Egg Base T, Outside

The group scattered, trying to minimize the chances of any of them getting hit. Whisper immediately changed her wispon to laser mode, trying to get shots off on the floating platform that Alcurine was standing on.

Alcurine just started laughing, before she started firing more morality lasers.

Apparently, Eggman fixed the recharge issue. Whisper thought blankly, while also trying not to get hit. Luckily, Egg base T was in the middle of a forest, meaning that there was plenty of cover for the group to hide behind while laser blasts were going out.

Someone wasn't doing the whole taking cover thing however.

Sonic was speeding around, trying to simultaneously distract Alcurine and push people out of the way when the laser was likely to hit them. The one time Whisper got a decent look at Sonic during this, she saw the very clearly panicked look on his face. Apparently, Tangle turning evil affected him more than he let on to Whisper.

Whisper kept trying to shoot the turret, knowing that despite Sonic's best efforts, and the group's as a whole, someone was eventually gonna get hit.

Whisper sometimes hated when she was right.

Apparently, the Knight decided that this was the perfect time to come out of nowhere and grab Blaze. Blaze immediately started to panic, outright attempting to turn the Knight to ash. Whatever the Knight's armor was made of, however, prevented that. Although the Knight did seem to be wincing in pain. It didn't matter though, because Alcurine clearly saw the perfect opportunity to take a shot at Blaze, while she was incapacitated.

Sonic saw the whole thing go down, and immediately rushed in to save Blaze. Before he could get the chance though, the Knight once again held up the Yellow Chaos Emerald. This time, there was no melodramatic announcement of Chaos Control, the Knight just immediately sped towards the laser once the yellow glow appeared. The Knight then threw Blaze straight into the purple-green laser, and the flash that erupted when it hit her momentarily blinded everyone.

Once Whisper could see again, she saw Blaze kneeling on the ground. Blaze was currently looking over her fur in horror, and Whisper could see why. Blaze's fur was turning from a bright purple to an extremely dark purple, bordering on black. Blaze grabbed her head with her hands, groaning in what looked like pain. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, her iris colors changed from the normal bright yellow to a bright silver, making her look nearly pupiless.

The Knight quickly moved away from her, and even Alcurine stopped firing, just watching Blaze to see what would happen.

Blaze slowly got up. The pain seemed to have vanished, but Blaze still seemed to be out of it. She looked around the clearing, looking at all the combatants on the field.

Suddenly, fire erupted all around her. Whisper could feel the scorching heat coming from Blaze. Blaze lifted a hand, aiming straight for the Egg base, before a searing blast of fire erupted from her hand, setting the base alight. At the beginning of the fight, Blaze had been taking care to keep her fire contained, so as to not set the surrounding forest on fire.

This Blaze did not do that.

The Egg base, along with most of the trees nearby, suddenly went alight. The whole thing was burning. Blaze suddenly turned to Alcurine, who was, for the first time since Whisper had seen her, looking nervous. Blaze suddenly jumped over to the floating platform, before angrily bringing burning fists down on the turret, destroying it. Blaze then went and grabbed Alcurine, her fists still flaming.

Alcurine started to scream in pain.

Blaze didn't so much as flinch at the pain filled screams.

Blaze was trying to cook Alcurine alive.

Suddenly, a green vine snapped onto Blaze, before brutally ripping her off the platform and smashing her onto the ground. The smash into the ground was strong enough to create a cloud of dust where Blaze hit. Whisper looked over and saw the Knight holding the Green Chaos Emerald, their body language showing only one thing.

Rage.

After Alcurine was released, she started gasping and trying in vain to rub away the burns that were on her arms, her mind clearly in shock. The Knight looked over to where Blaze had landed.

Blaze was trying to get back up, but it seemed like the power needed to use that much fire along with the previous crash into the dirt had severely weakened her. The Knight swapped out the Green Emerald for the Red Emerald. A red glow surrounded them, before they turned into living magma. They swiftly ran over to Blaze, before grabbing them and holding them.

Blaze's face started to turn from rage into pain.

"You can control flames, Princess. Now let's see if you can also control getting yourself burnt." the Knight said in their distorted voice, not a hint of joking or mirth.

The heat of the Knight's magma hands was clearly starting to get the better of Blaze. She fell unconscious, the pain of burning on top of everything else she went through that day being too much. The Knight didn't let go, and was entirely planning to just stay there cooking Blaze until she was a burnt husk. Suddenly, the Knight was hit by a spin dash by Sonic, knocking them onto their back. The result was them breaking their concentration, and the red glow surrounding the Knight flickered out.

Sonic immediately grabbed Blaze. And then he said something Whisper wasn't even sure he knew how to say. "Retreat. Everyone, we need to get out of here! Back to the Restoration, quickly!" He said into the comms.

Whisper saw she wasn't the only one shocked by Sonic signaling a retreat, the faces on his friends stunned. However, everyone here seemed to recognize a failed attack when they saw one, and they immediately started to retreat out of the forest. Sonic quickly sped out, still holding an unconscious Blaze

The rest of the group quickly followed. Whisper looked back at the Knight, who seemed to be carrying a still shivering in pain Alcurine back into the base.

Egg Base T, Command Center

"I admit, I wasn't prepared for that kind of response." Alcurine said, trying to bring humor back into her voice. It wasn't really working for Tangle, but she humored her anyway. "Yea, no kidding, huh?" She said quietly.

Eggman finally walked in the room, looking simultaneously elated and concerned. "Well well, I must say that the armor worked like a charm! And your combat prowess really showed them! Alcurine, I commend you on mocking the pests before trying to blast them with the morality laser. However, I will admit I could not have foreseen the Princess's reaction to the laser. Frankly, that had even me worried. In fact, we'll need to move bases again. Not because of them finding us, but because by the time the day is out, the whole forest will have burned down, and I don't want to be here in case the fire she set to the base smokes us out." Eggman rambled.

Alcurine just nodded, while Tangle looked at Eggman a bit incredulously. "Wait, that's it? Alcurine nearly died with that stupid stunt!" she said, indignant. Eggman looked at her in slight surprise.

Then he smiled. "Ah, worried about your friend, huh? Well don't worry, I have medical wards on standby. We even have a healing vat that would get her right as rain in barely a day. However, as I stated before, we clearly don't want to do that here. Sage!" He suddenly shouted.

Sage appeared next to Eggman, briefly wearing her usual neutral face. When she turned to look at Alcurine though, Sage started glitching from red to blue, and a horrified look appeared on her face. Eggman noticed the reaction. "Ah yes. As you can see, Alcurine is in need of serious medical attention. Get her the assistance she needs. No soldier of the Eggman Empire will suffer longer than necessary if I have anything to say about it!" He postured.

Tangle didn't believe him for a moment.

Restoration HQ, Temporary Holding Cells

Blaze was fuming. Literally. Fire was literally sparking off her skin while she seethed in rage.

Sonic was looking at her hesitantly, through one of those atmosphere test box thingies that Tails made. Ironically enough, this one used to hold Mimic. Now, it held Blaze.

Blaze banged against the glass, her hands wreathed in flame. "Let me out of here! I command you! I am Princess of the Sol Empire, and I demand you release me!" She said angrily, her voice slightly distorted by the glass.

Sonic just shook his head no. That only seemed to enrage Blaze further. "I am on your side! Let me out so I can burn that worthless excuse of a doctor to ash!" She raved angrily.

Sonic just sighed. "And that's why I can't let you out. Sorry Princess." Sonic said, genuinely upset at having to lock Blaze away.

Blaze continued to bang on the glass for a moment longer, before sliding down the glass onto her knees. Shockingly to Sonic, Blaze's face morphed into hurt. "Sonic please.. I can't…" She muttered.

"Why is my fur so dark? Why is my mind so angry? I hate this. I can't think straight, it's all so clouded. I want to kill Eggman. I want to hurt you. I want to burn everything to the ground… And I know that I'll have no qualms about doing any of it." She quietly said.

"Well, at least you can admit something is wrong with you. That's certainly an improvement from Tangle, that's for sure." Sonic muttered, just loud enough for Blaze to hear.

Blaze just shook her head. "That's the issue Sonic. It doesn't feel wrong. It feels so…" Blaze paused, before a dark smirk adorned her lips. "Liberating."

Sonic looked at her with shock. Blaze turned around, sitting, her back to Sonic. "Do you have any idea how long I've had to keep my temper in check? How long have I had to just deal with people questioning me? My leadership? My status? Of course, before I got hit with that thing, I just bottled it all up. Kept it all to myself because I just felt like it was wrong to be angry. And you know what? Maybe I was right. But right now, I feel none of that. I feel no urge to keep my feelings to myself. My rage? I'll let it flare right now because I just don't care about the consequences. Those people who would question me? I'd give them a very practical lesson on what I'm guarding, because I don't feel bad about any of it." She said, before she started giggling.

"Gaia, the past me was so weak, so pathetic. She actually cared about your opinions! She cared about her people's opinions! And the strain of that was tearing her apart!" She said, before she burst into full out mad laughter.

Sonic just looked at her stunned. Finally, after about a few minutes, Blaze calmed down, her mirth disappearing as suddenly as it arrived. "And yet… As free as I feel…" She started hesitantly.

"I still care." She said quietly. "I still want to care. I still feel like a steadfast guardian of the Sol Emeralds, although my view about them has certainly changed. I still envy you, just like the other me did. You get to have all the freedom, but no one looks at you like you've gone insane. I suddenly get my excuse to be who I really am under that facade of a precious Princess, and I get locked up for it!" She said, suddenly becoming angry again, fire flaring up around her.

"And for what!? Who cares about Eggman!? No one does! Why should we show mercy to him, to any of them!? Pathetic pawns to that mad doctor, they all should've burned in that fire! They should've burned with him!" She started shouting again, before standing up and once again banging on the glass.

"LET ME OUT OF HERE AND LET ME MAKE THEM ALL SUFFER!"

Sonic just shook his head, before quickly speeding out of the cell room. He could hear Blaze's angry screams all the way out.

Silver was waiting outside of the doorway. "So. Any luck?" He asked, pretending he couldn't hear the screams of rage.

Sonic just shook his head. "No. Whatever that laser did to her really messed her up. With Tangle, it brought out the worst version of her. But it was still her, in a sense. Honestly, Tangle probably would've still been on our side if we were quicker on the draw with her. Blaze though? It did seem to bring out the worst of her too, but not only that, it seemed to amplify her worst traits so much that it feels like it's breaking her mind." Sonic said solemnly. Silver just looked away.

"There were moments when I was talking to her where she seemed melancholy, like she wanted to go back to being her regular self again. Then, as I'm sure you're pretending not to hear, there is the rage filled screaming. Blaze has always had a temper, I would be the first to tell you. But it's like her rage is controlling her at this point. Frankly, I think it all has to do with her inhibitions. She mentioned that her inhibitions kept her rage in check, along with everything else bad about her. Those are clearly gone now, and because of that, I think she's starting to break." Sonic finished quietly.

Silver closed his eyes and sighed. "I need a moment. I'll try getting through to her later. Maybe I will have better luck with 'Crazy' Blaze than you?" SIlver said quietly, not quite believing his own words.

Before Sonic could say anything, Silver walked away. Sonic just sighed.

Sonic walked away from the doorway, hearing Blaze's screams of rage all the way up the stairs.