Chapter Nineteen: Breadcrumbs
I never realized how much work it was not to despair. We're not even doing anything that extreme, just walking into town, doing our best not to attract notice, going to pick up supplies for the Blue Typhoon. But even just with walking, every step's a struggle. Like quicksand sticks to the soles of my shoes. Like it wants to drag me down, if only to stop me for a second. Because that second will become more than that and before I know it, the quicksand will have pulled me under.
I'm only now realizing that hope isn't the default. Good isn't just something everyone does. Not everyone wants to be a hero.
I'm starting to wish I didn't want to be one.
The air tasted like rain when they left the Blue Typhoon, but the scent faded the further north they traveled. Tails followed closely behind Chris as the road they had been following for the last twenty minutes or so finally led them into a town. Chris's shoulders visibly fell with relief, which Tails could easily sympathize with. Though their database and guidebooks had all agreed on the existence of the small town, separated from the larger populations of the planet by larges stretches of undeveloped land on all sides, they couldn't know for certain that it would still be here. With the destruction the Metarex had already ravaged on Majyk, who could guess the limits of their reach? Tails had half-expected to find a crater where the town had been. It would certainly be consistent with the luck they'd had thus far in this timeline.
You have to hope, Tails reminded himself. You're not in this thing alone.
"It certainly looks like we found the remote enough place we wanted," Chris muttered back over his shoulder at Tails.
"I just hope they have what we need," Tails agreed. His brown messenger bag bounced against his side. Not for the first time that day, Tails's fingers twitched with the instinct to reach for the violet Chaos Emerald hidden there, and also not for the first time, Tails shoved that instinct down deep inside him. As much as he wanted the comfort of its warmth, he also knew that Chaos Emeralds were fueled by the heart. And he knew that his heart was not his best feature at the moment.
But he would get there. He would lean on his friends and they would make a plan and they would learn how to heal together. After all, that healing was the only way he would be able to use the Chaos Emeralds. To stop the Metarex once and for all.
To save Cosmo and Sonic.
As buildings housing businesses began to rise up on either side of the road, Tails found himself breathing a sigh of relief when he found no wanted posters bearing his face or the faces of any of his friends. In two of the past three wars against the Metarex, the Metarex put a price on his head. Admittedly, the lack of signage didn't mean there wasn't one.
But hope. Hope. He had to keep looking for any scrap of hope, no matter how small it was, no matter how much work it took.
"You good to keep an eye on things outside while I barter?" Chris asked once they started to slow in front of the promising-looking hardware store that was their destination.
"I got it," Tails agreed. His twin namesakes twitched behind them. He hoped Chris wouldn't recognize the anxiety in the gesture. Or at least realized that the anxiety was Tails's constant companion these days and should be paid little if any mind.
Chris turned into the small hardware store. A bell hanging from the door chimed a tinny hello as it bounced against the flimsy door. The door slapped closed behind Chris a moment later, cutting off the jingle as far as Tails could hear.
Tails leaned his shoulders back against the modest store's aluminum siding. His eyes scanned the sparsely populated street before him, as residents of the small town went about their daily business.
The role of lookout left Tails's stomach squirming. He felt like a play actor in his own life, shrugging on a costume that was a size too large and kept sagging off his shoulders, like a kid playing nothing more or less than make-believe. What was the point of keeping watch? If an army of Metarex was marching down the street, they were toast anyway. If even one Metarex showed its face, Tails wasn't sure there was much more they could do than run. So Tails was little more than an early warning system, if that.
His twin namesakes drooped with discouragement behind him. And though he worried about his lack of hope, the weakness of his heart, he pulled out the violet Chaos Emerald, desperate for its warmth to fill the hole.
But then Tails's heart skipped a beat when his eyes landed on the Emerald and saw its abnormally bright glow.
Tails quickly cupped his other hand around the Chaos Emerald to try to hide its glow from any passerby who might recognize the significance. But though Tails could try to hide the glow from others, he couldn't ignore it himself. It was far too bright to be normal. He knew what it meant. His heart jumped up into his throat.
There was another Chaos Emerald nearby. And based on how brightly the Chaos Emerald in Tails's hand was glowing, it was close.
Tails glanced back over his shoulder. Though the store's door was glass, Tails didn't see Chris inside. He must have just stepped out of sight as he sought the supplies they were looking for. Tails shifted his eyes back to the Chaos Emerald in his hands. Had its glow intensified? The other Emerald had to be so close. Maybe even in town.
He looked back over his shoulder one more time. They didn't have time to waste. Every minute on this planet was another minute for the Metarex to catch up. Maybe Tails could make the most of their time, make the most of his waiting.
Tails held out the Chaos Emerald in front of him. He rotated on the spot. And at the point where the Chaos Emerald glowed brightest, he followed. Once he chose his direction, Tails pulled the Chaos Emerald back toward his chest and wrapped his hands around it to again obscure its glow. However, the few passerby populating the town weren't looking his way. Not even as the two-tailed stranger stepped from the street and into the grass, heading toward the smattering of trees edging one side of the isolated little town.
Once Tails reached the tree line, he glanced back to make sure no one was watching him before he held the Chaos Emerald out in front of him once more to use its glow to refine his direction.
Tentative hope rose up in Tails. The Blue Typhoon's scanners that swept planets for Chaos Emeralds were still offline. But by sheer coincidence, they had landed on a planet offering up their third Chaos Emerald. A shred of good news amid this sea of bad.
But Tails couldn't waste time marveling in the warmth of the feeling. If Chris finished up in the store and came out before Tails returned with the Emerald, he would panic at Tails's disappearance, assuming the worst. Tails couldn't bear to put his friend through that. So he accelerated, twisting this way and that and heading in the direction the Emerald glowed brightest.
Though he would have thought he'd have come across the Chaos Emerald by now. He thought it was closer than this for how bright the Emerald he held was. Had the Emerald he held actually grown in brightness? Or had it maintained the glow, remaining a consistent distance from its brother while Tails chased it down?
Tails slowed to a stop. The tentative hope in his chest twisted back into a far more familiar tension. He turned slowly to look back behind him to see the town was no longer visible behind him. He'd wandered further than he'd thought.
You're being paranoid, he told himself, though the thought did nothing to dissuade the shadows now draping his shoulders. He stood there, Chaos Emerald in the hand he had stretched out in front of him, and watched its glow dim.
Then brighten.
Tails frowned. His heart shuddered. Tails pulled the Chaos Emerald back in toward his chest, urging its warmth through him. So the Chaos Emerald was moving. Maybe some kid had found the sparkling gem and claimed it like a pirate digging up buried treasure. Either way, it didn't change the fact that collecting all the Chaos Emeralds was the only chance they had of stopping the Metarex. Of saving Sonic and Cosmo. Tails had to track it down.
Tails peeked between his fingers to check the glow of the Chaos Emerald once more. He slipped the tip of his tongue between his teeth in focused thought. The pale bite of pain woke him up just a bit and urged him onward.
Toward the Chaos Emerald.
Toward hope.
Hope was a choice, as he'd learned of late. It was painful. One step in front of the other. Continuing even as everything around you told you to give up. Hope was a choice. Hope was what built heroes.
And heroes required Chaos Emeralds.
Only when Tails thought the Chaos Emerald in his grasp could glow no brighter did he raise his eyes. He halted just within the last line of trees. Tall trees with thick trunks stood on either side of him like soldiers on guard. In front of this first line of defense rose up a grassy hill, cresting like a wave. Tails's eyes rose up the hill to its peak.
Drawn to the glow of the green Chaos Emerald there.
In a very metallic hand.
Tails froze. He dragged his eyes from the Chaos Emerald to the Metarex that held it. They looked to be neither lesser Metarex nor general, missing the sinewy limbs of the lesser Metarex but still short in stature. Tails winced, stiffening as he braced his body for the impact of the Metarex's attack.
But they didn't move. They just stood at the peak of the hill, grasping the Chaos Emerald in their fingers. Maybe they hadn't noticed Tails yet. Maybe if Tails stood very still, the Metarex wouldn't shift their gaze to him before they decided to walk away. Slowly, so slowly, Tails shifted the Chaos Emerald behind his back so the Metarex wouldn't be drawn to its glow.
But the longer Tails stared at the Metarex, the more he realized…
He'd seen this Metarex before.
The memory felt like a dream for how dim it was in Tails's thoughts. Like it was from another lifetime entirely. And it was.
From 2011.
From a safehouse in the middle of nowhere.
From another time where Sonic had been captured by the Metarex.
As Tails took in the short Metarex with the thick limbs and blue-plated armor, he realized with horror that it was that particular timeline that seemed destined to repeat itself.
"Sonic," Tails breathed.
The Metarex shifted their gaze down. Or so it appeared. The Metarex had no eyes; just black slits that provided the impression of eyes. Tails couldn't see through them. But he knew the brainwashed Sonic could.
"Sonic!" Tails tried to exclaim, like his cracking voice might be enough to wake Sonic up.
But Tails knew better. Even before the Metarex's grip on the Chaos Emerald tightened, like the strength of their grip would be enough to crush the gem into dust. Even before the Metarex lowered their head in an expression that seemed meant to imitate narrowing eyes.
Sonic was gone. This Metarex had taken his place.
Metarex-Sonic sprinted down the hill straight for Tails.