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“Tikal, come here a second”.
The young echidna turned around. Blaze was sitting on the grass, staring at the lake with a frown on her face.
Tikal moved closer to her, confusion filling her more and more with every step. It was not unusual for Blaze to ask for company, when looking in the pool for visions of her homeworld: gone were the days when the cat would want to be completely alone in moments like these. And Tikal herself usually didn’t wander too far at those times, ready to laugh at Blaze’s scoffing reaction to their friends’ antics.
It was unusual, though, for Blaze to look so troubled while gazing at the water.
“What is it?” Tikal asked, kneeling on the grass next to her. She followed Blaze’s hand as it gestured to the water, and found herself matching her friend’s frown.
She had expected to see Silver’s now-familiar face reflected on the surface, as he went on with whatever bizarre adventure he might have flung himself into. Blaze had picked up the habit to keep pace with his daily life, as if trying to follow his timeline even as she lived in a world without time.
(Tikal couldn’t begrudge her for it, not really: she had started doing the same with Knuckles and Sonic and their friends after she had met them.
It had been the reason she had known of Blaze’s impending arrival, after all).
She hadn’t expected the pond to show her something akin to a blurry TV screen.
The comparison came instantly to her mind, even if she had never used screens in her first life. She had seen enough of them in past visions that she knew no other description could come so close to whatever she was seeing now. It was impossible to make out a scene; colors kept mingling together, and the whole picture was confused, glitching as if it couldn’t be transmitted properly.
“Is it supposed to happen?” Blaze asked, voice low and unsteady. Tikal knew that if she looked up, she’d probably see a look of deep confusion etched on the other’s usually unperturbed face. She didn’t have the echidna’s experience in this field: chances were that she was more perplexed than scared, relying on Tikal to tell her that there was nothing to worry about, to make jokes about Chaos’ unreliable TV antenna.
But Tikal couldn’t joke, nor could she look up: her gaze was locked on the water, as if transfixed by something that was in equal parts mesmerizing and unsettling. She squinted, trying and failing to focus on the shapes moving on the water. They kept fading, blending in with the red surrounding them.
Wait.
Red?
She leaned closer to the water, as if it could help her understand what was happening. True enough, the whole image had a reddish hue that would be fitting for the inside of a furnace or a volcano, and not for the grey and black futuristic city Silver usually wandered around in.
It made the water look like blood. It was sickening to watch.
“Tikal?”
Finally, she snapped out of her reverie and looked up. Blaze was staring at her in open concern, a hand hovering in the air as if ready to grab her and shake her back to attention.
Tikal took that hand and squeezed it, trying to make sense of what she had seen. She felt slightly dizzy, and she was grateful she had sat down to begin with. She had a feeling she’d be more than a little unsteady on her feet.
“No” she said in the end, fighting against the knot in her stomach. “This…this is not supposed to happen. Something’s wrong.”
But even as Blaze tried to get an explanation out of her (or maybe to comfort her- her ears were ringing, she couldn’t quite make out the words), Tikal couldn’t define what exactly could be wrong. She didn’t know what she should do, what she COULD do, stuck in this world as she was.
And still the water swirled in front of her, the glitching picture so red that it hurt her eyes. Now, Sonic couldn’t say that he was upset about the change of plans for the day.
Of course, Eggman clearly needed a new hobby that wasn’t wrecking stuff with his robots, and the more he saw of Green Hill’s ruined landscape the angrier he got, but crashing the mad doctor’s plans was always a fun distraction. It spiced up what would have been his usual run.
He hadn’t liked Tails’ tone over the comm, thought. When the fox had called for his help he had rushed on, hoping to get there before the situation got too dire. Sonic was pretty sure his best friend could save himself even with the barest amount of help, but. You know. It never hurt to be safe.
He slowed his pace as he entered the city from where Tails’ call had come from. Eggman’s bots were all over the place, but from what he had gathered the doctor himself couldn’t be far from the city center.
And…there. That couldn’t be anyone else. Sonic smirked and pushed on, crashing the scene at high speed.
And what a wonderful scene, too. Eggman was setting some of his metallic pawns on a bunch of harmless citizens, laughing as if it were the peak of evilness. Tails had put himself between the robots and the other people, grimacing as he stood his ground.
His grimace turned into a smile, though, as Sonic swooped in and made short work of the robots. The hedgehog flashed a thumbs up at him as the rest of the citizens cheered on. “You okay there, Tails?”
“Yeah, thanks” the fox replied, nodding. “Cutting it kind of close, though. I’d started to think you wouldn’t come around.”
“And lose all the fun? You’d have to pay me for it.” Sonic turned around, regaling Eggman with a bright smile. “Hello, doc! Mind telling me what all the fuss is about?”
In truth, he couldn’t wait for the moment Eggman would inevitably spill out every detail of his new plan. The whole thing seemed in the old man’s style-big bad bots sprouting from every corner, destroying buildings and terrorizing people- but there was something nagging at Sonic’s brain, a doubt he couldn’t quite place his finger on. He had felt it in the air even while he’d been running through the ruined Green Hill, as if even the mechanical minions around him were waiting for something to happen.
But no, perhaps it was just that there seemed to be more robots walking around at the same time than usual. It looked as if Eggman had brought out the big guns this time.
The doctor himself seemed even more confident than in past encounters (and wasn’t that a huge feat, given his bloated ego). He didn’t look at all fazed by his pawns’ demise, instead going on with his irritating chuckle. “Ah, Sonic! I couldn’t wait for you to join us! You’re just in time to meet my ultimate creation!”
That said, he started laughing, floating further and higher away on his little hovercraft. Sonic rolled his eyes. Go figure: the one time he wanted to listen to Eggman’s monologues, the man didn’t feel like saying anything useful. The blue hedgehog ran ahead and jumped, expecting to collide with the Egg Mobile.
Instead, he felt another shape crashing into his side, sending him on a rough landing on the pavement.
“What the…” He groaned, searching for the newcomer as he got up. What had Eggman got out of his closet, this time?
But it was not a what as much as a who, he realized a second later, freezing in his place. For standing in front of him with a grim expression on his face was none other than Shadow.
No. That’s not possible. The last time he’d heard of Shadow, the guy had been out on a mission with Rouge and Omega. There was no way he could be standing there at Eggman’s side unless that mission had gone terribly, horribly wrong, and even then it would have made zero sense, because…
Sonic didn’t have the time to make sense of what he was seeing. Two other figures landed on the ground next to Shadow, two figures who were as out of place there as the black hedgehog was: Metal Sonic and Chaos.
Eggman was still laughing, hovering over their heads. “Well, aren’t you happy to see your old friends?” He asked, throwing his hands in the air. “Don’t worry, there’s a new one who so wants to meet you!”
Another person was making its way towards them. They didn’t walk, instead floating a couple inches from the ground, and Metal and Shadow moved almost mechanically, leaving space for them so that they could stand right in front of Sonic.
It was hard to determine who or what they could be. They wore a mask, from which only one eye peeked out, glinting yellow in the purple-red aura of light that surrounded them. The rest of them was covered with black fur, with long locks of white hair hanging from their head. In the middle of their chest was embedded some kind of gem, red as blood.
They didn’t speak. They just stood there, regarding Sonic with a cold gaze, as if daring him to make the first move.
Which he did, of course. He had no idea who this guy could be (he was pretty sure that it was a guy, though he could be wrong), but Eggman had presented him as some sort of new challenger, and Sonic had no time for challenges when the doctor was burning up some of his favorite spots.
Now when Shadow had apparently changed side in the space of a few days.
So he sprinted ahead, aiming to crash into the stranger’s face…and found himself stumbling a few feet from where he’d been before.
Mr Masked-and-Mysterious had moved aside impossibly fast, avoiding his attack.
He heard Tails shout in surprise, and Eggman going on with his chuckle, but the shock Sonic felt was somehow numbing down everything that happened around him. The guy had just…moved.
He’d been faster than Sonic himself.
The hedgehog shook himself and tried to attack again. He had no time to just stand there uselessly. Maybe it had been just a lucky move on the other’s part.
But no matter what he did, the stranger kept getting out of the way, and ultimately, he started hitting back, sending Sonic to crash on the surrounding walls and on the ground.
It didn’t seem possible, to have such an enemy confront him, but it was happening. And the blue hedgehog was starting to lose ideas.
“Tails, get the other people out of here!” He yelled at some point, but his thoughts were getting fuzzy and confused. Perhaps he should have asked Tails to intervene, to do something at least. Perhaps Tails had been doing just so for ages, and Sonic hadn’t noticed after getting too many hits in the head.
In the end, he wasn’t even sure whether Shadow and the other bad guys (who shouldn’t have been there to begin with, damn, what was happening?) had joined the fight or if it was just the one with the mask who had surrounded Sonic with endless copies of himself, making him fight against dozens of yellow eyes.
He wasn’t sure on how he ended up laying on the ground, his body drained of all energy, but when he tried to stand up the creature was still in front of him, staring down at him in complete silence.
“I think we’re done here” he heard Eggman say, from somewhere above his head. “Let’s get back. We have a lot of work to do.”
The stranger nodded; a strange light erupted from the gem in his chest, so red and bright that it was impossible to look at it directly. Sonic closed his eyes, hoping to shield them just for a moment, before getting up to fight again.
Instead, he found himself drifting off. Everything around him faded to black, and he didn’t feel anything for a long time.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
A few months later…
If anyone had told pre-war Gadget how his life would have turned out, he probably wouldn’t have believed them, the poor sod.
Not that the Gadget of now was any less surprised by what had happened around him. Going from a quiet job in the outskirt of his city to joining the higher ranks of a military resistance in the span of a couple months wasn’t exactly a common career. And now here he was, bumping shoulders with the world’s most famous heroes on a daily basis.
And hearing their orders in his earpiece, as it turned out. “Keep your eyes open, rookie” came Knuckles’ voice, rough and concise. “We got disturbed signals from a few roads ahead”.
Gadget muttered and agreement and pushed on. “Disturbed signals” were the code words for something he didn’t really want to see, but he couldn’t turn around and run away like a frightened child. He had orders, and Knuckles trusted him. No point in deluding everyone just because he was a little squeamish.
The wolf wandered through the streets, keeping an eye out for any Eggbots who might cross his paths. He was supposed to be a scout, checking the area for any robots to crush or civilians to get to a safe place: standard business, nowadays. But he hadn’t seen much robots, and no people at all, so he had to press on in the hope of learning something useful about their enemies’ plans.
Maybe there was a military name for what he was doing, because wasting time didn’t sound so fierce. Manning the perimeter? Intense scouting?
How was he even supposed to know? He wasn’t a soldier. He wanted to be a school teacher, for the Goddess’ sake.
Gadget shook his head, trying to refocus on his duty. That was the problem of going out alone: either you were running for your life, adrenaline rushing to your brain, or you started getting lost in your thoughts to ignore the explosions going off in the distance.
But he couldn’t get distracted now. He had reached the place Knuckles had mentioned to him. He hoisted up the Wispon Tails had given him and rounded the corner.
And there it was, no less unsettling than the first time Gadget had seen it. He ground his teeth, resisting the urge to look away.
It was an unsettling sight, though. It looked like a crack in a wall, only there was no wall behind it, and it was way bigger than a crack had any right to be. It fluctuated in the air, fifteen feet tall at least, a gaping black wound in the middle of the street.
Well. Not completely black. While looking in the center of it was like being plunged into pure darkness (how was the phrase again? Stare into the void until it stares back at you?), its outline was made of those red cubes that seemed to sprout out of every corner nowadays. They appeared to vibrate in front of his eyes, shifting and trading places, changing the gap’s appearance ever so slightly. Their color was so bright that it hurt Gadget’s eyes.
But then again, there had been so much red around them all lately that this thing hardly made a difference. Even the sky had been turned purple-red by the smoke and vapors from burning cities. And of course, he’d seen way too much blood for his liking to be bothered by some…cubes.
Still. The whole thing was disturbing. It looked as if it had been ripped out of a horror movie, and the ones appearing all around the conquered world had been pretty much the same. A land full of terrifying cracks. And of course, those cubes usually marked the appearance of one of their most fearsome enemies.
Gadget had never physically met the guy, but he was not in a rush to. All he knew was that he wore a mask, he was faster and stronger than everyone else he knew, and that he had taken Sonic the Hedgehog, lowering their chances of actually saving the world at pretty much zero.
Not a nice guy, all in all.
Also, they said he was keen on appearing out of nowhere, as if he was capable of magic. You thought you were fighting something in front of you, and then POOF, he was behind you, ready to kick the back of your head and sort out your squadron with a snap of his fingers.
Gadget didn’t know how much he should believe of that. People said any sort of thing during a war. Their communication tools weren’t the best, even if their mechanics were doing their best to keep everyone connected, so when a rumour started circulating, it was hard to prove it wrong.
For example, they said that cracks like the one in front seemed to leave objects on the ground, when they disappeared. Scraps of metal, old clothes, things that the soldiers on patrol had sworn hadn’t been there before the crack in question had popped out of existence. Rumour had it that unsuspecting passerbys had been sucked away by some of those infernal holes, too.
Gadget didn’t believe those stories, either, and neither did Knuckles and the others, but they had asked him to keep watch until something happened. Be it the finding of a civilian or his kidnapping by that bloody crack.
The orange wolf was prepared for a dull, if tense, waiting. There was not much to do, beside keeping his guard up for incoming bots. Even his earpiece was silent, except for the odd static crackling, now and then. He tried not to stare too much into the…thing a few feet from him, though his gaze was drawn to it almost hypnotically. Being in close proximity to the crack made him feel slightly nauseous, on the verge of a headache, just like he had felt the previous times he had encountered one of those horrors.
He had read that stuff like that happened when you were invested by radiations. Hey, maybe the cracks were radioactive, too! What a wonderful way to spice up the danger he was in!
While he was silently scolding himself for planting such dark thoughts in his own head, though, something shifted. He felt the ground under his feet start to vibrate, and he turned around, trying the locate the source of the problem. Was some new machine monstrosity approaching, ready to blow his head off?
But it would have to be real big and heavy to cause such a ruckus, and he couldn’t see anything of the sort. In fact, it was eerily quiet, except for the slight shaking under him. It was just him and the crack, and that hadn’t moved an inch from where it stood.
Except…
Wait a second.
The crack hadn’t moved, but it seemed to have changed in the split second Gadget had been distracted. The red cubes were oddly still, almost solidifying the shape of the hole, and the latter’s black interior was pulsating, flashes of red light appearing here and there. Had it been a real scar and not a giant abomination, he would have expected it to start oozing blood.
Gadget took a step forward, raising the Wispon in a surprisingly steady hand. His survival instinct was screaming at him to just run, for the Goddess’ sake, but he was a soldier now. He needed to do his duty, and to see what would happen. Even if shooting at the void would probably be useless.
They stood there for what felt like an eternity, the shaking ground and blinding light enough to make Gadget feel dizzier than before. Nevertheless, he stood his ground and waited.
Finally, something snapped. Suddenly, the pavement stopped vibrating, and for an instant, the crack seemed to grow even bigger, a vortex of swirling red and black.
Then, a person toppled out of it.
Gadget had no time to react to the surprise (because this certainly had never happened, not even to the greater telltales of the resistance) before the hole closed, disappearing in a flash of light.
Just like every other crack had done since the beginning of the war.
The wolf was at loss of what to do. This had no precedent at all. He pointed his Wispon at the figure on the ground, unsure on whether to put it down or shoot the stranger point blank. After all, it might be a trap. That thing was shaped like a person, but so did half the creatures they were fighting against.
It wasn’t moving, though. From that distance, it was just a lump of white fur collapsed in the dust.
Maybe they were dead. Or hurt.
Gadget hesitated a few more seconds, shifting from one foot to the other. Then, following a spur-of-the-moment urge, he started walking towards the creature, slowly but steadily getting closer.
He didn’t put the Wispon down, though.
When he was a couple feet from the lump, he stopped and looked down at it, frowning. It still looked like a person: a hedgehog, specifically, with silver-white fur and long quills. They didn’t look particularly hurt anywhere, but their eyes were closed, as if they were passed out.
Or dead.
“Hey” he tried calling out, his voice automatically coming out as a whisper. He grimaced and tried again, forcing the words out. “Hey! You there! Get up!”
Nothing. Gadget sighed, braced himself for his probable impending death, and closed the distance before prodding the stranger with the tip of his foot.
Still no sign of life. Maybe they were really dead. But no, now that he was close enough he could see their chest rising and falling slowly, so either he was imagining things or they were breathing.
And they had yet to attack him, so Gadget cursed silently and threw all caution to the wind. He grabbed the stranger’s shoulder and shook it as roughly as he could.
This time, the reaction was immediate. The hedgehog opened their eyes and jumped up so violently that Gadget instinctively took a step back, raising the Wispon once again.
“Where am I?” They asked, voice urgent. Their - his? Gadget wasn’t sure – breath was ragged, and the hedgehog was more or less kneeling on the ground propped up on one hand, but the other arm was raised, pointed menacingly at Gadget. The palm of the hand was glowing, not the red light of their enemies but a bright blue, and the wolf found himself staring at it with fascination for a couple of seconds before snapping back to attention.
But he couldn’t manage to form a reply (and what sort of thing was he supposed to say? You’re under arrest? He wasn’t prepared for this) before something passed in the hedgehog’s eyes, and he looked around, looking downright puzzled. “Wait, what…when is this, exactly?”
That was too much. Gadget had seen enough for one day; he wanted to go back to his bunk and sleep the day away, not to deal with someone who looked crazy as much as ready to pass out again.
He didn’t think the other guy was dangerous, though. He wasn’t sure what had given him the impression, but he trusted his instincts on that front, enough to decide to lower the Wispon and raise a hand. To steady which one of them, he didn’t know.
“Don’t worry” he said, trying to keep his voice even and loud enough to hear. “I’m…I’m calling someone. To help.”
Though, Gadget felt the urge to add while he turned on his comm to call Knuckles or someone of that kind, he wasn’t really sure that they didn’t have anything to worry about. He had just witnessed something without precedent in their line of work: what would their higher ranks say after learning that now the cracks were apparently spitting out people?
What were they supposed to do with that piece of information?
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“What year is this, then?” Silver tried asking again.
The orange wolf just stared at him, puzzled. He looked as if Silver were a madman, a lunatic appeared just to confuse him.
Which probably wasn’t far from the truth. Silver had no idea of how he might be looking from the outside, but he felt as if his brain had been used as a ping pong ball, and when he’d tried to stand up he’d staggered on his feet for a good few seconds. He doubted that that could make for a good first impression.
He just hoped he wouldn’t give in to the nausea and start puking, or worse, pass out again. It would be a surefire way to never be taken seriously again.
Still, he really would have liked an answer for his question. He knew that it had to sound weird to people not used to time-travel, but it was important info to start orienting himself. Especially because the place he’d been tossed into looked vaguely familiar, but Silver couldn’t piece out where he’d already seen it. It looked like a rather dull city, with more ruin and dirt than most lands he’d visited in his travels.
And less people, too. From what he could see, it was only him and the strange wolf around there. Weird.
He wasn’t getting any useful answers, though, so he groaned and switched his focus. “Where am I? What is this place?”
The wolf’s ears perked up, but he still hesitated a few seconds before replying: “My gear says Boulder City. I…I don’t know much more.”
Boulder City. It didn’t sound any specific bells, but that hardly meant anything. Silver had visited so many times and towns that he could barely remember half of them. “And your name is…?”
“Gadget” the other said. The hand holding his weapon twitched, as if he was considering raising it again, but mercifully it stayed at his side. “And yours?”
“I’m Silver”. The dizziness he’d first felt after waking up was dissipating, leaving space for a headache that would no doubt spread through his brain in a matter of minutes. What a wonderful way to start one’s day. “So, Gadget, do you have any idea how I ended up here?”
“You fell. From the crack” Gadget replied promptly.
That was surprising unhelpful. In fact, it only served to confuse him further. “The…crack?”
The wolf nodded frantically. “The crack in the air. Haven’t you ever seen one?”
Silver shook his head. He was starting to question which one of them might have gone crazy: whatever Gadget was saying made no sense.
Unless Silver had been pulled into this place by some time vortex, while travelling from one place to the other. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Nearly half the times he’d tried to reach a specific age year his journey had been diverted and he’d ended up seeing ages he wished he’d never visited.
Except that, from the way Gadget had talked about it, this “crack” was a common occurrence around here. So either time-travelling was not that big of a deal in this place (and wasn’t that an unsettling thought) or Silver had been victim of something else.
Besides, from what he could remember, he HADN’T been on the move when he’d lost consciousness. Unless he’d banged his head and lost some pieces of his memory, he’d been minding his business, wandering around the metropolis his new, Iblis-free future offered. It was a big city, and even after spending some time exploring it, it was so different from the ruins of his childhood that he always ended up discovering some new spot to dwell in.
He vividly recalled turning around a corner to check on a patch of grass and plants that had surprisingly started growing despite the steel and smog surrounding the area. That, and then nothing else. Pitch black, until Gadget had roughly shaken him awake.
Dammit, nothing was making sense!
Gadget had probably mistaken the out-of-focus look on his face for an expression of concern, because he hurriedly tried to comfort him: “Don’t worry! I called my commander, he’ll know what to do. We’re going to help you.”
“Yeah, thanks. Your…commander?” Silver didn’t like that one bit. A place with commanders was a place with an army, and he wanted to stay well out of any war unless he could do something to stop it.
He wondered idly if he had been wrong in not knocking Gadget out and running for his life. With his head pounding as it was now, he wasn’t sure he would even be able to use his telekinesis, much less use it effectively to disarm the guy, but he could have tried. Maybe he’d been a naïve idiot again, and this commander would just shoot him and get rid of him, scolding Gadget for not doing it on his own.
Or maybe he could trust his guts for once, and this Gadget was just trying to help a stranger out.
Before Silver could ask anything else, though, the wolf’s eyes turned to something out of his field of vision. “He’s here” Gadget said, his shoulders sagging with relief.
“So, what’s this thing that you’ve found, rookie?” A voice asked, just as Silver turned to see this newcomer for himself. When he and the infamous commander locked eyes, though, it fell silent.
Unsurprisingly so, actually, since the commander was none other than Knuckles.
Were the surprises ever going to end? “You chose a hell of a wrong time to come visit us, kid” Knuckles said, leading him to the helicarrier. The initial shock of their meeting was, at least in Silver’s mind, being replaced with wonder at what was going on around him. Knuckles was leading an army. Knuckles had landed in the area with an aircraft to back Gadget up. With soldiers.
If he was dreaming, it sure as hell was the weirdest dream he’d ever had.
“I didn’t have much choice in the matter” He replied, turning around to see as much as he could. They’d waited for his dizziness to fade, at least enough to stop him from doubling over as he walked, but as predicted, a headache was pounding freely in his temples. He wished that that could be his main concern for the moment. “So, what’s going on around here? What happened?”
The echidna scoffed. “You really don’t know? I thought you’d seen us in trouble in history books or something and had come down to help out.”
“Yeah, I’m staying around to help, that’s for sure. But I don’t even know how I ended up here.”
Knuckles glanced back at Gadget, who was trailing behind them. The wolf raised his hands, a helpless look on his face. He had recounted their meeting to Knuckles with a few curt words, and the echidna had probably a better grasp on what kind of crack he’d been speaking of, but all in all he had sounded as confused as Silver felt.
(It had been a relief. He had started to think that he might have got a concussion from falling headfirst into this timeline.)
“Well, we’re gonna figure that out too, at some point” Knuckles said, as a couple of soldiers closed the aircraft’s hatch behind them. “I think we need to tell you a story or two, though, before that.”
He fell silent then, and grabbed a hold of the nearest seat as the helicarrier started vibrating under their feet, getting ready to take off. Silver decided to imitate him. He was mostly sure that with him feeling better, his telekinesis could keep him afloat and prevent him from falling around, but he wasn’t about to test that now.
Whatever he’d passed through had shaken him that badly. He didn’t like what this could imply.
He sneaked a few glances around, to try and distract himself. In different conditions he’d have been glad to learn more about what he was travelling on and do a bit of exploring, especially since the vehicle looked as if it had been built out of secondhand stuff. But they were at war, apparently ( please tell me I can help end this, please let me end it, pleasepleaseplease ), so Silver looked down from one of the portholes, trying to figure out what kind of Mobius he was flying over now.
The sight out the window did everything but reassure him.
He stared, at loss for words. He could vaguely recognize the cities and landscapes streaming miles below, but it was all…different. It was a twisted, dirtier Mobius than the one he remembered. Clouds of smoke rolled over the buildings, or what remained of them: most of what he could see was rubble strewn on the ground.
Most of all, there was no sign of the bustle of activity he would have expected to see. They weren’t close enough to recognize details, but there seemed to be no people walking around, no mass at work or having fun or…anything.
It was all empty. Just like the city he’d woken up to.
“How…how long has it been since my last visit?” He asked, dreading the answer already.
“Uh?” Knuckles looked at him for a moment, frowning, then he shrugged. “I don’t know. A few months? Things started going down a couple weeks after that rhino robot business”.
That had been his last trip back to their time. He’d helped them take down one of Eggman’s creations that had reactivated itself after being left to rust. There went his last hope of having ended in a parallel version of his world, where everything had turned upside down.
Unexpectedly, Silver felt a hysterical giggle work its way up his throat. It was insane. He’d been walking these very same grounds less than a year before. And now it had been turned into a wasteland like…
Like the one Iblis had left behind.
In a matter of months.
Crap.
“What happened?” He asked, trying to keep his voice steady. “Where are all the people? Why are you even leading soldiers?”
“The last one’s easy. It’s because no one else would do it, and Amy and Rouge have their own stuff to do.”
“What?! No one…? What about Sonic? Or Shadow? Where are they?”
“You really don’t know, uh?” Knuckles sighed, then he waved a gloved hand. “Sit down, then. It’s gonna be a long trip, and a long story.”
Silver obeyed, mostly because he wasn’t sure that his legs wouldn’t give out. The world was spinning around him, and it wasn’t because of an eventual concussion.
“We thought it would be another of Eggman’s tricks. You know, robots destroying things left and right, some missiles, nothing new. Sonic went to face him. Except that Eggman wasn’t alone.” The echidna grimaced. “Some…old friends were with him. Chaos, Metal. Shadow was on his side, too, and we don’t even know how that’s possible. And there was this new guy, too. No clue on who he might be. He had a mask on.”
Knuckles was speaking with a flat, monotone voice, as if recounting something that didn’t involve him at all. Silver looked, then, truly looked at his friend like he hadn’t done before, too dazed and confused to consider anything past the I’m not going mad and this is bloody Knuckles phase.
Knuckles didn’t look overtly different from the last time Silver had seen him. The echidna had always seemed ready to fight, to jump up and lend a hand (often more literally than not). But there was a set to his shoulders, a shift to his posture that Silver didn’t recognize, and that scared him somehow.
And then there was the voice, of course. Silver wondered how many times he’d had to tell that story before, to be able to repeat it with barely any hint of emotion.
“Tails was there, you know. He said that this guy was stronger than Sonic, and seemed faster, too. Sonic couldn’t do anything. They took him away, and since then Eggman has done pretty much as he pleased. He’s conquered most of the world, or so it looks like. Yeah, we’re fighting back, but until we find Sonic and we get Shadow from the other side…or wherever he is now…there’s not much we can do. It’s just a handful of people who know what they’re doing and a lot of kids we’re trying to turn into soldiers. And the masked one is virtually impossible to fight, it’s like he can do magic tricks. Something like your powers.”
“He can’t be better than me, then” Silver replied, almost mechanically. Then: “So that’s why there’s no one down there? You’ve taken everyone away from the robots?”
“Pretty much. The resistance, they call us. We’re flying to our base now." The hint of a smirk flashed on Knuckles’ face. “Don’t worry, though. Eggman won’t shoot us down. The pilot knows what to do and we have safe routes to use.”
“Great.” It was hard to wrap his head around what he had heard. Sonic…kidnapped. Shadow fighting for the enemy, probably brainwashed or something, since no way in hell he would have sided with Eggman again. All his friends fighting to their last breaths.
It sounded like one of his nightmares.
“Okay, right, of course I’ll stay to help. I don’t know how much I can do, but we have to get Sonic back. Shadow, too. I don’t know if the others are fighting too, but if they’re not we’ll get them as well.
Knuckles’ smile widened the tiniest bit. “That’s what I wanted to hear” he said, reaching to clasp Silver on the shoulder, rough and heavy and familiar. “And don’t worry, there’s plenty for you to do. Especially since you can do something else beside pointing a gun at robots. We have a great deal of people to do that already.”
As if summoned by the echidna’s last remark, Gadget appeared in their line of sight. He’d been working with the other recruits until then, moving stuff around and holding on to his weapon, occasionally stealing glances in their direction. He offered Knuckles a half-hearted salute, causing him to scoff and roll his eyes.
“Pilot says we’re reaching the base, sir. She said to get ready for landing.”
“Thanks, rookie. And quit the “sir” thing, okay? I’ve told you a hundred times already.”
“Yessi-Yeah.” The wolf looked ready to go for a salute again, but thankfully he stopped himself on time. Instead, he gave Silver a small smile, shy but bright, before scurrying away again.
Knuckles watched him go for a few seconds before turning back to Silver. “You’re lucky it was him who found you. He’s one of the best recruits, we’ve been giving him some heavier missions lately. He trusted his instincts and offered some help; some of the others would have probably shot you at first sight.”
“Awesome.” Silver wasn’t exactly sure he should feel lucky for anything in their situation, but he supposed you had to enjoy the small mercies of life. And Gadget seemed a nice guy already. They would have need of every friend they could make, if they were to fight a war.
Chiefly because this looked like no other fight they’d fought before. “You’ll wear out the grass if you keep going on that way.”
Blaze stopped and looked up at Tikal, frowning. She hadn’t noticed she’d been pacing. She’d never been the type of person who paced around, either.
But she just couldn’t understand. She said as much to Tikal, who kept staring wordlessly at her. “I don’t know what’s going on. I thought that this…problem…was only related to Silver, but it got worse. And you say that nothing like this has ever happened.”
Instinctively, she turned to the pond. Looking at it still sent shivers down her spine, but Blaze couldn’t just turn her back to it and pretend things hadn’t changed.
That water was supposed to be a gift from Chaos. A crystal-clear window to their homeworld, a mean to see their friends. And now it had turned an unsettling blood-red, and it hadn’t shown a single image in days.
“It hasn’t” Tikal agreed, getting closer to stand by her side. The echidna was now looking at the lake as well. “But I don’t know what we could do. Even Chaos won’t tell me what’s happening, even if he senses that something’s wrong.”
“We can’t just sit down and not do anything, though.”
“We won’t. This is a threat to this place, I’m sure of it. Probably to Mobius as well.”
“Silver is involved” Blaze muttered. She was starting to feel uneasy: not the deep tension and anxiety that had crept on her since they’d stopped being able to look through the pond. This was something else, a feeling of being on the verge of something.
She thought she could hear a faint, far away buzzing noise. Was some baby Chao trying to pull some stunt in the forest, again?
Tikal didn’t seem to notice, however, so she gritted her teeth and went on, raising her voice: “I don’t think this has started with Silver by chance. He has something to do with this problem. And if he got involved with a new enemy, the others will probably follow his example.”
“What can we do but wait, though?” Tikal retorted. “Even if we knew exactly what has happened, we don’t have the power to help them.”
“I just wish we could do something else beside waiting.” The noise was growing louder by the minute. It would very soon be deafening, if they didn’t find a way to stop it. Her ears were already ringing, and she was having troubles thinking straight. “I feel…useless…”
“Yes, but…” Tikal stopped and gaped at her, concern etched deep into her face. “Blaze? Blaze, are you alright?”
“’s just this sound” the cat muttered, though it was hard to form coherent words. A surge of dizziness and nausea hit her when she tried to open her mouth again.
Weird. When had the world started spinning around her?
She took a step backwards, trying to find her balance again. It turned out to be a mistake: even thought it should have been impossible, her foot landed on nothing, and she felt herself fall, and fall, and…
“Blaze!” Tikal screamed, trying to reach for her, but Blaze’s vision was closing in, letting black and red spots creep around the edges until all she could see was the echidna’s face and her outstretched hand.
Then she couldn’t see anything at all, and the black and red fog enveloped her in a silent embrace.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Blaze cracked an eye open, carefully risking a glance around.She’d half expected to see some sort of enemy standing there, ready to react at any sudden movement on her part. That was the sole reason she hadn’t dared open her eyes as soon as she’d awakened, instead laying completely still on the cold metal floor, her ears perked up to capture any noise around her.(And hadn’t that been the first hint that she wasn’t home anymore – back in Tikal’s land, all she’d ever seen had been soft grass and dusty ground. Nothing like this, for sure.She wondered if this fact should scare her more.She wondered where Tikal might be, too.)But she was alone. All she could see in the darkened room were naked walls and a ceiling, made apparently of the same steel-like material of the floor. In a corner a few feet from her, a couple of tubes and some cables snaked on the floor and disappeared under a tile. All in all, a small, featureless room of no importance.Except that Blaze had somehow ended up there without a reason. While being passed out, she might have added.The cat opened the other eye as well, pulling herself up and trying to decide what to do. A microscopic part of her wanted to lay back down and lay her head on the cool floor, soothing the headache that was trying to crack her head open, but she couldn’t afford that. She was, most probably, in danger. And whoever – whatever – had brought her there had an advantage over her, since Blaze had no idea of where she might be.She tried to stand up, moving as slowly as she could to see if fainting had had any lasting effect on her. A wave of nausea hit her suddenly, but she closed her eyes and breathed deeply, and when it was over, she was able to walk around the room, checking is she might have missed anything useful in the darkest corners. She was a cat, but even her eyesight could fail.Nothing came out of her exploration, except for the door, which Blaze had only found feeling the walls, since it was the same color as them and nearly invisible. She briefly considered burning a hole in it, since it would surely be locked from the outside.But it wasn’t necessary. A light push was enough to open it, and it swung open freely, revealing a way more illuminated corridor.That shocked her more than anything else. She’d suspected, ever since waking up from her black out (and she still didn’t know how long she’d been asleep, or what exactly had happened. She could remember the red pool, and Tikal, and then…And then?),that she’d be a prisoner of sorts, locked away at the leisure of her kidnapper.But there was no lock, and no guards. Just her.Nevertheless, she moved carefully, ducking into dark corners and avoiding anything that looked like cameras. She couldn’t put a name on the place she was walking around yet, though it looked eerily familiar. It was nothing more than a giant maze of corridors, with bright neon lights and dirty metallic plaques on the walls.She encountered no one, though she often heard noises far away, and once something that resembled the voice of someone talking through a radio. Under her feet, she could feel vibrations and the humming of machines.Blaze had never set foot on a spaceship, but she’d seen enough in her watching sessions through the pond – especially in glimpses of Sonic’s adventures – that she could find some similarities with the site she was currently exploring.Not that the thought was of any consolation to her. The odds of a working spaceship NOT being in space were depressingly low, and it would be that much harder to escape if she was floating in space.She forced herself to ignore the thought and pressed on. Even if the situation was that dire, she’d just need a better plan. And she couldn’t think of plan without learning more of the issue.Finally, after she’d lost count of the number of closed doors she had passed, Blaze found herself in front of a sliding door that opened automatically as soon as she got close enough.In any other circumstance, such a lack of passcodes or alarms she could have triggered would have been amusing. Whoever had taken her must have been a fool, to allow an intruder to roam their ship so freely.That, or she had gotten too used to only hanging out with a clever person.Blaze could not think of Tikal now.She was worried for her. She couldn’t not be, because Tikal’s absence felt as unnatural as walking through these strange rooms and breathing stale air that smelt of oil and dirt, but she needed to stay focused. If her lover was in danger as well, Blaze would rescue her as soon as she managed to pull herself free of this place.Yes. A good, solid plan. Trying to keep it in her mind, she stepped into the new room and looked around.It was radically different from the corridors she’d just left. For a start, it reminded her more of a hangar than a normal room, exceptionally large and with a high ceiling. Plus, there was no normal floor, but thin ramps attached to the walls and a gaping, circular hole in the middle, bordered by railings. When she dared look down, she saw rows and rows of similar looking ramps, going so far down that she could barely see the last ones.Uh. So this place was way bigger than she’d expected.There were rooms looking over the ramps, though it would have been more correct to call them cells. When she peeked in a couple of them, she could see the barest minimum inside: grey walls, a cot and not much else. Instead of doors, there were bars preventing her from going in, common metal ones but surrounded by what Blaze thought could be an electric field. She didn’t dare touch them, suspecting they would either stun her or trigger an alarm (or both), but she could hear the faint buzz of static and she felt her hairs raise even just getting close to them.Was this a prison, then? And if yes, what kind of people would she find locked in there?She wasn’t even sure which answer would make her feel better.Most cells were also unoccupied. She couldn’t swear on those on the other side of the hall, but the lights in them were out, just as they were in every empty room she surpassed, so it was a pretty safe guess.There was one exception, though. Twenty feet or so ahead of her, she could see the faintest light coming from one of the cells.There had to be a prisoner in there. Blaze couldn’t call it a positive discovery, but maybe if she could only see them face to face, she’d get the hang of what was going on around here.She crept on, mindful of the cameras once again, and approached the cell on soft feet. If there was really a person inside, then it would be better not to startle them. They could catch the attention of their guards, willingly or not – even if she had yet to see any guard whatsoever.Before looking inside, Blaze steadied herself, ready to witness the worst outcome possible. Whoever was inside could take her for an enemy and try to attack her, or they could be injured, or dead. She couldn’t afford to be caught off-guard.Still, when she finally glanced into the cell, she froze, feeling as if the air had been sucked out of her lungs all at once.It was Sonic.Except that Blaze had never seen Sonic in such a state, not even after his worst encounters with Eggman. There were bruises on his skin, and patches of missing fur all over his body. He was sitting on the ground, propped up by the wall furthest from the bars, and his head was bowed, so she could not see his face nor make out the finest details of his injuries, but she was pretty sure there were scratches as well, red under the blue of his fur.And, unless she was sorely mistaken (though she wanted to be), there was blood pooling in a small puddle in front of him.Blaze bit her tongue to resist the urge to scream. This could not be possible. It had to be a nightmare, one of those sick ones she had on her worst nights, when she dreamed of her friends hurt or worse, it could not…Unconsciously, she took a step forward, as though wanting to check for herself if all of that was real or not. She probably made more noise than she thought, for Sonic’s ears perked up. Blaze found herself holding her breath in shock, waiting for his next move.For a few seconds it seemed that there would be none, and that he would go back to acting unconscious. Then, astonishingly, a low chuckle came from him.“Back already, Eggman? What, did you miss me already?” He said, looking up slowly.His face wasn’t in better conditions than the rest of his body. He was sporting a lopsided grin, but there was more blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, and dark bruises all around. His head was drooping slightly to the side, even as he tried to keep it up right.His eyes were unfocused, too, but he sobered up immediately when his gaze centered on her.“Blaze?” He asked, confusion replacing the forced smugness in his voice. “What? How?”She didn’t even have the time to answer before he groaned, closing his eyes and tipping his head back. “You’re…you’re a hallucination, right? They put that stuff in my food again.”“No, I’m – I’m not a hallucination.” Are you? She felt the impulse to ask, because none of this made sense, from the trip in space she might be taking, to one of her friends beat up and bloody, to whoever was apparently drugging him. “It’s really me, it’s Blaze, but…what are you doing here? What happened? Where are we?”She felt fire burning under her skin. She wanted to understand, she wanted to burn down those bars – force field and all – and take him away and patch him up and finally ask him for a long and sane explanation. Blaze could see herself doing all these things, and she was on the verge of raising her hand and get started.That was, of course, when the siren started blaring over their heads.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Entering the Resistance base was the weirdest experience Silver had had in a while, and that included the time he’d been held at gunpoint after being teleported in the dust.Mostly because, despite being full to the brim with survivors, the sea of faces staring at him was made almost completely of strangers.He didn’t know what he’d expected, flying down there with Knuckles. He didn’t even have that many friends in this timezone – or in any timezone, for that matter - so he couldn’t pretend to find hordes of them running around. Especially not with the losses of Shadow and Sonic.Still. It was pretty upsetting to walk into the control room and find only a handful of familiar faces.There was Tails, of course, barely looking up from the computer screen in front of him before turning back to it with empty eyes. Vector and Charmy, happily waving at him. And Amy…Amy barreled into him before he could do more than take a few steps into the room, enveloping him in a bone-crushing hug.“Knuckles sent us a message” she said in the end, releasing him. For his part, Silver tried to catch his breath discreetly. Many things had changed, but his friend sure hadn’t lost her strength. “I’m glad to see you, but you’re not supposed to be here.”“Tell me about it.” He sighed, letting her take his arm and drag him further into the room. “But at this point I think I’ll stay around to help. If I can, that is.”“Of course you can! We need all the help we can get!” Amy was beaming at him while she spoke, dripping cheerfulness from every pore, but Silver was not fooled. While he was fully convinced that she was glad to see him, her smile was strained, and the grip on his arm stronger than necessary.She turned to Knuckles before he could say anything, so he swallowed his own words and waited. There would be time even to tear down her façade.“What did you tell him? What does he know?” Amy asked.Knuckles shrugged. “Just the main points. The flight wasn’t long enough and I wanted to let you introduce any great plan of yours to him.” He looked at Silver then, gesturing to her with his hand. “She’s the strategist here, you know. I’m commander in battle, but she’s the genius mastermind.”“Oh, shut up, Knuckles. We’re all doing our best.”“I heard about Sonic and Shadow” Silver blurted out, only to inwardly curse himself as he saw Amy’s smile dip even further. So full of tact.But he couldn’t back away now. “Just…What happened? Well, not – I know what happened, but…it sounds like hell.”“Yeah, it was…a hard blow.” Amy paused for a few seconds, then her expression hardened. “But we gotta keep on hoping, and work hard. Rouge is with GUN right now – they’ve been helping us from the beginning, and they’re still tracking Shadow down. And Tails has been looking everywhere for Eggman’s hideouts and Sonic. We’re going to find them all. Right, Tails?”Tails didn’t answer. Neither did he look up. He just stared silently at his screen, chin resting on his hand. In front of him, a scanner or radar of some kind worked on, filling the screen with numbers or data.Amy’s face didn’t falter, but Silver felt her fingers digging painfully in his forearm, and he vowed to learn more about the whole situation later. Possibly without less of an audience, since he sensed that his friend was keeping up the act only at the benefit of the other people present. He gave her his most reassuring smile, then, even if he was hopeless at comforting people and more confused than everyone else in that room.“Of course we are. We’re gonna fix everything” he said, with a security he wasn’t sure he had. “Can you tell me what I can do, though? I wanna help.”As Amy nodded eagerly and dragged him towards one of the biggest computer screens, Silver fervently prayed that he’d really be able to do something useful. He didn’t know in what kind of mess he’d been catapulted into, but there HAD to be a chance for him to help set things to right.He didn’t know what he’d do if there were none. Blaze had always prided herself of her logical, rational way thinking. She didn’t rush into things headlong: that had been Silver, since the very beginning. She reacted quickly, yet she never fell to panic when unexpected problems arose.But when the high-pitched screech of the siren started blaring in her ears, her first instinct was to freeze on the spot, like a frightened animal caught off-guard by car lights on the road. Later, she would blame her state for her unusual reaction, the fact that she’d been thrown off balance multiple times in the span of a single day, but for now there was only the alarm, and an unfamiliar ground, and Sonic, wide-eyed and grinding his teeth as if he were waiting for something to fall on him.Her second instinct was to bolt.There weren’t any good hiding places around there – but her brain was, at least, able to catalogue them and point her towards the best option on hand. Some of the cells had no bars, probably waiting for prisoners to arrive before being locked down, and while they screamed of danger and trap, this was not a game of hide and seek: there was nothing more suitable, no conveniently placed pile of crates to hide behind, no niche in the wall where she could fit just fine. She dove in the nearest free cell and waited, huddled in the darkness, willing herself to breathe slowly.At long last, when she was about to crawl out from her corner and go back to Sonic – and really, why had she run? When had she ever resorted to blind panic? Logic wanted her to learn more about what was going on before attempting a rescue mission, but that didn’t mean running as if she had hell on her heels – the siren stopped. Bare moments later, she heard footsteps clanking on the metal floor, then stopping a few feet from her, roughly where she pictured Sonic’s cell to be. She held her breath, ready to jump into action if needed.Then she heard the newcomer speak. “How can there be an intruder? Every access point is locked and monitored.”Blaze’s ears flattened against her head in a mixture of shock and fury. She knew that voice. She had heard it only a few times in her first life, but plenty of others as she watched Sonic fight in the pool. That was, unmistakably, Doctor Eggman.
Focus. Focus. What’s happening?
Another voice pitched in, more metallic and inhuman and, most of all, worried. One of his robot minions, most likely. “Nobody came in, sir, and nobody got out. There are guards all over the perimeter. They can’t have passed through.”And yet they did. I did. Blaze couldn’t stop herself from thinking, with dry humor.Eggman was considerably less amused. “Then why am I here? Why did that blasted alarm sound?”“We-we don’t know, sir, we’re still booting up the cameras after the…experiment and the live scans only show signs of warmth…”“Here” the doctor grunted, finishing the thought. – Where we keep this nuisance. Who was, and still is, sadly alone. Isn’t it right, Sonic?”“You wound me, Doc.” The hedgehog replied. Blaze could almost hear the grin in his voice. “I’d never have guests over in your own home. But I’ll make sure to invite them for tea if I see someone around.”The cat mouthed a thank you, though she knew Sonic would never see her. Her friend had lied smoothly and without hesitation – and wasn’t it a relief, that he could still be his usual sarcastic self, even after what he’d been put through.What she supposed he’d been put through, actually, since she had no information but the injuries she’d seen on his body. She could barely believe that Eggman might have done it. Blaze had seen them fight, of course, but this felt…different. More methodical. Though she couldn’t put her finger on the reason why, it left an acrid taste in her mouth.Eggman was speaking again. Concentrate. Now. “Get out of my sight, you tin can. And get those cameras fixed! I can’t believe you’re getting in the way of my genius.”The bot spluttered some excuse and whirred away. Before moving, Blaze waited until the noise had died, far away from her, then she risked a glance over the cell’s opening.She couldn’t see the inside of Sonic’s cell from that angle, but Eggman was right in her line of sight. He had not changed a bit since they had last encountered: same moustache, same giant belly, same grin that he wore when he was sure that he’d won. Blaze’s hands itched from the want of wiping it out of his face.“In truth, I hoped there would be an intruder.” The doctor said, crossing his arms. “But it seems that your friends are not too interested in rescuing you.”“Oh, don’t worry, they’ll come around. I bet they can’t wait to see your face again”“Perhaps. Then again, maybe there’s no one left to come around. From what you know, it might have been two weeks since I’ve taken you, or two years. Might be there’s no one left to come rescue you.”“What can I say? Time flies when you’re having fun” Sonic replied. He was keeping up with his cheeky tone, but for a split second his voice wavered, uncertainty creeping up. Blaze hoped that it was a façade, a fake show of weakness. She hoped that, whatever it was, Eggman had not heard it. “But we’ll see.”“Yes, we will.” Eggman took a step closer to the cage and pressed on one of the metal plaques composing the walls. It shifted, revealing a panel underneath covered in a myriad of buttons and lights. The lights were blinking red and green, and Blaze narrowed her eyes, confused. Where was this going?“For now, I think I’ll make sure your nosy friends will get a good show when they come pick you up.” The man concluded, pressing two buttons at the same time.A couple red dots turned to green. A split second later, the bars of the cell retracted in the ceiling, while what looked like a glass wall came up to take their place. Instinctively, Blaze moved forward, trying to make sense of what she was seeing.Then the screaming started.She never would have dared imagine Sonic making sounds like these, not in front of Eggman, not ever. It crept under her skin, raising every hair on her body, freezing her in a state of horrified incredulity. That was the sound of excruciating pain, and now she couldn’t escape the word her brain had tried to avoid using, seeing Sonic in that state.Those weren’t fighting scars. That was torture.Eggman regarded the scene for a few seconds, but to Blaze they seemed to stretch out into centuries. Finally, he walked away, and all that remained was what she could glance behind the glass from her corner. Drops of water hit the transparent wall, and with them came sudden bursts of light, like tiny lightning strikes. And the screams. Try as she might, she couldn’t ignore them.Blaze gritted her teeth. She needed to get them both out of that place.Now.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
About half an hour later, Silver had gained more information that he could have ever asked for. Some parts of it had even been sold to him as positive, but there was very little to rejoice for, in his opinion.Eggman had made another attempt at world conquest. Same old, same old. What had come as a shock to Silver had been learning that the evil doctor had succeeded, mostly because he’d managed to capture Sonic and gain an all-powerful masked ally early on. Not to mention that, somehow, Chaos, Metal Sonic and Shadow were all on his side, popping in and out of every battlefield and causing havoc among the Resistance forces.Hearing about Shadow had been a hard blow for Silver. He could, with some effort, picture Sonic being beaten; he could never have predicted the black hedgehog leaving them to join Eggman’s army. He knew Shadow, he respected Shadow. There had to be something off with the whole thing, to put them in this situation.The Resistance, as it was, held on, but it wasn’t gaining much ground against the opposing force. Despite the support offered by G.U.N. (which kept contact with their allies through Rouge), their elements weren’t soldiers as much as refugees, hordes of civilians, mostly elders and children, seeking a place to hide after their cities had been raided.No wonder everyone seemed to be holding on to hope by the skin of their teeth. The situation was dire enough for Silver himself to grow desperate.But that would have been counterproductive. He was supposed to be helping, right? He needed to stay strong. “What’s there to do, then? Like…not fighting the robots or saving the people. I don’t know, some great plan, some decisive action?”“Well, we had something in mind” Amy replied, pressing a button on one of the biggest computers. Its screen filled immediately, showing a tridimensional rendition of a map of some kind.Silver stared at it with his brow furrowed. It looked like the inside of a building, or at least a crudely drawn layout of it. At a touch of Amy’s finger, the camera moved, revealing more rooms as it went around corners and entered doors.“What is it?” He asked, perplexed.“This is one of Eggman’s new bases” the pink hedgehog said without looking away from the screen. “Or, more correctly, what we think his base looks like on the inside. We had to guess after some hacking and spying, since we haven’t managed to get in yet.”“Oh. What’s so important about this place, though? Why do you want to break inside?”It was Knuckles who answered. The echidna stepped up to his side, his expression hard and unreadable, and said: “Because that’s where he’s keeping the Master Emerald.”It took Silver a moment to recover from the shock. Once he was finally able to stop gaping, he turned to Knuckles, wide eyed. “W-what?” He stammered out, throat dry. “What do you mean Master Emerald? How did he even get it?”“He didn’t. He got his lackey with the mask to steal it for him. The guy probably hid it away in Eggman’s new lair, too, since I can’t sense the emerald anymore.”“I thought you could. I mean, even from far away.”“I can” Knuckles snapped at him. “At least, I should be able to. But something’s interfering, and our radars detected the same energy that’s bursting out of that guy.”Silver felt as if he were bursting too, filled to the brim with questions he wanted to ask. Before he could voice any of them aloud, though, Amy added: “That’s why we’re trying to navigate the place this way. Without Knuckles’ Guardian sense, we can only guess where the Master Emerald could be. This is a rough map, but it should be enough not to get lost, once we manage to keep the masked one distracted elsewhere and we get in.”Silver had no idea how one person could give all of them so many problems. They were used to dealing with the worst the universe had to offer, after all. “Is he that powerful, then?”“Pah!” Vector spit out in disgust. “That guy is everywhere. We can’t get rid of him in any way. He’s a right pain in the…”“He seems to have some strange powers” Amy said, eyeing the crocodile reproachfully. “He can…I don’t know how to explain it, but he seems to be able to alter reality. Or to give hallucinations, at least. He thwarted our latest attempt to find Sonic, and…”A sudden, screeching sound filled the air, and Silver turned around along with everyone else, trying to locate its source.Tails had pushed his chair away from the computer. He got up and exited the room, walking out the room without meeting anyone’s eyes.There was a long moment of silence where no one seemed to be able to find anything to say before Amy clasped her hands together, an overtly cheerful smile on her face. “Well. Back to the plan.”She looked back at the screen, but Silver managed to see her eyes for a second, way too bright in the crude lighting. He gritted his teeth, wishing he could say something, anything helpful at all, instead of just pretending everything was fine.But Amy was talking again, her voice light as if she’d never been interrupted. “We’re not sure of where Sonic might be, either, so we tried to storm a couple of Eggman’s hiding spots with unusual activities going on. Eggman’s new friend intercepted us and…it didn’t go well.”She took a deep breath, then continued. “He made it look as if we were spinning around, upside down, walking on air. He made dozens of copies of himself, and he was attacking from every corner. It was maddening. He’s not only superstrong, he can play with your mind as he likes.”“We lost some of the recruits we’d brought along” Knuckles intervened. “And Espio- ““Espio too?” Silver interrupted, stunned. Suddenly, his absence made way more sense, as did the quietness of the two other Chaotix members. Even Charmy seemed subdued at hearing his friend’s name.“He’s not dead, no. But he got wounded badly while trying to attack that creature from behind. He must have eyes on the back of his head, too.”“He could, for all we know “Amy said. “We’ve never seen him without the mask on, and we never get close enough to see his face anyway.”There was a picture on the screen now. It was grainy and clearly taken from a distance, and it showed what was clearly the person they’d been talking about until then. Nothing particular was discernible about him, though. Just a light-coloured mask that let only one eye peek out, a cloud of white hair, and the glint of something red on his chest.That caught his attention. “What is it? What is he wearing?” He asked, pointing a finger at the screen.“We’re not sure. It looks like a gem, and we think it’s connected to his power somehow, since it’s the same color as this “magic” he’s pulling around.” Amy waggled her fingers as demonstration. “But we don’t have any proof.”“Okay. That’s not terrifying at all.” Silver was trying to come up with a good enough reaction for whatever it was that he’d just learned of. The guy had magical superpowers, right, so what? Silver himself had some of those. He didn’t have to freak out. He wasn’t allowed to freak out. “How…How do we even stop him?”“I’m not sure we can” Amy said. “But if we get him to look elsewhere and just not teleport to where we’ll be digging, we can put our hands on the Master Emerald and…and maybe find some clue on where Sonic might be, and hopefully we’ll be on an even ground with him after.”It was a farfetched plan, with little to no chances of success. There were countless things that could go wrong. And would they even be able to hold that crazy stranger’s attention long enough to pull their heist? Basing on their tales, it seemed that they’d tried attacking him all together, and they had failed. They didn’t have any new weapon to point at him.Well, except for…Oh.Right.“I can do it, then” Silver heard himself say, way before his brain had caught up rationally with his idea.All eyes turned to him. “What?” Amy asked, clearly confused.“The distraction. I can do it.” The grey hedgehog straightened his spine, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt.That was the point, wasn’t it? He’d reached it unthinkingly mere minutes before: to fight an enemy with superpowers you needed a friend with superpowers. And Silver was that friend, even if he had just been pulled into another war-wrecked world after working so hard to save his own.“I’m serious. You said you needed some help, and I’m ready to help, and maybe I can stand a chance of keeping him busy for all the time you need, especially since he’s never seen what I can do.”He chanced a look at Amy, who was still holding herself together, still pretending they had everything under control and that he didn’t need to risk his life for them. He could nearly see those exact words stumble out of her mouth in a few seconds, so he steadied himself and pleaded, staring right in her eyes: “Let me go. Let me fight him.”There was another long, pregnant pause. Then Knuckles shrugged. “I say we try. We don’t have much more to lose as of now.”Silver was still looking at Amy. She opened her mouth, then closed it immediately after, hesitating. Finally, she sighed, deep and heavy.“Knuckles is right. We need to try” she said, voice thick and barely steady. Then she shook her head and added, fiercely: “But you’re not just running out to punch him in the face. We’re going to plan it out, and when it’s all over we’re all coming back here alive and with the Master Emerald. Am I making myself clear?”“Yes, ma’am” Knuckles grunted, but it was only half mocking. Silver smiled at Amy, and he was relieved to see her smile back, a new fire in her green eyes.They could make this work.They had to.When the sound of Eggman’s heavy steps had faded away, Blaze stepped out of the shadows and made her way towards Sonic’s cell.She was tense, tiptoeing around as if every step she took could trigger an explosion. She knew they were on borrowed time; she was out in the open, ready to be caught the moment the cameras got turned back on. She had thought of setting the closest ones on fire, just to buy herself a few more minutes, but it would have triggered any existing fire alarms and defeated the whole purpose of going unnoticed. Same went for trying to burn down the cell, or at least the bars: even if whatever could electrify them didn’t suddenly short-circuit under the heat, the chance of getting caught or to accidentally hurt Sonic on the way was too high.Not only she was running out of time, then; she was also running out of ideas.And yet, Blaze could barely keep herself lucid. All she was conscious of, all she could feel, was the boiling, thundering rage coursing through her veins. Had she been able to give in to her instinct as she knelt down before the bars, she would have grabbed the closest one and squeezed it in her first, so strong was her anger.But, of course, she couldn’t. She was the strong one here, the sane one and the whole one. She couldn’t afford to be reckless, or stupid.It was hard to think coherently with Sonic in such a state before her eyes, though. The hedgehog was slumped against the wall, breathing heavily with his eyes fixed on the ceiling. His fur was, bizarrely, soaking wet, and there were puddles of water on the floor.There was also a rivulet of blood dripping from his mouth, but Blaze forced herself to look away, and she steadied her voice before whispering: “Sonic?”He looked at her then, and he groaned, waving a tired hand in her directions. “Again? Look, I-I can’t deal with hallucinations now. Leave me alone.”“I’m not an hallucination” she replied. She didn’t want her voice to grow frantic, but she needed her friend to believe in her, and to cooperate, if they wanted to get out. “I’m here. Please, look at me. I’m as real as Eggman was.”“So Eggman was real? Crap. I’d hoped this was some freaky nightmare.”Sonic was clearly making an effort, but his tone carried but a little of his past cheekiness, and there was a thickness to it that suggested he could have done with a drink, or that he had bitten his tongue.Or both. It would have explained the blood, at least.“I’m sorry. I’m sorry all of this happened. I’m going to get you out of here, I promise.”He actually laughed at her, humorless and vaguely hysterical. “Good luck, then. I tried a few times to escape on my own and believe me, it went swimmingly.” He paused, his breathing laborious and uneven. “As in, I got sent to swim in some great big pool, right before they started electrifying it. Which, by the way, is what just happened here. The doc’s so kind to give me my own private bathtub and electroshock in one sitting.”To her stunned silence, he replied by shaking his head, a microscopic smirk on his lips. He winced halfway through the movement. “That is, if you’re actually real.”“I am.” Blaze was, for once in her life, at loss of what to say or do. She stumbled over the words, trying to keep a grip on logic. “Look, I’m just…I’m going to try and warm you up, and then we need to work out a plan. You’ve been here a while, right? There must be something you have heard, or seen, or…”The cat looked at her hand, dumbfounded.She had snapped her fingers instinctively, trying to summon some heat or some fire, anything that could warm Sonic up and drag him back to reality. She hadn’t even thought hard about it, expecting a taste of her usual power.And yet, she had gotten something completely different.Instead of the usual burst of orange-red flames, there was a small, compact ball of blue fire fluctuating an inch or so above her palm. Blaze could feel its warmth, not dissimilar to the warmth of anything she had ever produced before, but the rest of it was strikingly foreign to her normal abilities.“Uh” Sonic commented, eyes trained on the dancing flames in her hand. “Hard to dream about this one. I didn’t think you could do anything like that.”“Yes, well, neither did I” she breathed. It was hard to take her eyes off that thing. It was almost hypnotizing.Blaze felt a primitive urge inside of her, the need to add on to that nonsense. She blew softly on the ball, and it flew away, hovering in the air as it moved between the bars and towards Sonic.The hedgehog raised his arms instinctively, and the flame stopped a breath away from touching his cupped palms. “It’s warm” he said, voice dripping with disbelief. “There’s nothing so warm here.”He sounded on the verge of tears. It would have broken Blaze’s heart in any other moment of her life, but as it was it just added to her confusion.This was too much. Kidnapping, loss, a Sonic that was a mere shadow of his past self, and now new powers out of the blue. She was losing more balance with every passing second, and who knew what could happen next.She wished Tikal could have been there. Tikal was calm, and level-headed, and she always knew what to do. Blaze ached for her strength to rely on.But there was no Tikal around. Just her, and Sonic, and new abilities to deal with in the face of danger.Deep in thought, she snapped again, focusing this time on the result. Sure enough, another small blue fire appeared, nearly identical to the other one. She was able to control it, apparently, at least vaguely.She tried poking at it, absentmindedly. No fire could hurt her, anyway, and she wanted to see if it would feel different than the usual.She never managed to touch it. It opposed resistance, as if there were an invisible bubble surrounding the flame. Try as she might, her finger never got closer than an inch or so from the fire.Not a fire made to burn stuff, then. To anyone else it would have been worthless, but Blaze could sense a purpose in it. It could be useful. It could…Her head snapped up so suddenly that Sonic nearly flinched, even as he gazed reverently at the flames. “Do you believe I’m real now?”“Now? Yeah.” The hedgehog looked back at her, raising his eyebrows. “This sounds too weird even for my usual visions.”“Good.” Blaze narrowed her eyes at the ball in her hand, and it grew larger and taller, just as she had wished for.“Because I think I have a plan to bust you out.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“So, we’re out on a mission then?”Silver looked up from where he was fiddling with the com Knuckles had strapped to his wrist. Gadget was looking at him, smiling somewhat uncertainly.The hedgehog frowned. “We?”“Yes, well. I’m supposed to be your ride. And part of your backup, if needed.” Gadget scratched the back of his head. “I don’t think you’ll get much more than me, sorry. The commander and the others will be attacking Eggman’s base.”“Uh, no, it’s fine” Silver hurried to reply. After all, he’d been ready to dive into the fight headfirst and without backup of any sort. “Fantastic, even. If you don’t try to shoot me again, that is.”This time, the wolf’s smile was way more genuine. “Sorry again. I was just- we’ve been on our toes for quite a bit now.”“Yeah, I can imagine.” Silver looked down at the communicator once more. It was a kind of technology more rudimental than what he had grown used to in his timezone – his new timezone, of course. In the old one they hadn’t had much more than each other’s backs.He hoped the resistance could count on that too, other than radio communication and hovercrafts.“How’s the morale? Of the soldiers, I mean.” Silver knew it was not an easy question, nor one whose answer he would necessarily like, but he had to know. “Do they still think we can win the war?”He had included himself into the count without even thinking, but there was no question to it, was it? He had been involved with the resistance the second he had fallen from the crack, even if he hadn’t known at the time.Gadget shrugged. “Well, there’s not much choice to it, right? If we stop believing we’ll get to go home someday, we might as well surrender.” He seemed to ponder on his own words for a moment, then he grinned, bright and sure. “But they say you have superpowers of some kind, and that we’ll get a new weapon if this new plan works out, so we’re on our way to victory, no?Silver actually laughed at that. He appreciated the enthusiasm, because it meant that at least someone was optimistic enough not to lose hope. They’d have no chance of surviving the fray, without hope. “I don’t know what they told you, but we still don’t know if my powers will be enough to fight that guy.”“But you do have powers, right?” The wolf insisted, leaning forward. “What can you do?”Instead of answering, Silver raised his hand minutely. Gadget’s weapon, hanging in a holster at his side, flew up easily enough and levitated towards him, wrapped in a faint green-blue glowing aura.By the time he could wrap his fingers around the gun, Gadget was all but gaping at him. “You didn’t do that when I was threatening you.”“I wasn’t at my best at that point.” There was an edge of pride in his voice that he could not suppress, but then again, everyone else he could safely show his powers to had already seen them in action way too many times. There was no harm in showing off a bit.“I hope you are now, then. I’m sure you can beat the masked guy, if you can do that sort of thing.” The wolf was positively bouncing on the spot by then, but he seemed to catch himself on the act and stopped suddenly, a sheepish smile on his face. “Sorry. Anyway, did they give you anything you needed?”“Yeah. I think I’m ready.” He had spent two long hours revising the plan with his friends, a procedure that had involved a lot of friction between Knuckles and Amy on how close he had to get to dying before calling off the operation. Or at least, it had sounded like that.After that, they’d given him the com and an earpiece where further information could reach him in case of need, and left him to get acquainted with them, which was where Gadget had found him. “What now?”“The people down at the radars are trying to spot our target. When they do, we can get on with the whole operation. For now, all we can do is wait.”“Amazing.” In Silver’s experience, waiting was nearly worse than direct fighting, in a war. One could grow fidgety and lose focus of their goal, and that usually did more damage than anything else.There was, however, something he could do to pass the time. “Have you seen Tails around here?” He asked the wolf. “I wanted to speak to him.”He didn’t do how much he could do, but Tails was still his friend. They had known each other for ages. Silver could at least try to help him get out of his guilt, for lack of a Sonic to do it properly.Gadget frowned. “I thought you knew. He headed out while you were in that meeting. He’s one of the big names here, so the guards didn’t ask him much, but I suppose he had some mission of his own.”Unless they had done so before his arrival, Silver hadn’t seen anyone talk with Tails of missions of any kind. He hadn’t seen anyone talk with Tails, period. The fox had locked himself in his own mind and hadn’t spoken a word before leaving, despite Amy’s efforts.The whole thing struck Silver as weird, and he’d very much liked to know more, preferably from Tails himself, but hopping out of the base without a clue of where to go would probably end in disaster, even ignoring the fact that he could be called out for his own mission at any given moment.And surely, Tails had to have a plan. He was the cleverest of them all, and routinely dug himself out of whatever mess Sonic threw them into. He would be fine.Even if the feeling in Silver’s gut would have him believe otherwise.An urgent beeping tore him out of his thoughts. Both his com and the one on Gadget’s wrist were now going off, sending out flashes of red light.“They found him.” The wolf looked down briefly at the communicator, then straight into Silver’s eyes. Behind the thick glasses he wore, his own eyes were the color of gold, and full of determination. “Are you ready?”Silver nodded. They would never be more ready than they were now, and he couldn’t wait to get his hands on the person responsible for so much grief in the resistance.“Let’s go.” Doctor Ivo Julian Robotnik, known as Eggman to the general public, had devised the command panels in most of his lairs to recognize his touch, and to open up only under his fingers. That included the commands connected to his cells, where he kept his more important hostages and where, at the moment, his archenemy Sonic was residing.It was a well-thought out plan, and it had taken quite a long time to perfect it and get the devices installed in every location that mattered.It had taken, however, a way shorter amount of time for his various robots and AIs to decide to override them.The thing was, that the Doctor was an impatient person. Bringing to him a problem usually resulted in him demoting, threatening or, in more drastic cases, crushing the robot messenger before realizing that he was the only one with access to the means for solving the aforementioned problem. Therefore, most of his robot acolytes had found ways to solve almost any issue without calling on him.They didn’t do so often, for being caught hacking their way through the Eggman Empire would end badly even for the bots he had a relatively soft spot on, but it happened now and then. Every inconvenience meant choosing between taking it up to their master and builder himself and risking his wrath or taking it in their own hands (or similar appendages) and acting as illegally as a computer could.Which was why the robot guard sent down to do the cell rounds found himself caught in an inner debate.There was only one occupied cell for the time being, but the prisoner held inside was of the utmost importance, and he was to be kept alive until the Doctor said otherwise.Said prisoner’s cell was currently filled with what looked like a wall of blue flames.“Hey! Anyone there? It’s getting a bit warm in here!” Sonic called out from behind it. He sounded as cocky as ever, and relatively distressed, but not suffering physically yet. Even the robots had learned what his painful screeches sounded like, by then.The guard hesitated a split second, possible options running lightning-fast through his cyberbrain. It could have been another one of the Doctor’s treats for the prisoner, but Doctor Eggman usually liked to stand by and watch as he tortured the hedgehog. And he hadn’t communicated anything of the sort before leaving to tend to his other duties. Then again, he wasn’t known for being extremely precise in his orders to his minions.He would probably get mad if he learned that they’d messed with the cell’s commands. But he’d get even madder if they contacted him to ask him what to do, since apparently the fire alarms and related countermeasures had stopped working, mere hours after the cameras had short-circuited because of the new experiment. He’d probably bark immediate orders over the comm and then fly back to deal with the bots deemed responsible himself.And that guard would be first in line for punishment.There was nothing else to be done, then. The robot stepped closer to the cell. “STAND-BACK” it warned.“Where am I supposed to go? I’m still in chains, buddy” Sonic replied, but the guard ignored his impertinence in favor of hacking the panel to manually activate the cell flooding. It would drown the flames for sure, and if the hedgehog got an unplanned underwater session, surely the Doctor would never notice?That was when another flaw in Eggman’s plans came abruptly to light.The Doctor had made his robots to follow his orders. They had a certain degree of free will, just so they could act more or less intelligently and not get crushed by Sonic and his blasted friends in a second at most, but their logic had flaws. Even their system override idea had been dictated by their ability to process the difference between what Eggman said and what he actually wanted from them.But they weren’t, strictly speaking, very smart.By the time the guard’s receptors realized that while its sturdy body could have easily ignored the heat of the fire at a distance, being in close proximity to the flames should have raised its inner temperature, it had already opened the panel.A moment later, its systems failed, and his vision went completely black. The robot went down like a lead balloon. Blaze took a step back and regarded it carefully. Her attack had taken it down easily enough, but they couldn’t afford to have it get back on its feet.It seemed knocked down for good, though. It hadn’t triggered any general alarm, which was perfect, but they couldn’t exclude that it might have sent a distress signal to the other robots. They needed to get a move on, and quickly.She snapped, and the flames disappeared, leaving no trace behind and uncovering Sonic’s bewildered grin. “I can’t believe it actually worked” he said. “Eggman’s security system has more holes than a fishnet.”“We’re not out yet.” Blaze took a closer look at the buttons that the shifting panel had revealed. There were way too many, and not one of them sported a sign indicating its use.Not that she had actually hoped they would. It would have been asking for too much.“Any clue on which one I should press?” She asked, looking up at her friend. It wasn’t only a matter of doors: there were iron chains looped around Sonic’s neck and wrists, too close to his body to burn away safely.“Bottom left for the cell, I think. And somewhere in the upper right for the chains. He didn’t use that one much when I was conscious, sorry.”That sentence alone carried too much weight for Blaze to unpack at present time. She stored it in her brain, though, for later.There had to be a later where Sonic could recover, after all.She pressed the indicated buttons, hoping to get it right and not subject the hedgehog to another round of electrocution. They were lucky once more; the door shifted aside, and the manacles opened at once.“Great.” Sonic massaged his wrists, where the metal had dug deep into the skin. “Now what?”“Now we find a ship to steal.” Blaze stepped inside and offered Sonic her hand, hauling upwards. “Can you run?”It was immediately clear that he couldn’t, nor he would be able to anytime soon. Even with her support he wavered on his feet, with barely enough energy to stay upright. From up close he seemed even more worn out and emaciated, and his bruises stood out like craters on a moon.“Ask me in five minutes?” He offered, but he couldn’t smile without wincing as Blaze looped his arm around her shoulders.“Let’s get out of here for now” she said, ignoring how heavily he was leaning on her. Coming to terms with this Sonic would be even harder than expected. “We don’t have much of a head start.”They limped through the door, carefully avoiding the electrified bars, and Blaze impulsively led them the way she had originally come in from. The base would be a labyrinth no matter what, but at least these were corridors she had already seen once.It was a far-fetched plan at best, but nothing better had come to her mind. Perhaps it had been the place. Even just sitting in her hidden alcove, waiting for passing robots to be lured in their trap, had been unsettling. Iblis’ flames and Chaos’ cozy and welcoming world made a stark contrast with these stuffy rooms. The cold floor had sent shivers down her spine, and the sickening smell of oil that lingered in every corner had made her dizzy.She couldn’t even tell how long it had been since Eggman’s departure, but then again, living in a timeless land had often made her lose track of chronological time.Even walking through these halls was a haunting experience. The corridors looked all exactly alike, and there was a distinct lack of Eggbots to face. Only twice she had to duck in nearby corners to avoid being caught by one of them.It seemed too…convenient, all in all. Their escape attempt was working way too well. In Blaze’s experience, it could only mean that something truly challenging was waiting for them to make a faux pas.“Wait.” Sonic said suddenly, pulling at her arm. “This way.”He was pointing at a hallway that looked no different from the others. “What? Why?”“Eggman’s not as clever as he thinks. All his secret lairs look the same. We should find a way out there.”Blaze severely doubted that. However, since they had no better idea in store, all she could do was trust Sonic on his instincts. “Alright. Lead the way.”They walked in silence for a while before Sonic spoke again, brow furrowed. “There’s too much silence. Something must be wrong.”“I was thinking the same thing.” Blaze adjusted her grasp on his arm. She was strong, and what with all the probable underfeeding and blood loss Sonic was an unhealthily light weight to carry, but it would all take its toll sooner or later. She hoped they would be able to get out of this giant prison before it happened. “Eggman didn’t tell you anything of his plans?”“Pffft. Eggman told me a great deal of things, but nothing useful. They were all lies, most likely.” The hedgehog paused for a moment. “Or hallucinations. He quite liked giving me those.”He was being forcibly cheeky about it, and Blaze appreciated the spirit, but it wasn’t exactly encouraging. “Did he drug you?”“Oh, no. He had this new friend that can…manipulate reality, or something. Makes you see stuff that doesn’t exist.” Another pause, as Sonic caught his breath. Despite the reduced effort he was making, compared to her, he sounded quite fatigued. “I think the guy’s helping him try to conquer the world again.”“How long have you been here, Sonic?”“Dunno. Got caught at the very beginning, and this kid with the mask made me dream about a dozen rescue missions and heists in the meantime. It got boring after a while, so I hope I was right in thinking you’re not a hallucination.”“I’m not. I swear.”“That’s what a hallucination would say” he quipped, a tight smile on his face. “But no, you don’t look like those visions he gave me. You’re not…not red enough. And Eggman still thinks you’re dead, if he remembers you at all. I still thought you were dead, until you got in my line of sight.”“Doesn’t it strike you as strange?”“I’m used to people coming back from apparent death, ‘s all. Ask Shadow, he’d know. And I suppose there’s a long story behind it, right?”“Right.” She had elected to ignore his rambling about red for the moment, but hearing it had made her stomach sunk, for some reason. Something about it was nagging at her brain, but she would likely not place her finger on it until she could stop and catch a break. “I will explain what I can, when…Watch out!”As if evoked by her suspicions, a bunch of bots had appeared at the end of the hallway. The first shot of their laser guns almost got her in the shoulder before she unceremoniously pushed Sonic aside and attacked them. He was in no fit shape to fight, but he hopefully had enough sense to stay out of fire’s harm.Her flames left the robots as no more than smoking wrecks, but now her hackles were raised. No chance for their escape to go unnoticed.“We must be close” Sonic said as she hoisted him back up. “There’s always more guards the closer you get to important stuff.”“Somehow, that doesn’t reassure me.”Sonic was right, though. She had to thwart three more attempts to stop them in rapid succession, and while it was still not as much as she had expected and definitely suspicious, it was still enough to make her breathing grow heavy. It felt as if she’d been walking miles and miles of the same, endless hallway, with Sonic’s weight dragging her down and no end in sight.Come on, just one more step. You can do it. You must do. One foot after the other. Come on, come…Finally, a sliding door appeared before them, not dissimilar to the one giving access to the cell block. Blaze exhaled slowly in relief, even if she didn’t dare hope too much. “This must be it.”“Yeah. Let’s hope it’s a hangar. Or a control room, at least.”The door opened as soon as they got close enough for any sensor to work, with no need to burn it down or try to hack it, and they got in without any problem.That alone should have tipped them off on what to expect.It was not a ship hangar, nor a control room. It was, instead, a giant, cavernous hall, with a rounded ceiling and a floor made of metallic plaques. There was nothing inside, except an enormous computer screen hanging from above, near the center of the room.Blaze’s hairs stood out in alarm on the back of her neck and she took a step backwards, ready to bolt out again, but it was too late. The door locked behind them with an ominous sound, just as the screen, previously pitch black, flickered on.Eggman’s face, ten times larger and just as ugly as ever, was now grinning down at them from there. He could apparently see them, too, because he took one long look at them and then exploded in a maniacal laugh. There must have been loudspeakers hiding somewhere, because his laughter bounced off the walls all around them, deafening and impossible to escape.“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” He bellowed, indecently joyful. “You thought I would just let you two run away without doing anything, mh? What a mistake. Now I’ll have to have some fun with you before putting you back in your cell, just like all the other times, eh, Sonic?”Sonic was shaking. He was putting up a brave front, gritting his teeth and glaring menacingly at Eggman, and it could have been passed off as rage or fatigue from a distance, but Blaze was right there. And he was afraid.Somehow, that just made the whole situation worse.“And about your friend…” The Doctor added, turning his bespectacled his to Blaze. “You look familiar, but you don’t seem that important to remember. No matter! You’ll make a pretty picture to send to your precious Resistance, all locked up together.”The room had been empty. Blaze was sure of it, there hadn’t been a soul in sight when they had walked in.But now, it seemed as if eyes were watching them from every corner. The hall was dimly lit, but she could make out a few figures walking resolutely towards them.And familiar figures, at that, for it was Shadow and the robot Sonic replacement that Eggman was so proud of who stared at them, like predators closing in on their prey.And Chaos. Heavens above, Chaos was there with them.It made no sense. Why would Chaos be there, with its long-limbed, nearly-Mobian form? Even if it had fallen down there with her, why had it sided with Eggman?Why was it looking at her as if it didn’t know her at all, as if she had not spent countless nights laying on the grass beside it?She could think no more of it. Within a second, tens of plaques fell from the floor, revealing a deep, bottomless precipice underneath. She was now standing on a precarious island in the middle of the room with Sonic and their enemies, and no access to the walls surrounding them.Eggman’s smile was threatening to split his face in two.“And now…Let’s open the dances!”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The supposed ultra-dangerous, extremely lethal enemy didn’t look all that scary, in Silver’s mind.Granted, he was looking at him from a distance, but it was the principle of the thing. It was hard to fear someone standing, small and alone, in front of what looked like a giant hole in the sky.Gadget had said that he’d fallen from one of those cracks, and Silver could scarcely believe it. He had traveled back and forth from the future for quite a long time, and he had never seen anything like that. It looked more like a purulent wound than a portal, bleeding that red and black cubic matter that made his stomach twist in worry and disgust.“What’s he doing?” He whispered at Gadget as they crept closer to their target. Their hovercraft – Silver’s ride, in case things went south – had landed far enough not to be spotted, or at least not to be considered a threat. “Why is he staring at that…thing?”“He does that, sometimes. It’s not the first time they’ve recorded him” the wolf replied. “First time I’ve been close enough to see him do it, though. It gives me chills, if you want to know.”It had the same effect on Silver, but he wasn’t sure it’d be helpful to say it out loud. “Are the others in position?”He meant more the recovery mission headed towards Eggman’s base, which included Amy, Knuckles and assorted support, and less the other soldiers that had joined them on the hovercraft. He didn’t doubt their courage, nor their strength, and against a normal enemy they would have gone a long way; but from the tales Silver had heard, if the guy ever got past him and they tried to intervene, they would become the supernatural equivalent of cannon fodder.
It’s not gonna happen. He can’t get past me. I won’t let him.
“Ready when you are.” Gadget turned towards him, mouth set in a grim line. “Don’t underestimate him. We’ve lost too many recruits to him already.”“I won’t.” Underestimating your adversary hardly brought you anything good. Who was it that had drilled it into his brain? Ah, right, Shadow. Chiefly by kicking him in the head during their very first meeting.So acting stronger-than-thou was off the game. Being confident in one’s abilities, however, was not, and Silver was not about to stop believing in himself right now.The wolf nodded. “Good luck then. I – well, we’ll have your back no matter what.”The hedgehog gave him a thumbs up, already focused on the creature standing before the crack.Then he charged.He couldn’t count on many things in a fight like that, but he did have the element of surprise. His opponent would not expect someone whose powers could match his and work from a distance.Therefore, Silver didn’t hesitate to get a hold on the guy as soon as he got in range. The other was turned away from him, and the mask would have hidden any sign of surprise anyway, but no doubt he was feeling some degree of shock as a blue-ish aura surrounded him and he was lifted up and thrown against a wall.“You the one who made that big hole in the sky? You know, it’s not nice to ruin the scenery like that” Silver commented, fluctuating closer. He was hovering a few inches from the ground, forcing the other to focus on him and him alone, so that he would not see even by mistake the troops scattering around and hiding out of sight.He noticed a movement among the rubble the crash had created, and he mirrored it with one of his own, freezing the guy mid-motion before he could attack. “Not so fast.”The other stared at him with a yellow, unblinking eye. Sitting there amongst the fallen bricks, his arm partially raised but unable to move further, he was almost ridiculous to look at. Silver was starting to think that he’d have to keep him there until the Master Emerald was safe in the Resistance’s hands.Then the creature moved.Silver couldn’t help but stare numbly at him as he lowered his hand and rose, up in the air as if he, too, had telekinetic powers to draw from. It should have been impossible. No one had ever been able to escape this kind of trap. He hadn’t even lost his concentration, which could have weakened the resistance of the snare.The guy slowly raised both arms over his head. The aura surrounding him shattered as though made of cheap glass, and he was free.Silver snapped out of his reverie, barely in time to avoid a direct attack from the other. He flew up a couple feet and stared down at the creature, who now looked menacing enough to be worth mentioning.“Okay, let’s do it your way then” he muttered through gritted teeth, and charged again.It barely felt like a battle, instead turning very soon into a fast-paced dance, if a mortal dance at that. They twisted and leaped around each other, lunging to attack one another at the first hint of weakness. They never touched the ground, but they did fly up and down and up again enough times to make a less accustomed fighter feel dizzy.Since direct telekinetic attacks seemed useless, Silver resorted to picking up metal hunks and boulders from the ground and throwing them at his adversary to try and catch him off guard. It proved fruitless, though: whatever being the other was, he was extraordinarily fast, and, much like Vector had said, he seemed to notice projectiles coming at him even from behind, flying out of the way with a graceful move.It was sheer luck, the hedgehog thought, that the plan had been to hold him off for as long as they could. He didn’t know how much time had passed since they’d started fighting, but it felt like an eternity. His fur was sweaty and dirty, and the sunset light and smoke-filled air made his head pound and his breath grow ragged.It felt like Iblis all over again, except there was no monster in front of him, just some overpowered person who didn’t seem at all fazed by his efforts.Then, something changed.Silver saw the atmosphere around them shift and transform in the blink of an eye. His opponent seemed to be the source of it, though he had made no overtly grand movement. Where before the air had been filled only with dirt and smog, now there were clouds of bright red matter hovering threateningly, the same vibrant red as the gem embedded in his chest, which had started glowing more brightly with each passing second.In a moment, Silver found himself upside down.One second he was floating next to a collapsed building, and the one after he was standing on the ceiling in one of the rooms, the ruined floor feet under his head. Or above it. Argh, it made no sense.He tried to move, to get back in position, but every time he did the situation grew worse. The world seemed to spin around him, making him feel dizzy as he walked on walls, broken furniture, even the sky itself. When he attempted to raise his right hand, the left moved, and he never knew in which direction he was turning to.Then the other attacked.The hedgehog was kicked around countless times, at the complete mercy of his enemy. Every time he felt that he’d found a sense to it all, he stumbled and ended up with strange hands wrapping around his neck. At some point he seemed to have gained some lucidity, but now he was fighting against tens of enemies, all identical to each other and fluctuating in circles around him like vultures.
Snap out of it! Come on, come on, you can’t stop now, you can’t…
And then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over. He opened his eyes to see himself laying on the ground, his limbs aching even in places he hadn’t known the existence of before. The mask was turned in his direction now, and there was a hint of amusement in that yellow eye.“You are nothing” the creature said. His voice was oddly cavernous, as if it had travelled miles underground before coming out from behind that mask.“I am not nothing” Silver grunted, struggling to sit up. A piercing pain in his chest made him hold his breath for a moment, but he would not stop talking, not now. “My name is Silver, and you’re going to pay for all the problems you’re causing.”There was a faint click of a gun loading somewhere behind him. With a start, he realized that the soldiers must have gotten in position by then. He had lost his earpiece about halfway through the battle, and his wrist comm had disappeared during the hallucinations he’d been subject to, but no doubt they had waited so that they could get their target clear on their line of shooting, without his own meddling and putting himself in front of them. They shot now, a chorus of blasts echoing at the same time.Not one of them hit its mark.With a small, almost careless gesture of his hand, the guy surrounded himself with a red haze, crackling with static like the ancient tv he and Blaze had found buried when they’d been seven. Once they’d entered that nebulous area, the bullets flew in every direction, some upwards, some downwards, some spinning on themselves for a few seconds before exploding.Then he opened his arms, and a blast of energy erupted from him in waves, hitting everything that surrounded them in a twenty-feet radius.Now there were groans and yells of pain raising from every corner, making Silver’s blood freeze in his veins. How many had died, because of his pointless mission? How many had been injured?But he could not move. He didn’t know if the guy was operating his magic, of it was the weariness of the battle, but his legs weighed him down as if filled with lead, and he tasted blood in his mouth, his vision swimming before him.“You and your friends are nothing” the other repeated, smugly. “When all of this is done, and you will have lost all hope, your names will be forgotten, and those who survive will only remember mine. No one will dare forget the wrath of Infinite.”It was a pompous speech, worth some of Eggman’s worst ones. If the one declaring it hadn’t just dragged him to dust, Silver would have almost found it funny. As it was, he just spat out: “So your name is Infinite, uh? Why are you talking about yourself in third person? That doesn’t sound encouraging at all.”He didn’t know why he was rambling. Maybe, if he could just buy some more time, someone would come for them. Maybe there had been time for a distress call before all the soldiers had fallen. Maybe…Infinite’s hand was at his throat before he could form another coherent thought. “You think yourself to be funny” he said, slowly. “A pity nobody is going to hear you.”Silver closed his eyes. Well, so much for his brave attempt. He hoped that at least Knuckles and Amy would get a hold on the Master Emerald before they lost their momentum. That way he would not have died in vain, but only in the most stupid way possible.There was a blast, and a shout, and a clanging sound.The hedgehog cracked an eye open. He wasn’t dead, from what he could gather, but the pressure on his throat had relented, and something was amiss with Infinite, something his woozy mind could not place immediately.Then he realized.Infinite had lost his mask.He had to be some sort of hyena or jackal. His yellow eye was still there, but the other one, previously hidden by the mask, was of a bright blue, and a deep red scar ran vertically through it. He looked confused and irritated, but without the majestic air the mask had given him, he appeared oddly normal, out of place in a battlefield like that.He was turned away from Silver. The hedgehog followed his gaze and blinked, stunned.Gadget was pointing his still fuming Wispon at Infinite. He was holding it in both hands, and it was clear on his face that he was as shocked by the outcome as Silver himself.He must have hidden away from the rest of the troop. A clever idea, though it would not save him in the end. Infinite would probably set him on fire or something for his insolence before returning to finish Silver, too fast for them to be saved by another back-up hovercraft.But Infinite did no such thing. His fingers opened, as if he had forgotten that he’d been holding onto Silver, and he kept staring at Gadget, his brow furrowed, intensely focused.And Gadget…The wolf had paled considerably all of a sudden. He looked fit to faint, as if he had just seen a ghost walk through walls before his eyes.It would have been the perfect time to attack. But Silver barely felt his arms, and raising them seemed a task for stronger people.And for all that it looked as if they’d gazed at each other for half a century, it was only a handful of seconds before Infinite turned away and raised his head, like a dog sniffing the air.Then he disappeared. He didn’t walk away, nor fly out of sight: there was just a flash of red light, like the bloodiest lightning in the universe, and he was gone.They stood there, blinking away the light, too stunned too even begin to comprehend what had just happened.Then Silver felt his arms give in, and he collapsed backwards.Gadget had to have gotten over his shock, because he was at his side in a second, his Wispon clattering on the ground. He caught the hedgehog in his arms before he could bang his head on the curb, and he started to ramble, panic rising in his voice. “Oh, Goddess, okay, okay, please don’t die Silver, alright? I called for reinforcements, they’re gonna be here in a moment, just…just stay awake, please.”Silver had every intention of doing so, but his head just felt so heavy, and his eyes were closing on their own. He muttered something that in his mind sounded like “at least you shot him and not me this time”, but since someone had filled his mouth with cotton, all that came out was an incomprehensible garble.Gadget was still shaking him and calling his name, but it felt unbearably distant as he shut his eyes and drifted off, far away from the pain and Infinite’s lingering memory. There was an incessant beeping sound coming from the control board of the hovercraft.It hadn’t stopped in a while, and Knuckles was this close to smashing the whole board to pieces just to make it shut up. His nerves were frayed enough as it was.He hadn’t signed up for this. His place was on Angel Island, guarding the Master Emerald and being occasionally bothered by Sonic and the tail of trouble he usually dragged behind himself. He was no war leader, and he was just about fed up of being addressed as “Commander, sir” or related variants by nearly everyone.But he couldn’t shirk away from his duty. The Resistance counted on him, these kids playing at soldiers counted on him. And unless this mission proved successful, he’d probably have no emerald to guard ever again.If only Sonic and Tails had been at his side. They were the cause of about half of his life problems, but they were also his friends, and he felt their absence like a missing limb. But then again, if Sonic hadn’t been taken, Tails wouldn’t have lost his reason, and they wouldn’t have ended up in this mess to begin with.Nothing to be done, then. He couldn’t hope to improve anything without the Master Emerald.If only someone could stop that damn beeping.The door slamming open prevented him from asking the pilot to turn the volume down or something, and he turned around to find himself face to face with Amy. The pink hedgehog was panting, as if she had run the whole length of the hovercraft looking for him.“Knuckles! There you are!” She exclaimed, after a brief pause to catch her breath. “Change of plans! We have to turn back.”“What?! We’re almost reached the access point!” It would have been stupid to just up and leave, not to mention extremely dangerous. They’d been lucky not to get spotted on their way down, even with the excellent pilots they had. Turning tail now would mean exposing themselves too much, which could only lead to Eggman noticing them and moving the emerald to another location before they could try again.“I know, but this is way more important. Look!” She shoved her communicator in his face, visibly shaking in excitement. Knuckles blinked, trying to make sense of the blurry lines of text running on the screen.“The security in one of Eggman’s bases went down inexplicably” Amy said before he could even voice his confusion. “Some of ours managed to get in and hack at the security system itself. They got the cameras’ records, no wait, better, they found live footage.”She grabbed his shoulders, staring at him with the most genuinely hopeful expression he’d seen on her face in the last couple months. “They’ve found him, Knuckles. They found where Eggman’s keeping Sonic.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
We’re not going to get out of here alive.
It was the kind of thought that could make anyone drop their weapons and give up on fighting. It would have been a relief to do so, even, because Blaze was just so tired, of a bone-deep tiredness that made every muscle in her arms ache as she raised them to launch another attack, heaving and panting and with no time to catch her breath.She had yet to throw the towel, though, because the choice between going down with a fight and simply letting Eggman lock them up again was no choice at all. He would not break her down easily, not when Iblis had tried and failed for so long to do the same thing, but she owed Sonic the chance not to get tortured ever again.If only they’d stopped coming at her, just for one second.She stopped a blow directed to her head and snapped, setting on fire the Shadow that had tried to get it in. It felt weird, to think of more than one Shadow, as it did more than one Chaos, but they just kept emerging from the deepest corners of the hall, so many that they had to be clones or robot replicas built by Eggman. It had not come as a surprise, for she knew deep down that even in a frenzy the real Chaos would not have hurt her, but it did leave her with a deep worry about what the doctor might have been doing since she’d last seen him in the mirror pond.Not enough time to think about that, though. It’d have to wait for safety, along with a long list of other questions, or get lost when they finally managed to push her down from the platform.
Will I see Tikal again, though, if I die for r-STOP IT!
She turned just in time to draw a line of flames between Sonic and a Wasp Eggbot that had lunged at him. The hedgehog had been putting up a brave fight, for someone who could barely get up from the ground without help, but protecting them both was an exhausting feat, and it proved increasingly more so as her punches grew weaker and her steps faltered more often while the flow of Chaoses and Shadows and Metal Sonics and the occasional nosey bot never seemed to stop.But it didn’t matter. She hadn’t had water, food or any kind of rest in hours, but she’d be damned in every kind of afterlife that existed before allowing herself to give up.
But if they take Sonic…
No. Over my dead body.
Blaze felt the ground shake before she even noticed her enemies disappearing. She looked up, dumbfounded, as the clones vanished into thin air, leaving her and Sonic alone on the platform, now vibrating under her feet as though under the first waves of an earthquake.But an earthquake would have made no sense. Chances were they were on a spaceship orbiting somewhere, and the metallic island they were trapped on was either levitating or sustained by pillars, for various plaques had fallen during the fight, revealing more of the bottomless cavity underneath and putting her at risk of losing her balance. So what was really happening?Eggman was laughing. He’d been hollering and chortling all through the battle, occasionally shouting words of encouragement or orders to his brainless minions, but now he sounded positively thrilled, like a child seeing a pile of gifts under his Christmas tree.“It looks like we’re having company!” The doctor exclaimed, rubbing his hands together. “May I present you my new associate?”There was…something on the other end of the platform. It looked like a vortex, a small nebula rotating and opening right in front of her eyes, something dangerous and foreign whose sole sight made her taste bile in her mouth.A black hole, her mind supplied, but that was not correct either. The center was black, yes, a dark void that seemed to engulf any light surrounding it, but tendrils of smoke-like matter were coming out, clouds of glitching red fading into purple the closer they twirled around the center.It looked like the interferences they’d seen into the pond. It looked, most importantly, like the darkness that had stolen her away.She moved backwards, slowly, testing the ground under her feet until she reached the point where Sonic was kneeling down. The hedgehog had been bent in two only moments later, wheezing and swaying as he caught his breath, but now he stared at the vortex with wide eyes, an arm wrapped around his torso.“That’s not good” he whispered. “That’s not good, that’s not good at all.”“What is it?” Blaze asked, worried despite herself for the almost palpable alarm in his voice. “Sonic, what’s that thing?”“It’s his friend. The one who messed with my head. Don’t believe anything you see, it’s all fake, he’s only gonna show you hallucinations!”“He?” But there was no more time for questions. Something stepped out of the void, gaining shape and form the closer it got to them.The flashes of red and dark violet did not allow her to see any detail, only a glinting yellow eye in a sea of red and a puff of dirty white fur floating around whatever being that was, and what reminded her curiously of a Chaos Emerald fused with his body.Then a blinding red light erupted from him, and Blaze found herself thrown in the air.It was the most disconcerting thing she had ever experienced. She tried lunging at him, throwing fire balls at him, even surrounding him with the blue flame whose existence she’d just learned of, but nothing worked. He just inclined his head or waved his hand, and all her efforts would dissipate, leaving her at his mercy.She tried to remember what Sonic had said to her. He was just messing with her, toying with her as one would do a doll or a puppet. She was not walking on the walls, or seeing the world upside down; she had not moved at all, except for the times he had physically hit her.But Sonic could not help her now. He was far from her, sometimes mere feet away, sometimes what felt like miles, and she could barely move of her own accord, let alone hit her opponent without damaging her friend in the process. The world was red, red and black and painful, and her powers could do nothing about it.Unbidden, a memory she had thought buried and forgotten came to her mind. All of this was oddly similar to what she’d felt in her childhood, when she and Silver had been too young to fight and instead had spent their days roughhousing and building a tentative friendship.Silver had barely started getting a grasp on his powers, and he would often lose control of them, pushing her around and trapping her in an invisible prison. He would always apologize profusely, and he had never done much damage, but she had never forgotten the fear of those first few days, of moving only at the leisure of someone else and not controlling her own body as she was hurled up towards the ceiling.But she was not afraid now, she realized after snapping out of what must have been a sleep-deprivation induced fever dream. She had been a child then, fragile and scared and unaware that the boy moving her with his mind would grow up to become her best friend in the whole universe. Past Blaze would have taken one look at this creature and run to safety in a heartbeat.Present Blaze had grown up. She’d faced Iblis on her own to protect her world, and she’d watched the same world be born and bleed and be saved more times than she could count while sitting next to the girl she loved, and that this stranger, this person who she’d never once met, would think himself stronger than all that had come before him and that would come after – that he’d remind her of Silver, this disgusting creature who would not even show his face behind the ugly mask he was sporting and who had hurt Sonic more than Eggman’s torture devices would ever be able to – was utterly ridiculous.She did not feel any fear.In that moment, she felt only anger.Instinctively, Blaze raised her hand. She’d spent the last minutes, or hours, or eternity for all that mattered, not knowing where the other one had been, growing tall and fearsome or small and quick, moving faster than lightning to avoid her grasp and duplicating to confuse her mind.Now, there was a sudden, inexplicable clarity to her senses. Without thinking, but simply knowing that it would work, she held out her hand and found her fingers wrapping around his wrist.He froze. He made an aborted motion to jerk out of her hold, his shock blatant even with the mask, but she did not let go. She smiled, instead, all sharp teeth and bright eyes. She could feel fire in every corner, not only bubbling under her skin and bursting from her hands, but waiting in the damaged cables running through the walls, lingering in the robot carcasses she’d left behind.When she did let go, and he tried to use his powers, to summon those red cubes and hypnotize her again, Blaze called all that fire upon her, and she rose.She flew up of her own accord, this time, meeting him at eye level when he tried to hover above her. Eggman was screaming, trying to recall his clones and his machines: a glance from her made the screen burst, frizzling and crackling with electricity. She found herself surrounded by flames, circling her like a protective sphere, and it felt right.Every time her opponent tried to use his tricks on her, she stroke back, with a grace that would not have come naturally to her in the weariness of before. She set on fire every copy of himself he tried to create, and though she never could reach the gemstone embedded in his chest, her flames kept licking at his body, and sooner or later he would get damaged enough to let her finish him.She would have kept at it for a long time, any trace of hunger or thirst vanished from her body, but then she looked down, and she stopped. Sonic was safe from her: her fire obeyed her, and never would have touched anyone without her consent, that much was crystal clear in her mind. But he seemed to have reached the end of his energies, for he was lying on the platform, breathing in small gasps and staring up at her with vacuous eyes.There was no more time. She had to bring him to safety, and she’d have to take down whatever could wish to stop them. It was not the day for playing cat and mouse.And her enemy was meek as a mouse now, Blaze thought. It left an amused smile plastered on her face as she closed her eyes and took a deep, deep breath.When she exhaled, she felt herself burst, like a volcano dormant for a thousand years. The city was eerily quiet, compared to the Resistance base.It was to be expected, when cramming leaders and soldiers and helpless refugees in what was nothing more than a couple glorified tunnels, but that did not make the whole thing less unnerving. Tails couldn’t remember the last time he’d been able to work without being surrounded by people running or children crying or, even worse, his friends asking about his wellbeing.But now, there was no one except for him and what remained of Omega.It should have been unnerving, to be out in the open like that, with no company and next to nothing to protect himself: and in truth he kept looking behind his shoulders, waiting for Eggman’s creations to pop around the corner and shoot him in the back. But it also filled him with a quiet sort of determination, to know that no one would try to stop him.Not that he didn’t appreciate the kind words his friends had offered him. He knew that they were all trying their best, that Amy was holding everyone together by sheer will alone and that Knuckles had way too many people to lead for his liking. He’d tried to play along, especially at the very beginning, nodding along to their plans and handing out Wispons to those deemed strong enough to use them.But they kept saying that it hadn’t been his fault, and that was a lie. It had been no one’s fault but his. He should have helped Sonic more. He’d failed them. He’d failed Sonic.So there he was, trying to make amends. He still felt guilty for leaving the others to their own devices, but they would be fine without him. The Resistance had plenty of other pilots and mechanics, volunteers who unlike him had not lost their heads even when faced with failure after failure.But tracking down Omega, that was something he’d managed to do right. And since Rouge had said that the robot had seemed to lose track of reality right before Shadow had disappeared, claiming not to recognize its surroundings and that its new mission was to attack its teammates, chances were that it had been either hacked or attacked by their reality-manipulating enemy. And if Tails could repair it and gain access to its memory files, maybe they could learn more about Eggman’s plans. Maybe they would even discover what had happened to Shadow to make him follow the mad doctor.And even if all else were to fail, Rouge would be happy to see Omega once again. The bat had been nothing if not determined in doing her part, acting as a connection between the Resistance and GUN, but losing the rest of Team Dark had hit her hard, especially since her friends had gone down during one of their missions. She rarely talked about it if not in curt, short summaries meant to explain what exactly they were fighting against, but anyone with a brain could see the toll it was taking on her. She probably blamed herself for it, from time to time.Tails could hardly be the one to begrudge her for that.Luckily, Omega’s main body seemed to be reacting positively to his repairs. Some parts of its protective shell would need to be replaced, but nothing had happened to it that he couldn’t fix.The main problem would be rebooting the robot’s mechanical brain without erasing its recent memories. Whoever or whatever had taken it down had done a very thorough work, frying core elements of its system. It would take a long time to put it all to rights, even more so without dragging Omega all the way back to the base.It sure had chosen a very inconvenient spot to shut down, huddled in an anonymous street corner, so far from their usual rounds that it might never been found, had someone not sent a drone camera to check on a crack that had opened nearby. The damage and subsequent shutdown had turned off Omega’s GPS locator, and if Tails hadn’t checked that video and caught those precious few frames during his hunt, he might have had to give up entirely.But he was there now. The crack that might have saved Omega’s “life” was still there, too, looming threateningly not a block away, but Tails couldn’t afford to pay attention to it, nor to feel scared by its unnatural colors and shape. He had to work, and when he worked, nothing mattered but the tools in his hands and the projects he was mentally drafting.“You’re gonna be just fine” he muttered, jamming his screwdriver between two metal bar with perhaps a bit more force than necessary. “You’ll be up and helping in no time at all.”Yeah. And then they’d find Shadow, and then Sonic, and then maybe Tails could fall asleep one night without being plagued by nightmares, without thinking that his best friend was still a prisoner and suffering and that it was his fault his fault his his his…It was the noise that betrayed Chaos. In a city that had been evacuated weeks prior, any noise beside distant fighting was bound to be noticed.Therefore, Tails’ thoughts dissipated as soon as his ears caught up with the bubbling and sizzling behind him, and he turned in time to see the creature slip out of a manhole, still in liquid form. It gained shape in front of his eyes, standing on two legs and staring at him with those creepy, iris-less eyes.Tails’ hands were sweating. He adjusted his grip on the wrench he was holding, his mind travelling at the speed of sound, trying to form a plan of attack.He was alone. Nobody would notice he’d not gotten back to the base until it was too late. He could fly out of Chaos’ reach, yes, and its powers would be limited without all seven Chaos Emeralds, but it would not buy him that much time. And he had no weapons, bar his tools and the still unresponsive Omega. He was, in short, pretty much doomed.
If Sonic were here he’d know what to do.
Sonic wasn’t there, though. And Tails refused to cower behind a wall and wait for Chaos to grab him by…well, by the tails, so he stepped up, gritting his teeth and preparing for a fight.Then, many things happened in a matter of seconds.The crack that had been floating inconspicuously in the air only a moment before erupted in a shock of blinding red. It was enough to make the both of them stop on their tracks, and Tails turned instinctively, thrusting up a hand to cover his eyes.The light was so strong that he could barely make out the figure running out of the crack before it was jumping, landing violently on Chaos.It’s Sonic, it’s him, he came back for me the fox thought wildly for a second. It was not possible, obviously, but Sonic had done impossible things before, and he’d always, always survived to tell the tale.He was, as he discovered, only partially correct. By the time the newcomer had managed to stamp out Chaos’ attacks, sending it retreating back down the sewer, the light had subsided quite a bit, and Tails could finally see who had just saved him.It was not his best friend. The delusion lasted only for a couple seconds, though: there were now a thousand and one questions making their way in his brain, because it was another blue hedgehog, smaller and rounder and with dark eyes that peered around curiously, as if he didn’t really know what had just happened either.The other Sonic, if one would believe it. The one that had come from another dimension to help them out in the past.Tails locked eyes with him, and his throat went dry. He should have said thank you, for a start. Welcome back. That was amazing, or something of the sort.“What…” he stuttered, instead. “What exactly are you doing here?”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Open your eyes.
There was a routine to getting back up after the fighting was done, as Blaze had found over the years. You couldn’t just lie down and expect medical care to come to you, or other people to pick up the pieces of what you had just done. More often than not, the aftermath of a battle was a lonely affair, a sudden absence of noise where you were supposed to get up on your own and see to yourself and to others as quickly as possible.
Open your eyes. Take a step forward.
Blaze had built her own routine after a while. She had realized at a pretty young age that she could get back to work sooner if she pictured her body as foreign to her, giving it orders and getting it to move for as long as it took for the shock to settle in and for her to find a safe space to recover.As a young girl, the voice guiding her through these motions had sounded suspiciously like her mother’s. Now it felt oddly similar to Tikal’s voice, as if they’d been together in their hut once more, the echidna lulling her back to sleep after a nightmare.
Open your eyes. It’s okay. Take a step forward, and then another. Breathe. Please, breathe for me.
Blaze released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Then and only then she opened her eyes.She was standing on the platform floor. Weird, the last she remembered was of her body flying up, and then a shock of flames drowning everything else.
Wait.
Why had she been flying?What in the name of Chaos had just happened to her?Blaze’s breath itched in her throat as she tried to piece together the memories with what she could now see around herself. Eggman’s ally, the one whose face she hadn’t seen – he’d tossed her around as one would a rubber ball. She’d been completely in his power. So why wasn’t he here now, taking his revenge on her for resisting him? Even the screen from which Eggman had loomed over them had blown up, glass shattered and pieces of wire sprouting from every corner. There was no one in sight, only her and Sonic’ motionless body, laying a few feet from her.
Doesn’t matter now. Sonic needs you. Go to him. Go to him now.
She rushed to his side – or, better, she would have rushed, had she not realized after a couple steps that it just would not have worked. There was not an inch of her body that was not hurting, her muscles throbbing as though she had just climbed a mountain bare-handed. Exhaustion made her head feel light, and it was all she could do not to topple over as she knelt down beside Sonic, her joints aching like those of an old woman.It had been a hard fight, the cat reasoned as she shook her friend’s arm, urging him to open his eyes, to move, something. It had drained all energy from her body, and she’d already reached her limit beforehand, worn out by prior fighting and the adrenaline rush from everything that had happened in the past hours.But she had won in the end, hadn’t she? She’d sent him scurrying away with his tail between his legs, scared by her flames like a cowardly dog. And nothing more than that he was: Eggman’s little lapdog, trying to fight her as if she hadn’t been all but bursting with power, too strong to even consider failure…Blaze froze, her hand clutching Sonic’s arm tighter. The memories were rushing in now, flooding her mind like a tidal wave. Stop, she begged despite herself. This makes no sense. That was not me. But it had been her, and there was no stopping the truth, not now that she could almost relive what had happened, watch it unfold like a movie in her mind. Fire everywhere, in and out of her, her consciousness tearing at the seams and letting more flames bleed out.And power. Endless power, filling her body like life blood.Nothing of the sort had ever happened to her, but that wasn’t what frightened her. Blaze had been dealing with supernatural strengths all of her life, and they’d stopped scaring her the moment she had learned how to control them. If new powers had been the problem, she would have turned her back to Sonic and run for dear life the moment she had seen the blue flames light up the cell block, what felt like ages past.The powers weren’t the issue. But they had come from nowhere.She could distinctly remember the energy rushing her previously exhausted mind, strengthening her fire and making her feel invincible. Only once before she’d felt anything close to that, and it had been when she’d torn the emeralds from Silver’s hands, using their power to take down Iblis.There were no Chaos Emeralds around now, though. There’d been only her and her enemy – and rage, red hot rage bubbling like bile in her throat and drowning her every other thought.She feared that rage, and she feared not knowing, having something new and dangerous inside of her and not having control over it.Blaze was shaking. In fear or in tiredness, she did not know, but her hands had started shaking uncontrollably, and she only realized when Sonic opened his eyes and shifted under her grasp. She willed herself to stop it. There’s no time for it now. Focus. Sonic first.“You put on quite a show” the hedgehog said, with a laugh that soon turned into a cough. “What the hell just happened?”“I…I don’t know for sure” she replied, hating the doubt in her voice. She was supposed to steel her mind and save them both, dammit, not lose her head like that. “Where is everyone? Where did they go?”“You scared them away, I think. The masked one, he must have teleported away, and Eggman was never here to begin with. He likes to cheer for his precious bots from a distance.”His voice had lowered down to a whisper, frequently interrupted by his ragged breaths. Blaze put a hand on his shoulder, shaking her head. “It’s okay. Save your strength. I’m getting us out of here.”Yes, but how? They had no clear way out. They were still trapped on their island, and even if she managed to find an exit, she would have to jump to reach it, and take Sonic with her, or throw him in the air like a sack of potatoes, which would have made for an hysterical scene had they not been locked in a giant maze. In the distance she could feel alarms blaring and the sputter of motors, and the lights above their heads were flickering if not outright turned off; it was not a stretch to think that whatever they were travelling on must have been damaged by her outburst, thrown off its course and with possibly no pilots to set it to rights.All of this without taking in account her own physical stability. At that point Blaze would have given everything to be able to lay down, just collapse on the ground next to Sonic, close her eyes and rest. She wasn’t sure that even a simple action as getting up would not make her vision swim and sway, and throwing Sonic over her shoulders and just going on seemed an impossible feat.Perhaps she had abused of whatever power had possessed her. She’d done so often as a child, before she’d learned what her limits were and the toll pyrokinesis took on her body. But having overtired herself here would have meant dooming them both. She could not accept it, she could not.There was a new noise reaching her ears, a faint and distant clanging, as that of metal banging against metal. Robots, her mind supplied urgently. Get up, you have to get up now.Blaze let go of Sonic. Slowly, steadying herself at every move, she got up, clenching her jaw to fight the dizziness that overcame her. “Stay behind me” she said to her friend, more out of reflex than anything else. It was hardly as if he could move, after all.It didn’t matter. The noise was growing louder by the second, and she would not let Eggman’s machines find her struggling. She’d fight them on her feet, and she’d die on her feet if necessary. She braced herself, fists closed, waiting for the enemy to come.And then a spaceship burst through the wall.Blaze blinked, stunned. Had it been a less exciting day, she would have taken this as a fever dream. As it was, having an aircraft fly towards her didn’t even rank in the three weirdest events of the last few hours: and besides, in no dream she would have felt the smoke coming from the engine, or the platform vibrating under her feet as the thing landed carefully at the other end of the hall. It’s too heavy. It’s going to make the island collapse she found herself thinking, irrationally. The metal plaques had sustained all of the creatures Eggman had thrown at her, and falling a couple thousand feet would not be the worst outcome if the ship was loaded with other Eggbots.But it was quite the sight, watching it land. She had quickly reassessed her first impression: more than a spaceship, which she had seen sparingly in the pond, it reminded her of a hovercraft, or a flying tank, compact and solid and probably of considerable weight. And when a door opened on the side of it, no robots came out.Instead, Amy Rose of all people rushed out.“Sonic!” She yelled, running towards them, hammer in hand. Meanwhile, Knuckles appeared behind her, looking as grim and ready to fight as she did.It took them a couple seconds to realize that their friend wasn’t alone. Blaze could pinpoint the moment it happened, when they skidded to a halt, confusion etched deep on their faces.“What?” Amy said, barely audible. She took a couple more steps towards her, frowning. “Blaze? What are you…?”Knuckles was much brusquer, but no less surprised. “We thought you were dead. Silver said you were dead.”“It seems I was not” Blaze heard herself say, smiling. It was out of place, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. If earlier she had detached herself from her body as a mean of survival, now it seemed that she could not close the distance again. She felt in a daze, as if floating up and away from reality, and oddly giddy. She supposed being finally able to give in to the exhaustion, relief washing over her as someone whole and well-rested took the reins, could do that to a body. Perhaps that was what taking drugs felt like.“But how? What happened – what are you doing here?” Amy asked.Blaze shook her head and gestured vaguely behind herself. “I’ll explain later. You need to take care of Sonic.” The hedgehog had not reacted to his friends’ arrival, so there was a great chance of him already having passed out. If that was the case, they needed to hurry up before it was too late.Instantly, they seemed to remember who they’d been looking for. Amy ran past her to check on Sonic, while Knuckles bellowed some orders towards the ship before doing the same. A handful of people walked out, most of them wearing mismatched pieces of armor, while two of them carried what looked like a stretcher.And all the while Blaze stood there, breathing, waiting. She knew she would soon have to answer their questions, and then she would finally have the chance to ask some of her own, before her brain burst for lack of understanding.But first, she hoped someone would lead her to a place where she could sit and let the shock seep in, get a grip on herself before she had to face the others.She thought she kind of deserved it. Silver came to his senses slowly, painstakingly and, most of all, unwillingly.It had been so peaceful before that, the darkness wrapped around him like a thick black blanket. He’d have stayed like that forever, resting and sleeping, with no jackal to push him around like a bully on a playground.But somebody was speaking in the general vicinity, and while not loud, they were not extremely quiet either. And as Silver regained consciousness enough to understand what they were saying, he became aware of a number of other things, some more welcome than others.He was laying down, for starters. It felt, at first instinct, like a bed – not the comfiest one could have, but he’d slept on worse, and it was still a nice reprieve from the ground. There was even a pillow.There was also a weird feeling of constriction around his body, and with that came a dull pain that pierced his chest in a few spots. Ugh. That was precisely why he’d rather stayed asleep.“…Understood. Yessir. I’ll make sure they’re waiting for you in the hangar.” It was Gadget’s voice, that much was certain. Silver could not hear whoever he was replying to, so likely he was responding to orders given through his earpiece. At least he hadn’t been foolish enough to lose it on the battlefield, like Silver himself had. “M-hm. Perfectly clear. Of course, Commander. Thank you. I’ll get on with it immediately.”There was a click, and then Gadget exhaled, deeply and slowly. He must have closed the communication.“What was that about?” Silver mumbled, opening his eyes. He closed them right after, cursing inwardly. He understood they were underground, and that they needed strong lights, but the glare of neon was a bit much for him at the moment.Gadget let out a garbled noise, startled. Then the hedgehog heard a chair scrape against the floor, and all of a sudden there was a new weight beside him on the bed, as if someone was leaning heavily on the mattress. “You’re awake!”“Looks like I am.” Silver chanced another glance. The wolf was staring at him from above, a huge grin threatening to split his face in two and a look of disbelief in his golden eyes. “How long have I been out?”“About twelve hours. It’s morning. The doctors said you’d need a lot more painkillers, but we’re running out as it is. Sorry about that.”“Yeah, I think I’ll manage.” It wasn’t technically a lie: he’d certainly survived worst bouts of pain. But now that Gadget had mentioned them, he was even more acutely aware of his bones aching and his head pounding. It would be a fun recovery. “Did that idiot break all my limbs in the end or did he miss one?”Gadget’s smile faltered, but he replied cheerfully enough: “Doc said that you were lucky. You’re bruised and banged all over, and some of your ribs are cracked, and you got a concussion, and they want to keep you under strict supervision since you passed out twice in less than twenty-four hours, but you should survive.”“Thank you. That was very encouraging” Silver looked down at himself, moving the blanket out of the way. White bandages were wrapped around his torso, and countless other plasters covered spots on his limbs. He found one even on his cheek, when he tried to scratch where it itched.All in all, not as bad as he’d expected. It had surely felt worse when he’d been slammed against a wall. He must be sturdier than he’d thought.He gave himself a few moments, just to make sure he wouldn’t doze off again. Then he tried to push himself up, grimacing all the way. Not that laying down forever wasn’t an idea worth entertaining, but he couldn’t afford it. He wanted to stay lucid.Gadget’s hand made an aborted motion, as if trying to stop him. “Uh, I’m not sure I should let you do that. The doctors said you needed rest.”“I’m resting, though. See? I’m not leaving the bed.” And he wouldn’t in the next hour or so, he wagered. Judging by the throbbing in his legs, if he tried to walk on them too soon he’d probably go around hobbling like an old man. “But…I’m fine, I swear. Like, it hurts all over, but I won’t pass out again any time soon. I don’t know how he managed to take me down at all, actually.”“He wears you out, that’s what he does” another voice cut in from his other side. “Never met anyone who could tire one down so quickly, and I hear Vector talking on a daily basis.”Silver whipped around, suddenly aware of the rest of his surroundings. He hadn’t paid attention to them at all, so focused he’d been on Gadget.It looked like a rundown hospital ward, or the dingiest infirmary in the world. Makeshift beds and cots lined the walls: most of them were full, but nearly everyone in them was sleeping or at least unmoving. Further away, a lynx in a white coat was talking to another patient, the murmur barely reaching them even in a mostly silent room.Much closer, instead, was the person that had just spoken. The purple chameleon offered a tight-lipped smile in the face of Silver’s surprise, and he added: “I wasn’t expecting you to end up here, too.”“Oh. Hi, Espio.” Right – Vector had said his friend had been injured as well.Gadget stepped forward, frowning. “Are they dismissing you already? I thought you were supposed to stay down here a few days more.”“I was” the chameleon said, and in truth, there was still a bandage wound around his arm, though he didn’t seem bothered by it. “But I doubt they have fighters to spare, and Vector and Charmy won’t get anything useful done until I join them again.”Silver could empathize. He was pretty sure that sooner or later he would clash with his own doctor about how long he’d be supposed to stay in bed. Had they been at peace, he would have welcomed the time to rest, but his friends needed him. He would go back to fighting as soon as he could stand upright.While he was pondering that, though, another thought crossed his mind. Idiot. Why hadn’t he remembered anything earlier? Granted, he’d just woken up and his mind was still woozy, but it should have been the first thing he’d asked.“Gadget” he began, his tone of voice suddenly so urgent that he surprised even himself.The other two turned to stare at him, Espio raising an eyebrow the wolf cocking his head to the side, evidently perplexed. “Yeah?”“The soldiers that were with us. What…what happened to them? How are they?”Gadget’s face fell. It should have been enough of an answer, and for a split second Silver wanted to stop him from saying anything, but of course he couldn’t. He had to know. “About half of them suffered minor injuries. Another two were hurt more heavily, but the doctors are optimistic. The others…”He didn’t finish the sentence, but he had no need to. Silver was already looking away, grabbing fistfuls of blanket to prevent himself from doing something so foolish as cursing or crying or shouting at thin air.Once again, Gadget moved as though wanting to comfort him, but he froze midmotion, instead folding his hands behind his back. He tended to do that a lot, Silver thought numbly, acting on instinct before seemingly catching himself. “They knew it could happen” the wolf said, slowly. “I know it’s not of any comfort, but they were prepared for that too.”“I know.” It shouldn’t have hurt him so. War brought casualties: he of all people should have known that. For all that Amy had said, he’d left on what could have easily been a suicide mission. He’d have died alongside them, even, if luck and Gadget’s quick thinking hadn’t saved him.Still. They had died because he hadn’t managed to stop Infinite, like he’d been so sure to. And he didn’t even know who had survived, what parts of the troop had made it back to the base: he remembered the green fox that had been leading them, but only barely, and almost none of the others, since he hadn’t had that much time with them before he’d rushed out to fight. He would never be able to look at the other hospital beds and know if he’d been the one to put somebody in there.A terse silence stretched between them, only punctuated by the sound of people talking and shifting in their cots around them. Finally, Silver cleared his throat and looked up, desperate for some better news. “Did they find the Master Emerald, at least? I heard you talking with Knuckles earlier.”“Oh!” Surprisingly, Gadget brightened up in an instant. Before Silver could ask what might possibly make him so happy, he added: “They didn’t. They barely reached that base. But it doesn’t matter, they got something better! They found Sonic!”“What?!” Silver exclaimed. Then, lowering his voice so that the man a few beds away would stop glaring at him: “Are you serious?”“Yes, the news reached even us down there before you woke up” Espio replied, before turning to Gadget and asking: “How is he, though? They said they’re picking him up, but not in what conditions.”The wolf’s smile wavered. “I don’t know for sure. The commander said to have medics ready to greet them when they land, but…I’m sure he’s fine! He’s Sonic, he must be, right?”“Sure, kid” the chameleon replied, probably intending to sound reassuring. “He’s going to be all in one piece.”“Yeah.” Silver leaned against the bedpost, trying to make sense of what he’d just heard. Having Sonic around might yet change the tide, whatever shape he was in. He wasn’t sure how they’d managed to find him, when only a day or so earlier they’d had no clue on where he was, but he wasn’t about to look a gifted hedgehog in the mouth.He tried to dampen his excitement, in case he was sorely deluded, but between him and whatever information their fight against Infinite had gained them, they might have a true shot at winning the war. Sure, Silver hadn’t brought home much that could be of use, but he’d seen Infinite’s face! Surely it must count for something! And Gadget had seen it too, so maybe together they might be able to dig out some old records and find out what his deal was exactly.
Hold on.
Silver had seen his face. Gadget had done much more than that. In fact, he and Infinite had had an impressive staring session, despite the situation.And Infinite had stopped. He could have easily killed them both with a flick of his hand: instead he’d frozen on the spot, as transfixed as Gadget himself. Silver couldn’t swear on what he’d seen, given the blows he’d received on the head, but he could remember how the wolf had paled, and how Infinite’s eyes had widened, perhaps in recognition.“Hey, Gadget?” He heard himself asking, still lost in thought.“Yeah, what is it?”A second too late, Silver realized that perhaps this was not the right place or time to start this conversation. He could not back out, though, not now that the wolf was looking at him expectantly, and he could not craft a lie in so little time, so he had to continue. “Why did Infinite stop when he saw you? I mean, I know you were pointing a gun at him, but you had the same look on your face as he had. Almost like you kn-““Sorry.” Gadget moved so abruptly that even Espio looked at him in surprise, taking two steps towards the door before Silver could register what was happening. “I – I must go make sure everything is ready for when the commander reaches the base. I’ll see you guys around.”Silver nodded, dumbfounded. “Huh, yeah, sure. Don’t let us keep you.” Then he added hurriedly, when the wolf was already halfway out: “Thanks for saving my life, though!”Gadget turned, a small smile on a suddenly tense face. “It’s okay. It was my pleasure.”Then he walked away briskly, leaving them to stare at the vacant door.Espio turned to him, clearly perplexed. “What was that?”“You know, I have no idea.” Silver laid back down, slowly. He’d been so engrossed in the conversation that he’d barely noticed how bad his back had been aching. Now his body felt like a giant, throbbing bruise, and he was as perplexed as it came. “I have absolutely no idea.”Great, another matter he’d have to investigate further.He’d hoped to have reached full capacity with those.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Mercifully, someone directed Blaze towards a seat the moment she stepped inside the hovercraft.She murmured some words of thanks and sat down carefully, fastening her seatbelt as tight as it would go. It would not do for her to pass out and flop sideways like a deflated balloon.Out of the corner of her eye she could see people flitting around as startled birds would, the ship bustling with activity as they carried Sonic in and presumably tried to keep him stable while they flied towards a safer area. She was still worried about him, and she hoped they’d find a proper doctor for him soon, but now he’d been passed on to more capable hands. There had never been someone more apt to scare Sonic back to life than Amy Rose.A young cockatoo with a first aid kit even approached her, a frown on her face as she tested Blaze’s soundness of mind and inspected her wounds. The cat answered all of her question as precisely as she could, even as the other girl pressed and propped at bruises and scrapes she’d barely been aware of minutes before. Yes, she was okay. No, she didn’t feel nauseous. She was just bone-deep tired and ready for a few hours of sleep, but she was unlikely to die soon.No chance to rest immediately, though. As soon as the cockatoo left her position, clucking her tongue and advising her to keep herself in check, another hand appeared in Blaze’s field of vision, holding a big glass of water nearly full to the brim. She looked up and met Knuckles’ eyes, watching her carefully even as he offered her the drink.“Thank you.” She held the glass with both hands as she took a few tentative sips, ever careful of what lessons she had learned about rehydration. No gulping down drinks too fast, no matter how parched she was, or else she’d make herself sick.It was hard to restrain herself, though: after so many hours of thirst, it tasted divinely. They’d probably added some sugar or nutritional supplement, judging by how sweet it was, to keep her upright until they could give her some proper food, and even if Blaze longed for something more solid, she was still extremely grateful for the thought.“’S no problem” Knuckles replied, crossing his arms. He did not sit down, she noted; he seemed accustomed to how the hovercraft rolled and swayed under their feet. “We should thank you, after all, for helping us find Sonic.”“I didn’t do much on that front. I just kept him alive until you came around.”“Yeah, and I don’t wanna think about what would have happened if you hadn’t been there.” The echidna shook his head for emphasis, then pressed on: “What did happen, though? We hacked into the Death Egg’s cameras for a while and all we saw was somebody helping Sonic get out of a cell – we didn’t even know it was you, we just rushed in as fast as we could. But the place looked about to fall apart. What did Eggman do? What were you even doing there, we thought you’d died ages ago?”It was way too many questions at the same time, enough to make her head spin. Blaze took a deep breath, composing herself before saying: “I’m not certain I can answer all that. I’m not sure of how I got here – I don’t know what Sonic was doing in a prison, or why a group of people dressed as soldiers might come and pick him up, and I hope you’ll be able to explain all that to me. But even what I know…it’s a long story, and one I don’t want to repeat too many times. I suppose there are people waiting for us, wherever we’re going, right?”Knuckles nodded. “There’s Rouge, and Tails, and some others. You remember them, don’t you?”“Yes.” I spent the last months following your every move, she would have liked to say, but it was too early for that. They might yet think she was going crazy. “Very well. Then I’ll tell you all once we’ve reached our destination. I think it’ll be easier.”He didn’t seem completely convinced, but in the end he shrugged, defeated. “Alright. Then you might as well rest in the meantime. It’ll be a while before we land, even though we’re going as fast as we could.”She nodded in agreement, and Knuckles turned his back to her, evidently eager to return at Sonic’s side. Suddenly, though, he stopped, and looked at her over his shoulder. “I almost forgot – there’s your friend, too. Silver. He helped us with some stuff yesterday. I guess it’ll be good for you two, uh? I don’t know where you’ve been, but he’s never mentioned you again, so I don’t think you’ve seen each other recently.”Her mouth processed the information before the rest of her mind could. “Silver?” She heard herself saying, stumbling. “Oh. Yes. Absolutely. It will be great.”She would have asked more, but Knuckles was already gone, completely focused on the rest of the crew, unaware of the loop he’d just thrown her in.Her eyes fixed on the water in her hands, looking without seeing at the way it rippled and moved along with the ship’s lulls, Blaze tried to think on what it could mean for her. She had not considered meeting Silver a possibility; she’d been too focused on surviving to think about what would come after.But Silver travelled often to Sonic’s time, to spend time with the rest of his friends. And he was brave and reckless and generous, it would make sense for him to come to their aid if he thought them to be in a tight spot, as they clearly were.And if he was really that close, she might see him again. No, forget seeing, she was beyond tired of just watching – she could be seen by him, at last, touch him and hug him and talk to him from a place where he could hear her. Her best friend, no longer out of her reach.It should have been a wonderful thought. And by all means, it was. Blaze could feel excitement bubbling inside her, a bright light in an otherwise tiring and confusing day, and she knew that despite her fatigue she would likely not be able to fall asleep.And yet, it had been the straw that had broken the camel’s back, apparently. Everything she’d seen and done in the last hours was suddenly crystal clear in her mind, piling onto one another and overwhelming her as if they were physical weights dragging her down, and not just memories and lingering sensations. She couldn’t bring herself to smile, nor to relax and try to get some shut-eye. She’d rather curled on herself like a frightened child, shaking and crying.But the seatbelts and a stubborn sense of propriety prevented her from doing such, so Blaze just sat immobile, overcome by mute shock as the crew, blissfully unaware, continued to move around her, trying to save Sonic’s life. It seemed that Silver had, unknowingly, gained a premium spot in the infirmary.Well, not in everyday life, technically: as it turned out, having his bed facing the door meant being woken up by every incoming doctor and visitor, or just generally being in the way of whatever was happening at the moment.But the rumours of Sonic’s impending return had made their way through the cots, as had the news that he’d most likely be passed to the medics’ care as soon as he reached the base, and everyone wanted to be the first to see the shape their hero was. Therefore, every patient capable of walking on their two legs had amassed around the door, pushing and complaining as not to lose their place. Some of the others had been wheeled or carried over, or were craning their necks in the hope of catching a glimpse of the blue hedgehog over the heads of the crowd.And Silver hadn’t had to move a muscle. He could lean back and wait for the show to start, as macabre as it sounded, even if he’d had to let an injured soldier sit at the feet of his bed for lack of place.“I do hope they get a move on” the man grumbled. He was an old lemur, so wrinkled and stooped that it was a wonder they’d let him on the battlefield at all; but then again, it might also be a sad testament of the Resistance’s need of proper and healthy fighters. “I can’t imagine they’d want to waste time flying around, if he’s truly in such a bad state.”“I’m sure they’re doing whatever they can” Silver replied, distractedly.In truth, he was thinking about Gadget. He hoped he’d not completely alienated the wolf with his questions. He still wanted to know what exactly had happened with Infinite, but startling his new friend so had not been his intention.Gadget was probably down in the hangar by now, making sure everyone was following their orders. Maybe he’d come back with the rest, once they’d collected Sonic, and then Silver would be able to apologize. And ask more delicate questions. And at least try not to put his foot in his mouth.He was still debating whether he should wait some more before making another attempt when the shouts reverberated from the corridor outside. “Emergency incoming!” Somebody was yelling at the top of their lungs. “Make way! Coming through!”The crowd parted almost instinctively, leaving a gap wide enough for at least two people to pass as the noise grew louder and louder.Then the doctors came rushing through, dragging a crash cart with them. Silver could not make out much in the few seconds they were in front of him, barrelling through the mass of people as more and more had to move out of the way: just quite a lot of medics and medical equipment, all gathered around a lifeless blue form.Concerned murmurs rippled through the other patients as they tried to comprehend what they’d just seen. If they’d gone that way, that meant surgery room, right? And Sonic, he’d looked so still, not at all like the hedgehog some of them had watched on television sometimes…Silver was just speechless. He’d hoped the situation would not be this dire, even if he should have imagined that by the mere fact that Sonic had not run away on his own legs the moment he’d gotten the chance.But if he wasn’t fit to fight, then…No. He couldn’t think like that. There was still hope. Eggman had just lost his most valuable hostage. It was a step forward, however small.Other voices were approaching, talking so low they were barely distinguishable over the chattering crowd. “Thank you, but I’m fine” one of them was saying. “One of your colleagues already did a check up on me. I’m well enough.”It was a feminine one, and oddly familiar, though Silver couldn’t place it with so many people talking over them. And by the time he’d realized it, somebody else, probably a medic, was already replying, saying that of course they needed to check her again, there could be internal damage she was not aware of, and she needed rest anyway.The interlocutors appeared in the doorframe, then, and everyone swivelled around to see what could be going wrong now. Silver imitated them, obviously, he needed distractions, he could not spiral and think only of Sonic before he had the full pict-He saw her, and his thoughts screeched to a halt.For split second, he believed her to be an illusion. Perhaps someone had seen him grimace every time he’d tried to change position, and they’d finally dropped some extra drugs in his drink. Worse even, perhaps Infinite had tapped into his memories and messed with his brain far deeper than they’d considered. It would have made sense: she’d been part of his worst nightmares for so long that he couldn’t not consider her his weak spot.But she didn’t look like the picture of her he’d framed in his mind. For starters, she was not wearing the clothes he’d come to associate with her over the years.It was such a stupid detail for his brain to cling to, but any other coherent thought had vanished in thin air. All he could see was her white, sleeveless tunic, and soft purple pants, and sandals – hell, when had he last seen her with anything but shoes made to resist even scorching fires – but it was all dirty and stained and ripped, and she moved slowly and carefully, and the nurse beside her and Gadget hovering behind them had their arms outstretched, as if ready to catch her in case she collapsed, and…“Blaze?” He whispered, tongue thick in his mouth.She heard him, despite the buzzing noise. She heard him and turned towards him, and he saw her freeze and the tense little smile fall from her face the moment their eyes met.Silver moved slowly, as if in a dream. He got out of bed, ignoring the piercing pain in his chest and the hands that offered to help him up, because none of it mattered in that very moment. He took a step towards her, then another, and she did the same, the crowd parting and staring at them with bewildered expressions.He didn’t know if it had been him who collapsed on her or vice versa, but it was Blaze who started the hug first, sneaking her arms around him and squeezing him so hard he feared another one of his ribs would pop. His own arms remained hovering awkwardly in the air, not daring touching her even if she was a solid, heavy presence against his body, fearing it would be another hallucination, another nightmare he would wake up from the moment he tried reaching for his friend.“But…what? How?” He found himself asking, staring up over her shoulder as though he could find the answer written on the wall behind her. “You’re…You can’t be here.”“I can. I’m here. I’m real” Blaze replied, quiet enough that Silver was sure only he could have heard her. “And you’re here too. Oh, Silver, I’m…I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”He had no idea what she could be apologizing for, and in a surprisingly lucid moment he thought it was a weird few first words to hear from someone he’d thought dead for so long, but what made its way out of his mouth was only: “How…it’s impossible. How can it be possible?”“Hush now” she whispered. “I’m gonna explain, I swear, but just…shut up for a second.”Silver had spent half his life doing as Blaze had said, and it felt familiar, it felt pure instinct to be able to do it again. So he shut up, and finally let his arms wrap around her, feeling her warmth and breathing her scent under the faint smell of dirt and smoke, trying to convince himself that he was not dreaming.He could not manage it completely: it was if his brain had short-circuited the moment he’d seen her, and he could not stop looking up with his eyes unfocused, the sheer magnitude of the whole thing preventing him from moving again.But then again, he could not shake away the bizarre sensation that Blaze, while clutching at him almost desperately, as though trying to ascertain if he was real or not (and wasn’t it a funny thing, that she’d doubt him to be real when she’d been the one to leave – to die, she’d been dead, how was she even here now when he’d seen her fade away with his own eyes), that Blaze was doing the same thing.That tucked on his shoulder, face hidden away from him, she might be staring at nothing in mute shock, just as he was.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“So you’re losing the war” Blaze said, thoughtfully.There had been a notable amount of movement, after the shock of Blaze and Sonic’s arrival had worn off. Stragglers and onlookers had been ushered away to their beds, though some of them had wandered off to try and catch a glimpse of what was being done to Sonic. Silver himself had been gently but firmly returned to his cot. A chair had been dragged in for Blaze, since she had refused to get separated from her friends, and she had let the medics check on her with a distant look on her face, only brightening slightly when Gadget had handed her a soldier’s ration pack she could feed herself with.And all the while, Silver had only been watching her. He half-expected her to vanish in a puff of smoke, to disappear as suddenly as she’d returned, but he couldn’t bring himself to reach for her. There were too many people, and she had her hands full – he couldn’t hold her hand as if they were scared children, for as much as he would have liked. There was something off about the whole thing, even if he couldn’t quite place his finger on it.Maybe it was just the famished look in her eyes as she dug in the pack, taking in the energy bar and the dried fruit and all those nutrient-but-bland things as if they were treasures. He hadn’t seen that expression on her in years, since they’d stopped waiting for adults to bring them food and had started going scavenging for it on their own. She had continued eating all through the summary of events Knuckles had given her, and even now, as she waited for a reply to her question, she was absentmindedly twisting the wrapper of something or the other between her fingers.It hadn’t been a question though, not exactly. It had been a statement, and even Knuckles seemed taken aback by the bluntness of it. He recovered after a moment, and said: “Well, we were. Maybe. Don’t be so loud about it. But now that you’ve brought Sonic to the base, we’re back on track.”“And we’ve got you, too” Amy interjected. She’d been moving about aimlessly, flitting between them and the room they were keeping Sonic in, but there was a determined set to her shoulders as she regarded Blaze. “I don’t know what you did in the Death Egg, but I remember the last time you were here. Fire powers would really be useful, right about now.”Rouge, who had flown to the base as soon as the news had reached her, and who was now so engrossed in the situation that she and Knuckles had even put aside their usual bickering, added: “But we’d like to know what happened, too. Not just why the Egg is collapsing – great work, mind you – but why you’re here, and how.”Blaze exhaled, deep and slow. “It’s a very long story, and not an easy one. I…I don’t expect you to believe me, because it’s pretty incredible, but you deserve to know the full thing. Even if you might not like it.”Her eyes flickered to Silver when she paused for breath, and he felt his blood turn to ice in his veins. He was eager to listen to what she had to say, but he could not ignore the tension that had arisen between them, filling the air like static electricity. Was there something she knew that might make him despise her? No, impossible.And yet, Blaze looked so scared of what she was about to say.The cat turned back to the others, then, and the momentary spell was broken. Silver shook his head, hard, and he leaned in, forcing himself to focus on her words before he could make any assumption. Don’t be an idiot. There’s nothing to assume. You’re just in shock.“I know Silver has told you his side of the story already” she began. “I used the Chaos Emeralds to trap Iblis, and then I died.”“Only I didn’t really die. Somehow, the Chaos energy worked its magic on me, and I only got transported…elsewhere.”“There’s this world, you might call it a sort of parallel universe. Chaos – the actual Chaos, the creature – it created this place for itself, and for whoever might have used its power for good, or lost their life because of it. That’s where I ended up, along with a few others.”A stunned silence followed her declarations. Everyone was looking at Blaze as if she had suddenly sprouted three heads and a pair of wings. Silver had had a thousand questions forming in his mind, but every one of them had been drowned by a barely contained urge to ask, simply, What the hell?It seemed that the others had no such qualms, though. After a short, confused pause, Amy blurted out “What?” at the same time Knuckles, visibly shocked, asked “What others, exactly?”Blaze smiled, thin and quick. It paled in comparison of what Silver had seen in the past, when they’d snickered to themselves out of everyone else’s sight, but she seemed genuinely amused by the ruckus she had caused, and it had been so long since he’d seen it happen that the hedgehog felt a familiar warmth curl in his belly. She still looked like herself, when she smiled.“I know it’s hard to believe” she said. “I couldn’t wrap my head around it either, at the beginning. But I’m not lying. There’s such a world, and it’s connected to this one, so that a link between the two can be created, at times. I don’t know how it’s done, since Chaos is the one with this ability, but I’m not the only one who ended up there. There were the little Chaos, the one whose pain angered the creature all those centuries ago. And there was a girl, too, named Tikal.”There was a look of general shock rippling through the others’ faces, especially Knuckles’, who had blanched considerably in the span of a second. Silver, though, felt as if he were missing something, and hurried to ask: “Wait, what does that mean? Who’s Tikal?”“She’s one of Knuckles’ ancestors, technically” Amy replied. “She…sort of came out of the Master Emerald with Chaos, a while ago, before we met you. We probably mentioned the flood that it caused at some point. Tikal helped Sonic get it back where it had come from.”“Yeah, I remember Sonic saying something about that” Silver said, cautiously. In truth, it had been nothing more than a few off-handed comments, but at present time he was willing to ignore the holes in the story to get to the point faster. “Wait, but if she’s Knuckles’ great-great grandma or something, how could she help anyone? Blaze, how did you even meet her? Is she a ghost?”“Yes and no.” Blaze was still not looking at him. Instead, she lowered her eyes, fixing them on the wrapper she was fidgeting with. “She had almost the same experience as me. She came back here once, to help, but as far as we know people who reach the Land of Chaos generally never leave it. Even if they do, it can’t be for too long. I don’t know how I’m still here, since it’s been at least a day since I ended up on Eggman’s ship.” “How did you end up there, though?” Knuckles seemed to have found his voice, though he seemed still troubled. “If you’re telling the truth, and Amy’s where Chaos came from is really this…land…Why are you here now? Why did Chaos come earlier and side with Eggman? Why isn’t Tikal with you?”“That’s not the real Chaos.”“What?”“Those are copies” Blaze insisted. “Eggman made clones to fight you. Of Shadow, of his robot Sonic…And of Chaos. It seems he can make a great number of them, but they’re not real. The real Chaos would never attack me, and the last I saw of it, it was resting on the grass in his homeland.”“Well, that at least explains how the doctor got to Shadow.” Rouge’s tone was bordering on joking, as usual, but her voice was thick with emotion, betraying her relief. “I knew he couldn’t be the real deal. But it still doesn’t explain your presence here.”“I don’t know much more than you. One moment I was there, with Tikal, and the other I was on the ship. There were signals, before, but I didn’t realize what they could mean until I was taken away.”“What kind of signals?” Amy asked.Blaze hesitated. “There’s something I haven’t told you yet. I’m not sure you would believe me if I did, though. Or if you would like it.”Rouge shook her head. “After what you’ve said already? I doubt you could surprise us more, girlie.”“Very well, then.” The cat took a deep breath, then continued:“Chaos put something else, in its world. It looks like a small pond of water, but in truth, it’s more like a window on this planet.”“In the Land of Chaos, there’s no time as you know it. There’s no seasons, no clocks. When we’re tired, night comes, and we can sleep. Tikal says there was a before, where she was alone with the Chaos, and an after, when I was with her, but not even she knew how long these phases were. I don’t know if I’ve been with her years, or months, or just one of your days. In short, we don’t follow Mobius’ laws of time.”“When we look into the pond, we can see everything happening here. We just think of a moment in time, or a person we’d like to see, and they appear in the water. We can’t intervene in the events of your world; we can just watch. There is never a moment when we don’t see anything, though: if we so chose, we could watch the history of Mobius from beginning to end, twice over.”“But before I got taken away, the pond started to have…disturbances. Like what happens when your TVs and computers aren’t working. Red glitches, and red smoke, but nothing of what we wanted to see. Tikal was worried. It never happened, when she was alone. It got progressively worse, until one day – well, what I might call a day – there was a sort of earthquake. I don’t know what it was, but I felt as though I was falling through the earth, and it was black and red like what I’d seen in the lake. I think I passed out, then. When I woke up, I was on the Death Egg.”Silver looked around, wondering whether the rest of the group had heard the same thing as him or if he’d started hallucinating stuff. No, Blaze’s last revelation had left its mark on all of them, judging by the flabbergasted looks on their faces. She’d been right: it was nothing short of unbelievable.Perhaps they shouldn’t have been so surprised, with the life they lived. What was a magic pond when they were fighting an obese madman and his lackey with superpowers?And yet, not only it sounded like something straight out of a fairy tale – no, it had tossed every conjecture he’d made about Blaze out of the window, both after her death and in the last ten minutes or so.So not only she’d never been actually dead, she’d been watching him all along? Him, and possibly thousands of others, all sitting side by side with a girl whose face he couldn’t even picture in his mind? Like guardian angels in a children’s book?His head was spinning. Silver didn’t know if he was even having a proper reaction, or if there was any proper reaction at all. It was entirely too much. Part of him wanted to beg Blaze to stop talking, and another part wanted to hear more explanations, because his brain was making up worse ways to fill the gaps by the second.Crap, had she watched him die? Was that why she was acting so weird?“This is crazy” Amy said, finally voicing everyone’s concerns out loud. “It’s completely insane, alright, I’m going to believe you only because the other option is that you’ve gone insane, and we can’t kick you out after you saved Sonic. But at least the last part made sense. We might know what brought you here. Or, well, who.”Blaze’s ears perked up. “Are you serious?”The pink hedgehog nodded. “There have been these sort of…cracks opening around here. We think Eggman’s new ally has something to do with those.”“Infinite” Silver spoke up, louder than he’d intended in the rush of adding that precious bit of information to the mix. “I don’t know if you got the memo, but we saw his face, when we fought him. And he told us his name. He called himself Infinite.”Suddenly, he noticed a movement in the corner of his eye. Until then, Gadget had been standing behind his commander, every inch the dutiful soldier as he listened intently to what they had to say. But as soon as their fight had been mentioned, the wolf had flinched, gritting his teeth so hard it was a wonder he hadn’t broken some of them.No one but Silver seemed to have seen him, though, and Silver had only grown hyperaware of this because he knew Gadget still had some questions to answer to. He needed to get the wolf alone, sooner rather than later. It might be crucial for the whole Resistance, to know more about Infinite.But he couldn’t keep his eyes trained on Gadget now, not when Blaze had finally turned her full attention to him, an indecipherable look in her eyes. “This Infinite…You said you saw his face, as if it wasn’t normal. Does he wear a mask? White, with a golden eye?”“Yeah.” Despite himself, Silver smiled slightly. This was the weirdest possible reunion he could have imagined, but she was still Blaze, and he could almost guess what she would reply to his next few words. “I fell off one of his cracks, apparently. And then I tried to fight him. One on one.”As predicted, his friend’s eyes grew wide as they took in his bandages. “You…you what? Is that why you’re injured? What were you thinking?”Oh, how he’d missed this. “I got back in one piece. Well, mostly. I was…lucky.”He’d nearly blurted out that it had been Gadget who’d saved him, out of a need to give him his due, but he’d realized just in time that it’d have brought his new friend a wave of unwanted attention. The wolf himself was shaking his head minutely, a mute plead in his eyes that no one else could see, hidden behind Knuckles as he was.Blaze let out an exasperated sigh, which, just like her smile, was as familiar as it was painful. “Well, not that I am surprised. Or that I can truly blame you. I had to fight this person, too, to get Sonic out.”This time, it was Silver’s turn to be flabbergasted. “What?”“Eggman set him on me, along with the clones. That is how we destroyed the Death Egg. He is pretty powerful, as you might have seen. Only I…”All of a sudden, Blaze’s mouth clipped shut, and she looked away again, shaking her head. “Nevermind. I was lucky, too, I suppose. He ran away. Eggman, too. And then Amy and Knuckles found us, and brought us here. Just in time, I think.”The aforementioned Amy and Knuckles looked as though they were about to burst with questions. Silver could empathize. Nothing had been made clear: if anything, he was more confused than when Blaze had started talking.Before anyone could speak, though, a young sparrow came running through the door. “Commander! Commander!” She panted, skidding to a halt with an attempt of salute.Knuckles jerked around, frowning. “What?”“I was told to come get you immediately” the girl said, hurriedly. “They say there’s someone at the entrance that you need to see. Miss Rose, too, if I found her.”“Chaos, what is it now?” The echidna groaned. Then with a heavy sigh, he added: “Alright, lead the way. Amy, it seems you have to come with. You too, bat, since I can’t seem to get rid of you.”Abruptly, he pointed a finger at Gadget, who jumped up in surprise. “You, get Blaze settled. She deserves it, at least.”“Yes sir!”Knuckles nodded, then he set off after the young soldier girl, Rouge in tow. Amy hesitated for a moment, looking between Silver and Blaze.Finally, she said: “We’ll need to make some new plans. With Sonic here, and the news you both brought us…we might really have a chance at winning. But there’s a lot I still don’t understand, and who knows what’s going on at the gate right now. You should rest, in the meantime. Knuckles is right, you deserve it. Take your time to recover, and then we can go kick Eggman on the nose.”“We will” Blaze said, nodding. “Thank you, Amy.”“No, thank you. This still sounds too much like a miracle, if you ask me.”Then she was off, leaving them sitting there, stunned.After what felt like an eternity, Blaze turned to Gadget with an apologetic smile. “I’ll take up that offer to rest, if you don’t mind. I think I sorely need a shower.”“You’re leaving?”The words had escaped Silver’s lips before he could stop them, a cry of childish horror that made the cat turn around to look at him.“Oh, Silver” she said, and she stood up, closing the gap between them.That was when the hedgehog finally saw what had been bothering him from the very beginning.He knew he had grown up, in the last year or so. He had gained new scars, and at least a couple inches of height. His birthday had come and go, even if he hadn’t particularly wanted to celebrate it.Blaze looked like she had seen none of that. The clothes were weird, and so were the injuries, and there was an inflection to the way she spoke that he couldn’t place, but all in all she appeared pretty much identical to when she’d vanished in the wake of Iblis’ demise. If he’d been able to stand up without stooping, courtesy of his cracked ribs, she would have stood decidedly shorter than him, for all that she’d been three weeks older than him all their life; a fact that she’d lorded over him all their childhood.Her eyes, though, looked different. Old, older – ancient, even.Her smile, which she had turned to him now, was still hers, but her eyes looked as though they belonged to someone else.“I’m not leaving” she continued. She was chiding him, he realized, not unkindly, nor that differently from how she’d done countless times in the past, when he’d threatened to get too wrapped up in his own reckless ideas. “Not like the last time, not ever again. But I need to sleep, and you need to think. I know you, and I know your brain will implode if you try to process everything at the same time. When I’m washed and rested, we can talk again. I promise.”She hugged him again, then, as awkward as it was with her standing and him in bed, and Silver felt tears prickling at his eyes as he wrapped his arms around her. It felt less and less like a dream, now that he’d talked with Blaze and had felt her warm weight pressed against his body, but it didn’t mean that he’d stopped fearing that she would disappear the moment he dared close his eyes.It seemed that he didn’t have a choice, though. After a final squeeze, she broke the embrace and stepped away. Gadget, who had politely averted his eyes as they spoke, stood immediately to attention, raising his hand in a salute.That brought a genuine, if short, laugh out of Blaze. “I’m not your superior, soldier. I just want to know where I can find a bed. Can you help me?”The wolf nodded, and he led her away, but as she stepped out she turned back to Silver, giving him a last, tight-lipped smile before she disappeared around the corner.Then the hedgehog was alone again, with only the faraway infirmary noises to keep him company.Silver leaned back on his pillow, eyes glazed over and staring at nothing as he tried and failed to find a thread of thought that could make him understand what he’d experienced.It was not that he didn’t believe what he’d seen and heard – he wanted to, he really did, because the other option would be coming to terms with the fact that he might still be hallucinating, and that Blaze would slip out of his hands in the end, just like she had done in many of his nightmares.But at the same time, he couldn’t shake off that feeling of…otherness in Blaze, an elephant in the room, a subtle wall between them, invisible but impenetrable. And until he could speak with her again, uncover all those dark spots her story had, he feared he would not be able to calm down.And then there was the fact that she’d watched him for ages, apparently, while he’d been mourning and raging and fighting Eggman’s beasts to keep himself sane.Silver pressed the heels of his hands on his eyes, willing himself to just shut down and go to sleep. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to, not with all those depressing thoughts racing through his head like rabid dogs, but staying awake seemed even worse.He did not envy Sonic much, not in that precise moment, but he did envy him the morphine-induced sleep he would soon fall into. Knuckles was ignoring all the pointed glares Amy kept sending his way.Not that she’d expected he wouldn’t. The echidna was good at being commander of their forces: he was a natural at battle plans, and at those brief motivational speeches some of soldiers were so eager to hear, desperate to convince themselves they would stop being afraid and start being heroes instead.But she was the motor behind the complicated engine that was the Resistance, and with that came many unglorified chores. Knuckles led their patrol squads; Amy counted their provisions, found beds for everyone and guarded the rear, smashing robots with her hammer until she could ignore the feeling of imminent disaster building in her chest.And now, it seemed, she would be the one to deal with Tails bringing home a Sonic from another dimension, too.It was a welcome sight, if a tad unexpected. She remembered clearly this Sonic, shorter than her Sonic but just as brave and strong, from their past fights against Eggman, and he would make for a good ally, along with Blaze and Silver. And only a few hours prior she’d have given everything she had to see Tails so fired up again, chattering up a storm about how he’d found Omega, and then Sonic (hell, this whole situation was bound to confuse everyone in the base, she just knew it) had saved him from Chaos, and on and on with a wide grin on his face.But then the fox had to go and say: “And with him at our side, finding and saving Sonic will be so easy, we’ll have him back in a breeze, and…”“Tails” Amy interrupted him then, before he could make it any worse. “The comms couldn’t reach you, you…You don’t know, do you?”He stopped dead in his tracks. “What?” He said, confusion etched in his voice. Sonic peered up curiously at him, then at Amy, who just shook her head. “What don’t I know?”There was no putting it gently. “We found him, Tails. We found Sonic. He’s…He’s in the infirmary, in the surgery room.”Tails blanched, so quick that she feared he might pass out on the stop. He stuttered a few incoherent syllables, mostly on the lines of “what?” once more.Then he set off at top speed, switching to flying before he was more than a few feet away from them, rushing in the direction of the med bay.Rouge and Knuckles watched him go, a bit thrown off by his reaction, but Amy turned back to Sonic with a sigh. The small hedgehog was still evidently puzzled, but he offered her a bright smile, clearly intent on supporting her even if he could not understand the situation in its entirety.Amy gave him a tentative smile of her own, but in her brain the cogs were turning furiously, trying to keep pace with what she ought to do.They’d started the week with no Sonic, and little to no hope. Now they had two Sonics, and two overpowered superbeings, and Tails at least partially back on track, and all it had done for the moment was mess things up more. Splendid.No chance to let it overcome her, though. She could already feel herself burning with anticipation at the new opportunities they had. She would set it all to rights, as she’d grown great at doing, and then they’d go back to fighting their war.“All right, guys” she said, loud enough that even Knuckles could not pretend to ignore her.Amy smiled, her eyes lighted with a new fire.“Let’s get back to business.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Gadget stared unseeingly at the computer screen, wondering what to do.He didn’t know what he was looking for, to be honest. He’d marched up to one of the smaller control rooms all but bursting with energy, knowing it would be empty and that he’d have plenty of time to set his plans in motion…And only once he’d tried to set the parameters on the radar had he realized that he had no plan to speak of.He should have told someone. His command- Knuckles, or Amy, or even Silver, who already knew way more than the others. Anyone who might have known what to do, what the next step could be.He’d been about to, once or twice. The Goddess knew he’d tried. But every time he’d found himself paralyzed with fear, unsure of how his interlocutor would react. And after he’d found Blaze clothes and a spare bed, after he’d checked on her and tended to his other duties and done his rounds, it had felt the most natural thing to hide away and start looking for…something. Someone.The wolf forced himself to take a long, deep breath. Idiot. What had he been planning to do? Find Infinite and run to him, plead him to come back and stop killing people? Surely it would have ended well.Infinite. Hells, even the name tasted wrong on his tongue, acrid like curdled milk. The jackal he had known had not been called Infinite, and he definitely would have never allied himself with a murderous megalomaniac.It had been years, though. There was an abyss between then and now – Gadget himself had not been Gadget, at that point. He’d been Giada, the sweet, biddable daughter that had yet to disappoint her parents.But Infinite…He’d taken it too far. It was hard to reconcile the boy of then, skinny, bad-tempered young Nadir, with the masked terror of now. Gadget would never have believed it, had he not been the one to shoot off the mask.You should have aimed lower, a traitorous voice whispered in his mind, and the wolf ground his teeth and tried to wave it away.It was true, though, wasn’t it? If Gadget had hit the heart, or some other viable organ, they would have been well on their way to solving the whole mess. Even the red gem on Infinite’s chest would have been a nice enough target, since everything – the supernatural powers, the cracks, the illusions – seemed to have to do with it.Gadget would have hoped for the gem to be poisoning Nadir too, mind-controlling him somehow and turning him into their strongest enemy, but he couldn’t fool himself. There had been many gestures and mannerisms, things that he could only notice now that he knew the truth of it and that betrayed the boy Infinite had been.Damn it, how hadn’t he noticed earlier? How could he have been so stupid? He’d known Nadir better than anyone else, better than his own siblings, they’d made plans for the future and fought and kissed awkwardly like the kids they’d been, and..The sound of the door opening made him freeze halfway through the frustrated kick he’d been about to give to the nearest chair, and he turned around to find Amy staring him in confusion.“Am I…interrupting something?” She asked, frowning.“Uh, no.” Gadget straightened up, hoping he did not look as foolish as he felt. “No, no. Sorry. I was just…”Yes, what had he been doing? Saying that he’d been freaking out after seeing a childhood friend (more than a friend, the same venomous voice prompted, only to be quashed down immediately) destroy half a platoon of soldiers was definitely not an option.“I was trying to think of a plan” he said in the end, gesturing over his shoulder to the still-open radar screen. “An idea, something to help everyone with. I guess I was getting angry because I couldn’t come up with anything useful.”It was a weak excuse, and presumptuous at best. Amy made plans, and Knuckles made plans, and all those people part of the Resistance’s inner circle who knew everyone’s strengths and weaknesses made plans. Gadget was just an upjumped little soldier, as an old man in the med bay had told him once. What could he know?But Amy’s shoulders slumped minutely in relief. Of course. Why should she doubt him? He’d never lied to her. He’d always been so honest, so eager to help. Friendly, brave Gadget couldn’t possibly have anything to hide.“Yeah, I get you” she said. “Sometimes it seems that we’ve tried everything. We were trying to put something together too, me and Knuckles and Sonic, but we got nothing.”“I’m…I’m sure you’ll find something” Gadget said, uncertainly. Then, when his brain had finally registered her words: “Wait, Sonic? He’s awake already then?”“I wish. No, no, I meant the other Sonic. The one Tails brought in earlier. I’m sure you’ll have heard of him already.”“Right. Yeah, sorry. I sure did.” That was true, at least. News travelled fast in the base, and a second Sonic coming in mere hours after the real one was bound to create some ruckus. Gadget had been too caught up in his worries to investigate further, but now that Amy had brought it up he had to admit he was itching with curiosity, having seen the small blue hedgehog only in passing. “Can I ask, uh…”“What is he and why’s he here?” A thin, tense smile appeared on Amy’s face. “Don’t worry, you’re only about the hundredth person to ask in the last few hours.”“Sorry.”The pink hedgehog waved a hand. “It’s fine, I bet it looks super strange from the outside. But well, there’s not much to say. He’s from another dimension, like a parallel universe, I suppose. We met him a while ago, he helped us fight Eggman before he got back home. It seems he came out of one of those holes yesterday, and Tails found him and brought him here. That’s about it.”Coming from her mouth, it sounded like something extremely mundane, nothing to be surprised about. But perhaps it really wasn’t, at that point. After all, Blaze had come from another world too, and Silver was from the future, and his sorta-ex-boyfriend was going around with reality-bending powers, so what could possibly bother him anymore?Mother above, he had to stop thinking about it in those terms. He was about to go mad.“And – and what is he like, then? Is he just like our Sonic?” Gadget asked, desperate for a distraction.“Not quite. He’s a bit short, for a start. And he can’t speak. But personality-wise they’re pretty much the same person.”“Oh. Does he know sign language, then, if he can’t speak? Because I know some of it, and maybe they’re mostly the same in parallel dimensions, and we could…” He caught himself mid-phrase, mentally kicking himself. This was not the time to start rambling about things that nobody cared for. “Sorry. I got carried away. I bet you’ve got more important stuff to do than listen to me babble, and I should ask the commander if he’s got orders for me.”Amy’s smile was faintly amused now, but also larger and more genuine. “Never change, Gadget. But yeah, I should be going. Perhaps you could help me check our provisions? I’m not your commander, alright, but not even he could complain if you were sorting out food for everyone.”“I…Yes, of course.” The wolf turned his back to her, hesitating only for a split second before turning off the radar. Later. I can think about it later.He fumbled for something to talk about as he followed Amy in the hallway, but he couldn’t find anything that didn’t sound stupid or compromising, so silence stretched between them for a while.That is, until Amy suddenly turned to him. “I didn’t know you knew sign language.”Gadget shrugged, heat rising to his cheeks. “Not that well yet. I was taking courses on some stuff before…well, before the war. I want to become a teacher, at some point.”“That’s great. I bet you’ll be an amazing teacher, once we’re done with Eggman.”She sounded genuinely impressed, if nothing else, but the wolf didn’t dare reply. Her mention of the end of the war would force him to think carefully on what to say, balancing between the optimism that was his by nature and the hopelessness he’d been feeling ever since he’d seen Nadir’s face peek from under the mask.“By the way, you’re probably not wrong about Sonic” Amy went on after a moment, blissfully unaware of his thoughts. “The other Sonic, that is. He’s probably tired of having to do charades and stuff to make himself clear. You could try to speak with him at some point. He’s a nice guy, you’ll like him for sure. Everyone seems to, even if they’d rather have the real deal if they could.”Her voice had grown so bitter towards the end that Gadget felt the sudden urge to put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m…I’m sure Sonic will be okay soon, and then they can both fight together. They’ve got the same powers, right?”“Yeah.” Amy was quiet for a moment, gaze lost somewhere far away. Then she shook her head and seemed to regain her composure, offering him a tentative smile. “They’ll kick Eggman’s butt alright, and I can’t wait to see it. He’ll be so confused, we all were the first time this second Sonic came over, we thought we were seeing double…”Gadget faltered, stopping dead in his tracks. Her words had flipped a switch in his brain. Maybe it was a stupid idea, alright, but perhaps…Amy went on for a couple seconds before she noticed, and then she turned to him, concerned. “Gadget? Are you okay?”“Does Eggman know we’ve got two Sonics now?” He asked, still lost in his thoughts.The hedgehog frowned, a puzzled look on her face. “I…don’t think so? He shouldn’t, unless he’s got some cameras inside the base, but we’d all be dead if he had.”“So if we were to send out this other Sonic, he wouldn’t know it’s not the one we just rescued, right? Like, right now he probably thinks our Sonic won’t heal for a while, but if we can make it look like he’s okay, maybe we can shock Eggman enough?” He chewed on his lip for a moment. “Does what I just said make sense?”“Yeah, it does” Amy said slowly, staring vacantly at him. Gadget could almost see her brain ticking and working behind her eyes. “And if he thinks we’ve magically healed Sonic, he’ll take it personally and come out on his own, he won’t send his minions. And if he’s confused enough to make a misstep…”She snapped out of it suddenly, a ferocious grin spreading on her face. “Yes! We can work on this! We’ve been so stupid, we had the solution right there and we were looking right through it! Oh, what would we do without you, Gadget? Come on! We need to find Knuckles right now!”She sprinted down the hallway without a second thought, and Gadget was left staring at her back for a moment, stunned into place.Her outburst had surprised him, but he’d secretly hoped his input would be relevant enough to trigger a plan. On another day, he’d have followed her eagerly, ready to get back into the fight.But Amy’s words had hit him light a freight train. What would we do without you, Gadget, she’d said; and earlier, too, never change, Gadget. Fond, thankful, almost endeared by him, by his role as a perfectly functioning cog in the great machine of the Resistance, without any knowledge of how great a secret he was keeping from her, from the others.What had been one of his mother’s favourite sayings? Ah, right. Nursing a snake at your breast. Taking care of something that would one day turn against you. She’d used it often enough and with a morbid pleasure, mostly referring to the children of their neighbours who’d gone their own way, ruining their parents’ lives and reputation in the tightly-knit community Gadget had been raised in. She’d said it about Nadir, coincidentally enough, after he and his siblings had started down their path - the town has been nursing a snake at its breast, I’ll tell you, nothing good will come from him, she’d said, for once rightfully prophetic – and no doubt she’d said the same about Gadget himself, too, after he’d rejected his role of perfect daughter and left the village so he could stop hiding who he really was.He was the snake at the Resistance’s breast, now, or so Amy’s offhanded comment had made him feel. The thought alone was nearly impossible to bear, and he felt as though he was about to double down and retch.He could not let it show, though. Most of all, he was still a soldier, for how much the role chafed at him; a soldier with a duty to help finish the war, no matter the cost. So he swallowed the taste of bile in his throat and followed Amy at a more sedated pace.
I’ll make it work. I can make it work.
I must.
“Those damned little pests!” Eggman roared, punching the control pad in front of him. “They’ve gotten away again! I can’t believe it!”Infinite looked at the doctor with a sort of passive curiosity, but he made no attempt to reply. He, too, felt a simmering anger in his chest, but he was not prone to such useless shows of rage, and Robotnik was of no use when in a temper – better let him work it out on his own so that they could go back to work.“And you!” The man bellowed, pointing a meaty finger at Infinite. “You were supposed to be stronger than all of them combined! How could that cat take you down? What was she?”Nothing, the jackal would have liked to say. They were all nothing compared to him, compared to what he might yet become.The girl had been a low blow, yes. She’d taken him by surprise, with her powers. But she would fall, too, in time. She wasn’t strong enough to hold him off forever.Sonic hadn’t been enough, after all. Neither had the other hedgehog with his mind tricks. And the wolf…Infinite didn’t like to think about the wolf. It had awakened a series of tumultuous memories, and memories were for those who revelled in the past.Infinite had no past. For him there was only the future, stretching endlessly in front of him like a deep red sea, with no place for the golden colour of the wolf’s eyes.But Eggman’s tantrums needed no reply, so he waited.Finally, the doctor seemed to collapse back in his seat, muttering to himself. Only then Infinite turned to him and said: “Your plan did not work. It’s high time you follow mine.”Eggman barked out a laugh. “Ah! And you think you’d do better than me? I’m the brain, you’re the brawn, boy, remember that.”The jackal bristled at being called boy, but it was true, ultimately. He still needed Robotnik, even if just for a little while.“Sonic’s friends and their bloody Resistance are putting up a fight, though, I’ll grant you that” the man went on. “And that girl escaped with our hostage, so we’re down a Sonic as well, even if he won’t be up and fighting any time soon.”“What do you suggest, then?”“I suggest” Eggman said, breaking into a broad, maniacal grin “that we try your little experiment again.”Infinite considered this. Slowly, his mouth curled into a small smile under the mask.“Very well. Open the chamber.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Blaze woke up to the sound of other people moving around her.It took her a moment to realize where she was; she’d been sleeping dreamlessly, the exhaustion having knocked her down the moment her head had touched the pillow, but for a second her brain clung to the sweet, sweet conviction that it was Tikal laying next to her, that soon she would move in her sleep and throw an arm over Blaze and warm the back of Blaze’s neck with her breath.Then Blaze opened her eyes and remembered.No chance of being home, she thought bitterly. Not only there were multiple people rolling around in the bunk beds beside hers, a sure sign that night had come around and the dorm Gadget had set her in had filled with refugees, but the room was pitch black, which would have been impossible had she been in the Land of Chaos. There, the greenish light that surrounded everything never went out, only fading to a darker hue so that she and Tikal and the little Chaos could sleep peacefully.She allowed herself perhaps a minute to think wistfully of home and to consider whether she could fall back asleep. Then, feeling around blindly, she picked up the clean clothes Gadget had found for her and made her way to the door, mentally revising the instructions the wolf had given her on how to find the communal showers. She’d waved away his offer to let her wash before sleeping, too tired to wish for anything but a surface to lie down onto, but now that her senses had grown sharper she could feel every bit of dirt and blood encrusted in her fur, and she couldn’t wait to get rid of such an unpleasant sensation.She encountered very few people during her search, and most of them soldiers patrolling the hallways with tired looks on their faces, confirming her suspicion of it being night-time. The shower room was even emptier, with no one to witness her undressing and ducking under one of the waterspouts.Blaze was oddly grateful for that: the lack of privacy in showering with other people didn’t bother her – she’d made do with little to no personal space for almost all her life – but the atmosphere was peacefully, eerily quiet with no one around, the silence almost complete except for the repetitive sound of water dripping around her. It felt close to the cold silence of Eggman’s base, except for the implicit threat of being attacked the moment she turned her back.There was nothing to keep her from wallowing in her own thoughts, true, but for a little while she could pretend she was above it all. She’d become good at pretending. She tried to picture herself as in a bubble, shut away from the rest of the world, the sound of drops falling into puddles at her feet reverberating and echoing through the empty room and cutting off any other noise. For a few, precious minutes, nothing mattered but the pleasure of the water rolling down her back, finally washing away a bit of her tension along with the disgusting residues that had caked close to her skin. The spray wasn’t very strong, nor very warm either, but it was a miracle they’d been able to keep their water running, even so deep into a war. They must have made it a top priority as to avoid their hiding spot to smell like a latrine, which Blaze could only approve of. She was very familiar with the stink of hordes of people, all cooped up in the same space and all reeking of soot and blood and fear. She and Silver had spent a long time climbing around whatever broken down facility their parents would hide them in, looking for any hole who could bring in a bit of fresher air, and once they’d grown up enough to be sent out on their own they’d enjoyed the freedom of being away from the rest of the group, even if it put them in greater danger than everyone else.The cat gulped as Silver’s face swam to the top of her mind. Of course. She could not avoid thinking about him, could she? She shared too many memories with him to be able to push him to a corner of her conscience and try to forget about him. It was the same with Tikal, who was half of her soul and yet unreachable, with no way of seeing what was going on outside their land, probably wondering whether she’d be alone forever once again or if Blaze had already forgotten her.What a wondrous thing, that the two people she cared the most about would be now the most painful to think about.Well. She could not see Tikal for the time being – it ate her from the inside, it made her want to scream and claw at the face behind Infinite’s mask in retaliation, but she couldn’t do anything about it until they had a battle plan – but Silver was not out of her reach. She dreaded having to talk to him, but it was a confrontation they needed to have, and it was not as if he was like to turn a cold shoulder on her before she could…what? What was the plan? Explain? Ask for forgiveness? Find a shoulder to cry on?She wasn’t sure yet. As most things she’d done with Silver throughout their life, she would have to wing it on the spot.No sense thinking about it any longer, though. Before she could make up her mind again, Blaze turned the water off, dried herself quickly and put on the clothes she’d been given. They were far from a perfect fit, too tight in the shoulders and too wide on the waist, but fashion was the furthest thing from her mind for the time being. She mourned the clothes Chaos had once gifted her for a second, true, but they were fit to be used as rags after the battle, so she left them behind to be reused or burned or whatever the Resistance saw fit to do.She forced herself to walk towards the infirmary as one would towards the gallows. She wished she could have at least grabbed something to eat first: the ration pack they’d given her had kept her up and running for a while, but now she was ravenously hungry again, and a noisy little voice in the back of her mind kept wondering whether they’d have something more to spare for her.Still, it would have been cowardly to run away from a simple conversation, and Blaze had not made the coward choice once in her life. Besides, she didn’t know where the mess hall could be. Even if things went bad in the infirmary, at least someone down there would tell her where she might find some food.By the time she’d steeled her resolve enough not to turn tail and run away, she’d almost reached the infirmary itself. She was just about to turn into the last hallway when from around the corner came a piercing, blood-curdling scream.The bubble burst. The comfortable cocoon Blaze had built around herself, where no thought of war could reach her mind, went down in a split second. She was running before she was aware of it, ready to defend whoever could be wailing like this.When she rounded the corner, though, she collided with someone unlucky enough to step in her path. She held out a hand to steady them out of reflex, only registering who it was after she’d already got a hold of their arm.Silver blinked owlishly at her, then frowned in concern, seemingly noticing the look on her face. “Hey. Hey, what’s wrong? Where are you going?”“Don’t you hear this? What is happening?” Blaze took another step towards the source of the noise, but found herself unable to let go of Silver. She didn’t know exactly what compelled her to try and drag him away, but perhaps deep down there was some residual instinct to have him by her side when fighting. That, and…”And why are you here? I thought you were injured.”She bit her tongue as soon as the words had left her mouth. Too blunt, too snappish a start by far. But she’d been taken by surprise, hadn’t she? And besides, he truly wasn’t supposed to be standing there like a loon. Even as exhausted as she’d been, she’d caught that he would be in bed rest for a while. Too careless with his own safety, as usual.Silver, at least, had the grace to look sheepish. “Yeah, actually, the two things are related. But don’t – don’t go rush in the infirmary, we’re not being attacked. It’s…It’s Sonic.”“What’s wrong with him?” Beside having been almost tortured to death, was what went unsaid, but Blaze knew they both felt it hanging in the air.“Who knows? They’ve tried to dose him with painkillers, so it’s unlikely to be his injuries, but…he’s been screaming for hours. I think he’s having nightmares, and he’s too out of it to wake up. Half of the infirmary left because they couldn’t stand it, and the same goes for me”“Oh.” The cat felt her shoulders drop. Yes, of course. No one could hope to come out of such an adventure unscathed. She’d had her fair share of night terrors, and so had Silver and Tikal.And you’ve been useless to the both of them, her mind whispered with sickening certainty, and Blaze didn’t have the strength to deny it. It was true, after all. She’d always felt better at fighting off more tangible enemies, the ones who bled and fell and did not come creeping at night to scare off the ones she loved. “Is there anything we can do?”“I don’t think so. Tails has been there for a while, and Sonic keeps calling for him anyway. He’s been calling out Shadow’s name too, and that’s not something we can help with either. The best we can do for now is wait for him to get better, I think.”Blaze nodded, trying to dampen down the frustration. She fixed on Silver what she hoped was not too stern of a glare. “But you shouldn’t be up, though. We should find you a place to sit down, at least.”“It’s fine.” Silver shrugged, then winced as it pulled at the scrapes that were no doubt hidden under his bandages. “Yeah, no, it’s not fine. But can I at least convince you to find something to eat, too? The stuff they’ve been giving us down in the hospital isn’t really that great, and I know there must be some sort of canteen around here.”Despite herself, Blaze huffed a laugh. It was almost impossible not to, when he was so obviously trying to distract her, when their needs had synced as if they’d been hungry children once more.“Fine” she said, carefully wrapping an arm around his torso so he could better lean on her if he needed to. “Lead the way.”He looked at her in surprise then, but she nudged him along, and they set off without another word. After all, he could hardly be as surprised as she was by her move, by how easy it had been to return seamlessly to her role of protector. Pretending, always pretending – if she closed her eyes, she could almost believe they had never been separated.A clearly tired guard pointed them in the direction of the mess hall in between one yawn and the other, and they kept walking in silence for a while, until Silver said: “You didn’t look that shocked when I mentioned Shadow. So you know they’re…?”“Involved?” Blaze smiled slightly. “Yes. I saw the whole thing happen. Quite surprising, if we hadn’t noticed all the hints they’d been dropping.”Refreshing, too, she thought, but she didn’t say. She remembered way too well how heart-warming it had been, to watch the two hedgehogs come together amidst all those scenes of fighting and painful past memories, and Tikal remarking how love stories had always been a balm to her soul before Blaze came along, and countless other things she wasn’t sure she wanted to voice aloud.“Oh.” Silver looked away, a thin smile of his own. “I forgot. You know everything now.”There was a venomous hint to his voice, so faint that she could have chosen to ignore it, but it had struck too close to the core of the problem to allow her to do so. She ducked her head and kept walking as if she hadn’t heard, but the silence that fell was way terser than it had been before.The mess hall was nearly empty when they reached it, and none of the stragglers seemed to pay them any particular attention, something Blaze had been quietly dreading all the way through. In a corner, a young woman was pacing back and forth, rocking a small child in her arms, and four or five soldiers were sitting at a table near the door, their helmets laying on the benches as they talked in low whispers over their food.She left Silver at another table as she went to retrieve a couple bowls of whatever grub the soldiers were eating, her heart still pounding wildly in her chest.Of course, she mused. She’d tried to fight the thought, to push it away and turn it down, but a few words had brought it back in full force. Of course Silver resented her. She’d been alive, and he hadn’t known. He’d thought her dead, and she’d been falling in love and watching everything from a privileged spot. She hadn’t had a choice, but then again, hadn’t it been true for their whole life? They’d always fought to find another way, even when everyone had deemed the fight hopeless.No wonder Silver thought she’d tossed the towel, that she’d resigned to her comfortable fate and never tried to let him know what had happened to her. She herself wasn’t sure to have tried enough.She almost fled then, almost dropped the bowls and bolted as she hadn’t had the courage to do earlier in the night, just so that she wouldn’t have to face Silver again. She didn’t, though; in the end, she was too tired and too weak. She wanted to soak in Silver’s company for as long as he could tolerate her. She doubted she would have another excuse as good as food was, so she steeled herself, straightened her back and walked once more to the table.When she sat down, though, Silver looked nervous, fidgeting with the frayed hem of a bandage that was coming undone. He opened his mouth as to speak a couple times, and Blaze braced herself for the new jab that was sure to hit her, but nothing came out.“I’m sorry” he blurted out instead, catching her off guard when she’d already started digging in. “I’m sorry I said that thing, while we were coming here. That was a low blow.”She’d expected almost everything, except for that. “It’s…It’s okay” she stammered, dumbfounded. “You were right. You weren’t being cruel.”“But I was” Silver snapped back. “Being cruel, I mean. I was pissed. Not at you, just at…things in general. I’m sorry. It’s not fair to take it out on you.”Blaze looked down, trying and failing to keep her mind blank, to focus on whatever bits and pieces she was pushing around her plate.“It is, though” she said in the end, because the tension had grown to be unbearable. “It is fair. You have every right to be pissed.”Silver was looking at her with big, confused eyes. It reminded her, curiously, of how the Chaos would stare at her at the beginning, as if she were a strange new animal they didn’t know how to deal with. It reminded her of him, too, a younger him, puzzling out her powers and then asking her to be friends anyway, and it hurt her all the more for it. “What do you mean?”“I mean that it’s true. I do know everything.” Blaze took a deep, steadying breath, then went on. “Everything that I could care to look at, obviously, because that’s how the pond works. I’ve seen everything you’ve done ever since I left. I’ve watched you, and Sonic, and everyone else, and our childhood and our parents and the beginning of the world, and all the time I knew you were as safe as you could be, and you didn’t know anything. You thought me dead, and here I am. You thought I’d sacrificed myself to destroy Iblis, and instead I was watching you with a girl you’ve never even met. So yes, it is fair of you to be pissed, and it is fair of you to be cruel. It’s not you who should apologize, it’s me. And believe me, I am sorry. I don’t have the words to tell you how sorry I am.”She fell silent, after that. She almost couldn’t stand it, how raw her voice was, how close the words had been to the ones she’d repeated in her mind, over and over and over until she’d wanted to scream. She never would have been so painfully honest, had it been anyone but her best friend sitting in front of her.But Silver kept staring at her. It grew more unnerving by the second, but she held his gaze, conscious that he could get up and leave every second, injuries be damned.Then he frowned, and said: “That’s- that’s so stupid.”Blaze blinked, stunned. “What?”“You think I’m blaming you because you were alive? Whatever made you believe that? Look, maybe I was angry for all of two seconds, but that’s because the weirdest things in my life have been happening in the last two days! You’ve always been the brain in our plans, I’m barely smart enough to process it all. One minute I was in our time, the next I was getting my ass kicked on a battlefield. There’s a guy that can bend reality, and Sonic is recovering from torture of all things, and Gadget seemed a nice kid but now it feels like he knows more than he lets on, and I’m right in the middle and going through every possible emotion in the span of five minutes.”The hedgehog stopped, panting, catching his breath. Then he shook his head and added, fixing an impossibly sad look on her: “But you were my best friend, Blaze. You still are, because you’re alive, and I’m so, so glad you are, because it was my fault that you’d died in the first place, and I’ve missed you too much to even begin to explain it.”“I’ve missed you too” Blaze whispered, voice cracking slightly. “I could see you, but I missed- I missed talking to you, and thwarting your stupid plans. If there had been a way to come back, to even just tell you I was safe – believe me, I would have.”“I know. I trust you. I always have. But even if you’d wanted to cut ties with me…I’m just glad you didn’t die. That you had a home, and someone to keep you company…that’s a bonus. I wish I could meet your friend, just to thank her.”The cat was unable to stop herself. “More than a friend, actually.”Silver recoiled, in what she realized after a moment was only mock-outrage. “Seriously? I give you a heartfelt speech, and you just tell me you have a girlfriend?”They looked at each other for a couple seconds, completely still. Then Silver’s shoulders started shaking, and snickers escaped Blaze’s lips.They were laughing out loud before they knew it, the sound bouncing off the walls and startling the few onlookers around them.They laughed and laughed until they were out of breath, and Blaze’s eyes had grown teary. Although perhaps that was less out of amusement, and more out of sheer relief. It was – everything was alright. She almost couldn’t believe it. She’d been so worried, so afraid, and all for nothing. How much time had she wasted? How many sleepless nights had she saved, just by talking?“Wow, I sure had missed you” Silver said, pushing aside bowl and spoon and putting his elbows on the table so that he could cover his face with his hands. “That was…that was good. I can’t believe you thought, what? That I would hate you? You were always one for brooding and being paranoid.”Blaze’s smile softened. “Someone has to. If we were both as reckless as you, we wouldn’t have survived our tenth year.”“Wasn’t that the year that you…”“That you almost fell into a crater of boiling lava, and I had to get you out before your mother saw and forbid you from patrolling without an adult? Yes, very much so.”“Haha. Very funny.” Silver seemed deep in thought for a moment, then he peeked from behind his fingers, a sly grin on his face. “While we’re on the topic of shameful memories…Girlfriend, uh?”Blaze felt heat rise to her cheeks. “Shut up.”“No, no, let’s talk about it. As your best friend, I should be very offended that I haven’t met her yet. I have so many embarrassing stories to tell her – provided she hasn’t watched them happen with her time-machine-pond.”“I only showed them the very best, don’t worry” she replied, but her tone had lost some spirit. Tikal was a sore spot, and it seemed that it would be for a long time.Blaze wondered if it would always be like that. Maybe she would always have to be torn in two – her feet in a world, half her heart left behind in the other. It was unfair, but…how could she not be desperate? Had they any chance to find another connection to the Land? They barely had the means to finish their war without more bloodshed than necessary, and she was so, so tired. She wasn’t certain she’d find the strength to be optimistic for the time it took them.Silver appeared to notice her shift in mood, and he let his hands fall so he could look openly at her. “You miss her, don’t you?”“Yes. Yes, I do.”He reached out then, taking her hand over the table. She hesitated, briefly, but then squeezed his fingers, and leaned into the touch as he squeezed back.“You’ll get her back. We’ll get her back. I’m sure of it. And I was serious, before. I need to meet her. Bully her, too. Just a bit, so that she knows to treat you right. Her name is Tikal, right? I hope Knuckles is present, when you see her again. How weird must it be, for him, that you’re dating his great-great-great-aunt?”“You’re impossible” Blaze said, but laughter was bubbling in her throat again, and the tears were drying in her eyes.It was so easy, easy as slipping into a pair of well worn-out shoes, easier even than carrying him bodily to the mess hall. It was all a matter of familiarity, of knowing that she only need hold out her hand and he would help her up, dissipate any bad thought as skilfully as if he’d been born for it. The bantering, the comfort, all came naturally to the both of them, as if they were still little kids sitting on the edge of a building, inventing games as they watched out for monsters.One of the missing pieces had been returned to the puzzle. She had her best friend back.Perhaps it was the ease with whom they’d grown closer once more, then, that made her open her mouth and speak again. Perhaps it was just that she’d been keeping it inside her for just a tad too long. All she knew was that she had one of the people she trusted the most back at her side, and the words fell out before she could stop them.“Silver, I need to tell you something.”He cocked his eyes to the side, perplexed. “Yeah, what is it?”“I…I haven’t told anyone, yet. I wasn’t sure about how they would take it. But you know how my powers were, and how they are now, so you might…you might be the only one who can help me.”“I’ll do my best, but…Blaze, what’s wrong? You look weird.”“I…” She began, then felt herself falling, slipping down from the bench she’d been sitting on.It was all wrong. She’d meant to tell him about the burst of fire that had saved her and Sonic, the new energy that had frightened her while keeping Infinite at bay. It wasn’t fair. She needed help. She needed Silver to know, and understand, and help.But now she was falling, and the sentence died on her tongue as her knees hit the ground and phantom pain trickled down her spine, heaving down her chest and tingling at the top of her fingers.Phantom pain it was, because it was not hers. Mind-numbing and devastating it might be, but she was oddly detached, as if she’d been deprived of a limb and now she could only sense its suffering from afar.Her hand had let go of Silver’s, but now she could hear his voice, frantically worried but moving at the edge of her senses, close and then far, loud and then soft, maddening in its inconstancy. “Blaze? Blaze, can you hear me? What’s happening? What’s going on?”“Something is wrong” she rasped out. It came with great difficulty, as her throat had closed, cutting out oxygen and making her vision swim. She could see nothing but haze, grey clouds rolling about and covering even what she knew to be in close proximity.She closed her eyes, hoping it would help. It didn’t. The world behind her eyelids was not grey, but it was red, and terrifying, and red. It would have many any sane person scream.Blaze wasn’t sure she could count herself as sane anymore, but the pain was unbearable, and red as blood, red as the world.She tipped her head back and screamed. Tikal fell to her knees in front of Chaos and waited.She hadn’t done so in a long, long time. Many might regard Chaos as a deity, but she’d long since learned the truth of it. She was tied to it, and it to her. Treating it with deference, when she eased its mind and it provided her with life, would only create strife, confusion in an otherwise evenly balanced world.But she’d lost all hope, and Chaos had yet to come to her aid, so she bowed down on the grass and choked out: “Please, help me.”She felt Chaos’ gaze on her, but it did not move, and it stayed silent.Above them, the light went on shining, soft and warm and orange.The red hadn’t stopped at the lake. It had cut Tikal out from Mobius, had prevented her from seeing where Blaze had fallen to, but she could have survived. She was not a fighter, true enough, and the novelty of it all was slowly drawing her to madness, but she would have fought. On her sister’s head, she would have.But then, the malady had infected the ground she stood on, and the grass, and the trees. The sunlight was still green, emerald-green, life-green, but the clouds were shot with red, pulsing with rotting blood, and they covered the sky, filtering the light so that it had soon turned into a sickening, muddy orange, defacing even what had yet to be contaminated by whatever had overtaken her homeland.And Chaos was doing nothing. And Chaos was saying nothing.She waited, counting her heartbeats, for without the pond she had no other way to measure time. She waited long enough for her knees to start aching and for a random breeze of cold air to send a shiver down her spine.That was wrong, too. The Land of Chaos had always been stuck in those precious, warm but not torrid days between the end of spring and the beginning of summer. The weather wasn’t supposed to change so abruptly, to take such a turn for the worse, and it had never done so – but now the winds were turning, and the sky was clouded, and the water was growing turbulent, the level rising and threatening to spill over the bank.It was a second, stronger breeze that made something click inside of her. Instinctively, prompted by a sudden burst of anger, Tikal lifted her head, baring her teeth at the liquid creature. “How dare you?” She growled. “This is yours. We are yours. You made us, you saved us, and yet now you sit there, and don’t lift a finger? What are you going to do? What should I do?”Silence, yet again. Somehow, it only served to fuel her fury. The echidna sprang to her feet. Deference, uh? This entity didn’t deserve an ounce of deference. She was paying it a courtesy, just by not spitting in the face of its indolence.“Where is your pride? This is your world! You brought Blaze to me, and now that she was taken, you’d stay here, doing nothing? There’s an enemy within! Why won’t you stop it? Why won’t you…”She froze, mid-phrase, where she stood. No, she thought. No, no, no. Please, no.Rage was not for her. She’d rejected rage, just as she’d rejected envy, and power, and everything that had brought her father to the ground. That rage was foreign to her, as were the words bleeding from her mouth, as was the red water rising from the lake and lapping at her feet.It was tainting her. Whatever sickness was transpiring in her peaceful world was creeping inside her, a parasite, red lice looking for a weak spot.Blaze, she thought desperately. Blaze, my love, where are you? What have they done to us?Blaze wasn’t there. Chaos was, but Chaos was still as a statue, laying at the edge of the water, and in that light even the blue-ish hue of its body had turned to orange, morphing it into a grotesque parody of itself. The little ones were nowhere to be seen. Sealed away from danger, perhaps, or perhaps taken, or worse.She was alone. For the first time in her life she was really, truly alone, and it was horrifying.“Please” Tikal whimpered, hoping someone might hear, someone might snap them all out of this ugly reverie. “Please, what should I do? What can I do?”The push came unexpected. It was hardly a push, in truth, just a new, invisible force compelling her to move, throwing her off balance. She staggered, trying to get back to safer land, but her feet went out from under her, and she plunged into the lake.She had not touched it in so long, fearing its influence. She had figured it would be hot, at some point, warmed by the sun, by the foul electricity running through.It was not. Not hot, nor warm, nor tepid either. It was utterly, freezing cold.Tikal opened her mouth to scream at the shock of it. A foolish thing, for she was already underwater, drawn towards the bottom by a newfound weight on her limbs, so strong that she feared it would make her bones pop out of her skin. No sound could be carried underwater…and yet she could hear herself screaming, her throat aching to the point of bursting.It sounded distant, though, as if coming from another. From far above, or far below - she couldn’t distinguish the two things anymore. It rippled around her, doubling, tripling itself, a chorus of voices: known voices, strange voices, and some who weren’t voices at all, just the guttural snarls of feral beasts.She’d have laughed, too, for it was horribly ridiculous, how this could be happening to her so suddenly, so expected after ages of not knowing what was happening to her home; but the water was all around her, and inside her, and pumping into her veins, like infected lifeblood. It tasted slimy and repulsive on her tongue when she tried to make any sound but that awful, endless scream.Still struggling against herself, Tikal went down, down into the depths, down into the black.Then she closed her eyes, and the red took over the black, and she was no more.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It left as fast as it had come.One moment Silver was watching Blaze scream herself hoarse on the floor, the next the shriek had died down to a pained whimper and his friend had folded on herself, breathing raggedly.Silver crouched next to her, too shocked to think properly about what to do. He reached out to Blaze, then retracted his hands, unsure of how she might react to physical touch. “Blaze? Blaze, can you hear me? Are you okay? What just happened?”“I don’t know” she whispered. She lifted her head and looked him in the eyes, shaking like a leaf. “I don’t know, I don’t know, something’s wrong – but I don’t know what it is. It’s Tikal, it must be her – but it was so red, it can’t be…”She looked so out of herself that Silver struggled to reconcile her trembling, sweat-soaked appearance with the cat who’d been laughing along with him just minutes before. There was a frantic plea in her eyes, though, begging him for help, for an explanation, and it was what prompted him to move: an explanation he had not – in fact, he would have liked very much for someone to sit him down and tell him just what the hell was going on – but he was pretty good at helping, and hopefully he had not yet lost his touch when it came to helping Blaze.“If it’s red you saw, then it must have been Infinite. Or something he’s got to do with. And if it’s Infinite we…we should tell the others. They might help. Or know something we don’t.”He waited for her to nod in agreement, then offered her his hand again. Blaze hesitated, but finally she took it and let herself be pulled up on unsteady legs. The effort provoked a twinge of pain to come from Silver’s chest, probably from the cracked ribs, but he made a point to ignore it. Now was not the time.“Come on, can you walk? We’ve got to find Amy. Or someone. Maybe they can…”“Hey! What’s going on here?”They looked up in unison, just in time to see Knuckles walking in, a couple soldiers hot on his heels. Only then Silver realized that some were missing from the group sitting near them when they’d walked in, and that the young mother who’d been pacing around the room had sat down in a far corner, clutching her baby to her chest and watching them with wary eyes. Uh. He’d forgotten they had an audience.“What’s going on?” Knuckles repeated, walking closer to them. “They called me because they said you’d been screaming bloody murder. What happened?”“I…I have no clue.” Silver looked at Blaze, who was staring straight ahead with empty eyes. Instinctively, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, in an attempt to steady both her and himself. “Blaze says that something bad just happened, and I don’t know how she knows, but we think it’s Infinite, so…”Suddenly, Blaze moved, throwing him off balance. He fumbled to get a hold of her again, but she only took a step towards Knuckles, grabbing his arms as if trying to keep him in place.“It’s Tikal” she said, voice barely more than a murmur. “It’s Tikal, and if something is wrong with her, if the Land is compromised…You know what it means. You have to know what it means. For Chaos, for us…It could be a disaster.”Knuckles stared at her for a moment, brow furrowed. Silver hoped the echidna, at least, understood something of it all, because he was too preoccupied with Blaze to care. Her harried look, the way her fingers were digging in the flesh of their friend’s arms (and that ought to hurt, even considering how strong Knuckles was), the broken voice…He doubted he’d ever seen her like that before.Desperate was the word for it, and he didn’t like the idea that he could associate Blaze with desperation. He didn’t like it one bit.“What did you see?” Knuckles asked.Blaze shook her head. “Not much. I mostly just saw red, so Infinite must have something to do with it. I could feel it, too, and it felt like how it did back in the Death Egg. It bears trouble. I’m sure of it. We need to help Tikal, we have to, please.”“We will” Silver hurried to say, because that he was sure of. On principle, he wasn’t about to let his best friend and her newfound girlfriend face something like that on their own.He turned to Knuckles for confirmation, but the echidna was gritting his teeth, ruminating on what Blaze had told him.“I don’t know what just happened to you” he said in the end. “But if you’re right, we need to get the Master Emerald back more than we did before. We’re lucky that was in the plans already. Come on, follow me.”“Where to?” Silver asked. Blaze let go of Knuckles and stumbled backwards, holding her hand out almost by instinct, and he took it, squeezing it tight in comfort.“The control room. I was looking for you both, before you attracted all this attention. We’re going to attack Eggman again.” “Alright, here’s the plan” Amy said, gesturing to the screen behind her. There were bags under her eyes, and she gave the impression of not having slept much in the past…well, weeks, but she was surprisingly energetic, a determined set to her shoulders as she spoke.The control room was packed full. Everyone of import (minus Tails, probably still in the infirmary ward) was there, mostly standing around or leaning against the walls. Silver was not up and about only because he’d cajoled Blaze into taking one of the few chairs until the world stopped spinning around her, and then she’d sent him one of her patent glares and a hissed reminder of his injuries, so he’d had to sit down beside her.“We’re gonna try to lure Eggman out of his nest” the pink hedgehog continued. “Sonic here will be our bait. Hopefully, if the doctor sees him, he’ll think he’s our Sonic and get angry enough to come out and fight on his own, without his worst minions around.”Right. The other Sonic. Silver watched in silent wonder as the small, plump hedgehog threw Amy a thumbs-up, a bright smile plastered on his face.Seeing him after having witnessed the ruinous state the original Sonic had been left in had been…jarring, to put it mildly. Silver didn’t doubt that it must have been even worse for Blaze, who had never met him in person before: he had noticed the way his friend had stepped back, frowning, giving a double take – ready to attack, most of all, as if fearing it might be another one of Infinite’s illusions. Silver himself at least had been actively involved, the last time interdimensional shenanigans had brought the little hedgehog in their world.Still. The contrast between that Sonic, skittering around full of energy, and the one he knew best, howling in pain after months of torture, had not been easy to swallow.“That doesn’t sound like much of a plan” Espio countered from his corner.“Yeah, well, I don’t see you suggesting anything better” Amy said drily. “Besides, we’re running out of time to be careful. If we succeed, though – if Sonic’s team can take down Eggman, or at least keep him busy for a while – then the other team, led by Knuckles, will be able to go find the Master Emerald, as we had originally planned.”In the corner of his eye, Silver saw something move. As he turned, he spotted Gadget crouching beside Sonic, moving his hands in a series of quick gestures, to which the hedgehog responded in kind. They seemed to be having some sort of conversation in a silent language, though Gadget appeared hesitant in his movements, sometimes stopping in his tracks mid-gesture. Sonic had no such qualms, gleefully signing at an almost frightening pace, leaving the wolf clearly confused.Silver watched them at it for a while, until Gadget looked up, seemingly satisfied by what Sonic had told him, and met his gaze. The wolf stiffened, an unreadable expression on his face, then he got up and retreated to the back of the room, nearly out of sight.Silver turned back to Amy, trying not to betray just how confused he was. He had not forgotten what had happened during the battle with Infinite, but he had pushed it aside for a while, to focus on more pressing matters as, for one, his best friend having a mental bond with the divinity of Chaos or something of the like.Now that he’d seen Gadget again, though – now that he’d seen Gadget’s reaction, which screamed GUILT from a mile away – he wasn’t sure how he was supposed to act. It just added to the pile of weird stuff that needed explaining and, frankly, he was getting tired of being left in the dark. Blaze being different, being something more, that he could manage: it was unsettling, but Silver knew that deep down she’d not changed. It was a gut feeling, nothing more, but he knew he could trust her still.He didn’t have such a bond with Gadget. And the soldier was hiding something – his actions had confirmed what could have been nothing more than a suspect. There were the grounds to just call him out for what had happened on the battlefield and demand he explain himself in front of everyone.It might be nothing, though, his mind offered, as he watched Amy draft strategies on the screen for them all to see. He might just be scared of you suspecting him of something he hasn’t done.
But he knows Infinite. He does, I’ve seen it.
But he saved you.
He might be a spy.
Amy and the others trust him, though.
Silver sighed and gave up, ignoring the puzzled look Blaze threw his way. He had to corner Gadget and force him to explain what was going on, but he couldn’t do so on a whim. Nothing good had ever come out of him jumping at someone’s throat and blaming them for random crimes, as Sonic – their Sonic – might have confirmed had he been there. He needed to think it through, and act smartly, for once in his life.Amy was looking in their direction. He forced himself to focus and leaned in, waiting for instructions.“Blaze, you’re gonna be with us” the pink hedgehog said, looking straight in the cat’s eyes. “We don’t know for sure that Eggman is going to fall for our trick, and you’re the only one who managed to hold your ground against Infinite, so you’re our best bet if he comes out. I know you’d rather go with Knuckles and check on the Master Emerald yourself, because of your…connection with it, but we can’t risk being one of our best fighters down.”The hesitation in her voice as she mentioned the emerald was palpable, but Silver couldn’t really blame her. It would have been a freaky situation anyway, and the war raging around them certainly didn’t help matters.Besides, he’d had the dubious luck of witnessing Blaze’s screaming fit himself, while Amy had only had Knuckles’ hushed retelling moments before the meeting had started, which had prompted the hedgehog to throw some concerned and yet confused glances in Blaze’s direction. It had been terrifying, to see his friend in such a state, but at least Silver had seen first-hand what exactly her being there with them entailed. There was something at stake, something mysterious and hardly understandable, but running too deep to be easily ignored.“I understand” Blaze replied, voice perfectly even. She still looked ruffled after her crisis, but she’d wiped the sweat of her face and was sporting a look of apparent calm that made Silver feel as though he should warn everyone to back off a few feet.He knew that look. He hadn’t seen it in ages, but he knew what it meant, and the grim, angry determination that laid behind it meant nothing but trouble for anyone stupid enough to try and block her path.“I understand” she repeated. “And you’re right, I want to know what happened. But I won’t compromise the plan for that. We’re at war, and I know very well what it means. I’ll do my best on the battlefield, and my feelings won’t be in the way.”Blaze paused, as though pondering her next few words. Then she added: “But if Infinite tries to attack us, he’s mine. And if something happened to Tikal because of him, if, as you’ve said, you’ve lost that many soldiers to him, then I will only let him live long enough to give us what information we need to defeat Eggman.”“If you can take him, he’s all yours, girl” somebody, probably Vector, muttered from the back, but the rest of the room was deadly silent. It was as if someone had put a spell on the group, freezing everyone on the spot in the wake of Blaze’s declaration.And Blaze herself…Silver could hardly believe what he’d just heard. He’d noticed her speaking differently since her return, but he’d blamed it on the world she’d lived in for countless days, on a literally centuries-old girl being her only conversation partner. Now he felt something more, something new, bubbling under the surface and leaving a venomous trace in her words, in the way she carried herself.Power, he realized suddenly. Power radiated from her, invisible and yet almost palpable, flooding the room and clogging their breath. Power and rage, a merciless rage he hadn’t known Blaze to possess. He’d seen her in the middle of war, far more times that he would have liked, but the fire in her eyes felt different, felt dangerous.Impulsively, he reached out and took her hand. He’d expected it to be burning, scalding hot, threatening to burst in flames, but nothing better had crossed his mind, just an instinctive urge to ground her, to calm her down.Her hand, though, felt no different than how it had been earlier on. Blaze startled at the touch, then blinked, as if snapped out of a reverie, and looked at him in concern. No, not concern: there was gratitude, there, for what he had done, but also fear, and it left Silver more confused than ever. She couldn’t be afraid of him, so what might have scared her so much, beside…Beside herself? His mind supplied helpfully, and he shook his head, refusing to entertain the thought. Blaze was many things, but dangerous? He could not believe it. He would not.“Alright” he said, perhaps a tad louder than necessary. It seemed to work, though: everyone in the room appeared to release a breath they hadn’t realized to be holding, and they composed themselves, even as they looked warily at Blaze.One had to wonder if they had understood more of what had happened than Silver had, or if they’d just felt it sinking in their bones and were reacting instinctively, out of pure fear.“Everyone knows what they’re supposed to do” Silver continued, undeterred, because he had to divert their attention before it was too late. “But I got a bit lost in the plan. Where am I going?”“Are you serious?” Blaze turned to him so fast that he barely had the time to notice before she was glaring at him. Again. “You’re not going anywhere! You’re still recovering. You can’t fight anyone until your injuries heal up.”“She’s right” Amy said. “I want you with us as much as you do, Silver, but it’s too dangerous. If this isn’t the decisive battle, then we’ll need your powers for the rest of the war.”“Oh, come on, I can’t just sit here while you all risk your lives-““You risked it well enough, and look where it brought you” Blaze bit back. “I’m not losing you because you’re too stubborn to admit you need more time to heal-““Yeah, so I should be okay with losing you again instead-“He could come with me.”Their heads whipped around in unison, as Tails’ voce rose from the back. Silver was almost grateful, because he’d been on the verge of saying something he might have regretted on a second thought.It would have been true, though. He wasn’t about to hang back while everyone else went off to fight, especially Blaze, who he’d just barely got back.He focused on Tails, then, as the rest of the room seemed to be doing. The fox looked even worse than Amy, frazzled and bone-tired, but his gaze was sharp and focused once more, not lost as when Silver had first seen him, nor desperate like at Sonic’s bedside.“What do you mean?” Amy asked. It was clear she hadn’t been expecting him, and she stared at him in open surprise.“We still need to get Omega back” he replied. “And you didn’t count me in your plans either. So what I mean to do is retrieve everything that’s left of Omega and take it back to the base so I can reassemble him and see what happened to him and Shadow. If Silver comes with me, his powers can help me gather all the pieces, and he will be away from the frontline. As will I.”Silver chewed on it for a few moments. It sounded like a consolation prize, like a distraction thrown in a child’s way to distract them from their tantrum, but it would be better than nothing. And he was glad, deep down, that Tails had come to his senses enough to ask for help. “Alright. I’m in.”“You’ll need backup, though, in case one of Eggman’s clones pops in for a surprise” Knuckles said, brow furrowed.“Am I not backup enough?” Silver whispered. It was low enough that only Blaze seemed to hear, and she sent him a warning stare, as if she were holding back from elbowing him in the guts only because of his still-fragile ribs.That was fine. Bickering and trading half-hearted insults back and forth was part of the deal, as it had been since the beginning of their friendship, and he had missed it more than he cared to admit.It was certainly better than sensing otherworldly powers seeping through Blaze, at least.Damn it. They’d need a long, long talk, once everything was said and done.“I can go with them, commander” another voice cut in, and Gadget stepped in, squaring his shoulders as if preparing for a confrontation.He didn’t look at Silver, this time, but nevertheless the hedgehog felt his guard rise instantly. It was another piece added to the ever-increasing puzzle he needed to solve, because what in the world did that mean?Did Gadget want to redeem himself in his eyes? Or was he just waiting to get Silver alone, so he could shoot him in the back and be done with it, perhaps taking Tails down as well while he was at it? Or there was something else at play, and the wolf just wanted to do his duty?He couldn’t object to it without having a lot of explaining to do. Besides, there was no time, not when everyone was ready and set to leave, and Silver didn’t have the mental energy to put up a fight.He could only shrug and nod, then, when Tails and Knuckles looked at him for confirmation. He watched the echidna grant Gadget the leave to go with them, and when the wolf finally dared look at him, Silver only raised an eyebrow, and something indescribable flashed in the soldier’s eyes as he got back to his place.Well then. They were about to have a fun little outing, on their way to pick up Omega’s pieces.“Alright” Amy said, a fearsome grin on her face, blissfully unaware of what was going on behind her back. “Everyone in place.”“Let’s go kick Eggman’s butt.” “Well now, what do we have here?”
Where am I?
“Oh, please. No need to get so worked up. The procedure was a success. A great scientific feat, I might say.”
It hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it hurts it hurts it hurts it hur-
The scream came. No tongue, though. No mouth with which one could scream. So how…“A resilient one, mh? Nevermind. You, my dear, will be part of something truly extraordinary. We’ll see that you make yourself useful sooner rather than later. It won’t be long until one of your friends comes around, I wager.”
My friends?
No. No no no no no.
Blaze. Blaze, Sonic, Knuckles.
Anyone.
Please.
Another scream, followed by the painful crackling of static.Then, blessedly, silence.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“So. What’s happening?” Silver asked, out of the blue.Gadget grimaced. He’d been expecting that kind of conversation to happen, but that didn’t mean he was eager to get into it.They were waiting for Tails to give them the all-clear to start loading Omega on the cargo hovercraft that had brought them inside the city. Gadget had thought it would be a simple in-and-out mission, but apparently there were some parts of the robotic that needed to be fixed before they reached the base. Or stabilized. Something of the sort. The fox hadn’t been that clear in his explanations, jumping straight to repair so they could make it as quick as possible, and robotics wasn’t Gadget’s field of expertise.Manning the perimeter was, apparently, or at least it had become such during the last few months, so for now his role was just to stand guard, hand on his Wispon like the grizzled old cowboys in the comic books his father had read him as a kid.He misliked it, just as he misliked having Silver stand beside him, alternating between checking the surrounding area for enemies and throwing him suspicious glances. Even as he tried to assume a relaxed stance, his hand twitched over the handle of his weapon, ready to direct it towards anything that might move in the corner of his eye. It had become an instinct, somewhere along the line, to react so quickly, and it was good, because it meant he’d survived until present day – but he hoped he would be able to get rid of it quickly, once the war was over. He’d never been one for violence, before joining the Resistance; amicable agreements were his strongest suit, so the last thing he wanted was for his first instinct to be “shooting” even in times of peace.“What do you mean?” He replied, feigning ignorance, when he realized Silver wasn’t planning on adding anything.The hedgehog sighed, as if he were the one long-suffering one. “Look, let’s not fool ourselves. You know what this is about. I saw what happened with Infinite, and he’d stopped with his tricks, so it wasn’t an hallucination. You recognized him.”There was no sense in denying it. If anything, it would make things worse, because who would even believe he hadn’t done anything wrong, if he started denying the evidence? Better get it done with with as little witnesses as possible. “Yeah. Yeah, I did.”For a moment, Silver seemed taken aback by his bluntness, but soon he recomposed himself. “You seem pretty calm about it.”“I’m not. Calm, I mean. But I thought that if you wanted to tell the commander or…or someone else, you’d have done that already. So I suppose you’re giving me a chance to explain myself before accusing me of something.”“You’re right.” Silver shot Tails a look, but the fox was still pretty focused on tinkering with Omega’s system, completely unaware of whatever discussion they had going on. “I’m asking now because I thought you might tell me more, if no one else was around to hear it.”That was probably true. Gadget could survive one judgemental stare, but knowing anyone he’d met in the Resistance might be eavesdropping would have probably melted all his resolve to come clean about the whole thing.And he needed to do so, he really did – the secret had been gnawing at his inside since he’d first seen Nadir behind the mask. It was a relief, in a way, to be able to be sincere with someone, and he hadn’t been careful enough in schooling his expression in something neutral and avoiding questions when they touched sore spots, perhaps hoping someone would call him out on it.Well, Silver had, in the end. It didn’t explain how Silver had grown convinced of his innocence, though. “Why didn’t you tell them, then? You saw me, and you’re their friend. They would have believed I had something to do with Infinite if you’d said so.”“For that very reason.” Silver shook his head, frowning. “Look, I saw you, alright. You looked shocked when Infinite lost the mask. It felt like you hadn’t expected to find him there. And even if that was all an act…You saved my life. And I know how these things work. I did a poor job at fighting Infinite, but Amy had just called me an asset in battle. If you’d wanted to damage the Resistance and still have them trust you, you wouldn’t have saved the one person that had seen you unmask that guy, the one with the weird powers. You’d have brought back four or five foot soldiers who would all swear on you saving their lives and leave me in Infinite’s hands. They’d have praised you, but losing me would have weakened them.”“It sounds like you’re used to what happens during a war.”The hedgehog snorted. “Honestly, I would have liked to never see another one again, but yeah. I grew up in a freakish situation. And you’d think survivors would band together, but no. There was always someone betraying someone else, so I have a pretty clear image of what you would have done if you were…I don’t know, a mole in the system.”He shrugged, as if he hadn’t just implied all sorts of outlandish things, as if Gadget’s shoulders hadn’t just slumped in relief because Silver believed him and he wouldn’t be suspected of something he hadn’t done. “Besides, I feel like I can trust you. Maybe I’m not the best person around when it comes to deciding who is to be trusted, but the others seem to think the same, and you might have fooled Knuckles, but Amy’s good at this sort of things. She would have noticed if there was something wrong. Rouge, too, since she literally works with secret agents. And I’ve got a precedent of accusing the wrong person of something and nearly causing a disaster, so I’m being careful about doing it again. Ask Blaze, she would know. She was there.”Silver’s lips curled in a faint smile as he mentioned his friend. It was barely noticeable, but Gadget had seen them say goodbye, before they’d left for their separate missions. They’d hugged tightly and murmured something that had sounded heavily like “come back, this time” and “don’t be an idiot”, and Gadget had felt like he’d been intruding in something private, but he’d gotten a good grasp on how close they were, how much they cared for one another.He and Nadir had had that, once. Before anything else, they’d been close. They’d trusted each other, would have followed each other to the end of the world, even if that had only meant crossing the town line back then, reckless children as they had been.Had it been a kinder town, perhaps Gadget would have wished for them to stay that way. Stupid, and childish, and happy.“I hadn’t seen him in years, before I shot him” he found himself whispering, barely audible over Tails’ crashing and rummaging behind their backs. “I never would have let him end up like this, if I had known.”“Were you two friends?”It was a simple enough question, but Gadget felt the sudden need to laugh, even if it would have sounded out of place. They’d been friends first, for sure, but it was hard to think of them as such, when the last thing he could remember were clumsy kisses and wandering hands, and Nadir repeating what wasn’t his name yet, as if he could make it true just by saying it out loud one too many times.
Gadget.
Gadget.
Gadget.
“Sort of. We grew up together, in a small town west of Spagonia. We had these great plans, of what we would do once we’d gotten older, but his methods were already too rough for my liking back then. We had a bad row before I left, and I haven’t heard from him since.” He paused, swallowing hard. “Well, I suppose I have heard of him now, haven’t I?”And wasn’t that the thing, when you were born in tiny little villages or towns, tightly knit and far from the rest of the world? Either you stayed, and you built a family, and you did the same things your parents had done and their parents before them, or you cut them all off and left to forge your own life, for better or for worse.It wasn’t supposed to be like this, he thought, a spark of anger seizing him. Worse wasn’t supposed to mean a bloody war.He held his tongue, though. He wanted Silver to trust him, but that didn’t mean he was about to lay his whole mind bare.Silver didn’t seem to notice his internal turmoil, though. Rather, he seemed engrossed in some thought. “So you don’t know anything that could help us fight him? Any weak spot, anything at all?”Gadget shook his head. “Nothing, I’m sorry. The last I saw of him before the war he was a normal person. Angry, maybe, but normal. I would have told the commander right off the bat if I had something, I swear.”“Yeah, I believe you. You should still tell him, though. And the others as well.”“You think so?”He didn’t dare look Silver in the eyes as he waited for an answer, fidgeting nervously. He knew the hedgehog was right, but he dreaded thinking about it, because it ignited all sorts of dark thoughts he didn’t want to dwell on. “It’s just…I don’t want them to kick me out of the Resistance because they think I’m not on their side. I am. I want to help.”“They’d never do that. I told you, they trust you. And they might be a bit suspicious at first, but they’ll come around sooner or later. They wouldn’t blame you for having weird connections, either, since most of them allied themselves with Eggman at some point, or fought Sonic first and befriended him later. Myself included.”Gadget blinked, stunned. “You…fought Sonic?”“As I said, I didn’t always make the best decisions. Like you, I thought someone was helping me and I trusted him, and then he turned out to be a murderous monster. Should have noticed it from the start, since he talked in a weird ominous way even if he didn’t have a mouth, but…”Suddenly, Gadget burst in laughter. It was not much, barely a nervous giggle, and he knew he shouldn’t be doing even that, not when the thought of tying Nadir to the words “murderous monster” was only salt over the wound, and he didn’t really know what Silver was referring to.He was just so, so relieved, and Silver was talking to him so earnestly about such senseless things, it was as if a great weight had been taken off his shoulders.Somebody believed him. He was not – he was not a bad person, all things considered. He could help bring the war to an end, whatever it meant for him and Nadir. Everything would be alright.“Thank you” he replied, because he didn’t know what else to say. “You’re right, I’ll…I’ll talk to them. I’ll try my best.”Silver grinned brightly. “Anytime. I’ll put in a good word for you, too, if you want.”Before the wolf could thank him again (and he really ought to, didn’t he, considering the thought of having someone watch his back eased the terror of having to tell his story just that little bit enough), Tails called out behind them, “Hey, you two!”When they turned around, the fox had a proud smile on his face, and he was cradling what Gadget supposed had to be part of Omega’s circuits in his hands. “I think we can get it home now.”Gadget nodded, and took a step forward, ready to get to work. First, though, he looked back at Silver over his shoulder and sent him a grateful smile, hoping he could convey what he felt with Tails being none the wiser.Silver smiled back and gave him a thumbs up, so perhaps he had succeeded.Together, the three of them made short work of loading all the mechanical parts on their aircraft. It was Silver who took the brunt of it, carrying Omega’s remains in bulk with his powers, but Gadget found himself saddled with some internal parts nonetheless, cradling them in his arm like a baby because Tails had insisted they needed to be treated with the utmost care.Had he been not so preoccupied with his own problems and with checking the surrounding area for potential attackers, he would have perhaps taken the time to be properly amazed by the kind of advanced technology he was lugging around. Considering he planned to go back to his boring, uneventful, comforting teacher-in-training position after the war, and that schools almost never had anything to offer beside decades-old computers, it was unlikely he would ever touch anything so high-level again.“There” Tails said, once they’d secured everything in place. “I can finish the job when we’re back at the base, and then maybe Omega will tell us more about this Infinite guy. Or where Shadow is, at least. I think we’re going to need both their help, if we want to-“Gadget’s communicator turned on, cutting him off abruptly. The wolf stared at it, brow furrowed, waiting for orders, but nothing came. Instead, there was only the buzzling and crackling of radio disturbance, reverberating loudly in the empty street.“What’s happening?” Silver asked, confusion etched in his face.“I…I don’t know.” Gadget fiddled with the comm, trying to no avail to get better signal. “It says the message’s coming from where the other squadron was headed to. The one with Sonic. But there’s problems on their side.”Suddenly, the noise started growing in intensity, more high-pitched by the second. In between its deafening roar, another voice came and went, screaming snippets of words. “…N you hear me? Ov…Anyone? C’n y…”Whatever had let Gadget relax faded as quickly as it had appeared. In a second, he was a soldier again, ready to take action. “We can hear you, but not clearly” he said, loud but firmly. “What’s happening? Do you need back-up?”“We’re…thing, Miss Rose said.” It wasn’t a voice he recognized, but it sounded young, very young, so it had to be one of the last crop of fighters, the ones who’d been dismissed as elders and kids at the beginning of the war but were now needed as much as their adult counterparts. Mostly, it sounded terrified, panic clear in every word, as few of them as they could hear. “…Need help, the robot…know what’s happening.”And finally, achingly clear: “…With the mask. He’s here.”Then the line went dead, leaving only the crackling of static behind. “No. It’s not possible” Knuckles growled.But it was. It had to be, because for all the times he’d been fooled by Eggman, it was not like he could deny what was right in front of his eyes.He couldn’t dismiss the shattered remains of the Master Emerald as an illusion, not when he could still feel its energy calling to him, pulling him closer.“Commander?” One of the soldiers in his team called from somewhere behind him, but Knuckles ignored them, choosing instead to crouch beside what was left of the gem.It hadn’t even fallen to pieces. He could have processed that, because it had already happened. He’d proven many times that he could find shards of the Master Emerald and put them back together by sheer power and force of will.But there were no shards left. The Emerald appeared to have crumbled into dust, thin and impalpable, and though it still glittered in the faint light, marking it as the real deal and not as a ruse, nothing Knuckles tried could piece it together. The dust stayed where it was, strewn on the platform Eggman seemed to have carelessly left it on, stubbornly refusing to return to its original state, and it infuriated him so much he felt like he might punch something.More than that, though, it worried him, because he had never seen anything similar in his life, and it had thrown him off balance, and what could his next move possibly be, since the hope he was supposed to bring back had literally burst into pieces?What could have possibly done such a thing, when even Chaos had left the Emerald more intact?“Commander, sir” the soldier repeated, more insistent, and Knuckles finally turned to them, with a sigh that was half a growl.“Yeah?”It was an older lynx, weapon slung over her back and holding a communication device out for him to see. She pointed urgently at the screen. “There’s something wrong with our machines, sir. Been since we entered the bunker. We can’t contact the base or hack into the cameras anymore, and we can’t seem to get readings on whether there are enemies inside.”“There’s something wrong with this whole place.” Knuckles grumbled. It wasn’t an exaggeration, either – he could feel it, deep inside his bones, tasting foul on his tongue. He wasn’t even sure if the rest of the group could sense it or if it was just him, with his damn Guardian powers.And if it was the latter, he didn’t want to know exactly what kind of wrong it might entail.“We gotta leave. Now. Pack all this stuff, we’re going back to the base.”The lynx saluted – he really couldn’t get them to stop doing it, as much as he tried to – and went to report his orders. Knuckles returned his attention to the Master Emerald, or whatever poor excuse of it was left.Well then. It seemed he had failed as Guardian. Again.As he was trying to push back the stab of guilt in his chest (because now was not the time, alright – he could wallow in it once he’d carted the Emerald and all those airheads he was responsible for back to the base), though, something changed. He watched some green crumbs move, rolling down the piles of gem dust they’d been on, and for a split second Knuckles thought he’d done, that it was coming back together.Then he felt it, too. The ground shaking under his feet.Wrong, his instincts screamed, as he felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck in alarm. Wrong, wrong, wrong – go!“Move! We’ve gotta get out of here!” He bellowed, since the troop had frozen on the spot, most of them staring at the floor with terror. They seemed to snap out of it readily enough, some even picking up their weapons and getting ready to fight their way out, and Knuckles let himself hope, for a moment, that they could make it, that he would get them all out before it was too late.The moment after the ground split and a cavernous, terrifying scream rose from the depths of Eggman’s bunker, signalling they were out of time and possibly out of chances to win, but he’d had to hope, hadn’t he?It was not like he could have expected what was lunging at him from the end of the hall, after all.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
There was blood running down Blaze’s arm.She spared it a brief glance, right before launching another attack at one of the Eggbots who had dared stray too close to her. It had to be hers, since none of her enemies were capable of bleeding in the first place and the rest of her team was scattered around the battlefield, too far to soil her even when they were injured – and indeed it was, trickling from a cut just below her shoulder.She had no time to think about it, though, because Eggman’s minions were closing in on her from all sides, and it was barely a scratch besides, not enough to warrant stopping and trying to escape. She would take care of it once the battle was over.If you get to see it, her brain insinuated, but Blaze paid it no mind. She’d had her fill of pessimistic thoughts and she would not stand for them now.After all, everything that could have gone wrong had already done so.Oh, their plan had worked, to the extent it was bound to. Not one of them had truly believed they would be able to defeat Eggman with this single battle, aside from whatever sliver of hope still kept them up and fighting, but they’d breathed a sigh of relief when the doctor had showed up. The man had arrived at the head of an army, but as predicted, he’d come alone, with no overtly powerful creature flanking him. More importantly, he’d been in a state, clearly enraged at the thought that Sonic would still be up and about to bother him.It had felt like the usual fights, for a short time, the ones Blaze had always seen happen through the pond and never joined in. They’d converged on their enemy all at once, shooting and hitting and burning, and it had felt like they’d made the right call. It had felt easy.Too easy by far, as they’d all come to realize.Blaze struck at a Chaos clone, ignoring the unease such a familiar face brought her, and then looked around as it crumbled and melted among the flames. She spotted Sonic, neatly avoiding projectiles as he tried to aim directly for Eggman, and Amy too, still standing and swinging her hammer with terrifying vigour.Good. That was good. Sonic and herself might be the greatest power sources in the team, but it was Amy the soldiers looked up to. If she fell, the troops would scatter, and then they would truly be lost.Blaze sent a bunch of opponents scattering with a wave of flames and then moved swiftly, making her way towards the pink hedgehog. She refused to focus on the shapes littering the ground, to see whether they were all robot carcasses or if some of their soldiers had already fallen. It would do her no good to mourn them now.“I sent for backup” Amy called out hoarsely, once Blaze had come within hearing range. “But if you’ve got any ace up your sleeve, now’d be the time to get it out. How many of these things does Eggman have?”The cat took position at her back, ever mindful of the way her friend’s hammer cut through the air. “We’ll never make it, if we don’t find a way to stop the clones. Seems like he can just conjure them out of thin air.”For that was the heart of the problem. The first wave of robots Eggman had brought with him would have been easy to get rid of, and so would have his own shuttle, for all that it seemed loaded with weapons and flailing limbs capable of snatching fighters off from the ground.But then the clones had started flooding in, and in the blink of an eye, the tide had turned against the Resistance.For every one of them the rebels cut down, five more would take its place. There seemed to be no end to their strength, and that was without considering the toll this fight was taking on the soldiers, forced to face a sea of identical faces that stared at them with the same numb, unblinking gaze, as Eggman chortled and bellowed from above their heads. And they were illusions, if exceedingly solid and strong ones – if the doctor had the means to create them, then he would keep doing so, faster than they could hope to get reinforcements.There was no way out of it. They would spend all their energy on the clones, and still more of them would come and raze the Resistance to the ground, unless they managed to put an end to it swiftly.Somewhere to Blaze’s left, a blast tore open the ground, sending metallic shards flying over their heads. Behind her, Amy muttered something unintelligible, then added through gritted teeth: “Alright. I’ll tell Sonic to lead Eggman out of the fight. We’ll take him down before his friends get to us, and if it’s one of his tricks, we’ll get rid of the clones.”It was an haphazard plan, but there seemed to be no other option. “I’ll set up a trap” Blaze said, scanning the ground for some alley that might do the trick. If they managed to corner Eggman somewhere tight enough to hinder his fighting abilities, then they might…She felt it long before she could look up to see the portal opening. The ground started shaking under her feet, almost imperceptibly at first, then growing in strength. A sudden hush fell on the battlefield, as rebels and robots alike seemed to stand to attention, a collective intake of breath, as though they were waiting for something to happen. It sent a shiver down Blaze’s spine: not out of fear, she guessed, as much as out of recognition, because she’d already seen it, hadn’t she? In another place and in another time, perhaps, but close enough to feel familiar. To send a spark of something, unnamed and ferocious, somewhere deep in her chest.“What’s going on?” Amy asked urgently, and Blaze would have liked to reply I don’t know, but she knew. Of course she knew.A few feet above the ground, where only minutes before there had been nothing but floating dust, a crack had split the sky in two. And in its blinding, sickening red light, she could just make out the shape of Infinite, slowly creeping out of his hole.There was no hatred in his only visible eye, when he finally stepped out of the light. Rather, he seemed to regard the soldiers as one would particularly interesting pests: unconcernedly, with just a glint of amusement at seeing them scurry about.A moment later, he turned to Eggman, the mask hiding any change in expression, but Blaze did not hear what the two might be saying, for she was already running.She cut through the fighting masses at high speed, blind and deaf to everything else. The battle seemed to have resumed, the two forces striking at each other once again, but she took no notice of it, just as she took no notice of Amy calling her name, or of any rational plan they might have been making. All she heard was the blood pounding in her ears, and all she felt was the gnawing, screaming rage tearing her apart from the inside.The last scrap of reason she had left begged her to stop, to stick to logic, but it was of no use. She felt herself curiously distant, as if she had handed over the reins to her body to someone else, someone who had her face and her head for fighting but didn’t see anything past red, hot anger.She would forget, later, what exactly had happened. Even as she ran, she could barely remember how she’d gone from standing by Amy’s side to launching herself at Infinite – but it didn’t matter, ultimately. She only wanted answers. She only wanted to see him hurt, writhing on the ground, as he told her what he’d done to Tikal and paid the price for it.She would remember the moment Infinite looked at her with recognition forever, though. It was a savage pleasure, to see a spark of uncertainty in his otherwise unreadable expression, something she revelled in, in the few seconds before he tried to lunge at her.Blaze felt the collision between his powers and her in every inch of herself, as if he’d slammed into her bodily. It did not hurt her – she had shielded herself with her strength, if not with the actual flames she was capable of conjuring – but it made her angrier, if at all possible, and she shot back without a second thought.She found herself enveloped in his hallucinations without so much as a warning. It was different from the first time – she knew better, now, than to try to move against them. Instead, she took advantage of the momentum when he tried to toss her into the air, and always spotted the right Infinite when he conjured copies of himself to confuse her. She got more than one clear hit at him, and relished in the grumbles of discomfort he let out despite himself.But at the same time, it was clear that he remembered her, too. He seemed to circle her, warily but with hawk-eyed focus, as if expecting something from her. He wasn’t holding back exactly – Blaze didn’t think he had the heart for it, corrupted as he was – but she could feel herself slipping, leaving too much of herself exposed even when she knew better than to attack directly. He could have easily gotten rid of her with a single shot. So why, why wasn’t he putting an end to it?Well. She wasn’t one to look a gifted horse in the mouth. The more he kept hesitating, the easier it would be for her to take him down. And if Eggman was distracted by her and his masked prodigy, perhaps the rest of the Resistance would take him down that much more easily.She couldn’t see what her friends were doing, though. She didn’t know if it was of Infinite’s doing, or a direct cause of her angry, ravaging trance, but it was as if she was trapped in a glass cage, its walls red and translucent and thick as molasses. Even the noises of battle only partially reached her, the clanging of metal against metal distant and morphed.A trick, she decided, sending a blue, innocuous fireball in the air, and then lunging at Infinite when he turned his eyes fleetingly to it. A dirty, cowardly trick of his, because he couldn’t win over her so easily as he did everyone else – he had to resort to illusions, to play games with her mind.She would not fall for them. She would not, she would not, she wou-He grabbed her arm, claws digging in her flesh. It stunned her, for a second, because she hadn’t noticed him getting so close. But it wasn’t possible, she was stronger than him, it had to be one of his nightmares.“Stand down” he said, voice low and yet carrying in the silent bubble he had entrapped them both. “You can’t win. There can only be more pain in store for you.”Blaze growled, the sound low and threatening in her throat. “What did you do to her?” She spat, because he’d never gotten so close during their fight, and she had to know, she had to see if it was worth trying to rip his neck open.He did not ask who her could be. Instead, his eye clouded for a moment, searching for the hidden meanings behind her words.She took the chance to try to wrench herself free. Maybe if she focused all her powers in herself, if she made herself unbearably hot, biting at his hand like an unguarded flame, then he would let her go, and she could…Something flipped, then. An invisible force sent Infinite flying, cartwheeling in the air. Blaze blinked, as though waking from a dream, and looked behind her back.The bubble had popped. She could see everything, now, and with sudden clarity. She found herself crouching on the dirty pavement, and all around her the battle went on, the strident sounds of the clash between the two forces finally reaching her ears.And amidst all the fighting, floating a couple feet from the ground, was Silver, a determined set to his face as he stared at where he’d thrown Infinite.It melted into something softer as he noticed her stunned stare, and he hurried to her side, offering her a hand to get back on her feet. “Are you okay?” He asked, panic etched in his voice.“Fine” she replied. She hissed when his fingers touched the deep scratches Infinite had left in her arm, but she got up without further issue.That was good. She had too many things to worry about at present time to even take physical weakness into account.Chiefly, why Silver was there instead of staying put as he’d been told to do. “You shouldn’t be here” she said, more harshly than she’d meant to. He grinned at her, though, mocking and unfazed by her reaction. “We heard the distress call. We thought you could use a hand. Besides, I couldn’t let you have all the fun.”Despite herself, Blaze smiled back. She was glad to have him there, even though his injuries hadn’t had the time to heal properly. Silver was the one person she could trust fully to have her back.She just hoped that he hadn’t witnessed what had been going on with her during her fight with Infinite. She couldn’t put a name to it yet, but it had been sudden and inescapable, and it had overcome her in a matter of seconds, as if she’d been possessed. Not for the first time, either – the same thing had happened almost identically when she’d tried to free Sonic from the Death Egg.She could not lose control again. It would have scared anyone, but it terrified her, chilling her to the bone, used as she was to handling more power than any of the soldiers around her had seen in a lifetime. She wasn’t a weapon, but she might become one, the next time whatever force had wrestled her mind for the command won again, and it would put everyone around her in peril, not just Eggman and his acolytes. She would not let herself become dangerous in the hands of the wrong entity.Luckily, it seemed that Silver hadn’t paid attention to it, eager as he’d been to come to her rescue. It was a relief, in a way, that he would let it slip. It meant he trusted her, still, even after what they’d been through.“Gadget called in a few troops that had been dispatched elsewhere” he said. “I don’t know if they’re here already – we were closer, and faster. But once they get here, we’ll be enough. We can win this.”“Fools.”They turned to Infinite in unison, as he freed himself from the rubble Silver had cast him in and moved towards them. The jackal hadn’t shouted, exactly, but his tone of voice was made to travel, to insinuate itself in the brains of the people around him. Perhaps it was a side effect of his supernatural abilities, meant to make him seem more intimidating.Or maybe he’s just a natural at melodramatic speeches, Blaze’s mind supplied, threatening to throw her in a fit of tired, hysterical laughter. It was the exhaustion speaking, like as not, but Silver always had that effect on her, too.“Fools” he repeated, a dangerous edge to his voice as he looked at Silver. “I already warned your friend. There is no chance for you to win.”He was on them before they could reply. Perhaps he had thought he could take them by surprise, or perhaps he’d been scared, deep down, that they would laugh in the face of his grand declarations.It wouldn’t have been an haphazard guess, either. Even before she launched the first attack – even before her eyes met Silver’s, moving on Infinite’s other side as the jackal tried his little games on them – an ecstatic rush went through her blood, and she knew, then, what they had in store for Eggman’s little helper.That was what their enemies would never understand. She could fight alone, burn them down out of sheer strength, and she could partner up with anyone in the Resistance, but neither would be as powerful as what was happening now. Silver had been her brother-in-arms before they’d even come out of childhood. Their mothers had been friends, had trained them together from the very beginning.Fighting alongside Amy had worked, because Blaze had been careful to tune her movements to her friend’s fighting style. Fighting alongside Silver was like being a single person split between two bodies, his limbs an extension of her own, his powers seamlessly bound to hers.Where one moved, the other followed. When one attacked, the other parried. Silver lifted her without needing to be asked, providing her with a higher starting point, and Blaze raised walls of flames between him and Infinite without so much as a sidelong glance. It was pure instinct, muscle memory that went back several years and that she’d feared she would forget in the time they’d spent apart.But it was like they’d never been separated at all, and it elated her. She hadn’t felt so safe, so ferociously happy in ages: and she hadn’t felt so young since she’d let Iblis take over her body, either, the centuries-old knowledge she’d gained in the Land of Chaos falling from her shoulders like an old coat.They were prevailing now, that much was clear. A new influx of fighters had reached them, likely the ones Gadget had summoned, and it had given the rebels’ morale a boost their opponents felt greatly. The clones had yet to stop flooding in, but it seemed that the new additions had slowed down to a trickle, what with Eggman being distracted by the flurry of attacks the Resistance was throwing his way.Mostly, though, it was the two of them who were leaving the most lasting impression. They were backing Infinite into a corner, and it was hard for him to keep up with both their powers. The mutual influence they had on each other helped keeping his illusions at bay, too, depriving him of his greatest strength.Blaze could not afford to think that they were winning, for it would do her no good to lower her guard, but it was happening. They had the chance to defeat Eggman in battle. They could end all of it in a single stroke.Eggman seemed to think the same, for he leaned out of the cockpit after a particularly strong hit by Sonic, growling in rage. His voice had nothing of Infinite’s natural magnetism: instead, it was the amplified boom of whatever transmission mechanism he’d implanted in his robot. “Send the call, boy! Now!”It took them a moment to realize who the boy might be, but by the time they turned to see Infinite move, it was already too late. The jackal seemed to curl on himself, forming an impenetrable shield around the red gem in his chest as its light rose and dimmed, with the slow pulse of a heartbeat.Silver tried to pry his arms open, and Blaze launched a scorching hot fireball towards his head. It was in vain. All their attacks appeared to impact against an invisible barrier, as red, evanescent energy seemed to irradiate from him in waves. The same was true for Eggman’s shuttle, and between the two of them, the energy filled the air like the parody of a radio signal.Once more, the ground started shaking. But where Infinite’s arrival had sent uneven surges through the surface, this time the source of the earthquake seemed to come from the earth’s very core, as if something were pushing and rolling around in an effort to break free.The first crack was small. So was the second. The third, however, split the ground in two with a deafening roar, and many a fighter lost their balance, plummeting towards the void.With a loud curse, Silver lifted them both in the air, trying to take as many rebels as he could with them. It was an impressive feat, almost too much so, even for him – it seemed that wherever he turned, another soldier was tethering on the edge of the crack, about to fall in. Blaze could only watch, her powers useless on that front, and try to herd the rest of the fighters away from the crack once Silver had dropped them on more solid terrain. She couldn’t spot Amy anywhere close, but she hoped her friend was safe, her troops regrouping under her watch. The cat couldn’t tear her gaze from Infinite for long anyway, for fear that he might unravel whatever cocoon he’d built around himself and attack them once more.That was why, when the monster rose from the ground, it took her a second more than the others to look at its face.But when she did, her heart stopped.It was big. Bigger than ruinous buildings around them, and way bigger than Eggman’s robots, too. Its skin had to it the translucid quality of Chaos’ physical body, and for a brief moment she believed it to be another illusion, a clone of the fabled Perfect Chaos. But Tikal had never described any form of Chaos as having different colours, and this creature had an orange-reddish hue to it, a sickening shade, like a bunch of tints no one had bothered to mix properly.Its shape, too, was different to what she had come to expect from Chaos. Its limbs were thin and willowy, disproportionately long compared to the rest of its body, to its mouthless head especially, big and round and with waves of transparent matter falling to its chest and moving as it moved, like algae stuck to a sailing boat. Like quills. Like hair.And its eyes…Blaze’s legs buckled under her, and she fell to her knees with a soft thud. She didn’t feel it, as she didn’t feel the hands touching her, frantically trying to pull her up to her feet as the people around her started to run away.Chaos’ eyes had been green, seamless voids that unnerved those unused to looking into them. This creature’s eyes where a lighter green-blue, round like a normal Mobian’s but abysmally larger, with a dullness that spoke of mind-control and wiped away all their usual warmth.Blaze looked at the monster with Tikal’s eyes, feeling as though all air had been knocked out of her lungs, and the world stopped around her.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
“What…what is that?” Gadget stammered, eyes fixed on the creature as it uncurled slowly, stretching to its full height.Beside him, Tails didn’t look any less shocked. “I don’t know. It looks like Chaos, but it’s…it’s all wrong.”Wrong. The wolf privately agreed – no other word would have been better to describe what they were seeing. There was something off about that thing, whatever sewer Eggman had dragged it from; it had the appearance of an old puppet, its features squashed and pulled disproportionally by eager child’s hands.Its eyes were like a doll’s, too, staring unfocusedly straight ahead, and Gadget shivered, regretting his choice to perch with Tails and his hovercraft on one of the nearest buildings. It had seemed a good vantage point to shoot from, at first, but now it put them both too close to the creature’s line of sight for his liking.He pondered, briefly, if he should take advantage of it, and very nearly pointed his Wispon at the large head looming above them. Some other soldiers, however, had been quicker on the uptake, and he caught a few flashes of light in the corner of his eye as their weapons shot directly at the monster’s legs, feet below him.The bullets bounced back, leaving no trace on the rubbery skin they’d hit, and Gadget felt the blood freeze in his veins.The creature let out an ungodly screech and lunged at those who’d attacked first. Its arm swept through the ranks as if trying to clear the ground from them, knocking most of the soldiers down or slamming them against the ruins. Some remained tangled between its long, thin fingers, and it shook them off like insects, throwing them to the ground from too high a point to hope they might survive the fall.“How do we even take it down?” Gadget said with growing horror.A deep, instinctive part of him wanted to throw the towel and run, because there was no way they could survive the fight. Better to save themselves, even if it would mean cowering underground for the rest of their lives.Still, he could not find it in himself to move. He was pretty sure he was about to die, or he would be, if he stayed rooted on the spot, but he was a soldier in the Resistance. Fighting wasn’t in his nature, he’d have rather been anywhere but there - but it would be far, far worse to just give up on hope when there was still a chance of pushing back, slight though it might be.Tails was gritting his teeth, clearly searching for a solution. “The comms are not working. It’s like he’s interfering with the signal. Do you see Silver anywhere?”Gadget shook his head. He’d lost track of his new friend when the hedgehog had parted ways with Infinite, and now he couldn’t see the faint glow of Silver’s powers anywhere among the dust and bursts of laser lights.Unbidden, his eyes went to find Infinite himself. The jackal was not close to Eggman, but he was on a level with the Doctor’s cockpit, looking down at the screaming, runaway masses below. It was impossible to discern his expression, not at a distance and with the mask in the way, but his stance was relaxed, so out of place in the middle of a fight. It was as if he weren’t expecting anyone to attack him anytime soon.Gadget tried to picture Nadir’s face under that mask, not the cold grimace he’d seen last but soft and young as it had been once, all those years past. The idea that that face, the one he’d held and kissed and coaxed a smile out of, could be staring down at the rest of them with pleasure, satisfied with the suffering he’d caused – the thought was so vile his stomach churned in disgust.“We’ve got to try something” he said, fighting against the taste of bile that had flooded his mouth. “If- If we can’t get to the others, we have to do it on our own. We can’t win against that thing.”Tails nodded, a hard look on his young face. “We need to stall it. Eggman and Infinite must be controlling it – you’ve seen them, it came when they called. If we can block the signal somehow, like they’re doing with us…”“It might get confused” Gadget finished for him. It wasn’t much, but they were desperate enough that it almost looked like a worthy plan. “It was- Their call, it was red. Do you think it has anything to do with that stone Infinite has in his chest?”“It must. Look, there, on Eggman’s shuttle. Can you see that?”He could. There was something on the console right before the Doctor’s bloated figure, a bright reddish glow that cut even through the debris flying about around them. They couldn’t say if it was the same shape as Infinite’s gem from so far away, but…Gadget adjusted his glasses, only half-heartedly shaking off the layer of grime that had deposited itself on the lens. He was furious enough that he had an inkling he’d manage to shoot straight even blind as a mole. “Okay, then. You try and get to Eggman. I’ll take Infinite.”“What?” Tails blurted out, turning to face him. “Are you crazy? You can’t fight him alone.”“You know Eggman better than I do. If I can distract Infinite long enough, you’ll be able to get a hold of the stone. I can hold him off some – I’ve fought him on the field before.”It wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t the full truth, either, because that would have meant voicing the vicious thought that burrowed under his skin, a thought so unlike him now and so like the boy he’d been once that said If he’s got a weak point, he’ll show it to me and me alone.Tails hesitated for a moment longer, clearly unwilling to let him embark in what probably looked like a suicide mission. Then his mouth twisted, set in grim determination.“Alright,” he said “let’s go. But we’re both getting out of here alive, do you hear me?”Only if I can’t take Nadir down with me, Gadget thought, but of course that wasn’t the kind of thing he could say out loud.He only nodded, instead, and followed the fox, ready to get to work. Blaze tried to close her eyes.It was an instinctive, childish reaction, but her body wasn’t answering to her anymore. She was still on her knees, arms slack at her sides, her open palms turned upwards as if to ask for forgiveness. She had yet to remember how to move a muscle, except if it meant trying not to see what was in front of her.It didn’t work, though. Tikal’s misshapen, ruined form burned on the back of her eyelids, and her roar reverberated through Blaze’s body and made the ground tremble every other second.No, she wanted to plead. Not her, not us, no.But nothing came out of her mouth, except a wordless, high-pitched wail that burned her throat raw.Everything was burning now. Her skin prickled and her eyes watered and the pain flared, scalding hot, like a knife through her chest. The fire was everywhere, burning at the edge of her vision, and she couldn’t control it. She couldn’t control anything – the fire had dug thin, long-nailed fingers in her brain. They were not her flames, the ones she’d learned to master as a child, grown close to her as friends over the years. It was something else, something foreign, tugging at her senses like a puppeteer, and she couldn’t see anything past the jagged slashes it left in her vision, oozing crimson and scarlet like imaginary blood.Anything except the rage, of course. The rage was always there, bubbling, and it was red. Blaze curled around it – if it was to try and tame it, or just to soothe the pain against the smooth, glossy surface of her fury, she could not say, but it came naturally to her, just as it came naturally to press her hands to her chest, clutching desperately at the now tattered clothes she’d been given.The power thrummed an uneven beat, a persistent humming under her fingers.Silently, despite the screams rising around her, Blaze sunk even lower, until her forehead touched the ground and all she could see was the dusty concrete she’d been fighting on only minutes before.Then she started to cry, the tears evaporating as soon as they streamed down her face. “Nadir!” Gadget screamed, rising to the balls of his feet in the effort.Tails had dropped him off on another building, skirting around the battlefield so that he might be close to where Infinite was still floating lazily, feet above the ground.He was still not quite close enough for Infinite to hear his voice over the clamour of the fight, especially counting the monster currently razing the ground, but Gadget had wrapped genuine anger around it, long years of longing and misguided nostalgia that he’d found simmering under the surface when he’d first seen the jackal’s face looming over Silver. That had to mean something, in a world where someone he’d once loved could change so much in the span of a few years.Besides, there was power in what name you choose to call someone with. And Infinite-Nadir-Infinite probably had enhanced hearing as well, now, for he startled as though stung by a bee and turned around, ever so slowly, as though daring whoever had challenged him to flee till they had the chance to.Gadget didn’t flee. He stood his ground, his teeth bared in a silent snarl, waiting for the jackal to recognize him.Only when Infinite started moving, still so painstakingly slowly, towards him, did the wolf raise his Wispon and begin shooting.He didn’t hit his mark once. He hadn’t expected to, the plan hardly depended on that, but it was still a wonder how easily the other could move out of harm’s way, almost lazily flickering in and out of vision as the bullets flew past him.He came to a halt a couple feet from where Gadget was standing on the very edge of the building. He cocked his head to the side, as though curious of what the outcome of this scene could be, his golden eye twinkling almost orange in the red haze that surrounded him.“You” he said, voice low and dangerous and so impossibly grown compared to what he remembered.“Me” Gadget replied, an odd sort of calm falling on him.Then he raised the Wispon and shot again.The blow came lower than he’d expected, down in the stomach instead of slamming against his face, and he staggered back, panting heavily. It hadn’t been hard enough to send him sprawling to the ground (on purpose, most likely, if Infinite was still the same as he’d always been deep inside), but it had been fast, so fast Gadget hadn’t managed to see if the jackal had actually, physically hit him or if it had just been one of his new, overpowered attacks.And it had knocked the gun out of his hand. It fell on the floor with a cluttering noise, and for a second Gadget saw a good dozen Infinite-shaped figures surrounding him, before one of them picked the Wispon up with two fingers, mindless of how hot it might have turned after such rapid fire shots.The clones faded away. Infinite carelessly tossed the Wispon over the ledge, barely sparing it a glance as it fell down and out of sight. “Stop it” he said, a warning tone in his words. “Stop with these games.”Gadget snorted. He could feel a hysterical, nearly feral grin tug the corners of his mouth upwards. “Why? Because you don’t want to hurt me? It might be a bit late for that.”He lunged at the jackal again, and this time he did fell when he was hit, landing on his back and knocking out any bit of air left in his lungs. He coughed, and when he blinked, trying to catch his breath again, Infinite was beside him, his expressionless mask looking down on him.“Stop” he repeated. “You shouldn’t be here.”“And you should?” Gadget could taste copper in his mouth. He rubbed a hand over his lips, unsurprised when it came out red with blood. No doubt he’d bit his tongue during the fall, and no doubt it was staining his teeth as well.Good. Let the last bit of Nadir inside this creature squirm, seeing him in this state.“What happened to you?” He asked, carefully lifting himself up again. “Last I heard you and your siblings where making your money fighting other lowbrow gangs. How did it come to this?”“People change.” Infinite hovered closer, his face mere inches from Gadget’s. “Things change, when you’re not so coward to run from them.”“Is this what all of this is about? Am I supposed to believe you’ve turned into a monster because I left?”It couldn’t be. But then again, it would have been particularly on brand, for Infinite to cling to such immature mishaps. The boy Gadget had left behind had already begun going down a dangerous path, so perhaps staying would have changed nothing, but Nadir had never reacted kindly to seeing what he dreamed of being torn away from him. It had been why Gadget had run away in the first place, the intense possessiveness that had reared its ugly head even so early and had left him with no room to breathe.That, and the desperate need to cut ties with a family that had refused to see him for who he really was.Infinite seemed loathe to admit it, though, for his voice grew even more menacing. “Don’t flatter yourself” he gritted out. “I want nothing to do with someone so scared of greatness to run from it.”“Scared of- I was scared of you” Gadget all but hissed, genuinely flabbergasted. The anger was still there – it had never left, not really, but now it was coming out in waves, as if the closeness had brought it to its apex. “You’d have stopped me if I’d told you I was leaving, you were mad like that even then. You know I’m right, you bastard, you’re just as mad now, since you still haven’t got over me leaving without seeing goodb-“Infinite’s fingers wrapped around his throat, choking the rest of his sentence. Gadget struggled and flailed, trying to pry those long-clawed fingers away from his neck, but the hold was too strong.“You know nothing of me” the jackal growled. Gadget couldn’t see his face, but the one visible eye had a furious glint to it, and every word seemed to be coming out through gritted teeth, as if Infinite could barely contain his rage. “Did you think you could achieve something with this? You are nothing to me.”“Heard that bit before” The wolf said hoarsely, with a dryness that the ones who’d come to know him during the war would have found surprising. Cheerful little Gadget, finding his spine at last. “I’m not sure I believe that.”Liar, a voice screamed inside him. It was the high, reedy voice of his younger self, the one he’d had before he’d taught himself how to make it lower, steadier, closer to the person he’d always wanted to be. Liar, liar, do you think you can fool yourself? Do you think you can fool me? You wanted to get out of that town same as me. You’d have lost me anyway – they hated you, they hated you so much, they’d have married me off to someone else even if you hadn’t turned into a murder machine. Yes, I left you, yes, I’m glad I did, they were suffocating us and all you wanted was to hurt other people the way they’d hurt you, you self-righteous little shit, you…He’d have liked to say that and more, to spit some blood in the other’s face for good measure, but he was losing strength faster than he’d have liked. It was as if the cloud of crackling electricity had reached his mind as well, numbing his every thought. Infinite was not squeezing hard enough to strangle him yet, but already his breath was coming out ragged, and there were white spots dancing in front of his eyes, growing bigger and brighter by the second.All he could see past them was the blinding red light coming from the jackal’s chest, where the gem seemed to be embedded right into the flesh. Gadget wondered, woozily, how much pain Nadir must have felt when it had seared the skin.Don’t you dare, he warned himself, you can’t lose your focus, you idiot, do something, by the Goddess.But there was nothing he could do. He had lost. And for all that might have happened between him and Infinite, it was unlikely he’d get out of this battle alive as well. The jackal would rage and scream and pour all the blame on the rest of the Resistance for forcing his hand, but in the end he’d leave Gadget’s body behind and go back to the path he’d chosen without so much as a second glance. The powers might have changed him into the young man he was now, but at the core there would always be the spiteful, jealous boy who’d taken to bite back the hands that threatened to take his things away.Gadget only hoped Tails had managed to get to Eggman and the other gem in time. He’d have hated to die in such a stupid way without even serving his purpose.He closed his eyes, waiting, praying it would be quick.And then, something happened. “Blaze? Blaze, what’s happening? What’s wrong?”Of course. Of course Silver would be the one thing capable of cutting through the scalding hot cloud that surrounded her mind.Not that it changed much. The anger was stronger – it bit back every time she tried to quell it down. And she couldn’t- she didn’t want to fight it anymore, truly. Enough. They’d wronged her enough. They’d wronged Tikal enough, her love, her light, she’d watched over the world for so long and in turn it had chewed her up and turned her into a weapon.They had hurt her. They had dared- but Tikal was hers. She’d avenged Sonic’s imprisonment, too, but Tikal was not Sonic- she was more. She was everything. And they’d taken her away from Blaze.Don’t hurt Silver, her mind pleaded, grasping at the last bit of reason that still clung to her brain. He’s your friend, and he’s right here – let him stay. Let him help.But the fire in her chest roared back, They will all burn.A hand laid on her shoulder. It was meant to be a comfort, most likely, but it triggered something inside her, waving away the precarious hold she’d had on herself. She felt her skin tear at the seams where the other was touching her, the power spilling out like boiling lava.The contact vanished. Blaze raised her head, bleary eyes turned to the sky, and was unsurprised to find it red. Blood-red, fire-red, red like the sun the fury the power the the the-With a long, guttural scream, she burst. There was a deafening boom.Gadget opened his eyes, surprised that he might still be alive.Infinite was turned away from him, looking at something far behind his back. His fingers had grown slack, and the wolf took a shuddering breath, craning his neck with great effort so he might see what the fuss was about.A column of fire had risen from the battlefield, tall and growing taller by the second. It had already surpassed the gooey creature, who was staring at it almost uncomprehendingly, as if stunned something could be greater in might than itself.Infinite seemed equally puzzled, and angrily so. “What is the meaning of this?” He spat out.Gadget had no answer to give him. All he could compute was the few, precious seconds this distraction had given him, and the gem, still shining and glittering and close and…He reached out, fumbling blindly as he raised his arm, and wrapped his fingers around the stone.It was like laying hand on a live wire. His first instinct was to snatch it back, but of course he couldn’t. It was his only chance. So he tightened his hold, ignoring how the gem’s knife-sharp points dug into his skin.There were much more important things that required his attention, besides. It was as if the red cloud that surrounded them had hardened, growing thorns that were sinking into his brain, easy as though they were cutting butter.The pain was excruciating. Gadget tried to fight it, but it pushed back harder every time, tearing down every wall he tried to build. For a moment he felt himself going blind and deaf and mute, the red smothering everything else in his field of vision and ringing stridently in his ears, his tongue dry and thick in his mouth. He couldn’t even see Infinite anymore, nor feel his fingernails scrape at the skin of his neck, but he was gasping for air nevertheless, his lungs turned into lead in his chest.Then the curtain fell, and he saw.He saw-
a black hedgehog standing before him, watching his form sprawled on the ground with scorn, calling him weak, and the word sunk even in his pounding head, weak weak weak, even if it was wrong, even if it wasn’t true
And more-
two children at what looked like a religious service, standing a few feet from each other among rows and rows of adults. One, a orange-furred little wolf, was fidgeting restlessly in an ill-fitting dress, but still he turned to smile at the other one, because he knew that if they were quiet enough, Nadir would sneak him out of the temple and they could go hide near the river, where no one could find them or scold them for playing with mud
And more-
Gadget’s thumb tracing a bruise on Nadir’s cheek, right below the pink scab that ran through his eye and that had yet to finish healing properly. “Was it your father again? Or someone else?” came from a mouth and “Take your pick, you’ve got a whole bloody town to choose from” came from the other, and he couldn’t tell anymore which one was his and which one wasn’t
And it didn’t stop, no matter how much he struggled against the wave of voices and thoughts and feelings that came over him-
the world will be ours, boy, so long as you do your part
boys will never look twice at you if you keep acting like this, Giada, sweetling, don’t you want your poor mama to be a grandmother one day
Jackal Squad, to me
he’s pretty, though, he’s tall and strong and he’s got those mismatched eyes, his sister calls them lucky eyes, he’s lucky and he wants to go around with me and me alone, so it has to count for something, right, I have to mean something
we can change everything, Gadget, can’t you see, we could be great and make them see us for what we really are, I know you don’t like the way things are going but it’s for the best, I only need you by my side, you promised, you said that you lov-
Enough, Gadget cried. Enough, enough, it’s too much, let me go. I don’t want to know, I don’t want to see it, I want you gone, I want it all to go away-It left, as suddenly as it had come. For a moment the world around him stood still in the precariously quiet balance of the eye of a storm, to the point that he felt the need to brace himself, expecting another flood to take him down.It flickered away, instead, like the turning of a switch. But before Gadget could be comforted by it, before he could so much as take the great gulping breath of air he sorely needed, he felt his legs go out from under himself, and everything went dark.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The first thing Silver noticed the warmth, an unbearable, damp hotness that weighed on him like a heavy blanket, clogging his lungs and leaving him gasping for air.Sweat was already beading on his forehead when he came to his senses, running along his spine and dripping down his face. He tried raising a hand to wipe it away, but his limbs felt heavy, unresponsive, and before he could get them to work properly the droplets had reached his jaw, sending sudden, blinding jolts of pain when they ran down his cheek.Weird. He could remember getting injured in many places, but the face was not one of them. Nor was his left hand, from where came matching waves of discomfort every time he tried to flex his fingers, gone stiff while he’d been lying around unconscious.Where was he lying, though? He could feel stone under his back – or concrete, at least, pointy, uneven bits digging in his skin. It wasn’t entirely unfamiliar, and neither was the burning smell, the pungent reek of smoke and charred flesh that took ages to wash off one’s fur. He could taste it, too, soot and ashes coating the inside of his mouth and making him wish for a bit of water to rinse it all off.Iblis, he thought, the panic washing over him in sudden waves, and his eyes flew open.But of course, there was no Iblis to face. The sky above him was covered by dark clouds, but it wasn’t dark and threatening like the one he remembered from his childhood. If anything, it looked like it was about to rain, something he’d never seen happen until he’d travelled to Sonic’s time.Silver’s ears were catching up with the rest of his body. He could hear people screaming, calling for help – it was faint at first, but it grew increasingly louder as he blinked the last bits of drowsiness away.That was weird as well. Why had he been asleep? He couldn’t remember ever going to sleep. He would have taken a long time to anyway, what with the adrenaline rush that no doubt would have been going through his blood after the bat…Wait.The battle. Infinite. The monster.Blaze.He sat up abruptly, straining to look around in search of his friend. Or, well, he tried to – a stab of pain in his chest had him almost doubling over, struggling to breathe. A strangled cry escaped his lips, and suddenly there was someone kneeling by his side, a warm and solid hand placed on the small of his back.“Silver!” It was Amy’s voice, though grown shrill and hurried in her fretting. “Thank goodness you’re alive – can you walk? We’re getting shuttles to take everyone away, but we’ve got to hurry up, come on, Eggman might come back-”“Blaze” Silver said, the words coming out choked. “Where is she? Is she-“The hand on his back stilled. “Didn’t…Didn’t you see?”The no was on the tip of his tongue, because he hadn’t seen anything, come on, what had been there to see-But he had, hadn’t he? He’d been right there. He’d watched it happen, before the blast had sent him flying – before the impact had knocked him out and given his already damaged ribs their final blow, most likely, given how much he was struggling to take deep breaths right now. He’d seen Blaze curl on herself, blistering hot waves of energy exuding from her body before she’d exploded and turned the battleground into a field of fire.No. It was impossible. The flames hadn’t just scared off the greenish Chaos-like creature Eggman had thrown at them, they’d swept away other people, too, soldiers who’d been fighting alongside them up until that moment. Some were probably among the ones now howling in pain all around him. Blaze- Blaze would have never done such a thing. She’d learnt how to control her powers, he was sure of it, he’d been there at every step. He’d been touching her, not a few seconds before the fire had engulfed everything, he wouldn’t have done so if she’d been dangerous, right?His hand twitched, an involuntary tremor that spread to the very top of his fingertips. Unbidden, Silver’s eyes travelled down until they were able to see it, and then stuck there, transfixed, unable to turn away.He was aware of Amy trying to pull him up to his feet, but he felt oddly detached from it. Even her voice sounded distant, as if she’d been speaking from the other end of a tunnel. All his focus had shifted to the raw, ruined skin peeking from what was left of his glove, an uneven pattern of red and pink patches that spread across most of the palm and wrapped around three of his fingers. Trying to close his hand into a fist sent waves of pain up his arm, instantaneous and excruciating not dissimilar to what he felt thrumming on his face - he couldn’t bring himself to touch it properly, his good fingers hovering an inch or so from his left cheek, but even so he could feel how warm it was, how tender and fragile from just below his eye all the way down to his chin.That she might have burned innocents was inconceivable. That she might have burned him…A stray thought crossed his mind. Before he knew it, Silver was looking around blearily, searching for something that might serve him. He settled on a scrap of half-molten metal, only a couple feet from him – not too big, not too small, a dutiful voice chanted in his brain, as if it were just another exercise in strength – and tried to lift it, forcing himself to channel his powers from his brain to the palm of his hand as he’d done almost all his life.Nothing happened. The piece – all that was left of a discarded Eggbot, most likely – didn’t move. The familiar, warm sensation of energy flowing through his body never came.He let Amy drag him up without opposing resistance, this time, obediently wrapping an arm around her shoulders so that she might bear the brunt of his weight. He was thankful his feet were moving autonomously alongside hers, because his brain couldn’t compute anything past the white noise of shock ringing in his ears.Still, as at loss as he felt, his eyes wouldn’t stop searching the battlefield. It was pure instinct, at this point, looking for a well-known figure among the soldiers lying at their feet and the newly arrived medics rushing down from the aircrafts to help them. Eggman, Infinite and their creature weren’t anywhere in his line of sight – he wanted to know what had been of them, he really did, and yet he found himself trailing off every time he opened his mouth to ask Amy about it, dulled down by the implications of any answer he feared he might get – but there were still fires here and there, mostly burning robot carcasses that no Resistance member could be bothered to put off.It didn’t last long. There was the rumble of thunder, a flash of lightning, and then the sky opened above their heads. The rain was light, first, pit-pattering on the bits of steel strewn around and swiftly soaked by the dry ground, but it grew in intensity soon enough, until the drops were almost too strong to bear, falling hard on the back of their heads.Silver didn’t mind. Every step was torture on his ribs already, so some water would hardly make a difference. And the rainshower was a welcome reprieve, washing the dirt and clamminess off his skin and lulling him in a sort of trance with its droning, repetitive noise. He didn’t know where Amy was taking him, but he could almost believe he would feel better, once there, looking at the stubborn set of her shoulders as she pulled him along.And then…“Silver?”He stopped in his tracks and turned, mindless of the fresh pain triggered by the movement, like that of a knife driven through his chest.Not far from where he was, Blaze was rising on her feet from where she’d been huddling on the ground. She wobbled, for a moment, and despite everything else – despite the fact that he himself needed help standing upright, again – Silver found himself instinctively reaching for her, injured hand raised as if he could stabilize her.She took a step towards them, uncertain. The rain was scrubbing the soot and grime from her face, tracing odd, dark patterns on her cheeks. She appeared impossibly small, in the middle of it all, with her clothes torn and soaked through and her fur sticking up in frizzled clumps; Silver was struck by how young she looked, once again, her face so utterly unchanged from when they’d last faced Iblis and stuck in a look of immense confusion.Then she glanced around, seemingly registering the devastation that surrounded her, the fighters huddled in heaps among the misshapen Eggbots – the wide, unmistakable stretch of scorched land around her, the concrete burnt and cracked in an almost perfect circle that had her unsteady form as centre. Time seemed to slow down as her hand flew to her mouth, muffling the horrified scream that was making its way up her throat.Then she staggered back a few steps, turned on her heel and ran.“Blaze!” He called after her, struggling to get out of Amy’s grasp. He didn’t know what he wanted to say, if he wanted to comfort her, to touch her, to ask for an explanation, but seeing her turn her back to him had made something break in his chest, something hard and swollen that had nothing to do with his ribs. “Blaze, wait!”But it was too late. She’d already vanished, engulfed by the chaos around them.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The flight back to the base was very, very long.It felt longer still, what with the situation the Resistance had been called to face. There wasn’t enough space aboard the aircrafts for everyone to be strapped in accordingly, nor was there time to wait for more to come. People were heaped on the ships with little care for propriety, most of them screaming louder and louder as the bumpy ride towards the bunker jostled their injuries.Landing brought no relief, either – suddenly, stretchers were being pushed back and forth from the infirmary, with dozens of medics and aids running around to try and keep up with the incoming flux of new patients. And there was, of course, the ever-curious mass of refugees interfering with the process, the ones that had stayed behind and were now trying to see whether their loved ones had made it back in one piece. High, piercing wails kept raising from around the hangar, as people were confronted with the fact that someone they knew was hurt, or worse, that their body had been left behind on the battlefield.A precious few belonged to neither of these categories, and they were the most subdued of all, keeping themselves out of the way and their eyes trained to the floor as if refusing to accept what was happening around them.Silver went through all of this as if in a fever dream, letting himself be pushed and carried and prodded at without so much as a complaint. He felt as though in a daze, with a thick wad of cotton wrapped around his brain and muffling his every sense.They asked him questions, for a while. He answered them to the best of his abilities, though he had a hunch he wouldn’t remember a thing he’d said, afterwards. He only pushed back when they tried to put him in a bed, and even then there wasn’t much to struggle against – there were too little cots and too many people in need for any nurse to force him down when he was more or less conscious. He was dumped down on a dingy wheelchair and parked in a far-off corner of a room-turned-emergency-infirmary, with strict orders not to get up unless it was absolutely necessary, and then he was finally, blessedly alone.Not that he was like to enjoy the peace. They were saving anaesthetic for more critical cases (the number of which was growing by the minute), so he’d gotten none of it, or little enough that it made no difference. Even shuffling to get in a more comfortable position was out of the question – the bandages around his chest were tighter than they’d been the last time, cutting off his breath and turning moving around into a trial. The parts of his body that had been touched by the fire burned and itched unendingly under the gauze, and he had to force himself not to tear and scratch at it every few minutes.They’d smeared some sort of poultice on the singed skin before covering it up. That, at least, had been familiar- he could still remember the strong smell of the poultice his mother would use, back when burnt marks were a common occurrence.Back when Blaze-His fingers dug into the scratched armrest of the chair as he tried to will the thought away. Or, well, his right-hand fingers – the left ones merely twitched, still throbbing with pain even under the medication. He considered, briefly, dully, if he might try to use his powers again, but it was an idle thought, gone as soon as it had appeared. There was little to no chance of it working, and he had no wish to see his hopes crushed once again.It made no sense, or it wouldn’t have, had he been lucid enough to think about it. His hands were nothing but vessels – it was his mind who did all the work. By all means, he should have had no trouble lifting every piece of heavy medical equipment he could now see around the room. It was not like the burning had come even closer to touching his brain.Or perhaps it had, though not in any visible way. It wasn’t so hard to believe. Silver could almost physically see it, the scars and rot digging under his skin until they could reach deep enough to tamper with his thoughts and his feelings and his every move, leaving him slumped in that chair like a discarded toy.Why else would he have let Blaze go? No good person - no good friend would have let her slip between their fingers, not on a lucid mind. The more he ruminated on it – and he had little else to do, now that there was nothing to keep him distracted – the worse he felt, the guilt crashing into him over and over like a tidal wave.He was not so foolish to believe he could have forced Blaze to stay. Even with two good hands to put to work, using his powers to prevent her from running was too horrible an option to even consider. It was the sort of thing they hammered into you once it was clear that you had something other kids hadn’t – taking advantage of someone else didn’t make you stronger. If anything, it made you weaker, instead, vile and despicable, undeserving of the gifts you’d been given.But talking, he could have tried that. She would have listened to him. There had been a long, long stretch of time where neither of them would have listened to anyone but the other. Surely things couldn’t have changed that much, even if he was just his usual, clueless self and Blaze was…Blaze was what, now, exactly?Stop it. Silver grit his teeth. He couldn’t afford to follow that train of thought. He needed to focus. He needed to cling to the little bit of sanity he still had, for his sake and Blaze’s, and try to think of what to do next.But it wasn’t working. He’d bit into his lower lip while they were patching him up, chewing on it until he’d started tasting blood on his tongue, and the stinging pain had done nothing to wake him up. Neither had the cracked ribs, the tight skin on his cheek, or the small, hard knob in the chair who even now was digging in his lower side. He felt as though he were trying to climb on the frozen side of a mountain, scrambling to go higher and yet slipping and sliding downwards, plummeting hard like a rock or a snowball or a…“Hey.”Of all the ringing, deafening noise of the infirmary, the voice was too close to be directed at anyone but him. Silver blinked, some of the fog lifting from around his mind, and looked up at the figure standing beside him, wincing as every muscle in his upper body protested at the sudden movement.Gadget smiled. It was a forced, tight little thing, and it didn’t reach his eyes as he spoke. “I’m sorry. I-I just wanted to see if you were alright, and they told me I’d find you here. I can come back another time.”“No, it’s okay” Silver said. The ease with whom they were exchanging pleasantries, like a couple old wives sitting down for tea like the ones he’d seen in movies, was nothing short of astonishing – even though the words were coming out sounding flat and unnatural, out of place in the warzone they were living in. “I just wasn’t expecting you. I thought you’d have work to do. It’s…it’s good to see you.”It was good to see Gadget. He’d asked himself, fleetingly, what might have happened to his friends while he was out of it, but he’d caught sight of most of them on the way home. The wolf, though, had been nowhere to be seen, his absence conspicuous enough for Silver to wonder whether he might have not survived the fight.Well, survived he had, apparently, but Silver had to wonder how Gadget could still be standing on his feet. He didn’t seem to have been any visible injury, no scratches or wounds or purpling bruises, but there was an unsettling air to him, as if he were close to collapsing and never get up again. There was a crack across one of the lenses of his glasses, and his and there were streaks of dried blood on his gloves and up to his elbows, caking in his fur along with the dust and grime of the battlefield.Even his posture was wrong, his stance a little too stiff and his eyes a little too glazed, unfocused and staring into thin air. He was holding his right hand a little apart from his body, rigid and unmoving, as though there were something upsetting about it.He caught Silver looking at it and shrugged, vaguely self-conscious. “It’s nothing” he said, flexing his fingers as if to show they were working still. “Got too close to...to a blast, is all. It’ll be alright in no time.”Silver nodded, though he was about 95% sure he was being lied to. He couldn’t begrudge Gadget that, if nothing else – one could never know, with so many people around them, which one of them could catch wind of the wrong secret.“As for your question…” the wolf trailed off, looking away. “The commander is still being taken care of. He and Miss R- Amy will have need of us, once they’re done with it, but I think they need to sort out where to put everybody before making any new plans.”Right. Knuckles. Silver hadn’t been paying attention to the rumours moving about, lost as he’d been in his own head, but some had been too frequent not to picked up. They’d said that the commander had come back from his mission empty handed and injured, with only a tenth of his squadron still alive.“How is he?”Gadget sighed. “Not well. He made it out okay, physically, but…There were only four of them left when they arrived here. Him and three others. And they couldn’t find the Emerald, so I…I don’t know what we’re going to do now.”“Did they tell you? What happened?”“Not much. But from what I heard…I think that creature attacked them, too. The one that came out of the ground. They say it fell upon them and then disappeared, so that it could come attack us.”Silver rocked back, stunned despite himself. He hadn’t expected to hear that. The rumours had neglected to mention a murderous giant wiping out most of a platoon and then casually teleporting to a city miles away in the blink of an eye.Or perhaps he just hadn’t been paying enough attention. Perhaps he’d been too focused on something else, straining to pick up any mention of Blaze that didn’t involve people cursing at the fire monster that had molten the weapons in their hands.He had heard none. He didn’t know if he should feel relieved or crushed – it was a good thing that they hadn’t recognized her, that most soldiers hadn’t been close enough or attentive enough to realize the fierce they’d been fighting beside and the enemy who had burned them were one and the same. But at the same time, he couldn’t bear to think that that column of fire would be the one thing they would remember about her.More than that, he’d wanted to know where she’d gone. No one had been able to help him, but perhaps Gadget might. He’d been up and about for longer, surely he must have seen something. Surely he hadn’t been as weak and pig-headed as Silver had.“Blaze” the hedgehog began, though his tongue was thick like cotton in his mouth and the words strained to come out. “Did you…did you find her? Did you see where she went?”Gadget shook his head. “I saw the fire, and then Amy told me what happened, but I didn’t see her anywhere. I’m…I’m sorry, too. For everything.”Silver slumped against the back of his chair, defeated. Of course. Of course he couldn’t be that lucky. “It’s okay. I should have figured.”“Do you…Do you know what happened? Or- or why?”Anger shot through Silver, stinging and sudden like the thrust of a spear. What kind of question was that? And what the hell was he supposed to answer? No, I don’t know why my best friend lost control enough to burn dozens of people to a crisp, but I’m open to suggestions? I want to find her and yet I don’t know what I would tell her if I did? It was her fault? It was my fault?It must have showed on his face, the rage bubbling underneath, because Gadget took a step back, almost recoiling at his reaction. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”The fury dissipated, as quick as it had come, and Silver felt himself deflate, like an old balloon losing all its air. “No, I’m sorry” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose, mindful of the bandages plastered to the other side of his face. “It’s just…I…” He couldn’t find the words to explain, so he just let out a vague noise of discomfort, hoping Gadget would understand.He heard the wolf come closer once more. “I still shouldn’t have asked” he replied, not unkindly.His voice was firm, but it was still tinged with the same vein of unease Silver had noticed. It was as if he were speaking to two people at once, one there, one far away in the back of his mind. It was even more palpable when he added, a beat or two later: “I just…I only asked because I think I might have something. A clue. Something like that.”Gadget hesitated, and Silver cast him a sidelong glance, noting how troubled he was, as though wracked by doubt. “What do you mean?”“I…I saw something. Something that could help.” Gadget looked around, trying to determine how close the nearest beds and medics might be to them.Silver understood at once. “Do you want to go somewhere else?”“Maybe.” The wolf seemed still uncertain, though. “Won’t they notice you have left?”The hedgehog shrugged, even if once again it wasn’t the smartest move in his condition. He’d intended it to mean I don’t know, but the more he thought, the more he realized he just didn’t care enough to wonder. It was not like they could do much more for him, after all. “Lead the way.”Gadget nodded. Then, after another furtive glance at their surroundings, he moved behind Silver and began pushing his chair away.Once the infirmary door had shut behind them, Silver took a deep, if a bit shaky breath, the first one in a while. He hadn’t noticed how constricted he’d been feeling inside those rooms until he’d managed to leave them. It was as though a weight had been lifted from his shoulders, albeit a minuscule one compared to the rest.Besides, no one ever realized how badly burn marks could stink until they were plunged headfirst into the stench. He didn’t want to smell it anytime soon, if he could avoid it. It brought back too many memories he’d tried to store away for a long time.The walk along the corridors was almost peaceful. There were more people moving about that he remembered being at night-time, but the noise was nothing to the cacophony that the med bay had been, and most passers-by didn’t even spare them a second glance. Many were running, too focused on their task to notice anything else, while others were simply ambling along, their eyes glazed and lost somewhere above their heads or staring sightlessly at the ground.Silver expected Gadget to enter one of the numerous halls or bunk rooms, but the wolf passed every door without stopping, and after counting four or five of them, Silver chose to just lean back and wait. It was not as if he had anything else to do with his day; at least, if they kept moving, his brain would have a harder time getting stuck on the same treacherous thought, like the ones who’d threatened to chew through his reason earlier.Finally, Gadget led them to a somewhat secluded door, smaller than most and stashed away in a corner. The lights overhead flickered on when they entered, as if reacting to some kind of sensor, but they dimmed down soon enough, probably weakened by disuse.In fact, it didn’t look like anyone had touched anything in the room for a while. At first glance it looked like a storage room, cramped and vaguely suffocating, big boxes and crates forming messy piles that were sometimes high enough to touch the ceiling.“It’s all stuff from before” Gadget said, answering Silver’s unspoken question. “Amy told me once that they didn’t build this base, they just cleared out what was inside once the war started. She didn’t say who was using it before that, but what was left they put in here so that it wouldn’t be in the way. I come here when I need some time to think. It’s quiet. Most people don’t even know there’s a room here.”Silver wondered just exactly what he might find, were to open one of those boxes. As he watched Gadget brush a thick layer of dust off the top of a crate, he wondered, too, how many other ribs he might break if he started coughing because of it.Gadget sat down on the spot he had cleared with a groan, then looked up at Silver with some apprehension, his mouth opening and closing like that of a fish.Finally, he said, “I…I don’t know where to begin. I think I must tell you the whole story, because before I only ever explained about half and you deserve to know all of it. I’m sorry, I know you trusted me, but I wasn’t- I didn’t lie to you. I swear. But I was ashamed, and so I only showed you my side of the story.”“What story?” Silver managed to get out. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting out this talk, but it certainly wasn’t…this.“Infinite’s. And mine, too, to an extent.” Gadget glanced down at his hands. He flexed the fingers on his right one once more, slowly, as if it pained him. “I know you wanted some help about Blaze, but I have to explain, first. I promise you, I’ll get to it.”He took a deep breath, deliberately slow, hesitated for just a couple seconds, and then began to speak.“I told you before that me and Infinite grew up together, in a small town near Spagonia. It’s the truth, but it’s not the whole truth. We were friends, yes, but there was…more to it. Quite a lot more.”“The thing is, when we were children, we didn’t notice anything wrong with the way we lived. In our hometown, everyone knew you, and you knew everyone. Everybody ate the same things and hated the same things and believed in the same things, and they raised their families in the same way, too, and if you acted differently everyone would scorn you, yes, but we didn’t think much of it. I didn’t think much of it. I thought it was what we needed to make sure we could live peacefully.”It was amazing, the way a voice could change matters. Gadget had always sounded jittery, even when standing stock still, nervous and eager to move onto something else, and yet now it felt as though he could keep talking forever. It was not the voice of a storyteller – Silver had some experience with that, at least, his childhood had been missing many things but not someone willing to tell gruesome tales before a fire – but there was something in it that compelled you to lean forward and drink it all in, possibly without looking over your shoulder, lest you caught a ghost lurking in the shadows and listening to every single word as well. It was easy to picture Gadget sitting among a group of children, teaching as he said he’d been dreaming to, his words ringing loud and clear over their heads.“Me and Infinite…we met when we were small. His name was Nadir, back then. We became friends almost instantly. My mother didn’t like it, because he was from a rundown family, full of children they couldn’t feed properly and who would cause trouble all over town, but I was a good kid. I was well-behaved, and I always did as I was told when Nadir wasn’t involved, so she let me at it. She thought he’d repent, because of my good influence, or that I would grow out of that friendship, once I realized how badly it would end.”“I didn’t. I grew, yes, but so did Nadir, and the more we grew the more we realized we couldn’t hope to fit in there forever. I know it sounds idyllic, and I wouldn’t blame you for thinking that, but it was…It was hell. Even the smallest rebellions, the ones any other parent would have dismissed easily, would get us in trouble. His father would beat him to a pulp, and my mother…” Gadget paused, swallowing hard, then continued, his eyes still fixed on his hands.“At that point, we were…I don’t know if we were in love. We were very young. But I thought I loved him, with what little experience I had in life, and he…I think he loved me, too. As much as he could love anyone, that is - he was a different person, back then, but he hasn’t changed as much as he believes.”He turned pleading eyes on Silver, as if begging him to understand, but Silver couldn’t find it in himself to say anything. He just sat there, frozen in shock, until Gadget managed to compose himself enough to continue.“We wanted to leave. It’s not easy – there were plenty of stories of people trying to make a life for themselves elsewhere, only to have to come back with their tails between their legs – but the alternative was much worse. Even if we played our cards right, avoided being married off to someone else, we’d still have to live out the rest of our lives there, with- with a house that looked just like all the others and the rest of town snooping in from the windows and children we’d have to tell the same lies we’d been told to.”“But the thing was, I only wanted a happy life somewhere else. A job, and a house, and a chance at a future with him. If anything, I wanted to help others – other children, so that they would never feel as lost as we’d been. But Nadir…He wanted to make a name for himself. He wanted to be feared. He’d always been angry, but he was growing angrier by the day, and he wanted to make people pay for what had happened to us. He and his siblings had started taking dirty jobs for money – the terror of the region, they were, swooping in when you least expected them to. Later on, they became full-time mercs. Last I heard, they were calling themselves Jackal Squad.”He smiled humourlessly. “He must have been the one to choose the name. He was never good at picking names for games or toys or, or pets. Infinite’s a testament of that. His siblings would have been better at it – his sister alone could tell the best stories, when we were children, the ones with monsters and warriors and blood – but I think they chose him as their leader, even if he wasn’t the eldest. He could always convince people to follow him. He almost did, with me.”His smile died down, and he sobered up almost instantly. “They’re all dead now, I think. His family. But back then he thought they could change the world. That we could change the world.”“We?” Silver had found his voice. The question was little more than a whisper, as if he were afraid to break the spell Gadget had created around them. “As in…”The wolf nodded, slowly and grimly. “He wanted things to change, but he wanted them to stay the same, as well. He thought I’d want to be by his side as he burned the world down. He thought it would be the two of us against almost everyone else, forever.”“I didn’t. I’d never been afraid of him, even when he’d been at his worst, but he’d never been so ruthless before, so…so cruel. I knew there was no hope of changing him, and I wasn’t so eager to try, either. I was afraid he’d hurt me, or worse, that he’d pin me down just as my mother had done and I’d end up following someone else’s rule all over again. I couldn’t stand it- but I couldn’t tell him I was leaving, either. I was too much of a coward for that.”“He told me that we could make everything better, one night, him and I together. He asked me to come along. I didn’t answer. I left the day after, without telling anyone.”Gadget released a tired, long-drawn sigh. “I thought he would forget it, in time. He was good at holding grudges, but I was sure I would never see him again. I was out in the world, and what Nadir thought didn’t matter anymore. I tried to forget, too. And then the war happened.”“The fight” Silver breathed out. “The first time, when you saved me. Did you…”“He spared me. Oh, he was summoned somewhere else, alright, but he could have killed us both with ease before leaving. Turns out he wasn’t so good at forgetting as I thought. He remembered everything, and he was angry about it, but he would only settle it on his own terms.”It was too much. Silver couldn’t exactly call it the straw that broke the camel’s back, because throughout the past half hour there had been enough straws for a whole herd of camels, but he could barely believe half of what he’d heard. Trying to keep up had stretched his patience paper-thin, and he was tired of feeling so lost. He wanted answers. He wanted to wake up and realize the last week or so had been a nightmare. “How can you know?” He asked, trying to keep his tone level. “You didn’t say a word, last time. Did you go find him? After the battle?”“Not after.” The corner of Gadget’s mouth curled, the tiniest trace of a self-deprecative smile. “Not clever enough for it. I challenged him while you were fighting off the monster. But you’re right, I should get to it. This is…this is the most important part. And the reason why I might be able to help you with Blaze.”“Blaze?” Silver hadn’t forgotten about her – he wouldn’t, he couldn’t – but he had no clue where she might fit in a story that was much closer to a romance novella than the war report he’d been expecting. “Did he do something to her? Did- did he tell you what happened to her?”“He didn’t tell me anything. In fact, I’m not sure he’d even know who Blaze might be, if it weren’t for her powers. When- when the fire started, he was just as surprised as me. Only, when he turned to look at it, I tried to grab the gem. The red one in his chest. Me and Tails, we’d realized he and Eggman were somehow controlling the creature, so we split up to distract them long enough for you to get rid of it. We hadn’t planned to steal Infinite’s core, or Eggman’s, but I thought I didn’t have a choice. It was a…a spur of the moment decision, if you might call it that. I grasped it, and I saw.”“What did you see?”“Everything.” There was a note of wonder in Gadget’s voice now, a tinge of amazement that had creeped in despite everything else. “I saw his memories, and what he was feeling. It was like sitting down in the middle of his head. I saw what he remembered of me, and how he became Infinite, and how his siblings died, and a hundred other things. And I saw something else, too. Something odd in there with him.”“Like what?” Silver asked, leaning closer. “Eggman? Did he implant a chip, or something like that?”“I’m not sure. I don’t think it was him, though. It was more like…like a parasite. It had latched onto his brain, and it made his thoughts different. Or well, not different, just- just angrier. And red. Every thought was red.”“So what you’re saying is…what, that he’s possessed? That he’s not acting on his own?”“I’m saying that whatever that thing is, it’s making him worse. It tried to get me, too, I could feel it biting and chewing and…It was painful. Very painful. I could resist it, but I thought…if he’s had it as long as I believe he has, then there’s no way he can shake it off now. He would already have done terrible things, but that stone made it ten times worse. And I think…I think the same thing happened to Blaze, too.”“But- she doesn’t have a stone. She hasn’t even touched it, for all we know.”“She came here because of Infinite, though. She wasn’t sure, but it must have been one of the cracks, or portals, or whatever you want to call them. And her world, her land, it plays by its own rules. Who knows what that might have done to her. And I’m not saying it’d be a bad thing on its own, but…That energy, it gave Infinite power. It made him stronger. And then it pushed him to go to lengths he wouldn’t have reached alone. If everything I’ve seen of Blaze and everything you’ve told me about her is true – and I trust you on that, I really do – then she wouldn’t have hurt so many people on that field. So either she’s lost it, or the energy must have started having an effect on her.”Silver took it all in silence, blood pounding in his ears. It sounded too good to be true, too ready a solution to even contemplate. Part of him wanted to reject it immediately, to leave before he started to hope that there might be another explanation, one less likely to hurt him compared to what he’d seen on the field.But he couldn’t find it in himself to let it go, either. It was a farfetched idea, but it still made more sense than thinking Blaze might have chosen to hurt their friends and allies willingly. She was- she’d changed, there was no denying it, but to that extent? He couldn’t accept it. Not now, not ever. It would have been easier, to ascribe all the wrong things he’d noticed since he’d first seen again to a power coming from the outside world.Almost too easy, he thought bitterly. He wanted to believe Gadget’s story, he wanted it so badly it hurt, digging into his burned skin like pointed claws, but he’d nearly burned down a world once because he’d believed in the wrong tale. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…“How do we know if you’re right?” He asked in the end, trying and failing to keep the hopeful tone off his voice. He hadn’t been so desperate since he’d accepted Mephiles’ proposal, and the comparison didn’t do him any favours, and neither it did Gadget.“Tails has some theories. He got a hold on Eggman’s stone while I was fighting Infinite, before they left. He didn’t touch it, but he hopes that by studying it, we’ll be able to understand how it works. To…to find a way to stop this madness, before it’s too late.”“Does Tails know about what you just told me? About Blaze?”Gadget shook his head. “I wanted to ask you first. You know her better than all of us combined, so if there is any chance that she…that she might have done it on purpose, I thought you would be the one to ask. And you already knew about me and Infinite being…”He broke off mid-sentence, gritting his teeth as if fighting against the words he’d been about to say. “I know you have no reason to trust me. I asked you to keep a secret from your friends, and then I only told you half the story, and I- I know, if I were in your place, I’d be suspicious too. But I’m tired. I’m so tired. I want to go home, and I want to stop Nadir before he hurts anyone else. So if I can help you get your friend back, I will. Even if it ruins me.”Survival instinct was screaming Silver to back off before it was too late. Reason, instead, was telling him that either Gadget was playing quite the long con, or the raw honesty on his face was genuine, because if he’d wanted to get rid of Silver the wolf could have easily slit his throat and left him to rot in that room no one ever visited.And then, of course, there was Blaze. Blaze who’d left and then come back again. Blaze who’d vanished again and who might be feeling all the pain Gadget had just described, only alone and with no base to return too.Too much noise. Too many voices. And Silver was tired, too, as tired as Gadget if not more. He couldn’t pinch himself and wake up in his bed, in a future that was in equal parts bleak and grey and safe – but having some hope, that might be the next best thing.“Alright” he said, praying that he wasn’t making a mistake. “But I want to ask Tails some stuff, if he’ll see us now. He’s the genius here, I want to know how high our chances of finding something are. I don’t want to start thinking we might have a plan and then…”He trailed off, but Gadget was already nodding along, shoulders dropping in barely contained relief. “I know. I…I understand. I don’t think he’s already done with the stone, but maybe we can help with that, too.”He got up on his feet, scrubbing at his face with a hand – the left one, Silver noted; the right was still half-clutched in a fist at his side, out of sight, out of mind – and then he made to get behind the wheelchair once more, but Silver waved him off. He knew he would regret it as soon as he did it, but his hands – or, well, a hand and a half – were itching for something to do, and if all he was allowed to do was push himself out of that room, then he would damn well try.Gadget nodded again and made to open the door so that the hedgehog could pass through. Once he had his hand on the doorknob, though, he stopped, and looked back over his shoulder. “I just wanted to say…Thank you. You know, for- for everything.”“It’s okay. I understand.” And he did, he truly did. It was a hard pill to swallow, but he couldn’t in good conscience say how much of the truth he would have revealed, had he been the one forced to make that choice. Had it been Blaze the one who’d truly, unambiguously chosen a path like that. “Only, can I ask you something?”“Of course.”“If we find a solution. A- a cure, something. Are you going to try and turn Infinite back into who he was before?”There was a long stretch of pregnant silence, and for a split second Silver thought he wouldn’t get any answer. Then Gadget smiled, a sad, rueful grin, the most genuine he’d produced all day.“I think it’s too late for him to do anything but pay for his actions” he said. And then, after a pause: “But wouldn’t you try, if you were in my place?”Then he cast his eyes down and turned the handle, and Silver had no choice but to wheel himself out, leaving the wolf to close the door behind their backs.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Blaze was burning.It was not the familiar warmth fire had always brought her – she would have taken it gladly, wrapped it around herself like a shield, like a security blanket. Even Iblis had been more welcome a companion when she’d let it into her body, for all that it had chewed and pulled at her insides as a ravenous beast might, fighting to break free.There was no fight with what had taken over her. Whatever it was, it was draining energy from her, leaving her weak and feverish, shivering despite the scorching heat she could feel bubbling under her skin. Her throat was dry and parched, and she kept trying to blink away tears that weren’t there, so clouded was her vision. Even the marks Infinite had left on her arm sizzled and stung, along with the rest of her injuries.She’d hoped to find some reprieve by laying her hand or forehead against a piece of discarded metal – there were plenty of them, from past fights or one of the collapsed building around her, and most would likely be blissfully cold, tucked away in shadowy corners – but she’d always shied away at the last second. It was not a rational feeling, but rather a lingering thought, the fear that the fire would reach out of her and melt the metal under her touch, leaving it warbled and disfigured at her feet.She did not think of the soldiers laying in heaps on the battlefield whenever she walked away from those places. She did not think of their faces, frozen in an unrecognizable mask of terror. She did not she did not she did not.And besides, it wasn’t as if she could return in case she changed her mind. She was barely aware of her surroundings at the best of times, the streets and shops and empty plazas blurring around her as she stumbled forward. Sometimes she felt as though floating on air, her head numb and light, stuck in the clouds like a lost balloon. Sometimes she could sense every nook and cranny in the pavement, the pebbles and debris digging painfully in the soles of her bare feet – she’d lost her shoes at some point along the way, and she didn’t dare tread in any of the dirty puddles that had formed where the concrete had caved in, lest the water might evaporate as she went.But she couldn’t go back and find them. She couldn’t go back period, not after what she had done. Not after the fire and the bodies and- and Silver-Had she been the one to do it, though? It didn’t feel as though she had. It didn’t feel real – sometimes she looked at her hands and saw them double up before her eyes, the ones trembling in dread, the others drenched in blood that wasn’t hers.But there was no one else to blame. No one had taken her place, worn her face as they burned innocent people, and so it must be her to bear the weight. It left her in the worst sort of limbo, with no place to return to and none to move towards, wandering aimlessly in cities who’d long since been drained of their inhabitants.It was in one of those cities that the realization struck her, like a bolt from the blue. She couldn’t say how long it had been since the battle, hours or days or weeks, but it was night, and there was no light around her, save for the occasional drone flying overhead. She was huddled at the mouth of an alley, her knees against her chest, her arms wrapped tightly around herself, but she lifted her head when the thought came, staring sightlessly ahead.All of it – all she had done, all she had been reduced to – was because of Tikal. Tikal, who had always been a balm to her soul, the only one capable of soothing her pain after she’d been forced to leave behind everything she held dear. Tikal, who Eggman and his cronies had torn to pieces and moulded into something they might use for their gain.There was no erasing what she’d done, but perhaps, if she found Tikal – if she rescued her, then she might have a chance to make amends. And Tikal would know what to do, would find a way to gentle the fury that was tearing her body apart, coursing painfully through her veins.Reason would have it be a lost cause. She was alone, and weakened by fighting and having no food and little to no rest. But reason could do nothing against desperation, against the force she felt tugging at her heart, smoothing down the tangle of her thoughts and crooning come.Slowly, haltingly, Blaze got to her feet and began to walk. “Are you sure you want to do this, Gadget?”The wolf looked up. There was concern in Tails’ voice, and on Tails’ face, and he could appreciate it, if nothing else. It was good to know someone was worried about him, despite the dozen different ways he’d messed up.Still, there was not much place left for concern, not in the state they were in. “It’s not like we have any choice, right? I mean, if the Master Emerald is gone as you say-““Not gone” Knuckles spoke up, grimly. “That thing might have smashed it, but we’ll get it back. Eggman can’t keep it in his pocket forever.”Gadget flinched at the reprimand, but then he nodded. It was a fair correction, and he could understand how much the whole business might be stinging at the Commander’s pride.He threw a cursory glance at the rest of the room, feeling vaguely self-conscious at the dozen or so of pair of eyes fixed on him. Everyone of import was there, from Amy to Knuckles to blank faced Espio, gathered in a room that would have been crowded four people earlier.Everyone of import, and him too, sticking out like a poppy in a field of rye. The sacrificial lamb – or, well, the sacrificial wolf, in that case. There was a joke pleading to be made in there, or there would have been, if any of them had been in the mood to laugh.“Still, Gadget is right” Amy said, crossing her arms. “What other choice do we have?”“It’s too risky” Tails hissed. “We don’t know what might happen. It’s all theoretical – I haven’t had a chance to test it yet.”“Then Gadget will, even if you don’t think he can-““I do think he can, but I don’t want it to be at the cost of his-““I will do it” Gadget cut in, the words ringing loud and clear over their heads before they could resort to blows to settle the matter. “I- I want to try.”You little fool, a voice in his head supplied. It sounded suspiciously like his mother’s. Wanting has nothing to do with it.It was true enough, harsh that it might be. What he wanted was of no matter, not until the war was done and won – it was his sense of duty, perhaps, pushing to be put to work, or maybe his guilt. It didn’t make the whole matter any less egoistical, but it was a finer name for the ache he felt in his chest, a kinder word to roll around his tongue. They needed the help, and he was ready to give it freely, whatever the cost.Then again, maybe what he wanted did matter. It was the principle their whole plan hinged on, after all.Tails had explained it to him in clear words, slow and patient, as though he could make it easier to bear by breaking it down into notions Gadget could understand. They’d gotten a hold on Eggman’s stone; Tails had caged it in, so that it would bring them no harm; and now the Resistance needed to see if they might use it somehow, as Infinite had, to try and win the war. They wanted Gadget to bend it to his will.Gadget had protested – the first time, he hadn’t meant it as a mean to an end. It had been anger, and instinct, and the hollow grief that still reverberated through his bones. Leave, he’d said to the energy, go away, and so it had, taking Eggman’s entire army with it, but it hadn’t been a conscious thought, and he wasn’t sure he could replicate it, nevermind funnel it in the right direction.It was a farfetched plan at best. It might go wrong in so many ways he struggled to count them all. And yet, it was their best shot at present, a last, desperate attempt at flipping the fight in their favor.“Are you sure?” Tails repeated, stepping closer. “It doesn’t have to be you.”“But I’m the only one who already touched it” Gadget reminded him, though of course the fox knew. It was why Tails had approached him in the first place, instead of reaching out to one of his closest, preternaturally powerful friends.The wolf turned back to the rest of the group, a tentative smile on his face. “And besides- I know this doesn’t put me under the best light, but I’m not anything special. I’m not very strong, or- or very fast, or anything else, so if I lose control, you might have an easier time dealing with me.”“That’s not very helpful” Knuckles scoffed. “For all we know, Infinite, too, was a nobody before he put his hands on that gem.”The smile froze on Gadget’s lips. In the corner of his eye, he spotted Silver’s hands going still in his lap, where only moments earlier they’d been fidgeting with the bandages around his fingers. There was a brief pause, too fleeting for anyone else to notice, where it looked as if one of them might break down, might call out the irony of what they’d just heard – speak now, or forever hold your peace, as they said.Still, the hedgehog said nothing, and Gadget was grateful for that, too, for his friend’s silence and for the implicit promise that came with it. It was another item on a long list of things he’d need to make amends for, once that mess was over, but it made life easier, if a bit crueller towards everyone else.“Thanks for the optimism” Tails muttered under his breath. Then, louder: “Alright, then. Let’s get on with it.”Gadget nodded. He took a great, big gulp of air, released it slowly, and then moved towards the door.Tails had chosen the location with care. The room they’d all gathered in had a huge one-way mirror set into a wall, a mirror that faced directly into the next room over, whose walls had seemingly been reinforced instead, made bulletproof and soundproof and a lot of other nasty things-proof. The perfect spot to conduct experiments in, though Gadget had tried his best not to wonder what, if any, experiments had taken place in there. Better to focus on the present, dire though it was.The door shut behind his back with a soft click. It was only him now, him and the darkened mirror and the damned stone.Slowly, warily, Gadget stepped closer. He stopped at a few inches distance, regarding it carefully. He felt curiously naked, as though he ought to wear some sort of suit of armor, but he knew it would have done more harm than good. Whatever magic it might decide to work, it would do it from the inside out, and no extra layer would have saved him from that.Tails had done a good job – the concoction of steel and wire around the gem resembled less a box and more a straitjacket for a prisoner likely to struggle for their freedom. It would have seemed a foolish comparison, if he hadn’t had the chance to see its power for himself already. Even in its cage it gleamed of a malevolent light, like a heart pumping poisoned blood in the system that was feeding it.Gadget pried the container open methodically, following the instruction Tails had drilled into his brain. It would never be released completely, just enough for them to make use of its untapped potential, the way Eggman had learned to – but even a smidge seemed too much. The wolf wanted nothing more than to seal it away forever, to wash off the sensation he could feel lingering on his skin and retch until the revolting, overtly sweet taste it left in his mouth was gone.But he couldn’t. He couldn’t, and soon enough the gem laid half-bare before him. He couldn’t see the others’ faces, hidden behind the glass, but he could feel their gazes burrow in the back of his neck, holding him in place.Gadget took another deep breath. Then a third one. And then, because the wait was proving to be even worse than the act itself, he plunged a hand into the box and grabbed the stone.He knew what to expect, this time. He was bracing for the impact before it came, and still the rush of sudden, roaring rage to his brain wasn’t any less painful than it had been on the battlefield. He gritted his teeth, eyes screwed shut even though he knew the flashes of light dancing before him weren’t any more real than the voice in his head was, and then started pushing back, inch by inch.Amy had said he ought to try to bond with it. It had been a suggestion made in good faith, but she’d had no clue of what it meant to have that kind of power tear your mind apart and leave the scraps scattered for the vultures to pick at, as hadn’t any of the others. This wasn’t a feral beast ready to be tamed as a house, struggling with a strength it had no idea how to use – this was a parasite, and a cunning one at that, with a talent for finding the right vein to leech life force from.It offered Gadget kinder gifts, this time around, tasty morsels to lure him in. Silver grabbing his hand to stabilize himself, what seemed like an eternity earlier. One of the children he’d tutored for spare money, folding a paper flower for him. Him and Nadir, no more than six or seven, splashing in the river and calling out for each other.Don’t you wish you could go back? It whispered, honey-sweet and tantalazing.
Don’t you wish you’d drowned him when you had the chance? Pushed him underwater, held him down long enough for his lungs to-
Absolutely not, Gadget growled, and lunged for the nearest tendril of energy, digging his metaphorical nails in.It was easier now that he knew what he was dealing with. Where his opponent made to grasp at him, searching for a weak spot, it left itself uncovered, the closer anything with so much power could get to being defenseless. The wolf bit and scratched and screamed back, angry, angry, so angry he couldn’t say where his fury and where that of the gem began, orange fading into red and back again.And he prayed. He prayed with a fervency he’d never had, not even as a child, down on his knees in the temple of Aurora, prayed until the words muddled together, a feverish, incoherent string of wishes where the careful demands had been only moments earlier.Please, he begged, as the voice crooned don’t you want to be great don’t you want to be feared don’t you want to be loved-Please, I’ll do anything, something to help us win the war, something, anything, anything-For a moment, time stood still. Then with a great, fearsome bellow the red haze that had formed around him dissipated, and an invisible force slammed him across the chest, breaking the spell and sending him skittering across the floor.Gadget sucked in a struggling breath and looked up, stupefied. There was not a part of him that didn’t hurt, and the ache in his right arm was a wonder of its own, a burning sensation that crept under his skin and rivalled the one he’d felt after his fight with Infinite, but he found he couldn’t care any less, not with the spectacle that had been set out before his eyes.The gem had clattered to the floor, its light dimmed and stuttering. And behind it, howling like a thousand winds, one of Infinite’s cracks had opened, its red, threatening aura a stark contrast to the bland grey wall it stood in front of.Gadget had never seen one so small, nor one sprouting off in an enclosed space without tearing out half a building. For a moment he feared he might be sitting on a timebomb and staggered to his feet, knowing that he had no chance to outrun it but feeling the urge to try regardless, because he was not about to die by a portal’s hand after having survived Nadir’s bloodthirsty jealousy on his very own-And then, a figure tumbled out of the opening.It wavered for a couple instants, seemingly thrown off-balance. Gadget watched, mesmerized, as it managed to stand straighter, its feet solidly planted on the floor. It was hard to make out who they might be, even squinting – it was as though they were standing in front of the sun on a clear day, a dark silhouette against the blinding red light – but there was no doubt they’d made quite the entrance, like a hero in the climax of those stories he’d gorged himself with as a child.Then, with a loud bang, the crack closed, taking the light away with it.Gadget blinked, trying to regain his vision. And he blinked again afterwards, because there was no way he was not hallucinating. In no life ought he be able to stare into the eyes of someone he’d only ever caught glimpses of, in the pictures Rouge had plastered everywhere around the base and, before, in the background of news reports, when Sonic and his crew saving the world had only been a Saturday night talk show story.“Who are you?” Shadow the Hedgehog growled, a dangerous glint to his red eyes. “And what is this place?”