He was starting to run out of energy.
I could see it now—not in some dramatic collapse, not in the way villains in old holovids sputtered and fizzled out. No, this was uglier.
Subtler.
A slow unraveling.
And time?
Time was chewing him to pieces.
Master Maximillian hovered in the fractured sky like a broken constellation, violet light bleeding from the seams of his form. The glow wasn't clean anymore. It pulsed unevenly, bright surges followed by sickly lulls, like a heart that couldn't decide whether it wanted to keep beating or just give up and explode. His breathing—when he remembered to breathe at all—came heavier now, shoulders hitching just a fraction too late after each attack.
Too late for someone who was supposed to be untouchable.
Too late for a so called 'god.'
He didn't notice.
Or maybe he did, somewhere deep down, and that just made it worse.
Because he was angry now. Not theatrical, not smug. Not playing to some imaginary audience of terrified civilians or broken monuments. This was raw, personal rage—the kind that burns logic out of your brain and replaces it with one single, screaming need.
Hurt him.
End him.
Make it stop.
The Beryls embedded in his chest flared brighter in response, their glow crawling outward in jagged veins beneath his fur. They drank greedily from the emotion pouring off him, feeding on the spike of desperation the same way they'd fed on his flesh and will from the very beginning. Every surge of power cost him more than the last. Every blow tore something loose inside him that wasn't meant to tear.
His control frayed at the edges.
The sky warped unevenly now when he moved. Gravity stuttered instead of snapping cleanly into place. When he twisted the air to throw me sideways, the pull lagged for half a heartbeat—just long enough for me to brace, dig my claws into fractured concrete, and *ride it* instead of getting flung like a ragdoll.
Half a heartbeat.
That was all I needed.
Now he didn't care about domination.
Or spectacle.
Or proving anything.
The speeches were gone. The grand gestures. The slow, deliberate pacing meant to terrify.
Now he just wanted to slowly beat me to death.
His fist came at me again, wrapped in crackling violet energy, the air screaming as it compressed around the blow. I didn't dodge cleanly this time. I *let* it graze me, the impact tearing across my shoulder in a burst of white-hot pain that sent me skidding backward through rubble and ash.
Pain flared—sharp, bright, intimate.
And I smiled wider.
Blood dripped from my muzzle, splattering dark against the broken stone at my feet. My legs shook when I straightened, muscles screaming in protest, vision swimming at the edges.
Everything hurt.
Everything was wrong.
This was good.
Because this—*this*—was exactly where I needed him to be.
"You're slipping," I called out, voice rough but steady enough to carry. I wiped my mouth with the back of my glove, leaving a red smear behind. "C'mon, Maxxie. I thought you said you were above all this."
He roared and the sound cracked windows that hadn't already shattered, a raw, animal sound that tore itself out of his chest without permission. The Beryls flared in response, light spilling between his claws like something trying to escape.
He lunged.
No finesse this time. No clever manipulation of space or pressure. Just brute force and fury, every movement screaming *die*.
I ran.
Not away—never away—but *around*. Over collapsed walls and through hanging clouds of dust, boots barely touching the ground as I stayed just out of reach. Every near miss made him faster, sloppier. Every miss fed the fire eating him alive from the inside.
I could feel it now, the rhythm of it. His power surged in waves, and the troughs between them were getting longer.
Burnout.
Super forms—real ones—burned hot and fast. Everyone knew that. Legends talked about glory and light and destiny, but the truth was simpler: you paid for that power with time. With stamina. With yourself.
Maximillian wasn't paying the cost willingly.
He was being *charged interest*.
He slammed both fists into the ground, and the world buckled. The street beneath me folded upward like a broken jaw, launching me into the air hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. For a split second I was weightless, suspended against a sky that couldn't decide which way was down.
He was there instantly, hand closing around my throat.
The pressure was crushing. My vision darkened at the edges as he lifted me effortlessly, feet kicking uselessly as the ground fell away beneath us.
"I am done *playing* with you," he snarled, breath hot and sharp against my face. His grip tightened, violet energy searing into my fur. "You exist because I allow it."
I coughed, claws scrabbling against his wrist, every instinct screaming at me to spin, to strike, to do *something*.
Instead, I laughed.
It came out broken and wet, but it was real.
"You're… breathing pretty hard… for a guy who says that," I choked out.
His eyes flickered.
Just for a second.
And the Beryls flared again, brighter, angrier—draining him faster as they responded to the spike in emotion. His grip tightened reflexively, then loosened by accident.
There it was.
I twisted, driving my knee up into his chest, right between the glowing seams. The impact sent a shock through both of us. He staggered back a half-step, grip breaking, and I tore free, dropping hard and rolling across the shattered ground.
I didn't stop moving.
I *never* stopped moving.
By the time he recovered, I was already circling again, forcing him to turn, to track me, to waste precious energy just keeping up. Every missed strike cost him. Every roar fed the parasites burning through his core.
I could feel the city around us groaning, collapsing in slow motion as the fight dragged on. Somewhere, people were running. Hiding. Hoping.
And somewhere else—deep inside the castle—I knew my friends were moving.
Buying me time.
"C'mon," I muttered under my breath, sprinting forward into another exchange. "Burn brighter. Faster. Give me everything you've got."
He obliged.
And that was his mistake.
He was breathing wrong.
That was the first thing I noticed once the adrenaline haze thinned just enough for my brain to do something other than scream. Not the obvious stuff—the rage, the shouting, the way he kept trying to pulp me into the pavement like he could erase the problem if he hit it hard enough. No, it was subtler than that.
His breathing had rhythm.
Forced rhythm.
Like someone pretending they weren't tired by counting their steps.
Master Maximillian hovered a few meters off the ground, violet energy tearing itself loose from his body in erratic pulses. The Anarchy Beryls embedded in his chest flared and dimmed like diseased stars, their glow no longer smooth or controlled. Every time they brightened, he seemed stronger for a heartbeat. Every time they dimmed, his jaw clenched like he was biting back pain.
He was *maintaining* something.
Not becoming it. Not transcending.
Maintaining.
That distinction slid into place with a clarity that hurt worse than my cracked ribs.
This wasn't some divine ascension. It wasn't a one-way transformation into something untouchable. It was closer to… holding a door shut while something on the other side kept slamming into it. The Beryls weren't just empowering him.
They were demanding payment.
I staggered to my feet again, boots scraping across fractured concrete. Blood dripped from my muzzle and spattered onto the ground between us, each drop dark and heavy. My body was wrecked. No argument there. Every movement felt like it was being negotiated between pain and stubbornness.
But I was still standing.
Master Maximillian noticed that too.
His lip curled. "You're persistent," he snarled, drifting closer. "I'll grant you that much."
I laughed—short, sharp, and painful. "Funny. I was just thinking the same about you."
He didn't appreciate that.
He lunged.
The impact sent me skidding backward, my heels carving twin furrows through the rubble as his fist slammed into my guard. The force rattled my arms to the shoulder, shock traveling straight through my spine. I grunted, teeth clacking together as my vision flashed white.
But I didn't go flying.
That should've worried him.
It *did* worry him.
His eyes flicked down for half a second—to his own hands, to the energy crawling over his fur like living fire. The Anarchy Beryls pulsed brighter in response to his irritation, greedily devouring the spike of emotion.
There it was again.
That rhythm.
That cost.
And suddenly, another thought crept in—not loud, not dramatic, just… obvious in hindsight.
Something flickered.
Not outside.
Inside.
A memory.
Faint.
Almost ridiculous in the middle of everything. Not some profound revelation or heroic vision—just a half-forgotten image, buried under years of muscle memory and instinct. A television screen. A controller warm in my hands. Late-night static buzzing through cheap speakers.
When I first played Sonic Adventure 2.
I didn't remember the details at first. Just the feeling. The way my heart had pounded during the final stage. The music. The absurdity of it all. Two hedgehogs, glowing gold, standing against something impossibly larger than themselves.
Why was I assuming only *one* of us could be super?
The idea hit me sideways.
Not like a revelation. More like realizing I'd been reading the rules wrong the whole time.
Super forms weren't monopolies.
They weren't crowns passed down to a single ruler at a time.
They were *states*.
Conditions.
If the universe allowed Master Maximillian to anchor himself in a super-like transformation using external power sources—corrupted, parasitic, and violently unstable as they were—then there was no cosmic law saying I had to stay grounded just because he was already glowing.
That was never how it worked.
I'd been thinking like this was a duel where only one of us was allowed to break the ceiling.
But ceilings weren't exclusive.
They shattered.
The realization sent a strange calm through me, cutting through the pain like cold water. My breathing steadied. My heartbeat, frantic moments ago, fell into a more deliberate rhythm.
Master Maximillian noticed the shift immediately.
"What are you smiling at?" he demanded, suspicion bleeding into his rage.
I wiped blood from my mouth with the back of my hand and straightened as much as my battered body would allow. "You ever get the feeling," I said slowly, "that you're working way harder than you should be?"
He snarled and raised his hand again.
Gravity twisted.
The ground beneath me lurched as invisible force tried to pin me down, compressing air and matter alike into a crushing well. My knees buckled, cracks racing through the concrete as pressure slammed into me from all sides.
Pain flared.
Old pain. New pain. Everything at once.
But this time, instead of fighting *against* it—
I leaned inward.
Not toward speed.
Not toward rage.
Toward the hum I'd been ignoring.
The chaos like energy wasn't loud. It didn't scream for attention. It resonated—quiet, pervasive, threaded through the world like a current you only noticed when you stopped thrashing long enough to feel it.
The rings scattered across the battlefield—lost during earlier impacts, half-buried in rubble, lodged in twisted rebar—answered first. Not physically. Energetically. A faint echo, like metal humming when struck.
Master Maximillian stiffened.
The pressure faltered for a fraction of a second.
"What are you doing?" he snapped, forcing more power into the hold.
The Anarchy Beryls flared in response, their dark glow spiking violently. He hissed through clenched teeth as violet veins crawled further up his neck, the energy no longer content to stay neatly contained.
I exhaled slowly.
"So that's how it is," I murmured. "You don't *become* super. You're renting it."
The gravity well shattered.
I dropped hard to one knee, gasping as normal physics slammed back into place—but I was already moving. Already pushing up. Already reaching deeper.
Violet sparks flickered at the edges of my vision.
Master Maximillian recoiled as if struck, eyes widening as he felt the shift in the air. "No," he growled. "You don't get to—"
Darkness bled into my fur.
Not all at once. Not cleanly.
At first it was just highlights—my spines catching light they weren't reflecting, my outline blurring like heat haze. The screams beneath my skin intensified, cold and sharp and *familiar* in a way that made my chest ache.
This wasn't stolen.
This wasn't forced.
It was *remembered*.
My feet lifted off the ground without me meaning to. Just a few inches. Enough to feel weight loosen its grip. Enough to feel the world hesitate around me, unsure which rules applied anymore.
Master Maximillian stared.
For the first time since this fight began, real uncertainty cracked through his expression.
"That's impossible," he whispered.
I met his gaze, violet light blooming draker now, pain almost fading into something distant and manageable. "Yeah," I said softly. "You already used that line."
The Anarchy Beryls screamed.
Not audibly—but energetically. Their glow surged in a panicked attempt to compensate, draining Maximillian harder, faster, ripping into him with renewed hunger. His breathing hitched, shoulders tensing as the parasites demanded more than he could comfortably give.
Two super-states.
At the same time.
The sky above us warped under the strain, clouds tearing into spirals as conflicting energies pushed against each other. The air crackled, ozone sharp enough to sting my nose.
Master Maximillian roared and charged, abandoning control entirely.
Good.
I met him halfway.
The collision detonated outward, a shockwave ripping through the ruins and flattening what little remained standing nearby. Two different shades of violet light clashed violently, neither yielding, neither cleanly overpowering the other.
But I could feel the difference.
Every second he fought like this cost him something permanent.
Every second I held on was just… effort.
Painful, exhausting effort—but not self-destructive.
As we locked together midair, forearms straining, I leaned in close enough to see the cracks spreading beneath his fur, the way the Beryls had begun to burn him from the inside out.
"You should've picked a shorter fight Maxie," I told him quietly.
His eyes burned with hatred.
But behind it—
Fear.
And that was when I knew.
He wasn't losing because I was stronger.
He was losing because I was allowed to be here too.
It was dictated by the universe itself.
I was reborn as the main character.
And besides, the universe wasn't done with him yet.
Not until it collected its debt.
And I was the tax collector.
The fight never stopped.
That was the cruel part.
There was no dramatic pause, no moment where the world held its breath and pointed at me like *this is it*. Just motion stacked on motion, impact chasing impact, violence blurring into rhythm. My boots skidded across shattered stone as Maximilian came at me again, faster than before, rage sharpening his movements into something reckless and ugly.
I barely registered the attack.
My body moved on instinct—duck, pivot, strike—purple light flaring around my limbs as chaos like energy surged to meet every demand before I consciously made it. His claw scraped across my side, tearing fur and skin, and I felt it the way you feel rain through a window: distant, muted, irrelevant.
That should have scared me.
Instead, it felt… efficient.
I countered with a kick that sent him flying through the remains of a collapsed archway. Stone exploded outward in a cloud of dust and sparks. He hit the ground hard, rolled, and was back on his feet in seconds, the Anarchy Beryls in his chest flaring violently as they dumped more power into his failing frame.
"Is that all?" he snarled, charging again. "You're already slowing down!"
I wasn't.
I was drifting.
Every exchange pulled me a little further from the version of myself that measured force, that chose restraint out of principle instead of necessity. Chaos and anarchy filled the gaps faster than thought could keep up, smoothing over hesitation, sanding down doubt.
He swung. I vanished.
Reappeared behind him.
Hit harder than I meant to.
The impact launched him straight up, his body arcing against the sky before slamming back down in a shockwave that rippled outward for hundreds of meters. The ground screamed. The air screamed.
I hovered above the crater, chest rising and falling, energy crawling over my skin like something alive.
Something *pleased*.
Master Maximillian was the one to notice my eyes change to spirals, "Y-your eyes..."
I didn't feel the moment the red in my irises stopped being color and started being motion—spirals tightening inward, endless and slow. I didn't notice the way my sclera darkened further, swallowing light instead of reflecting it.
I did notice the tear.
It surprised me.
It slid down my cheek without heat or sting, trailing quietly through the chaos aura surrounding me, evaporating before it could fall. My hand twitched, like I might wipe it away.
I didn't.
Below, Master Maximilian dragged himself upright again, laughing breathlessly as he wiped blood from his mouth. "That's it," he said. "Give in. I can feel it on you now—chaos without leash, anarchy without fear. You're finally being honest with yourself."
I opened my mouth to argue.
What came out instead was silence.
Because somewhere between the last strike and this breath, I realized something awful.
He wasn't wrong.
Not entirely.
The chaos like energy wasn't fighting me anymore. It wasn't pushing, wasn't demanding dominance. It flowed easily now, like a current I'd stopped swimming against. Every time I reached for control, it felt… unnecessary.
Slower.
Like choosing to walk when flight was right there.
My quills crackled as the energy surged again, sharper this time. The purple glow around me deepened, thickened, spiraling tighter around my body in visible arcs.
Master Maximilian lunged again, Anarchy Beryls screaming in protest as he forced more power out of them. His punch connected with my jaw.
I didn't move.
The impact echoed like thunder.
For a heartbeat, we were frozen there—his fist buried against my face, my head tilted slightly from the force. His eyes widened in surprise as he realized I hadn't been knocked back.
I gently removed his hand from my jaw.
Then I hit him.
Not fast.
Not flashy.
Just enough.
He went flying again, skidding across broken stone until he vanished into the smoke and debris at the edge of the battlefield.
I hovered there, motionless, breathing steady.
Way too goddamn steady.
The chaos and anarchy hummed softly now, content, spiraling inward like a satisfied predator curling up inside my chest. The part of me that should have been screaming *stop* was quieter than it had ever been.
Not gone.
Just tired.
I looked down at my hands.
They weren't shaking anymore.
That realization hurt more than any blow he'd landed.
Master Maximilian burst back into view, launching himself at me with a feral roar. I met him halfway, our auras colliding in a violent bloom of energy. We traded blows in midair, each strike cracking the sky, each impact peeling away another layer of restraint I hadn't realized I was still holding.
Somewhere between one punch and the next, I stopped pulling back.
The chaos and anarchy noticed immediately.
It surged in approval, power flooding my limbs, sharpening my movements into something brutally precise.
I felt unstoppable.
Untouchable.
*Free.*
And beneath that intoxicating rush, something in me broke quietly.
Another tear slipped free, tracing the same path down my cheek as the first.
I didn't slow.
Didn't hesitate.
Didn't even acknowledge it.
Master Maximilian didn't notice either—too busy throwing everything he had left at me, too blind with fury and desperation to see what was happening right in front of him. To him, I was just hitting harder, faster, more efficiently.
To the chaos and anarchy, I was finally listening.
I drove him into the ground again, standing over him as the earth cratered beneath his weight. Purple energy spiraled around me in tightening coils, the air warping as reality struggled to keep up.
I looked down at him, eyes burning, spirals turning endlessly.
"I'm still going to stop you," I said softly.
And as I said it, as the chaos and anarchy wrapped itself tighter around my thoughts and instincts, I realized with quiet devastation that I no longer knew where *I* ended and *it* or *he* began.
The tear kept falling.
The fight raged on.
And without meaning to—
I let chaos and anarchy take another step closer.
The air didn't scream anymore.
It could only wheeze.
Every breath I took scraped like broken glass through my chest, each inhale catching on ribs that no longer quite lined up the way ribs were supposed to. The chaos energy still burned around me—purple, spiraling, hungry—but it was thinner now. Fraying. Like a fire running out of fuel and trying very hard not to admit it.
I felt it in the delay.
A fraction of a second between thought and motion.
A hesitation that hadn't existed before.
My body dipped in the air, just barely, and I had to correct with a sharp burst of energy that sent pain lancing through my spine. Blood—mine—floated in the air in tiny droplets before evaporating into steam against the heat of the aura.
Across the battlefield, Master Maximillian laughed.
It wasn't just strong laughter anymore.
It rattled.
Hitched.
The sound of something hollow pretending it wasn't already cracked.
"You're fading already," he said, dragging himself upright again. His posture was wrong now—shoulders uneven, one leg favoring the other. The Anarchy Beryls embedded in his chest burned like open furnaces, but the light stuttered, pulsing erratically instead of roaring. "I told you… chaos and anarchy always takes more than it gives."
I didn't answer.
Talking cost air.
Instead, I watched him.
Really watched him.
His transformation—*Maxx Acorn, Master Maximillian, whatever fucking title he clung to*—was unraveling in plain sight now. The momentarily light purple sheen over his fur flickered, patches of his original coloring bleeding through like bruises beneath the surface. Veins—actual veins, not conduits—stood out starkly along his neck as the Beryls strained harder, draining him faster to compensate.
He was almost empty.
And somehow… so was I.
My hands trembled when I clenched them. Not fear. Fatigue. The kind that settles deep, in the places adrenaline can't reach anymore. The chaos like energy coiled tighter around me, trying to *hold me together*, trying to convince me I was fine, that I could keep going if I just stopped thinking about the pain.
That was the dangerous part.
He was furious now.
Not triumphant.
Not confident.
Furious.
Every movement he made after that was sloppy, overcommitted, fueled by the desperate knowledge that if he stopped attacking—even for a second—the Beryls would take what they were owed and leave nothing behind.
I pushed myself the right way up again, aura flickering like an old star. My vision blurred at the edges, spirals in my eyes tightening involuntarily as the chaos fought to stay dominant.
No.
Not yet.
I *needed* to stay me for this part.
Master Maximillian staggered, one hand clutching his chest as the Beryls flared violently, their light shifting toward something harsh and unhealthy. He snarled through clenched teeth, forcing power into his limbs that his body could no longer afford to give.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
The battlefield around us was unrecognizable—craters within craters, reality warped and exhausted, the sky stretched thin like it might tear if either of us pushed it too far. The chaos like energy around me dimmed again, and I felt the weight of my injuries all at once: fractured bones, torn muscles, organs protesting every motion.
I was already losing energy.
Fast.
But Master Maximillian?
He was already almost gone.
His transformation stuttered visibly now, dark purple light snapping on and off like faulty wiring. His claws twitched uncontrollably. One knee hit the ground before he caught himself, breath tearing out of him in a wet, furious gasp.
He noticed my stare and forced himself upright again, baring his teeth.
Still pretending.
Still refusing to admit it.
The chaos and anarchy inside me whispered that this was the moment to end it. To let go. To pour everything I had left into one final, annihilating strike and trust that whatever came after didn't matter.
My hands curled.
Then relaxed.
Not yet.
Because if I lost myself now, I wouldn't be stopping him.
I'd just be replacing him.
I took a step forward, every nerve screaming, aura flickering weakly around my frame.
"So," I said hoarsely, a tear slipping free again without permission, "what happens when the rocks stop listening, Maxxie?"
For the first time since the fight began—
He hesitated.
Just for a heartbeat.
The Beryls pulsed violently in response.
And in that tiny pause, standing amid the ruin with chaos and anarchy clawing at my thoughts and my body barely holding together, I knew one thing with absolute certainty:
This fight wasn't going to be decided by who had more power left.
It was going to be decided by who collapsed under the power *first*.
More tears fell down as I could only feel sadder and sadder.
Why?