Chapter 4

"Little bro!" shouted Sonic in tears as he saw Kaolin lay Tails' limp body on the roof's surface. She attempted CPR, but it did nothing, and her expression was that of utter shock and profound dismay. She couldn't even think straight; the event had sent proverbial shockwaves through her mind. Everything transformed into a dreamlike haze, that is, until she slowly looked down and saw a small box that had rolled out of Tails' pocket. Slowly, she picked it up, opened it, and saw an engagement ring. A deluge of memories of all the things she and Tails had done over the years suddenly rushed through her head, and she began weeping bitterly. The love of her life, the one person who she would've wanted to spend the remainder of her existence on Mobius with, was gone.

It wasn't until she heard, "Die you (expletive) furries, DIE!" that her sadness began to subside, and her anger began to emerge to replace it. It was the sound of Snively's voice. How he was still alive after their last encounter six months earlier was a mystery to her, but none of that mattered at that point, as all she wanted to do from then on was to stop Snively once and for all. While her friends sat in despondency, Kaolin reloaded her pistol, glanced at her teammates with a visage of both depression and solid determination, and launched into the air using her two tails. The Freedom Fighters tried to follow, but were immediately pinned down by more sniper fire. The gray fox circled a nearby skyscraper, soared back, and performed a spin-dash through one of the windows in the room Snively was holed-up in. She pushed herself off a wall with her feet and propelled herself into Snively, sending them careening through a different wall, and the rifle under a couch. Expecting an either nonexistent or weak retaliation, she didn't feel the need to be totally on guard when she hopped off of him. She would regret that after a metal fist struck her face, which sent the vulpine over a desk and into a chair.

"Kaolin, Kaolin, I'm sure you weren't expecting that, were you? You must have been expecting the frail weakling who had been defeated so easily during our 'meetings' over the past four years," bloviated the former lackey of Robotnik.

Kaolin's head was pounding from the blow, but she got back up with ease. She nearly gasped when she gazed upon her longtime enemy. His entire left arm, left leg, left hip, and his lower right leg, right hand and left eye were all cyberized. He also had a flashing device on his neck, apparently a voice modulator.

"Yes, this is what became of me after the explosion at Mercia," he said with a dark and somewhat robotic voice. "You and Tails thought you finally had me beaten, but I had other plans. I'm going to enjoy annihilating you, just as I enjoyed putting a bullet into that fuzzy orange stain who did this to me. By the way, seeing as how he isn't accompanying you, I'd say the shot was fatal, wasn't it?"

Kaolin lost it. Completely ignoring her gun, she tackled Snively and punched him repeatedly, only to be thrown across the room at high speed. Her ferocity appeared to have reawakened Snively's deep-seated insecurities, and he sprinted through a doorway and into a hall, leading to a pursuit. He shot back at her using an energy weapon in one of his hands, but Kaolin avoided the blasts by running inside some of the rooms during the chase, and she frequently returned fire. One of her bullets damaged his weapon hand, and he kept running. Snively eventually ended up in a room with no exits, and Kaolin dove in as he chucked random objects at her. The fox then took cover behind a filing cabinet and shot Snively's cybernetic legs until they were beyond function, and he fell to the floor.

"Give up, Snively, you're cornered!" shouted Kaolin while keeping a close eye on his hands. As he tried to toss a lamp at her, she shot off his right hand, and he conceded defeat with a scowl. "Now, how did you know where we were this time?"

"Take a good guess, furball," said Snively with a rude tone. His voice was breaking from the pain associated with so many biocybernetic connections having been damaged.

It immediately occurred to her that he was tipped off by Big himself, and she snapped, "Where is Big located?" Her gun was aimed right at his forehead, and she struggled to keep her finger from gripping the trigger too tightly. Part of her wanted him dead immediately, but she knew what Tails would think if she were to kill him out of vengeance.

With a grin, Snively replied, "Heh, you want to know? Fine, I'll tell you. There is a telephone booth four blocks south of here. It contains information that you will find useful."

Puzzled as to why he gave her the information so easily, she prepared to ask him of his intentions. Before she could ask, however, he aimed one of his left-hand fingers at her, and launched it. The grappling-hook-like appendage penetrated her upper-left leg and exited through the other side, barely missing the bone, and she pulled the trigger after shouting in pain. Snively slumped to the floor, dead from a bullet wound to the head. As Kaolin growled from the intense pain, she used a multitool to sever the grappling line and pull out the remainder of the object. A small stream of blood ran down from each wound, and she used a tourniquet to stop the bleeding. After the pain subsided enough for mental clarity to resume, she began to absorb just what had happened. She looked over at Snively's body, and realized that she had taken a life. Coupled with the knowledge of Tails' absence from the world, she dropped her gun, stumbled back into a wall, and wept as she slid down to the floor. It was simply too much to bear at once. More memories presented themselves, and Kaolin remembered the time when Tails talked about death. She remembered his words, "Do not lose heart if I die, because we'll see each other again. You must keep going, keep fighting, keep persisting, and stay hopeful. I thank my Creator for you, Kaolin, and He will keep you strong 'til the end." It was that phrase which drove her to get back up, wipe the tears away, and go tell her friends of the development.

When she returned, a blanket had already placed over Tails' body, and the Freedom Fighters were making their way through the building that Kaolin was just occupying. She dolefully glanced at the body of the orange hero, remembered his inspiring words, and sped back to alert her teammates of the news. They and Mighty's team accompanied her to the telephone booth south of their location, and a somber silence prevailed along the way, save for a few orders that Mighty gave to his unit.

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Author's note: I plan to include more info on the Mercia event in another story. If you thought this chapter was intense, wait until chapter five. Thank you for reading!

Sonic characters and places are copyright of Sonic Team/Sega

Kaolin, other original characters and ideas, and the story itself are copyright of myself, NuclearCookout