Chapter 8: Details
Tails retained his poker face when Metal sprang his trap. "It must be embarrassing for you to need GUN's help to fight us."
None of the robots that surrounded Tails and Cream seemed to acknowledge the insult. Then, Metal Sonic glanced at an Egg Hammer.
"Let me lay the ground rules for you."
The armoured giant swung its hammer right next to Tails' feet and made a hole big enough to fall through. Tails gulped at what he saw as he looked down: nothing, just a pitch black void. Eggman must have had a knack for travel above lethal drops.
Metal continued, "I don't need hostages where I'm going." He paused until Tails frowned at the words; this was a stab at what the fox had told Shadow earlier. "So what will it be, your tails or her ears?"
He didn't get an answer.
"Your tails or her ears?"
Tails was fuming inside, but he did his best to hide it. Metal had to be bluffing. There was no way he'd commit to such a thing. It had to be one of those idle threats Metal picked up from Eggman, who frequently used them to intimidate his enemies. Well, it wouldn't work on Tails because he saw right through the act: Metal had nothing to gain from maiming them and would therefore stop short of acting on his threat.
Satisfied with his analysis, Tails smirked defiantly. Metal turned his attention to Cream, shaking like a leaf next to Tails.
"Cut the rabbit's ears off."
An Egg Hammer restrained Cream while an Egg Pawn armed with a blade approached her. Cream lacked the strength to break the giant's grip and was effectively gagged when it squeezed most of her tiny body with both hands.
Her tears begged for mercy as they flowed down the captor's armoured fingers, but her muffled cries told Tails she wasn't going to get any. If Metal wanted to scare Tails, he'd have made Cream scream at the top of her lungs to coerce the fox. This really wasn't a hostage situation; Metal intended to slaughter her to make a petty point!
"No, wait!" Tails put up his arms defensively. Seeing that the robots ignored him and readied the blade for a swing, he lunged at the Egg Pawn only to be struck down by the others.
"Why? Do you volunteer?"
"I'll…I'll do what you want."
Metal motioned for the Egg Pawn to move away from Cream. She escaped the blade for now, but the Egg Hammer was still intent on crushing her. As Tails pondered the consequences of yielding to Metal, the hedgehog robot approached him, prone on the floor, and rubbed his metal knuckles against the fox's bangs to humiliate him.
"You heard him." With that, another Egg Hammer pinned Tails down. The fox gasped at what was up: he had miscalculated. Metal said, "I want a volunteer."
The Egg Pawn stepped towards its new victim. It held the blade high and proud as it neared retribution for generations of robots the fox had destroyed. A GUN Hunter held his tails in place.
"Cream, don't look."
Unwittingly, he gave Metal an idea. Cream joined the fox on the floor and she was now free to shriek or bash her head bloody to her heart's content. The rabbit was beyond thrashing, though, either to spite her captors or out of exhaustion.
She just wept quietly. Metal would have none of it. The next time her eyes shot open, she saw a lance less than a hair away from one of her irises. One false move and it would pierce the eye.
"Use them or lose them," Metal threatened.
Tails screamed at the cruelty, "You sick metal copy! Just you wait, Shadow will be back and kick your-sss…"
He couldn't carry on. The blade cut into his tails, but the pain paled in comparison to what Metal had in store for him.
"Shadow delivered you to me. You would be wise not to trust him."
"No! I don't believe you! He saved us! Ah!"
The blade sliced through the stem, removing one of his tails. Tails resisted crying while his mind flooded with images of punishment he would have Metal experience before erasing from existence the very atoms the despicable robot was made of.
"You don't look saved. Which is more than I can say about your friends from Station Square."
When the blade removed his second tail, the fox was beyond anguish. He felt hollow, as if a piece of him was taken out and he had nothing to fill the void with.
"Why don't you just kill me?"
Metal knelt in front of the fox and stared at him until defiance returned to his expression. "Because you will do what I want."
Tails spat at Metal. "I have nothing to lose."
"The rabbit's ears, then."
"Wait! I changed my mind."
The Egg Pawn appeared in front of the fox. It was holding the bloodied appendages like a trophy.
"Priority one, hedgehog: location unknown," it droned. Then, it played back a recording with Tails' voice: "Sonic the Hedgehog is on board with me. Do you copy?"
"Explain."
"I lied, okay? I did what I had to do to survive."
"You did. This time tomorrow the world will blame your friend for the destruction of Station Square."
Cued by Metal, the Egg Pawn demonstratively took one tail and dropped it into the hole. Tails grunted.
"No one is going to believe your lies!"
"They'll believe yours, fox. GUN surveillance will vouch for you."
A GUN Hunter projected a video feed of Vanilla's home. She was looking out the window. The building, the street and Vanilla herself were as pristine as Cream remembered them.
"Mama!" the rabbit exclaimed without meaning to.
A dark hedgehog could be seen speeding into the building. His entry prompted Vanilla to disappear from view by going deeper into the room.
"That's not Sonic…" Tails muttered. The next thing he saw in the projection was the hedgehog relentlessly spindashing into Vanilla before throwing her out the window. "It's a fake…" The third cut had Tails lower his head in defeat. It was a recording of him breaking GUN drones. "You won't get away with this…"
He caught the sight of his second tail falling into the hole. Metal knew how to break a person, that much Tails could give him credit for. The thorough abuse left both Tails' body and mind in tatters, fuming at his helplessness as every attempt to get out of the predicament served to drag him down more. Metal made it clear he'd show Tails no mercy. He was just waiting for an excuse. When Tails refused to give him one, he turned to the weeping rabbit girl.
"Please, Mr Metal, sir," she begged. "We don't mean any harm! Just let Tails go. Please. Please!"
Tails shook his head. If Metal had a mouth, he would have put Eggman's grin to shame.
The Egg Hammer lifted Tails off the floor and held him upside-down by his feet. It stomped to the hole that Tails' parts had gone in. For the first time in his life, Tails felt what it was like to be afraid of heights.
He didn't blame Cream for playing into Metal's hand. She struggled bravely to come to his aid and even managed to puncture her captor's metal hand before being beaten down like a stray pup.
"Let him go."
The feeling of weightlessness scattered his thoughts of bidding Cream a meaningful farewell. He screamed into the void beneath him and cowered upon hearing it yell back at him. Before his head got through the hole, a bloody maw ready to swallow him emerged from it. It was Vanilla.
Gravity jolted him all of a sudden and the Egg Hammer jerked Tails away from the opening, so another hammer-wielding robot could present its weapon to the new intruder.
Having expected a meaty crunch, Tails was horrified when the maw started chewing into the hammer until there was enough room for Vanilla's claws to slip inside the train carriage. She spat hot shrapnel as she rose fully into view.
The robots opened fire. Vanilla shook from the number of bullets piercing her flesh. Her claws, targeted by lasers, couldn't offer enough grip for her to avoid falling back through the hole. Missiles followed her into the darkness.
Metal wanted to hear an explosion, but it never came, so he took off the engineer's hat and pulled out the Chaos Emerald he had hidden in it. The emerald was exactly like the one Tails used to have. If only Tails could find a way to take it from Metal; he'd be unstoppable.
When Vanilla used Chaos Control to warp back inside and sliced an Egg Pawn in half, Metal didn't seem as surprised as Tails had hoped. Metal affixed the Chaos Emerald to his arm cannon and fired a warning shot in front of Vanilla's feet. The energy blast disoriented her.
"They won't find your body. Leave now." Metal followed up on the threat by rushing towards her with the cannon lit up like a beacon, about to fire at full power.
The light blinded Tails and Cream, and they could only guess what it had to be like for Vanilla. She was gone by the time it was safe for them to open their eyes. Tails wished that she had lost her sense of self-preservation. There was no telling how strong she would become under the shadow's continued influence.
"She will be back," said Metal. It was a warning, not an observation.
Metal stood there in silence, as if contemplating his next move, until the deep sound of the train horn interrupted the process. The train was beginning to brake.
The Egg Hammer released Tails. He was unprepared for such a turn, so he plonked on the floor and stared at Metal in disbelief. When Metal removed the Chaos Emerald from his cannon and chucked it to land next to Tails, the fox took a moment to let the action sink in.
Was this another trick? He couldn't tell. What would Sonic do?
Grab it.
He leapt at the gem and held it tight, afraid that it would be taken away from him the very instant he allowed himself hope that things would get better. That was why he dispelled such thoughts and embraced the pain that came with touching the emerald.
Tails' fingers caught fire as he experienced the same reaction Cream did upon receiving the gem after being exposed to the shadow. It cracked past his skin to flay his very flesh down to the bone. His eyes hadn't fully recovered after the first flash and he barely felt his hearing give up on him, overwhelmed by his blood-curdling screams. It was a price he was willing to pay to have the lingering corruption that had turned Vanilla into a monster burned out of him.
In the end, the pain stopped and the emerald cooled down. What he saw exceeded all expectations – his hands looked like new. Clean fur glazed over his wounds and replaced the dirty matted areas. This was almost too much to take in. Fresh energy coursed through his veins and he had nothing to fear as long as he had the emerald.
"You will deliver Sonic to me."
Tails smiled deliriously and shook his head. That stupid robot was expecting a favour for giving back what he had stolen? Tails showed Metal what he thought of it by spindashing at him.
A dark blue blur met Tails half-way. They clashed, making pronounced dents in the train's lining with every hit. Sparks flew as Tails gave everything he had to repay Metal for the humiliation he experienced by the robot's hand.
Tails found himself pummelling Metal senseless into a wall, one homing attack after another. It gave him great pleasure to see Metal cease fighting back, acknowledging Tails' superiority. This didn't mean Tails had to stop. He'd not only defeat his enemy, but top Sonic by destroying Metal once and for all. He'd have Metal's head!
Just as the image of Tails twisting off Metal's head from the rest of the scrapheap materialised in his imagination, the robot's claw clutched firmly around Tails' neck and Metal returned to his fighting stance.
"How is this possible? I have a Chaos Emerald! You can't fight-" Tails stopped mid-sentence and gasped. Something was wrong. He couldn't feel the emerald's energy anymore. "-that kind of power."
"An artificial Chaos Emerald, depleted."
Metal let Tails go and paced around him. The fox was devastated. It was exactly like he had predicted – he got to the point he thought he could win and was struck down. Shame weighed on him more than Metal's drilling gaze.
"You will deliver Sonic to me." Metal continued circling Tails while the other robots pulled out an empty red pod and placed Cream inside. She wanted to at least try fighting them off, but one look at Metal stifled her spirit. The rabbit felt it was better for Tails this way. "I don't need hostages where I'm going. You have 48 hours."
With that, the pod sealed shut and most of the robots vacated the premises, likely to return to their regular posts. Tails realised the bargain was struck without him having a say in it. Metal read him like a book, something he wished could be mutual. The robot's change of heart about letting them live puzzled Tails.
"And if I fail?"
"You will wish I fed the rabbit to her dying mother." Metal removed Rouge's GUN badge from his chest plate and handed it to Tails. "Use this when you're ready."
Tails glared at him, but took the badge. "What about my emerald?"
Metal looked away. The train was about to stop. "It is coming for you."
He then turned to pick up the red pod with Cream inside. Metal was leaving.
"Wait! Promise me you won't hurt Cream."
The robot's head twisted 180 degrees to face Tails while his rocket boosters lifted him off the ground.
"I promise you, Miles 'OBSOLETE' Prower."
He flew away with Cream in-hand just as the train reached its destination and the doors opened. Tails peeked outside and was dismayed to find out where it got him – under another Eggman dome. This time, in one of the villain's outposts hidden deep beneath the surface.
The doctor himself was there on the railway platform.
"Ho-ho-ho! Friends of the Eggman Empire, welcome to the Egg Shelter. Here you are safe. You have my word."