Tails doll: *Taps Metal, points nervously*
Metal: I'm well aware. It's been like this ever since I came back to collect Pen's old work. There's something here, but I have nothing, no way to display or describe it.
Silver: *Shivers* I don't like this…
PoA: Late, but my work will soon be finished. All times are too soon to be late, but date is of no consequence. PrisonofAnswers712 neither owns nor profits from his use of Sonic the Hedgehog characters or miscellaneous material patented by Sega Enterprises whom fun is made infinite with.
Tails doll: *Hides*
Silver: Wh-who?
Metal: No data available. Target appears to be PoC, however…
PoA: Reflective metal sheen made for dicing green, infected and radiating a shrill ruby gleam.
Metal & Silver: ?
Tails Doll: 8D *Spawns a bloodied kitchen knife*
Metal: Junior…
Tails Doll: :'(
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Puppet of Destruction
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"Master!"
"Master, will you endure this slumber forever?"
"Master!"
"Master, can we not break his mind together?"
"Master!"
"Master, show him mercy for his surrender!"
"Silence all of you. Let our host of honor speak."
"…"
"Have you no words? Very well, our puppet of preeminent wisdom would be wise to lend his ear to this message of treaty: Holder of the sacred seven, seal a pact with me, and your terms will be heard."
"A pact? What kind of fool d-do you think I am? Wh-why should I…"
"As your willing advocate, I will arbitrate on your behalf. Kneel before me in your heart. Do this, and I will ensure the survival of your kin. Even the revival of your significant one would not be beyond my doing."
"If…I refuse?"
"Chaos spreads destruction; unconditional chaos spreads destruction unconditionally. For those who deny us our judgment, as they must, the beast of our design will make slaughter of them as a penultimate sacrifice. Yet you alone may hold some sway over us, as you are the true reason for our grand completion."
"No, n-no I…I didn't…"
"Moral sapience combined with internal imbalance is the root of all chaos. Your passionate amalgam of solicitude and anguish have empowered and called to us. Your vessel will soon give birth to the Power of Chaos; that course is now unalterable. Thus again, I make my final offer: Holder of the sacred seven, seal a pact with me. Your mind with my incarnation can spare those you love from the cleansing fire yet."
"…I never wanted any of this."
"Thgil laitselec ressel eht neve…"
"Will they…forgive me?"
"Animret ot nruter yad eno tsum!"
"…"
"Sonic..."
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*With Sonic*
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Heat rose steadily in the facility's flashing halls. A classic feeling of narrow escapes and chain reactive explosions set the hedgehog hero's mind spiraling through nostalgia. Feet now locked in their infinite loop of intense velocity, something raw was pounding within Sonic's veins; his desperation had become both a state of being and mind, linked to his simple yet vehement desire to escape. Yet, running helplessly to evade dangerously elevated temperatures had reminded him of the unforgiving nature of this new world, and the limits of his own potential.
"Tikal, can't you just warp us out of here with your powers?" He reluctantly pleaded with the spirit, hating the defeat present within his tone. Graciously enough, the spirit appeared to hear his request out; enveloping both the hedgehog and the fox in a cloak of light that seemed snuff out the perspiring agony surrounding the two of them.
When the glow had dissipated, Sonic found himself in the exact same position, with one critical alteration: The heat ceased to burn his skin and his stamina felt rejuvenated. Due to his location remaining the same, Sonic knew it was again little more than a countdown before this blessing lost its value. Unquestioningly, he ignored his back-of-the-mind fear of possession, and utilized the extra time he had been given.
"Sonic…?"
His ear faintly twitched at the sound of his name, but leaping past obstacles in such haste left him no time for pondering. Exceedingly long seconds would pass, despite his rate of speed, before even a hint of an exit could be seen. Feeling the rising inferno breathing down his quills once more, Sonic took the leap of faith and latched his mildly bloodshot eyes on his goal. If alive is how he wished to leave Sonic would have to make his final departure swifter than the wind.
Fully pressing his gifted and innate strength ahead gave him one last, much required, boost as he ruptured a weak portion of underground facility. The ground seemed to give rumbling cry as he punctured his way out, into what looked to be another darkened segment of the factory. Eyes blurred from the singeing air and rocky debris rendered him partially blind, as the hedgehog struggled to make heads or tails of his surroundings.
"This must be part of that tower." He observed shakily, briefly concerned that his mind would be in peril due to the tower's curse. Unable to sense any mentally distorting images yet, Sonic chose to move forward with his free arm outstretched. Still temporarily visually impaired, the hero groped the dim light ahead of him, until a sudden shift in footing sent him plummeting to the ground. Thankfully, the stonework seemed to be covered in some overgrowth, cushioning his abrupt stumble.
"Tails, are you okay?" Sonic frantically asked, his hands unexpectedly falling on another patch of grassy earth below. Running his white gloves above the grassy soil, curiosity overtook the blue blur as he dug his fingers into a handful of soft earth. Rubbing his lids with his cleaner roughly, he saw a dull grey light fill his eyes. As the hazed veil started to lift from his gaze, the hero made an unnerving revelation.
"No way… Am I outside?" His words being swallowed by the open air confirmed this, yet it did nothing to explain the lingering darkness over the land. At first, he sighed and logically assumed he had arrived in the evening. This was before an angry crackling above revealed a rippling sea of clouds, distorted and radiating an unhealthy glow. Rips in the shadowed wisps of atmospheric moisture made the heavens look as though they were falling apart.
"No, not again. Is this all my fault?" Sonic whispered mournfully, when suddenly an explosion cracked his eardrums. The Sable Tower in the distance, secluded by a few remaining trees, let out a crumbling groan while erupting from within. Small blasts of flame barely licked around its edges as the tower caved in on itself.
Consumed by a sudden onset of fear and guilt, Sonic rose and took a weak step towards the crumpled structure. He made a total of seven strained paces forward before his exhausted supply of strength gave out again. Back down on his knees, the brave hedgehog look all around to see nothing but jets of fire bursting from the earth: No sign of his comrades, no trace of life anywhere. Peering across the ground nearby, he saw Tails, dead still and breathless where he lay.
Pulling together a second effort to move, Sonic crawled up and checked the fox for any hint of vitality. With no reassurance found, the hero's chest heaved out a strangled gasp as he laid his head against his friend's side. A raspy sob escaped his lips as Sonic struggled to accept the reality in front of him.
Yet while lost in his despair, the hero just barely noticed a radio's shrill whine of static near his shoulder. Broken out of his despondence temporarily, Sonic lifted his head and searched the device. Tapping part of it accidentally, the exuberant voice of Vector came pouring out of the hidden microphone.
"Sonic! Sonic, do you read me?" The hedgehog nodded numbly, struggling to find his own voice as the crocodile again demanded "Sonic, if you're hearing this, respond!"
Croaking down the lump in his throat, Sonic at last successfully replied "Ye-yeah I read you, Vector." On the other end, cheers and shouts could be heard. Joyful sounds of his allies served to sooth some of the hero's scarring sadness, as he let out a pair of grateful tears. This relief was only cut short by a closer eruption that shook Sonic and the lifeless fox nearby.
Straining to keep conscious, Sonic heard Vector shouting again "Sonic! It's time! Time to use the little gift I left ya! Near your right ear there should be a little mic next to a shiny red button, remember?"
"N-No I don't! What button?" Sonic strained to find what the Tactichaos ringleader asked of him. In a frantic hurry with furious fumbling, the hedgehog at last found a strange audio bug-like device embedded within his fur, only faintly recalling Vector planting it on him. A small red, pinky finger sized button indeed protruded from the peculiar creation "I found it, Vec. Now what do I do?"
"You've got that fox punk with you, right? Well there ain't time for personal space! Have that smart-mouth hold on to ya, or grab him by the scruff! Then, you know what we do with little red buttons, right?"
Without any patience to waste on the giant lizard's games, Sonic sunk down and took hold of Tails' shoulders. Hoping that all was not yet lost, he silently smashed his finger into the fragile device.
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*Onboard Vector's ship*
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No time passed between the digital splash of color and Sonic's sudden emergence into a homely brown setting. A fresh kind of warmth surrounded the hedgehog as someone's small arms enclosed around him. His senses, overwhelmed but starting to adjust made out a number familiar faces all smiling happily, nodding stoically or crying hysterically. Some shouting in the background indicated that Vector was busy piloting the Tactichaos ship out of harm's way. In the end, only thing Sonic could fully process was little Amy's kindly embrace and Tails' unresponsive face.
Trying not to comprehend only the negative, Sonic comfortingly patted the pink hedgehog's head and said "I guess I made you worry."
Amy looked up for a moment to shake her head and bangs, replying confidently "No way! My hero would never fail us so easily! Besides, I knew Tikal would protect you."
"It would have been my honor to do so, Amy. Yet my strength would have faltered if not for the aid of our dearly departed friend." Tikal's words interjected, echoing around with a mystic resonance.
As the team caught sight of her, she appeared far more corporeal than she had ever before, now only outlined with a ghostly distortion. Smiling in an almost bittersweet manner, the echidna lady took a glance towards Espio before saying "Sometimes our most profound losses lead to our greatest victories. Neither Aquamarine nor I had the power to help Sonic in his hour of dire need."
Dwelling on the matter seriously, Shadow spoke after a long pause "Yes, she helped us as well. Aquamarine informed us of her presence after our battle with the Chaos Spirits." Gravely grimacing at the truth, Shadow approached Espio and spoke softly "My condolences, friend. She meant much to all of us, but far more to you and Miles."
Espio's stern face contorted slightly at the dark one's words, but ultimately he pushed the crimson hedgehog aside to check on the silent fox. Rouge sidled up to Shadow, offering a shared look of sympathy for the chameleon. Charmy too buzzed silently in the background, rubbing his face into the shoulder of a quieted Maria. The entire team sat or stood in perfect silence as they counted their losses.
The purple lizard, meanwhile, continued to check on the vulpine with a look of panic straining his golden irises. After an extended period of examination and wordless prayer, Espio lifted his head, with eyes clamped shut as he revealed "Miles is…still alive." Turning his attention towards Sonic, who was now wearing a face of profound relief to the point of meltdown, Espio smiled and simply said "Sonic, I humbly offer you my thanks."
Maria too approached the weakened hedgehog and guardedly asked "Sonic, this isn't a good time, but Julian, I mean Robotnik, is he…?" Unable to complete her question, Maria waited for a response; however, the visual feedback from Sonic was enough to confirm her fears. Accepting her new reality tearfully, she turned away and wept in unison with the childish bee on her shoulder.
Sonic's head pounded with the mix of blessings and curses he had to consider all at once. Even as things now stood, he felt the responsibility, for all that had transpired, fall crushingly upon his shoulders. He had truly lost so little compared to the rest of his team, though still he had the issue of removing himself from this dimension to contend with. He knew that their victory would be hollow if his unwanted existence caused the space-time collapse it had been threatening all along.
"Alright people, hang tight! We've got a bit of turbulence incoming!" Vector's voice over the intercom scarcely preceded a frightful jarring that shook the entire ship. Bracing for a second rattling, Espio instructed the crew to strap themselves in with provided safety restraints. Only half of the team managed to maintain any sort of stability, as the next wave smacked the ship aggressively.
"This…feels so unnatural." Shadow commented with remarkable calmness "The chaos in the air is dense, very dense. It feels as though the land itself is saturated in it."
Sonic seemed to understand this message better than the others. Hardly able to stand due to muscular weakness and the ship's growing instability, the hero doggedly summoned up enough strength to climb into to the cockpit, shouting "Vector! Set the ship down!"
"You've gotta be insane, kid!" The crocodile growled, struggling to get the controls to heed him "Forget it! Just buckle down and I'll get us through this!" Vector struggled for surety, yet no matter how much effort he put into keeping the ship level, the storm was gradually winning the battle. A repeated wind slashing was forcing the ship down one gust at a time.
"Land it now!" Sonic ordered fiercely, at last getting through to the stubborn, scaly mobian. They came down with a snapping that seemed to rock the core of their ship. Now they were grounded with no hope of escaping the isle by any sky route.
Understanding the gravity of their hopeless situation, Sonic limped his way back down the narrow stairs to meet the rest of the team. Vector locked the controls in and quickly lumbered his way over to assist the injured hedgehog's descent.
The two emerged from the doorway with their piece of disappointing news. Each crew member then began debating the cause of the raging storm, yet even Tikal and Shadow had no absolute answers to offer. After serious deliberation, both drew a conclusion from varying sources of information (Tikal from Chaos, Shadow from Robotnik): The source of their failed departure may well have much to do with one particular outsider among their group.
All resisted the urge to speak, as any decision made, however necessary, seemed too sudden and far too cruel to make. Even so, Sonic himself comprehended that his coming to this world by mistake had been the source of countless catastrophes. Indeed, he had been planning to resolve this disaster ever since Shadow as Maasawd had first enlightened him with the truth. Now with Tails in his catatonic state, Amethyst dead and the Chaos Emeralds out of their reach, the possibility of finding a way home seemed slim. The crisis he had inadvertently begun would not be so easily resolved. The hero now felt certain that only one option remained.
Uncertain of what to say, Sonic gave his dear allies a determined look as he wordlessly exited the ship. Shadow, Maria, Tikal, Vector and Amy immediately followed after him whilst Espio and Charmy tended to Tails, and Rouge to an isolated Knuckles. His team chased the staggering cobalt hedgehog down a wildly stormy field, where at last the hero halted. One after another they tried to approach him, but each time Sonic stiffly commanded them to back off.
"Sonic, I can feel your thoughts; I know what you plan to do." Tikal tried beckoning to him "Sacrificing yourself to the Guardians of Earth will not assure the salvation of this world. You would be wise to wait; perhaps I can appeal to them! There is even a nearby system of caves by which we may alternatively escape. We can still find another way!" With clasped hands she begged him with vulnerable sincerity.
Sonic resolutely shook his head and countered "You know I don't belong here, Tikal. In this world, I'm not really Sonic or anyone for that matter. I got sucked into this world by mistake, and look at the mess I've made! Tails will never get to see Amethyst again, Maria's family is gone and now this world is falling apart!" Trying not to be overcome by internal torment, Sonic brushed his needless grieving aside and announced his solution "But there's a chance I could stop all this. If I get erased, there is a possibility that things might go back to normal. At least…no one else will get hurt because of me."
Shadow growled slightly at the younger hedgehog and exclaimed "Seems to me that you have found a convenient outlet for your self-sacrificing cowardice!" Amy and Tikal both scolded the ruby trimmed anti-hero for his callousness, but this did not stop Shadow from adding "Robotnik had been planning all this long before you had arrived; my possession and the loss of the original Sonic are testaments to that fact. Submitting to the judgment of the Spirits will merely deprive Miles of another loved one in his life. You're a fool to think that your death will resolve anything."
Glaring harshly at his darkened double, Sonic never found an adequate response before the torrential skies fell silent. A sort choking anticipation hung in the place of the presently deadened storms; the new quietness had frozen the band in place for a hushed duration of time. Waiting and watching warily, each hero was expecting something of a divine entrance, or else a destructive reprisal of earth-breaking winds. Curiously, neither instance came to pass, leaving far greater room for puzzlement and trepidation.
"Sonic…"
Jumping out of his trance, the hedgehog jerked his head around, swearing that he recognized that voice. While the exact source eluded him, Sonic senselessly tracked the whisperer down, finding as a result that he had merely retraced his steps. Once again, he found himself near Vector's ship.
"Sonic!"
Espio unexpectedly appeared out of nowhere, his violet forehead now lightly coated with sweat as he asked "Sonic, I can't find Miles! I had only left him for a moment to scour our medical stockpiles, but… I can't understand it! He was in no position to speak, much less move!" The chameleon panted as if he had been searching quite frantically, but resisted any offered comfort as he struggled to explain further "I thought perhaps he was still aboard the ship, but then I noticed the front hatch: It had been smashed to pieces, as if by a well-contained detonation."
"Sonic…"
Again, the whispering resumed amidst his conversation with Espio. None of the others showed signs of hearing what the cobalt hero had, so Sonic departed alone and continued to pursue the one calling his name. At first he felt quite sure the voice belonged to his missing fox friend, yet the pitch of the said voice was inconsistent; each new call caught by his ears seemed markedly different from the last. Like the battle within his mind, it seemed that many voices were calling for him at once.
"He's here, I know he is." Sonic paused to survey the gloomy landscape. With no amazement, he spotted a ragged pile of yellow-orange fur, partially concealed by tall blades of grass. Stepping over to the body, he gently picked up the vulpine, switching between a frown and a smile as he did.
"Tails." Sonic barely murmured his friend's name. Too many thoughts to speak aloud had scattered his rational sense completely. Mute and afraid to ask what else had gone wrong, Sonic reverted to old habits; he plopped down by Tails' side, placing his hand on the fox's head.
During these fraternal acts of sympathy, a minor drumming or rumbling stabbed Sonic's senses. All at once, the sound, initially similar to that of distant thunder, crashed and tore into his hearing like the scream of a nearby lightning strike. Clamping his ringing head, Sonic opened a single emerald eye to see that Tails had opened his. To the hedgehog's horror, the fox's optical pigments were flashing and shifting violently.
Sonic found himself ripped through the air, landing a good distance away from his friend. Reflexes had broken the worst part of his fall, and had additionally tossed in an adrenaline rush to clear his clouded head. For a split moment, Sonic partly understood what had happened to Tails; he had been given just enough fortitude to look at the latest atrocity that had befallen the ill-fated Miles.
Glimmering with a cool but blazing blue aura, the fox stood upright with his two tails lashing behind him like electrified beacons. Frigid and infernal air flowed interchangeably out from Miles' enigmatic state. Excess energy exuded from his body made it seem as though he could erupt any second. Between the lines of matter disruption and optical distortion, the single detail Sonic could make out clearly was the frightened, angry and ultimately sorrowful expression Tails showed him, as he sporadically spoke "S-Son-Sonic. You, you…Sonic, you are, Sonic."
Lost in whatever world Tails' words had drawn him into; Sonic replied "I'm here, Tails. I'm…here for you."
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End of Chapter Fifty-three
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Let the final battle commence! Just…as soon as I have it rewritten and edited *braces for the wrath of angry mobs*. Hmm? No one? Eh, I suppose shouldn't expect it after these delays. However, I would really appreciate feedback on this chapter, even if you're brand new to this story. I can take it if it's negative, but even now I won't tolerate absurd flaming or insults. Let me say it this way: If I did something wrong, let me know. If I left something out, let me know. If I did something good or wrote anything pleasing to the senses, I hope any of you reading, you guessed it, let me know! I'm not begging, but it takes energy for my wee little brain to write this nonsense, so I do hope for some feedback. Next time I write a Reason length fic, if ever, I will remember to keep the chapters down to a more reasonable size. No pun intended.
Until next time!