Disclaimer: I do not own any of the recognized characters or gameplay patterns within this fanfiction. Sonic the Hedgehog, Tails, Eggman, Blaze, and all related characters of such are owned by SEGA. All original character's are owned by me.

Expendable 6.5

Blaze was starting to feel the onset of being awake for longer than necessary. Katia was drudging along well despite the lack of sleep. She made a promise to herself that the next time they went to a room with water in it, they'd take a break and sleep. The problem was 'room with water'. Shortly after they broke out of the hallway containing a bunch of skeletons and an ice slide that went on far too long, and she was hovering over a pool of lava that could be seen nearly three hundred feet down from where she'd been, they'd found another hallway to an even larger room.

"This is more like a temple or a dungeon in one of those games Marine plays..." Blaze muttered absently. She'd always wondered what the raccoon found so much fun in them, enough that she'd once splurged on an extra long battery enough to power a TV and a game console underneath the deck of the boat.

She found games fun, but not to the point the aquakinetic did. Maybe it was just a water thing. "What did you say?" Katia asked from behind her. The fox was moving a bit slower, swaying from side to side.

"Just...homesick, I guess," Blaze answered quietly. She looked around; the room was built circular, with a few rooms off to the side, and walls that ramped from one side to the other. In the middle was a tall pillar, bridges from the sides sometimes going through the pillar. She looked down at one of the ramped areas, going up to the next stage up. It had a small net, more than enough to catch any sapient that fell, and probably a few rocks more. She didn't look much further than that, and had to push the shudder from out of her head.

Despite how much she'd had to deal with that particular fear of hers, she'd never quite gotten over that fear of heights. Probably never would, if she had to be honest with herself. She pushed a foot onto the rock, seeing if it would hold her weight if she went fast enough. It wasn't soft, but it wasn't hard either, and conformed slowly to the shape. If she was fast enough, it'd be safe enough as long as she watched her footing.

"Do you think the treasure is up there?" Katia asked, pointing to the top. Blaze gave a glance, at the top of the pillar. There was one last bridge that went off from it, but no obvious ramps straight up.

"Probably. Or the pathway continues," Blaze suggested. Katia nodded, and jumped onto the nets below. "What are you doing!?" she yelled as the fox disappeared below sight line.

The fox was almost laughing, the nets holding her up easily. "It's fine. We can just climb the sides," she said, climbing over to the far side where Blaze had planned to run to. Sure enough, the vixen was able to find handholds and footholds easy enough, and within a minute had scurried to the top.

Blaze sighed, and adjusted her grip to be able to burst run up the ramp. It took her only seconds before she popped up where Katia was. "See? Easy as growing a weed," she grinned.

"We don't know if the other nets are as sturdy as that one. We should be more careful."

Katia shrugged. "Probably. But on the other hand, we're good, and we're nearing the end of the temple!" she grinned. She looked to the side, where there was no net this time but the rock seemed much rougher and rockier.

She knelt down and ran her hand over it. "Easy enough," she said, climbing over quickly. Blaze sighed before she followed the same path, taking care to not push herself too far to the left. If she'd had, it was a long way down. She shuddered again, trying not to think about it. She'd been able to fight her fear this long, she'd been up in higher places before. What did Sonic call it that one time? Altitude Limit?

Katia climbed up before Blaze even got halfway. "Come on! You're slow right now. I thought you were fast?" she egged Blaze on.

"Fast does not mean not cautious," Blaze answered as she found herself at the wall. She followed Katia's claw marks up, and was surprised to find it was fairly easy. Her own claws found her marks easy to fit into, making it easier for her than it was for the vixen.

She'd done a bit of climbing on trees when she was a kid, but that had ended when she was around five or six in the Sol Empire timeline, when her fear started to develop and the memories of the Iblis timeline hit her. She shook her head of the impending headache, wondering why it always developed...Tails didn't remember it, did he? Her head was pounding at her.

She resolved to think about it later, but not now, and she felt the headache slowly regressing. That must be the key; distraction works just fine when it's about that one era that she was no longer supposed to think about.

"Yeah, but cautious means not fast," Katia grinned. "And you're fast, ergo, not cautious."

"Fairly certain that's now how that works."

"Fairly certain that's exactly how it works," Katia teased, trying to obviously imitate Blaze. There was a strange tone in there, as if the fox wasn't used to the way Blaze was treating her. The cat wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

The next part up was covered by a net again, but Blaze saw that it had been rotten out at some points, hanging by mere threads. "This one won't hold you up," she noted absently. Katia nodded, and felt the wall, much more smooth than the last one had been. Blaze looked at the next level up, nearly forty feet above where they'd first come in, and ten feet above them. There was a long hallway that stretched from it heading out, and she measured in her sight the distance between the two closest points. It would be difficult, and with Katia's weight...

The red fox seemed to be looking at the pillar. She poked it gently with her spear, before she grabbed a few bolts and stabbed them in. "Ha! We can just climb this thing!" she smirked as she held herself up on the bolts.

"Not for long. Maybe long enough for you to get over there, though," Blaze said. She was tired, and she shook the sleepiness out of her head. The fox stared at her, before she grabbed a few and started stabbing them into the rock, before moving a few inches and stabbing the next one, slowly moving foot by foot around the pillar.

"You're crazy," Blaze muttered under her breath. She watched as Katia carefully inched her way around the pillar, her hands gripping the bolts so tight Blaze was surprised the fur there wasn't going white.

She knelt down and felt the rock, feeling its smoothness before she took a step back and burst over it, calling the fires that guided her everywhere. It took only a few seconds to go across. She was just about to make the small jump that would let her get to the top when she felt the worst possible feeling.

Her foot slipped. And with it all of her forward momentum kept her carrying itself the rest of the way, her body rolling onto the smooth rock. She was glad it wasn't jagged, at least, but it was close. As soon as she'd stopped, she knew she would be falling, so her goal was to regain her footing before she stopped moving.

She tried to push herself up with her arm, only to realize the wall was literally right there next to her, and she closed her eyes to wait for the inevitable slam. She wasn't disappointed as she felt her right side lose feeling as her feet started slipping and making her start to fall. "Blaze!?" Katia yelled from the pillar, now more than halfway across.

She'd have one chance for this, Blaze thought. And it was crazy. But she'd done crazier stunts than this, and she'd probably die if she didn't, which meant she had nothing to lose.

She reached the edge of the cliff, facing downwards, and Blaze put both of her feet on the edge and simply pushed with all of her leg strength.

The thing about cats, cats everywhere that is, is that when they jumped and meant it, they could use every bit of strength in their leg muscles. For non-sapient cats, that meant jumping up to two or three times their body length. For sapient cats, like Blaze? Almost ten.

She felt the open air beneath her, and resolved herself to not look down as she burst towards the pillar. She'd make it easy, as the giant rock wasn't that far, but it was what was going to happen once she made it that she knew was going to be a close call. She had to not go fast to not simply bounce off. On the other hand, she had to go fast enough to make sure she stuck to it. And if worse came to worse, and she hated her tired brain for thinking of it, she could charge up the rest of the way.

Blaze felt the rock smash into her chest, and she gritted her teeth as she tried to hold on with all four sets of claws. One hand bounced off as it hit a smooth section, and one foot couldn't find a place to grip, leaving Blaze with only one hand and one foot against the pillar, the others barely feeling from being thrown around twice.

Katia tried to hurry up, a few feet away from her, as she pushed herself to move with the bolts a bit faster. Blaze knew she was tiring. "I'm fine!" Blaze said as she grabbed the rock again with her other hand, her foot hanging uselessly.

She scrunched herself up, planting both feet against the cold earthen pillar before she pushed off towards the pathway, barely a few feet away. She didn't need to push hard, just a bit, and with a simple roll she landed on the pathway.

Her heart was pounding against her chest, and it was all that she could do to not sigh in relief. "That was...reckless. What happened?" Katia asked as she swung off one bolt and landed gently on the ground next to her.

"Slipped," Blaze murmured, motioning to the side. Right where she'd been planning on jumping, she saw it now; a small glint of light. Ice.

It was far too warm to have ice. Naturally formed ice, at least. Her ears perked as she looked up, looking down the hallway next to them. It was empty darkness, but far off she could see the telltale signs of a torch.

"You hear that?" Blaze asked. Katia nodded as she pulled out her crossbow, loading it with a bolt and letting it fly. "...why?" Blaze asked a moment later. That seemed like a waste of a perfectly good bolt.

"Because I wanted to see how far it was. Sounded like it went nearly twenty seconds before it hit the floor or the ground, so it's a good distance," Katia explained as she started walking.

"Or you could have me throw a fireball down here and follow the light," Blaze suggested as she did just that. She aimed two, one straight ahead and one at the torch, lighting up the blood red hallway. There was a scent in the air that Blaze caught, and she sighed as Katia stiffened.

The rough rock walls were a blood red, but they didn't have the even coat of paint, but rather like blood had splashed out and dyed the rock. Blaze knew that wasn't the case; blood when dried wasn't red, but black. At least in her experience. Which meant someone meant other sapients to come here and be frightened.

The sound of running water hit her, and she cautiously inched forward as Katia held her hand over her nose. It smelled like blood, certainly.

There was another fountain here, with small water flowing down into a tiled pool. "I have a bad feeling about this," Katia murmured as she sat down next to the water. She tapped it a few times, a small jolt of electricity jumping from her hand to the pool of water.

"I know. But we should rest here while we can," Blaze said as she fell against the wall. "We should set up watches."

"I agree. Which is why I"m taking first watch, and then I'll sleep. You wake me up when you're bored and want to keep going," Katia grinned.

Blaze stared at her for only a moment before she let her eyes shut, the small spark of a flame playing inside her mind's eye as she fell to the dreamworld within moments.

-Side T-

Tails cursed his mind as he forced himself awake. He still felt the warmth of Spark's body next to his, even after the sun was up and he'd long since rolled out of the leaves that had made their makeshift bed.

Spark was smirking at him next time she saw him, looking at him like a bear would at a piece of meat...or a fox looking at a mouse. She still hadn't put her top on. Tails refused to stare.

Tails looked away, trying to force himself to calm down. "Could you...please...?" he stuttered out, turning around. Spark let out a quiet giggle before he felt her against his back, her arms holding his stomach tight against hers. He felt every contour too well, and his mind flashbacked to his youth, on both Cocoa Island and Westside Island, before he met Sonic. How the others would tease him, poke at him, kept getting in his personal space and why wasn't she leaving and he could still feel -

He let out a small whimper, the final remains of his youthful dignity. The others would just tease him mercilessly at that point, knowing they'd got him again.

Spark pushed herself away an instant later. "I..." she started, before Tails shook his head. He was thinking thoughts he didn't want to think, and he knew the easiest way to handle it was to ignore it. He'd deal with those things and thoughts after they were safe.

Whenever that would be.

"It's fine. Just...keep your clothes on, okay?" Tails asked quietly. Spark stared at him for a long moment, letting out a quiet shudder, before she gave a quiet hum of agreement.

"I'm sorry," she said after a moment. "I...Lightning said-" Tails whirled around and stared at her, his eyes narrowed for a moment. Lightning? What did the elder have to do with this? For a moment, Spark seemed younger than she was, staring off to the ground and to the side, as if he was about to rail and argue with her.

Right. He was the older one. And now here was a piece of information he didn't have. "It's alright. Lightning...? What does he have to do with...anything?" he asked.

"It's...not important," Spark said, trying to control herself. "We should just hunt the rosuvel and come back."

"I think that it is important. Come on, sit down with me. Tell me it as a story, if you can," Tails said, sitting down in front of the remains of their fire from the previous night. Spark blinked before she sat down next to him.

"It's...not an easy story to tell. The reason there haven't been any Exceptions within the last living memory is that none of them have been strong. No traits worth giving or keeping to the village. However, with you and the other Exception, Lightning found two.

"A powerful fire caller, far more powerful than even Fire has ever been. Stronger than any Fire. And a young fox with two tails with the mystical ability to fly, and the power of a lightning channeler. Able to combat the runes and spells embedded into the meeting hall. These things were thought to be impossible, feats of gods.

"So the elders, Lightning in particular, always the leader they are, tell the guardians of the Exceptions that if the status is granted, the bloodlines need to be kept within. He...forced acceptance."

She stopped as Tails felt his body freeze and his blood chill. She had widened eyes, and he could tell she was shaking nearly imperceptibly. Was...she afraid of him? He felt the air around him as he tried to calm down, and felt the not small portion of electricity fade down into the earth.

Where, and when, had he drawn it? Electricity didn't just generate, he knew that. Which means that somewhere, something, lost some energy for it. Was his eyes mistaking it or had Spark's namesakes been drawn towards him in his ire? If she could feel that...no wonder she'd be afraid of him.

"And that's why. Katia and I were selected. Katia because she found you, and it's been known that she'd do anything to get out of the fire district. She always takes the most dangerous missions, the biggest monsters, and tries to gather the most food. She hopes that someday the elders will respect her enough to elevate her to her actual status."

"And you?"

"In the future, assuming I live long enough, it's quite likely that I'm the next Lightning elder. However his actual son is the next strongest, and he wants to ensure his son has a position of power when he passes. Whether that means I'm by his side, or rotting in the woods."

She said this plainly, clinically. As detached as possible, as if she'd simply grown used to it as a fact of life.

It saddened him that she probably had. And made him angry. He cut off the growl that threatened to emanate from his throat. "Sorry. I'm just...that's not right. At all."

"It's Ikan'Thoa. The village above all. Before you came in, Strike was supposed to mate with me. Strongest lightning channeler and all, that's not the elder."

Tails stared at her. She shrugged. "It's Ikan'Thoa," she repeated. "The village above all. If my life and my body means the village remains strong, then I will give it," she said, her toneless voice showing just how strongly she disapproved.

"That's not right. Blaze and I...she's going to want to leave. As soon as I tell her. We'll get out of here. All of us," Tails said. He narrowed his eyes as he stared at where he thought the rosuvel was. "All of us. No matter what."

"Don't say that. Ikan'Thoa is great!" Spark said. "Trust me, you'll get whatever you want if you stay. However many women you want, the food you can eat...once you get past this. It will be a paradise."

"But it will only be a gilded cage," Tails answered, and he thought of everything Sonic had ever taught him. "And all cages need to be unlocked," he finished. He imagined the blue hedgehog, and he knew that if he would hear him, that Sonic would approve. Blaze would approve, and Knuckles would too. Shadow would've already destroyed it, and Rouge would have done something to make the entire thing collapse on its own. Cream...would talk with everyone and dissolve the system with some well placed words. Amy would throw enough hammers around to ensure it'd be buried for eons.

He doubted even Eggman would have left it standing. Admittedly that's because he would have taken it over, but the thought still applied.

"Come on, we should hunt the rosuvel. We'll talk more about this later," Tails said. Spark took a deep breath, and the emotionful girl he'd seen before deadened herself and the calm hunter he knew from before showed herself once more. "You do that a lot?"

"What?"

"Change. From smiling or crying to...this."

"I'm a hunter. It's what we do," Spark said. She took a moment to look around the trees. As soon as she began to point at one, Tails grabbed her wrist and flew up to a tree. "You can put me down. I can climb."

Tails smirked. "I know. But this is more fun," he said, fully channeling his inner Sonic now. He forced himself to go as fast as he could while flying, only pausing for a few moments to get more speed from jumping off the trees.

The elders thought that Katia and Spark were both...simply expendable. Assets to be used to better the village at any cost. The idea of it grated on his morals, and a small twinge of burning from his hand forced his attention down where Spark was gathering the latent energy in the air into her palm. "Keep going, whatever you're doing," she commanded.

He didn't generate electricity when he was mad, did he? He still had the charger, and he knew he hadn't pressed the button to give him a charge recently. It was something to think about, at least, while they chased the panther thing.

He flew with Spark for a few more minutes, nearly a full half hour, before he settled on a branch. "Tails are tired," he explained.

"Wouldn't that be 'Tails is tired'?" Spark teased, running a finger under his chin, an actual smile on her lips. She schooled herself a moment later, regaining a look of determination. "Rosuvel shouldn't be that much farther, I think."

"Something that big has to eat a lot, and we haven't come across any other corpses of things it ate. It's gotta be pretty hungry at this point," Tails said.

"It may be desperate-" Spark murmured as her ears perked up. Tails heard it too, he thought. A small cracking of limbs from...above! He tried to grab Spark's hand and jump away into the air, only to grab empty air as Spark jumped the other way. She still had a hold on the energy he'd given off earlier, he noticed.

"Spark!" he yelled as he whirled his tails, flying into the air. The rosuvel landed right where he'd been standing, its claws curling into the bark as it turned to stare at him.

The vixen landed on another branch, her feet splayed out to grip it with practiced ease. She let out a loud growl as she fired her crossbow and let loose with the small ball of gathered energy, imbuing the bolt with its power.

The rosuvel's hind leg snapped against her branch as it got hit by the bolt. The leg spasmed, and the rosuvel let out a disturbingly high pitched yowl as the claws cut the branch in two. Tails tried to fly underneath the panther thing to catch her, only to try to be swatted as the thing paid more attention to him than to the vixen behind it as she crashed into the water.

The four eyes peered at him, questioning in its gaze. Words emanated from its long throat, deep and hard to hear, "Bringer of Chaos. You do not belong."

It could talk. "You can talk?" Tails asked, as he peered into the water hoping to see some sign of Spark. She hadn't yet come up, and it was all he could do to not go down there. Every time he tried to, the panther would swipe at him, its claws barely missing him by mere inches.

"You do not belong. Bringer of Chaos."

"What does that mean, bringer of chaos?"

The rosuvel grinned, it's cat-like mouth forming an almost cheshire grin. Tails half expected it to become purple and floating, and start talking in riddles. Admittedly, it was already doing that last bit.

"You. You are the Bringer. This world cannot break. It has been commanded, it has been wished."

"I think Blaze would have something to say about that," Tails murmured as he stopped his flight and fell back into water. Spark hadn't surfaced yet, and the rosuvel hated water, so naturally, it was time to go into it.

"The Guardian of Sol has no power here!" he caught the rosuvel's shout before the water covered his ears. It wasn't like normal water, he noticed instantly. It hadn't seemed in the way back in the boat, but here it was almost...gooey. As if someone had added gelatin to the mix of water and said 'good enough'.

It slowed him down, but with his own swimming power and tails, he was able to push forward surprisingly quick. There was a loud splash behind him, and he turned for only a moment.

For supposedly hating water, the panther was surprisingly adept in moving around in it. It's six paws clawed the ground underneath the water, and started to pounce onto where he was.

The water was an eerie shade of green underneath it, but he thought he could see Spark not far from where he was. He spun off to the side just as the rosuvel landed, its thick claws piercing where he had been a half second ago. His head moved forward, his eyes catching small movements ahead of him. Spark was fighting off a slime underwater, and this was no time to be embarrassed by her clothes. He spun forward, and grabbed her stomach, pulling her forward and up as his tails whirled.

The panther came back down, killing the slime instantly into hundreds of pieces as Tails broke out of the water. "I assume you have a plan?" Spark yelled. "Bow's down there!" she pointed.

"Don't die! That's my plan!" Tails answered as he pulled back up. The panther swiped at them again, nearly blowing him way off course. "Climb up on my back, if you can!" he called out.

He ignored the feeling of her climbing up his arms, or the way she laid down against his back, her head next to his. She kept her tail out of the way of his whirling ones, and he was grateful for it.

"Anomaly. Bringer of Chaos, an anomaly. This world will not end!" the rosuvel roared, and Tails felt it more than heard it. "This world will end the anomaly!"

"They can talk?" Spark asked from her spot next to him. The six pairs of claws slid out from the panther thing, and Tails could hear the mashing of its underside jaws. He kept his eyes on the front two, hoping that the same way to deal with non-sapient cats was the way to deal with this one.

"End me!? You're going to have to try a lot harder than that!" Tails shouted back as he whirled his tails, flying just a bit higher. The panther jumped, and Tails knew that he wasn't fast enough with Spark on his back. The claws were coming.

Still listening to the MM OST.

You may have noticed that I've upped the rating to M. Original rating was T, but this chapter truly bumps it up, I feel.

Updates may be sporadic due to family issues. The next few updates will probably not be my best. For that, I'm sorry. Until Next Time.