-Crossfire-

Oh, little brother, you've finally fouled up for the last time! I, at least, should have known better than to follow the urge that pulls me on even now! Have both our senses dragged us here to die? Well, I will not die without giving a terrible battle, one Eggman will never forget! I look about me, up and down the plain grey corridor, robot debris lying here and there. A laser score or two mark my side, but it's nothing serious. I've had worse many a time, shall do again - if I survive this. Like that's gonna happen. I turn back to little brother, what do you know?

"Most paths… end in disaster. We go… this way." His speech, halting, as though for once he's having trouble. Little brother, we're all in trouble. Have been for a long time. Noticing it now? To be defeated, losing forever in a battle we cannot win, are you feeling it now? Hah. Little brother heads down the passage, stepping around fallen robots as though they weren't there, as though he happened to be walking that way anyway, same as he always does. I follow, slipping the big gun from my back, holding it warily. He'll remember me all right, one way or another. I'll turn this place into a blazing inferno! But we're still being pulled ahead.

"Traps. There, and there, there, there." He doesn't aim, he just fires, and hits every time. Whatever wires lay under those blank sections of wall, floor, and ceiling, they are useless now. We walk on, warily; I follow his lead because he knows what is.

"Danger… ahead. We can't go round…"

"And, little brother, we can't go back! This fool's errand is going to get us killed!" But I swear by everything I am, if I die now, I will have my vengeance! I will destroy this place! I can, even if I don't know how! Combat is what I am, as I named myself, and now there will be no survival I need hold on no longer!

"No, we do not die. We must fight, and win." His voice, as ever, totally calm, but somehow I know that seeing it has taken effort, that it is an improbable course. There is an easier way, little brother… the way you made me swear never to take. I didn't see why then, and I don't see why now. Perhaps I would have done… once. But not now. Not since that day of ruin that Robotnik brought to us, since that happened to change us so.

"Remember this and do it when I tell you. Fire at the plain grey area three centimetres up and six and a half centimetres to the right of the second red circle from the left."

His words are meaningless to me, but they'll mean something all right when we run into trouble! This I know, in the same way I know that my heart beats - it just is. I cock my head to one side, a sound beyond sound telling me something if only I didn't keep getting in the way of hearing it…

A real sound; footsteps of a robot coming closer round a corner. To the wall, still, so very still, silent, waiting… there! There, as it looks first away, to its right, then left, at us. Brother in full view, myself mostly exposed, no way it could miss us, and it doesn't. Fire, I shoot, he shoots, it shoots, laser fire everywhere. Some searing through my fur, no robot is phenomenally accurate but I just get hit anyway, little brother unmarked as he always has been, stepping aside before the shot is fired, I… I dodge, duck and weave, myself blocking myself from knowing what he does because he made me promise to - why, little brother? - pain flaring through my left arm, some part of me knowing I get hit more than I should, but whatever, it's not important, then he steps out into the centre of the corridor and that means he's got something in mind so I join him, gun in one hand now, lucky I'm strong enough to carry it that way, and he shouts now, and I fire, he fires, we fire together and we'll die like this lasers blazing when all of a sudden it stops in its tracks smoking from where we hit it, inactive, and I slow back down from battlefield time, we actually beat the thing after all. How? Only he knows, without knowing, and he won't let me let myself see…

That's my one relic of our previous life. I hold to what I say, though I don't know why, because if I just let go I could finish it all, forever. Destroy Robotnik as I burn to do, if only I… let go… so near me, reach out and touch the soundless voice I swore not to hear, but little brother's eyes widen and I've never seen that look on his face before, surprising enough to stop and look at him.

"That could have been close," he says, and I don't think he's talking about the robot. For what little worth my word is, I'll hold on to it for ever. Even if I no longer know why I should.

Ahead we walk, my arm hurts but I can ignore it. Little brother quickens his pace, we don't have far to go, the pull growing stronger as the distance decreases, like gravity tugging us in. There - a wide room open ahead, brother firing before thought, door jammed open with circuitry fried, a column in the centre housing a… Chaos Emerald?! Is that what we came here to find?! Little brother walking ahead, pace slow now, almost… reverentially… reaching to the keypad and tapping out a code that seems random but must be the right one because he knows what will be. The column hisses open with the sound of air released, and he reaches in to the Emerald. It is a brilliant shade of… of what? Somewhere between pink and purple, I suppose. At least we can get out through the trail we've made. Looks like I'll see another day after all…