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.

Existence 10.2

Blaze wandered around the snowy hills of the arctic tundra, unbothered by the cold. She had on her usual overcoat and tights. The only thing different than what she normally wore while on diplomacy for the Sol Empire was her lack of shoes. The rocks didn't bite into her feet as they should have, and yet she wandered on, heading towards the center of where she knew a village was to be.

The cold was simply another fact, another thing that she could count on. It wasn't biting, nor was it all-encompassing, but rather it was simple chill, warded off easily by her pyrokinesis. Far off in the distance, she saw a bunch of lights from her goal lay. Her father had given her this mission, to come to the outskirts of an inhospitable wasteland and talk with the natives here, getting them to join the Sol Empire. She was to present a 'carrot'; the Sol Empire's defenses, and wasn't given permission to use any hardball tactics. If the village didn't want it, they didn't want it.

That was the difference between her father and her grandmother, the previous queen. Her grandmother had ruled with an iron first, or as she had often coined it, 'a fist of fire'. There were no carrots, no reasons to not join. It was 'join or die'. And whenever someone's choices were 'join or die', many of them fought. They called it the Reign of Shadows, now. For all the soldiers that marched to their death at the hands of a power hungry queen who wanted more, more and more. The only one to stand up to them had been a small folk village in the corner, who had seven powerful artifacts.

When the Guardianship passed down to Blaze's mother, and she and the prince had met multiple times both on and off the battlefield, the queen had decreed they get married. They acquiesced...just long enough before a citizen, someone whom all had looked down upon, had poisoned the mad queen. The newly crowned King hadn't bothered to sentence the killer, instead locking them in a prison for seven years.

And by lock in a prison, Blaze knew they meant 'sent to a library off in the middle of nowhere who wouldn't have heard of the queen's passing' and seven years to mean 'whenever they want'.

Blaze passed the first house, frowning at the lack of fires in the fireplaces. She'd met her grandmother's killer, actually. A squirrel who had posed as a cook. Originally anti-monarchy, it wasn't until her father proved that there were good monarchs too that they turned.

Or at least, Blaze hoped they did. She hadn't seen them in years. Since she'd been about eight, if she had to recall. He'd seemed nice, when she had met him that time. Admittedly, he'd also been living out in a far off village doing quite well for himself for several years by then.

The lack of lights and fires made Blaze pause. There was something here that was different. This was a frozen tundra; fires should be burning at all hours of the day. There was only one house with any light burning at all, a small meeting hall centered in the middle of the village. She had seen lights earlier, but now that she was looking, all of them were out. This one's lights weren't enough to be seen from miles out.

Wary, she walked cautiously up to it, pulling back the skins that acted as the door. There were none of the natives here; naturally white bears that could withstand almost any cold. Instead she found herself in a lab, with one side of the room dedicated to a giant computer. On the other side, Tails stood proud, whipping a naked Spark in front of a bed she was chained to. There was an empty set of manacles next to them, and Tails looked over, uncaring that he was covered in Spark's blood. The door shut immediately on her, forcing her to step inside. The smell of blood and...something, bit at her.

"Ah. The next one is here. We shall force her to watch, I think. That should give us enough room to work with, afterwards. And give her some warning as to what is coming. Do you agree, Imuldo?" Tails said, his tone even, as if Blaze wasn't worth much attention. He gave one last whip at the vixen, who gave a pained groan.

She felt Spark's hands on her own a moment later. "Wait, what!?" she yelled as the vixen pushed her towards the manacles. She tried to call the fires, only to find they wouldn't answer her. "Let go of me!" she roared as she attempted to rip her arms away from Spark.

The vixen was strong, holding her easy. "Trying to think of running, daughter of Flare?" Tails said, his eyes half-shut. "You cannot run without the emeralds," he motioned to the computer, where the seven Sol Emeralds were being drained of energy to power the lab. "Now then. Let's see what we have-"

Blaze forced herself to wake up. She stopped the growl that was buried in her throat before she relaxed. Tails and Spark were next to her. There was no lab, and Tails was not some uncaring scientist who was more concerned with their next paper than they were their subjects. It would be difficult to get up without them waking up, but Blaze moved slowly, trying to find the right angles. It took more than a few minutes, and more than once she thought Spark had woken up. Tails, at least, had stayed asleep with some dream or another.

She pushed her head out of the blanket, letting the cold wash over her face. The dark blue sun was up, washing everything in a pale light that reminded her strongly of moonlight. The colors were so off here that it was hard for her to remember what the actual colors were like.

Blaze sat down a few feet away, keeping the cloak covering her so she wouldn't get frostbite. It kept her warm enough, even though her flames couldn't. She crossed her legs, letting her feet rest on her thighs as she closed her eyes, focusing inwards. She could at least try to meditate a bit while she waited for the others to wake up. How long she was asleep, she didn't know.

She described it best as a freefall into darkness. There was the bright core of her abilities, off to the left like a star. Further down, she met the red warmth that she knew was Iblis' flames. She rested above it, hoping to bypass the cursed fires as best she could. She had to focus on the power of the Sol Emeralds. She envisioned all seven together, dancing around a light. Each color bounced around, illuminating the others around the fire. They were dim, but still active.

Were they charging? Had they stopped? Did they count her as dead, now? Or did her time in Vianex and exile make it so they didn't count her as their Guardian?

To her relief, she felt a small fire flutter around her soul. It was small, tinier than it had been before, but it meant the emeralds still chose her as their Guardian. But it was smaller; something that worried her.

It was times like this she really missed her mother. And the royalty's library, to try to understand what the Emeralds wanted. Were they waiting for something? Wanting something from her? They worked in emotions, not unlike the Chaos Emeralds from Tails' world. The Chaos Emeralds though, chose no one for their Guardian, as chaotic as that was. No...she should have been able to see what it was the emeralds wanted.

She reached out again, trying to tell which of the emeralds was brightest. But they were all so dim...

"Blaze?" Tails' voice roared out in her head. She reluctantly let the emerald's out of her mind, and pulled herself out of her meditation.

The sun was still in the same spot it had been before, almost as if high noon. Tails was behind her, his blue eyes full of curiosity. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Checking in on the Sol Emeralds," Blaze explained. Usually talking about the Guardian duties wasn't something she did...but Tails knew Knuckles, and knew that Guardian's sometimes had special powers that many others didn't. He wouldn't question it.

"Ah. Anything new?"

"Nothing. Still dim. Still not charging," Blaze answered gently. Tails raised an eyebrow as he sat down next to her. She ignored the way that he froze right before he hit the ground, knowing that otherwise she'd laugh way too hard.

"Not charging? Still? Didn't Sonic and Knuckles' last message say that Marine had crossed over with the Sol Emeralds? Do you think they're not charging because they're in my world?"

"No, but they would if they were in use. You don't have anything in your lab that could use the Sol Emerald's power do you?" Blaze asked.

Tails shook his head. "Nothing. I worked on a few things, but I always used the Chaos Emeralds. Unless they figured out a way to transform the energy from fire to electric, create a brand new casing that could withstand those temperatures-"

"But you don't think they could."

"They could, if they had the know how. My lab is capable of almost any amount of building and replicating. If they needed a temperature controlled device that would fit the emeralds, they could do it. But there's no native method to go from fire to electric. I never saw the need. You were always a rare visitor."

Blaze nodded. "I don't think I've ever visited your lab, have I?"

"No, you haven't. I mean, you did stay at my house in Central City that one time, but that was for something else. You never came out to my lab," Tails answered.

"I thought that was Sonic's."

"You really think Sonic would be that neat and orderly?" Tails deadpanned. Blaze giggled, a hand raising itself to her mouth to hide the sound automatically.

"I guess not. I thought he had done it to impress someone. My best guess was Amy."

"Really?" Tails asked. "If he wanted to actually impress her, all he'd have to do is stick around for three seconds. Though he has settled down a bit, as had she."

"She told me she was going to try to not be so reliant on him from then on. This was after the Starfall Islands, I think."

"Yeah, those islands really shook us. That's when Sonic started getting into the occult, I think. A lot more of the spiritual side."

"You keep mentioning Sonic. Who is he?" Spark's voice asked from behind them. Blaze turned around, unsurprised to see Spark's heading peeking out of the blanket. One of her ears was low, and the other one was up high, as if she had just woken up.

"Sonic's my friend. Closest thing to a dad, although really he's just my brother," Tails said with a proud smile. "Hold on, I have a picture here," he said, grabbing his tablet and perusing some of the apps on it.

"Picture?" Spark asked as Blaze felt her breath on her shoulder. Tails' hands were going over the tablet swiftly, not pausing for anything more than a moment. He paused on one, before he blew it up to full screen.

"I remember that," Blaze muttered as she stared at Sonic's twentieth birthday party. It had been the day the Time Eater had swung by, ripping her from her world, and reminder her that no one else remembered the destroyed future. Even Silver, her friend from that timeline, remembered it. She felt a minor headache pop up, but still she forced it back down. She should probably let the others know about those, at some point.

"Yep. That's Sonic, there. Cream, Amy, Knuckles, Vector, Espio, Charmy, Rouge, Shadow, Silver..." Tails trailed off, staring at the picture.

"How is a hedgehog your brother? Unless you did not mean it literal. Also, what is he?" Spark asked, pointing to Knuckles. "The others I...recognize...but...not him."

"That's Knuckles. He's an echidna. And yeah, we're a weird looking bunch. Silver's a hedgehog too," Tails clarified. Spark shot him a look that spoke of her disbelief.

"We should probably get going. We don't know when the next sundown will happen," Blaze commented as she stared upwards. The dark blue sun was still hanging there, but considering it had gone down in less than a minute, and then rose again some hours later, she wasn't keen on taking chances.

Tails nodded, and carefully put the tablet back into his bail-bag. Blaze forced herself up while Spark went back to the blanket, folding it up gently. "I think that we will be okay, as long as we do not run out of food," Spark said quietly.

Blaze reached down into her cloak, pulling out another piece of dried fish. She passed a few pieces out to the other two. "I hope we don't. We have enough for a week or two, depending on if we ration it," Blaze commented, "so we should be okay."

"That's what we've said about a lot of things so far," Tails retorted. "But then again, we've been right about every one," he grinned. He pulled out the three metal boards, helping to strap one to Spark's back while Blaze did her own.

Blaze stared at the mountains on the far side. They had come a long way already, but they had a while to go yet. If only she could figure out what the Sol Emerald's wanted from her...

-Side T-

The cold continued to bite into Tails' fur whenever he opened his cloak for another step. The snow was almost unnaturally cold, despite the time he'd spent in the Ice Cap Zone frozen into a block while Sonic laughed before breaking him out. Blaze and Spark were next to him, each measuring their strides by his. He was only slightly taller than Blaze, who had nearly four or five inches on Spark, so their stride sizes were about the same.

The mountains loomed ever overhead, complete with a thunderstorm at the top, preventing them from seeing the top. There was little wind chill, but yet the cold seemed ever present. He was almost expecting the sun to go down just to make it even colder for them, despite the fact he wasn't tired yet. Blaze handed out small pieces of dried fish every few hours. He could barely stand the taste, but it was at least something. He wondered how much more they had of it, because it definitely wasn't filling.

The only other thing they had going for them, Tails thought, was that their water hadn't frozen yet. In fact it was still sloshing around their waterproof bags despite that he knew it was well lower than its freezing point. Normally he'd point out that kind of thing shouldn't be happening, but at this point he was sure everyone was kind of sick of pointing out how things shouldn't be.

Which is why he wasn't surprised in the least when a horde of reptile things popped up out of the snow, running quickly on six legs over the snow, headed straight for them. He pulled out the only weapon he could, the snowboard on his back, and he held it like one would a frying pan or some other bludgeoning object. Blaze shot a few spears of flame, not surprised at all when they did nothing against the snow lizards. Spark mimicked Tails' own usage of the board as a weapon, holding it with a lot less care than he did. He should probably copy her, honestly, she was the one with actual training...

He wished his tails would have healed by now. Then he could have another weapon; himself. Instead he had to do with waiting for them to heal naturally, and while he was a quick healer, it was still going to take a while. At least a week. Then again, it took nearly three weeks for Blaze to heal after burning herself out...his was only a physical injury and not nearly that strenuous, so maybe it wouldn't even take a week...

"Wait, something's wrong," Blaze said, holding up her hand. There was a light fireball on it, ready to be thrown, but the lizards didn't seem to be slowing down as a hunting animal would be. Tails racked his brain; he'd seen that type of behavior before. But where?

The first of the lizards reached them, and Tails braced himself for an impact that never came as they flowed around them fluidly. He paused, looking around confused as the lizards avoided them...but also didn't attack them. They didn't swing back around to try to kill them, instead they were...they were running from something. He remembered now. "They're like the robots, next to Metal Madness..." he muttered. He got a confused look from Blaze and an incoherent stare from Spark, but he continued anyways, "they're running from something. Which means-"

The snow seemed to leap up on itself, forming what looked like a giant snowman in front of them. "They are running from that. Most likely," Spark answered. "And we still can not run. How...", she started to finish in Ikan'Thoan, "What do we do? And you say this is normal!?"

Small black endless pits formed itself on the third and smallest snow pile, forming eyes. There was no mouth, and the snow didn't open to form one, either. Instead the entire neck opened up, revealing a chilled blue hole that Tails felt was far colder than anything he'd felt...except the Ice Cap caves. "No, this is pretty normal," Tails retorted. "Any ideas?"

"Hit it really hard?" Blaze asked, throwing a small stream of fire towards it. It burned blue and bright, until it hit the cold dark blue chilled air that came from its neck, disappearing both into nothing. "I really wish that would work on something," she complained. Spark let out a charged roar as she ran forward, falling flat into a hole that opened in the snow.

Tails stared at it. It actually didn't seem all that threatening. It was just a lump of snow with a face on it. They couldn't move quick, and that was their greatest strength. Fire wouldn't hurt it, and he doubted that electricity would see much better. He was denied flight, as well, so he couldn't just...actually he could do that. He could just drop Blaze onto it. "I have a plan," he stated simply, just as the chill of the air started to bite into his head. He felt the cloak around him start to freeze solid, and know he didn't have much time. Maybe it was more threatening than he gave it credit for, considering that now his lower half is practically frozen...

He once again compared it to the Ice Cap Caves...and found that Ice Cap was, in fact, still colder.

"Name it," Blaze said, circling herself and him with fire. It didn't do much to melt the cloak, but it was enough to let him move somewhat freely. The snowman thing roared again, letting out another chilled air bomb. Spark's head popped up out of the hole, a small bolt hovering into the air, shocking the snow. Tails gripped his board, holding so Blaze could jump on easily.

She seemed to get it, but strangely unhesitant. He knew that when they had tried this before, back on the original leviathan, she had been terrified of heights. Had something happened to make her get used to it? Or was it just the adrenaline doing its job? Trying to throw off the cold and chill before the next bomb hit them, she jumped, landing easily on the board. "Ready?" Tails asked, not bothering to wait for her to assuage his fears before he started to spin.

The holes didn't open up underneath them. It was based on actual two dimensional movement, not three dimensional, he realized. How it decided that particular limitation, Tails wasn't sure, but he had another idea pop into his mind, but it all depended on the limitations. Just before the cold bomb hit, "Now!" he shouted, as Blaze jumped off using everything she had. Tails dove under the ground, grabbing Spark with him as he dipped into the snow. A hole opened right where he landed, which he wanted.

Mostly so that way he could see as the hole pathway opened from where Blaze had jumped, following her trail through the air perfectly, as if she was running on the snow to create the pathway of holes. "Grab on!" Tails said, feeling the slight weight of the vixen behind him as he started to run the same path that was Blaze's jump. The cold bomb overhead hit, but by the time it would've started freezing them, they were already out of the way. The path was tight, but he didn't fall into another hole underneath this one, so it could only seem to do one set of holes at once.

Tails couldn't see above the pit, but Spark could, and was trying to explain everything that Blaze was doing. "She is running on the backside, I think she is trying to get to the head-" Spark tried to explain. At least that meant his plan worked; and it gave them a second way to run instead of going walking speed. In barely twenty seconds he had already crossed that distance, seeing just how big the snowman actually was.

It towered over them, nearly thirty or forty feet tall, massive waves of snow showing where the base of it was, and where the top lay. Blaze was almost dancing on top of it, her feet barely touching the snow before they took her to the skies again, her flames a constant friend as they zipped her around the thing. "Any ideas? You have brought us this far," Spark asked under her breath. Tails shook his head, his eyes narrowed as he stared up at it.

"Now remember, Tails, the most important thing about fighting a bigger enemy is that they move slower than us. Always," Sonic said, a large grin on his face. Emerald Hill Zone ran itself below their feet, the young fox doing his best to keep up with the hedgehog. "And anything that is slower than us, generally means that we can abuse that advantage. Honor's fun, but living's more fun. Repeat?" Sonic asked, his body moving almost faster than the eye could see as he took out another of the monkey robots.

"Anything slower means we can abuse it..." Tails murmured. He heard the inquisitive murmur of Spark on his back, before he pulled himself out of the hole, fully next to the snowman now. "Hold on, Spark!" Tails yelled as he jumped over the field. He grit his teeth as he spun his tails, just enough to stay in the air for a split second. Pain shot up his spine, but he did it again another moment later, avoiding the holes that came up where he would have landed. The snowman thing was busy dealing with Blaze, large amounts of ice and cold coming from its body, almost like spikes.

The cat was far too busy to see what Tails had planned, but if he had his thoughts right, it didn't matter. He kept circling it, jump by jump. His cloak kept getting frozen, and Spark would reach down and let a small charge out, just enough to shock the ice back into water. It left him soaking underneath it, but he'd rather be cold and wet than dead. Bit by bit, he could tell it was almost ready. "Hang on! Blaze! Grab your board!" Tails yelled out as he saw the original hole pop up in his vision. He'd come full circle, now.

"Tails, next time you have a crazy idea, tell me so I can be far away!" Blaze shouted, her feet coated in flames as she landed at the top of the snowman, coating it in fire that couldn't burn it. It's eyes were seemingly empty, it's pupils only black but it's roars were full of pain and rage. Tails completed his last jump, and he grinned as Spark leaped off of his back, hopefully with her board at the ready. He heard the floor start to collapse, and started to jump onto the snowman thing. If he thought the regular snow was cold, it had nothing on the body's snow. No wonder Blaze had spent most of the time in the air if she could.

The floor collapsed, and Tails was in the air for only a second before he put the board underneath him, landing right where Blaze had been standing a bit before. It fell the five feet, and collapsed into a giant pile, almost unmoving except for its face. The snow fell from the top to the bottom, creating an avalanche that Tails hoped the others knew what to do with. It wasn't the first time they'd done this either! The thing roared and raged as they slid down its back, a makeshift avalanche to fill in the holes that they inevitably made as they went. It would try to cold bomb them, Tails knew, but they could probably handle that once they got a bit of distance.

The snow crashed around them, and seemingly went on for a few miles, bringing its unruly passengers with it. The snow roared around them, filling in the holes that their travel left behind, but keeping them above it. "I'm hoping you knew this would happen. Because if not, Tails, I have words for you," Blaze warned. Tails grinned as he bounced off a small hill, doing a trick in the air before landing.

"I didn't. But I had a good idea," he answered. The cat gave an annoyed sigh. Spark attempted a trick of her own, copying Tails' own style before she landed awkwardly, almost falling off before having to be stabilized by the two tailed fox. "Best not to try what we do," he said. The vixen nodded, her face blushing bright.

By the time that they got off the boards, Tails estimated they'd probably crossed nearly a third of plains on that trick, and were almost there. The mountains seemed to rise over them, a large thunderstorm within hearing range by now. Every time the thunder crashed, Tails had to withhold the innate spear of fear that shot up his back. He knew the lightning couldn't hurt him. He was an electrokineticist now, too. Lightning was...just science. Just an electrical discharge.

"I think I see a cave ahead," Blaze said. "I think we made it!" she pointed forwards, towards the large mountains. Sure enough, on the far side, a large cave mouth sat there, in all of its ominous feeling. It took nearly another hour of walking before they got there, but they did just as the sun changed from the day to the night, suddenly rocketing towards the west, with the moon shooting up from the east stopping in the middle.

The cold descended on them as they reached the cave mouth. Tails could see his breath easily form in the air, which now that he thought about it hadn't happened on the plains. "I think we should head inside. The fires should work, I hope," Spark said, going a bit deeper in. "It's much warmer in here," she finished a minute or two later. Blaze and Tails turned to each other, before they both nodded and walked forward. "Much warmer," Spark said again. The cave was a strange rock, not quite dirt but definitely not the normal granite or sandstone that most other caves were. Instead it was almost striated, almost like quartzite or something similar. But the layers weren't flat, as they should have been, but rather vertical. Tails ran his hand over it, feeling it chip over his hands. It seemed off, almost with a charcoal-like texture.

It took only a few minutes before Tails and Blaze caught up with Spark, but by then Tails was starting to feel the heat too. Spark had already tossed her cloak off, clothed in basically just undergarments, letting it dry on one of the helictites, a stalactite that went horizontal rather than vertical. It was a rather big one too, Tails noticed, which shouldn't be possible. By their very definition, helictites were fragile. Certainly not strong enough to hang a wet and partially frozen cloak on.

"I suggest we keep a watch," Blaze said quietly. "Something's weird here," she continued, pointing towards the sleeping Spark. When had she fallen asleep? In the last few minutes alone? Had she really been that tired and he hadn't noticed? He was starting to sweat, now. He took off his own cloak, avoiding staring at Blaze as she did the same with her own.

"No, I agree. But...she must have been tired."

"So are you, I think," Blaze said as Tails felt his eyes shut seemingly on their own, relaxing into the surprisingly warm cavern wall.

I re-wrote this chapter originally two or three times, and it never worked the way I wanted it to. I think I re-wrote all of Existence a couple of times, truthfully...

Posting this one a day early because I won't be able to at the usual time.

Until Next Time.