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.

Exalt 12.8

Blaze hadn't been in her ascended form for some time. It was rare she needed to use it. Most of the time the Guardian of the Sol Emerald's words were taken at face value; most sapients of the Sol Empire had at least heard of the Sol Emeralds, and what could happen with all seven.

Although Blaze hadn't actually needed the emeralds physically there for quite some time. Her connection with them, assuming that it wasn't blocked by the Blooming Tides or something else artificial, was fairly strong and more than enough to channel the energy needed to 'ascend'. Tails had taught her the words, ages ago. But he'd also said he'd gotten the words from Knuckles, who admitted he found them on the ruins on Angel Island. Somewhere in there.

And while Lightning had more potential energy, seeing as how he was both an electrokinetic and while using the Stone's powers a terrakinetic, as well as invincible, ability to fly, etc, one thing he didn't have was experience.

Experience that, Blaze said into her mind, she had in spades.

She walked through her flames, an invisible tunnel connecting them as she stepped out and burned Lightning's fur even through his invincibility, grabbing his wrist and throwing him into the dirt. A terrabolt, her nickname for the lightning bolts that Lightning made that started from the earth down below, which she was going to have to take a few minutes to ask Tails how that was possible because he'd told her in the past it wasn't, came out and struck her, knocking her straight down into the dirt.

It didn't hurt. Nothing hurt, actually. Her body's pain receptors were turned off, because she was invincible. If anything she'd be on fire right now like when using the Flames of Destruction, but she wasn't using those powers. She was using the Sol Emeralds. She wondered if that actually made all that big of a difference, or if it was just a placebo.

One thing that she reminded herself was difficult to do was not get caught thinking. The Burning Blaze transformation essentially meant that she could take her time with everything, assuming she had enough rings. But the rings were there as only additional energy; her connection was strong enough that she didn't need to worry about running out of flames anytime soon.

"How...how are you hurting me!?" Lightning screamed, bolts hurtling towards her. She barely blinked as she took the bolts easily, not feeling them. Only a terrabolt could really hurt her now, and even then it was difficult for it to cut through the fire aura that she had surrounded herself with.

"Burning," Blaze answered, flaring in front of him. He tried to fly to the side, only to be caught out as Blaze surpassed him, running there faster than he could, and kicking him back to the ground.

"Not an answer!" Lightning responded. He bolted in front of her, literally transforming himself into a bolt of electricity and lightning, crashing his fist into her back.

She flew a few dozen feet, feeling her back crack but without any pain around it. "It is, really. Terra Stones, Sol Emeralds, Chaos Emeralds...there's a common theme there," Blaze explained, crafting two flares of fire and teleporting between them.

The fireportation, as Marine had called it, was a power she'd discovered only the last time she'd gone into Burning Blaze mode. Marine had also called it 'wicked cool', and that she should do it again. And as Blaze slashed as Lightning's body, forcing himself to dodge to the right, she did just that, jumping around him as the fires began, hitting him from every side almost as fast as he could begin to react.

As cathartic as it was, though, she knew she wasn't really doing anything. He was invincible, just as she was. He hadn't realized that she was, though.

She absorbed his hits with ease, ignoring his incredulous looks as he attempted to kill her. Was she just buying time now, or was she doing this because she actually hated him and wanted him to know how she felt before, when he tore off Spark's arm?

The thought of the vixen pushed Blaze to greater heights. She became a little faster, hitting a little harder...if she became a little more feral, she could live with herself.

Each strike was hitting home. Lightning, on the ground, was a decent fighter, but up in the air as they were, as was common for ascended forms, he simply didn't know what he was doing. There was little dodging around, if only because he was still so new to it.

It was old hand to her. As fast as his strikes were, and make no mistake some of them were as fast as his namesake, Blaze was capable of both ignoring them or dodging them. Unless he used a terrabolt. Then she wasn't, but admittedly she thought she could get away with not being able to dodge a lightning bolt summoned from the earth below her.

It arced out of the water too, when she'd attempted to go out to sea. Lightning had called her mad, seeing as how her power was over fire.

And fire she called. Streams of fire, with zero form or mass, just heat, wrapped around the both of them. Snakes, dragons, every thing she could imagine, writhed their way out of the rivers of flame. Rocks were often sent after her, sending her flying backwards more often than not. The fires she called forth did much the same for him, knocking him into the sand.

The sun dipped beneath the horizon. It hadn't been instantaneous the way it had in the past, but rather inch by inch, an actual sunset.

Blaze paused for a moment, staring at it the next time she gave a decent hit on Lightning. When had it turned yellow? When had the sky turned blue, although now it was a delightful salmon pink and orange mixed together. The colors of home.

The colors of normality. When she had ascended to Burning Blaze?

The question had to be shelved, as Lightning appeared in front of her, claws outstretched glowing a faint yellow, much easier to see in the lack of sunlight.

She was knocked back into another sand dune, her fire aura melting the sand around her and turning it to glass. She stood up instantly, her eyes looking back at the tall pillar of light, focused on the far side. Not the far side of the island, though, more like the world.

Did that mean...something was coming? Good or bad, could they use that to escape? "Blaze!" her ears twitched as she heard Tails' voice.

"Oh look, it's the other Exception. Maybe I should-" Lightning sneered, caught off guard as Blaze fireported behind him, knocking him back into the sand. She turned to Tails again, flying back down and heading towards him.

He was with Spark, holding her up with her good arm. There was a makeshift bandage, his old blanket that they'd used in the desert and snowy mountains, that had been torn up and used to ensure that at least Spark would be okay.

It was odd, though, seeing the way the bandage just stopped at her shoulder. It was wound tight, but it wasn't bloody as she expected. "Tails. Good to see you. Have you seen Lightning? He ascended," Blaze commented idly. "He's not going to just let us leave, by the way. He wants to kill us."

"There's something on its way," Tails said, with little care of taking his time and warning. "I don't know what, Zephyr doesn't know, the primordials have already left I think. There's no Sky Road anymore. Think you can handle Lightning while I get Spark out of here?"

"I doubt it. He doesn't know it yet, but he's as fast as I am," Blaze noted. She noticed that despite the heat coming off of her in waves, Tails had no fear of standing next to her. Spark did though, keeping Tails' between Blaze and herself. That thought hurt more that it should have. "If he catches wind of you leaving, you'll be fried in an instant."

"Thought so. I know one good solid hit can take someone out of an ascended form if they weren't expecting it, and he doesn't seem the type to be in control," Tails answered. "Spark, you might have to sit this one out. This is...unusual, but kind of normal, in the end."

"Normal? What about this is normal!?" Spark decried. "And no, I'm not sitting this one out. I just can't do anything about it!"

"Neither can Blaze or myself," Tails said. Blaze nodded.

She continued. "He's invincible right now, though he doesn't realize that. How solid of a hit were you talking about, earlier? And can he expect it?"

"Doubt it. As for how hard, think Knuckles on a really bad day," Tails answered. "Spark, get out of the way!" he yelled as he spun his tails, ducking just barely out of reach as Lightning attempted to claw at him.

Blaze reacted instantly, her hands and feet trying to punch and kick him back as hard as she could. Tails could take care of himself, he didn't need her to take care of him-

Tails was having to duck and dive after every shot that Lightning sent his way. There was no time for talking, no time for planning. And Blaze knew he couldn't keep it up indefinitely, not with the bags in his eyes that says how tired he was. There was something else off about his eyes, but Blaze couldn't place it quite just then.

Lightning's attention was fully on Tails, Blaze realized. Despite her attempts to knock him down, to give Tails some breathing room, the panther was fully going after the fox with little care for the ascended cat.

Had he overheard them? Talking about his invincibility, how he was just as fast as her and didn't realize it...all of those could be bad. All of those were bad.

Lightning seemed to ignore her despite her useless attacks, until he promptly raised his foot and kicked her hard, sending her back into the plants and dunes. The plants immediately caught on fire, giving an unearthly red glow to the sand instead of the warm brown they had been.

He'd cornered Tails, Blaze knew. Her head lifted up, seeing him scared and terrified, but trying to hold his own against the ascended panther. His claws were a glowing yellow, each one the same type that had cut Spark's arm off. Each one would've done just the same amount to him.

It was rhythmic, in a way. Tails wasn't just dodging out of the way, but dancing. Each cut was hitting him, just barely, but it was noticeable as he started to slow down. A small nick there, a small cut there, and he was starting to wear down.

The pillar of light brightened a bit, something coming towards them. That thing that Tails had warned her about. She hoped it wasn't some end universe travesty that it usually was, and she'd have to team up with Lightning to deal with it. She had done the same thing with Sonic, and was just as annoyed about it.

It got brighter and brighter, almost impossibly bright to stare at. Tails wasn't looking at it, his attention focused on the panther in front of him.

The light started to coalesce, and Blaze had to withhold a cheer. A single unexpected hit, Tails had said.

Being hit by a glowing supersonic hedgehog going at mach two was about as close to a strong unexpected hit that she could ask for. There was no flash of the ring bouncing out of him, but Blaze had to keep hope. Just because she hadn't seen it doesn't mean it didn't happen, or so she would hope.

Lightning didn't just fly through the dunes, he was knocked back for miles. He disappeared instantly as Super Sonic held out his hand. "Heya little bro. Sad to see you started the party without me!"

"Party? There was no party here, Sonic. You took your sweet time getting here," Blaze commented as she fireported over to him. Tails stood up, wincing as sand cut into some scratches of his.

"Party's not over. We'll have to deal with Lightning still," Tails said softly as lightning struck from the ground. Lightning walked out of the place it had struck. Blaze groaned. Of course he learned her teleportation technique by just watching her.

-Side T-

When Zephyr had told him that there was something coming, Tails mind immediately went to the worst possible thing. His time in this world had proven that, without a doubt, sometimes it was better to be pessimistic and cynical, and then if the world proved them wrong, that would be great.

But sometimes he did miss his original optimism. Otherwise he would have remembered that a 'fast moving object', to the air primordial, would have been something moving as fast as air itself. And there's really only one being that could do that.

And he was flying in front of him, a smirk on his face and eyes just as red as Spark's were. There was an undercurrent of relief floating around the hedgehog's body. "Lightning, huh? Let me guess, he can throw around lightning like it's nobody's business," Sonic asked. The panther howled, bolts of electricity streaking from his body.

Blaze moved to intercept, to stand between Tails and Lightning, but she didn't need to. The instant Sonic saw it coming, he was already in the way. The bolts did nothing to affect his ascended form, and Sonic, if anything, looked even more relieved. "Oh, that's a neat trick! Here, I'll show you mine!" Sonic shouted.

The next moment he was back in Lightning's face, curled up into a little ball. In an instead Lightning had fallen back to the ground, his face curled up into a horrible snarl. "You're not so tough, are you? But you've hurt my friends," the hedgehog said simply. Whatever Sonic was about to say next, probably something cheesy that would remind Tails that this was, in fact, still Sonic, was cut off as an earthen bolt of lightning came out of the ground, sending Sonic flying into the air.

"Worthless! Worthless. Worthless. All of you, worthless!" Lightning chanted. The sky, once being the dark blue of a sky after twilight, started to turn a dark grey. Clouds came rolling in as fast as they'd left the Blooming Tides.

"I get the feeling he's angry about something," Sonic said. Blaze nodded, the small raindrops starting to hit her fire aura turning to steam instantly.

One bolt, followed by a second into the dunes around them. Their fury made Tails wince. He could barely move right now. It was a natural fear, to be afraid of lightning, just as much as Blaze was afraid of heights. But she had, if not worked through that, at least didn't let it control her. And if she had done it, then so could he.

After all, lightning was much rarer than heights were.

He took a deep breath, focusing hard on feeling the energies around him. His mouth tasted blood. Spark had told him before that he was an external generator, not an internal one. He had no internal reservoir of electricity the way she or Lightning had.

But in being only an external channeler, it meant he had control. He felt each bolt as it made its way down from the storm clouds, feeling the path before it would strike.

"Ha! Fear me! Give me more fear, more pain and anguish! Know defeat!" Lightning chanted, one hand raised to the clouds. Tails could feel the static lighting up all the way to the top of the storm. He could feel the shifting as if aimed towards Sonic.

Tails' eyes opened. The bolt appeared, heading straight for the golden yellow hedgehog. The fox was already reacting, one hand grabbing it with his mind and letting it strike him fully.

And with the other Tails let it fly back towards Lightning. The entire fury of the storm, launched into one bolt...caught and reflected. "Return to sender!" Tails yelled, just as Sonic roared at seeing his friend cooked alive by electricity.

Lightning absorbed it, the electricity coating his fur as Tails had done plenty of times. Sparks and bolts shot off him into the sand dunes. "Clever. It might have worked too. If the Stones hadn't empowered me already. Instead, you just made my own channeling much better."

Somehow a small fireball erupted from behind him, sending him back into the dirt and sand. Blaze stood there, one hand covered in fire. "Or maybe he was distracting you?" Blaze commented.

"Huh. So that is you Blaze! Good to see ya! But uh...what're you wearing?" Sonic asked, a red flush hitting his face as he looked away. Tails' eyebrow rose. He had gotten so used to seeing her in what could barely be called a skirt and bra that he'd forgotten it wasn't something she was used to.

The cat sighed. "What was needed," she answered quietly. She made to move over to Sonic and Tails only to have to duck and roll as Lightning appeared in front of her, electricity coating his fist.

Tails stared. He was hoping to retain some amount of control over the energy surrounding Lightning's body...but it was as empty to him as the earth below. Even the small flashes when Lightning fired a bolt barely appeared as a blip to his senses. The panther kept attacking both Sonic and Blaze, hurtling dozens of bolts towards them.

"A little help here, Sonic!?" Blaze shouted as she kept up the unhurting dance with the panther. The golden hedgehog nodded, spinning up into a midair spindash, crashing into Lightning's body.

The panther grabbed on to the spinning ball of spines, grinning broad as he focused all of the electricity around him into the hedgehog. It wasn't clear what the panther was expecting, but Tails suspected it was something like a scream of pain, before Sonic uncurled, hitting Lightning with an axe kick to the top of his head.

"Hey now, that wasn't fun. Didn't hurt, but still," Sonic said. "Tails, Blaze, any idea how to hurt this guy? The last time I fought a guy who was ascended it was Shadow, and that was just a spar. I have no idea how to actually hurt him."

"Tails suggested hitting him really hard, unexpectedly. Was he wrong?" Blaze asked. There was a hint of teasing in her tone, and Tails blinked. Was now really the time for saying he might have been wrong?

"Oh, doing what Knuckles did! Possible, but this guy seems more in it than I did then," Sonic said. "We'd have to pull off something crazy."

"Then it's a good thing you're here. You'll pull off the crazy, we'll get the something," Tails answered. Sonic grinned, and even Blaze gave a quiet shake of her head. He tasted blood.

"We shouldn't take too long though. Eggman was just attacking as the portal was opening, and Knuckles said something about it only being open for so long. I've already been here around fifteen minutes," Sonic replied.

Tails jumped back as a lightning bolt from the ground struck right where he'd have been. Lightning was walking up one of the sand dunes, his hand outstretched as bolts of lightning came down from the storm raging above.

"I don't care who you are. I don't care what your name is. You have destroyed what was mine, and I cannot accept that!" Lightning shouted, his silver eyes mixed with red.

It wasn't a Tempest. It was something bigger, in Tails' mind. The world turned brighter than anything he'd seen before, flashes upon flashes of lightning dancing around him. Tails was down in an instant, trying to avoid the damage to his ears. Both Sonic and Blaze had their own eyes shut, their ears fine.

Tails felt it first. As the onslaught continued on his ears he felt the small scratches start piling up, his fur not being able to hide the flood of blood coming out. Lightning wasn't just in front of him, he was behind him, to the sides, moving faster than his own namesake.

There was no dodging. There was no ability to crawl away. Hit after hit, his body starting to become more bruised and broken as Lightning commanded the assault. Tails felt the ground underneath him raise in temperature, and Lightning jumped away as a wall of flame encased the two tailed fox. This was just. This was the same feeling Loca had.

The panther had stopped talking. His eyes shone with only silver now, no sense of pupils or the whites remaining. It was only silver. The same color as the crystal had been from the Blooming Tides.

Sonic moved to intercept, spindashing in. Lightning moved away, flashing with kicks and claws, just as quick as he'd always been. Whenever he was off step, Blaze ran in, keeping her own assault with fire, claws, and even her teeth at some points.

His body was hurt. He was in pain, he knew. But it felt less like a fact and more like...something happening to someone else. He shook his head out, ignoring the groan coming from his mouth. He found himself being dragged up a dune to watch the three ascended fight by Spark.

"Are you...you?" Spark asked after a moment. "That's your friend, right? The air controller?" she asked again. Tails nodded slowly. "He fights like I do. And Blaze...Blaze fights like Katia."

Tails watched. She was right...he'd seen this fight before. A fight of three equals, two against one. Just as brutal as the other one had been. Spark and Katia...versus Strike.

Two of them couldn't do it then. Tails had to step in...fight like himself. He stood up gently, only to be held back by the one hand of Spark. Despite having only one arm and being in very obvious pain, the vixen was surprisingly strong. "You can't go out there. Not yet."

"I can't just let them. We won't be able to get home, not when we're so close!"

"I said yet, Tails," Spark said, forcing her one hand open. In it stood a single golden ring, the kind he knew from home so well. He looked it over more...it was more than just the same kind. It was the same one that he'd brought with him. The one he'd given to Blaze, and that Blaze had lost in the forest not long after, saving her life. "It's the only reason I'm not in worse shape. I won't be able to move after this. When your friend hit Lightning, it escaped from him. It fell on me."

She pushed it into his hand, and Tails felt the small cuts and bruises he'd been getting from Lightning start to close up. He was in no way capable of ascending from it, but the familiar feeling was a rush of power and energy.

"Kill him, Miles Prower," Spark grinned. "If we die, I die the way I want," she said, reaching over and kissing him hard on the lips. Blood in his mouth...was it his? Hers?

The feeling stole all thought from his mind. He didn't know how long it lasted, or that Spark was capable of holding him down even as broken as she was, before she tossed him gently down the hill. He found himself rolling down the hill, and he gave a groan as he forced himself up. He barely saw her as she kicked out her legs and sat down, watching the ascended show with rigid fascination.

He had the ring. Spark was counting on him, now. And both Blaze and Sonic were still fighting. He recognized their pattern, even if Blaze didn't see it. Sonic was fighting as always had, quick jumps and dodges, spindashing in whenever he saw an opening. His opponent didn't matter. Blaze was more of a hard hitter, going in with aggression most of the time.

Together, they weren't doing it. They needed a third...they needed him. He spindashed in place, letting the sand coat his backside before he launched himself, hurtling in towards the fight.

He wasn't going to do damage, he knew, but that wasn't his role. His role was to be a distraction, exactly as it had been against Strike. Lightning would strike at him, and leave himself an opening for either Sonic or Blaze to take advantage of.

"Tails! What are you doing, get out of here!" Sonic yelled as soon as he recognized who was doing the distraction, and seeing that he wasn't the white-yellow of his Super form.

"I'll be fine," Tails reassured easily. Blaze was currently on Lightning's warpath, streams of flame emanating from her hands as she teleported between them. He would be fine. He had a single ring, now.

Now all he had to do was not lose it, he thought, as he promptly spun in place, letting his tails hard edge knock the panther to the side. It wasn't much, but it also didn't need to be. Sonic took care of the rest of that for him.

Sonic, Blaze, and Tails versus Lightning, round...what is this, six?

Until Next Time!