Chapter 16: Tears for Fears

"What do you think is going on?" Knuckles asked. He and Rouge were sitting at the entrance to her cave, looking out over the dark, red landscape.

"I don't think it's the work of those jewels," Rouge answered.

"Me neither. The chaos emeralds are chaotic by nature… This seems too… orderly."

Rouge looked at him. "So… if not the chaos emeralds… What's causing this… orderly nightmare scene?"

He shook his head. "I wonder if the others have experienced anything odd."

"I don't doubt it in the least."

Knuckles stood suddenly. "Then I better check on them."

Rouge looked up at him, surprised. "Do you think they're in danger?"

"If they are, I need to be there to help them." And with that, he slid down the edge and glided off toward his friends.

Rouge nodded, then followed.

.

Sonic had curled up and used his spines to shoot across each monster that approached them, and what remained were blobs of limbs, crumpled on the ground. "Do you think you got them all?" Cream asked.

"Yeah… I think so…" Sonic huffed.

"Are you okay, Mr. Sonic?"

In truth, he wasn't. But he didn't want Cream to know that. She was counting on him to protect her. So he gave her a thumbs-up.

She tilted her head at him, unconvinced.

He was breathing heavily, and he was still concerned about Tails. Where had that monster carried him off to?

.

Tails knelt by the rubble of his home. Tears were clinging onto his eyes. He couldn't believe it. He couldn't believe he had failed Sonic… truly and utterly and irreversibly.

"Tails!" he heard his name. But it wasn't Sonic who called it.

He looked up. Knuckles and Rouge were running toward him. Knuckles was in the lead, and it was his voice that Tails had heard. It was a voice he hadn't heard since his big mistake. His throat tightened, choking him. The tears were falling now. His chest felt like it was being squeezed.

Knuckles reached him and held out a hand. "Tails… what happened?"

Tails cried, turning from Knuckles and sobbing.

"Tails!" Knuckles didn't know what to do with the kid. He turned back toward Rouge, but the look on her face made it clear that she would not be helping. He looked at Tails again and knelt beside him. "What happened? Tell me. I'll help you."

"I failed…" he sniffed. "Just like I messed everything up with the Master Emerald! I'm no good… I can't do anything right…"

"Tails…" Knuckles realized that the most recent conversation he had with the fox was not a pleasant one. He had chewed him out for trusting the Master Emerald with Rouge of all people. Sonic had jumped in to defend him, but stubborn Knuckles wouldn't listen… And even after he discovered the truth behind it all… after he had formed a plan to restore the Master Emerald to Angel Island and scatter the chaos emeralds… he had never returned to make peace with Tails. He sighed. He still had a lot to learn.

Tails continued crying, but then, in a cracking, shuddering voice, explained, "Sonic's g-gone… I c-couldn't help him… He… He's s-so d-disapp-point-ted in m-me…"

"Impossible," Knuckles said. Then, he reached over and put his hand on Tails's back. "You could never disappoint anyone, Tails."

Tails shook his head.

"Because everything you do… You do with the best intentions and with the highest logic." He bent down further, trying to look him in the eye. "I never told you, Tails. I'm sorry for the blowout. You didn't deserve it."

Tails sniffed and looked up at him. "Wh-What? Yes I did."

"No. You didn't." Knuckles shook his head. "Because you saw Rouge's true character, even when she tried to hide it from everyone around her. You told me, 'She seemed genuine.' That's because she was. In that moment, she was more genuine than she had been that entire day. And she was the one who stopped Catnap."

Tails wiped his eyes. "But… you…"

"I forgive you, Tails."

It took a moment, but the little fox staring into the echidna's genuine, somber eyes finally smiled. Then, he wrapped Knuckles in a tight hug.

Knuckles, surprised at first, returned the squeeze. When they released each other, Knuckles repeated, "What happened here, Tails?"

"Sonic told me that the house had collapsed… So we came to find Amy and Cream. But we couldn't find them underneath. Then a tornado came and…" he started getting choked up again, "and I couldn't save him…"

"Earthquakes… Tornadoes…?"

"I'm starting to think maybe it is the chaos emeralds," Rouge chimed in.

"Tails… The tornado… How did you escape it?"

"I flew out of it," Tails answered simply.

Knuckles looked around the horizon, narrowing his eyes. "If it was a chaos emerald, it would've taken him too."

"What are we missing here?" Rouge asked.

.

Clutching onto the edge, Amy hung from the wall of her temporary prison. She pulled herself up with as much of her strength she could muster. She was tired from her attempts, but she never doubted her arms' strength. Her hammer was nothing to laugh at. So up she came, pulling herself up slowly as her legs tried and failed to find something to push against.

Up… up… She dared to crawl forward, to clutch at the dirt beside the ditch. She pulled, now lifting herself on her elbows. Slowly, she came out of the trap. She lay, looking up at the red sky, breathing hard. "I did it!" she huffed. "I did it!"

But that was only one step. Now, she had to figure out what was going on. She sat up and looked off in the direction from which she came. Then she turned and looked off the other direction. She frowned. The opposite direction was the side of the ditch she was on.

She definitely didn't want to attempt to jump it. That would land her right back in it. The question became which way to follow it to find its end. She picked a direction and started walking, keeping a few paces between her and the ditch so she didn't fall into it again.

At least she was distracted by the mission at hand. She didn't need to think about how scared she was without her friends by her side. And she didn't even have her hammer, either. What exactly was she planning to do without a weapon when she found the cause of all this? She stopped short. "Think, Amy, think!" she clenched her fists and scrunched up her face. "What would Sonic do right now?"

He would run.

He would run right toward the danger, not looking back to lament over anything left behind.

He would face it head-on and defeat the bad-guy, just as he always did.

He was probably there now, she decided. "And I'm about to join him!" she opened her eyes and started running.