Fiona held him as Tails continued to cry into her chest.
"It's alright big guy let it all out." She said to him.
Tails had become convinced that all of her actions even before her betrayal had been manipulative. To see such a sweet little boy that had admired her reduced to this was heart breaking. It only showed how much her actions had affected the Freedom Fighters, especially the ones that had cared about her. All because she had let her grievances consume her.
After the little fox had finished crying she let him go and crouched to look at him.
"Tails, I want you to hit me." she said.
"But you apologized?" said Tails.
"No, I want to make up for what I've done and this is a start." She explained.
"Um, okay." Tails said nervously.
He seemed to hesitate for a second before his expression hardened and then he slapped her something which he wouldn't have been able to do to her before because of his crush which surprised her.
"That really hurt." She said as she turned to him and started to laugh.
"Mmmwah." Fiona kissed Tails on the forehead.
"Don't do that. Don't give him hope." said one of the voices in her head.
"Hey what's going on? I heard crying." said Shirou.
"Who's that Fiona?" asked Tails curiously.
"Oh, that's my new mercenary friend, Shirou. He saved my life." she said with a hint of admiration in her voice.
"Mercenary friend?" asked Tails uneasily.
Fiona then put her hands on Tails' shoulders and looked at him as she spoke.
"Listen Tails, just hear me out, I know this might seem sketchy but I feel that I could do a lot of good as a mercenary. I can help a lot more people without the limitations I had as a Freedom Fighter." explained Fiona.
"Okay." said Tails uncertainly.
"That's Tails right?" asked Shirou.
As they walked back to camp they saw Bean staring into the campfire with a bored expression while Bark was just sitting around.
"What are Bean and Bark doing here?" asked Tails worriedly.
"Well, I saw them in the city, so I thought I could use the help. But don't worry I'll keep them in line." Fiona said to Tails while giving him a reassuring smile.
After they got settled down in camp Shirou had killed a wild boar mobini and cooked it over the fire. Shirou then passed around portions to each of the group. As they ate Fiona sat next to Tails so he would feel safe and she couldn't help but notice that Tails didn't act weird around her like he used to. Could this mean that he didn't have a crush on her anymore? She wasn't sure how to feel about that.
On the one hand it could mean that he had simply outgrown the crush. But on the other was the more depressing thought that it could be due to everything she had put him through. After they ate Tails said goodbye before going on his way. After making preparations for the night and securing the perimeter they got in their sleeping bags and went to sleep. In the middle of the night Shirou heard Fiona crying again.
"Fiona what's wrong?" asked Shirou.
"Why did my life turn out like this? If I hadn't been so selfish, if I hadn't convinced myself into believing that Scourge actually loved me, I could've stayed with the Freedom Fighters and I would still be with Sonic. This wasn't supposed to happen Shirou, not to me." she said with a whimper.
She remembered when she was about to come clean to Sonic about her relationship with Scourge but she then got interrupted by Scourge and Sleuth Dog showing up then everything went downhill from there. Maybe if she hadn't been a coward and had simply confessed Sonic would've forgiven her and stopped her from sinking deeper.
"I can't imagine what that must be like. But I'm no stranger to loss." said Shirou.
"I knew a girl once, her name was Arthuria Pendragon but I liked to call her Saber. She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever met. We'd been through so much together. But in the end I had to say goodbye. Now she's somewhere I can't reach her." said Shirou as he laid on his back looking up.
The next day Shirou awoke feeling something warm and fluffy in his sleeping bag. He then saw Fiona pop her head out of his sleeping bag, stretch and then rub her eyes sleepily. She then looked at him and smiled.
"Good morning, handsome." said Fiona.
"What are you doing in my sleeping bag?" asked Shirou.
"My sleeping bag was for little kids." answered Fiona.
It was true. Since, Empire City was a human city, they didn't have many stores that accommodated mobians. Which meant he had to get a child's sleeping bag for Fiona.
They then heard kissing sounds and turned to see Bean doing a kissy face with his hands clasped together.
"Aww, you two make such a cute couple." said Bean.
They both blushed at the comment and then Fiona threw a pillow at him.
A while later
A squad of shadowbots were greeted by another shadowbot who approached them.
"Why are you alone?" asked one of the shadowbots.
"It looks like we've got a problem." stated the lone robot.
"What kind of problem?" asked the other shadowbot.
"This kind!" shouted the shadowbot as it shot the others with it's laser rifle.
It then looked around before removing it's head revealing that it was actually a helmet to a disguise. The one wearing said disguise was Shirou. Fiona, Bean and Bark then came out from hiding.
"Okay, that was awesome." said Fiona with a grin.
Fiona then walked up to one of the least damaged robots and opened up a panel on the back of it's head revealing a series of cable and USB ports. She hooked up a device to one of the USB ports.
"I'm gonna collect the data we need from the CPU." said Fiona.
"Aaaaand done!" she said as she finished.
"If we want to get anything done we're going to have to go to the source, The Black Comet. According to Shadow the Black Arms as the aliens are called seem to follow a hivemind so in order to cripple them we have to take out their leader and High Prophet, Black Doom. And according to the intel Fiona gathered from hacking into the Egg-net there is a stronghold nearby holding just what we need, a ship that can go into space." said Shirou.
As they ventured towards the base Shirou projected his bow and killed the Egg Pawn sentries keeping watch. He then destroyed any cameras nearby. They approached one of the entrances where Fiona punched in the code she had gotten from the robot. Then as the door opened they all walked inside. The mercenaries all grinned as they got ready.
Ending Short: life as roommates
Shirou walked into the apartment one day and was surprised to see Fiona lying down in a "paint me like one of your French girls" pose on her bed wearing practically no clothing whatsoever. It was so bizarre that for Mobians, wearing clothing was more an option than a rule. As their fur or scales always preserved their modesty by covering their more sensitive regions. With Fiona it was the same but it still left very little to the imagination.
"It's been a while since I've dressed like this." said Fiona.
Shirou decided to ignore it as he put away the groceries. But then he heard Fiona speak to him.
"Who's that guy in the photo?" asked Fiona.
She was holding an old faded picture of him and Rin standing outside of the Clocktower. Back when he still had auburn hair and golden-brown eyes.
"That's me." answered Shirou.
"What?! But that looks nothing like you!" said Fiona.
"It's a side effect from overuse of my magecraft. I also got a bit of a tan in the desert." stated Shirou.
"Anyways the girl standing next to me is Rin. She was bossy and got on my nerves but I loved her." said Shirou.
She then took out another picture. This one had him looking a lot more like he does now but wearing combat fatigues, a cloak and a turban, he had come back from a job in the Middle East. Rin was there too both of them were smiling. Shirou was crouched down where he hugged two children. A girl with short auburn hair and golden-brown eyes like her father once had and a boy with the same brown hair and aqua eyes as his mother.
There was also another woman with purple hair and eyes who stood to the side with a shy smile.
"That woman over there was Sakura, she was a good friend of mine. And those little kids if you haven't guessed were my daughter, Akari and my son, Haru. I always looked forward to coming back home to see them." he said with a smile.
His face then took on a despondent expression.
"But they're gone now." finished Shirou.
Fiona looked at him. She knew what it was like to lose family. When she had returned to an empty home after digging her way out of her prison. Sure, it had hurt, but there was the chance that her family might still be out there. But what Shirou said implied that they had all died!
Fiona had heard of the Great War between the Mobians and the Overlanders. Had they all been killed around that time? It certainly seemed possible. She decided not to ask.
Extra Ending Short: The Return of Shard
To say Shard's life was complicated was an understatement. He was born as Metal Sonic, created by Dr. Ivo Robotnik to be a counter to Sonic the Hedgehog that was superior to him in every way his first mission had been to kidnap Sonic's self-proclaimed "biggest fan" Amy Rose and use her as bait so that he would come it was then that he would fight Sonic in not a challenge of strength but speed on the Stardust Speedway. As they approached the finish line Sonic increased his speed to levels Robotnik had never recorded before and so he hadn't been designed with such speeds in mind. But despite this he pushed harder, pushing his engine beyond it's limits to catch up to him. But his legs melted from the friction and he crashed just before the finish line.
His second fight after being rebuilt was with the Chaotix when he was sent to stop them from rescuing the Freedom Fighters after they had been captured but after realizing that he was clearly outnumbered he used a power gem embedded in his chest to transform into Titan Metal Sonic but it turned out that Heavy had a power gem on hand which was used by Knuckles the Echidna to grow to a giant size to match him and he was destroyed.
He had then used the power gem to repair and upgrade himself to be much faster and stronger and then he planned what was to be a final rematch with his Organic Template. He sabotaged the Freedom Fighters' aircraft and when Sonic and his little Fox companion, Tails were sent out to do reconnaissance he kidnapped Tails after Sonic had sent him out to get firewood. Sonic had went out to search for Tails at which point he revealed himself and told Sonic that he had put his friend in the volcano, Mount Mobius which was due to erupt soon. He had continuously hindered Sonic's progression as he made his way to the top of the volcano. Sonic had managed to release Tails and so he attacked both of them.
Sonic tried to tell him that there was more to life than just power but he ignored him. As the lava approached Sonic told Tails to run while he fought him off but his sidekick chose to stay by his side even as there was lava everywhere. This action of self-sacrifice showed him that he could be more than his programming. And so his last action as Metal Sonic was holding back the lava as the two escaped.
Some time passed and he was rebuilt by Sonic's Uncle Chuck and joined the Secret Freedom Fighters to overthrow Ixis Naugus. Now known as Shard, having been named after the shard of the power gem embedded in his chest, he had become good friends with it's members including Silver the Hedgehog and a fellow AI named Nicole whom he had developed feelings for. Then one day after he was playing virtual world chess with Nicole he had been sent to stop another Metal Sonic, his replacement, his brother from assassinating the comatose Antoine D'coolette and offered him the chance to change and become a force for good but he discovered that the other Metal Sonic had, had his freewill removed. The battle finally ended with the Metal Sonic self destructing at point blank range cracking the power gem shard that contained his data, the closest thing he had to a soul. As he lay there dying he called Nicole for an emergency pickup and as he was going to confess his feelings, that he thought she was beautiful, that he loved her, he went offline.
...
He suddenly went back online and sat up. He looked at his chest and saw that the shard had, had it's cracks repaired with a chemical process of some kind. He got off the table and looked around then Nicole appeared in front of him. She looked at him with concern.
"Shard, do you remember me?" Nicole asked worriedly.
"I'd never forget you." Shard said as he hugged Nicole.
Nicole let out a cute eep sound and blushed but she then returned the hug with a smile.