Chapter Fifty-One: On the Surface
The whole of the X-Tornado shudders violently with the force it takes to breach Greengate's atmosphere. My hands on the controls vibrate along with the rest of the ship. The Chaos Emerald in the dashboard shines twice as bright as usual as it lends its power to the effort. The roaring sound of air around the X-Tornado drowns out the sound of everything else, including the last sounds of our friends fighting out in space. The distance is getting too far for the signal of the headsets to cross.
From here on out, the four of us are on our own, except for the bridge between Sonic and his Chaos Double.
The shuddering of the X-Tornado lessened the further through the atmosphere they dove. "Sonic, are you still okay?" Amy called.
"I'm…fine." Sonic's halting voice came from his Chaos Double gripping the wing rather than through the headset, now that the distance was too great. "Distance makes this…ugh…harder."
Tails's eyes flashed toward the Chaos Double. The fake Sonic's teeth were gritted, his forehead creased with tension. Timing was tight as it was, but the time Sonic had left with the Chaos Double was even tighter.
Gotta go fast, Tails thought, and he thrust the controls of the X-Tornado further forward.
"Tails, the Chaos Emerald is reacting to something," Amy said, leaning forward in her seat toward the back of Tails's.
Tails glanced down long enough to see the Chaos Emerald in his dashboard growing brighter and brighter with each passing second. They weren't too far from the last three Chaos Emeralds now, which meant the Chaos Emeralds in their possession were almost certainly reacting to the nearness of the others. At least one of the Emeralds had to be directly beneath the X-Tornado, which was consistent with the data Dr. Eggman had provided them.
The X-Tornado cleared the last of the cloud cover and the ground below came into view. The ground, stabbed through with the trunks of hundreds of thousands of dead gray trees, was a familiar sight, since this was the second time they had been to Greengate.
The immeasurably immense army of Metarex woven around those trees, however…
"How can there be so many?" Angel exclaimed.
Because the ground was covered in a sea of Metarex. More Metarex than even trees. More Metarex than they had ever seen in a single place. More Metarex than Tails could have imagined even existing. The Metarex were of all shapes and sizes and colors. Mostly lesser Metarex, as far as Tails could tell at a glance, but with this many, who could know for sure if Metarex generals might be hidden among them?
"They're all here," Tails breathed. "Any Metarex not in space around Greengate must be here on the surface for their last stand."
The Metarex surrounded the one structure still standing amidst the decay on this part of the planet. The stone building stood at the edge of a cliff where it hung above a chillingly still ocean. No Planet Egg meant even the ocean's life was quieted in this desolate place. And that side of the building facing the water too was wrapped in more Metarex foot soldiers.
"Tell me that's not where we need to go," Amy groaned.
"That's the structure Eggman had data on," Tails said, wishing he had remotely better news. "It has to be where Black Thorn's hiding. Which means we're going to have to clear out the Metarex if we want to stand a chance of reaching her."
Tails's eyes scanned the terrain. They were high enough in the air that the Metarex on the ground weren't chasing after them just yet, but Tails doubted they'd hold onto patience much longer. Tails needed a plan and fast.
"If they're all here, then we need to focus on finding Silver Fir before Sonic loses his grip on the Chaos Double," Tails explained. "Amy, Angel, Sonic, you fight on the ground. I'll use the X-Tornado to support you all from the sky and find Silver Fir from above."
Even as Tails suggested it, the plan sounded impossible. Four of them against an entire army? Plus Silver Fir was smaller than the average Metarex general so a crowd of this size disguised him too easily. If he was in the crowd at all.
But this was their last chance.
Tails yanked the Chaos Emerald from the dashboard and passed it back to Amy. Angel already had the second of the two. They'd be of more use on the ground than in the air.
"I'll fly in close enough that you can jump the side and we can avoid making the X-Tornado a sitting duck by landing," Tails said.
Without asking another question, Amy unlocked her restraining harness. Tails popped the blast shield long enough that Amy could slip out onto the wing with a hand from the Chaos Double. Once Amy had a grip on the edge of the X-Tornado's wing, the Double dashed back for Angel. Tails, meanwhile, turned his attention to flying as evenly as he could as he descended.
Heads picked up beneath them. Clawed hands raised in the distance. Tails's eyes swept out further across the waves of Metarex. In the distance, he could see a Metarex visibly sparking.
And then he realized he knew what Metarex that was.
Tails forgot himself for a split second at the sight. His fingers on the controls went slack only to tighten once more. "That's—" he breathed.
"Sparking Elm!" Amy finished.
Of course, because this wasn't just an army. This wasn't just Silver Fir and Black Thorn. This was every single Metarex left making a last stand.
And so now, it was this small fraction of the Blue Typhoon's crew against two Metarex generals they had previously failed to defeat.
-X-X-X-
Amy's View
Amy shoved herself up from her knees to her feet, even as the whipping wind buffeted her. Sonic's Chaos Double wrapped his arm around her shoulders to steady her. Like when he'd helped her out on the wing in the first place, the Chaos Energy inside Amy sparked in response, recognizing the Chaos Double for what it was, even as it looked so fully like Sonic himself.
"Angel, can you get down with your wings?" Sonic said.
"I'll manage. You take Amy," she replied.
So the Chaos Double turned his attention back to Amy at his side. "You ready?"
She sighed, looking at the ocean of Metarex beneath them. "As you would say, no time like the present," she said. "Especially since it's all we have left."
The Chaos Double smirked, the expression so Sonic-like that it took Amy's breath away. And with no further preamble, he scooped her off the ground and leapt from the wing.
The ground came up fast. Amy barely braced herself against the Double's chest before his feet hit the ground. But they didn't have the luxury of time to catch their breath. Amy rolled from the Double's arms, snatching up her hammer by the time she landed on her feet. The Chaos Emerald weighted heavily in the bag at her side. She would have to wait to use it for now, unless she wanted to lose what energy she had way too early.
The Chaos Double raced forward. He slid between the first few rows of Metarex soldiers, then rolled into a spindash to knock down those he couldn't dodge. He didn't have time to worry about knocking down every lesser Metarex he came upon; he had to reach Silver Fir before Sonic lost hold.
Which made Amy the cleanup crew.
Three Metarex jumped toward her at once. She swept her hammer out in front of her to knock them into one another like a line of dominoes. She didn't glance back to make sure they were really down. Instead, she drove in deeper. The Metarex clawed at her from all sides. She spun away from half of them, slammed her hammer into the other half.
A blast of pink exploded to her side and a group of Metarex went flying. A moment later, Angel landed hard at Amy's side, her knees almost buckling with the force. One of the Metarex reached for Angel, and Amy smashed it back. It was enough to give Angel the split second of recovery she needed. Silver magic coated the tips of her fingers on one hand while the violet Chaos Emerald burned bright in the other. Angel cut her magic-coated hand through the air in front of her. And a line of Metarex fell in front of them, sliced horizontally down the center.
The next line of Metarex rose up behind them, and Amy rushed forward to slam through one, then another. Angel slid in behind her, sending bolts of magic toward the Metarex Amy hadn't yet reached.
"We need to get to the generals!" Angel shouted. "The small ones are just going to tire us out. Tails should be able to fire on them en masse."
"Would love to," Amy panted back. "I'm sure they'll clear us a convenient path."
"I can't find Silver Fir yet, but I can blast the path to Sparking Elm," Tails reported from above.
"Do it!" Angel demanded.
Hardly a moment later, missiles dropped from the X-Tornado. They exploded before Amy and Angel, sending Metarex debris flying in all directions. Even before the dust began to clear, Amy and Angel dove into the damage left behind. They couldn't risk giving the Metarex a chance to collapse into the open space and clog it once more. Instead, Amy let the lack of visibility be their guide. She stumbled over the metal scraps left behind as did Angel beside her. But they didn't stop. They ran and stumbled and recovered and ran.
"The path is clear!" Tails said. "I'm doubling back to help Sonic."
Neither Amy nor Angel risked responding in the storm of dust. It was hard enough to hold off the choking fit itching inside Amy's throat without sucking more of the dust down.
But then the dust and debris began to clear. The shadows of Metarex claws reached toward them. Amy dodged as many as she could and slammed her hammer through those she couldn't. But she didn't stop, didn't stop, didn't stop.
Not until the clouds of dust dissipated entirely and Amy and Angel skidded to a stop at the feet of Sparking Elm towering over them.
-X-X-X-
Sonic's View
Sonic had collapsed from his feet to his knees on the engine room floor a long time ago. He was vaguely aware of Knuckles shouting with concern at him, vaguely aware of Chris coordinating the Blue Typhoon and Eggman's ship and all the smaller crafts in their fight against the Metarex.
But Sonic's mind was hardly there at all.
On the surface of Greengate, Metarex dove at Sonic's Chaos Double from all sides. Sonic weaved through them as best he could, smashed through them with a quick spindash where he couldn't. It felt a bit like playing a video game where you knew all the right button presses but the controls were floaty and the physics acted just a bit different than in the real world. The Chaos Double misjudged spaces and stumbled through spots Sonic would have slid through with ease. He had to keep correcting mistakes, learning the new physics in fractions.
And while the Chaos Double didn't gasp, Sonic himself did. A headache pounded at the crown of his head, like his brain was working twice as hard as usual to keep him oriented. Sonic's grip on the Chaos Emeralds in either hand tightened, even as they burned hotly against his gloves.
This would come down to the wire. He already knew it.
The Chaos Double's eyes flashed around as he swept through the battlefield of Metarex. Silver Fir would blend right in among these lesser Metarex if Sonic wasn't careful.
A barrage of fire rained down from the X-Tornado above. The dust left behind obscured spaces on the battlefield so Sonic ignored those, focused on what he could see. Metarex, so many Metarex. The standard lesser Metarex plated in brown. Metarex Vipers plated in blue everywhere but their snakelike tails. Closer to the oceanfront, Sonic was aware of the Metarex shaped like fish waiting in the wings. Sonic was dizzy with all of it.
A shot of pain stabbed through Sonic's side, and he cried out, falling forward onto his elbows. At least he managed to keep his grip on the Chaos Emeralds and therefore the Chaos Double.
"Sonic!" Knuckles roared.
Sonic didn't dare open his eyes. He couldn't risk his orientation in the Chaos Double by orienting himself on the Blue Typhoon. "Not yet," he managed to snarl through gritted teeth. For real? Or only through the Chaos Double? Sonic couldn't be sure at this point.
Sonic urged the Chaos Double to pour on the speed. Time was running out even faster than Sonic could run.
-X-X-X-
Angel's View
Angel's memory of fighting Sparking Elm back when she had been mortal was blurry at best. Her existence had changed since then and made previous events difficult to interpret now. But one piece of the interaction had always stuck with her.
After they had trapped the Metarex general through the combined use of Chaos Emeralds and magic, when they had been taking their chance to escape, Sparking Elm had said, "We know who you are, Princess Angel of Majyk, daughter of Queen Nova and Sonic the Hedgehog. And there is nothing you can do to prevent that future."
Those words rung through Angel's head now as she and Amy faced down Sparking Elm once more. And a small prickling thought wondered if the timeline was so destroyed that they'd opened another time where Angel's existence was once more possible, like had happened with C2.
Angel took a swift step in front of Amy, even as Amy raised her hammer. "Remember me?" Angel snapped at Sparking Elm, pulling the taunting page right out of her dad's book. Great way to focus the enemy's attention right where she wanted it: on her.
Yellow Chaos Energy like lightning swept across Sparking Elm's exposed wiring. The Metarex stood far taller than either of them by more than ten feet. He didn't so much as twitch at Angel's callout.
But his voice revealed him.
"A Time Whisperer? Here? Not possible," he said. Angel could just barely hear the tremor in the Metarex's robotic voice. "You are violating your own principles."
Angel shrugged. "Learned it from my dad."
She wasted no more time and rushed for the Metarex. The sparking Chaos Energy surging over the surface of Sparking Elm rose up more violently than before. But Angel didn't change course. She dove between Sparking Elm's legs. The Energy licked at her skin, burning where it touched. Angel cried out involuntarily, then bit down on the sound. Focused on what she needed to do next.
Angel's wings pulled her back to her feet and she steadied her stance once more. "How do I hit this thing?" Amy cried over the headset.
Angel dimly recalled how Amy hadn't fought Sparking Elm last time. She'd been recovering after Nova used magic to heal her broken leg. "The light is Chaos Energy so the Chaos Emeralds won't help," Angel explained as quickly as she could "He'll just absorb any Chaos Energy you throw at it."
"I'm coming!" Tails called.
Angel dragged out threads of semi-translucent magic as Sparking Elm turned toward her. He'd pegged her as the threat. As she had hoped. As she now dreaded because it was true. She was the threat here, was the only chance they had; magic had been the only thing that had worked last time.
And this time, she didn't have Nova's help.
But Angel shook off the fear before it bloomed too fiercely inside of her. She wasn't who she had been back then anymore. She was both fairy and Time Whisperer now. There was a reason Sparking Elm's voice shuddered at the sight of her.
Angel thrust her hands out in front of her. The threads of semi-translucent magic spiraled toward the Metarex at her command. Sparking Elm launched at her. Her heart jumped in her chest, but she clamped down on it and held her ground. The thin threads caught around the Metarex's wrists. They wrapped around once, twice, then shot toward the ground.
They were inches away when Sparking Elm's hand smashed into Angel's side.
-X-X-X-
Sonic's View
The Chaos Double's eyes caught sight of a glint of silver and Sonic's overheated heart impossibly froze. The Chaos Double stumbled, then twisted in the direction Sonic demanded. Sweat dripped from Sonic's temples, no doubt building into a pool on the floor he held himself just barely above. Knuckles said nothing to Sonic now, but only because his attention was focused on calling out to the Master Emerald to get the Blue Typhoon more power.
But at that point, Sonic closed off any attention he gave the Blue Typhoon's engine room to focus on the Chaos Double. He only had eyes for the silver plating he saw in the sea of copper-plated lesser Metarex. He rushed straight forward toward it. Absolutely nothing else in the universe mattered but this.
Silver Fir turned just in time for the Chaos Double to slam a spindash directly into his chest.
Silver Fir crashed to the ground. The Chaos Double ricocheted back to uncurl from the spindash and land on his own two feet. Sonic went to push the Chaos Double forward again, but the Chaos Energy surged suddenly within Sonic, sending the edges of his vision blindingly white, and it took all his concentration just to keep his grip on the Chaos Double at all.
Which gave Silver Fir the opportunity to climb back to his feet, though not completely steadily. "Impossible," he breathed. "You cannot be here."
Tails's theory confirmed, Sonic realized. That's why Silver Fir was stumbling; Sonic shouldn't have been able to stand against him.
That hesitation was the only break Sonic was going to catch.
Sonic tried once more to latch onto control of the Chaos Double, but his thoughts were sliding now. Exhaustion was making it hard to consciously remember the controls.
And then the Metarex's split-second hesitation was gone and Silver Fir slammed full force into the Chaos Double.
-X-X-X-
Amy's View
The crush of Sparking Elm's hand against Angel's body snapped something vital within Amy. The force sent Angel flying bonelessly. Amy couldn't even find the air to breathe, much less scream.
A moment later, the threads of magic Angel had wrapped around Sparking Elm's limbs snapped against the ground and went immediately taut. The force of it yanked Sparking Elm back and down. His knees crumpled beneath him and his arms were yanked out on either side of him.
The X-Tornado wasted no time. Tails launched missiles that exploded against the Chaos Energy sparking around the Metarex, protecting Sparking Elm from the worst of the damage.
That Chaos Energy is protecting him from most physical attacks and the Chaos Emerald's Energy, Amy thought. Angel's magic got through, but as long as she's down, there's no way we can hit him.
Unless…
"Tails, he has to be generating all that Chaos Energy from somewhere," Amy said. "Could you figure out where?"
"I…"
Tails paused for a second. Amy held her breath. Sparking Elm pulled against Angel's magic and it strained to hold him. It wouldn't last for long.
"I got it!" Tails shouted suddenly. "There's a Chaos Emerald behind his chest plating. If we get it free, he won't be able to generate Chaos Energy for protection anymore."
Amy looked where Tails suggested and saw just how many of Sparking Elm's exposed wires emanated from that space. "Can the X-Tornado break through?" Amy asked.
"Eventually yeah," Tails said. "But with all that Chaos Energy rebuffing the worst of it, it'll take a while."
Sparking Elm yanked against Angel's magic, and Amy saw the first thread snap. They didn't have a while. But then Amy grew very aware of the Chaos Emerald hanging at her hip. She'd seen Sonic and Shadow do it before, more than once.
But could she?
Sparking Elm snapped the next thread of Angel's magic.
Time was up. Self-doubt was no longer a luxury Amy could afford. So she slid the Chaos Emerald from her bag, thrust it in front of her, and shouted, "CHAOS CONTROL!"
The white Chaos Emerald all at once exploded with brilliant light that poured straight on toward Sparking Elm. And he just stopped. Because time around him stopped.
Because Amy had just used Chaos Control to stop time.
Amy collapsed to her knees, vision blurring. "Bought you some time," she gasped. "Hope it's enough."
-X-X-X-
Sonic's View
Silver Fir's body crushed the Chaos Double to the ground. Even Sonic himself up on the Blue Typhoon collapsed beneath the weight. His head hit the floor. His grip on the Chaos Emeralds slackened, then tightened once more.
Not yet, he reminded his exhausted mind. It's not over just yet.
Silver Fir leaned in close to the Chaos Double's face. "Oh, I see," he purred. "This isn't you at all, Blue Seed. Using what we gave you against us. Very clever."
Sonic forced himself not to focus on Silver Fir's words, even as they sank beneath his skin and crawled their way up his spine. No, instead he slowed down his panic and focused his attention on reclaiming his slipped grip on the Chaos Double. It felt like trying to walk when both of your legs had fallen asleep beneath you. A feeling Sonic was too familiar with after weeks under the Metarex's control.
"Though even I am smart enough to know when I'm beaten," Silver Fir continued, even as he was still the one on top as Sonic struggled with the Chaos Double beneath. "You, unfortunately, apparently are not. Unless you don't know you're already too late?"
-X-X-X-
Angel's View
The horde of lesser Metarex caught Angel as she fell out of the sky. Not on purpose, of course. The force of her fall crushed them beneath her. One side of her body smarted with pain where Sparking Elm had hit her. Or maybe it burned from the Chaos Energy. The assault of pain on her senses made it hard to distinguish one type from another.
Not to mention she didn't have the time.
Already the lesser Metarex surrounding those she'd crushed in her fall were advancing toward her. She struggled to her feet, twitching her wings behind her to make sure they were still functional. At least they'd escaped scorching from Sparking Elm's strike.
Angel bent her knees and launched herself into the air. A stupid expenditure of her limited magic? Maybe. But Amy was still back with Sparking Elm. Alone.
Angel cleared the heads of the lesser Metarex and drove back toward the fight. Sparking Elm stood taller than the rest of the Metarex surrounding him, even trapped on his knees by Angel's magic as he was. It wouldn't last forever though.
But as Angel poured on the speed, she realized that Sparking Elm wasn't moving. At all. "What the…" Her voice trailed away.
She reached up for the headset and readjusted it on her head. For a moment, all she heard was the crackle of static but with a quick spark of her magic, the damage vanished. "What's going—" she started.
But Tails interrupted her. "Amy used Chaos Control to stop time in that spot. We have thirty seconds left to blast open Sparking Elm's chest plating and extract the Chaos Emerald." The X-Tornado cut through the air above her head and launched another massive missile that drove straight for the frozen Sparking Elm's center.
Angel's eyes narrowed and she poured more magic into her wings. She sped closer and closer, until she could see how Sparking Elm's chest plating warped beneath the blows of missiles. The wires that were wrapped in that sparking Chaos Energy twisted just a little too far away from the plating for the Metarex's own protection now. Offering Angel the clearest shot she was going to get.
"Twenty seconds!" Tails cried.
Angel pushed her wings forward to cut her speed directly in front of Sparking Elm's chest plating. She grabbed at the warped metal and pulled with all her strength. It bent ever so slightly under her force until she could see the flash of the red Chaos Emerald beneath.
"Ten!" Tails warned.
Angel shoved her arm through the slim gap. The metal scraped against her skin, but she gritted her teeth and kept going. Once she was up to her elbow in metal, her hand clamped down on the Emerald.
And she pulled.
The Emerald snapped free. The sudden lack of resistance sent her flying back in the air, her wings struggling to right her once more.
Sparking Elm roared.
The remaining threads of Angel's magic binding the Metarex snapped all at once. One of Sparking Elm's hands flew straight toward Angel.
"Angel, DROP!" Amy screamed.
Angel didn't hesitate. She released her hold on the magic keeping her aloft and dropped like a stone. Sparking Elm's hand snatched through the air she'd just occupied, missing her by inches. Arms caught Angel out of the air, though the force sent her rescuer to their knees. Amy. Pale after Chaos Control but still whole.
Amy shifted Angel back to her feet. Before them, Sparking Elm too climbed back to his feet but he was no longer sparking. No, he was stumbling, clawing at his open chest. Like the Chaos Emerald had been powering more than just the Chaos Energy wrapping around him.
Another barrage of fire from the X-Torando struck the front of Sparking Elm. Without the Chaos Energy protecting him, the Metarex took the full brunt of it. The blasts crushed his plating, fully knocked him from his feet, and sent him crashing to the ground.
And this time, Sparking Elm did not get back up.
All at once, hundreds of the Metarex surrounding them simply stopped. Stilled mid-motion. Like their operation depended entirely on their general. And without him…
Angel spun on the spot, staring at the suddenly still Metarex surrounding them. At least twenty rows deep from where Angel and Amy stood, the Metarex were no longer moving. Though rows upon rows of the Metarex beyond the sudden stillness were still moving, if facing another direction.
"Sonic," Amy gasped. "They're still after Sonic. We have to help. He can't have much hold of the Chaos Double left."
-X-X-X-
Sonic's View
"Though even I am smart enough to know when I'm beaten. You, unfortunately, apparently are not. Unless you don't know you're already too late?"
Sonic struggled back to his knees, even as his Chaos Double was trapped flat on his back with Silver Fir on top of him. Sonic needed to feel more than powerless. He had so little time left. The Chaos Emeralds burned such that his gloves weren't protecting the palms of his hands from the heat anymore.
Silver Fir continued his mocking, "Being the fastest thing alive will not make a difference if you cannot travel back in time."
And finally, Sonic found his way back into the Chaos Double and realized Silver Fir's weight wasn't holding down his legs.
The Chaos Double kicked straight up. The force knocked Silver Fir somersaulting forward over the Double's head. The Double snapped back up into a sitting position, then jumped back to his feet. Already by that point, Silver Fir had scrambled back to standing. But he didn't launch himself toward the Chaos Double again. Instead, he just twitched his fingers, like he was summoning something to his side.
Sonic realized what that meant a moment too late.
Dozens of Metarex hands clamped down on the Double's limbs. His eyes flashed around. He tried to yank away, but already their grips were secure. They pushed against him, shoving the Chaos Double once more to the ground. Silver Fir passively observed from a few feet away. Just waiting. For what?
The Chaos Energy within Sonic blazed hot in warning. Sonic choked, doubling forward until his forehead pressed against the engine room floor. The hands that held the Chaos Emeralds shook so hard he could hardly keep his grip. He had seconds before the Chaos Energy burned him out entirely.
Which was exactly what Silver Fir was waiting for.
If he didn't destroy Silver Fir before he lost grip on the Chaos Double, it was possible Sonic would be launched from the Sonic Driver and straight into Metarex control once more. He didn't have time to waste. He gritted his teeth. One last chance.
So with his sliding thoughts already starting to melt away to nothing in his head. Sonic clamped down on his control of the Chaos Double. He shoved him into a spindash. The lesser Metarex trying to hold him down went flying in an instant. Destroy…them…all, Sonic thought haltingly.
The Chaos Double drove forward for Silver Fir. He met his mark, spines cutting through Silver Fir's metal plating.
All at once, Sonic's own Chaos Energy roared wildly awake at his center. He cried out against the heat of it, then the pain stole the rest of his voice away. The Chaos Emeralds fell from his hands.
The pain only ceased when the darkness took him.
-X-X-X-
Amy's View
Amy smashed through every Metarex that stepped into her path, even with her legs a little less than solid beneath her. Chaos Control had stolen the edge of her energy away but she wasn't out of fight just yet. Sonic's Chaos Double was out there among the Metarex somewhere, and she was going to make sure she helped him end Silver Fir once and for all.
"Tails, do you see him?" she called as Angel blasted through a Metarex at her side.
"It all looks the same," Tails said. "Silver Fir is the same size as the lesser Metarex and so is the Chaos Double. If he's not moving fast, I can't find him."
"Then we need you on the ground. You can't fire from the X-Tornado if you might hit the Chaos Double," Amy said.
"Roger that. Looking for a place to land."
Amy pounded through one lesser Metarex and then another, her heart pounding along in her chest. There was a roaring sound in her ears now that she could hardly hear around. All she could do was keep a straight path and hope her lack of focus at her periphery was at least mostly covered by Angel fighting at her side.
And then all at once, like someone had flipped a switch, every single one of the lesser Metarex still standing around them simply fell.
Amy's breath caught in her chest. She jumped a quick step back and raised her hammer just a tad higher, in case this was all a trap. Angel slid to a stop beside her. "It's like what happened to a bunch of the Metarex when Sparking Elm fell," Angel said breathlessly.
"Does that mean Sonic's Chaos Double defeated Silver Fir?" Amy said.
Angel's eyes widened. As one, they surged forward again. They climbed and jumped through the tangle of Metarex limbs the ground had become. After a moment navigating that way, Angel shot a blast of magic ahead of them, clearing the path. They crested the next hill. And finally, Sonic's Chaos Double came into view.
Air flooded back into Amy's lungs. She hadn't realized how thinly she'd been breathing until she could suddenly breathe fully again. The Chaos Double was turned away from them but still standing. His attention was focused on the fallen Metarex at his feet.
Silver Fir, Amy realized after a moment.
Just like that, one of the greatest monsters in Sonic's life was just gone. Again.
Amy heard the spinning of Tails's namesakes a moment before he landed beside her. "Sonic can launch down to the planet now," Tails said in a low voice, like he was in disbelief of the world in front of him. "And then we can go after Black Thorn."
And then it would be over.
They had a chance, they still had a chance. Hope impossibly huge swelled up inside Amy. The energy Chaos Control had stolen from her returned to her now. "Sonic!" she shouted down into the valley where the Chaos Double stood.
The Chaos Double stiffened. And then ever so slowly, turned toward them. To reveal a blank expression on his Sonic-like face.
Amy's stomach dropped. "Are you okay?" she called. This had to be a lot for him to handle, especially so soon after breaking free of Metarex control.
But Angel suddenly stumbled back a step beside her. "I don't think Sonic's still in there."
Amy's eyes snapped over to Angel. "So then what's—"
Tails answered the question before she finished asking it. "Back on the ghost ship the last time Sonic made a Chaos Double, he said they could keep going without his control. They would follow the last command he gave them. But…" His eyes widened as the pieces snapped into place for him.
"But what?" Amy exclaimed.
"But if his last command wasn't specific…if it was a single word…if all Sonic did was tell the Double to destroy—"
The Chaos Double stepped forward, lunging like he was getting ready for a race.
Tails finished, "—now that there are no Metarex left out here, the only way the Chaos Double can obey Sonic's command is by destroying us."
And with that, the Chaos Double launched toward the three of them at Sonic-speed.