Chapter 6: Wipe
"Pull, Cheese, pull!"
Tails' cognition didn't return until his friends tugged him out of the dust storm. By that point, the GUN force field had grown big enough to capture most of Station Square. He wheezed at the realisation of what could have happened had Cream and Cheese been a moment too slow.
"You saved me. You saved my life!" He said it twice and still couldn't believe it. A nervous smile adorned his face, unsure if he should be happy to escape with his life or terrified at the odds stacked against him.
"We did it as a team. Right, Cheese?"
Cheese gave him a confident thumbs up. He didn't have thumbs, but Tails nodded to the gesture, anyway.
"Teamwork, that's right," Tails said and bit his lip, facing his friends. None of the remaining options could go painlessly. "Do you trust me?"
"I-I do."
"Chao!"
Tails raised the emerald in his hand as he glared down at the red energy dome. "The power of a Chaos Emerald is enormous, but I can't beat this…thing on my own. I need you two to trust me. It has to work."
"What are you going to do?"
"Hurt you." He offered her to touch the Chaos Emerald, well aware of what would happen. Seeing her devastation, Tails wanted someone else to make an example. "Cheese?"
The Chao pressed his hand against the jewel and looked at Cream invitingly. He, too, knew the consequences of her interacting with it, yet this was necessary to unlock the emerald's full potential.
She approached them, reluctance welling in her eyes, "Are you sure there's no other way?"
"A Chaos Emerald contains positive and negative energy. I need you to close the loop if we are to stand a chance."
"Okay…"
Cream hissed the moment her hand touched the emerald's surface. Its immense heat cracked through her skin, needling a pain deeper than she thought physically possible. Tails and Cheese also felt it, having become a lightning rod for the energy storm coursing through the emerald.
With so much destructive energy at their disposal, the trio spun around the gem, thrust forward like a flaming drill, slowly burning them away as it travelled to its destination.
At the same time, the dome expanded further, an ever-growing projection of Eggman's mad smile coming their way. The monster responsible for this was taunting them and they could hear its voice above the howling winds and the fire branching out of the emerald.
"Come! See! Become!"
Tails closed his eyes as he braced for impact. His arm was beginning to shake and he could only imagine how bad it was for Cream and Cheese. It was too late to turn back.
He sought solace in his rationale to defy the presence growing ever louder in the back of his head, "There's nothing to see when you combine positive and negative Chaos energy. There's nothing to become. Only annihilation, you monster!"
The multi-coloured emerald drill spun into the projection of Eggman's teeth, which caused a flash of light so bright it momentarily eclipsed the shadow's ray. Cracks spiderwebbed the image until the trio's combined speed and determination let them break through. A section of the dome blinked out, the gap reaching down all the way to the ground.
"We're through!" Tails exclaimed.
"We're in!"
"Chao!"
They let go of the emerald together to have it fall to the ground in a flash. It was hot enough to melt the pavement it landed on. Tails resisted looking at what the jewel did to his hand; standing up was the bigger challenge since the hit took more out of him than he had anticipated.
Rasping for air, he looked around. The gap they've made in the force field was already glossing over with fresh energy, but it gave a few of the city's survivors, including Vanilla, the chance to follow them.
"Not yet," she said, licking her disfigured lips. "Come to mama!"
She lunged at Cream, determined to finish what she started, only to be struck down by Tails. He didn't have to hold back after tossing away the notion he was fighting Cream's mother. It was a monster, a perverse replica created by the shadow that had nothing to do with the real Vanilla. Vanilla died when she jumped out of the window of her apartment and it looked like Cream was beginning to accept that.
"Fly, Cream! Get to the train!" he yelled.
"What about you?"
"I have an idea!" he lied. A twin-tailed decoy toting a Chaos Emerald was the best he could come up with.
Vanilla fidgeted out of the hole in the ground he kicked her in. "Going to hurt yourself again? I can help!"
"Help yourself." Tails growled after picking up the still-hot Chaos Emerald and holding it up in front of him like a sword.
It didn't seem to make an impression this time. Vanilla chuckled as she approached him and swatted the emerald away.
"How?!"
She pointed at the red sky. There were no clouds and no sight of the dust storm, just a distorted ever-changing reflection of what lay inside. He wasn't a part of that image.
He didn't intend to be, albeit not in the way Vanilla had in mind. She took a low swipe at him, earning him another scar and a reminder about dodging. The surroundings were working against him and so were the GUN troops, now aware of his presence. They were going to overwhelm him.
Tails rolled to pick up the Chaos Emerald and was about to join Cream inside the train station when a round of bullets whizzed past his tails. The soldiers' weapons were operational even though the creatures holding them stopped being soldiers after succumbing to the shadow's influence.
Vanilla didn't like the competition to end Tails' life and got furious when they started firing at her instead of him. Tails watched in bewilderment as she held him by the leg upside-down while more and more rounds plunged in her back. She had no armour or anything to repel the attacks; she just stood there and took their punishment like nothing happened until a missile knocked her and Tails down.
"No! This boy is mine," Vanilla slurred before she turned to Tails. "Aren't you?"
Shell-shocked, Tails watched the surroundings float and wave in front of his eyes. He could have been sitting down, standing or walking in circles – he wasn't sure. The one thing he knew was that the explosion freed him from Vanilla's claws, if only for a moment.
Her blood-thirsty grimace, despite being interrupted by the occasional scowl when a bullet hit her, was fast approaching. Tails' chances remained low as long as his senses were impaired by the explosion. Moving in any direction felt like swimming through soup. His mind was playing tricks on him without the energy dome warping every sensation to suit the shadow's will.
The giant golden mech projecting the dome caught his eye. GUN agents turned into savage beasts congregated at its feet, devouring what remained of their former comrades who did not fall to the creeping insanity.
Whatever the shadow did to corrupt the soldiers, it gave them superhuman strength and speed. They paid a steep price for the increase in power by being reduced to slaves of hypertrophied instincts. Their bodies weren't built to withstand such changes; Tails saw their skin crack apart like scorched mud, plots of unharmed flesh growing ever more distant as they continued to be exposed in the dome.
"Hurry, Tails!" he heard Cream's distant cry.
"Yes, hurry…hop right in my mouth!"
Vanilla gave him the wakeup call he needed. Tails hopped as high as he could, much to her disappointment, and spun his tails to fly to the top of the golden mech.
His spurt of speed didn't last; gunfire had him skidding face-first on one of the mech's operational missile launchers. The radioactivity warning label next to an exposed warhead reminded him the consequences of a misstep.
The goons at the machine's feet must have realised his intentions by now. They roared and shrieked in their attempts to scale the golden armour to reach him. Vanilla led the charge.
Tails groaned as he forced his battered body towards the cockpit. He found the dashboard intact. Bloodied, but intact.
All he had to do was find the thing that disabled the dome. If Tails knew industrial design, and he imagined he did, he was looking for a big and shiny switch made in a way that avoided accidental activation.
His pupils darted left and right in search of something similar. A Metal Sonic bobblehead toy gyrating by the controls mocked his efforts. There was the nuclear launch button, keyed in and ready to fire. Someone had broken off the self-destruct switch and he was horrified to learn he didn't have the time to look more.
A familiar claw crushed the toy as Vanilla leapt into view. Tails ducked behind the pilot's seat to avoid behind hit and saw her slice into it. Vanilla struggled to get it out to strike Tails. She was stuck.
"Brains over brawn," he quipped.
She didn't take it well. Vanilla thrashed while beating the heavy metal seat into submission. The sea of disfigured bodies climbing towards him was halfway to the cockpit.
It was difficult enough to focus without Cream crying for help from inside the train station. Then, Vanilla stopped bashing the chair and appeared on the dashboard in front of him.
"You forgot beauty!"
Shock spilled over his muzzle, but that didn't slow his attack, a tail swipe that took Vanilla off her feet. She rolled down the dashboard before landing face-first on the metal floor.
"Beautiful!" Tails mocked. "I won't ask how you got there…"
The dome flickered. It wasn't just a glitch; the flickering intensified and Tails nearly forgot about Vanilla getting back up right next to him when he learned the reason.
She hit the nuclear launch button during her fall.
The dashboard lit up with all sorts of warnings. The mech couldn't handle keeping the dome up and firing a nuke at the same time.
A hint of Vanilla's former self broke through when he faced her. Seeing a monster stop to think about what was about to happen frightened him even more.
She wasn't concerned by the nuclear explosion, though. Her startled gaze was fixated on the shadow's energy beam. If the dome malfunctioned, the beam could hit the ground, and the last time this happened it reduced the Station Square airport to a smouldering crater.
"Do you really care about her? My daughter?"
Vanilla's question baffled him. The tenderness of her voice clashed with the bloodied grin that worded it out. Was this a trick or was she honestly expecting a reply? Tails bit his lip. He didn't have to speak for her to read him like an open book.
"Good. Save her."
He didn't get the hint, so the rabbit lunged at him.
"Save her!"
Tails dodged the hit by jumping to the far end of mech's nose only to slip and be surprised by Vanilla, who somehow managed to appear in front of him again.
"Why? Why are you doing this?" he asked Vanilla. He wasn't addressing the monster licking its teeth at the promise of an easy fox meal; he meant to speak to the real Vanilla. She was still there, be it a blessing or a curse.
"My daughter will tell you soon enough."
Corrupted GUN soldiers materialised above the mech, tiny portals closing behind them. Tails gasped at the revelation.
Chaos Control. The monsters learned Chaos Control.
Tails pushed himself off the walker before dozens of hostiles landed where he used to be. They weighed down on the mech and more kept piling on until it lost balance and collapsed on the ground.
He rolled up to spindash to the train station without skipping a beat. Parts of the dome began disintegrating and it was obvious to him that either the pending nuclear launch or the shadow would wipe the city off the map.
By the time he reached Cream, he was as dirty as the tiny rabbit. Tails stopped worrying about who or what stood in his way to the goal. The GUN goons were doomed in the first place.
He found her on her knees, weeping. A dismembered Chao lay in a puddle of viscera and rabbit tears.
"Cream?"
"Cheese… Why did it have to be him? My only friend…"
The monsters seemed to be more interested in Tails than Cream. He took it as a sign that Cream might not be Cream for long.
"He died, so we may live," said Tails. She was going to grieve about losing more only friends if they didn't get a move on.
"No!" She glared at him. Her face had worse stains than the rest of her. "He's gone, Tails! He didn't have to go!"
Tails tried to ignore the lingering question: was she the one to do it? He felt it would be healthier to forget about the matter entirely and focus on getting away with what they had left – their lives.
"Let it go, Cream." He motioned towards the train.
GUN Hunters and Egg Pawns stood guard while a few Egg Hammers loaded cases of metal capsules that looked like miniature Prison Eggs. The guards did not interfere in the imminent standoff. They would be glad if their foes finished each other off.
"No!"
"We need to leave. Look!" Tails grabbed her hand to get her off her knees and make her see the horde of corrupted GUN soldiers storming into the train station.
He came to regret being forceful. Cream's hardened fingers cut into his palm as she pulled away. The little rabbit had formed claws nearly as menacing as her mother's. Tails feared what would follow.
"I'm staying with Cheese!"
Tails' heart sank at her resolve. He had to gather all of his courage to take a step forward and there she was, ready to sacrifice herself beyond any doubt.
"I promised your mother I'd save you and-" His voice cracked. Violent screams climbing up the stairs, guns cocking on the platform. This could be their farewell.
Cream raised her head, looking at him dead on. "A-and?"
"I'm saving you."
His injured hand shook as he offered it to her. Tails couldn't hide the physical pain, but he hoped to spare her the tears. At least one of them had to appear strong. Their enemies already had every other advantage.
Cream looked at her Chao friend's remains and at the fox's hand. She was sad for it to come to this. She had failed her mother. One mistake after another, she had forsaken her past, repeatedly hurt her friends and acted like the spoiled selfish girl that she was.
She did not deserve Tails' trust. She was going to hurt him more, and she could tell he was ready for it. Tails would let her hurt him whenever she stumbled and she would continue to stumble because that was all she could do. A miserable worthless bunny could not be saved from her misery…
Could she?
The shrieking monsters reached the platform. Tails couldn't wait as the robots behind him opened fire. He closed his eyes, shedding the tears held back by hope, and lowered his hand. He didn't have the heart to say goodbye.
Just as he turned to leave, he felt being pulled back. It was Cream. She desperately clung to his arm, whispering how sorry she was to keep burdening him.
A weight came off his shoulders when he saw her rise to her feet. His heart was racing strangely out of tune to the gunfire they were dodging on approach to the train. They remained in mortal danger, but they remained together.
When the train horn announced a hasty departure, it became apparent that their enemies failed to separate them. Tails and Cream dashed tag team-style through the robot guards until nothing remained between them and the last train carriage.
It took a few good breaths lying flat on the train's roof for them to truly realise what happened. They made it out of the meat grinder alive and closer than ever.
If he wasn't still trying to catch his breath, Tails would have yelled in exhilaration. Instead, he just turned to his side and stared blankly at the massacre growing ever more distant. The robots GUN left behind rained fire upon their ex-commanders and those they were charged to protect. Survivors gnashed their teeth against their attackers.
Circuitry would lose this battle to flesh. Under the shadow's influence, nothing short of the nuclear explosion could stop their rampage. It shined through the fallen mech's shell, the burning bodies and crumbling buildings. The whole city was put to rest.
The shadow remained. Enraged with having its thralls taken away, it wreaked havoc on whatever rubble the nuke left behind.
A sigh of much-needed relief escaped Tails' lips. "We did it, Cream. Against all odds, we did it."
There was no proper reply, just a muffled whimper.
"Cream?"
The sound of an Egg Hammer swinging its weapon at his head drowned out his curiosity.
"Hedgehog, priority one: location unknown."