Tails and the prisoners screamed, throwing themselves flat against the ground.
Sonic froze, his pupils contracting. He sprung free from the combots—raced back to the cart—skidded to a stop—
The twisted cart lay burned open on its side. It had been still over halfway full of Mobians. The escapers on the ground were just beginning to realize their injuries. Those who could run, got up and charged for the woods. Others lay dead, their blood pooling around them on the ground, their fur going white.
Tails had already scrambled up, gasping in terror. He ran forward from body to body, as if trying to figure out where to start. He dashed up to the cart, trembling. "Grampa Chuck! Amy Rose!" He screamed at the top of his lungs. "Bunnie—Rotor—Zoey!"
Sonic ran forward and yanked Tails back. "Help them!" He dove into the cart.
Tails tried to pick up the first body he could reach, the dog child. He looked around him desperately—for Sonic to appear with a ring—for some shelter or exit to materialize out of nowhere—
Sonic was out of rings. There was no shelter. The combots were coming.
The injured ones couldn't run. He had nowhere to take them.
Sonic shot back out of the cart, his chest heaving, his gloves and tunic front smeared with ash and streaks of blood. His green eyes were wild with fire.
The hedgehog exploded into Speed. A sonic boom cracked behind him, sending the cart spinning and knocking any living creature back to the ground.
"Sonic!" Tails screamed.
Sonic raced towards the next nearest cart, the mangled combot arm in hand. He began slamming it into the panel.
Robotnik's voice rang out through the sky. This time it was not from a combot, but from the cruiser itself.
"This is Robotnik, Head of Planet Marto. I am speaking to you live. I declare the blue Mobian Ringwielder, Sonic, the hedgehog, a wanted criminal. A rebel daring to resist his new master. Any Mobian subject that can bring him and his two-tailed fox to me, dead or alive, will be granted their life and any wish they might make—whether that wish is roboticization or position or a travelling pod to leave this planet, safe and sound."
Sonic stared up at the cruiser, his chest heaving.
Tails shot one look at the Mobians around him, noticing their glances towards him. He caught his breath.
Sonic ignored the announcement, yanking on the different levers. The second cart doors began to open—confused Mobians began to shout, still strapped to their trays.
A bright light beamed from up above, at the cruiser. Sonic lifted his head.
He saw the second blast coming—he thrust his hand down to his waist for a shield ring—
The second cart blew up beneath him, sending him flying across the dirt. The screams seemed to shake the air.
"Stop it!" Sonic roared.
He got up. He staggered towards a third cart.
Tails came running up behind him as hard as he could. He snatched onto the hedgehog's hand and pulled back with all his might. "Sonic, stop!"
The third blast threw them both back to the ground as the third cart ruptured into mangled metal, bodies and flames.
In all their years the two had never heard or seen so much death so close to them before.
For a two terrible seconds, they clutched each other in the dirt, unable to move, barely able to breathe.
"They're all going to be free…hmm," Robotnik's voice sounded in the distance. From the woods.
The sound of a combot blaster spat through the forest. The Mobian wolf, who had made it into the trees, let out a cry as a slug slammed into his heart. The combots forms appeared through the trees—circling around, towards them.
"Not that one." Robotnik shouted back.
Tails screamed with all his might, quivering, his tails coiling in on themselves. He yanked up the broken combot arm from Sonic if it weighed nothing, tears pouring down his face, and charged towards the shapes in the trees. He hurled the arm with all his might. It fell yards short.
Sonic tackled Tails—a thick blast of heat and light exploded at their backs—This time the blast had been meant for them.
"Let me go—they're all going to die—there's no point!" Tails screamed. "We can't do this—we can't Sonic—it's impossible—they're all going to die!"
"I can do this all day hedgehog—I don't need any of them, and neither do you," Robotnik's voice shouted from the cruiser. "There's no point in fighting me. Unless you want to live the rest of your life seeing them die like this, give yourself up and save your people the trouble of bringing you in to protect themselves."
Sonic grit his teeth, pain raging through his eyes. Blaster shots and cries rang out. Shapes of the Mobians and combots filtered through the trees.
"I'm coming in all right," Sonic spat.
Sonic half hauled, half threw Tails onto his back. "Come on!"
Before Tails could react, the hedgehog jumped to his feet and whipped around a tree—straight into the chest of a combot. The whole machine stumbled back from the force of the blow.
The combot pointed its blaster as Sonic laughed—a hard, bitter laugh. The hedgehog stared into the lens of the combot's sensory panel camera, "I think I'm ready to ditch the middle man, Robotnik," Sonic seethed out. "Sure. Let's try things face to face."
Tails watched the blaster, catching his breath—
The combot fired. Sonic jolted to the side in a flash. Tails nearly fell off balance, but he caught himself and ducked down behind Sonic's head spikes.
"I can see those things in slow mo, old man," Sonic spat. He jumped back into his Speed, racing around the combot, up his back, and into the nearest tree. He began climbing as fast as he could.
"Tails, get me up there!" Sonic shouted, staring at the cruiser. "Fly me!"
Tails took one look at the cruiser above them and he choked. "Up there?"
"Yeah!"
"Sonic—" Tails sputtered, his face still wet with tears. "It's no—we—I can't—fly that-"
"Tails!" Sonic snatched Tails by the arm and hauled him off his back. He gripped the fox in front of him, his green eyes flaring. "Are you with me? I said get me up there—!"
"They will shoot us out of the air and I can't go that high and you can't just kill, Robotnik, Sonic, how even do you think you're going to do that?" Tails blurted, nearly hysterical.
"Shut up, Tails!" Sonic ordered.
"He—will—kill—us!" Tails shouted back.
Something snapped in Sonic's eyes.
"So?" Sonic raged, shaking his fist within an inch of the fox's face. "I'm going up there one way or another, with or without you, so if you're gonna quit on me, then fine, you stay here and quit! I'd probably be better off without you there anyway—you go back to the Underground and just hide and die down there by yourself!"
"No!" Tails screamed, his blue eyes going huge, still brimming with tears. "-I'll do it! I'll do it!" He began winding his tails together, screwing his eyes shut. "I'll die with you, I promise I will!"
"Shut up, and just—get—me—up-!" Sonic shouted.
Tails gripped Sonic around the waist and wound up his tails as tight as he could.
"Go!" Tails shouted.
Sonic leapt into midair from the tree and Tails unwound his tails as fast as he could.
Sonic's weight dropped in Tails' arms, dragging both of them down. The fox whipped his tails in and out, pushing higher in the sky. He tipped his head back and bit his lip.
The shadow of the cruiser inched over them.
"Go faster, Tails!" Sonic blurted. "—We've gotta reach it before it reaches us with that cloud thing it's spraying or we'll be caught in it!"
"I'm trying," Tails gritted out through his teeth, clenching back his tears.
He'd made it up a couple more yards when the first blast came. It shot just beneath them, destroying the tree they had launched from. Heat billowed up from the ground, hitting them in a wave.
Tails caught his breath, wincing.
Sonic hurled his fist at the cruiser. "Close, but no prize, deadweight!" he sneered.
"This is stupid," Tails gasped out, sucking up another breath of air.
A second blast of energy about the size of a boulder bolted over their heads.
"Ha!" Sonic scoffed. "Spend less time making fatso machines and more time learning how to shoot, human!"
"The cannons—are probably—automated," Tails grunted. It was a pointless thing to say, but he didn't care anymore. "Robotnik doesn't actually shoot them…"
"Shut up, Tails." Sonic made a kicking motion at the cruiser, still shouting. Sonic's eyes blazed and he cupped his hands around his mouth. "Shoot all you want—Shoot all you want-!"
-The third blast cracked right past Tails' face.
Tails shouted.
They began to fall.
"Woah, Tails!" Sonic blurted, pulling into a ball.
Tails began to propel, breaking their fall, driving them into the forest and away from the combots. They both hit the ground.
Sonic unrolled, looking the fox over. "Tails, what happened?"
Tails breathed hard where he lay, his eyes closed tight. Except for a burn along his shoulder and upper arm, he was unscathed. "I'm sorry, Sonic—," Tails hissed. "I'm fine—nothing hurts—I don't know what happened—it cracked and—"
Sonic threw himself over the fox's body just as a slew of combot bullets spat into the dirt behind them.
He snatched up Tails and ran.
They shot over the dirt and through the trees. A strange rushing sound had started in the distance. Like rain. It was grower louder, closer.
Sonic skidded to a stop at their embankment where they had hidden their backpack. He glanced around, his ears cocked for the sound of combots. He crouched behind the embankment, set Tails down, and pulled out their hidden backpack.
"What's that?" Tails murmured, beginning to shiver.
"It's that mist. You were too slow." Sonic snapped.
Tails lunged forward. "I'll try again-!"
Sonic snatched out a gas mask and tossed it to Tails. "We don't know what that spray is. Get that on."
Tails pulled it over his head. "I'm sorry, Sonic, I'll try again!"
Sonic spun to face him, his eyes flashing. "You bet we'll try again. Come on."
Tails got back up. He threw himself back onto Sonic and started propelling as if his life depended on it.
