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.

Exertion 4.6

Blaze was uncertain. There wasn't a whole lot she was uncertain about, but Tails, or...no, his name was still Tails to her. Sonic always called him that, even Cream always called him that, so as much as 'Miles' was his actual name, his name was Tails. But she was mostly uncertain about what to say. He'd basically revealed that despite his attempts, he was no closer than the day he was born to finding whom he was born to. He had at least found out he'd been born and not just created in a lab, at least.

That would have been one of Blaze's fears, if she'd had his past. Admittedly, her own wasn't that usual, either. How many others did she know of that essentially had two pasts, from two different times? Surprising at the best of times, traumatizing at the worst. She held in a groan as she got a minor headache, her mind filled with memories of Iblis and the Crisis City, as they'd called it. Was it just her, and was it softening a bit? It used to be quiet piercing migraines and now it's...not that. It's still a piercing headache, but it doesn't quite feel as strong as they did.

The pathway down to the desert was fairly simple, now. Once they'd gotten past the cliffside, it was mostly minor downhill until the desert. She kept searching the sky and ground for any sign of anything else that wanted to eat them, or a cave to sleep in, or something. They'd realized early on that unless they found a cave, they weren't going to sleep. Although there was more than one instance, as the sun was starting to set, that she caught Tails stumble around, his eyes shut.

And there were just as many instances of Tails chuckling as she found herself on her back with no memory of how she got there. Had she fallen asleep while walking only to fall down a second later? That was, she thought, probably exactly what was happening. Wasn't that normal when fatigued, though? They'd been up for nearly thirty six hours. She doubted she'd have that same conversation if she was normal that she did earlier. The last time she'd thought about Mally, she'd ended up burning a field. It was short for something, but she had never cared to find out what.

Her dad had gotten off her case at least about finding a suitor, after that. Apparently he didn't want more diplomatic incidents. She let out a quiet giggle. "What's so funny?" Tails asked, his voice somewhat slurred. Was that normal, when this tired? She was tired. Yes, she was very tired.

"Just thinking about that one suitor. Mally. Dad never tried to force another suitor on me again after that."

"Wasn't that the one that you barbecued? Or the one you wished you could have?" Tails asked.

"Wished. Almost did. Yeah, he was that one. I don't think Dad wanted another 'diplomatic incident'."

"I don't think it would've been another incident," Tails said, waving it off, "after all, you have to have evidence to prove it."

Blaze laughed. It wasn't that funny, but for some reason it was hilarious. "And how many sapients, Tails, do you think I burn?"

"As many as you'd want to, I'd think," Tails grinned. His smile turned only a little bit less as he looked out towards the desert, slowly creeping up on them. "I'd suggest a break, but I don't think we'd get one."

"Probably not," Blaze admitted. She reached back into her bags for the few pots of the medicine she'd crafted up back at the campsite. The flowers she'd used the first time were apparently somewhat rare, so she'd have to make do with these ones. They were significantly less effective, but they'd do the job just the same.

"Here, we can stop for a moment to put this on your tails," she said, reaching into the green gloop.

"Only if you let me handle the stuff on your back and stomach," Tails replied instantly. Blaze blinked; was there a hint of red somewhere on his face? Oh crap, was there something she should have known about his tails that she didn't, and now- "I doubt you can even feel the scratches that I can see back there. Just easier," Tails admitted after a moment.

He wasn't wrong. She honestly couldn't feel anything wrong with her. "Oh. Sure," she muttered. There was something wrong with her, she knew. Wrong with her mind, again. It's almost as if...

Right. Fatigue. Makes the mind do stupid things. Unable to think straight, slowly going crazy in this crazy world...sounds about right. His tail fur was surprisingly soft for a fox, she thought. The cuts were deep, and she could tell he tried to not wince as she put as much of the gel on as possible. It probably stung a bit.

There were a few more scratches on his back, and she parted his fur, once again thinking how soft it was despite their weeks in the wilds. His skin was warm; not quite as warm as hers but warm enough to notice.

He hissed gently. "Almost done," Blaze said, reaching through his other tail again. She wanted to check, because she wasn't sure if the bird had managed to grab that tail too. She was glad she checked as she saw the large red gash in the skin, nearly impossible to see through his fur.

"Done," Blaze said, handing him the jar. It was just a cup that they'd made a makeshift wooden lid for, but it would work just the same. She'd made nearly three cups worth of the medicinal gel, with Tails making an additional two.

She hissed lightly as his hands made light work of the cuts on her back. There were more than she'd thought, probably from falling as much as she was. Or from the plant things from the jungle. They had managed to nick her more often than she'd thought, she was sure. His hands were gentle and precise, a machinist's hands. Even his usage of the gel was precise; not more than a small amount over the necessary was used. She could feel the gel slowly eat away at the cuts, warming them up gently or cooling them off in the wind.

They snaked around her back, Tails gently pulling around the fur on her midriff. She had gotten cut there, she knew, but she was hoping he wouldn't notice. Her hopes were dashed as he put some more gel on her stomach. "Almost done," he teased in the same tone she'd said earlier. "Arms and legs good, you think?" he asked, yawning wide a second later.

"Probably not, but we should save what we have," Blaze suggested. Her eyes closed on their own, and she forced them open quickly. Her shoes were starting to hurt, which was weird because they really shouldn't have been. She'd run around longer than this in them without any problems.

Tails nodded nonetheless, unknowing to her turmoil, as he put the cup back in his own pack. She had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Of course he'd try to take more weight. Although now with only a few days of water left, the bags weren't actually all that heavy anymore. The food weighed them down, but most of the weight had been in water, and half of that was gone.

The hills started to become more sandy instead of rocky as they went down, and the air became cooler and colder. This was an actual desert, Blaze knew, and not just a facsimile of one created by something. The rocks were starting to be gentler, and more than once her shoes had gotten stuck in the sand. Tails wasn't having much luck either. His shoes were bigger, so he was able to use them to at least stay floating a bit, but until his tails came back along with his flying, he probably wasn't going to be going fast.

The sand was quickly draining them of any actual energy they had, and they still hadn't found a cave or anywhere safe. Their legs were falling into the small sand as it failed to hold them up, and their shoes were starting to drag more sand. "I'm really starting to hate this place," Blaze murmured as some sand from her shoes got kicked up again, blowing straight back at her.

"The desert or the world? Because I'm okay with hating both," Tails murmured from a few feet away. He slipped a moment later, rolling down a small dune. They hadn't even left the foothills, so to speak. It'd simply been transformed into sand. There were still some rocky portions, but not enough, in Blaze's opinion.

"Both," Blaze agreed. She was breathing harder than usual. There was only a few hours until sunrise, but now they could officially say they were in the desert. "Got any communications?" she asked, more as a way to distract herself than for any hope.

Tails blinked before he checked the tablet, looking down on its screen before he shook his head. "No, but it's making a map. It's saying 'desert. Do not be here."

"Now even your tablet knows better than we do?" Blaze laughed. It wasn't funny. But everything was funny to her now, including the way her shoes got stuck in the sand again. "That's it, I'm done," she said, sitting down onto the sand.

It was surprisingly soft and cold, cradling her gently. She reached down and took off her shoes and socks, letting her bare feet hit the sand. She blinked in surprise at the soft sensation, before she pushed herself up. She gave a quiet jump, expecting to land back in ankle deep sand, only to be surprised to land on the top.

"Effective," Tails murmured. "Not sure that's a good idea though. And I thought you hated feeling down there," he said. 'Like most of us' she knew he said in his head, even if he didn't voice it.

"I do. But this sand was worse. It's actually nice and cool. Feel it," Blaze said, digging her toes in before she gave a few steps. With each one she bounced a bit on its surface.

Tails reached down and grabbed a bit, running it through his hands. "Huh. Almost feels like beach sand, but we're nowhere near the beach," he murmured. "I wonder if this used to be a beach, ages ago?"

"Not sure," Blaze said, feeling re-energized by the feeling. She put her shoes and socks back in her bags, almost bouncing on the surface of the sand. That didn't make any sense, she knew, but it's what was going on.

"I don't even know how that's working," Tails said as he watched her. "You're digitigrade; if anything you should be sinking more. Less surface area."

Blaze smirked. "No idea either. Come on, if it's working for me it should work for you!" she enticed. Tails rolled his eyes before he sat down, removing his own shoes and socks. His feet were digitigrade too, surprisingly, she thought. She'd thought for sure he was plantigrade, walking around like Sonic and Knuckles did.

He blinked in surprise as he bounced on the desert top. "Wow. You are right, this is weird..." he said, stretching on top of the sand. "Bet we can run like this now. Cover more ground, look for a cave to sleep."

Blaze smirked. "Is that a challenge in your voice I hear, Miles Prower?" she asked teasingly.

He gave her a smirk as well, as his ears perked behind him. His smirk dropped off. "How much you want to bet there's some massive creature waiting to eat us through this desert?" he asked.

Blaze's ears perked up. There was a small rumble, similar to the mole people in the plains. Though this was one was much deeper, as if the object was a lot bigger. "No bet. Sand worm?"

"Sand worm," Tails agreed. He started to run, only taking moments to get up to full speed on the desert surface. Blaze joined him a moment later, not using her fire to boost up. The rumble was loud, now, but seemingly going in every other direction other than the one they were in.

But still she kept running. She had to. But she was tired. So very, very tired.

— Side T—

Tails was tired, and he knew it. There was no other way that he would've suggested to run across a cold desert at night with a loud rumble that he was mostly sure belonged a worm the size of a mountain right behind them. Not that they could see the worm, mind. But they felt it, through their feet, and they heard it loud and clear. Like a deep rumble behind them and to the side, it reminded him a lot of the driller's they left behind in the plains.

Except now they were tired, and probably not able to get up to full speed. The moon hung above them, pale in its light and arcane in its glow. It washed everything in a grey light, although the sand didn't need much help in that regard. The stars were clear, although the moon mostly hid the ones closest to it. There was nothing in front of them, but also nothing to the side. The mountain range they had come from, barren in the form of caves, loomed behind them, as if it was chasing them down no matter how far they ran. And they were running, but more than once had to stop while the other stumbled.

He couldn't think straight. He knew it, somehow, that he couldn't. Why else would he have gone barefoot? Why else would Blaze have? They had gone insane, and this world wasn't helping things. Like a worm it dived into his brain and squeezed down, making it hard for him to understand or think things through. Blaze fell again, flat into the sand. She was breathing hard, and Tails only stopped for a moment to help her up. Her eyes were shut, and she looked asleep for a second before her ears perked, and her golden eyes opened. "Fell asleep again, I think," she said.

"Must have," Tails answered. Even when Sonic and he had done almost all of their adventures, they had always had a place to sleep. Even in the desert areas, there were always caves underground. It was how they'd gone through the Mystic Cave when he was a kid on West Island-

"Wait, I think I got it," Tails said. "We can burrow, make our own cave!" he said. He had the claws for it, and he was part fennec, a desert fox, who naturally hid in burrows like that out in the desert.

"Unless you think you can dig for two of us and our bags, I don't think that's going to work. Not to mention the worm," Blaze pointed out. Her ears perked up again, and Tails heard the loud rumbling of the sand worm again. And they had to worry about that thing. He'd almost forgotten about it.

They started running again, and the rumbling ceased. Whether it was far behind them, or slowly losing out on them, Tails didn't know, but they kept going. The desert stretched endlessly. There were no cacti around, no rocks for small things to hide. It was an endless hill of dunes that had just been plopped where they were. Laziest designer ever, Tails thought.

The cold sand was surprisingly soft on his feet at least. The last bit of desert sand he could remember was coarse and angry, and it took him nearly two weeks to get the last bit of it out of his fur. It was one of the few times he wished he was like Sonic or Shadow, with short fur barely an inch thick in winter. Although their spines were anything but short...

It held him up well, too, which was a bit odd. He imagined it had to do with how the pressure was spread out versus when they were walking on their heels instead, but even that didn't make much sense. He would've preferred flying, but his tails were still healing, and he didn't want the gel to fly every which way.

He closed his eyes for a moment to blink, only to wake up on the cold sand on his back. Blaze was holding out one of her hands, shaking him gently with her other one. Her eyes were noticeably baggier, and it looked like she was doing everything she could to stay awake. They'd been up for more than thirty six hours, now.

After he was wrenched up, Blaze reached back into her bags for some water. Tails was busy trying to get the sand off his fur. She drank greedily from it, before she passed it off to him. There was still half left.

Blaze crashed to the ground as he finished the bag. Her long legs out in front of her as she sat down. "I'm exhausted," she said quietly. Her ears perked as she tried to hear for the sand worm, Tails thought. Or maybe she was trying to hear something else.

"I am too. But unless we want to sleep out in the open in a desert, we should keep moving," Tails said. He waited for the inevitable rumble that was the movement of the sand worm.

"I'd prefer not to die of heat stroke, thanks," Blaze responded. "Prefer not to die at all, actually. Any communications?"

Tails checked, the bright screen forcing his eyes to shut. There was a small rumble that he felt through his legs, and shortly after he heard. Blaze had already started running, and he was right behind her. The Miles Electric showed nothing but sand around them, and nothing new.

"No, nothing. It's only been a few days, maybe they can't figure out how to work the system," Tails thought of. He'd tried to make it as idiot-proof as possible, but he was also working with Sonic here. The hedgehog could make anything seem like a good idea, even if it's as insane as 'let's blow up this giant ship we're running on'.

Tails had singed fur for weeks after that incident.

He carefully put the Miles Electric back into his bail-bag, the only thing that he knew for sure would survive almost anything this world could throw at it. Except for being eaten, he doubted it could survive that.

The rumble vanished as quick as it came, but Blaze kept running, and Tails kept pace. It was kind of freeing, honestly. It'd been years since he ran like this, especially on something as soft as this sand. Even grasslands he mostly just flew over.

Blaze's posture had changed, he noticed. And he knew his probably was different too. She was lower to the ground now, her legs doing less work and letting her ankles do more. Bounciness to each step, he realized. He was too, he noticed after a moment. Instinctual.

Were they going back to their instincts? Was that what this world did, slow drive sapients to go back to baser thoughts? Admittedly he had noticed his thoughts had changed a bit, but he had put that up to being a teenager having to live with a beautiful woman-

He cut off that thought as fast as he could think it. That was not something he needed to think about. His legs tripped and he caught himself a second later before his head hit the sand. Blaze he noticed had done the same thing, multiple times. They were tired, weren't they?

The rumble from before was now massive, and directly in front of them. "Worm!" Blaze shouted as she ran for the side. Tails followed a second later as the dunes and hills started to rise up.

Tails wasn't sure what to call it, at first. It was a greyish blob, the same color as the moon, with its mouth full of teeth. They were arranged circular, like a shark's, except Tails noticed the teeth were...dull. Closer to a herbivore's than a carnivore's.

It had no eyes, and it was nearly twenty feet at its widest. Its mouth was split in the middle, creating four separate mandibles. It let out a startled cry and started to dive back under the sand.

"Keep an eye on it," Blaze said loudly as she kept watching as it dove. The hole it had dug was gone an instant later. Tails wasn't sure why, certainly the sand couldn't be that porous-

It rose up from the next hill over, diving into the air nearly a hundred feet before it dove back down onto the sand hills. Tails was sure he'd seen the same type of behavior before but he wasn't sure where.

"Whales. It's a sand whale..." Blaze named. The sand whale was a sand worm, in that it was a worm that was in the sand, but it behaved similar to a whale. The size of one too, Tails had to admit. It was almost entirely worm shaped, except for its mouth, which was split into quarters. It's teeth vibrated into the sand with each jump, essentially using the sand to chew through and spitting out the other side.

"I'm not going to think about what we're stepping in," Tails said instantly. Blaze nodded a moment later. "It doesn't seem harmful, at least."

"Neither did the leviathan, and we both know how that worked out," Blaze added. Tails nodded, and they both took off again, away from the direction of the sand whale as it jumped into and out of the sand.

"I just hope this one isn't going to start flying and throwing out lightning," Tails joked lightly. Blaze gave a quiet chuckle.

"I would've thought you wanted the practice," she smirked, looking over to him. She bounced along the side, following his own pace.

"There's a difference between practice and subliminal suicidal ideation," Tails answered. "And that not only crosses the line, but goes so far beyond it, it loops back around."

"So it is practice, then?"

"No, it's not."

"It loops around, you said. All loops come to their origin point at some point."

"If it follows the normal curves, but this one wouldn't. It goes all the way around and a little to the left, like all the others do."

"So it's not a loop, it's a curve?"

"Sure, let's go with that," Tails admitted defeat. Blaze smirked, until she closed her eyes for a moment and lost her balance in the sand. "I wish there was at least a rock around to cover us while we sleep."

He helped Blaze up, ignoring the way he felt the metaphorical shocks go up his hand at touching her fur. "I think we both know why there isn't any," Blaze admitted after she opened her eyes. "If that thing can chew through solid rock...then is this actually a desert?"

"It's cold enough to be," Tails said. There was a dark chill in the air, and he felt it hard against his fur. Blaze was seemingly fine, but then again she was also a cat who specialized in fire.

"I wonder which came first then. The sand whale or the desert sand?" she asked. Tails ears perked up as he heard the rumble again, this time from close by. Blaze's ears did the same, and they sighed in unison. "What do you think, violent running time?" she asked.

"I think it's just plain running time," Tails said. Blaze bolted out a second before Tails did, bouncing along the desert sand. The whale leaped out of the sand where they'd been standing, and came crashing down not far from where they were running to. As it crashed down, it wasn't just sand that came back up.

Small white insect-like things, with many legs, came rolling out of the sand. From where Tails could see, they were small at least, but they had to be at least as big as he and Blaze were, considering how far away it was.

"It eats them, you think?" Blaze suggested. A small scurrying sound rushed to their ears, and they ran to the side as a dozen or so of the white insect monsters burrowed up from the ground. They scurried for only half a second before aiming themselves at both he and Blaze.

Tails ran to the side as the things jumped at them, showing their bottom side was...kind of worse. They didn't have teeth, but had dozens of plates mashing together as if they were. "Why does everything want to eat us here!?" Tails said as he felt Blaze grab his hand. He knew what was coming next, and he hoped she had the energy for it, because he certainly didn't.

She called upon her fire, creating a vacuum in front of them and boosting out of the way. The white insects, sandblobs as he was going to call them, seemed intent on showing up everywhere around them.

Then Tails felt Blaze faint in front of him. They skidded into the sand, Tails curling his body around Blaze's to ensure she was hurt the least. He felt the sand aggravate the wounds from the birds, and he gritted his teeth until they stopped rolling along the cold sand.

He opened his eyes to see the blobs covering up from every side around them.

No matter the tone changes, it's not as if I'm not going to throw these two characters into increasingly more violent situations. It's kind of a thing, by this point.

Another chapter I'm unsure of, but really, that's all of Exertion.

Fun fact! Foxes and cats are naturally digitigrade, while hedgehogs are actually plantigrade, which means that Sonic's run cycle? If he was actually bipedal, that's how he'd actually run. Echidnas are plantigrade as well, except their back feet are facing backwards. Mammals be weird. Until Next Time.