A/N So here we go, with another chapter. Maybe we'll see the good guys win, and we can get on with the rap up and all that good stuff. Hope you guys enjoy.

Tails lunged forward hand outstretched to grab yet another eggbot and fry its circuits. He had to move immediately to avoid the eggbot behind from grabbing him, he ended up on the left looking back at the attacker. Its large fist gripping into the metal of the robot he'd just fried. Before it could attack him again he used his other electric gauntlet on it destroying it again.

A split second to look around he could see his friends were holding there own. If only barely. Despite their best efforts the tide of eggbots were only weakening further and further. Only a matter of time before someone messed up. This had to end somehow…. But how?

Shadow was in the best shape, his sheer speed kept him safe, and his unique biology only helped that further, but even he had his limits. He'd tire, and his bad leg didn't help either.

Fiona was most vulnerable, with the least equipment, and only her natural abilities left her at a disadvantage. But for now she'd defied the odds and kept herself in one piece.

Blaze may have been in tune with her fire powers, but that was faltering as her stamina decreased, her control of her powers slowly slipped from her. More and more her powers failed to work at all or became unpredictable, and she was slowly becoming a danger to everyone.

Silver may have had the most useful and powerful abilities, but his stamina was his enemy. Only a matter of time until he couldn't perform them at all. Even eating snacks from his supply were no longer helping. His barriers were barely holding, sometimes outright failing for short moments. It didn't help that he had to protect everyone, fight and watch out for Blazes continually unpredictable abilities.

This wasn't a fight any of them could win, they were trapped, being attacked from all sides, from an endless force of eggbots. It seemed all was lost, and the betrayal of Scourge only made it all the worse. They'd thought they'd had a chance, but they were wrong. Devious betrayal and an impossible fight would be their legacy.

Tails realized they were what was left, of the Freedom fighters. Everything had led to this moment, from its inception their goal was to stop Eggman, they'd done that so many times before but they never truly stopped him. They only delayed him. Then the Freedom fighters were nearly completely wiped out by a single bad descision born of vengeance and anger.

Now Tails was the new leader, and he'd led them all to their deaths, just as Sonic had. It hurt him, knowing he'd done the same, was he so angry and filled with hate that he'd allowed himself to walk into an impossible situation and get them all killed, just like Sonic? The Freedom fighters legacy would be over confidence and stupidity. It hurt him, but the very least he could do now was put up a final fight.

So he broke from his stupor only to barely avoid an eggbot who tried to smash him with its hammer-hand. He was about to retaliate when all the Eggbots seemingly stood down at the same time. Of course that didn't stop the Mobians, who continued to attack for a few seconds out of pure instinct.

Silver crushed a bot with his powers then finally looked around and noticed the bots had stopped fighting again. He was panting heavily, slouching barely able to stand as his legs shook in exhaustion. Several burns were on his fur and quills, from blasts or barely missed energy attacks, or even from Blaze herself.

The cat came to his side to see how he was, she could see he was barely able to support himself.

"I'm sorry, I'm losing control, I'm sorry" she apologized knowing her powers had caused some of those burns.

"It's…. ok" he smiled to her finally letting his tense muscles relax, which nearly caused him to fall over.

Despite his words Blaze didn't feel any better. But she couldn't lament about it, she was getting tired, she'd trained for hard fights, but she had her limits, just like anyone else.

Around them many robots laid destroyed, smashed, crushed or disabled. But they knew no matter how many they destroyed, there'd be ten more to replace them.

"We…. Can't win…. Can we?" Silver asked having lost all hope.

Blaze didn't have the heart to lie to him, or tell the truth, so she simply stayed quiet, but her frown answered his question.

Shadow ended up next to them, the slightest limp could be noticed in his stride, the stress was pushing his leg, and he was trying to hide it.

"You two alright?" he asked, they clearly weren't, minor injuries all over them. The same could be said to for him to a lesser extent.

"We're, ok" Silver panted attempting to stand up straight, but simply couldn't.

Shadow hard face briefly softened "Then take this rest, you'll need it"

Nearby Fiona panted sitting on a recently destroyed eggbot to catch her breath, a couple scrapes could be seen on her fur, a few cuts in her already somewhat reveal tank top and black pants showed some close calls she had already. One cut having a tiny amount of blood dripping down from it.

Tails came over, his armor scuffed, dented and burned. Mid way through the fight he'd been partially engulfed by a flamethrower, his armor was mostly fire resistant, but the small shoulder cape he'd worn was burned away now.

"You alright?" he asked taking a seat on a robot as well, his panting could be heard through his mask filter.

"Ya, just a little cut up" she panted, checking her weapons.

"I can see that, much more and you might be losing your clothes" Tails may have known they were in a hopeless situation, but he could try to be light hearted.

"Oh how bad that would be, me having to fight nude. You'd enjoy that wouldn't you?" she replied back.

"Definetly would distract me" Tails said but both went silent.

"This is it, isn't it?" Fiona asked slouching in defeat.

Tails couldn't lie, she was too smart to be lied to so obviously, so he took a few seconds to say something else "This is my fault"

"No it isn't"

"Yes it is…. I made this plan, I led us here"

Fiona said "Hey, look at me" he slowly went to look at the female, when he did he saw her staring at him intensely "You didn't do anything wrong, we had to do this. There was no other choice, we had to fight, or do nothing. We all knew this was a big risk, even suicidal, but we all came here, because we believed there was a chance we could win this. I don't regret it, and I bet no one else does either" Fiona explained.

"Nicole probably dies…."

Fiona sighed slouching and looking down "I shouldn't have trusted him…. I knew him better than anyone and I didn't see this coming"

"Nobody saw it coming"

"We should have" she hissed "We knew who he was, who he is" she growled at herself, angry she dropped her guard "If we somehow get out of this, I'm gonna tear him to shreds"

"I think we all want to make him pay" Tails said darkly.

Silence for a few more seconds and Fiona asked "Is there any plan?"

"No"

…..

Suddenly a hatch opened from the ceiling and the sound of a jet could be heard.

All eyes went to the sound and to their horror it was Metal Sonic. Repaired since their last encounter, no visual upgrades, still the newer model based on Sonics older form. Unfortunately that thing was the real Sonic, unlike its predecessors.

Tails slowly stood up staring at his former friend through his visor. What the hell did he want?

Silver and Blaze didn't move, too tired to fight unless he attacked first, but Shadow walked over to Tails.

He stopped at the foxes side as Sonic landed on the floor. His red eyes staring straight at Tails. When he refused to do anything the fox realized it wanted to speak. So he slowly and cautiously approached.

He barely heard Fiona warn him "Be careful"

Shadow followed feeling he should be apart of this conversation.

Finally in talking distance Sonic spoke "Hello again little brother…. Faker"

Shadow nearly made a quip that he truly was the fake now but Tails beat him.

"What do you want?" he clearly wanted to talk.

The machine lost its intimidating stance and loosened up starting to act like Sonic normally would, his voice would never be the same though "Well, a long time ago when I realized that I'd been on the wrong side the whole time I-"

"WRONG SIDE!" Tails suddenly shouted "You call this the right side, you've seen what he's done, he destroyed everything, our planet! Our home! He's killed our friends, he killed Sally! How could you stand with him!" his sudden outburst had been waiting to come out since he'd learned it was the real Sonic.

Sonic slouched looking away, for a moment not saying anything "I…. know, he's done bad things" his head snapped back to looking straight at him "But it was all for the good of Mobius. What happened to everyone, it was our own fault, my fault. Our friends are dead because of me. Because I fought against what this world needed. Peace"

"Peace?" Shadow scoffed "Do explain" he said sarcastically.

"Look at our world, is it not peaceful, there is no fighting, nations do not clash or war with one another. Eggman has brought peace to this world! Can't you see it"

"You call all that peace? Tails growled "That isn't peace"

"Let me ask you something Tails, how many Mobians have died in conflict since Eggman took over, nearly none, and those who have died fighting Eggman. This world warred with itself for hundreds of years, war after war. And if it wasn't a war it was infighting among ourselves"

Tails thought to when his parents attempted to overthrow the royal family as he said that.

Shadow then asked "So this demented form of peace, it's at the cost of freedom, you used to fight for freedom"

"Freedom in concept sounds good, but in practice it gives people the ability to cause harm. The freedom to hurt and destroy. We all want freedom, because it benefits us, because then that freedom give us the freedom to do bad Sonic explained "Peace is impossible with freedom, and borders, and ideologies. Control is the only way to true peace"

"What happened to you" Tails said completely taken back by his former friends words, how could he believe this.

"It was a hard pill to swallow… but I see now, I see all the year I wasted fighting Eggman, but I know what he wants. It was always what I wanted, peace and end to fighting and war. I just didn't have the spine back then to know what the world need to achieve that"

Sonic paused "This was all my fault, I fought Eggman, fighting against peace, and now eventually he had to do something drastic, to finally put this planet at peace once and for all, even if many had to die…. And because of me, all our friends had to die before our dream of peace could be realized"

"Are you insane, Sally would have never agreed, nobody would have!" Tails yelled. The very idea she could agree with this was mind boggling.

"She would, I know she would. She wanted it to stop too, she'd see what really needed to be done, I know"

"No she wouldn't" Tails growled.

Sonic snapped back to looking Tails "But it's not too late Tails. We may not have been on the same page last time we spoke, but I have always loved you. You've always been my little buddy, my little brother"

What the hell was he going on about?

"I'm giving you and everyone here, a chance to escape this place… buth only if you serve Eggman"

"What!?"

"We can live forever, be friends again, forever, keeping the peace we set out for years ago. I drove you away, and got everyone else killed. But I want to give you the chance to live, all of you"

"You want us to willingly robotize ourselves, why do you think we should do that?"

"Because I saw the truth, and I know you can as well. I begged Eggman to give me this chance log ago, and I'm taking it now" he outstretched his hand invitingly "You don't have to die here"

Tails didn't answer immediately, giving off the idea he had been thinking it over, but in reality his mind simply couldn't figure out how Sonic could think this way. He thought Eggman had broke his mind and he become a willing slave, barely a person anymore. No, he'd changed his mind, throught torture and his own emotions weakening his mind further.

He truly had to put Sonic out of his misery now.

"We'll never stand by Eggman" Tails growled.

Sonics inviting hand balled up into a fist then fell to his side. The robot made an audible sigh "Then I guess it has to end here, I'll be the only one left"

Shadow went wide eyed hearing that, his statement making him flinch. It was just a for a moment though as he stepped forward to fight first.

"So, guess we'll truly see who the best is won't we?" Sonic taunted his long time rival.

"Guess we will, but atleast we know who's the faker now" Shadow taunted back.

"You will always be the fake!" Sonic yelled back, it seemed his tempered had gotten worse over the last two years, perhaps a side effect of the brainwashing Eggman had done, or possibly slight modifications to his personality now that he was a robot. Eggman already explained Sonic was incapable of changing his mind anymore.

Shadow just growled getting into a fighting stance. The robot suddenly blasted towards him, jet at full blast. To a normal person it happened in a flash, but to Shadow he was able to step to the side. He turned to find Sonic was already coming right back at him fist heading for his face.

Shadow blocked the attack, his strength had greatly improved and the hit made Shadow slide backwards despite the block. The robot only continued to attack with a knee, but Shadows speed continued to keep up with him. He slighty shuffled to the right to avoid the knee then countered with his own fist.

His hand simply bounced off the robots face, the metal and glass eyes too strong to be simply broken by a single punch. But the utter lack of response by Sonic was even worse, not even a flinch. The robot just returned his own punch to Shadows face while he recovered from the punch.

The punch was abnormally strong knocking the ultimate lifeform off his feet and onto his back. Shadow was no slouch and as he landed on his back he rolled backwards to his feet. Sonic didn't give him much time to recover another full speed, and jet propelled punch was coming at him.

He simply tried to block again with his arms crossed in an X formation to try and stop it. His arms felt like they might break from the impact, and he felt himself slide backwards yet again.

He knew he was losing this fight, Sonic had very little mercy anymore, just fighting to win, not to have fun. At the same time, and his enhanced abilities only made huim more dangerous.

So Shadow realized he alone couldn't win this fight, but at the very least he could try and do some damage.

He bolted away beginning to run around the room. Sonic followed tried to cut him off. Shadow ran along the wall only for Sonic to attempt to smash him into the wall, with split second timing Shadow jumped over the attempt, the robot smashing into the wall with such force he meant in the walls.

He turned and fired his shoes at full blast smashing into Sonic with a shoulder check. Once again minimal to no damage but he ran right past Sonic not continueing to fight. He couldn't fight Sonic up front, atleast not for long, so he had to change his tactics. He wished he had his powers right now, his armor couldn't stop a chaos bolt.

He continued to run and found Sonic was now right behind him, and closing. His bad leg was beginning to bug him again, he wouldn't be able to keep this up.

"You can't beat me Shadow!"

"I can atleast try" he replied. Shadow jumped up flipping through the air. While facing the floor his shoes fired at full blast again shooting him down to the ground. Sonic was just passing by as he did this.

The impact of Shadow landing on Sonics back forced him to the ground, the two sliding along the ground. While sliding Shadow aggressively attacked Sonics jet booster, at the very least he could cripple his capabilities for his friends.

He punched directly into the jet feeling a satisfying crunch from his hand digging into the machines back.

"AHHH, STOP!" the robot went into a spin dash forcing Shadow off him.

Shadow landed fairly well despite being thrown off and smirked "So you can be hurt"

Sonic came to a screeching halt after leaving his spin dash. His back sparked a little indicating clear damage "Gonna make you pay for that"

Shadow just smirked, looks like he annoyed him. But he ran off to continue the chase. Sonic began chasing again, his jet no longer assisting him, this time with a bit more subtle and cautious approach, incase Shadow tried that again.

Instead Shadow came to a stop turning and punching at Sonic. His fist collided with Sonics head again, specifically in the glass of his eyes. It once again did seemingly no damage, but Shadow definetly was hurt by it. His arm felt like it was gonna snap. His own enhanced strength and durability wasn't enough to stop Sonics metal body at full speed.

He groaned as Sonic shrugged him off going straight through hhim and knocking him down again.

"Dammit!" he growled cradling his hand.

He looked back and gasped seeing Sonic coming back. He tried to dodge but was too slow. The punch made him stumble and spin to the other direction, only to get hit again.

This process continued a several times, the blue blur taking Shadows vulnerability to keep hitting him over and over again.

After a few hits Shadow was finding it hard to stay conscious from the rapid fire attacks. Taking a complete shot in the dark swiped his hand to the right in a chopping motion. The hand impacted with something, the sheer speed of it nearly knocking him off his feet again.

His guess had worked and he'd knocked Sonic off course, enough to cause him to crash, he'd only get a few split seconds to react but he began running again.

He passed by Fiona stealing one of her pistols.

He turned to find Sonic staring him down.

"What you think that thing is gonna be able to kill me" Sonic laughed.

"Like I said" he took a deep breath "I need to try"

"Well it's gonna fail, so let's get this over with" Sonic replied impatiently.

Shadow could agree, but he wasn't gonna move waiting for Sonic to make the first move.

Seeing that Shadow had decided on staying on defense Sonic charged forward, knowing he'd be generally immune to everything he had no fear. Intending to finish this fight he readied his claw-like hand to kill Shadow.

With a lunge, he outstretched his hand to spear straight through Shadow. But to his surprise Shadow lunged forward at the same time. His sharp claws did his Shadow, but only just barely, the sharp claws cutting his cheek as it passed by.

More importantly was Shadow had gotten right into the position he wanted to, his gun now point blank in Sonics face, in the split second they were within arms reach he hit the trigger as many times as his hands could. The gun firing two or three bullets before Shadow slammed into Sonics shoulder and sent him flying to the side.

The impact had taken the air from his lungs but he looked back at his robotic rival bruised and now a thin cut along his cheek.

Sonic came to a sliding stop yet again cupping his face.

"You, sneaky bastard" he growled.

He turned to face them all again, the glass of his right eye slightly cracked from the bullet hitting it at point blank range.

Shadow just smirked "What ya gonna do about it?"

The robot became visibly agitated and shot forward dashing at the tired hedgehog. He lunged again with his metal hand knowing Shadow couldn't defend himself, but right before he reached him a mass of eggbots were through at him from the side.

Sonic was sent off course and fell again, but was quick to rise and see what happened.

Silvers hands were glowing green lifting more destroyed eggbots and said "Don't touch him"

Sonic paused then laughed "Oh so you want to fight me now? Remember last time? Or did your brain get fried too much?"

Silver just growled at the robot, he wasn't gonna let some childish insults stop him. He growled yet again, his hands began to glow brightly and several eggbots started to float. In the air.

Sonic didn't even flinch, he still had that cocky attitude and waited for the silver Hedgehog to attack. That didn't take long as the eggbots began flying towards him in attempt to smash into the robot.

But Sonics speed allowed him to avoid everything that was thrown at him, even with his booster gone, the natural speed he had was his greatest strength.

That is until after one dodge Silver immediately grabbed a still flying chunk of metal and pulled it back at Sonic to Catch him off guard.

"Huh?" the hedge-bot looked back to see it was too late to avoid the piece of scrap and took another hit to his head and knocking him to the ground.

Silver pumped his fist "Yes!"

But the hit didn't slow him down and after getting back up an audible growl came from Sonic. In a flash he appeared right in front of Silver landing a gut punch into the hedgehog.

Silver hunched over trying to breath but Sonic kicked him down onto his back. His clawed hand raised into the air to strike down while the hedgehog struggled to breath.

But Blaze shoulder checked the hedge-bot away a snarl escaping her lips "Leave him alone!"

Sliding to a stop Sonic just laughed "Oh isn't this precious" he stood up straight again "I have to admit, that's cute, but you can't stop me either"

"I can atleast try" Blaze growled lunging forward, her claws extended from her paws.

Sonic easily dodged her initial swipe and countered with his own punch, but surprisingly Blaze had predicted his attack and made her own move to avoid it.

It must have genuinely surprised Sonic, thinking his speed would be impossible to dodge so Blaze managed to a good claw in. Her claws raked across Sonics face, doing minimal, to no damage against the somewhat damaged glass.

He replied by trying to grab her while she was mid attack, but yet again Blaze seemed to be able to read his mind. She landed another claw across his face doing nothing but annoying him, so this time he decided to change up his tactics.

He zipped away from her disappearing from her vision only to reappear half a second later behind her, his shoulder slamming into her back and knocking her down.

She slid away trying to recover. But the hit was unexpected and fast also knocking the wind from her.

With her down another eggbot was thrown at him, only annoying him as he turned to face Silver again. He'd recovered and was breathing properly "Don't you touch her!" he growled.

Sonic just tapped his foot on the floor "Ok, I said it was cute, but now it's annoying"

Silver grit his teeth, he was still breathing somewhat hard from the last hit, but he was gonna try. He picked up several eggbots and forced them together into a large ball.

With as much force as he could he threw it at Sonic.

If the hedge-bot could smirk he would have been cause he decided to run straight at the incoming attack. With ease he burst through the ball, being held together with Silver telekinesis. His armor contacting the energy fiel holding the ball together caused Silver to scream in pain as whatever the feedback was began shocking his brain, like before.

Sonic once again etended his arm to spear through the vulnerable hedgehog barreling towards him too fast for his opponent to respond.

"No!"

Sonic felt something tackle him and throw him to the ground only half a second from reaching Silver. His tumbled to the ground rolling out his fall to find Shadow had intervened.

The dark hedgehog was still badly hurt from his previous attacks and could stand as quickly, panting from the simple tackle.

"Oh has Shadow finally grown a heart, or is he special to you somehow?" he asked slowly approaching the hedgehog.

Shadow just coughed not even able to stand up properly "I'm, not gonna let you kill another of my friends"

"Kill your-" the hedge-bot stopped in his tracks trembling in rage "I didn't get any of them killed! They all chose to go!"

Shadow coughed "Keep telling yourself that…. They trusted you, and would have followed you to hell and back, and you knew that" he attempted to stand up being careful of stand up wrong and hurting his leg, a subtly Sonic noticed.

"They weren't mindless drones, if they saw danger they would have refused" Sonic replied.

Shadow growled "I refused, don't you remember? I told you to stop, that what you were doing was a huge risk and fueled by anger. I tried to keep you from making that mistake, but you didn't want to listen. Your stupid pride and your anger made you blind to how stupid you were acting!" Shadow yelled out, his pent up anger over the attack finally being allowed to spill out.

"You didn't care! You didn't care about the costs in that moment, you thought it would go your way like every other time. Even Sally, believed in you cause she was so blinded by hate and anger. You sent them all to their deaths!"

Sonic visibly got more and more angry as Shadow spoke "I didn't kill them, they killed themselves, they…. They stood against Eggman, they stood against peace! It took all of them dying for me to realize it!"

"You're a liar, we saw those recordings in HQ!"

"I was broken then, Eggman fixed me and made me see the truth!"

Shadow growled baring his teeth "I used to wish I'd see you again, that after all this time you were out there, somewhere, waiting for another shot at defeating Eggman, but now…. Now you are nothing but a husk, and a slave to him" he grew even more angry "But now, NOW I wish you had died that day!"

Sonic didn't give him time to react, in a mere half a second Sonic had burst straight towards him, in his injured state he couldn't react fast enough.

A vice grip went around his neck and Sonic spoke "So you wish I'd died, eh?... Well how about this, you get to watch as all your friends die. You already lost Amy and Knuckles, how are you gonna handle seeing them die?"

Shadow struggled to free himself, but the robotic hands didn't budge "Don't…. touch them….!" His teeth were showing trying to be intimidating.

"Why don't lay down, let that leg of yours rest for awhile!" Sonic threw him to the ground and raised his foot before smashing down. Metal collided with metal, the brace being crunched under the massive force, then a loud snap of bone filled the air. Finally followed by the scream of pain from a broken man.

"Shadow!" Silver had recovered to see it happen, to worried that he'd hit Shadow with anything he'd have attempted to throw. Now he wished he had taken the risk.

The dark hedgehog gripped his broken leg cringing in pain, trying to hold back his tears.

"Don't cry yet, you haven't seen your friends die yet"

His voice stopped Sonic from turning, it was harsh and filled with pain "You'd… kill… Tails?"

A long pause Sonic just stared down at Shadow, his red robotic eyes staring into Shadows soul "I gave him a chance, but he stands in the way of peace, that's more important. If a few more have to die to keep this peace…. Then so be it"

God he'd completely lost it, not even his best friend could stop him. Shadow watched helplessly as Sonic turned to face the other four. He could only watch as his friends grew angry at what Sonic had done…. No…. don't give in to the anger…. Not again…

So that went on a lot longer than I thought, I thought the fight would be much shorter but it actually wasn't, I'm cutting it in half, plus it will allow you guys to know I'm still here.

Anyway, I hope ya enjoy and you drop a review. This fight will definetly be over on the next chapter and final defeat of eggman may also be there, but we'll have to see.

Live long and prosper

Admiralkirk