The Mystic Ruins were already gone.

Red tinted ice bobbed atop tainted water, trees reduced to dull greys, jagged branches jutting out of snow and meat. Crimson "stone", warm to the touch, jutted from the earth, tough, but the hardness of gristle, not rock. Like the world itself had formed cancerous blisters.

Sonic settled upon the largest pustule, gazing down at a wrecked biplane with a frown, listening to the quiet rustle of wildlife - whatever kind of wildlife that may be - in the alien landscape surrounding him.

There was no sign of Big, only a warning beep from the Tornado 2's dash as the tortured vehicle sparked into the meltwater surrounding it. Large red fish swam in the shallows around the plane, large teeth jutting out of mouths two sizes too small for them, disproportional fins fluttering against the current.

There was no sign of Knuckles, either.

Sonic leapt down onto the plane's wing, hopping again into the cockpit as it cracked beneath his weight, splitting into halves that tilted into the water on either side with a metallic shriek of protest.

"... Sorry, Tails." Sonic sighed.

Kid loved his planes, rarely stopped thinking about them.

Well... he liked fixing things too, so maybe this would be fine? Sonic glanced up at the pustule where he'd jumped from. Hidden from view from his previous vantage point, now he could see this particular blister was hollow, a slow trickle of water descended into a shadowy hole down into its depths. Pale white spikes that resembled bone... Or teeth, lined the floor and ceiling, and a warm gust of air blew rhythmically out over him from within like the breath of some giant beast.

Creepy.

Well if he was a giant evil monster Knuckles then that gross flesh cave looked like the kind of place he'd hang out. And Big… Well Big would go anywhere he thought Froggy was. Could he have wandered in as well? Be fighting against Knucklezilla even now?

A giant spider, its bulbous body made of flesh and jutting shards of bone, crawled out from between the trees, splashing into the water without hesitation as it approached Sonic with single minded hostility.

"Be right with ya, big guy." Sonic bent into the plane, opening the glove compartment to pull out a flashlight and a box of flares. The fuselage shifted as the spider crawled up into it, rearing up to strike.

It exploded as Sonic launched out through it, splashing into the water where he ducked into a crouch, locking himself in place with a hand as he spun the rest of his body over on itself, turning into a stationary sawblade as monster fish converged on him, tearing themselves apart against his whirling spines.

Like robots. No sense of self preservation, just attack, attack, attack. Sonic released his grip, pushing off the ground to let the momentum of his spin release without propelling him uncontrollably into the dark. He'd suffered last time he'd faced off against Knuckles without a light, and the last thing he needed was to drop in a pit of bone spikes. There'd be no Tails to carry him out this time.

Popping off a flare, Sonic pressed it into a crack in the meaty wall of the cave entrance, sending blue light to cast long flickering shadows up the walls of the cave. These things burned for about an hour, should be plenty of time to check out a cave network and find his way back to the surface.

Flicking on his flashlight Sonic jogged into the depths.


A girl shivered in the dark, body stained with mud and torn from too long underground, too long at the mercy of the monsters that lived there, clinging to the motionless form beside her for when she would be forced from this hiding spot to the next.

The flickering glow of firelight reached deep sunken brown eyes. The girl looked at it mutely, tears momentarily stilled into terror as a hulking shape loomed above, an enormous spider ten times her size. The glow came from its own body, engulfed in flames yet still moving, legs still twitching as it tried to reach venom soaked mandibles in to reach the girl, scrabbling at the dirt.

The girl hunched over with a shriek, hands over her aching head.

A gunshot rang out, the spider's head exploded into a flash of fire. Chunks fell down over her, and the girl was engulfed in darkness and silence once more, blinking in weary confusion at the shapes still superimposed on her vision from the light.

And a moment later the silence was broken once more, this time with a wail of music playing a triumphant tune.

"Must you do that with every foe you best?" A voice, quiet monotone, muttered as a gentle orange light shone from somewhere beyond the girl's limited field of vision..

"If your boss didn't want me to rock out then why did she give me an electric guitar?" A cheerful voice countered, tugging at strands deep inside the girl's brain that were long gone, severed.

The first speaker sighed as the pair walked past the girl's hiding place, the light now bright enough for her to see by. A shining knight, walking among a field of flowers, a blazing guitar held in his grasp, and his flower princess, sighing with a hand to her forehead.

"You know, you could make requests if you don't like the song, Cosmo." The knight kept playing as he walked, switching to a strangely familiar tune about sunshine and rain.

Both were scary. But the girl crept from her hiding place all the same, entranced by the light she'd left behind, staying low in the flowers as she crept after the pair, torn between the dark of safety and that dangerous lure.

"Do you even know any of the songs I would?"

"Fair point. Genre?"

"Bluevine? Toproot?"

"...Infected mushroom?"

"What?"

"Okay, this isn't going to work. How about you sing-" The knight whirled around, rifle firing to the rhythm of his song.

The girl yelped, throwing herself down into the mud as blazing projectiles seared overhead. Burning sap sprayed her head and ears.

"Hey, you see something over there?"

The girl froze, filthy hands stuffed into her mouth to keep quiet.

"More coffee? One would have thought the bucket you have sequestered to be enough for anyone."

"Hey, I have infinite cake to go with it, you know."

Leaves rustled around her, and the girl pushed herself lower. Be still, be dirt, be small. Don't die again.

"Why hello there, little bunny." There was a metallic clank close by. Too close by.

The girl looked up, trembling before the knight sat beside her, his gleaming armour sparkling in the warm glow of flowerlight.

"Can you talk?" He put his helmet down, revealing soft fur of gleaming white and pastel pink, orbs of solid blue gazing gently down at her, blazing with an inner light all their own. "Is your head okay?"

"Y…" The girl's voice faded again, dulled from disuse, broken like her brain. She blinked up at the knight. "You're… beautiful."

"Why thank you." The fox smiled, laying his rifle atop his helm. A pink furred hand reached out to touch her cheek, two gleaming tails swirling behind him.

Two tails…

"You came to kill me?" The girl tilted her head up at him.

He flinched. And the girl knew it was true. She sighed, glancing from the knight to the princess who loomed behind him, a disapproving look on her face.

"I don't kill rab-" The fox rubbed the back of his head. "Uhh… Okay, look, I have a really bad track record with rabbits, and I'm not sure I can save anyone, but I'd really like to try and help you, okay?"

The fox extended that pink hand to her. That glowing blue gaze almost hurt to look at.

"You… help?"

"Absolutely." He smiled again. "I'll give you something to fix that up, and we'll get you out of here, okay? What's your name?"

The girl grabbed his hand and pulled, feet slipping on the mud.

"Help me. Help me!"

And the fox followed, bending forward to let her lead him to her hole.

"I won't wake up." She slumped at the opening of her hiding place, blinking up at the knight.

And the fox looked at her sadly, pulling her other body from the hole to lay out among the flowers.

"Ah." He breathed softly as he looked down at her, brushing his hand across other her's cheek.

"Is she dead?" The flower princess peered down, sweeping her hands in a lovely dance that brought the flowers with it. A giant bat fell to the floor in flames.

"Broken." The fox knight shook his head. "Like the furniture. Hurt bad enough when she got here that she's stuck halfway."

"A grim fate." The princess turned away. "You cannot mend what is unmendable, and I cannot help you. Shall we go?"

"Sorry." A hand laid on the girl's shoulder.

She blinked up at those sad blue eyes, tears welling in her own.

"I'm going to need you to do something for me, alright?"

"Help?" The girl twitched an ear as he put his hand against her cheek, fingers resting gently against the dent in her skull.

The knight nodded, holding up a bottle of gold.

"I'm going to make you both better. And if… when I fall down, you need to make me drink this as soon as you can, alright?"

"What are you planning, Miles Prower?"

"Nothing you can help me with." The fox put his hand on the girl's head. "So you think you can do that?"

The girl nodded. "P… promise."

"Good girl." He smiled. "Now bear with me. I've never done this before."

The fox took off his solitary green glove, reaching to place his second hand on the other her.

One eye shone blinding pink.

And Sept screamed.

Everything was backwards, terror, pain, rain, sun, she thought thoughts unthought for reasons never happened. All she was became unravelled, shredded, inspected and rearranged until nothing was left, until nothing ever was.

And then he put her back together again.

Miles Prower, the reason for her existence four times over, collapsed on the ground, glowing eyes burnt out black hollows, smoke drifting from his mouth. Sept blinked dazedly at him.

What had happened?

Where was she?

A sharp hand slapped her hard across the cheek, an unfamiliar, unmobian face curled in rage thrust up in her own.

"Honour your oath, child." The plant maiden snarled, a finger stabbing towards the fallen fox.

She looked down at her hands, clutched around a bottle of gold. Did he… need it? She stumbled forward, sitting upon his breastplate to pour the bottle into his open jaw.

Nothing.

Sept stared in confused horror at her fallen… saviour? Killer? What had happened? She was on the ship

Miles bolted upright, black sludge erupting from his mouth and nose, tears carrying soot from the surface of glowing blue orbs before he fell to the side once more, convulsing as he tried to breathe, cough and vomit all at once. Sept reached out, hugging his head in her tiny arms, whimpering in confused terror…

He breathed. A shuddering, painful inhalation, blue eyes "focusing" once more, slightly brighter at the point he was looking.

At the startled rabbit staring at him from beyond the grave.

"Hey, Cream." Miles smiled sadly, cheeks stained black with ashes of himself. "Long time no see."

And then he fell limp in Sept's grasp.