Chapter 45- Fighting Through Fear Itself

With Amy and Bunnie

Amy kicks Zeena in the stomach, sending her skidding backwards. Bunnie prepares to follow up with the swing of her chained mace, but she misjudges her swing and instead grazes her cheek, with the Zeti laughing at her failed attempt at an attack. Amy appears behind Bunnie to defend her from Zeena and does a reverse back-heel kick, a play Zeena didn't anticipate and had no time to react. Zeena sways her weapons chaotically creating an omni-directional rush of thin, sharp energy slashes coming from everywhere almost at the same time. Amy stood in front of Bunnie, deflecting, blocking and parrying any incoming attacks with imperceptible speed with her hammer.

Bunnie observes from face value, Amy's superb movements and Zeena's large energy reserves. "The two of them are on an even playing field, a clash between two opposing ideals."

Amy and Zeena go back and forth battling fiercely, trading blows to each other, using every drop of energy being poured into every strike they deliver at one another. Amy's unprecedented levels of love and benevolence and Zeena's overflowing wave of hate and loathing intensely fought for possession for position as the victor with their ongoing duel.

With Knuckles, Sally and Blaze

Knuckles hurls his Thunder Arrow with dazzling speeds, Infinite circumvent releasing a disastrous shock wave of air pressure to move to the other side. Knuckles manipulates the bursts of energy and changes its shape to slash at Infinite, deflecting it with his forearms overlay of virtual energy, but still gets immobilised (). With her opponent paralysed, Sally gets to Infinite directly and continually strikes him from multiple directions. Knuckles zig-zag to approach the flying jackal at high speeds, carrying on Sally's rush attack leaving a green trail behind him. Infinite soon broke free from the effects of Knuckles's Thunder Arrow, focusing his energy into a sphere and grasps it in his hand to create a red, glitch-like particles typhoon.

The blast consumes Knuckles whole, as Sally goes for a swing with her Sword of Acorns, Infinite delivers a heavy kick that stifles his opponent's momentum. "Persist as much as you want, you won't defeat me."

Blaze charges forward, shaping her fist ablaze and stalled for time for Knuckles and Sally to recover. Blaze shoots a blast of fire, though Infinite jumps through her flames and into the air. "H...How could he still have more power..."

Knuckles tackles Infinite to the ground, with one of his hands holding his Thunder Arrow. "Blaze's fire has gotten weakened considerably, Cosmo is partially drained, the others are handling one of the other Generals and Amy and Bunnie are dealing with Zeena. I and Sally need to end this!"

Infinite turns to face Knuckles as he tries to jump away and toss his technique, Infinite speed-blitzes him and grabs Knuckles's left leg and crushes it before slamming him into the ground. Infinite punches straight through Knuckles's abdomen, Sally and Blaze screams in agony upon witnessing their friend being pummelled to near death.

Sally goes for a few swift kicks and slashes, yelling at Infinite. "I won't forgive you, Infinite!"

Infinite blocks Sally's enraged assault, in return says to her. "I won't forgive you all, this world..as well!"

Infinite elbows Sally right in the gut, she endures and turns the rage into power. Knuckles still hits Infinite with his Thunder Arrow at his back, Sally mounts onto Infinite's head and grips them tightly with her legs. Blaze comes forth, maximising her flames beyond her limits deploying all she can muster into one, devastating attack.

With Silver and co.

Shiki acknowledges his opponents tenacity, to keep on advancing forward against his elemental strafe. "...Impressive, you can still fight…but it is of no use as in a matter of minutes, you all will die."

Rouge leaps up from multiple stone pillars and spins her body to form an upwards drill, feet-first, Antonie dashes forward and slashes his sword with the resulting wind pressure shock wave decapitating the homing compressed air spheres, before sheathing it back.

G-merl fights off Shiki's barrage of elemental attacks with a copied version of his own, Silver plans a surprise attack. "There is my chance!"

Silver teleports in front of Shiki with Chaos Control, creating areas of distorted space to slow down Shiki in time to give himself the speed advantage.

Frustrated, Shiki bitterly yells to the top of his lungs. "WHY…WHY…LET ME CUT YOU DOWN RIGHT HERE AND NO…"

Mighty interrupts him having positioned himself close to Shiki, exploiting how emotional Shiki is getting to attack and strikes him with a flurry of enhanced punches from all directions.

Silver finds himself fully immersed in the battle, collecting everyone's positions, plays and fighting styles at an accelerating pace. From Shiki's perspective, compared to the others, he is the most dangerous one. All of a sudden, Shiki employs all of his attacks even crazier than before, causing a huge ruckus to the surrounding area. Tails holding on Cosmo peeks over to where the ruckus was at, seeing in anguish that Silver and the rest are grievously injured and are struggling to continue fighting. Same could be said for Knuckles, Sally and Blaze, as Infinite shows off more snippets of his true power.

Infinite and Shiki are both bewildered, by the way that the heroes keep on getting right back up. "No matter what I do…you…just…won't…die!"

Even at their wits end, not a single one of them are down for the count with their severe wounds intact. Tails sheds tears as he and Cosmo could only watch, and sees their friends and allies put their life on the line. "Please…someone….someone…help us!"

Out of nowhere, a colossal pillar of pink/bright red, sky blue, lime green, yellow, white and violet colours beamed down from the sky into the centre of the battlefield, scattering the foot soldiers. The Resistance, Infinite and Shiki are equitably flabbergasted on what they are seeing, Shiki goes to take down whoever has appeared, concentrating all of his elements into a massive sphere. The figure shown behind Shiki before he could react, condensing the sphere and crushes it with their bare hand. They strike Shiki with a series of prismatic blows moving so fast that when moving he was leaving several after-images and flings a ball of rainbow light to knock Shiki out cold completely. To the astonishment and delight of the Resistance, the glow surrounding the person's body clears to reveal the fusion of Sonic and Shadow sporting radiant silver fur, spiked up hair, cyan blue eyes and emanating the same multi-coloured aura, Shadic.

"During dark times, life brings forth a saviour, united by the power of Chaos against The End."

Shadic onscreen appearance at last after 45 chapters. In the next chapter, the battle between Shadic and Infinite commences.

See ya!