A girl shivered in the dark, her bare skin pale and bruised from too long underground, too long at the mercy of the horrors that lived there.

The flickering glow of firelight reached deep sunken violet eyes. The girl looked at it mutely, tears momentarily stilled as a slender figure stepped into view. The light came from a bright yellow mining helmet, its wearer ragged and worn, limping towards her.

The figure hefted a pickaxe in one long arm, the edges of bleached bones visible beneath a tattered blue uniform as the creature approached, bare bones clicking together as it moved.

The girl lowered her head once more, teal hair dropping to cover her face as a fresh wave of despair escaped her body.

An orange spark crackled through the dark, igniting the skeleton's clothing before a far larger orange projectile slammed into its side, turning the burning undead into an explosion of bone dust and leaving an almost as ragged fox in its wake.

"Hello, miss!" Miles caught the pickaxe as it tumbled from the creature's grip, briefly illuminated by the fading light of the skeleton's melting helmet. "Don't be scared. Skeletons' lack of soft tissue might make them look scary, but the decreased weight from-"

"Have you come to save me?"

"Of course! Hold on, let me get a light. I put it away so I, uh, didn't set my head on fire again."

Miles flicked a pre-burning torch from between his fingers, illuminating the earthen walls of the cave in flickering green.

"Alright, are you hurt? Let's take a look at-" Miles hesitated, stepping back from the girl with a frown. "Cosmo?"

Not quite. No leaves, for starters, save for her head, and those, when he accounted for the wavelength of the torch, were a blueish colour, not green, while the jewel embedded into her chest was a sparkling emerald.

"So you met my sister." The girl let out a mournful sigh, brushing leafen hair from her face to stare at him.

"Are you the caretaker?" Miles rubbed the back of his head. "Only-"

"I am Galaxina the Nymph." Galaxina smiled faintly. "The one you seek is above, towards the rising sun, in the folly of his making. Another victim of the fate you gifted him, Miles Prower. Have you come to kill me too?"

"I... hope not?" Miles frowned. "I came to save you."

"Save or slay, it all ends the same. Too long in the dark. It's too late. They got in. Don't sleep."

"Alright, calm down. We're going to get you out of here, okay?" Miles slipped the pickaxe away, holding up his newly empty hand as he stepped towards the far taller girl.

"You don't understand." Galaxina rested sharp fingertips against pale cheeks that grew greyer and greener as his light approached. "You don't understand."

"Help me understand." Miles held his hand out to her, wearing a gentle smile. "Come with me and we'll find your sister, okay?"

"They got in."

Miles yelled in surprise as a slimy black growth wormed its way free of the girl's eye socket. Galaxina lunged forward, claws outstretched and mouth wide, distended purple tongue glistening behind needle-like teeth.

Miles jerked awake, his head resting against the hard stone wall he'd settled into before exhaustion had taken him.

For the first time in weeks the crying had gone quiet.

Peeling sticky fur off tainted rock, Miles rubbed a hand against his aching head, peering about the shadowy caverns in case another monster had stumbled across his hiding place, but the area was still.

"Too… weird," he muttered, pulling his hand away to peer at a hand sticky with black, illuminated in the guttering green glow of the torch stuck against the nearby wall.

Wait.

If his torch was against the wall, what was he holding?

Miles raised up a battered piece of machinery, covered in blood and worse, deep scratches gouged into its case to spell out two words.

Don't sleep.

Heart hammering in his chest, Miles extended a trembling hand, feeling the chaos around him before reaching deep and…

A pickaxe fell from the space between his fingers. He caught it. Carved from bone, sharpened femurs fused against a cracked ivory handle. Big enough to be human.

A harsh sob echoed off the walls.

"It's too late."

Hugging his tails, Miles glanced over his shoulders at the stained wall behind him, searching for the speaker as he wiped his cheeks with an increasingly bloodstained, blackstained, hand. The sobbing sound grew louder.

"No."

Crawling beneath his skin in his brain in his heart on his tongue creeping down-

"No!"

Miles slammed the pick into the wall hard enough to send a cube of dirt tumbling from it.

The sobbing ceased, and the fox straightened to grab both torch and tool as tears continued to pour freely down his cheeks.

"I need to get out of here."


"Alright, here we are, boys."

Rouge quirked a finger out her cockpit window, to the grim shades of Windy Hill.

Sonic frowned.

It had been a lot greener this morning. Under the helicopter's spotlight even where he'd parked the Tornado was purple now.

"I can't get any closer in case there's a Zeti nearby, but I'll be over to pick you up in thirty. Try to stay out of trouble without me, hm?" The white bat turned a teal eye towards an island floating in the distance. "I'm just going to pay a visit to an old friend."

The light on the copter door turned green. Shadow stood without a word, slipping away the pair of pistols he'd been checking. Sonic followed suit.

"Y'know Knuckles isn't there right now. He's down on the Lost Hex."

"I know."The white furred bat simply winked at him.

Sonic shook his head as the door whooshed open, the sound of rotors drowning out any response he might make.

Once a jewel thief, always a jewel thief. Rouge had been messing with the Master Emerald, and Knuckles, for over a year at this point.

Hopefully she wouldn't actually take it this time. Right?

Shadow jumped, and Sonic followed suit, arms spread wide as he tumbled from the helicopter to the ground below.

"Ew! I forgot how much this stuff stinks!" Sonic kicked a crumpled mushroom off the bottom of his sneaker with a scowl as the copter departed, keeping a wide berth around the hex as it went.

"This…" Shadow frowned, running his hand through a tangle of thorns, a small pocket flashlight between his fingers. Their sharp points scraped against flesh that could repel bullets, leaving tiny beads of blood on his fur. "This isn't the Black Arms."

"Uh, obviously? That's a plant." Sonic pointed at the first of many floating chompers as they rose to their intrusion. "That's an alien. You feeling okay?"

"They're the same thing." Shadow snapped, tiny streaks of crimson across his gloves where he brushed the thorns from his body. "Can't you feel it?"

"All I feel is that smell." Sonic wafted his hand in front of his face. "There wasn't this much of it before."

Shadow grunted, rolling his eyes as he raised a pistol. Two shots tore through the closest chomper sending it crashing to the floor, pieces bubbling to nothing.

"The chaos energy here is…" He shook his head. "Show me where the fox disappeared."

"Can do! I'll be sure to hold back so you can keep up." Sonic burst into a sprint before Shadow could retort. Tearing through a monster with nothing but pure speed he raced for the now familiar cliff face, giving the lake a wide berth in the dark.

At least these creatures weren't that strong. Not much bigger than a mobian and nowhere near as sturdy as a badnik. Even a normal human could probably beat them, so Tails would have had no problem… right?

The earth rumbled beneath him. Sonic accelerated, shifting forward just in time to evade a massive worm erupting from the earth fast enough to send its entire seven meter length soaring into the air. A solitary eye glared balefully down at him before a spray of bullets tore into it. Rotten pieces splattered across the rotting earth and Shadow pulled up alongside him, sliding fresh clips into his pistols.

"Thanks. But… You know I could have taken that, right?"

"Just move. Something doesn't feel right here." Shadow accelerated, his rocket skates propelling him just- almost - as fast as Sonic himself.

"You got it."

No more worms, or chompers attacked as they scaled the cliff to a spot little different than it had been that morning, if significantly dimmer.

"This is the place." Shadow muttered to himself. He wasn't asking.

Hm. Sonic narrowed his eyes. He could see chompers clustering out in the distance though, circling one another against the starlit night. He frowned.

"Hold on, isn't that-"

An explosion broke the night sky, painting the hex vibrant orange for a moment. A tiny silhouette formed against the blazing bright.

"Rouge!" Shadow straightened, pulling out his communicator. "Rouge! Respond!"

Only static buzzed on the other end of the line. Glowing red mist started seeping from the dark hedgehog's body.

"Cool it, Shadow. Look! Here she comes." Sonic pointed at a silhouetted figure swooping down towards them.

"Rouge!" Shadow raised his flashlight, flashing it on and off in a quick signal. "We need to get out of here. If they're-"

The silhouette slammed into him at full force, sending Shadow rolling uncontrollably into a large boulder, cracking it on impact.

"Iä! Iä! Gof'nn Hupadgh Shupnikkurat nafl'fhtagn!"

The roaring voice was familiar, even if the words were not. Sonic blinked in surprise as two fists smashed together in a flash of flame, illuminating Knuckles in a flash of orange. Lines of deep red criss-crossed his furless cheeks.

"Knuckles! You scared the chilli dogs out of me!" Sonic stepped back in a flash as Knuckles slammed a flaming fist into the earth at his feet, causing the entire cliffside to tremble. Floaters flew down, only to be intercepted by other floaters, a slightly different shape, maybe? Hard to tell in the dark. "What's going on with you? Where's Rouge?"

Two violet eyes snapped open to glare at him, glowing from within.

"Sssssonic."

Knuckles coughed heavily, droplets of liquid spattering to the floor, bright crimson in the light of Shadow's dropped flashlight.

"You are in his belly Sonic! Iog-Sotôt wants you. Just like he took Tails."

The echidna stretched, growing a foot taller, his chest broadening and his arms bulging with muscle until the skin split open, revealing painful red flesh beneath. In the light at his feet, purple grass crumbled and did not return, crimson strands sprouting in their place from the barren soil.

"But don't worry. Mother will save us all."

Knuckles grinned, now an absurd mockery of the mobian form, blood spreading the red grass wherever it landed.

He crushed the flashlight beneath his foot.