It was strange how things worked out.
Miles loosed a salvo of burning projectiles into a flying laser snail, illuminating the night in flickering colours.
He'd received Reason's grim message well enough. Either the combination she'd sent him held some properties that combated the corruption or had something to do with the blood coating it. But as far as things went, sending him a warning not to investigate something by giving him the exact recipe to avoid was so likely to backfire that it was a wonder Robotnik hadn't tried it as an evil scheme.
Assuming that it was a cure, and trying very hard not to think about what had happened to Reason, he'd had almost every ingredient handy, even if the mechanics of creation were presumably more complex than "stick it all in a bottle and shake it", which seemed an unlikely way of producing anything. There was only one ingredient that gave him trouble, and it wasn't his strictly limited supply of happy flowers.
"How much further?" Sept murmured to Cream.
"Not too long. You can see some torches over there, see?"
They were at the back of the little group behind Cosmo, Sept clutching to Cream's back, while the larger rabbit carried a gun styled like an oversized - or undersized, given the native fauna - wasp clutched in her grip, one of the things he'd recovered from the giant plant.
He'd insisted she take it, despite her understandable reluctance to touch the bizarre thing. The gun was useless to him - it worked off the same limited mojo supply as his own "magic" - but the relentlessly hostile nature of the wasps it fired meant she didn't even have to aim, and while she didn't appear to have any greater mojo capacity than he did, Sept could just squeeze the trigger on her behalf, doubling their output. A handy long-ranged option that was far preferable to Cream trying to use him as a bludgeon again.
Not that that was why he had them on the opposite side of the group. Any reduction in Cream's ability to bodily smash him into things, or for the two them actually having to talk to one another, was just a secondary benefit. Awkward silence would have been an upgrade at this point. But while Cosmo was far from defenceless - especially with the trail of lava flowers Miles left in his wake - she was slow. Having her sandwiched in the middle of the group made it easier to make sure she wasn't left behind or caught out by some of the denizens of the hallow that posed significantly more threat to people that weren't built to outrun a racecar.
Miles sighed, saturating the rolling turquoise hills with suppressive fire to reduce the number of beams heading his way. Laser snails were small enough that even a grazing hit was enough to keep them from shooting for a few moments - and to set them on fire, which didn't need to happen very often before solving the problem more permanently.
Should he have left them where they were? "Safe" in their tiny shack with the creepy Doctor? The lone ingredient he didn't have - and didn't have in a near endless supply at that - was simultaneously the furthest away and the most at danger of being lost entirely the more time went on. But he'd faced enough horrors that could bypass solid stone that the choice to leave them alone there could easily turn out fatal. Better that they stay in the comparative safety of the town. If nothing else, Zeena was there, and proximity to, even if not cooperation with, the zeti was going to be a lot safer for them while he went off to save the world. Or at least look like a dummy shaking a bottle around.
"You are risking a great deal, Miles Prower."
"Huh?" Miles perked up, ear tilted. "I'm kinda used to getting shot at though?"
Cosmo frowned at him, shaking her head.
"That was not what I was referring to, though that is the fate you risk with your foolishness."
"Wow." Miles stuck his tongue out at her.
"I am-"
"Yeah, yeah. 'You cannot help me, Cosmo the Dryad'. Just trying to figure out your latest weirdness."
Cosmo turned away with a huff, arms folded and a sour expression on her face.
She was... warning him? One of the spore clouds drifting about him accelerated, blasting apart a tiny fairy that fluttered towards them. Possibly about collateral damage? He stopped shooting with a frown. Cosmo had broken a flower and an angry nature goddess had eaten her for it. He blasted a charging horn-horse before slicing it in half with a flick of the Whammer's tail, sending Yorick to collect the remains as both creatures' corpses dissolved into fractals of light.
Hm. Their horn was certainly reminiscent of the narwhal. Should it be narhors then? Well, etymologically that fit pretty well after he killed it, he supposed. Miles frowned, turning to peer through the gloom until he saw movement, a tiny butterfly with wings of unnatural colour and vibrancy fluttering over the grass.
Miles had just enough time to muse how strange it was for the local monster population not to have killed it like they did all the other mundane wildlife he'd seen when he realised where the butterfly was flying to. Cosmo shot him a dirty look as the insect touched a spore and detonated.
"Oh come on, how was that my fault? It's not like I control lw'shuggornah!" He blinked, touching his mouth with a frown. "Ahf'epshuggog?"
Cosmo's presumably scathing retort was cut off by a shrill otherworldly shriek that made his teeth hurt. A towering humanoid figure, golden skin glowing with an inner light of its own erupted from the hillside, borne aloft by the same prismatic wings as the butterfly but a hundredfold larger. The glittering crown upon her head and regal attire were faintly reminiscent of the maginaryworlder's queen Illumina. At least if Illumina had butterfly wings. And made everyone nearby start speaking in tongues by her mere presence.
The fairy queen burst forward with a speed unmatched by anything he'd encountered in madworld before, a rainbow volley bursting from her hands to surge down towards them like guided missiles. Miles lunged to the side, lips constantly moving to release a rhythmic chant without discernible words the entire time, pulling Cosmo with him as the bolts slipped down into the ground, almost hitting them a second time as they popped out of the earth again moments later.
"Ia fot'na!" Miles yelled, grabbing Cosmo up off the ground and spraying the queen with flame pellets as she swooped above them once more. She burned at least.
Wasps slammed themselves into her, and she flew off at breakneck speed. Miles barely had a chance to look behind them before she was flying towards them once more along the ground, spores exploding against pristine flesh without so much as a mark.
"N'aghn ktu'li!" Cream cried out as she was barrelled over from behind, Sept hurtling forward to where Miles rushed to catch her.
"Lw'nafh'drn?!" Miles checked the tiny rabbit for wounds.
"Ahf'ymg'ah ai?" She tilted her head up at him before covering her own mouth, wide eyed.
Miles grunted in irritation, tossing Sept over his shoulders. It was no good. He didn't understand what he was saying, let alone anyone else. Cooperation relied on communication, and the hallow's monarch had rendered that useless.
Petals of flame surged up onto the fairy in a swirling tornado as she hovered above once more, rainbow rays of light carving into the ground like a high intensity laser. Miles glanced between Cosmo and Cream and ran towards the latter, pulling her to her feet and splattering a bucket of honey into her bloodied face.
"Ya ahnah fhtagn?" She looked appalled at him.
"Uh'enah ot shupnikkurat!" He pointed at Cosmo, now surrounded by over a dozen light beams and clearly already been struck by one. "Orr'euh'e gof'n!" He jerked a thumb at Sept. "l'ah'f'nah uh'eaglnah!" He pointed to the distant lights of the town.
Cream blinked at him, then grabbed Sept. Miles pointed to Cosmo, her, and town once more, pulling his rifle free to land multiple bursts of flame on the fairy's body as she snapped overhead before zipping off to the side again, charging across the ground towards him. He stood his ground, slipping his guitar from hammerspace to swing it with full force into her chest with a musical wail. The impact blew him through a laser snail and a tree, shining breastplate dented but intact where the wood had splintered around him..
"Ya ahnah fhtagn!" Cream cried out from the distance, Miles peered up to see Cosmo and Sept beside with her.
"Bug! Ah nafl mgep ymg'mgr'luh!" Miles made shooing motions with a frown. His mouth hurt from talking the unnatural tongue more than his injuries from the crushing impact. Cream reluctantly turned and fled, dragging a complaining, yet comprehensible, Cosmo behind her.
Wait, she wasn't affected? Perhaps contracts with outsiders protected them from outside interference from other creatures? Not really something for him to test, given the circumstances, but something to bear in mind given her mistress' offer.
Miles hopped to his feet as the fairy once again flew above him, a spinning army of stars erupting from her in a whirling sphere, leaving burning trails of light in their wake. He leapt up through a gap in the web, slicing his Whammertail into the fairy before the stars reversed direction, slipping around them once again with pinpoint precision.
He couldn't put his finger on it. He sliced into her again and again, the flames of his assault blazing uselessly against her pristine skin, followed by a screaming skull that accelerated into her and exploded into purple flame. Nothing seemed to phase her, she was too quick to escape from - he zipped aside as another salvo of rainbow missiles surged towards him, then again as they burst free from the earth once more - but…
She flew above, same as every time, and Miles leapt, spinning his tails to gain a little more height as she launched herself from the side once more, spores exploding against her body unheeded as he swung his guitar down into her passing shoulder.
But this was easy.
Beams of coloured light shone from every direction, some painting him with their light. He slipped to the side as vicious swords of energy crackled through the air at lightning speed. He fired into the space above him where he knew she would return a moment later.
The fairy queen was predictable.
She dashed again. He countered, munching on his cake, humming a tune to keep time to the beat, though he'd never heard the song that came out of his throat before. The Hallow was the absolute suppression of freedom, and its champion, however mighty, embodied that principle to perfection. There was no variation, no reactivity in her movements. Make an attack, return to hover above the target, cycle to next attack until starting over from the beginning. Like a computer program, there were no hidden tricks, no tricky terrain to impede him beyond a few trees, and with the luminous creature's contrast to the darkness of the night, the only difficulty in tracking her or her attacks were the brief moments they slipped underground and out of sight, something he wasn't going to fall for twice. And while she was lightning quick in the moment she returned to "hover", she telegraphed her attacks constantly through both the noises she made and the attacks themselves.
Miles blasted a laser snail to pieces while he evaded her close range laser beams, still humming, still keeping the rhythm as he employed the minimum possible effort to dodge, sending a brutal hammer blow into her jaw.
Her body finally fragmented, glowing tentacles slipping through perfectly symmetrical wounds in her torso, glowing with divine radiance and unleashing ever more powerful assaults that pummelled the landscape and turned the sky as bright as day with every blast.
But Miles remained untouched, barely even needing to fly as he slipped through intricate patterns with ease. It was the unexpected that gave him trouble, things that didn't work how he predicted them to. And he had removed the only complicating factors - his companions. With him as the only target, he could scarcely not evade her attacks. The Hallow was too perfect for uncertainty, and he was its worst opponent for it.
With a final pirouette, Miles spun into the air with his Whammer, looping the razor wire around her neck as she dashed forward once again. Grabbing the hammer in his other hand, he yanked backwards with both ends, feeling only momentary resistance before her oversized head crashed into the ground at his feet, fading into fractals, a decorated sack tumbling open as it landed.
"Well, that's… you... " He sighed. "Beaten?"
He shook his head, directing Yorick to bring him his spoils with a gloomy gesture. That would have been a perfect chance for a one liner. He sucked at this. Even villains were supposed to be good at those.
The floating skull complied, and Miles plucked a glittering rapier from the sack as tall as he was, thrusting it through the air in a series of rainbow afterimages and quietly trying not to think about how it had fit in the bag in the first place.
Nice. Really cemented his whole "fantasy hero" schtick now, and since he'd accidentally torn a narhors to pieces with it in a blink, it was clearly imparting some otherworldly force in addition to his own muscle power.
Next… he picked up a glittering necklace, barely getting a chance to look at it before it crept into his hammerspace unbidden. Light blazed up before him. He stumbled back as a fairy as tall as him hovered where Yorick had been, the top of its skull now worn atop her head like a grizzly helm, clad in an outfit of bone and silk. Yorick's disembodied hands still floated before her.
"Ulnah ya?" The fairy smiled, glittering purple eyes shining from the eye sockets of the skull, looking down at him from where she hovered on shining wings.
Miles tilted his head.
"Uh… Hi?" He waved uncertainly.
The skullfairy raised two hands to mirror his, bone and flesh, smile unchanged, her glow illuminating the grass around her like a torch.
"... I guess you're... uh… mine now?" This was considerably weirder with a seemingly flesh and blood creature than an automated skull golem, though he admittedly had no idea how "alive" Yorick was previously or this odd hybrid was now, but she seemed cheerful enough at the prospect.
"Ulnah ya?"
"Alright, guess I'll call you Ulnah. Hope you can help me out."
"Ia! Ulnah mgepahmggoka."
"Ah... huh, sure." He'd preferred Yorick's deathly silence, if he was honest.
Ulnah clapped her hands together happily, extracting a gold and blue emblem of crossed pins and golden wings from the sack and discarding the empty fabric to the ground. Miles raised an eyebrow as she thrust it against his chestplate, then grunted in pain as it slipped through to his unprotected flesh behind, searing into his body.
"What the Penders?" Miles dragged his armour into hammerspace with a hiss of pain, staring down at the sigil burnt into his fur.
Four hands grabbed him at once, the fairy dragging him up into the air with that same boundless enthusiasm. Miles yelped as she released him, spinning his tails to keep him aloft. The fairy flitted around him, preventing him from descending to his growing annoyance, constantly prodding him upwards.
"Hey, I'm getting tired you know!" He frowned.
Except he wasn't? His tails, normally restricted to less than a minute in the air before he was left exhausted by the intensive nature of his flight method, flowed easily and endlessly without struggle. He flitted from side to side, feeling out subtle changes in acceleration and deceleration that left him feeling more manoeuvrable than ever.
Ulnah flitted close, pressing her palm against the marking on his chest with her unchanging smile.
"Good job!" Miles smiled too, taking a bite of infinity cake as he patted the bonefairy on its skull head. "This is going to be a big help."
Then, winding his tails up, Miles let off a sonic boom as he broke the sound barrier and soared off into the night.
