-= Neverlasting =-

I. Day Zero (Reprise)

Mobius South, the morning before Christof's assassination.

"You feel it, bro?" Sonic asked, his face peering out from the dark - the silver glow of the moon was the only light in the container, filtering through the lid, painting a pale crosshatch pattern across the hedgehog's face.

Tails shifted uncomfortably on the hard wooden floor, looking across at him. "Feel what?"

"We're slowing down. Reckon we're about to hit dirt. You ready for show time?"

"Would you take 'no' for an answer?" Tails said to his old buddy, smirking despite himself. "It's a miracle I didn't lose my lunch on this trip."

"Heh," Sonic chuckled, cocking his head back. "It's just nerves."

"More like sea-sickness," Tails said. "I don't dig on boats. The trip away from here turned me all kinds of colours..." When he saw Sonic raising an eyebrow, he added, "but I ought to be fine once we're out of this crate."

The ship suddenly bucked violently, tossing the two of them from one side of the small enclosure to the other.

"Here we go," Sonic said, reaching behind him for a device they'd liberated from Gorromandas after it'd been abandoned by the kitsune - raiding the place had been easy, once the Enclave had made off, and beating them to their own fleet had been easier still - logistics concerns had slowed their march toward the shores in Duruga. Sonic looked the electronic headset in his hand over carefully, and tossed it in Tails' lap.

Tails fastened the headset to his ear securely, and gave it a tap. "How's the sound?"

Sonic cupped a hand over his own speaker, nodding. "Clear as a whistle, my tri-tailed friend. Don't forget your pyjamas." With that, he pulled a thick leather hood and cape out from behind him, that he'd been using as a pillow, and chucked it over to Tails.

The fox studied it for a moment, a wave of nostalgia washing over him. It had once been part of his Brotherhood of Thamael garb, with a matching vest and pants, which had long since been lost on one of his adventures in Duruga. He turned it over, looking under the collar at the note sewn into it:

For you, Miles Prower - my candle eternal, on your day of graduation - the bright of mind, the sure of body and above all - the warm of heart.

For now and ever,

Marr

He closed his eyes and remembered the day that she'd handed that robe to him. The way she looked that day was like something out of a painting in his mind, hair shining bright in the snow as everyone else at the ceremony had looked on, the stern smile on her face that barely hid the intense affection just behind it. 'Eternal' - what a word. The way people can throw something like that around, and build a promise on it - and for all the men and women who'd made a promise like that, and all that would in the future, not one of them would ever be able to keep it.

"It gets easier, man," Sonic said, reading Tails' expression. "It won't go completely, but it'll get easier."

Tails nodded. "I know. I got no reason to feel like a victim. I let her go and I suppose it was for the best." He looked up at Sonic again, and added, "I know losing Sally hit you hard. I'm glad you never gave up. Makes my whole hangup on Marr seem a little trivial..."

"Oh, I gave up," the hedgehog said, raising his palms. "It's just that I had good friends around me to pull me through when I didn't wanna move myself anymore. But yeah... as I say, it gets easier. I still think of her, though. Every day." He stared up through the grate above him again for a moment, up at the moon, still hanging overhead, ever watchful as it'd always been. "It takes one tough SOB to admit you love someone, Tails. Don't regret any of it."

"I guess you loved Sally more than you let on," Tails said.

He looked Tails in the eye, his eyes suddenly narrowed and glossy with passion. "More than I could put words to. I wasn't a man enough to ever say it back then. But I still feel her, deep in here," he said, clenching a fist and thumping it against his chest. "Deep as anything. Every day. One day, you'll find someone like that, who'll teach you to keep going like that, no matter what happens."

"Heh. Maybe," Tails smirked, shaking his head.

"What?" Sonic said, folding his arms. "You don't think you're good enough for it?"

The kitsune shrugged, looking at him blankly. "I don't think want it," he said.

Seemingly hours later, the vessel struck the shore. As soon as the decisive impact shuddered through their hiding place, Tails punched the roof of it open and pounced out. Sonic had to shield his eyes from the sudden burst of hazy grey light – the fog had set in, soupy and thick. One couldn't ask for better weather for a getaway.

Tails looked left and right quickly, and leaned back in towards Sonic, a clenched fist outstretched. "It's clear."

Sonic rapped his knuckles against his eagerly. "Time to do it to it," he said, with a smile.

The kitsune looked at him with an admiration he hadn't seen in a while. "Good luck, man."

"Pfssshh... who needs luck?" the hedgehog quipped, raising a hand as if to swat the very notion of it away.

Then, Tails disappeared into the fog.

When Sonic popped his head up out of the container, his friend was already well out of sight, heading inland – he'd have hours to go before he'd reach Mobotropolis, and even then, he'd have to be thoroughly pounding it. Gently, Sonic pulled the lid shut again, and crossed his arms, rocking back and forth on his heels against the wall.

A few disparate spots of rain began to splash against the roof of the crate, trickling through the grate across Sonic's face.

The plan had been to wait until nightfall, when most of the Enclave (if it could still be called that) had disembarked, and begin his search for some intel on where and when the coming assassination was to take place. It was a toss-up whether the saboteurs within Mobotropolis would've given those exact details to Angiris, but at the least, Sonic knew for a fact that the Padra Utama had seen fit to bring the communications equipment from Gorromandas with him, given its conspicuous absence back on the space frigate when they'd paid their final visit.

A cold breeze began to whistle through the grating, the drops starting to come thicker and faster.

Great, Sonic thought, just my luck. Not only do I get to sit here for a few more hours doing absolutely nothing, I've got nobody to talk to, I'm surrounded by kitsune barbarians who want to slice and dice my ass, and now I can get soaked to the bone in the thick of it all.

Time passed.

The decks beneath him started to rumble with shuffling feet and equipment being hauled out. A few of them were shouting in their tongue:

"Steady with it!"

"Then give me a hand with it, futudo!"

"Just hold it! I'll be back..."

By now, the rain was coming down hard, out of a sky that looked like it was made of slate, despite it being barely past midday. Sonic could feel the skin on his toes already starting to wrinkle in his shoes, now soaked through with water. An inch of the stuff had already accumulated at the bottom of the crate, and with the hard plastic of it moulded tight, it wasn't going to be leaking out any time soon.

The noise above Sonic seemed to be dying down somewhat, but against the wooing of wind and heavy pattering of rain, it was difficult to be sure.

"Just a little longer, hedgehog," he mouthed to himself. "Give it an hour, and then I'm outta here..."

Less than ten minutes later, he busted the lid of the crate open, and hopped out, pressing his back against the side of it. He knew he was being stupid and impatient, but, not for the first time, he felt the rush of tension and the relief of finally springing into action overriding his more rational thoughts. It'd been an easy decision to make.

The kitsune were treading through the haze across the deck like worker ants, dismantling things, hauling heavy piles of cargo end to end, shouting orders.

Keeping his head low and working his way to the poop deck, he stole a glance over at the other ships in the fleet. There were four other vessels docked, and he had no idea which one of them might hold the information he needed.

Ducking back behind a crate, he flicked on his headset. "Yo, Tails. How you travelling?"

His voice came back, in a tinny rasp: "I can see the mountains on the horizon from here, where Maga is. Still a long way to go. You're sounding pretty... crackly over there. Are you already out of the crate? You should've waited."

Sonic shrugged to himself. "I got impatient."

"How surprising."

"Bite me," Sonic said, grinning. "Now, where do I go to get this info on where the assassination's gonna happen?"

"Well, it'd be where their comms are. That'd be your best bet, I guess. One of the boats must have a dish on the top, or something."

Sonic poked his head over the railing again, and ducked back. "None that I can see."

"Maybe you can ask around, then."

He grimaced a little at the suggestion, running a hand through his quills. "I was kinda hoping you might have something else to suggest."

"You're on your own for that one, man. You've got time to figure something out. I'd suggest disembarking and laying low for a while, at least until the movement dies down a little. Might make things easier when you go in."

Sonic thought for a moment, and then shook his head. "No, they'd have set up a perimeter by then, that'd just make things harder. Alright, time to crack a skull or two."

For a second, Tails was quiet. "Don't kill anyone."

The hedgehog raised his brows. "Says you. Not all of us are into murder, you know."

"...yeah. Of course. You'd better get going. Stay in touch."

The transmission cut off.

Sonic scowled at the idea of what Tails was implying by the last words he'd spoken. It was moments like these that he started to wonder just how far apart they'd grown, and how long it might take to repair that rift. He shook the thought off like the rain running into his eyes - he was loathe of dwelling on things at the best of times.

He glanced around the corner again, and watched the movement on the deck, scanning for a kitsune that was isolated enough to make for a good quarry. He looked up, eyeing the mast - it'd help to have a good vantage point, and he'd be able to pounce from on high.

A large thud to his immediate right made him freeze, his heart pounding.

"Damn!"

He hadn't noticed that one of them must've been right around the corner from him, on the other side of his crate. He held his breath, his heart in his throat, and waited for the response of one of the kitsune's peers. None came.

A tin of canned food, evidently of Gorromandas' long-life food supplies, came rolling to a stop right next to him. A hand clumsily followed it into his view.

Sonic sighed. *No time like the present...*

He grabbed the kitsune by the wrist and yanked him in behind the crate. Caught off-balance, the fox folded like origami, his chin smacking against the deck. In a flash, Sonic was on his back, holding his arms still.

"What the-?" the fox growled.

Sonic leaned right in to whisper into his ear. "Where are the comms around here?"

His prey's lip started to curl into an amused sneer, despite his position. "The ghu-rah?"

The hedgehog grabbed him by his mane, and slammed his face against the decks, hearing bones crack. "This ghu-rah's gonna leave you spending the rest of your life breathing through a straw if you don't tell me where the communication equipment is around here, right now."

The fox sputtered and struggled under Sonic's grip, but the blow had sapped him of his strength. "Urgh... go ahead and kill me, then."

Sonic grabbed the kitsune by the cheek and started twisting his head violently to the side. He could feel the vertebrae grinding in protest, almost ready to break. He was running on adrenalin now - it was either measured brutality to get the answers he was after, or he'd end up on the receiving end of a hook-blade. "Is that our final answer?" he whistled.

"The... the flagship! It's in there, where Angiris is. Even if you make it in there somehow, he'll rip you in twain."

"It's alright," Sonic said. "It's not your problem." He struck the kitsune out cold with a single blow to the back of the skull, and with great effort, dragged the brute's unconscious body into the crate. Pulling the lid closed again, he looked over his shoulder as he turned to leave. "Sorry, pal."

He looked on westward, though the thunder and the lightning and the rain. The flagship beckoned, close enough for him to leap to with little effort - the only issue was the timing. If he was discovered by anyone and they called for help, he'd likely be killed, or worse, be forced to flee the scene and face the results of his failure back in Mobotropolis. Neither alternative appealed enough to count as an option to him.

A chill ran up his spine and his ears pricked up when, even through the downpour, he heard footsteps approaching. Two of them. It was now or never.

Gritting his teeth against the storm, he went into a super spin, and launched himself straight off the deck, clearing a good ten meters before landing lightly on his feet on the deck of the flagship.

It was hardly something that could be called a 'flagship', really. The kitsune Enclave had no banner hanging from the mast - it was simply the largest and most well-manned of the fleet. When Sonic looked around and saw his movement had attracted no notice from anyone, he made a beeline for the door to the main cabin. To his surprise, he found the door unlocked when he tested it, and cautiously slid it open.

"This is too easy," he said to himself with a smirk. "Something's gotta be up."

The vessel's interior mostly confirmed what had been evident from the outside - much of it was actual sections of the Magdalene, all crudely ripped out and reassembled. The only part of any of the fleet that he'd seen that looked like genuine kitsune handiwork was the outer hull. The work was of a high standard, consisting of varnished, well-cut and well-fitted pine, but it appeared the kitsune had no qualms with cutting corners with their craft when they could get away with it. Suddenly, in the corridors of hard, corroded steel, he felt like he was back in Gorromandas again. He'd only be too happy to see the back of it.

A door on his left was left open a little, a pale white green light coming from within - suggestive of a computer monitor or some other kind of artificial light. Seemed he was on the right path. He leaned in and peeked through the gap.

He drew a sharp breath involuntarily when he saw Angiris' hulking, muscular body approaching the door, and backed up again. He looked left and right for somewhere to hide. He saw nothing.

The door opened and Angiris walked through, with Fiona trailing along in his wake, her shoulders slumped. "I don't understand why we can't just settle near the shore, if we absolutely must be here. Need we really decimate an entire continent just so we have somewhere to live?"

Angiris snorted. "It's the principle of it, daughter. This is our land. Ours! One can't steal something that already belongs to them."

"But-"

He turned to her, his tree trunks of arms folded. "But?"

Fiona looked down at her feet again. "Nothing, Padra Utama."

"Indeed," Angiris smiled. "Not to mention once we finally seize the Antithesis, who knows how the common cattle here would react to it? I know you worry about this, Fiona. I know you feel torn over it. When we've seen this through to the end, you will only wonder why you ever did. That's a promise."

She nodded submissively, without saying a word.

"We've wasted enough time already now. I need you out there hunting with everyone else. We have a short window to prepare ourselves for the oncoming battles. I expect the skirmishes between Mobotropolis and the Thamaellists will be over quickly, once the tensions between them boil over. We need to be ready the moment they expend their forces, so that we can slit the throats of both nations while they are disoriented."

"What will you be doing now, while we're out?" Fiona asked.

Angiris smiled. "What else? I'll be out there with you, doing the same. It's been too long since I've had a good hunt!"

They continued down the hall, and out the door into the weather, slamming it shut behind them.

A single bead of sweat rolled off of Sonic's nose and dripped to the floor. He let out a heavy sigh when he saw them leave, and dropped to the floor. The ceiling had been high enough, mercifully, that he'd managed to stay out of sight by jumping up and keeping himself suspended, pressing his arms and legs hard up against the walls either side of him.

"Man, too close for comfort," he whispered to himself. But when he peered through the door again, he saw no one else. Home free.

The bridge of the boat seemed to double as their comms room. He tapped the 'send' button on his headset. "Yo."

"Sonic," Tails' voice came through the other end. "How are things?"

"I'm in their comms room," Sonic said. "Now what? I don't see anything written down anywhere. Are we even sure that the meeting will take place in Mobotropolis at all? Nicole could be headed up North, instead."

"Yeah, I considered that. But if I'd stuck around to find out for sure before I left, I'd be too late either way..." His voice sounded leaden and laboured.

"You haven't stopped to rest yet, have you?" Sonic asked.

"Not yet. I can see the Maga Valley from here. I'll stop for a bit there. Anyway, fire up the computer and see if you can patch in to Viktor."

Sonic cautiously walked up to the terminal and watched it hum to life, showing the sytem's POST screen briefly before dumping him at a command prompt. "Uh, how, exactly? Computers ain't really my haunt, y'know?"

"What's it saying?"

Sonic looked at the screen.

admin mag13:$

"Admin, at mag one three. Then a confused face."

"Just type 'comm'."

He sniggered. "Did you just say what I think you said?"

"Real funny, Sonic. C, O, M, M."

The hedgehog did as instructed, hunting for the keys with his index finger.

admin mag13:$ comm
VOIP Comm utility initialised.
Last used freq. a. Reuse?

"Uh, okay. It's asking me to reuse the last frequency."

"Type 'yes'.

admin mag13:$ yes
Setting frequency a.
Ready to connect.

Sonic smiled. "Hey, maybe I ain't so bad at this."

"Yeah," Tails said back with a laugh. "Congrats, you typed two commands. Totally elite."

"Totally!" He decided to go with his newfound hacker instincts, and punched 'connect' into the terminal. "Connecting now."

"No!"

Sonic's finger stopped just shy of the 'Enter' key. "No?"

"Set the mode to voice only first. What do you think you're going to do if Viktor picks up the line and sees your face instead of a Kitsune's?"

The hedgehog scratched his chin, and backspaced over his previous command. "Point taken. So how do I set the mode?"

"Set, mode, open quote, voice only, one word, close quote. Got it?"

admin mag13:$ set mode "VOICEONLY"
Done.

"Er... got it," Sonic said.

"You can guess what to do next. Get back to me when you're finished and let me know how you go."

"Gotcha," Sonic said, closing the connection. "Note to self: When all this is over, never get a job in info tech. This blows."

admin mag13:$ connect

"Angiris," the voice finally came through. Definitely Viktor's. "You've lost video again."

"This is, uh, Galalama Dalai Lama. I'm his, er, assistant. We're, ah, running on low power here, so voice only for now. I... fill in for Angiris while he go hunt. I have a question. To... question you."

There was a brief pause on the line. "...okay, then. What's your question?"

"Yes, question." Sonic coughed into his hand nervously. "Where is... assass... ination... happen?"

"Angiris should've told you it's in the meeting hall of Castle Acorn already. What of it?"

"And... what time?"

"Uh, shouldn't be long now. A couple hours now, tops. Is that all?"

Outside the window, a flash of lightning revealed two dark silhouettes standing outside. Sonic immediately recoiled at the sight, backing up and slamming his butt hard into a table full of navigation equipment, half of it tumbling noisily to the floor. "Crap!" he swore.

Viktor's voice went low. "What was that noise? Report."

Sonic checked the window again, his heart pounding again, but he couldn't make out another shape in the gloom. "Uh, nothing. We're fine. We're all fine here, thank you. How are you?" He cupped a hand over his mouth, squinting hard.

There was a brief pause. "Who the hell is this?" Viktor finally asked.

Sonic pulled the power plug of the machine, and watched the screen deaden to black instantly. He got back on his headset again.

"Sonic?" Tails' voice came back again.

"Tails!" Sonic said hurriedly. "Tails, man. You need to gun it. You've got less than two hours before this thing goes down! Meeting hall, Castle Acorn."

"I was afraid of that..." Tails said back. "I've still got ages to go before I'll have eyes on the city."

"Think you can make it?" Sonic asked, tapping his foot nervously.

"I guess I'll have to."

Two hours later.

Several hundred miles away, Tails cut a path through the pouring rain.

Tough leather boots pounding hard, slippery concrete. Gauging the distance to the next jump. Ten meters. Two meters. Jump.

He vaulted through the air. One more building down. The city lights of Mobotropolis appeared and disappeared below. He watched the droplets of rain smacking and shattering against his legs in slow motion as a flash of lightning exploded across the sky. The next rooftop came up fast. He hit the concrete hard and fast, rolled and hopped over an air conditioning unit, kept running. The dome of Castle Acorn loomed - just a few more minutes, and he'd be there.

He pulled his leather hood down tight around his face, and readied himself for the next jump. He lunged, and the ground beneath his feet disappeared again. He held out his hands and found the sturdy pole of a clothesline - and he swung, vaulted again. Started running again. Almost there.

The tiny speaker in his ear crackled to life, barely audible above the howling wind. "You close yet?"

"Close," he growled. But he was pushing it. "Are they under the dome?"

"Should be," the voice said again. He pushed his finger to his earpiece, trying to block out the cacophony of the storm around him. "That's the Council Chamber. You need to hurry up, you're almost out of time."

"I know." He hadn't counted on the rain restricting his movement so much. He knew he was pushing it, but if he didn't let up, he'd make it.

As he ran, he remembered. Snippets of old memories about this city, from the glory days, hammered into his head. The place had changed a lot. But there was no time to think about that.

He struck the side of the dome with both feet, dangling precariously by the grappling rope. Arm over arm, he hauled himself up, gritting his teeth against the rain.

He hauled himself up onto the window sill, retracting the hook back into the hand cannon, and peered through the stained glass. "I see them," he said. Four figures, three on one side, one on the other. Queen Nicole, Lord Christof. Excellent. He wiped the sharp blade against his leg. Pulled the hood down. Quick, clean, efficient. He knew what to do. He reached for the lever to open the window.

But there wasn't one. The glass was a foot thick, weather-proof, and set in permanently as part of the structure, just as strong as the ages old brick and mortar that surrounded it.

He took a deep breath. Don't panic. Just punch through the glass. This was his last chance to stop everything. He heaved, hanging off the edge of the window, and swung his fist at the glass as hard as he could.

Thunk. Just a dull crack. And it wasn't from the glass.

It took a second before the pain registered.

"Aaaaaaagh!"

He bit down to cut his scream short, holding onto his shattered wrist.

He turned back to the whipping wind and relentless rain. Took a deep breath. Then another. He looked down. There was no way to do this quietly.

He shakily took the grappling hook out of its holster again, holding both the blade and it in the same hand. Fired a shot above, catching in between two of the hard tiles, and rappelled down the side.

He spied a window below, and vaulted off the side of the building as hard as he could. The window came up fast.

The glass here shattered into a million pieces as he tumbled through, and rolled clumsily to his feet. He'd lost his grace; his arm felt like it was on fire, and the shock of the injury was making his whole body shiver. He did a quick head-check, keeping his hood low over his face; the door to the council chamber had been sealed shut with a steel rod. Antoine was in the corner unconscious, bound and gagged.

Sonic had made his way well clear of the fleet now and had started to make his way inland, across the rolling hills, and come to a stop underneath a tree.

Stopping to look up at the angry dark grey clouds, he reached for his earpiece again, and flicked it on. "Tails, gimme an update."

There was no response.

"Tails?"

"He's more than likely too late," a voice came from behind him. He spun around to see Angiris towering over him, a wide, toothy grin across his face.

Sonic's face fell. "Angie. Son of a bitch. You were tracking me the whole time, weren't you?"

Angiris grabbed him by the neck, and held raised him to eye level with one arm. Sonic made no attempt to struggle against his iron grip this time.

Angiris' razor-sharp teeth were bared as he spoke: "You heard me say I was going hunting, did you not? I could smell your stink the moment you set foot on my ship. I'm very sorry to burst your bubble."

"Hurry up and... slug me already," Sonic choked.

Angiris shrugged, and knocked him out with a single blow.

"Sonic?"

All Tails could hear on the other end of the call was static, now, and a series of scuffles, pops and cracks. Either the equipment was playing up, or...

The door in front of him burst open and Nicole tumbled out of it, shaking like a leaf. She was soaked in sanguine from head to foot.

Oh, no...

"Miles," a voice came through his headset again. "This is Angiris. Sonic is ours, and I have confirmation that the Lord Christof is now dead at the hands of your beloved queen. Congratulations, you've failed utterly and completely in every one of your efforts. Leave things as they are. You're too late. Let them play out."

Tails struggled to keep himself thinking straight, as the shock of Nicole standing before him, her eyes wide with shock, her visage framed by the gruesome scene of carnage right behind her.

Angiris' voice came through his ear. "I want you to come back here and turn yourself in. If I do not have you kneeling at my feet by sunrise, I will break every bone in the hedgehog's body before I disembowel him and feed his corpse to the vultures." The connection terminated with a loud pop as he could hear Sonic's headset being crushed in Angiris' palm.

He could feel himself trembling harder, now, and it wasn't just from the pain surging through his shattered arm. He'd lost.

Nicole's face was streaked with tears, her mouth agape from the horror behind her, and the surprise of seeing this figure in front of her. "Hey!" she shouted at him.

He wanted so badly to stay and tell her everything. It was the worst way he'd imagined meeting her again after such a long time away from her. And it was true, too, that he'd missed this place. But dawn was already due in a matter of hours, and he wasn't even sure if he'd make it back before simply collapsing from exhaustion. There'd be time for this later, if he survived. What he knew for certain though, was that if he didn't go right now, his best friend would no doubt be killed, and the blame for it would be at his feet.

"Sorry," he said. He hopped back out through the window, hit the ground hard and rolled to his feet, and ran.

II. Allure

Sonic awoke to a migraine that was quickly becoming far too regular for his tastes.

Sonic was chained to a supporting beam, his arms bound together and hanging uselessly limp in his lap. For some reason, the kitsune had seen fit to remove his shoes and gloves - the only items of clothing he'd ever bothered to wear throughout his life, but they'd been mainstays at the same time, regardless of appropriateness for any given situation.

He rubbed an aching palm with his thumb, and studied them - their pale, mottled skin criss-crossed with scars from past cuts and burns. His hands and feet had always fared the worst when he was travelling, and through his fights with Robotnik back in the days of the coup. As time had gone on, especially after the war had been over, he'd become increasingly uncomfortable with the sight of them, and had since deigned to wear his gloves whenever possible.

The olive-drab fox across from him, Scala Grama, Angiris' unofficial right-hand, sat cross-legged, watching him nonchalantly.

In earlier times of knowing Angiris and his clan, Sonic would've expected to be dead by now - but he knew the fox well enough now to realise that he was never one to cast aside any asset without making sure he'd used it to the end of its potential first.

Scala, though, wasn't one where he could draw the same conclusion so easily.

"Where are my clothes?" Sonic mumbled, still feeling groggy from the concussion. He felt like he was surrounded by a dark fog, shrouding his peripheral vision in a cover of black, and his head throbbing with noise every time his heartbeat.

The kitsune didn't respond, simply staring at him.

"My clothes," Sonic said again. "What did you do with them?"

Nothing.

He felt the room rocking gently, as a howl of wind came gushing through from the doorway above them. The boat must've still been aground, and without a dock in sight, but there must've been some kind of makeshift mooring to stop it from tipping completely.

The hedgehog sighed, and drew a sharp breath. "Hey, I'm talking to you!"

"I find it beneath me to address you in the tongue of a ghu-rah," Scala said in kitsune.

"Fine," Sonic said back, matching the language. "Now I'll ask again, so you understand. Where are my clothes?"

The vulpine gave a small chuckle, not bothering to move. "That's your concern, hedgehog? You're hours away from your death, and your concern is whether you have something to adorn your hands and feet with? If you must know, I tossed the gloves after I checked you weren't hiding anything in them. I have the shoes laying around somewhere, still. I liked the buckles on them."

"Those shoes were a present from my uncle," Sonic said. "I'll be taking those back before we're through here."

"Ooh," Scala grinned, raising his hands mockingly. "I'm shaking."

Sonic struggled to free himself of the chain around his waist, but having his hands bound gave him little leverage, and the chain was a thick string of iron links. "Damn it," he growled.

"Save your strength," Scala said with a bemused smirk. "You might need it later, when Angiris comes back. He may actually decide to challenge you, instead of killing you outright. He seems to have some respect for you, ghu-rah. Though I couldn't even guess at his reasons for it."

Sonic sighed, and went limp again, letting the back of his head thud against the beam. It was no use.

After a moment, Scala stretched, flexing his fingers. Out the corner of his eye, Sonic saw tiny arcs of electricity crackling between them.

"Can you feel it, hedgehog?" Scala asked.

"Feel what?"

"The lure of it. The Antithesis. We're close to it. In Duruga, I would've forgiven anyone for thinking it some kind of stupid myth. Especially when I was young, I never felt any kind of pull, any kind of draw. But now that I've grown, I finally see that everything the Padra Utama told me was true. It calls to us. To every kitsune."

Sonic's eyebrows furrowed.

"I never understood the nature of magic properly, before," Scala continued. "All my life, I'd grown thinking it was a gift bestowed to the kitsune race, a power inside all of us to be released when the moment was ripe. But I get it now. We're not carriers of power..."

He got slowly to his feet, clenching his fist, looking at Sonic.

"We're channels of it!" He opened his palm, a ball of white-hot energy sprang eagerly from it, bathing the dank room for an instant in bright, harsh light. "Mobius is truly the home of the kitsune. The rightful throne, to a supreme, perfect race..."

"Setting aside the fact that you're completely nuts for a moment," Sonic said, shaking his head, "What is the Antithesis even supposed to be?"

Scala shook his head. "I couldn't explain it. It is a feeling. A caress in each of our hearts. It is the deep pool of power that spawned all life in this world, and we, the kitsune, are the chosen ones to drink from it, and to guard against its misuse. It is a constant. It's the reason you exist. The reason there's magic in this world."

"So that's why you were all so eager to come to Mobius and take over," Sonic sighed. "I should've known there was more to motivate you guys than blind loyalty to some power-hungry nut job."

"Hhhnnngggrrr!" Scala strode up to Sonic, and smacked him in the face with a savage hook that left him reeling. "The Padra Utama will be known as the one that saved this world! From you!"

"How... how's that?" Sonic croaked, spitting out a mouthful of blood.

"I've heard all of the stories from him that you'd told about your little escapades here. The so-called Deep Power Stones... the crystals that you've used to keep warm underground, that you've used to make the rings to augment your powers. How do you think any of that was created?"

Sonic suddenly fell quiet, his eyes widening with surprise. He'd never thought to look into the origins of the mysterious crystal that had made the power ring generator, nor where the Deep Power Stones had come from, the same ones that with a single use had brought Robotnik's coup crashing to its knees.

"You try to sap the other side of its power. You drain the life out of it and distil it into your little artefacts, and you have a millennia's worth of evidence that all your kind have ever done with the Antithesis is misunderstand it, and abuse it for your own ends. You don't even understand that it's the very thing that gave you life in the first place!"

"And what about you, then?" Sonic spat at him. "How are you any different? If any of what you say is even true..."

Scala gazed at the hedgehog knowingly. "Tell me, Sonic Hedgehog, have you ever seen a kitsune die?"

"Not yet," Sonic smirked.

"I have," Scala said. "I watched my father die in combat. He'd challenged Angiris Moro to his throne, and Angiris was the victor. I watched his skin melt away and the earth devouring his flesh, watched him become nought but pure energy as he gave his tithe to the powers that made him, and all of us. We pay our way."

His eyes shone with admiration as he spoke, then shut tightly, opening again to gaze upon Sonic with disdain. "And what do you do, Mobian? You rot away, recycled back into the earth like any other dead thing. The kitsune are demigods. You are animals, no different from the wildlife you slaughter for food, no different from the apple fallen from a tree. You exist for our sustenance. You don't deserve the power you've been taking all these ages, and Angiris has led us to see your crimes, at last. And your penance, ghu-rah, is long overdue."

"So that's the big guy's grand scheme, is it?" Sonic said. "He's not happy with taking over and having the lot of us under his thumb. Genocide's his endgame."

Scala Grama knelt over Sonic, his voice low. "Your kind has a million years' worth of lore to say that you could never be trusted to respect the powers you've been able to draw from the other side. Your ultimate destruction is a matter of course, and a matter of honour."

"You know," Sonic smiled, "I never got the impression from the others that all kitsune were as nuts as you evidently are."

"The kitsune follow the Padra Utama's will, through every trial. You aren't kitsune, hedgehog. You wouldn't understand."

"What about Fiona?" Sonic asked. "I sometimes thought she might not have wanted much of a hand in all this conquest business."

Scala grimaced. "Fiona Moro is the daughter of the Padra Utama. She's younger than most. She does not feel the call of the other side yet like we do, but she will. She'll make a fine mate for me, one day."

"You're not pinning your hopes on that, I hope," Sonic laughed. "She seems a bit more smitten with Tails than you, from what I've s-"

Whack.

Whack, whack, whack.

"Liar!" Scala shouted, his fists driving into Sonic's face and ribcage with increasing fury. "She is kitsune, and the daughter of the Padra Utama. She will lay with the strongest, the one destined to challenge the Padra Utama and slay him in fair combat, the future leader of the Encalave!"

"Yeah, right," Sonic said, rolling his eyes. "With that kind of attitude, I'm sure there's no girl out there who'd be able to resist your charms, Romeo."

The room at once became flooded with daylight - the door above them was opened, a feminine silhouette standing in it.

"Fiona," Scala said, bowing his head.

She simply 'hmphed' at him in response, reaching to pull someone up alongside her. "Watch this one, too. Chain him up, and use a bind on him. Ensure he doesn't escape."

"A bind?" Scala growled. "But how can I when-"

Fiona flung the figure next to her down the stairs like a rag doll, and it came crashing down hard into the floorboards. "Be quick about it, before he comes to." She slammed the door shut again.

"Stupid girl…" Scala muttered to himself, as he crouched over the prone body, dragging it up slump up against another one of the beams and reaching for a giant spindle of chains to tie it up with.

Sonic's heart sank again as he made out the figure in the dim light. Tails. He looked broken and battered, worse than he'd ever seen him.

III. Hessian Blanket

Present day.

How long has it been? Tails wondered. Days, certainly. Weeks, probably. He'd been stashed in a container, in pitch darkness, since they'd captured him. The room stank, without any of the required necessities for hygiene, and his matted fur had started to discolour and fall out in tufts. His elbows, hips and buttocks were pockmarked with bedsores from the lack of a soft surface to sleep on.

He'd been counting the times they'd open the hatch and toss in some food scraps, but there hadn't been enough rhyme or reason to it that he could sense the passage of time from their patterns. Sometimes the sun flooded in when the hatch opened and blinded his eyes with harsh natural sunlight. Sometimes he didn't even know anything was happening until he heard the noise of the hatch opening and the smell of half-rotted meat started to overwhelm him.

They were keeping him sickly and malnourished, without completely starving him to death. They must've known that keeping him weak would preclude him from using any of his powers to escape the container, and so all he could do was wait.

Sometimes he could hear murmuring and footsteps nearby. He couldn't feel the sickly sway beneath his feet anymore, so he knew he must've been ashore. Just outside the four walls around him, freedom beckoned – and yet, the state of his body kept it too far out of his reach.

Ker-chunk. He heard the deadbolt sliding free, and the hatch slid open above him, the pale light of the moon beyond it.

"Wait," he moaned.

The hatch stayed open for a moment. "What?" a voice came back, the thick kitsune accent lacing it.

"Is Sonic still alive?" he asked, his voice faint even in his thoughts.

There was a pause, and then the hatch slammed shut again, the deadbolt sliding back into place with finality: ker-chunk.

Tails began to smell roasted meat, a faint stench of decay going with it.

Specks of sunlight flickering in his eyes, though the cover of a torn hessian blanket. Little voices in the background, muttering in a language he could almost speak.

"No, no! You haven't ground it up enough, he'll choke on that!"

"I don't see any bits that I missed…"

"There, see? This part."

"Mm, so I did."

"Miles." The voice was soft, gentle. "Sit up, puppy. Supper time."

He wriggled out from under the blanket as best he could, emerging to the smell of a rich stew, to see her looking down at him, her eyes softening as soon as she saw him peering back. She reached into the cot, grabbing him under each arm, and sat him up.

"There we go. Are we hungry?" She picked up a bowl from her side, and placed the tip of it at Tails' mouth, trickling the thick stew in gradually. "Here, take it," she said, gently taking Tails' wrist and placing his hand under the bowl. He sipped at it hungrily, little dribbles of it slipping out the sides and down his chin. "Easy, you're getting it all over yourself."

He lowered the bowl and let it sit in his lap, and looked at her. "Mama," he said.

She froze, and looked at him.

"Mama," the pup said again, reaching up with a tiny hand to touch it to her cheek.

"Yes, that's it," she said. "Mama!"

"Lila," another voice, this one male. "Something's happening outside. There's smoke coming from the city…"

His mother's eyes were welling up with tears. She took his hand in hers, giving his fingers a light peck. "Miles, my little angel…"

He started to shiver a little. Despite the warmth of the blanket, he could feel himself chilling.

"Lila," the other voice again. "There's something coming this way. We need to go!"

"Okay, Grovak," she replied, turning back. "Give me a second here." She reached for a couple of spare blankets, and scooped the young fox up in her arms quickly.

His father was already out the door. "Come on!"

What was happening? Something was not right.

"Sssshhh-sh-shh," he could hear his mother saying as she ran with him in her arms, his ear pressed close to her chest, hearing the pounding of her heart inside of it. "It's alright, puppy. It's alright…"

"Mama," he murmured quietly, hugging her tightly, desperate to get closer. He couldn't understand why he felt so cold.

Ker-chunk.

He knew his eyes were open, but he still couldn't see anything. He felt delirious, almost frozen to the bone, and colder than he'd ever felt before. He was struggling to feel his feet.

"Stay close to me," Mother said. "That's it. Don't cry, you're safe with me…"

"Mama," Tails sobbed. "I'm scared…"

"Hush, now."

Suddenly, the container was flooded with the harsh red light of a flare. He looked up, and saw a silhouette in the frame of the hatch. He felt embarrassed to be exposed and on display like this – filthy, emaciated and shivering in the foetal position – and yet, he could barely find the strength to care.

Had the voice in his dream been theirs? Or his?

"Who's there?" he croaked.

The figure sat and stared for a while, ears twitching. Then, without a word, they disappeared from view and the hatch slammed shut again.

His nose picked up the scent of meat, but it was stronger than usual, the expected stench of rot notably absent. Desperately, he reached for it, and began to nibble at it, slowly as not to make himself ill. It was a well-roasted shank, the meat tender succulent, almost falling off the bone.

When he found himself sucking at nothing but bits of bone, he crawled into the corner where it was warmest, and waited to go back to sleep again, when he realised there was something missing, a noise he hadn't heard, the absence of it ringing in his ears.

The deadbolt had been left out.

Had his visitor been simply careless? Or were they setting him free? His first thought was that it might've been Fiona that had come to his rescue, though he'd thought they'd already burned all their bridges. Perhaps he had more friends in the Enclave than he thought – or maybe this was just one of Angiris' sick jokes.

In any event, this wasn't an opportunity he was going to let slip by – if he ever got another chance to see freedom, he knew his mind and body might be too far gone to take it.

He slowly, achingly, got to his feet. His knees buckling under him as if they were jelly, he took a deep breath, and leapt up, his fingers barely grabbing the lip of the hatch. He struggled, and found a metal support bar to hook his shoulder under to allow himself to hang freely by one arm. Gathering the last of his strength, he used his free arm to bash the hatch open, and hauled himself out into the open air.

He still couldn't guess how long he'd been locked away in that container. He could've sworn he was going to die in there. But now, the heat of the sun on his skin and the adrenalin pumping through his veins filled him with newfound vigour. The sun was blinding, and he clumsily rolled off the top of the container, his broken body slamming with a sickening crack onto the deck. In the haze of bright light that he hadn't seen for so long, he saw the railings of the side of the boat, and began crawling desperately towards them, praying that no one around would spot him.

When he reached the edge, the remaining strength in his body gave way, and the edges of his vision began to blur. With one arm dangling over the railing, he felt himself succumbing to the temptation of sleep once again.

"Hey!" a voice shouted. "It's Miles! He's gotten free!"

"U-uhn…" he groaned, trying to will his body back into action, but it was hopeless. His ordeal had left him utterly broken.

His eyes widened when he felt something pulling at his wrist, and then, before he knew it, he'd been yanked right over the edge of the vessel – and when he finally hit the water, he blacked out.

He opened his eyes again and saw the comforting tapestry of a forest canopy. Lila still had him wrapped up in the blanket, clutching him against her bosom. The pounding of her heart belied the comfort and calm that he typically associated with being with her.

His ears pricked up again when he heard someone shouting: "You there! Stop!"

"Come on, Lila!" Father was shouting.

"I can't go any farther..." Lila said, gasping for breath. "Here, take Miles and go..."

Grovak whirled around on his feet, and stared at her. "I'm not leaving without you!"

Miles' heart was thumping with panic, caught somewhere between a memory and a nightmare. He burrowed his face in his mother's chest, confused and distraught, searching desperately from respite from what was going on around him.

"Don't let them lay a finger on Miles! Get out of here! I'll keep them busy..."

"Grovak!"

The intense crack of a gunshot filled the air, and Miles heard a body crumpling heavily against the leafy forest floor.

He felt his mother's chest contracting with fright, and she let out a scream that curdled his blood. "Grovak!"

She was moving with him still in her clutch, and for a moment, Miles turned his head and saw a pair of dead eyes staring into his. Father's eyes. Many years later, he'd realise, they looked a lot like his own.

"Grovak..." his mother sobbed. "Gods, no, no, no..."

"Get on the ground!" someone was shouting. "Put your hands on your head."

"Don't you bastards dare touch my son!"

"On the ground!" someone shouted again. "Grab the kit. That hide'll fetch a pretty penny back at the underground..."

"No!"

Suddenly, he felt cold again, his vision flooded with harsh sun again, as he was set down, and he watched his mother spring into action, overflowing with anguish and fury, ready to tear their assailants to pieces.

Then another shot rang out, and all was quiet.

Miles found his vision blurring up with tears again. Overhead, he saw three faces peering at him. Faces marked with cold, indifferent stares, flanked with tattered, mud-strewn Mobian army uniforms.

He awoke to a grumbling stomach, and the thick smell of varnished pine.

When his eyes opened once again, he saw the world turned on its side, a lantern flickering away in front of him. Sitting up and looking around, he realised where he was: his old bed, in his old hut. Back in Knothole.

But how...?

He lay there, enjoying the nostalgia and the warmth. After a while, he heard voices murmuring behind his bedroom door. He tossed the covers aside, got achingly to his feet, and looked around.

To his amazement, it seemed like nothing here had ever been touched since he'd left all those years ago. His old Brotherhood initiate's uniform sat neatly folded on a chair. The Deep Power Stones, long drained of their magical charge, sat atop his bookshelf. A photo of himself and Sonic, from the early days of the coup, was hanging from his wall. On his desk, he could see the spine of a thick tome, 'Scary Tales for Little Mobians' emblazoned upon it.

Looking down at himself, he noticed his cuts and sores had been bandaged up, and his fur smelled clean - embarrassingly, he realised someone must've given him a wash while he was unconscious.

Before he could reach it, the door opened, and he found himself face to face with Rosie.

They stared at each other for a moment with some surprise on both ends.

"Aunt Rosie!" Tails grinned, stepping forward and grabbing her into a tight hug, giving her a light peck on the cheek.

"You're up!" She squeezed him back tightly, and stepped back to look up at him. "And you've got some colour back into your cheeks now, little one."

Tails smiled at the endearment, noting that these days he stood well over a foot taller than she.

"How're you feeling?" she asked.

"I think I'll be okay, now, thanks to you," Tails said. "But... how did I get here?"

Rosie half-turned to the door, placing a hand upon the handle. "It sounds like Sonic worked a miracle to get you both back here," she started, "but I'm sure he can tell you himself. They're all out in the lounge. Do you feel up to seeing them?"

"Yes, I think so." Tails nodded and headed through the door, into the lounge, Rosie following quietly behind him.

Rotor, Chuck, Nicole, Knuckles and Sonic were all gathered around the coffee table in the lounge, the fireplace roaring away in the corner. He noted that so far, it seemed to be an uncharacteristically cold summer here on Mobius.

"It lives!" Chuck said.

Nicole leapt to her feet and hugged him tenderly, overly conscious of his wounds. "Welcome back, Tails."

Rotor followed, shaking his hand and giving him a friendly squeeze. "Good to see you again, dude."

Chuck continued the string of long-overdue greetings, giving him a hefty pat on the back.

Knuckles was last, simply shaking his hand. "'Afternoon."

Sonic looked up at him, not moving from his spot on the couch, shoulders hunched, hands clasped together, and smiled, but remained conspicuously quiet.

"I feel like I've woken up from some crazy long nightmare," Tails said.

It took a few moments before anyone responded.

"You've got Sonic to thank for that," Nicole said. "I'd just arrived back in Knothole myself, when I was greeted by the sight of Sonic dragging your unconscious body out from the underbrush."

Tails looked at Sonic. "You... carried me here? All the way from the shore?"

Sonic shrugged. "No small task, lemme tell ya. Have you stepped on a scale lately?"

His jaw went slack. "You're amazing."

The hedgehog just shrugged again. "What I want to know is, how you busted out of the container in the state you were in. I'd just broken my way out, and I was about to make a beeline inland, when I saw your carcass drop off the top of the container onto the deck."

Tails shook his head. "I don't know. Either someone helped me, or they got careless. You broke free on your own?"

"Yeah. Almost left you behind. They told me you were dead..." Sonic said, grimacing.

"Hey, it's okay," Tails said, walking over and resting a hand on his shoulder. "Thanks, Sonic. I owe you one. Again."

"I think we might be tied right now, but hey, who's keeping score?" Sonic said.

"You were both a real sight when you bowled up on my doorstep," Rosie said. "All blood and puke. Tails, I hope you don't mind me hauling you into the bath. I didn't want you stinking up the bed sheets. And besides, it's not much different from when you were a kit."

Tails' face flushed bright red, his attention suddenly drawn to the bandages around his elbows and thighs. "Uh, no. It's no worry. Thanks Rosie."

He noticed too, that Sonic had received some bandaging himself - around both of his hands. The palms were stained deep brown with blots of blood. What had he done to make that happen?

Shaking his head free of the thought for the moment, he looked over at Nicole. Before he'd left Mobius, he'd been used to seeing her in her purple silk cloak that she wore on the throne, but now, she was dressed modestly, in a simple pair of slacks and a t-shirt. "How've you been coping, Your Highness?"

"Oh, please," Nicole smirked. "You know Nicole will do. And besides, I'm not a queen anymore."

Tails frowned. "I'm so sorry..."

"It's okay, Tails," she said. "There was nothing you could've done. Sonic told me everything. We're all back together now, that's what matters."

"And now that we are," Knuckles said, leaning back in his chair, one leg draped over another, "and now that we're all mobile, I say we'd better get going. It won't be long 'til someone who's not part of our little club realises you're missing from your cell, Nicole. And here in Knothole's gonna be the first place they'll try looking."

"Wait, what?" Tails started. "Get going where?"

"We'll fill you in on the way," Chuck said. "But I'll give you the important bits now. We got a transmission back from Antoine and Bunnie, from up North at the Sanctuary. There's a cult who've been looking for a thing called-"

"The Antithesis, right, right," Tails nodded. "I learned about that when I was over in Duruga."

"Right. We think that it might exist, located somewhere beneath Ironlock Prison. It seems likely that the Cult of Xul know this, and be headed there to excavate."

"I see," Tails said, rubbing his chin. "So, we're headed for Ironlock then, I take it."

"No, you're going north," Nicole said. "The developments with the Antithesis are definitely a cause for concern, but we need to defuse the political situation before we can do anything."

"Okay," Tails shrugged, "Can we get the army to help? Who's in charge?"

Nicole closed her eyes, pursing her lips. "Griff's in command of the army, but both the army down here and up North are decimated. Alone, either one is too weak to go up against the Enclave. Christof's assassination has already achieved its goal - we've been too busy killing each other to worry about an incursion from the outside."

The vulpine grew quiet. "How many dead?"

The android cat spoke very quietly. "Hard to say. At least a few hundred, so far."

"Gods," Tails swallowed. "I'm sorry, Nicole."

Nicole swallowed hard, and looked up at him. "You need to head North, to the Brotherhood. Ari is on the verge of losing the faith of his people - they need a rallying cry, someone they can respect, who can bring the North and South together again."

Tails' eyes went wide. "Wait, you don't mean-"

"Yep," Knuckles said, confirming his fears. "You're it, bucko."

"But-"

"Tails, you're a hero to them," Chuck said. "You played one of the biggest parts in ending the war for Mobius against Robotnik - but more importantly, you've been with them for years, and Christof was always singing your praises up there to anyone who'd listen. You went up there as a frightened little kit from down South, and you left as a Brotherhood Acolyte, a champion of their people. If anyone can get them to see reason, it's you."

"I..." Tails murmured.

"You can do this," Nicole said.

"What will you do?"

"Loathe as I am to say it, I need to keep my head low until my name's cleared," Nicole said. "And Knothole's too well-known these days to use as shelter. I would've been gone from here already if you two hadn't shown up while I was passing through."

With that, Nicole reached over to the table for a notepad, and scrawled a set of two numbers upon it. "We'll use this as our base of operations," she said, handing it to Tails.

He took the scrap of paper and studied it. "Coordinates?"

"Repose," Nicole said. "Come back with some good news, won't you?"

"I will," Tails said. "Good luck, all of you."

All present in the room said their goodbyes, and began moving their separate ways. Tails moved back into his old bedroom, and grabbed his initiate's uniform from the chair.

When he picked it up, he stopped when he noticed it had been sitting on top of something else - an old, ripped hessian blanket, no more than a couple of feet in width and height. He could only guess at where Rosie might've found it.

He picked it up, and clutched it to his chest, thinking of the dreams he'd been having earlier, of his mother and father, their faces suddenly clear in his mind.

Would you be proud of me?