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, unfortunately.

Extinguish 11.4

The mountain's snow passed under Tails quickly as he pushed himself to the top. While it was cold, it wasn't the freezing that it had been in the blizzard. And the sky was blue! That was rare. Did that mean he was running out of time? Again?

He saw a small cave at the top, and figured that's where he should probably be heading. He remembered Tails four's warning, about the skeletons. Hadn't Blaze told him something about finding skeletons somewhere in a mountain? There was a small circle of stone, almost like a well, at the top. He saw the small areas where something like a ladder had once been, but wasn't now.

With an amused glance he smirked, jumping down easily in the darkness filled well. Almost immediately he twirled his tails, slowing his fall to a far more manageable speed. The heat told him first what had happened. It was a snowy volcano. Or rather, the snow was on the outside with the active volcano portion on the inside.

He saw portions of the ladder hanging on small ledges of the well. He landed on them just long enough to rest his tails. Although they didn't need to rest all that much, he hadn't been flying for that long, but every bit of rest could help.

He wasn't surprised as the heat started to get to him as soon as he landed on the bottom. Although the bits and pieces of the ladder seemed like they were close to falling, they were actually embedded deep into the stone walls. It was as if they had fallen in place, and then the stones had been used to embed them.

The room next to it was a long hallway, but Tails could feel the heat off the walls. Various igneous rocks lay on the side, and Tails didn't bother to try to feel how sharp they'd be. He knew full well how sharp they'd be. The hallway was silent, and surprisingly cool against his bare feet. Despite the heat coming from the walls, the floor itself was smooth, and without any of the bumps and grooves that he was expecting from a volcano.

The first room opened up to a walkway over lava, and Tails groaned. He wasn't a pyrokineticist. Not to mention that hadn't Blaze told him before that she could actually walk on lava? Granted, that might have been with her shoes. She probably missed hers. He missed his. Truth be told he missed a lot about home. He wasn't one prone to daydreaming, but as hot as the lava was, and as much sweat as he was probably going to be doing, his mind needed something.

He was probably going to sleep for a week the instant his head hit the mattress. He suspected that Blaze was much the same. Spark...Spark would probably have too much energy to sleep. Brand new world? She'd have some learning to do, but on the other hand...

Actually, now that he thought about it, who was going to help her? Amy had no room in her apartment, although she was looking for a house. Sonic had no need for a house, considering he just used Tails' lab to crash in. Tails himself had his labs, but almost all the rooms were taken or spoken for. And he wasn't going to threaten her with Knuckles' island. That wasn't going to happen. Maybe Cream and Vanilla? At least for a few days, until he managed to get a room up to the 'livable' condition.

The hallways seemed to merge into an endless stream, only occasionally changed based on hot or cold. Tails only noticed when it switched, because all of the sweat would freeze suddenly or he'd become drenched from all of said frozen sweat. His ears perked forward and he heard the sound of running water. He spun his tails and took off, wondering what kind of natural formation would allow water to be running in here of all places. It was a warm section again, and he was starting to feel the call of the needed water.

He stared at it a moment later, realizing that it wasn't a natural formation at all. "Huh. Yeah, that's weird," Tails said aloud. The fountain kept running its water, regardless of the opinion that the fox held of it. It smelled off a bit, and Tails casually broke off a small piece of the wall and tossed it in.

The water moved to grab it, choking it down and holding it down, before something in a brain of its realized that it was only drowning a rock.

"Right, not drinking that," Tails said instantly. The water seemed to answer in that it suddenly gained a few ripples. "You're sapient, aren't you?" he asked in Ikan'Thoan. A few more ripples, this time a lot more energetic. "Right?" he asked again in common. The ripples became less energetic, and more sluggish.

"Enemies of Ikan'Thoa?" he asked in the spoken language. The ripples ceased for a moment, before they started again. "Yeah, I know. I am too," Tails said softly.

He was suddenly struck by how strange the situation was. He was talking with water. In a volcano that was also cold half the time. And the worst part was, this wasn't even the strangest thing that had happened to him. "But...hey, maybe it's alright. Last time we were there we threatened to burn it down," Tails smirked. The water stilled, before it created ripples in a circle pattern. "That's what we're after now. The Blooming Tides. If we end them, we end the loop. Maybe we can change things for the better!"

The water stopped, and suddenly Tails was hit by the feeling that maybe he shouldn't have said that. As sapient water, would it be aligned with the Blooming Tides?

And in what world did that sentence make sense!?

He recalled Chaos Zero, and withdrew his shocked opinion. Chaos was weird. There was no other word for it, and this had nothing on a water dragon powered by the chaos emeralds. Oh, yeah, and it wanted to kill everything because some echidnas killed some chao. Granted, now that he knew more about what the chao actually were, and that Chaos was one of them...no, that made sense.

The water continued to still, before it gently rose and went back down. Tails stared as the fountain drained itself, leading to a small ladder that went straight down. He looked back down the hallway, seeing large flamethrowers suddenly start up. Spikes shot up from the ground and ceiling, and he was certain he saw parts of the wall suddenly smash the other side.

"...I'll swim, yeah. Thanks," Tails said, ducking into the small pathway shown by the puddle. It maybe not be the smartest thing he'd done, but at the least it would be relatively quick if he died this way. He landed on a small platform, surrounded by water in every direction. Other platforms rose from the water, pushed up by the sapient water. Some parts of it froze, and others still melted. His ears twisted as they heard...bones?

His feet were far faster than the skeleton things as they tried to reach up through the ground. He was only on each platform for an instant, feeling it shake before it would fall. By the time they started shaking, he was already long gone, jumping onto the next one with a poised ease of a talented gymnast.

Or a two tailed fox who could cheat.

His tails spun, letting him sometimes not even feel the ground as he shot back up again. Platforms upon platforms started to raise around him, and he grinned as he recognized a course being made in front of his eyes. Cliffs and rails being made of frozen water, poles embedded into the sides.

He jumped up one side, letting his momentum carry through as he jumped to the other. He grabbed a pole in the middle, using it to jump even higher. His feet landed on a rail, and he twisted his body so he could start running on it. It was freezing cold, and his paws started to threaten to freeze to it, so he used his tails to melt them long enough to keep going.

He missed his shoes. He would've found this fun if he could grind.

The course was surprisingly long, but he found himself enjoying it more as he let his worries go. He could find more about it later. What he wanted to do right now was to find the goal ring! Or...rather, the Tides. Yeah, the Blooming Tides. Not a goal ring. Although he wouldn't say no to finding a ring. Whether it was money or an actual energy saving thing, he wanted it nonetheless. And he definitely wouldn't say no to a special stage ring. Although he doubted that was going to happen.

The course ended far too soon into a small hallway. The heat started to grasp at him again, and Tails felt his elation slowly drop. Back to regular adventuring, he guessed. Oh well, it was fun while it had lasted.

He found himself in a large cavernous room, with a single pillar reaching for the top. Dozens of small outcroppings connected to it. "I'm surprised there's no biome change yet. Usually it's happened by now," Tails said aloud as he flew to the first outcropping.

He saw the remains of what looked like skeletal rocs, and his mind sharpened. That looks fairly close to what Blaze had described once, or maybe Katia had. Does that mean that he was going through what Blaze had done? And that Blaze was going through what he had went through?

Maybe that's what Tails four had meant. Tails spun his namesakes, heading for the next one above him. He landed softly, hearing more of the running water. Just in case it was sapient and not nearly as friendly as the next one, he ignored it and was about to fly to the next outcropping.

His foot hit a small metal spear. Katia's design, if his mind recalled it right. Didn't she say that she had lost one in here? So does that mean the biomes were actually where they had been? Or were these just...copies? His eyes narrowed as he grabbed it anyways, flying to the next outcropping. Then to the next, and to the next.

Finally he found himself at the top, with only a large hallway. There was no sound of running water, and in fact there didn't seem to be anything down it. Curious, Tails narrowed his eyes and wandered in.

He found himself in a large dead end with a collapsed floor. There had been a center pillar, he could tell, but it seemed to be standing on its own now, floating easily.

"Bringer of Chaos. I am...surprised, I wish, to see you here."

Tails spun around, seeing what looked like a frosted sapient of some species. An echidna, maybe? Maybe not. It had spikes, he could tell, but only because he was so used to Sonic coming out of the shower.

"Who are you?" Tails asked.

"I was the guardian of the Terra Stone. What are you doing here, Bringer of Chaos? You have much to do, and only a few hours to do it in."

"Wait, does that mean it's already been an entire day!?" Tails eyes widened. If he had less than twenty four hours...he wasn't sure how long anything had been. How many days had he been stuck down here? Or how many days had he lost already?

"You are alone, Bringer of Chaos. That alone is new to me. To speak of days, in loops eternal..."

"How do I get to the next biome? What would be next, anyways? If we're running through where we already were-"

"You confuse me, Bringer. Truly, you bring chaos. Chaos to my mind, perhaps, but chaos nonetheless. Named well, you are."

"Can you just give me directions?"

"Are you not surprised by a spirit?"

"Not really. Been hunted by them before. I'll be honest, none of this is really new to me."

"I feel that I should be threatened by you, truthfully. This is the only path that I'm aware of."

"The only? So this is the last biome, then? So somewhere...over there is the Blooming Tides!?" Tails said, gesturing wildly to the black fog on the far side of the dead end. It wasn't the white fog that he'd gotten used to, so maybe it did lead somewhere else?

"I...do not know. You may have surpassed all others then, as very few of you have reached the end of here. And none of them have returned. And yet, I already spoke with the Guardian of Sol. I never speak to the both of you within the same loop."

Tails nodded, giving a quick "Thanks anyway!" as he flew over the edge, not surprised to see the fog shifting around him. Behind him turned fog, and in front of him slowly became clear. "If this is the way, please let me be right. I can't afford to waste any more time!" Tails shouted.

He found himself in surprisingly familiar jungle, especially considering the last time he had seen it, it had been on fire.

-Side B-

Blaze didn't just hate the world sometimes. In hindsight, that was pretty bad descriptor of what she actually thought. She flared up her fires over herself again, not surprised to see the cloak that had protected her on this mountain originally in tatters. At some point in time something had gotten to it, and now she was down a cloak...again.

She hated this world all the time.

The mountain seemed as impassive as ever, sending flurry after flurry of snow and ice and hail at her. Her tail had been wrapped around her waist, and she wasn't surprised to see her fur rather bushy. Bushy fur held in heat much better than smooth and sleek fur did.

The snow was colder than ice on her bare feet, to say nothing of it on her hands or her face. She could feel the ice forming chunks in her hair, forming ever creative patterns as the wind threw her hair around.

First it was the swamp, then it was the field of flowers. They were going through places that they'd already been. She flared up the fires around her again, trying to give herself an ounce of warmth.

Fortunately, this seemed that it either wasn't the same mountain as earlier or the physics had changed again. She could actually warm herself. On the other hand, that just made it so when she cut off the fires she felt much, much colder. She took each step carefully, trying to not fall into the cold snow. The snow was knee height, whereas before it was nearly waist height, but that difference didn't give her much in the way of confidence.

Especially as the sun set within a minute or two from its apex, and in its place the moon sat full, an eerie dark green and black. The fact it was the same color as it was when they first arrived actually did give some amount of confidence.

At least she wasn't hurting for water now. She could just scoop and hand down, melt it, and pour that down her throat. It confused her hands, the difference in temperature, but having water in her stomach rather than ice made it much easier to handle. Her stomach growled, and she growled with it, a strange sound that made her stop and her ears droop. She was losing her mind to this place, wasn't she? Of course she was. This place had been doing that since the beginning.

It had taken her clothes, her shoes, everything except her power and the ability to survive. Her mind had taken hit after hit after hit.

And it obviously wasn't the first time it had happened, either. The doppelganger from earlier flat out admitted that it wasn't the first time she'd come through there. It had to learn how to use the lance from somewhere, but in what world had she ever learned to use that? It required a mount to do it properly, something like a non-sapient horse. Spears weren't much better, but at least she was relatively trained in that one.

Or maybe she just applied the term lance to a spear because she hadn't been trained enough to actually tell the difference. She was a diplomat, not a fighter.

Now if only she could talk her way out of the cold! Then she'd be fine.

She flared up the fires again around her feet, working her way up towards her head. She wanted to keep it going permanently, but knew that doing so was probably a bad idea. She had a good hold on what her limits were at this point, and she wanted to save some of her internal flames for the Blooming Tides. Assuming, of course, that she ever got off this mountain and didn't freeze! She would be much happier in a volcano than in the cold, but here she was.

She wondered idly if that's where Tails was. If she was going through where he'd gone through originally, then he should be going through the same things she did. The volcano slash temple dungeon thing from that one video game series that Marine liked to play, and Vianex.

Vianex. Her mind replayed the memory of her falling from over a mile high, crashing into the ground. That was before she had burnt herself out, using the Flames of Disaster rather than her own store. Although...what made the Flames of Disaster so different than her own? They were both internal flames, one was just more physics based and the other a symbol of devastation that plagued hundreds of thousands of sapients and killed millions more.

Honestly, fire itself did way more than the Flames of Disaster ever did. She supposed she had the primordial of fire to thank for that. Although it wasn't as if the primordials had anything to do with the elements that they all possessed.

What had Zephyr called them? Deep was the water primordial, and they had encountered them on the ocean when they were heading here. The earth one, Rock, was the Elemental Mountain from when they had first come in. Zephyr was the air primordial, and Tails had a theory that Bolt, the lightning primordial, was in the Chaos Emeralds. Naturally, that meant the fire primordial, name unnamed, was probably in the Sol Emeralds.

Although, was it actually unnamed? Zephyr had mentioned that they already knew the fire primordial's name when they had left. That was actually their final line towards them before they had been suddenly cast out from his house. She'd thought about it before, but her head had immediately slammed shut with a headache. There was something to that, she knew, but she couldn't for the life of her connect the dots just yet.

Or was that their own house, that Zephyr had taken for his own? Probably that one. Tails had mentioned something about that, and she had noticed that the floor plan was relatively close to what they had had, just with more stairs. They hadn't used any stairs, as Tails wasn't comfortable with trying to make any when they could both just jump or fly.

Her gold eyes peered into the snow, and she saw a small reflection in some of the melted water from her latest flaring. The cold bit at her, threatening to freeze her to the bone. She had more scars than she remembered, and there was a particularly deep one on her left cheek. When had she gotten that one?

She stared at it for a moment, the gold eyes peering into her own, a more reflective mirror than even silver could have ever asked for. She let her flames go, and opened up her arms to accept the cold and chill. She fell backwards into the snow, letting it cradle her back and tail. She closed her eyes restfully, as the temperature started to drop even faster now that the fake sun was gone, and the poisonous moon shone overhead.

Blaze breathed deep into the cold and ice. She was tired. She wasn't giving up, but she just needed...a little rest.

She focused on her inner flames, bringing her mind back into herself. She felt her own flames, her own store of fire, burning as bright as it ever had. If it had dimmed at all because of the recent fights, she couldn't tell. It was an inferno, burning bright and long, and hot.

Deeper still were the black Flames of Disaster. The light from her own flames echoed onto them, giving them color for the first time, but that was color was as much to tell that something was wrong with them. They writhed uncontrollably, lashing out at everything around her, despite it being in an infinite void of darkness. It didn't dare lash at her, for some reason. And for some reason, she knew that.

She peered deeper, beyond even the Flames of Disaster. She felt the connection to the Sol Emeralds, weak as they were, but they were still there, shining brightly against the inky black of her mind.

Had the Sol Emeralds contained the power of the fire primordial? Or...had something else happened?

She remembered when she had channeled the Flames of Disaster, earlier. She saw things not just from Iblis' perspective, but from things that she couldn't have known. Three golden lights, powered by hope.

Hope. Was it that simple?

Or was it chaos? Electricity given form, showing that even in a primordial state, electricity was stronger than fire?

That wasn't right, though. They were equals, like all things. Just natural parts of the world given form. Transitions, change. One was a release of energy, one was a transfer. There was no 'stronger' than. All elements were equal.

And yet you know the truth, now.

She'd always known it, hadn't she? Something was off, the moment she realized she remembered awakening in this world. Since she woke up at all, in the Sol Empire. Since she woke up at all, in the disastrous ruins of the Chaos World.

Primordials were beyond time, beyond space. They were never limited to just being in the here and now, like Iblis was.

Like Solaris had been.

Primordials were everywhere, because they touched everything they immortalized, touched. All fire responded to the primordial, to Solaris. To Sol. Deep touched every aspect of water. Rock, all of earth. And Zephyr...every bit of air.

She wasn't just Blaze the Cat, was she? She was Solaris, reborn through Bolt. Destroyed by lightning, transferred into another soul, already on fire.

Her eyes opened, and she wasn't surprised to see that the snow and ice around her had long since melted. Steam raised up around her. She wasn't channeling the Flames of Disaster. Or rather, as she somehow knew now...the Flames of Rebirth.

Of Recreation.

Fire was never just a pure element of destruction, was it? It lived, it died...it was reborn. The things it touched turned to ash, which helped new things in its place. A cycle, upon cycles. A cycle of cycles, as inevitable as the blooms that surround them, or as inevitable as the tides that it brings in.

Blaze stood up, feeling that she was close to something, closer than she'd ever been. Even if the Blooming Tides were to send her back now, she would be far stronger than she'd ever been. She was not just Blaze the Cat, but also Solaris, given form.

She was the Guardian of the Sol Emeralds, connected to them in ways that even the guardians of the oldest times weren't. She was them. And they were her.

Her feet moved automatically, running faster and faster. She had no need to create a vacuum to break the sound barrier as she roared past the mountain. The flames around her, obeying her every whim, brought her to the edge of the biome as quickly as she'd ever run.

She was onto something, she knew. But she wasn't just there, not yet. Maybe it would take another cycle or two, but eventually she would get it. Or maybe she would get it this time? But something was blocking her from making the final statement, the final incredible statement that she knew she had to voice.

It bogged her down, kept her from ascending, kept her from being what she could be. She wasn't just a form given of fire, she was fire. She was fire. She was Fire!

The mountain begrudgingly agreed to let her pass, and her bare feet touched warm sand. Not hot sand, not like the desert, but warm. Cradling her, gently.

And she heard the sound of the waves nearby. She took a deep breath, forcing herself to stop calling to the flames. They didn't want to reset, to be stuck inside her, but they did, with time.

It hadn't hurt, that time. To channel that much of the fires. Blaze's eyes stared over the ocean, lost in thought as she wondered just how far gone was she.

The ocean had no answer. But as Blaze sat down, the sun popped up once more, and she knew her time was running out. The Tides had to be close, given that she was on a beach, now. Or maybe Tails had found it already.

She looked back to where she'd come from, not surprised to see the tall stack of thick white smoke that held the other biome in mystery. At the beginning, it hadn't done that, but over time, she hadn't even realized it.

Blaze turned to the ocean, wondering just how far gone she was. The ocean had no answer.

-Side S-

Spark felt the decision to take a bunch of metal into the desert was a decision that was best counted as 'a mess up'.

Metal channeled heat better than anything, that's why all the fire callers used metal to heat up the meat and vegetables, or fruit back in Ikan'Thoa. It also channeled electricity better, but Spark wasn't worried about that aspect.

No, she was worried about the fact the sun was beating her down with its relentless heat, and there was nothing she could do to get any form of shade. That was probably due to her decision to leave the cloak behind, and then use pieces of it for her injuries. Admittedly, she kind of had to, because she hadn't found the one ring yet.

Hadn't Tails mentioned something about the one ring? Something about bringing one in, and then they hadn't seen any others since they'd gotten here? And what luck did she have in finding the one ring?

There was a book series, on Tails' image generator, that she hadn't gotten around to reading, but it had a fox on the cover looking like Katia gloating over while holding a single golden ring. She wondered if she'd become like that if she kept up with the 'one ring' thing.

Admittedly, as much as the sand burned at her feet, she could just keep running. She felt like she had far too much energy to spare, and she could just keep going for nearly forever. She didn't want to channel lightning to her legs, just in case she would fall and then have to use up said 'one ring' because all the knives and swords she was carrying decided that her body would make for better sheathes than the actual ones did.

She blinked after a moment, suddenly realizing the sun had set a moment ago. In its place, the moon looked like poison, again, but at least that meant the desert would cool down! And then she saw her breath appear in the air, and she sighed loudly. Of course, she forgot that part. Whenever it cooled down, the desert would cool down faster. And it kept cooling down. And now it was freezing.

Still, she was wide awake. She didn't need sleep. Sleep was for the weak! And for those that didn't fight things, like she did. No, she was good to go.

Alright, maybe the ring had more of an effect on her mind than she cared to think about. There was no way that she was normally that chipper and excited. Her feet felt a rumble from behind her, and she gritted her teeth as she pulled out the largest of the metal swords on her back. It was almost too heavy for her, and she felt her grasp on gravity change far too rapidly.

A small little white bug burrowed out of the sand, and was immediately impaled by the large metal sword.

Spark ran. Now that she was almost ten pounds lighter, she could run a lot faster than she could before. Why had she taken that one? Oh, because it was heavy, and thus could do some damage. Honestly, she was more surprised she managed to hit. Who threw a sword!?

Let alone a sword that big, and actually have it hit!?

Apparently she did. Maybe she'd be okay with a crossbow even after all this, and not practicing for nearly a month or two. Or three, or four. Or ever again. Or maybe she'd pick up a normal bow, she probably had the strength for it now.

That was why the children of Ikan'Thoa generally had been taught to use crossbows. That way, they could use all of their body strength to pull the string back, rather than just the upper arm strength that was mostly for the adults. That was why they got spears and bows, and swords. And the kids were stuck with crossbows.

Admittedly, they were also easier to shoot, and thus required less training. And that way, everyone could pick up something during an attack, even if they weren't warriors.

The sand sucked her feet in almost as fast as she could run. Without using her channeling, she was one of the fastest of her age group, and one of the fastest in the entirety of the lightning channelers. Although she had nothing on either Blaze or Tails. She forced herself into the air using the last bit of solid ground she could feel. A few of the whitish insects unburrowed from the ground, their maws clamping together on their undersides.

Spark had heard a lot of stories, but never before had she heard of these things. She could identify almost every creature in their world, but not these ones.

She grabbed the longsword at her belt, swinging it with something that she hoped was a good stance. The metal blade cut through them easy enough, and their bluish brackish blood oozed out from the wounds and cuts. And yet as she cut one, another rose to take its place. A few more joined in, and with each one she took out, more took their place. She was standing still now, swinging the blade wildly, each slice hitting something and knocking it away, only to be replaced by another.

Her hands started to sweat, and she could feel it infect the leather on the handle. If this kept up she'd lose the blade before the world ran out of these things.

"Go away!" she yelled as she forced the lightning on her body to channel into the sword, using her sweat as the medium. The blade glowed a brilliant yellow, sparks jumping off of it.

Every slice, she felt, oozed power and lightning. The insect things seemed to realize that she wasn't here to just mess around, even as they tried to dogpile her. The ones in the back retreated a bit, before going underground once again.

Spark breathed deep a few moments later, the blade in her hand still glowing as she kept forcing lightning to it, as the blue sand felt awful to walk on. So much of their blood had stained the sand that she forced herself to try to jump over it.

She realized, in hindsight, it was lucky when she did. As she did, the entire area had suddenly sunk down, hundreds of the insects buried at the bottom suddenly revealing themselves. They had realized that they couldn't go to her from the sides, so instead went underneath her.

There was a second rumble, much, much louder than any of the insect things. It felt as if the world itself was shaking, breaking apart from its seams.

In front of her a massive sandworm jumped out of the sand, cold as the night, and blue as the blood of the things attacking her. The things went into a frenzy, jumping over each other and trying to burrow underground.

Spark dove to the side, channeling the lightning to her legs now, hoping to get out of this thing's face. A showal. A myth, embroiled in legends and unseen by most of Ikan'Thoa. Most of the stories were of the showal's sheer presence, it's ability to go through sand as if it was water, and how the desert's heat affected it less than a fire affected them. They had seemingly forgotten that sheer presence wasn't just a factor, but size.

It towered over her, hundreds if not thousands of times taller than her. And hundreds, if not thousands of times bigger than her. And with hundreds, if not thousands of times more teeth, rotating on a circle. The sand kicked up behind her as the showal hit where the insect things were, the massive blood stain gone in an instant as the showal probably ate it. Hundreds of the things were gone just as fast.

The force propelled her half a thorm, forcing her to roll as she kept one hand on the sword. She felt her wrist break, only to feel the ring hurry to heal it, before exiting her body and bouncing along the ground. Instantly she bounced up, grabbing it again as she channeled lightning to her legs again, trying to run as fast as she could away from the monstrosity that was behind her.

She still felt the rush of energy from the ring, but it was dulled a bit, dying out as she got used to it again. Was this why Blaze and Tails seemed so nonchalant about the rings, except for their life and injury saving properties?

Her legs ran out of lightning at the wrong time, and Spark let out a quiet yowl as she tripped on the sand, sending her flying forward. She hurriedly stood up as more of the insects from before unburrowed around her. What was with these things? She had killed hundreds, and the showal must have killed a few hundred more. "Leave me alone!" she shouted as she unsheathed a dagger in her other hand, nearly as long as her forearm. Did that actually make it a dagger? It was a longer knife but a shorter sword.

The not a sword quickly found itself impaled into one of the things carapaces. They were soft and squishy still, as if they were too young to have hardened shells. She felt another one gnaw at the back of her leg, and felt the crushing power of its mandibles on her thigh.

The ring jutted itself out of her body again, this time with a small explosion of energy knocking all of the things away from her. She felt her arms start up the sparks again, and hurriedly she channeled it to her legs, grabbing the ring again. No wonder these things were valuable. They jumped out of her at the first sign of injury. Handy, but annoying!

She jumped out of the pool of the insects again, as she felt the deep rumble of the showal. "Resnon..." she muttered as she tried to bolt out from the things. She could see the white fog that meant there was another Hex not too far from where she was. If only she could make it another thorm or so!

She hurriedly sheathed the sword and not-a-sword, jumping to the side as the showal came up from underground, hundreds of the grubs in its maw. She saw and felt the teeth start to rotate, resonating with her bones. It's carapace was hard and rocky, and she had missed it by only a few lengths of her body.

Her legs started to spark again, and she dragged herself closer to the edge of the Hex. If this is what Tails and Blaze had to do when first coming to Ikan'Thoa...how did they manage that!? It's like this entire place was trying to kill her!

Even the showal, which didn't eat sapients like her, seemed like it was trying to kill her. The sun rose instantly as she blinked again, the moon setting just as fast. She took a deep breath as she looked at the showal turned in midair, jumping back down onto the sand. The heat turned on the sand, and she realized that she preferred the cold over the heat.

Spark looked at the fog in front of her, and casually jumped the body length that separated her from the next Hex.

The temperature immediately flattened out, and she took a deep breath of fresh air. It smelled of salt, and water. An ocean? But underneath her feet was sand, again. A beach of some kind, somewhere else in the world.

She let out another sigh, holding her head up high. Time for another way for the world to try to kill her now, she said aloud. If it had been any other Ikan'Thoan except her, they probably wouldn't have made it as far as they did, let alone know as much as she did.

Besides. She had one of the golden rings now. Long as she kept her hand on it, she was golden.

Tails in a jungle, Blaze on a beach, and Spark on a beach. Also, the author desperately trying to not make a Lord of the Rings reference in Spark's section. They failed.

Also! I wrote a book! Due to FFN's rules, I can't link it, but I can tell everyone to look it up. It's called "Aion and the Silver Dragon", self-published (be careful, you all know what that means) on Amazon. Here's the summary: 'Aion Rose of Rose Country was kidnapped just on her way to her meet her fiancé for the first time. After months of being held up in a stone tower, she is rescued, not by a knight in shining armor, but by an unpleasant man in plain peasant's clothes calling himself 'Silver Dragon'. He is tasked to bring her back to Rose Country...regardless of whether or not she wants to. For the first time in her life Aion has a choice...and is she willing to use it?'

Until Next Time!