacked with six limbs instead of just two or even four. When Sonic hit you for real, usually with a spin dash or spin kick, he hit like a truck. Tails, on the other hand, seemed to prefer nipping an opponent to pieces. His tails could cut like razors through almost any defense, and while his fists and feet weren't terribly dangerous, he knew the weak spots in the Mobian body. Every single strike the kid landed was to a vulnerable spot: the kidneys, the tendons, the joints. It was like fighting a surgeon.

"Alright!" Knuckles pumped his fists and jumped back. "You asked for this!"

Punching the ground, an ever widening wave of white chaos energy rippled through the air towards the Guardian's surprised opponent. Tails' namesakes spun, propelling him backwards and out of the conflagration. Knuckles didn't give him a moment to form a counter attack. The echidna pumped his fists, building up enough energy to force it directly through the air. In moments, a similar wave propagated out from the furious series of blows.

Unable to dodge the entirety of the attack, Tails spun, and let the blast of energy hit him. Crackling chaos energy tore through some sort of bubble shield. A light orange blur corkscrewed through the air before hitting the ground and spinning like a top. After a dozen revolutions, the blur skidded to a stop. Tails' boots had left twin trails of skid marks across the metal armor of the Egg Carrier.

His tails slowly lowered to his sides.

"If I hadn't blocked that, it would've been pretty bad," the kitsune remarked, and held out his hands. Glowing ring energy collected in his palms. "Guess you're finally getting serious!"

Knuckles' response was to start pumping his fists again, working up another Knuckles Fury. This time, Tails tried to strike first, throwing what looked to be a handful of golden rings at the echidna. Knowing better than to take them at face value, Knuckles quickly directed his first Fury upwards, intercepting the projectiles. As the wave of chaos energy tore into them, each golden ring exploded with surprising and thunderous force. It was enough to knock an observing Sally, dozens of meters away, off her feet.

"You'll have to do better than that!" Knuckles roared, slamming both his fists into the floor. Two huge waves of chaos energy erupted all around him, just as Tails swept in from the side, his right arm sheathed in golden fire. The blast hit him straight on, without even his tails to protect him… except the attack seemed to pass right through the fox, as if he was made of smoke.

"What?" Knuckles asked, and instinctively looked up. Tails was above him, bootleg ring spear in hand. With a heave, the kitsune threw the golden mass of ring energy down. Knuckles, rather than try and raise his fists and block the attack, instead opened his palms and caught the spear, just behind the head. For a moment, he seemed to succeed, before the whole thing exploded around him.

Tails landed, rolled, and jumped away from the smoking point of impact. Without even a properly dramatic pause for effect, Knuckles blasted out of the smoke, his right fist leading the way. Behind him, a fading series of after images was testament to his boost in speed. Caught off guard despite his initial caution, Tails was unable to dodge as Knuckles plowed into, through, and past him.

The kitsune rolled across the metal floor before springing back onto his feet. Knuckles, too, finally skidded to a halt and pulled back his right fist. The glove was burning red. Instead, he pumped his left fist three times and shot forward like a bullet. Tails barely managed to block this strike, shielding himself with his tails. The impact left him spinning, but he managed to stay on his feet. Knuckles drew back his left hand, and pointed with his right fist, the glove now back to a normal white.

Watching with awe, Sally realized it had to be some variant on a dash attack. She had seen Sonic use something similar, except that he charged up the dash by running in place for a second. It looked like Knuckles had developed a similar move using his fists. He was literally punching so hard that it took the rest of his body along for the ride. Knowing Knuckles' insane strength, it was amazing that Tails could even find a way to block the strike.

No: watching Tails stand, somewhat unsteadily, she was certain that even using his tails, he couldn't completely block Knuckles dash attack variant (she mentally labeled it his 'Blast Claw'). It wasn't just a matter of physical force, either. Just like Tails used his tails, and Sonic used his spines, Knuckles used his punch claws. They were suffused with chaos energy, so when he struck something, it wasn't just with an absurd level of kinetic energy. Knuckles' blows could literally destroy matter on a molecular level.

"What are you waiting for, Knuckles?" Tails asked, making no effort to run or put more distance between them. It struck Sally as odd – Tails was a smart fighter. He had to have noticed that Knuckles first and second strikes covered the exact same distance, and that Knuckles traveled that distance regardless of whether he hit his target or not. The smart thing to do would be to keep out of range of the dash attack.

"You brought this on yourself!" Knuckles roared, and launched into another Blast Claw. He got almost halfway to Tails before the ground beneath him exploded and tossed him through the air.

'A trap?' Sally realized. 'He knew the attack happened only in a straight line, and put down some kind of trap or mine in front of him, knowing Knuckles would run right into it!'

"Perfect!" Tails cheered, and took off in a blast of speed. In moments he was airborne and right next to the still smoking and out of control Knuckles in midair. Holding out both hands, the kitsune's right and then left arms flared with golden ring energy.

A solid looking bubble enveloped Knuckles tumbling form.

Tails landed with his prize - one hand wiping away a trickle of blood from his nose while the right rested calmly on top of the now frozen and encapsulated Guardian of Angel Island. Within the bubble, Knuckles remained stuck, a look of surprise still on his face.

"Tails!" Sally yelled, running towards him. "What did you do?!"

"He isn't dead, if that's what you're thinking," Miles assured her, holding up a hand to keep her back. "He would have torn through a normal bubble shield like paper. However, you may recall a special anti-radiation polymer that I developed? This is a version of that, specially made for dealing with mobians like us. It will diffuse all the chaos energy in his body, rendering him harmless. After that, I'll release him to you."

The kitsune glanced down at Knuckles and then back up at her.

"Unless… you want to take a crack at me, too?" he asked, a hint of threat in his otherwise perfectly amiable tone of voice.

"There's something you should know," Sally replied, pointing at the encapsulated Knuckles.

His bubble prison was glowing white hot.

"Ah." Miles frowned. "I see. In that case…" Forming two concentric golden rings in the palm of his right hand, he slammed it down onto the face of the bubble shield. A high frequency vibration quickly built up inside, melting the special polymer material within. It was the only effective way to break down the material, and it was why he had developed the HF Ring technology in the first place, although its other combat uses were also handy.

Knuckles tore his way out of what was left of the bubble, holding a ruby red gemstone the size of a large fist in his right hand. He must have managed to retrieve it in the seconds between when the mine went off, and when Tails caught him in the bubble shield trap. Backing away, Tails watched the Super Emerald warily.

"Why did you…?" he started to ask.

"We were going to give it to you," Sally interrupted him. "Once you gave us the Mobian Chaos Emerald you have."

"Really?" Miles asked, and chuckled. Then, after a few muffled laughs, it morphed into full fledged guffaws. "Of course! Of course!"

Then, abruptly, his mood turned and he became deadly serious.

"You need to put that away and get out of here. This is actually potentially disastrous!" Touching the side of the eyepiece clipped under his ear, Tails spoke into the freshly retracted microphone. "Metal! Command Override! Target echidna! Seize that Emerald and evacuate the premises!"

"What are you…? Hey!" Knuckles never saw Metal coming. The robot was already in Phase Two, having assimilated numerous E-series mecha. Before the weakened echidna Guardian could react, a pair of silver tendrils plucked the red Super Emerald right out of his hands.

"GO!" Tails pointed off into the battlefield. "NOW! Get that out of here!"

Metal's engines flared and it shot off. Knuckles immediately jumped after it, gliding desperately to keep pace with the machine while cursing at it to bring back his Emerald. Tails watched them go with palpable relief. He barely noticed the shadow descending on him from above.

Slipping to the side, he barely avoided Sonic's spin dash from up above.

"What's wrong with you?" Sonic yelled, coming out of the spin dash to face his former sidekick and best friend. "We brought that Emerald to try and help you!"

"And I told you I don't need the help!" Tails shot back. "You guys are just going to screw everything up!"

The two former partners stared each other down, neither willing to budge.

"Sal," Sonic finally said, "Find a way inside the ship. Do your thing. I'll take care of things here."

"Cocky as usual," Tails observed with a huff. "She'd be better off out here. This ship isn't crewed by useless SWATbots or incompetent fodder."

Sally took a few hesitant steps away from the two.

Tails followed her with his eyes, but new better than to give Sonic an excuse to attack. Sighing in defeat, he ignored the Princess for the time being. It was highly unlikely she'd actually make it very far inside the ship. Much of it was still sealed off, and what was in use was heavily guarded. She wouldn't get very far. Hopefully, Aya's boys would know to follow orders and detain rather than kill the intruder.

With Sally gone, Sonic cracked his knuckles ominously.

"You sure you don't want to give up?" the blue one asked. He looked none the worse for wear despite his run in with Metal Sonic.

Miles didn't let it bother him.

"Are you sure you don't want to get the Hell off my ship?"

"You know, you're being more difficult than usual." Sonic started to pace around his former sidekick. "You really want to fight me, man? Isn't that what you had Metal Sonic for? And just how did you manage that, anyway?"

"A little creative reprogramming; it shouldn't be anything new to you after all these years." Tails also started to circle his old friend. "And I kept him around as insurance against a whole bunch of threats. You just happened to show up first."

"Really?"

"The world doesn't revolve around you, you know."

"It certainly seems to sometimes."

The two stopped pacing.

"So," Sonic began.

"So," Tails replied.

"No hitting below the belt?" Sonic proposed.

"No biting, either."

"No eye poking."

"Agreed." Tails then added, "No noogies or wet willies. Because I know you're thinking it."

Sonic smirked. "You know me."

Tails smirked right back. "I do. And I'd rather take a Chaos Spear to the face than have your spit in my ear."

"Let's see how all that junk you learned recently holds up in a real fight!" Sonic tensed, and exploded into a homing attack.

Miles' tails lashed out to meet him head on.

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