Chapter 73

Genocide City. The mythical ancient city on the coast of Westside Island. It was real? Sonic had never seen this place before while exploring Westside Island. He thought it was just a myth. But no. Unfortunately, like every other thing he had seen today, it was very real.

Sonic ran through the decaying, crumbling empire-like city. Until the road beneath him began to crumble and fly away into the storm along with everything else. Street signs and lamps, cars, buildings... all of them were swept away like dust. Sonic jumped and grabbed onto Tails' hands as he began to fly. Buck grabbed onto Sonic's ankles, as Sonja flew up with Pico in her arms.

They landed inside a room of a building that had no walls. Decayed corpses of humans hung from chains at the top of the ceiling. They slowly lowered, and soon were brushing against Sonic and his friends.

This slowed Sonic and the others down. Until Pico, shutting his eyes tight, let out a trumpet sound that released a shockwave, blowing the bodies back. The roof of the building came off and was flung into the storm. Everyone was approaching a window fast. They burst through it and ran down the wall. As this was happening, the whole building was swept up, with them along with it!

Sonic and Buck ran down faster, as Tails and Sonja started flying forward off of the building. Sonic and Buck jumped, and luckily, Sonic caught a hold of Tails while Buck dangled from Sonic's ankles. Buck tried his best to not look down.

They landed safely. Looks like the storm was satisfied with its meal. Everything stopped being ripped up from the ground. That which was still in the air was subject to gravity as it fell and broke upon impact with the ground. The storm had left destruction of Genocide City in its wake.

Everyone hardly had time to breathe before they heard a howl in the distance. Instantly, they knew who it was. Not some mutant wolf. Fake Tails. Without a word, knowing any sound may attract Fake Tails, the team ran for their lives. Sonic knew he couldn't fight anything that looked like Tails again.

The ongoing streets with gargoyles looming overhead from partially destroyed buildings, wreckage and piles of burning garbage... it all felt like a maze in the narrow alleyways between buildings. Sonic felt like he was going in circles again. He had the flyers fly them up to a building where they hopped from rooftop to rooftop. This way, it would be harder for Fake Tails to find them, but it was also very dangerous. One wrong step and Sonic and Buck could very well die. Sonja clutched Pico tightly to ensure he wouldn't fall from her arms.

How could it have come to this? Why did it come to this? Just a while ago everything was fine. Sonic should have taken he and Knuckles away from the mansion... No. Knuckles wouldn't have let him. Besides, when Sonic had entered this place, he was a broken hedgehog. He felt nothing. But with Buck, Sonja... Pico... Sonic felt he had every reason in the world to keep on living. Even though bad things happened to him... even though bad things were still very much happening, Sonic knew he couldn't give up now. He had come so far. This was not the end. He knew with some luck that he'd make it through. He was Sonic. Sonic the Hedgehog.

And the storm. He knew if he didn't do something about the storm, Mobius would cease to exist. All his friends, the rolling green hills he had always fought to protect... everything up to this point would have been for naught. And he would not let that happen.

He didn't know who did this. Eggman was dead, Marilyssa had disappeared (and from the second he saw her, Sonic suspected her most.) But whoever it was, Sonic would stop them. Sonic thought...

"Just keep running. We'll make it through this. Together. Whoever's behind this, we'll make them pay. We'll bring back our world. This is our world. Everything's come down to where we are now. I can feel it. We're clo---"

The sound of helicopter rotors quickly made their way from the distance, and was then above them. In front of them. Everybody skidded to a stop. Landing in front of them, was... Fake Tails.

Continue to Chapter 74