Chapter 7: Jungle Judgment

The pair stood on the long docks underneath the moonlight, staring into the water below. To his left, Sonic could see where they'd just gotten in, the moustache-branded EggCorp teleporter. To their right was the jungle village that held all their answers—or at least the shrine that would lead there.

"So… who do you think will be here for us this time, Sonic?" Chip clapped his hands, excited.

"I can think of two possibilities," his companion sighed, scratching his chin with long claws. "I'm not sure I'm ready for one of 'em."

"Oh?"

Sonic glanced at his companion and adjusted his bandage on one wrist. "Chip…. Do you remember anything? We're getting down to the wire here. Two emeralds left. You might have to bust out your mad Gaia skills soon."

The little fairy shivered in the wind. "No… I know now that the stuff you told me is true. I… there's a shaky memory of last time. Of when we lost. But that's all I got."

They stood silent for a moment, staring out at the churning sea, before Chip spoke again.

"You never answered my question, Sonic."

"It might be Shadow."

They glanced at each other.

"But Amy went back to Eggmanland to care for him. It's probably Tails."

Chip sat on Sonic's shoulder. "But isn't Tails your best friend?"

Sonic made his way toward the village, holding his claws in front of him at the waist as they shuddered quietly. "That's what I'm afraid of, Chip. Nobody loved me like he did, not even Amy. What will he think of me now?"

Chip thought, probably the same thing I do.

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They wandered through the streets, the market, chattering away. He, standing tall in the moonlight, fighting the hunched tendencies of the werehog, hands looming far in front of him like lanterns carried, like bloody swords. Following close behind, circling close behind like a vulture, horns speaking to its intentions, was that thing.

Looking at the creature through his binoculars, Dr. Prower couldn't help but be reminded of all the awful things he and his friends had once faced. Chaos' myriad forms. The Biolizard. Black Doom and his awful, mind-controlled minions. Those tiny horns, the long tail, the odd grin on its face, were wrong … And yet, It looked like Chip, it sounded like Chip as far as Miles' remote listening device could tell. Could it really be Chip?

And what was so great about Chip anyway? Miles spat to himself. He had been fond of the little guy in his own distant way, but even at his best Chip was slightly annoying. Always with Sonic, every waking moment, a cute little thing like a chao but with the innocent, curious mind of a person . Tails had to care for the airplane, work on the gadgets, keep everyone coordinated. So Chip had become a fixture at Sonic's side, always loyal sidekick and guide, teddy bear and football. Tails was silently grateful that Chip was at least male.

And there Sonic was, chatting away with a cheap impersonation of an annoying hanger-on, as his best friend watched, out of contact for a decade. Miles tightened his grip on the binoculars, snapping the hinge that held them together. All that work, all at time and friendship and talk of teamwork, and Miles was left behind. For what? For guilt? For Chip?

He put away the binoculars and went off to grab his equipment. He had work to do.

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They were overlooking a vast whirlpool in a massive river when it happened.

Sonic was about to leap from the pier and take them hopping along the debris, Chip could feel the tensing of muscles from atop his shoulders. Sonic would have to make a huge leap, running on all fours, to make it, and Chip would feel the salty wind in his face. He was looking forward to it, skipping from platform to platform.

Then there was a voice.

"Sonic," demanded a clear, deep voice.

Sonic immediately froze in place, the steady pulse in the sides of his neck stopping entirely beneath Chip's still fingers before resuming at a furious pace.

"Sonic, what is it?" Chip asked.

Then there was a loud whirr, the roaring of a fire, and a hydraulic hiss behind them. Chip turned his head to see a strange machine standing there, menacing. A round, backed cockpit was supported by two legs, rockets in the back slowly cutting off as it landed with a clunk. Two arms, fitted with the weapons attached at the sides of the orb, and a pale furry creature with cold blue eyes could be seen faintly behind the moonlit glare.

"Tails?" Sonic breathed, not looking, not moving.

A fist flew from one of the arms, hitting the werehog with a grunt and the twang of springs. Sonic screamed and fell, keeping above water by digging his claws into a stray plank in the whirlpool. Chip fell with him, and helped him pull himself onto the debris. Sonic panted, shoulders quivering with effort and fear. Chip breathed deep; he could indeed smell it, Sonic's fear, and pain and guilt, thicker and sweeter and stickier than ever. He wanted to lap it up, to bask in it, to encourage it, but he had enough sense to know that that would be wholly counterproductive. He needed Sonic on his side, no matter how resentful he might be over the past.

"Sonic? Who is that?"

The mech suddenly hurtled toward them, hovering inches above them. "My name is Dr. Miles Prower. Once, Sonic was my friend. But he left us alone in this crapsack world, and I'm going to have my revenge!"

"Tails… why?"

One of the mechs' hands drew up from the mech's side, grabbing Sonic's shoulder. Chip quickly flew away from him as the hand then flipped the werehog over and gripped him by the throat. "You were alive, all this time, but you left us to Eggman! The rebellion, the executions, the Gaia Force! You could have helped us and you were nowhere."

Sonic tried to choke out a response, but Miles dropped him, nearly shattering the board on which he had been floating. He gasped, "I… sick.. hurt… legs."

"Oh, I already know the bull story about your burned legs," he choked, voice creaking, squeaking. "Shadow tried to excuse you when the truth first came out. So did Knuckles, and Amy. But I know the truth-you're a coward!"

That was too much. "Leave him alone!" Chip shouted, barreling at the mech head-first. He roared in pain as the impact rattled his head, but the mech hovered in the air, unmoved.

"You stay out of this, you little fairy!" Miles pinged Chip away with the mech's robotic fingers, sending him plummeting into the whirlpool. He managed to surface to find the werehog grappling the robot. Surprisingly, Sonic was winning.

"I never meant to leave you, Tails! I could hardly get food and water without being caught by the drones!"

The mech shoved him back. "You must have known how bad it was!"

"Turning myself in would have only made it worse, Tails!"

He rotated his robotic hand, freeing it from Sonic's grip. "It's Miles! I'm Miles!" He decked Sonic in the face. Chip closed his eyes tightly, wishing not to see anymore, wishing for someone to save Sonic. "And what hell does that mean anyway?"

Sonic spat. Chip could smell blood. "You did the right thing, infiltrating him." There was a wallop of keratin on metal.

"You would say something that phenomenally stupid!" There was a slap, and a little cry.

Then a harsh clang. "Hey, you aren't that much smarter than me, twerp! You guys made him better. He's still bad, but he's better! Where… Ahah! Gotcha!"

Chip heard a hydraulic hiss and a scream.

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Miles screamed as his cockpit flew open, and a gray hairy claw reached in. Another claw followed, reaching for the buckles on his harness, and then the first pulled him out onto the wet wooden plank, claws digging in. He squeaked in fear as his face hit the wood, splinters in his fur, remembering being pulverized by Shadow.

"What the hell kind of friend are you, Tails."

"Miles."

"No. I call you Tails, you're always Tails to me. I thought we were friends. I hid the fact that I was alive because I knew no matter what you were going to do this. Sooner, and it'd be some kinda weird passive aggressive stuff about how I'm not strong enough."

Miles whined. "I couldn't have been mad that you were still alive. When you're alive, there's hope."

"I won't be around forever. Surviving being jettisoned of the arc, surviving Diablon's antimatter attack fighting Shadow… I've been real lucky. And I'm getting old, I'm already old for 25. Someday I'll be gone and you'll be here."

"What is that supposed to mean?" He sat up, looking at his old mentor. Sad green eyes peered at him.

"I don't want you living your whole life in my shadow. If you have to beat me up fine… but damn, Tails, did you have to pick water? You know how I feel about it."

Miles looked away. "I wanted control of your emotions. I wanted you to—"

Sonic screamed and fell into the water.

Miles panicked, looking around. Finally behind him he saw it, a Dark Gaia bird, violet, preparing energy blasts. Without a thought he threw himself into the water, diving deep, tails spinning like a propeller. He could see Sonic, sinking quickly toward a rapid whirlpool enough to tear ships apart, flailing. As it seemed too late, as Sonic's body began to be pulled in different directions, Miles wrapped an arm around his twisted waist and began pushing upward, swimming, trying to make it to air before the blackest night came.

He glanced down at Sonic as he spun his tails toward the surface, at the frozen fear in his eyes, semi-conscious, holding completely still to facilitate the swimming. He looked paralyzed, sitting there, and for a moment Miles thought he could smell sulfur, feel the heat on them. This was what he'd been looking for, he decided—pity. To be able to pity Sonic. To be able to help Sonic not because he deserved help, but because he needed it. Needed Tails, needed him for something more than just an airlift when the Marble Garden collapsed.

Finally they reached the surface, reached air. Miles gasped desperately and pulled Sonic over to a tiny island in the whirlpool. He immediately started doing first aid, trying to force the water out of Sonic's lungs, trying to get him breathing, as the sound of rocket launchers and screaming Gaia creatures echoed in his ears overhead. Finally Sonic took a gasp on his own, no water in his system after all, and MIles looked up. The villagers stood on the pier, firing weapons at the beasts, and Chip flew straight into Miles' chest.

"You saved him! Thanks, Tails!" Chip cuddled against him. "You're just as good as he said you were."

Tails sat down and smiled, sighing with relief.

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It wasn't as easy as Cream was, as instant. It wasn't like something snapped and made her good again, freed of the rage by pity. It was slow and awkward, careful, always regressing to anger. They sat in the little inn, surrounded by old villagers who'd helped them before, speaking of old times, new times, laughs and stories. Sonic told Tails of all the books he'd read, pretty girls he'd run into, all the natural wonders he'd spotted, the people he'd helped. The laughed about Amy's recent behavior, the dissolution of Knuckles' famed naivete. Tails shared his own exploits with women, largely more fruitful than Sonic's but somehow seeming less satisfactory, and his newest inventions. But every now and then the topic of Gaia came up, and Tails would turn back to it.

"I still l can't believe you did that to us."

Sonic sighed, sipping at a soda he clearly didn't like. "I can't believe I did either. How… stupid. That's like a crazy Eggman validation move!"

Tails rolled his eyes, stirring his drink with the straw. "I thought you didn't need anyone's approval."

"Not approval. Admiration, I guess. You don't have to like me, you just have to think I'm cool."

Tails looked away. "You asshole. You could dumpster dive for a living and you'd have been cool to me."

Sonic reached across the table, putting a claw on Tails' shoulder, hoping he might look into his eyes and see the truth. "And if I'd become like Eggman, would you still have loved me?"

"I don't know."

"Amy would."

Tails looked back, glaring, eyebrow raised.

"She'd love me unconditionally, whether I was hero or villain or tofu block. Because she was—and is—in love with a fantasy. I didn't tell her because I was afraid of her. But you, or Knuckles… you know the real me. And if you saw a part of it that even I didn't like…"

A bartender slipped them both fresh beverages, muttering.

"I just wanted a friend I could turn to, who wasn't a traitor like me."

Chip settled down in Tails' lap, hugging him. Sonic smiled at them, eyes welling. "But you seem happy as one of Eggy's engineers. Successful."

Tails sighed. "I was happy until the Legion got weird."

"Legion? You mean the Legion of Light? You're…"

Tails smiled sadly. "Either you died for him or he saved you. Of course."

"Tails, you know I'd never let a girl be this clingy, right? Or some guys, for that matter?"

The engineer splashed his drink on Sonic. "You jerk." But he was smiling, and Sonic realized he was too.

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They retired to Tails' room in the tiny in for the next part of the conversation.

"So if you're part of the cult, you must know what they're up to." Sonic sprawled out on the mattress beneath the thatched roof.

"You think Eggman is that stupid, Sonic? Each person only knows what he needs to know to do his part. Luckily for you," Tails bragged, flashing naturally fanged grin, "I have a pretty big part." He sat in a chair and started pulling off his damp boots.

"So what is Eggman's master plan?"

"He has me building colony ships for the moon, and Wave the Swallow designing and operating a domed lunar colony with mining operations outside the dome. Dark Gaia has no power on the moon, or so we believe"

Sonic took off his boots, too, chucking them into a corner. "So you think that's it? Trying to get away from dark Gaia? I expected more of him."

"Maybe you haven't lost your touch after all, then. There's a huge empty cargo hold whose contents aren't listed in the list of things I needed to accommodate, and a whole extra ship for colonists who could easily have gone in that space" Tails grabbed a tiny notebook on the desk an started sketching. "Both ships are designed for long term comfort—far longer than it takes to reach the moon."

"So he's going Black Doom on us, planning interplanetary conquest."

"Who's Black Doom?" asked Chip.

Tails shook his head. "A bit over ten years ago, before Eggman split the world, we were invaded by aliens. A race called the Black Arms, lead by an alien called Black Doom. He looked a lot like Dark Gaia, actually... It seemed like he just wanted the emeralds…"

Sonic finished. "But he used them to warp the comet he came on down to Earth. It sprouted tentacles and started releasing this paralytic gas. He was going to use the people of Earth as food!"

"Lucky for us, Shadow had been created by him. He was immune to the gas and the mind control, and he destroyed Black Doom and the comet using the Eclipse Cannon—the same cannon that Eggman reverse engineered to create what we at Reflection HQ call the Gaia… uh, maybe I shouldn't teach you bad words, Chip."

Sonic gave Tails a slight glare.

"Why are they bad words?"

"Not important," dismissed the fox. "But I'm sure you're right about that, Sonic: extraterrestrial conquest. If not, why not hold off on the second ship, or even the first, until after we fail to contain Dark Gaia?"

"So when is this all going down? When do the ships leave?"

Tails passed a rough sketch of the colony ship to Sonic. Sonic glanced at it, seeming not to see what Tails' saw in that empty space. Still, Sonic wasn't an engineer. He answered his old friend's question: "When you rekindle the last emerald."

"Rekindle?" Sonic's eyes widen. "Where did you hear that term?"

"Eggman."

"Only person I ever heard say that before was Chip."

Chip rose a little in the air at the mention of his name.

"When he called the temples to form the Colossus… uh, giant robot fighter made of the temples, he said 'Seven Lights of the Earth Rekindled.' I think. I was kind of trying not to explode from pain at the time."

Tails started chuckling, trying to fight it. "You… oh my god. You mean Amy was right about that?"

Sonic chuckled, which sent Tails into a fit of laughter. "Man, it's crazy she figured it out, isn't it? I figured you'd be the first one to think of giant robots. But," Sonic redirected, "Why would Eggman use the term 'rekindled?' 'Reactivated' or 'restored' would be more his style."

Chip suggested, "The Gaia Manuscripts?"

"Maybe. He seemed to understand them better than Pickle, and they were Pickle's life's work. Still…"

"We'll just have to ask Amy," Tails decided. He walked over to the bathroom and started brushing mats out of his fur. "But anyway, launch is whenever we get the last emerald from you, and Eggman stressed taking off in a hurry. We're talking a five minute span from launch order to takeoff. His plan must have something to do with Dark Gaia."

Chip frowned, flying over to Tails. "It isn't just over when the continents are fixed," he explained. "There's a battle for Gaia supremacy in the center of the planet. Usually it's kind of a draw, but Dark Gaia seriously won the last one."

Sonic sat up. Tails could see him frowning in the bathroom mirror, the look in his eyes like the biolizard as Shadow pierced its festering sores, like the look on Eggman's face whenever someone brought up the Queen's lost baby. Still, despite his face, his voice stayed even, warm and curious. "So maybe Eggman is trying to change the venue." He added, with a hollow, sad grin, "Maybe to a place where a tentacle from Inner space isn't going to eject him from the party."

Tails cringed, flashing back to the comet, watching strange tentacles reach out of nowhere, seeing it pierce the skyline of Westopolis from the strange screens inside. "It's amazing how much Dark Gaia looks like Black Doom isn't it? And acts? I mean, the comet, it had tentacles… Dark Gaia has tentacles. And they both have that weird thing on their heads…" Tails held his hands out at the sides of his head. "They're like horns," he explained to Chip, "only they extend sideways. Kind of like your ears."

Chip put his fingers in his ears self-consciously.

Sonic glanced at him briefly, brow furrowing, but before Tails could make anything of the glance, he went back to smiling. "We can't all have perfectly vertical fox ears like Dr. Prower, Chip. Relax. Besides, you guys are like twins. Light and Dark Gaia, good and evil twins, fighting for the planet. You're kind of like me and Shadow." Then he quipped, "I'm sure in a couple million years you'll meet under the Mantle for drinks and talk about that dumb blue hedgehog who made all those dumb jokes."

Tails looked at Chip, who looked shocked.

"How would Dark Gaia know about your jokes?"

"How did he know that Eggman was nothing but trouble, and to kick him out of the center of the Earth?"

Chip looked away. "I wouldn't want to hang out anyway, even if we are twins. One of us creates, and one of us destroys. It wouldn't work."

"Tails creates and I destroy. We are—were… best friends."

"Were and will be," Tails corrected, which finally brought the smile to Sonic's face.

"But not are?" Chip begged, casting a pout at Tails. Tails absently mused that he'd seen a better pouty face on Eggman himself, but kept his comments to himself.

Sonic ignored the question, circling back to Chip, actually standing and extending a claw. "Chip, you don't have to be anything you don't want to be. Just like how, even when I'm the werehog, my personality doesn't change because I don't want to give in… You guys don't have to be enemies. You don't have to hate each other. If your… brother? Is that the right word. If your brother can put it aside you can keep struggling, but make it more of a fun thing."

Chip's jaw dropped, and so did Tails'. Did Sonic really suggest that?

"Sonic," Chip whined, flying over, taking one of Sonic's claws in his tiny, spiny hands. "If the light loses, Dark takes over. Look at the awful things that happen when that happens. Are you really ok with the world being like that for millions of years?"

Sonic frowned, thinking. "No. Not really. But does it help you fight to hate Dark Gaia? To look down on him? I mean, he's probably just doing what he knows how to do. Is it wrong? Yeah. Is it stupid? Yeah. But it wastes your energy to sit there sulking about it. I hate Eggman, but I try not to. It doesn't help me to hate him. I even… I even kind of miss our battles."

Tails smirked a little, remembering their mech fight earlier. If only Sonic hadn't been so scared… then it really might have been fun.

Chip flew away, over to a window, overlooking a large house on the shore. Tails remembered watching the house built when he'd come here to scour for information on what happened to Sonic. Chip put his little claws on the window sill and asked, "What if I can't help but hate?"

Sonic walked over, putting a claw on his little shoulder. Tails couldn't see, but he imagined Sonic's fingers wrapped all the way around to Chip's waist on the other side. "It's normal to hate your enemy in a war. But it's not the only way to do things. There's never just one way to do things."

Tails smiled. For the first time in a long time, for the first time all night, he finally recognized his old best friend. He sat down on the mattress across from Sonic's and lay down. "Now can we get some sleep? I can't do this whole all-night thing."

Sonic chuckled, though through a half open eye Sonic could see that he was displeased. "I can't sleep at night, but you get some rest. You need it."

As Tails drifted away, he wondered if Amy's hypothesis was right. Did Sonic lose because of his health? Was this a good idea, sleeping when Sonic couldn't, when surely Sonic would press on without rest in the morning? Maybe he could just get a little nap. Just rest his eyes… He heard movement, and felt someone throw a thin mosquito net over him. "Good night, Tails."

There was something about antiproton popsicles, a brief falling feeling, and then nothingness. He dreamed of searching the Floating Island for Mina the Songoose's new album with the Sonic he remembered… the Sonic he'd see again in the morning.

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So Sonic and Tails walked through the jungle, laughing and smiling, still reminiscing on old times. Chip found that he was jealous, jealous of having a friend, someone he could talk to. Someone who remembered what it was like to spend all this time with him, to have something to reminisce about. He found he was jealous of the memories, having only little bits and pieces scattered over millions of years, little battles and little memories. And the thing he remembered, the thing that haunted him, despite his own inner knowledge that there was nothing to be ashamed of in it, that it was as it was. How could he tell Sonic? Why would he tell Sonic? The truth, about Light and Dark, about the endless battle?

So he flew behind them, listening to their recollections, to their strategies, trying not to think of his own concerns about the upcoming battle, the battle which was going as none in millions of years had gone before. Not since the dinosaurs had things gone so completely crazy...

"So what are we doing?"

The fox looked down at his hedgehog friend, seeming nervous. "When we get closer we're going to put on my cloaks. We're going to infiltrate them and I'm going to use my clout as someone who actually worked with Light Gaia to get the scoop on what they plan to do. We won't find out much here in Adabat, I don't think, but it's worth it to try."

"Why not save the covert ops for Eggmanland?" Sonic asked.

"Think about this, Sonic. It's an urban area. It's directly run by a guy who hates you, has always hated you, whom you try to thwart at every turn. It's the last temple, with the last emerald, after which there is an approximately three hour window between you leaving and that last emerald getting to the ship."

Sonic stopped in his tracks. "Last time the emeralds went to the temples, when the temples came to us. Do you think Eggman means to stop Light Gaia from using the temples?"

Tails gasped, stopping also, turning to face them. "But why would he stop Light Gaia? That's what we've been fighting for."

Sonic reached over, tapping Tails' face lightly. "Tails, think about it! His entire city, all his factories, run on Gaia Power-the Gaia suppressors! He would have to reformulate them to use Light Gaia energy, if it can even be used the same way at all!"

Chip was pretty sure that it could, now that he thought about it. He decided not to share.

"So you think he's trying to make sure it lasts this time? But... that doesn't make any sense. I don't know if you know, Sonic but... he and Vanilla lost a baby over Dark Gaia."

Sonic's face froze in horror. He quickly muttered an excuse and disappeared off into the brush. While Chip felt bad for him, based on the sounds he was hearing, he didn't see what was so bad about Eggman and that pretty rabbit queen he had. She seemed perfectly attractive...

"I know, the thought of Eggman with anyone's a pretty nasty thought," Tails excused.

"Is it? He seems ok to me. Is it the moustache?" asked the sprite.

"It's the fat."

"What's wrong with the fat?"

Tails raised an eyebrow at Chip, just as Sonic came back, wiping his mouth. "Tails. Don't ever, EVER tell me about Eggman's personal life within two hours of sunrise or sunset again. Ok?"

"OK. I wonder why it makes you so sick. I mean, your stomach doesn't change."

"Amy thinks it has to do with changes in intracranial and intra-abdominal pressure. Shadow thinks it's a deep seated revulsion at what I've become. Doesn't explain why I get so sick turning back, except that now the possession is getting to me in the middle of the day, too. It's like, my body at night, my heart by day."

"Maybe you're possessed by both Light and Dark Gaia?" Chip volunteered.

The two men stared at him for a moment, Tails with a look of shock, and Sonic, with betrayal. Quickly, Chip backpedaled.

"I mean, do you think we're both in complete conscious control of every bit of our essence at every corner of the earth? Do you really think I'm this tiny little sprite and he's this big, old, smelly, core-sized thing? We exist in every part of you, every blade of grass, every inch of soil. And when we're out to play, sometimes those little pieces of us wake up."

Sonic frowned. "So it really was Light Gaia force that kept my sanity last time, and over these last few years."

"No. I mean, it can't have hurt, but you're probably the most self-aware person on the planet, this little guilt trip aside! Sonic, you don't need Light or Dark Gaia to keep you sane. It's just easier for you when they're in balance, both tugging opposite directions. But that's only happening now, now that everything's screwed up."

"You couldn't have told him that sooner?" Tails criticized.

"I've been tell you things as I remember them, ok? This whole waking up a couple million years early thing messes with my memory." Chip frowned, reminding himself that for most part, that wasn't untrue.

"Don't fight, you guys." Sonic wrapped an arm around both of them. "We all have a lot to learn about each other and ourselves. Best we take that at our own pace." He glanced at Chip, and Chip wondered if he had figured out the truth.

Something, perhaps the sneering voice of his twin in the wind, told Chip that Sonic had figured out the truth long before Chip himself had learned it.

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The boys crowded into a corner in the ancient stone, looking up at the vast expanse before them with varying degrees of awe.

In the afternoon sun, tiny gemstones on the palace glittered even in the distance, flashes dancing as the structure wavered in the air. Little men and women in little green cloaks were everywhere, scurrying around with jackhammers and handheld electronics. New wire stuck out of even newer stone and mortar, shining copper in the day. The soft hum of a hover device shook them lightly as the eastern half of the Gaia Palace of Adabat hung over the edge of the waterfall, suspending the pseudo-ruin in midair.

"I noticed all the temples were new, and faithful to the old ones," Sonic murmured. "But wires and panels. I hadn't noticed them before."

Tails gently pulled the binoculars from the hedgehogs' hands. "I remember Eggman telling me that he planned to make the temples more Gaia friendly. Easier to move. But I was mostly kept away from that project."

Sonic's shoulders fell, and he raised an eyebrow.

"My ego. 'That's for lesser men, Dr. Prower.'"

Sonic smiled uncomfortably, biting at the inside of his lip. "Don't take this the wrong way, buddy, but—"

"But I'm a lot like him, I know," Tails finished, grinning. "And I'm not ashamed. I'm what he might have been, if evil hadn't taken hold."

Sonic nodded. "There was… is… good in him."

"And there's evil in me, but I'm the boss of it."

Chip tapped on Sonic's shoulder. "Uh, guys? Temple?"

So Tails picked up the binoculars and peered through them. "If we have something appropriate in our hands, and we don't talk, we'll blend right in with our cloaks. Leave all the talking to me."

Sonic flashed a smile. "Because you don't have one of the world's most famous voices or anything."

"You think I haven't had to blend in before?"

Tails reached into a pouch on his belt, pulling out a tiny, curved piece of plastic with hooks along the inner curve. He pressed a few tiny buttons on it an clipped it into his mouth, in front of his lower teeth. Then he spoke, chirping, high and clear. "Who would question the loyalty of Lady Wave the Swallow anyway?"

Sonic blinked.

"It's not very comfortable," Tails offered in Wave's voice. "But it'll fool most people's ears. Not any voice print tech, though."

Tails handed a cloak to Sonic and put on his own.

"So where do I hide Chip?" Sonic looked at his body, trying to find a suitable place for the fairy to attach himself.

"You don't. You don't have anywhere. I'll put him in my Tails?"

"As Wave? I think you need a little padding up front; put him on your chest."

Chip suddenly burst into the air, horns waving with excitement, tail wagging. "YAY! I get to ride in the fluffy stuff!" He spun in the air, cheering.

Sonic and Tails glanced at each other, both raising eyebrows. Then Sonic laughed, and Tails joined him.

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He watched as the other scurried about, trying to get the Temple ready. It was an easy job, really, supervising, making sure the preparations were compliant with both Eggman's requirements and local custom and religion. It sure beat waiting for Sonic to come with a fishing line, anyway. Not that fishing wasn't enjoyable, it just didn't help Sonic any.

So Jamal sat there watching, waiting for someone to ask him something. And after a while, they did. A all furry woman—or a short human woman, very top heavy. When he heard her voice, however, he froze.

"You there, you're the site manager?" she chirped.

"Yes… and you're…"

"Not enough of an idiot to reveal my name, and I hope you aren't either," she quipped.

"Sorry."

A shorter furry behind her with a sloping silhouette waited, foot tapping underneath his emerald cloak.

She cleared her throat awkwardly. Jamal thought for a moment and held out a thermos. "Tea and honey, if you want."

She clucked disapprovingly. "I'm fine, thanks. I'm here to make sure this temple can withstand what is to come."

Jamal pulled out a clipboard with a checklist from the box at his left. "Inertial dampeners, hover platforms, exit and entry shielding are all go."

"And the rest?"

The shorter furry tapped faster.

"We're maintaining soil contact but cutting lose rock supports. No Dark Gaia possessees beyond perimeter unless their name is Sonic the Hedgehog. Why did He send You to check on us?"

She paused. "Ours is not to reason why." Jamal could tell from the way she said it that she was quoting, but it wasn't something he recognized.

The assistant—probably Jet—tapped his foot even faster. As he moved Jamal found himself drawn to look at the fellow's feet, finally catching a glimpse of a red shoe with a white strap and gold buckle, going up at down and impossible speeds.

"I'll escort you," he said, stepping up.

"What?"

"You can take out the mouthpiece, Doctor." Jamal grinned. "I saw your friend's shoes. We have a date with destiny."

hr

The Earth shook beneath them, and they grabbed hands as they prepared.

"A chaos control that far is essentially random. I'll zoom in on fake emeralds or chaos drives naturally. Jumping through the planet like that will make me very ill—long distance, a lot of time outside, a lot of navigating… I'll at least swoon, if not faint outright. You'll have to carry me out of the way of wherever we land."

"I can do that, Sonic. I've carried you before."

"I didn't completely change back, Tails. I'm bigger, heavier…"

"I grew up and I worked out. I didn't just develop my mind."

"This is it, Tails, Chip."

"I'm ready."

"We're crossing the Rubicon here."

"Just go, Sonic."

He closed his eyes, and they fell.