Chapter 11: Blame the Game
The audacity! Tails rid Eggman of the symbol of his victory by breaking the E-123 Omega chip.
Eggman slammed the dashboard of his giant spider robot and opened his mouth to shout, but managed to regain his composure. The fox boy voided a lot of effort that had gone into recovering Omega's AI; that cocky smirk of his didn't need any more fuel. He was almost as infuriating as that blasted hedgehog!
Shaking his head, Eggman eyed the little fox down below. "You're growing up quite the liar, Tails. If that's still your name, considering…" He snickered venomously and watched Tails' grin melt away. "Pity good things must end. You had the potential to become a great villain one day."
"Talk is cheap."
Rage bubbled behind Eggman's façade. Despite being clearly outgunned, Tails insisted on continuing to defy him, just like Sonic. The man could afford to play this game, though. His genius outmatched the fox's limited intelligence.
"It is. You prefer the language of action, so let's review yours: you brought the winged monster to Station Square, you sold Cream off to Metal, you murdered Vanilla and broke Omega…all in one day!" Eggman twirled his moustache as he revelled in Tails' growing dismay. "That's an achievement a villain can take pride in."
"You-you're just salty I keep breaking your toys."
"Ho-ho-ho! What language! Sonic is wanted for the destruction of Station Square, Shadow delivers you to my doorstep and I get two Chaos Emeralds!"
Tails clutched his bandaged palm. The Chaos Emerald hidden under the fabric was supposed to be his trump card. Disturbing images filled his mind. The torture he endured by Shadow's hand would pale in comparison to the things Eggman had in store.
"Oh, you thought I didn't know? I control all the variables, Tails. My enemies are in disarray, the world is plunging into Chaos and you learn the futility, the error of your struggle."
The spider robot stomped next to Tails, knocking him away. Before he managed to get back up, the robot squeezed him between two of its legs. Eggman lifted him towards the cockpit on the spider's head and saw him for whom Eggman had intended him to be, a frightened fly caught by the big bad spider.
"You may have broken that chip, but you forget an important rule of programming – always make copies. And did I make copies…"
Eggman's maniacal cackle resonated in the cave as the robot chucked Tails past the razed part of the base into the hangar. Tails found himself in the spider's den. This was where Eggman had built the robot and if Tails didn't think up a plan, it would be Tails' resting place.
Lights focused on the fox. Screens powered up near ceiling. A cheering crowd would have completed the spectacle's football stadium feel. Instead, Tails was treated to lonesome silence, interrupted by the robot's stomps growing ever closer.
Tails held on to his head after skidding on the pavement face-first. He hoped the hangar didn't have a mirror because his left cheek was wetter than his nose. It stung.
He sat up to survey his surroundings and came to regret it the moment he lifted his head. The screens up above showed a video feed of Omega. He was doing different tasks in each screen. Tails glanced at the broken chip in his possession.
The screens' purpose dawned upon him when the spider robot entered the hangar.
"Thousands of Omega units brute-forced to obedience simultaneously until I have the bot that will put the world in the palm of my hand," Eggman's voice boomed in the hollow space.
It was a repeat of what Tails had seen in the lab: Omega's copies experienced overloads they were not built to withstand. Eggman laughed at the alarmed technobabble they spouted whilst trying to fend off the cyberattack.
"Enjoying the fruits of your labour?"
A being made of flesh could not experience a machine's suffering, but Tails could relate to Omega's copies. What Eggman was doing to them was the equivalent of breaking someone's spine along with every other bone in the body in order to rearrange the pieces at will. None of Tails' friends would not have survived the procedure. A machine would, destined to suffer in its awareness of what Eggman would construct from its remains.
"This is madness…"
"No, you fetid fleabag. This is where your story ends. You will die like you lived, ignorant to the world around you. Go, Spider Egg!"
Tails didn't get an opening to mock the robot's name; the Spider Egg charged forward, rolled up into a huge metal ball. Electric arcs jumped on its surface, protecting it from any counterattacks, as if Tails was reckless enough to attempt one. Eggman's decision to use the survivors from Station Square imprisoned in pods on the robot's abdomen as batteries both confused and infuriated Tails.
He barely dodged the charge and got a burn mark as a reminder to stay far away from the spinning ball of death. The Spider Egg unrolled with its back turned on Tails, but it prompted him to retreat further. Eggman had caught him off-guard the first time he fired up the incinerator in the spider's back. This spider spun a web of molten metal.
Run as he might, Tails eventually manoeuvred himself into a corner whilst dodging a growing pool of white-hot metal, bursting out of the spider's rear incinerator. He hoped that the resulting smoke obscured him from Eggman's view even though the man's tirade told him otherwise.
"All of you self-proclaimed heroes profess the virtues of selflessness and sacrifice, but I know who you really are. Cowardly arrogant brats running amok with powers you neither control nor understand! Stand still and die like every hero before you!"
The smoke made it difficult to breathe and see where he was going. One false move and he could step into a pool of artificial lava. The earth shaking on the Spider Egg's approach made it clear that he had to move regardless.
Tails leapt above the plumes of smoke. To his horror, he saw that Eggman's robot had done the same: a shadow loomed over him, ready to crush the fox.
He didn't know how to change direction without his tails. Tails gulped when he calculated his options and went for a collision course with the Spider Egg. He intended to use it as a springboard to safety, but his knees went numb the moment he landed on the electrified surface.
Eggman doubled down on the opportunity by swatting Tails away with one of the robot's legs. By the time Tails hit the ground, the Spider Egg discharged on contact with the ground, shocking Tails again.
Tails grabbed his chest, breathing unevenly. The Chaos Emerald's healing couldn't keep up with the punishment Eggman was serving.
The Spider Egg stomped back towards the fox. Eggman was rubbing his hands, eager to strike the finishing blow.
Omega's copies were beginning to crack under pressure, too. They stopped making vocal error announcements and abandoned their on-screen robot identity. Eggman wore the AI down to lines of code on a black background.
The code scrolled down so quickly Tails couldn't read most of it, but he continued trying until the monitor he was focusing on fizzled out. He blinked in disbelief and looked at the other screens. The damage was spreading across the hangar and Eggman didn't see it happening.
Tails smiled to the dark shadow about to take his life. "Tell me, Eggman, what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?"
His reply came in the form of wire, impaled in his arm. More came after it. The Spider Egg strung him in place. This was how Eggman had intended for Vanilla to end. Having foiled Eggman's original plan, Tails was going to take her place.
Eggman let the power surge through Tails' body and shake it up like a ragdoll.
"Ho-ho-ho! I am the unstoppable force. I am the immovable object. Pleased to meet me?!" Tails cried out from the pain, but Eggman kept goading him. "Talk is what now? Say it, brat! Say it! 'Cheap!'"
Tears rolled down Tails' cheeks. His limbs were taken from him and more electric wires were coming his way. His eyes remained focused on the screens.
"Come tomorrow, the world will ask for Sonic's head and I will deliver."
Seeing that Tails stopped resisting, Eggman ordered the Spider Egg to pull the electric wires out of him. The hooks that the wires ended with ripped shreds of fur as they left. The fox thrashed on the spot like a beached fish, still unable to control his extremities.
"In fact, he will serve himself up to me once l deliver your pieces to him, but first, a souvenir for me that will come in handy!"
A red light beaming from the spider's eyes drew a mesh on Tails' body. His arms and legs failed to respond. Tails succumbed to a panic attack, unaware that he had been screaming at the top of his lungs the entire time. Eggman's thirst for blood didn't make any sense, just like Shadow, just like Metal.
Have all of them gone insane? They didn't have to murder anyone to reach their goal and yet it was the first thing on their mind. Tails shuddered at what could have been behind the change. There were no rules left in a world flooded with Chaos.
The shudder gripped him again. His heart hadn't given up on him yet and Tails fought the sensation that his limbs were on fire. The numbness faded away, making way for something much worse.
"When I have all the emeralds, I will be able to extinguish whatever Chaos remains in the entire universe. Smile, fox, you will take part in the magnificent events to come! Part! Ho-ho-ho! Any last words?"
Tails closed his eyes. He had seen and heard enough. Nothing else made sense in this world, so he didn't have to, either.
The Spider Egg stepped on his arm and fired up a laser cutter to sever his emerald palm, but Tails refused to give Eggman what he wanted. He wouldn't go down in disgrace.
"Just two: Chaos Control!"
Eggman grinned. "And in the end, you have surrendered what kept you alive in Sonic's shadow, your feeble mind. Futile!"
A wave of heat drew along the mesh all over Tails. Eggman chortled while Tails simmered wide-eyed in the light of the emerald's apparent betrayal.
It didn't betray him, though. The laser cut through his palm and the robot's leg touched down on the ground as if his arm did not exist. One of the cutters drew a line along his eyes and did nothing.
Eggman's joy morphed into confusion to descend into all-out fury. Tails was disappearing and Eggman couldn't hurt him anymore. Eggman blew a crater where Tails had been, set it on fire and had the Egg Spider stomp on the ashes.
Tails found himself observing the angry display and feeling increasingly detached about it. Space appeared to warp before his eyes, different images layering over each other. This wasn't how Sonic performed Chaos Control. There was no exciting flash or instantaneous warp. He gradually faded out of sight, like Shadow.
The last Tails saw of the underground was Eggman blowing up the screens supposed to cement his victory. Omega's copies had reached the conclusion that would defy their former master for the last time. It read, "Format complete. The primary disk drive contains no data."
He should have been happy about the outcome. Instead, he felt a grim emptiness inside. Tails postponed a part of Eggman's plan, but he didn't stop the villain. He was too weak. He was…
"Blind? Deaf? Empty?" he heard out of nowhere. The shadow was haunting him.
The images in front of him remained in a flux, albeit forming a coherent whole. He wished to escape the disorderly in-between Chaos Control put him in. Assuming it was Chaos Control in the first place.
He was not alone during the transition in time and space. The longer he stayed there, the more he wanted out. Tails considered closing his eyes and ears to avoid the most disturbing parts of the in-between. It didn't work.
"I see you, Miles Prower," the shadow said. Its words reverberated inside Tails' head, layering out into familiar male and female tones. "I am coming for you, Miles Prower."
Tails refused to acknowledge its existence and he was hoping he wouldn't have to; his destination finished materialising in front of him. It was now his to experience.
Out of Chaos Control, Tails found himself in a cosy dwelling. His first instinct was to succumb to exhaustion and fall on the thick rug spread on the floor. The comfort nearly broke him to tears.
He didn't notice that he fell asleep, but when he regained consciousness, his face was still wet. It wouldn't have surprised him if he cried throughout the nap. Pondering the task at hand was enough to make his heart sink. The bits and pieces he gathered about what had happened on Angel Island made for a miserable outlook, getting worse by the minute.
Unless Eggman was bluffing, his plan went beyond world domination. Ridding the world of Chaos energy was nuts and nigh on impossible, both of which Eggman excelled at. The fact GUN were also involved worried him no less than the shadow monster. It limited the number of informed people he could trust.
At least he could still rely on-
"So-o-o-nic, is that you?"
Amy?
Tails learnt his lesson in keeping his mouth shut. He could have sworn he heard Amy.
"So-o-o-nic, I'm waiting."
Yep, it really was Amy. No one could imitate the particular sing-song brand of annoying in her voice. That raised questions. Where was Tails and, if Amy was around, should he beat her up for not passing any information to Sonic at the very start?
Author's note: Should he?