Disclaimer: I do not own any of the recognized characters or gameplay patterns within this fanfiction. Sonic the Hedgehog, Tails, Eggman, Blaze, and all related characters of such are owned by SEGA.
Tails watched Blaze fall for the third time. The leviathan's lightning was irritating, as every time he went to pick her back up they'd get aimed at. And every time he picked her up, she froze and curled up slightly. It wasn't a defensive curl, like what Sonic did, it was more of a 'traumatized' curl.
Maybe he should stop picking her up, but considering the first time he tried that the monster had aimed at her and not at him, he decided against it. He'd just keep picking her up. In fact the leviathan wasn't even bothered by him at all, like he was a fly attacking an elephant.
That was a pretty good comparison too, for all the size difference he felt.
It was fully in the air too, he noticed. It's body had to be hundreds of feet long, if not a thousand. It didn't have wings in the traditional sense, instead using its electricity as a form of powered flight. How that was possible, Tails had an idea, but he'd have to study on that later because-
He ducked another four feet down as a wave of lightning passed over him. Because of things like that. That's why he'd have to study it later. Because right now he just didn't have that thing called time.
He couldn't afford to be hit at all by the thing, because he had no rings and had given his last one to Blaze. Probably wasn't the best of ideas, but in general, she was the hurt one, he wasn't.
Not for the leviathan's lack of trying, mind.
Up and over, left and right, he flew, grabbing and throwing Blaze around whenever he could. The leviathan wasn't fast in the air, but it was capable of keeping up.
"Tails, this isn't working! We need another plan!" Blaze shouted. "Throw me up at it!"
Did she realize what that would do? That would put her straight in harm's way, and considering how many blasts of lightning the leviathan can give out while flying, that was sure to end up with charred Blaze.
Actually...now that he thought about it, that's not a purely bad idea. There was that one cartoon he'd watched, ages ago, where the sapients could essentially control the elements as long as they were already there. And the fire ones could command lightning, or at least disperse it. But that was a cartoon, and not real life!
"Tails! Throw me up at it!"
"No!" Tails shouted back. This wasn't how this was supposed to go! They weren't supposed to fight some big giant flying serpent, they were supposed to find the teleportal rings and go home!
"Fine then!" Blaze shouted, her eyes blazing as they looked out at the large clearing in front of them. Tails stared, knowing that somehow the serpent was corralling them back here.
They were flying over the lake now, with the leviathan in tow not far behind them. "Grab on, and don't let go!" Blaze said. Tails blinked in confusion just long enough for her to grab his wrist tight, and simply yank him straight down.
The instant her foot touched the water, he felt the acceleration as she started running on top of it. Water splashed behind him, creating a tall wave from how fast Blaze was going. A wall of fire was in front of her, and she'd settled in for an easy gait that Tails recognized all too well.
The air threatened him and his ears with its sound as Blaze ran faster, and faster. He could feel her start to slow down, start to feel the air pressure beat against the wave of fire she'd unleashed.
The lightning still shot around them, with Blaze thinking all too quick now. A quick hop to the left, and to the right, he felt her pushing her body, pushing on the wave of air. Lightning struck the water to the left, and a moment later to the right. How though, he hadn't the foggiest of ideas. His head was currently being overloaded by the sounds of the shockwave and the upcoming sonic boom.
Then blissful silence came. Tails knew enough to hold his breath, and even the wave of fire was now behind them instead of in front of them. The water stretched out for seemingly miles, and Blaze was crossing the distance faster and faster.
He knew what they'd left behind. A loud crushing boom, a ripple of water that would rise up enough to even splash the leviathan, and an air pressure wave that could cut stone.
He watched in front of them, his eyes glued to the forest and shoreline in front of them. Going into mach speed wasn't the hard part; it was the coming out that was likely to hurt. Sonic knew that better than anyone, and he'd told Tails a few tricks.
He whisked his tails together, forcing himself to try to match her speed. The lightning was still coming, but was much rarer now. Blaze had truly shot off like a bullet.
This is probably going to hurt, Tails thought as the tree line rapidly approached. Blaze didn't bother trying to slow down, trying to put as much distance between the leviathan and herself as possible. And she still kept a death grip on his hand, and he pulled up his tails and legs to create a pseudo ball.
Then she either miss-stepped, or her ankle decided it wanted to call her out on using it to go supersonic, as she stumbled just slightly into the tree line.
A loud boom rushed past his ears, and he felt Blaze drop, crashing against a tree. He saw, just out of the corner of his eye, the single ring drop from her, and knew that this wasn't going to be good.
Fortunately he didn't hit any trees. Instead, he curled up around the bail-bag, still tied to his waist, and hit every other possible thing in a forest. Brambles, branches, he bounced off like he'd decided to go off into the Casino Night Zone again. Smaller creatures turned and ran the instant they had heard the boom.
It was only once he crashed into the bear going full speed that he started to slow down. The bear crashed against another tree, and let out an angry roar at him, clutching its chest furiously.
A non-sapient bear, for what that mattered. To Tails, all that mattered was that a non-sapient bear was actually more likely to kill him than a sapient one was.
Mostly unhurt, aside from his back and his tails, he forced himself up, only to realize that he wasn't 'mostly unhurt'. He'd have bruises and scrapes for days. If he was lucky, he didn't have anything broken.
Did he ever finish the Miles Electric app that could diagnose broken bones? Because if he hadn't, that would be a really good thing to finish right about now.
The bear, brown fur and taller than two Tails' put together, had crashed into a tree for him, and the scent of blood filled his nose. Of course there'd be blood; he rammed into the thing going just a little under supersonic. If anything, he was more surprised that the bear was still alive.
He was more surprised that he was still alive.
He spin dashed off to the side in the time it took the bear to blink, heading back towards where Blaze had stopped. The bear would chase him, eventually, assuming that it lived past the first ten or twenty minutes, but it would probably take that long for the bear to get the same distance he could cover in a minute or two.
They were chasing after him, Tails had checked to make sure, but was so far behind him that the fox didn't really worry too much about it.
The roar of lightning was still around, but the leviathan seemed a bit more content in the water than it had been in the air, seemingly firing straight into the sky. Tails had a clear view to the lake by the time he reached the area that he thought Blaze had stopped in.
"Blaze?" He asked cautiously. His throat hurt, as did his back and tails. Admittedly, that was probably from lack of breathing during their little mach-speed trip. His ears were still ringing, and his voice came out as a little fuzz. He could still hear, but everything seemed much quieter.
"I'm alright," Blaze's voice called out from the side of a tree. "But I lost your ring," she murmured quietly. She came out into view, looking down and holding her arm quietly.
She had bumps and bruises, although it'd be hard to tell, he knew. But it was the rips in her tunic and the fact that a good chunk of the jacket part was now missing. The two parts of the tailcoat were ripped, and one side had a hole bigger than his fist. "You look...hurt," he murmured. It wasn't false, but...way to go Tails. Way to go.
"So do you, honestly," Blaze said. She motioned to his body, seeing small red streaks in his usually golden yellow fur, or the white fur on his chest. "You looked like you picked a fight with a bear," she murmured.
"Funny you say that, I did," Tails said, looking behind him. There was silence now, aside from the still rampaging leviathan. "Although I'm pretty sure that I crushed its ribs by accident when I rammed into it."
"I mean what about your rings," Blaze questioned accusingly. "You did have more than just the one, right?"
Tails gulped quietly.
"Of course you didn't," Blaze said, taking a deep breath. "Just means we need to be careful then, you and I," she finished.
Tails suddenly felt that he'd managed to dodge a bullet, laser, or fire blast somehow. "I think we need a new plan for the leviathan though. I don't think 'fly until I'm hurt' is a sound plan."
"I could have told you that much," Blaze said simply. "Although it does appear to be staying more in the region of the lake. We probably can just find another place, now."
Tails stared at where the leviathan had been, the shadows fully gone and the lake once more perfectly still. "Yeah...yeah I think so. South or west?" he asked.
"Did you see anything from the way you came?" Blaze suggested. Tails shook his head. "West then. There will be other bodies of water we can find," she said.
Tails nodded and started to whirl up his tails, only to flinch at the last second and crash into the ground, the smell of the dirt rising into his nose. His back had flared up in pain, and his ribs had suddenly decided to knife him in the spleen, it had felt like. "Are you ok?" Blaze asked, watching him as he slowly picked himself up.
"I'm fine. Just...still hurt, I think, from crashing into the bear. Speaking of, we should probably find a more permanent place to rest."
"Water first. Water that's hopefully not populated by a giant leviathan capable of bioelectric generation," Blaze said succinctly. Tails nodded, and they started heading in what Tails assumed was west.
The trees and brambles were still in the way, and Tails could almost see the pathway he'd made when he had flown by and crashing by everything. This was the opposite side of the lake though; new territory?
He checked his bail-bag from the Tornado 2, making sure that everything was still in functioning condition. The Miles Electric still turned on, and after a quick check the medical app was unfinished. He'd lay down some time tonight on it, maybe he could finish it and use it on himself. The first aid kit was still good, the water was fine...seemed normal. The ration bars were crushed up, but Tails wasn't worried. A bit of water and they'd coagulate together again without a problem.
"What is that yellow thing?" Blaze asked after a long few minutes of silence. Their tracks were quiet, which was more surprising than anything. It'd been a long time since he'd walked at a pace like this one. They weren't running, for once.
"Oh, the Miles Electric? It's a neat little toy I made years ago. Has a bunch of useful tools on it, like a translator, calculator, all kinds of things," Tails answered. He was older than he'd been when he made it, but he was still proud of it. Not many others can say that they had made a piece of hardware capable of nearly anything they needed it to be.
He wondered...he may still have his notes from examining a teleportal ring from Angel Island. If he did...could he make something that would find it, like a radar for the rings?
"Translator? You could talk with the leviathan?"
"Nothing like that, it's more for other sapients. Remember the wisps? That's what it was used for originally, then it just evolved from there."
-Side B-
Talking with Tails about technology was...something that Blaze was not familiar with. The fox boy, although she hesitated on calling him a boy anymore as he's definitely on the cusp to adulthood, could talk for a while just about the things that he's invented.
Everything from an airplane that could transform to an almost universal translator assuming it wasn't screwing up. Apparently he'd had horror stories from trying to work with a white wisp he'd named 'Yacker' to not try to mess up his translations.
It was refreshing, in a way, to have him talk about something that he was familiar with. He didn't have any special abilities as far as Blaze knew, aside from his ability to fly, at least compared to her own pyrokinesis or Sonic's aerokinesis, not that she figured that hedgehog knew that's what he was doing.
"Do you think there's a communicator in there, or you can build one?" Blaze asked as an off-the-hand remark.
"There's one in here, yeah. But it uses a traditional method of wavelengths and there's nothing here to be able to accept or boost the signal. For it to go through the Special Zone requires wavelengths and power that I don't think this little thing can get. But if we could find the right materials there's a high possibility of it," Tails answered.
"What kind of materials?" If there was a chance that it was something they could find just lying around...then maybe they could coordinate with the others of his world and potentially hers too. Or at least check up with Marine and the Sol Emeralds. She wanted to make sure the raccoon wasn't doing something she shouldn't be, like gambling them away.
The guardian code said that they had two days to find a new guardian if the old one passed. Since she wasn't dead, the emeralds energy would still go to her instead of their new guardian. However, Marine would know none of that and either try to run away from the problem or pretend that it didn't exist in the first place.
"Let's see...iron, copper, steel definitely, maybe some gold or diamond if we can find it, a little bit of quartz or other crystals would work too. Other materials, things like that," Tails answered. His head was held high, showcasing to Blaze just how badly hurt he actually was.
He was hurt. Blood was all over his arms and chest, and even a little on his neck too. If he hadn't realized it yet, he would as soon as they found a place to wash. She'd greatly prefer not going back to the leviathan lake.
On and on they walked, Blaze's mouth starting to dry out. She could tell Tails' was as well, based on the way his eyes occasionally glanced towards his bag. He reached in and she stared, wondering if he'd given in and grabbed some water.
Just the compass, she figured as soon he'd brought it back out. "Why don't you fly up, and see if you can see a river or a stream?" she asked. She'd been hesitant to ask considering how badly his back had been maimed, but figured a few hours by now should at least let it heal a bit. She hadn't told him that it had been almost more red than golden yellow when she'd first seen him.
He blinked in surprise, before he nodded and whirled up his tails. He'd barely gotten off the ground when his body froze, and he crashed hard against the dirt. "You alright?" Blaze asked, kneeling down next to him instantly. His face was a mask of pain and self-loathing that vanished quickly.
"I'm fine," Tails said, pushing himself up. "Tails didn't want to fly for some reason," he said. He was feeling something, Blaze knew, but let it settle. She wasn't going to push it. They kept walking mostly in silence, or occasionally would chatter about something inane, like what Sonic would be doing or what Marine had been up to doing the previous night. Or two nights ago, Blaze had guessed.
Their feet found the forest floor surprisingly soft, the trees and brambles far enough apart that as long as they didn't go fast, they'd be able to make it through without any issues. Rarely Blaze had to duck to dodge a small branch, and there was only one time they had to crawl through to go underneath some bushes with particularly spiky bits. Blaze didn't want to think they could be poisonous, which she now realized could be a thing.
After all, neither of their worlds had anything like the leviathan. This world didn't seem to have any sapients, so what's to say it didn't have any poisonous plants? Or venomous plants, rather.
The soft feeling of a spider web went straight through Blaze's face, and she unconsciously burned it as she tried to brush it away. It was a tiny web, the kind that a large spider would make to catch flies or mosquitoes.
Tails' ears picked it up first, and Blaze's a second later. The world was still, yet there was sound, a small scuttling sound above them. Tails looked up a moment later. "Blaze?" he asked.
"Yes?"
"Please tell me you're not afraid of spiders," he said, starting to curl up slightly. Blaze blinked in surprise, before she too looked up. Her eyes widened as she saw what looked like a small army of giant spiders, each of them as big as she was, if not bigger. Their webs crisscrossed the trees, creating an almost spider village above them.
"I'm not," Blaze said. And that was true, she wasn't afraid of them. She was, however, wary of any creatures bigger than she was.
A large black one with red stripes in jagged lines came down a nearby tree. It's fangs far too prominent, nearly two feet in length despite the fact its size was nearly only double or triple that. Its thorax was huge, being nearly the size of Blaze or Tails in of itself.
A sound issued from its mouth, a horrible hissing sound full of sputters and spit. "I think we're on its menu. Grab on, I can bolt us," Blaze said quietly.
"Yeah, not a bad idea. Just run!" Tails said, grabbing a pile of dirt. They had both been walking slowly backward, and they turned to run just as the spider started chasing them, its many legs far too quick for something its size. Its eyes, a black hole of color and death, shone out with fury.
Until Tails threw the dirt straight into its eyes. Then it stopped, or slowed down, a small cursing or what Blaze had thought would be cursing, emanating from its mouth.
Blaze had already started running, a light jog that would leave most things behind her anyways. Tails wasn't far behind, able to keep up despite the lead she had on him.
"I think we lost it," Tails said after a few more minutes of running. Blaze slowed down, and a moment later Tails joined her. "That was...surprisingly scary."
"It's a giant spider. Most sapients are afraid of them, or at least wary. Did your translator get anything?" Blaze asked. Tails blinked, before he pulled out the yellow gadget and accessed the translator app he'd installed.
"Um...it was a language. So there's at least some sapients here. Or some sentience with rudimentary language abilities. Not enough of a sample size to actually determine what it was saying though."
"Hmm. Too bad it didn't seem friendly," Blaze said. Her mouth was dry, or drier than it usually was, and she missed the humidity of the ocean.
"Need some water?" Tails asked after a long moment. He reached for the water bottle, uncapping it lightly and waterfalling it in. He took the bare minimum to fill his mouth, letting it sit and swallowing it slowly. Blaze nodded.
It was surprisingly refreshing, considering she'd never cared much for water on its own. It was warm, but still had a feeling of being clean that she knew she probably wouldn't have had much of in the future. At least until Tails got around to building a water filter or something. Assuming they found a stream, that is.
Tails ears perked up a few hours later, as the sun was starting to set. The water bottle was empty now, split between the two of them. The sun was starting to set, darkness and twilight looming just around the corner.
"Water. That way," Tails said quietly, his voice echoing far too loudly than she knew he was talking at. Blaze's ears rotated, and just barely in her hearing range she could hear the sound of water running.
"How well can you hear?" she asked as they both turned to jog in that direction. It was within her hearing range, which she knew was probably less than Tails' so at most maybe five or ten minutes out.
"Pretty well. These ears aren't just for show you know!" Tails joked, his ears about the size of half of his head each. They flicked individually, as if to prove his point.
It became apparent that water was nearby the further they went, and the closer to it they got. The ground became slightly damper, the dirt and sticks becoming more rotted. Mushrooms were found more often, with a bit more moss and greenery. Grasses started appearing, and other weeds and flowers that usually only grow near water.
It was a smallish stream, bigger than they had found on the other side of the lake, but smaller than an actual river. It seemed to be heading towards the northwest, away from the lake. Maybe there was a river that it joined with before it headed to the ocean?
It was nearly crystal clear, and running fast and cold. Blaze put her hand in, letting the stream drag it along for a bit. There was a bit of force there, but nothing that would push them down and hold them there.
"Camp here, and then head out in the morning out there?" Blaze asked quietly.
Tails nodded. He had just started grabbing sticks as Blaze almost instantly made a campfire spot, a small inferno starting. "Right. Forgot you could do that," he said sheepishly.
"My name is Blaze, Tails. Fire is my element," she answered. It was a surprising thing to forget, but she had to admit that it wasn't as bad as it could be. He wasn't around her twenty four seven yet, nor was he aware of just how good her control with fire was. Especially since Sonic seemed content to use his aerokinesis solely on going fast, whereas she'd be able to use fire for nearly anything.
Not to be beaten down by Blaze's pyrokinetics, Tails used the sticks he'd already grabbed and slowly lodged them into the ground. In barely five minutes, he'd had a working tent that he could put up and down in less than a minute. He reached into his bail-bag, pulling out a small blanket.
"That isn't going to cover even one of us, let alone that," Blaze pointed out. It was a tiny gray thing. Even as a small square, she knew that fully folded it'd barely be enough to cover him as a ball.
He smirked. "See, that's what it looks like. This is a special material I made that can stretch out to almost three hundred percent of what it looks like. Best of all, to shrink it down it just needs some heat," Tails said, instantly looking as if he was trying to tear it.
The material didn't rip, and in fact seemed to stretch out no matter how far Tails tried it. By the time he was done, it was a blanket of respectable size and more than enough to cover the one-person tent he'd made. She wondered if he had two, or what that material was called.
"Is it waterproof?" Blaze asked. Tails shook his head.
"No, it's not. But it's better than nothing in a windstorm. Best of all, heat applied from friction also works, so when Sonic had to use it a couple of times all he had to do was spin dash on it," Tails said. "Why?"
"Trying to figure out the water situation. I don't trust the stream," Blaze said, waving to the small thing to their side. It continued to flow happily, as if it didn't realize that it was creating a quiet conundrum in the two extra dimensional travelers.
I hope you're all enjoying this experiment so far. It's different than anything else I've done. Until Next Time!
