It seemed like ages before they stopped at last. Loren called for quiet, and they advanced about ten metres more before she parted the bushes in front of her. Tails, Amy and Sandi looked through. There was a flat area of bare ground, slightly bigger than the clearing in the forest that they had slept in the previous night. It was surrounded by trees and bushes to the right and left, beyond it lay a fine stretch of golden sand and even further than that was the sea. But in the very centre of the scene was the Plasmic Generator. Eggman and Stella were there, preparing for the final showdown at midday.

Loren had told them what she had discussed with Sonic. He was leading the soldiers not far behind them; once he had found the missing troops he would rush in to assist when they needed it. So he was the backup plan - but first they had to confront Eggman.

Tails looked at the countdown clock that Eggman had placed in front of the Plasmic Generator. Eleven-thirty-one. Half an hour.

He sprang from the bushes with a wild cry, Amy, Sandi and Loren behind him. Sonic would come any moment now.

"Eggman, you won't get away with this," he yelled, catching Eggman's attention just as he was putting the Hiatus Orb in the capsule within the Plasmic Generator. Eggman looked up, and when he saw Tails he was very, very angry.

"This is the last time you intervene," he growled.

"Oh yeah? We'll just see about that."

"We will indeed." Eggman said. He glanced at Stella, who was at the foot of the generator. She nodded, and drew out a gun. She walked forwards steadily, keeping all four of them within easy firing range.

"Nobody move," she said without expression. Tails stood stock still, and as he did so, noticed a red shape in the bushes, creeping up on Stella from behind. It was Knuckles! He saw Tails looking at him and put a finger to his lips, to indicate silence. Tails understood.

A few seconds later, Stella was attacked from behind by a very ferocious echidna. As Knuckles and Stella fought, Rouge also appeared out of the bushes and sidled up to Tails.

"We were just up on the mountain over there, when we saw something going on, so we thought we'd come and help you."

"Thanks. You were just in time," Tails answered. Meanwhile, Stella had tackled Knuckles and threw him forwards at Tails's feet. Knuckles thudded to the ground, exhausted by the ferocity of Stella's defence. Now she had all of them under her control.

Tails was anxious about Sonic and the backup team. They should have been here by now. Where were they?

"Now would be a good time to show up....." Amy whispered to him. Then, as if it was a direct answer to her prayers, Sonic ran through the trees.

"Hey, guys! There you are! I lost the backup team....whouaa!" He stopped short when he saw Stella with the gun, and Eggman atop the Plasmic Generator. Eggman's reaction showed he was no less surprised than Sonic.

"Sonic? No! But - how could you.....argh, doesn't matter. Stella! Take care of this lot for me."

"With pleasure," she said briskly. Then she looked at Sonic. "You, the blue pig, go join your friends." She waved the gun at Tails and co. Sonic scowled. He did not like that last comment. Reluctantly, he did as Stella told him.

"You lost the backup team? How on earth......" Amy began, but she stopped when Stella took hold of her arm brusquely. She pressed the gun to it and injected Amy's arm. It was a tranquilliser. No! They could not afford to fall asleep, not now! Tails tried to get her off Amy's arm but it was too late; the tranquilliser was already taking its effect upon Amy. Stella turned in annoyance at Tails's attack and shot a dart into Tails's arm also. He saw the same happen to Sandi, but then he felt himself slipping out of consciousness and did not have the energy to look around him any more. He felt rough hands pulling his arms behind him, but he was too drowsy to object.
*

Tails groggily opened his eyes and tried to move about. He found that he could not. Looking around in an agitated fashion, he found that his arms were tied behind him to some sort of pole. Sandi was beside him, and Amy beside her, and Knuckles beside Amy. Sonic, Loren and Rouge were somewhere beyond Knuckles.

Sandi moved her head to look at Tails.

"Can't....get..free of ...darned.....tree trunk...." she moaned. Then Tails realised that it was a tree trunk he was tied to. Before he could do any more realising, Eggman strode over triumphantly. Tails watched him take the First Amulet from around Sandi's neck. He did the same to Knuckles, who had the Third Amulet, and finally, Sonic, who had the Second Amulet.

"I'll take these," he said happily. They could not stop him. Eggman went back to the Plasmic Generator and placed the three Amulets together on the metal pad. Tails read with horror on the clock that it was eleven-fifty- five.

"This is the only chance we'll have for the next million years," Stella reminded Eggman. "So don't get it wrong."

"I'm not planning to," he said. Then the Orb began to gather power. The skies darkened as though there was a storm approaching and the air chilled as the Orb drew in power from its surroundings. Eggman's face was covered with glee as he worked the controls on the generator.

Without warning, the fairy army rushed out from the trees. The captives gave a gasp of surprise. Eggman gave a gasp of horror, and Stella clenched her teeth in anger.

Tails felt his bonds loosen and he jumped up, ready to wage war against Eggman once more. With a note of dismay, he saw that only a small section of the army had actually come to their aid.

"Where's the rest of you?" he asked.

"They got....um....lost," one soldier confessed before moving on to free Sandi. Soon everyone else was free too and they came to stand beside Tails.

"Thanks, guys," Sonic called to the soldiers. The soldiers lined up, preparing for battle. There were about thirty of them, no more. Stella drew out her weapon, a real gun this time, stopping all of them before they could make a move. "Dammit," muttered Sonic.

But Stella hesitated. Tails was expecting her to shoot. She looked at the clock, which now read eleven-fifty-eight. She looked from Eggman, to Tails's gang, back to Eggman again. Then in one swift movement, she leapt to the side and climbed up the generator, knocking Eggman out of the way; pushing him aside and taking control of the Plasmic Generator herself.

"Now, are you ready to do this?" Sonic raised an eyebrow at Tails.

"You're on." Tails said. And with that, they rushed in for the attack.

Stella was working furiously at the Plasmic Generator's control panel. She had a matter of seconds to get it to work. Just then, a horde of soldiers popped up all around her. She drew her gun, but did not quite know who to aim it at. There were too many people. Sonic and Knuckles pushed their way through. Knuckles attacked Stella again, and Sonic went over to the control panel. He looked fervently over the buttons and levers, but it made no sense to him. Knuckles turned and looked over his shoulder at Sonic.

"We need Tails," said Sonic. Knuckles opened his mouth to reply, but was thrown backwards by Stella. She pushed Sonic out of the way, hurling him into a couple of soldiers. Then Stella lunged for the controls and managed to complete the procedure, before she herself was pulled back by one of the Regiment Guards.

The clock turned twelve o-clock. Midday.

Instead of drawing in energy, the Orb began to expand. Dark mists rose up in an ominous mushroom cloud, slowly spreading across the sky. Stella laughed evilly as Sonic and Knuckles cowered away from the brainwashing fog.

"Ha ha! Looks like you lost," she sneered. Sonic shot her an acid glance and vanished amongst the soldiers to find Tails.

Eggman had recovered from his fall and he got up doggedly, a bit dazed, and extremely mad with Stella. He saw the dark cloud over the Plasmic Generator and knew that it had begun. He took a step forward.

"Hey, you!" A high, perky voice stopped him in his tracks. "The pompous, fat windbag over there, yeah, I mean you." Eggman whisked around to confront the speaker.

"Who....." He came face to face with Sandi and Amy. Sandi smiled impishly.

"Hiya," she said. Then she attacked.

The cloud began pouring down on them all. Little droplets of black rain melted from the cumulonimbus formation and spattered them in the scrum below. Tails pushed through the crowd, trying to reach the generator. As the rain touched the fairy soldiers, they started to disappear into the mist. It did not have any effect on Tails, though.

The rain was blinding. Tails could hardly see a thing as he was crushed and jostled amongst the frantic bodies. The fairies started screaming and shouting as they discovered that they were disappearing. Tails was dragged underfoot in the fray and fell on the ground, which had been turned to mud in the rain. He got up shakily and found himself quite alone. He could not see more than five metres in front of him due to the rain, but he could still see that all the fairies were gone. They had vanished completely! The Void had done something weird to them. All of them apart from Loren.

"Tails, over here!" Tails looked, and saw Sonic approaching.

"I need to get to the generator," Tails said.

"I know!" Sonic took hold of his hand and they ran towards the generator, stumbling in the mud streams which were fast becoming waterlogged. They reached the side of the vast machine and began to climb, the black rain gushing in torrents all around them. Tails slipped once or twice, but kept on going. Above them, the dark cloud was slowly spreading. It would not take all that long for it to smother the skies entirely. And, when it did that, the colossal force of energy it would release would immediately be transmitted all over the world by the virus that Eggman had stolen from Tails.

Rouge had been the last to be freed. She had also come off worst from the effects of the tranquilliser. The next couple of minutes had been a confusing onrush for her. Tails and the others had charged, and the dark cloud had risen up from the generator. Then the rain came down. She became a bit disoriented through the mist and the rain. At first there were lots of others around her, then all of a sudden there was nobody in sight. For a moment, she thought she had somehow been separated form the others. How did I get so lost? she wondered. She felt someone grab her forearm. It was the fairy that was friends with Tails.

"We have to stop the Void," she said. Rouge agreed, glad that she had found someone, and she followed the fairy through the rain. Slowly, the familiar shape of the Plasmic Generator came into view. Blurred shapes in the distance....Rouge could hear voices but they were drowned out in an odd, loud drone, like on a commercial airplane, when the background noise of the engines drowns out all other sounds. The droning was coming from the generator itself.

Over on the other side of the generator, Sandi and Amy had cornered Eggman. In desperation, he pulled out a metal bauble from inside a pocket, clicked a little button on it and threw it on the floor in front of Amy and Sandi. The bauble jittered, then sprang open, releasing millions of minuscule metal balls, like marbles. The balls scattered everywhere, and the girls watched, baffled. After laying still on the ground for a couple of seconds, the balls began to jitter, and this time each tiny little ball transformed into one of the spider robots that Stella had used back in Eggman's base. The spindly legs splayed out and twitched into motion. The ground was littered with them.

The girls shrieked. Eggman laughed. He took the chance to make his way to the Plasmic Generator. There was still time to take over from Stella.

Sonic and Tails reached the top of the generator. Knuckles was still fighting Stella, and giving her a very hard time, too. Stella saw Tails and Sonic heading for the controls, trying to squeeze past Knuckles and she in the little space they had atop the generator. There's no way I'm going to let them beat me now, she thought fiercely. And in a fit of rage, she hurled herself at Knuckles one last time. He went crashing into Sonic, and the two of them tumbled over the edge of the generator.

Tails gasped as they fell out of sight. He knew that he was the only one close enough now, the only one able to stop all of this. Flicking his fingers over the controls, he unlocked the Orb from its capsule. The Orb floated upwards until it was at eye level with Tails. He began to gaze into its dark depths......

The sound of a weapon being cocked brought him sharply to his senses. He looked behind him and there was Stella, eyebrows lowered, an evil grin on her face. Raindrops streamed down her face and made her hair hang in limp strands. She had a gun. Tails gulped and took a step back, only to find that the control panel was behind him. He froze.

Now everything seemed to go in slow-motion. Stella brought the gun up.

"I believe we have a score to settle, Tails." She pulled the trigger. Tails felt the bullet penetrate his chest. A split-second later came the bang. Sonic and Knuckles, Amy and Sandi, Rouge and Loren looked up simultaneously as Tails staggered forwards, clutching his chest. Warm blood seeped out of the wound. Tails reeled violently to the side, nearly falling over and catching hold of the control panel to regain his balance. The pain was incredible.

The darkness..... He remembered the Orb. Then he understood. He knew what he had to do. It was what Loren had been trying to tell him all along. He saw Stella's eyes gleaming with triumph. Her malicious smile. You won't win, he thought. He haltingly turned around to face the Orb. It pulsated, it grew bigger and blacker. Tails took a deep breath in. Everyone could see what he was about to do.......

"Tails, no!" Sonic cried. Tails stepped into the Void. He made the final sacrifice. And it all stopped.

* * * * *

Location - The Void.

Dreamy voices woke Tails. He was tumbling, on and on, never stopping. It felt like the Black Region. Maybe it was. He could not tell.

What had just happened? Had he been dreaming? Things were so different in here, wherever 'here' was. The sharp pain in his chest mingled in with his waking dreams and distorted mind. Stop the pain, he called out silently with his mind. He felt the darkness of the Void embrace him. The pain was numbed, it lifted from him, it subsided, and tender folds of darkness caressed him.

Was he still alive?

The darkness was his friend. He understood perfectly now. The opposite of extreme good is extreme evil. They run parallel. Good can come out of evil. In the heart of the chaos there is calm. And sometimes, to end the darkness you have to become it.

Extreme opposites. Opposites so extreme that they are one and the same thing. And all this trouble that had been caused over the years was because nobody had seen the Void for what it really was. The good forces had just tried to fight it without first understanding it, as the fairies had done. And the bad forces had used it, without first thinking of the consequences.

He was still uncertain as to whether he was alive or not. In his dreamy state, it was hard to tell. Well, even if I am not alive, he thought, I did what was right.

* * * * *

Location - Rayna Forest.

The instant Tails entered the Void, all the dark energy began to flow back into it. The rain stopped. Then the Hiatus Orb levitated, floated high above the generator, sucking in all the black mist. The dark material began spinning, faster and faster, and the Orb rose higher.

Sonic and the gang were still open-mouthed at what had happened to Tails. A few seconds after Tails disappeared, Sonic rushed at Stella. She was caught unawares.

"This is for Tails!" he yelled. And WHAMMM! Sonic struck with terrifying force, pouring out all his energy and hatred into his attack. He never usually hit a lady, but Stella was a special exception. She fell to the ground, unconscious.

The mist continued to swirl in a tornado formation above the Orb. As the skies cleared, the Orb sank down towards the ground, in front of the generator. The Amulets began to lose their golden brilliance. As the last of the Void's energy swirled into the Orb, the sun broke out from the white clouds above. The fairies that had disappeared in the weird 'rain' began to come back again. Then the Hiatus Orb broke up into a sparkling silver dust, and smothered the metre or so of ground beneath it. When it disappeared, only Tails's body was left behind.

Sandi was the first to run over to him. She knelt down beside him and began to cry. Amy stood behind her and gently laid a hand on her shoulder. Knuckles bit his lip in dismay and Rouge wiped a tear from her eye.

Loren closed her eyes and cast her head down. She had known that this would happen all along, and she did not want to see this moment.

Sonic left the knocked-out Stella and jumped off the Plasmic Generator to where Tails lay. He put a hand to his chest, avoiding the bloodstained wound.

"He's still breathing," he said calmly, trying very hard to stop the tears springing to his eyes. He slowly lifted Tails up in his arms. "My old buddy....my best friend....." He had made up his mind not to cry, but choked on the words, just the same. "I was always too busy trying to get to the top, I never noticed how hard you tried......"

* * * * *

When Tails awoke, he saw faces all around him, a hazy straw roof and wooden walls with sunlight streaming through wide windows. He was lying on a soft mattress of straw with a comfy pillow at his head and a blanket over him. He seemed to be in a hut of some description. As everything around him gradually came into focus, he saw Sonic, Amy, Sandi, Knuckles and Rouge around him.

"Tails, you're awake!" Sandi breathed. Tails managed a weak smile but then began to cough. He felt spurts of pain rack his chest, where the bullet had perforated. He touched the spot. There was a bandage wrapped around his chest. The Void existed no longer; and so the pain had returned. He remembered the way it had taken away the pain. Not all darkness is bad.

"Hey, hey, take it easy, buddy," Sonic said as Tails coughed once more. Sonic gently forced him back into the soft pillow to rest. Tails noticed that someone was missing.

"Where's....Loren....?" he croaked. "Is she....gone?"

"No, I'm still here," said Loren, appearing at his side.

"Lo...ren..." Tails whispered hoarsely, trying to sit up.

"I have to go back home now," she said. "Thankyou for what you did, Tails. I'll always remember you..." Her voice was fading. She was disappearing. Her soft, delicate wings returned to her as she became a spiritual apparition again. Tails gazed at her sad, solemn face as she slowly faded out of sight.

Tails reached out a hand, too weak to shout.

"Come.....back.... Please......?" He felt a single, cold tear trickle down his cheek.

"Loren's gone home," Sonic said. "She belongs there. It's her world." Tails did not reply. There was too much to think about. He closed his eyes.

He had really liked Loren. Now the battle was over, everything was complete, he had done so much, gone through it all; the pain, the fear, the doubt. Too much to go through.

Loren disappearing like that, so solemn and sincere, it was like the last straw. He felt the icy tears streaming down his face before he was aware that he was crying.

Sandi hugged him close to her.

"It's okay," she whispered.

"Yeah, everything is going to be fine," said Amy as cheerfully as she could. "We called the police - they've already taken Stella into custody and they're arranging a first aid helicopter to take you to hospital right now. Eggman escaped somehow...must've been in all that rain....."

"Don't worry, Tails. You've done it. You're a hero," said Sonic. Tails acknowledged all this in silence. He hugged Sandi back, and in that golden moment, wished they could stay like that forever.

The End.

* * * * *