Sonic leafed through some of the files he'd brought along in the event that he either didn't have Zeta or something went wrong. In his pack he'd brought along every file they had on the Northern Territory but after almost four days he hadn't found anything helpful, let alone relevant. Fiona was busy reading through what looked like a journal while munching on a small piece of one of their rations. They hadn't brought many supplies but they still shared what they could with the others there. He'd tried thinking of why they weren't affected by the spell in the temple but the near-constant growling from his stomach kept distracting him.
"I would literally kill for a sandwich right now," he said, throwing the papers onto the floor. "There's not a damn thing this file can do for us aside from eating it."
"Would you like a time bomb just waiting to go off inside you?" Fiona snapped at him.
"I didn't mean-"
"No, you just don't care!" she said, keeping her voice just below a shout so the others wouldn't hear. "You don't have to worry about turning into one of those things outside so don't bitch to me about not being able to do anything!" Fiona took a moment and several breaths before saying, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. It's just I'm so damn hungry and these rations don't really do the trick."
"About that," Sonic said, looking around before leaning towards her. "Don't you think it's a little weird that these guys have been here longer than us but somehow aren't really affected by hunger?"
"They eat the stuff we offer them."
"But they're not at each other's throats about it," Sonic continued and Fiona lowered her head. "It's alright, I get it. Don't forget that I've been down that road too. Still, the more I think about our situation the less sense it makes."
"Like how those phantoms didn't show up until after we got to the temple?" Fiona suggested and Sonic nodded. "The priestess, Tikal, showed me the spell she used to save me. If I didn't know better then I would say it was sorcery but I've never seen anyone write with pure energy." They both looked toward the group of Albion survivors who were in the throes of prayer for the third time that day. "And what is with all the church stuff? You'd think if there was a God He wouldn't let something like this happen."
"So not going there," Sonic said, "but you may still have a point. Is it just me or have they been praying more and more lately? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for religious tolerance but this seems a bit much." Sonic stood up and walked over to the group. They were mumbling something that he only caught bits and pieces of but still couldn't make any sense of it.
"Would you like to join us in worship, Sonic?" Tikal asked from the front of the group, her warm smile relaxing Sonic a bit. "You did not strike me as the religious type."
"I'm not really and I'm not about to start," Sonic replied bluntly. "This is probably just my curiosity getting the better of me but I was curious about who you're praying to." The priestess let out a heavy sigh.
"Once our order was known all across Mobius," Tikal explained as she invited Sonic closer. "But like all great things it eventually fell to the ravages of time. Many abandoned the order in favor of newer, more modern religions but we have remained faithful to the Master our entire lives."
"Master? Is that like the Almighty or Maker?" Sonic asked but Tikal shook her head, still smiling.
"Our Master is much different than them," she said, "for he walks among us even now. We are his servants and his vessels. We live to serve his will." She turned to Sonic who could feel the hair on the back of his neck standing. "We would like for you and Fiona to join us. He has promised to deliver us from the fate of those outside as long as we are faithful. I am sure that you both have so much unfinished work."
"I'm...We're good," Sonic said hesitantly. "You, uh, never said what the name of your order was."
"We belong to the Order of Ixis, like our Master before us and all of his students before him," Tikal explained as Fiona joined them. "I have no doubt that Fiona has heard of us."
"Sonic, we need to go. Now," she insisted, trying to pull him away from Tikal.
"What's she talking about, Fi?" Sonic asked.
"The Order of Ixis trains and develops sorcerers like Mogul and Naugus," she explained quickly and Tikal chuckled.
"Those incompetent fools?" she said, her demeanor completely different. "Naugus was a madman when our Master found him and Mogul...well, Mogul had potential until he let the Emerald's power go to his head."
"Who, or what, are you?" Sonic asked as he and Fiona backed away. As they did the other survivors stood up and fell into a file behind Tikal who just stared at them.
"What do you...?" She closed her eyes briefly and smiled. "I see. I was a bit too careless with my words. I suppose that even after ten thousand years I still have a few things to learn." Her eyes opened, revealing glowing ice-blue irises. "We have yet to be properly introduced, Sonic Hedgehog. I am Ixis Nepta, Grand Sorcerer of the Chikaran Dynasty." Fiona's eyes widened at the name. "I see you know who I am, girl. If that's the case then you know exactly what I'm capable of."
"That's why none of the sorcery made sense," Fiona explained. "It's because it's you. But if you're in her body then why have we been following the kid there?" Nepta/Tikal turned to look at Nathaniel.
"You mean little Nathaniel?" she asked, raising a hand and twisting it. Nathaniel's body twisted briefly before disappearing in a cloud of smoke. "I needed some incentive for you to follow my breadcrumbs all the way here. He was a loyal vessel but a bit on the frail side for my tastes. Humans are all like that, the children even more so. He's served his purpose and now he will suit my hunger quite nicely." The remaining smoke converged on Tikal's body as she raised her head, absorbing the boy's essence. After a moment she lowered her head to look at them, her appetite sated for the time being.
"You monster," Sonic said, his hand on Kaiyō Mujō. "You used a kid to lay a trap and then that's his fate? Your dinner?"
"A child's soul is considered a delicacy among sorcerers," Nepta explained as her staff formed in her hand. "I'm feeling generous, Sonic. Tell you what, I'll grant you and the girl one last request. After that I'll take your body for my own and she'll be the first soul I devour."
"I've got a request for you alright," Sonic said grinning. "Go to hell." Nepta's smile faded.
"Do you honestly believe that you can escape this place?" she asked. "Actually, I would prefer if you tried. You'll be easier to possess once your spirit is broken."
"Have fun catching up!" With that Sonic grabbed Fiona's hand and with a few steps of shunpo broke through the stained glass window. The phantoms below growled hungrily at him as he landed on a nearby rooftop and bolted away from the temple.
"A good start," she said with a smirk, "but your little parlor tricks won't work for very long." She turned to her followers. "Hellhounds, track them down. You can kill the girl if you like but bring Sonic back here alive at all cost."
"Yes, Lord Nepta," they droned. Blue sigils began to glow on their left sides and black smoke wrapped around them. They dropped to all fours, howled, and smashed through the front door as they joined their brothers. Nepta stepped outside and waved her hand at the snow. Sigils appeared on the ground as four mounds of snow formed. The piles began to grow as the ground beneath them was consumed in the process, forming golems that stood almost twenty feet tall with concrete arms and feet.
"If they somehow manage to elude the hounds smash everything around them into dust," she commanded and the golems moved out.
Sonic and Fiona ducked into an abandoned house, trying to escape the scent of the creatures chasing them. Sonic's blood oozed out of a dozen claw marks and Fiona was in no better shape. He closed his eyes, redirecting their scent away from the building so that they could catch their breath.
"Persistent little bastards," Sonic muttered. "Are phantoms normally that fierce?"
"I was wrong," Fiona apologized. "Those things aren't phantoms but they're pretty close. It also explains why they've been around so long. They're called hellhounds and they hang around until you kill them."
"Any ideas on that?" Sonic asked but Fiona just shook her head. "Great, so between this Nepta chick blocking my ability to shift and these hellhounds do you have any ideas on how to get out of here?" She was about to answer when the ground began to shake in a slow steady rhythm. Sonic peeked through the window to see one of the snow golems smashing buildings, hellhounds hot on its heels. "You are freaking kidding me."
"Bad?"
"So much worse." Sonic looked around trying to plan an escape route. "We go through the back door and head towards the closest pillar. Then we find some way to smash the damn things and get the hell out of here."
"It's insane and probably impossible, considering who this is," Fiona told him, "but it's also our best chance." They slipped out the back not a moment too soon as the house collapsed behind them and the golem spied them running off. The hellhounds let out a snarl and took chase until Sonic's shunpo put them far behind. Sonic would land on a rooftop, adjust how he was holding Fiona, and then head to another spot. It was only a couple minutes until they were close to one of the pillars and Sonic set Fiona down, drawing Kaiyō Mujō and calling out to her. She remained in her katana form as Sonic closed his eyes.
"I could really use a hand here, Kai," Sonic whispered.
I'm sorry, Sonic, she replied in his head. Nothing I have will be enough to smash that pillar. Ryūkai tsume is strong but not strong enough. But there is someone else who could help. Sonic grimaced at her suggestion but nodded anyway.
That beam thing you used against Kinos, can you teach me to use that? he asked Kuroc and the hoshoku-sha scoffed.
I suppose I can, he replied, but from the look of it even that won't be enough to destroy that thing. I'll let you figure out the rest. The hoshoku-sha gave him a quick lesson and Sonic opened his eyes. White stripes formed across his body as his eyes changed. He leapt into the air and held his right hand towards the pillar base. A sphere of dark blue formed in his palm, a piercing shriek filling the air.
"Here goes nothing," he said and released the attack. A wave of energy shot out towards the base, barely damaging the buildings around it let alone the pillar. "Damn it, I need more!" Sonic swore until an idea came to him. He blended in the energy from his hoshoku-sha with his own and his blue fur turned black as two white horns reached back from his temples. The tribal markings under his eyes formed as his eyes flashed green. This time he fed the energy into Kaiyō Mujō while readying a ryūkai. When the energies were blended he yelled, "Ryūkai tsume!" and swung. Rather than an arc this ryūkai came out as a beam of dark blue with streaks of black. The blast slammed into the pillar base, leveling the buildings around it and sending a wave of energy up the column. The pillar shattered and dissolved into energy as Sonic landed on the rooftop. He dismissed his hoshoku-sha as the barrier finally became visible.
"One down, one to go," Fiona said, trying to ignore his previous appearance. "You able to use another one of those?"
"I should be able to," Sonic said, feeling very tired all of a sudden. "C'mon, I know just where to go." Fiona latched onto his back as Sonic leapt from roof-to-roof. Ever since their earlier encounter they had yet to see any more hellhounds or golems, leaving them in an unsettling quiet.
When Sonic finally stopped he was exhausted. He'd never used shunpo this much and carrying Fiona at the same time was no easy task. She asked if he was alright and he nodded, leaving her to scout the area. They were back where they'd entered the barrier but there were still no signs of being followed.
"You don't suppose they just gave up the chase, do you?" she asked quietly and Sonic shook his head. "Yeah, I didn't think so either. Which means they're probably waiting for us here."
"Let's not waste any time then," Sonic said as his fur started turning black. He was about to finish the change when the building they were standing on began to quickly freeze. Sonic grabbed Fiona and jumped just as where they had been froze over.
"I'm actually impressed you destroyed one of the conduits," Tikal's voice said, echoing in the streets. "But if you think that I'll let you destroy another you are gravely mistaken." Sonic looked down to see at least two dozen hellhounds circling where they would land along with four snow golems. He looked toward the pillar base and saw Nepta standing on her own pillar as her staff pulsed with power.
No choice, he thought and finished transforming while Fiona clung to him for dear life. "Hold on, Fi," he said, his voice distorted. "I've only got one shot so I gotta make this count." He charged his new Ryūkai Tsume and fired the blast towards Nepta who simply raised her staff. The ryūkai slammed into a barrier but the sheer force of it caught Nepta off-guard, her concentration slipping for a split second. The wave tore through the barrier and Nepta to strike the pillar base, destroying it in a massive explosion. As they fell Sonic could see the barrier start to flicker on and off. He landed and prepared to take off again when one of the snow golems swung at him. He blocked with his free arm, feeling the bones in his left arm shatter in the process. The blow flung him and Fiona past where the barrier had been and onto the street. Three hellhounds charged them only for the barrier to flicker on and disintegrate them in blasts of smoke and feral screams. Fiona lifted a now-unconscious Sonic onto her shoulder and limped towards the city edge, turning only briefly to see Nepta blast away the smoke surrounding her. The sorcerer turned to face them, her eyes burning with anger and her body unharmed.
Sonic was still out when Fiona made it back to the shuttle, setting him on the co-pilot's chair. "Zeta, we need to be airborne NOW," she said, trying to gun the engines.
"If we don't follow the take-off protocol-" the computer started but Fiona cut her off.
"We have the most powerful sorcerer in existence pissed off at us and sending an army of giant snowmen and hellhounds at us!" she yelled. "Screw the protocol!" Zeta was silent as she acquiesced, speeding up take-off. As the shuttle left the ground Fiona heard the familiar howl of the hellhounds as they ran towards the shuttle with two golems striding right behind them.
"Starboard side!" Zeta warned and Fiona juked left, dodging a boulder that had been thrown at them. "Now port! Above you!" The fox piloted away from the next few rocks before they were finally out of reach. She sat back and let the auto-pilot do its job, her heart racing with adrenaline.
"What did I miss?" Sonic asked groggily after almost an hour, wincing at the pain in his arm.
"Other than Zeta saving our bacon, not much," Fiona replied. "How are you feeling?"
"My arm hurts like hell but I think the worst of the damage is healed," he said, bending his arm to test it. "It'll still take a few days to heal but I can use it if push comes to shove. You?"
"Alive," she said simply, laughing for the sake of being able to. "I don't think I've ever been more scared in my entire life but somehow we're both still here, alive and kickin'. When we get home I'm going to take the longest shower of my entire life."
"I second that," Sonic added with a smile. "After all this I never want to see snow again."
Without warning the shuttle was rocked by a violent explosion as Fiona struggled to regain control. "Zeta! What was that?"
"The shuttle has suffered damage to its starboard wing," the computer replied and Sonic checked the starboard hull camera.
"When you say 'damage' don't you mean 'completely gone'?" Sonic asked, showing Fiona the image. As he did something large slammed into the ship's belly and caused the shuttle's engine to stall and the vessel to plummet to the ground. Sonic and Fiona both tried to strap in but it was too late.
As the shuttle hit the snow Sonic wasn't sure who hit the front window first just that one of them did as they, and the window, were ejected from the ship. The snow broke their fall, not by much but it was something. Sonic tried to move but everything hurt. He spotted the smoking remains of their shuttle as the ground began to quake in a steady rhythm. He looked up to see another snow golem crush the ship with ease and then walk towards them. As it stood above them Sonic could've sworn he saw it smile as it raised its foot.
After that he felt the welcoming embrace of darkness consume him.