Anonymous Review Replies!

XxShadowxX: Uhm...force of habit, I guess? :p Glad you like deceiving!Robotnik, it's fun to write him as a truly evil mastermind! :) As for what exactly the Doctor had planned and whether it works out or not...read on to find out ;) Thanks for the comment :D

Guest: No worries, there's always another chapter as long as there's reviews :p Hope you like!

Katz4: Heh, I think we actually had quite a few readers who started out without knowing Doctor Who (and I think mostly ended up by watching the show later on anyway XD) But I try to do my best with explanations, so I hope everything works for you. If not, questions in comments always encouraged!

Chapter 14: A Dazzling End

There was light. Light as bright as the sun.

Amy's hammer had torn a hole into the front of the TARDIS console, and now the resulting, searing, golden glow flowed out of it like a living being made of star light, and the Mobians could only collectively stare.

"It's...beautiful..." Amy breathed. "What...?"

"The TARDIS is dying. She can't hold the time vortex for much longer," the Doctor said "This is her heart. Trying to escape while her body is falling apart."

"But...but then what...?" Tails stammered, mesmerized like all of the others by the display. The mist of light was slowly gliding closer through the air towards them.

The Doctor exhaled. "Well. There is a place she knows she can store it..."

And then, even Robotnik's eyes seemed to widen behind his glasses when the light began to circle ever closer to Rose and then all at once crashed straight into her.

Amy gasped, Tails shrieked, as next there was a wave of pressure suddenly exploding outwards from the blonde girl, rocking the TARDIS, blowing her doors wide open for them to gape into the darkness outside. When she opened her eyes again, they were glowing like liquid gold.

"Hello, Doctor," she said, glancing at her companion with a smile as if he were an old friend she hadn't seen for a while.

"What...what in the world-?" rasped Robotnik, just as flabbergasted as Sonic, Tails and Amy as he stared at what had previously been a normal human girl, but now was definitely something else.

At his voice, she turned around to stare at the egg-shaped scientist abruptly, golden eyes narrowed now. Behind her, the winds coming from the nothingness outside howled through the door and picked at her clothes and hair.

"It's a dark night outside, Robotnik," she said. "You should be scared of the wolves."

xxx

"Doctor?" Amy asked, with a timid swallow. "What is happening?"

"It's...complicated," the Time Lord said. "It's something she's done before. When she absorbs the heart of the TARDIS, it is possible for her to rearrange the universe-"

But then he was interrupted, because now suddenly his companion cried out and doubled over.

"Ahh!"

"Rose!" Amy made to dart forward, but the Doctor grabbed her first.

"No! If you touch her, it'll tear you apart!" he shouted, pulling the pink hedgehog backwards. In front of them, the girl had started to stagger and convulse, golden energy bursting out of her body in intervals, but now also interspersed with aggressive-looking, white lightning erratically arcing out of her in places and dancing across her skin.

"What - something is interfering with the Time Vortex, this shouldn't be-" the Doctor gasped, eyes squinting against the glare, "But I don't understand-"

"Interesting. I had read that the Time Vortex tears living bodies apart. I hadn't thought I would see it in action," Robotnik commented, still leaning against one wall. "Perhaps not the worst way to go."

"This isn't the Time Vortex!" the Doctor snarled. "The Time Vortex she could handle, this...this is the Time Vortex supercharged with the superfluous Chaos energy..." he breathed, as if he had only just now managed to figure that one out.

"Doctor! Did you say Chaos Energy?!" Tails asked shrilly, the little fox clinging to the transparent arm of his hedgehog brother, instinctively seeking protection where the Time Lord painfully knew nothing could provide it. "Isn't there anything you can do?"

"I don't-!" the Doctor gasped, "There's too much – I need to -"

"You know, if there's one thing I never liked about the hedgehog, it's that he never knew when to quit," Robotnik snapped, staring at the frantically concentrating Doctor in irritation. "Honestly, do you have to imitate him in everything?"

"Eggman...!" Amy snarled threateningly, but this time, in between the lightning, the howling of the winds of the void, the groaning, the desperate shuddering of the mechanized TARDIS in her death throes and Rose's pained gasping, Robotnik seemed barely fazed by the girl's raised hammer.

"Oh, don't bother, Amy Rose," he waved at her dismissively. "In a minute we will have all died here anyway. Spend them doing something more constructive, why don't you."

The hammer dropped from the hand's of the pink hedgehog as if the words and the cold tone of their arch enemy had driven home to inevitability of their demise sharper than anything else previously. Amy turned her head, tears starting to spring up in her eyes as she whimpered,

"S..Sonic...?"

"No."

It had been spoken softly, but heads still turned. Sonic, still transparent, took this moment to step forward, disentangling himself from the hold of his little brother and looking up at Rose, Robotnik and the Doctor, voice firm now. "We're not going to die today."

"Will you listen-" Robotnik tried to cut him off, but green eyes instantly narrowed at him, a furious blaze of emerald that could have given the exploding console a run for its timey-wimey money.

"No, Robotnik, I won't. And I'll tell you why," the hedgehog said, at the same time striding forward, toward Rose still engulfed in a chaotic thunderstorm, "We're not going to die because unlike you we work as a team – and I'm going to help her!"

"Sonic!" the voice of the Time Lord cut through, just before the hedgehog had been able to reach out to Rose, and it was testament to the command laid into the tone that Sonic actually stopped and paused, looking up at the Doctor, questioningly.

"...Sonic." The Doctor said somewhat more gently. "This is going to kill whoever attempts it. Let me."

"Doctor-" Amy gasped, seemingly utterly clueless for whom she should be afraid most now, but their friend scarcely seemed to be concerned.

"The last time this happened I needed to regenerate as well. Mind, I would have liked to keep this body a while longer..." the Time Lord grimaced, but then ultimately dissolved into a sad smile.

"...but if it's for her, I want to go."

And then, perhaps for the first time in a long while, the Doctor was surprised when Sonic only gave him the brightest grin in response.

"Yeah, no way, doc. My planet, I protect it!"

"What? But-!"

"An' besides," and now Sonic gave a definite smirk, "If you're right about the problem being superfluous Chaos Energy – I might be able to help with that!"

And when he grabbed the wrist of Bad Wolf, the resulting light was as bright as a dying star.

xxx

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!"

The Doctor could hear the others screaming, even Robotnik grunting in pain as they averted their eyes at the searing brightness. But he was able to look, as all Time Lords were, staring into the energy that was pure spacetime converted into light.

And what he saw was utterly beautiful.

In the center of the burning was Sonic, who wasn't Sonic any more, the entire hedgehog glowing golden now, his quills bent upwards like the other hedgehog's had been, floating in front of Not!Rose, who seemed to have recovered now, also floating calmly, the two beings simply staring at each other...

And then they smiled.

"Hello," the hedgehog said. "I'm Super Sonic."

"Nice to meet you." The girl returned the greeting. "I'm the Bad Wolf."

"The heart of the TARDIS, right?" Sonic cocked his head, blinking his now red-tinted eyes. "Or...Rose?"

"A bit of both," she replied easily, before her own eyes glowed just a little bit brighter. "Thank you for taking the pain away so I didn't have to kill my Doctor."

"It's okay." Sonic smiled ruefully. "This whole mess started because I killed mine years ago."

He extended a hand again. "So. Let's end this nightmare, shall we?"

"Yes," the girl replied, also reaching out. "I can see all that was, all that is, all that ever could be -"

" - and I remember it exactly as it should be!" Sonic finished, at the same time grasping her hand in his. The next second, light flashed too brightly even for the Doctor as the universe seemed to shudder as it was reset, and Super Sonic's lips moved and said something that could have been 'Chaos Control' but might have looked like the word 'Chronos' instead.

And then, when the world around them began to disappear, and the dying TARDIS itself dissolved, her final, relieved and freed grinding sound the last thing he could still hear, the Doctor couldn't help but laugh.

xxx

It was impossible to say when they woke up or how much time had passed. This was because Time itself was still very young and confused and not very used to being reset. It was something it suspected it might have to get used to if this Doctor person continued in this way.

For now though, the Time Lord was still lying unconscious on the floor, and it was the blue hedgehog beside him who woke up first.

Sonic blinked. For the first few moments, his eyes seemed to have trouble to come to an agreement just how far away things actually were and whether this whole 'seeing clearly' thing wasn't too much trouble anyway, but then the hero of Mobius at last managed to raise his hands to his eyes with effort, rub them, and when he opened them again, the now-familiar ceiling of the TARDIS above him swam into focus. He turned his head, and could see the bodies of his friends strewn beside him; both the larger ones of Rose and the Doctor, as well as the smaller ones of Tails and Amy, the girl lying draped over the car seats, his little brother somehow face-planted on the console, Robotnik fortunately missing. Both human and Time Lord showed signs of waking. Sonic tried to raise himself, but ended that endeavour quickly when the room threatened to spin around him.

"Ugh," the hedgehog commented eloquently. "If there's anything for breakfast, it better not be eggs."

There was a groan from his right side. Sonic wasn't quite sure whether that was the Doctor waking up or just voicing his opinion of the pun.

"Morning, Doc."

"Morning..." The Time Lord was the first one to sit up, running a hand through his hair and taking in the TARDIS almost absent-mindedly, before his gaze focused on Sonic. "Hey. You look nicely solid again, there." He gave an appreciative nod. "Congratulations."

"...oh. Right." Sonic had finally managed to get himself into a sitting position again and was now looking down at himself, hands briefly running over his abdomen, a slow smile spreading across his face. "That's cool. Everyone else alright?"

"I think they are," the Doctor replied, then, as Rose made a small noise and started frowning, lay back down beside her, propping himself up on one elbow and grinning at her as she also opened her eyes.

"Rise and shine. You saved the planet."

"Mwha...?" Rose blinked at him, clearly not quite coherent yet as Sonic had finally gotten up and wandered over to the TARDIS doors, opening them to reveal the sun-dappled meadows of Green Hill Zone outside, a small, collapsible wheelchair lying peacefully on its side just where it had been this morning. "I did?"

"Oooh yeah." The Doctor gave her a bright smile, his voice an appreciative rumble. "You were brilliant."

"Heh. Really? It's a bit hard to remember..." she said, but then immediately spasmed slightly, as she gave a little cough, something or other obviously lodged in her throat. Then her eyes went wide as the next thing that happened was a thin tendril of golden energy escaping from her mouth, sort of twirling in the air a little, before then slipping back into the TARDIS console. Rose glanced at the Doctor.

"...but I think I believe you."

Next, though, she seemed to have remembered at least something, because then she abruptly sat up, looking around, tense. "Wait. Where's Robotnik?"

"I dunno." Sonic from the door chimed in, grinning at her. "I think I remembered him in an itching powder factory somewhere."

At this, the blonde girl finally had to snort, covering her mouth with her hands. "Really?"

"Uh-huh," Sonic replied, and the Doctor also took that as a cue to jump to his feet. "Nice!" he commented, before gently lifting a just waking up and confused Tails off the TARDIS console, starting to turn levers and wheels on it.

"Everything seems to be in order here, too..."

Rose looked around. Tails and Amy had also woken up, faces amazed at the reverted interior of the TARDIS (and possibly their continued existence). But they were only five altogether...

"Sonic? Doctor? Where's Shadow? He is alive again, right?" she asked, throat suddenly dry. If he wasn't-

"Oh. Oh yeah, he should be," the Doctor replied, looking at his scanners and frowning. "According to this, it's today's morning all over again, so I'd reckon he's wherever he was at that time."

"Yeah, no worries. I remembered him," Sonic said, walking over to her with a smile. "And I've got a feeling if I hadn't, you would have. Made quite an impression on you, huh?"

"I..." Rose looked to the floor, now suddenly feeling slightly embarrassed. "No, it's just...I think I got him completely wrong the first time." She bit her lip. "I'd never have picked him as the type to sacrifice himself. For me."

"Oh, ah," Sonic noted, for some reason his smile now looking slightly like a wince. "Yeah. Right. He's got this...uh, thing for blonde human girls."

Now Rose looked fully awake.

"Wait, what?"

"No no no!" Tails was shaking his hands frantically as he could obviously see just where Rose's thoughts had been going. "Not like that!"

"Not like...ooooh, yeah, no, not like that!" Sonic also managed to clarify as he realized just how his comment to Rose must have sounded. "Yeah, we, uh, generally don't go in for this whole cross-species thing. You guys are too...tall. And stuff. And furless is kinda gross."

"What he means," Amy said, when Rose was mostly staring at Sonic completely nonplussed, "Is that the human scientist who created Shadow had a granddaughter, who grew up as a sister to him. We never met her, but we know she must have meant the world for Shadow. And from what I know..." Amy gave Rose a sad smile. "Maybe you reminded him a bit of her. In more ways than just your hair."

"Oh. Right." The girl nodded. His sister who had died in a bullet hail...

"Hey, uh," Tails piped up, interrupting her train of thought with something he apparently thought far more important:

"If we gained back an entire day this way, does that mean we can have lunch again?"

xxx

"Hey."

"...hey," Rose replied with a slight smile. By now she was sitting in Tails' living room again, while the little fox and the Doctor had disappeared into the two-tail's workshop once more. This time, Amy had volunteered to be the one to prepare the food, though, so now it was Sonic who apparently had come in to talk, letting himself plop into the plushy chair next to the couch she was sitting on.

"I just wanted to say...thanks," the hedgehog said, his gaze unusually sincere. "For..." he paused.

"Telling Tails. Telling Robotnik where he can stick it, too." He gazed over at her. They hadn't been able to talk just the two of them yet since the resurrection of the Time Line, and now, with both of them slumped a bit tiredly in the living room, Rose wondered whether to the hedgehog it also already seemed like ages ago when he had rescued her from the robots and they had been racing madly through the sunshine afterwards...

She smiled at him. "No problem."

"Cool." he tried a small grin back. "Also, I wanted to say I'm sorry about what happened to your dad." He briefly looked at his shoes. "None of us really have family, either. Not all of that's Robotnik's fault, but...yeah."

He seemed to be getting just slightly downcast again, perhaps still wondering whether he was maybe in fact partly to blame for Tails' parents' demise, even if the little fox himself had forgiven him. Rose pursed her lips.

"You know...I met someone once. It was a pretty crazy thing. There were clockwork droids, some sort of time portal in a fireplace and a horse on a space ship."

At her tone, Sonic looked up and a small spark seemed to have returned to his eyes, as his lips twitched. "Only the best stories start that way."

"There was also a girl we met. She trusted the Doctor and she died," Rose continued her tale, and the hedgehog's face fell as quickly as he had lit up. Rose took a breath.

"But do you know what she said just before?" she asked and when Sonic only blinked at the rhetoric question, the blonde girl eventually gave a smile that perhaps seemed only a little older than it should be.

"She said that 'one may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel'."

When the hedgehog didn't say anything then either, but blue eye ridges just started to rise as he perhaps wondered whether Rose could actually have meant that like she had said, the silence was then only ultimately broken by the human girl reaching out to bury her head deep in Sonic's head fur and giving him a bright grin.

"Never seen one so fluffy, though!"

xxx

In the end, both Rose and the Doctor ended up spending an entire two days on Mobius, doing nothing much in particular but having fun. Rose especially was all but dragged out shopping in the closest city by an overenthusiastic Amy, which actually yielded them the first sight of other humans on Mobius, the densely populated Station Square thronged with both furry and furless denizens.

The Doctor, who had tagged along as well, was actually surprised by how peacefully the different races seemed to live together here - the most violent thing they saw all day was a cat Mobian jumping about two feet in the air as a non-intelligent dog barked at him, but with the human owner apologizing profusely afterwards. The Time Lord only briefly sourly wondered why during their travels, usually, it only took two different intelligent species to be present before he and his companion would immediately have the next civil war at their hands.

His mood was considerably improved when later, Sonic also offered him a wheelchair ride.

When it came time to say goodbye on the end of the second day, the sun had just started to disappear behind the horizon and all of them were standing in front of Tails' house again, watching the sun set in the ocean, the wind breezily rushing through their hair, quills and the open TARDIS doors.

"Well, then," the Doctor stepped forward, slightly reaching down to extend his hand to the blue hedgehog and shaking his. "It's been an honour."

"Likewise, Doc." Sonic grinned back up at him, giving him a thumbs-up, and holding the Time Lord's gaze with his own, green and brown eyes for a moment saying more than their words could have. The Doctor nodded, also reaching down to shake Amy's hand, though he certainly didn't need to do so for Tails, seeing as the little two-tail had leapt straight up and enthusiastically hugged the Time Lord's head, (the Doctor also fairly certain that in between the squealed 'Thank You's and 'Come Back Soon's there actually also were a few 'I'll miss you's – addressed to his screw driver).

"Heyyy, come here!"

Rose was certainly showing less restraint in her affections than the Time Lord; she had mostly just picked up all of the Mobians in turn to squeeze them in a hug. The Doctor guessed correctly that on a world where humans and Mobians somehow had to get along, this was probably a very rude gesture - handling the smaller, furry creatures like children or pets - but their friends either seemed to understand or not mind, laughing and hugging back their human friend in turn as their feet dangled above the ground and they were cuddled.

(In what was probably an unconscious reaction, there was even a bit of tail wagging involved, though the Time Lord wisely opted not to tell Rose that as it probably would have brought the "Can We Keep Them" talk up again by sheer reflex.)

In the end, even Sonic got subjected to the treatment despite his spikier back, Rose simply lifting him up by his sides – a procedure that quickly turned rather amusing for any onlookers since the blue hedgehog turned out to be rather ticklish and squirmed immediately in the hold of the human girl.

"Ah! Put me down!"

"Not until you apologize for that crazy wheelchair ride!"

"Never! Agh!"

The Doctor snorted at the unequal struggle and found himself not minding having spent two days without so much as an attempted genocide or a pirate attack after all.

"Heh..ah...you sneaky human-" Sonic was panting as Rose finally set him down again, hugging his own sides for protection immediately. "And you're some fine friends for not helping me out here," he added dryly with a glance at both Tails and Amy who smiled innocently.

In fact, the next one who spoke was Rose again, and now she seemed slightly hesitant.

"Um, say, before we go..."

"Yeah?"

"Is...Shadow around anywhere? I haven't seen him since we came back..."

"Oh. Yeah, he's not the most sociable of types." Sonic scratched his ear. "I think he just didn't drop by yet because he's not the kind of guy who looks for company."

Rose bit her lip slightly. "Can you pick him up again? Just for a short moment?"

"Uh, sure. You want to...?"

"I just want to say goodbye. That's fine, right?"

"Sure," the Doctor shrugged. "Though I'm usually rubbish at goodbyes..."

"Right. One moment," Sonic said, already reaching into his quills to pull out the Emerald, and then, in a flash he was gone. He reappeared two seconds later, this time also holding Shadow's arm again (though in a nice departure from last time's scenario, this time Shadow didn't punch him). When the black hedgehog's eyes fell onto the blonde girl, though, they widened.

"Hey, Shadow," Rose greeted him with a smile.

"...hello," Shadow said, though now his tone sounded slightly rougher than before. "Does you being here mean...everything really happened?"

"Oh. Yeah," the Doctor said, waving a hand. "Planet nearly went pop, of course, but you got resurrected along with everything else, so in the end it worked out fine. 'course, it also means no one remembers this except us, but..."

"Right. I see." Shadow nodded and now he almost sounded relieved. "Then I'm not having amnesia or hallucinations again."

"What? Oh no, no," Rose replied quickly. "I'm sorry if you were confused because we didn't call or anything. Sonic said you'd rather be left alone, but...I wanted to say thank you. For saving me," she gave a slightly unsure smile. "Is that okay?"

"I...yeah. If you wa-" Shadow began, but then the rest of his sentence was cut off by the blonde girl quickly dropping to her knees in front of him and hugging him tight. And then, in what was perhaps an entirely unexpected reaction for the others, Shadow at first seemed to freeze up in her embrace, but then, slowly, almost imperceptibly relaxed and returned it, even briefly closing his eyes.

"...you're welcome."

"The others...told me about her," Rose said, quietly, even though Sonic and his friends had wandered a few metres off when she had hugged him. Shadow had seemed to relax slightly when there were less people around him, but at her words he still stiffened.

"Ah. They would have."

"I think you made her proud yesterday. Or on the yesterday that never was."

And there, much harder to see than Sonic's, perhaps not even really a thing, Rose thought she might just have seen the dark hedgehog's smile.

"...maybe," Shadow replied, quietly. He gently disentangled himself from her, stepping back and regarding her with something she wondered whether it could have counted as...well. Maybe not quite fondness, but perhaps something that could one day become something like it. Shadow reached inside his own quills now, briefly looking down at the red Emerald he pulled from them, like he was contemplating what to say next.

"Thank you," he said, barely loud enough to hear. "And...if you ever turn up on this planet again..." he looked up from the stone, briefly meeting her eyes again with that slight not-smile. "I think I wouldn't mind a hello."

And then, in a flash, he disappeared.

Rose blinked.

"Er. Uh."

"Yeah, he does that," Sonic commented, the blue hedgehog having wandered over again as soon as his darker doppelganger had disappeared. "But I think he likes you, " he grinned.

"Right..."

"Very well then, Ms Tyler. Ready to go?" the Doctor called over, already halfway in the TARDIS poking out his head at them. Rose turned, enjoyed the last gust of wind from Mobius that wafted over from the ocean, picking up her hair as the setting sun hit her eyes with darkening light, just for a moment letting her and Sonic look like something else, something they had been just a short while ago, but then she was already bounding over to the familiar phone box, swinging herself inside.

"Bye, Rose. Doc. See you around," Sonic gave the two of them a last wave along with his two friends, and both human and Time Lord grinned back. The last words they heard were Amy's call of 'Don't be strangers!' before the doors swung shut and the familiar grinding noise of the TARDIS replaced the sounds of Mobius.

"Huh. That was a nice planet for a change," Rose grinned at the Doctor as the Time Lord already busied himself with the controls. It definitely wasn't often that the worlds they visited left her with a wish to return, but this was one of them. "Think we can visit again sometime?"

"Shouldn't be impossible," the Doctor shrugged. "Then again, usually we rarely visit places twice."

"Unless it's 21st century London, yeah," Rose commented innocently.

"That's different!"

"Uh-huh. Different how?"

"Well mostly we're on Earth because that planet needs bloody saving again," the Doctor muttered under his breath, which at least made Rose laugh.

"And Mobius doesn't, then?" she asked.

"Hm, actually," the Doctor said, "Robotnik wasn't the only one who snooped around in other people's history. I had a check on that planet's time line after you and Sonic put it back together again, and if everything about it is right and neither of you made anything up, then..." he indicated a few holo-screens.

"That world survived water gods, alien invasions, at one point it actually fell apart and this Robotnik attacking seems to be somewhat of a biweekly thing, so..." he turned to her, giving her a bright grin.

"My opinion, Rose? Mobius stands defended."

Fin

...there you go. A chapter in (late) celebration of the season start of the 12th Doctor! Seeing it in the cinema was 'fantastic' so to speak! No, Capaldi's not gonna replace Ten as my fav Doctor ever, but I think he might be a close second already. ;)

Also, at this point I need to give huge thanks to petite-dreamer who helped a lot with characterization, encouragement and wording! I've never seen a beta-reader as reliable and kind as her, so credit where credit is due! Drop by her fics, they're worth it. :p

For anyone disappointed that Fleetway!Super didn't show up and kill everybody, what can I say, I love the li'l psycho, but, eh...letsnotmakeitadeathficright?^^° I'm sure the rest of the characters are grateful that I only usually use the Fleetway origin story and stick to games canon for the rest...

Next and in other news, listeners, the Welcome to Night Vale fandom has swallowed me whole. I recommend this podcast to any fans of Doctor Who, Lovecraft, Mystery, the weird and the Supernatural and Horror/Comedy things. Of course, not that that would stop me from still writing more about talking hedgehogs (that 'Life Could Have Been So Different' semi-sequel is coming, in, oh, around 2-3 weeks now ;).

Last but not least, I have a new poll up on my profile and would love it if you took a moment to vote on it - and if you read, I'd be ever so happy if you wanted to review! :3

- Taranea out :D