News spread quickly about the events of Sonic's death and the fall of Angel Island. Without the Chaos Emeralds or the two most powerful allies that would be able to use them, morale took a major blow. Over the next six months, Eggman's seemingly endless army swept across the planet, conquering all of it. All, except for a small pocket of resistance holding out in the same City the nightmare started in.

A stream of flames lit up the confines of an otherwise dim, brick basement in the City. It was not being razed by yet another raid to take over the last .01% of the world this time, though. Instead, it was coming from the hand of a humanoid bird.

Unlike actual birds, he did not have wings or talons; instead, he was wearing gloves and simple yellow shoes to shield his appendages from any stray embers shooting out of his handheld flamethrower. He wasn't wearing anything else, as he didn't want to soil his suit. With ruby red plumage covering his body, there weren't any modesty issues he had to worry about anyway, as if it was anyone's concern when he was hiding, alone, in a city-turned-militarized zone.

Heh, Militarized Zone. Fits with the naming theme around here.

The bird released the trigger, allowing the room to go dark. He wasn't bothered by it, having excellent vision due to being a bird. The barrel of his gun, a tri-part valve in the shape of a large red fireball, closed over the nuzzle, and he began inspecting it for signs of overheating. You see, this gun wasn't his originally. He found it one day, during a counterattack after the Resistance commandeered a weapons supply from Eggman. He could recall the memories vividly…

He and four others had been assigned the supply watch that morning. It was a duty he despised – he had joined this Resistance group to put his brains to work leading them to victory, not doing grunt work by soring his eyes on baby-blue wooden crates bearing bright red, laughing faces with moustaches on every side. He recalled one of them having a bulbous shape painted on the sides instead, as if that made any difference. The crates had been stacked up with others inside one of the larger buildings that was still standing… a fact that was quickly overturned.

Half of the building blew up in front of them without warning. Sunlight poured in as the roof was blasted apart into many pieces, and most of the crates burst like they were made of papier-mâché. The source of the explosion was made obvious immediately, as an immense crimson glow came from where the wall used to be. No one knew its name, so they had taken to calling it the Red Mask.

Everything was hazy with dust and ash, and the bird scrambled for a hiding place in the debris – he assumed the others did as well, but whatever composure they had had was shattered. He stumbled upon the smoldering frame of one of the larger crates that was still relatively in-tact and took cover within.

The Red Mask floated near, and the air felt charged with an unsettling static-y feeling. "What worthless toys. Did you really think your little movement could stand up to me with those?"

"We'll find out, won't we? Fight back!" he heard one of his teammates say. He peeked through the crack of the crate to see that all of the others had picked up strange weapons with large orbs the same color as the crates. They fired white blasts at the masked thing, and everyone was surprised when the shots actually landed.

"How…!" the Red Mask mumbled. Clearly angered, it conjured up a warhead and dropped it on their heads. The explosion tore apart the crate he was hiding behind, and he and its contents were tossed back into the large chunks of plywall that littered the ground.

In his daze, he could see that the monster had noticed him, and was now overhead.

"I can taste your terror, child… all that anxiety and doubt. It's delicious."

Scrambling on his back, his arm grasped something metal and vaguely firearm-shaped. He pointed it forward, and he could see that it was similar to what the others were holding. Similar… but not the same. He was trembling so much that he had to use both his arms to hold it remotely steady. The Red Mask simply looked at him with its singular, demonic eye.

"Give in to your fear. Flee, screaming, and I'll let you live."

He could still hear its haunting laughter reverberating through his skull.

His opened eyes back to reality, unaware that he had entered a flashback like that. Whatever the weapon he had was, it might be the only way to harm the Red Mask. No one insulted his pride like that and got away with it. Ever since that day, he had worked tirelessly to restore it to functionality.

Remembering what he was supposed to be doing, he resumed his examination. All the parts seemed to be in check, and the fuel cell was still as mysteriously full as ever. He allowed his beak to enter a grin. At last, Ledge the Cardinal, crafty descendant of the advanced Babylonians, would finally fight back against the Eggman Empire!

Tails looked down upon the wrecked City, his twin tails whirling as he made his rounds. Every day was the same as the last day, and the next one. It was a routine: look for survivors, destroy Eggman's robots, try to find supplies. Miles was smart, so he was one of the ones leading the think tank to come up with a strategy against Eggman. But they were running short on, well, just about everything that they needed to have any success. Sometimes, he needed some alone time to fly around and pretend like he was free.

He couldn't accept that Sonic was really… gone (he still couldn't bring himself to think it), but there was no empirical evidence to say otherwise. Sonic was always one to run on his feelings. He never needed a reason to keep on fighting. That was one of the things Tails liked most about him, because he pushed him to put aside his insecurities and just do what was right.

As much as he wanted to channel those feelings and keep up his courage, without Sonic himself there… he only had so much in him. He kept it up long enough to beat Eggman the last time Sonic was presumed dead, but that was six minutes, not six months. It had been just too long without order in his life, and he was suffering for it. Everyone was. He had heard some of the things the others had said about him when they thought he wasn't there.

His instincts told him to stop moving, casting himself out of his thoughts. Something had caught his eye, but what? He peered closer to the landscape under him. Still nothing that stood out to him. Wait… is that… fire? And he wasn't referring to the blazes that were always around anymore. Yes, down there! That fire is being produced by something! Someone must be under attack!

Wasting no more time, he swooped down to get a better look. The fight was happening in a residential area, with lots of tight streets and multi-story housing complexes. As he got closer, he noticed that the situation wasn't what he thought. There was a flamethrower, and there were robots, but the fire was headed towards the robots, melting them into slag.

"Hey!" he called. The Mobian turned towards him as he came in for his landing. It was a red bird, wearing a white suit jacket and brown pants. He – definitely a male from the way it fit him – was similarly adorned with a white top hat and brown gloves. At least the boots, also brown, were somewhat designed for travel. It really was an odd fashion choice for a ragtag survivor. And how did he keep it so clean?

"Is that the one and only Miles "Tails" Prower? Just the kind of person I wanted to see!" the bird greeted.

"Sorry, do I know you? What are you doing out here alone? It's not safe."

The bird held out his gloved hand. "Ledge the Cardinal, pleasure to meet you. Do you remember the weapons that your Resistance pilfered a few months ago?"

Tails raised an eyebrow at him, awkwardly accepting his handshake. "Yes? They were all destroyed by the Red Mask."

Ledge held out his other hand, which Tails realized had been hidden behind his back. He was holding a strange gun with a big red fireball on the front of it and a hose. "I was on the patrol when it happened, and I managed to save one. Get this: Whatever it runs on, it was able to hurt that monster."

The two-tailed gadgeteer paused for a moment. The rational part of his brain wouldn't accept a claim like that so readily, but it was hard not to eat up even the possibility of an advantage. "Really? How did it survive the wreckage?"

"It didn't. It took me all this time, but I was finally able to restore it!"

"You really expect me to believe you were able to recreate Eggman technology?"

Ledge quickly dipped into a bow. "Indeed I do! Just watch in amazement!"

Before Tails could stop him, he did something stupid and ran out onto a main road right towards a patrol of Egg Pawns. He pointed the flamethrower at them very confidently, which switched to terror as the gun didn't produce any fire. The robots turned his way, showing no emotion, and raised their arm cannons at him.

Suddenly, he was swept off his feet and pulled into the air. The fox had grabbed him and began taking evasive maneuvers to avoid the return fire. Sirens began going off, and Tails could already see one of the black Death Egg Robots come to life. Those things wouldn't stay down no matter how many times they got defeated.

He landed quickly but didn't let go of Ledge and didn't stop moving. "Now see what you've done? C'mon, we need to get back to the HQ, quickly!"

Although Mobians came in various colors, sizes, species, and abilities, one constant about them was that they could move fast. Tails guessed it was due to having a build that combined humans, known for long-distance running, and various animals that had high body-length-per-second speeds. However, he was an engineer, not a biologist, so it was anyone's guess.

Scientific thoughts aside, it meant he didn't have to worry about slowing down so Ledge could keep up. They raced down the roads at a moderate pace, being careful to avoid tripping on bits of rubble or gravel fallen from long-abandoned buildings or slipping on water puddles spilled from burst pipelines. Up ahead, a fence showed that the road came into an end; beyond it, the City sloped downwards towards the sea, like a giant terrace.

"Going up!" he informed Ledge, hopping into the air and getting his tails spinning. He quickly turned, grabbed the bird's other hand, and cleared the fence while flying backwards rapidly. He had to say, it felt very stylish.

"Think you can manage a rooftop run for a bit?" he asked.

"I would disgrace my feathery heritage if I couldn't, even though I can't say I've ever travelled this quickly before."

"It is somewhat ironic that I'm the one that can fly here."

Tails slowed down a little and let go of Ledge, making sure he landed on a roof and was safely moving before turning around again.

"Hey, wait, I see something over there. What is it?" the Cardinal asked.

The fox briefly looked back to see the weapon being pointed off to the right. He didn't see anything particularly peculiar on the horizon, only that fighting had broken out all over the City by now.

"You mean, other than the battle you just forced everyone into?"

"Yes, other than that. There are specks flying at us at a high velocity."

"I'm sure there are," Tails replied dryly. This Ledge person is clearly inexperienced with battling Eggman.

The bird hurdled another rooftop. "You don't seem very concerned about this."

"There are a lot more pressing things to be concerned about as of late. They're probably just Buzzbombers, and there's no way they could land a shot from that far while we're on good pace like this."

The look on the bird's face did not seem convinced.

"Something about the way these robots are approaching seems different than a swarm of bees."

Ledge's suspicions were confirmed when the Badniks intercepted them. They weren't bees at all, but birds, about ten in total, and they all began swooping in for a divebomb. As he tried to slow down and sidestep them, he tripped on the rim of the building he was on and went tumbling down onto the street.

"Oh, that's not good!" Tails exclaimed. Off his belt, he took out two of his homemade Ring Bombs. The Balkiries swung around, formed up into a V-shape, and began a coordinated second flyby. Tails bode his time, waiting for the exact right moment to jump over the cluster and drop one of the bombs. It landed squarely on the lead Badnik and burst into a bunch of cheap metal rings. All of them flew straight onto another robot, causing it to spark and fall from the sky.

These weren't actual Rings, but special electromagnetic devices that happened to be ring-shaped due to coils being the most efficient way to produce a B-field. The aesthetic of it being a fake Ring was just too good to pass up. Nowadays, though, he didn't have the luxury of such a thing, so they were simple cylinder casings.

With the foes dispatched, he flew down to where Ledge was leaning up against a building. That was a good sign – he was conscious and didn't appear to have any injuries that would incapacitate him.

"You okay?"

"I should be able to walk it off. And I was right, those weren't Buzzbombers."

"I'm aware." The fox looked around them with a frown. "Fine, you were right. We should play it safe. I get the feeling Eggman's robots have more tricks up their sleeves. From here, the best way is probably through the maintenance tunnels."

"I object to entering such a rancid space."

Can't possibly make it easy, can you?

"We can't risk getting attacked by Eggman's robots again while you're unarmed and injured. If that weapon is really as important as you say it is, then this is our best option. Unless you have a better idea?"

The bird looked startled and upset, then defeated. "… No, not at this time."

Tails turned around and flew to the base of a concrete wall that separated two tiers of the City. Ledge followed, somewhat hesitantly, as the fox scanned the wall for a door or some other opening to the tunnels.

It didn't take long, as a couple blocks down, there was a large hole punched in it from what was likely an explosion. The duo quickly jogged over and looked inside. There were a few bright lights built into the walls, but a decent amount of them had been destroyed, and the angle of the sun didn't bring much natural light in. No other lights, such as those from robots, could be seen.

As they began travelling through the gloomy tunnel, Ledge pointed his flamethrower forward and pressed the trigger again. A click echoed through the tunnel, but still no fire was produced. "I don't understand why this is malfunctioning! It worked perfectly when I tested it."

"I mean, you patched together heavily damaged enemy technology, in four months, with scavenged parts and no blueprints, prototypes, or comparable items to speak of. It's a miracle you got it working the first time."

"Yes, but it's not very useful if it only worked once."

Tails slowed them down to a stop. Saying those last words had given him an epiphany. It was a miracle. He turned and looked the other Mobian right in the eyes.

"Ledge. I know it's easy to want to give up. But if there's one thing I've learned from all of my time with Sonic – and now without him – it's that we have to have each other's backs. No matter how many times someone falls, you help them back up and you keep on running."

Tails took a steadying breath. "We've been hoping for a miracle these last six months. I think… the truth is, we have to make our own miracle. If your weapon truly can hurt the Red Mask, then you appearing with it could be the very miracle we need. I'm sorry for dismissing you before. We'll find a way to make it work again. I promise."

The cardinal didn't need bird vision to see the determination in Tails's eyes, but they were also moist with tears. "You are forgiven. And thank you, for you are absolutely correct. I can't let this setback defeat me."

Tails held out his fist. "We will stop Eggman and finish this war."

"For Sonic."

And they fist bumped.