Midnight Prowl

"Zor!" Robotnik's voice shouted from the Silent Forest tower. Zor opened her eyes. She was on a dirt path. It looked like she was in the Midnight Bayou area of Silent Forest Zone. Did she black out? "ZOR! Get up!" Robotnik shouted again.

"Ugh…" Zor groaned. She got to her feet. She tried to remember what had happened. Then, the memories came trickling back.

She had one of her shadow doubles, which she called "Glooms", take the giant owl to Lava Mountain, with Tails along with it. Then, the Cacophonic Tower had sounded. Her memories after that and before just then came up blank. The sound must have made her black out from a panic attack, something it had done on and off.

"Some of your teammates were spotted by Badniks. They were banding together outside of their work Zones not far from you. I'm suspecting an uprising, considering how close they were to Sonic," Robotnik told her. Zor sighed, knowing the others' actions would just make life harder. "You'd better not have anything to do with this! Because… you've always been my favorite. The others are rebellious and annoying, always longing for a time where I wasn't in control of the Lost Hex. But since you're the last remaining Hexi that was born after my takeover, you've always been so well-behaved! You are completely loyal to the empire, and you don't make a lot of noise. You even captured Tails! That's what makes you the best one. It'll be so sad to say goodbye when my final form is complete, but I will simply have no more use for you."

Amidst Robotnik's ramblings coming from the tower, Zor could swear she heard rustling from behind the treeline. Could it be a wild animal or a Badnik? Or…? "But I may just spare you from execution. So long as you find the other Hexis and make them pay with their lives." Zor's eyes widened in shock. "They've done their jobs already, and now they're foolishly conspiring to erase their life's work. I will not allow those turncoats to ruin my plans at the last second like that infernal hedgehog!" Zor turned around to the sound of a sudden gust of wind. There was a trail of leaves flowing to the side, but the breeze had been coming from up ahead. "Because you know how Sonic is…" Zor squinted, backing away from the fluttering leaves. "Wild, unpredictable…!" Zor bumped into something warm behind her. Her eyes widened, and she tried to scream, only to be kicked in the back. All that came out was a sorry grunt as she fell to the floor. She looked back, and saw a figure crackling with blue electricity in the darkness. "... Undeniably a threat."

As Robotnik closed his statement and ended the transmission, Zor looked at the figure in front of her. It was stepping forward, and every footstep they took was precise, almost melodic with how their feet touched the floor. A spark of lightning illuminated their face for just a second. Zor saw her own reflection in his electric blue eyes.

"Sonic?" Zor asked, wide-eyed. "Look at you, finally giving into the darkness in your heart. Dropping the goody-goody act and all that." Zor grinned. "Proud of you."

"Tell me where he is," Sonic muttered, the scowl growing across his face. "I don't have time for games."

"I'll tell you this much," Zor replied. "He's somewhere far away. Whatever happens to him is up to the boss now." Zor giggled. "Threaten me all you want! I don't care! Kill me, in fact. See where it gets you. I for one, would be content with leaving this horrible worl—!"

"Do you think it's possible to teach someone who doesn't care about their own life to fear for it?" Sonic interrupted, summoning a ball of Chaos-produced lightning. This caught Zor off guard. "I'm sure you've heard, but I fought alongside the Robotnik Empire's Suppression Squad for 20 years. I have many methods for making the most stubborn of enemies tick." Sonic stood above Zor, and stomped his foot down onto her long tail. Zor cried out in pain and looked up at him. She was shocked and unable to move.

"So what? You're gonna torture me?" Zor stuttered.

"Not if you tell me where Tails is," Sonic replied. "I can already tell you're different from the others. They're being controlled, and they hate it. You are too. But you… you seem to revel in that hatred and suffering. You were enjoying this, weren't you? You would serve Robotnik willingly, wouldn't you?! You sent my BEST FRIEND off to be killed, and you couldn't be bothered to even feel remorse like the other Hexis would!" A Gloom crept up behind Sonic, but he grabbed the shadowy double of Zor by the neck and strangled it until it stopped struggling and fell limp. He then threw it into the mud. The Gloom then started to dissipate, turning into a pitch black fog. "Huh? What's going—?" Sonic asked. He looked back to the real deal, only to see Zor herself evaporate into the fog. "HEY! Get back here!" Sonic barked, making a shot in the dark by throwing his ball of lightning, as Zor rematerialized out of the black fog. The ball missed her completely. While Sonic couldn't see, she rushed off into the woods, leaving a dark trail with nearly every step she took. She had to conserve some of her power so she didn't pass out from over-exertion. Because the last thing she wanted was to be caught by Sonic.

Sonic illuminated his surroundings with a Chaos Emerald-born blue aura. It blew away the darkness like a flame on a candle, making it dissipate into thin air. He then ran off after Zor, who had left plenty of dark fogs around the path. Sonic ran right through, using a Chaos Emerald surge when necessary, but not so much that he exhausted himself. He ran around large shuttle loops, swung from vines to reach higher elevations, and leapt over vats of boiling mud almost completely blind half the time. Eventually, he began to gain on Zor. That was when she started to send Glooms after him. They flew right towards him, forcing him to evade. This got harder when she dimmed the lights even more, making the Glooms blend right into the darkness. Sonic, out of options, tore right through it all with his Spin Dash. He rocketed towards Zor in ball form, and bounced into her. She went flying forward, and tumbled along the dirt path.

"I will ask you politely one more time," Sonic forewarned, as Zor tried to get to her feet. Sonic summoned a blade of lightning, and watched as she fell back down without any further input from Sonic. "Where is he?"

Zor inhaled sharply. "One of my shadows took him to Lava Mountain. You can get there through Relic Spire, just East of here…" she hissed in pain. Sonic looked to the Cacophonic Compass. Tails had given it to him when he went with Zomom to take out the Frozen Factory tower. "A few hours ago, Robotnik informed me that he sent orders out to the Badniks there to make Tails the first test subject for his new machine…"

"What would that machine be?" Sonic asked, dispelling the blade.

"... The Roboticizer…" Zor whispered. Sonic hadn't heard anything about this machine before, but he already had an idea of what it might be meant for. His heart sunk. Zor began to shed some tears. "Listen, I don't think I'm going to be able to save my friends from Robotnik. He's gonna make me kill them… or else he'll kill all of us. I have no choice! But…. You still have the power to change things. I don't. Please, if you think you can rescue your friend… do whatever it takes. Then leave this forsaken hellhole of a planetoid." Sonic's eye flickered green, but quickly turned blue once more. He rushed off, only to skid to a stop mere yards away from Zor. He turned to the Cacophonic Tower, charged up some kind of electric blast, and shot it right towards the heart of the tower once at full power. The tower exploded, sending embers flying everywhere.

"You know what? You too," Sonic mumbled. "You gave me quite a workout back there. I think you can save your home from Robotnik. You just have to work for it. Do everything you can to save your friends, and I'll save mine. Deal?" Zor looked to him in awe.

"... Deal," Zor hissed, scowling and looking away. Despite everything, she was somewhat motivated by Sonic's words.

"Alright. I won't let you down. I won't let Tails down either. Now, I've got places to go," Sonic replied. He rushed off, leaving a trail of lightning and a gust of wind behind him. Zor pulled her communicator out of her pocket, and found an incoming call from Zomom. She accepted.

"Zor?!" Zomom asked, taking form as a hologram. "Are you okay? We've been so worried about you!"

"I'm actually better than usual," Zor replied.

"You're hurt! What happened?" Zik asked, pushing into frame. "Did Sonic do this to you?!"

"Yeah," Zor answered. Zik growled. "It's fine though. Listen— let's meet up at Relic Spire."

"Why?" Zazz asked, rising from the bottom of the frame and staring at Zor.

"Because we're going to save our home from Robotnik. He's already onto all of us, so we have nothing to lose by rebelling. I could… keep working under him, and stay alive for sure… but really, what would be the point of that?" Zor explained. "I don't care about my life THAT much. Being all alone here would suck. You guys make it kinda worth it, so I'll do anything it takes to help all of us go on living." The other five members all smiled.

"Well then, it's settled!" Zik exclaimed. "Let's go show Robotnik how we do things up here."