Chapter Text
The plan was, theoretically, simple. Get to Central City, have tails run the data for a cure with Whisper and Tangle for backup, while Ruby and Shadow got the spare pair of air shoes from his apartment.
“We’re landing at a hanger just outside the city, it’s where I normally keep the Tornado.” He elaborated, tilting the plane slightly forward in a slow descent. “Once you get the Air Shoes, get back to my house and I’ll make the required adjustments for your weight and size. It shouldn’t take long to do once I have them.” He elaborated on the plan.
“And if things go wrong?” Shadow asked from his place on the wing near Ruby.
“Then we figure out a new plan and deal with it then, stay in touch.” She reassured. “Besides, it’s just running data and getting a pair of shoes, what could go wrong?” She asked, causing everyone to wince.
“You jinxed it, it’s all going to go horribly wrong now. The cure is going to make a second even worse zombie problem.” Tangle dejectedly quipped, although the smile on her face betrayed her mock dispirited tone.
Ruby chuckled at the joke but never took her focus off Shadow. “Are you really alright with me borrowing your spare pair of Air Shoes? I can tell they’re important to you, I don’t want to just take anything that Important” She asked.
Shadow let out a deep sigh as Tangle made some kind of joke behind her, Whisper not audibly laughing but still visibly shaking with the signs of holding back laughter. “Neither pairs are the original, I lost those a long time ago. The important part is the design. Maria made them for me to help. She’d be happy to see them helping you.” He responded after a long moment of contemplation.
Ruby breathed in the shoes that Shadow was wearing, a duplicate of which would soon be adorning her as well. “I think I would have liked to meet her.” She responded with a smile.
“I think she would have liked that too.” Shadow responded, looking over the horizon as it was covered by the collection of buildings and roads that made up Central City. “It’s not too late to ask Tails to use mine.” He offered again.
Ruby rolled her eyes and smiled as she held onto the strut of the wing a little bit tighter. “I’ll be fine, it’s only a short run to the apartment. Besides, what would you wear? You can’t just go running around this city barefoot, it’s filthy.”
She really needed the run right about now. The Metal Virus had taken a liking to sticking around over her hands like a gaudy pair of silver gloves. Despite the run she took before leaving, it didn’t get everything. She really was running out of time.
“Thanks for the ride, Tails!” Ruby cheerfully shouted as she stood up, squashing down the shred of fear she got from letting go of the plane.
“Couldn’t wait for the landing? Good luck then!” Tangle jokingly asked before she waved at them.
Shadow scoffed. “It would be in her best interests to avoid a crowded airport anyhow.” He added, looking down to gauge their landing options.
“Good luck.” Whisper added on, although it was hard to hear through the wind.
Ruby waved goodbye to the three of them before she jumped up off the plane, the wind catching her face and cloak and decelerating her as the plane continued on its way.
Shadow leaped off a moment after her, although he was farther ahead thanks to the plane traveling as fast as it did. It worked out though, she still wasn’t entirely sure where she was going, and following Shadow back was probably the best way to go about things.
Ruby grabbed on to the scaffolding of a billboard with Crescent Rose and used it to swing forward. She landed in a roll on the rooftops before she began her semblance powered run, burning off the Metal Virus while a trail of Rose petals fluttered behind her.
She wasn’t too familiar with Central City, having only lived there for a short while, but as she leapt between rooftops behind Shadow slowly she started recognizing the streets she was leaping over. Although from a new perspective.
Shadow came to a stop on top of a familiar building and waited for Ruby to cross the last gap. “Home sweet home.” She joked as she joined him on the roof of the apartment building.
With how hectic the past few days were, it had been a while since they had actually been here. They had left to help deal with Neo Metal and hadn’t been back before now, part of her had actually begun to miss that sterile guest room.
Ruby’s train of thought derailed as the noise from Shadow kicking in the roof access door caused her to jump. “What was that about?” She asked, giving him a strange look.
“It was locked.” He deadpanned as he headed inside and began heading down the stairwell, Ruby joining him after a beat.
As they approached the apartment, Shadow opened the door, revealing a clean untouched apartment. For a brief moment Ruby could almost believe the end of the world wasn’t going on outside.
“Come on.” Shadow instructed, guiding her to his room, a place she actually hadn’t been in before in an attempt to respect his privacy. It wasn’t anything special, the same simple decorative style as the guest room, ironed sheets and a firmly made bed, and a well organized desk. The interesting part however, were the two photos standing up on it.
The first was a picture that was probably taken far more recently, Shadow, Rouge, and Omega posing for the camera against the backdrop of something Ruby recognized as a gun facility. Shadow was, of course, glaring into the camera, however there was a ghost of a smile on his face.
The other was far more interesting. Shadow, however identical he may have seemed to the flesh one right in front of her, was freely smiling into the camera, in a way that made him seem younger. Even if he was still crossing his arms and attempting to glare into the camera.
That, and the young girl and old man behind him. Judging from his resemblance to Mr. Tinker, the rather large mustache made it quite obvious, she guessed this must have been Gerald Robotnik. Which meant that the girl behind Shadow must have been Maria Robotnik.
It was nice to finally be able to put a face to the name she had only heard in brief mentions, especially since the long dead girl’s creation was about to save Ruby’s life.
“Thank you.” Ruby smiled as she turned to face Shadow. “For letting me borrow these.”
Shadow rolled his eyes as he handed her the air shoes to carry as he walked back outside and made his way back up to the roof. “It was logical. You needed them, I had them.”
“Still, thanks.” Ruby reiterated as she followed behind Shadow.
“Damnit…” Shadow muttered as he exited the stairwell. Ruby could feel the animosity dripping from his voice, and as she emerged from the stairwell outside, she could see why.
Eggman’s Face Ship had arrived, and it was currently pouring the Metal Virus into the city. The comparison to Sunset City immediately flashed into her mind. “Shadow?”
“Hang on.” He stated as he began attempting to call someone. No one answered. He tried again, but no one answered. “Damnit!” He uttered, more forcibly this time before continuing. “Tower isn’t answering.”
Ruby winced, that couldn’t have been good. “Then we stick with helping the Restoration, Whisper, Tangle, and Tails should have seen it already and begun working on a plan to evacuate. We need to get over there and help.”
Shadow shook his head. “You can’t. You’re not going to be able to help effectively until you have a way to get your infection under control.” He answered carefully. “Get to Tails, I’ll help with the evacuation.”
It pained Ruby to admit it, but he had a point. Despite her urge to go help directly, for now she couldn’t. “Alright.” She confirmed before she began running over the rooftops toward Tails’ lab.
“Tails?” She called out into the communicator that Amy had given her. “Are you still at the lab?” She asked as she jumped across an entire street, touching down briefly on a street light.
“I am, I’m trying to get this data analyzed as fast as possible. Do you have the air shoes?” His voice came back through, crystal clear.
Ruby nodded, then winced internally as she remembered the call was audio only. “I do. Shadow’s going to help with the evacuation. Am I still heading the right way?”
“Make a slight right and you should see it soon.” Tails responded. “Once you get here, a live sample should help speed things along, after that I’ll adjust the air shoes.”
“Got it.” Ruby replied before she hung up, she’d be talking to him in person soon enough. As she approached the head shaped building she eyed a closed window, which she had to resist the urge to jump through.
Instead, she came to stop next to it, and took the time to open it up before diving in. The streets weren’t littered with zombots, yet, but she could see them starting to gather in the distance. Right now, staying quiet was her best move.
“Good you’re here, I’m going to need a biopsy.” Tails made himself known as he leaned over her with a fairly large needle.
Ruby sighed and offered her still metallic hand over to him, making sure to keep a healthy distance so that she didn’t accidentally brush him. “Let's just get this over with.” She reluctantly agreed from her place on the floor.
“Alright. One, two-” He cut himself off as he jabbed the needle into her early. It sat there for a moment, and when he pulled it away the vial was filled with a mix of metallic grey and red blood.
“Ow…” She complained as she held her hand to her chest. “Was it really necessary to trick me like that?” She complained as she properly stood up, leaving the air shoes on a random table for Tails to grab.
“You would have tensed on three, this way it hurts less.” Tails shrugged as he placed the vial into a slot of a device she couldn’t recognize. Probably something Tails had built custom.
Ruby quietly let the matter go as she held her hand out in front of herself to take another look. Strangely enough, the Metal Virus seemed to have formed itself back over the injury, like the wound never even happened. “So, air shoes?”
Tails nodded as he grabbed the extreme gear off the table and began tinkering with them, immediately going to the nozzles with a screwdriver. “It should only be a few minutes while I expand the nozzles and adjust the output for your relative weight and size. I’ll have to keep the limiter rings attached, otherwise the thrust will be unstable.”
“Aren’t those supposed to limit output?” Ruby asked.
Tails nodded. “They’re essentially a massive capacitor. For someone like Shadow, they’re limiters. Your Chaos Energy is far above baseline, but still nothing compared to his. In your case, the limiters will smooth out any fluctuations and act as a buffer.”
There was a pounding against the glass from where she came in quickly followed by the sound of shattered glass as a zombot destroyed the window, it seemed she hadn’t been as stealthy as she thought she was. “I’ll handle this, you worry about the cure.” Ruby instructed as she beat the zombot back with Crescent Rose.
Tails nodded as he alternated between typing into his computer, and adjusting the air shoes while the computer processed his inputs. “Got it, I’ll yell when I’m done.”
Ruby quietly gauged her aura level as best she could, it wasn’t the highest, maybe half full, but for now it would have to do. It also meant if she wanted to have enough aura left over to run off the infection after, she’d need to save it for emergencies only.
So, with little hesitation, she pulled Crescent Rose back and aimed it directly at the unfortunate zombot before firing a shot directly at him. Thankfully, it didn’t completely destroy him, only knocking him back, which allowed Ruby to jump out the window and slide him away with her scythe, not unlike a hockey puck.
She was never going to let anyone know that she had taken a few blades of grass off Tails’ lawn along with him. Crescent Rose did not deserve to be treated like a gardening tool.
Unfortunately, that’s where any hint of good news ended. Already a crowd of Zombots was gathering around her, accompanied by a pair of zombot chao that were diving toward the fusebox.
Jumping up, Ruby grabbed hold of them and tossed them away before they could do anything. It did manage to distract them from interrupting Tails, but it also meant they were now focused on her instead. Every few moments they crashed down on her, creating a new point for the Metal Virus to spread from. “Tails!?!” She yelled back into the house.
“Almost there! Just a little longer!” He yelled back, barely holding back his distress.
Ruby took a deep breath, just a little longer. Grabbing onto both of the zombot chao, she tossed them away as far as she could, leaving her hands free to use Crescent Rose to begin firing rapidly into the approaching crowd.
Every shot that connected knocked a zombot onto their back, but thankfully left no other visible mark. Unfortunately, they kept getting back up and rejoining the crowd that was slowly marching toward her.
There was a crash from behind her as Tails marched out of his house in a mech. With a wave of missiles the crowd around her was blasted away. Once the crowd was thinned he turned to face her and paled. “Get these on, now.” He instructed, tossing the air shoes at her feet. “We’re evacuating at the docks.” He added before he refocused on beating the zombots back.
Ruby spared no time in switching out her shoes as fast as possible, her skin was more metal than skin at this point and she could feel the Metal Virus starting to crawl over her face. Unzipping the sides of her boots, she quickly swapped over to the shoes, the limiter rings once again creating that odd tingling sensation in her ankles as they settled in place.
She didn’t have any more time to wait, without even pausing to say thanks she begun running down the street, dodging another massive crowd of zombots and heading out of the city where she could focus on getting up to speed without distraction as she went the long way around.
The air shoes remained stubbornly inactive though as she began racing through the clean open fields outside Central City as fast as possible. Ruby did her best to mentally grasp the strange feeling the limiter rings were giving off and pushed it downwards, out through the soles of her feet.
Air immediately began jetting out of the nozzles at high speed, creating an almost frictionless cushion. Immediately Ruby started slipping, almost like she was trying to run on ice, as her arms and legs flailed wildly in an attempt to get her balance back.
When she did though, she was successfully left skating. For a given definition of skating though. It was more like she was standing still slightly crouched while she glided over the ground at supersonic speeds.
It was working though, the air rushed against her skin, burning the Metal Virus away bit by bit as she glided along, not even tapping into her semblance.
This was just the air shoes maintaining her velocity she realized. She shifted her weight onto her right leg while she tried to push back with her left, unfortunately however, she did not have the skill for skating like Shadow did.
A jet of air rocketed out of both shoes, sending her into the air for a second, no higher than if she just jumped, but it knocked her off her rhythm. She clumsily landed back into a standard Semblance fueled run to get back up to speed, and then back to gliding along the grass.
Ruby took a deep breath as she lowered her arms back down to her side, relaxing her posture a little. Until she got a handle on it, no skating. The memories of all the times she tripped and fell through a dozen feet of dirt when she first got her semblance was reason enough not to try anything too new.
That didn’t mean the shoes were useless though, it was far easier to maintain speed with them, and while she was extremely green when it came to skating, she still had a few tricks up her sleeve. She had burned off most of the virus simply coasting along, leaving nothing visible. It hadn’t been like this since she first got infected.
It seemed like she had managed it just in time, in the distance she could see a Restoration ship starting to approach. She cut the power to her shoes and turned to run back into the city, running along the street. In the distance she spotted Whisper lifted up by her wispon carrying Tangle, with a small crowd of zombots beneath them.
With a smirk, Ruby got an idea. Putting all her weight on one foot, she pushed power through the shoe allowing her to glide frictionlessly down the street in a loose spin. Taking Crescent Rose, she began intermittently firing it, allowing the recoil to start increasing her angular momentum.
She crashed through the hoard and flung them away as the blunt end of her Scythe repeatedly impacted them, sending them flying while decelerating her.
With the hoard sufficiently cleared, she slammed her foot down. The added friction began bleeding off her momentum, and the moment she had slowed significantly enough, she stopped in place and landed back on her feet.
From another street, Tails barreled down the street before pressing on the brakes and turned his kart back into a mech. “Are they working out for you?” He asked as he launched a missile toward a stray zombot.
Ruby nodded as she folded back the blade of Crescent Rose and began sniping at the approaching zombots. “They’re perfect, I just have to get used to them.” She added.
“I don’t know, you seemed pretty used to them a moment ago.” Tangle bantered as Whisper took them down for a landing.
“I’ve done that move in the air before, I just decided to do it on the ground instead.” Ruby retorted in an attempt to play down the complement as she and Whisper took the opportunity to join her in firing at the zombots. “Has anyone seen Shadow?”
“He delivered a group of survivors then skated back into the city.” Whisper answered.
“He’ll show up.” Tails added. “The three of you get to the ship, protect the survivors. I’ll cover you.” He commanded.
Ruby hesitated, but after a beat joined Tangle and Whisper in running toward the shuttle. Arriving first, she looped Crescent Rose around the torso of any Zombot in the vicinity and sent them flying away.
The moment it landed the shuttle was swarmed by a mob of eager civilians, for good reason. While Whisper focused on beating back any zombots that approached, Tangle focused on getting everyone on board in a way that wouldn’t leave a portion of the people they were supposed to be saving trampled.
“Everyone on board! Hustle! Hustle Hustle! ” Tangle shouted as she directed the calmer civilians fast-walking on board.
“That should be all of them.” Ruby stated as she ran up next to Tangle and Whisper she did one last check for any straggling people or zombots. In the distance there was another explosion from Tails as he continued fighting back the hoard.
A rumble from beneath them almost knocked her off her feet as the shuttle slowly began rising, although thankfully the ramp they were standing on hadn’t started closing, yet.
There was a crash of zombots exploding upwards as a black and red blur pushed them all all out of the way, Shadow. While tails activated his mech’s self destruct Shadow leapt up with a burst of air, both landing on the ramp as it began to close.
Ruby quickly backed up to give everyone as wide of a berth as possible. “Where were you?” She asked Shadow.
“I was searching for any more survivors.” He stated bluntly. “Any who couldn’t make it to the docks or were missed.” He elaborated, staring at the floor.
“Where there any?” Amy followed up.
“No.” Shadow answered after a long beat.
Ruby grit her teeth and took a deep breath to hold back her tears. Two cities in two days, on level with some of the worst Grimm attacks. But unlike the people killed by Grimm, the zombots still had hope. “What about the cure?” She hopefully asked Tails.
“I did it!” He excitedly answered. “I figured it out and uploaded it to headquarters. Once we get back there I can start working on getting everyone here vaccinated-”
“You can’t Tails.” Amy begrudgingly interrupted. “Headquarters has fallen. Someone hid the fact they were infected and… We’re all that’s left.”
“So, what’s next then? Because there’s no way I’m just giving up.” Tangle replied with a grin on her face causing Whisper to nod in agreement.
Amy took a deep breath before laying out their plan. “First, we’re meeting up with Sonic in Spiral Hill Village, we got a call for help there.”