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mashounen2003 · 2 years

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Chaos Emerald - Summarized | Chapter 3: the Echidna Civil War & the Race to Divinity

[enlace a Archive of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31143266]

混沌緑柱玉・要約した | Konton Ryokuchūgyoku - Yōyakushita | Chaos Emerald - Summarized

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編纂：針土竜の内戦・と・神性への競争。 | Hen-San: Harimogura no Naisen to Shinsei e no Kyōsō. | Group of Sagas: the Echidna Civil War & the Race to Divinity.

[enlace a Archive of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31143266/chapters/77783294]

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Last edited on February 14, 2023.

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Opening theme for this group of sagas:

“Makafushigi Adventure”, the opening theme of the original Dragon Ball TV series; either the 2008 English cover from the album “Inazuma Challenger” by Hiroki Takahashi et al. or the TV-size version for the series’ German dub (1) (2).

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Shortly after the events of the Sonic Adventure 2 adaptation, when Knuckles just returned to Angel Island, the weakening of interdimensional barriers also allows the return to Mobius of the three factions that had historically fought for control of Angel Island: the people of Echidnaopolis -along with the Brotherhood of Guardians- and the Dark Legion -both made up of echidnas-, plus the island's Dingo community. A long, bloody war begins between the two echidna factions.

Locke and Lara-Le reveal themselves as Knuckles’s parents. Locke tells Knux about the Brotherhood of Guardians, all of their ancestors who had protected the Master Emerald before both of them. On the other hand, Lara-Le keeps a low profile, which seems quite strange to the rest of Team Chaotix, since it’s a reunion between a mother and her son.

When Knux is alone, he’s unexpectedly approached by a hermit named Athair, who was living in a cave in Downunda, reveals himself as his great-grandfather and a former member of the Brotherhood, warns Knux about the other Guardians, and tells his grand-grandson what he knows about them and Echidnaopolis...

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The city had been founded by survivors of the Knuckles Clan, who invaded other peoples’ territory again; this time, with the increase in tension between Echidnaopolis and the original inhabitants of Downunda, it was decided to make the city rise to the sky, thus creating Angel Island. Shortly thereafter, for a few decades, it seemed Echidnaopolis’s society was beginning to actually progress, with a rise of Historical Revisionism. But then there was an incident: the brothers Edmund & Dimitri came up with a plan to bring the island back to the surface by means of a machine called “Chaos Siphon”, which would strip the energy of the seven Chaos Emeralds used to lift the city and keep it afloat; but the city’s High Council was reluctant, Dimitri reacted to this by using the Chaos siphon anyway, and when absorbing all the energy of the Chaos Emeralds, he was possessed by a corrupting entity who then introduced themself as “Enerjak” and attempted to take over Echidnaopolis and subdue its people. The Dimitri-Enerjak incident was solved, and an apparently dead Dimitri ended up falling to the surface, but this was used by the more conservative sectors of the government, the separation between church and state began to be lost, and many people were forced to give up much of their technology.

With Dimitri defeated, the Dark Legion emerged, being in favour of technological progress and a secular state, but also being increasingly violent and vindicating Dimitri’s actions both before and after being possessed; this helped advance conservatism, strong anti-technology stances and theocracy in Echidnaopolis. On the other hand, the theocratic State and the elite hypocritically kept using and further developing state-of-the-art technology only for their own benefit; they never tried to hide this, but instead, people without access to technology were directly indoctrinated, so now the vast majority of the population of Echidnaopolis believe this selective ban is to protect them from themselves.

The dingoes that ended up trapped on Angel Island when it was created were treated as second-class citizens for centuries, leading to a radical response by the Dingo Self-Defense Front (DSDF), which included some direct confrontations with the city's police. The DSDF was still less destructive and more open to dialogue than the Dark Legion in general, and during the fights against the government forces, the Dingoes were always on the defensive and never attacked first; that didn't stop the government of Echidnaopolis from exploiting those few acts of violence, using them as justification to consolidate its power and reinforce Echidnaopolis's already existing authoritarian “police State” traits.

The position of "Guardian of the Master Emerald" had been created for Echidnaopolis to maintain some control over the powerful gemstone; after Dimitri had completely absorbed the Chaos Emeralds' energy and rendered them useless seemingly forever, it was decided to discard them, take back the Master Emerald and use it to keep the Angel Island afloat, and in order to seize the gemstone without provoking the god Chaos again, it was extracted from Mobius’s surface along with its altar, its temple and its surrounding terrain as if it were all one single construct, and this was put inside the caverns where the Hidden Palace would later be built around the Master Emerald. Over time, Guardians and former Guardians began to form a sort of guild and develop weird coming-of-age and initiation rites for their children and successors; this led them to found the Brotherhood of Guardians, which then became and remains to this day the shadow government of Echidnaopolis, concentrating the entirety of both political and religious power. When the Overlanders launched a pre-emptive nuclear strike on Angel Island, the Brotherhood separated the city from the floating island and took it into a pocket universe, leaving the Master Emerald on the island for the time being; when it was habitable again, Echidnaopolis remained in a pocket universe but the Brotherhood adopted a quite perverse tradition of sending all future Guardians to the island, without memories of their family or any previous life and only with the instruction to protect the Master Emerald, making them survive on their own and watching over them at all times until the Brotherhood deemed the Guardian-in-training worthy of officially obtaining their title, knowing the truth and returning to their people and their family.

Athair had never been very much in agreement with the methods of the other Guardians or with the prevailing political ideas in Echidnaopolis. This motivated his decision to leave the Brotherhood, exile himself from the city and live in isolation in Downunda.

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Knuckles doesn’t blindly believe Athair’s story but doesn’t dismiss it either, and he tries to remember his warnings. He and Team Chaotix meet the rest of the Brotherhood and help them fight the Dark Legion, but with caution. They also note that, indeed, Echidnaopolis’s society is far from ideal or utopian.

Julie-Su betrays the Dark Legion, but doesn’t go to the Brotherhood, suspecting they might still be as evil as the Dark Legion had claimed for as long as she can remember. Instead, she goes to Knuckles and Team Chaotix, who decide to give her shelter, and tells them all about the Dark Legion and what she thinks she knows about the Brotherhood...

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There are different factions in the Dark Legion. There are many members who believe in the superiority of the Echidna race, but many others oppose this and often embody what remains of the original Revisionism prior to the Dimitri-Enerjak incident. On both sides, there are also those who are more isolationist and those who want to reconnect with other peoples of the world (for better or for worse). Within all these groups, there are also some more reactionary and warlike and others more willing to attempt dialogue with the Brotherhood. Within this total of six intersecting groups, there are also people with different ideas about the kind of society they want to form: the many in the Dark Legion are socially and economically progressive, but these include both reactionary and pro-dialogue Legionaries, as well as both racists and anti-racists.

Dimitri was rather anti-isolationist, progressive, revisionist and very anti-racist; before the Dimitri-Enerjak incident, he preferred dialogue. After the Dark Legion was founded, each Grandmaster was different. Menniker was more warlike, anti-dialogue and isolationist, but like his father Dimitri, he was socially progressive and anti-racist. Moritori Rex was more socially conservative, quite racist, anti-dialogue, specifically militaristic, and with delusions of grandeur. Luger, an intellectual, tried to dialogue with the Brotherhood, was progressive, anti-racist and anti-isolationist, and tried to reduce the Legion’s military branch’s power; this sparked internal fights, as many followed him for being progressive, anti-racist and anti-isolationist but didn’t want peace with the Brotherhood. Luger was later overthrown by his sons Kragok & Lien-Da, who now lead the Dark Legion: they’re progressive like his father, but only towards the Echidna race; they think like Moritori Rex in everything else, and aspire to conquer Mobius; Kragok is actually the one in charge, having betrayed Lien-Da and kept her as just a Commissar.

Julie-Su is Kragok’s & Lien-Da’s younger half-sister, the daughter Luger had with his second wife. Her two older siblings had tried to get rid of her at least twice, each time erasing her memory, killing her previous adoptive parents and giving her up for adoption to someone else.

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There’s tension between Athair and Julie-Su at first, as he also knows about the atrocities the Dark Legion often commits. But this is solved pretty soon.

Knuckles, Team Chaotix, Julie-Su and Athair decide to get involved in the “Echidna Civil War” anyway but just occasionally, without following orders from either side, trusting only the Freedom Fighter teams outside of Angel Island. Knux and Julie gradually become good friends, she knows the world outside of the Dark Legion, and he tries to delve into the past of the Echidna race to find out more of the truth about them and thereby find out who and what he should fight for.

Knux initially tries to get the Guardians to answer all of his questions voluntarily, but they don’t budge. To top it all, Locke, appealing to his alleged authority as his father, tries to manipulate him, make him feel guilty and convince him it’s better not to delve into the past. Knux wisely ignores it.

Then Lara-Le meets with Knuckles secretly. She warns him about how far Locke is willing to go in order to get what he wants; her son tries to convince her to break up with Locke, but she just answers that “it’s too late for her”. She also tells him about experiments Locke had done with Knux’s egg and Chaos radiation to create the most powerful Guardian in the Brotherhood’s history.

Knux finally gets the Guardians to speak: he threatens them to aid the Dark Legion or the dingoes, claiming that he and his friends can easily defeat both armies in case they betray them.

Everything that Athair, Julie-Su, and the Dark Legion thought about the Brotherhood and Echidnapolis is confirmed to be true. Indeed, the Guardians have no interest in improving people’s lives and are convinced everything is okay in Echidnaopolis; Guardian Hawking in particular doesn’t hesitate to show his racism against dingoes. They admit they’re still using state-of-the-art technology for their own purposes, including spying on people inside and outside of Echidnaopolis. They believe that Knuckles is a kind of “Chosen One”, based on a “vision” of Locke; they don’t deny the experiments, they even try to justify them, and it’s evident they just want a living weapon. The Guardians also mention they have an interest in Tails as a possible “Chosen One”, after having watched him in the last few months, and Locke even insinuates the two-tailed fox may be a better son for them than Knuckles; then the young Guardian and Athair completely lose their cool, each one shoots a Thunder Arrow at Locke, and they both leave the Brotherhood’s HQ along with Julie-Su and Team Chaotix without saying anything else.

As Knux gets all these revelations, he begins to have serious existential conflicts, mainly due to why his mission to “protect” the Master Emerald exists in the first place. His friendship with Julie-Su grows stronger: among other things, they now share a sudden loss of faith in what each used to believe.

In the end, Knuckles, Team Chaotix, Julie-Su, and Athair decide to stay out of the Echidna Civil War: they limit themselves to protecting innocent civilians from attacks by the Echidnas of both sides, as well as acting as arbiters between them and the Dingoes. Slowly more factions are formed, made up of a mixture of Dark Legionaries and people of Echidnaopolis, and some of them include Dingoes too; Julie-Su tries to encourage her former comrades in the Dark Legion to join this new cause, and Knuckles earns the respect of General Helmut von Stryker, chief commander of the DSDF.

Knux and Athair also meet with Tails, alert him to these “Chosen One” legends, and warn him of the Brotherhood’s intentions. Tails decides to meet Knuckles’s ancestors anyway, just to play along.

[Contrary to what Penders did in the comic, I’d have treated the Dark Legion and the Brotherhood of Guardians equally: neither would have been better than the other, something Knuckles and Team Chaotix would realize. Athair calls into question the massive hypocrisy and lack of empathy prevalent in Echidnaopolis, as well as the Brotherhood’s methods and the way they’re betraying the ideals they’re supposed to uphold; Julie-Su does something similar with the Legion: many of her former comrades blindly believe everyone outside their organization is just like the Brotherhood and the use of reason, technological & social progress and the improvement of people’s lives can only be achieved through authoritarianism, but she’s convinced that’s not true, she tries to prove her point, and she meets the rest of the world in the process. And lastly: no, there’s no “Green Knuckles” or anything like that, although I did make Knuckles’s Hyper form bright green to differentiate it from his Super form.]

[There are some family relationships from the comics that are preserved here. Luger is the son of Moritori Rex, who had started in the Dark Legion some traditions that contradicted the organization’s original ideals, such as making the title of Grandmaster virtually hereditary like a Monarchy; Kragok, Lien-Da, and Julie-Su are Luger’s children, and the first two spent a lot of time with their grandfather, sharing with him their disappointment with Luger’s behaviour; on the other hand, Dimitri, Menniker and Moritori aren’t even distant relatives of each other, although Menniker was an ardent follower of Dimitri when he founded the Legion. All Guardians are part of a lineage, but the first of them, Steppenwolf, was neither Edmund’s son nor related to him at all, and the Brotherhood’s traditions were only established later. Knuckles and Julie-Su do not belong to two branches of the same family, but the Brotherhood does have an interest in using the union between the two young echidnas to force the Dark Legion to reintegrate into Echidnaopolis’s society.]

[From this part onwards, in the Echidnas’ subplot, many things will probably happen differently than they did in their original version, either in the Knuckles miniseries or in those issues of the main Archie-Sonic comic that continued the story from where the miniseries had left off. My justification for these changes? Well, the original version of the Echidnas’ subplot... *sigh* was utter bulls***. I mean... It had a lot of interesting stuff with some potential at least as a subplot; on the other hand, the many cases of Penders pouring his reactionary ideas into the comic are not exclusive to this subplot, such cases appear throughout his work in the Knuckles miniseries, the main Archie-Sonic comic and the Sally miniseries. However, in the specific case of the Echidnas’ subplot and especially its introduction and world-building during the Knuckles miniseries (where Penders had more freedom to do whatever he wanted, at least until SEGA released Sonic Adventure 1 and imposed a new canon), there are constantly all sorts of contradictions, the motives for civil war between Echidna factions are never determined precisely, and regardless of anyone’s personal opinions about whether or not references to real-life events & conflicts should be put here in the first place, allegories embodied in the Echidnas vs Dingoes conflict and the Echidna civil war certainly were badly thought or even pretty harmful, or it just seemed Penders wasn’t able to decide what/who was embodied by each faction or who were the good guys and who were the bad guys (in a nutshell: Penders's work sucked because he sucked as a writer, not because the ideas for the stories were wrong at the conceptual level). Having to work with such a salad of writing material, I’ve felt forced to pick up some things and discard others to re-assemble this subplot almost from scratch, and just like the lore of the Spark the Electric Jester videogames, it may be overly complicated or convoluted but at least it’ll make quite a bit more sense.]

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A month and a half after the adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2, Shadow agrees to work with Rouge and Hope at GUN, under direct orders from Tower and President Falcão. They also recruit Gamma, eventually forming Team Dark.

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編：自由の戦士の一番は誰ですか?

Hen: Jiyū-no-Senshi no Ichi-Ban wa dare desu ka?

Saga: Who is the best one among the Freedom Fighters?

[Opening theme for this saga: “Mezase Tenka’ichi”, from the original Dragon Ball TV series]

[Ending theme for this saga: “Moeru HEART de ~RED RIBBON Gun wo Yattsukero~”, from the original Dragon Ball TV series]

A little over three months after the adaptation of Sonic Adventure 2, it’s the first anniversary of Robotnik’s fall. A few weeks before that day, preparations had begun for an impromptu fighting tournament as part of the festivities. A month after the anniversary, after some delays, the tournament is finally held in Station Square.

Sally defeats Knuckles, though the fight turns out to be one of the longest in the tournament: Sally had initially been overconfident, thinking Knux would fight without a clear strategy and she'd merely need to dodge his punches; in the end, he loses just because of having stepped on the ground outside the ring. Sonic and Amy aren't surprised at all, after having trained for so long with Sally and learnt about her and Knuckles's skills and preferred tactics. The Guardian, pleased with how the fight went, politely accepts defeat.

One of the fights is Tails vs Rouge. She underestimates Tails at first, but when he proves himself a decent fighter personally trained by Sally and Sonic, the bat is able to adapt immediately. For a few seconds, she tries to play the seductress and thus distract and/or manipulate Tails (several Freedom Fighters -especially Sally- berate Rouge for this, though Fiona may or may not be doing it for something other than simply to disapprove of the bat-woman's tactics), and she actually manages to distract him... because Tails finds her acting grotesquely over-the-top, laughs out loud at her and even imitates her as a parody, making the audience laugh as well.

[Soundtrack: Battle with Myself – Mega Man Battle Network 4 OST, remix by "KokiRemix" (as part of the game's OST medley)]

Rouge is forced to fight Tails in the traditional way: she relentlessly throws all kinds of kicks one after the other as he also becomes more brutal in response and both chase each other; Rouge even takes the fight into the air by taking off along Tails and continuing their fight a dozen meters above the stadium's upper stands (Nicole briefly wonders how to apply the "out of the ring loses" rule when the fight turns aerial); there are moments where either Rouge or Tails stands on top of one of the lighting poles and balances while trading blows with the other.

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Deleted scene:

There's also one brief moment when they both decide to give the audience a show by each standing on a different pole and doing kabuki theatre poses (helped by Nicole, who realizes what's their idea and plays the corresponding music and sound effects).

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The fight eventually returns to the surface of the ring and becomes an "anything goes" sort of match for both Tails and Rouge: they bite each other's ears, Rouge disables one of Tails's tails by stepping on it and piercing it with her heel, and Tails also slices through the patagium on one of her wings with his claws.

[Soundtrack: Vs Duo (final boss theme) – Mega Man Battle Network 4 OST, remix by "KokiRemix" (as part of the final boss themes medley)]

As Tails starts to get fed up, he suddenly stops, crouching down, and stands still on the ring floor. Rouge keeps her distance, not quite sure what the fox is planning to do. Suddenly, a small circle of crimson fire ignites around Tails, then the ground cracks around him but in a much larger radius, then Tails gets back to his feet but has a blank look and doesn't seem to be himself anymore. Rouge notes some similarity between this and a somewhat risky transformation Shadow had been practising with lately; Chaos energy seems to rapidly build up in Tails, causing his entire body to glow crimson and that glow also follows a pattern vaguely similar to his muscle fibres. When the fox finally moves, he redirects all that excess energy into one of his hands, delivers a single punch to the ground in front of him with that same hand, and fires a blast of energy that speeds across the ground and towards Rouge. She can't fly and the blast is too fast to just dodge, so she tries to shield herself against it but it's no use: the blast reaches her and explodes the ground below and in front of the bat-woman, launching her up and back, knocking her out of the ring and eliminating her from the tournament. Immediately after firing that Chaos-based attack, Tails returns to normal, having only very hazy memories of what he just did.

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Deleted scene:

Tails's final attack not only pushes Rouge out of the ring but also leaves her with multiple injuries. Luckily, they're all superficial and the bat soon regains consciousness as well, but the wave of Chaos energy generated by the explosion has also... *ahem* It has also torn her clothes to shreds. As the smoke clears and Tails comes to, he realizes what he just did by accident, quickly runs towards Rouge, and stands between her and the audience, with his back to her and holding out his arms in an attempt to cover her; he's also pretty upset and yelling profanities at everyone and everything.

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When Sonic fights against Sally, she actually manages to put her boyfriend on the ropes, despite Sonic winning in the end.

Amy Rose shows the fruits of her training, winning quite some matches and finally fighting Bunnie; after another long fight where they both knock each other out, Bunnie gets up first and wins, and they both congratulate each other. Later, the cyborg is defeated by Shadow, who then has to fight Tails.

The “Ultimate Lifeform” notes the abundant potential Chaos power in Tails, mainly reflected in the fox’s relatively powerful healing factor, close to his own; Tails also urges his rival not to hold back against him and the Freedom Fighters not to come to his aid.

[Soundtrack: The True Power of Piccolo (M505) – Dragon Ball original series’ OST, "Epic Rock" cover made by Friedrich Habetler]

They’re both even at first, but Shadow soon begins to gain the upper hand; it eventually reaches a point where Tails is mostly running away from Shadow and desperately dodging his attacks, and the only thing stopping the fight from ending is the fox’s healing factor and the speed he developed after spending so much time with Sonic. The Freedom Fighters beg Tails to quit the fight, insisting he doesn’t need to prove anything, but the two-tailed fox makes them shut up and insists on them letting him keep fighting. Right after that brief discussion, Shadow elbows Tails on the cheek, breaking teeth, making him drool blood and knocking him to the ground; after a few seconds, the fox gets up, his mouth still dripping blood, and starts yelling at the hedgehog despite only being able to babble, demanding him to have even less mercy.

Shadow, in order to anger his rival, not only curb-stomps Tails while still being merciful enough to keep him alive and conscious; the hedgehog also tells him he’s weak due to his feelings, his own mercy and his reluctance to use his hidden potential. The fox gets up again but with more difficulty, thinking of Sonic, Sally, the rest of the Freedom Fighters, his other friends outside the team, Fiona, his oath to protect all the people of Mobius, and the love a Freedom Fighter needs to feel for the world; he also recalls that time when he had become Super Tails “Kyōbō” and decimated the Battle Bird Armada in the Coral Islands.

Then something surprising and unexpected happens to Tails...

[Soundtrack: Yami Yugi’s theme – “Season Zero” of Yu-Gi-Oh!]

Unknowingly, his body generates a bright orange aura, similar to sparks of static electricity flush with his skin and fur [aside from the orange colour, it should look like the white aura around Krillin’s fist when he was holding Goku’s fully charged Spirit Bomb, during the first battle against Vegeta, in one of the first sagas of Dragon Ball Z]. Now Tails has partially unlocked his hidden Chaos powers; however, this new intermediate state between his base form and his Super form is not like the Super “Kyōbō” form at all, the fox has not increased his muscle mass nor has his body changed in any way, and he hasn’t lost his sanity… though he’s not himself either and sounds very different: quite calm, not overly confident.

Tails: [closes his eyes, then takes a deep breath] 「混沌の制御。」 [“Konton no Seigyo.”]

The fox suddenly appears behind Shadow, strikes him with his double tail… and launches him to the opposite side of the ring without taking him out of it. When the hedgehog stands up again, he’s left speechless: Tails has just used Chaos Control.

Tails: [still calm, opens his eyes and stares into Shadow’s eyes] “You’re wrong, 「究極生命体」 [“Kyūkyoku Seimei-Tai”, “Ultimate Lifeform”]. The Power of Chaos comes directly from the heart, from the very spirit. It makes thoughts come true, it turns willpower into very real, raw power. These feelings, the love for the entire world and all its people, the humility and self-denial, the loyalty to the Freedom Fighters’ noble cause, the commitment to the mission of protecting everyone from any threat… [smirks] Despite everything you’ve experienced up there in the ARK, is your soul still so blind that you see all this as a weakness? Are you still foolish enough to even doubt the sort of force this may become when combined with Chaos? Heh... Well, after you’ve beaten me to a pulp, I guess 「この魔少年」 [“Kono Mashōnen”, “This Devil Boy” but also “I, the Devil Boy”] shall have to make you eat your words and swallow your pride now. Because even if you manage to win this fight… you shall not leave here without me, my feelings, their power, my attacks fed by that power, making you doubt everything you thought you knew until today.” [uses one finger to give Shadow the “come closer” gesture] 「さあ⋅⋅⋅ゲームの時間だ。」 [“Sā... Gēmu no Jikan da.”, “Now... it’s Game Time.”]

No one gets to see it, but Shadow briefly gives a tiny smile as well, feeling genuine pride in the fox.

The fight is much more equal again. After a while, they both start to get tired at the same time. Finally, Shadow asks Nicole to set up force fields to protect the audience, and removes his inhibitor rings to charge and fire a Chaos Blast. Tails reads this as a challenge of sorts and also charges a Chaos Blast. Both he and the “Ultimate Lifeform” fire their attacks at the same time.

Tails: 「コン⋅⋅⋅トン⋅⋅⋅バーッ⋅⋅⋅クーッ⋅⋅⋅ハーーーーッ！」 [「混沌爆破！」, “Kon... ton... Bah... kuh... HAAAAH!”]

After the collision of Chaos Blasts, when the smoke settles, both fighters are still standing but they soon pass out. Shadow falls into the ring, but Tails falls out of it, technically losing the fight. Everyone is just dumbfounded by such displays of power and how Tails used his Chaos powers and reached this new higher state without using Chaos Emeralds. The black-and-red hedgehog is especially marked: he didn’t really believe what he had said about feelings being a weakness, but the fact that Tails drew power from them in such a way makes him proud of the little fox. Later, Shadow visits Tails in the hospital: the fox seems to have his original personality again and remembers most of what happened during his transformation but has forgotten some small details; the hedgehog congratulates the young fox and offers for both of them to train together one day.

[Soundtrack: One Last Shot (M515) – Dragon Ball original series’ OST]

The final is Sonic versus Shadow. The latter, inspired by Tails, uses thoughts of justice to power up, thus discovering and activating the Hero form [featured in Shadow’s spin-off videogame along with the Dark form]. However, Sonic ends up winning anyway: like Tails, Shadow also doesn’t have much experience in these new ways of using his Chaos powers, he had already made the mistake of overexerting himself when using the Super form against the Biolizard, and here he does the same when using his newly discovered Hero form; Sonic, on the other hand, keeps using his Chaos powers the way he was usually using them, “playing it safe”, using skills such as the Homing Attack and the Light-Speed Attack (both developed in the Adventure saga, practised and perfected by Sonic since then) at most, and simply escaping from many of Shadow’s attacks. Sonic defeats the “Ultimate Lifeform” definitively by waiting for him to reach his limit and fatigue again, then briefly unlocking his Chaos power itself and doing only one Sonic Wind (a technique he had already used against Shadow in Sonic Adventure 2 but with the help of the fake Chaos Emerald).

At the party, after the tournament is over, Sonic approaches Shadow and apologizes for defeating him in the final. Shadow insists he shouldn’t and claims the blue hedgehog has proven to be the best, Tails has also impressed him and the other Freedom Fighters have opened his eyes.

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Deleted scene:

Sonic then tells Shadow he has a “consolation prize” ready for him anyway... as he drags the tip of his index finger across the fluffy white fur of Shadow’s chest. As the blue hedgehog leaves, the “Ultimate Lifeform” is puzzled by this gesture; he looks at Sally, and she's not upset at all but is holding back a laugh, so he gets even more confused.

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During the party, Bunnie goes to pick up her things. While she’s putting them in a bag, she’s suddenly attacked by someone mysterious. The subject pierces Bunnie’s torso with a single punch, but she manages to shoot them once or twice with the cannon on her roboticized arm, and the shots alert the others. The murderer escapes, badly wounded.

When Tails sees Bunnie dead, he unknowingly activates again that higher state to which he had accessed in his fight against Shadow; however, his aura is green this time, Tails can feel his pain and sorrow from Bunnie’s murder becoming unbearable, and he also feels more and more intensely the need to unleash his Chaos powers, “explode” and “let it out”. Fearing to become Super Tails “Kyōbō” again, the fox flies off.

Amy feels something is wrong with Bunnie, so Shadow and Knuckles use their sensitivity to Chaos Energy to check on the cyborg. It turns out Bunnie is in something more like a vegetative state… It’s like her soul has been ripped away.

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編：エネルジャックの帰還・と・魔少年の道。

Hen: Enerujakku no Kikan to Mashōnen no Michi.

Saga: The Return of the Enerjak & the Way of the Devil Boy.

[Opening theme for this saga: “Ai wo torimodose”, the first opening theme for the Hokuto no Ken TV series, remixed by “CoatedDesert921” with the version for the 1986 movie]

[Ending theme for this saga: “Whistle Concert”, aka “Protoman’s theme”, from Mega Man 3 (either the guitar cover by “MET” or the “Star Force arrange” by “OmegaManZX”)]

During the Echidna Civil War between the Brotherhood of Guardians and the Dark Legion, two weeks after the tragic final of the fighting tournament in Station Square, Dimitri-Enerjak returns and takes command of the Legion. His body had been kept underground in Mobius for centuries, with the energy entity Enerjak dormant and waiting to gain access to some power source; Kragok received information about Dimitri’s situation from an unknown source and proceeded to unearth him, revive him and hand him command of the Dark Legion, although now Dimitri-Enerjak seems disappointed in modern Legionaries and just wants to take over Mobius in order to shape it however he sees fit, regardless of whether the Dark Legion suffers for it along with everyone else.

[Soundtrack: Crash – Mega Man ZeroOST, guitar cover by “MET”]

The Guardians ask Tails -whom they still see as the “Chosen One” there were so many prophecies about- to deal with Enerjak. Tails at first asks the Brotherhood to teach him some new technique, provide him with some special resource or give him some advice to have a better chance of neutralizing this new threat, but the Brotherhood isn’t very collaborative and claims he already has everything he needs. Then Tails goes to the duel against Enerjak on Angel Island, trusting in what he had learned so far and in being able to activate that higher form he had discovered in the tournament even though he still doesn’t understand it very well. But this proves not enough at all: Tails fails to activate that form, and the echidna demigod curb-stomps him nearly to death. A desperate Knuckles shatters the Master Emerald a third time (this being the second time he intentionally does it as a last resort), and then both he and a large contingent of refugees flee the island, heading for Knothole.

Tails barely manages to escape, staying still on the ground and playing dead, and once Enerjak is gone, the fox drops into the sea for the Sea Fox to pick him up.

————————————————–

[Soundtrack: Self Control – Raffaele “Raf” Riefoli, cover by Laura Branigan]

Tails decides to stay missing in order to train and unlock his powers and take Enerjak by surprise, but also to stop the Brotherhood from interfering by forcing him to follow their rules and using him as cannon fodder again. Avoiding all detection, the fox travels in the Sea Fox to Spagonia nonstop, sneaks through the city, and travels through the countryside until arriving at GUN’s HQ inside the Guardian Mountain. Once there, he gets Tower to allow him in and asks for Shadow’s help.

The “Ultimate Lifeform” is already working as a GUN agent alongside Rouge, Hope and Gamma on Team Dark. Like Tails, the black hedgehog has some experience using Chaos Energy without Emeralds, but with the rest of Team Dark’s help and GUN’s resources, he has researched Chaos Energy and any reference to it in historical records from all cultures across Mobius in order to discover new ways to harness it; now the “Ultimate Lifeform” is able to use both the Hero and Dark forms efficiently and with almost no overexertion, fueled by thoughts of justice and revenge respectively. Tails could benefit from Shadow, as his combat and training style is very different from what the fox learned from the Freedom Fighters and will certainly be better than the merely symbolic help from the Guardians.

Tails already knows Hope after working with her for months at their workshop back in Knothole and the two of them have developed a lot of mutual appreciation and a healthy friendship. Meanwhile, the fox and Rouge have only seen each other two or three times so far; however, the jewel thief shows Tails a different side of herself, being honest with him and trying to help him deal in a healthy way with the duties he’s imposing on himself as an Adept-to-Chaos hero.

Also, Tails and Shadow start to get along better due to some experiences they have in common. On the one hand, they both had someone who tried to use them as living weapons, but they’re also doing their best to protect the world by using those same powers others had tried to use for their own interests. On the other hand, Shadow had already gone through a phase where he tried to hide his own emotions and silence his concern for the survival and happiness of the people of Mobius and of those few people with whom he has developed a special bond (Maria in the ARK, Tails & Sonic in the Freedom Fighters, and Rouge, Gamma & Hope in Team Dark).

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[Soundtrack: The Dragon Theme (Track 21) – Dragon Ball Z, North-American OST, Volume 1]

[Soundtrack: Hell’s Bells (aka “Vegeta’s theme”, Track 18) – Dragon Ball Z, North-American OST, Volume 1]

Sonic, deeply hurt and enraged by Tails’s apparent death, turns into a somewhat unstable but still useful and durable wrath-powered Super form by using only five Chaos Emeralds, and heads to Angel Island to deal with Enerjak.

[Soundtrack: Final Flash (aka “Super Saiyan Vegeta’s theme”, Track 20) – Dragon Ball Z, North-American OST, Volume 1]

Sonic arrives and attacks Enerjak as soon as he sees him. They're pretty evenly matched for a while, but the battle goes on for too long and Super Sonic’s energy starts to run out. Then Enerjak takes the chance to suddenly dig the fingers of one hand into Sonic's chest, extract the hedgehog’s 人魂 [“hitodama”] (his soul concentrated in an energy sphere, the form in which Tikal’s soul had introduced herself in Sonic Adventure 1) and absorb it into his own body.

[Soundtrack: Haunted Chorus [The World is Healed] (M1023) aka Spill of Light on Earth (Essence of Life Theme) – Dragon Ball Z, Japanese OST]

Sonic ends up lying on the floor, motionless, apparently in the same kind of near-death “vegetative state” that Bunnie had ended up in. But in this case, Enerjak also disintegrates Sonic’s “corpse”.

Now the Knothole Freedom Fighters mourn the loss of three outstanding and inspiring members. The entire Resistance sinks into despair as they try to figure out how to defeat this brutally powerful being. Meanwhile, Enerjak remains on Angel Island instead of setting out to conquer the rest of the world, confirming Knuckles’s guess that the demigod needs the Master Emerald.

[Soundtrack: Setup to Super Saiyan (M1118) – Dragon Ball Z, Japanese OST]

Back at GUN’s HQ: Tails has trouble sparring with Shadow and unlocking his Chaos powers again. At the precise moment when Sonic’s soul is literally stolen, the fox feels something deep inside himself; when he realizes what it is, he remains still and silent but crying as the pain slowly makes him activate his Chaos powers without controlling them properly; after a while, Tails screams and causes a yellow-coloured burst of Chaos Energy, then keeps crying and yelling as he continuously expels Chaos radiation from his body and opens large cracks in the concrete floor below and around him; this new form resembles his transformation during the anniversary tournament, but it's unmastered like Super Tails “Kyōbō”. He eventually falls back to his base form and is rendered unconscious from exhaustion; Shadow and Rouge decide to stop the fox's training for a few days, let him rest and join him in mourning the loss of his "older brother".

With the news about what is technically Sonic’s death, Tails becomes more and more obsessed with Enerjak being closer and closer to taking over Mobius and killing the rest of his friends while he wastes time practising with Shadow instead of avenging Bunnie and Sonic; so, the fox tries to suppress his emotions in order to be more focused. The “Ultimate Lifeform” notices this, and although Tails is doing a little better in the 道場 [“dōjō”], the hedgehog can see that amazing fighter who had almost defeated him in the tournament is fading in favour of someone who may know how to defend himself, hit and even kill but won’t be a true hero and will even be someone with his feelings and personality atrophied, unable to lead a fulfilling life on a personal level... not unlike the living weapon the Brotherhood of Guardians is longing to get their hands on. Shadow stops combat training, urges Tails to stop suppressing himself and advises him to unleash these emotions instead of holding them back, to allow them to guide him, empower him and unlock his potential as an Adept to Chaos; only after doing so should the fox attempt to control and redirect them in more efficient and fruitful ways.

One day, Hope invites Tails and Shadow to go on vacation for a few days with her, Rouge and Gamma, so the five of them go to a small town in the rural area of Soleanna. During that time, Tails and Shadow chat for a while and the latter admits to missing Sonic a lot.

[Soundtrack: Vegeta Powers Up (Track 19) – Dragon Ball Z, North-American OST, Volume 1]

Then they're accosted by a group of four Mobians claiming to work for Enerjak and calling themselves “the Fearsome Foursome”: Sergeant Simon Simian, the former BBA soldier Predator Hawk, the exiled ninja Lightning Lynx, and the serial killer Flying Frog... who then gloats over having killed Bunnie with Lightning’s help.

Gamma starts a sort of contest of strength against Simian until Shadow in his Dark form brutally rips the sergeant’s arm off and then knocks him out with a punch to the temple. Rouge protects Hope and fights Predator in midair until an accurate shot from the bat’s handgun breaks the falcon’s wing. Tails is assaulted by Frog and Lightning at the same time, but then...

[Soundtrack: Gohan Angers 2 (Track 19) – Dragon Ball Z, North-American OST, Volume 3]

[Soundtrack: Gohan Angers (Track 20) – Dragon Ball Z, North-American OST, Volume 3]

The fox surrounds himself with a yellow, fire-looking aura; it's similar to when he sensed Sonic's death, but now Tails has already started to master this transformation, which looks much more like a simple yellow variant of Tails's higher power form in the tournament. Then he stores Chaos Energy in his tails just like he had done when fighting Shadow in the tournament, but this time, he hits Frog with the tails and makes the serial killer literally explode [like Gohan Super Saiyan 2 when he killed two of Bojack’s henchpeople in the 9th Dragon Ball Z movie, Bojack Unbound]. Lightning flinches, terrified as he has almost never been in his life.

Lightning: [trying to keep his composure] “It’s alright… There’s a lot you still don’t know about my employer. I can tell you, no one else needs to end up like Frog. We only came here to attack you guys now, but we didn’t do anything else before, we can all forget this even happened.”

Tails: [with a high-pitched, squeaky voice but at a very low volume, almost whispering] 「兎美ちゃんのことか？」 [“Umi-chan no koto ka?”, “What about Bunnie?”]

Lightning: “Huh?”

Tails: [increasingly angry and speaking increasingly louder, until he explodes and starts yelling as his aura gets bigger] 「ウミチャンノコトカーーーーッ？！」 [“UMI-CHAN NO KOTO KAAAAH?!”]

The fox repeats the technique from before...

Tails: 「クラエ、キサマ！フカヒーッ・・・コウセイナーッ・・・バツハヤテーーーーッ！」 [「食らえ、貴様！不可避・・・公正な・・・罰疾風！」, “KURAE, KISAMA! FUKAHIH... KŌSEINAH... BATSU HAYATEEEEH!”, “EAT THIS, BASTARD! INESCAPABLE... FAIR... PUNISHMENT WINDGUST!”]

But this time he sweeps the air with his tails and fires two cutting gusts of wind bordering on the speed of sound. Lightning escapes upon realizing he'll not be able to fight alone, but even with his great speed and agility, he’s hit by the wind gusts and cut cleanly into three parts... But only at the legs, though.

Rouge calls GUN agents to arrest the three surviving members of the so-called “Fearsome Foursome”. However, unbeknownst to Tails and Team Dark, they’re being watched by a mysterious person: it’s the same one who had revealed Dimitri-Enerjak’s location to Kragok. This person had “killed” Bunnie and let her hitodama fly away, now they’ve just used the Fearsome Foursome as cannon fodder to test Tails, previously giving those mercenaries precise instructions to claim one or two of them (Frog in particular) had killed Bunnie and the four of them are doing everything on behalf of Enerjak. Before leaving, the mysterious subject promises to meet again with the “Chosen One”.

Meanwhile, deep in a nearby forest, a hooded echidna takes advantage of the Fearsome Foursome’s distraction to take one of the shards of the Master Emerald from the ground, then proceeds to encapsulate it in a cylinder made to partially isolate and disguise the shard’s energy signature.

————————————————–

[Soundtrack: Crash 2 – Mega Man Zero 2OST, guitar cover by “MET”]

A month and a half later, on Angel Island, Enerjak finally sets his plans for world conquest in motion and heads to the Hidden Palace: the Master Emerald had been restored, the Brotherhood had secretly gathered all the shards to do that and now they’re seemingly letting Enerjak seize the gemstone and its power. Knuckles is retained by the Guardians, whose members claim the demigod won't be able to do anything with the Master Emerald anyway and will at most shatter it again when he sees no use for it, so Knux will only have to rebuild it later in the worst-case scenario. However, Mighty doesn’t trust the Brotherhood at all, isn’t willing to take such risks, and leaps towards the Master Emerald before Enerjak does.

[Soundtrack: Goku’s SSJ Transformation (Track 25) – Dragon Ball Z, North-American OST, Volume 2]

Surprisingly for everyone including Mighty himself, he manages to turn into his Super form. His shell becomes diamond-like and takes on a bright turquoise hue; he doesn't emit a blinding light but he does create a "dispersive prism" effect, letting the light through and breaking it down into rainbow-coloured flashes.

The armadillo goes out to fight the demigod, and again both are very even. The armadillo’s fighting style is a slight variation of Sonic’s: keep his distance, stay defensive, accumulate energy and launch a single, overwhelmingly powerful attack whenever Enerjak looks vulnerable. On the other hand, even though Mighty has intuited he shouldn’t overexert his Super form, he’s hardly familiar with Chaos-powered techniques yet, and the only one he had witnessed for himself thus far was Knuckles’s Thunder Arrow during the battle against Mecha Sonic.

During the Super Mighty versus Enerjak fight, Ray remembers the demigod had stolen and absorbed Super Sonic’s hitodama, deduces this could be making Enerjak more powerful, and realizes he could now try to rip out Super Mighty’s hitodama too. Ray also realizes both he and Mighty are Adepts to Chaos just like Sonic and Tails: only that could explain Ray’s abnormally prodigious flight ability, as well as his adoptive brother’s exceptional defences and physical strength. This leads the flying squirrel to jump into the Master Emerald to try to go Super and help Mighty, but this soon proves to be a big mistake.

[Soundtrack: Boss Lobby – Kirby's Return to Dream Land OST]

Ray is indeed an Adept to Chaos, but he still has a lot of pent-up rage due to his family’s death and his life from then on until Mighty started taking care of him; Ray just bottled up that anger and pain and never handled it properly, unlike Mighty, who also had painful experiences but has been meditating for quite some time. The flying squirrel forces the Super transformation, and the mix of an Adept to Chaos, the Master Emerald’s power, bottled emotional pain and much, much stubbornness creates Super Ray “Kyōbō”: a grotesque lime-green creature, literally boiling like hot water inside, with his muscles overdeveloped and his sanity shattered. Super Ray “Kyōbō” doesn’t distinguish between friend and foe, attacks both Enerjak and Super Mighty alike, wildly unleashes his power against everyone and everything in the Hidden Palace, and the armadillo is forced to fight him to return him to his base form and make him see reason. Enerjak walks away from the fight between the two adoptive brothers, finally fulfilling his goal of seizing the Master Emerald, and this apparently increases his power too, contrary to what the Brotherhood had predicted.

[Soundtrack: Bad Blood (M513) – Dragon Ball original series’ OST]

The ceiling of the cavern where the Hidden Palace is located has partially collapsed, letting the midday sunlight fall on the shrine of the Master Emerald. The Brotherhood had secretly gathered the Chaos Emeralds, but Rouge steals them and brings them to Knuckles, who harshly rebukes the Guardians but then walks away with the Emeralds, deciding he has more pressing matters to attend to at the moment. Knux goes Super and tries to stop Enerjak, but the demigod has just achieved full control over the Master Emerald and neutralizes the Chaos Emeralds, thus “turning off” Knux’s Super form and leaving him with only ordinary Chaos powers that don’t compare to Enerjak’s; Mighty and Ray go back to their base forms too.

When Enerjak is about to kill Knuckles, Shadow arrives on Angel Island, saves Knux and takes his place to fight the demigod.

[Soundtrack: Snake Man’s theme – Mega Man 3 OST, arranged by “Synthescissor”]

The “Ultimate Lifeform” doesn’t really look desperate, nor does he seem to be fighting only to die knowing that he did what he could; quite the contrary, he looks a bit confident and occasionally prophesies Enerjak will soon be defeated forever. Shadow cannot become his Super form in any way, but the powers he already has in his base form, along with his Hero and Dark forms, are enough to keep Enerjak at bay as he also keeps making remarks about the demigod; the hedgehog also whispers to Sonic, as if he was still alive and right there.

Enerjak gets eventually fed up with fighting Shadow, not only because the battle is at a standstill but also because the hedgehog’s comments are getting on his nerves. The echidna tries to rip the hitodama from the Ultimate Lifeform, but he quickly removes the inhibitor rings and uses all of his power to unleash a 「混沌爆破」 [“Konton Bakuha”, “Chaos Blast”]; Enerjak manages to resist although he also receives some superficial burns, and Shadow is lying on the floor, exhausted. The echidna prepares to kill him, thinking the hedgehog has run out of Chaos Energy and is no longer useful to him, but suddenly someone stands between them.

It’s Tails, who had arrived together with Shadow but had remained hidden near the site of the battle, watching Enerjak’s movements in his fight against the hedgehog.

[Soundtrack: Menace Unfamiliar (Track 8) – Dragon Ball Z, Japanese new OST by Kenji Yamamoto, Volume 2]

Tails challenges Enerjak to a rematch. The demigod doesn’t mock the fox but does question his motives for fighting since the first combat between them had only happened because the Brotherhood of Guardians had sent the fox as cannon fodder to make a prophecy about a “Chosen One” come true. Tails replies that’s irrelevant and he only fights to save the people of Mobius and do the right thing, not because the Brotherhood ordered him to kill their enemies or because there’s a prophecy to fulfil. Both remain still, in a combat pose, each in front of and at some distance from the other...

Until Enerjak throws the first punch.

[Soundtrack: Spark Man’s theme – Mega Man 3OST, “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate style” remix by “31 Horas Music”]

Then Tails generates a blue aura, blocks the fist approaching him, firmly grabs Enerjak’s arm, his aura turns red, and he throws the echidna into a wall.

————————————————–

By combining, on the one hand, combat to exercise his body and also to get to know it better, and on the other hand, meditation to better connect with his own soul and mind, be more focused and exploit his own feelings and emotions during a fight, Tails had managed to entirely awaken his latent Chaos powers and take total control of them. Using the Chaos energy within his own body and no Chaos Emeralds (although also adding 50 Power Rings, just in case), the fox can access a sort of attenuated Super form, which has less raw power than the traditional Super form and doesn’t retain its invincibility but nonetheless greatly enhances all of his physical attributes and senses, is more stable, virtually lasts infinitely, and unlike a Super form generated by Chaos Emeralds, is 100% under the user’s control; this is ideal when combined with a fighting style developed jointly by Shadow, Rouge and Tails, largely based on being “sharp like a sniper” and concentrating either physical force or Chaos Energy on specific parts of oneself’s body, quite the opposite of Knuckles’s fighting style, which also uses Chaos powers and special techniques like the Thunder Arrow but relies much more on using brute force, dealing damage over a wide area and “overwhelming” the opponent. Tails calls this form 「魔少年」 [“Mashōnen”, “Devil Boy”], and when it’s activated, he emits an aura of a different colour depending on the emotions he focuses on to use his power; it’s based on Shadow’s Hero & Dark forms, but adapted by the fox to draw power from any kind of feeling, thought and emotion.

[The “Devil Boy” form is based upon three things: firstly, a variant of Super Saiyan 1 called “Super Saiyan Full Power”, reached by Goku and Gohan when they left the Hyperbolic Time Chamber before the final battle against Perfect Cell in Dragon Ball Z; secondly, a Sonic 3 exclusive glitch -fixed in Sonic 3 & Knuckles- where, in the major boss battle on Hydrocity, if Super Sonic gets caught between the Egg-Mobile’s propeller and the waterspout generated by it, he falls back to something in between his base form and his Super form, where he can only run as fast and jump as high as in his base form but is still yellow and invincible and can stay that way without spending a single ring; lastly… well, Shadow’s Hero & Dark forms, of course. The aura varying in colour according to the emotions is based on the 7 chakras (more exactly, the 6 original ones) and the colours and emotions associated with each of them, something Akira Toriyama probably also used since the beginning of Dragon Ball Z onwards, when designing the 「界王拳」 (“Kaiō-Ken”) and the many variants of the Super Saiyan form.]

————————————————–

The outfit Tails features here is largely based on that of Sally, his mother figure, leader and first mentor: he wears a blue vest similar to Sally’s but with a design based on that of the 「稽古着」 [“keiko-gi”], the uniform for martial arts training, with a quite open V-shaped neckline revealing the chest’s centre and collarbones and letting the fluffy white fur of Tails’s chest protrude, two buttons replacing the zipper, and a black belt; on the back, the vest is sewn with two white kanji characters, 臙 y 影, which translate as “rouge” and “shadow”, a homage from the young fox to his new mentors. The vest is complemented by blue pants like those that usually accompany the “keiko-gi”, blue motorcycle gloves, white socks and black kung-fu shoes.

[Here’s a drawing of the design I made for Tails, albeit here his vest has only one of two kanji characters for “shadow” sewn on the back:]

[https://www.deviantart.com/coyam99/art/Devil-Boy-Tails-862441967]

[https://mashounen2003.tumblr.com/post/636148046814642176/%E9%AD%94%E5%B0%91%E5%B9%B4%E3%83%86%E3%82%A4%E3%83%AB%E3%82%B9-mash%C5%8Dnen-teirusu-devil-boy-tails]

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[Soundtrack: Battle Spirit – Mega Man Battle Network 2 OST, remixed by “KokiRemix” (version 1)]

[Soundtrack: Cut Man’s theme – Mega Man 1 OST, arranged by “Synthescissor” (version 2)]

The battle goes on for several minutes. Tails manages to use Chaos Control to teleport several times in a row but in stretches of only about five meters, circling around Enerjak, escaping the echidna’s attacks and launching attacks of his own either from behind, from above or from the sides. For a moment, the demigod takes some advantage, but Tails stops one of his kicks and breaks his knee; Enerjak loses his balance as he uses his powers to heal the injury, but the fox doesn’t give him time and throws a flurry of punches directly to his stomach’s pit. Although Tails might be able to block Enerjak’s blows, he only does this very occasionally. When Enerjak loses his cool (again) and throws a flurry of punches, the fox -now surrounded by a purple aura- doesn’t block them but predicts and dodges all of them until he finds an opening, his aura suddenly turns orange and he elbows the echidna under the chin.

After receiving another flurry of blows to the face...

[Soundtrack: The Dead Zone Is Summoned Up (M816) – Dragon Ball original series’ OST]

Enerjak walks away and begins to extract energy from the Master Emerald remotely, fires a Chaos Blast and apparently kills Tails. But after a long suspense-filled while, he suddenly comes out of the bottom of the crater left by the echidna and charges a Chaos attack of his own invention, something between the 「混沌槍」 [“Konton Yari”, “Chaos Spear”] and the Chaos Blast, powerful but accurate and far less exhausting than the latter. Enerjak protects himself just as he had against Shadow’s last attack, and Tails fires the energy blast, but then the fox makes it turn around at the last minute and hit the demigod on the back.

Tails assures this attack, the 「混沌追尾波」 [“Konton Tsuibi-Ha”, “Chaos Homing Wave”], was just a warning shot, and the fight continues.

[Soundtrack: Powerful Enemy – Mega Man Battle Network 5 OST, remixed by “KokiRemix” (version 2)]

[Soundtrack: Boss Battle – Kirby's Return to Dream Land OST]

Enerjak’s increased power allows him to move faster and land more hits, but Tails also manages to recover more quickly from those hits and to counter-attack. En one of these counter-attacks, the “Devil Boy” launches a flurry of 「混沌針」 [“Konton Hari”, “Chaos Needles”]: he summons miniature Chaos Spears, stores them in his fingertips and claws instead of firing them, and then throws a flurry of blows with his fingers stretched out together, making Enerjak bleed profusely and piercing his golden armour, eyes, skin and muscles on his face and his entire torso’s front side; Tails completes the attack with another 「不可避公正な罰疾風」 [“Fukahi Kōseina Batsu Hayate”, “Inescapable Fair Punishment Windgust”], storing a Chaos Spear’s energy in each tail and using them to slice the demigod’s throat. Dealing so much direct damage to Enerjak is already quite a feat, even if the echidna has a very accelerated healing factor and is able to survive the throat-slicing.

At the end of this stage of the battle, they both start to look visibly tired but Tails had managed to stay on his feet the entire time.

[Soundtrack: Surge of Power – Mega Man Battle Network 6 OST, remixed by “KokiRemix” (version 2)]

[Soundtrack: Departure – Mega Man Zero 2 OST, guitar cover by “MET”]

Once they both catch their breath, the battle resumes... with Tails throwing Enerjak into another wall. The demigod resorts to dirty fighting, throwing debris at the fox’s face and exploiting the distraction to fire lasers from the eyes; one of the shots breaks Tails’s knee and the other shot rebounds and breaks one of his tails; it’s also revealed that the “Devil Boy” form alone, with no Chaos Emeralds, still doesn’t grant Tails a healing factor as fast as Enerjak’s. The demigod lunges at a vulnerable Tails, and then the fox pulls out a sheathed katana that was strapped to his back, activates an aura that varies between two or three colours -signalling he’s drawing power from several emotions at the same time-, uses the samples of his own blood grafted onto the blade to infuse his katana with that energy, uses a battō-jutsu technique to quickly unsheathe & attack, and the katana cutting the air unleashes a wide slashing gust of wind and Chaos Energy that, when hitting Enerjak, cleanly cuts him in half vertically.

It takes Enerjak some time to put the two halves of his body back together. Then he starts to power up again, but it doesn’t seem to be the same process by which he had drawn energy from the Master Emerald, so he’s probably drawing it from elsewhere. Tails starts suspecting, as he uses his katana -sheathed again- as a walking stick and waits for at least one of his two injured limbs to become functional again. Then the echidna surrounds himself with an emerald green aura, concentrates his power in his fingers and begins to fire Chaos Spears from them. The “Devil Boy” barely manages to dodge the first Spear and responds by firing a Chaos Homing Wave, Enerjak repels it and shoots Spears from all his fingers at once, Tails dodges some shots but is forced to briefly summon a shield to deflect the others, another Spear of the echidna snatches the katana from Tails’s hands, the next Spear deflects and blows up half of one of the fox’s tails, another shot grazes his injured leg and disables it again, and Enerjak ends his attack by firing at the fox a 「混沌爆弾」 [“Konton Bakudan”, “Chaos Bomb”]: a sphere of pure Chaos Energy that destroys everything within a half kilometre radius.

Tails is saved by Knuckles, who has just recovered from his fight with Enerjak and uses his gliding ability to lift Tails up, lowering him again once the Chaos Bomb has exploded. As soon as Tails is safe on the ground, Knuckles collapses again. Enerjak has started to get tired again, but the “Devil Boy” is also struggling to move due to his two injuries on one leg, in addition to not being able to fly anymore due to the lack of part of one tail. The demigod once again draws energy from some unknown place, just like the previous time, and uses all of his power for another Chaos Blast, which Tails fails to dodge.

[Soundtrack: Ultimate Decision (M518) – Dragon Ball original series’ OST]

The fox is lying in a deep crater, but still alive and conscious. He calls T-Pup -the robot dog he had used in the Tails Adventure adaptation- to pick him up and, when exiting the crater, shows he's just a little more injured than before, whereas Enerjak is exhausted again. Then Tails reveals everything he had discovered in all the time since Shadow started fighting Enerjak:

Sonic -or rather, his soul in the form of a hitodama- had been resisting the echidna demigod and sabotaging his efforts from within, stealing some of his power and damaging Enerjak's link with the Master Emerald; the gemstone had always been at least a bit sentient and seemed to be helping Sonic until the link between Enerjak and the Master Emerald eventually broke, though the echidna pretended to stay in control. 「御影先生」 [“O-Kage-Sensei”, “Master Shadow”] had deduced that (having also commented to Tails that nothing less could be expected of who had been the hero of the Resistance against Robotnik until a few months ago); the “Ultimate Lifeform” had been talking to Sonic throughout the entire battle against Enerjak, knowing the blue hedgehog was still there. That mysterious place from where Enerjak had been drawing energy the last two times during the fight against Tails was Sonic’s hitodama: the hedgehog couldn’t stop Enerjak from taking the energy out of him, but he did manage to keep resisting by injuring and wearing down the inside of Enerjak’s body each time the demigod made attacks powered by energy stolen from Sonic. The demigod is much weaker than he looks like, he has been for a long time, and this has just been proven by how little damage the last Chaos Blast has done to Tails.

The “Devil Boy” claims this is the moment when the battle will finally end and one of them will die, but then...

[Soundtrack: The Devil Itself (M1120A) – Dragon Ball Z, Japanese OST]

Risking running out of power, Enerjak teleports to Knuckles's side; his move is successful, and then he firmly grabs the Guardian by his head, threatening to kill him. Tails stands still, and the demigod starts torturing the fox, using a Chaos Spear to amputate one of his arms and a second Chaos Spear to amputate his still-healthy leg. The fox is left lying on the ground, unable to attack, looking apathetic and crying silently, while Enerjak sentences that mortals are weak against him because they let their feelings dominate them and still retain their altruism, concern for others and compassion.

[Soundtrack: Demon Broly (M1522) – Dragon Ball Z, Japanese OST]

Enerjak releases Knuckles, takes flight, claims victory, and dashes towards Tails to kill him off. But then Tails surprisingly yells at him, defiantly and with a fierce expression on his face, that he missed one arm. The fox generates an aura with all the colours of the spectrum -showing he’s using all his emotions at the same time to gain power-, gathers all his energies in his one hand and shoots a Chaos Homing Wave towards the ground, being launched straight at Enerjak. The demigod tries to protect himself, and Tails points his clenched fist at the villain’s chest as he asks for help from Sonic and the rest of his friends; then Tails’s multi-coloured aura becomes bigger and brighter, and Enerjak sees behind the “Devil Boy” a huge feral fox with white hair, red facial markings and blue eyes. Tails’s attack makes him pierce through Enerjak’s body, blasting a large hole in his chest.

Tails drops into the sea, satisfied that he saved the world, avenged Sonic and Bunnie, made Shadow and Rouge proud… and said “go f*** yourselves” to the Brotherhood of Guardians in the meantime.

————————————————–

Dimitri’s body, centuries-old and mutilated, is no longer able to host Enerjak’s essence, who starts slowly fading away. This allows the Dark Legion’s founder to regain his sanity and original personality, and then meditate a bit about what has just happened...

Both before and during the time Dimitri had been possessed by Enerjak, he was convinced that he was doing Mobius good with his actions, by supposedly fighting only against the ultra-conservative government of Echidnaopolis, the theocracy and, after being revived, the Brotherhood of Guardians; he also regretted most of the leaders of the Dark Legion have turned to world domination plans and infighting. Enerjak hadn’t actually “possessed” him in the strict sense of the word, but had influenced him so that his ideas started becoming more and more twisted and ended up being almost unrecognizable without Dimitri himself ever noticing.

Dimitri-Enerjak fought against a Tails unprepared but as determined as ever; a Super Sonic unimaginably enraged and quite capable of defeating him; a Super Mighty calm and quite different from the typical Adept to Chaos in their Super form; a Super Ray born out of Ray’s concern for Mighty and his willingness to even risk his own sanity; a Knuckles fed up with the Brotherhood of Guardians; a Shadow that had originally been created partly to be used as a living weapon, and lastly, a well-trained Tails who eventually defeated him once and for all. They all fought out of genuine heroism, willing to sacrifice their own lives, to save the world they love rather than to reign over it or to carry out any other hidden agenda; this surprised Dimitri and was truly eye-opening to him, as he used to think until then that self-proclaimed “heroes” always turn out to be self-righteous manipulative hypocrites like the rulers of Echidnaopolis and -more recently- the Brotherhood, or mere executioners of such people at best. To top it off, Enerjak had claimed feelings and altruism are what make mortals weak, and immediately after that, Tails defeated him with an immense power generated literally by his very feelings and desire to save his loved ones and the entire world.

In his final moments, Dimitri expresses his praise for Tails, and not only admits his defeat in the fight itself but also admits the fox was correct. Dimitri begs Tails to remain the same kind of person and hero that defeated Enerjak, stating that this way the fox won’t only have a fulfilling life but also defeat the Brotherhood of Guardians, avoiding making Dimitri’s mistakes and succeeding where the old echidna had failed.

Immediately afterwards, when Enerjak’s influence is completely gone from Dimitri’s body, he begins to writhe and finally explodes.

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編：最後の戦い：結局のところ、神性の本当の意味は何ですか？

Hen: Saigo no Tatakai: kekkyoku no tokoro, Shinsei no Hontō no Imi wa nani desu ka?

Saga: The Ultimate Battle: after all, what even is the True Meaning of Divinity?

[Opening theme for this saga: “A Cruel Angel’s Thesis”, the opening theme for the Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series (either the original Japanese version by Yōko Takahashi et al., the Italian cover by “ohitsjuno”, the French TV-size cover by “AMVF Studio”, the German TV-size cover by “LadyofChocolate”, or the Italian cover by “Midelle Channel”)]

[Ending theme for this saga: “Fly Me to the Moon” by Bart Howard (cover for the Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series’ ending by Claire Littley)]

After Tails’s final battle against Enerjak, Mammoth Mogul captures the maimed fox while he’s still passed out and worn out. Mogul initially lets the young Freedom Fighter’s Chaos powers slowly regenerate his lost limbs, but then the mage temporarily extracts the two-tailed fox’s hitodama and combines the energy emanated by it with his own powers to create a clone of Tails, made of pure energy and with the same memories and personality as the original, then leaving Tails’s friends to find this clone at the site of the battle against Enerjak.

When this Tails awakens in Knothole and is reunited with the other Freedom Fighters, he kneels before Sally and declares to have finally avenged their friends; Sally just hugs him and silently cries, as the rest of the team join them; Fiona is the first to hug Tails and the former princess: she had become one of Bunnie’s best friends along with Sally herself, had developed genuine admiration for Sonic as a hero and teammate, and was surprisingly more scarred than almost everyone else (except Sally, of course) by Tails’s apparent death, indirectly the fault of the Brotherhood’s plots. Shadow promises the Freedom Fighters to do his best to be a worthy replacement for Sonic, making sure that Tails at least lives the rest of his adolescence in relative peace and doesn’t ever need to fight directly or be the new Hero of Mobius again; since the “Ultimate Lifeform” still has his job at GUN, Mighty agrees to help him, learning to use his Chaos powers in the meantime.

For a few days, Mogul’s ruse seems to work, so the sorcerer continues with the true plan that he had had all this time: to extract the Chaos power from the real Tails once he was vulnerable, in order to become omnipotent.

————————————————–

It’s been a week. The Knothole Freedom Fighters keep a physically healed but still vegetative Bunnie in stasis and are making arrangements for Sonic’s funeral. They have yet to decide how they’ll get on without the blue hedgehog; however, the team decides to just save that for later, say goodbye to their hero, field leader and friend, and thank that at least Tails came out of this whole debacle alive.

The night before the funeral, Sally dreams of Sonic and Bunnie trying to warn her about something. During the day, just before the event, the former princess is writing her speech when she hears Sonic and Bunnie arguing as if they were right there, in the same room as Sally, on the same plane of existence; then she looks in the mirror… and she sees her dead boyfriend and her comatose best friend, but they’re both totally fine and are each standing on either side of her [and in a deleted scene, Sonic is twerking]. Of course, Sally reacts as any rational person would: throwing her chair to the mirror and yelling insults so loud she scares the birds away.

When everyone gathers in Knothole’s central square to listen to Sally, Knuckles notices something is off about the life signal he’s receiving from the former princess: it feels like there’s someone else in the same place as her.

Then someone suddenly shows up there: a grey-haired adult Mobian fox dressed in a hooded robe, calling himself “Merlin” and claiming to be a mage working for Aurora, an Echidna woman who had ascended to a higher plane of existence and would later begin to be worshipped as the deity of Echidnaopolis’s religion. According to Merlin, Sonic’s and Bunnie’s hitodamas were left wandering Mobius until they ended up in Sally’s body, presenting themselves in her mind; when Sally tries to bring Bunnie out of the vegetative state by letting the cyborg rabbit’s hitodama return to her original body, she manages to do so simply by holding Bunnie’s hand; on the other hand, Sonic’s original body had been destroyed by Enerjak, so his hitodama has to stay in Sally’s body for the time being.

Sally: [deadpan] *sigh* “Great…”

Sonic: “Don’t worry, Sally, I’ll make sure to at least make you have some fun until I get my body back.”

————————————————–

Deleted scene:

They finally bring Sally a new, bigger mirror so she can see what’s going on with Sonic. Sally’s reaction to looking in the mirror is just a facepalm: based on what she’s seeing, Sonic is twerking again but in front of Shadow.

————————————————–

As Merlin explains what’s happening, Tails has a feeling about the old sorcerer fox, who also seems vaguely familiar to Leónidas. However, whenever either of the two tries to talk to Merlin, there's conveniently a reason why the old mage can't attend to them at the moment.

Sonic asks Sally from inside his mind to bring Bunnie over to speak to her privately. Once Bunnie and Sally (plus Sonic) are gathered, the cyborg -deducing Sonic had organized this meeting- tells Sally what they were trying to tell her in her dreams: something is wrong with Tails, he might not actually be who he seems to be, even though his mind is Tails’s and he’s not trying to hide anything; Bunnie and Sonic had noticed it a couple of days after the final battle against Enerjak, while they were both still in their hitodama form.

Sonic also proposes an “experiment” to Sally: trying to use the Chaos matter within the chipmunk (even if it’s not enough to make her an Adept to Chaos) to give her a power-up. Sonic would supervise this test: he has some experience -albeit rather intuitive- in the use of Chaos Energy, and being in Sally’s mind, he can watch her progress from a vantage point. Sally is no stranger to using these “higher power states”: she and Sonic had achieved something similar by using the Deep Power Stones to destroy the super-weapon “Doomsday” and put an end to the war against Robotnik.

————————————————–

Two weeks later, during a mission to disrupt one of Snively’s operations, Tails fails to activate the “Mashōnen” form at all. Sally ends up saving Tails from a Super-Badnik, though not by picking up Tails and running away, but by cutting off the robot’s arms with two naginatas, throwing herself at the monstrous machine and driving both naginatas deep into the machine’s visor. Sally herself, along with her weapons, are surrounded by an orange-yellow aura similar to fire: her training with Sonic’s help is beginning to pay off, although seeing Tails vulnerable and in danger was probably what prompted the chipmunk to activate her latent Chaos powers for the first time, and using those Chaos powers is still tremendously exhausting and even gradually damages Sally’s body due to her not being an Adept to Chaos.

Tails having been unable to use his powers worries Merlin, who then checks Tails’s mind and confirms the suspicions Sonic and Bunnie had: this is not the real Tails, it’s a being made of pure energy and created by magic. The fox also has a sudden vision of a cave where someone is suffering horribly but stubbornly refuses to ask for help. His description of the cave leads Nicole to identify it as a location in one of the many islands in Southeast Yurashia, not far from the region where the human city-state of Adabat is located; Angel Island was floating above that same area when Tails defeated Enerjak and probably was later replaced by a clone, that clone being the Tails found by his friends and brought back to Knothole.

Sally (with Sonic), Bunnie, Athair and the clone Tails go to that cave, where they find the real Tails trapped in a magic bubble: his body is fully regenerated just like his clone's, but he’s also really weak and looks like he's slowly dying. Then Mogul appears before them and reveals his plans, thinking those plans have already progressed enough to be unstoppable. An irate Sally -along with Sonic from inside her mind- activates her powers again, ignoring any possible self-harm, surrounding herself with a red aura this time; Bunnie immediately joins the battle; Merlin hesitates for a short while, but Bunnie prompts him to intervene.

With the energy stolen from Tails, Mogul manages to keep everyone at bay, even though Sally surprisingly manages to quickly recover from her self-inflicted damage and fight again. The mammoth sorcerer, with the help of the fact that he’s technically the clone Tails’s creator, starts manipulating the existential crisis the fox boy is having and was trying to hide from his teammates. On the other hand, Sally lets Sonic take control of her body so that he can speak to the fox directly: the hedgehog encourages him to be his own person, to ignore Mogul, to rebel against his creator. Then the clone Tails regains his ability to use his Chaos powers, and having already had the necessary knowledge beforehand, he goes “Mashōnen” as easily as the original Tails did; however, since the clone Tails is made of energy, his own “Mashōnen” form is much more powerful and he overwhelmingly defeats Mogul, leaving the sorcerer badly injured and temporarily incapacitated.

Mogul escapes by teleporting; the real Tails is freed from his prison and his link with Mogul is broken, so the mammoth can no longer steal energy from him. But the clone suddenly feels really weak and soon after his body begins to fade. Sally (along with Sonic through her) tries to stop him from leaving, despite Merlin and the fox boy himself reminding her the real Tails is alive and well; the clone Tails also claims to be able to see Sonic as someone with a body of his own standing next to Sally, which is actually a sign that he’s about to die. The clone thanks them: not only did they keep accepting, respecting, caring and loving him as much as the real Tails until the end despite all the revelations about him, but they also convinced him to recognize himself as another person, which officially confirmed him as someone with a soul of his own and gave him the access he lacked to his Chaos powers. When the clone Tails only has a few seconds left, he whispers something to Sonic’s spirit only: he’s in love with Fiona, the real Tails feels the same, and the clone begs the blue hedgehog to take care of the red vixen, to let Tails find the best way to deal with those feelings on his own, and to allow her and Tails build a healthy relationship, no matter if it ultimately becomes a romance or remains something platonic or strictly a friendship.

Once the clone has completely vanished, the real Tails wakes up. Sonic is glad his “little brother” is still alive, but still remains a little disturbed by the disappearance of Tails’s clone: he had proven to be a person too, aware of himself and with feelings of his own.

————————————————–

Mogul’s defeat against the Freedom Fighters and one of his own creations turns out to be merely a minor setback in the progress of the wizard’s plans: he manages to become a Super form of his own, “Master Mogul”, and combining the typical Chaos powers with his magic, he seizes the Chaos Emeralds with a mere snap of the fingers; Knuckles attempts to turn off the Chaos Emeralds by using the Master Emerald and Tikal’s Prayer again, but for some reason, this no longer has any effect. Mogul is about to become fully omnipotent; the mammoth teleports near Knothole and challenges any Adept to Chaos among the Freedom Fighters to fight him, threatening to destroy the village and the entire forest.

The Brotherhood of Guardians tries to make Tails and his friends follow their directions, including a possible interpretation of the prophecies about the Chosen One: Tails would have to merge with his counterparts in each of the infinite parallel universes. However, the fox boy, the entire Resistance and their other allies no longer trust them at all; Merlin shares that feeling too.

Then Sonic (speaking through Sally) recalls the battle he and Tails had fought against Perfect Chaos: both of them had managed to go Super by recharging the Chaos Emeralds shortly after Chaos had depleted them, and this, in turn, had been possible thanks to the encouragement of his friends and all the people of Station Square, which is estimated at around one or two million people. The blue hedgehog wonders what would happen if all the people on the planet did the same as the population of Station Square back then, but the Chaos energy generated by them went straight to an Adept to Chaos or a group of them instead of charging the Emeralds. Merlin responds to this that Sonic may have found out what being a god truly means: many people, both Humans and Mobians, throughout the planet’s history had made meditations on this subject, sometimes in the context of studying an already existing religion of which each was a follower, and had been considering the possibility that a single omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient superior being could exist as an expression of the collective spirit, conscience and will of all simple mortals, something abstract and more similar to an idea with its own physical form, something that doesn’t have specific identifiable traits but at the same time has all the traits of all living beings; something very different from a more powerful being that has particular physical and mental traits, comes from a different plane of existence, dimension or universe, lives since before everyone else and everything else, has created the universe with its inhabitants, watches their evolution and presents themself to people as a deity.

[Soundtrack: A Sigh of Hope (M1020) – Dragon Ball Z, Japanese OST]

The impromptu ritual would require several people with any kind of sensitivity to Chaos Energy to begin acting as living Chaos Emeralds, receiving and channelling the thoughts of the world’s population and turning them into power. Through an inspiring speech, Sally (with some input from Sonic, which turns out to be surprisingly helpful) calls upon all the people of Mobius to repeat on a global scale what the inhabitants of Station Square had done to help Sonic in the battle against Perfect Chaos.

[Soundtrack: The Birth of a God (Track 30) – Dragon Ball SuperOST, Volume 1, Disc 1]

Then Tails, Sally (plus Sonic), Bunnie and Merlin return to Knothole and pick up Knuckles, Athair, Shadow, Mighty and Ray along the way for help. Sally, Knuckles, Shadow, Mighty and Ray each rest a hand on Tails’s shoulders and arms, Bunnie does it too just in case, Merlin and Athair monitor the progress of the ritual and give instructions from outside, Sonic’s hitodama passes from Sally’s body to Tails’s, and someone else unexpectedly joins in their hitodama form: they don’t identify themself, but the Mobians participating in the ritual deduce it’s Tails’s clone created by Mogul.

Eventually, the ritual succeeds: the 混沌の達人神 [“Konton no Tatsujin-Shin”; “Chaos-Adept God”] is born.

Tails, covered in crimson red light, slowly ascends into the air, and when that layer of light is shed, it reveals the fox boy has hardly gotten more muscular and his body has hardly changed in any other way, except that he now has nine tails a little shorter than the two he usually has, his black fur parts are bright orange-red, his fur on the chest, shoulders and upper back is fluffier and forms a collar like the faux fur lining in a coat, his eyes’ iris is bright crimson red but the eyes’ shape remains the same as usual otherwise. He’s a bit reluctant to use these new powers or accept them as his own because he only managed to obtain them with others’ help, and he seems to be mentally and emotionally more balanced than in his base form, but other than that, he’s still the same old Tails.

The fox boy introduces himself to Master Mogul rather modestly. The ultra-powerful sorcerer is puzzled by this: he had hoped the Chosen One would show up with more flair, or at least to be enraged because Mogul had mortally attacked him in Station Square and most recently caused Enerjak’s return and everything related to it, including the murders of two members of the fox’s adoptive family. Mogul also disparages Tails’s so-called “godly” powers, specifically because of their origin.

Shortly after, when Tails begins to beat him up, the sorcerer regrets having said that.

[Soundtrack: Final Boss – Spark the Electric Jester 1 OST]

Mogul manages to defend himself and counterattack, but the Chaos Adept God knows all the combat techniques, both with weapons and without weapons, existing in Mobius; Tails has even taken machine scraps to create a weapon of his own: a double spear/staff with a double-edged, rhombic-shaped blade/arrowhead at each end, with samples of his own blood grafted onto those blades just like on the katana he had used when fighting Enerjak [like the staff used by both Super Spark and Super Fark in Spark the Electric Jester 1]. The battle between Tails and Mogul begins to be fought in places all around the world, in the middle of cities, in the air, even underwater; however, not very long after the battle begins, when they’re both in a wide cavern carved out by an underground river, Tails’s God form apparently turns off, although the fox doesn’t realize it and even manages to keep the mammoth at bay.

Later, the battle is taken to outer space, just above Mobius’s atmosphere. Mogul points out to Tails he’s no longer in his God form; the sorcerer praises Tails for continuing to have access to that power, this being a sign the two-tailed fox is indeed the much prophesied Chosen One, but he also mocks Tails for having believed not only that the thoughts of the world’s inhabitants would be enough to win, but also that the people wouldn’t abandon him or stop willingly giving him power in the middle of the fight. Then Mogul summons a Chaos attack similar to Enerjak’s Chaos Bomb, but in reverse: a hollow sphere of destructive energy forms around Mobius, slowly shrinking and getting closer and closer to destroying all life on the surface. Tails goes “Mashōnen”, uses again the power of all its “modes” at once and tries to form a shield around the planet, but this “world shield” breaks at multiple points and the fox faints, falling back to the surface followed by the inescapable, decimating energy blast.

But when Mogul’s final attack is about to touch the atmosphere and ignite it...

[Soundtrack: Ultimate Final Boss – Spark the Electric Jester 1 OST]

Tails becomes an Adept God again, shatters the radiation prison, pulls it away from Mobius and inverts it, causing it instead to enclose Mogul himself and begin to shrink around him. Tails proclaims that the inhabitants of Mobius and the entire universe will no longer allow mere individuals with too much power to pose as deities, demand reverence from others or exterminate their dissenters; that people no longer need deities or fear or guidance from any higher being in order to grow; that mere mortals will have as their own god the collective soul of all living beings, and every time they ask him, he will carry out their designs, as the giftee of their power but especially as a Freedom Fighter who loves the world and has sworn to defend and protect that world and its inhabitants from day one.

[Soundtrack: ShenLong is Summoned (M1002) – Dragon Ball Z, Japanese OST]

The spherical energy prison finishes closing around Mogul: His body is atomized, with no possibility of regeneration; the seven Chaos Emeralds are totally disintegrated; as the energy sphere becomes a single point, all that is left in place is Mogul’s hitodama, white and intensely luminous on the outside but totally hollow on the inside. Tails grabs the hitodama and smashes it, shattering it like glass and causing the very being of Mogul to be erased from existence.

The fox’s body writhes until nine objects come out of it: a new set of seven Chaos Emeralds, Sonic’s hitodama and the clone Tails’s hitodama. The latter simply flies away, while the blue hedgehog’s spirit gets surrounded by the Emeralds; Tails uses all the power of both himself and the gems to create Sonic’s body around his hitodama. Once this is done, an exhausted Tails returns to his base form, loses consciousness and free-falls to the surface, but Sonic briefly goes Super, picks up Tails and gently lands on Mobius taking his adoptive brother and the new Emeralds with him. During the descent, Sonic congratulates Tails, states “It's all over” and assures him he will no longer have anything to worry about.

————————————————–

After this succession of battles and Sonic’s miraculous return to life, the festivities are long and on a large scale, of course. The blue hedgehog decides to take this chance to live his life to the fullest, enjoying as much as possible the company of his friends, his family, Sally... and Shadow.

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Deleted scene:

[Soundtrack: U Got That - “Halogen”, remix by “Produced By Melv”]

Tails: [to Sonic, trying to look deadpan but laughing out loud internally] “O-Kage-Sensei is not interested in you, 兄貴 [“Aniki”, “big brother”]. Stop twerking in front of his face and get off the table, you 馬鹿 [“baka”, “dolt”].”

Sonic: [speaking from somewhere else, in a voice suspiciously similar to Zarbon’s on the "DevilArtemis” videos] “Oh, my~ OOOOOHHHHH!!!!!”

Sally: [facepalms]

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On the other hand, in a more private conversation between the Knothole Freedom Fighters, Knuckles, Shadow, a few other allies closest to the team, and Merlin, Tails claims he didn’t actually attain divinity: he has barely scratched the surface, the only being capable of truly becoming a god would be a uniform amalgam of the minds and souls of all the people of the universe -with the implicit danger of taking everyone’s individuality away, therefore it’s discarded-, and he had only received that power as a gift and for him to use against a threat to Mobius.

Later, Tails meets with Merlin alone and reveals that thanks to Leónidas, he has already learnt his true identity: Merlin Prower, Amadeus Prower’s younger brother, Tails’s uncle. A rather indignant Tails asks Merlin why he didn’t use his huge magic power to stop Robotnik in the first place or to save Amadeus & Rosemary or at least to instruct his nephew on his Chaos powers and how to handle them properly. Merlin mentions rules including non-intervention in “earthly” affairs, rules he must abide by at all costs no matter how much it hurts, because noblesse oblige: he has access to a higher plane of existence -the one Aurora had accessed before- and abilities related to it. Tails accuses him of doing the same things Mammoth Mogul and the Brotherhood of Guardians tried to do: let those they judge “inferior” or “unimportant” suffer, command them just because they’re in an allegedly “higher” position. Merlin replies these rules’ purpose is the complete opposite: not to pose as gods, not to do the same as Mogul and/or the Brotherhood do. Tails finally orders him to tell Aurora that, if she’s not careful, he’s fully willing to use the godly power bestowed by the people of Mobius to make her and her followers end up just like Mogul.

When Tails is about to leave, his uncle reveals his parents are alive and well, albeit lost in space. The fox boy simply asks him to keep an eye on them and make sure they’re still safe: he’s interested in meeting them one day, he was told they were great role models, but because he was separated from them when he was a newborn, he never really developed a bond strong enough to actually miss them or have dreams about them or desperately want to be reunited with them, whereas Sonic, Sally and the other Freedom Fighters are the only family he truly ever met; honestly, he’s in no rush to meet them and is more interested in other things.

The saga ends with Tails and Fiona working together on one of their science projects in Knothole’s workshop until late at night.

[Ending theme for this group of sagas: “Romantikku Ageru Yo”, the ending theme of the original Dragon Ball TV series (either the original Japanese version by Ushio Hashimoto et al. or the English TV-size cover for the Funimation dub by Daphne Gere et al.)]

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[Group photo for the closure of the group of sagas: Tails is at the centre in the middle row, in his Chaos-Adept God form, dressed in the outfit he used in his final battle against Enerjak, wearing the Rhythm Badge (from Sonic Adventure 1), smiling broadly with his eyes closed, and making a V with his hand; Fiona is on the left in the middle row, wearing Tha Shades and the electric jester hat invented for the Sonic After the Sequel adaptation, with her back to Tails but very close to his side and making the “ah ha ha” gesture Cell usually does in the “DevilArtemis” videos; Shadow is on the right in the middle row, looking serious as usual and wearing the Flame Ring (from Sonic Adventure 2); Sonic is at the centre in the top row, wearing the Crystal Ring (from Sonic Adventure 1), the Bounce Bracelet (from Sonic Adventure 2), and his own Flame Ring, intently looking at Shadow out of the corner of his eye; Sally is on the left in the top row, smiling confidently, with her arms folded and holding Nicole in her handheld form; Nicole’s holographic form is emerging from said handheld, in miniature, waving happily; Amy is on the right in the top row, leaning on the Long Hammer and wearing the Warrior Feather (both from Sonic Adventure 1); Knuckles is behind Sonic and Amy, angry, trying to look over them, resting his hands on their heads, trying to rise above them so he can appear in the photo, and wearing the Sunglasses, the Air Necklace (both from Sonic Adventure 2) and a pair of gloves that combine the Fighting Gloves (from Sonic Adventure 1), the Shovel Claws (from the entire Adventure saga) and the Hammer Gloves (from Sonic Adventure 2); Rouge is at the centre in the bottom row, carrying the Treasure Scope (from Sonic Adventure 2) and looking at Tails, who’s sitting on her shoulders; Mighty & Ray are on the left in the bottom row, both calmly wrapping their fists in white ribbons; Bunnie is on the right in the bottom row, with her hair very long and wavy, wearing a brown leather jacket and cowboy hat, striking a pose to show off her organic right arm’s muscles]

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間奏。

Kansō.

Interlude.

Amy moves back to her native Mercia, after Sally has trained her for months not only to fight but also to lead a team of her own. Leónidas Proción also leaves the Knothole team to seek adventures around the world, help wherever they need it, and hopefully meet with the “Guardian Angel of the Resistance” again. Lara-Le finally abandons Locke and his comrades in the Brotherhood, joins her son Knuckles and Team Chaotix as a "diplomatic adviser" of sorts, and skillfully improves the relationship between the dingoes and those echidnas who have defected from the Dark Legion or renounced their allegiance to the Brotherhood.

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[For a while, I planned not to include Tommy Turtle at all, but then I came up with this...]

Snively introduces a Mobian hitman & spy, Tommy Turtle, in Knothole: he pretends to be a humble villager, very contemplative (perhaps too much for a Freedom Fighter), a little clueless and with very few real skills, but apparently nice and loyal at the same time. Tommy gains the team’s trust and carries out a plan to send tons of info about the whole Resistance to Snively, and even murder Sonic if possible.

One day, he chats with Tails about technology to distract him while Bunnie, Fiona and Rotor fall into a trap that electrocutes them, and later he goes to kill Sonic in his sleep while the main team members are out of combat. However, this totally backfires: after Bunnie, Fiona and Rotor have miraculously survived, them falling into that trap triggers Tails’s wrath, and while the turtle is walking to Sonic’s room in the Freedom HQ, the two-tailed fox attacks him by surprise in the corridors and beats him brutally and savagely, breaking some of his ribs and even breaching his shell, before threatening the turtle to kill him unless he leaves the Freedom Fighters immediately.

Tails thinks Tommy did all that only because of an extreme degree of incompetence (although his own feelings for Fiona, along with Bunnie's very recent death and resurrection, may also have contributed to him reacting like this), but the turtle genuinely thinks the fox blew his cover, so he aborts his mission and leaves. Shortly after, in the Great Forest, he runs into the “Guardian Angel of the Resistance” and Antoine, who do know Tommy was an infiltrator the whole time; it’s revealed the turtle’s body carries some nanites that increase his physical attributes and heal his wounds at an amazing speed, but the two Resistance independent agents finally kill him anyway.

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To be continued...

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