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Chapter 7: No More Miracles

In the Death Lab (The Next Day)...

Amy was exhausted but couldn't rest because a second of sleep could possibly mean death. The pink hedgehog continued to dodge her enemy's barrage of attacks.
After a while of staying on the offense with various melee attacks, it suddenly came to a halt to assess its current situation. The mechanical warrior took a couple of steps backwards, transformed one of his hands into a gun. As the gun's barrel was pointed at her tired body, Amy tried to summon a massive Piko Piko hammer to defend her. Her plan worked but she couldn't see what her adversary was planning to do next.

Meanwhile, her metallic foe transformed its hand back and fell on it's 'knees'. Smoke started to appear from it. While it was overheating, Amy started to smell burning oil from the other side of her hammer. She took a peek and saw the perfect opportunity to attack.

The pink hedgehog tightly gripped the hammer that was keeping her up again and ran towards the gizoid at full speed (or as much speed as she could build up from her worn out body). She mercilessly swung her weapon at it with a face that made her out to be a wild animal. She felt accomplished as her enemy was in pieces on the floor, reduced to a mere pile of scrap metal. Oil coated her body and made her smell even worse. The liquid was very warm and reminded her of blood for some reason she couldn't fully comprehend at the moment but she didn't really care about that.

Based on what Eggman said last time, she waited for her reward. A few seconds after she put her weapon away, the same waiter came in with the peculiar meat and a glass of milk this time. She happily consumed her two prizes and lied down on the oily floor.

At Eggman's base/Surveillance Room...

Eggman was watching through the screens and was impressed at how much information he was getting from his test subject.

"She seems to be slowly regressing into feral territory. The problem is she only has the appearance of a wild animal and she still carries the mental capabilities of a human. I need to be careful not to make her go insane. I could lose an invaluable part of the plan. It won't be like those other plans that failed because I couldn't see the holes in them or saw them and didn't care. Of course I have to fix the programming in the rest of my badniks after what happened in Emerald Town. I need the best of the best to go against the blue rodent. Urgh! Thinking of that blue nightmare is the only reason why I'm passionate about my work and it somewhat astounds me. Fortunately, when this is all over, I could finally build my true vision," he said to himself with a big and toothy grin.

(Location: Unknown/Time: Nonexistent)

Blaze opened her eyes and was taken aback at what she saw. It was a female echidna, who was fidgeting and sweating bullets, standing right in front of her in a place that seemed unfamiliar to her.

"Hello, Princess Blaze. I called you here because Silver needs your help," she said to inform her on the urgency of the situation.

"Is this the reason why he's been asleep for a while?"

Tikal nodded.

"I see. So how can I help, miss..."

"My name is Tikal. No need to address me with such formalities. Of course I don't know if you want to be addressed as Princess Blaze."

Despite the serious situation, Blazed chuckled a little when she said this.

"You can just call me Blaze," she replied with a grin.

"Okay. Now that we got that out of the way, I'll show you the trouble your friend is in," the echidna said as she picked up the book with Silver on the cover.

As she slowly opened the book, the curious cat tried to look inside but Tikal stopped her.

"You will have the same fate as Silver if you look into this book. The only reason it hasn't happened to me is because Chaos is keeping me here," she said before continuing to scrutinize the pages' contents.

While Tikal was looking into the tome, Blaze thought of what Tikal said about what happened to Silver and what she was most likely summoned here to do.

"Let me see what I was told so far. Silver was sucked into his own biography. He is basically in a world that literally centers on him. If the point is to bring me into that sort of place then I need to be careful because I could see something really personal. I hope this isn't the case..."

Tikal's face lit up when she finally sensed which page Silver was on or at least the one they were looking for.

"I found him! He's at the point when Iblis first appeared."

"That's great but why do I have to help him go through his own life?"

"There was a book that I wanted to give to Silver so he could understand the gravity of his destiny. A book that's right...here."

The echidna found the book on the shelf that was labeled under a sign that read "Forgotten Timelines" like Silver's own biography.

"Please, take this to Silver. The literal structure of the universe depends on him getting this."

Blaze grabbed the book and clearly showed signs of struggling to hold it.

"Now, I should send you in," she said before showing the cat the pages of the tome.

The book proceeded to suck her into its contents.

Eggman's Base/Barracks...

The 'rookie' lied down in their semi-comfortable bed, with their arms behind their head, ruminating.

"If I could remember this correctly, I was in this...Resistance. I was one of the strongest soldiers...I think. When I saw those two guys on Angel Island, they reminded me of this. But...why did I fight for them in the first place? And...why is my tail missing? It couldn't be Dr. Eggman because I remember the neighborhood kids calling me trash since I didn't have one before this. Hmm..."

They sat up in the bed and looked at the arm that was leaking oil before. It was then that they noticed that something seemed off about their arms. The confused fox slowly peeled off their "skin" and saw something that made them gasp. The "skin" was actually made of an odd and fibrous material. Their fur was actually orange-colored cotton. Under the skin and fur was a fully metallic appendage. Seeing their arm being entirely made of metal created more questions.

"Am I...am I just an experiment? Or an android? Maybe everything I think I know was programmed by someone in the Resistance and the doctor...saved me. Is he my new master?"

At the GUN Base...

Sonic and Shadow were giving each other the information they had about what was going on.

"So far, we know that Eggman is using something that is or is like the Phantom Ruby to create illusions. Amy was kidnapped by Eggman again. Tails and Knuckles were blown off of Angel Island by a plane. Some GUN soldiers that were stationed in Mystic Ruins were able to tell us some of the things that unfolded that day."

"Okay. We have Tails and Knuckles in a safe place so all we need to do is save Amy and possibly get all of the Emeralds," Sonic said with his usual confidence.

"You're saying that like it would be a piece of cake," Shadow replied with his arms crossed.

"Every time Eggman appears with an evil scheme, we defeat him easily. I'll admit that he seems to be escalating and what he did to Tails and Knuckles was horrible but we've always come out on top. Egghead never wins," Sonic said with a smile and thumbs up.

"In case you forgot, he won before. The only reason we managed to take back the world was sheer luck. So many people died and I doubt we'll get another person like the rookie when you get captured by Eggman again. Even so, the only reason that they were successful was because they had help from a younger version of you."

Sonic didn't know what to say to this. The smile he had before became a frown.

"All I'm saying is that we need to be a lot more careful when we deal with Eggman from now on. I don't think the world wants another miracle to appear at the last moment like that again. Last time was too close for comfort," the black and red hedgehog said with all seriousness.

The blue hedgehog realized that he didn't know what the world was like while he was in the Prison Hall. The world was a darker place when Sonic was gone and Shadow's face displayed what almost everyone felt at that time.

"The reason why we lost last time was because we were caught surprise but we now know what the worse looks like so we're more prepared this time. Plus, I can see his plan from a mile away unlike last time. He's keeping Amy there as a hostage. The reason why he kept this information from me was because he's stalling. It's pretty obvious that he is building a giant robot like he always does or summoning some magical creature to stop us. He's done all of this before," Sonic explained after his smile returned.

"Fine. Even if this is the same as all of those other times, attacking when he least expects it should be our priority or at least getting rid of the illusions. Since you're so confident, got anything that can help us?"

Sonic thought about the one of the copies of the Phantom Ruby he had on his person.

"I got this but I don't know how to use it," he said as he pulled the jewel out.

Shadow's eyes looked upon the ruby. It reminded him of his battle with Infinite.

"I wonder if that figure that looked like Maria was his way of messing with me," Shadow thought before a smirk appeared across his muzzle, "This may be more interesting than I previously thought."

Eggman's Base/Death Lab (Afternoon)...

After Amy managed to have a long rest, she woke up and looked at the sky. It was her only form of entertainment. She loved to look at the sunset on the horizon and the sunrise appearing in a similar fashion. To her, its been six days since she finally started counting the amount of time she's been there. Eggman doesn't feed her every 'day', making her feel as if he's actually trying to kill her. As the 'days' passed, she lost more and more hope of getting rescued.

Finally, after what seemed to be a very long time to Amy, the entrance to the room opened. A gizoid came out of the shadows like last time. But unlike last time, the mechanical menace immediately made its gun appear. Amy made the first giant hammer disappear and then reappear above her enemy. Before the huge weapon crushed her enemy, a round managed to graze her. Her face had a small scratch on it but she was relieved that it wasn't worse than that. After having a near-death experience, the pink hedgehog dropped to her knees and put her hand over her heart to see if it was still beating. Fortunately for her, it was. Amy made the giant hammer disappear. Afterwards, the waiter is back again for the second time today but to Amy, it's been longer than that. She was drooling as the plate hit the floor along with a cold glass of fruit juice.

The pink hedgehog sunk her teeth into the strange meat again. She ate as if it was going to be her last meal.

You're just playing into their hands at this point. I guess he isn't coming anyway so you might as well. Face it. He isn't going to rescue you and you're wasting your energy denying reality. Do you even care about what you're eating? Do you even know what it is?

"Well, what am I supposed to do? I can't just starve to death. And why wouldn't Sonic come? He loves me," Amy thought as she finished off her meal.

You...you are so delusional that it's actually amazing. I'm not even being sarcastic. Listen, he always runs away from you like you have a disease or something.

"He's just being shy. Sonic loves me. I see it in his eyes before he runs away from me," she said with a blush.

That reasoning actually sickens me. Yes, I have seen that look before. It was the look of guy that doesn't want to be with you. I wouldn't be surprised if he thought you were a stalker or something.

"I'm not obsessed with him. I just have his portrait on my wall, my floor, on my pajamas, and my underwear."

I knew about the underwear thing but I didn't want you to feed the information to me. Anyway, I think you need therapy. One that's far away from Sonic as possible. I'm surprised that he doesn't have a restraining order against you.

"Oh my Chaos. I just realized that I'm going crazy," she said while holding her head.

"Going" implies that you haven't been crazy before we got here. That's not true. It's just...worse.

Amy ignored that strange voice in her head, drunk her juice, and waited for the next battle or to be rescued.

Unfortunately, she saw the entrance open and another gizoid appeared from the darkness.

She got into her fighting position.

I have a feeling that this battle will be very interesting.

After Amy disregarded the voice once again, she wasted no time swinging her hammer to damage the robotic combatant. While delivering the final blow, the room changed into how it originally was and the oil turned into blood. The gizoid was transformed into a Mobian cowering and pleading for his life. All of this was happening but Amy didn't notice. The room returned to what Amy saw it as before when the blow connected. Her victim hit the floor, shown to be a destroyed gizoid.

"Wow. It feels like this is getting easier and easier, This must be what Sonic feels when he defeats Eggman. It's so...amazing," she thought with a smile.

Did you see that?

"See what," Amy asked as she observed the area, "I don't see anything."

Never mind. You'll find out later. I guess that proves that you're losing your grip on whatever amount of sanity you had left.

Location: Unknown/Time: Nonexistent...

Tikal was floating inside of Chaos. She was contemplating her hasty decision of sending Blaze into the book.

"I don't know if what I did was the right thing. Blaze could possibly be affected negatively by this. She would be peering at the most miserable part of her entire existence. Even her own demise...I wonder if it was a good idea to relocate her to a different dimension in the first place? Looks like our past actions is coming back to haunt us. Isn't it, Chaos," she asked with a sigh.

Chaos roared in agreement.

"I didn't want to do that to Blaze but we needed Iblis gone...forever. It's one thing to blow a fire out and 'kill' it temporarily but it's another thing to actually seal it away and keep Blaze intact at the same time. It was the perfect opportunity so there seemed to be no way around it."

Tikal closed her eyes and let her anxiety be taken away by the feeling of the water around her.

"Iblis making an appearance again would be terrible. Maybe everything will be fine. It only appeared in Blaze's fire powers. It's not like she has all of the pieces of Iblis within her being. But some are in Silver's..."

At the GUN base/Infirmary (Tails's Room)...

Sonic was sitting on a chair, watching Tails as he slept peacefully on the hospital bed.

"Hey, Tails," he said to his unconscious friend.

He was hoping that Tails would wake up and they would make amends. The comatose fox didn't budge.

"Tails, I'm sorry about making you feel like you were useless. I didn't mean to make you feel this way. Tails I...I wanted to talk to you about this before you stormed out. I guess I was too slow," Sonic joked.

The blue hedgehog waited for a sigh, an eye roll, or anything. Not seeing a single bit of evidence of Tails being his normal self made Sonic feel miserable. He felt that all of this was his fault. The deflated hedgehog thought about what Shadow said before.

"Shadow told me a bit about how everyone felt when I was incarcerated. He said that a lot of people lost their lives. I was almost too late and how we wouldn't find someone like the 'rookie' again. Even crediting their success to fighting along side the younger me. Basically, it was just luck that we won. So, is that how you feel too?"

After a couple of minutes of waiting for a response, Sonic said, "Goodbye," and left the room. When Sonic closed the door, one of Tails's eyes partially opened.