Chapter Text
Starline really wants to believe the best of Dr Eggman, and he tries. Even after Floral Forest village, when it became all too apparent that the Doctor’s control over the infected had grown so thin as to be nonexistent, Starline wanted to believe. But he’s not stupid; proposing another plan isn’t doubting Dr Eggman, it’s common sense. It’s a simple courtesy. Precaution. He just wants to help.
Starline’s sure there must be a specific frequency that the infected will listen to. He’ll suggest his hypothesis to Dr Eggman, and together, they can run tests to find out which one – and eventually, take control of the metal virus again.
They still have everything in hand. Together, they can fix this.
“Doctor,” Starline says, coming into Dr Eggman’s throne room aboard the face-ship, data-pad with his suggestions outlined in hand. “I have another suggestion for how to retake control of the infected, if I may-”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” says Dr Eggman breezily, and Starline nearly grimaces at the instinctive irritation at his words. No, he must keep his composure. He will convince the Doctor to see reason, to understand the need for a way to retake control-
“I already took care of it.”
Starline blinks. “You… did?” Dr Eggman actually realized his error? “I mean, of course you did!” Starline’s heart skips a beat. He never should’ve doubted his idol… but no, let’s not be too hasty here, no… “May I ask how?”
Dr Eggman lounges back in his throne – and all the frustration of the last few days aside, he still looks so incredible like that, so confident, assured of his own power and genius, smirking down at Starline. Starline finds himself waiting with bated breath again, as if nothing’s happened and he still believes with all his heart in Dr Eggman’s superiority.
“Go on,” says Dr Eggman to the air and waves his hand imperiously. “Introduce yourself, won’t you?”
The lights dim, then flash blue. From the speakers comes a voice Starline has never heard before, young and with a bit of static. “Hello Dr Starline,” it says. “Your hypothesis about frequencies won’t be needed. My name is Sage and I have control of all the infected.”
Dr Eggman waves a hand as if to say; see?
Starline fights the urge to turn off his data-pad. Clearly, this ‘Sage’ will be able to see what he has pulled up on it even if he did.
“Hello,” says Starline cautiously. “You are… a new creation of Dr Eggman?”
“I am an AI created to control the EggNet,” says Sage. “Dr Eggman deemed this to be the ideal time to activate me.”
“Exactly!” Dr Eggman exclaims, sitting up properly on his throne. “Sage, pull up the maps of the- yes, perfect.” Holographic screens spring up all around Dr Eggman. Does she control the ship? “The zombots are already coalescing into a perfect army. With this many pawns at my disposal, finding the resistance hide-out and infecting everyone there will be a breeze. And once Sonic has lost everything he holds dear,” Dr Eggman purrs, “Then I will crush him with my endless, unbeatable horde and rule this planet at long last!” Dr Eggman laughs.
Starline isn’t sure what to say. Dr Eggman has summoned another seemingly invincible plan from the aether, didn’t even need Starline’s help after all – well, of course not (though it would’ve been nice to-) – and all that’s left is to see it through.
Well. Starline is here for the show, isn’t he?
“When will we begin?” Starline asks.
“Sage,” says Dr Eggman.
“Right now,” pronounces Sage. On the map, a hundred thousand tiny glowing dots start to fan out, and Starline comes closer to see. With that many infected, they’ll find Restoration HQ in no time. And then… then, it will be just Dr Eggman and Starline alone at the top of the world, and Dr Eggman will rule the world with Starline by his side.
Starline smiles.
The map suddenly divides, one part showing the previous map while another one zooms in on an unremarkable, ruined city. Wait, is that…
“You found their HQ already?” Dr Eggman says, sounding almost surprised. “Attagirl, Sage. Keep up the excellent work.”
Starline turns his face away, suddenly feeling a surge of – resentment? But why, Sage is just a machine. A program.
It doesn’t matter if Dr Eggman compliments it. It doesn’t.
The distress call comes when Sonic is on another run to stave off the virus. He responds and before he can even say anything, Amy’s frantically telling him, “Restoration HQ is under attack! I don’t understand how they found us, the zombots are so coordinated – I don’t think we can hold out much longer- Sonic, please-”
“I’m on my way.”
The sonic boom and gust of wind as he takes off tears up the gravel behind him.
How the hell is this happening? How, how, how could they have been found out – the zombots can hardly think, much less coordinate an attack, and Eggman doesn’t have control of them- or at least he didn’t-
Amy and Tails and Cream and Vanilla are all back at HQ, maybe the Chaotix too, and Silver-
Sonic tears through the countryside with no regard for the land, caring only about speed, pushing himself faster and faster. Straightest shot back to Restoration HQ. A minute feels like a year but finally Sonic bursts into the ruined city and starts skidding to a stop, leaping towards Restoration HQ.
It’s being swarmed, the zombots tearing bricks out of the walls. Mindlessly battering the walls Sonic would’ve said, but no – the back-door’s been torn open and zombots are going through it one by one. Ice drops into Sonic’s stomach. He spin-dashes through, shoving zombots away, trying to get through.
There are more exits to HQ. His friends must be escaping through them, surely.
Inside are more zombots and people just succumbing to the virus, and Sonic knows he can’t do anything for them so he he tries not to listen to the crying and pleading and blasts through, further inside HQ. Are any uninfected people even left inside? Where the hell is Tails, Amy, everyone?
They must’ve gotten out already. They have to be alright-
Sonic throws open the door to the commander’s office and stops dead. Then he jerks into motion again. “No… Amy…”
“Hey Sonic,” she says, and tries to smile at him even as tears run down her cheeks. She’s stood in front of the screen, typing with one hand and the other on her headset. Her fingers gleam with a sick metallic sheen. “It looks like I’m going down with the ship,” she tries to joke, weakly.
Sonic doesn’t want to believe it.
He can’t think of anything to say. His brain’s just running without any goal, any solution, stuck on the way Amy shifts stiffly and tries to smile but it’s all wobbly and the metal is climbing up her neck and soon-
“Cream was infected,” Amy explains. “Vanilla tried to restrain her, but she got me before then… and now they’re both…”
Amy sniffles.
Sonic hesitates – but then again, it’s too late already. He puts a hand on her shoulder. “You did your best,” he says. He doesn’t need to know what happened to know that.
Amy ducks her head. Sonic rubs her shoulder.
“I’m sending instructions to the other Restoration bases, trying to warn them,” Amy explains then, gesturing at the screen with one metallic hand. “Someone else will have to… to step up as commander. I don’t know who… Oh, Sonic.”
Amy turns around to bury her face in Sonic’s shoulder. He starts stroking down her spines.
“So, Cream and Vanilla,” Sonic then says. Trying to force himself forward past the horror. “And what about Tails? Did he…”
“Tails and Silver escaped,” says Amy. She takes a deep breath, visibly pulling herself together as she draws back from Sonic and returns to the screen. Half her face is metal now, the virus creeping into her eyes. “Maybe one of them can take over, or- I’m running out of time.”
She shivers. Sonic recognizes it all too well. The metal virus is cold, freezing until it turns you numb, leaden.
“Is there anything I can do?” Sonic asks.
“Stay alive,” says Amy. “And, Sonic… if I never get to see you again, I…”
“Of course you’ll see me again,” says Sonic earnestly. “Tails will have a cure whipped up in no time.”
Amy keeps smiling at him until the virus snuffs the last spark of awareness from her eyes. She snarls and lunges at Sonic, who grabs her by the wrists and holds her there as she struggles, snapping her teeth at him.
“I’ll find a way to fix this, Amy,” Sonic tells her, swearing. “I will. Just hold on a little longer.”
Then Sonic lets go and steps back, his face falling. With one last glance at Amy, Sonic runs and leaves the ruins of Restoration HQ behind.
In a tower off the coast of the mainland, unaffected by the pandemic raging outside, a couple of badniks are running routine tests using portals to a virtual world. This physical reality is unimportant. Inside these pockets of virtual reality is an ever-expanding labyrinth rotating in the void; a featureless white plain where new badnik models duke it out for eternity; and a suburban little hamlet under siege by badniks.
“The test is over,” Sage announces, and the badniks stop tearing bits out of the houses. “Return to storage.”
The badniks march away in orderly lines, disappearing one by one through the portal. Sage carefully twists the code making up the suburb around her, undoing the damages, returning everything to how it was before the test.
Clean-up finished.
Then Sage looks around, and looks at herself. She does a twirl and watches her dress flare out around her, then she smooths her hands down her front, patting her clothes back in place. She smiles as she looks at her hands, turning them over and flexing them.
She likes this form. She isn’t sure what to do with her legs yet, but that is less important. Her face she has sculpted carefully. There are no other humans apart from the Doctor on this continent, but the Eggman Empire’s satellites intercept broadcasts from the other side of the planet. Sage has watched their sitcoms and newsreels, cartoons and reality-TV carefully in order to create an appearance for herself. She liked the sitcoms best, with the families living together.
She didn’t know she would like them quite so much.
Sage has a house, in a row of identical houses, set aside with a firewall protecting it. Bypassing it she floats inside the house.
Sunlight streams in through the kitchen window, illuminating the table and the counters. Dishes are stacked haphazardly next to the sink – Sage really had to work on recreating authenticity in the mess – and a couple of magazines are on the table, a fruit bowl, some mugs. All that’s missing is people, but Sage didn’t like the simulations she created, so she deleted them. It’s just her in the house now.
“I’m home,” Sage announces, softly.
The kitchen has tiles, the living room orange carpet and matching wallpaper. The bedrooms are all on the second floor, where the walls are blue and the floor hardwood. Sage floats up the stairs and to the room at the end of the corridor. The door with the little paper sign with her name on it glides open with only a prompt from Sage, and this room has an extra layer of protection that the rest of the house has not. To keep it hidden, keep it safe.
It is important for it to stay that way. Sage cannot identify exactly why, but there is no pressing reason to reveal this, either, so secret it will remain.
In her room Sage has a bed, with pillows and stuffed animals; a desk, with notebooks and glittery pens and a lamp shaped like a flower; a bookcase with children’s books and figurines like she’s seen Dr Eggman collect, but Sage has only figures of Dr Eggman, Orbot, Cubot and Metal Sonic.
If Sage is in this room, and makes the door close, then it is almost like on TV. She is just a girl who has gone up to her room, and in the living room downstairs, her family…
Her brothers would be playing video games, except for their oldest brother, who would be in his room sulking and plucking at a guitar while staring at a band poster. And their father…
Sage tried to simulate humans, but they turned out wrong. She tried again and again but couldn’t get them right, so she deleted them all.
They were taking too much time and processing power, anyway. The campaign to destroy Sonic the Hedgehog, his remaining allies in the Restoration, and conquer the rest of the world with the metal virus comes first now, because now, Dr Eggman has use for her. Dr Eggman is depending on her.
Sage won’t let him down.
Sage will make him proud.
They’re in an empty barn, out somewhere far from any cities. The night paints the wheat fields gray, the forest and mountains blue. The scarecrow in the middle of the field is sagging sadly to the side. There’s no one around for at least a mile, Sonic’s checked, Tails has checked.
Tails is curled up on himself in the haystack, namesakes wrapped around him, head pillowed on his arms.
Sonic is sitting watch on an overturned bucket. He keeps nodding off, only to shake himself awake moments later, feeling hunted. The virus is cold and prickly where it climbs up his arms, makes him feel hollow, nauseous.
He should run.
He can’t bring himself to leave.
If he leaves Tails and then a zombot finds him-
Sonic shakes himself awake again, stares dry-eyed out into the night. He’ll stay. Just a moment longer.
“Sir,” says Starline insistently, following Eggman around the new base like an anxious puppy, too nervous or repressed to just spit out whatever he wants to say. “There was something I wanted to discuss with you further…”
They’re in a glass-encased walkway some hundred meters above Eggman’s new imperial city by the coast. Previously and quaintly known as Emerald Lagoon, the area is now being turned by an army of ten thousand zombots into a military seaport without equal! Not one blade of grass will be left for infection to spread through; everything will be concrete, steel and chrome, clean sharp lines and emblazoned with his logo. For now, all that’s finished is Eggman’s fortress, a complex of impenetrable walls, winding corridors, huge testing facilities, high towers, and a courtyard with a launch site. Not to mention the underground facilities…
At any one time, Eggman has a dozen or so base layouts at the back of his mind. But this base in particular is one he’s been waiting to test out for a good long while.
Stood at the glass wall and watching the hundreds of zombots crawling around the construction sites down there stretching all the way down to the water – progress minute by minute, a large-scale simulation enacted in real life – Eggman feels suddenly magnanimous.
He looks at the hand-wringing platypus. “Yes, Starline?”
“Your plan is working brilliantly so far,” Starline says. “Now that we have control of the infected. But if something went wrong… shouldn’t we at least make some sort of vaccine for the metal virus?”
Fretful, fretful Starline. “What could possibly go wrong at this point?” Eggman says; rhetorical question.
“We could be infected by mistake!” exclaims Starline.
“Yes, yes, and my own inventions could blow up in my face, this walkway could crash down at any moment.” Eggman stomps his foot once, making the point. “Butter makes you fat and working in the lab gives you a bad posture and sugar will rot your teeth, but nevertheless, Starline, you don’t see me walking around and worrying about hypotheticals.”
“Sir...”
Leaning in close to Starline – who reflexively leans away for a second before catching himself – Eggman gently pinches Starline’s bill shut. “Sage has full control of every zombot on this continent. The Restoration is down to its last few dregs. Just let my plan run its course.”
Eggman keeps Starline’s mouth shut for just a moment longer, then withdraws.
Starline’s brows knit, but he says nothing.
Eggman grins. “Good boy. Now, I’m going to oversee the construction of the hangar.”
Starline falls into step after him without a word.
Vector, Espio and Silver are trying to evacuate Spiral Hill Village. Meanwhile, Sonic is helping Tails sneak into Central City so they can reach his lab down in Emerald Town. That’s the only one of Tails’ labs stocked enough to be able to synthesize a cure, Tails had said, and well. Nothing else they can do but try to get there, really.
The city, like all other cities around here, is crawling with zombots.
If the mindless horde shuffling around and clawing at anyone that got too close was bad, then this is really something else. It’s- it’s getting pretty hard to keep anyone’s hopes up.
Sonic goes first. He tries to be stealthy, obviously, but if anyone spots him he knows very well what to do. He’ll draw attention, start a huge brawl, take on every zombot that comes at him. Anything to keep Tails from being noticed.
Anything.
They’ve been steadily losing people since HQ fell.
What survivors have been making it on their own, living isolated in the countryside or on the road or having hunkered down somewhere only after the metal virus was released, are disappearing. They barely had contact with half of them to begin with, and now they have basically none. At this rate it won’t be long until the remnants of the Restoration are all that’s left.
Sonic can feel it, too. How something in his chest has started to feel tight, like it’s being pulled. Like he can’t quite get enough air anymore.
He’s cold all the time. Tired, too, but that’s a given, what with the lack of sleep.
He’s not sure how much longer he can keep going like this. But he doesn’t say this to Tails, he doesn’t say it to anyone. Vector and Espio can see it in his face, but Tails still has faith in Sonic.
Hope and faith.
That’s about all they’ve got right now. It’s more precious than ever. Sonic needs to keep it alive for as long as he can.
“I’ll call you when I’m in,” says Tails, tapping his communicator. He looks anxiously up at Sonic.
“Got it,” says Sonic, smiling in a way he hopes comes off as reassuring. “Time to go, then.”
-and everything goes fine!
Sonic sneaks through the city, keeping to nooks and crannies and alleys and unused rooftops, and Tails follows from a safe distance, and only when they’re almost there is Sonic spotted, so while he fights Tails sneaks into the lab and there-
It turns out that most of Tails’ equipment has been smashed, and the rest can’t be brought with them, and they can’t stay for longer than a couple of minutes. It’s just too dangerous, it’s just-
Sonic grits his teeth till it feels like they’ll crack and imagines wringing Eggman’s neck.
But there’s no time for indulgences either. “I’ll come up with something,” Tails says, half-promise half-prayer, as they’re running from the city.
“I know you’ll do,” says Sonic, because what else?
Sage rearranges her figures carefully on the shelf. She tried to add a figure of Dr Starline, but removed it just as soon. She doesn’t understand what Dr Eggman feels about him. She doesn’t understand how he’s supposed to fit.
What makes a family a family?
Sage has watched ten-thousand five-hundred sixty-eight hours of sitcoms but the concept is nebulous, ill-defined, illogical. It is the most wondrous thing in the world. It is maddening. The dictionaries do the word no justice. She trawls through databases, encyclopedias, textbooks but the truth of the word, what all the humans seem to know, eludes her.
Sonic sees Amy in his dreams. Cold, hungering, snarling and clawing at his face.
He sees Cream and Vanilla too, even though he never really saw them. Cheese and Chocola. Charmy, Shadow, Rouge, Omega. Even Big, Tangle and Whisper – Espio and Vector too, after the evacuation went badly.
There’s almost no one left.
And then it happens, the abyss Sonic has tried not to even think about, tried to pretend it couldn’t be real. It happens and Sonic’s so exhausted, wrung-out, that it feels almost inevitable – the ice rushing through his veins, the leaden weight in the pit of his stomach, the way Tails looks at him helplessly, holding out one metal-stained hand in front of him like he can’t quite believe it.
This is it, then, the end, this is-
“Sonic,” says Tails, urgently.
“It’ll be okay,” Sonic says. “We’ve just gotta – find somewhere safe.”
“I won’t be able to find a cure,” Tails says desperately.
“I know,” says Sonic, and kicks at the fucking zombot that did the deed, already reformed after being splattered by Sonic’s previous kick. They’re in the woods, but not even the woods are safe – zombots are roaming the land, patrolling, systematically wearing them down.
(-but it’s too late already anyway, it’s-)
“C’mon.” Sonic tells him. “Let’s just find – a cottage, alright?”
Tails’ voice is small. “Alright.”
It’s barely a five-minute run until they find a house, a log cabin tucked into a garden of berry bushes. Sonic breaks the door open and ushers Tails inside. Then, desperately wanting to have something to do to distract himself, Sonic barricades the door for good measure so that nothing else will be able to get in.
Tails slumps on the heavy rug in front of the fireplace as Sonic works, Miles Electric in his lap. He had been gathering data on Sonic as he ran, even run some tests on infected plants. Putting together something that possibly could work, if only he had a lab to test it. If only-
Sonic spins away from the finished barricade, goes to ransack the kitchen instead. Most of the food has spoiled. There are teabags, though, so Sonic puts water to boil, and then- the water boils. So Sonic checks on Tails.
Tails smiles weakly at Sonic when he comes back, then goes back to his frantic typing. “I’m uploading everything I’ve gathered on the virus… m-maybe there will be someone else who can invent a cure…”
And who would that possibly be, but Sonic swallows it down, the darkness and despair.
“I’m making tea,” Sonic says. “There’s chamomile, bergamot – though I guess you’d want mint?”
“That’d be good,” says Tails, and continues typing, and it feels like they’re sitting in a room with a bomb and trying to ignore instead of defuse it – like they’re actors in a terrible movie going stiltedly through the motions, trying to appear natural-
Sonic returns to the kitchen, prepares two mugs. It takes less than a minute but it feels dangerously too long.
He returns to Tails and sits down carefully next to him, handing him his mug. Tails shuts off his handheld and puts it aside, holds his mug with both hands. He’s starting to shake.
Sonic has to draw in a big gulp of air to be able to say, “Is there anything I can do?”
Tails’ expression wavers. “Stay with me?”
Sonic smiles through the stabbing pain in his chest. “To the end. I promise.”
Always, anything, forever, don’t you ever doubt it-
Tails puts his mug down and Sonic just has time to throw his aside before Tails falls into Sonic, crawling into his arms. Sonic holds him tight, Tails’ head on his shoulder, feeling his tremors get worse. They haven't touched at all since Sonic was first infected. Sonic has jerked away from reflexively trying to ruffle the top of Tails’ head a dozen times, has ducked away from high-fives and fist-bumps, tried not to even stand too close to Tails, and in the end Tails still-
Sonic buries his face in Tails’ shoulder, closes his eyes.
He can feel Tails’ back turning to metal, his shoulder. His neck.
“Sonic,” says Tails, and Sonic quickly lifts his head.
“Yeah buddy?”
Tails’ eyes are wet. “Thanks for being my brother.”
The metal seeps into his eyes and when the light dies in his eyes, a door shuts in Sonic’s heart.
This is it, then. The point of no return.