Chapter Text
“As I stare into the face of horror, I feel the weight of insignificance dragging me down in an endless void of blue and blackened stars. The Indifference, is what this world calls it, a being which shouldn’t exist, and yet… it does. The stink of dust, it’s giant grin, it’s eyeless face, the missing index finger it claims was stolen. I can’t do anything against it, I’m not Sonic, I’m not even Knuckles or Amy, I’m just… me, a two tailed fox, wearing the body of a dead person to compensate and golden weaponry made by a race of oligarchs. I wish I could say I can beat this thing, but if the Tenno can’t, what makes me think I do?”
“Things were simpler when I only had to worry about fighting Eggman every week, when there was adventure instead of war, when I could drown my worries by flying instead of finding ways to fix the broken world I was thrown into. Sonic… I failed you, I promised to be your equal and I failed miserably, and now I’m lost, fighting a war I cannot comprehend fixing problems that seem to have no end”
“I hope you can forgive me… for dragging you three into this”
Eggman was at it again, with a new thingamajig to try and conquer the world. As Sonic, Amy and Knuckles ran to stop him like always, Tails lagged behind, slightly enough so that no one notices his low mood. As far as he could remember, he liked to invent, it wasn’t anything serious, it was just a hobby of his, hell, more than once he used them to fight Eggman. But as time passed and he failed and failed to get anything to work against him, he decided to drop it; this insecurity, however, drained any excitement for inventing at all, it was a fruitless endeavor, no one was going to support his stuff and he may as well be laughed at for his second tail again.
With all that free time, he tried getting stronger as he promised in the Starfall Islands. At first, he liked it, he thought that maybe he was burnt out and just needed a break from his hobby, the thought that he invented the spin dash was enough to motivate him. Then his mind started comparing him to others, everyone else around him was stronger and faster, it stopped mattering whether he put in the work or not, when others were more gifted than him, it wasn’t a pride thing, but rather a reminder that compared to his friends, he was useless.
As everyone approached Eggman’s base and got rid of the Badniks there, Tails limited himself to checking cameras in a nearby computer to find where Eggman was, the only advantage of raiding Eggman’s bases were the ridiculous amount of computers found within meters to each other. The footage showed the mad doctor next to a triangular… portal? Sage was next to him to help code whatever they were working on, just in time for Sonic, Amy and Knuckles to storm the room.
“‘Sup Egghead!” Sonic said while pointing at him.
“Damn it! It’s not ready yet, you blue rat!” Eggman growled. “Sage, protect me, I need to work on the finishing touches”
“Yes, father” With those words, a protective bubble appeared to surround Eggman’s work station while Badniks appeared from the robot dispensers all around the circular room, surrounding the trio.
“Looks like we got company again, ready?”
“Aye aye, Sonic!” Amy exclaimed while pulling out her hammer and doing a quick general salute.
“These fists are hungry for more, bring it on!” Knuckles said as he clashed both his namesakes.
The three started destroying the Badniks as they came, Sonic bounced in a ball from one enemy to the next, Amy batted them like they were nothing, and Knuckles either punched them to destroy them together like falling dominoes or threw them to Sonic or Amy.
“Father?” Sage asked. “What is the purpose of this machine?”
“Isn’t it obvious? It will help me, us, to conquer the world” Eggman said with his eyes on the screen.
“But what is the specific purpose for it? Even I don’t have access to it’s information”
“Well… I had a dream last night, I couldn’t see anything, all I could hear was whispers. Whatever those were I suddenly had the idea to build this machine, a pocket dimension to throw these filthy rats into so that they stop bothering me”
“But what did the voice said? In your dream?”
“It told me that I could have everything I wanted with this, ha! Even my hidden genius knows what I want!”
While the battle continued, only Tails was absent, trying to find what was Eggman’s scheme this time.
“Wall of… Lohk? Is the H a typo? And why is it called a wall?” Tails muttered. That was the only recent file of today, next to it was an audio log to explain it.
“Password locked? That’s weird, why would he protect this specifically? All other files are without it, and he always let me ‘admire his work’ by leaving stuff unprotected. Let me check the file”
The file showed the blueprints for this so called Wall of Lohk, the previously seen triangular shape, calculations, formulas and next to it was a human heart shaped mechanism of undescribed use, perhaps an engine? But why is it heart shaped?
‘This tell me nothing, I need to access the audio’ he thought. Tails pulled his Miles Electric, a device with buttons on both sides and a small screen in the middle, and plugged it to Eggman’s computer.
After the team finished with the Badniks, only Eggman was left.
“On your call, Ames” Sonic exclaimed. Him and Knuckles curled up into balls while Amy whacked both in the direction of Sage’s pity shield, upon destruction, Eggman fell off the platform he was standing.
“Sage! Redirect start sequence to the portable switch!” He screamed while trying to get up.
“Welp” Sonic scratched his quills. “Another victory for Team Sonic, I invite the chilidogs this time” He then gave a thumbs up to both his partners, and they responded the same.
“This changes nothing… hedgehog… You wanna know the purpose of this? I may have failed to control gods before, but THIS TIME, I DID IT! You’ll experience the crushing weight of the Void while you pests are consumed by it! Sage, the heart!”
Sage raised her arm towards the ceiling, and as the ceiling door opened to reveal a heart shaped mechanism, the one from the entrance slowly closed.
“If you three were smarter, you’d jump into the Void willingly while I take over the world!” Eggman pulled a small device from his pocket and pushed the button on top, with only 3 “beats” from that heart, the portal opened to reveal an endless blue space with black stars, and what followed it were dismembered arms with a cube end crawling out of the ground towards Sonic, Amy and Knuckles.
“What the hell?!” Amy screamed.
“Really doc? Arms?” Sonic asked in a baffled tone. Eggman came back to the platform he fell from, and his smile got uncomfortably longer.
Meanwhile, Tails managed to crack the password and open the audio file.
“When I woke up this morning, I realized that my plans of world domination can only be impeded by one single thing: My age. I will die eventually and there will be no one left to carry my will. This dream showed me not just my answer on how to deal with Sonic, but also how to deal with age: Kuva, as it calls it, it can keep me alive for long AND transfer myself into a new body when this one stops working, it’s brilliant! I’ll start working on the Wall of Lohk immediately —which I believe I have a better name for it when I think of one— and lure Sonic and his friends into it, they’ll be consumed, I gather Kuva, it’s win win for me! Hahahaha!”
Tails was in shock, immortality? This didn’t sound anything like Eggman’s usual scheme, in fact, none of it was; the portal’s name, the '“heart”, this audio, everything.
‘I gotta warn them, now!’ before he could grab his device, a lot of sparks jumped from it as well as the computer, which was now rapidly glitching and struggling to stay on. Frustrated, Tails ran towards his friends, spinning his namesakes as fast as he could.
The entire base was in a state of chaos, lights flickering, doors shutting in and out and Badniks that could barely move well.
“Sonic!” Tails screamed with the earpiece in his hand. “This thing, I know what Eggman wants! He wants to-!” only static came out of the device, whatever was going on was messing with the signal and everything in Eggman base. Inside the zero point, however, it wasn’t much better.
“F-f-f-ather! Turn this o-o-off now!” Sage was struggling to keep herself turned on, despite working on a separate power grid inside the building, the Wall of Lohk was interfering even with her.
“Not yet sweetie!” Eggman said in a playful tone. “They haven’t seen the worst yet”.
After a long while of destroying the dusty arms, a small mushroom head attached to a blue weavey beam came out of the floor, and the arms that previously attacked the trio now aligned their cubical ends to it, forming into an imitation of a centipede. Sonic attacked the “legs” while Amy slammed the remaining arms that didn’t form into the centipede for more space, Knuckles instead tried to reach the mushroom top and rip it out, which the creature noticed, causing it to slam the floor and summon smaller hands while sending him flying to the steel door.
“Whoa!” Both hedgehogs screamed in unison after noticing the hands and dodging away.
“This is taking too long!” Amy groaned. “Knuckles, aim for the… thing in the roof, I think it’s what’s powering the portal!”. He nodded while upside down, he got up, scaled the walls and glided towards the heart, but before he did anything, Eggman shot an energy beam next to one of his hands.
“Don’t you dare touch that, there’s no Master Emerald inside!”
“What’s powering this monstrosity then?”
“Nothing you’ll have to worry about, now get down you disgrace of a guardian!” in that moment, all Knuckles could see was red.
“What did you ca-” after he jumped from the heart, Eggman shot him in the chest and he fell limp to the cold ground, enough to immobilize him but not enough to kill him.
“Knuckles!” both screamed, but with enough on their platter, there' wasn’t much to do.
Sonic and Amy, on the other hand, had made no progress with the creature of limbs, which instead came back with new sets of lasers and explosions to test the former trio now duo.
“I have an idea, Ames, but I need your quills for that”
“What?” she noticed her now tense quills, now excited for testing this new move. “I see” Amy put her hammer away, removed her hairband, curled into a ball and revved a spin dash, allowing Sonic to run at hiperspeeds and kick the now pink ball into the walls and bounce towards the creature, back to the walls and back at it, all in quick succession. The blue hedgehog kept it entertained with occasional hits so that it didn’t aim at Amy, while he recovered Knuckles’ unconscious body and left it where he couldn’t be damaged. The entity straightened itself, separated into the air and spinned into a top, causing the pink hedgehog to miss and lose momentum and for the centipede to fire it’s beam at the floor, causing multiple explosions from it which Amy wasn’t lucky enough to react to.
“Am-” when the creature stopped it’s attack, it formed again and grabbed Sonic with it’s many limbs, one pair of them grabbing his neck and squeezing any air out of him, while Eggman laughed harder than he ever did, to Sage’s horror.
Tails has managed to reach the door separating the Wall of Lohk from himself, but by that time, it was too late, the systems were so damaged that hacking the door was out of the question, and the only emergency unlock was inside.
‘No no no no NO!’ he tried spin dashing the door but his lack of quills prevented doing anything against solid steel, he tried opening it with his arms but it was useless to attempt, he tried a nearby computer but it was just as fried as everything, all he could do was hear his friends be torn apart by something alien, he tried fighting tears but even that was a fluke.
Inside, Sage was trying to deactivate the wall the best she could with little power she had, to Eggman’s dismissal.
“What do you think you’re doing?!” he waved a hand in front of her, which closed the safety shutdown sequence.
“You-o-o-ou had your f-f-f-un, please, do not l-” finally, Sage disappeared, the last of her strength crushed.
“Sage?” in that time, his bravado fell apart, and concern flooded his mind and face.
“SAGE?!” as much as he tried, even the computer he used to turn on the wall didn’t work.
“I won’t lose you, screw all this” Eggman went down to destroy the cables connecting the wall, but before he could act, a deep growling voice was heard, and the arms that previously attacked Sonic and his friends now snatched Eggman through the portal. “NO, YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO OBEY ME, YOU- NOOOOOOOO” he tried crawling away but the arms managed to pull him to the endless Void.
Tails continued his attempts of opening the door, and each didn’t make a dent on it, it got to the point of trying to stab it with a screwdriver. When he heard Eggman’s screams, the fox heard something too, a laugh, not Eggman’s but… his.
“Who’s there?!” he jumped, holding the screwdriver in hand as a weapon towards the darkness.
“Is that your way of greeting someone you know? I guess you hate yourself that much… don’t you, Miles?” The one standing in front of the fox was himself, illuminated by the emergency lights, same everything, except for his empty space patterned sclera and the giant unnerving smile.
“W-w-what are you?” Tails shook, still holding the screwdriver against the impostor next to him.
“I’m the one who commands the Void, the very thing that will make sure this world is nothing but dust” Tails soaked in on those words, and he instead stabbed the door with the screwdriver, desperate to get inside.
“Your friends are struggling big time in there, but don’t worry, the Murmur will make sure their deaths are quick and painless, hopefully”
“Or?” Tails asked, his tears no longer fighting to not fall.
“Or… we make a deal. I will shut down the Wall of Lohk, saving your friends and world, but you will no longer return to this world, AND YOU’LL BELONG TO ME. Better yet, we’ll shake it, what are friends for after all?” The fake Tails extended his right hand, which distorted into a mix of gray and blue, it startled him.
Tails didn’t like this deal, but his desperation was growing, his options null, and his friends needed help. After the screwdriver broke, he fell into his knees and cried, harder than he ever has in years before he met Sonic, while it walked next to him to taunt the little fox more, never losing it’s smile for even a second.
“Tick, tick, tick, time’s running out, Miles, what will it be? You can be the hero you can only dream of being”
He slowly got up, cleaned his tears, and while his hand was shaking, he grabbed his other’s hand. His vision was replaced by a hall of his millions of other selves, all falling like dominoes until he remained.
When he and his clone disappeared, the portal shut down, the Murmur became dust, and everything went to black. Everything in the base tried rebooting now that the wall wasn’t leeching power away.
Sonic, Amy and Knuckles woke up, completely destroyed by their fight and confused as to what happened.
“Rebooting…” Sage reappeared on her spot right before her forced shutdown, her first instinct was to close the wall, until realizing it closed by itself. However…
“Father?” she zoomed everywhere in the room trying to find Eggman, but when she couldn’t, she curled on her knees and sobbed. “Where are you…”
While Sonic wanted to comfort her, even he didn’t know where Eggman went, in fact, all three remembered something.
“Tails!” The three jerked and went straight to the door, trying to open it like zombies. While Sage may know where the unlock was, in her state it was better to avoid asking.
After multiple attempts of forcing the door open, Knuckles had an idea, which Sonic caught up fast with.
“Buzzsaw?” He asked with a hand on his chin.
“Buzzsaw” Sonic replied while shrinking his shoulders.
At first, Amy didn’t know what they meant until Sonic spin dashed in the direction of the door, which made her connect the dots and follow Sonic’s action. Knuckles grabbed both balled up hedgehogs and cut the thick metal with both in each hand, despite the thick metal and Amy’s slightly weaker quills, the three were able to dig through the door. As they uncurled, Sonic went to search for Tails throughout the base, Amy however, didn’t like seeing Sage be sad, she crawled back through the door’s hole and towards the distressed hologram kid. Knuckles went towards the heart to verify if it was actually powered by a Chaos Emerald.
“Hey” she softly spoke to her. “We’ll find him, I’m sure of it” Amy pulled Sage for a hug, giving her an opportunity to vent and cry as much as she needed, despite their start as enemies, even enemies needed comfort, at least that’s what she learned from Gamma.
“No emerald inside” Knuckles stated, jumping out of the heart and landing on the floor. “All I found were these… minerals? I think this is what powered the machine” he extended the mineral towards Amy and Sage, a small crystalline rock with a faint rainbow effect inside, while the hedgehog didn’t think of it any deeper, Sage looked at it with wide eyes and back at the portal, but when she did, she grabbed her head in pain, the reds of her body flashed in yellow.
“SAGE!” Amy held her closer as if that could calm the pain. When it did, the kid gave a straight answer.
“That’s… Xenorhast, a mineral infused with the faint power of the Void…”
Sonic searched everywhere he could, inside, outside, the roof, anywhere. Absolute nothing, no sign of his lil’ bro or Eggman even, all he could find was his fried Miles Electric plugged into one of the computers, Sonic gripped it close to his heart and shed a tear for his missing family. Before he went back to the door to give the inevitable bad news, he stopped himself, took a deep breath, and cleaned any remaining tears, he got inside.
“Guys…” He muttered, all eyes on him. “Tails is missing”.
The next couple days were… slow, so slow that it was almost unnerving. Entire towns were covered in posters about Tails’ disappearance, you could almost never escape them. Amy coordinated efforts with the Restoration but even they did not know where to look and all she could do was answer calls while Sonic scouted every lab Tails had around the world.
“Wait, a reward? We don’t have a reward but if you have anything we-” the person hung out. “Well, fuck you too, moron”. She threw her phone at the table of the break room.
“Unbelievable” Knuckles barked with grapes on his mouth, “They expect a reward for doing the right thing? Are they bounty hunters or what?”
“YOU could try doing something too!”
“I asked Tikal about whereabouts, she doesn’t know either” Defeated, Amy threw herself towards the chair in front of Knuckles and put her hands on her forehead, eyeing the gem they took from the mechanical heart.
“Something smells fishy here…” Knuckles raised an eyebrow at her sentence.
“Like what” he said. Amy strengthened herself.
“Tails and Eggman disappeared at the same time, we almost died fighting hands, don’t you think it’s another ‘god of the week’ we have to deal with?”
“Now that you mention it, Sage had a migraine before answering what this rock was, did she forcefully swallow information like she has when Eggman plugged her to Cyberspace? She knew more than she let out about The End, and I’ve seen her plead to Eggman to shut down whatever it was he opened”
“Did she have a hunch or did she truly know?”
“Amy, you’re asking more than I know, okay?”
“I’m just asking a question!”
“Well, maybe don’t ask something as convoluted!”
“Says the guy swallowing an entire grape!”
“Hey! Don’t insult me over my eating habits, I’ve seen you eat ice cream in less time than the average hedgehog!”
The petty discussion got more and more heated until Sonic dashed into the break room.
“Am I… interrupting something?” He asked in confusion, both quilled creatures left the table and went to Sonic.
“Did you find anything?” Amy asked with her hands in a please position.
“No… all of them are empty” Sonic responded in an empty tone with his head looking down.
“Have you checked on West Side Island?” Knuckles asked.
“That’s the first place I checked, and all I found is a rusted T-Pup, he hasn’t used that house in years…” Amy and Knuckles dropped their heads and went back to lament themselves in the table, with Sonic following suit.
Silence dawned over the break room, no leads, no clues, no nothing, hopelessness consumed the trio as more calls were answered asking for any financial compensation for the most cookie cutter clues, thinking that Sonic’s sidekick was worth more than the million ring bounty G.U.N put on him years ago.
“Commander Rose” Lanolin arrived with the Restoration’s cellphone in hand. “We have a call specifically asking for you three”.
“Lanolin I told you not to call me that…” she whispered. Amy took the phone, left it on the table and put it on speaker.
“If it’s another call for a reward, we’re not doing those” Sonic specified.
“Sonic the Hedgehog” Sage replied. “Report for the coordinates I’m sending you now, bring your friends and the Xenorhast, I think I found out where Miles and father are”.
In the blink of an eye, the friend trio ran from their seats at speeds the average eye can only identify their fur color, leaving a very confused Lanolin behind.
After an hour of running faster than they ever have, the trio reached the Eggman base they raided last time, despite so many days spent, barely any clean up was done, not with the Badnik’s AI messed up beyond repair and Orbot and Cubot using Eggman’s disappearance as an excuse to skip work.
At the end, they reached Sage, trying to code an opening to the portal and with an Eggmobile in the center of the room, ready in the direction of the portal.
“Okay, so where are they?” Knuckles crossed his arms.
“There” Sage pointed to the portal. “I think I found out what father tried to do and why he wanted to stop at nothing to keep this device functional”
“Did it have to do with your headaches?” Amy asked.
“Yes… When the portal opened, I accidentally downloaded a Vitruvian with a lot of information about the Void, and based on recovered data from the EggNet, I found out more about his intentions with it”
Sage began explaining Eggman’s plan to harvest Kuva from the Void and use it on himself to become immortal, she also included any proper noun related to anything they encountered, the Wall of Lohk, the Murmur and the Fragmented that almost killed the trio. Of course, no one felt like it made sense for Eggman.
“Become immortal?” Amy put both hands on her mouth. “That’s horrible!”
“What’s good about it though? It’s so boring” Sonic said while he placed both wrists on their respective hips.
“My kind paid their price in their lust for power, never ends well” Knuckles looked down, almost disappointed. Sage nodded.
“Beyond this endless sea of blue, lies a universe different to our own, which this entity that attacked you coexists with. The people there call it The Indifference, and used my father as a way to consume our world and turn it into nothing”
“I guess that makes sense” Sonic put his index and thumb on his chin. “But why does it want Tails and Eggman?”
“This is something I want to discover as well… for now, I suggest we enter the Void and investigate” Sage gestured towards the Eggmobile, Sonic and Amy got up while Knuckles climbed towards the heart to place the Xenorhast again, only then he got to the round vehicle.
“Scared?” Sonic whispered to Amy, who noticed her rubbing her upper arms.
“Uh?” She blushed. “No, just… nervous, we’re about to enter a freaky dimension where we know nothing about”.
“Well, in that case, let’s take it as another adventure” He smirked. “Kinda wish you were there when me and Tails stumbled into Blaze’s dimension”
“You went to her dimension and never told me?!” Amy faked a baffled tone and lightly tapped his shoulder, never losing her smile. “Okay, if we survive, you owe me a visit”
“Consider it done!” They both shook hands while Knuckles made kissing sounds next to him, to his distaste and Amy’s amusement.
Before Sage could open the portal, she transferred herself to a portable device inside the Egg Mobile to avoid more power surges. After the heart beat 3 times, the Wall of Lohk opened once more, unlike last time, the Void was… tamer, no Murmur to worry about.
“Remember: I cannot close this portal if I’m not in range and I cannot stay without being shut down, we have to be fast or the Murmur will know the gate to our world is open. And… please keep your minds blank, the Void can turn even the tiniest thoughts into nightmares.” Sonic, Amy and Knuckles nodded to each other and back to Sage, with Sonic in control, they ventured into the Void.
The last thing Tails remembered was the unnerving smile of his doppelganger, a being which claimed would save his friends if he sacrificed himself. He thought that this meant death, he thought this meant being part of this entity, but genius as he was, he couldn’t figure out why did it target him and simply let him go.
Tails was woken up by the found of footsteps, and found himself in what seemed to be a jungle, trees impossibly tall that all ended in pikes, discarded machinery and metal everywhere, and sometimes could be seen a very peculiar logo. He could not see anything at night, however, he did see 3 human men approaching him, all wearing a sort of military uniform complete with a mess of green metal in the upper body that gave them a round shape and a mask projecting orange eyes.
“Hey” Tails stood up. “I’m lost, can you please tell me where I’m-”
“Stop” the three men were aiming at him, and the one in the middle got close to examine him.
“Strange creature… looks like Kubrow” immediately, the man grabbed Tails from the lower part of his neck. “Queens pay well for creature”
“No! let me go!” Tails tried shaking the best he could to free himself, but to no avail.
“Hahahaha, Kubrow funny!” One of the soldiers pointed out, laughing at his pitiful resistance.
“I SAID LET ME GO!” without warning from any side, Tails shot a blue beam from his right hand, incinerating his kidnapper’s face and making the fox fall on his butt, he waved his hand after seeing the hole the beam left on his glove, and fear over what just happened. Confusion hit the remaining two men, until they realized what this meant.
“TENNO SKOOM!” without hesitation, the men fired at Tails, leaving him no choice but to run. Unfortunately for him, the jungle was difficult to traverse due to it’s dense flora and machinery and it seemed like these men knew it much better.
When he tried to pick up flight, one of his tails was hit in the barrage of bullets and fell on his face, he had the advantage but not for long, his namesakes were the only thing allowing him to surpass them, his bullies were approaching fast and in bigger numbers than before. It was in moments like these he wished to have Sonic’s legs.
Tails tripped with something inside the foliage while running, a humanoid figure, she was covered in steel from head to toe with a lot of bird motifs attached to her, the upper part of her head was in the shape of a triangle hat with one feather on each side of the back head, her backside included a bird tail accessory and her feet followed that motif as well. The fox took a slight look at her while standing up, he felt as if he somehow could control her in a way. He raised his hand towards her, walked slowly and, in an instant, he vanished in a whirlpool effect.
This figure stood up from her long rest, and saw the bullies that were chasing the poor fox a while ago, they didn’t wait any explanation and started shooting. The humanoid raised her hands and formed a torrent of wind around her, making any bullets caught inside it useless as they twirled around and fell to the ground after ending, the men continued shooting and some switched their weapons for machetes, but if wind wasn’t the issue, her superior strength was. She twirled both arms and launched them forward as if she wanted to push someone, causing the enemies to be sent flying; more and more people joined to try and take her down, but these attempts were thwarted as she summoned a tornado with a stomp from her foot, causing the enemies to fly in different directions away from her.
With the battle done, she looked at her hands in confusion, not knowing if she knew these things before or someone was guiding her, what she was or why. She grabbed her head in pain, and out of nowhere Tails reconstructed himself after falling from inside her, causing the humanoid to fall on her knees and the fox to fall on his face.
Tails touched his body, face, and looked to see if everything was in order.
‘What the hell?!’ he thought. Just about a moment he was that humanoid woman, sending people flying with air currents, and now he was himself again. He felt the sensation that he could control the woman in steel before, and he has, but since when? This train of thought was interrupted when he saw a small triangular shuttle with round edges approach, a compartment below it opened to reveal yet another one of those things upside down like the one he piloted, it jumped from there, did a frontal flip, and landed on the ground with grace.
“What are you?” he asked as he saw approach this mysterious person. Just like the woman Tails controlled, this too was another humanoid covered in steel, she was mostly white, had a semi halo with three spines of it’s sides and two wrist devices of unknown purpose on the outer arms; the most eye catching thing of it was the ridiculous amount of gold present in it’s design wherever it could be seen.
“I could say the same about you” she replied, the kiddy voice it had didn’t match with it’s tough exterior. She saw the humanoid on it’s knees and back to Tails again, and after taking a step back, a human child appeared in front of him in a whirlpool effect. Her skin was brown, she wore a black space suit and her hair was fixed in dreadlocks, complete with golden bands in the middle of each. She knelled in front of the fox.
“Is that your Warframe?” she questioned, no expression could be seen on her face. Tails didn’t answer, not knowing whether to say yes or no. “I’ll get you out of here in a moment, don’t be seen by the Grineer”, she levitated from the ground and vanished into her ‘Warframe’, passing next to the fox and deeper into the forest.
“Wait!” Tails tried to follow suit before remembering his injured tail, he attempted doing what he did last time, but without results he just went running after the girl, his Warframe dragged like a ragdoll while he ran and ‘crashed’ with him, making him take control once again. ‘Seriously?’.
The girl, meanwhile, ran towards the Grineer and pulled her plasma claws out of her gold ones, she slashed multiple foes with sheer brutality and made the rest fall back. Now repositioned, they fired at her but the claws deflected every bullet near her with pin point precision. As she approached, she leaped upwards and blasted the ground with her open palm near the enemy forces. Once making sure everyone was down, she continued forward.
Tails followed behind, and all he could see was the amounts of corpses torn apart by this invader, he had to stop for a second as to not faint, slashed, torn apart, their similar faces now extinguished of life. In all his life he’s only ever fought robots, never organic beings, so to see a lot of death… never felt right with him. This trail of slaughtered corpses continued throughout the Grineer base, he figured it was best to fight his disgust than to lose her, the latter meaning he’d never get any answers.
He finally found her near a circular platform, with the shuttle from before standing vertically and opening a humanoid shaped casket.
“Get inside” she gestured with her head. “We have a lot to talk about”
“Likewise” Tails positioned himself backwards and the casket rotated to the white interior of the ship, his partner followed. With everyone on board, the landing craft straitened shot away from the Grineer base and into space.
The fox exited his Warframe and only stared blankly into the large window on front, no matter where he was going, it might be better than where he woke up. Or at least he hoped.
“Hey!” he gestured to his partner crouched on the navigation pad. “Can you tell me where were we just a-” His eyes fixated on a very particular detail, the Earth’s moon. Two giant golden rings surrounded the moon alongside various towers that kept them in place, like the moon from his world, this too was shattered, not in the sense that a giant laser destroyed it, but in the sense that it felt crushed. As if that wasn’t enough, he also saw a destroyed space station near the landing craft’s path, clawed in gold and white, who his partner called an Orokin Tower. Before, he suspected he was in another universe, now it was confirmed.
He was lost, scared, and now with powers that escaped his judgment.