[SoDi]

-21- Super Hero

A wind had picked up and was whipping up the flames erupting from the mountain, carrying them high into the air and weaving them into a wreath of fire around the mountain’s peak. Sonic and the others watched as the spiraling torrent of burning wind gathered itself into the massive form of a rearing red horse, the wind lord Notus. But the form became invisible again almost immediately as the fire wreath swarmed around him once more, then exploded outward in a wave of heat and light.

Everyone took shelter in the lea of the mountain as the wave passed over them. Everything below, the woods and scrub that clung to the other hills and cliffs around Tar Mountain, were either incinerated immediately or, if not in the direct line of the burst, simply caught fire. Notus flew around the mountain once, then perched on the peak above them, still cloaked in flames and white ribbons of wind.

The air was so hot that simply breathing was enough to instantly dry out his throat, but Sonic shouted over the noise of the burning wind, “Podarge! First we have to take the wind seal from him, that should weaken him!”

“Oh sure, no pressure!” said Po, waiting for the last of the fire wave to pass before darting out from behind her stone shelter and up the mountainside. Shin and Knuckles ran after her.

“I’ve got to get back to the Tornado!” said Tails, flying into the air. “I’ve got a power ring there. And if it can still fly, we can use that to get up higher. I don’t know if we’ll be able to attack from the ground, if he can fly!” Sonic nodded, but Tails stopped and said to Eggster, “I almost forgot! We can’t just leave you here, so you better come with me.” He hurried down the slope, and Eggster, not arguing, hurried after him.

Po thought that the others were too slow, so she grabbed Knuckles and Shin by the wrists and pulled them along faster. They stopped just before reaching the wreath of fire at the crest of the mountain, which was beginning to flash ominously. Knuckles punched powerfully at the ground with a shout, forcing a small wall of stone upwards, and the three sheltered behind it as Notus let out another roaring fire burst.

Shin took her spear from her back and said to Podarge, “How do you expect to reach him?”

The wave of fire passed beyond them, and the three of them looked around the sides of the rock wall. “See those white spaces?” Po asked, referring to the cords of wind blowing more quickly through the curtain of flames. “The wind moving there is too fast to be on fire! If I can catch a ride in one of those, I bet I can ride it inside to where Notus is.”

“If you don’t fall out, and if Notus isn’t a worse threat once you are past the fire wall,” Shin said, twitching her ears.

“Don’t think I can do it?”

“What can we do to help?” Knuckles asked her.

“I dunno, just keep covering me!” she said, racing forward again. She vanished inside the burning wall of wind.

The flow of the wind was constantly shifting inside of the burning wreath that shielded Notus, many different currents buffeting against one another or spiraling in opposite directions. With no footing, Po had to coast with the cooler air current while fire pushed in from all sides. Notus began kicking at the mountain top, knocking loose large burning boulders that shot out through the wall of fire and down the mountain. Podarge skidded below one such stone only to smack face-first into a second one, which knocked her out of the air current and onto the ground.

“Ouch, ouch,” she said, picking herself up and seeing that she had fallen on the inside of the fire wall. Notus, a shining monster of ruby-like flames, towered above her, stomping madly. She rolled out from under his hooves and made a leap up towards his chest, as she had done in the fight with Eurus. She did not try shattering the V-Cell in his chest with a harpy shriek, since it looked to be made of the same unbreaking substance, and simply clawed her arms through until she could grab at the seal over his heart and pull it out.

But Notus’ body was still on fire. Po screamed as she burned, unable to keep a hold, and fell back to the ground with the knotted light of the wind seal hugged to her chest.

Knuckles was punching away fiery boulders, while Shin was shattering them with her spear whenever the stones fell too close to them. They saw the wall of fire flicker and then leap into the air, scattering outward in one last destructive wave high overhead. Then the wall was gone. Shin ran forward, knowing intuitively where she would find the harpy and picking the burnt Podarge off the ground, racing back out of the way once she had.

Notus was shrieking as he began to diminish, taking on a smaller form. But he was dressed in burning armor, his eyes white flames, and when he jumped into the air he seemed to unravel into a large cloud of twisting embers. While Shin ran with Po, Notus began to rain fire down at them, but Knuckles punched at the ground and knocked up a wall of debris that caught the attack. Notus, in the shape of a burning cloud, flew away from the mountain peak.

The small blue wings of the Tornado zoomed across the sky after him, Sonic standing on the wings and Tails piloting. The plane’s guns shot through the cloud that Notus had transformed into without effect, and Tails flew past to turn around and try a different pass.

Down on the ground, Shin skidded to a stop, almost colliding with the black hedgehog that warped into her path. She took a step back, still carrying Podarge. Knuckles stopped behind them, shouting, “Shadow!”

“Imposter!” Shin corrected in an angry yell, jumping out of the way as V shot a chaos attack at them. His second attack came so quickly that Podarge was knocked out of her arms and fell to the ground with a moan, the wind seal similarly flung away from her and into the air.

Knuckles leapt at V’s back, but the enemy vanished, reappearing behind him and giving a swift, low kick that flung the echidna high into the air. V then turned to the flickering wind seal, which was drifting towards one of the columns of fire erupting from the mountain side. He held out his chaos emerald and shouted, “Quantum chaos spear!” The attack struck the magical seal and shattered it, and the wind that was unleashed shot outwards so fast that Shin was knocked to the ground again just after standing. Then the white wind, visible as threads of shining white, dissipated in one last roaring gale and finally scattered to nothing. The sky darkened further as the uncontrolled power summoned another storm in its wake.

V turned back to his opponents, but at that moment Shadow appeared beside him and kicked him swiftly in the jaw, knocking him several feet down the mountain and throwing the chaos emerald out of V’s hand. “Surprised to see me?”

V sat up and rubbed his sore jaw with the back of his hand. “I was beginning to think you weren’t coming back at all.”

“You know now that I can’t be destroyed so easily.”

“I would hope not,” said V, standing up. “I want a real fight with you, with your full strength.”

“Is that what you’re really after?”

“I don’t waste my time chasing after ghosts. But your timing now is poor.”

“Too bad for you,” Shadow shook his head, picking up the dropped emerald and now wielding both of them. “Now I have the emeralds!”

V nodded. “Doesn’t that simply make it more entertaining?”

“What?!”

V jumped forward, pressing his own hands over the chaos emeralds as Shadow held them, and both induced chaos control at the same moment. They vanished, and then reappeared several times, locked in combat. They struggled to find weaknesses, and to wrest the emeralds away from the other, but their fighting styles were identical enough to prevent either from holding an advantage for very long. Shin recovered Po and ran away from them, looking for shelter. Knuckles didn’t want to leave the fight, but he couldn’t tell anymore which was Shadow and which was the fake. He could only watch.

After reappearing again, V threw Shadow away, crashing him against the mountainside in a shower of dust, having found one good opening. Shadow picked himself up and jumped back so quickly that he was able to pin V against the slope for a moment, burying both of them several feet into the rock with the force of their impact. They began flashing in and out of the fight again, until Shadow found a good opening of his own and reappeared with both emeralds in his hands. V dove after him only to have Shadow vanish and reappear above him where he could kick the look-alike heavily to the ground.

V waited a moment, then picked himself up slowly. Shadow, now several meters away, began a charge with the intention of finishing the fight. But before he could cross the distance, V turned and raised a hand, shouting “Quantum chaos spear!”

The emeralds that Shadow held flashed as V drew on their power and launched the spear from his hand. Shadow had not expected V to be able to use that power now, and had left himself open, so the energy hit him full on and toppled him.

“How? You don’t have a chaos emerald!” Shadow said, as V walked back towards him.

“Only those that you were holding,” V said. Then he grabbed Shadow by the top of the head and pulled him off the ground.

“What are you really?”

V nodded. “I am what you were meant to be. And what you might still become.”

“Not a chance!!” Shadow yelled, twisting away his upper body while throwing his feet upward in a sharp double kick that knocked V backward. He began a fierce series of attacks that left V no time to counter, pushing him further and further along the ground until he was pushed over a short ledge and crashed below.

“I told you this is a bad time,” V said, pushing himself back up. “I’m too busy for you right now. But we will have to finish this eventually. I’ll be waiting for you, then.”

“You don’t have time to wait,” said Shadow, who spread his arms and began to glow red. Once again, he held a chaos emerald in either hand. “Chaos blast!”

“Chaos blast!” V echoed at the same time, holding up one hand, the other reaching to something hidden behind his back. The light of Shadow’s attack suddenly inverted and sliced inwards rather than outwards, the force of the blast concentrated now entirely on Shadow. He screamed and every hair on his body went on end, his body caught in the current between the two emeralds. When the attack finally spent itself, he collapsed and was still, the gems rolling out of his limp fingers.

V began to fade until he ceased to be visible at all. It was not a sudden disappearance, like with chaos control. Knuckles, now recognizing the enemy, ran forward and punched forcefully at the ground where the look-alike had been standing, but there was nothing there anymore.

Shin, shielded behind a rocky outcropping just below them, had managed to wake Po. Amy ran up to them, shouting, “Listen, we have to get out of here!”

On the other side of the mountain peak, Sonic had jumped down from the Tornado and waited for Notus to come after him while Tails flew out of the way. The Notus-cloud hovered above the hedgehog and blasted down a vortex of fire that engulfed the blue hedgehog as it crashed against the mountainside. A moment later, the vortex was ripped asunder by a wind that Sonic was kicking up by spinning quickly on the inside, a power ring shining in his hand. He continued to spin, reversing the vortex and using it to suck in the embering cloud, drawing it down to the ground where Notus was forced to retake a solid form. Sonic had that one brief moment to launch a spin attack strong enough to break the V-Cell embedded in Notus’ burning armor. Sonic landed on his feet nearby as Notus fell to the ground silently, his eyes closing and the fire on his body extinguishing. Hearing the noise the others were making, Sonic ran back to the rest of the party.

They all looked pretty beat up, except for Amy. “What happened here? Shadow?!” he said, watching Knuckles pick up the prone hedgehog.

“V attacked, but he didn’t seem interested in a real fight,” the echidna told him, handing him the two emeralds the black hedgehogs had fought with. “Amy, tell him what you just said.”

Amy nodded, and told Sonic, “Call Tails back in! Eggster said that this whole mountain is one big bomb, built to go off if the wind lord is defeated! I told him to go inside to try to shut down the self-destruct mechanism, but he probably just ran away. We should get out, too!” She took out the two emeralds that she had found in the Gallowood, handing those to Sonic also.

“Where is Notus, anyway?” asked Po, pulling soot out of her hair and coughing.

“He’s already down,” Sonic said, using a thumb to point behind him.

The ground began to shake. Tails was flying the plane back towards them, and when he saw them waving he flew in low and landed even as the mountain began breaking open all around them. “You guys get on, I’ll go back for Notus!” Sonic told them. But even as he turned back to run across the mountain, they saw V on the ridge above them.

“I have already returned the wind spirit, since his purpose here is finished. Thank you for your assistance, Sonic the hedgehog.”

“What did you say?!” Sonic said.

“That’s V-Shadow!” Amy shouted. “Be careful, Sonic!”

Shin had already pushed Po up into the plane, but the harpy twisted around and said, “Here, Sonic!” She tossed out the red emerald the hound had given to her.

Tails took the emerald that was in the Tornado’s engine and tossed down that one as well. “We’ll still be able to fly out, but you’ll have to do the rest!”

Sonic caught the stones and nodded. He still had the one that had been powering the Deviled Egg, and letting go of the seven gems they began to float around him. “I can take care of this. You guys get clear of the mountain!”

“You’re in for it now!” Tails shouted at V, as the others finished piling onto the little plane and he flew it off the mountain.

V watched it go, then turned back to Sonic with a calm, expectant look. “Show me.”

“Why are you doing this? What is Robotnik really after?” Sonic asked, the chaos emeralds floating around him lazily, though every mundane stone on the mountain seemed to be shaking itself to pieces.

“The magic that these wind spirits carry is what seals the Final Door shut. But it’s a power bound to their very being. Robotnik could neither remove the seals nor defeat the wind spirits themselves, he only has the ability to drive them into frenzy. You and that harpy of yours did the rest of the work for him.”

Sonic crossed his arms, frowning. “You tricked us into fighting them for you? But you seem like a tough guy. Why didn’t Eggman just have you take them out?”

V gave a small smile. “I’m not working for the doctor. But he has his uses.”

Sonic smiled back. “Freelance, huh? You really do look like Shadow. But he’s got more class. I don‘t know how you beat him, but I‘ll return the favor.”

All around them the mountain began to explode, filling the air with stone and fire and smoke. The Tornado was having trouble flying with so many passengers, so Tails was having to let it coast out of the mountains. Looking back, they all could see the mountain breaking apart, and then it looked as if the top of the mountain was blown off in one massive burst, a huge tower of fire.

An expanding ring of light dissipated the fire, and hovering in the air above the mountain was the shining form of Super Sonic. Amy cheered, but Knuckles narrowed his eyes, trying to see the fight that was now so distant from them.

The energy wave extinguished the mountain, and when that danger had been subdued Super Sonic lowered his arms and looked for where his enemy had gone.

“I’m right here!” V shouted from below, throwing something upwards at the super-powered hedgehog. Turning to look down, Super Sonic was almost hit by the object, instead grabbing it instinctively with his hands.

“What is it?” Super Sonic asked himself, catching the large white ring with both his hands. It flashed as soon as he touched it, and his eyes flew open wide, but they were no longer looking at anything. His body flashed white and continued to glow so brightly that he was not visible within the light. Below, just before the blinding radiance could overtake him as well, V faded away again.

A second energy wave spread outward, a thick light that crashed against the surrounding mountain tops and carved them away, ripping up the ground below. The light wave began to weaken, but when it overtook the Tornado it was still strong enough to throw them out of the air. It wasn’t much of a crash, since the plane was having to coast so low anyway, but the plane and its passengers were left in a tangled heap. Po squeezed out and climbed back up onto the bent wing of the Tornado, shielding her eyes with one hand but staring into the light as it finally began to dissipate.

“What happened?!” Knuckles shouted below her.

“Sonic!!” Amy yelled.

“Oh… no…” was all Po could say.

Not even ash was left in the air in the wake of that bright blast. In the empty sky, a blindingly white and very spiky hedgehog coasted quietly, face invisible and spines crackling with lancing energy. The bright ring, swollen with the power it was channeling, hung in the air behind him like a large halo, spinning madly and throwing off large sparks of its own, seven shining white emeralds trailing along its edges. The hedgehog suddenly opened a pair of stark blue eyes, a solid color with no pupils, and threw his arms wide. The air around him wavered and then seemed to explode with a sound of shattering glass as he launched himself high into the heavens, a bright star visible in the day bright sky.

[SoDi]

-22- Game Over

With the Tornado broken again, the party needed a place to shelter and regroup. A small village beyond Tar Mountain had been abandoned, probably when Robotnik’s work nearby had made the area volcanically active, but most of the buildings this far out from the mountain were still undamaged. Bright Sonic had moved on, leaving a wake of destruction, and the others made plans to follow as soon as they were able, keeping busy till then.

“By now, the last wind seal will likely have moved. I told you we should have gone after it when the last one was lost, we still might have had a chance then,” Shin explained to Po, as they sat on the roof of an abandoned barn. The sound of clanking came from below, where Tails had converted the building into a makeshift workshop. It was just now evening, the sky was dust-colored and the first real stars were beginning to show. The crickets were noisy in the neglected fields.

“You talk like losing Notus was the only problem we had,” Po said, leaning back and watching the sky. Her arms and hands were still bandaged from where she had been burned, but they didn‘t seem painful, and the bandages would likely come off soon.

“What are your priorities, then? How can you work towards a goal, when you waver?”

“I’m not wavering! We do need to find the last wind seal! I figured it would help Sonic out, if we cleaned up all of them so that Eggman wouldn’t bug him for a while. And I’d find what I’m looking for, too. Iris said she couldn’t do it, even with chaos emeralds, so it’s up to us. That’s our deal, right? Having fewer seals might make some things harder, and I had another in my hands, and I lost it again!!” she fumed. “And who knows where Notus is now?”

“At least it won’t be hard to find your brother.”

Po sighed. “You can be really mean sometimes.” Shin chuckled at that.

The barn door slid back and Tails ran outside, looking around and then up at the roof. “Podarge! Where’d you go? I still need your help on the Tornado!”

“Maybe you should just start over with a new one, there’s more patching than plane left, isn’t there?”

Tails flew up to them and frowned. “Don’t say that, this plane has been with me and Sonic forever! I’ve just always rebuilt it for speed, but at this point I should really be focusing on durability,” he admitted, putting a hand on his chin as he thought about it.

“No duh! I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve crashed it!” Po laughed.

“Po, everyone is doing what they can! Amy already said you can’t help out in the house anymore, ‘cause you get so nervous indoors. And besides, I thought you liked working on the Tornado,” he said.

Po tugged on her horn. “Okay, okay, I get it. I’ll be right down. But it’s no fun when it gets to be so much work, and all we’ve done is work on it since we got here.”

“I’m sure we’ll finish soon!” said Tails.

“Okay. Fly me down!” Po crowed, jumping off the roof and grabbing at his feet. Tails yelped in surprise and began careening towards the ground, thrown out of balance. Po rolled into a landing just before they crashed, then continued running inside the barn, and Tails zoomed after her.

They worked undisturbed for the next few hours. Most of the paint was off the Tornado, making it hard to recognize, but at least it was shaped like a plane again. Po, beneath the engine, pushed her arm up among a mess of exposed wires, and the propeller began to turn. “I think we got it that time!” she said, and the propeller began to slow again as she removed her arm. “You were right about the loose wiring, I guess that was the trick. Hey, are you okay?” she asked, lifting herself up the side of the plane and seeing Tails looking blankly at the cockpit controls.

“Huh? Oh, yeah, I’m fine,” he said, coming back to his senses. He powered down the rest of the controls and ran a hand across the metal trim beside him. “I was just thinking about when I first met Sonic.”

“Don’t look so down. Knuckles probably knows where he is by now, he’ll be back to tell us any minute. Remember what you said the first time I visited your workshop? This is what we can do to help Sonic right now. You have to trust him, and everyone else, too.”

Tails nodded. “I know. Thanks for the help, Po.”

“Why don’t you go back to the house and wait for Knuckles there? It’s already late. I’m going to run back to the mountain and check it out, one more time.”

“But, it’s dangerous alone. What if there are scout bots, or monsters?”

“I can outrun them! Don’t be such a scaredy-fox. Besides, the idea of scouting is that I would find them first!” She gave a small salute and dropped back off the plane, shooting out of the barn like a blue streak.

Tails made his way to the small farmhouse they were borrowing, the windows lit warmly against the night. Inside, Amy had already tidied everything so well that it was impossible to tell that the place had ever been abandoned. Shin sat in a chair against the far wall, and nodded when he came in. “Hi,” he said to her, hesitating.

“The blue hedgehog leaves, and all the life goes out of this party,” she said, as Tails sat down in an armchair.

Amy came out from the kitchen with a tray in her hands, setting it noisily on the room’s one table. She poured hot milk tea into a few cups and handed the first one to Tails. “Thanks!” he said.

Amy handed the other one to Shin, who eyed it suspiciously as she took it. “What’s this for?”

“It’s for drinking! So drink it! And don’t give me that line about just being here on contract, I don’t care!!” Amy answered, going back into the kitchen and beginning to wash the dishes noisily.

The tea was good.

But it wasn’t very long before the door opened again. “Glad some of you can relax at a time like this,” said Knuckles.

“You’re back!” Amy said, running out from the kitchen.

“How is he?” Knuckles asked her.

“Shadow is still resting in the back. He‘s fine now, just tired, I think. What did you find out?”

The echidna told them. “GUN has identified Bright Sonic as their priority target. They’ve started mobilizing forces, but every time they get too far with a maneuver something always happens to shut them down. Like someone wants to make sure Bright Sonic stays on the rampage.”

“Shutting them down? Is it V?” asked Shin.

Knuckles nodded, then rubbed the back of his head. “And everyone still thinks it’s Shadow. I’m not sure what it is between them, but the mix-up is just adding to the trouble. Shin, do you know what happened to Shadow, after he and V fought?”

The hound thought it over. “Shadow was hard to find, or I would have returned much sooner. He was still not… altogether there, but his strength of will was present, and he rebuilt himself with nothing more to start with. That original incompleteness was what slowed me down. That, and he somehow managed to bury himself more than a mile underground.”

“How did you find him at all?” Amy asked. In answer, Shin just tapped the end of her nose.

“So the quantum chaos attack did scatter him?” Tails wondered. “And he must have reformed himself in a random location.”

“Guess he managed to pull himself back together,” Knuckles said. “He uses chaos control himself, so whatever V did to him, Shadow must have been able to undo it the same way. Maybe that‘s why V didn‘t seem surprised to see Shadow again.”

Tails looked thoughtful. “I still wonder why Eggman made V at all! Doesn’t it seem strange that after all that talk about not having his plans get out of control anymore, he’d make something as dangerous and uncontrollable as V? Even Eggster was programmed without any personal ambition, and Eggman went to a lot of work to keep the wind lords divided. So why a cloning project now?”

“Are you still trying to figure Robotnik out? It’s a lost cause, Tails! That guy has never made any sense! He probably did it just because he could, that would be like him,” Amy said.

“Yeah, but still-”

Amy waved a finger and interrupted. “It’s better to wonder how Eggman managed it, so that we can try to stop it! None of the androids Eggman ever made were like this. Why is V so much more dangerous?”

Shin shrugged. “I have heard that Shadow was created, as some experimental project. Does that not mean that he can be recreated?”

“W-what?” asked Tails, startled by the thought of it. Then he thought it over. “But, I don’t think so. Shadow is special.”

Amy agreed. “Yeah, when the Black Arms attacked the planet, we learned that Robotnik’s grandfather made Shadow with the help of their leader, Black Doom. And that guy is long gone, so it shouldn’t be possible to do what Gerald Robotnik did again.”

Tails had another thought. “But it was by using Black Doom’s blood, so the genetic material is already there. Eggman could still get that data with a sample cloned directly from Shadow. And getting his life data would have been easy if he did it while Shadow was still plugged into the V-Mega, it really was a sophisticated machine.”

“Who’s side are you arguing?” asked Amy.

Tails looked embarrassed, and defended himself, “But, that wouldn’t be enough! It also took all of the chaos emeralds to make Shadow, and Eggman definitely didn’t have those when he made V, since we were already collecting them!”

“But he did have the master emerald,” Knuckles realized, closing his eyes as he scowled. “I never did find out why he had stolen it in the first place, but maybe that was it. I bet Shadow didn’t even know what he was stealing it for, when he took it from Angel Island!”

“What are you saying?! That V really is exactly like Shadow? That’s ridiculous!” Amy argued.

Tails shook his head. “I know, they aren’t alike at all! But, if we’re right, then V has been able to do all this because he does have all of Shadow’s powers, his strength, his knowledge. Maybe his memories!”

“Even his pride?” asked Shin, half-smiling.

“But Eggman must have done something else to V,” Knuckles said, remembering the fight he had witnessed on Tar Mountain.

“Because V uses quantum chaos powers to manipulate the chaos emeralds!” Tails remembered. “Is that how he beat Shadow at the mountain facility?”

“I thought that he was somehow able to use Shadow’s own attacks against him, but I just had another idea,” Knuckles began. “Because he had the bright ring with him! Remember the wind beacon? Didn’t that work by channeling power over long distances? With that, V might have been able to use chaos powers even though Shadow was the one holding the emeralds!”

“That’s right! But then he used the ring against Sonic, so he won’t be able to do that anymore,” Tails said.

Amy shook her head. “Still, what does that mean for Sonic? We have to save him! And we have to do it before V or GUN finds a way to shoot him down!”

“We have to tell GUN to stop!” said Tails.

Knuckles sighed. “Like I said, people are already convinced that Sonic and Shadow are the enemies. So I don’t think we’re going to be very popular with GUN either, till this is straightened out. And Bright Sonic won’t stop on his own. That isn‘t Sonic at all out there, anymore.”

“But if Sonic isn’t himself anymore, then who is he?” Tails said in exasperation, puffing out his cheeks. “There isn’t a single part of Sonic that would want to hurt anyone like that, I don’t believe it!”

“Even if you don’t believe it, that doesn’t change what’s happening out there,” said Shadow from the doorway in the hall. “If Sonic really is a threat to the world, then he’s an enemy. You should know what we have to do.”

“You’re up already! But what are you talking about?” asked Amy. “Things look bad, but, he’s still Sonic!”

“Do we know anything about his current position?” Shadow asked.

Knuckles nodded. “A few miles out of Eastopolis, I think. He keeps moving, but not with any hurry or even a real direction. It’s just mindless destruction right now. But he’s too strong to take on directly, and even if we could, V might stop us like he’s been stopping GUN. We need a plan.”

“Wasn’t V’s real goal to fight you?” Shin asked Shadow. “But he would just defeat you again.”

Shadow thought it over, then shook his head. “We could have finished that at the mountain base, but he ran. Without the bright ring to help him, I won’t lose the next time we meet!” He went to the front door and opened it, stopping on the threshold to look up at the clear night sky.

“You were listening that whole time?” asked Knuckles.

“But that’s just a theory!” said Tails. “We don’t know if that’s really what helped him before!”

“Either way, to get to V he‘ll have to go through Sonic first,” said Shin, watching the black hedgehog for a reaction, but he gave none.

“Sonic is the one we have to worry about right now,” Knuckles agreed. “I think I’m starting to understand how the bright ring works, and I might have an idea. But we’ll need some time to get ready.”

“We don’t have time!” Shadow said suddenly, then ran out the door into the night.

“Wait!!” Amy yelled after him, but he was already gone.

“What is he going to do?” Tails wondered.

“He’s going to protect the world, like he always does. But if that means hurting Sonic, I won’t let him!” Amy said, looking as if she was about to run after him.

But she stopped when Knuckles said, “We’re not out of options yet. Speaking of that, where’s Podarge? We‘re going to need all the help we can get, and she should be here.”

Tails answered, “She helped me with the Tornado, then said she wanted to scout out the mountain again. She should be back soon.”

“She went alone?” Shin asked, standing up.

-

Podarge was speeding along the foothills that led back to the mountain. She was running hard, but she let her route meander, as if she had no particular destination, despite her hurry. She paused on top of a bluff to catch her breath, and almost fell as a sudden gust of wind buffeted her. Thinking that she had heard a voice on the wind, she spun around. “Tails?” she called out, looking around, but the sky was empty. “Shin? …Don’t mess with me, who’s there?!”

The wind gusted again, spinning round her and knocking her to the ground. When it stopped, the two harpy sisters were standing over her. “Something wrong?” asked Aello. “Running away again?”

“I don’t run away!”

“But that’s what you do when things don’t go your way. You must be anxious about something. I wonder what?” asked Ocypete, feigning a curious look.

“Get outta’ my face!” Po said, jumping to her feet and taking a few paces back. “Why are you showing up now? It’s not like I’m going to help you, if that‘s it. I’ve got plans of my own!”

“You’re the one who needs our help. We haven’t been idle, either,” Aello said, pulling one of her long ponytails around to the front of her shoulder.

The wind died completely. A tall figure in a cloak stepped out from the darkness behind the two harpies, who moved aside to let him pass. When he reached Podarge, he lifted a hand to draw back a low hood, revealing an equine face. Podarge gasped. “You!!”

[SoDi]

-23- Dissonance

Shadow sped as quickly as he could through the foothills and out into the wetlands that led towards Eastopolis. The roads were practically empty, but he would still cut through fields or run directly over bluffs to save himself time. Coming to a larger bridge, he found it blockaded by GUN forces. When he saw them, he slowed to a walk, but continued to move forward.

“Halt!” a soldier called out to him. “This route is closed until further notice!”

“Isn’t that Shadow?” another asked.

“Shadow the Hedgehog, surrender peacefully!” the captain shouted down.

“These blockades won’t stop Bright Sonic. I’m not your enemy. But if you insist on turning against me now, it won’t stop me, either!”

A few of the men ran then, but most held their ranks. The soldiers opened fire, two of their mech units jumping out in front of the barrier walls and launching small rockets. Shadow leapt out of the way and crashed against one of the mechs, smashing it’s head in while using the massive body of the machine to shield himself from the hail of bullets. He continued to dodge attacks as he dashed between the barrier walls and in among the soldiers. But Shadow didn’t bother to attack them, simply knocking them aside as he hurried through.

“He’s heading for the flight gear, stop him!”

Shadow crossed the bridge and saw the area the soldiers were using for a launch pad, a helicopter and other gear parked behind a hastily built barricade of crates and sandbags. He jumped over the barricade and was almost struck from below, where a gun turret was hidden partway in the ground. He spun downward, tearing the gun apart, then plowed through a pile of crates. Out of the dust that the broken boxes and soldiers’ bullets were sending up behind him, Shadow emerged riding a GUN issue jet glider, flying quickly out of the range of their weapons. This would be faster than running through the wetlands, but now a pair of planes that had been patrolling nearby had returned and were chasing the glider.

Shadow was familiar with these controls and with the weapons that the glider was armed with, and he spun the more maneuverable glider around behind the planes. He shot with enough precision to disable the planes, forcing them to land without crashing. With nothing left chasing him down, he flew ahead.

In the dark of night, even with the glare from nearby cities and searchlights, it was not difficult to find Bright Sonic. Shadow flew toward a thick white light on the horizon, where the transformed hedgehog hovered in the air like a second sun. The earth below was jaggedly ripped open, dagger-shaped wounds randomly drawn across the ground. Nearest to him were the remains of Eastopolis, the tall buildings fallen and the streets indiscernible beneath all the rubble and torn ground. But at the moment, Bright Sonic was idle, motionless in the air.

Shadow was flying in from behind him. He armed the rest of the glider’s weaponry but did not fire, instead dropping out of the craft and letting the glider fly ahead. It crashed into Bright Sonic with a small explosion, but the smoke dissipated quickly. Bright Sonic was unscratched, and turned slowly around.

“Did I get your attention?” Shadow asked, standing on the highest remaining wall of a ruined skyscraper. Bright Sonic’s face turned toward him, but with no pupils or irises, it was impossible to tell what his eyes were focused on. And other than his eyes, he had no real face. “Is your protector going to interfere, or are we going to have a real fight?” Shadow wondered, crossing his arms and looking around them, but there was no sign of V. He looked back at Bright Sonic, who remained still and silent. The bright ring hummed mutely behind him. “You can’t even speak anymore,” Shadow said, and made a fist, his eyes turned unflinchingly toward the bright light centered on his adversary.

As if sensing the start of battle, Bright Sonic spread his arms wide and flew a little higher into the air. He clapped his hands together forcefully, and a light lanced outward from his arms that ripped into the building where Shadow was standing, tearing through it and then into the ground, leaving another of those jagged scars in the earth. Shadow had dropped forward just before the attack could catch him, as well. “I never thought you could be made a tool of destruction, Sonic. If there is anything left of you in there, I’m going to find it.” Shadow stood up slowly from where he had fallen, twisting off the ring from first one wrist, then the other. He dashed forward so quickly that he was gone before the rings could drop to the ground.

Shadow skated through the ruins below Bright Sonic, who shot a quick succession of light arrows at him. But all of them missed, and so Bright Sonic dove down into the ruins himself. Shadow skidded behind a wall, and Bright Sonic crashed through it in pursuit. But Shadow was waiting for him, and spun down in a fierce attack. The attack pounded the ground into a crater, and Sonic was thrown back into the air, but it was hard to tell whether the blow had actually hurt him at all. Drifting a bit higher, Bright Sonic spread his arms, readying another heavy attack.

Shadow, still on the ground, cursed and dodged again, waiting for another opening.

-

“Aello tells me that you were hunting my brothers,” the horse said. He was white-furred, with black ears. Po had recognized him at once.

“Well, yeah. You guys sure got yourselves into a mess, huh?” she asked. As she spoke, she bowed her shoulders inward, and hunched forward just slightly, as if defensive, or frightened of something. Her eyes were wide. “It’s good you’re safe, though. I was going to come look for you, too, Boreas.”

He smiled a little. “I am honored that you were concerned for me. Aello and Ocypete have been of great aid, and once I heard that you had been freed, I hoped that we might all work together again, like old times.”

“For what? You should hide, or something bad might happen to you, too.” She looked at the other two harpies. “Have you found Notus yet? Robotnik still has him.”

Aello raised her eyebrows in surprise. “You don’t know? He’s already gone, Podarge.”

“He was in such a weak state, he couldn’t stop that Robotnik from using him to power the Final Door,” Ocypete explained, looking aside.

“Power it?”

Aello was angry. “That was your fault, too! Because you fought him!”

Podarge bared her teeth. “Where were you?!”

“It’s already done,” Ocypete said, so softly that the others almost missed hearing her speak. Podarge backed down, watching Boreas.

He shook his head. “Mine is the last seal, or so I thought. With the destruction of my brothers I can sense now that more than my strength remains to protect the Final Door.”

“Because of Zephyr’s seal,” Podarge realized.

“Yes. You knew it survived his demise?”

“Well, I, I spoke to Iris about it, when I knew I needed to go after the other seals! But she said that even she couldn’t locate it, since she’s stuck outside of this dimension anyway.”

“You went to Iris?” asked Aello, surprised.

Boreas smiled. “You have already spoken with her, I see. Of course, since it is you, I should not be too surprised. But this gives us some time, if it is lost. We need to find that seal first, lest it fall into the wrong hands.”

“What do you need it for? I mean, it’s probably safer if it stays lost!”

“To command the Final Door, all existing seals must be brought together. With Zephyr’s seal still in the world, I cannot do enough alone. But with it and the chaos emeralds, I can use the Door myself, and finish what we started so many millennia ago!”

Podarge was unconvinced, and stamped the ground with a talon. “But that’s stupid! If it was that easy, what was the war for at all?!”

“We resisted using the power against Pandora, because commanding the Door does come at a steep price. But we know now that we cannot let Robotnik or anyone else have that power, or a higher price would be paid. He is like every other mortal who came against us, desiring power! We have to stop them!”

Po crossed her arms. “V-Shadow is after the seals. Eggman made him for that, I think. You try to do something like this, he’ll get them from you, too. Don’t do him the favor!”

“Don’t you dare talk down to us,” Aello glared at her.

Boreas reached a hand towards Podarge’s shoulder, but she shoved it away. So he said, “We cannot let these creatures control such devastating power. But if they desire it so badly, perhaps we should let them have it. We have fought so hard to protect these fools from themselves, but if they persist, why not let them rip their world apart, and wreak their own ruin? Better that than wield such power against us again.”

“…You’re serious,” Podarge said, still disbelieving.

“I could destroy the remaining magics myself, rather than let them be stolen and wielded for petty gain and base instincts! We have lost so much already, should we really suffer any further?”

“But you can’t let Eggman just blow up the world, even if it’s his own fault! There’s a lot of stuff still in this world worth saving!” Podarge argued.

“These creatures have it coming to them!” Ocypete countered. “Eggman and everyone like him! Boreas is right, Podarge. We’ve lost too much trying to help them. It was always just a matter of time anyway.”

“But-”

“Think about it,” Aello told her. “Stopping Pandora stopped nothing. These past millennia have proven that. While you were suspended, timeless, all we could do was watch history repeat itself. Even if Eggman loses here, there will be someone else after him, too. So many civilizations rose to greatness only to destroy themselves, but the white wind risks destroying everything.”

“Our path is dangerous,” Boreas admitted. “But with risk there is also reward. You must have thought so when you attempted to command the white wind out at sea, by opening the Final Door then.”

“But I didn’t-”

He nodded. “I can imagine that you were desperate, but of course it was beyond your ability to control, and Eurus was lost. I know what you are truly after, and I do not hold this against you. You are like me, full of regret after having our trust in this world betrayed so many times! But I can do for you what you failed to accomplish alone. Or do you truly not regret the long centuries lost? This weak body, these vestigial wings? With the Final Door, not only could I protect us from the stupidity of these mortals, but I could return to you that which you desire most desperately.”

Podarge was quiet, wanting time to think, but she was given none. Ocypete goaded, “We know where the chaos emeralds are, at least! You failed to protect your new little family, or maybe you just got tired of him. We’ll be happy to clean up the pieces afterward.”

Podarge leapt at Ocypete with a shriek, who simply flew out of the way and into the air where Po could not follow her. “I’m going to save him!” she shouted.

“You are no Zephyr! You know it’s not possible.” said Aello.

“It’s not like you tried very hard for Celaeno, did you?” Po sneered.

Aello kicked at Po, but the smaller harpy grabbed at the talon and tripped her to the ground where they continued fighting. Ocypete dropped down and joined in, and Boreas just rolled his eyes as the three thrashed on the ground in a tangle of wings and talons. “Some things never change. Aello, Ocypete!” and he made a cutting gesture with his hand. Those two withdrew reluctantly, Aello with a last kick at Po who was still on the ground. The horse gave them a stern look and nodded his head to the side, and the sisters walked away so that he could have a final word alone.

He helped Po up, but she shook him off again. She spat a few pieces of green feather out of her mouth and said, “Yeah, you really need me!”

“Please, these troubles have been hard for everyone. Are our current losses not yet enough to compel you?”

Podarge took another step back. “I’m busy right now, okay?! And why do you think I can do anything to help you?”

“If you’ve spoken to Iris, then you already have. Think it over. I will wait for you,” said Boreas. The cloak he wore spun around him as he transformed into a misty wind and flew away from the mountain.

The harpy sisters passed Podarge on their way to follow him. “Don’t keep him waiting too long. You’re lucky Boreas is so forgiving as it is, but you shouldn’t push it,” Ocypete warned.

“You can have back everything you lost! What is there to think about?” Aello asked her, as she and Ocypete flew into the air and after the wind lord.

Podarge was left alone on the bluff. The night breeze, after the departure of the wind spirits, felt blunt and stagnant.

Shin found Po a little while later. The harpy was running again, still with no real destination, but running hard all the same. She skidded to a stop when she saw the hound and asked, “What is it, Shin?”

“The fox and the others have gone after your brother, they have a new plan. They want us to catch up with them at the place called Turtle River.”

“A plan, huh? Why not?”

Shin shifted the spear on her back. “Is something wrong?”

Po stretched and looked up at the stars. It would be dawn in a few more hours, and she had already spent most of the night running. “Even if we save Sonic, the rest of the world is still in trouble, huh?”

“I hardly care. This isn’t my world to worry over. Still, so long as I am in your service, I will help you fight for it, if you ask.”

“Do you think we can save it?”

“I don’t know,” Shin answered honestly. “Would that stop you from trying?”

“…I don’t know. And, there‘s something else we need to talk about. We can talk on the way.”

-

The fight had gone on for some time now, and for all the damage that Shadow seemed to do, the energy coursing through the bright ring seemed to renew Bright Sonic instantly. Shadow’s wrists sparked, and an odd scar was beginning to creep up his arms from his hands, and up his legs as well. After throwing another hard punch that knocked Bright Sonic back into the air, a wisp of black smoke rose off Shadow’s arms. His insides felt like they were burning, and looking at his palms, he noticed where his hands were beginning to burn through his gloves. “This is taking too long,” he realized, clenching his hands back into fists and watching as Bright Sonic wheeled through the air overhead.

Shadow jumped so high he practically flew, tackling Bright Sonic from behind. As he and Sonic fell through the air, Shadow grabbed at the sparking, spinning halo that was the bright ring, attempting to wrench it away and perhaps shift the fight back to his favor.

The ring burned, neither with heat nor cold, but with a force that Shadow felt through his whole body, ringing him like a chime. “Why… are you… always so difficult?!” Shadow asked, gripping the ring tighter with one hand while grappling his opponent with the other, as Bright Sonic attempted to throw him off.

But Shadow was making progress, if he could manage to hold on. He did not want to try to use the burning emeralds himself, seeing what they did to Sonic, but he was managing to pry them loose from the bright ring one by one. The freed emeralds hovered in the air near to them, still drawn to the power of the ring. Bright Sonic lifted them both into the sky as they struggled, and once they were well above the ruined city, he threw his arms wide. The air around them sharpened and froze, brittle, and for the space of one breath everything was still. Then the air all around them seemed to shatter loudly, blinding light lancing out in all directions. The blast shot Bright Sonic once more high into the heavens, while Shadow was thrown heavily to the earth below. The fall forced a nearby building to finish collapsing, and as the dust settled six shining gemstones fell out of the air and landed around him.

The light in the sky faded and Shadow squinted as he heard someone running up beside him. Amy was standing there, her hammer over her shoulder and her eyes wide. Knuckles stood just behind her, his arms crossed. “Now we try it my way,” the echidna said.

[SoDi]

-24- The Power of the Heart

After everyone met up, Tails flew them to a ridge on the bluffs beyond Turtle River. The sun was rising, and they could see the water from where they stood glinting below. The land around here used to be scrub growth, and what remained was a gray-green color in the morning light. Bright Sonic had passed through here once already, and the land was torn open, parts of the riverbed carved away and spilling out to form a spreading mire.

“Bright Sonic seems to be heading this way again,” Knuckles said, “So we can wait for him here. And better than that, now we have these,” Knuckles said, upturning a heavy sack so that the six shining gemstones spilled out onto the ground. Their light almost made it too bright to see anything else.

“What are those?” asked Podarge.

“Bright emeralds,” Shadow said. He had sat down next to a large stone, leaning against it. He was wearing his inhibitor rings again, but he rubbed at his wrists just above them, as if sore. Shadow had a rough look, still dirty and worn from the fight that had lasted the night, and he breathed slowly, as if it took concentration to manage even that much. But he answered Po’s question with the same calm tone he always used. “The chaos emeralds, under the influence of the bright ring.”

“But if these are here, why hasn’t Sonic turned back to himself?” asked Amy.

Tails thought it over. “It must be the bright ring! Now that the emeralds have turned bright, the ring can still control them even though Shadow took them. Right? Channeling power over distance.”

“But there’s only six here,” said Po. “Sonic still has the last one?”

Shadow closed his eyes, and held his hands still, but did not answer.

Tails said, “We can’t complain! This is already a lot better than we were doing yesterday!”

“I’ll complain!” Po said, crossing her arms and glaring at the black hedgehog. “Maybe if we had all of them Sonic would already be back to normal! What kind of ultimate life form are you, anyway?”

“Maybe it wouldn’t help at all!” Knuckles told her. “Sonic and the emeralds were vulnerable because he was in his super state. Now that the bright ring is already active, it might not need to keep any of the emeralds in proximity to stay that way. It’s a powerful artifact, and we don’t understand it.”

“And now we’ll never know!” Po repeated.

“Why do you have to be like that? What is your problem, Po?” Amy asked her, but the harpy just stretched her hands behind her head and walked away, down to the edge of the ridge where she could watch the sun come up.

“Is something wrong with her?” Tails asked Shin.

“Do you expect her to be cheerful?” Shin asked sarcastically.

“No! But, I-”

“What‘s the plan, Knuckles?” Shadow asked, returning to the subject. “You say you don’t understand it, but you have enough of an idea to bring us here. Being the guardian won‘t help you now, the master emerald has no power over the bright emeralds.”

The echidna shook his head. “But we might.” He turned to Amy. “Remember what you said happened in the Gallowood?”

“Of course I remember!” she told him, then sighed. “But no one believes me.”

“I believe you.”

“Really?”

Knuckles nodded. “Chaos is a power enriched by the heart. The chaos emeralds can turn thoughts into power, and there are lots of ways to use them, because they contain all kinds of power. Even things that should be in conflict. Love and hate, fear and hope. But, a heart is the same! A heart can hold all those things at the same time, too. To draw on the real power of the emeralds, all those powers are drawn together and focused. When we fought Perfect Chaos in Station Square, he was using the negative powers of the emeralds. Sonic was able to restore him with everyone‘s help.”

Amy nodded, clapping her hands. “He beat Chaos with the good in his heart!”

“The world right now is filled with fear and confusion,” Shin pointed out.

“But we aren’t!” said Amy.

“There are only six of us, and six bright emeralds,” Knuckles told them. “But we’ll have to be enough.”

“Can this really be done?” Shin asked.

“I’ll help you,” Knuckles told them.

Tails nodded and ran down the slope to where Podarge was standing, and he pulled on her elbow. “Come on, Po!”

She shook him off. “Sonic got himself into this mess!”

“But, you’re going to help us, aren’t you?”

“I’m helping Sonic, not you! So you can leave me alone. We aren’t friends,” she said, walking back up to the others.

“Podarge…” said Tails, then followed after her.

When they had all gathered again around the emeralds, Knuckles explained, “It won’t be enough to just draw on that power, positive or otherwise. Perfect Chaos drained the emeralds, he didn’t flood them like this. Quieting the bright emeralds will require a pure heart, unconfused by anything else. Faith without fear, love without envy, joy without surrender.”

“Whoa,” said Po.

“What’s with that look?” Knuckles asked her.

She put her hands behind her head and fluffed her tail. “It’s just, for a minute there, you actually sounded kinda’ wise!”

He shook a fist at her. “Why do you say that like you’re surprised?!”

Podarge just laughed at him.

Amy picked up an emerald, and held it close. “The power of my love will save Sonic!”

Tails took one, also. Even through his gloves, the gemstone was painful to touch. His arms trembled, but he didn’t let go. “I can do this!” he said.

“So be it,” said Shadow, standing and taking the third.

Shin took one silently, smiling to herself, then watched Podarge. The harpy took the emerald that Knuckles handed to her, but shook her head. “I don’t think I can. Find someone else!”

“There is no one else. We’re running out of time!” Knuckles said.

“But I can’t use the emeralds at all! It won’t work if I’m here!”

“Every heart holds the power of chaos. We can do this together.”

“But I, I don’t think I have a heart!”

“What are talking about?!” Amy asked her. “If you mess up our plan to save Sonic, I’m-”

“Amy!” Knuckles said.

“Woops!” said the pink hedgehog, turning her attention back to the bright emerald in her hands and trying to regain her concentration.

“It’s hard not to worry,” Tails said to Po, “But we’re all here with you! You want to save Sonic, too, so that should be enough. It’s okay,” he said.

“I never wanted this to happen again. And, not to him. I want to help, I want to, but-”

“Desire is a very strong power,” Knuckles told her. “So hold onto it, that feeling of what you most want, and don’t let anything else get in your way!”

“…What I most want,” Po said, closing her eyes. They all concentrated, sensing the bright confusion they held in their hands reflecting their own hearts.

Each one was silent, sorting through all those thoughts and memories that came to mind, troubling or distracting them, and each one had to allow those doubts and anxieties to slip away.

It is hard not to worry, Tails thought to himself. He wanted to let that feeling of worry leave him, but he was not sure what would be left when he did. Then he realized that his worry was not for himself. In everything that was happening, he had not doubted that he could be a part of this work. And the others, this group of strong fighters and brave adventurers, he realized, were not expecting any less from him than they were expecting from themselves. And if people that he had such respect and admiration for weren’t wasting time doubting him, he had no excuse to doubt, either. The worry stopped troubling him, and his mind became quiet, his heart became still, and a deep and hopeful confidence remained.

Everyone now was silently concentrating, each one letting go of different parts of themselves, layer by layer until what remained was something truer than the anxieties and cares that they usually carried with them. And as they did, they could sense the others around them, the six of them each so different. A different sort of energy began to move between them. A feeling that grew stronger, a shared and singular sense of determination.

The bright emeralds in their hands shone softer and wider, bathing the ridge top in a gentle white light. Then on Knuckles’ side of their small circle, the light rose into the air and thinned into a green color, and then the white light to either side of him also thinned and changed into other colors, spreading round to each of them. The rainbow light around them grew and spread outward, looking like the aurora borealis clinging to the hills, then silently faded away.

Tails opened his eyes, and lifted away one of his hands to reveal the emerald he was holding. It was a clear violet color, a chaos emerald again. Shin had never stopped smiling to herself, and her emerald was tame again, as well. Shadow and Amy both held up their chaos emeralds, one yellow and one red. Her face shone with a rare resolve, while Shadow’s was unusually calm and untroubled. Po opened just one eye at first, as if she was afraid to look, but her blue emerald was quiet and no longer burning her hands.

“We did it!” said Amy. “Knuckles! Hey, Knuckles!” she shouted, since the echidna was just staring at the green emerald he was holding, his eyes distant, as if he were watching something the others could not see. “Hey!!”

“Huh?” said Knuckles, coming back to himself.

Tails pointed out towards the horizon beyond the river, where a bright light was drawing closer through the air. Every other star had already faded by now. “What about the last emerald?” he asked.

“The rest is up to him,” Shadow said, staring out across the barren space.

-

At first it had felt as if his whole life was collapsing back onto him, every moment of frustration, every wound however shallow, every hollow fear and fiercer joy welled up in him all at once and filled him so full that his skin screamed as if it would burst. Then still more, rage and sorrow and shock that had never been his, pouring into him and through him like a river forced through a faucet. He wanted to weep and laugh and scream all at once, a terrible gnawing desire like a void in the center of all this other life, and the force of it all felt like he might cave inward before he ever had the chance to explode. Even that desire was not his, though, part of a vaster desire that filled and overwhelmed him, and just before the last shred of his own self was swept away in that growing tidal wave it all stopped. All of it, numbly vanished.

Sonic was running through a vast and featureless span of white. There was no sound but his own breathing, but even that felt like it was in his head, his ears stuffed up as if the air was thick as water. He felt like he’d been running forever, but nothing ever looked different. There was no break or line at all in the whiteness, and he could not even tell for sure that he was moving, or that there was any ground under his feet. For all he knew, he was just spinning in place.

It was becoming rather frustrating.

So, when he sensed a softer light behind him, he turned around with a smile, glad to find anything in this strange place. “Hey, Iris!”

She floated there, looking just as she had when he saw her in the Rain Palace. But her face was sad. “I am so sorry, Sonic,” was all she said.

“Where are we?”

“This is your heart,” she answered.

“Seriously? It’s real boring in here!” he said.

“You have been overwhelmed,” she said apologetically, looking downward.

“Is that why everything looks the same?”

She nodded, and held her hands out in front of her, where a light grew between her palms. “So much light is as blinding as if you were lost in darkness.” She pressed the light between her hands, then stretched her arms wide, the white light unwinding into a longer string of small, differently colored stars. “It is the balance of bright and dark that allows for vision. Now, because of the bright ring, everything has rushed together into one place, into you. Your heart and all of your senses are overwhelmed.”

“What’s happening outside?” Sonic asked, but Iris just looked away. “Oh man! I really messed it up this time. But, how come you showed up? Can you get me out of here?”

“The bright ring is a part of my magic, but I no longer have the power to influence it from where I am. The Rain Palace is formed from the very substance of my spirit, and so my life and power are bound there. I can only witness, not offer any aid. I am sorry.”

“Don’t sweat it, then,” Sonic told her, stretching his hands behind his head. “Cheer up, Iris! It’ll be fine.”

“Do you… not understand?”

“No, I get it. Bad news! Still, my friends are all out there. And they’re stronger than they know. They’ll do the right thing.”

“You trust them very much, and you still have hope. But they may not be able to save you. This magic…”

“They’ll do their best, that’s all I need. No matter what happens.”

“You are the hero of this world, but you do not doubt that it will survive, even without you?”

“No doubt!” he said, smiling so wide that Iris began to smile, too.

“Then… that is enough…” she said, her voice sounding distant. She was already beginning to fade, or perhaps it was this strange place becoming brighter and blinding him again, but in a short moment he could not even make out his own hands in front of his face.

Sonic began running again, or tried to. Everything turned to white.

-

“Sonic!!” Amy shouted, as they all ran towards the river. Bright Sonic had stopped when he came to the muddied water, hanging in the sky above it.

“What’s happening?” Knuckles wondered. The river below Bright Sonic looked as if it buckled and then rose out of the remains of the riverbed, running instead through the air like a long, looping serpent. When it drifted too close to Bright Sonic, he jabbed at the air with one hand and the large current of water burst through as if cut, the loose water evaporating quickly into a thick cloud, light shining at its center. In the mist, the bright ring sparked and shot narrow bolts of lightning at the ground, tearing up the earth, and the party had to dodge the random strikes as they ran forward.

“Is he going to destroy the river, too?” Shin wondered after the ground underfoot burst into a shower of dirt when a lightning bolt struck near her feet.

Bright Sonic turned toward them slowly, stretching his arms wide at their approach. “Everyone move!!” Shadow warned them, and they all scattered as a massive bolt of light ripped through the ground where they had been standing.

Podarge had rolled with Tails out of the way, and once the attack was over she looked up and said to herself, “I guess it wasn’t enough.”

Tails pushed away and flew into the air. “Then we just have to take that last emerald!”

“Tails, wait!” Knuckles shouted, watching as Bright Sonic curled his arms and legs inward, the bright ring behind him spinning even faster. The light grew more intense, and began to expand, so that Bright Sonic was no longer visible within the growing sphere of light. Tails flew into the burst face-first and vanished as well.

“Tails!!” shouted Amy, but the larger it became, the faster the sphere of light grew. It mushroomed outward like an explosion, engulfing all of them a moment later.

The light stung their skin, and the ground trembled as trees and vines began forcing their way up from the dirt, growing thick and tall and surrounding them with walls of greenery that muted the light somewhat. “Is this an attack?” Shin asked.

Shadow recognized it first. “That’s… chaos regeneration!”

-

When Sonic finally opened his eyes, he found himself suspended in the air, high in the branches of a large forest. He realized he was holding something in his hand, a white chaos emerald, but it only shone with its normal sparkle. Looking up, he saw Tails holding him by the other arm. The fox was smudged and his fur looked singed, but he was grinning widely. “Sonic, you’re okay!”

“I’m just fine!” Sonic said, as Tails, exhausted, dropped them both into a large bed of ferns. Rolling out of the ferns, but still too tired to stand up, Sonic asked, “Where am I now?” The bright ring rolled out onto the ground beside him, small and deceptively harmless looking once again. The trees and ferns and everything else here were huge, all the plants much larger than their normal counterparts, and the air was warm and humid.

He looked over his shoulder as Shadow said behind him, “I don’t think this forest has a name yet. It didn’t exist an hour ago.”

“Weird,” was all Sonic said. Tails shoved his way out of the greenery near him. Knuckles, Shin, and Podarge climbed out from the thick plants surrounding them, and seeing those three Sonic waved and said, “You guys are here, too?”

Knuckles smiled and nodded. The harpy crossed her arms and looked away, but she couldn’t help but smile, too. “You had me really worried, blue boy.”

“Soooniiic!!” Amy shouted from his other side, and he turned just in time to see her bowl out of the trees and tackle him, throwing her arms around him in a wide hug like she always did.

And this time, Sonic let her.

[SoDi]

-25- Paved With Good Intentions

Amy, Tails, Shin, and Podarge were taking a break from repainting the Tornado, where it was parked in a clearing near the emerald shrine of Angel Island. Shin was laughing at Tails, saying, “That was so foolish! You are supposed to run away from an explosion, not into it!”

“But, it turned out okay!” Tails argued, but he laughed, too. “It was a good idea, even if it didn’t work.”

“I dunno, I think you might have helped snap him out of it,” Po said, where she sat on the wing of the Tornado beside a pair of blue paint buckets. “Foolish or not, it was brave, too.”

Amy nodded. “And Tails wasn’t scared at all, I bet! Because you’re going to grow up to be a hero just like Sonic someday, right?”

“No,” said Tails, smiling at the ground.

“Huh?” Amy asked, surprised. Beyond the Tornado, Sonic stepped out from the forest. But hearing them, he leaned back against a tree trunk and just listened.

Tails nodded. “I can never be like Sonic, Amy. But I don‘t have to be! I saved Station Square from a missile, I helped engineer the new buildings for Riverton, I invented the Tornado’s emerald booster, and the spirit hexes, and lots of things. All that was me! I can believe in myself a bit more. And if I keep believing, then that’s the kind of hero I can be.”

Sonic walked forward and gave him a thumbs up. “You already are!”

“Sonic, you’re back!” Tails shouted, jumping up from where he’d been sitting on the grass.

“You didn‘t need to run off first thing when we got here! I missed you, Sonic!” Amy fussed, charging at Sonic with her arms spread wide.

But Sonic just side-stepped before she could reach him. “The Tornado looks great, Tails!”

“Heehee,” Po laughed, watching them. “Yeah, you’re back to normal. Knuckles went to visit Iris, we’re just waiting on him.”

“The island’s clear, I guess Eggman hasn’t tried coming back to this place. What about Shadow?” asked Sonic.

“He’s trying to get some information from GUN, but they still think he and V are the same person, so he’ll probably be back soon, too,” Amy told him.

Sonic stretched his legs. “Yeah, we’ll have this sorted out and be back in Green Hill in time for dinner!”

Amy and Tails looked at each other, concerned. It was Tails who said, “Um, Sonic? We can’t go back to Green Hill.”

“Why not?” he asked, surprised.

Po tapped the Tornado with the back of her foot and said, “Because you blew it up, blue boy.”

“What??” Sonic said, stopping and staring at her.

“I know you can’t remember anything from when you went bright, but, a lot of things happened,” Amy said, trying to speak slowly.

“But…” Sonic looked confused.

“Everyone is okay!” Tails assured him. “They all got out in time, and houses can be rebuilt, so it’s okay!”

“Yeah, don’t look so down,” Po told him, tapping the plane again. “It’s not your fault you’re a menace.”

“Podarge!” Amy scolded

The harpy just started laughing. “A lot did happen! A string of cities, the whole mushroom zone. The south coast is now called the Southern Island. You covered a lot of ground in only a few days, it was really something!”

Sonic looked at her, figuring out whether she was being honest or just joking, but he already knew she was serious. He crossed his arms. “Well… man.”

“Podarge,” Tails frowned.

Amy waved her arms emphatically and said, “No matter how many cities you destroy, you’ll always be my hero, Sonic!”

He rolled his eyes at that. “Wow. Thanks, Amy.”

Podarge laughed harder, and dropped down to the ground. “I wonder how many other people would feel that way? Might make hero work harder, y’know. Still, after so much excitement, a run sounds good. Have fun here, but don’t do anything I wouldn’t do! Heehee!” she crowed like she had said something funny, and zipped away into the forest.

Amy shook her head. “She is such a headache! Po shouldn’t be joking around at a time like this.”

Tails shrugged. “Maybe the problem is she’s taking things too hard.”

Sonic nodded. “Someone’s got to tell her to lighten up!”

“Are we even talking about the same person?” and Amy sighed.

Sonic was tapping a foot again, already tired of standing still. “We need to get back on track. I wonder if Shadow is having any luck? I don’t want to wait here all day!”

“There’s more to do now than ever. But we’ll get through it!” Tails said, looking up at the Tornado.

-

Knuckles walked through the halls of the Rain Palace, past the narrow waterfalls and the chiming crystals that hung in the air and caught the light. The chao flew out of his way, because Knuckles knew where he was going, and walked with some hurry. He pushed back the doors that led to the bright room where Iris was waiting. She stepped out from her feathery halo of golden light as he entered.

“Hello, young guardian,” she said.

“Iris!” Knuckles said, pulling out the bright ring that had been taken from Sonic. “Why would there be two bright rings?”

Iris held out her arm, and the purple chao that had been perching in her hand flew away. The bright ring drifted out of Knuckles’ hands and into hers, an exact match to the ring still hanging above her head. “Have you told anyone else?”

“No, I wanted to be sure first. Iris, why didn’t you warn us?”

“Because the bright ring is so dangerous, and knowledge of it is equally so. To most, it would seem naught more than a shining ring, with no power. While I kept one, this other was kept in the house at the back of the wind. When that place collapsed on itself, the bright ring would have been too powerful to be destroyed along with it. It must have been forced out of that space and back into your world. Strange enough that it was found, stranger still that it was recognized for what it is. I am sorry, but I had hoped it would stay lost.” She held the second ring up to the first, and both glowed as they were drawn together, forming one slightly larger ring.

“There aren’t more, are there?” Knuckles worried.

“No. They were far too difficult to craft, and too dangerous. Though they are identical, they cannot both be used. They channel the same overwhelming force of chaos, you see, and if both were active I believe they would consume one another in that process. Then that power they gather would be loosed, without even a vessel to ground it. As fierce and uncontrollable as the white wind would be without the Final Door to contain it.”

“That much chaos on the loose would be bad. I guess you can’t just destroy the rings that way, even though they‘re dangerous.”

“Yes. They can only be guarded, hidden away. I only chose to make the second ring because I knew that the first was to be used in the war against Pandora. I still had such pride in my work, that I feared the ring would be destroyed in the fighting, and wanted to ensure that something of my effort would remain. But even then I knew they were dangerous things, and so kept the second ring secret from everyone but the wind lords, who were to guard it with me. Not even my harpies knew.”

“I know that it seems like dangerous information, but it was worse not knowing what we were up against!”

“Forgive me!” Iris pleaded. “But please, keep the secret.”

“What? But why, now? Robotnik must have found the ring and given it to V, so he already knows. Everyone else should, too.”

“He might not, yet. If they simply found the ring, they may not suspect that it was not the same ring. I have kept this secret for so long already…”

“But things can change. They have to, eventually. And now, with everything that’s happening, we can’t afford any more secrets!”

“Please,” Iris repeated. “I am so afraid of what might happen. Is it not enough that both rings have been returned? What good would it truly do now? Please.” Her voice thinned and she seemed upset, looking away. The chao, sensing her agitation, also began to murmur throughout the room.

Knuckles did not answer immediately. “It just… doesn’t seem like the right thing. But, I won’t mention it unless I think it will do some good. Don’t cry.”

“…Thank you.”

“There was something else I wanted to ask you about.”

Iris managed a small smile. “Yes. You have already accomplished something marvelous. You have saved Sonic from the bright ring.”

Knuckles shook his head. “That wouldn’t have worked without Shadow. And everyone else helped, too. But, about that. I already know that the chaos emeralds can hold visions, memories of the past. And after the emeralds were returned to normal, they recalled old visions of the past again, remembering the last time that they went bright.”

Iris drifted a little closer to the ground. “What did the emeralds show to you?” she asked, kindly.

Knuckles stared at his feet, feeling a little awkward. “You and Zephyr were in love, weren’t you?”

“…You are more capable a guardian of the emeralds than I imagined. I underestimated you.”

He crossed his arms. “I’m used to it.”

“You are right. I suppose I have many secrets.”

“And, a lot happened after he was captured, when you were trying to save him.”

Iris nodded slowly. “Do you think that history important to reveal, as well?”

“I… I don’t understand why you keep so many secrets.”

She smiled gently. “To protect my heart. But there are other things more important to protect now. I shall have to trust in your discretion, you who have glimpsed my heart through the chaos emeralds.”

Knuckles blushed a bit and looked away, examining the ceiling.

-

Shadow came back while the echidna was still gone, and Sonic asked him, “So did GUN give you a warm welcome?”

Shadow didn‘t bother to comment on that. “GUN has its hands full sending rescue teams into the ruined cities and protecting the remaining towns, but they’ve spared a division to hunt down Doctor Robotnik. They’ve gone to the Mystic Ruins, not far from Angel Island. If you still want to find the doctor, you should go there, as well.”

“What about you?” asked Tails.

Amy put her hands on her hips. “You have to come with us!”

Sonic just smiled, and Shadow glared at him, saying, “We’re only allies while we’re after the doctor. I have my own plans for when I find him.”

“That’s good enough for me,” said Po. “Come on, Tails, let’s get the Tornado ready!”

“I’d better go wait for Knuckles, so he knows what’s happening,” said Amy. Everyone dispersed, but Shadow stopped Sonic as the others were leaving. “I need your chaos emerald.”

“Not that again!”

Shadow didn’t bother arguing, but he did say, “I’m going after V.”

“Then we’ll help! It wouldn’t hurt taking out that guy before getting back to Eggy. V‘s a real handful.”

Shadow shook his head. “No. I don’t need your help.”

Sonic was about to make a joke, then reconsidered. “Oh, I get it. He’s your Metal.”

“It’s not always about you, Sonic!”

“I know that! You got a personal score to settle with him, and it’s not something anyone else can do for you. So, I’ll stay out of your way.” Sonic handed
him the white emerald with a casual smile.

“…Good.”

“You don’t believe me?”

Shadow didn’t answer, just walked away.

-

The Mystic Ruins were in a forested, swampy region near to the sea, and no real roads led through it. Tails flew them over the zone and to an old building with a long runway facing the sea where the Tornado could land. But it was badly overgrown with weeds. The little house itself wouldn’t have looked too bad, except that it still had holes in the walls and roof from some past attack. “This used to be your workshop, Tails?” Po asked him.

The fox nodded. “But it’s sort of out of the way, and when Eggman’s bots started being too much of a hassle, I decided to move closer to the cities. I might move again now, though, even after we fix up Green Hill.”

“I guess you go through workshops like you go through planes!” she laughed at him.

Shadow pointed back at the jungle littered with stone ruins that they had just flown over. “I don’t think GUN has pinpointed the location of the doctor, but his machines are everywhere. Spirit monsters, too. We’ll have to search for ourselves on foot.”

“The monsters are back? Why are they still a problem?” Amy wondered.

“I guess breaking the second wind seal had a side effect,” Tails shrugged. “With the Final Door weakening, I bet the spirit army is no longer confined to the storms that Eggman summons. I wonder if he can even control them anymore?”

“We will find out. I can go ahead of you and find him,” Shin said to Podarge.

“Maybe I should be the one who scouts,” the harpy said. “I would move faster!”

“But I would know where I’m going,” Shin countered.

Sonic nodded. “She has a point, Po. Think you’re up for it, Shin?”

The hound nodded.

“Then the rest of us should get ready, we don’t know what Eggman has waiting for us.”

Podarge shrugged, and Shin ran off into the jungle. Tails ran inside, excited to see what could be salvaged from his old workshop.

It wasn’t too long before Shin returned, and told them, “Soldiers are stationed in many places, but a number of their checkpoints in a certain area are all standing abandoned. The area is around one of the larger ruins. Everyone might have gone inside, or they may have fled, but their absence either way is enough reason to investigate.”

Shadow nodded. “Can you lead us there?”

“Easily,” she answered.

Tails had run outside when she returned, but now he said, “Wait, I’m almost ready! I’ve got something I think we can use, I just need another minute!” He ran back inside.

“That was good work, Shin,” Po told the hound.

But Shin pulled her aside while the others were still busy, down to the end of the runway where they could speak without being overheard. “That was not all I found. I have another reason to suspect that ruin to be our destination,” and she pulled out a long, green feather, handing it to Po.

“Rats!” Po whispered, taking the feather with a startled look.

“Harpies,” Shin corrected.

“I know that! But if they’ve gone in already, Boreas may be in there, too.”

“Are they your enemies, now?”

“No no no! But why would they be here, going after Robotnik?”

“They may have known we were coming,” Shin guessed. “You did say they were after the chaos emeralds, and they must know that we have them, since we were the ones who stopped Bright Sonic.”

“Yeah. That’s the problem, Sonic is still here! If he gets too close to him, Boreas will figure out where the last wind seal is, and I don’t know what he’d do to get it. He’s pretty desperate, and I don’t think I could convince him to let Sonic just keep it!”

“Then you should warn Sonic.”

“I can’t do that, either! We were all going after the wind lords together, to keep them safe from Eggman. They’d want to help Boreas, but if Sonic learned what Boreas is doing, he’d want to stop him.”

“Whose plan do you want to succeed?” Shin barked at her, exasperated.

“I don’t want them to fight each other, enough has gone wrong already! We still need to go after Eggman, and we can’t let Sonic come with us! But he won’t want to stay behind.” Po tugged hard at the horn on her head, knowing she was in a bind and not happy with any of her options.

“Even if everyone else wanted him to stay?”

“I can’t convince them if Sonic doesn‘t agree to it, they all trust Sonic more than me.”

Shin nodded. “Yes. They aren’t even of the same tribes, but they move like a pack, and that has made them strong.”

“That’s not helping right now, Shin!”

The hound smiled, showing her teeth. “Weaken that strength with dissent. A lot has happened these past weeks, we can sew doubt between them. Harpies are all skilled at deception, aren‘t you?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what you want!”

“Fine! It’s for the best, anyway.” Podarge leaned back on one foot and fluffed her tail, thoughtful for a while. A thick fog clung to the shadowy jungle floor beyond the workshop, and the sound of the ocean birds were audible from here. Po looked sideways at Shin, but the hound just waited. Podarge thought that was more intimidating than when the hound was yelling at her. “Shin, it really is a good idea. But, aren’t you mad that we’re doing all this other stuff? I mean, we made that deal to find the wind lords, but you don’t seem to mind that I’m not going after Boreas.”

“That will be resolved in time, some way or another. I remain at your full service. Besides, I will have all this time back and more when it is my turn to turn the wheel,” she smiled wider.

“Um… right.” Po heard the sound of Tails running up behind them, a rather distinct sound because of the way he spun his tails to push himself along, and hid the green feather away as she spun around to face him. He had a small pack slung over his shoulders. “Hey, Tails.”

“Everyone else is ready, come on! Is something wrong?”

Po looked at Shin, who nodded, and they began following the fox back to the house. “Well, something’s bothering me. Let’s get back to the others, and I’ll explain.”

In front of the workshop, Sonic saw the look on her face and asked, “What’s up, Po?”

“Sonic, while we go after Eggman, you need to stay here.”

“What? You’re joking, right?”

Knuckles shook his head. “Robotnik has had time to prepare, we’re going to need every hand.”

“Did you forget that Sonic has one of the last wind seals?” Po countered. “What if the last wind lord is with Robotnik? Something might go wrong, like it did with Eurus! We can’t risk weakening the Final Door any more!” She turned to Amy, and added, “And what if Robotnik figures it out? He could trap Sonic, or worse. He’s already made so much progress with the spirit box technology, this might be a trap! These are ruins, they‘re probably full of traps!”

“Podarge, that’s silly!” Sonic shook his head. “I’ve been here lots of times, I know the place like the back of my glove. You don’t have to be so afraid of everything! Even if I got us into trouble, I‘d get us out again. Don‘t I always?” and he looked over at Tails.

“Yeah!” Tails agreed.

Po planted her talons flat on the ground, and seemed to be gathering herself together as she argued, “See that? You’re always so cocky, because it’s just another adventure. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye, or the fabric of reality collapses on itself!”

“You’re too much!” Sonic joked, but his stance was serious.

“This is for real. The rest of us can handle whatever is in that ruin, right?” she asked them, looking at Shadow. Then she told Sonic, “Bringing you would be a risk we don’t need to take. If you’re serious about this hero thing, you know that. Or is it really still a game to you?”

“What’s really bothering you, Po?” he asked.

“This!” she insisted. “Hasn’t enough happened already? When you went bright, we could have lost you for good! It took a lot to get you back. But we can’t bank on a miracle twice. We can’t!”

“I think she means it,” Amy said.

“You’ve been through this before,” Sonic told the harpy. “But this isn’t like it was when you fought Pandora! You have to trust us.”

“It’s not us she’s worried about, it’s just you,” said Knuckles. “You should sit this one out.”

“Are you kidding?” Sonic asked, surprised.

“…I don’t want to lose you again, Sonic,” Amy said softly.

“But I’m not going anywhere!”

“You’re not,” Shadow agreed. “You’re staying behind, and out of my way.”

“That turned sour fast,” Sonic frowned. He looked at their faces, then turned to Po again, but she turned away to look at Shin, who was already waiting to lead them back into the jungle.

The hound motioned with her spear. “We shouldn’t take too long, the soldiers may return to their posts, and there are enough dangers here.”

Sonic crossed his arms. “Go ahead. I’ll follow behind to bail you out!”

“You’re fast, but a bit slow on the uptake,” Po shook her head. “Don’t follow us!” and she ran after Shin, with Shadow and Knuckles close behind her. Amy looked back like she wanted to say something, but she didn’t, and ran after the others.

Tails rubbed his head, looking confused. “Are you really going to wait here, Sonic?”

“Something’s fishy. If it was just dangerous, Podarge wouldn’t have pushed so hard about it.”

“Do you think that something worse is going on?”

“I don’t know. There’s something she isn’t saying, and I need to know what. But I’ll have to find out on my own! You still with me, Tails?”

Tails nodded.

[SoDi]

-26- Black and Blue

Though they did not have Shin to tell them exactly where they were going, Sonic and Tails headed in the direction that the others had gone. They raced through the trees, then Tails flew up higher into the canopy and shouted back, “Hey Sonic, I see something!”

Sonic leapt up the side of a crumbling pillar to get a better look. “Isn’t that a soldier?” he said, seeing the uniformed man wandering along the forest floor ahead of them. There was a red star on his white helmet, and he didn’t seem to be armed. The bushes near the man shook, and a larger silhouette creature stepped towards him, but the soldier didn’t seem to notice. “Hey, look out!” Sonic shouted, but that didn’t get his attention either.

Sonic jumped off the pillar and bolted forward, Tails close behind. The hedgehog spun against the chest of the monster just as it came up behind the man to attack, and once the V-Cell shattered the rest of the creature dissolved into inky black wisps and vanished.

While Sonic finished the fight quickly, the soldier was still unresponsive, his expression blank and eyes vacant. Tails stood in front of him to force him to stop walking, tugging at his sleeve and saying, “Hey, snap out of it!”

After a long moment, the soldier blinked his eyes a few times and then seemed to notice the fox standing in front of him. “Huh?”

“What happened? You looked like you were hypnotized!” Tails told him.

The man rubbed his head. “I don’t remember. Wait, where’s everyone else?”

“What’s the problem?” Sonic asked.

“I’m a medic, I came in here with a team searching for Doctor Robotnik. We tracked him to one of the ruins, but before we could go in there was some strange noise, and then I don’t remember what happened. I don’t know how I got here, but the soldiers must be missing, too!”

“If they were hypnotized like you were, they might be in trouble,” said Tails.

“Please help me find them! There were six others besides me.”

“You know which ruin it was?” Sonic asked him.

The man looked around, getting his bearings. “Yes,” the medic said, pointing to their left. “It’s on the far side of the lake from here. But the men might be anywhere!”

“We’ll help you out, but I still need to catch up to the others. Tails?”

“Leave it to me, Sonic!” They gave each other a thumbs up and Sonic ran off.

The medic shook his head, watching the blue hedgehog vanish into the jungle. “Thank you! I’ll wait for you here, I don’t want to run into any monsters on my own. When you find the soldiers, bring them to me and I can take care of them if they’ve been injured.”

“Right!” said Tails, and flew off.

Sonic knew the lake, and could see it glimmering through the trees ahead of him as he got closer, the ruin a large pile of dark stone on the far shore. It was the beginning of evening, the sun was hidden behind the trees, and the air hummed with the sound of night insects and machines. Lots of flying scout bots hovered in the air around the ruin across the lake, and Sonic knew that it must be the right place. But seeing the water, he lowered his head and ran even faster. He knew he would need to gain enough momentum to make it across the lake in one straight shot if he didn‘t want to sink.

By the time he reached the edge of the water, his speed was enough to carry him across the surface. The scout bots saw him coming and flew out to meet him, but he wasn’t going to stop to fight them and so kept running. The water flying up behind him in his wake flew high enough to douse the bots, shorting their circuits out and causing them to fall sparking into the water without any further effort on his part. He hit the far shore and stopped as a wall of larger bots blocked the dark doorway that led into the stone ruin. “You’re looking a bit run down, guys. You could use a good polish, so I guess I‘ll help you out,” he smiled, as the bots lowered their weapons. He began spinning in place, preparing his own attack.

Meanwhile, it wasn’t very hard for Tails to find the soldiers. Three were wandering through a sand mire, and were about to walk right into a patch of quicksand before Tails caught them and sent them back to the medic. The next two were no longer hypnotized, but they were being chased by more silhouette creatures, too many for the two to fight by themselves. Tails flew down between the soldiers and the monsters, turning on the spirit hex he was still carrying and halting the creatures in their tracks. The men thanked Tails, who told them where they could meet up with the others. The last soldier was harder to find, because he had wandered on top of one of the stone ruins, high in the canopy. He had gotten the attention of a few flying scout bots. Tails flew up and helped him to fight them off, then carried him back down to the ground. In the end, it hadn’t been any trouble, but it had taken some time.

“The others are over that way,” Tails told the last soldier, motioning with a hand.

“Then you’ve saved everyone!” said the soldier, shaking his hand. “Thank you! Whatever it was that overtook us, we weren’t prepared for it. You’re Miles Prower, a friend of Sonic the Hedgehog, aren’t you?”

“Sonic is helping, too! He’s already gone after Robotnik!”

“I’m Captain Redding. I couldn’t really believe that Sonic had turned against us.”

“Of course not! But now that you and your soldiers are okay, I should get back to him, he may need my help.”

The captain nodded. “He does! Before our unit was sent to advance on the ruin, others had already rigged the area with explosives. If Robotnik wouldn’t come willingly, we were preparing to force him out. Since I didn’t report back, the other captains are probably going to use the detonators. And if your friend is inside, he’s in danger.”

“What?!”

Redding took out a small plastic card, and handed it to Tails. “Take this. It’s my security card, one of the key cards that will work on the detonators. There are several detonators, and if you don’t cut them all, it won’t stop the activation sequence. I need to get my wounded men clear of this place, but you could try to stop the explosion yourself if Sonic doesn’t have time to get back out.”

“Is this okay?” Tails asked, taking the card.

“It’s not something civilians are supposed to carry, but I believe in you. Thank you for everything, and good luck, Mr. Prower!” and Captain Redding saluted him.

Tails returned the salute, then flew as quickly as he could towards the lake.

-

Sonic had made it across the threshold, and was once again moving at a breakneck speed when Amy suddenly jumped into his path. He backpedaled, wheeling his arms for balance as he tried to avoid crashing into her.

“Sonic, stop!” Amy said, throwing her arms wide. “In the name of love!”

She didn’t even flinch as Sonic managed to skid to a noisy stop mere inches in front of her. “Amy!” he shouted in dismay. “What are you doing here?”

She put her arms back down. “I knew you wouldn’t stay behind. So I waited for you here!”

“Of course I’m not staying! I’m going to find out what‘s really going on with Po.”

“What are you talking about? She’s been making the most sense I’ve ever heard from her.”

“And that doesn’t seem weird to you?”

“Just listen for a minute! You aren’t scared of anything, but don’t you care how I feel? You’ve always done so much, you could let the rest of us handle things this once. I’ll protect you this time, but you have to let me!”

“What are you talking about? If you’re coming, let’s go!”

She shook her head. “I won’t let you. I’ll stop you here and prove how much I care about you. All’s fair in love and war!”

Sonic, impatient, was tapping his foot so fast that he seemed to be wearing a hole through the tile on the ground. “And a stitch in time saves nine!”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know! But you aren’t making a lick of sense, Amy. Save the girl-speak for later, I got to catch up!” and he jumped over her head and ran off down the path behind her.

“Sonic, you brat!!” Amy shouted, waving her fists at his back, but she turned around when she heard someone running up behind her from outside.

It was Tails. “Is Sonic gone already?”

“He never pays attention to me!”

“I guess there’s no time to warn him, then. Amy, this place is trapped, it’s going to explode!”

“I knew it! I have to stop Sonic!!”

“Wait! Captain Redding gave me this after I helped him out,” he said, pulling out the key card. “I can use it to stop the detonators, but I’ll have to find them all. Sonic can take care of whatever is inside, but we can deactivate the explosives ourselves!”

“But whatever got to the soldiers is still in here. Even if you stop the explosion, Sonic might still be in trouble! I have to go to him!”

“That won’t help anything, Amy!”

She clenched her fists, insistent. “You don’t understand. That’s why I can’t let him go after Eggman this time, it‘s for his own good. I love Sonic!”

“But you don’t trust him,” Tails shook his head, frowning. “Fine! But I’m going to do what I can to help him, alone if I have to!” and he ran back out of the ruin.

“Tails, wait!” Amy said, but he had left in a hurry. She took a long look at the dark passage that led further inside, where Sonic had run ahead just moments ago. She pulled out her hammer, gripping it tighter with her fingers as she thought it over, then ran back outside after Tails. “Wait up!”

-

“You guys are so slow! What’s taking so long?” Podarge whined.

Shadow blasted away another scoutbot as it flew up behind her, and just shook his head. Po spun about to look at the scrapped bot, and poked it with a toe before they all continued moving ahead.

Shin told her, “If you aren’t more cautious, you’ll get shot in the back!”

“I could have outrun that! Hey, is that smoke?” Po asked as they entered another room. It was full of thick white mist.

“I guess it’s fog. At least it’s better than the room where it was hailing,” and Knuckles shrugged.

“It’s so humid here. That doctor is getting fairly good with his new power, to create such different weather all in one place. And indoors, at that,” Shin said.

“Don’t get too impressed. Remember, we’re here to punch his face in.” Podarge stretched, the spikes on her back twitching, then ran ahead to the end of the room where she had spotted a larger bot in the fog, kicking it’s legs out from under it.

“Typical harpy,” Shin said to herself.

While Po was still ahead of the others, Knuckles asked Shin, “How do you know each other so well? You work for her, right?”

“They have an agreement,” Shadow said, then stopped to look behind them, thinking that he had heard something.

The hound nodded. “Once I have helped her in this world, her life will belong to me. But I plan on giving her into the service of my own master.”

“You’re working for someone else in the underworld?” Knuckles asked, wondering if he should be suspicious. The worry was rather obvious on his face.

Shin grinned. “Not really. I serve the whole of my world, and my only master now is the realm. Those lands have been broken by endless war for centuries, but a strong enough leader could stop the bickering of the tribes and end it. That’s what my old master had attempted. But I have begun to think, after watching all of you, that perhaps uniting the tribes would be a more effective method. Having a harpy for an ally could be the beginning of that work, although she is a stranger to her own home. And it still might not succeed. It is harder winning hearts than winning fights, I think, and I haven‘t bothered to tell her. We‘ve been busy enough here.”

“I wonder what she’ll think of it?” Knuckles asked, watching Po claw open the fallen machine.

“Quiet,” Shadow said, still listening. A breeze was pushing through the halls, and there was a faint whirring sound echoing down the passage they had just come through.

“What is it?” asked Shin.

“I think Sonic is finally catching up to us.”

Shin narrowed her eyes. “It’s too early. Perhaps we do need to hurry.”

“The power of the white wind is definitely active in this place. It‘s not even very stable. …I’ll stop him here, you go ahead,” Knuckles told them.

Shadow and Shin caught up to Podarge, Shin pushing the harpy ahead of them and out of the room. Knuckles didn’t have to wait very long for Sonic to show up, and the temperature was already beginning to drop quickly in the misty chamber. Sonic pulled up short when he spotted the echidna, and leaned against the wall. “Any luck with Robotnik yet, Knuckles?”

Knuckles held out a hand to catch a couple of snowflakes that had begun drifting down from the ceiling, then crushed them in a fist. It had turned cold amazingly fast once Sonic entered the room. “Quit clowning around! I’m not going to put up with you. Iris asked you to be careful, but you never stop to think before charging ahead!”

“Ha! So you’re going to cause me trouble just because Iris told you to? At least it’s better than working for Eggman!” he laughed.

Knuckles crossed the room so quickly that even Sonic was surprised, and the hedgehog turned to look at the fist that Knuckles pounded into the wall just inches beside his head. He turned back to see the echidna staring at him, angrier than he had seen him in quite some time. “Is that really what you think of me?” Knuckles asked, pulling his fist out of the wall and stepping back again. “I’m not here because anyone told me to, this is just something that I have to do!”

“I’m sorry,” said Sonic, and he was. He shook his head, and went on, “But this is something that I have to do, too.”

“Then one of us has to fail,” Knuckles said, raising his fists.

“I guess so,” Sonic answered with his eyebrows raised, then crouched down to ready a jump. They nodded at each other, and then charged.

They fought for a little while, and the fog and snow eddied around them as they moved. Sonic kept dodging punches, and as they made it across the room, he took an opening to spin up into the air and then down onto Knuckles’ head, bouncing from there towards the far passage. “Don’t run!” Knuckles shouted after him.

“I don’t want to fight you!” said Sonic, and raced ahead too fast for Knuckles to catch him.

The other three had made it to another room, the ceiling here hidden by thick tangling clouds that rained heavily down on them. There was a large steel door, elaborately made, blocking their way forward. Shin tried her spear, but it hardly scratched the metal, so she began digging her claws into it, carving away what looked to be the latch.

“Stand back. I’ll blast through it,” Shadow told her.

Suddenly the door shook and unfolded a few pairs of arms. It stood up, no longer a door but an enormous, odd machine that began to claw at them all.

“Look out, it’s a fight!” Po said, backing a way defensively.

“Hmph.” Shadow shot a chaos spear at what looked to be its face, which was enough to drop it to the ground with a grinding shudder. With that over already, they could hear the sound of running footsteps echo up the passage behind them once more.

“Not again!” Po said, looking back. She growled in frustration as Sonic ran into the room.

He stopped to marvel at the rain for a moment, and a small peal of thunder sounded overhead. Then he shook some of the water off his quills and waved. “You know, I start to get the feeling you don’t want me around.”

Po stamped on the ground. “You stupid hedgehog! It’s just Zephyr’s magic that makes you fast, and you shouldn’t be so cocky that you can win this time! Even that attitude of yours is probably because you have his seal, so how do you know who you really are? You’re just a faker!!”

At her shoulder, Shadow tried to cover a smirk. But he didn’t try very hard.

“I know who I am! I don’t have to be anyone other than myself to do this, Podarge,” Sonic countered. “You can’t stop me!”

Po was going to argue, when Shadow interrupted by holding an arm out in front of her, keeping her back. “But I can,” he said to Sonic.

“But, Shadow-” Po said to him.

“He’s right. Harpies are tricksters, not fighters,” Shin told her.

Po shook her head, and made a face at Shadow as she said, “Fine. Just don’t hurt him too bad. We don‘t need another emo hedgehog.”

“What did you say?”

But Podarge was halfway out of sight by now, pulling Shin along by the wrist to keep the hound from falling behind. Shadow and Sonic were alone in the rain.

Sonic shrugged. “You really don’t think I can handle myself?”

“I think you need to learn when you aren’t wanted. Consider this a lesson in humility. You don’t know when to quit!”

“Ha! I never quit!”

“Then we’ll finish our fight here, now.”

“You sure you’re up for it? You’ve switched sides so many times, you must be dizzy by now!”

“I’m always on the same side. Mine!!” And with that, Shadow leapt forward, kicking at him. Sonic rolled to the side, and tried to sprint around him, but Shadow blocked his way. “Chaos spear!” and he threw a bolt of energy at Sonic, who narrowly dodged.

“I can’t get around him,” Sonic realized, and spun forward. Shadow began spinning and met him in midair, their quills scraping before they bounced apart again. Sonic was slightly faster, but in so little space, he could not use that to as much of an advantage, and Shadow was very quick himself. The black hedgehog planted a kick solidly in his side, knocking him across the room, and Sonic thought that he could make a break for the exit passage from where he had fallen. But Shadow used chaos control to appear in his path and punch him back again with a splash onto the wet ground. Sonic stood back up, and Shadow appeared behind him, aiming another kick at his back, but Sonic spun around and caught the foot, twisting him into the air and then down into the mud himself. Shadow growled and leapt up at him, and they exchanged a flurry of blows. Sonic was able to dodge a close hit that caused Shadow to lose his balance for only a moment, but instead of attacking him in that moment, Sonic hesitated. So Shadow took the advantage instead, hitting him in the shoulder hard enough that Sonic needed half a second to recover himself. And that was enough opportunity for Shadow to land a second blow, then a third, a fourth, and then a quick leap into the air to crash spinning into Sonic and crush him into the ground. Sonic didn’t move, but Shadow put one foot heavily on his back to hold him down in case he did.

About that time, Knuckles caught up to them. “Shadow?” he asked, looking at where Sonic lay semi-conscious in the mud.

“The other two went ahead,” was what Shadow said. Knuckles crossed the room, but stopped to look back. Before he could say anything, Shadow added, “They might need your help, so you should hurry. If you think you can manage that.” Knuckles scowled but didn’t say anything as he ran on. Sonic began to stir, and Shadow said to him, “If you’re thinking of getting up, don’t.”

Face down in the mud, Sonic muttered to himself before collapsing again, “This… is going to be a long night.”

[SoDi]

-27- Fade to White

Tails had tracked a narrow, almost invisible wire along the outside of the ruin, but it led to a stone wall and stopped. He was sure that the detonation timer it was attached to must be on the other side of the wall, but he could find no door or opening. The stonework did look a little different from its surroundings, and he thought that it might be recent construction, perhaps more fragile than the older stonework. Tails jumped up and spun against the stone, but had to drop back holding his head where he’d hit it. “Ouch!”

“Stand back,” Amy told him, appearing behind him and running at the wall with her hammer. The section of wall shattered, revealing a shallow recess with a box-like device sitting on the ground. Its red display panel was a timer, counting down the minutes. Tails ran in past her and slid the key card into the box, then began hitting buttons to deactivate the machine.

It only took a moment, then he stood up again and took back the key card before turning to Amy. “That’s half of them. There should be six more,” Tails told her.

“It’s so hard finding these things in the dark! At least we’re doing pretty good on time,” she said, looking back at the red timer, which had frozen when the device had been deactivated. “Why are there so many?”

“I guess they didn’t want to underestimate Robotnik,” Tails answered with a shrug. “Let’s hurry, we’re only doing good on time if we can find the remaining detonators as fast as we found the first ones!”

They ran back out towards the jungle to begin searching again, when they heard a faint, muffled keening. It was almost as if it came from underground, a long way off, and almost a melody. “What is that?” wondered Tails.
Amy closed her eyes. “It’s too faint to tell. …I’m worried, let’s hurry.”

-

“Shadow?” Sonic asked. The other hedgehog had stepped back when the sound had started and the rain had stopped, allowing Sonic to stand. Sonic stepped around in front of him, waving a hand in front of his face, but Shadow’s expression was frozen in a look of deep concentration that Sonic could not break. “Hellooo?” Shadow made no answer. Sonic turned to look at the passage leading further in, from which the odd sound was coming from. A low, slightly discordant music.

Sonic crossed his arms and took another look at Shadow, but that one remained mute and still, so Sonic shrugged and ran ahead. The bots in the halls were still very active, those that weren’t already heaps of scrap. He crashed through them and hurried forward. He came to a larger room where the air was blowing around in lazy rings along the walls, their noise a soft counterpoint to the eerie melody. “Something’s wrong,” he said.

Podarge was here, as were Knuckles and Shin, but the latter two stood still with blank expressions like Shadow had. Po was tugging at Shin, but the hound did not move. She shrugged and nodded to Sonic, “I figured she might be immune, you know, because she’s an underworlder like me. But I guess not.”

“The soldiers outside must have been hypnotized by harpy song, too,” Sonic guessed. “But they’re kind of off key, aren’t they?” The music was louder here, clear and near enough that it was likely coming from the very next chamber. The music rose in a piercing crescendo that shook the building, rattling the ceiling so that rubble was knocked loose and fell down onto them. Sonic shook the dust off and said, “It’s a performance to bring down the house!”

“Something is wrong,” Po agreed. “That’s why you should stay here and look after these guys, I’ll ask the harpies myself.”

“No way! With everyone else knocked out, we’re the only two left able to fight!”

“That’s because I’m a harpy! The seal of Zephyr is all that’s protecting you.”

“You think so?” Sonic wondered.

Po ran ahead, over the remains of another door-like bot that they had defeated before the music started. She pounded across the broken tiles of another long hall and emerged through a carved archway into the very heart of the old ruin. The entire room was elaborately carved, the walls a series of tiered balconies with doors leading to higher and lower levels, the remains of a large dry fountain in the center of the room. The ceiling here was covered in clouds, like some of the earlier rooms had been, but these crackled with lightning. The air here flew along the walls and balconies, surrounding the open chamber with curtains of dancing white tornadoes. And at the base of the room, perched on the stone fountain, the two harpy sisters were singing with blank expressions and wild eyes. A shining V-Cell shone at the base of each of their throats like gemstones, flashing as they sang.

Podarge looked back. Sonic was leaning against one side of the archway, arms crossed over his chest. “Stay back, I don’t need you!” she told him. He didn’t say anything, and Po jumped down from the ledge to the base of the room, running towards the other harpies.

At her approach, Aello flew up into the air, towards the center of the swirling clouds, and a bolt of lightning struck down towards her. Aello caught it in her hand and flung it immediately at Podarge, who was knocked rolling backwards. She got back on her feet and ran forward, dodging the next few bolts that Aello threw at her. Ocypete was still singing where she sat on the fountain, so Po made her way towards her, jumping into the air talons-first. But Ocypete flew quickly aside before she could be hit, and Po raked her claws uselessly against the stone fountain. Now both of the harpies were in the air, and Podarge looked back again at Sonic. But he remained beside the wall, and put his hands on his hips as he watched.

“I can do this. I can,” Po told herself, and raced up the wall nearby to a higher ledge, until she was high enough to leap down at the flying harpies. She aimed for Aello’s chest, shrieking as she came close. She figured that this V-Cell would also be made of some sound-resistant crystal, but she still thought she might be able break it with a good kick if the shriek didn‘t work. Unexpectedly, the crystal glowed brightly with the sound of her voice, and Aello countered with a scream of her own that was strong enough to throw Podarge out of the air and against one of the crumbling walls.

Sonic was already there, lifting her back onto her feet. “You can’t do it alone,” he told her.

“Drat,” was all she said. He turned to leap off the ledge, when she shouted, “Wait!”

“I’m going to help!”

“I know! I need you. But we can’t fight them like this. They’re harpies. There’s a trick to it!”

“What is it?” They dodged as Aello shot a lightning bolt between where the two of them were standing. The two harpy sisters began flying around each other in the air, faster and faster until they had formed a gold-green tornado that filled the center of the room. It narrowed as they increased their speed, then was released in an outward blast of wind that threw Podarge and Sonic back against the walls.

They stood back up, and Po tugged at her own horn nervously. “Even under control of the V-Cells, they still know how to fight, and use all their powers!” She pointed out to where the two harpies had flown back down to perch on the fountain again. “You saw what Aello Stormswift can do using the storm wind! It won’t be easy getting close to her. And Ocypete Wingswift can use the life wind to regenerate, so it’ll be hard to do any damage to her. But, they’re harpies, if you hit their horns hard enough you’ll stun them and they won’t be able to do any of that for a while!”

“So that’s a sensitive spot, huh?”

Po shrugged. “That won’t keep them down, though. We’ll have to hit them again, after they’re stunned, to try to break those V-Cells!”

They both leapt off the ledge and back down to the base of the room, startling the harpies back up into the air. When Aello began throwing lightning at them again, they ran in opposite directions, since she could only target one of them at a time. Aello went after Sonic, while Ocypete flew after Podarge, and so they managed to separate the sisters.

Those harpies were as fast as Sonic and Po, and it was a difficult chase to stay out of harm’s way as they raced up and down the room, the crumbling ledges occasionally giving way beneath the two runners. The four of them moved so quickly that the room became a blur, none of them quite visible as they moved as quickly as they could.

When Ocypete came close enough to rake at Podarge with one large, clawed hand, Po sidestepped and Ocypete only got a fistful of rock wall instead. The smaller harpy spun around and took that chance to shriek at Ocypete, but the V-Cell glowed brightly at the sound and Ocypete screamed back like Aello had, forcefully enough that Po was knocked off her feet and thrown back off the ledge again. Po picked herself up from the lower ledge where she had landed and rubbed her head. “I’ve got to stop trying that.”

She looked up to see that Sonic was running around the room towards her, dodging lightning bolts. None of them were hitting him, but he couldn’t get any closer to Aello, either. Ocypete dropped down onto Po, who kicked the gold harpy forcefully away and ran back up the walls to a higher ledge. From there, Podarge jumped down again at Aello, who was distracted while shooting at the hedgehog, and kicked her hard enough to knock her out of the air and towards the ground. Po dropped onto one of the lower ledges. But Aello spread her wings and caught herself before she could fall all the way, coasting just above the ground around the edge of the room as she flew after Sonic.

Sonic let her chase him back towards where Po was standing, and once the green harpy was close to his back, he darted up the wall beside him and spun down, crashing against her head. His spines made a snapping sound against her two spiral horns, and she dropped to the ground with a gasp, wobbling on her feet. Po, above them, jumped down at the stunned Aello and threw a heavy kick at her back, right between her wings. The green harpy went rigid, arching her back in surprise, and the V-Cell at her throat shattered away from the front of her body. She went silent, falling motionless to the ground, as a cloudy mist unraveled itself from her feathers and spiraled into the air around her with a roaring sound. The storm wind was leaving her, and the storm clouds overhead spun faster and then vanished as well.

Sonic and Po had no time to watch, however. Ocypete, who had picked herself up from Podarge’s kick and circled the air above them, dove down into them so quickly that they could not dodge, and the three of them crashed painfully together into a wall. The golden harpy stood up quickly as if she had not felt it at all, and while the two smaller fighters were winded she picked up a large, carved stone that had fallen from an archway on a higher ledge. She lifted it above her head and then threw it at them, but they saw it coming and ran out of the way.

Sonic spun towards her from behind, and Ocypete turned quickly, throwing out one wide wing to bat him away, but now she had her back to Podarge. The little sky-blue harpy jumped up and kicked hard at the side of Ocypete’s head, right at one of the large curling horns, and Ocypete stumbled with a shudder. Sonic, though he had been thrown, bounced against a wall and back to spin into her abdomen, which winded her. She was already recovering from the blow, but before she did Podarge jumped up again and kicked at her left wing, still spread wide from attacking Sonic. When Ocypete stumbled a second time from that hit Sonic did a slide-kick that swept her cleanly off her feet and she crashed into the ground, the V-Cell shattering beneath her when she fell. A golden light lifted away from her body and spun away, while the curtain of wind surrounding the room bunched together and then flew out through all the small tunnels with a roaring sound as the life wind, too, was released.

“Are they going to be alright, now?” Sonic asked.

“They still might want to fight,” Po answered, casting a worried glance at Sonic.

They both turned around as they heard Aello beginning to stir. That harpy sat up, smaller now than when she had the storm wind with her, her wings more ragged and her face looking a little lopsided where one of her horns had been broken off. It lay on the ground beside her, and she picked it up as she stood slowly, wielding it in her hand like a weapon. Sonic and Podarge raised their arms defensively.

Aello raised the horn above her head, using her free hand to pull one of her long ponytails around, and then used the sharp horn to cut through the hair. She held the severed ponytail tightly in one hand, and let the horn drop from the other.

Podarge ran towards her. “Aello!”

“We thought we’d set a trap for you, but we were the ones who were caught,” said the green harpy. But she was looking less green, as a grayness began to creep out along her feathers from the base of her throat where the crystal had been. The grayness was moving slowly up her arms from her fingertips as well, and along her wings from the center of her back.

“What’s happening to you?” Po asked, her eyes wide.

Aello walked past her to where Ocypete had fallen, helping her sister to stand. Smaller, they both looked a lot more like Po now. The two of them leaned on each other like they were both exhausted. Ocypete shook her head and answered, “V caught us. We had been keeping ahead of him, and I don’t know how he knew we would be here. But those spirit-box devices were attached to our magic, so that means he somehow knew how our magic worked. When you freed us, you broke our spells as well,” she said with a weak voice, as a grayness began creeping across her body, too.

“What? You mean the wind spell fragments, from Iris,” Po said, answering her own question.

“They were our magic, and our immortality,” Aello said, her voice heavy. “Time will finally snatch us back.” Her face had gone all gray by now, and all her long hair, so that only the ponytail in her hand was still a dark emerald color.

“No no no!” Podarge argued.

“We can get it back to you,” Sonic said, looking back at the room. It was silent and empty stone again, though it had been full of so much motion just a while ago.

“It’s already gone. Listen, Podarge. There’s not much time,” Aello said, shaking her head. Podarge stepped closer, watching her face. “I have to tell you. I owe it to Celaeno.”

“My name is Podarge! Iris named me, like she named all us harpies,” Po argued.

“Celaeno didn’t die, you threw her away!” Ocypete shouted. “You changed your name, but you didn’t change, you know.”

Podarge was silent. Sonic stayed back, to give them their space, but he listened.

“We were the ones who trapped you in Pandora’s Box. We waited till you weren’t looking, to trick you,” Aello said.

“What? But, why would you-”

“Because you were our sister, you didn‘t belong to them!” Ocypete interrupted.

“So Keeks, and Cedar, they….”

“Your friends never betrayed you,” Aello nodded.

Po just looked down at her feet, her face confused. Ocypete looked away also, quieter but still with a sharpness to her tone as she added, “They fought so hard to get you back, too. But we wouldn’t let them have you.”

Podarge was still silent, disbelieving, so Aello went on, “You would have grown old without us, and while we lived on eternally you would have eventually left us behind. But in Pandora’s Box, you would never age. You’d be kept safe.”

“That bites,” Po said, but she spoke softly, afraid her voice would break if she spoke as forcefully as she wanted to. “It was my decision, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, but you made it without even asking us,” Ocypete told her. “Without telling us, even! Shouldn’t we have had some say? We were family!”

“We’re still family,” said Aello, pressing her ponytail into Po’s hand.

“Shut up! Don’t go mushy on me, you can’t die yet! I‘m going to beat you up for what you did!” Podarge was angry, but unconvincing.

“We have… lived long enough. But you still need to live the life that we stole away from you,” Aello told her.

“…Aren’t you still mad at me?” Po asked them.

Ocypete smiled, showing her fangs. “Yeah! Because I missed you.” She flapped her wings, scattering a few last golden feathers before the gray color completely overtook her body. Both she and Aello were completely gray now, and turned to look at each other as they began to fade to white. They had a moment to clasp hands before a faint light began to shine out from the narrow cracks that began appearing on them, as if they were made of old clay. They vanished in a wispy puff of light, and nothing more was left behind.

Podarge stood there, staring at the green ponytail in her hands, her lips pursed. Sonic picked up a few of the golden feathers gingerly, and handed those to her, but he didn’t say anything either.

Her eyes wobbled a bit, wet, but she pressed them shut and said angrily, “I didn’t mean to… I didn’t know!” She shook her head, shouting, “I’m going to kick that Eggman so hard!!”

“The others should be awake by now. I can go check on them, but you can take as long you want here. You have time.”

“I don’t want time! I want to rip something to pieces!” she said, yelling to keep from crying.

“Time is what we have right now. Eggman’s not here anymore, and neither is V, so we’re back to chasing them down. You’ll have to find something to do with the time, won’t you?”

“Aren’t you mad, too?”

“Well, yeah! Eggman’s really got it coming to him this time!”

“I mean at me.”

“Why?” Sonic asked, surprised.

“I… used to be Celaeno. Because of that, I guess. My sisters were right, I really haven’t changed. But now you know. So, y’know, you can call me whatever you want. Celaeno or Podarge or Po, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“…I’d still rather call you sis,” he said.

Po’s face pinched expressively, but she didn’t say anything else.

[SoDi]

-28- Secrets

Tails flew down from the platform in the canopy where the final detonator had been, Amy smacking away a last scoutbot with her hammer before jumping down between branches to meet him on the ground. Tails twisted the lamp in his hand to a brighter level, and shone the beam out at the jungle around them. “It really is late, we should get back to the others. We cut it close, another two minutes and the whole place would have blown!”

“Okay, so it was good we went after the explosives. But Sonic hasn’t come out yet,” Amy nodded as they ran through the dark. “If he’s still very far inside, it might take forever to reach him!”

“So it might be useful that I brought this after all,” he said, reaching around into his pack and taking out a small machine with a screen and key panel.

“What is it this time?”

“It’s a machine that can scan air currents, essentially mapping out indoor or underground spaces for us. I figured we could use it to navigate the ruins to find Eggman, but we were tracking detonators out here in the jungle instead.”

“So that thing can find Sonic?! I want one!”

“Um, no it can‘t,” Tails held the machine aside, out of her reach as she went to grab it. “It can only help us find the most direct route inside, we’ll have to look for the others ourselves. Let me operate it,” he said, turning it on as they stepped inside the ruin. The guard bots were gone, taken down by the earlier adventurers, and though some of the rooms and halls had a lot of water on the floor, there was no weather left inside, and they made their way quickly. Stepping into one of the soggier chambers they saw Shadow standing with his eyes closed.

“Hey, Shadow! Is Sonic here?” Amy asked, but he didn‘t move. “Don’t ignore me again!”

“Wait, I think he might be hypnotized,” said Tails, and reached out to tug on the hedgehog’s arm. Just before Tails could touch him, Shadow’s eyes flew open and he glared at the fox, who withdrew his hand quickly. “Um, are you alright?”

Shadow looked at the ground around his feet, then at the passageway leading further into the ruin. “How long has it been?”

Tails shook his head. “You were hypnotized, Shadow! I don’t know for how long.”

“Was Sonic with you? What happened?” Amy asked him.

Shadow ran into the passage without answering, and Tails and Amy followed him.

-

Sonic and Podarge were waking up Shin and Knuckles in a similar way. As soon as Shin was aware again, she looked at Po and said, “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry, you couldn’t do anything about it.”

“But I should have anticipated-”

“What happened?” Knuckles asked, looking around them. The room was quiet, and empty except for them. “The power of the white wind isn’t here anymore! Did you two beat Robotnik?”

“He’s loose again,” Po answered first. “We’re done here.” She went ahead of them, leading the way towards the exit.

“You both are injured. What sort of a fight was it? …Or did you fight each other?” Shin asked.

Sonic scratched the end of his nose. “Nah, Po knows she can count on me.”

Po scuffed the ground with a foot. “Yep. You… really are a true blue friend, Sonic,” she said, turning around to look back at him with a sheepish look.

Sonic stopped. Then he smiled real wide and walked up beside her, holding out a hand. But when Podarge reached to take it, he jerked his hand away at the last minute with a laugh. “Psych!”

Po was speechless, stunned for a moment, then she began laughing out loud. Sonic started laughing, too. Shin looked at them like they were crazy. Knuckles just looked confused.

“Soooniiic!!” Amy shouted as she appeared in the passage behind them and threw herself at him.

Sonic was knocked to the ground but got himself back up and out of her way as Shadow and Tails ran up behind her. “So the gang’s all here,” he said, untangling himself from Amy.

“What’s that?” Po asked, going over to Tails to look at the device he was carrying, as he began explaining it to her.

“The doctor?” Shadow asked Sonic.

Sonic shook his head. “Gone already, if he was ever here. But V was definitely here, he left a trap for us.”

“I knew it!” shouted Amy. “But you never listen to me! Are you okay, Sonic? You’re hurt!”

“I’m fine, but,” he said, looking over at Po, who glanced back at him.

Shin raised her chin at the harpy as she asked her, “Is it really safe here? Or might there still be other dangers?”

“Right!” Po said. “This isn’t a place to hang out! Tell me the rest later, Tails. Let’s get back to your place,” and she pulled at him and Shin to hurry them as she led the way once more out through the ruin.

They didn’t run into any more trouble, the last of Eggman’s bots seemed to have left the area of the Mystic Ruins already, and even the spirit monsters didn’t bother them as they made their way to the workshop. They were all tired, but before they went inside to crash for the night Knuckles stopped Sonic and asked him, “Something did happen in there. What aren’t you saying?”

The others looked over when they heard him. Sonic just crossed his arms. “It’s not mine to say.”

Podarge waved Sonic off and said, “Don’t act so noble, it’s my own fault.”

“What is?” asked Tails.

“That trap V left for us, it was the harpy sisters. They were…”

“What?! Like the wind spirits, you mean?” asked Amy.

She nodded. Po looked at them all, then back at Sonic before going on, “But, they were my sisters.”

“So you’re a fourth harpy sister?!” Knuckles asked in surprise.

“No, you knuckle-head! I was Celaeno! I just…”

Knuckles took a moment to wrap his head around that one, then said, “If you’re serious, if you are Celaeno, then there’s something I think you need to know.”

“What is it?” she asked.

“That’s not mine to say, either,” he answered, raising an eyebrow at Sonic and then looking back at her. “But you should talk to Iris.”

“Let it wait till morning,” Amy yawned. And they let it wait.

-

With Eggman flushed out of the area for awhile, Tails wanted to fix up the old workshop as a new base. They could start looking for Robotnik again from there, but before they began working on that, they were outside enjoying the sunshine of the morning, and talking.

“So it was because they lost the magic Iris had given them?” Shin was asking. “But shouldn’t you have magic like that as well? What happened?”

“It’s complicated,” Po said.

“You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to,” Sonic shrugged.

“It’s okay, I want you to know, little bro.”

“We’re all friends, right?” Tails asked.

Po smiled. “See, Iris always looked after the harpies, all of us. But when she made the final spell that would create the wind seals with the four wind lords, my sisters and me snuck into the shrine to watch. Maybe because Iris was using the seven chaos emeralds, the four seals weren’t enough to hold all the magic. We three were the closest targets so the magic stuck to us to make it seven. Or maybe it’s because we were just somewhere we shouldn’t have been, even Iris wasn’t sure. But the magic caught us from behind and it stuck hard, so Iris made us official protectors of the four proper wind seals. The plan was always that, when the war was over, all the underworlders, all us harpies, would be banished back to our original world, but because the three of us had some of the sealing magic we couldn’t be allowed to leave. Iris was real good to us, and Zephyr too, and the other winds warmed up eventually, so we didn’t feel trapped. We felt… special, I guess. When the worst happened, and Pandora caught Zephyr and used him to shift the war, I took Iris’ magic to try and win him back. What I told you about that was true. But I didn’t know I wouldn’t be able to control that power. I didn’t know what I was doing, and it was so awful…”

“I know,” Sonic said.

She nodded, reassured, and went on, “But it still could have worked, even if it was destroying me in the meantime. Except that Zephyr didn’t want that to happen, he used the Final Door to dim the emeralds and take me back out of the bright state. I woke up on the plains outside a city I’d destroyed, and he was already lost by then.”

“But if he was caught in Pandora’s Box, how did he manage that?” asked Amy.

“I don’t know, but he was the strongest person I’d ever met,” she said.

“The V-Cells were designed after that box,” Shadow said to himself, leaning against the outside of the workshop, and they all looked over at him as he spoke. “Those can manipulate the will, as well as trapping it. Resisting that influence is draining, and most people would burn out quickly, expending all their energy. Perhaps he was able to do that even while bound to Pandora’s Box, long enough to save you. Though it completely spent his power to do so.”

“Maybe,” she said, her shoulder spikes twitching as she thought it over.

“Is that when you lost Iris’ spell?” asked Tails.

She shook her head. “No, I was fine. But while I was recovering, the others had made their decision to go to the house at the back of the wind. Iris was already trapped in the Rain Palace by then, so they couldn’t consult with her, but I still didn’t want to leave this world. As soon as I recovered, I went to see her myself, to see if there was something else that could be done. …I told her that I didn’t want to leave behind the world that Zephyr died protecting. Or maybe I just didn’t want to face everyone after I’d failed to save him. But Iris explained that the sealing magic was weakened when it was divided, and if the others were leaving, I’d have to go, too. So, I asked her to take that magic back. Even though she isn’t a harpy, she’s good at handling spirit matter. But the magic that us harpies had was stuck to us by accident, so even Iris couldn’t take it out of me clean. I was left broken, like this. When the magic went, my wings went with it,” she said, twitching the spikes on her shoulders. “And after that, I couldn’t use the chaos emeralds anymore either, that’s why I figured I might have lost my heart, too. Which I figured was just ironic!” she added, looking over at Knuckles.

He had been silent all morning, just listening while the others spoke. Now he closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “You should speak with Iris.”

“I don’t really want to,” she shrugged. “That’s over and done from a long time ago. Why do you say that?”

Knuckles didn’t know how to answer, he just rubbed the back of his head. “…Maybe because it’s been so long.”

“We can start looking for signs of Eggman, you can take the Tornado if you need it,” Tails said, hopping off the bench where he’d been sitting.

“V was here, so is there something you could use to track where he went?” Shadow asked, following him inside. Knuckles headed down the driveway towards the plane.

Sonic looked like he was going to say something to Po, but Amy grabbed him by the arm and dragged him inside, too. Podarge laughed to herself, then she saw the look on Shin’s face. “Hey, you don’t have to look that happy!!”

Shin really was smiling very wide. “I just learned that Celaeno the Dark, destroyer of worlds, owes me a turn of the wheel. I can hardly help it.”

“I didn’t have any control over that! And it’s not your turn yet. Sheesh…”

Shin stepped closer so that she could speak more softly as she asked, “So what will you do now? They won’t need us here for some time. What you were seeking within the Final Door is your spell fragment, isn’t it?”

“The night wind. Iris hid it in the Door, because there weren’t a lot of other places it could have gone. I really hadn’t expected that she wouldn’t be able to get it back for me, but I suppose I wasn’t thinking of that when I asked her to take it.”

“With that power back, you-”

“Look, leave it alone, okay? I don’t know where to find Boreas now, anyway. I suppose I am stuck with extra time,” and she looked down the runway before turning back to Shin. “Just stay out of trouble, I’ll be back later.”

Knuckles was looking at the Tornado with an odd expression, as if he wasn’t really sure what he was looking at as he glanced over its controls. “Changed your mind?” he asked her.

Podarge rolled her eyes as she came up next to him. “I am definitely the one flying the plane!”

-

Podarge dropped onto the edge of the gardens surrounding the Rain Palace and ran ahead, finding Knuckles waiting at the large front doors. “I don’t know…” she repeated, watching them swing open.

Knuckles stepped back. “I can wait here, if you don’t want extra company.”

“Like I care either way!” she said, nose in the air as she ran past him and inside. She kicked playfully at the chao that were in her way as she went, but stopped again at the doors that led to the final room where she knew Iris was waiting. She looked behind her, but Knuckles hadn’t followed. “What does he think he knows, anyway?” she said to herself, gathering her courage and pulling the door open.

The golden light feathered outward and Iris greeted her, “Hello, Podarge.”

“…Hi, Iris.” They were both quiet for a while, then Po broke the silence to ask, “So, what now? That other guardian wanted me to come visit, but it’s too late for me to apologize. You don’t expect me to anyway. …Do you?”

“No,” Iris said, then looked back through the hall behind the harpy. “I can guess why he brought you here. He has a kind heart, but I fear the truth may do more harm than good now, after so long…”

“What truth?” asked Podarge, confused.

The ribbons in the air around Iris eddied slowly, drifting around one another as they drifted around her. “Podarge, you were so very brave to take my bright ring and try to save Zephyr. I never did thank you for that.”

“But I failed!” Podarge yelled.

“But you tried. While I could do nothing but send you on your way. …Podarge, using that power was so terrible for you, and I never did apologize for that.”

“I don’t care, I didn’t ask you to,” the harpy puffed and looked away. “Is that it, then? You just had some stuff you wanted off your chest?”

“…Though the power of the bright ring had never been used before, I knew even then that it would overwhelm your will and cause much devastation. Podarge.”

Podarge went still, and said nothing.

“Even knowing that, I wanted to do anything I could to rescue Zephyr from his trap. I knew that it was possible that your success might also mean your destruction during your encounter with the Final Door.”

“…Like when Eurus vanished. That thing that attacked us, it wasn’t a creature inside the Door, was it?”

“It was the Door,” and Iris bowed her head. “On opening, it devours strength to form itself, that is how it can shape power to the will of the one who opens it. As it would have devoured you.”

“…But there was a light… I remember, I found Zephyr, but he sent me away, he said it would be alright. But he lied! Because he knew, like you did, what was really happening. I knew that he had died because of me, I didn’t know that…”

“That he was unwilling to let anyone die to save him,” Iris finished for her. “And even knowing what might happen, I sent you. Of course I do not blame you for his loss, because I know it was my own desperation that brought him to that decision. I did not tell you all this when I sent you, for no one else could have attempted it, and I did not want you to say no. …I cannot even ask your forgiveness. That was why I was so willing to grant your request afterward, and why I so regret my inability to grant your wish now.”

“…So you lied to me.”

“I-”

“Everyone lied to me. Everyone!” Podarge kicked at the ground and the crystal floor cracked with a bell-like sound. “But you didn’t have to lie to me, Iris! Even if you had told me the truth, I would have done it anyway. You aren’t the only one who loved Zephyr!” she yelled, and ran out of the room.

“Podarge, wait!” Iris said, drifting toward the doorway at a run. But her hand chimed against the open space within the doorframe, though no object had been there to block her, and she drifted back again, unable to advance.

Outside, a number of chao had spent the time trying to get Knuckles to play with them, but he just stood at the main doors and waited. He heard the sound of Po running and barely had time to blink as the blue streak swept past him and she leapt off the garden path and fell through the air below, vanishing in a puff of wind. Knuckles rubbed the back of his head again and sighed. “I hate secrets,” he muttered to himself. The chao beside him chirped in agreement.

[SoDi]

-29- Divide and Conquer

Sonic and Tails were checking radio and video broadcasts for any suspicious news that might be a clue as to where to head next, when Knuckles came back to the workshop wiping mud off his quills.

“How’d you get so dirty?” Sonic laughed at him.

“Podarge took the plane, so I flew off the island and back here with an old glider of mine. They don‘t land well,” he said. “And this jungle is a mess.”

“So where is she now?” asked Tails.

“She’s not back here? But the Tornado is outside.”

“Where else would she have gone?” Tails wondered. “We should try to find her!”

Sonic caught a hand on one of his friend’s tails before the fox could speed away, pulling him back towards the workbench. He waved a finger and said, “She could probably use some time to herself, let’s just wait till she comes back on her own.”

“But it’s so dangerous right now,” Tails said, looking back at the news reports he’d been reading. The world really was in an uproar.

Knuckles crossed his arms. “She could be anywhere by now, so where would you look? She did seem upset, so let her be.”

“That just makes me more worried,” and Tails shook his head.

“Then stay busy. Didn’t you say there were a lot of explosives left un-detonated in the ruins? You can help me gather those up,” Knuckles told him.

“What for? It could be dangerous holding onto them.”

“Seems like a waste to leave them! Don‘t worry, I know how to handle these sorts of things.”

“Oh, right. You’re a demolitions expert,” Sonic remembered.

“Heh,” and Knuckles just grinned.

Most of the day passed. That afternoon, outside the workshop, Tails ran into Shin, who had been exploring more of the jungle. “Shin! Have you seen Podarge?” Tails asked her.

“Did you lose her?” Shin smiled.

“Well, she just hasn’t come back yet. Aren’t you worried about her?”

“I am waiting for her here, and I know no reason to worry.”

“Well, could you find out where she went? I’d feel better. And you can find her easy, right?”

She flicked an ear. “I don’t work for you.”

“So you won’t even do me a favor? Well, what if… it was an exchange? I’m sure there’s something that I could-”

“I only work one deal at a time, and even if I didn’t, part of my agreement was to look out for you.” She stepped closer and lowered her face so that her eyes were only inches from his own. “And making a bargain with me is not in your best interest, Miles Prower. Do you understand?”

“Um, yes, okay,” he skipped nervously backwards, and hurried back inside the workshop.

Shin stood up and looked out at the jungle, leaning her spear back on her shoulder. She listened to the sound of the birds and insects for a while, then her ears pricked forward and she ran off into the trees.

-

Podarge stood in the long grass of the Emerald Plain, a green braid in one fist and a handful of golden feathers in the other. A warm summer breeze was bending the grasses, and when the wind began to pick up, sweeping across the plain, she raised up her hands and spread her fingers. The wind plucked the strands and feathers up into the air, and she watched it carry them into the sky where she could not follow, out of sight in the broad blue day. She stood watching the sky for a long time, then turned to sprint away again, when suddenly the wind blew chill and a white cloud swept past her. A hand reached out from behind her to rest on her shoulder. “I grieve with you.”

“…I told you so. You managed to escape, but you were the only one. Just give it up, Boreas,” Po said, turning around.

“Perhaps I would not have been the only one, if you had only been willing to come with me sooner.” She went pale at that, but did not flinch, so he continued, “Surely this is enough now to convince you to help me? Claim vengeance on this world for what it has done to you, before it is too late to do anything!”

Podarge swallowed hard, and said, “You talk like it’s the end of the world already.”

He removed his hand and shook his head. “The V creature is destroying the seals, because Doctor Robotnik believes that they hinder access to the power of the Final Door. They will unleash the white wind, and this world will end.”

“That’s stupid! Why would Eggman think that?”

“I was the one who convinced him. He caught me when he caught my brothers, though I was able to evade his first trap and had him believe that I would assist of my own will.”

“You helped him?! That’s why he made so much progress figuring out Pandora’s Box, that was you!”

“Please, I never meant to truly help him! I did have to give him some knowledge that risked being used against us, but only because I had to ensure that he also believed my instructions regarding the Final Door. When Aello and Ocypete found me, they understood the need to keep our enemy close to us, and they assisted me in my deceit. I had to keep that power from him at all costs, but I had nothing to do with what happened to our families!”

“This is all your fault!!” she shrieked at him, leaping at him with her feet, but he dissolved into cloud and she could not touch him.

“No, it was the greed of humans that brought both of us to this place! I tell you this now because you are all that I have left,” the cloud said, his voice an echo in the air.

Podarge stopped and shook her head. “But it’s not over yet, we can still stop this from happening. Come back with me, my friends and me are going to fix this!”

Boreas reformed, brushing the last bits of cloud off his arms. “Your friends? Are these not the same friends that fought your sisters? Was it not one of those friends that struck them down?”

“Shut up, you don’t even know him!!” Po yelled, angry again.

Boreas realized his mistake, and backpedaled. “Then they must be truly worthy people, to win such friendship from you, harpy. But if they were to fail, we would lose everything. And with the loss of our sisters and brothers, you and I are all that remain of the ancient world we once knew. Does that not make us friends, or even more?”

“Don’t make me choose like that!”

“I am not the one forcing a choice. If these creatures you have befriended truly care for you, they will understand your position, and join you, will they not? The folly of this world will not spare them, but you could. The Final Door leads many places, you have your own world waiting to welcome you home, and you could save your friends as well. It is the only reasonable conclusion, and they will know this, if they are your friends.”

“My world?”

“I need you, Celaeno.”

Podarge rocked a bit on her feet, watching the sky and shaking a last emerald strand of hair off her wrist so that it drifted away. “…I really can’t have everything, can I?”

Boreas peered into her eyes. “We have to choose what is truly worth protecting, and not everything can be saved. That is the nature of this world, and you know this better than most. …I will be waiting for you beneath the capital city these mortals have built.”

“You’re still playing with Eggman?” she asked.

He nodded. “It is more vital now than ever. Help me.”

“I’ll think about it,” she said, as Boreas turned back into cloud and flew across the plain.

-

Another day had passed, and Amy was at the lake shore early to watch the sun rise up across the water. She had told Sonic where she was going, hoping he’d come to meet her there, but of course he hadn’t. Even so, she couldn’t help but feel hopeful when the greenery shook and a blue blur rushed out of the trees. “Sonic, you came!! Oh, no, it’s just you, Po.” Amy, disappointed, put her hands on her hips and watched the harpy shake the dew out of hair.

“Amy? Is Sonic at the workshop?”

“What, not even a ‘good morning’? You were gone so long, I thought you might be skipping off on us!”

“I need to talk to Sonic. Alone,” Po said.

“Why? Is something wrong? Where have you been, anyway?”

“It’s not your business.”

“If it’s about Sonic, it is, too!”

“Jealous?” Po laughed at her. “Me and Sonic are like family, I guess that really bugs you, huh?”

“You haven’t known him a fraction as long as I have! Don’t be silly,” Amy said, crossing her arms and looking away.

“But it’s true!” Po said, reading the look on Amy’s face. “Hee! You keep chasing him, but you’ll never catch him, you know.”

“I’m never giving up! Sonic is my hero, I’ll be there for him wherever he goes.”

“But him and me, we understand each other. …That’s why I need to talk to him now. Because we move through a whole other world you’ll never see, pinky.”

“No, that’s just you. Sonic is from this world,” Amy reminded her.

Po smiled, showing one of her fangs. “The world looks different when you move as fast as Sonic does. It’s a whole different place then. I grew up surrounded
by folks like me, but Sonic always thought he was special, right? That he was alone. I bet that’s why he was so nice to me when we met, I just caught his attention.”

“Sonic is nice to everyone. You aren’t that special. He has lots of friends!”

“But he went out of his way for me. …I figured he ended up with that hero-complex because he thought he was special. That’s why he’s always got to show off or say he‘ll help, right? But even after he went bright, after he knew the whole world might hate him now, it didn’t even phase him. It didn’t slow him down at all!”

“That’s why he’s a real hero, Podarge. When we were helping Knuckles with the bright emeralds, that’s what I thought about. He’s always running away from me, and I’m always chasing him, but if he ever stopped or waited for me, it wouldn’t really be like Sonic. I love him because of who he is, so I guess I don’t mind if he keeps running, I don’t want him to change. And that felt really… freeing. Someday I’ll catch up to him on my own, and then he’ll be the one chasing me!”

“Keep dreaming,” Po said.

“What about you, what did you think about?”

“It doesn’t matter now. But, I guess I surprised myself,” Po shrugged, walking away from the lake shore. They walked through the jungle as it began to wake up, more of the birds coming noisily awake and shaking the dew out of the tree branches as they fluttered around the canopy.

“Sonic really is special,” Amy went on. “And he knows that, that’s why he always works so hard to take care of everyone when we need him. I know he can be cocky, but it doesn’t really matter to him whether people like him or not, if he’s doing the right thing.”

“You really do know what he’s like.”

“He’s always been my one and only true love! No one in the world knows him like I do. But I wish he knew how I felt about him.”

“Even if it’s not a hero complex, it’s still a complex,” Po said, shaking her head. “Like everyone’s big brother, he feels like he has to look out for everyone. He feels responsible,” she guessed, looking as if she knew what that felt like. “But Sonic can‘t do everything, and if he keeps trying to, he’s going to get himself hurt real bad someday.”

“He’s too smart for that! And besides, I wouldn’t let something like that happen to him,” Amy insisted.

“You’ll never give up on him, no matter what, huh? Even after he went bright, and destroyed your home, too! …You really are crazy. But it’s a certain kind of crazy, just like Sonic. Having that in common might be more important than keeping up with him. Maybe you really are meant for each other,” Po wondered aloud, stretching her arms up behind her head as she watched the sky brighten through the branches overhead.

Amy had not expected to hear her say that. “We are! …Thank you, Po.”

“That’s why, when something bad does happen, you’ll have to be the one that helps him out. Take good care of him.”

“Of course! But, what-”

“I’m going ahead. Give me some time, okay?”

They had come back to the edge of the clearing where the workshop was. Amy watched Podarge run out of the forest and up the runway to the building, while she stayed behind among the trees. But then a voice beside her said, “She‘s undermining her own cause.”

“You’re back, too!” Amy said, seeing Shin beside her. The hound had a way of blending into the jungle, and Amy might not have realized she was there at all if Shin hadn’t spoken. “What do you mean, undermining?”

Shin thought it over, then sighed, smiling. “You said yourself, she hasn’t known Sonic nearly as long as you, but already they are so easy with one another’s company. She is already closer to him than you, don’t you think?”

Amy scoffed, “No way! He treats her like a sister, that’s all. He really does care about me, he just doesn’t like to show it. Sonic’s always there when it really matters!”

“He’s nice to everyone,” Shin repeated Amy’s words back to her, then nodded towards the workshop. “Is it merely a sibling affection? They share something very special in common, they can understand each other in ways others cannot. You may be devoted to him, but you still don’t have his heart. So how would you know if he gave it away to someone else?”

“I don’t need to worry about something like that!” Amy said, looking up the runway.

“Don’t mind me, then,” Shin shrugged, and walked back off into the trees, disappearing from sight.

-

Podarge found Sonic stretched out on the far side of the workshop’s sloped roof, eyes closed like he might be napping. But when she jumped up beside him, he sat up with a smile. “Morning!”

“I found Boreas, the last wind lord,” Po spoke quickly.

Sonic’s eyes opened wider. “I guess you were busy! Is that what you and Shin were doing?”

“Shin?”

“I thought she went to look for you. She’s around somewhere, I guess. But, where is this wind guy? Is he in trouble?”

Podarge shook her head, and dropped off the roof to the ground below. Sonic dropped beside her, and she went on, “He’s fine for now, but V will be after him. V’s trying to destroy the seals that guard the Final Door. He’ll be after you, too, Sonic.”

“Might be faster than us trying to find him!” Sonic said.

“We better hope not! Boreas is hiding in the capital. V hasn‘t attacked that place yet, so maybe he won‘t. Boreas is a powerful wind lord, if you go to him he’ll be able to use the Final Door to get us all out of this world before Eggman sets the white wind loose!”

“Wait, what? Why would we leave? If Boreas can do that much, we can just fight V and Eggman both!”

“The Door is already so weak, using it‘s power at all will be dangerous. Using it to fight would cause the same damage, but if we use it to escape instead, at least we could go to my world. It would be better there.”

“I’m not going anywhere! If the Final Door won’t work, we’ll find another way. I’m not going to let this world end! What about all of our other friends?”

“They can come, too! Everyone you know, I’m sure Boreas is strong enough to do that! So it would be okay, we don’t have to lose anyone else, see?”

Sonic shook his head. “Forget it. What about all the people I don’t know? What would happen to them? This is no time to get desperate, Po. It’s not an option.”

“But we don’t know another way!”

“We’ll keep looking! This is the world we have, we can’t just give up on it!”

She walked a few steps away from him, and shouted into the sky, “It isn’t my world! I’m a harpy, I never had any business getting dragged into the wars here. Don’t you care?”

“Didn’t you and Zephyr both think this world was still worth fighting for?”

Podarge reached a hand up towards the sky, wrapping her fingers around the broken curve of the moon visible there, but of course her hand was empty when she drew it back. “I gave up my wings to stay here. I gave up an immortal claim on heaven…” She spun around to him to add, “But looking back now, I don’t know that I did the right thing. I don’t know that Zephyr did, either, saving me. You have his power with you, but you don’t have to make his mistake.”

“Of course not, this is my life, no one else’s! You can trust me more than that, Po.”

“Like I trusted you to protect the wind lords? Or to save my sisters?”

Sonic and Po stared at each other. There were many ways that Sonic could have answered her accusation, but he asked, “What do you want me to say to that?”

She drooped a little. “Nothing. That’s just how I talk, I’m a harpy. But don’t you get it? We can’t have everything.”

“So you don’t care what’ll happen to this world, since it’s not ‘yours’?”

“I don’t care! I don’t care,” she repeated weakly.

Sonic crossed his arms, a deep frown on his face. He sounded exasperated as he finally answered, “…You know, for a harpy, you’re a pretty bad liar.”

The spikes behind her shoulders trembled as an angry look came over her face. Po made her hands into tight fists, shaking, her whole body tense. But when she looked back at Sonic an odd, thoughtful look crept into her eyes. She stepped towards him suddenly, throwing her arms around him and saying softly, “So you really won’t help me?”

Sonic had tried to back out of her way, but she was too fast for him to dodge. Perhaps he thought she was going to strike at him, or perhaps he knew she was trying to hug him and he didn’t like that any better. But when she said that, he stopped and lifted his hands to awkwardly pat her back.

At that moment, Amy Rose was rounding the corner of the workshop, a determined look on her face. But seeing them there, silently embracing, she froze and then spun around to sprint away without a word. Neither had noticed she was there. Sonic was quiet for a moment, then tried to convince Podarge, saying, “I will help, but not like that. We can’t do it your way, some things are just more important than saving ourselves, right? We can’t give up. …P-Po?” he asked, his voice suddenly weak and his eyes rolling shut as he went limp.

Po, still holding him, lowered him gently to the ground, her hand passing through his chest as she lifted away a small knot of tangled bright light out from his body. It pulsed brighter just as it finally parted from him, and a wind picked up and spun about them both briefly, pushing at them ineffectually and then blowing itself out. Podarge hid the light away, but lingered to look at him motionless on the ground. “I knew you’d say no. …But I had to try.”

Tails came outside a moment later, announcing, “Some sort of power surge just knocked out my equipment, but I- Sonic?!” He ran over to his friend. “Are you okay, Sonic?! Podarge, do you know what happened?”

Podarge took another step back. “He’ll wake up in a minute, but I can’t say that he’ll be okay.”

“What’s wrong with him?” Tails asked, but Podarge turned and ran into the jungle, as fast as she had ever moved before. The wind roared after her, and Tails hung onto the ground to keep from getting blown over.

The gust seemed to rouse Sonic, who shook his head and pushed himself back up. “What was that? What just happened?” Then he seemed to remember, and stood quickly. “Where’s Podarge?”

“She ran that way,” Tails said, pointing after her.

Sonic turned to run after her, but he had hardly managed four paces before he dropped back onto his knees. “My body… feels so heavy,” he said, breathing hard.

[SoDi]

-30- A Change of Plans

Shadow was impatient. “All the chaos emeralds are here, I’ll track down V myself. It’s a waste of time staying in this place.”

Tails turned away from his computers, where he had gotten them running again after the surge. “But I’m close to finding something, I just know it!”

Sonic nodded. “I know how you feel, Shadow, but we better let Tails do his thing. Or do you have a lead?”

“I’ll find one.”

“I’ll come with you!” Sonic announced.

“You said you’d stay out of my way! I don’t need dead weight slowing me down,” Shadow said.

“Ouch. You never pull your punches,” Sonic answered, hands on hips.

“You don’t want to get your speed back, first?” Knuckles asked him. The four of them were in the hangar where Tails had set up his equipment, since this room was in better condition than the rest of the damaged building. The Tornado was parked behind them, near the large doors.

“This is the perfect time to tie up loose ends!” Sonic assured him.

“That’s the plan, isn’t it?” Tails realized. “While Podarge and the last wind lord are safe hiding out in Centropolis, we can help Shadow. She took your speed because she knows V is trying to destroy the wind seals, right? With the threat gone, she should give it back!”

“That harpy?” Shadow looked back over his shoulder at Sonic. “Celaeno. She was summoned into this world to destroy it. She stole your power, and betrayed your trust. She chose her path when she chose to go against you, and became the enemy.”

“She’s not the enemy!” Sonic said.

“You sound pathetic. Figure it out. She’s been playing you for a fool, but you refuse to recognize the deceit. This world is not as good and pure as you think it is. But this is life.”

“That’s not my life. That’s not how I live it! You’re wrong about this world, and so is she. Why don’t you believe that?”

“You think you can convince me?” Shadow crossed his arms. “Some things are harder than just losing a fight, and that’s what you’re up against, isn’t it?” Sonic looked away, the casual smile gone from his face as Shadow went on, “You could try to save her from the doctor’s plot, or even the power of the Final Door, but you can’t save her from herself.”

Sonic shook his head, vehement. “Think so? What if you’re wrong? I promised her we’d finish this, and it isn’t over yet, but I can’t do it alone. And you know about promises, Shadow!”

Shadow closed his eyes. “There’s no arguing with fools.”

Sonic wasn‘t done arguing. “Shadow, I-!”

“You do what you want, but when I go I won’t wait around for you.”

Sonic seemed to relax, and then he grinned. “Yeah!”

Tails ran over to the Tornado to pull out the last chaos emerald, and then handed it to Shadow. “Then you really do need to be ready,” he told them, grabbing his own backpack and pulling it over his shoulders. “Eggman will be prepared, too!”

Shadow looked at the gem he was holding. “He will. He knows enough to still be afraid of me, V said as much about his master when I met him in the Gallowood.”

Sonic froze. “…Hold up, Shadow. Change of plans!”

“This isn‘t a game,” Shadow glared at him.

Sonic tapped his chin and raised one eyebrow. “You’re sure V said he’s working for Eggman?”

“He mentioned his master, and Robotnik is his creator. A tool is meant to be used, and so long as his orders are worthy of his abilities, that fake would follow them.”

Sonic shrugged nonchalantly, but his eyes were bright, as if he were thinking quickly. “When I met him, he told me he wasn’t working for the doctor. I figured that meant he’s a free agent. Maybe he gave it up. But you’d know his mind better than anyone, so you tell me. Would V lie about something like that?”

Shadow frowned. “…No.”

“Then I have to wonder. Who else is involved in this that he could be calling his master?” Sonic crossed his arms, and the others were silent as they thought it over.

Then Shadow looked at him and nodded. “…Change of plans.”

“What is it?” asked Knuckles.

“Tails! Have you been scanning the signals coming out of Centropolis?” Sonic asked, running over to him and the computers.

“The capital? There haven’t really been any signals broadcasting.”

“But there’s a military base in the city, right? With all the trouble going on, that kind of silence is a bit suspicious, isn’t it?”

Tails looked alarmed, and began hitting buttons. It didn’t take him long to find something, now that they knew where to look. “I didn‘t find it before, because they hid it beneath the same energy signature as the GUN equipment, but there’s definitely a V-tech reading coming from the city!”

“He’s been under GUN’s nose this whole time,” Knuckles said, shaking his head. “But why did you think of it just now, Sonic?”

“Because I just got the feeling that this last wind guy has been manipulating things behind the scenes. We have less time than we thought, if all of this was planned!”

“Are you serious?!” asked Knuckles.

“I have a hunch,” Sonic said with a smile.

“It’s a big city. I can‘t pinpoint anything, there‘s too much interference from the base shielding, and it might take too long to search on foot,” Tails told them. Then his eyes narrowed as he read the data over again, as if something there had caught his attention, something more troubling.

“I’m fast enough. I’m going ahead,” Shadow said.

Sonic nodded. “We’ll take the Tornado and meet you there.”

“Wait!” Tails interrupted them. “This signal is-”

But Shadow wasn’t waiting any longer. He had already lifted up the chaos emerald. “Chaos control!”

Seeing his opportunity about to pass by in a blink, Tails jumped at Shadow in the split second when the emerald flashed, vanishing both of them.

“Tails!” Sonic shouted, reaching out a hand to where his friend had been standing, but only he and Knuckles were left in the workshop now.

“I wonder what he was trying to say?” and Knuckles stared at the computer screen. “I can’t understand any of this!”

Sonic gave a look at the equipment, but he couldn’t make sense of it, either. The readings were all too technical. “We’ll ask when we catch up to them. We better leave now, too.”

“What about Amy? I haven’t seen her since yesterday. I don‘t think anyone has.”

Sonic looked surprised. “She’s missing? Oh man, what next?”

“We better find her,” Knuckles said, and Sonic had to agree. They split up, to try covering more of the jungle. Of course Sonic could still run and jump and spin, but he had lost his super-powered edge, so they didn’t know how long the search would take.

Sonic found Amy eventually, on a hill above the ocean. She was watching a storm roll in, her hands held behind her back and her face downcast. Sonic looked relieved to see that she wasn’t in trouble, at least. He rubbed his nose and called out with a smile, “Hey, don’t look so blue, that’s what I’m here for!”

She spun around, eyes brimming with tears as she shouted, “Soooniiic!!” She raced towards him, pulling out her hammer once she was halfway down the
hill. “You big jerk!!”

“What did I do this time??” Sonic instinctively ran to get out of the way, but Amy was faster now that he had no super speed and overtook him quickly. Just as she was about to reach him she stopped completely, letting her hammer fall to the ground and clasping her hands in front of her chest. Sonic had already braced himself for the hit, but now that it wasn’t coming he looked up and asked in surprise, “You’re not going to clobber me?”

“There’s something wrong,” Amy realized. She poked him in the shoulder. “Why weren’t you running away?”

“I was running!”

A look of recognition came over Amy, and she gasped. “You’ve lost your speed!”

Sonic waved a finger at her, and said, “This isn’t the first time I’ve been slowed down. Eggman’s taken my speed before, and it didn’t stop me then, either! We’ve already lost a lot of time, but I think we‘ve tracked down where V and Robotnik are. Come on,” he said, ready to lead the way back.

Amy pulled him back by the wrist before he could leave. “But it wasn’t Robotnik who did this, right?”

He nodded. “I know.”

“I wasn’t there to protect you, this is all my fault!” she worried, realizing now what had happened.

“What are you talking about?”

“I don’t understand! Why aren’t you angry?!”

“About what? Come on, I need your help. I think Podarge is in trouble, too.”

“Why are you still so stubborn about her?! I don’t understand you sometimes, Sonic! Is it really because I can’t see the world like you do? But you can’t run that fast now, so why is it still so hard for you to understand me?”

“You’re talking weird again, Amy,” Sonic said, his brow furrowing in confusion.

“You let yourself get tricked, and I couldn’t protect you, either. What if something worse happens? If you go after Robotnik now, how do I know you’ll come back at all?”

“You’re really taking this hard,” Sonic said, mostly to himself. He put a hand under her chin and tipped her face upward so that she would look at him. “But I’ll always come back!”

“You say that, but how can I believe you? You can be such an idiot sometimes!” she said, pounding weakly at his chest.

He put his hands on her shoulders and waited until she had calmed down again. Even the birds in the trees had gone quiet, so that the only sounds were the wind in the leaves and the pulse of the ocean, like a slow heartbeat. Sonic had a serious look as he searched her face, and said, softly, “…Even if you don’t believe me, believe in me.”

Amy’s face went all pink, even more than it usually was. “…I do, Sonic! I love you, no matter what! …I’m never giving up on you.”

“I know,” he smiled, stepping away from her again.

“And you came all this way to find me, because you were worried about me?” she added, her eyes turning heart shaped. Sonic saw that look and just rubbed the back of his head. “ Just tell me how I can help, I‘ll always be here for you when you need me!”

“Well, good. You can pilot the Tornado, we can’t let Knuckles fly it. We need to catch up to Shadow!”

“Shadow?!” The hearts popped back into their normal eye-shapes and Amy frowned.

“Now wh-” Sonic began, ready to defend himself.

But she pressed a finger against his mouth to shush him and, smiling resignedly, said, “Don’t worry, I can handle it.”

[SoDi]

-31- Damage Control

Shadow reappeared in the middle of a street in downtown Centropolis. Brightly colored banners were fluttering in the wind, balloons were tied to eaves and streetlamps, and confetti littered the ground. Flags declaring the city’s celebration of the midsummer festival were hanging from the sides of buildings, and it looked to be a festive affair, but there was no one around to celebrate. The streets were all deserted.

He shook Tails off his arm, scowling, “Don’t follow me!” Shadow looked around at the street with a puzzled look, as if surprised to find himself here.

The fox picked himself up and shook his head. “You don’t understand, whatever V-tech created that signal is highly unstable, and if you use your powers to fight V-Shadow there’s no knowing what could happen! I can try shutting the machinery down myself, but you were in such a hurry to find V, and it’d have been too slow for me to-”

“I am not an escort service!” Shadow growled loudly, the emerald in his hand flashing again as he warped away a second time. Or tried to. But he didn’t do more than blink back into the same place he was standing. “Is it some kind of interference?” he wondered quietly to himself, looking around again. “Or…”

“Shadow, what’s wrong?”

“This is the wrong side of the city,” Shadow said, but it was as if he was talking to himself and ignoring Tails. Then he skated down the street quickly, too fast for the fox to keep pace.

“Wait up, Shadow!” Tails said, following as best he could. Bad pop music played with a tinny sound from speakers hung along the streets, and at an outdoor restaurant he passed there were still plates and menus set out, as if there had been people here not too long ago. A bandstand and its abandoned instruments stood at the end of another street. The festive atmosphere just made the empty streets that much more ominous.

Tails took a deep breath, trying to focus on following Shadow and not on the eerie surroundings. He didn’t know his way around Centropolis well enough to try getting to the GUN base on his own. “I have to be brave! I know I can shut down that V-tech,” he said, trying to encourage himself. He adjusted his backpack across his shoulders, so it wouldn‘t be in the way as he ran. “But it’s so spooky, with it all empty like this…” He rounded another corner, trying to keep sight of where Shadow was going, and almost ran into a broken sentry machine. It was too badly damaged to tell whether it was Eggman’s or GUN’s. The wall of the building behind it had also been blasted in. Now that he was further into the Centropolis downtown, Tails was beginning to notice other signs of recent fighting amidst the festival decorations, scorch marks and discarded weapons and broken street lamps with the exposed wires still sparking. He was so distracted by these signs of combat that he almost tripped a second time over another broken machine, and gave out a startled cry.

Amazingly, the machine shouted back, “Watch it!”

Tails panicked. “Waaahh! A talking head!! Oh, wait, it’s a bot,” he said, bending down to poke at the round metal head. It snapped its teeth at his fingers, twitching its broken metal mustache, and Tails jumped back. “Eggster?!”

“You gregarious furball, where is your blue ally? For it is I, Dexter, the master of your undoing!” The severed head of Eggster attempted to nod, but only managed to roll forward onto its face. Tails used the toe of his shoe to nudge the head back upright. “Ahem. Thank you,” said Eggster.

“What happened to you?”

“Doctor Robotnik was rather unhappy when he found out what happened at Tar Mountain, and ordered me to be recycled. But my head broke off in the process. I’ve been attempting to leave the city, but it’s difficult getting around. The stairs are too much for me, and I can’t reach the blasted elevator buttons, either!”

“So Robotnik is here!”

“He has already moved on to the next stage of his master plan. He took control of this city some time ago, but would not reveal that control until the time was right. And, the time is now! Ack!” Eggster rolled backwards as he became too excited.

“What about V? Is he here, too?”

Eggster rocked himself back to face Tails again and answered, “I assume so! He was keen on pursuing some independent research with spirit summoning, and all the equipment is in the secret base. As more of the power of the white wind becomes unfettered, the technology Doctor Robotnik has built from it likewise grows stronger.”

“Summoning? But Robotnik already has the spirit army,” Tails pointed out.

“V-Shadow was very insistent. For example, that specimen behind you is-” “What?!?” Tails said, flying out of the way as an odd, silvery creature with limp limbs and no face slunk up behind him and then lashed at the fox with its arms. Tails, still carrying Eggster under one arm, flicked his free wrist so that his spirit hex dropped out of his glove and into his hand, where he could flip the device on. The monster slowed, its whole body flickering as it wailed with an eerily child-like voice, and Tails used the opportunity to race away, his tails spinning behind him to give him an extra push of speed.

Tails rounded several corners, becoming more lost even as he hoped to lose the monster. When it seemed that he would not be followed, he shook Eggster violently and asked, “What was that?! That wasn’t some half-summoned underworlder!”

“Please, desist!” Eggster begged, and Tails stopped shaking him. “It probably was a minor doppelganger, escaped from the research facility under the base.”

“I am totally lost,” Tails realized, looking around. “Eggster, I still have a lot of questions, but right now I need to get to that base! There’s some sort of powerful V-tech there. V’s experimenting with the white wind, but with so many of the wind seals broken it’s becoming unstable, right? The whole city could be destroyed!”

“Only with a rapid build up of kinetic energy in the wrong places. It’s perfectly safe otherwise.”

“But Shadow’s come here to fight V! They’ll be attacking each other with chaos energy!”

“In that case, yes, the entire city is likely doomed.”

Tails’ shoulders drooped. “You say that like it doesn’t matter.” He shook his head and added, “But it does, Eggster! And I can stop it from happening, if you can get me to that machine!”

“Ha! Why should I help you?”

Tails frowned and began shaking Eggster again. The spherical head rattled as a few small parts were shaken loose on the inside. “We don’t have time for that! If this city is destroyed, that includes you, too! And Robotnik!”

“Bah! Stop that! Fine. It won’t do you any good, anyway. Soon, Doctor Robotnik shall be invincible!”

-

Shadow was still skating down the streets when he heard someone shout out to him, and he slid to a stop. “Shadow! Shadow, over here!” Rouge the Bat cried out to him. Once she had his attention, she glided down from a nearby rooftop where she’d been hiding and landed nearby. “It is you, right?”

Shadow nodded. “How did you know?”

Rouge shrugged. “That android that came through earlier called himself Shadow, but he was no gentleman! And you’re actually more of an ask-first, shoot-later sort of guy.”

Shadow looked her up and down. “You look terrible.”

She did. She was wearing her suit with the heart-shaped front, but it was torn, and she looked to have been in a bad fight. Even the make-up she was always so meticulous about looked ignored. Rouge pouted, “What sort of a greeting is that? Do you know how long you kept me waiting?”

“And you’re injured,” Shadow added, ignoring her comment.

Rouge flicked her wrist casually. “Don’t think I let my guard down. I could have avoided the whole fight, but I didn’t want to leave the place unprotected. There were a lot of people in the way when Robotnik took the city, mostly civilians. This is just what I get for having such a big heart!” she complained.

“…I’m sorry.”

She stopped, as if she had been interrupted, and then smiled. “You should be!” She turned and called out loudly to the building behind her, “Are you just going to hide all day?”

“Who’s there?” Shadow asked her.

“Most of Centropolis has evacuated. I found some of the other GUN personnel and we were looking for a way to take the city back. We split up, but one of the researchers is still with me,” she answered, as one figure emerged from the building and ran over to them. It was Professor Pickles.

“Shadow the Hedgehog! I had heard from Amy Rose about that look-alike of yours. The resemblance is truly remarkable! But when we were attacked, no one else believed that the attacker might not be you. Other than Miss Rouge, here.” She waved off the remark.

Shadow lowered his face, but his expression was blank. “I don’t need anyone’s trust. Is V still at the base?”

“Is that his name? ‘V’? What is his problem anyway?” Rouge asked. Then she sighed. “It would make sense if he was there. The closer you get to the base, the more dangerous this city is. But if you’re trying to get there, what are you doing on this side of the city?”

“My chaos powers won‘t work right any closer than this. You said there were other soldiers here. What is the status of GUN?”

“As far as I can tell, struggling but still kicking. When Sonic went berserk, the higher ups were pushing to use one of the big missiles, to take down him and that copy of yours at the same time. But by the time the debates were finished, Sonic had vanished again. Everyone was given assignments for damage control of some kind. Then this place was taken over while we were still regrouping. I mean it, Shadow, since you left it’s been nothing but one disaster after another.”

Pickles added, “I’m glad that the interruptions at least prevented them from using that nuclear weapon. I would hope they never use it.”

“They do what they need to,” Shadow told him, though he didn‘t seem particularly approving as he said it. “GUN protects this world the best way they know how.”

“I’m glad you don’t carry a grudge, but shouldn’t we be going?” Rouge reminded him.

“We?”

Before Rouge could defend her choice of words, a yellow blur burst around the corner of the block and almost crashed into them. Tails was able to stop just in time. “Shadow! You’re still here!”

“Are you still following me?”

“Rouge and the Professor, too,” Tails realized. “Listen, I know where the entrance to the secret facility beneath the base is! It’s in Crusader’s Plaza!”

Tails was still wearing his backpack, now with Eggster’s head perched in the top of it. The bot peered over the fox’s shoulder now to add, “Which is directly across from the base’s main entrance, if you didn’t know.”

“Of course we know!” Rouge scoffed.

“That’s a very long way from here. Across the river, and past the industrial district,” Pickles said, thinking it over.

“I bet the rail cars aren’t working anymore, but we could find a vehicle,” Tails said. “There should be something around we could use.”

Rouge shook her head. “All the GUN equipment was destroyed. That V took out the military garages, too. I guess he didn’t want us using any of the good stuff.”

“Then I’m better off on foot. Civilian vehicles aren’t fast enough,” Shadow said, ready to leave again.

“Wait!” Tails interrupted, and turned to Pickles. “Professor, how did you get to Centropolis from Riverton?”

“When we received the broadcast that GUN personnel were to regroup in the capital, I came using your motorbike. I still had it, so I hope you don’t mind that I used it again.”

“That’s fine, but where did you put it?”

“I’m only an academic, not a soldier, so I parked in the downtown public garage, of course.”

Tails waved his arms in his excitement. “That‘s great! It means we can take my bike!”

“…You have a motorcycle?” Shadow asked.

It wasn’t far, and Pickles led them to the bike, which did look very out of place among all the mundane cars parked around it. Tails rolled it out of its space as he explained excitedly, “It can auto-adjust for different terrain types, and has a max speed over three hundred. It runs off a self-charging power cell I designed for it, so we don’t have to worry about refueling, and the-”

“You have a motorcycle?” Shadow repeated, looking the machine over.

“Well, yeah. I built it.”

Shadow allowed himself a slight smile. “…Let me show you how to drive it,” and he jumped up into the seat.

“But I know how to-… Okay, sure.”

Shadow looked back at the others. “You should find the rest of the soldiers and finish the evacuation. Once I find V, I don’t know what will happen.”

“I can radio the others,” Pickles agreed, and when Shadow nodded, the professor left.

But Rouge put on a lavender helmet and sat down behind the hedgehog. “That’s only a one-person job, anyway. If you’re going back to the base, I’m coming with you.” She gave the bike a wary look. “If this piece of patchwork can get us there, that is.”

“Don’t worry, it’s a great bike!” Tails told her, standing nearby and strapping on his own helmet. Then he said to Shadow, “But you need to wear a helmet, too! I can find you one. Safety is important!”

Shadow turned to look at Tails, very slowly, and raised his hand. The fox flinched, but Shadow just used the hand to reach behind himself and pull out a large black helmet. He pushed it over his quills, and a dark visor slid down that completely covered his face. “Let’s go,” he said, and Tails had just enough time to jump onto the back before Shadow sped the bike out of the garage and into the empty city streets.

[SoDi]

-32- The Shadow Knows

While driving through the decorated avenues of Centropolis, Shadow had to navigate past more underworld shades, and the occasional silvery monster. With no one left to guard the city, the creatures were wandering unchecked. There were also many cars left abandoned in the streets from where people had fled, or places where a damaged building had collapsed into the road. But Shadow drove well enough that they weren’t slowed down by any real fighting. They were approaching a large bridge that led to mid-town, when the sky overhead flashed and a white line of light rippled through the clouds, turning them dark and stormy. A wind picked up with a roar and it began to hail. Light continued to ripple through the darkened sky in broken waves for several long minutes.

“What was that?” wondered Rouge.

“That wasn’t just an invocation of the white wind. I think another of the seals has been broken!” Tails worried.

“Hang on,” Shadow told them, as several larger silhouettes at the end of the bridge ahead of them began to shake, forming into something that looked more solid. But he didn’t slow down the bike to see what was happening, he drove onto a nearby car as if it was a launching ramp, sending them into the air and over the monsters’ heads. They landed back on the bridge with a violent bounce and kept going, zipping through the midtown and then the industrial district, up the hills towards the base.

They finally arrived in Crusader’s Plaza, a bricked city square with one high wall of the nearby GUN base visible on the north side above the roofs of the buildings. A large sculpture of soldier heroes stood at its center, but this place was also filled with the rustle of shifting underworlders. Several dark-feathered harpies dove through the air with a shriek, but not at the motorcycle, instead at a band of red and much larger ogre-like creatures with horns on their heads, oni carrying heavy clubs. Those pounded the air with their weapons when the harpies came too close, but weren’t fast enough to actually hit the flyers.

“Are they fighting each other? Slow down, Shadow!” Tails said.

Rouge told the fox, “Whatever they are, they’re blocking our way!”

Shadow seemed to agree with her, since he did not slow down, but actually sped up. Halfway across the plaza, he turned and grabbed the other two, jumping with them off the bike as it went crashing into the band of underworlders. The harpies, frightened by the crash, flew off in a flash, but the oni stood back up with angry looks at the three adventurers.

“Out of my way!” Shadow warned them. One just raised his club and charged at Shadow. “Chaos spear!” and the bolt of energy twisted chaotically through the air but still managed to blast into the monster, throwing him back into a companion and knocking both of them to the ground. The remains of the chaos spear skittered across the cobbled street for several seconds before vanishing, warped by whatever force was affecting Shadow’s chaos powers, but also giving the plaza an eerie energetic glow. The remaining underworlders scattered. The way forward was clear.

-

Shin stood on the dark gray wall that enclosed the west side of the military base, on a hill that overlooked the rest of the capital stretched out below. She kept her ears forward as she sniffed at the storm that had blown in so suddenly. The wind twisted when Podarge dashed up behind her to ask, “Anything?”

“Other than the weather? No. Again. Are you surprised?”

“Well, I guess not. He’s slow.”

“He isn’t coming.”

“Even if he doesn’t want to help us, I still think he might try to stop us.”

The wind turned cold and twisted its direction one more time as Boreas joined them on the wall, stepping out of the air. “Without the wind seal, you don’t believe he would still be much of a threat, do you?”

“Sonic wasn’t just fast, you know,” Podarge answered, shaking her head. “He’s pretty strong, too. And smart, practically brilliant, though he never lets on! He’s also got some uncanny intuition, or maybe he’s just lucky, all the time. And Sonic-”

Boreas laughed. “Are you sure you aren’t overestimating him? You seem to think very highly of this hedgehog, but perhaps your opinion is colored by your fondness for him?”

“Is not! He can’t do everything, and I think the reason Eggman never could beat Sonic was just because he always underestimated him. So you can’t afford to. I’m just saying, even without the wind seal, there’s still a lot he could do, so long as he doesn’t give up.”

Boreas nodded. “Yes. That is why I have broken the third seal. It should buy us some more time.”

Podarge peered up at the storm clouds, shielding her head from the scattered hail that was still falling. “Why would it help? I mean, you have to break the seals anyway, to power the spirit beacon.”

“The shades of the underworlders are thick here, and with another seal destroyed, they should be drawn into this world completely. That will make them more of a hindrance to anyone attempting to approach.”

“But Robotnik never made a deal with them, they’re here unwillingly,” Shin pointed out. “They’ll be as likely to attack us as to stop Sonic.”

“I can leave details like that to you while the doctor and I finish preparations, can I not?” Shin narrowed her eyes, but when she looked at the harpy, Podarge nodded.

The hound shrugged. “But perhaps Sonic will give up. After what you did to him,” she pointed out.

Podarge tugged at her horn. “…Maybe,” she admitted. “But he’s too stubborn. And he has a lot of friends to help him. If they all came together, we could still have trouble! Knuckles is really strong, and Amy can be, too, when she gets angry.”

“Brute force is hardly enough to harm our plans now,” Boreas said.

Podarge smiled. “I’d agree with you, except that you don’t know Amy Rose! And Tails is probably as good with machines as Eggman, so having all these mechanical traps wouldn’t do much for long.”

“And can’t Shadow teleport in? He seems the more likely threat,” Shin interrupted.

“That’s been accounted for,” was all Boreas said.

“…Why are you here?” Shin asked Boreas. “You aren’t one to chat. You have news,” she guessed, answering her own question.

“There was a disturbance on the edge of the city. That blue hedgehog is coming, after all.”

Po was surprised and made a face at him. “Really? Why didn’t you just say that from the beginning?!”

The wind lord smiled. “He is riding in an airplane, but the city’s anti-aircraft defenses are still working, and won’t allow them closer. He’s been forced to ground.”

“It’ll take Sonic forever to get here, then!”

Boreas raised an eyebrow. “Not as long a time as we might have thought. Sonic is riding in on some sort of powered skateboard.”

Podarge clapped. “So he’s surfing the asphalt! That sounds awesome!” She perched on the very edge of the wall, staring out into the forest of skyscrapers, but of course nothing was visible from here.

Boreas also looked out to the city. “The fox and the pink hedgehog were with him.”

Now Shin looked surprised. “I didn’t expect Amy Rose to follow him.”

Po asked, “Why wouldn’t she? You know how she is!”

The hound told her, “I overheard your conversation in the Mystic Ruins, and you were too encouraging. It was our plan to separate his friends with doubt, remember? So I corrected for you. Amy Rose is naturally jealous, so I‘m surprised she‘s still here.”

“You were there to eavesdrop? Wait a minute, you told her what?? Ewww! And she believed you?!”

Shin laughed at her.

“Sonic must know how poor his chances are,” Boreas said. “But he is coming, nonetheless. He is possessed of a truly indomitable will.”

Podarge nodded. “Not just that! Nothing ever keeps him down!” Boreas laughed at her, too. “I just can’t win,” Po said to herself, wondering what everyone else thought was so funny.

“I had almost forgotten what it was like, talking with you like this.”

“I’m going ahead. We might have created more trouble for ourselves than it was worth,” Shin grumbled, racing away to prepare a defense.

Before Po followed, she told Boreas, “It might slow him down, but this won’t stop him.”

“You are right. I have informed the doctor of Sonic’s approach as well, and he is personally preparing a welcome of his own, using the machines. But we can take no chances. I will be able to retrieve the night wind soon, and return it to you, as you have desired.”

“So I’ll be ready to stop Sonic myself, you mean?”

“Are you really willing to fight someone you once called friend?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“But you should not have to. The beacon’s core chamber is ready, and now with this third seal to power it, that might be more effective to use as a trap. You will be more successful with a trick than with a direct confrontation, I imagine.”

“The core chamber? I shouldn’t need that!”

“You said yourself, we must not underestimate our enemies. This is too important. I am counting on you, Celaeno.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” and she ran off after Shin.

-

Shadow led them into one of what must have been many laboratories in the complex hidden beneath the base. It was obvious as soon as they entered that this room had seen a great deal of use recently. Machinery hummed and entire sections of the room looked like they had been moved or carved back to allow for the cables and additional devices that were running through the space. “What has been going on here?” Rouge wondered.

Tails ran over to the first computer terminal he saw, but after a moment, he turned back and said to them, “This isn’t the V-tech that was giving off that signal before. It’s something to do with the white wind, I recognize some of the coding from the base in the Dead Zone. But it’s not what we’re looking for!”

Tails was ready to leave, but Shadow said, “No, he’s here.”

“V is?” the fox asked, nervous. “You can’t fight him here! The V-tech around here is too sensitive, and your own powers are still warped, right?”

“I’ll manage. Stay close.” They moved through the room slowly, careful of their surroundings, but nothing else was moving. Then, suddenly, the air nearby wavered and a large black motorcycle blinked into existence, careening towards them. V was driving it at them at an already incredible velocity. He leapt off just before he reached them, using the same maneuver Shadow had used to clear their path in the plaza, and he landed on the ground as the bike crashed into the others with a loud explosion.

The fire died down and Shadow stood back up amidst the wreckage. V shook his head. “Well well, if it isn’t the penultimate life form, finally come to fight the villain and save the world. You could have dodged that, so why take it?” Shadow, ignoring V for the moment, turned to help Rouge stand back up where she and Tails had been shielded behind him. “I see. But so long as you insist on keeping a handicap, I won’t waste my time fighting you.”

Shadow looked at the burning remains of the black motorcycle, scattered across the floor of the lab. “…That was my favorite bike.”

“I know. I wanted to give you a proper hello. You really are attached to your tools. You must identify with them.”

“You seem to like your tools. Keeping the doctor around would be useful for that, but is that all you were using him for?”

“A warp chain and a few weapons are nothing to get excited about,” V said, ripping something from the back of his glove and letting it fall to the ground. He reached behind himself and drew out two large guns, one in either hand. Shadow raised his arms defensively, but V just let the guns drop to the ground, as well.

Rouge looked between the two identical hedgehogs, then around the room, searching for something that might serve as better cover as she continued to back away. Tails was not looking for shelter, so she grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him after her.

Shadow crossed his arms. “I’ve caught up to you. I know you won’t run this time.”

“Then you must also know why it’s so important that you don’t disappoint me.”

“You took the city, and hurt all those people, just because they were in your way!!” Shadow shouted angrily.

“In my way? But they weren’t. They were just there!” V laughed.

“What?!”

“You won’t have forgotten why you started this quest in the first place. Shadow. You wanted the power of the Final Door! But that didn’t matter once I showed up. It isn’t as though you were distracted, but you have your priorities. So I took the liberty of finishing what you started.”

Shadow’s eyes were now locked on the dark opening that appeared in the machinery against the far wall. Something moved there, and they could hear the small flutter of frightened breathing. Slowly, a small blond child climbed timidly out from the doorway, thick fog spilling out behind her as the machine gave her up, it‘s restraints still clinging to her blue dress. Shadow could only watch. “Maria?” he whispered, and she turned towards him, wide-eyed.

“It can’t be,” Rouge shook her head, stepping further away. “What is this machine?”

The girl was shaking. She looked just as she had the day the ARK was attacked, just as he remembered her. Then Shadow shook his head, as if coming awake, and ran towards her as he said, “Don’t worry, I’m coming!”

Immediately, she pressed herself back against the side of the machine, watching him with wide eyes and shouting, “Stay away!!” Shadow reached an arm towards her, then let it fall. “Don’t come near, you’ll make me die again!” she cried.

Shadow couldn’t bring himself to look away from the girl who stared back at him with such a look of terror. He dropped to his knees.

“Shadow, it’s a trick!!” shouted Tails, running up beside Shadow as he drew back an arm to make a toss towards the girl, his spirit hex spinning through the air and landing on her collar, where it clung. The girl immediately began to wail, her body wavering as if they were looking at her through a haze of heat.

Shadow grabbed roughly at Tails and stood up in one motion, lifting the fox clear off the floor in his anger, but he let go again as they all saw the girl shift into a strange, silvery monster that lacked a face or any other features. It waved its limbs limply then fell to the ground, continuing to unravel in a hazy mist.

“What is this?!” Shadow shouted, as the monster finally vanished and the spirit hex slid to the ground.

V stepped forward, crushing the spirit hex underfoot and smirking as he said, “You are so easy to manipulate. I wanted to prove your weakness to you, to convince you.”

While they were speaking, Rouge had climbed along the wall behind V, and now leapt down at him with a spinning kick. “Screw you!”

V turned and caught her leg, twisting her in the air and using her momentum to throw her easily across the room at Shadow. He caught her, but the throw had winded her and she couldn’t stand, sliding to the floor instead.

“What did I tell you about handicaps?” V laughed. “It isn’t Maria’s death that haunts you, it’s how powerless you were to stop it. You, who were supposed to be the ultimate life form, could do nothing. But you should know the solution, Shadow. With enough power, you would never have to lose anything. That power is already in you. Prove it to me!”

“If you want me to beat you to a pulp, I will!”

“Shadow, stop!!” shouted Tails.

“Chaos spear!!” The bolt arced forward, branching out to bounce off of beams and cables before finally hurtling against V as a massive tangle of chaos energy. The surrounding equipment was already beginning to flare up; rather than dissipating as it had in Crusaders’ Plaza, the energy that dispersed here in the lab seemed to cling to the machinery and began to grow.

V-Shadow was knocked across the room, but that only landed him beside another control panel. He hit a series of buttons there, and another wall panel opened. The silvery monster inside shimmered and stepped out in the shape of Maria, but this time smiling and cheerful. Then two more followed behind. “Are you still not convinced? Even knowing that these are only fakes, can you say they mean nothing to you?”

The trio of Maria’s ran out in front of V and then past him, towards Shadow, who froze at their approach. They wrapped themselves around his arms, laughing. “Come play with me, Shadow!”

Without warning, and without any noticeable time needed to build up the energy, a halo of scarlet light burst from Shadow’s body, ripping into the child-like monsters and dissolving them, giving them only the briefest moment to scream. “I’m going to kill you!!” The chaos blast roared outward, crashing into the walls and into Tails and Rouge, throwing them backwards, but V vanished altogether when it hit him.

The machinery melted with a chorus of mechanical whines, the walls and floor cracked and the ceiling buckled, but all the chaos energy that had been clinging and feeding off the equipment snapped inwards as quickly as the blast had whipped out. The air roared and the pressure dropped as if half the room was imploding on the hedgehog that had acted as the catalyst.

When everything finally went still, Rouge picked herself up and ran to where Shadow had been standing. The ceiling now was completely gone, a long torn hole leading up out of the laboratory and to the surface. She shoved away a half-blasted piece of ceiling paneling to find Shadow. “You’re letting your temper get the best of you,” she said, lifting him up, but he didn’t answer. He was out. “Not that I blame you.”

Tails recovered his backpack, and the head of Eggster, who had rolled out when the pack was knocked off. Then Tails ran over to Rouge, but she didn‘t need his help. “Are you going to carry Shadow? Wow, Rouge! You’re stronger than you look!”

“What??” she scoffed. “Hmph! And you’re an obnoxious child!”

“We should get out of here,” he added. “Before anything worse happens!”

“I think Shadow is set on fighting that copy of his. He sent him running, but that won‘t be enough for him.”

Tails shook his head. “But, I don’t think he can really beat V. He’s fought him before, several times, and he keeps losing.”

“Really?” Rouge asked, surprised.

“Just… shut up,” Shadow muttered, coming back to his senses.

Rouge set him down on his feet, and he stood on his own. “Well, you’re finished here. Remind me never to make you angry.”

Shadow pressed a hand to the side of his head, as if it ached. “No. He’s still here.”

“You’re kidding? There’s nothing left here but us, and a hole in the ground,” Rouge said, though she was looking around as if afraid something might jump up out of the rubble at any moment.

Shadow stared at his open hand, then made a fist. “I know what‘s interfering with my powers. But now I can follow him.”

“Follow? But you just said he was here! You say the strangest things, sometimes,” Rouge sighed.

Eggster, perched once again at Tails’ shoulder, twitched his broken mustache at the hedgehog and said, “You are both failed experiments, as far as I am concerned. But your abilities to manipulate space and time are magnificent!”

Tails’ eyes went wide. “You mean the interference with Shadow’s chaos powers is due to V creating a temporal anomaly?!”

“Translation?” asked Rouge.

“He is here, Rouge! Sort of,” Tails said. “But somehow he’s holding himself apart from us in space and time, so that we can’t see or hear him!”

“What a freak!” said Rouge, and Shadow just looked away.

“But how can you follow him?” Tails asked.

“V’s quantum chaos is powerful, but it’s the same type of power as mine. I can sense it. And if V has learned to manipulate time and space like this, then so can I.” He held up his green emerald. “Get away from here. You might get caught up in the distortion, it‘s getting worse. I’ll chase V no matter where he’s hiding, and make him fight!”

“Why is he messing with you like this?” Rouge shrugged.

“I understand, now. He’s been testing me, in order to know his own limits.” Shadow tightened his fingers around the gem, angered by the thought of it.

“I guess he’s not just some android,” she answered.

“He’s no machine. He is me.”

“That’s not true, Shadow!” Tails interrupted. “You aren’t like him at all. You fight alike, and you have similar powers, but you’re fighting him because you’re trying to save everyone! He’s just destroying things for his own gain. He’s a monster, he doesn’t care about anyone but himself, and he- rmph!” Tails had to stop when Rouge reached around from behind him and clamped a hand tight over his mouth.

Shadow’s quills settled down, where he’d begun bristling while the fox spoke. But with Tails silenced, he seemed to become calm again. He took a moment to concentrate, as if feeling through the strange energy that still charged the air around them, then said, “Chaos control!” He vanished in a twisting pinch of light, and did not reappear this time.

Rouge let go of Tails’ face and he gasped, able to breathe again. She told him, “You’re the intelligent type, but sometimes the smartest thing is to keep your mouth shut.”

“Why’d you do that??”

She raised her nose in the air. But her only answer was, “You should know better than to interrupt when the grown-ups are talking!”

[SoDi]

-33- Enemy in Me

“Don’t toy with me!!” Shadow had found V. They stood in a hazy after-image of Crusader’s Plaza, the sky a colorless smear that was neither day nor night. The plaza and the nearby base itself were unbroken, as if the blast that had torn up through the ground had never happened. Or hadn’t happened yet. Everything was unnaturally still, as if frozen, timeless. Shades of people moving along the streets and going about mundane business were only visible from the corner of his eye, vanishing if he looked at them straight on, as if they were both here and not here.

“This is no game, it’s the harsh truth. You cling to these memories, to these gruesome images, but you don’t need them to give you drive. You are already the perfect weapon, you don’t need a motivator.”

“I am more than a weapon!”

V pointed at him. “Gerald gave you a heart, but a weapon doesn‘t need one, and that made you imperfect. That’s why you can’t beat me.” He shook his head, and added, “I have no such weakness. I am a perfect being, with clear vision, and pure purpose!”

“You talk too much,” Shadow said, pulling out a chaos emerald. “Chaos spear!”

The attack crashed into V, who raised his arms to shield himself, but the attack threw him into the next building nonetheless. As the dust was settling, Shadow tossed the rest of the chaos emeralds in the air. They hung there, glowing brightly as he stepped forward in a wreath of golden light, his quills turning from black to gold as he entered his super state. The wreath of light twisted and snapped outward, another affect of the warped space they were fighting in, and the plaza rippled along with it.

As if they had just finished flying up from the torn gap leading from the underground labs, Rouge and Tails appeared on the edge of the plaza in time to see Shadow fly after V where he had fallen.

“What happened?” Rouge asked, disoriented by the sudden shift of their surroundings.

“We must be caught inside the anomaly, we’re too close to the fight!” Tails said, pointing at where the two hedgehogs were locked in combat.

The light around Shadow and the chaos emeralds seemed to fizz and intensify as he and V grappled, and a similar light began to flash around V as he leeched that power and began to transform into a super state himself. V was able to hold his own against Super Shadow now, and continued to grow stronger as he drew more and more energy from the emeralds, the air around them shining like a soap bubble with silvery colors. With a surge of power he sent a silvery blast outwards, knocking Super Shadow away, and the chaos emeralds, depleted by the force of two hedgehogs competing over their energy, went dark and fell to the ground.

Now Super Shadow and Super-V began their fight in earnest, and chaos energy was being thrown from one side of the plaza to the other and back again, the two hedgehogs colliding in mid-air and against the ground and surrounding buildings, which were quick to fall beneath the force of their blows. For some reason, to Tails and Rouge, the fight looked as if it were occurring in slow motion, perhaps because of the warp to time. Tails swallowed hard and prepared to run forward, determined to do something to help, when Rouge grabbed him by the wrist and pulled him back again. “This is no time to be stupid! We need to get out of this thing, whatever it is!”

“But he needs our help! He’s-”

“He’s Shadow the Hedgehog! He can handle himself. We’re getting out while we can!” She flew as quickly away from the plaza as she could while dragging the fox behind. They made it into the streets just as a titanic chaos blast began to rise up from the battle site behind them, the edge of the blast close on their heels despite how everything seemed to have been slowed down.

Shadow glimpsed the two of them fleeing the plaza as the attack finished, thick red light continuing to crackle across his quills, though to him it looked as if they were the ones moving slowly. He turned back as Super-V said to him, “We’ve played at this before. But as they say, the third time’s the charm,” and they collided again.

“As they say,” said Super Shadow, and they fell away from one another, flying higher up into the air where there was more room to fight. “One way or another, it will all end here. There can’t be two ultimate life forms!” The eerie after-image of the capital was spread out below them, the street lights twinkling in the shade-filled city. “Chaos spear!” and a larger bolt of super energy shot forward, knocking Super-V out of the air and through the roof of a post office.

“Is that your best?” V asked, floating back up from the rubble. “You and I both hold a power over space and time, but you wield your strength crudely. Are you afraid of your power?” He spread his arms, and the rubble of the buildings below rose into the air, creating a maze of floating hazards around them both. “You don’t even know what you really are, and you think that you can still challenge me?!” Whole chunks of streets and buildings and even the statue from the center of the plaza tore themselves out of the ground and rose up into the air.

“I’m Shadow the Hedgehog!” was the answer, and Super Shadow flew forward like a burning comet. Immediately, the floating rubble moved to intercept him, chunks of roads and buildings crashing into him. He plowed through them and straight into Super-V, drawing the rubble after him so that it continued to pummel them both. Everything fell out of the sky and the ground shook as it all slammed to the earth.

Another building exploded as Shadow used an energy blast to get himself free of the collapse, flying back into the air. V met him there, zooming up from the ground to barrel into him from the side. They both began using chaos control to flash in and out of sight, attacking each other as they had on Tar Mountain in a furious exchange almost too quick to see. But the ground and sky around them began to shift, twisting and writhing as their fight began to interact with the temporal anomaly. Rifts began to open all around them, like ragged rips in the world through which there was nothing visible, only void. As the two hedgehogs continued to fight, the rips began to tear wider, until there was more void than city left visible. What was left was a strange collage of floating buildings and broken stone and spiraling storm clouds.

Thrown apart from one another again, Shadow had a moment to realize that this distortion was ripping outwards into the real world they had left. “What’s happening?”

“With both of us in an altered state of higher power, the spirit beacon is amplifying our distortion of time. Our fighting now reaches into yesterday and tomorrow, but as the distortion grows, it’s going to reach further into the past and future. Of course, we‘ll be fine, and can continue to fight for as long as takes.”

“There will still be people in this city.”

“Worry about yourself,” Hyper-V frowned, launching a silver-red vortex of energy at him. “Quantum chaos spear!”

Shadow flew out of the way, and watched as the energy attack flew past him and hit one of the tears in reality, forcing it wider. He turned back to V and shouted, “Stop this!!”

“…If you hesitate here, you’ll lose.” And V attacked again, with another spear of energy. Shadow took the hit this time, preventing it from ripping the distortions any wider, and it threw him onto a piece of floating roof, scattering green roofing tiles in all directions. As he watched Shadow float free of the debris, V said, “It’s too late to close the distortion, there’s too much power gathered here. I can’t stop it now, and neither can you. The power has to go somewhere.”

“This space is beginning to collapse on itself!”

V nodded. “If it does, it will take us and the city with it, everything and everyone caught in the distortion. Of course, using chaos control, the power could be reversed against the beacon that‘s amplifying it, but that sort of recoil would also tear apart the Final Door that we’ve bound to the beacon, destroying everything currently tethered to it.”

“…The creatures I helped to summon.”

“Feeling responsible? There may be more than them. Maybe the true ghost of Maria, still wandering from where my experiment failed. Maybe Hell itself. Even we don’t know how our powers will interact with the Final Door directly. But what does that matter? This one is the world you promised to protect, isn‘t it?”

“Shut up!!” Shadow shouted, but he didn’t try to use another energy attack. He dove at V and kicked him into a wall of asphalt that used to be a street now floating above them. Then he dove towards the dead and lightless chaos emeralds, but there was nothing he could do with them to stop the distortion. The rifts were beginning to rip wider on their own now.

Super-V pushed a boulder away from his face and let it drift away. “I think this works out rather well. Our fight is in a stalemate, anyway, so you can decide. Destroy us both and whatever fools are in this city by letting the distortion over us collapse, or recoil the power back into the Final Door and drown out however many thousands of souls are anchored to it so we can continue our fight a little longer. So who dies? This one human empire or all the forces of Hell? Either way, the decision will purge you of your weakness.”

Shadow cursed, tossing away the useless gemstones. He could sense the distortion, and how unstable it had grown. V was right, the power had to go somewhere.

V laughed at the look on his face. “You can lie to others, and even to yourself, but not to me. I know your mind! But I also know that you can become more than what you are.”

“That can’t be the only reason we’re fighting. Why are you still working for Boreas?”

“So you figured it out. …He created me.”

“What? Not the doctor?”

Super-V crossed his arms. Around them, bits of scattered buildings continued to crumble as they drifted too close to the rips in reality, and those pieces that weren’t simply obliterated in the void fell noisily back to the ground. “The wind lord learned about you from Robotnik, and wanted to try his own hand at creating life. But he wasn’t just playing when he created me, he knew from the beginning what he needed me to do.”

“Stop me,” Shadow guessed, looking back at his hands.

“Lord Boreas is going to remake this world, Shadow. This flawed creation will be destroyed, and reborn as one that has no use for weapons like you and I.”

“…I see.”

“Of course you do. You know as well as I do how worthwhile that is. You could still join us, but you won’t give up on a fight halfway through! Boreas has everything he needs to finish his work no matter what you choose. I win either way.”

“A world that has no use for me… is desirable.” Shadow cast a quick glance after where Rouge and Tails had run, then raised his eyes to stare back at V. “But you can’t make it by destroying the people here and now. They have to build that world for themselves. I know what you want, and I won’t give it to you. …You lose.” Shadow stretched his arms outward, straining against the power even as he said, “Chaos control!” The rifts around them began to spiral slowly towards him, and red sparks began arcing off his body and against the gaping wounds in reality.

V’s eyes went wide. “What are you doing?!”

“If you can create a distortion this destructive, then so can I...”

“By compressing this space into yourself? You think you can contain that much power?! You’ll only displace the force, and it will still collapse! That will just destroy you, and you won‘t even take me down with you! You can’t win that way!”

The space around them suddenly snapped as the first edges of the void brushed against Shadow’s fingers. The amplified chaos distortion was shifting to its smaller target, and now that well of shattered powers began pouring through him with a terrible burning, but he didn’t cry out. He fought to keep his arms held up, a defiant posture, but the void surrounding him forced his body to bend away. So he let his body relax, and stopped fighting it at all. “Some things… are more important than winning.” The inhibitor rings on his wrists and ankles snapped as the energy burst them apart and rushed to consume him, the power too much for the rings to restrain. The rifts and even the hazy after-image of the city behind them began to pick up speed as it was all drawn towards him, and he was swallowed up in a lightless void that finally swallowed itself, leaving the broken plaza quiet again but for the distant moans of monsters and the ever-present howling of the wind. The anomaly was gone, only the wreckage of the plaza as evidence that anything had happened. The rest of the city was untouched, and Super-V was hardly harmed.

“Why… why would you throw away the strength to fight, and choose to be powerless? Now, even your death is meaningless!” Hyper-V said. His face twisted into a snarl and he screamed at the empty plaza, “Tell me why!!”

But with no one left, he was only talking to himself. He turned and flew out of the plaza, back across the base with the dead emeralds trailing along behind him, tossing bolts of chaos energy at anything that dared to move as he went.

[SoDi]

-34- Machination

Sonic the Hedgehog, wearing a cool pair of shades, was skateboarding along the boulevard above Centropolis’ Sugar Creek Park when a handful of winged imps with long teeth leapt over the park wall and into his path. To avoid hitting them, Sonic pulled up short, kicking the board into the air and catching it in one hand as he asked, “More of you guys, huh? Hey, can I help you?” They just looked at him, so he said, “Hola! Qué tal? …Ya, domo. O-genki desu ka?”

The imps just looked at each other, then one said, “Let’s beat him up and take his stuff, already!”

“They just don’t speak my language,” Sonic shrugged. The imp lunged forward, teeth first as if to try biting him, and at the same time the music blaring out from the park speakers changed tracks. “I love this song!” Sonic said, jumping into the air just in time for the imp to miss him. He pulled the board back under his feet and landed on the park wall in one motion, skipping from there across to the railing that followed a long set of steps down into the park. Sonic was grinding down the rail, gone so suddenly that the imps were a moment behind flying after him. They chased Sonic through most of the park, the hedgehog stunting past sports fields and fountains and under the trees. He kept ahead of them and eventually left the park for the blue-brick streets of the capital’s Old Town district, heading towards the GUN base from the west.

The horde of imps seemed determined to catch up, but as Sonic passed through Old Town and approached the base wall a number of laser-wielding scout bots flew down and began shooting at them. “Priority target spotted!” the bots hummed as they targeted the hedgehog, but their aim was as bad as ever. The imps scattered, not interested in a fight.

“Play nice!” Sonic shouted at the bots, using his momentum to jump the skateboard up and bounce against the lead bot, then he bounced between them until he was high enough to jump over the wall and into the base. As he cleared the top, he saw another platoon of bots waiting for him on the ground. There was a large sandy space between the wall and the nearest base buildings, maybe a parade ground or practice field of some kind. Sonic just kicked the board out from under himself, sending it flying into the head of the first bot, which fell into the one behind it, then into another, and soon they had all fallen over like dominos. While they were rolling on the ground, trying to regain their footing on the sand, Sonic ran past them laughing. “You bolt-dolts get easier to beat every time I run into you! …Oh wait, my board!!” he added with a backward glance, pulling his shades off as he realized he’d just busted his only means of faster transportation on the metal-heads.

“That sub-standard gadget wouldn’t help you now, Sonic the Hedgehog! Bwahahaha!!” A large hatch-door opened in the ground ahead of him as a massive black sphere rose up from underground, the sand shaking aside. The sky was almost black with cloud cover above the base, and the air had grown chill quickly. The sphere was featureless, but it was definitely the voice of Robotnik speaking from it. “You face your doom! This is my greatest creation… the Deus Egg Machina!!!”

“So it’s some kind of machine?” Sonic wondered to himself. The object began to transform as he watched it hover higher into the air, sliding smoothly into the shape of the Egg Benedict, though perhaps twice as large as the original. The mech planted its feet on the ground and pounded its metal fists together. “That is one big bot,” Sonic said with a whistle, then smiled. “That must make it a final boss! It was taking a while, I was beginning to wonder when Eggman would show up again.”

“I am Doctor Robotnik!” said Eggman, sitting in the round control chamber visible at the center of the machine. “Face me if you dare! Mwahaha!”

“Okay,” Sonic said, and spun against the ground to launch himself forward at the machine. The mech came to meet him, moving faster than the hedgehog and swinging a heavy arm, but Sonic used the loose sand to skid beneath it and into one of its legs. It was a decent hit, but given the massive size and weight of the machine it might not have had any effect except that the sandy footing was unstable enough that the bot began to topple, set off balance. Before it could crash to the ground, however, it began to transform again, this time into a wide plane of some kind. It soared across the field and then rounded back to Sonic, laying down a hail of gun fire. As he ran to dodge the attack, he said to himself, “Now it looks like a bigger version of the Egg Hawk! Haven’t seen that one in a while.”

The gunfire was throwing the shallow sand that covered the field into the air, thick enough that Sonic could no longer see anything. Of course, Robotnik couldn’t see him, either. “Cease fire!” the doctor shouted, and waited for the sand to settle. The field was now a dark gray stretch of pocked gravel, and the doctor finally spotted Sonic trying to hide beneath him and his machine. He chortled, “You see, you can hide, but you can’t run! With your speed gone, you’re just a normal hedgehog now!”

“Hey! I’m not just a hedgehog,” Sonic said, and began spinning where he was, waiting until he had enough force for even the weakened spin to throw him into the air and at the hovering machine. He hit it hard, and the ungainly plane wobbled and dropped to the ground. Sonic landed on a wing with his arms crossed. “I’m Sonic the Hedgehog!” He was already making another bounce attack, but the machine began to shift once more, growing taller and hovering into the air again. Sonic was shaken off to the ground below, and watched the round Deus Egg Machina grow two long arms that ended with large claws. These stabbed down into the ground, and Sonic dodged them, but when the claws lifted back up they pulled up a massive wrecking ball with them. “Oh, man. This machine, too?” The bot swung the heavy ball at Sonic, and he slid out of the way. But when it swung the wrecking ball at him the second time, it let go, sending the ball flying at him. Sonic wasn’t fast enough to evade, and it pounded him into the gravel before it rolled aside again. Sonic spat sand out of his mouth and stood up, a little shaky. The loose terrain had absorbed a lot of the impact, but he was still seeing stars.

Robotnik laughed gleefully. “Finally, I’ll see you crushed flat, you abominable twerp! I really am enjoying this. Please, continue to struggle for as long as possible!”

“Happy to oblige,” Sonic said, spinning towards the Deus Egg again. The long clawed arms lunged to grab him, but unexpectedly, he was not running to strike the machine. Instead, Sonic was running around it, leading the arms with him so that the mech swung the heavy ball back at itself and swept its own legs out from under it. Unable to right itself, the machine simply collapsed together, almost melting back into the large round body until the machine formed itself into a black sphere again. Sonic frowned, watching how ineffective all his maneuvering had been. “Hey, Eggman! You know that I can beat any bot you’ve faced me with before, so why don’t you give it up and face me like a real egg!”

“Bwahahahaha!” was Robotnik’s only reply, as the Deus Egg Machina transformed again into the likeness of an over-sized fighter jet, letting off all of its weapons at once. The field below seemed to explode with the attack, sand and gravel thrown high into the air as the shots carved up the ground, the larger pieces falling back down like a gritty rain. Robotnik coughed and twitched his mustache to shake the sand out of it, wheeling his machine around to see where Sonic had gone this time. “Did I get him?! No, that’s not it. Blast, I’ve lost him!” At that time, something zoomed through the dark sky high overhead, bright as a burning comet, and fell heavily towards the center of the base beyond where Sonic and Eggman were fighting. The air all around the base glowed for a moment, then dimmed. But Sonic was still nowhere in sight. Robotnik stroked his mustache, speaking loudly, “Lost the will to fight? It’s only natural. Now that V-Shadow has brought me the chaos emeralds, you have no hope of stopping me!” he taunted.

Sonic, who had managed to cling to the underside of the flying Deus Egg when the explosion tossed him into the air, was now climbing up its side. But he stopped to ask, “V? You still think you’re in control of that guy? He’s using you, Eggman!”

“There you are! Attack!!” and another round of missiles were launched, careening up and back to dive at the hedgehog. Who was still climbing the side of the Deus Egg. He dropped down at the last possible moment and the missiles crashed into the plane with another explosion, leaving a rising cloud of smoke and sparking bits of black machinery scattering in all directions.

Sonic stood up and brushed the gravel off himself. “I don’t need to attack you with speed when you’ve got all the firepower I need! Guess I’ve cracked your ‘master plan’ wide open. Unless that machine of yours can still move when it’s in a hundred pieces! Hehehe!” The black shards of the broken Deus Egg seemed to melt where they had fallen, turning into gooey puddles that quickly flowed across the field and back to the armored hovercraft where Robotnik was. The Deus Egg reformed into a sphere and rose into the air again. Sonic slapped a hand against his forehead. “Me and my big mouth!”

“You cannot defeat the Deus Egg Machina! It can rebuild itself no matter how many times you strike it down!” The sphere shifted into another mech, this one with long whip-like arms and a smooth body, like a larger and shining black V-Mega.

“This might take a while,” Sonic said, leaping out of the way as one of the limbs whipped towards him. “…But every boss has a weakness! I’m not giving up!” He waited for another arm to lash towards him, and made a spinning leap into the air, slicing through it. The severed end of the limb fell to the ground and then began oozing back towards the main body, but part of the black machine clung to Sonic’s arm where he had plowed through it. “Oh, yuck!” he said, shaking his arm in an attempt to knock the clinging substance loose. From this close, Sonic was able to notice that the black substance was not actually liquefying as it began to ooze off him and back to the Deus Egg. It merely looked that way because the glob was made up of hundreds and hundreds of smaller machines. They dropped or crawled down and then skittered away en masse. “Tiny machines? That big bot is made of thousands of mini-bots!” he realized. “And it needs time to transform, right?”

He took the opportunity to vanish from sight, because as the Deus Egg reformed it shifted again, into something Sonic hadn’t seen before, resembling a large dragon with long, thin limbs and tail, skeletal wings, and a maw that gnashed more like a meat grinder than a mouth. Robotnik sat at the controls just behind its head. Now a pair of rocket launchers lifted up from its shoulders, but it had lost track of its target, and Eggman shouted out, “Face your end with some dignity, cretin! We’ve shared a lot of history, you and I, that‘s why I‘ll finish you myself. And don’t think I’ll be distracted by your fast-talk! V-Shadow and his plots are easy enough to predict. He’s merely a tool, after all, and nothing for the likes of me to worry about. Even the original Shadow was consistent at least, despite that troubling heroic streak of his. But you, Sonic, you were a worthy adversary. You were always something of an enigma.”

“No, that’s Knuckles. I’m a hedgehog!” Sonic shouted from whatever hiding place he had managed to find.

“I said ‘enigma’, not ‘echidna’, you imbecile! I- huh?” While distracted by the proper uses of the language, Robotnik failed to notice that Sonic had already managed to climb up the inside of the machine’s legs where he would be out of sight. He had continued up from there and was now already over the side and behind Robotnik, ready to charge forward and take the controller out.

There was a shudder that passed through the entire body of the draconic Deus Egg, the prehensile tail whipping up and snatching at Sonic from behind just before his jump attack could land him against Robotnik’s surprised face. The tail pinched tight around him as he struggled, and Sonic was surprised at how fast the machine’s reflexes must be. Robotnik couldn’t have entered the command; he looked startled and hid a sigh of relief, wiping his brow and then staring down the captive blue hedgehog. “Bwaha! Mwahahahaha!”

A white cloud drifted across the field and along the back of the Deus Egg Machina, Boreas forming out of the mist and stepping near to them. He made a small bow and said, “We’re ready to begin the feed to the Final Door. We should raise the last walls.”

“We have all the emeralds!” Robotnik nodded in glee.

“We have their power. It seems that the stones themselves are now useless.”

“Good enough.”

Sonic gritted his teeth, struggling against the coiling robotic tail. But there was not even enough give for him to try to escape the hold with a spin. “Are you Boreas?! You’re trying to-”

Boreas frowned and made a squeezing gesture with his hand, and the tail squeezed tighter in a similar way. The air was crushed out of Sonic’s lungs and his eyes closed as he finally went unconscious.

Robotnik watched, stroking his long mustache. “Don’t finish him yet, I want to find something more fitting.”

“There is little that would be more fitting than using him to fuel the beacon, and help to power your conquest.”

Robotnik nodded. “There have been too many setbacks already, but everything is finally coming together! Once the planet is devastated enough to squelch any resistance, my empire shall be built from the ground up, on new soil. There will be no risk of further interference when restarting the world from a clean slate!”

“Of course,” Boreas said.

-

Podarge sat beside Shin on the north wall of the base, coughing through the sand that was still hanging in the air. They watched as the Deus Egg strode between buildings to the center of the military complex and to the satellite towers where Hyper-V had landed earlier. The Deus Egg returned to its round shape before settling into the ground. Then it began to swell outward, becoming a massive black dome, walling up whatever work Robotnik and Boreas were continuing inside. Now Po turned to Shin to say with a shrug, “I guess it’s over. Eggman must have really wanted to show off, since he decided to use the really big egg.”

“Then it must have been Sonic that he was fighting, after all.”

“Of course! His friends will probably be close behind.”

“They might not have seen the fight, then. They won’t know it’s too late to save him.”

“Nah, they’d still try it. Sonic is just captured, it’s not like he’s past rescue.”

“Why do you think that? It looked like a serious fight from here.”

Po grinned. “Eggman and Sonic are arch-enemies! So Eggman wouldn’t just finish Sonic off, he’d want to gloat about it.”

Shin scowled. “But, that’s terrible! It’s like asking for Sonic to make an escape and thwart the plan!”

“Well, that’s the doc for you. But that’s what Boreas and us are here for, right?”

“And for them,” Shin said suddenly, her eyes turning aside quickly as she caught sight of something moving beyond the wall. A number of silvery monsters were slinking closer. They had no faces, no fingers at the ends of their limp limbs, and they moved with an odd, liquid gait.

Po was unhappy. “I thought all that commotion scared everybody off?!”

Shin stood and lowered her spear. “I guess not. Those are doppelgangers, from the inner seas. They’re mindless, but even the smarter tribes might not have left. We’re the only action happening in this abandoned city, so we’re going to attract attention. We better be ready to do a bit more clean up.”

“I got these,” Podarge said, zipping off the wall ahead of the hound and towards the silvery creatures. When she drew close enough, she jumped into the air, swinging a leg up so that she could rake her talons into the nearest monster. But just as she was about to reach it, the creature’s body flickered and shifted, and Aello was standing there instead. Po screeched in surprise, twisting herself out of her attack and crashing instead to the pavement nearby. She sat up just as Aello was throwing a kick of her own at her face, but then Shin’s halberd sliced through the green harpy’s middle, tearing her in two. The thing shifted again, and two halves of a doppelganger slid to the ground with a wet, squishing sound. Po, trembling, scooted away as Shin sliced through another two of the monsters, and that seemed to be all of them. “What was that?!”

The hound shook her head. “Doppelgangers aren’t really alive, they’re formed from memory. That’s how they can look like the dead.”

“Dead? …Just the dead?”

“I don’t know why, but I’ve never heard of them imitating the living. With enough memory to feed from, they can imitate the dead exactly as the living remember them, yet that means that they’re limited to what the living remember. That’s why some people like these things better than the originals, but that’s the pursuit of desperation or madness.” Shin poked one of the motionless monsters with the end of her halberd. They were dissolving into a mercury-looking liquid that bled quickly away between the cracks in the street. “I hate these things.”

“But the real souls of the dead are in the underworld too, aren’t they? So when Boreas broke the third seal, couldn’t some of them have started showing up here?”

“What are you talking about?” Shin gave her a disapproving look. “The thoughts of your sisters are still fresh in your mind, but you’ve got to make a better effort at controlling your thoughts or doppelgangers will be the least of our problems! I don’t know what kinds of stories the people of this world tell about ours, and we do have more than our share of ghosts, but death is as mysterious to me as it is to you. I’d like to keep it like that, and not learn more the hard way.”

“Doppelgangers, huh? …I guess that’s why nobody ever talked about resurrecting Zephyr. Even with the Final Door, we wouldn’t have known where to look for him to summon him back,” Po said, and made a broken laugh. “I really… didn’t know anything!”

Shin walked over and smacked Po in the back of the head. “Stop sniffling and brace yourself! We still have work to do!”

“I’m not crying! There’s just sand on my face,” said Po, brushing more sand out of her hair and away from her eyes. “You’re right, but I’m fine. Thanks, Shin.”

The hound smiled at her. “Then let’s go. The sentry bots aren’t smart enough to handle their job. I’ll cover the south walls, you watch for trouble this side.” Po nodded, and they both ran off.

[SoDi]

-35- Price of Admission

The storm had quieted down, but it was still dark at midday. Shin turned and dropped her halberd quickly enough to knock aside the arrow that was shot at her back. She waited, weapon raised, and soon a dozen hounds stood up from where they had hidden in the street alleys to either side. Only two carried bows, but both of those had arrows knocked. The largest of the group was carrying a military rifle he had found somewhere, but he hadn’t bothered leveling it at her yet. His face was torn, and he, like every other underworlder Shin had seen in the city, had a flickering V-Cell stuck to him. “Lay down your weapon and surrender!” he said.

“I know that voice. Frost! I finally have my chance to rip you apart!”

“Oh, do I know you?” he asked as she raised her halberd higher, and took an attack stance. But he just tapped his rifle against his shoulder while trying to remember, his demeanor still not combative.

Which seemed to rile up Shin even more. “I am Widdershins of the river crossing! How dare you forget?!” she barked at him.

“Oh, that? You were a survivor, I guess. But you’re obviously outmatched here, so what sort of revenge are you thinking of?”

The two archers let their arrows go at the same time, and Shin cut them both out of the air with her halberd as she ran forward, teeth bared. But that was enough time for the hound called Frost to draw his rifle against his shoulder and fire.

A sky-blue blur barreled Shin aside as the shot struck the ground where she had been. Podarge stood up but had to grab at the hound’s shoulder to keep her from running forward a second time. She had never seen the green hound so wild with rage before. “Cool it, Shin!”

“What’s that thing?” wondered one of the other hounds, looking at Po.

“You guys are new around here, so I’ll give you a warning. Get out of here while you can!” Podarge said.

Frost laughed. “A wingless harpy and a hound without a pack? Ha! Sorry if I’m not shaking where I stand.” He motioned with a hand and his companions fanned apart as they advanced.

Shin gave her a questioning look, but Po just shrugged. “Hey, I gave them a chance.” She pulled out a mechanical box and jammed a finger against the large red button on it. “Take this!”

A building nearby broke apart as a large round-bodied robot crashed through, knocking the walls down onto Frost’s party. They cried out in alarm, dodging the fists of the robot as it pummeled the road where they stood. “Retreat!” shouted Frost, and they did.

Shin was ready to run after them, and Po had to hold her back again. The hound argued, “Let go! They’re on the run, I can-”

“We don’t have time for this!! You can’t keep picking fights, you’re helping me, remember?!”

Shin growled, but stood still. She looked over at the robot, large as the building it had just knocked over, but no longer attacking anything. “I would have liked to send that traitor running with my own two hands, but this will have to be enough. What is this, anyway?”

Podarge tossed her the control box. “Neat, huh? I’m, uh, ‘borrowing’ it from the egghead. I figured you could use it if you want. Boreas needs me on the inside, so you hold it together out here.”

“You’re sure you don’t want me to accompany you?”

“I can handle it! I am one cool blue harpy,” Podarge said.

“I understand.”

-

Not too far off, Knuckles had come to the remains of a brick-paved plaza. It was more broken than any other part of the city he had seen so far, the nearby wall to the base torn completely open. The unnatural barrier that was the smooth shell of the Deus Egg Machina loomed not far beyond that. “Well, it must be the secret base, though it doesn’t look so secret anymore. Better find a way inside.”

He was passing through the rubble that had been the base wall when Shin leapt down into his path. She leveled her halberd at him and shook her head. “You can’t go farther, echidna.”

“Why not?” he asked, and she raised an eyebrow. “Oh, right. Are you really working with Robotnik now? What are you trying to do here, Shin?”

“I told you, I follow the harpy. But I’ve been wanting to test myself against you. Keep your guard up!” she said, and shifted the pole in her hands as she charged him.

Knuckles didn’t budge. He caught the side of the weapon when she came close enough and held it, stopping Shin in her tracks as she strained to wrench the sharp blade of the halberd towards him. He said, very seriously, “I’ll fight if I have to.”

She pulled back, pulling her halberd with her, and he let go. Shin repositioned herself. “You do. I don’t hold back.”

“So charge me again, but I won’t back down, either. I only move forward!”

“I know that you’re stronger than me,” she said, and made her second charge. Knuckles ran to meet her, but she ground to a stop and spun her halberd to plant its head in the dirt all in one motion, the blunt end braced in position. It was a slick enough maneuver that Knuckles ran right into it, the haft rammed into his diaphragm and winding him. “But I think you lack experience.”

She pulled her halberd out of the ground and stepped closer to where he was bowed over, but he looked up at her with clear eyes and said, “No, I just like being straightforward in a fight.” She was shocked that he had recovered so quickly, as he grabbed the halberd out of her hands and snapped the metal pole arm in two, tossing the pieces far to the side.

Shin frowned. “Fine. But I hate losing,” she said, pulling out the small metal box and hitting the buttons.

“What is that? Gwaah!” and he was thrown aside as the fist of a large robot pounded the ground beside him, narrowly missing his head. It had glided out from behind a nearby building, unnoticed.

Shin had moved to a safer distance, and answered, “This metal beast is called the ‘Egg Poacher’. It’s a heavy hitter, like you.”

“I thought you said you wanted to fight me! Why cheat with a machine like this?! Whoa!” The second fist pounded him down, and when it lifted away he was buried up to his neck in the base lawn.

“Cheat? What does that have to do with a fight? I’ll use the advantages I have!”

Knuckles pulled his head down into the ground and was gone. The Egg Poacher stamped its feet and Shin waited. The echidna reappeared as he dug up from the ground beneath the Poacher’s left foot, leaving a hole large enough for that foot to sink into. The heavy robot now had one leg caught in the ground up to its knee, and couldn’t maneuver away as Knuckles climbed up its front and began punching its chest in.

Shin ducked in below, slicing into the machine’s legs with her claws before running past again. “What are you doing?! It’s your own machine!” Knuckles shouted down.

“That‘s it purpose,” Shin agreed. The damage she had done to the Poacher’s legs was enough for it to lose its support, and it began to fall forward. It hit the ground with Knuckles still beneath it, crashing down on top of him, heavy enough to make a crater of its own where it fell. The machine‘s broken core sparked and finally exploded.

Shin watched the smoking remains for a while, then turned to head towards the dome, when the ground began to shake. She turned back to watch the battered robot begin to rise out of the ground. “That thing is still functioning? It sure is sturdy.”

The metal body continued to rise upwards, but the voice beneath it growled loudly, “I’m… not… finished!!” The machine wasn’t actually moving itself, Knuckles was lifting it up over his head. With one final heave he threw the whole thing at Shin, who had time for her eyes to go wide and her jaw to drop as the robot dropped on top of her.

Knuckles climbed out of the crater and stood. The Poacher rattled a little as Shin managed to carve away an opening in it’s side large enough to crawl out from under it. She slid from there to the ground, battered but breathing. They both breathed a little harder, Knuckles watching her, and she glared at him sideways and said, “What are you waiting for? I’m right here.”

He crossed his arms. “That’s enough. I don’t like to fight anyone weaker than me.”

She sneered at that. “You might have a chance of beating me if you attack me while I’m down!”

“Why? If I’ve won, I don’t need to finish you off.”

Shin pushed herself back up onto her feet, agitated as she wondered, “What is with you people?!” She jumped up onto the fallen Egg Poacher and looked at the black dome beyond it. “So long as I‘m still breathing, you haven‘t won, but we’ll have to settle this later. I’ve bought enough time here.”

“Bought enough time? Enough for what?” Knuckles watched her jump down the far side of the Poacher and begin sprinting towards the dome, and chased after her. “Hey, stop!”

The dome was seamless, no part of it resembling a hatch or window of any kind, but Shin ran straight towards it anyway. She didn’t slow down as she came closer, and passed right through the wall with a small ripple, as if the barrier were liquid.

“That must be the entrance!” Knuckles said to himself, running straight towards the spot where she had vanished a moment ahead of him. But he hit the metal wall with a resounding clang, smashing his nose back into his face as he smacked against the barrier head first. He fell onto his back, momentarily stunned.

At the sound of footsteps approaching, he sat up and shook his head to clear it. Amy Rose was running towards him, and when she came close enough she put her hands on her hips and asked, “What happened to you? Did you find the way in?”

“Ngo,” he mumbled, his voice muffled as he straightened out his bent muzzle with his hands. “Ouch! But I thought I did. Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Sort of,” she said, and pointed back behind her. Tails and Rouge were flying over the base towards them, and dropped down next to the black dome where they were standing.

“Rouge is here?”

“Long time no see. You haven‘t changed,” she added with a wave, seeing his bruised face.

“Are you okay, Knuckles?” Tails asked.

“Don’t worry about it. I saw Shin run in through here,” he said, pointing at the portion of the dome beside them.

“Is there a door here?” Rouge asked.

“I don’t know if it’s a door, but there’s got to be a way in,” and Knuckles began punching at the smooth black barrier. It looked like he was chipping away at it, but every time it simply smoothed itself back out, unblemished. “Dang it!”

“You redheads are so testy,” Rouge said, climbing a short way up the wall. She reached into her shirt and pulled out a heart-shaped device. She slapped it against the side of the dome, where it clung and began to blink slowly. Rouge slid down the wall and waited with the others below, as the heart began to blink faster and faster until it just glowed without blinking at all anymore. There was a small whistle and then the heart exploded, knocking away the surrounding wall with it. The hole might have been large enough for them to enter through one at a time, except that it immediately began to close up, the wall mending completely in a matter of moments. “At least we know the wall isn’t indestructible, but I don’t think I have enough bombs.” She tapped her cheek, thinking it over.

“But we do!” Knuckles said. “Tails, I’ve still got the explosives I took from the Mystic Ruins, but I’ll need help setting this up.”

“You got it!” Tails nodded.

Amy looked startled. “You’ve been carrying all those with you? And you thought that would be a good idea?”

“Well, yeah.”

“…Whatever. Do you think you can really break this wall?” asked Amy. “If it can fix itself that quickly, even a big hole won’t stay open long! I’ve got an idea, too.”

Once they’d set up the bombs, Knuckles waited on the ground to trigger the explosion. When he heard the roar of an engine approaching, he hit the switch and jumped back. Amy was driving the Tornado as fast as it would roll along the base road towards the dome, and when the bombs went off she opened fire on the wall to keep the hole open as she approached. Tails and Rouge were already with her, and Knuckles jumped up and grabbed onto the wing as they passed. The barrier wall was already beetling closed as they barreled through in a last barrage of gunfire, scraping through the hole just before it snipped shut behind them. Amy skidded the plane to a stop and they all took a look at their surroundings now.

Most of the base was here inside the dome, but with the sky blocked off there was no light but for the military lamps and search lights. Rising in the center, the tall satellite towers were backlit by the occasional pass from the searchlights. Closer to the party, the buildings loomed in the shadows, and there was still a strong smell of smoke and chemicals lingering from the explosion. There were sounds of wheels and metallic clanking from further on. “That wall is a good defense, but I bet they already know we’re inside! We have to hurry!” Knuckles said, pointing towards their target at the center of the base. The towers were all attached to one large complex.

Tails had pulled out a set of high-tech binoculars that allowed him to see in the near-darkness. “This place is swarming with bots!”

“The base defenses are still active, too. Robotnik can probably control them. What a hassle!” Rouge complained.

“Robotnik isn’t our only problem!” Amy told her. “And I don’t see Sonic anywhere. I wonder if he’s been caught? I’ll have to rescue him!!”

Rouge smirked. “Well, you sound like you’re tickled pink about all this.”

“Oh wow, did it take you all day to think of that one?” Amy answered.

“Stop it, you two!” Knuckles shouted at them, and wished he hadn’t as they both rounded on him, glaring. “Um, I-”

“We can’t get inside if we can’t get past the outer defenses,” Tails interrupted. “I could probably shut them down if I could just make it to the controls!”

“You could leave that to me, since you said there was something else you had to dismantle first, right?” Rouge asked him.

“The spirit beacon…” Tails said, and then explained to Knuckles and Amy what he knew.

They didn’t take too much time, but once they’d exchanged information, Amy said, “Well then, what we need is a distraction! We don’t have to beat all those bots, just chase them away long enough to get inside. We’ve done this before, haven’t we?”

Tails agreed. “Boreas might have control of the bots, but I don’t think he’d have been able to alter their core functions. Which means that, whatever they’ve been programmed to do, they’d drop everything to go after Sonic!”

“But Sonic ran off before we even landed the plane. He isn’t here,” Knuckles pointed out.

Amy rose smiled and waved a finger at him. “Bots aren’t too bright, so they don’t know that! We can just send out someone in disguise!”

“That’s true. We still have the paint from when we repainted the Tornado!” Tails offered.

“Then we just need a brave, strong volunteer,” Rouge said, looking sideways at Knuckles. Tails and Amy were smiling at him, too.

“What?!? C-can‘t we just use more dynamite to get in?!”

“Oh, stop complaining!” Amy said, grabbing his arm to drag him back to the plane.

[SoDi]

-36- Fair-Weather Friend

“It really is the exact shade,” Amy said, a little wistfully.

“Are you done yet?” Knuckles asked them, impatient.

“That’s it,” Tails said, and the other three stood back as a blue and slightly sticky Knuckles stood up beside the plane. “We might not have time to let it finish drying, so you’ll have to go like this.”

“Once we’re inside, I’ll go with you, Rouge,” Amy said.

“Why? You don’t trust me?”

“Where Sonic is concerned? No way!”

Rouge rolled her eyes. “Just try to keep up. The controls aren‘t going to be all in one location, but if I can get to the main terminal, I can hack the system and shut it all down from there.”

“Is hacking necessary? This is supposed to be a GUN base,” Amy said.

“The central base! I don’t have clearance here. But don’t think I can’t handle it, I do this sort of thing all the time,” she answered.

“Will this help?” Tails asked, pulling out the key card that Captain Redding had given him. He tossed it to Rouge and added, “I almost forgot I still had it!”

Rouge took the card and raised her eyebrows as she read the ID. “Where did you get this? I suppose you can be useful after all. You might have some potential.”

“I didn’t steal it!” he said defensively. “Anyway, we need to go.”

Knuckles gave himself a look over and shook his head. “How do I get talked into these things?”

“Real men don’t whine. Now go give us that distraction, ‘Sonic’!” Rouge winked at him.

Knuckles ran out from behind the building where they had parked the Tornado, cutting across two other small roads to get some distance from them before turning and making a bee line towards the center of the base. “This better work,” he hoped aloud.

The patrolling bots were stationed around the main roads, more of them as he came closer. He ran past the first line of scouts, dodging as they shot at him, until he came close enough to know that the main patrol party guarding the satellite complex must see him, too. Then he turned and began running down a side street as they began the chase. “Primary target spotted! Hedgehog has escaped!”

With the alert called out, a larger sentry clanked into the street in front of Knuckles, blocking his way forward. “Think you can stop me?” Knuckles laughed, running straight forward.

But then the communicator on his wrist hissed at him as Amy said, “Don’t you dare! You’re just supposed to run and lead them off. There are too many of them!”

“I won’t run from a fight!”

The bots chasing him had just about caught up, but they all slowed in the street as if to reconsider their target. Something about his behavior must have made them suspicious.

“If you blow your cover I’m going to-!”

Knuckles didn’t give Amy time to finish, he jumped aside and into an alley where there were no bots and turned back. “Hey, you can’t catch me!!” and he held his hands to either side of his face, wiggling his fingers and sticking out his tongue at the bots. Apparently reassured, the bots began chasing him again, and as Knuckles ran farther away he grumbled to himself, “Dang it! How does Sonic fight like this?!” He didn’t like it, but he continued to lead them in a chase, ducking behind posts or bushes to let some of the bots run ahead in the wrong direction, leading them in circles, and never actually confronting them directly. They were relentless, but they really weren’t very smart.

Eventually, his communicator hissed at him again, and this time it was Tails who said, “Okay, Knuckles, we’re through the main doors. Rouge and Amy are going to try and shut down the defenses, and I’m going ahead, too.”

“Finally. I’ll follow you once I finish these bots!”

Amy shouted, “Don’t blow it yet! Those bots said a hedgehog escaped when they saw you, so that must mean Sonic really was captured and is still inside! You might be able to keep them confused, so just get in here as fast as you can without fighting them and help us look for Sonic!”

“Give me a break,” Knuckles said, but when he jumped aside to dodge another gun blast from the sentry chasing him he didn’t stop to fight, he zigzagged away.

-

Tails had made his way to what must have been a factory level, a large room where machinery and conveyor belts were busy constructing more bots. “Looks like Eggman really does have control of this whole place, and has for awhile,” Tails observed, sneaking along the walls. Passing by what looked like a control station for the assembly line, he thought to himself, “I might as well do something while I’m here, it won’t take long!” and he began messing with the controls. Rather than shutting down, all the equipment began speeding up, conveyor wheels spinning recklessly and mechanical arms swinging too wildly, the assembly line speeding out of control and tossing bits of half-made bots in all directions. Satisfied with the current level of havoc, Tails zipped back towards the rear wall, almost falling through it as he pushed a hand against a false panel concealing a narrow hall. Curious, he pushed the panel further open, when a pair of large white-gloved hands grabbed his arms from behind and lifted him off of the ground. “Caught you, you little saboteur!”

“Eggman!” The fox spun his tails, knocking himself away from Robotnik but also throwing himself right into the waiting clutches of a large sentry bot that was accompanying the doctor. The metal grip was too strong to shake off, and it had a hold of his tails along with his legs, so he couldn‘t use the same trick twice. He struggled, but was carried down the concealed passage and then thrown into a holding cell. The small metal room had only one heavy door with a small barred window. The bot pulled the communicator off Tails’ wrist and crushed it in its hand as it let go of the captive and then slammed the door shut.

Tails stood up and banged his fists on the door, and the round face of Robotnik appeared at the bars. “Feisty as ever, fox!”

“What do you think you’re up to, Eggman?! Sonic and us are going to stop you!!”

“Make yourself comfortable, but why waste your energy? I have a proposition for you.”

“No way! Let me go!”

Robotnik stroked his mustache. “Without his speed, Sonic was no longer the threat he once was. You couldn’t hope to accomplish much with a has-been like him. But before he met his end, I did take one valuable lesson from him.”

“You’re lying, Eggman! Do you think you can trap him here? He’s still a lot stronger than you think, and so am I!”

“Oh, I admire your determination. But I have even more respect for your brain power. I have no intention of using you as bait, and none of your friends will know where to find you, so you have plenty of time to think on this. What about it? Why not become my protégé?!”

“What?!?”

“This whole ‘teamwork’ notion has been working out rather nicely. Don’t you want to be on the side of the winners? Come, join Team Robotnik!!”

“You’re crazy if you think I’d say yes to that! What’s happened to Sonic?!”

“Typical. But I have ways of making you see things my way. Yes, I think you and I will have a look at those new model V-Cells once I’m finished conquering the world. Mwahaha!” and he walked away from the window.

“What are you going to do!? Hey!!”

“Bwahaha!” Robotnik was gone, and Tails was trapped. But the doctor had forgotten to take Tails’ backpack away from him.

Some time later, the silence of the narrow hall outside the holding cells was broken by a faint buzz. His door clicked open softly, and Tails shoved his tools back into his pack before peering out. He was startled to hear an unfamiliar, musical voice remark, “Since it’s you, it was just a matter of time before you broke out of this place.”

Tails looked over to see a harpy leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, tall as the harpy sisters had been but with dark indigo and navy feathers, and a violet-black face framed by long hair she didn‘t bother tying back. The thick feathers on her chest and flecking her tail and wings were violet, and one narrow silver horn reached up and over her head like a sickle blade. “Are you the guard?!” Tails asked in alarm.

The harpy looked at him sideways. “Why would I bother? It’s not like locking the door again would work. Run away if you want, I‘m not stopping you.”

Tails became quiet and asked, “…Are you Podarge?”

She looked away again. “My name is Celaeno. It always was.”

“Well, come on, then! We have to hurry!”

“Huh?”

“Sonic is still here somewhere, and then we have to shut this place down!”

Celaeno frowned. “I’m not stopping you, but I’m not helping you, either.”

“But, you know what’s going to happen, right? We can still stop Boreas and save the world!”

“Not interested,” she said, and stuck her tongue out at the wall opposite her. “Boreas is a friend of mine, I’m not going to go traitor.”

“But… but, aren’t we-”

“I never said we were friends, did I? I never said I ever wanted to help you, you came up with that idea on your own. I was helping myself. And that’s what I’m doing now! But you stopped being useful, get it? You were a waste of my time all along. So why wouldn’t I have left? You cramp my style!” she said, getting angrier the longer she went on.

Tails was struck silent. With some difficulty, he managed to answer, saying, “…I can’t make you change your mind. If that’s really how you feel. …Is it? I just, I don’t believe that.”

“Duh. I mean, at first all that childish optimism talk was funny, but now it’s just sad. Really, where do you think you are? A night carnival?” she laughed at him, laughing harder when his ears drooped and his eyes turned down.

He looked tired. “…I have to go,” he said, and began to leave.

Celaeno managed to stop laughing long enough to shout after him, “Upper B-level!”

“What?” he asked, looking back.

“Maybe I’m a chicken after all.” Celaeno was smiling, her fangs showing playfully. “I don’t care what you do. Keep up the hero act if you want. But Sonic isn’t in any of the holding areas, Eggman has him in the gear room on the upper B-level. Once the beacon gets active, that whole level is going to be chewed to pieces to power it, so you better hurry. If you still want to save him. And I bet you‘re too stubborn to stop while you’re ahead, so you won‘t just leave once you find him, huh?”

“Of course not!”

The dark harpy laughed at him again. “Right. If you’re after the spirit beacon, don’t waste your time with the lower level chambers, and stay out of T17. The controls you want are in T212, on the officer’s deck. Remember it! Okay?”

“But…”

“I don’t blame you if you don’t trust me. I wouldn’t, either,” she smirked, then turned and walked away from him down the hall. “But we’re ‘friends’, right?” Celaeno ran off before Tails could say anything. He hesitated a moment, his shoulders still low, then ran off in the other direction, towards the center of the facility.

-

Knuckles resurfaced from a reservoir under the complex, leaving a blue trail of paint in the water behind him as the last of the disguise washed away. He shook himself to get most of the water out of his quills and then tapped the broken communicator on his wrist. The water had shorted it out and now it was completely dead. “At least I’m inside,” he thought, and climbed up a ladder towards the basement level. He peeked out from under the hatch door at the top of the ladder, and froze when he saw a group of bots in the distance. But they weren’t moving, so he slowly lifted the hatch and climbed out. The bots were silent, and oblivious to his presence. Knuckles shrugged and ran past them. “Guess the girls found what they needed,” he said, then narrowed his eyes as he heard something moving in the room ahead of him. Prepared for the worst, Knuckles rounded the next corner with his fist already jabbing forward. But his target managed to leap out of the way, jumping back down on the echidna’s head before landing on the floor beside him. “Woops! Is that you, Knuckles?”

“Tails?!” Knuckles asked, rubbing his head where he’d been hit. “That’s one way to find someone. Are Amy and Rouge with you?”

“I haven’t seen them since we split up. But I know where Sonic is! And we need to get there fast, before- oh no!!” Tails said, interrupted when the complex began shaking violently.

“If you know where we’re going, lead the way! You can explain what’s happening while we run.” So they ran.

And while they ran, Tails explained, “I think I’m starting to figure this place out. We need to follow the north wing to the engineering level, so we’ll follow that hall through that door there!” Tails flew forward, but before he could pass through to the next corridor a large column of iridescent crystal jabbed through the wall, splintering outwards in a flower-like formation that completely cut off their way forward. Other crystal formations were breaking through the walls and floor elsewhere, ripping the facility apart.

“What’s that?!” Knuckles wondered, stopping to stare at the blocked path.

“It must have something to do with Boreas powering up the spirit beacon. But, if it’s altering the layout of this facility, I don’t know how to get to Sonic! Knuckles, can you break through this?”

“It looks fragile,” Knuckles answered, and he punched hard at the crystal formation. It shuddered with a chiming sound, but didn’t break through, only a few inches of it crumbling to powder. “Whatever this stuff is, it isn’t natural!”

“This might take too long. But, I can’t think of any other way through,” Tails worried, holding his head and out of ideas.

“Then try thinking like an echidna!”

“Huh?”

“If we can’t go through this roadblock, we’ll just go under it!” Knuckles pounded at the floor at the base of the crystal blockade, and the relatively more yielding metal of the base hallway gave way beneath the blows. He dug them through the room below and around the crystals, back into a corridor they could follow. They began running again, wary of the jagged crystalline spikes that were piercing through the military building at seemingly random intervals.

Tails led them towards the gear room near the center of the complex, the main door ripping itself off its hinges as they approached, the shaking of the building knocking wall paneling onto them as well. “We’re really near the spirit beacon here! This whole place is going to collapse before it finishes forming,” Tails worried.

“Isn’t this what you were trying to shut down?”

“It’s more complicated than I ever imagined it would be! This facility is being twisted into an amplifier for the Final Door, something strong enough to control the white wind even if the wind seals are all broken. The beacon itself would be able to use the satellite networking systems from this base and in orbit, turning the white wind into a power that could be sent out across the globe instantly! I still don’t understand why, though, since the Final Door at its full potential already has an influence that spans the planet. Maybe they’re trying to turn that power to a different purpose?”

“Or maybe it isn’t for sending out anything,” Knuckles scowled as the idea occurred to him. “Maybe it’s for pulling something in. The Final Door needs energy, right?”

“An exchange of life force. But on a global scale, that would mean…” Tails began, but he couldn’t bear to finish.

“There’s Sonic!” Knuckles interrupted, as they ran up to a wide doorway.

Tails looked relieved. “He’s really here!”

“Weren’t you sure he would be?”

“Um, let’s hurry and get him.” The gear room was a large open area surrounded by massive twisting machinery resembling the innards of a clock. The growing crystal formations had already punched through most of the ceiling, the rocks casting a faint glow on the room below. A tube of more mundane glass was already centered in the room, and Sonic the Hedgehog was suspended motionless inside. Tails flew up to him and snapped the external lock, pulling Sonic out just before the column snapped from the strain of the collapsing ceiling. But Sonic was unconscious, and what was left of the ceiling dropped suddenly onto them in one large tangle of concrete and construction cables.

Before it could crush them, Knuckles ran up beside Tails and Sonic and caught the ceiling on his fists. “Knuckles!” Tails shouted in relief.

Knuckles heaved aside the debris and gestured at Sonic. “Is he still out?”

Tails shook the hedgehog, who mumbled with his eyes closed, “It’s not a chilidog without chili! Where’s the red stuff?”

“Yeah, he’s out of it,” Knuckles answered himself. “This place really is coming down. Tails, you carry Sonic, and I’ll clear the way.”

An especially large cluster of crystals jutted through one of the walls, throwing aside springs and coils and leaving an opening out of the room. Knuckles ran towards it, Tails flying after him while carrying Sonic by the arms. Tails wasn’t very maneuverable like this, but he dodged the falling rooms as best he could, Knuckles punching aside the worst of the debris and pounding open a new path when another crystal growth blocked off the hall they wanted. As they went, the crystals seemed to begin growing faster, until there was more crystal than complex, and they were fleeing through echoing halls of dark iridescent stone, trying to get clear of whatever the spirit beacon was transforming into.

When the shaking finished and the splintering crystals slowed and then stopped in their final shapes, Tails and Knuckles looked around at their new surroundings. The original GUN base was gone, only a few twisted metal beams left stranded in the rock formations like bizarre topiaries. The stones themselves had grown as large as the original complex, consuming it and taking the form of halls and odd walls and arches in its place. Patches of dark sky were visible through the canopy of crystal overhead, and all of the original satellite towers that could be glimpsed from here were also overtaken, transformed into alien looking towers of mirror-bright glass. The protective shell that was the Deus Egg had already receded, but there was no sign of where it had gone.

“Wake up, Sonic!” Tails said, dropping the hedgehog a few inches onto the floor.

“No time for dinner first? Bummer,” Sonic wheezed, coming out of whatever dream he’d been having and getting up.

“We aren’t alone,” Knuckles warned them, as a dozen pairs of luminescent eyes peered out at them from the shadows among the jagged stones.

[SoDi]

-37- All Hell Breaks Loose

A deep throbbing sound was pulsing through the crystal that made up the frame surrounding the spirit beacon, a tightening ring of what had been six satellite towers at the center of the complex that the adventurers could see even from here. The substance of the crystal, whatever it really was, had an odd way of holding and reflecting sound, creating an ominous hum in the air all around them. Sonic and his friends had a moment to brace themselves before a mixed band of underworlders dove out at them, their eyes shining wan and colorless, just like the V-Cells they carried. These underworlders did not speak, and after the first few were knocked down in the scuffle they made no attempt to flee or even reposition themselves, they simply threw themselves towards the invaders mindlessly, all teeth and claws.

“They’re being controlled! Try not to hurt them!” Tails said, flying out of the way of a red hound before getting sideswiped by an imp that threw him against a wall.

“Easier said than done,” said Knuckles, who was sparring with a tall blue minotaur. It was hard to land any blow on the brute that could phase him yet not risk simply punching him through the wall, but Knuckles managed to floor him after a few more seconds.

Sonic had climbed up an overhanging spike, sliding down the back into the corridor below. Seeing a way forward, he called up to the other two, “This way, guys!”

The new facility was full of gaps and holes where the crystals had grown up against one another, fitting imperfectly despite their resemblance to the original building. So, Tails ducked through a gap in the floor, while Knuckles took a minute to knock out the rest of their pursuers before following.

Catching their breath in this new corridor that resembled a tunnel more than a hallway, Sonic asked, “So you’re the rescue team?”

Knuckles aimed a fist at him, but pulled it back when Sonic proved too slow to duck away in time. “Quit joking around! Do you have any idea what I had to do to get here?”

“No. What?” asked Sonic, genuinely curious.

“…Nothing. Never mind.”

“What happened with you, Sonic?” Tails asked.

“I found Eggman. He was a little too happy to see me, but this isn’t over yet.”

A sudden gust of wind pounded through the corridor, tossing them backwards. It eased up after a moment, but didn’t stop, still whistling through the tunnels of the crystalline complex. Sonic, holding onto a wall to keep from being blown down again, poked his head outside to get a look at the sky. The six towers that marked the main body of the spirit beacon had twisted closer together, their reflective branches catching an upward ripple of light as the sky directly overhead rippled likewise. Then a circle of blue daylight appeared, the dark storm seared away as some power there forced itself outwards through the sky, burning away every trace of cloud in a rapid outward sweep towards the horizon. The wind howled through the corridors in sync with that display.

Tails poked his head out to watch, too. Startled by what they were seeing, he exclaimed, “That must have been the fourth wind seal breaking open! Boreas is trying to open the Final Door already!”

“But that was the last seal. Sonic, you can’t-” Knuckles began.

“Worry about that later, we have a world to save!” Sonic said.

Tails pulled his pack around to reach inside, fishing down into the bottom as he said, “This place looks different now, but the layout is similar. The controls that Boreas and Eggman are using might not have moved, so I still have an idea of where to go. But I won’t know enough about the V-Tech alone,” and he pulled out the round head of Eggster. The bot gasped, as if he’d been stuffed in the bottom of the pack for a long time. “Eggster, it’s not like you need to breathe!” Tails said, seeing the dramatic expression on the bot’s face.

“My name is Dexter!” said Eggster.

“Where’d you find that guy?” Sonic asked in surprise.

Eggster turned himself at the sound of Sonic’s voice and his eyes went wide, his mustache went rigid, and he tried to throw himself out of Tails’ hands at the hedgehog. But he couldn’t quite manage an escape. “You slapstick simpleton! You overgrown caltrop! En garde! I’ll chew you to pieces!” and he gnashed his metal teeth.

Sonic laughed. “He might have lost his body, but he’s still got a mouth on him!” Eggster finally managed to wrench himself out of Tails’ grip and tumbled towards Sonic, who caught him lightly and held him at arm’s length where the bot continued ineffectually to try to bite him. “Alas, poor Eggster, I knew him well!”

“And you’re Shakespeare is atrocious!” Eggster added.

“Calm down, Eggster! This is serious. We need your help,” and Tails took the head back.

“Absolutely not! I won’t help that spiky curse to villain-kind, not in a million years!” the bot insisted.

Knuckles didn‘t seem interested in bothering with the metal head. He asked, “Now that all of the seals are broken, is it still too dangerous to just dismantle this place?”

Tails answered, “All this is just an accessory, Knuckles. The real power is the Final Door and whatever power is being summoned through it. But even with the seals broken, that sort of power still isn’t going to become tangible. It’s going to have to be controlled indirectly, using the chaos emeralds, but Shadow took those to fight V!”

“That explains why Eggman was after the emeralds,” Sonic agreed. “But I saw V get here a little while before me, and Boreas said the clone brought the emeralds with him. I don’t know what’s happened to Shadow. But if we took the emeralds back, would that be enough to reverse all this?”

Tails looked like he was thinking hard. “I have a theory about that. Knuckles, remember how you told us the seal of Notus was destroyed on the mountain? V blasted it with a quantum chaos attack. And Sonic, you couldn’t grab the seal of Eurus because the seals and the white wind are all energy constructs and can’t be handled physically. But other energy forms do seem able to interact with them, that‘s how they could be destroyed.”

“And bringing all the emeralds together generates a limitless energy! I get it,” said Sonic. “So even if they’ve got the Final Door, with the chaos emeralds we could control it, incorporeal or not. Or destroy it altogether!”

Tails nodded. “Destroying the Door may be what Boreas is really trying to do. But we still shouldn’t attack the beacon directly. It’s an amplifier, and I think it might also be how they’re keeping the power of the white wind from running amok while the Door is breaking down. That’s why the readings on it were so unstable, but we don‘t need to bother with it if we can go right to the source!”

Knuckles was taking all this in. “Right… so, the chaos emeralds are here somewhere, and we need to collect them before we can get to the final fight and finish this? That much I can figure out!”

“That’s an oversimplification, but, yes,” Tails said, and turned to the head he was holding. “Eggster, you were still working with the doctor through the early development of the V-tech, weren’t you? So you know how some of this works.”

“With the full fury of the white wind now under the doctor’s control, it has created an unstoppable army!” Eggster gloated. “The perfect tool for world-domination!”

“But-” Tails began, when Sonic interjected.

“So, all this V-tech is the pinnacle of Eggman’s science, right?” he asked.

“Of course! The poetry of application!” Eggster answered.

“And no way to stop it?” Tails went on, starting to understand where Sonic was going with this.

“None! The technology is flawless! Your efforts are futile!”

“Then it would be a great step forward for science if you found a way to overcome it, right?” Sonic went on.

“… …Hmmm…” the bot thought it over.

Tails grinned. “It would take a lot of technical prowess to come up with a way to tame a machine that can control the Final Door itself!”

“Humph. I have no interest in proving my own talents. Such an achievement would be meaningless to me.”

Knuckles finally spoke up. “It’s nothing about you. It’s not about helping Sonic either. What have you got against working for the scientific process?”

Eggster’s mustache trembled. Then his eyes got a little larger, until they finally became starry shaped, shining on his metal face. Sonic smiled behind his hand. “I think that one got through to him. Hey, treasure-hunter, can you track down the emeralds while Tails and the mini-egg find the controls?”

“I can do that,” Knuckles nodded.

“What about you, Sonic?” Tails asked.

He smiled. “You’re the man with the plan. I’ll follow your lead,” and Tails led Sonic towards the core of the spirit beacon while Knuckles began his search.

Sonic and Tails made their way through the wind-gusting passages, across the long crystalline bridges connecting the wings of the complex, and past quite a few
more of the mind-controlled underworlders. Doppelgangers were also still slinking around, liquidly appearing as if from a slow, steady leak. And the further they went, the more ghosts they spotted, drifting through the crystal walls and floors. Something seemed to be compelling the creatures into the area, or perhaps the spirit beacon itself was calling them closer. The adventurers’ route was necessarily winding, because the crystal formations had blocked off a lot of the obvious paths.

Once they did make it to the laboratory that Tails was looking for, Sonic stood guard at the door while the fox and Eggster argued over the controls. The windows here looked out towards the nearby grouping of six towers that formed the spirit beacon proper, the tall pinnacles still twisting slowly around one another. “I wonder what’ll happen when they finish aligning?” Sonic mused to himself. Nothing more dangerous than a round-bodied ghost had come by for a while now, so he went into the room where Tails was still working hurriedly at a control panel. Tails had practically pulled the machinery apart, and a lot of the parts had obviously been taken from other terminals to be patched together in the immediate workspace. “What’s all this?” Sonic asked his friend.

Tails pointed at the monitors on the far wall as they blinked between static and only slightly more discernable images of gray landscapes. “This room connects to the satellite network that the spirit beacon is taking advantage of. Sonic, the readings are terrible. We were too late to stop Boreas from getting the Final Door, and now it’s gathering up life energy from all over the planet, and…”

“You mean it’s worse other places?” and Sonic took another look at the crystalline growths that had swallowed up the walls and floor of the base.

“A lot worse. Life readings all across the globe have frozen. With the white wind, Boreas could be trying to reverse the flow of life itself! I don‘t know why we aren‘t feeling the affects of it here, yet.” The gray landscapes on the monitors weren’t just distorted. Whole forests were withering, lakes were boiling.

“Don’t ask me, I’m just a head,” said Eggster, perched on the edge of one of the panels.

Sonic looked out at the dimming but still cloudless sky. “Maybe we’re just in the eye of the storm.”

“I do have some good news, though. I’ve found a way to interface with the satellite network and the V-Cell controls! The beacon’s been sending out commands to the V-Cells, as well as feeding power to their hosts, but if I realign the signals and reverse the polarity of the V-Cell’s link with the beacon, I think we can at least send everyone from the underworld back where they belong. We won‘t have to fight them!”

“Everyone?”

“Well, everyone with a V-Cell.” Tails held up a large, white ring.

“Is that what I hope it‘s not?”

“These controls were meant to be accessed using the bright ring as a key and power source, but we don’t have that ring anymore. Mostly that means that there is no more manual control. But Eggster and me managed to build a fake! That’s how I can access the controls for the spirit beacon at all. It might not be enough to shut it down, but at least we can change some of what it’s doing.”

“That’s awesome, Tails!”

Tails smiled and rubbed the back of his head. “Well, it wasn’t any tougher than making a fake chaos emerald, really. But, we could use your help, now. I need to hotwire this fake ring into the terminal long enough for the counter-command to go through, so I need a second pair of hands to actually manage tuning the frequency, and Eggster’s no good for that. You know. No hands.”

“Humph,” said the bot.

“Sure. Is this it?” asked Sonic, lifting his chin at a large control panel where Tails had just been working. “Looks like the controls back in Alydia. Those were for V-Cells, too,” he said, remembering Shadow’s trouble with the V-tech.

“That makes sense. But this is on a much more massive scale, and we have to be careful that we don’t imbalance the spirit beacon in the process, or everything could go out of control. Basically, the V-Cells are all operating on the beacon’s current frequency. It’s an energy wave, and the bright ring can broadcast a wave at a different frequency to compliment it, thereby manipulating the V-Cells and their holders.”

“Uh-huh?”

Tails pointed out the important dials to Sonic and then ran over to begin fidgeting with a wall terminal where the fake bright ring would need to be activated. He talked while continuing to tinker. “But, in wave theory, two waves with identical frequencies can achieve perfect destructive interference when their amplitude is precisely equal and opposite. That way, they negate each other. In other words, the power Eggman used to summon the underworlders uses a certain kind of energy wave to keep them here, and if we negate it with an inversion of identical frequency through the V-Cells, it should banish everyone back!”

“Yeah, sure.” Sonic was already turning dials, watching to match the readings on the left side of the panel. “…How will we know it’s working or not?”

There was a sparking noise as Tails fed the ring into the machinery and began rewiring the area around it. “The V-Cell reading should drop as the energy goes cold. You need to watch that the beacon core temp doesn’t drop too far or the beacon will be endangered along with the V-Cells. …I think I’ve got the ring locked in position here. Is the gauge reading close to the cooling point yet?”

“Way past cool! Yowch!” and Sonic jerked his hands away from the controls as they froze cold enough to sting his hands. Frost was creeping across the controls all over the room as he pounded the main dial to the off position. Outside, the sky flashed and a ripple of white fanned outward from the spirit beacon towers. Even the room they were in shuddered as the counteractive-wave passed through.

“Wow! That was way more effective than I figured it would be,” Tails said, hurrying back over to look at the read outs. The wave energy had dropped close to its zero-point almost instantly.

“Hehe, woops,” Sonic said, stepping back to let the fox get a better look at the controls.

“No, it should be fine. And all the V-Cell readings are blank, so I think it worked! They’ve all gone home!”

Sonic crossed his arms. “Serves Eggman right. Now we just need Knuckles to catch up with the chaos emeralds, find our baddies, and get everyone in the rest of the world back to normal.”

“Things are this bad already. There‘s really a power that can do this.” Tails closed his eyes, thinking to himself. “…I don’t think I can do anything more from here. I read on scanner that there’s a really strong energy signature coming from a different level, but…”

“But what? Like you said, it‘s not the beacon we need to worry about as much as the power behind it, right? If we can find where Boreas is accessing the Final Door from, let‘s do it fast!”

Tails was quiet for a long moment. “…Yeah. Don’t worry, I know where I need to go,” he said, mustering his confidence. It wasn’t very far, only a few floors, and he did know where he was going. Tails stopped outside the entrance, reading the number of the room still partly visible beneath the coating of crystal above the doors. They were very close to the spirit beacon here, and they could hear the sounds of the tall satellite spires still twisting slowly into place. Beyond the doorway, the round room looked empty. A faint shadow seemed to cling to the center of the room, and other than that, there was nothing. The whole place had an odd atmosphere to it, a heavy feeling of waiting.

“You’re sure this is the place?”

“…Podarge told me about it. There must be something here, so…” and Tails ran inside. But after only a few steps, a spike of violet-black darkness lanced outward from the center of the room, plucking Tails off the floor and sucking him in. Sonic grabbed at him, but was too slow to catch his arm, getting two fingers on his backpack instead. Before he could get a second hand and a better grip, Sonic was thrown backward by a strong gust of wind, like those that had been blasting through the corridors of the crystalline base. But this wind was stronger, almost raw, like it was originating from the thick dark void swallowing up the center of the room. And swallowing up Tails.

Sonic still had hold of the backpack, but nothing else, and tossed it away as he tried to run forward past the piercing wind. “Tails!” he shouted. Tails didn’t even have time to shout back, he hovered silhouetted in the center of the room before vanishing, and then a new shuddering passed through the room and a whole new crop of the odd iridescent crystals sprang out from the floor and ceiling, creating a growing wall jagged in some places and mirror-smooth in others that pushed Sonic out of the room entirely and blocked his way back inside. “Tails!!” he shouted, banging on the stone wall for a little while. But it all went quiet again. Sonic tried a hard spin against the crystal, but it did nothing more than scratch its surface.

“That’s that, then,” said Eggster, rolling to a stop where he’d fallen and then been pushed out of the room as well.

“Where did he go? Is he still in there?”

“You think I know? I was dropped from this project like a bad egg before there were any plans for something like that room, whatever it is.”

“If I don’t know how this works, and you don’t know, there’s still going to be someone here who does,” Sonic said, picking up the protesting bot as well as the pack at his feet. “You’re with me till we find some answers.”

[SoDi]

-38- Night Wind

“I better be getting hazard pay for this,” Rouge observed, gliding out of the way of another glowing-eyed wyvern about twice her size. “Lots of it!” The wyvern crashed into the wall behind her and fell heavily.

“Is that all you’re worried about?!” Amy asked, swinging her hammer at a giant toothy daffodil that tried to sneak up behind her. “No one is answering their communicators, so something must be wrong!”

“Something? You mean all this gaudy redecorating isn’t wrong enough?” Rouge asked sarcastically, gesturing at the crystalline growths all around them. “Or these creepy attackers coming out of the walls? All this isn’t enough for you?”

“But we’re practically at the heart of this place now, and still no answer. We have to help them!”

“We’re the ones that need help! We’re completely outnumbered!” and Rouge spin-kicked some hulking thing with a flat face and stubby limbs that she had no name for. As many monsters as they knocked down, the further they went the more of these strange guards there were. “We have to pull back and try something else!”

“No way!” Amy spun around and swung her hammer at another stalker, but it passed right through it. The wide-grinning ghost just rolled its eyes playfully. Amy stopped to consider the specter. “…No way. No more ghosts!!” and she prepared a second, stronger swing. But at that moment a sudden sweep of gusting wind knocked everyone off their feet and onto the ground.

Rouge stood up and found herself face-to-face with a ragged brown harpy, whose eyes dimmed and whose V-Cell crumbled quietly to dust. The harpy blinked at her as if confused before fading away, as if she had been a shadow and not a real being at all. All the other underworlders on the ground and around Rouge and Amy also faded as their V-Cells disintegrated. “That was convenient, I’ll say that much,” Rouge said, now that they were alone. “That’s all of them at once!”

“Not… not quite all of them,” said Amy. She stared at the wall nearby as the ghost slipped through the crystal towards them. She growled and leveled her hammer, but it laughed in an eerie, echoing voice and shot forward. Amy’s swing was ineffectual, the ghost passing right through her own head and out behind her, circling around and always laughing. Amy began twitching all over.

“Just run from that one, let’s go!” Rouge told her.

“I can’t! I can’t move!” Amy said. She was making a sour face and wouldn’t open her eyes.

Then the ghost was joined by a number of its buddies. Rouge swooped away, grabbing Amy as she went and carrying them both out of the corridor to a higher level where some daylight was filtering into the hall, reflecting along the walls and floors. The ghosts gave up the chase to avoid the light, not following further. “What was that about? You can’t freeze up in a fight like that, it just makes you a liability.”

“I don’t freeze in a fight! That was awful! I hate ghosts. I’m really sensitive to this sort of thing.”

“Sensitive? You’re sure it’s not just the wrong time of the month? Maybe you should sit this one out before you cause me any more problems.”

“Oh, be quiet! You’re the one who couldn’t find the right terminal! And who was it that saved you from getting jumped by that impish ambush?”

“Look, I’m a-”

“And what just happened back there, anyway? It really saved us both!” Amy went on, her expression shifting as quickly as her mood.

Rouge sighed, and didn’t push the argument. “Maybe there was a control terminal for the monsters, too. But we should save the questions for later. The way forward is clear again, let’s not wait for another freaky flash of light to turn the world inside out.”

“That’s true.”

They kept going. Not too much later, Sonic was moving through one of the middle halls with Tails’ pack still slung over his shoulder when Rouge called from behind, “You’ve grown your quills out again. That wild look is good on you.”

“Hi, Rouge,” he greeted the bat, turning around in time to see Amy Rose charging past Rouge towards him. Sonic couldn’t get out of the way in time, so she tackled him to the ground in a tight hug.

“Sonic, I was so worried!! You ran off with that skateboard before we could plan where to meet up! Why didn‘t you wait for us to land so I could have come with you?!”

“There was no time to plan, we needed action!” he said, pushing her off and standing back up.

“Oh really? And look at what happened! Well… what happened?” Amy asked.

“Long story. But right now, Tails is in trouble.”

“Is that really the priority? The world as we know it is on the verge of collapse,” Rouge asked, raising her eyebrows.

“I’m not leaving him behind,” Sonic said.

Rouge smiled, and Amy nodded vigorously. “Of course not! So we need to look for him?”

“I know where he is. That’s the problem! I need to find Podarge, to find a way to get him out.”

“So she’s behind it?” Seeing the frown he gave her, Amy shrugged. “Maybe not, but I had to ask. Fine. I’ve got a piece of my mind to give that feather-head, anyway!”

Even with so many ghosts still lurking around, moving about the complex was easier with three of them. The ghosts could be hit by a hammer swing if they were too distracted to go invisible in time, and Rouge’s flying maneuvers were getting better at distracting them. Sonic led the way, but eventually Amy was the one who asked, “How do you know where we’re going? This maze all looks the same to me.”

The crystalline tunnels and cavernous rooms of the complex did tend to all look alike. Sonic looked back at them and tapped his foot. The shoe made a soft chiming against the ground. Rouge answered, “He’s been following the sounds.”

“Sounds? I don’t hear anything!” Amy argued.

Sonic shrugged. “Listen. Sound carries real weird here. If everyone but the ghosts are gone, then the sounds that are left must be coming from someone else.”

“Oh. I think I hear something!” Amy said. When Rouge hid a smirk, Amy argued, “I do! I think it’s getting louder!”

It was. As they continued through the west wing of the complex, the chiming echoes of the surrounding crystal weren’t just coming from the sound of their footsteps. There was a deeper vibration carrying through, something melodic. Even the ghosts weren’t showing up anymore, so it was easy to become distracted by the sound.

“It’s so… pretty…” Amy was saying.

Noticing that the girls were falling behind, Sonic told them, “We can’t wait, come on!”

“But, just listen to it,” Rouge said, stopping and turning her large ears to face the open room ahead of them. Sonic listened. It was definitely music, a keening aria floating above the deeper thrums of the different crystals, which might as well have sounded like weepy violins or a full symphonic accompaniment. Amy had stopped, too. Sonic was beginning to get distracted by it, as well, but seeing Amy daze out, he snapped back to attention. However, in no time at all Amy and Rouge were completely lost in the haunting melody.

Sonic knew he wouldn’t be able to wake them out of the daze while the music went on. “Wait here for me,” he told them, though they couldn’t have heard him. “I guess this means this number’s playing just for me, huh?” and he ran on, as quickly as he could. The music was strange, and the voice singing it was one he hadn’t heard before, but somewhere within that sound was a voice he knew. After a while, he shouted out into the open path ahead of him, “Hey! Since this is all for my benefit anyway, can’t you jazz it up or something?” At about that time, a rocking metal guitar solo jumped in behind the aria, and the floor pulsed with a strong percussive rhythm that carried the music to a faster measure. “That’s more like it,” said Sonic.

When the song reached a mighty crescendo, Sonic leapt over a last rocky outcropping blocking the end of the hall and dropped into a wide space with a high, high ceiling. The tall harpy waiting there stopped singing, but the music carried on without her, humming through the building itself, all around them. “Hey, blue boy.”

“Podarge? I found you,” he said. She did look very different, and maybe older, but it was still her face, and even the way she had of standing with her arms raised behind her head gave her away.

“I’m almost surprised you did. You have no wind seal, but maybe you have no sense of pitch, either.”

“I’ve got something I have to do, and no amount of music or anything else can hold me back. It’s that simple.”

“Simple, huh? Or something. I guess this means you still want to stop us. And you made it this far, so why not give it a shot?”

“’Us’? Podarge, Boreas is using you!”

She shook her head. “Nope. This was my decision. I mean it.”

“You don’t understand! V-Shadow has been taking orders from him, so Boreas is the one who-!”

“Shut up!!!” she shrieked at him, so loudly that Sonic was thrown backwards onto the floor and the room around them groaned in protest. Her face had been transformed by anger instantly, a raging dark snarl. “Don’t lie to me, Sonic! I don’t care if you’re desperate. Everyone else lies to me, but not you!”

“I have never lied to you, Po,” he shouted back, getting up.

“Nothing you say is going to change my mind. You don’t have your old power anymore, so all you have is tricks, right? Why are you still trying?!”

“Because I know there is nothing we can’t do if we don’t give up. Wind or no wind, there’s still hope in me. And that’s no ghost or magic spell talking, it’s just me. Just Sonic.”

Celaeno was quiet, they were both quiet, then she was angry again. “Too late for that kind of talk! And you’re stupid if you believe it, anyway. If you’re trying to get to Boreas, you have to get through me first!” She jumped forward, her broad taloned feet pushing her off from the floor with a painful sound like a knife on a plate.

But Sonic retreated, ducking back as her jump carried her to the far wall. “Stop it, Po!” She didn’t. She pushed off from the wall and moved back across the room so fast that she was a navy blur. Sonic waited for her, and when the kick came at him he took it, thrown back hard enough for his quills to set the whole wall ringing loudly when he hit. “…I won’t fight you, Po,” he said from the floor.

“Don’t be stupid, you can’t win if you won’t fight!” Po huffed. “You think I’m going to feel sorry for you if you keep laying there?”

He got back up. “I won’t fight you. I’m not here to fight! Something happened to Tails, and we have to get him back. He vanished in some beam of darkness and then was swallowed up by a room of this weird glass,” he said, kicking the wall next to him.

“Vanished?” she asked with a blank expression.

“Yeah, gone! It was near the spirit beacon, or whatever it is. Do you know it? Is it some part of the defenses in this messed up place? Come on, Po, Tails needs us!”

“Tails…” she said to herself, as if thinking the name over. Then her eyes got wide as whatever thought she was looking for slowly came back to her. “…Oh. Right, him. That was the beacon core chamber. I sensed it go active, so I figured it was him.”

“You do know it!” Sonic said, hopeful.

The harpy looked away. “And you don’t, so I’ll tell you. The spirit beacon works like one giant spirit box. Recognize this crystal? This is the kind of stuff spirit boxes used to be made from. And anything drawn into a spirit box is unraveled into a state of pure energy. That‘s how I was kept ageless in Pandora‘s Box. The core chamber does that, too. But with a box, you open it up and the energy reforms. The spirit beacon isn’t meant to contain and harness power, it’s meant to expend it. There’s no mechanism to put him back together, get it?”

“That can’t be right.”

“You saw him unravel, you said? Then he’s toast.”

“He wouldn’t have walked into something like that. He said you told him about the place.”

The harpy shrugged. “Yeah. I did.”

Sonic was silent, staring at her face, but her expression was blank apart from her wild eyes, unreadable and staring right back at him. “You knew what it was. …And, even knowing, you-”

“Yeah, I know. Better than anyone, I know how it works!”

“But the spirit beacon is still gathering energy, he’s still in there!”

“So? Not for much longer. It’s still the white wind, but the one power that might have been able to shape all that energy and bring him back is gone ‘cause I stole it from you. And since you took too long, all the seals are broken now, so you can’t get it back to try using that power yourself. Tails is finished. Once the beacon releases its control of the broken Final Door, all that raw energy is going to shoot out across this whole dimension in a billion pieces, and there won’t even be enough left of him to make a ghost. I tricked him into finding that room so that you wouldn’t trip the trap first. See? I just wanted to fight you myself!” she said, getting louder and grinning wider as she spoke, her eyes wilder still. And as she spoke, Sonic’s look grew more and more distant, his expression more and more serious.

When she was done, she waited for an answer. Sonic closed his eyes. “Podarge… I won’t forgive you!!”

She smiled with one fang showing. “…I know. Now, fight me already!” she crowed.

Sonic didn’t need another invitation. He was already spinning at her. She evaded easily. He shouted and lunged again, but he didn’t even come close. It was too easy for her to stay ahead of him, even without ever leaving the ground. Eventually they both stopped, Sonic panting and his fists shaking.

She was unfazed. “No taunts, no sly comeback lines? You must be too angry to talk,” she laughed.

“If you have your magic back, I’ll take it from you and use that to save him!!”

“Heehee! Even if it could help you, you couldn’t use it. You’re just a hedgehog, after all.” She flew into the air and snapped her wings wide, web-thin threads of light glinting around her as she hovered. “But I am Celaeno the Dark! The night wind belongs to me! I’ll show you what a real harpy can do with the power of Iris!!” Her long hair fanned up behind her like a dark plume, and she alighted on the floor again. A small breeze eddied around her feet, but nothing else seemed to have happened.

Yet her face was lined with concentration, and Sonic took this chance to rush at her. She was still too fast, but he wasn’t giving up. Something was going to happen, he was sure.

And what happened was that the dark harpy began to glow. At first it was faint, as if the air around her was simply catching and clinging to the light, but her body grew brighter and brighter, so that it began to be hard for Sonic to see where he was running. While she gathered energy, she spent most of the time in the air, safely out of reach of attack. She dove down only to throw the occasional kick at Sonic, letting him run only to zip up behind him as he turned, then kick him in the face. But even so, he could tell that she wasn’t putting all her strength into it. Because it only knocked him down, not into the far walls.

The radiant air began to tingle as well, and Celaeno went still, hovering above the floor. Just before the whole room whited out, Sonic took cover behind one of the crystal formations jutting from the floor. The air burned white and a wave burst out from Celaeno, filling the room with an electric hum. Even with shelter, Sonic’s quills all went on end, and he could only imagine what the blast would have felt like if he’d taken it directly.

The light immediately began to dim, slowly until the room seemed normal again. Sonic still couldn’t make any attack quick enough to land on the harpy. And then he noticed that Celaeno the Dark was growing darker, her feathers fading to black and her features vanishing in the shade that was filling the room. As if the light was being sapped away, the room darkened until it began to be hard for Sonic to see again. The darkness itself didn’t seem dangerous, but it was getting harder to keep track of the winged blur that was the harpy. As the room went pitch black, there was a violent sound of wind and it seemed as if Celaeno was attacking from every side at once, Sonic unable to block what he couldn’t see. He pressed himself to the floor, and the flying harpy had to land to reach her target. Hearing her claws on the crystal floor, Sonic spun at the sound and heard her gasp as he finally landed a hit. She flew away.

And, just like the light had faded, the darkness began to lift. And, just as the room seemed to look normal again, Celaeno began to shine again. Detecting a pattern, Sonic concentrated on avoiding the flying kicks and waited for the moment just before the blinding flash, when Celaeno went still to focus her power. He jumped up at her head, at the sharp horn shining there, but the scythe-like horn cut into his quills and they both stumbled in pain. Sonic couldn’t take advantage of her pause, needing a moment himself to recover, but he had stopped the tingling burst attack from happening this time. He bided time through the next dark phase, hugging the floor again, but this time she didn’t bother landing, so he couldn’t use that trick twice. And the next time she began charging her light attack, he made a spin attack at her body, not bothering with her head. It hit, but wasn’t enough to stop the light spell, and he didn’t have enough time now to find a rock to hide behind. She screamed and the light burst outward, searing across his body so that it felt like it pierced all the way to his bones. Sonic fell to the floor, momentarily paralyzed. Celaeno kicked him while he was down before flying off again.

Shaking the last of the paralysis off as the light dimmed, Sonic pushed himself onto his knees and pounded the floor with a fist. “Nothing I try works! How is she doing that?” he wondered, then noticed the near-invisible threads of light still beading through the air. He stood up, a little unsteadily, looking into the shifting air while Celaeno wheeled higher overhead. “Those lights are… the winged hours…” He began to remember.

When Celaeno next dove down at him, she snapped her wings to stop herself from crashing into the floor as Sonic suddenly vanished from her reach. She looked around frantically, startled that he had disappeared. Sonic reappeared immediately behind her, and a little above, spinning down at her while she was looking at the ground. She was knocked to the floor, tripping on a wing before she could right herself and flap back into the air. “You’re riding the wake! No fair!”

“I know your tricks, Podarge! And I don’t give up!” The fight now became very different. The lights and shadows continued to shift around the harpy as she pulled at the winged hours and drew their power out into radiance and darkness, but now that Sonic knew to follow the small spirits he could follow her into the air, moving as quickly as she did so long as he stayed in the wake of the little winged hours. He was limited to following their paths through the air, but by twisting between the different beading trails he could go almost anywhere in the spacious hall that Celaeno could, allowing them to exchange blows more evenly. Sonic still had no way to counter the light blast except by dodging, and he had to be wary of the harpy moving to attack him in the dark, but as more time passed it became more clear that the match was becoming even. Or even slightly in Sonic’s favor.

He could not move quickly on his own, but he knew what to do with speed when he had it. And Sonic was much more agile than the larger harpy with her wide wingspan. His spin was as sharp and hard hitting as her clawed kicks, and they both were straining, pushing themselves as the fight escalated. Sonic’s eyes were stinging from the light show, and some of Celaeno’s feathers were looking singed. The room resounded like a cymbal each time one of them was thrown to the ground or against a wall, but the earlier music was still echoing deeper in the stone. Following the wake of a spirit of early morning, Sonic was led round the room and right behind the harpy, colliding against her back while she was flying up towards the high ceiling and charging up for another burst attack. She was thrown down while he was knocked out of the wake, and both of them dropped to the ground. Sonic landed on his feet, but Celaeno, still shining, tripped again and struck her head against the floor with a loud crack. She tried to get up, clutching her head, but the blow had disoriented her badly. The intense glow around her flickered.

Sonic jumped forward for another spin attack while he had the shot open. As he was about to reach her, Celaeno looked up at him. “Sonic, please!” she cried, eyes wide in her shining face.

He hesitated. Celaeno was gone in that split second, a blinding blur sweeping his feet out from under him and holding him pinned with one large talon. She gathered what was left of the power for her burst attack, and everything went white as Sonic struggled to break loose before the charge hit him. This close to her, he thrashed like he was being electrocuted and then went terribly still. Celaeno dropped him. She waited for him to get back up, but he didn’t. “This looks familiar. For a big-time hero, you fall on your face a lot, huh?”

“No… fair…” he whispered, apparently all he could manage.

“A win is a win,” she smirked, then her face went blank again as she watched him. He still didn’t get up, so she hopped up to a crystal jutting out from the wall like a platform. “I told you it wouldn’t matter what you say, right? I don’t need you to talk to me like that. …I can see the truth for myself.” The music died, and she flew away.

“…Tails…”

This post has been edited by SoDi: 17 February 2010 - 10:48 PM

[SoDi]

-39- Challenging Destiny

Celaeno fell to the bottom of the long stairs. Shin was at her side a moment later. “Is that where Robotnik is holding V, then?” she asked the harpy.

Celaeno sat up and nodded. “And that is one nasty lock on it. I don’t get it, he was supposed to have been destroyed by now. We don’t need him anymore.”

“But that’s a stasis area up there. Giving his energy to the spirit beacon must have left him immobilized, at least.”

“Not good enough!” Celaeno screeched, jumping to her feet.

The wind began to roar and Shin cocked her ears. “I think Boreas is coming. Celaeno, what will you say to him?”

The harpy quieted down. She looked at her feet. “He’s the one who said we’d already lost everything! So what’s all this for? What’s left beside paying V and Eggman back?”

“Is revenge really what you’re doing this for?”

Celaeno answered softly, “Shin… will you be angry, if I change my mind again?”

Shin rolled her eyes, but smiled as she said, “That’s your privilege. You are interesting to work for, at least.”

Boreas appeared in a white haze a few steps above them. “Celaeno. Why are you wasting your time here?”

“Wasting time?! We’ve got the spirit beacon running. Why are Eggman and that monster still here?”

“The V project is no longer a threat to you. Don’t become distracted. Our plans are nearly fulfilled.”

“No, that wasn’t the plan, Boreas! Or do you not want to finish him because he’s yours, after all?”

“What gave you that idea? This is only a precaution. You have to see the bigger picture. I am on my way to release the spirit beacon now, this is no time to be blinded by our own passions.”

“That wasn’t what I asked you! Who was V taking his orders from?!”

“Do you question my integrity? But I can see you’ve already made up your mind, so this questioning is pointless.”

Celaeno was scowling at the ground, her long hair falling forward and masking most of her face. “That’s how V knew my sisters were going to be at the Mystic Ruins. And that’s how he knew exactly how to use the V-Cells to bind their magic, there’s no one else who knows that much about us. You did that.”

“They were strong allies. But you are more valuable than any number of other harpies. I needed your help that badly, and you were unwilling to be convinced any other way.”

“So you tricked them, just to get me!!”

“Can’t you understand why?”

“Shut up!!” said Celaeno, flying up at him with her talons forward. Boreas leapt lightly aside, off the staircase and to the floor below, but Shin had already predicted the dodge and was on the ground waiting. She had lost her halberd to Knuckles, but while Boreas was distracted by Celaeno the hound came behind him and stabbed through his chest with a clawed hand. The blow came almost too easily, and Boreas looked down at the protruding hand for a moment. Then he vanished into a spiral of wind that scooped the hound up and threw her bodily across the room and out an empty window. Shin caught the ledge just in time to prevent a long fall, but it was a precarious hold.

“You cannot fight me. How can you fight the wind? Something you cannot see, cannot pin down or hold back?” the voice of Boreas echoed as it raced past Celaeno’s face and reformed behind her. Boreas had a calm look as he regarded her, almost pleading. “Everything I said to you was true. But we are working towards something bigger than either of us, more powerful than vengeance. Everything we’ve suffered can be worth something.”

Celaeno shrieked at him and he dissipated into wind and mist that drifted away from her attack. She flew into the air after him. “What are you thinking?! If we’ve suffered, it’s your own fault, you back-stabbing traitor!!” The harpy darted through the air, chasing after the invisible voice that spoke from the wisps of clouds filling the room.

“I don’t act rashly. I have had a very long time to consider the best course of action. You, too, were made to wait so long. My brothers and I took the path that Iris made for us, but out of grief for dead Zephyr. Sentiment did not weather the millennia, Celaeno. Notus and Eurus would have gone back to that stagnant existence, for sentiment! But we can no longer choose our destinies according to sentimental regrets and whims. The truth is, Zephyr was mistaken. This world can’t be saved from itself. And repeating his error is the wrong way to honor him, when we could accomplish what his weakness did not.”

“Shut up shut up shut up! Come out of the air and let me rip you to pieces!”

“You seemed to understand that before. Do you know how terrible it is, to endure so long the weight of meaningless centuries? To achieve nothing, to strive for nothing, to have not even death as an escape?”

“If you just wanted to die, you didn’t have to open the Final Door to do it. I’d have been happy to find you another way!!” Celaeno shrieked, shredding through another patch of mist.

“…I thought you could understand. I wanted you to understand. But then, you are merely a harpy.” Boreas’ voice receded, drifting out of the high stairwell and higher into the air outside.

Shin had managed to pull herself back inside. The stairs shuddered as this and the other five towers finished locking into place. Celaeno landed beside Shin on the stair landing and cursed. “He won’t even fight me!!”

Shin was calm as ever, getting back onto her feet. “This world is ending. We need to get to the Final Door. While it still exists.”

They raced up the stairs and emerged outside. The arrangement of towers now resembled one larger construct, arcs of light connecting the walls of the individual satellite towers and forming a tall cannon pointed at the heavens. Celaeno and Shin stood at the lip, above a long drop back into the depths of the crystal fortification. Celaeno froze as she saw Robotnik poised on a higher platform. “What’s he doing here?! What is Boreas thinking?”

A light blossomed far below, in the base of the beacon, erupting into a vertical pillar of light and causing Shin and Celaeno to jump back a little ways. Boreas was summoning what was left of the Final Door. The spirit cannon flickered an electric violet color, and cords of violet light spiraled up the sides of the pillar of light that was the Door. The cords almost seemed to be restraining it. Shin thought so, saying, “The spirit beacon is holding the Final Door together, now that the seals are broken. Once the beacon is released, nothing will be holding back all the power it gathered.” Even while they watched, the violet cords were thinning, and the spirit beacon was shifting again, unfolding and opening outward to leave more room around the Final Door, which was larger than any other time that they had seen it summoned, swollen with the life of an entire planet to feed it. The pillar was bright enough to make the daylight seem dim, and everywhere in the clear sky the blue daylight itself seemed to thin. Even the stars became visible alongside the sun. Below, energy arced from the tower structure into the pillar of light, feeding it still more energy. The wind raced around them violently, though there was no telling where in all this chaos Boreas was hiding.

“It’s going to get out of control real fast now,” Celaeno realized.

“Then we only have a few minutes before the Final Door becomes unusable. I‘m going.”

“But, Shin, you have to-”

“Our agreement was that my service to you was finding the four winds, and their seals. All but one lord is dead, and all four seals are now destroyed; a pact doesn’t find more resolution than that! There’s nothing left to keep me bound to your service.”

“But, I can’t yet. I can’t leave yet!”

“I know. I’m going ahead.” Shin turned and pointed at the pillar of light. “Give me some time to prepare things. Then you can follow later. Whether or not that will be enough time for you to finish here isn’t my worry.” She grinned. “So wipe the sand off your face and do something while you can.”

“…Thanks, Shin.”

“Don’t think this means you’re getting out of anything! You owe me a very serious debt. Even if you are a harpy, you won’t be able to trick your way out of this one,” she growled.

“I know that!! Still, thank you. For everything.”

Shin smiled and gave a small salute, then leapt off the tower, vanishing into the light and leaving only a ripple in the violet web restraining it.

-

The rush of wind pouring outward from the active spirit beacon was enough to finally rouse Sonic. Getting up, he could hear a strained echo forcing itself through the crystalline floor, and ran to a window where he could see the pillar of light rising into the sky. “…The Final Door is already opening. I have to hurry!” and Sonic jumped out the window onto the ledge outside, and began running across the smooth rooftops. The footing was bad, and the gusting wind was worse out here than it had been in the corridors inside, but the path was more direct and he could see how quickly time was running out. He ran for the base of the spirit beacon, because the room where Tails had been trapped would be just below that. He didn‘t know what he would do when he got there, but he had to get there. “I’m not giving up, Tails!” he shouted into the wind.

The wind was so strong that fragments of the crystal that made up the roof were being torn up and thrown back, like sharp daggers flying past him that Sonic had to avoid. Though the light from the spirit beacon was brighter than the daylight had been, it didn’t seem to bother the ghosts, which also came slinking up from below. They would try to take a bite at him with their toothy grins before they, too, were blown away. But Sonic dodged the crystal shards and beat back the ghosts almost mechanically; he hardly seemed to notice they were there at all. All he could think of was the life draining into the beacon. For a while, he thought of Tails trapped and waiting for him, and of the whole planet dying, but then every other memory started rushing in, clamoring for attention. The trim little yards in Green Hill, or Cream weaving flower chains, or the soft feel of new socks. Trivial, mundane things. Like the scent of the midday sun on the grass when he’d slept in too late, or the sound of the windmills. Or how Tails would laugh at all of his jokes, even the bad ones. Especially the bad ones. How his friend would wave goodbye, smiling as he’d fly the Tornado back up into the clouds. With a whole world vanishing into light and wind in front of him, it was the small and simple joys that bit his heart most painfully as they blew away.

“No!!” Sonic shouted, breaking through another cloud of wide-eyed ghosts. Thick, heavy fog had started spilling out from the top and sides of the beacon, covering the lower areas of the facility and making it hard for Sonic to see where he was stepping, and harder to see the ghosts until they were already snapping teeth at him. But he kept his eyes on the beacon ahead of him. The wind picked up, growing stronger as the pillar of light above the beacon grew taller, and churning the fog up until Sonic could hardly even see where he was going anymore. So strong that it slowed Sonic almost to a crawl. If his shoes slipped now, he’d be blown all the way back, so he kept his head down and his feet low as he pushed forward.

With one final burst of wind, the spirit beacon buckled and the violet threads hugging the pillar of light tore aside as the light erupted, a wave so broad and strong that it was already covering the planet and circling back. Nothing else was audible over the roar, nothing else was visible beneath the blinding sky. The spirit beacon broke open, now useless. Sonic was too late.

[SoDi]

-40- Rainbow’s End

Shadow found himself in what looked like the ARK, the space colony where he had been created decades before. It was empty, and quiet, and surreal. “Is this a dream? …Or the past?” he wondered, as he turned around and saw Maria smiling at him, floating slightly above the floor in her blue dress. He faltered, silent while he looked at her. “Are you even real?”

She looked puzzled. “You don’t know me?”

Shadow considered her question, his expression growing slowly certain. “…You are real. I know it. Maria, I-”

“This was your first home. Is that why you’re thinking of it?” she interrupted cheerfully, looking around.

“…I don’t need that sort of comforting.” The familiar halls and rooms faded away, but Maria was still there with him. “…I’m sorry.”

“Oh?”

“I couldn’t keep my promise to you.”

The last thing he was expecting was for her to laugh then. She had a soft, gentle way of laughing. “Silly! You kept that promise already.”

“But, this place is… Why else would I find you here? The Final Door must be open by now.”

“Me? But I never left you.”

He had to look away. A small, small smile pushed at his mouth, struggling to show. “…So, you were never behind the Final Door. Is that why V’s experiments couldn’t succeed?”

“Oh, him? Isn’t it sad? He must be so lonely!”

“What?”

“But I‘ll protect you, don’t worry,” she smiled, so casually. Perhaps he looked confused, and after all, he wasn’t used to feeling this confused. Perhaps that was why she added, “So many terrible things happened to you, didn‘t they?” There was nothing in her tone or innocent face to make that sound accusatory, only a child-like concern, but Shadow was distressed as he hurried to answer.

“Maria, everything I did, and all that happened, I… I was only trying to make things right,” he said.

“Make right?” she asked, resting a finger against her chin and looking curious. “Is something wrong?”

“… … …”

She pressed her small hands against both sides of his face and looked him in the eyes. “Always so serious!” she teased.

He closed his eyes, looking resigned. “It’s all over now.”

“What do you mean? Not all of it. You still have other promises to keep.”

“Others?”

“Life is full of promise!” she giggled. “And right now, Shadow,” she added, moving her hands over his heart. He placed his own over hers. “Right now, you’re still alive!” The warmth that spread out from her hands filled him completely, and though the scene went mute and black, he never let go of her hands.

-

Sonic was still fighting to hold his ground, but the wind kept forcing him back, inch by inch. The pillar of light was already spilling across the planet, the Final Door was already open and pouring power out unchecked, the energy it had gathered up thrown heavenward, but Sonic would not stand down. The power of the white wind blew through him now like it had burned when he was transformed by the bright ring, but his own emotions were too loud in his head for him to care. As if his life was flashing before his eyes, there was too much here to imagine losing, but those vibrant images passed and were gone again. Memory slipped through his hands, nothing solid enough to hold onto. It was all rushing away from him. “Tails!!”

Among the clouds roiling past him, one caught at his foot and streaked past like a small spark. Another glancing off his shoulder turned white and was blown away like a white ember. Sonic made one step forward, still shouting. More light began glancing away from him, a few burning sparks at first, then more. From beneath his shoes, off his wrists and quills, beside his eyes. The clouds were thick all around him, and the light flickered within like lightning as he took a second step forward, then a third. As the sparks increased, his steps grew faster, and he began to pull ahead.

Pushing back at the tangle of clouds, they rose up and from a distance might almost have resembled a horse in mid-gallop. But before that image had time to hold, the clouds burst aside in a flash and Sonic raced forward at sonic speed, power still dusting behind him like trailing white embers. He was too fast for this wind to hold him back any longer, and he reached the spirit beacon. Sonic made his way back inside the crystal fortress and back to the room where Tails had been captured. The entire building seemed to have become more brittle as power continued to drain from it, and the room at the base of the beacon was no more sturdy than thin glass as Sonic broke through the wall and stood in the center of the floor.

The room, of course, was empty, the wind howling loudly but not pushing him in any particular direction while he was at its center. The pillar of light had softened as it broadened, and stretched overhead like a long tunnel to infinity. “I know you’re up there somewhere,” he said. “I’m going to bring you back.” His own skin burned from the inside, his quills all prickled and stood on end as he stood in the odd light, and his ears were ringing, but he didn’t slow down. He began spinning with all his speed around the edge of the room, fast enough to go shooting up the walls in a tight spiral, throwing himself high into the center of the glow that was all that remained of the Final Door.

He ran out of momentum, but the power in the light around him resonated with the power once more within him and he hovered in the air, suspended. A hundred different vistas seemed to blossom below him, visible like ghosts crowding on top of one another, and none of the landscapes familiar. Sonic pushed the vision away. He reached out with all his senses through the overwhelming glare, searching for something familiar enough to grab onto and hold. Something more solid than memory. He needed to find his friend.

The light gathered inward as the wind began to die, expending itself, and Sonic dropped a long way. His arms were full of light, and despite the fact of how impossible and intangible it should have been, he would not let go. When he landed on the floor below, beneath the beacon once more, he was cradling a familiar white and yellow body. “Tails,” Sonic breathed in relief, as the beacon finally began to go still. Light was still everywhere, ambient as the loose power of the white wind settled quietly over the place. “…Tails?” he asked, shaking the body. The fox did not move or speak, and Sonic suddenly looked afraid. “You’re body’s back, see? Where’s the rest of you? Come on, wake up!” Sonic looked up, but if his friend’s mind had been blown away with the wind, there was no wind left to chase after. What more could he do? He set the fox down and continued shaking him. “Come on, open your eyes! Right, buddy? Please,” Sonic said. But Tails didn’t.

For what seemed like a very long time, Sonic just stayed kneeling beside the still body. He could hear the building beyond them still ringing, echoes of the power eddying around them like a dying current. The sound lost its clear hum and was turning cacophonous and off-key as parts of the structure began crumbling to dust. But it was all very distant. “…I’m going to find you. I’ll bring you back!” Sonic was saying to himself.

Sonic hadn’t even realized he’d closed his eyes until he opened them again when Tails asked, “…Sonic?” Tails was sitting up, looking confused, but very much alive.

The hedgehog splayed both his hands on the floor to hold himself up as he stared. “You’re back!! Tails!” Sonic’s face was wet, since he also seemed to have been crying without realizing it. Tails noticed that and jumped to his feet.

“W-what’s wrong?! Sonic, are you okay? I… haven’t seen you cry before. You’re making me worried,” said Tails, unsure what to do.

Sonic shook his head, smiling, but the tears were still running from his eyes. So he bowed his head to hide his face. “No, I, I’m just relieved!!” he answered weakly.

Tails leaned over to try and look at him again. A thought came to him, and he pointed at his own face and asked, “Did something happen to me?”

Sonic wiped his face with the back of his arm as he stood up. “You don’t remember?”

Tails stepped back to take a wide look at the room, the broken walls, the seemingly endless stretch of bright sky still radiant overhead. His two tails twisted about as he tried to think. “I remember there was a light, and then a waiting feeling. A long waiting feeling. But, I wasn’t scared at all! I knew you’d save me,” he said, trying to reassure his friend.

“That’s right. Every time!” Sonic nodded, and hugged his friend close. Tails was only confused for a moment, then hugged him back, happy enough with that answer.

Then he said, “I remember! We have to stop Eggman and Boreas! What about the spirit beacon?”

Sonic pointed upwards. “That was it.”

Tails was thinking hard again. “…Then let’s find Podarge, she might know what’s happening.” When Sonic frowned, he went on, “Sonic, she knew about this room, she might know more. And, listen, when she was telling me about the spirit beacon, she told me not to come here. I didn’t trust her, but, I should have listened!”

Sonic was silent. Then he began laughing, and it grew loud quickly. His whole body shook, he laughed so hard, and he had to hold his sides to keep from falling over. He hardly seemed able to control himself, and just managed to gasp as he laughed, “That girl is such a liar!!”

Tails looked concerned again. Just a moment before Sonic had seemed more down than Tails could remember ever seeing before, and now this. “You don’t understand! I think Po knew this room was a trap. She was trying to help me, though she couldn’t just come out and say it. I should have trusted her. Po is still our friend!”

Sonic finally managed to get some control, and began to calm down. He wiped his eyes again where laughing had forced out a few more tears, and took a deep breath. “You’re right, Tails. Of course you’re right!” He pulled out the backpack and handed it over. “Here, I was still carrying this. I figured you’d want it back.”

“My pack! Thanks!” Tails said, taking it. Then he looked around again. “If Eggman and Boreas already used the spirit beacon, we might be too late. No, I won’t believe that! Sonic, we have to hurry and find Boreas himself!”

Sonic crossed his arms. “Haven’t I saved the world enough for one day?”

Tails did a double-take. “Whaaa?”

“Hehe! Just kidding. Come on, let’s do this!” They gave each other a thumbs up. “So, all we have to do is find Knuckles and the chaos emeralds, defeat Boreas, reverse Eggman’s crazy machine, and save the world. Then we can call it a day!”

“We need to find out what’s happened to Podarge, too! Once she really knows that Boreas is using her, I’m sure we can get her to help us again!”

Sonic nodded. “Then we can call it a good day.”

“So where do you think Knuckles is?”

“We can find him in a flash! Now that I’ve got my speed back, this’ll be a cinch.”

“What?! I thought all the seals were destroyed. So how did that happen?” Tails asked excitedly.

“Who cares? It’s enough for me!” and Sonic grabbed his friend by the wrist and zoomed away.

They did find Knuckles soon after that, where he was making his way towards the spirit beacon from the west wing of the complex. There was no roof left, the wind had ripped away the outside of the buildings. The echidna’s quills were windblown and all askew, so he had probably seen the lightshow, as well. He saw them speeding towards him and shouted, “There you are!! It looks like something went right for you, at least.”

“More than you know!” Sonic grinned. “Did you collect the emeralds?”

Knuckles nodded, his face serious. “They weren’t even being guarded.”

“Then why’d it take you so long to find them?” asked Tails.

“Because they’re empty. Look,” and he pulled them out. The chaos emeralds were dark and muted, lacking any shine or luster.

“Drained!” Sonic said, recognizing the lifeless look of the gems.

“Maybe they used the energy for the beacon, and didn’t need the stones themselves anymore,” Tails guessed.

“And Shadow?” Sonic asked.

Knuckles shook his head. “No sign of anyone.”

“Then it’s just us,” said Sonic.

“How can we fight Boreas without Super Sonic? Even with your speed back, the problem is that with the power of the white wind Boreas isn’t just a normal bad guy!” Tails worried.

“I’ve already lost a lot of fights today. So I’m going to win this next one, just for a change of pace!” Sonic laughed. “Things will work out somehow. I know it,” and he reached out to take the emeralds from Knuckles’ hands.

When he touched the first one, there was a spark of light that stung them both, and they both let go. The emeralds spilled to the floor and began moving on their own, forming a ring beside them. From the air around them, different bands of colored light began ribboning into the center of the ring, until a figure formed from the colorful aura and smiled at them. She looked and sounded as real as when they had visited her in the rain palace.

“Iris!” Knuckles said in surprise.

“That’s Iris?” asked Tails, who had not seen her before.

She nodded. Her presence was clear, not echoing over some trans-dimensional distance, and they knew this was no illusion. The dark chaos emeralds were motionless at her feet, so Knuckles scratched the back of his head and asked, “How did you get here? The emeralds can still contact you even when they’re out of strength?”

“There is no shortage of power now raging through the many worlds the Final Door touches upon. Much of what has already been done you cannot undo. But this terror is not over yet, and you can still stop more from happening. I have come to give you what help I can. All the power I have remaining I shall use now to reawaken the chaos emeralds.”

Sonic met her eyes and said, almost apologetically, “Iris. You said you can’t leave the Rain Palace.”

“What will happen to you now?” asked Knuckles.

Her smile was a little sad, but very genuine. “I will go to where Zephyr is.” She raised her arms out in front of her, and a large pair of gold feathered wings rose up from her back, her whole body beginning to shine golden. The three adventurers shielded their eyes. Threads of light began to spin into the emeralds from the aura around Iris, the gems rising timidly from the ground and beginning to brighten slowly. As more light fed into them, the image of winged Iris began to become more indistinct within the light. She was beginning to fade. “You were right, guardian,” she said, when there was little more than the outline of wings and her voice left. “The world is changing, though I could not see it. Yet now I know that I can leave everything else to you and your friends. …Goodbye,” she said, and the last flowering of light was drawn into the revived emeralds. There was a terrible crack of thunder and rain began pouring down, right past the sun and stars still visible in the sky. A few last strands of ribbon and small feathers drifting in the air vanished as they were struck by raindrops.

The ring that had been hovering above Iris’ head did not vanish with her, it dropped to the ground and struck the crystal floor with a clear chime. Chao began appearing around them, making confused or mournful chirps as they flitted across the broken walls. One purple chao fluttered to the bright ring and carried it to Knuckles, who held it tight in his hands as he looked back up at the sky.

“…Without Iris, the Rain Palace doesn‘t exist anymore,” Knuckles explained without looking at the others.

Sonic was watching the broken spirit beacon, still glowing above them in the center of the ruined base. “…It’s time, guys.”