Chapter Text
The forest is quiet, lit by the gentle light of the moon. Leaves glimmer with leftover rain, animals slink through the shadows, and a cold breeze tugs gently at Shadows quills.
The seven emeralds are the...
He isn’t sure why he’s standing here. He hasn’t been sure of anything for a very long time. He is sure that he is angry. He is not sure why. It festers inside of him, a wound with no source, an injury with no healing.
Grass rustles underfoot as he steps forwards, the occasional twig snapping. He could go faster, use his skates, but something tells him that’s a bad idea right now.
Chaos is power, enriched by...
Something disturbs the quiet, a gasp cut off halfway through, and Shadow turns in its direction. The foliage is dense, grasping branches and clinging leaves, but he pushes through it regardless, entering a clearing. Most clearings are natural. This one is not. Carved out of the earth in a great circular pattern, reminiscent of...
reminiscent of...
(reminiscent of what? something’s wrong.)
In the center, there’s another hedgehog, face down on the charred earth. Blood stains fur, and Shadow takes a step further into the clearing.
The controller serves to...
Shadow kicks the other hedgehog onto their back, intending to assess the damage, and electricity leaps between them like fire, like chaos. It burns, it burns, it burns, and Shadow remembers.
(He is not quite so angry, anymore.)
The seven emeralds...
Notes:
oooo mysteryyyy. short and sweet.
I’m going to be using a lot of musical terminology for the chapter titles.
Coda: a symbol that notes where the final passage of a piece begins.
Concerto: a soloist piece contrasted by an ensemble, such as a small group of musicians.
Arpeggio: a chord of notes that is broken, and then played in a sequence.
Chapter 2: Overture
Notes:
hhhrhahah I know I’ve only been publishing Gintama fic for like the past two months but yes I’m alive this is still in the works. It is 4am and I post this now and mildly incoherent a little bit or never. Godspeed
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
It’s been nothing but a monotonous blur of green for the last few minutes of his run, so he estimates that he’s at least halfway through the jungle that had recently swallowed up a third of the continent. Not Eggman’s style to go for green warfare, but for very new trees they’re already matured, and nothing about them seemed mechanical. Either Eggmans latest scheme is beyond comprehension, or something else is at work here. On the off chance the something else is malicious, it’s probably Eggmans fault anyway, which makes it Sonics job to deal with it.
He should be close enough to the heart of the woods now, he estimates, skidding to a stop that rips up a couple of bushes, and almost obliterates a tree. Shaking twigs out of his quills, he takes in the surrounding area, noting with some surprise that the remaining half of the tree is the only indication of where he had come from at all— the skid track is already covered in a thick layer of green, and even then, the tree is beginning to mend. If there was doubt before, there isn’t any now; something unnatural is definitely going on here.
Unworried about the lack of a path back— hard to worry about that when a good run in any direction would take him out of the woods in a minute— he settles into a slightly slower jog, zig-zagging through the underbrush in hopes of finding anything.
Which he does— quite literally tripping over the ruins that seem to sprout just as quickly as the forest had. He turns his fall into a roll, before bouncing back up to take a look at the wall that had caught him unaware. Stone, he thinks, inlaid with metal and faintly glowing veins of something blue. He tripped over a low section, it seems; the rest rises to above his head, though it isn’t tall enough to blot out the sky.
Just a likely candidate as any, he figures, and sets to following the wall to where it intersects with another, and then another, and another. A veritable maze. Impatience growing, he weighs his options— he could try and run on top of the walls, but they look like they’re barely standing as is, and if he causes a collapse he doesn’t want to find out what the blue stuff is by getting dunked in it. Instead, then, he keeps one hand on the wall, and starts gathering speed.
Like the mazes that sometimes get handed out with meals at Meh Burger, stick with the edge and you’ll eventually find the goal. Maybe not the most practical solution to most people, but then most people don’t have super speed.
Most people, like the person that he slams into while skidding around a particularly sharp corner. No end of tripping today, it seems, and he barely manages to catch himself before slamming face-first into another wall. He takes a moment to steady himself, before checking on whoever else is apparently checking out these ominous forest ruins in the middle of nowhere. She’s a hedgehog, like him, but her quills are pink and styled to point down at her shoulders. She’s already propping herself up— impressive recovery speed!— with a truly giant hammer, and glaring. Ah, glaring at him.
“You should be looking where you’re going,” she chides, “otherwise you might really hurt somebody.”
“Well, excuse me, I wasn’t really expecting there to be anyone else out in the middle of nowhere.”
“The middle of nowhere? Ugh, you have got to be kidding me. These ruins are invaluable to our history!”
“Yeah? According to who, you?”
“Yes, actually. I’m an archeologist.” She dusts herself off, and slings the hammer around to rest on her back. The head of it nearly touches the ground, for all that the handle juts over her shoulder.
“Nice to meet you, an archeologist.” Sonic extends a hand for a hand shake, only to have it ignored. In fact, she seems suddenly rather dedicated to ignoring him entirely. Letting his hand fall, he leans back, crossing his arms. “If these ruins are so invaluable to our history, how come they weren’t here, oh, say, a week ago?”
This gets him her attention again; “What are you talking about? Of course they were, ruins don’t just spring up in the middle of the night. I’ve been planning this expedition for months!”
“Uh, no, I was here last Friday, and there weren’t any ruins here at all.”
She scoffs, but doesn’t get much further than that.
“Uh, Amy? I think I’m picking up on... oh.” The voice comes from above, and Sonic looks up to find Tails lifting himself over the nearby wall. The fox sets himself down between the pair, crossing his arms. “Sonic,” he greets, coldly.
“Oh, uh, hey, Tails. Wasn’t expecting to run into you out here.”
“Oh, wonderful, you two know each other already.” Amy cuts in, either oblivious to the tension between them, or, the more likely scenario, she simply doesn’t care. “What were you picking up on, Tails?”
“Oh!” The fox fumbles to pull his MilesElectric back out, tapping around on the screen before flipping it around to show Amy. Sonic, uninvited, leans over her shoulder to also take a look. A bunch of numbers crowd up the left half of the screen, the right occupied by a blinking blue spot.
“Great!” Says Amy, at the same time that Sonic’s says “What is this?”
Tails pulls an annoyed expression, but explains it anyway. “These are coordinates and energy levels, and this,” he taps the blue spot, “is where the energy levels peak.” He pauses, examining the screen again. “It should be about... twenty minutes north.”
“That my time, or your time?” Sonic asks, earning himself an irritated look from Tails, and a confused one from Amy.
“I’m sorry, what makes you think you’re coming along?”
“Hah, what makes you think you can stop me?”
.•.•.•.
It turns out that, one, they can’t stop him, and two, it’s twenty minutes away regular person speed. This means, of course, that by the time they get there, Sonic is dragging his feet and bored half out of his mind.
“If a twenty minute walk though unexplored ruins manages to bore you, how do you even manage day to day life?”
“Oh, he doesn’t,” Tails answers for him, and Sonic considers sticking his tongue out at him. No, Sonic, be the bigger mobian, be the mature one here.
He waits until Tails and Amy aren’t looking to stick his tongue out.
“So! How do you two know each other?” Amy prods, eventually. Sonic and Tails share a mutual glance— neither really wants to talk about it.
“I met Tails when he was younger,” Sonic eventually provides, at the same time that Tails tries to hide “abandoned me in the woods” behind a cough.
“What? I didn’t abandon you, I—“ Sonic starts, before cutting himself off. “You were fine.”
“Yeah, you helped so much with that,” Tails says, dryly, before lifting off of the ground. “It should be... just around this corner, actually!”
Amy looks between the two of them, folding her arms. Well, if Sonic is planning to stick with them, then he and Tails can talk out their problems under her careful supervision. For now, though, there are more important things at hand. Like the looming door embedded into one of the walls, old paint displaying a symbol that she only half recognizes. Chipped red paint makes up a circle, the stained grey metal peeking through twin eye-holes set into the paint. Twin protrusions off of either side imply a moustache, making it the rather memorable work of... what was his name again? Egg-boy?
“Ugh,” Sonic sighs for the fifth time in as many minutes, but this time he follows it up with “Eggman, of course. Should’ve expected ol’ Eggface had something to do with this.”
Tails frowns, “I don’t know about that. This paint looks super old, and besides, what would Eggman have to do with a base all the way out here?”
“You got any other explanation for that?” Sonic asks, looking somewhat more energetic now that there’s actually something to do.
“Well, no, but—“ Tails starts, and the rest of what he was going to say is drowned out behind the grating of old metal on older metal.
Amy yanks once, twice, forces the door open enough for them to fit through, and then steps back and brushes her gloves off on her dress, looking victorious.
“There we go! Now then,” she turns back to the two of them, smiling pleasantly. “Either you two are going to get along for the rest of this trip, or,” and she reaches a hand up to wrap around the handle of her hammer, “we’re going to talk out your issues in a constructive manner!”
Tails makes the sort of face that suggests he’d voluntarily give up technology for the rest of his life, and Sonic raises his hands in a placating gesture. “Uh, thanks but no thanks.”
“That’s what I thought,” Amy says, and she lets go of the handle. Squabbles between them effectively dealt with, she pokes her head into the gap she just opened, letting out a long, low whistle. “This is incredible! Most of the ruins in here are totally untouched!”
She steps through, save a moment of trouble where her hammer wedges itself in the door behind her.
It’s an arching hallway that spreads out before her, decorated sparsely with greenery, unlike outside. The walls here are almost perfectly intact, and she finds herself immediately waylaid by the architecture on display. She examines the wall closer, taking note of how the various different materials used interact with eachother, only vaguely aware of Sonic and Tails stepping in behind her.
.•.•.•.
“Don’t touch anything,” Tails says, before setting to the task of ignoring Sonic’s existence. The hedgehog stands and watches him for a moment as the fox takes a jar of some kind out of his belt, delicately scraping... something off the wall into it.
Standing around and watching other people do things isn’t exactly his style, so with one last glance at the two of them he sets off to explore deeper. They can say whatever they want to— he knows Eggmans logo, and he knows that this forest wasn’t here a week ago. Something fishy is going on, and he’s going to get to the bottom of it.
He walks, half because he doesn’t want to deal with Tails’s patented ‘I told you so’ looks if he runs into anything, half because there’s... something off in the air. It feels almost electric, like they’re teetering on the brink of a storm. Which they aren’t, because it’s the middle of the day and sunny outside. The feeling persists until he reaches the end of the mammoth hallway, finding a truly massive stone door inset into the metal. It doesn’t look like Eggmans work, which means he’s willing to bet that it’s behind the weird forest phenomenon.
Ignoring Tails’s earlier advice, he gives the door a solid shove, half hoping that it’ll open that easily and then about jumping out of his skin when it does. Like it’s made out of air, the giant door barely needs him to push on it at all before swinging open with a grinding noise, which echoes down the hallway. Beyond it is another wide chamber, though this one is lit in a cool blue. Its ceiling is high and domed, topped with what looks like an invaluable crystal. Sonic squints up at the refracted sunlight beaming through the gem, before looking down at what lies in the middle of the room; a single shining pedestal.
To his credit, he does consider telling Tails and Amy that he found something for all of a second. If it is nefarious Eggman business, then he’d rather keep them as sidelined as he can, and with that thought in his head he touches the pedestal.
A few things happen.
One: the pedestal ignites like a flash grenade, blinding him in the moment before he can get his eyes closed. Startled, he yanks his hand back, and everything instantly goes dark as he tries to blink spots out of his vision.
Two: something really, really big lands in the chamber with a thump. There’s a metallic thud, like a grapefruit coated in copper, and then angry hissing which sounds alarmingly like curse words.
Three: Sonic’s vision clears enough for him to make out the sudden addition to the chamber— a long, thin green body that comes to an end in the rounded bubble of a technological torso, snake face behind a layer of glass. Blood traces the scales from a multitude of bites and scratches, and ah— the snake does not look happy to see him.
“What have you done?” It hisses, picking itself up off of the floor with twin robot arms. One sparks, faintly, around the elbow. “What have you done, you wretched hedgehog?”
The snake lunges.
Notes:
Overture— a piece played at the beginning, that contains hints of what is to come.
Chapter 3: Dynamics
Summary:
Dynamics: The intensity and volume with which a note should be played. The most basic dynamics are piano (soft), forte (hard), and mezzo (medium).
Notes:
Yeah, I’m still working on this! I have the terrible habit of swinging in and out of fandoms at random, but as ever I’m very fond of Sonic and, in turn, very fond of this fic. The Frontiers trailer really got me entrenched back in sonic, though, got me in the sonic writing mood, so here I am!
Admittedly, this chapter fought me. This chapter fought me every single step of the way. Eventually I had to sit down and go ‘alright. Either I write this. Or I don’t.’ And so here it is, written.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
No, decides Sonic. Nope. Not today. Usually he hears curses in his name coming from Eggman, and as far as he can tell this snake isn’t even vaguely Eggman related, which makes it, hm, absolutely not his problem.
(And if that comes back to bite him, then it comes back to bite him.)
So! Priorities; get the hell away from the angry snake, and make sure Amy and Tails don’t get caught in any of the crossfire. Been a while since he’s brought someone on one of his runs, but, well— the snake doesn’t look particularly fast, and if Tails is here then the Tornado is probably nearby. Amy might not be pleased— she had seemed very insistent on this ‘expedition’ going well, but she’d be better unhappy than dead.
About half a second has passed, and he uses the other half to get the hell out of dodge. Away from the podium, down the stairs, back through the doors, only to— in the second time in as many encounters— slam headfirst into Amy.
She staggers back, caught by Tails before she can fall over— Sonic, on the other hand, falls back and bounces.
“I told you not to touch anything,” Amy shouts, before the impact registers and she clutches her head, “ouch!”
“Yeah, we can talk about that later, we gotta go now,” responds Sonic, already back on his feet and glancing back at the snake, which is already lunging towards them.
“What?” Says Amy, prying her eyes back open, and Sonic can pinpoint the exact moment she notices the snake.
She doesn’t get scared.
She gets angry.
An inarticulate yell erupts from her, and she goes sailing past him, nailing the snake directly in the skull with her oversized hammer. She hits it so hard it bounces. She hits it so hard the flooring under them rattles and cracks.
“Wow,” says Sonic, duly impressed.
“Yeah, that’s Amy. She’ll, uh, keep hitting him until he stays down, probably,” inputs Tails, in what is perhaps the friendliest tone he’s used around Sonic thus far.
“No kidding,” says Sonic, and together they watch the beat down.
Amy is nigh unshakable— the snake backpedals, threatens, yells, and she doesn’t give him an inch.
“Maybe we should do something,” Tails says, after about a minute or so.
His timing is impeccable, because the moment he finishes talking, the snake manages to finally pin Amy with the claw latches onto his tail-tip, grabbing her hammer by the head and tossing it before she can smack her way free.
Sonic’s there, immediately— but it’s like the snake knows what he’s going to do, and Sonic finds himself being grabbed out of his spin-dash and shaken.
“You!” The snake spit-snarls— one of his fangs has broken off, and his speech is slurred, “always you, always causing problems! You! You have ruined enough of my plans!”
“Uh,” Sonic says, intending to follow it up with ‘you’ve got the wrong guy’, or ‘I’ve never met you before, buddy’, or possibly ‘you’re crawling up the wrong tree’, but he doesn’t get the chance before the snake buckles and screeches in protest.
“Ha!” Shouts Tails, triumphant, hovering next to one of the snakes coils, having placed some sort of yellow disc on the scales, “that’ll stop you in your tracks!”
The snake flares at him from the corner of his eyes, unable to turn his head, it seems, and then his robotic torso twists, the hand not holding on to Sonic retrieving something from his side and flinging it at the fox. Tails doesn’t react quickly enough to dodge, and vibrant yellow energy forces him into unconsciousness.
“Tails!” Both Amy and Sonic shout as one, before Sonic twists his way out of the snakes grasp. He disregards Sonic in the moment, though, already reaching for a second device like the one that took Tails out, and a moment later Amy is unconscious too.
His first thought is to go for Tails, and get him out of there, but— at the very last second— he reconsiders.
Not because he isn’t worried. But because this snake has been eerie about reading him— he hadn’t reacted the same to Tails or Amy, but he had known what Sonic was going to do— he instead veers, collecting Amy, and is rewarded in his line of thought when a third of those devices clatters to the ground where he would be standing if he had gone for Tails.
“Ha!” Crows the snake, regaining control of his jaw, “Think you’re getting clever on me? Think you’re learning!? You’ll be back for him, Sonic, and I’ll—“
“I don’t even know you, dude!” Sonic responds, setting Amy down next to her hammer, and ducking a second device.
“No, you wouldn’t, but I know you! I know you!!!”
Sonic doesn’t bother with an answer, he pinballs off the walls (causing unforetold damage to the ruins Amy had been so enthusiastic about… smashing with her own hammer) coming around behind the snake at a speed he shouldn’t be able to follow.
The last he registers before the energy drags him under is the snakes dragging, hissing laugh, and then the sound of impact like a gunshot.
Sonic drags himself back to consciousness to the smell of smoke. There’s— a fire. In front of him. A— a bonfire, someone’s built a bonfire.
Tails .
Tails is on the other side of the fire, still unconscious, but unharmed. A moment later he thinks to check for Amy, who’s similarly indisposed. Who on earth built the fire, then? The snake didn’t seem like the type burn them at the stake, and they aren’t exactly tied up. They’re still near the ruins— not in the podium room, anymore, or even the initial hall— just outside the eggman-painted doors, surrounded by the labyrinth. Ugh, if it was Eggman that pulled them out, Sonic’s never gonna live it down.
“Whoa,” comes a voice from the other side of the bonfire— it takes Sonic a moment of squinting into the flames to realize there’s someone there at all, someone red enough that they blend well into the fire. Wait a minute— “hey, where’d you go? Sonic?”
“Knuckles?”
The echidna’s head jerks up, and yeah, that’s Knuckles. “There you are!” He says, cheerfully, and now that he’s not hunched over (had he been examining the ground? looking under a rock for him or something?) he looms well over the fire.
“What are you doing here?” Sonic asks, because Knuckles is supposed to be… to be…… what was he supposed to be doing? Something important to the big guy, probably.
“I was just in the neighbourhood,” says Knuckles, casually, as if the ‘neighbourhood’ isn’t an abandoned Eggman base in the middle of a mystery forest.
“Ugh,” says Tails, splaying out on the ground from where he had been curled up, “did anyone get the number of that taser?”
“No,” says Knuckles, “was I supposed to?”
“Augh!” Tails yelps, suddenly fully awake, eyes the size of moons as he stares across the fire at Knuckles, which is fair enough. Sonic can’t imagine he’d react much differently to the big lug suddenly looming at him from over a fire, if he didn’t know the guy. Heh, kinda like when they first met, actually…
“Augh!” Knuckles echoes, glancing behind himself fearfully.
“It’s okay, Tails, that’s just—“ Sonic starts saying, but Amy must have woken up at some point in the past five seconds, because she’s up and lunging at Knuckles with her hammer while his back is turned. Sonic remembers the impact that very hammer had on the snake, earlier, and winces for Knuckles’s sake.
He clearly has some sort of echidna-sense, though, because before Amy can bring down the full fury of her hammer on top of his head, he turns and catches it with a palm, and the impact is enough to sway the bonfire away from them.
“Hey!” He says, frowning, “that hurt.”
Amy falls back, blinking at him in naked surprise before the fact she just tried to kill him sets in, and she drops her hammer, “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry. I heard Tails yelp and just reacted.”
“… like I was saying,” continues Sonic, “this is Knuckles.”
“You two know each other?”
“Yeah, we met a while ago. Eggman was trying to steal something of his, and I helped out.”
“Oh, so that was after you ditched me?”
“Wh— Tails, for the last time, I didn’t ditch you, I just—“
“We can talk about this later! Sonic, who was that guy? How come he wanted you dead?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never seen the guy before.”
“Well clearly he had SOME sort of connection with you!”
“Look at him, not me!”
“I would, if he was still around! … what happened, anyway? The last thing I remember is trying to break his spine after he stunned Tails.”
“Uh,” says Sonic, who isn’t actually entirely sure on that front either.
“I hit him so hard he left,” says Knuckles, proudly.
“Did he leave any of his tech behind?” asks Tails.
“I dunno, I didn’t look. Should I go look?”
“Maybe we should all go together,” suggests Amy, diplomatically, “considering what happened last time we split up.”
“Hey, not my fault.”
“I never said it was,” says Amy, around a smile that says she’s one hundred percent blaming him anyway.
They make quick work of the fire before going anywhere— even if this forest is weird that’s no reason to go burning it down, and venture back inside the Eggman base. Somehow, with the knowledge of what was inside earlier, the ambiance of the base feels dimmer, creepier.
But that’s probably just his imagination working overtime.
The podium room itself is, surprisingly, not looking worse for wear. There’s a couple cracks and dents where there didn’t used to be, sure, but if you asked Sonic it really didn’t look all too different.
Amy, on the other hand, had a somewhat more drastic reaction. A reaction of the ‘fall to your knees and weep, for all was for naught’ sort of reaction.
“She’ll be fine,” says Tails, with the air of someone who’s dealt with this many times before. He steps around her distraught form, beelining for the innocent looking podium in the middle of the room.
“Uh, don’t touch that,” starts Sonic, only to cut himself off as Tails shoots him a nasty look over his shoulder—
“A mysterious podium in the middle of ruins with unknown origins and/or purpose? Of course I’m not going to touch it, I’m not an idiot.”
… somehow that felt pointed.
Knuckles consolingly pats Amy on the back, and Sonic zips over to roughly where he remembers the spat happening. Should be about… yeah, there it is.
“Hey, I found the energy things he left behi— what are you doing.”
Contrary to his earlier, scathing words, Tails is elbows deep in the guts of the podium, having pried it open at the back.
“In a sec,” he calls back, turning his head a bit but clearly not giving Sonic an inch of his attention. Sonic moves a bit closer, just in case the podium decides it’s done being a podium, and wants to have a go at being a death trap.
Amy pops up next to them as well, Amy evidence of her earlier mourning buried under her now cheerful demeanour. “Did you find something?”
“No,” says Knuckles, mournfully.
“Maybe,” says Tails, and a moment later he’s pulling some yellow chunk out of the interior. Looks like a rock? Whatever it is, it’s jagged, and it takes both of Tails’ hands to hold it properly.
Also, something about it…
“Topaz?” Asks Amy, and Tails frowns.
“Maybe… I don’t— yeah, maybe. I’ll run some tests on it when we get back.”
“Uh, it’s clearly a rock,” says Knuckles, leaning over to grab it from Tails, only to recoil as it shudders at his touch. “Whoa!”
Tails, out of reflex, also drops it, and it hits the floor with a sad ‘tink’ sound.
“Okay, no one touches the mystery rock,” says Amy, retrieving her hammer. One of the faces opens up, revealing a cushioned interior, and she scoops the rock up the way one would a fish with a net before anyone can protest.
Tails pouts at her, but doesn’t vocally protest. Instead, he turns to Sonic, “You said you found his transmitters?”
“Uh, sure.” Sonic leads Tails to them, only feeling slightly awkward, as Amy enlists Knuckles in ‘looking for specimens’ or… something.
Tails stops next to the one that took him out, poking it tentatively before flipping it over— Sonic’s no expert, but it looks burnt out.
“So,” says Tails, conversationally, “what are you planning to do next?”
This is a dangerous line of questioning.
“Because—“ Tails continues, before Sonic can fit his foot in his mouth with an answer— “it looked like that snake got the best of you, and if he teams up with Eggman…”
“What are the odds of that happening,” says Sonic, because he’s getting a feel for where this conversation is going and he doesn’t like it.
Tails gives him a flat look. “Do you want an actual number or for me to just say ‘high’.”
Random, evil dude with a grudge against Sonic? … honestly, he’s surprised the guy wasn’t already working with Eggman.
“Alright, you’ve got a point, but what do you want me to do about it?”
Tails’ look, if possible, flattens further.
“We got lucky this time because your friend Knuckles just happened to show up. What if you’re alone next time?”
Sonic sighs, but Tails has a point, as loathe as he is to admit it. He’d love to dismiss the foxes concerns, but… he can’t. That snake read him, and that fact unsettles him.
“… Fine, I’ll stick around for a while.”
“Great!” Says Tails, with what’s probably faux-cheer, before picking up the one device that hadn’t hit anybody and getting knocked out again by the leftover charge.
Notes:
As ever, I’m happy to hear people’s thoughts :)
Knuckles, finding several unconscious people: I know exactly what this needs.
Knuckles, building a large fire extremely fast: I’m gonna get such a good grade at medicine
Chapter 4: Andante
Summary:
Andante: A moderately slow tempo. It’s Italian meaning “to-go about” suggests a walking pace to be used in a piece of music.
Notes:
This chapter got done way faster than I thought it would! Can’t promise I’ll keep that up, but now that I’ve loosened my own expectations for this fic a bit, I’m having a much easier time writing it
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
Sonic ends up volunteering his services to carry Tails back to the Tornado— which is parked nearby, like he thought. Amy’s laden herself and Knuckles with materials scavenged from Eggmans base, so she doesn’t mind.
(And if she gives him an uncomfortably knowing look beforehand, it’s none of her business.)
Tails is already waking up a bit by the time they reach the Tornado, so repeated shocks probably get less effective.
(And if he stays “unconscious” for longer than he should have, given the little snuffle he always gave upon waking up, well… that wasn’t really any of Sonic’s business either.)
“Cool plain,” says Knuckles, upon seeing the Tornado in all her gleaming beauty, and Amy rolls her eyes at him— “Plane, Knuckles, it’s a plane.”
“Huh,” says Knuckles, consideringly, and then “wait, how did you know—“
So those two are already getting along well. Sonic sets Tails down against one of the Tornado’s wheels, and stretches out, quills untangling from where Tails had pressed into them. He’s lucky he didn’t get jabbed.
Tails is up by the time Amy and Knuckles are finished cramming the souvenirs (regardless of what Amy’s calling them, Sonic is calling them souvenirs) into the storage compartment of the biplane.
Having just played rock jenga for the past twenty minutes, hands covered in dust, patience worn thin by Amy, who yelped as if wounded every time a corner crumbled, the easy sentimentality from earlier is gone. Tails probably knew what was coming and feigned sleep to get out of it, annoyingly smart little dude.
“Phew!” Says Amy, cheerfully, as if she had been the one to do most of the work, and then “oh no.”
He’s not opening that compartment again. Any other rocks she desperately needs can ride in the passenger seat.
“There are only two seats! We’ll have to make multiple trips.”
Thank chaos.
“What? Nah, me and Knux can hold onto the wings. Right, Knux? … Knuckles?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah! I’m great at holding on to wings. Who’s Knux?”
“Nevermind.” Sonic bounces up onto the wing, moving over to the far side to make room for Knuckles, who pulls his way up a moment later.
Amy looks hesitant about this arrangement, but Tails just pats her on the shoulder before moving to his pilots seat. “It’ll be fine, me and Sonic used to do this all the time. Did you gather the”
“Energy doodads? Yeah, they’re in the storage compartment, and you can get them out on your own time.”
Tails scowls at Sonic for the interruption, before his expression eases. “Alright, as long as you got all of them. Cmon, Amy, let’s just head back to camp now.”
“If anyone falls off I’m not being held legally or financially responsible,” Amy decides, before climbing into her own seat.
It’s nice riding on the Tornado again— he won’t admit it out loud, but Sonic had missed this. Granted, he could easily get the same effect of wind-through-his-quills by running, but there was still… something about it.
In any case, it’s maybe half an hour of flight before they reach the edge of the forest, and another half before Tails starts bringing them down. The ‘camp’ is more of a village, turns out, and a handful of other mobians emerge from tents to wave as they land.
One in particular, a hedgehog— or a porcupine maybe?— comes right up to the side of the plane almost before she’s finished touching down, and doesn’t spare so much as a glance for Knuckles and Sonic.
“So, Amy! Was your expedition as fruitful as you hoped?”
“Hmm… yes and no,” she answered, swinging out of her seat, “I haven’t been able to properly look over anything we’ve recovered yet, but there’s some promising stuff.”
“Like that chunk of Topaz,” Tails adds, “speaking of which, would you mind taking a look at it? I did some scans on the flight over, and it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen!”
“That’s what I’m here for, sonny-boy. Hand it over, I’ll cast a professional glance at it.”
“Sure,” says Amy, swinging her hammer off of her back, “but maybe don’t touch it directly. Tails grabbed it, and our new friend Knuckles here took it from him when it twitched. Also, Sonic, touched the podium it was hosted in and summoned a snake.”
“A snake?” The hedgehog looks at him, eyes initially wide with surprise before they furrow into concentration, turning back to Amy. “And you’ve been carrying it in your hammer with no difficulty?”
“None that I’ve noticed.”
It’s a feat she fit into her plane seat with that hammer, actually. He doesn’t remember seeing her do it, but she must’ve, because there was no space left in the storage compartment.
The hedgehog nods thoughtfully, before lifting his cane off of the ground, the end splitting apart to reveal a grip. “Alright, pass it over and I’ll have a go at it.”
Alright, that’s probably his cue to go before he gets hooped into unloading everything again. It’ll just be a quick jog, really, check out the camp, check out it’s surroundings. He’s gone without saying anything.
Tails is up to his ears in interesting data. Chuck had taken a good long look at the gem before passing it back over, declaring it out of his area of expertise, and since then Tails has run just about every test he can think of on it.
It’s indestructible, at least so far as he can tell, and it’s formation is unlike any other he’s seen— the closest his tests suggest is emerald, but it’s entirely the wrong colour, and even the formation of the crystal is off. If he didn’t have more sophisticated language, he’d describe it as ‘scrambled’. It’s also entirely harmless to touch, not that he’s telling Amy how he found that one out. He hasn’t seen Knuckles to try and get him to touch it again in a while.
He hasn’t seen anyone in a while, actually.
But! The most interesting part, by far! The rock has an energy signature, almost like a signal flare as soon as he knows what he’s looking for, and now that he knows what he’s looking for, it’s easy to search the globe for any close matches. All it takes is bouncing the signal off several key places, and his rudimentary search is done— he can narrow down to specific places when he’s closer. Because there are specific places to narrow down to. There’s more of these— six more, if his readings are reliable.
Running a quick check over his stockpiled materials to look for anything similar, he finally steps out of his lab tent and crosses the camp swiftly, not even looking up from the screen of his Miles Electric. The path back to his and Amy’s tent is muscle memory at this point, and he pushes the flap open absentmindedly.
“Amy! I ran some tests, and it looks like— Amy?”
For a moment, he thinks she isn’t even in, until the lump of blankets and pillows on her cot shifts. Uh-oh— he turns and peeks out the tent— it’s the middle of the night.
“What?” Says Amy, mostly asleep by her tone.
“Oh, uh— nothing! Nothing, you can go back to sleep. It can wait until the morning.”
“No, I’m awake, what is it?” She hauls herself upright, tugging her eye mask up to sit on her brow.
“Uh— well, I ran some tests, and it looks like there are more gems out there like this one!” He holds it up in demonstration, before pausing, “uh, and it’s totally safe to touch!”
“And how did you find that out,” Amy asks, expression flat, before what he said about there being more of them catches up with her, “wait, how can you tell there’s more of them?”
“The energy it emits! The next one looks like it’s close by, too! I was thinking, we could fly the Tornado out tomorrow and look for it.”
“Sounds great, Tails. Maybe we should get some sleep before that?”
“Uh, right. Where are Sonic and Knuckles staying?”
Amy pauses, expression narrowing as she searched for the answer— she’s always a bit slow to answer questions just after waking up. “Knuckles went with Chuck to one of our spare tents… and I haven’t seen Sonic since we landed.”
“Oh.” A lot of the excited energy he had been feeling drains, “of course.”
“Hey.” He looks up at Amy, who’s shifted over a bit in her bed, one arm open to him, “we’ll find him tomorrow morning and give him a stern talking to for running off. It’s not like he could have gotten far, right?”
She’s wrong, but Tails lets himself accept the comfort anyway.
(And, if he pretends the quills he drifts off next to are blue instead of pink, then that’s his business.)
.•.•.•.
Sonic rouses with the sun, stretching healthily before rolling off the tree branch that had served as a bed the night before. He had decided to go check the old egg ruins out one last time before the day was out, given that they never really got past the initial two rooms. Unfortunately— or luckily, maybe— the rest was in complete disrepair, and usually there wasn’t enough space for him to even fit through any other doors. The snake, also, was completely gone.
By the time he finished with that, it was late enough that he just decided to sleep in a tree, instead of running all the way back to Tails’ and Amy’s camp.
Not that it was a long run— it was just hassle to bother getting set up and settled in when a tree was perfectly suitable.
But that was all besides the point— the sun was up, the day was looking to be a good one, and he wanted to swing by their camp again anyway, to see if Tails had figured out anything about that rock.
He finds the camp again fairly swiftly, most of the people living there also seem to have gotten up with the sun and are already hurrying around. Tails and Amy are, at current, MIA, but he spots Knuckles towering over everyone else fairly swiftly and makes his way over.
“Hey, Knuckles. Have a good night?”
“Hey Sonic! Yeah, I did! Wait, how did you know that?”
“Just a guess. Seen Amy or Tails around?”
“They’re usually the last ones up,” says the hedgehog from yesterday, who had managed to completely sneak up on him, “Tails is always up late working on whatever’s caught his fancy, and he often wakes Amy up to talk about it.”
“… right.”
“Come on, I’ll get breakfast sorted for us. You haven’t eaten yet, have you?”
“Just grapes,” says Knuckles.
“I don’t suppose you do chilli dogs, do you?”
The hedgehog— Sonic should really get his name sometime— raises a brow at him. “Chilli dogs? … no, I don’t believe I’ve heard of them.”
“What? They’re only the greatest thing ever,”
Breakfast with Chuck turns out well— he’s a great listener, and humours Sonic well as he expels the virtues of Chilli Dogs, and even if he’s unfamiliar with them he makes a mean breakfast.
They’re just finishing up— or at least Knuckles and Chuck are— when Tails and Amy wander into the tent.
“Hey guys,” Sonic says, waving them over with a grin. Might as well try to get the day started off on the right foot.
“Oh,” says Amy, tone flat, “You’re here. Planning on running off again?” aaaand he’s already done something wrong, apparently. “Because—“
“Anyway!” Tails exclaims, voice cracking over the middle of it, expression of panic flashing over his features, “I did some research on the rock!”
“On the emerald?” Asks Knuckles.
“Yeah! Wait, how did you know that?”
“I may not know my rocks, but I know an emerald when I see one.”
“That’s not— that doesn’t— okay.” Tails shakes his head, and Amy takes a seat at the table across from Sonic, surreptitiously kicking him in the shin. Ow! What? She purses her lips and shakes her head at him— fine, whatever.
Tails pulls out his Miles Electric— been a while since Sonic’s seen that— tapping at the screen before flipping it around. “The emerald has a unique energy signature, and according to my statistics, there are more of them out there. Six more, to be exact.”
“It feels like there should be seven,” says Knuckles, thoughtfully. This, thankfully, finally gets Amy’s death glare off of Sonic, as she turns to him with an expression of disbelief.
“Knuckles, there are seven of them. We already have one!”
“Oh, yeah.”
Sonic decided to chance his luck, “Yeah, Knuckles here is more brawn than brain.”
“Yeah! All brawn!” and then, in a stage whisper to Chuck, “what’s brawn?”
“The nearest one is only a couple hours away on the Tornado, I thought we could go check it out today.”
“Or,” says Sonic, taking the Miles Electric from him— yeah, that one is pretty close— “I can go check it out by myself, way faster.”
Tails snatches the Electric back, scowling at him, “and if that snake is there? What if he’s looking for the emeralds?”
“I’ll figure it out!”
“Sonic.”
“… okay, fine, I guess you can tag along.”
“Good,” says Tails, smiling, “because these are all false coordinates. Only I know where the rest of the emeralds are, now.”
… annoyingly smart little fox.
Notes:
Oh man,,, if only people would talk about.,,, what they’re feeling and what’s bothering them,,,,,, instead of dodging the topic,,, hehehehe
I hope my sense of humour is carrying through. Getting jokes done in writing is… so hard
Chapter 5: Tenuto
Summary:
Hold in Italian. When a tenuto instruction is given the player is expected to hold each note for the entirety of its value and then some.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The storage compartment on the Tornado had, in fact, been emptied when Sonic went out of his run the other day, so it wasn’t like it was all for naught. He knows it’s empty because they end up stashing both the emerald and Amy’s hammer in there— although that doesn’t answer the question of where she kept it yesterday. Maybe Tails added a hammer-specific storage somewhere. Wouldn’t put it past him.
A bit like how there are now safety handles on the wing of the Tornado for both him and Knuckles. They’re a bit pointless, because he’s just holding on anyway, but he appreciates the gesture.
Especially when Tails has to yank the Tornado into a wild tailspin to avoid getting blown out of the sky about five minutes from their destination.
It had appeared on the horizon a while ago— the ruins of some old city that Sonic thought looked vaguely familiar— but it wasn’t until that moment that it became clear that they weren’t the only ones there.
Eggman had beaten them to it.
“Hold on tight!” Tails cries, before he yanks back harshly on the yoke and pulls them out of free fall— something explodes behind them, and Amy yelps, covering her head with her hands.
“I hate mid-air combat!” She shouts, and then Tails has to pull them left to avoid another swarm of ‘bots.
Eggman really went all out on this one! Sonic pulls himself up to kneel on the wing, squinting into the wind— “Hey, Tails! The emerald’s in that city somewhere, right?”
“Huh?” Answers Tails, fussing with something on the Tornado’s controls— a couple guns manifest themselves out of the Tornado’s sleek torso and open fire on the ‘bots, “Yeah?”
“Cool! See you there!”
“Sonic— wait!” Is the last he hears from the plane, using the tiny strip of wing allowed to him before he’d run into Knuckles to launch himself, bouncing off several ‘bots before he hits the ground and takes off.
Even if the emeralds aren’t anything important, he’d sooner have them in Tails’ hands than Eggmans.
.•.•.•.
“Hey, he just jumped!”
“WHAT!?”
“Yeah, I know!”
Amy has to duck her head again as Tails rolls the plane mid-air— they’ve done stuff like this before, but it always makes her feel ill— but she looks up for just long enough to see that Sonic isn’t holding onto the wing anymore. And after all the trouble Tails went to to add handholds!
“Should I jump?” Asks Knuckles.
“NO!” She snaps, before Tails can answer— poor guy’s already fully focused on flying, he doesn’t need the distraction of people jumping off left and right.
Tails does another roll, and she takes the chance to lift her head and squint at the ground— it’s all sort of a greenish blur, and she doesn’t have even a hope of telling where he might have lasted. Then her head goes back down as Tails pulls into a steep climb, looping back around to… do something that was hopefully more important than a fancy flourish.
“That’s the last of them!” He calls over the sound of several explosions, and Amy finally relaxes. Oh, how she loathes midair combat.
“Hey, good job!” calls Knuckles, and Amy manages to echo the sentiment.
“Do we need to turn around for Sonic?” she follows up with, hesitantly turning in her seat to squint behind her— all she can see is the wreckage of their fight, and suddenly she’s very grateful that Tails is as good with the controls for the Tornado as he is. If she had been piloting… they’d probably all be among the rubble.
“No, he’ll beat us there!” says Tails, “and if that snake has teamed up with Eggman, then I want to get there as fast as possible!”
Outspeeding a flying plane. Sure.
She had already sort of known that Tails had idolized Sonic, at least a little bit. He wasn’t open to talking much about what his life had been like before she met him, but… she had gathered that he had been hurt badly by someone before, and she had planned, upon meeting that person, to give them a solid piece of her mind.
Of course, it wasn’t that simple. Sonic wasn’t at all what she had expected. He was a thoughtless jerk, sure, but she was certain that he actually did care about Tails.
That, and… she was sure that if she properly gave him that piece of her mind now, it might irreparably damage her relationship with Tails. He likely wanted to handle it himself— like he did most things. She just had to stand by and be there for him whenever it fell apart.
But really, Tails was a smart guy, even with a secret bit of hero worship under his belt. He should know that Sonic physically couldn’t outrun a speeding plane.
… if he survived the fall.
.•.•.•.
The city was, as it turned out, entirely flooded. Sonic was almost beginning to wish he had stuck with the Tornado— disregarding the whole ‘time being of the essence’ thing. Thankfully, what was left of it was almost entirely skyscrapers, and despite their questionable structural integrity, they provided an easy way to keep his feet dry.
On one that felt stable enough to linger, he paused, surveying the cityscape. Something about it did seem familiar— even more so now that he was within city limits. The water flooding everything, though… something was… off about that? Well, obviously, it was water where water had no right being. But it felt like more than that. Hard to put his finger on.
In any case, it seemed like Eggman had relocated most of his resources to defending the city perimeter— probably meaning he already knew Sonic was within city limits. Like that’d ever slow him down.
“I thought I’d find you here,” comes a low, drawn out, all too familiar voice from behind him.
“Oh, great, it’s you,” Sonic responds, turning to see the snake from yesterday, coiling on the rooftop.
He looks… marginally better. There’s an impressive dent in his metal… torso-orb, but most of his injuries were bandaged. The face though, eugh, nothing could be done for that.
“Oh, yes, I never did introduce myself, did I? My name is Lyric.”
“I’d say nice to meet you, but it really isn’t.”
“Oh-ho! Sonic! You’re getting ruder with age, you know.” Sonic risks a glance over his shoulder— Eggman in his Egg Carrier is rising behind him.
“You’d know a thing or two about being rude, Eggman,”
“Leave us, Robotnik. I laid out our deal, I expect you to listen.”
“Yes, yes. I just wanted to get a little gloating in, it’s not every day you so thoroughly outdo your rival. Tah-tah.” Eggman turns, nonchalant, and begins scanning buildings around them. As he leaves, quietly, “and my name is Eggman, not Robotnik…”
“Someone’s feeling confident,” Sonic says, not fully trusting that Eggman’s just leaving them to it.
“Yes, having superior intellect on your side will do that.”
“You know, you have a lot of zingers for someone I’m pretty sure I’ve never met before.”
“Oh, but I’ve met you. Watched as you carelessly rampaged. Watched as you took everything I ever wanted from me. Watched as you thoughtlessly left me to die.” Lyric says, conversationally, slowly moving closer.
“Uh, yeah, pretty sure you have the wrong guy. I’m Sonic? You know, the Hedgehog?”
“Oh, I know. I’m not surprised you forgot me. It was so long ago, after all.”
“No, really, I think I would remember that. Anyway, you’re nuts, Eggmans to stop, days to save, you know how it is.”
Lyric lunges forwards, and Sonic hops over him, bouncing off of his metallic torso and onto the next sloping building.
Eggman hadn’t gotten too far— though he had gotten a whole lot lower. The building he had chosen was one of the most intact ones in the whole city, though Sonic couldn’t even begin to guess at what it was supposed to be. There were several floating cop cars in its yard, though, so maybe it was a police station? Unless Eggman had suddenly decided to turn himself in for his life of crime, then the emerald was likely nearby.
The police car bobbed under his weight as Sonic leapt down to it, but remained floating— which was good. Dealing with Eggman would have been such a pain with limited platforms.
“Sonic! What are you doing here?”
“Same thing as you, Egghead. Looking for something?”
“So you know already then, do you? Hmph. I suppose I shouldn’t have put it past you. But this is where we part ways, Sonic!” A triumphant grin spread over Eggmans face, and he held up a glimmering red gem, almost too large to sit comfortably in the palm of his hand, “Because I’ve already found it!”
Sonic responded by spin-dashing into the underside of Eggmans Egg Carrier. Eggman fumbled the gem, almost dropped it, and had to lean almost all the way out to catch it again.
“Can’t a villain enjoy a good gloat nowadays? He’s all yours, Lyric.”
Lyric? But he was back— here, he was here, apparently (maybe he and Eggman had some way to keep tabs on each other?), and his tech was definitely water proof, given how he was gliding through the water like a— well, like a snake.
“I appreciate the segue, doctor. Sonic. How does it feel to return to the site of one of your greatest failures?”
“Again, I have no clue what you’re talking about, dude.”
“Oh? A failure? Do say more,” prompted Eggman, still leaning over the edge of his Egg Carrier. Sonic took the chance to go for another Spin-Dash, only to be swatted away (and have to flounder back onto a police car) by Lyric.
“Go! We will talk later.”
“Fine. You’re no fun, y’know! I’m not feeling a sense of villainly bonding.”
Lyrics only answer, as Eggman righted himself and began moving upwards, was a long, drawn out hiss.
So, goals. Get past the snake, steal the emerald from Eggman before he could make off with it, and look cool while doing it. Easy!
Or at least it was easy until Lyric took one look at him, stuck on top of a floating police car, and promptly started sinking the others. It was a race to get off of them before Lyric could sink them all, so naturally he was long gone before Lyric could even reach the second. Up the building, using windowsills as footholds, reach the top just as Eggman does— it’ll be a blind leap, but that’s fine, spin in place for momentum, and go!
What Sonic didn’t see was this— Lyric didn’t sink the second car, instead he used it for stability, an anchor, as his robotic arm wound back and he pitched something into the air between the two of them. A little metal disk, the last of his collection, found purchase among quills, and did what it was meant to do— drained as much energy as it could. Sonic still hit the side of Eggman’s Carrier, but his momentum was cut, and it resulted in nothing more than a dull thud before he began to fall.
He was not conscious as he hit the water.
Lyric lingered a moment, studying the water as it stilled, before a self satisfied smile overtook him and he slunk back into the water, swimming away.
And then, quietly, the sound of a propellor.
.•.•.•.
“Hey! There’s Egg Guy!” shouts Knuckles, taking one of his hands off to point and almost swinging away in the wind. Tails had to jerk the plane sharply to correct, and Knuckles knocks uncomfortably against the wing before he thinks to grab on again.
“Eggman?” Calls Amy, leaning around for a look.
“I don’t know!” answers Knuckles, “I haven’t asked!”
“… what?” ask Amy, quiet enough that Tails barely catches it.
“Can you see Sonic anywhere?” Tails asks, because if Eggman is there then Sonic has to be nearby.
“I just see a lot of blue!”
“Tails, really,” starts Amy, only to cut off with a strangled sound as Tails flips the Tornado upside down. He sends her a quick mental apology, scanning the waters for any sign of Sonic.
It’s really only by pure chance that Tails spots him at all. Floating near the surface. Unmoving.
“He’s in the water!” Tails shouts, yanking the Tornado back upright and looking for somewhere to land— all the buildings are too unsteady, and if he brings one of them down with the Tornado then it’ll create waves and then Sonic might get washed away and Tails won’t be able to find him—
“I’m on it!” Reports Knuckles, cheerful, letting go of the wing entirely.
He drops like a great red brick, and Tails almost fumbles the yolk as he wheels around to circle the spot— Knuckles finds Sonic swiftly, and pulls him out of the water onto one of the floating cars. Tails can’t tell if he’s breathing, but Knuckles gives them an enthusiastic thumbs up, before pointing northwards. Tails can only watch as he hikes Sonic over his shoulder, and begins to trek to the outskirts of the city.
Tails lingers nearby for long enough to be sure that Knuckles isn’t going to randomly veer off course, before he flies ahead and finds somewhere to land the Tornado.
He’s out of his seat before the plane settles, pacing anxiously— should they go and try to meet Knuckles half way? What if they miss each other?
“Hey,” a hand comes down on his shoulder, “you’re overthinking it, Tails. He’ll be okay.”
Right, Amy. He had forgotten about her.
“Sorry about flipping the plane upside down,” he blurts, and her expression eases a bit.
“As long as you give me warning next time, it’s okay. But Tails, how on earth did Sonic get into the city so fast?”
Oh. That was right, Amy didn’t know. It was easy to forget that not everyone… knew.
“Sonic’s the fastest thing alive. Even back when I knew him, he could pretty consistently make sonic booms.”
“He—“ Amy paused, struggled with the idea, and relented, “I’m not sure if I fully believe that, but he’s obviously pretty fast.”
“Yeah, it’s one of those things you kinda need to see to believe. I bet he’s only gotten faster, too.”
Maybe that’s why— anyway.
He turns his attention back to the city, just in time to see Knuckles pop up on top of one of the buildings, incredibly close to the city limits already. Next to him, clearly dripping wet, is Sonic. It’s a relief that Tails can’t quite describe to see him standing on his own two feet.
Like he could overhear their conversation, there’s a distant pop, and a streak of blue ribbons towards them— a moment later Sonic is skidding to a halt, significantly dryer, dropping another bit of the snake’s tech into Tails’s hands.
“Getting knocked out by those things is really starting to get old,” he says.
“So, I’m guessing the snake and Eggman did team up after all, huh?”
“Yeah, you called it. Yuck it up, I’m gonna go—“
“No, don’t!” Tails snags his wrist before Sonic can take off, surprising both of them.
A long pause, during which Knuckles catches up with them and is waylaid by Amy before he can interrupt the unintentional standoff they’ve entered.
Eventually Sonic tugs his hand free, but instead of taking off he shakes the water out of his quills like the worlds worst dog. “Eggman managed to make off with that emerald. We should probably get to the next one before he does.”
Tails is… a little disappointed.
“The next one is about a day’s flight on the Tornado. We’ll have to go back to camp and restock, first.”
Admittedly… this is a bit of a test. Because Sonic could just take off of his own again— if the Tornado’ll take a day, it will, without question, take Eggman longer— but instead he just bounces up onto the wing, wringing out his bandana.
“Fine, fine. We’d better get going, then.”
Notes:
Here’s a little hint for the location of this chapter… “Aw yeah! This is happening.”
I know Sonic sinks in water, but I do have my reasoning behind him floating. I can’t explain yet, not without giving everything away, but I have a reason! This chapter took a little bit longer to write for, uh, reasons, so hopefully the next one should be swifter. Rip Amy, doing her best to keep up with everything that’s happening.
Knuckles, pulling Sonic out of the water: first a good grade in medicine, and now a good grade in rescuing? I’m winning!
Sonic, ditching Knuckles almost literally as fast as possible as soon as he’s awake:
Knuckles, slightly sad now:… winning!
Chapter 6: Accent
Summary:
A specific note or phrase is emphasized with an increase in intensity above other non-accented notes.
Notes:
Alright, somehow managed to upload this one out of order. Thank you so much to GerudoMaskReplica, who noticed the error in chapter numbering.
This was previously (incorrectly) uploaded as chapter five, even though I both wrote and posted it after the *actual* chapter five. No clue how I went and managed that.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
They end up spending another night at the camp because Tails gets caught up in a project— something to do with the disks. Come morning, Sonic is almost vibrating to get going, but he does hold still long enough for Tails to pass out the newly modified disks— not only are they meant to protect against getting knocked out (again), they’re communicators. Knowing Tails, they’ll work in every condition short of being dunked in a volcano.
They fly for about half a day before Tails brings them down, citing need to refuel— for both the plane, and them.
Sonic won’t lie, the urge to stretch his legs had crept up on him— this all would be so much faster if he was doing it his own— he had forgotten how restrictive the Tornado had felt. It was nice for short flights, and that was it.
By the time he returns from his jog, Knuckles is feeding a fire, over which Amy has set up a pot. The smell of food is filling the rest site, and he does a quick cool down stretch before sauntering over to ask if there’s anything he can do to help out.
Amy directs him, without looking up from stirring, to check his communicator. Oh. Fifteen missed messages. Whoops. Hard to hear the little ding when you’re moving faster than sound.
Nine from Tails, four from Amy, and one from Knuckles that looks more like he sat on the keyboard than anything else. Again, without looking, and without him needing to say anything, Amy directs him to where Tails currently is, messing with the Tornado.
“Oh, Sonic, there you are,” is the first thing Tails says upon seeing him.
“Yeah, I just went out for a quick jog. What’s with all the missed messages?”
Tails gives him a flat look over the fuselage of the Tornado— “You were gone for three hours.”
“Yeah, like I said, a quick jog.”
“You didn’t even tell anyone what you were doing. You just left. The Tornado hadn’t even stopped moving yet.”
“Yeesh, what are you, my mom? Fine, whatever, I’ll say something next time.”
Tails expression, if anything, darkens a bit further. “And you’ll answer any messages?”
“If I notice them, sure. Little hard to hear it beeping, though.”
“You weren’t listening when I passed those out, were you?” Tails lets the bit of panel he had lifted slam back into place, instead grabbing Sonic’s arm to get at the communicator, where he flips a little switch on the side. “There. It’ll buzz now, so don’t pretend you didn’t hear it.”
“I wasn’t pretending, and totally was listening, but whatever. What’s Amy making?”
He earns a bit of a side-eye for changing the subject, but Tails goes along with it easily enough, “I think she said stew, but I wasn’t really listening. The Tornado’s been overheating on long flights, and I wanted to figure out why.”
“And this place we’re going is how far away again?”
“We should be able to reach it today, if that’s what you’re asking. You’re probably familiar with it— Green Hill Zone?”
“Yeah, I’ve been there once or twice.”
“That’s the one with the giant mountain, right?” Asks Amy, who has suddenly appeared beside them, wielding a spoon. “The food is ready, by the way.”
Sonic’s holding a bowl by the time he realizes what Amy said isn’t quite right— “Green Hill zone is pretty flat, actually. There are a couple hills but nothing close to a mountain.”
“What?” Says Tails, looking befuddled at him, “no, I think you’re the one getting mixed up. Green Hill zone definitely has a mountain.”
“Nah it doesn’t,” adds Knuckles, holding a bowl of his own, “I’ve been there before. Totally flat.”
“You’re sure it was Green Hill zone, Knuckles? There are a few that are pretty similar, like Emerald Hill zone, or Palmtree Panic zone…” Amy lists, counting on her fingers.
“I know my zones!”
“Yeah, I’m agreeing with Knuckles here, Green Hill zone doesn’t have a mountain. You sure you aren’t the ones getting mixed up?”
“Agreeing with Knuckles isn’t the strong take you think it is,” says Tails, “and anyway, we’ll just have to see who’s right later. Even though it’s totally us.”
“Hey!” Says Knuckles, offended, “I’m totally a strong take!”
Crack , goes something from the tree line, grabbing everyone’s attention. Nothing emerges, though, and their attentions quickly return to the minor squabble at hand.
“Look, just because Knuckles is wrong about most things doesn’t mean he’s wrong about everything.”
“Yeah! … hey! I’m right about things!”
“That’s what he just said, Knuckles.”
“…oh. I knew that!”
Crunch , goes something else from the tree line. This time, though, a dark figure emerges from a bush— another hedgehog, brushing sticks out of his quills. He’s scowling, and his expression doesn’t change as he notices them— if anything, it solidifies.
“… Sonic.”
Sonic glances at their little group, as if there’s secretly another Sonic among them, before looking back at the new guy, “I hate to say this, given how it went last time, but I have no idea who you are.”
“… Interesting. No, I suppose you wouldn’t. My name is Shadow,” he says, before going ahead and taking a seat next to the fire. “Are you looking for the emeralds?”
“… so does everyone just know about those now?” Sonic asks, only half rhetorically. How swiftly it goes from no one knowing a thing to suddenly everyone’s an expert.
“No. Only me and you know about them.”
“And us,” inputs Tails, before Amy hands Shadow a bowl of stew. He looks slightly lost as to what to do with it, “and that snake too. Oh, and Eggman.”
“… hm. You’ve met Lyric?”
“Yeah, you could say that. He’s a jerk.”
“I’m inclined to agree. How many emeralds do you have?”
“You know,” says Tails, before Sonic can answer, “given that everyone else wants them for themselves, and you literally just appeared out of a bush, I don’t think we should just tell you.”
Shadow manages, impressively, to look even grumpier, “I’m on your side. You can’t grasp the importance of this.”
“The importance of what, some shiny rocks?”
“Yes. Tell me, do you feel anything holding them?”
“Nah, it’s just a rock. We’re mostly looking for the others because Eggman’s looking for them.”
Shadow narrows his eyes at him, and Sonic gets the distinct feeling he said something wrong before Shadow sets his bowl down and huffs. “So you only have one?”
“I never said that,” says Sonic, exactly as Tails says, “How did you guess???”
A long silence, undercut only by the sound of Knuckles eating.
“Do you know where the rest are?” Asks Shadow, eventually.
“Well, Egghead has one,” says Sonic, “and only Tails knows where the rest are because he won’t tell me.”
“You let Eggman get ahold of one?”
“I wouldn’t really use the word ‘let’…”
Shadow stands with another huff, again, somehow, looking grumpier. “I’ll retrieve that one. You focus on the others.”
“We never agreed to work together,” says Sonic, who goes soundly ignored.
“Watch out for the lizard,” says Shadow, and then a ripple of energy passes over them and with a Crack — identical to the earlier one— he vanishes.
“… that was weird,” says Tails.
“Yeah, did that guy seem like a jerk to anyone else?”
“Sonic, he’s helping us!”
“He says he’s helping us. Who knows what he’s actually doing.”
“Ugh! What is it with you and refusing help from anyone?” Amy throws her hands up in the air, exasperated.
“Wh— I’m not doing that, I’m just—“
“Can I have his bowl?” Knuckles asks, cutting the brewing tension clean through.
“… sure, Knuckles.”
“What I really wanna know is what lizard he was talking about. Unless he meant Lyric, but he knew him by name… and Lyric’s a snake.”
“Let’s just assume he’s some weirdo who meant Lyric. I mean, it’s not like there’s a huge difference between snakes and lizards, right?”
“… … sure, Sonic.”
There’s a mountain in the middle of Green Hill zone. There’s a mountain in the middle of Green Hill zone that absolutely was not there before. Sonic doesn’t even need to look at Tails, the smugness at being correct is radiating off of him. It’s a weird mountain too, perfectly dome shaped.
“That wasn’t there last time,” Sonic says, eventually, as the aura of smug coming from Tails starts to get unbearable.
“Sure it wasn’t,” he answers, bringing the Tornado a bit lower— the sides of the mountain don’t have any ledges to land on, and the peak is at such a height that flying the Tornado up there is a little risky. Instead, Tails is scanning the gulf around the mountain for somewhere to land— it’s almost like a moat, surrounding it, and it’s so thoroughly overgrown that Sonic is beginning to debate the merits of going in alone.
He’s looking for a safe place to leap down when he spots it— carved into the side of the mountain, perfectly square, is an entrance. He points it out to Tails, who angles the Tornado closer for a good look— it’s a huge gap, easily big enough to land the Tornado, turn it around, and fly it back out, so that’s what Tails does, bringing the plane in for a landing.
“This place giving anyone else the creeps?” asks Knuckles, from somewhere in the darkness that had swallowed them and the plane whole.
”Yeah, a bit,” says Tails, and then “Amy, here’s your hammer. I went ahead and put the emerald in it’s storage compartment.”
“We should all hold hands so we don’t get separated!” Says Amy, moments before a hand finds Sonics face. Whoever it belongs to is clearly groping blindly, and he has to pull it off before he can speak.
“That— is my face. I’m leading the way if we’re doing this.”
Kind of a shrug motion communicates from the hand he’s holding, and they grip back. “Everyone holding on?”
A line of affirmative answers from behind him, and Sonic pushes forwards into the dark.
Notes:
Next chapter should take a little longer. Some Stuff is gonna go down and it’s gonna be the first time in a good long while that I’ve tackled anything like this, so! I’ll see you guys on the other side
Wonder what lizard Shadow could be talking about…
(Also, in case anyone is wondering how Shadow knew they only have one emerald— because I know I would be, if I hadn’t written it, Sonic says ‘it’s just a rock’— singular. If he had multiple he would’ve said ‘they’re just rocks,’ which is the assumption Shadow is running with. He’s proven correct by Tails.)
((… so, does reposting a chapter in the correct order technically count as a birthday update? happy birthday to me))
Chapter 7: Crescendo (1)
Summary:
A gradual increase in dynamic volume during a section of music.
Notes:
this chapter is actively trying to kill me I think
(Minor disclaimer, in case anyone missed it! Chapters 5 and 6 had been swapped. The correct order is Tenuto into Accent.)
Okay so! Before tucking into this, I do just wanna throw this out here— because I was struggling so much with the second half of this chapter, I’ve decided to split it in half. This is the first half. I do not know when the second half will be finished, because this is not the half with the difficult thing
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
They end up walking more side-by-side than single file— mostly because Sonic’s fairly sure that it’s Tails who’s taken up the rear, and he can see better. Actually, shouldn’t he have some sort of flashlight? Surely he would have just turned it on if so.
It feels like they’re pushing onwards into the dark forever before Tails lets out a startled “Oh!” and then Amy is going “Tails, wait! Don’t let go of my hand!” and then Knuckles says “Guys, wait for us!” and Sonic very distinctly gets the feeling it’s suddenly just him and Knuckles in the dark. Mostly because he’s still holding Knuckles’ hand.
“Well, looks like it just you and me, then.”
No response. Is he upset about the other day? Way to hold a grudge. “Look, I’m not gonna just run off again. I’m not a total jerk.”
Again, no answer. Well, whatever. Sonic’ll, dunno, make it up to him later, or something.
He continues forwards, making it a little bit before stepping directly into a wall. Uhh, to the left then? “Aand… that’s a dead end. Heading your way now, Knux.”
Absolutely no response from Knuckles.
“Knux. Knuckles. Hey.” He wiggles their connected hands, “move.”
Knuckles does not move. Sonic has to step in a loop around the guy and find the wall again to continue. “Is this about me not saying thanks after you… got me out of the water yesterday? Because I thought that was kind of a given.”
This is starting to get a little frustrating. “Cmon, throw a guy a bone here.”
He hits another wall— really, where on earth did Tails go?
“Bones?” Goes an utterly unfamiliar voice, raspy, “I don’t have any bones! You can’t have my bones.”
The hand Sonic’s been holding this whole time yanks away, and he has about a second to process the sinking feeling that he hasn’t actually been holding Knuckles’ hand at all before the lights flick on.
In front of him is a badger. She‘s standing slightly hunched in on herself, eyes wide and shifty, and as soon as she sees him she shrieks at full volume, lunging forwards and locking her teeth around his arm.
She bites him.
She bites him hard .
The noise he makes… is not the most dignified. His first reaction is to try and shake her off, which actually works— she growls at him after letting go, turning and scuttling up the wall and vanishing into a vent.
… she probably lived here or something, huh? Got caught up in the middle of their line and didn’t think to say anything about it until he said something not directly addressing Knuckles, who was nowhere to be seen.
Ugh, his arm is bleeding. Hopefully she wasn’t… diseased. While unwinding his sports tape to use as a makeshift bandage, he takes in the interior of the mountain they’ve landed in.
If he didn’t know better, he’d almost label it an abandoned Egg Base. It doesn’t quite have that Eggman flare, though— none of the walls are painted with his face. Also, a distinct lack of smashed up robots.
“Sonic!” calls a voice from up ahead, and Tails comes rounding a corner, followed by Amy and Knuckles, “there you are!” and then, “Uhh, what happened to your arm?”
“Got bit. Where did you guys run off to?”
“Bit? Wait, by who—“
“I didn’t mean to let go of your hand,” says Knuckles over Tails, sounding defensive.
“It’s fine. Turns out we picked up a local in the middle of our line, and she wasn’t too happy to see me when the lights came back on.”
“So she bit you?”
“Yeah,” Sonic says, tucking the end of the sports tape under itself. It’s already started spotting red in a couple places, but it’s fine. “Where did you guys even go, anyway?”
“Oh, I have night vision in my goggles. I also ran a search for nearby energy sources, and it pinged a terminal just up ahead, so I thought I’d go ahead and turn the power on. I didn’t mean to bring everyone with me.”
There’s a pause, a bit awkward, as everyone takes in the place.
“I don’t suppose that terminal said anything about what this place is, did it?” Sonic asks, eventually.
“No, we turned back as soon as we realized we had left you behind. Also… we heard you yelling.” Tails shrugs, turning and heading back down the hallway.
“Totally wasn’t yelling,” Sonic mutters, mostly to himself, before he, Amy, and Knuckles follow.
The terminal is really more of a computer screen built into a wall— or maybe that’s just what terminals are, actually. The Miles Electric is still plugged into it, dangling from a couple wires, and Tails picks it up and checks the connection before continuing to fiddle with it.
“From what I can tell, this computer was mostly used for messaging across the base. It’s still connected to the mainframe, but it’s processor isn’t very powerful. Unless I wanna overload it, the most I can get it to do is tell us where other terminals are. Oh, and what this place is called.”
The screen of the computer flickers, and a bunch of old messages roll across— most, if not all of them, totally illegible, before it blacks out. Tails presses a few more buttons on the Electric decisively, and the screen winks back on— [DISPLAYING: ACCESS LOGS: TERMINAL 3-817: SPACE COLONY ARK. DATE: ********]
“Space Colony Ark?” reads out Amy, her hands on her hips.
“We’re in space?” asks Knuckles, looking vaguely alarmed.
“No, I think this,” Tails gestured vaguely around them, not looking up from the Electric, “mountain, base, colony, whatever, was meant to be in space.”
“But it didn’t crash.” says Sonic.
“It must’ve,” responds Amy, “or else what is it doing down here?”
“No, it didn’t.” He squints at the screen, trying to remember where he’s heard the name before— he‘a certain he’s heard the name before, but where? When?
“Maybe it was built down here,” suggests Tails, and that doesn’t sound right either. But he can’t deny the reality of it— the Space Colony Ark isn’t in space anymore.
Tails leads them on a trail of terminal hopping, and it’s mostly because Sonic’s curious about this place too that he doesn’t take off to find the emerald on his own. Most of the data they find is corrupted, though— the Ark has apparently remained here, unmaintained, for a very long time.
He can’t even fully put into words why it feels incorrect for the Ark to be here, on earth, in the middle of Green Hill Zone. It was… stopped? But what does that mean??
On the fifth terminal, Tails manages to pull up a complete, uncorrupted map of the place.
Well.
There aren’t any Eggman faces painted on the inside of the thing. But even for Eggman, making the entire base look like him is… conceited. Sonic says as much— “Someone’s got an ego.”
“I don’t know, I kind of like it,” says Amy, bizarrely, “it’s a nice bit of artistic self expression.”
“If you see your artistic self face down in the earth, yeah,” add Knuckles.
“Am I the only one seeing something weird about this?” asks Tails, turning to look at them.
“Uh, yeah, that’s what we’re talking about.”
“Well, yeah, but— this colony was built way before Eggman. Why would it look like him?”
“Runs in the family?” Sonic suggests, shrugging.
“Could you take this seriously?”
“What? I am! Totally seriously. Exactly as seriously as Eggman deserves to be taken.”
“So in other words, not at all?”
“Got it in one.” No wonder the base was stirring up that sense of deja vu, it had been built by Eggman, or, like, his grandpa. Dismissing the other oddities surrounding it, Sonic continued— “Can we hurry up and find the emerald already? I’m bored.”
Both Tails and Amy give him looks he’d describe, generously, as ‘intensely irritated’, before Tails relents and starts fussing with the Electric again.
“Fine. But once we collect it, we’re staying here overnight, at least. I wanna look through as many of these old logs as I can.”
“Yeah yeah, you can do your nerd thing after. Just point me in the right direction.”
“It’s this way,” Tails says instead, harshly unplugging the Electric and turning down the corridor, “I’ll have to cross check with a couple other terminals along the way, but this should be right.”
In other words— no, Tails would not be telling him which way to go, and yes, the group was going together. Ugh.
Notes:
A friend got me the Encyclo-speed-ia for my birthday, and I’ve been immersed. Staring into the depths of the boom section has also given me a couple new ideas, so it’ll be fun to see those crop up.
I also got Splatoon Three, which. is. aside from The Struggles. A very large contributing factor to this chapter taking so long. My tag is Mobbo #2301, would love to know if I’ve done a turf war/salmon run with any of you guys :)
Uhhh, other thoughts, other thoughts…I don’t have any. No thoughts at all
Chapter 8: Crescendo (2)
Summary:
A gradual increase in dynamic volume during a section of music.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Tails thought it had been nice for a little bit. The ARK was intensely interesting— as far as Eggman tech that outdated Eggman went. He hadn’t had the chance to find any files in the previous ruins they had visited— the one Sonic unleashed Lyric in— but the samples he had taken from the walls suggested the whole thing was less than a decade old, despite how overgrown it had been. But this! This easily outpaced Eggman, and Tails had thought that Sonic would have been more interested than he was. He seemed more interested.
Tails thought wrong, apparently.
The dismissal of it as ‘nerd stuff’ stung a little, and he took them on much more winding route than was necessary as revenge. Not… totally intentionally, either— the maps he got from each console were all functionally the same, but each had their small differences, likely due to the huge amount of corrupted data. Stuff like a corridor turning right in one map and left in another, while the actual thing ran straight.
They were maybe ( maybe ) halfway there when Amy stopped mid step, staring at Sonic with a mix of confusion and— he wasn’t sure what else, actually, it was a few expressions that flickered across her face.
“… What?” said Sonic, sounding vaguely nervous.
“Did you,” Amy starts, and she reaches out to grab his injured arm, brandishing it at him, “seriously wrap this with sports tape?”
What? Sonic wouldn’t— no, actually, he totally would. Tails moves closer before Sonic can say anything, picking at the bandaging, and— yeah, it’s sports tape.
“Don’t look at me like that,” says Sonic, defensively, “it’s not like I carry bandages on me.”
“I do,” says Amy, which is true— ever since Tails upgraded her hammer to add storage, she kept the thing stocked with enough first aid supplies to heal an army.
Something about that thought tickles at the edge of his mind, but then everyone’s getting involved in getting Sonic sat down and properly tended to. Even Knuckles helps— if unintentionally— by grabbing onto Sonic and telling him he can be brave for the antiseptic Amy’s about to apply. Sonic, for his part, truly looks like he’d rather be anywhere else, but he can’t get out of Knuckles’s grip, so it’s a win.
Tails puts his Miles Electric away to help with bandaging.
“This is pointless,” Sonic says, attempting to wrestle his arm free from the two of them.
“It’s not pointless if you don’t get an infection,” Amy returns, grabbing his elbow so he can’t wiggle around as much.
Sonic groans like he’s dying, but quits struggling. “Just get it over with.”
With him holding still, Amy gets the bandage on in record timing, and it’s barely a minute before Sonic is released from his torment. Still, he’s visibly pouting, and probably going to be in a bad mood for the rest of the day— will probably run off again as soon as they’ve collected the emerald, but it’s not like Tails didn’t already know that was coming.
He picks the Miles Electric back up, flipping past several versions of the map in an attempt to narrow down exactly what corridor he left off on.
… hold on a minute. He pulls up the screen he had turned it off on— a feature he had installed after sleepily losing code several times like that— and then compares it to the current screen. Then he takes a screenshot and forces them to wait another minute, even as Sonic begins tapping his foot fast enough the floor starts trembling.
Comparing the three— the emerald is getting closer, at a pace near glacial— he wouldn’t have noticed at all if he hadn’t put the Electric away for a bit. It’s still ten or so floors beneath them, but it’s closer .
“It’s coming to us,” says Tails.
“What?” Says Sonic, leaning over to get a look at the Miles Electric. Tails angles the screen away from him immediately, not trusting him to not take off as soon as he catches a glimpse of where it’s meant to be, and in the process moves it so thoroughly out of his line of sight that he can’t help but notice that Sonic isn’t tapping his foot anymore.
But the ground is still shaking.
“Uh, guys?” He says, his voice pitching with anxiety in the way he hates, “ it’s coming to us .”
“Tails, what does that mean?” asks Amy, sounding half as impatient as Sonic, and then the floor explodes.
Tails catches himself entirely on instinct, and then catches Amy in the same breath. He’s too far, too late— too slow to even try and catch either Knuckles or Sonic, who both drop like rocks.
Amy yelps, staring into the abyss below them, before turning wide eyes back up at Tails— “We have to go after them!”
“Right,” Tails says, still scrambling to get his thoughts in order— things were happening so quickly— but he doesn’t let that stop him. Not right now.
There’s a tremendous thud from below, and Tails takes them down.
“— lizard Shadow was talking about,” Sonic is saying, almost conversationally to Knuckles, and Tails breathes a sigh of relief— they’re both alright, and seemingly totally unbothered by the fall, even if Knuckles has created a bit of a crater.
He sets Amy down, and only then realizes that he’s also still clutching the Electric like a lifeline. The emerald should be right in front of them.
And, in a way, it is.
Stooped in front of them is a mobian. They don’t look well— their skin is red and irritated, a couple festering patches of green along their neck, arms, tail. Technology is built into them— twin tubes race down their neck from ports on their head, connecting to a backpack type device on their back, and green spittle drips from their open mouth. If they have eyes, then Tails can’t tell where. They gasp like breathing is a struggle, clutching at their head with two-fingered hands. A second gasp, before they straighten, and there, planted into their chest, is an emerald, blue.
They take a single, shuffling step towards them, head swinging back and forth across the group, and Sonic steps forwards— “Hey, buddy,” he starts, but the lizard gives no indication of having heard him, instead focusing— as much as a blind and perhaps deaf creature can— on Amy.
Amy, for her part, holds her hammer in front of her defensively. “Tails, what is that ?”
“I-I don’t know! It’s not— if it’s in the database, then it’s still totally untranslated!”
Their mouth gapes open again, and despite standing smaller than Tails, the roar of a monster a thousand times it’s size echoes out, and it lunges.
It’s only Knuckles’s good timing and apparently immunity to loud noises that prevents Amy from being hurt— he meets the lizard halfway, driving his fist into their jaw and forcing their head back, a second before it belches out a pulse of energy that punched a second hole in the ceiling next to the first.
“Note to self; Don’t get hit by that!” Sonic yells, barely audible over the ringing in Tails’s ears, and then they’re fighting.
It’s slow, but it’s durable— they take hits from all of them like it’s nothing, and spit out more and more energy in turn, punching holes into this incredibly valuable ruin like it’s bubble wrap. Tails almost gets vapourized just to get a good look at how they’re doing it, Sonic yanking him out of the way in what is, quite possibly, literally the last second.
“It’s the emerald! The emerald is acting as their power source! We need to separate them.” Sonic just looks at him, eyes huge, and Tails just shakes his head and gets back into the fight, sharing his observation with Knuckles and Amy as well.
Now that he knows that, looking for when they’re about to attack is much easier— he hadn’t seen it before, but energy races up the tubing and the backpack thing on their back lights up, both of them winking out in the moment before they attack.
Amy swings in with her hammer, cracking their head to the side like a golfer making the shot of a lifetime. The resulting blast barely misses Knuckles, who’s— Tails isn’t sure what he’s doing, actually, it almost looks like he’s critiquing the interior design— hands on his hips, back to the fight, staring at some indeterminate point on the ceiling— but now isn’t the time to be focusing on that. He needs to get close enough to get the emerald out before the lizard inevitably shakes off what should be serious head trauma and attacks again. But the tail. He had forgotten about the tail, a narrow, spade-tipped thing that swings up and around and hits him like a truck.
The lizard shakes it’s head and screeches at him as he hits the ground, bounces, and then comes to an extremely unpleasant stop against one of the few remaining sections of wall. Head swimming, he looks up to see Amy and the Lizard both grappling for her hammer, neither giving an inch. Tails spends a bewildered moment wondering what on earth they could possibly want with a hammer when their tail alone can hit like that before he realizes it’s not the hammer at all that they’re after— it’s what’s inside. They want the emerald. To add it’s power to their own or for some other unimaginable reason— and Amy’s strong but the tubing is starting to crackle and it’s going to be either let go or die and Tails knows exactly which she’ll pick— and then Sonic is there.
At first he’s just a smear of colour, bright blue inserting itself between twin reds, and Tails attempts to blink him away, thinking perhaps he hit his head harder than he thought.
But the colour resolves into Sonic, who’s slid deftly between them and comes up from the floor to kick the Lizard in the jaw, again forcing it’s head up and forcing it to take a step back, releasing the hammer.
The energy discharges— Tails thinks he hears Knuckles go “A-ha!”, but he’s not sure. Sonic pushes himself up with the kick, forcing the Lizard onto their back before kicking off of their throat— Tails can’t quite follow what, exactly, it is that he does next, blue smearing across his vision, and then Sonic is attempting to wrench the emerald free.
The Lizard screams again and Tails tries to hide from the noise— he doesn’t need to check his own eyes to tell this is probably a concussion. He can’t say what happens next, either, curled into a ball of pain, but it results in shouting(?) from Sonic and Amy, and then, for a moment, blessed silence.
Sonic’s been tossed free from the Lizard, but he’s not trying for the emerald again. He’s not even looking at them anymore. Neither is Amy. The Lizard, too, is looking in the same direction.
Tails follows them to Knuckles, who is holding an armful of… brown? and smiling like the sun just came out. “Hey guys, look what I found!” He says, brandishing it at them. It resolves itself into a vaguely badger-ish shape, frozen stiff.
“Knuckles, how on earth did you tell she was in the ceiling?” Amy asks.
“Watch out, she bites,” is Sonic’s input.
Her eyes trace from Tails, to Amy, to Sonic, to the Lizard, across all of them again, and then she turns herself into a snarling ball of rage and nearly takes Knuckles’s hands with her as she launches herself at the Lizard.
The Lizard, for their part, screeches— not the same awful, haunting roar as before, but more reminiscent of the time Tails caught a tail in a toolbox.
“She’s going for the emerald!” Amy yells, and Tails forces himself up to rejoin the fray.
The Lizard is still holding their own, despite the sheer difference in numbers, and Tails both shudders to think what they could do with two emeralds and wonders what he could do. If they’re truly infinite power sources, then— the options are limitless!
And deadly, he thinks, barely skirting out of the way of another blast— he’s impressed with the infrastructure of the ARK, to have withstood so much internal damage. He twists to watch where it goes— unlike his earlier assumption, it looks like the blasts take out the closest chunk of wall before fizzling out— but they can also continue on for… he’d hazard a guess at ‘forever’ with minimal energy falloff. The blast he just dodged, for example— it goes clean through a hole that a previous blast opened, and then eats into the wall behind that. That’s likely how they reached them— blasting up at the ceiling until they fell.
But if that was the case, why didn’t they just keep blasting? Were they worried about vaporizing the emerald?
No, that couldn’t be it— they had tried to hit both Amy and her hammer more than enough times for that to not be the case.
Think, Tails, think!
What had they been doing when they arrived? They looked fatigued, didn’t they? But now— Sonic slams into them with a spindash, and Knuckles meets their recoil with a punch, bouncing them back and forth between the two of them. Gashes open and close from where the skin had been torn by Sonic’s quills, and that gives Tails an idea.
The emerald can, theoretically, provide power forever. But can the lizard handle that much?
It’ll have to take another break— soon, if the way it’s beginning to slow down is any clue— and that will be their chance.
“It’s getting tired!” Sonic calls, before Tails can say anything— has he noticed the signs as well?
Amy ducks another shot, being forced back from where she had tried to run forwards, arms beginning to shake a bit from exertion— “Really? Because it doesn’t look like that to me!”
“Everybody gets tired,” Knuckles says, matter-of-fact-ly, coming up behind the lizard and bringing both of his fists down in a sort of overhead punch. Their tail lashes around and whips him in the side, tossing him away much like it did Tails earlier before the blow can connect.
“That tail is really turning out to be a nuisance,” says Sonic, from where he is suddenly next to Tails. “I could’ve handled this no problem if my arm wasn’t already hurt.”
Tails isn’t fully sure why Sonic is saying that, all of a sudden, other, perhaps, than to brag, but he takes a look and the crisp bandages they applied earlier are spotted with blood— he must have aggravated it in the fight. Was Sonic trying to draw attention to the injury? Or—
“Whoops, gotta move,” says Sonic, followed by a brief tug on Tails’s arm that ends with him standing alone on the other side of the fight, Sonic already nothing more than a smear yanking the badger out of the way of the blast too.
Being moved so suddenly doesn’t really do his aching head any favours, but he can’t afford to take the time and regret that right now.
He’s ended up closer to Amy, so he moves to her side— “It’s true, they are starting to get tired. Look,” he gestures, as the lizard brings one hand up to their chest and clutches at the emerald like they’re trying to catch their breath, “they’ll run out of energy before the emerald does.”
“And what happens when they do? Do we just… yank it out? Will they survive that?”
“… I don’t know.”
And he doesn’t— it’s possible the lizard has been using the emerald to stay alive for years, and wouldn’t that make it them just… trying to defend themself? Are they… the bad guys in this situation? The lizard is fighting like they’ve got their back against a wall— the thought puts a sour taste in Tails’s mouth. He doesn’t want to be like Eggman .
He’s not sure what drives him to move. Maybe it’s that thought— not like Eggman, even though they’re technically deeply alike— clever, machine loving recluses— he doesn’t want to be like Eggman, thoughtlessly cruel. But he steps forwards, waits for the slightest gap in the fight, and shouts “Hey!”
The Lizards head swings around to look at him, and Tails decides they’re not deaf, then— they must have just been ignoring Sonic, earlier, and hopefully they won’t ignore him now. “We don’t want to take your emerald!”
“What?” says Sonic, “we don’t?”
“But we can’t give you our emerald. Can we stop fighting?”
The Lizard tilts their head, and Tails feels as if he is being studied.
Finally, their mouth gaps open, and from deep within their chest a voice burbles out. “Ro. Botnik.”
“Robotnik? That’s what Lyric called Eggman in that flooded city— do you know him?” Sonic steps in, apparently already adjusted to the idea of not fighting this guy.
“Left me. Behind.” The Lizard says, ignoring Sonic again. “Don’t know. What. To do. Need energy.”
They take a single shuffling step towards Amy, but the weakness Tails predicted seems to have struck— they’re listing where they stand, drooping.
“You can’t have our energy!” snaps the Badger, brandishing a boomerang at the lizard. She seems more defensive than someone about to go on the attack, though.
“Hurts. Need more.”
“Is the emerald hurting you?” Tails asks, and the Lizard groans in answer, one hand coming up to rest on it.
“We still need to collect all the emeralds. Tails, is there any way you could—“
“I could hook you up to the ARK!” Tails says, with the fervour of someone who’s just thought of something they’re not sure will work. “It might take me a bit, but this thing has been lying dormant for years without an emerald to power it, and it still has more than enough energy! I bet if I configured it right, you could live off of it for years, and it means we’d be able to get the emerald out of your chest! We’ll have to, um, stay here for a while, though. Is that… okay?”
The Lizard doesn’t answer, just flops backwards to lie flat on their back, arms spread to either side.
“Gonna take that as a yes,” says Sonic. “Take your time, Tails— oh, and good catch with the whole… not actually wanting to fight us, thing.”
“… thanks, Sonic. I’ll make sure I do this right! It shouldn’t take longer than a week.”
Sonic looks briefly agonized at the given timeframe, before Amy takes over, dragging him over to a piece of rubble to sit on as she refreshes his bandages.
Knuckles and the badger have initiated a game of paddy-cake paddy-cake. At least Knuckles seems to be getting along with her, even if she barely looks at him, head on a swivel. She catches Tails watching and hisses, leaping practically directly into Knuckles’s arms before scaling him, hunched like a feral cat.
“… okay. I’m gonna go find a working terminal! Come get me if something goes wrong,” he announces to the room at large, breaking eye contact with the badger.
“Sure thing, buddy,” Sonic says, past Amy’s head, and the Lizard burbles vaguely from the floor.
Notes:
Uh, so. I had plans for this chapter. The plans were not followed. They were not meant to befriend the Biolizard.
(Do I have to add them to the character tags now? Guess I should.)
To be fair, my notes for this chapter were, quite literally, ‘-fight the biolizard. Find the biolizard, fight the biolizard’, so I guess that’s on me for not being specific enough.Sticks, having a grand old time crawling around in the vents: :3c
Knuckles, sensing a disturbance in the force: I’m gonna get such a good grade in catching
Chapter 9: Accidental
Summary:
Notes that are not within a specific key signature, and therefore exist outside of the key.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Sonic lasts for about a minute before the atmosphere starts getting to him. Amy has been giving him a long prompting look ever since Tails went his own way, and it’s starting to get to him. Knuckles and the Badger— Sticks, apparently— are no help either. He can’t actually tell if they’re getting along or not— first guess would be yes, but Sticks seems to get… overwhelmed? after spending a little time looking at him, or talking to him, or, uh, sharing the same general space as him, apparently, and she treats the Lizard on the floor as if it’s some sort of corrosive acid. He’s able to distract himself from Amy’s look for a little longer by watching her pinging from one spot to the next, but even that only lasts so long.
“Alright,” he announces, standing up and getting the attention of everyone except the Lizard, “I’m gonna go on a run.”
“Actually,” starts Amy.
“See you later bye!” Sonic cuts her off, picking a direction and going.
The ARK is mostly made up of tight corridors and hairpin turns, which is invigorating and gets his mind off of things and onto exactly how fast he can go before he starts bumping into stuff. One particularly daring turn leads to him running on the wall for a moment, and on the next he attempts to push that, see exactly how long he can defy gravity for.
It feels like a neat little summary of how his week has been that that wall is the first he’s come across with a gap in it. He doesn’t see it in time to make the jump, and ends up killing his momentum on the floor, rolling to avoid hurting himself.
Huh. Well, at least the room is kind of neat. There’s windows all along one wall, though they’re covered in dirt, a large circular design on the floor, and some sort of console on the far side. Exactly the sort of thing Tails would be all over if he knew it was here. Sonic still doesn’t exactly see the appeal— he picks himself up, skirts around the circle in the middle, and examines the console. Doesn’t look like anything special. Buttons, switches, a glowing blue screen flickering like a tv with bad connection. Weird stain down one side. Just to see if it does anything, he flips a couple of the switches, and the console hums thoughtfully in response. The blue screen turns purple, then red, then black— if it’s just died, Sonic is pretending he’s never seen this room before when Tails inevitably finds it. To be sure he picks a button— large, red, important looking— and presses it. The screen flickers back on, green this time, and there’s a loud clunk from inside the console.
Alright, that’s just weird. He turns away from the console, instead looking out the window. It feels like he should be able to see space through them— maybe Mobius, too, a giant blue orb. They’re holding up well against the dirt, he thinks, knocking a knuckle against them, but then they had better— if they couldn’t handle some mud they’d probably implode in actual space, or something. Tails would— he’s been thinking about Tails a lot.
Truthfully, it’s been hard not to. The fight with the Lizard… stirred up some things. Stuff he’d really rather not think about. Like the last time he had been in a fight with Tails— what was he thinking, standing still and trying to get hit just to see how it worked— again?
The console makes another, louder clunk, and then an awful sort of grating sound as it struggles to open a hatch in its middle.
“You don’t have to do that,” Sonic tells it, pointlessly.
“But I want out,” it answers, and then the hatch gives and a robot shoots out, clattering to the floor before it gets its thrusters under itself and lifts. It takes a look around the room, before settling on Sonic, “Oh! You’re blue!”
“… thanks? And you’re… a robot.”
“I am! And you look just like— oh, I can’t remember. What’s your name? Are you new here?”
It doesn’t look like Eggman tech— doesn’t really look like much of anything, really, just round and white. And hey, it’s friendly— at least for now.
“I’m Sonic,” he says, “You, uh, familiar with this place?”
“Oh yes, very! I’ve spent all my life up here.”
“Huh. I know a guy who’d love to talk to you about that— you mind following me?”
“Sure!” The robot responds, chipper, and it hovers after him as he steps out of the room, fairly confident in his ability to retrace his steps.
He gets maybe halfway back before something on his wrist buzzes, and he remembers about the communicators Tails had made. He checks, and the icon that pops up on the screen is two tails, wobbling back and forth, as it buzzes again.
“What is that?” Asks the robot.
“Uh, just a friend. Hold on. Hello?”
“ Hey Sonic! I’m looking at a map right now, and there’s a weird blue dot floating around— would you mind checking it out? It says it’s— um, hold on, ”
“Wait, let me guess— is it heading towards you?”
“ Yeah! Wait, how did you— “
“See you, Tails.” He hangs up, and the robot doesn’t waste a second.
“Your friend is named Tails?”
“Ehh… I dunno if I’d consider us friends, actually. Don’t tell him that, but we had a pretty big falling out a while ago and he’s still not over it.”
“What about?”
“I’d… really rather not talk about that, thanks.”
“Oh… okay.”
“What about you, anyway? Uh, what’s your name?”
“Oh! It’s— Em Four Dash Ar One Four. I think.”
“That’s… kind of a mouthful. Got anything shorter you go by?”
“… no.”
.•.•.•.
Shadow doesn’t like working under time constraints. Never has. Hurrying to get somewhere in time makes him think of things he’d really rather not. But, circumstances being as they currently are, he doesn’t have much choice.
And, in either case, getting the emerald away from Eggman as soon as possible is paramount.
Frustration wells for a moment, this would be so much easier, if— if. Right. He can’t leave for too long, so he has to make this quick in any way he can.
Eggmans base is easier to break into than he thought it would be. Chaos Control would make it easiest, but— focus! There are robots, both familiar and not, patrolling the perimeter that he slips past easily. The vents are unguarded, and no one reacts to the sound as he kicks the cover off of one.
There isn’t a single type of defence in the vent. No spike traps, or lasers, or even an in inconvenient spring. Either Eggman is losing his touch, or he doesn’t think he has anything to guard against. It likely won’t be this easy next time someone breaks in— Eggman is fantastic at covering holes in his defence, if nothing else. Shadow won’t take this chance for granted.
It’s a winding path, but Shadow’s shoes mean he doesn’t make enough sound to give himself away— unlike Sonic, who probably wouldn’t resort to vents in the first place, but if he did would give himself away in a second due to the sound of his footfall.
This, of course, means that when he finds the room Eggman and Lyric are in, they’re mid conversation, and, as he pauses to listen, they don’t seem to be getting along.
“—energy output is unprecedented! I could power my entire fleet on just one of these.”
“Yes, doctor, but you knew that already. I presume you called me here for something more important than that?”
Eggman, through the slats of the vent, leans back against a desk, one arm folded, the other spinning a screwdriver.
“You keep doing that.”
Lyric pauses, seeming wrong-footed, before continuing in a low rasp— “Doing what .”
“Saying that I should already know things I don’t. Earlier you called me Robotnik!” His voice takes a turn, going low and irritated, “I am not my grandfather.”
“I— yes, I knew that, I simply— yes. I knew that.” Lyric, if anything, seems even more— what would be the descriptor for this, confused? than before. Curious. Shadow notes that down, for later discussion, and decides he’s let them talk for long enough.
This cover comes off it’s vent as easily as the one outside, and Shadow moves between them before they have time to do much more than look at the sound. Tightens his fingers around the emerald, where it’s embedded into the console, and pulls back. It rips out with the sound of dozens of wires snapping, and from behind him there’s an affronted “Shadow!”, followed by “Stop him!”
He turns, looks at the pair over his shoulder. Chaos Control is unreliable right now, but… Shadow won’t admit to it, but he’s not above a dramatic exit.
“Later, Doctor. Snake.”
Chaos Control doesn’t take him far, but it takes him closer to his destination than he thought it would. Influence from the emerald? He hits the ground running, and glances down at its distorted shape, tightening his grasp on the irregular edges. He should, by all means, make good on his word and return this to Sonic and his group. But… there won’t be any harm in holding onto it for a while longer.
Not if it helps.
.•.•.•.
Amy leans on her hammer with a sigh, and Sticks is the only one to react, hissing at her. “Are you sure you don’t want me to try calling him again, Tails?”
“No, it’s fine.” Tails doesn’t bother to look up at her, absorbed in his Electric— he had come back down the hall to announce the weird moving dot, just in case it turned out to be a problem, and Amy had overheard the call with Sonic and was still fuming on his behalf at Sonic’s short dismissal. She’s got a few thoughts on that that she’d love to share. A few thoughts on a few things, actually, but she’s not sure how to bring them up without wounding Tails.
She knows Sonic didn’t notice— and she’s willing to bet Tails didn’t either, but he looked so upset when Sonic called him ‘buddy’. Happy, for a moment, then upset, and then neutral. And that bothers her.
If she had to guess, the last time Sonic called him buddy would probably be from before he left Tails all alone. What made him bring it back up? The fight? She wants to know, badly, to pry into this and make things better for the both of them, but she’s not sure trying won’t lead to the end of both of their relationships.
For what is maybe the first time, she really feels like there’s nothing she can do.
Footsteps catch her attention, and Sonic finally rejoins them, accompanied by… a little floating robot. Oh, how cute— where on earth did he find that?
“Hey, guys,” he starts, “found this robot in some old console. Says her name is Em Four Dash Ar One Four, and she knows all about this place.”
The lizard snaps upright, twisting to look at them.
The robot hovers down, and a little closer, and the two study each other.
“You two, uh, know each other?” Sonic asks, eventually.
“No,” says the robot, eventually, and the lizard grumbles something resembling agreement before lying back down.
“It’s listening to meeeee,” whispers Sticks, directly into Amy’s ear. Amy, in response, jumps, turns, and slams her elbow into Sticks’s gut hard enough to send her flying backwards. Sticks screeches— in outrage or in pain, Amy isn’t sure, and before she can even begin to apologize she scrabbles away, bouncing down the hallway and out of view.
“… oops,” says Amy, “I’ll apologize next time I see her.”
“If we see her again,” is Sonic’s helpful input.
Tails stands up, and then sits back down again immediately. “I have so many questions I want to ask you,” he says, addressing Em Four Dash Ar One Four, “but I kind of hit my head. You don’t mind waiting until— tomorrow or something, right?”
“Of course not!” Is the robots indignant response— “but I know where the medical bay is. Would you like to go there?”
“There’s a medical bay? It’s not on any of the maps I’ve downloaded…”
“Really? Weird! But there is one, I used to spend a lot of time there.”
“I’ll come with you,” is Amy’s input, and she glanced around to see if anyone else wants to come along— the lizard doesn’t seem to want to move, and Knuckles is sulking— probably because Sticks left, they had been getting along. Sonic, on the other hand, is already gone. Probably ran off when no one was looking. Coward, she thinks, maybe a bit uncharitably.
They leave Knuckles with the lizard, ultimately. The infirmary isn’t actually all too far away— or maybe it feels closer because they’re being led by someone who knows where they’re going. Tails alternates between peppering the robot with questions and nursing his headache, and it’s gradually peeling back the curtains on this whole area.
Mostly. There are some things that, apparently, even Em doesn’t know.
As an example— Em is certain that they’re in space. Tails tries to disprove this, but the robot proves stubborn and doesn’t listen. Says there’s someone it wants to experience the world with, even if it doesn’t remember who, and it couldn’t be on earth without them. Amy thinks it’s a very sweet notion, even if it’s wrong, and she maybe less-than-subtly gets Tails to drop the topic.
Em does know, however, where the heart of the ARK is, and even lets Tails download a correct version of the map off of it, and judging by the excited gleam in Tails’s eye, she might have to actually drag him away to continue the quest for the emeralds.
In the infirmary, most things are decades out of date, and therefor unsafe to use. Amy still manages to unearth a bunch of useable, if slightly dusty, bandages, and Em insists Tails rests on ‘the most comfortable’ bed there is. It doesn’t look much different from the other beds, in Amy’s opinion, but odds are Em was some sort of medical assistance robot and remembers being told which bed was best.
Em does seem disappointed— and, maybe, a little confused— that most of the medicine is out of date, but Tails manages to divert from that by asking for help decoding things he’s downloaded.
Amy manages to divert from that by reminding him of his concussion, wrestling the Electric from him, and forcing him to go to sleep.
Still, it provides enough distraction for Em that it doesn’t try to speak to Amy, and she’s allowed to take a quiet vigil next to Tails’s bedside. He’ll be fine, she’s sure, but he always looks so small when he’s asleep.
.•.•.•.
It takes a week. Probably, Tails could take longer, drag it out, mine every scrap of data from Em that he can, but Sonic is really actually starting to look like he’s going to steal the Electric and go after the rest of the emeralds on his own, so Tails curbs his enthusiasm.
Even with Em’s help, there’s a lot of things about the ARK that remain unknown, and the robots memory is far from perfect.
But! It’s been a week, meaning not only has Tails familiarized himself with the coding of the ARK, of the design of its engine, but he’s also created a power pack for the lizard— referred to, presumably, in the files as the Biolizard. On day four Knuckles started calling them Big Guy, even though they’re a fair bit shorter than even Tails, and the name had stuck.
Really, it’s a flawless transfer from emerald to power pack— the only hiccup comes when Sticks returns from her week long sabbatical, screaming, snatches the emerald clean out of Tails’s hands, and makes for the door. Amy reacts before any of them, with a hammer throw impressive enough it almost takes Sticks’s head off.
The badger stops dead in her tracks, turns to look at Amy with eyes as big as moons, and whispers “That was the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” and when Amy takes the emerald from her she doesn’t even try to resist.
“Why,” asks Amy, prying her hammer out of the wall, “did you try and steal that from us?”
“It’s shiny!” is Sticks’s response, “You can’t just trust anyone with shiny things!”
“Where did you even come from?” Sonic asks, frowning— she had clearly gotten the drop on him and he didn’t like that.
“Aaaaaaliens….” hisses Sticks, clinging to Amy, “littlegreenmen!”
“… okay.”
Em elects to stay with Big Guy, so they give her their farewells and Tails promises to come back and help finish unraveling the ARK eventually. As it is, he’s already messaged Chuck, who’s expressed interest in moving the camp much closer so he can investigate on his own. Sticks remains practically glued to Amy, even when she gives the emerald back to Tails, who immediately starts running scans and jotting down notes as they return, finally, to the Tornado.
There’s someone else there. Shadow, leaning against the side of the plane, as if he knew they were coming. He studies the group, particularly the emerald Tails is holding onto, before straightening and holding out the red emerald previously lost to Eggman. “Looks like you can handle yourselves,” is all he says, even as Sonic takes the emerald from him.
“Sure you don’t want to hold onto this?” Sonic jabs, for some reason, and Shadow grimaces are him.
“It’s useless as it is now. I—“
“Useless?” Tails interrupts, “No way! These things have enough power to fuel a space station! Maybe just because you can’t use them—“
“Tails.” Amy clamps a hand on his shoulder, and smiles at Shadow tightly, “Sorry about him. He gets excited about stuff like this.”
Shadow, thankfully, doesn’t look angry, or like he’s going to try and take the emerald back. Instead he moves closer, and, when Tails lets him, takes a look at the Miles Electric.
“Hm.” He says, thoughtfully, “I suppose if anyone could find a use for them as they are, you cou— … what is this ?”
He’s looking at the screen like it’s offended him— Tails tries to figure out what, exactly, could cause that reaction, and the best he can come up with is, well.
He knew the Biolizard would be here. Maybe he knew something about Em Four Dash Ar One Four— or, as she’s written in Tails’s notes— M4-R14 too.
“Maria?” Shadow says, voice strangled, and— yeah, Tails can see that now, and he tries to ask, but before he can get so much as a word out, Shadow is gone.
Notes:
This chapters introduction brought to you by me flipping through the encyclo-speed-ia a couple months ago, landing on one of the Sonic Boom pages, and briefly experiencing my soul exiting my body as I read the name ‘MAIA’ as ‘MARIA’.
For those who forgot Maia existed— like me— she was a little floating robot, bit of ancient tech, let Sonic and Tails and Shadow time travel for a while. I don’t remember what ultimately ended up happening to her, but I think its fairly safe to say…… vastly different role to play here, haha.Also…. Oh my god the shadow segment in this makes me nervous. It’s a scene I needed to write, and I thought it’d fit best if I gave you this information now, instead of later, but *oh it makes me Nervous*. I guess because I’ve never really written a long form mystery before, and while I have all the answers, I’m so nervous that I’m gonna give out the wrong bit at the wrong time and either screw it all up or give it all away. Fingers crossed I managed to avoid giving too much away while still having it be a complete scene!
Chapter 10: Vivace
Summary:
Lively or vivacious, suggests a fast tempo, louder dynamic, and bright playing.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The big problem with having Sticks travel with them comes with space. There isn’t… really anywhere left on the Tornado for another passenger. The middle of the wing, maybe, but Tails isn’t sure if he actually trusts her to hold on. If he’d known she’d turn back up, he would have added more handles.
He’d be more involved with solving this problem if he wasn’t pouring over his notes, trying to figure out why Shadow reacted as he did. He knew about Big Guy, so possibly he knew Em, too, but— well, Tails can’t deny that her name, written out, looks like Maria— she never wanted to be called anything other than Em.
He’s about to ask Sonic to go check on her, just in case— Shadow’s reaction hadn’t seemed positive, when he’s cut off by Amy— “You can’t ride in the storage compartment! Us girls have to stick together, it’s not right.”
“You know Amy,” says Knuckles, before anyone else, “By forcing Sticks to ride where you think is appropriate, you’re ultimately damaging her identity as a strong woman and taking away her ability to make her own choices more than a plane ride in a cramped storage compartment would.”
A beat of absolute, perfect silence.
Sticks gets the compartment open, and scrambles inside, slamming it shut behind her.
“… Okay.” Says Amy, before quietly moving to her seat and buckling in.
“I’m gonna go check on Em real quick,” says Sonic, changing the topic, “Shadow didn’t seem too pleased to learn she was here.”
“Sure!” answers Knuckles, brightly, “make sure to check in with the rest of the alphabet too!”
Tails decides to forget the last minute and a half of conversation— more for his own mental well-being than anything else— lifting himself up to his own seat and strapping in. Sonic is back within a minute, seeing as he’s likely more familiar with the ARK now than any of them, given how often he ran the whole thing. Em hasn’t seen Shadow, but she’ll keep an eye out. Neither his name or his general description seemed to ring a bell with her, apparently.
Tails plugs the coordinates of the next emerald into the navigation for the Tornado as Sonic and Knuckles arrange themselves on the wings.
This next emerald has been worrying him a little bit. Because it’s moving.
It’s not rapid movement— not like the one Shadow had retrieved for them— he had tracked that, watched as it went from a large territory marked with Eggman’s symbol to a small, nondescript mountain range. It had moved quickly enough then that Shadow must have been using his warping ability— otherwise he would have needed to be going nearly as quickly as Sonic would have, and that didn’t make sense.
No, this next emerald moves more like it’s in a cloud— drifting about aimlessly. Tails hasn’t been watching long enough to determine if it’s in a set area or not, and he’d like to get to it before it moves out of range, if that’s a possibility.
In exchange, though, they’re going to have to endure several days of flight. He only realizes once they’ve taken off that Sticks is probably going to be really cramped in the cargo hold with Amy’s hammer there to take up so much space, but it’s too little too late.
.•.•.•.
They land often for breaks, and so that everyone can stretch. Sometimes these breaks last longer than anticipated, because Sonic gets jittery if he goes for too long without a run, and Tails uses the extra time to start crafting a new pair of handles on the Tornado’s wing out of spare parts. The gps tells him they’re headed for a desert, and he doesn’t want to leave Sticks in the cargo hold for that— she’ll overheat. She’s already lucky enough he’s got it insulated against toxic fumes in case they needed to transport anything delicate. At the very least, Amy’s hammer doesn’t seem to be bothering her, though she answers any questions about it with a baffled “What hammer?”, so possibly that’s just her.
Tails also uses the time to refuel the Tornado— he’s still not quite figured out how to convert the emerald into a power source for her. He’s sure it’s possible— the red one, the one Shadow retrieved, still had several wires clinging to it before Tails scraped them off. Eggman had probably been using it for that very purpose, powering something, but Tails is less worried than he maybe should be. The wires looked important. Either Shadow wanted him to know that, or he was terrible at cleaning things off.
By the time the desert comes into view, the handles are secure and Sticks is snapping at the wind like a dog. She’s on the outer edge instead of the middle because of that— the sudden sharp jerks from her lunging at nothing kept distracting Tails when she was right in front of him. Sonic is in the middle instead, which means when he says “Huh, a desert,” Tails hears him perfectly.
“The emerald is roughly central!” Tails calls, “We’ll have to make more stops!”
Sonic looks back at him as he speaks, but doesn’t respond more than a nod. He probably wasn’t expecting Tails to hear him, and things have been— well, they’ve been a little awkward since their reunion outside the Death Egg Ruins, but— more awkward, lately. Tails kind of wishes Sonic would talk to him, but that probably makes him a hypocrite because he’s not willing to talk to Sonic.
Anyway.
They take their first break a quarter of the way through the day, and the second break halfway. It’s thankfully not incredibly hot, but the sun is harsh and they have to stay hydrated. It’s— well, not impossible , but incredibly unsafe to attempt to drink from a water pouch while clinging to the wing of a plane. Tails almost considers calling it a day at their third break, late in the afternoon, but… the sun is beginning to ease, and it will be good to cover as much ground as possible while they’re all still relatively fresh. As fresh as multiple days of riding a place will let you be.
The sun is mostly set by the time Tails starts looking for a place to set them down for their fourth (and final) break of the day, and that’s probably the only reason he spots the lights on the horizon. Not many of them, and his map doesn’t suggest any sort of city in the area— but that’s mostly because he’s never been here personally. Most of his maps are… sort of guidelines that he fills out with experience. Meaning it’s entirely possible there’s a settlement ahead, and after over a week without a bed… it sounds tempting.
(The ARK did technically have sleeping quarters, but… they were sleeping quarters that had gone untouched for, like, fifty years. What wasn’t degraded was dusty, which made falling asleep nigh impossible due to all the sneezing.)
Amy points out the lights before Tails can make a choice, leaning forwards in her seat to tap him on the shoulder before gesturing excitedly at them. He nods, decided just by that, and it’s thankfully not as far of a flight as it looks.
The sun is down by the time Tails safely brings them down at city limits, and judging by the general energy, everyone is tired. Tails squints at the closest building— squat, made from sandstone or something similar, and then moves his gaze down the street. About every building looks the same.
“Well!” Says Amy, attempting to sound cheerful, “We just need to find an inn!”
“Yeah, it should be easy!” Says Knuckles, actually cheerful, “It’s not like all the buildings look the same, or anything.”
Nobody has an answer for that. Tails… mostly doesn’t have an answer because he can’t tell if Knuckles is being genuine or not.
It isn’t actually as hard as it seemed on first pass— once they’re past the outer limits, the buildings start getting bigger and more distinct. It’s quiet, now, but the streets are colourful and look like they’re supposed to be busy. There are several clearly marked shops— Tails pauses to examine one and the merchandise on display isn’t… exactly what you’d expect from an out of the way, middle of nowhere city. It looks more like… the sort of stuff tourists would buy.
Amy’s the one who eventually spots an Inn, still brightly lit in the cool night air, and— it’s full. There aren’t any rooms left. The innkeeper is apologetic, and directs them to another seperate inn, suggesting they might have rooms, and they go through four separate inns the same way.
There is something about this place Tails is missing.
The fifth inn has one room available, and they’re worn down enough to take it. Amy immediately stakes a claim on the bed, curling up on one end, and Sticks wedges herself underneath. Knuckles chooses the decorative rug set out. Tails takes a look at Sonic, in case he wants the bed, but he just gestures for Tails to go ahead and crossing the room in a few long strides to prop himself up on the windowsill.
Morning is loud . Tails is jolted awake by a wave of sound, fumbling over himself and falling out of bed, winding up thoroughly tangled in the blanket he’s pretty sure he didn’t have when he fell asleep. He pries himself off the floor, squinting towards the window— the sun is already up, and a fair ways off, peeking over several other roofs, is a brightly coloured mass. It stirs, excited, and a second wave of cheering reaches them.
“About time you woke up,” says Sonic, from where he’s leaning against the wall. He looks tired, like he didn’t quite sleep properly. “They’ve been cheering on and off for half an hour now. Amy had to take Sticks back out to the Tornado, and Knuckles went with them, for… some reason.”
“Any idea what they’re cheering for?”
and why Amy left the two of them, specifically, alone. Tails could probably hazard a guess, but Sonic isn’t the only one guilty of avoiding the elephant in the room.
“Yeah, I went out and asked around a little when it got started. Turns out there’s a pretty big race here held semi-annually. Dark Desert cup, or something.”
“A race? I woulda thought you’d be all over that.”
Sonic shrugs in answer— “Eh, usually, but it’s using this weird skateboard thing. I don’t know where I’d get one of those in time, so.”
‘ I’ll make one for you, ’ Tails almost offers, and it’s scary how easy it is to fall back into old habits when it’s just him and Sonic. He misses when it was just him and Sonic.
(Their second night on the ARK, Em found him tapping away at a console and asked him a question. If he considered Sonic a friend. He said he wasn’t sure how to answer. He said he wanted to. He didn’t say that he wasn’t sure if he could.
It would be so easy if Sonic would just… apologize.)
Instead, he says “Yeah, you don’t need a skateboard to go fast. Still, I’m interested in what they’re using— if the sand isn’t a problem, it might be better to loan a few and travel that way for a while instead of taking the Tornado. We’ve been lucky so far with places to land.”
“Sure, we can go check it out.” Sonic shrugs off the wall, moving to the door. He opens it, and then waits for Tails, who makes sure his goggles are still on before darting out, and together the two of them make their way to the heart of the commotion.
The beginning and end of the race is a giant coliseum that’s genuinely too packed to reach. Thankfully, that Sonic is a hedgehog allows them a little space— no one wants to get jostled into quills. They find a spot close to the edge of the track, just in time to watch the racers whizz past. The lead is nothing but a quick green blur, and there’s a solid five seconds before the next racer passes them.
Tails gets as close to the barrier as he can, squinting at the dust clouds stirred up— its hard to tell, but it looks like they’re riding on hoverboards, maybe using some sort of air propulsion system? But then how do they avoid clogging the intake with sand? Maybe it’s a wide enough sieve that the sand just passes through, but there’s still the matter of buildup over time. Maybe it does build up, and there’s a pit stop for cleaning somewhere out of view. If that’s the case, it might be quicker to take the Tornado after all…
The last races shoots past, and Tails pulls himself out of his focus to realize Sonic is just as pressed up against the barrier as he is. He looks thrilled.
“I can try and make one,” Tails says, not thinking.
“Huh?” Answers Sonic, ears flicking as he leans closer to Tails, “What did you say?”
Tails is a coward. “Nothing.”
Sonic studies him for a moment, before turning his attention back to the track, and Tails is glad the sound of the crowd swallowed his words.
In the time it takes for the racers to loop back around, he pulls out his Electric, and starts jotting down notes— ideas, mostly, nothing concrete. Still. He wonders if he could harness the energy of one of the emeralds to help power a board— could help power several. He types up an idea of how that might work, a private network of energy, before glancing back up— no sign of the racers coming back around again, and there’s still enough space around them that Tails doesn’t have to worry about being jostled and dropping the red emerald he pulls out. He attaches the Electric, and tells it to run a simulation, only to have the raw energy from the emerald immediately overrun his programmed perimeters and simulate an explosion. Ah well, it was just a first draft. Murmurs of excitement start passing up the crowd, and, unaware of the interested eyes on him, he puts both the emerald and the Electric away.
The green blur still leading, by a wider margin this time. An absolute uproar of a cheer starts from the coliseum and passes down through the crowd, and then people start dispersing, loud conversations about the race mingling enough to be hard to follow.
“Guess it’s finished,” Sonic says, leaning back, “That guy in front was pretty quick.”
“Not as quick as you,” Tails says, and then “We should go find everyone else. You said Amy took them to the Tornado?”
“Yeah, I did. Sticks was… getting a bit intense about the, uh,” he gestures vaguely, “noise.”
They end up finding everyone about halfway back from the Tornado, and Tails succeeds in ignoring the pointed look Amy is giving him by jotting down more notes in the Electric.
“— surrounding us,” Sticks is saying, gripping Amy by the arm and attempting to shake her, “they’ve got us cornered!”
“I don’t see anyone,” says Knuckles, thoughtfully, “unless they’re small and hiding in the sand.”
Sticks yelps, and goes from shaking Amy’s arm to climbing her. Amy ignores this.
“Did you two have fun?” Amy asks, and Tails immediately feels about 50% more suspicious about her intentions regarding leaving them alone.
“Took a look at that race that was happening,” says Sonic, casual. “Tails said he could make one of those boards they were racing on, so they might be a good way to cross the desert.”
“I could make one…” Tails allows, not looking up from the screen of his Electric, “but it would take me a while. We’d do better to find if they’re renting them from anywhere. Uh, plus, I’d need to make more than one. Four, minimum, if Sonic’s on foot.”
“Renting them could get expensive…” says Amy, detaching Sticks from herself and setting her down, “Do we even know what they’re called?”
“Extreme Gear.”
Tails amends his notes to reflect this new bit of info— he had previously just been calling them hoverboards— before he realizes… he doesn’t recognize who just spoke. Looking up from his Electric, theres a Swallow approaching them from the other side of the street, interested glint in her eyes. “You’re an inventor?” She asks, putting a hand on her hip as she joins them. Tails nods, and she smirks, “Me too. You see the guy leading the race? That was one of my boards he was riding. Wave.” She offers her hand for a handshake, but Sticks dives in the way before Tails can take it. Tails takes an awkward half step to the side, ready to pull Stick back in case she, uh, starts swinging, but while her eyes are about as wide as he’s ever seen them, she doesn’t seem panicked.
“Can I have your autograph?” She asks, voice trembling.
“Uh,” says Wave, slightly taken aback, “I don’t have a pen.”
“Good,” says Sticks, and her voice drops low enough to be deadly serious, “Don’t give people your autograph. That’s how they get you!!! They’ll sell your immunization records!!!!!”
Wave, very carefully, extracts her hand from Sticks’s grip.
Amy takes Sticks by the shoulders and guides her back a step, shooting an apologetic glance at Wave before asking Sticks, hushed— “You are.. vaccinated, right?”
“Of course I am,” answers Sticks, equally hushed, “I don’t want weird diseases!”
Wave follows this with a raised brow, before turning her attention back to Tails, “I overheard your conversation. If you’re looking for Extreme Gear to rent, I can lend you a few, if you don’t mind testing out new models.”
“Really?” says Tails, “That would be fantastic!”
“Five boards then. Unless…” she says, leadingly, and for the first time her gaze snaps to Sonic.
“Oh, yeah, no, I don’t need one,” says Sonic, as if on queue. “They’re neat, and I bet racing on them is fun, but for stuff like this? I’d rather rely on my own speed.”
“Hah!” squawks another, new voice. Sticks gasps. Wave turns, casual, and there are two more birds approaching— a large grey one, holding up a trophy to the sun and admiring its gleam, and a small green one, Extreme Gear tucked under his arm. “As if you could be faster than Wave’s Gear!”
“Shut up, Jet,” Wave says, lovingly, “this is that Sonic guy, remember?”
“Huh?” Jet, the green one, squints at Sonic, before shrugging, “I only remember the important things.”
Wave rolls her eyes, half turning back to Tails. “Where are you staying? I’ll drop by later with five boards.”
Tails gives her the name of the inn and their room number. She promises to drop by before sunset with the boards, before leaving with her friends.
“Who even were they anyway?” Asks Amy, arm in arm with Sticks.
“What?” says Sticks, sharp, “How can you not know who they are? They’re the Babylon Rogues!” She answers, gesturing widely with her untrapped arm, “They’ve won every Extreme Gear World Cup there is!”
“You sure know a lot about them,” says Sonic, dry.
“Of course I do! I’m their number one fan! Look!” She rummages around in a pocket, eventually producing a battered keychain. Barely visible through the muck built up on it is… green. The outline suggests someone standing on a board. She brandishes it as if it’s pristine.
“Uh… neat,” says Sonic, squinting at it. “Isn’t this the guy who called me unimportant?”
“Yeah!” Says Sticks, cheerful. “I have the other two too!” She produces another one, slightly cleaner— and evidently Wave. There’s a crack down the middle, but it’s stubbornly holding together.
“That’s really cool, Sticks,” says Amy, and Sticks visibly lights up and starts talking Amy’s ear off about them.
“I’m gonna go wait back in the inn,” Tails decides, “I don’t wanna miss her.”
“Have fun,” says Sonic, “and don’t forget to tell her we only need four boards.”
“Sure, sure.”
(He will realize, eventually, that everything about this encounter was incredibly suspicious. The willingness to lend total strangers boards? That Wave knew who Sonic was— thought to discuss him in some capacity with her friends? Even the coincidence that they all just so happened to be going the same direction, even though, by all means, as the winners, they should have been busy? And why— why did they need to know where they were staying, it would be so much easier to just… tell Tails where to find them.)
He maybe could have waited longer to head back to the Inn— Wave had only said ‘before sunset’, though, which wasn’t really a… concise timeframe. Better safe than sorry, and besides— he could use the time to run a few more tests. If he could figure out how to get the emerald to power the boards, then it would be a massive boost for their trip.
Except the emerald refused to cooperate. He tries upping the perimeters, setting a hard limit on how much power to draw, adding a cooldown— and without fail, every time, it leads to an explosion. Maybe it’s because he’s not familiar enough with Extreme Gear, but he runs the exact same tests on the Tornado and the same thing happens!
He should be able to do this, but it’s like the emerald itself is being uncooperative— and wildly inconsistent with its results. Chaotic, almost. He unplugs the Electric and sets the stubborn thing down on the bedside cabinet, squinting at it. Eggman figured it out. It follows that Tails should be able to— even Shadow thought he could, and he barely knew him!
The emerald, inscrutable, just sits there.
Maybe a different colour would give him more luck? Amy still has the yellow one, and Sonic had taken hold of the blue one.
There’s a knock at the door. Wave, already? Maybe he made the right call, coming back to the inn so soon.
Sure enough, it’s Wave, the bigger grey bird accompanying her. He’s carrying the boards, and Tails has to open the door as wide as it will go to let them in. It’s still a bit of a squeeze. Wave takes in the room with a raised brow— “All five of you are staying in here?” She asks, propping the single board she’s carrying against a wall, and directing the albatross— Storm— to do the same.
”We just arrived last night, and this was the only inn we could find with an empty room.”
“Cutting it close to catch the race, huh?”
”Oh, no! It’s really a coincidence we’re here at the same time, that’s all.”
Theres a loud clatter as Storm sets the final two boards down— he knocks one into the other, and the whole line of them goes down like dominos.
Wave rolls her eyes, and shoves him back out of the way, picking up the first board. She props it up, and then turns and gives Tails a Look— “Well? Are you going to help me pick these up?”
Tails decides against pointing out he had nothing to do with them falling over, instead taking the chance to ask her about how they work. She’s willing to discuss it with him, if still slightly irritated. Storm, for his part, leaves almost immediately. Wave watches him go, but Tails doesn’t think anything of it, too busy examining the propulsion on one of the boards.
She covers the basics, which is more than enough to give Tails plenty of ideas. She also takes time to point out which boards have upgrades she wants them to try— one in particular is supposed to give a boost if you stomp on the back end, but she hasn’t had a chance to stress test.
She can’t stay long, because Jet’s board needs maintenance after the race, but the time she does spare is invaluable— as soon as she’s gone, Tails is cracking one of the boards open and taking a look at its engine. It’s fascinating, and brings up some potential ideas for upgrading the Tornado he’s never considered before. He goes back and forth between his Electric and the board, until he’s certain he’s got a simulation solid enough to handle both the emerald and its variability. All he needs to do is test it.
One problem.
The emerald is gone.
Notes:
Hi Sonic Riders fans. how’s it, uh, how’s it going
Chapter 11: Poco-a-Poco
Summary:
Meaning little by little, indicating an incremental change in tempo over a longer period of time either up or down.
Chapter Text
The streets have been getting progressively less crowded the longer they’ve been out— from what Sonic gathers, this was the final day of the races, and people are either going to sleep off the excitement or going home. Or going to collect some totally superfluous and unneeded boards that probably aren’t even really that fast anyway, but that’s neither here nor there.
They’ve actually stuck together fairly well— aside from a couple instances of having to pull Sticks out of garbage bins, and as a group they’re currently making their way back to the inn.
Sonic, contrary to himself, is looking forwards to getting off of his feet— most of the day has been spent standing around as everyone else fawns over tacky, overpriced merchandise.
Sticks, at one point, had noticed the vendor selling charms of the various racers, and promptly swiped a Storm one. Amy had to pay. It cost enough that Sonic had to pay too, even though he barely had anything on him.
What, he’s not bitter.
At least the food is good and actually cheap. They’ve each had a portion, and Knuckles is carrying Tails’s portion back like it’s his job. He’s doing great at guarding it from Sticks, who keeps insisting that she’ll only take one bite.
None of them believe her.
Sonic is half considering running ahead when a distinctive whooshing noise catches his attention. It’s been a while, but he’s pretty sure—
Tails spots them from where he’s hovering above the ground, and dives.
“Amy!” He shouts, almost the same moment he lands, “They stole the emerald!”
“Who did?” asks Amy, as Sonic reflexively checks his one— he still has it— and he gets the feeling he knows exactly who it was that stole Tails’. How had they managed to get it out from under his nose, though? Probably distracted him with the stupid boards or something.
“Oh, yeah!” says Sticks, seemingly unaware of the general shift in atmosphere and hanging from one of Knuckles’s arms like a monkey, “The Babylon Rogues are thieves! Didn’t I mention that?”
“No, Sticks,” says Amy, voice stiff with irritation, “you didn’t.”
Which was remarkable, really— Sticks had failed to shut up about them for upwards of an hour. Sonic knew more about their favourite foods and colours and ancestry than he ever wanted to, and Sticks failed to mention the one thing that was turning out to be important.
The sun is beginning to dip in the sky, but there’s not any question that they’re going after the emerald right now.
Or— in about five minutes, actually, because Tails needs to eat first. He’s a little hesitant about it, but Knuckles is insistent about it while also holding off Sticks, and he eventually concedes.
He eats it about as fast as Sonic remembers him doing— barely any time to chew, clearly not a habit that’s been broken with age— and then they’re off to figure out where the Rogues are staying.
It’s not hard. They start at the coliseum, where Sticks kicks off of Knuckles and lands on all fours, sniffing the ground like a bloodhound. A pause, as Sonic looks at Amy, who looks at Tails, who looks at Knuckles, and then she’s off like a shot. It’s follow her or lose track, potentially forever, so follow her they do.
She leads them to a shack on the edge of town, more of a garage than an actual building. There’s tremendous crashing coming from inside, the sort that only really comes from someone wielding a hammer against an unwieldy amount of metal, but it falls silent as soon as Knuckles takes the initiative to knock.
Suspiciously silent. The kind of silence that tries to claim ‘no one is home, come again later’.
“Huh. Looks like nobody’s home,” says Knuckles.
“Yeah, nobody’s home!” calls someone from the other side of the door, followed by someone else’s hurried “ shut up! ”
“This is Nobody’s home?” asks Knuckles, before anyone else can say anything.
“Y— no! This is our home! Nobody is here!”
“Why’s Nobody in your home?”
“…. I don’t— ow! What’d you do that for?”
A long pause, and then the garage door rattles open. Storm’s stood closest to them, looking— contrite, maybe? And just behind him is Wave, her arms crossed and an expression of great annoyance on her face. She unsuccessfully tries to smooth it out when she sees who it is on the other side, pasting on a grin.
“Oh, it’s… you. Problem with your boards?”
Tails moves to the front of their group, fluffed up with indignation, “You stole our emerald!”
The grin dropped, and then was hastily picked back up, “Sorry, don’t know what you’re talking about. Look, kid, we’re busy, so why don’t you skedaddle.”
“Where’s your airship?” Sticks asks, plaintively.
“Our what? Nevermind. Shoo.” Wave took a step forwards as she spoke, as if to push them away.
“Uh, yeah, we’re not leaving without our emerald, and we know you’re the ones who took it. Why don’t you make this a whole lot easier on all of us and hand it over?” Sonic says, stepping forwards to match her.
Her expression narrows as she prepares for what is, most likely, going to be a biting comeback.
“What do you losers want it for anyway?” comes a voice from the back of the workshop. Sonic leans around Wave to see Jet, who’s clearly been listening in from his perch against the wall.
“It’s our property,” says Amy, sounding unimpressed.
“Property-shmoperty. You can’t even prove that we have it.”
“You’re literally the only ones who could have taken it,” says Tails.
“That’s not proof,” says Jet, kicking off from where he’s been leaning against the wall to approach them. Both Wave and Storm step out of the way, deferring to the smallest of them. “And I don’t like being called a thief without any evidence. Are you going to back your claims up, or are you going to leave?”
Sonic glances back at Tails, in case he has anything— by the expression on his face, he doesn’t. It’s not that Sonic doubts him— if Tails says the Rogues stole the emerald, then the Rogues stole the emerald, but they’re not getting anywhere without evidence.
Ugh. Being a lawyer would be the worst .
“Why do we need evidence when you have the emerald?” Asks Knuckles, breaking the growing tension.
“We don’t have the emerald, that’s the point. It’s not like you caught us red-handed—“
“HA!” shrieks Sticks, leaping to her feet and jabbing a finger at him, “How did you know it was red? Also, can I have your autograph?”
“What? That’s not what I— no. I’m not giving you my autograph.”
“You couldn’t have known it was red unless you’re the ones who took it! Check and mate.” Knuckles folds his arms, and nods.
Jet is making the sort of expression that says he’s having trouble understanding what just happened. Sonic gets it, he really does.
Still, this is the perfect opening to push, so Sonic takes another step forwards into Jet’s personal space.
“Look,” he starts, “you have the emerald, we know you have the emerald, you know we know you have the emerald. Evidence or whatever doesn’t change that. Regardless of how well you think you’ve hidden it, we will get it back, so why don’t you make this easier on all of us and just hand it over.” To punctuate, he offers Jet a hand, even though he’s leaning far enough into his personal space that it’s almost uncomfortable.
Jet’s eyes flick from his to his hand, then over his group. He turns his head, a little, to glance back at Wave, and then he focuses his attention back to Sonic.
“Alright,” he says, and he takes Sonic’s hand, pushing back against him, “But on one condition. You have to race me.”
“Heh.” Sonic grins, can’t help it. “Your funeral.”
They agree on a place, and a time. Preferably, the time would be now , but Wave had said something prompting about needing to use a board and Tails had turned and went before Sonic could rebuke her.
Amy had grabbed him as she went after him correctly guessing that he likely would have gone ahead with the race regardless of Tails’ attendance, leaving only Knuckles and Sticks with the Rogues to ensure they don’t try to make a quick getaway.
Sonic doesn’t think they would. Jet looked hungry, almost, at the offer of a race. Of challenge .
They catch up with Tails in no time, even though it’s mostly Amy doing the walking— Sonic allowing himself to be dragged, and not much else. As soon as she falls in step with him, he speaks— “I’m gonna race him.”
“Well,” says Amy, in a tone that says she’s trying to be tactful. She doesn’t get much further than that as Sonic zips out of her grip, walking backwards in front of Tails.
“Whoa, no you aren’t. Racing’s, like, my whole thing.”
“It’s my emerald. It’s my responsibility to look after it. I’m the one who lost it, I’m the one who should get it back.”
Don’t say he won’t get it back don’t say he’ll lose the race
“You really think you can keep up?”
“ Yes .” says Tails, stopping in his tracks. His hands curl into fists, and— shit, are those tears?— “Yes, I think I can keep up, but since when has that ever mattered to you before?”
“That’s not what I meant, and we’re not talking about that right now. We need to get the emerald back, and I’m the best chance we have.”
Tails could push it. Tails looks like he wants to push it. But Amy puts a gentle hand on his shoulder, and he starts, remembering that she’s there, and… relaxes.
“Fine. Go ahead, show off then. Get the dumb emerald back.”
“… Okay. Do you want to—“
“No.”
“I think we’ll just go ahead back to the inn, okay? You can meet up with us back there.” Amy’s tone is pleasant, but her facial expression is not. Sonic doesn’t miss that she moves between them as she speaks.
This is maybe the first time in Sonic’s life that he hasn’t looked forwards to a race.
He had swung back by the garage, but it was empty. Which meant he had time to think on his way to the race track.
This would all be a lot easier if Sonic could do it on his own, but… he doesn’t know where the other emeralds are. Or if any of them move.
Usually this wouldn’t bother him— he likes to be easy, go with the flow. It’s not like he’s ever been bothered with planning before.
… whatever.
Knuckles comes into view before anyone else, entire face lighting up as he spots Sonic— at least someone’s happy to see him. He waves him over, and everyone else comes into view from behind a dune as Sonic approaches, slowing to a casual saunter.
“No board?” Wave asks, as Sonic stops.
“Nah. Like I said, don’t need one.”
Jet laughs, his own board tucked under an arm. “Your funeral,” he parrots, and then turns, gesturing widely. “The track starts just over there. First to complete three loops around the pillars wins.”
“Only three?”
“What, you want to drag out your defeat?”
“Nevermind, forget I said anything.”
Both of them line up at the start— a line drawn in the sand, probably by Knuckles, given it’s wobbliness. Jet pulls on a pair of goggles, to protect his eyes, and Sonic spares a moment to wish he had thought of doing the same. Well, whatever, he’s run through worse. The board hums under Jet as he braces on it, revving, almost, as Wave counts down from between them, makeshift flag in her hands. It’s really more of an old rag, but it works.
On go, he vanishes.
Sonic coughs, waving the sand out of his face. Jet threw up a dust cloud as soon as he moved, reminding Sonic of about two seconds ago when he thought goggles would be a good idea. Ugh, there’s sand in his eyes. He hadn’t been paying enough attention.
“… I said go ,” says Wave, unimpressed.
“Give me a second,” Sonic answers, squinting.
“I’m not starting over,” she answers, moving to the side with a huff.
Jet is pretty fast, Sonic has to admit. By the time his eyes are clear, Jet’s already coming up on his second lap, a near unrecoverable lead… for anyone else.
As it is, Sonic gives Jet a cheeky wave, and then passes him, passes him again, and slides across the finish line just a second before Jet finishes his first lap.
Jet keeps going. He doesn’t stop until a full second later, skidding to a halt so quickly he almost falls off his board, gaze locked on Sonic, jaw dropped.
“Woo!” Cheers Knuckles, from the sidelines, “go Sonic!”
“You— cheated,” says Jet, but it sounds more like a question than it does anything else.
“Oh, hell,” says Wave, “f-first, second, and third lap, all taken by Sonic. Winner…. Sonic.”
“Does that mean we gotta give them the emerald back?” asks Storm.
“No,” says Jet, bringing his board back around to hover next to Sonic, “no, you— cheated that’s not—“
“Hey, you never said I couldn’t run. Seemed pretty smug about it until about thirty seconds ago and everything.”
Jet makes several facial expressions in he span of a few moments, before settling on ‘grumpy’ and pulling out the emerald.
Figures he had it on him.
“What do you even need this for, anyways.”
“Eh.” Sonic swipes it, checks it’s the real deal— it is, not that it was very likely that they’d try and pull a fast one at this point. “We’re headed… about that direction, I think.” He gestures, further into the desert. “Apparently there’s something in the middle that we’re looking for.”
“The Garden?” says Wave, eyes wide. She immediately realizes that she’s spoken aloud, expression shuttering, but it’s too little, too late. Jet throws his arms up in disgust.
“Go ahead and tell them everything, why don’t you.”
“You mean the Babylon Garden?” asks Sticks, and Jet immediately rounds on her, hopping off of his board in order to get closer.
“How do you know about that?”
“I helped some guys out there once. They were all lost, asking for directions, so I threw boomerangs at them until they went away.” She shrugs, noncommittal. “I don’t see what the big deal was. Weren’t even any good traps to get stuck in.”
“If you’d cue in those of us out of the loop,” says Sonic.
Wave glances to Jet before speaking— “Babylon Garden. It was built by our ancestors, but… no one’s supposed to have been there for a very long time.”
Sonic glances at Sticks, who has sat down in the sand in order to kick at the back of her own ear like a dog, tongue poking out in concentration.
“… uh-huh.”
Wave frowns at Sticks, before shaking her head. “Well, if you’re trying to go there, one piece of advice. Those boards I lent you? Won’t get you there.”
“Speaking of boards,” says Jet, who has gathered up his own and begun walking, “think you can make one to keep up with that?”
“I have some ideas,” says Wave, falling into step with him, Storm bringing up the rear, and, as unceremoniously as that, the Rogues leave.
“Well, that was weird. Cmon, guys, Amy and Tails are waiting for us back at the inn.”
“Did you win?” Asks Knuckles, earnest.
“Did I-- yeah, yeah, I won. It was a race, Knuckles, did you think I’d lose?”
Knuckles stops walking, face twisted up in effort.
“… Don’t answer that.”
Notes:
This chapter goes out to bby me, who used to be so so baffled by the Riders games. Don’t worry Jet, I’m sure you’ll get a fair race with Sonic… Someday, probably
Chapter 12: Cadenza
Summary:
A moment in a musical piece where an instrumentalist or singer is given the opportunity to play a solo freely and with artistic license to go outside of a rigid tempo or rhythm.
Notes:
so how’s everyone doing. I went to see Puss in Boots The Last Wish three times in theatres. Feeling very normal about it <- lying
Chapter Text
Tails is already asleep by the time they get back. He’s curled up at one end of the bed, face hidden behind his tails, and blanket tucked over him. Sitting, cross legged, at the other end of the bed, is Amy. Her arms are folded, and she raises an expectant eyebrow at them as they pile in.
Sonic, unwilling to wake Tails, pulls out the emerald and gestures to it with an awkward smile. Amy’s expression does something a little… complicated, and then she holds one hand out expectantly. The look on her face says she is absolutely willing to yell at him, even if she has to drag him outside first.
Not really in the mood to be yelled at, Sonic passed the emerald over, as Sticks sets about wedging herself under the bed.
Amy looks it over, like she thinks it’s a fake or something, before popping open her hammer and dropping it inside with a quiet clink.
Tails grumbles a bit, stirring, and everyone freezes until he resettles.
Sonic goes to step over to the windowsill again, only to have his way barred by Amy grabbing his arm.
He shrugs at her, gestures at her hammer, he already gave her the rock.
She points at him, and then holds up two fingers, before holding her hand out expectantly again.
Sonic pulls out his other emerald, pointing to it with a quizzical expression on his face. Looking smug, Amy nods. Sonic starts shaking his head, but Amy starts standing up, grip tightening a little on her hammer, and… Sonic just really isn’t in the mood. Whatever. He hands the other emerald over too.
Amy’s expression smooths over, and she smiles. “Goodnight,” she whispers, using the handle of her hammer to flick the light switch.
Sonic trips over Knuckles on his way to the window.
.•.•.•.
Sonic isn’t the first person to wake up the next morning. He’s not even the second, if the way Sticks lashes out to grab at his ankles when he goes to stand next to the bed is any clue.
Then again, she could just be doing that in her sleep. He’s not willing to check.
Amy is still curled up on her half of the bed, and for half a second he considers taking one of the emeralds back, but… that would probably be a bad idea. Knuckles is still snoring, wrapped in the carpet but otherwise facedown and immobile.
Tails is gone. There’s still some fur clinging to the blanket Amy had draped on him.
All the boards Wave lent them are still leaned up against the wall, so he probably didn’t intend on going far. Where would he have gone then? The Tornado, probably.
Sonic is over halfway there when he realizes he has no plan on what, if anything, he should say to Tails.
Tails is there. Working on the Tornado, that is, though it mostly looks like he’s fiddling with the screws instead of actually getting anything done.
“Good morning,” he says, cooly, and Sonic returns the greeting. Unsure of what else to say, he falls silent, watching Tails for a moment longer before climbing up onto the Tornado’s wings. They’re hot under the desert sun, but he doesn’t really mind.
“Sleep well?” He asks, after a while.
“Yeah,” answers Tails, followed by “Get the emerald back?”
“Uh, yeah. Amy, uh, has all three of them now.”
“All three?” Tails asks, tucking his wrench away and patting the Tornado’s side.
“Yeah, she… asked.”
“… uh huh.”
Tails gives the Tornado a discerning look over, before joining Sonic on the wing. They sit there, in companionable silence, until the rest of the group catch up.
“Good morning,” calls Amy, “thanks for letting the rest of us know where you two were going!”
Sonic shrugs at her, and Tails just laughs.
.•.•.•.
On Waves cryptic advice, they leave the boards behind, at the inn. While the sun is hot, it’s not unbearable, especially with the breeze that comes from flight. It’s only a day or so of flight besides— a day or so of flight before they find out why, exactly, Wave told them the boards wouldn’t be much use.
The Garden, as Wave had called it, was floating. It was more an island than a garden, in truth— a giant floating island in the middle of the desert.
Sonic was pretty sure he’d run through this desert before. He was even more sure that island didn’t use to be there, but then— just like the ARK, in the middle of Green Hill, there it was. Irrefutably.
Tails guides the nose of the biplane up, leading them into a gentle spiral until they’re high enough to see the top, which is flat, mostly. There’s a couple outstanding structures— one in the middle, and a few others dotted around, but the most of it— Sonic understand why Wave called it a ‘garden’, now, because most of it is green.
Rich, verdant life coats the top, from short grasses and clovers and blooms to stubby bushes and powerful trees— and yet despite that there’s a sense of order to the it, a careful placement that suggests this place was once tended to by hand.
There are long, twisting paths, barely touched by the greenery, and Tails brings the Tornado down to land on one of these.
“Does this kinda look like a race track to anyone else?” Sonic asks, not really expecting an answer.
“According to my readings,” Tails says, unbuckling himself from the Tornado’s cockpit and swinging down to the ground, “the emerald should be… this way.”
“Why didn’t you just track where the emerald went when the Rogues stole it?” Knuckles asks.
Tails stops dead in his tracks, and then almost visibly wilts— “Uh—“
“Oh, because you didn’t know where it was. I get it.” Knuckles nods, and goes to pat Tails on the shoulder.
Tails, for his part, mumbles something to himself and then almost jumps a foot in the air as Knuckles touches him.
“… You didn’t think of it, did you,” Amy says, less of a question and more of a statement.
“Yeah…”
“Hey, no harm, no foul,” says Sonic, leaning over to snag Sticks by the scruff of her neck and stop her from trying to shovel handfuls of plant matter into her mouth.
Tails shakes his head, and continues forwards to the innermost structure— coincidentally, also the largest structure, unless the island turns out to be hollow, or something.
The front door is open, at least. The room inside is gleaming with opulence, golden wrought walls complimenting a rich, red carpet.
“I can’t go in there,” Sticks says, immediately, “I’m allergic.”
“You can wait out here,” Amy responds, polite, “but do not go anywhere.”
Sticks gives her a snappy salute, and then moves over to cling to the door and peek in like she’s trying not to be caught by something.
“These ruins are incredible,” Amy continues, stepping inside— “they’re practically untouched! How long did Wave say it had been since anyone’s been here?”
“Uh, yeah, she didn’t. Sticks’s been here before though, so it can’t have been that long.”
“Oh,” says Amy, and some of her delight bleeds out. “Still, I can’t quite date this architecture. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen before! Tails, do you mind if I take a few photos?”
“Sure,” says Tails, and he tosses her his Electric. “The emerald should be just that way,” he continues, gesturing, “just past that door.”
There is, sure enough, a door set into the far wall. Knuckles, the closest of them to it, reaches over to knock. No response, of course.
“Huh,” says Tails, joining him, “there isn’t a door handle, but there is a keyhole.” He pauses, presses his face to it, squinting in concentration… “nope. Can’t see anything through it. Guess we need to find a key, somewhere…” he takes a step back, setting one hand to his chin as he looks the door over. “Huh. Hey, Amy! There’s some writing on this door, do you recognize it?”
“Oh, that’s Babylonian,” says Knuckles. “It just says some stuff about where to find the key and how to open the door, nothing important.”
“… what?” says Amy, and then there are a pair of arms wrapping around Sonic’s head and face as a weight slams into him from behind— he almost bristles before realizing it’s just Sticks, and intentionally relaxing.
“Take me over there,” she says, readjusting on Sonic’s back so he’s giving her a piggy back, one hand mashed into his face and eyes as the other one points.
Sonic reaches up to peel her hands off of his face, already moving towards the door, complaining— “What am I, a pack mule?”
She scrambles up to stand on his shoulders as soon as he’s close enough, and then leaps over to Knuckles, who doesn’t even flinch at the impact.
There are… a few quills sticking out of her.
From Knuckles’ shoulder, she leans forwards, sniffs the door, rubs her finger across some of the writing, and then sticks it in her mouth. Around it— “Yup, that’s Babylonian. Tastes just like it.”
“You two can read? Uh, this?” asks Amy.
“Yeah,” both of them answer. Amy looks fascinated for all of a second before wincing, and reaching over to start tugging out quills.
“Where does it say to find the key?” Tails asks, reasonably.
Knuckles, in response, rattles off a list of words that are probably what’s written on the door. The moment he finishes, though, Sticks leans forwards, prodding at him, “What? No, it doesn’t say that at all! It says,” and then she rattles off her own list of separate, totally distinct words.
“It doesn’t say that,” Knuckles responds, sounding offended, “look, this part here conjugates with this part, not that—“
“No it doesn’t! Babylonian isn’t consistent with other writing, you’re supposed to connect the consonants before you start reading!”
“No you aren’t, or else it’d take way too long to—“
“Yeah you are! You only connect sentences first, and then—“
“But how are you supposed to tell where the sentences begin and end if you don’t—“
“I’m lost,” Sonic admits, glancing at Amy and Tails. Tails has the electric, now, and is taking notes on either side of the argument. Amy isn’t even paying attention anymore, having moved to the side to inspect more of the carvings.
“Maybe we could split into two groups?” Tails suggests. “One group follows what Sticks says, and the other follows Knuckles.”
“I don’t see why we don’t all follow me,” says Knuckles, “since I’m right.”
“Ha!” Sticks sticks her tongue out at him, and then lunges over to Amy, who barely reacts in time to catch her, bridal style. “Me an’ Amy are gonna find the key first, and then you’ll be sorry!”
Knuckles responds by puffing up, and then scooping up Sonic and Tails like two sacks of potatoes. “Fine then! May the smarter reader win!”
“The smarterest!” Sticks agrees, before urging Amy out the door. Amy shoots them the sort of look that conveys several things at once— you had better get along, we’re totally getting the key first, and maybe I’m totally gonna learn how to read Babylonian from Sticks, it’s hard to tell.
“Uh, actually,” Tails says, writhing his way free before Knuckles can set out after them, “I’m gonna stay here. I want to document what this room was like before we opened or moved anything.”
“Sure, it’s more equal with teams of two, anyway,” Sonic says, not bothered with doing much more than dangling from Knuckles’s arm. “Stay out of trouble.”
“Of course,” Tails says, waving them off. Knuckles sets Sonic up on his shoulders, forcing him to duck as they step outside, and marches off, seemingly full of purpose.
.•.•.•.
Tails has an idea. Sticks and Knuckles had been talking pretty quickly, but he’s good at typing— it hadn’t been too hard to follow their conversation and take notes on how they thought the Babylonian should be read. He had set up a base program for decoding language years ago— so it was a little buggy, but reliable. He fed it the parameters, based off of what Sticks and Knuckles had said, and then scanned in the Babylonian.
It took a while. The program took it’s sweet time, chewing over the wording, and Tails had to pause to manually correct a couple of symbols and, as more was translated, some of the spelling. Of course, he did use this time to also do what he said he would— preserving what he could of the rooms original set up and architecture.
It was maybe twenty minutes before the Electric chimed, finished with its work.
Like he thought— both of them were right. Babylonian was a strange language— the odds were low he’d be capable of translating anything more complex were slim. But this? Yeah, he could translate this.
According to the translated instructions, the key wasn’t too far away or hard to get to at all— it seemed like maybe the Babylonians were mostly relying on the hurdle of their language to keep intruders out.
Well, the hurdle of their language, and their huge, floating island, in the middle of a desert, but that was just semantics.
Cautiously, he sticks his head out the door. No Amy, no Sonic, and no Sticks or Knuckles. Perfect. Odds were slim anyone would return in the window of time it takes to retrieve the key. Quietly, he slips outside, glancing around still— just in case— as he heads in the direction indicated.
He does run into a bit of a hurdle, just once, on his way back, key in hand. It’s a big thing, ornate, and he swears it’s humming but it goes silent whenever he tries to hold it up to his ears.
“— we already looked that way,” says Sonic, from way closer than Tails is comfortable with. There’s a line of shrubbery nearby, and Tails dives towards it just as Knuckles and Sonic step out from around a corner.
“Yeah, well, we can look again. Maybe it was on the roof.”
“Uuuuugh,” Sonic groans, tipping his head back. Tails holds his breath until they’re past him, before slinking out of the bush and hurrying the rest of the way back.
The key is humming. Stepping into the central room again, the hum rises until he can feel it, pulsing in his hand like a living thing.
It practically glides into the door, begging to be turned, but Tails stays his hand there, turning back to look around one last time.
No one’s there.
He turns the key, and, before he can think better of it, slips inside.
Chapter 13: BPM
Summary:
BPM, Beats per Minute, refers to the number of beats that will occur within sixty seconds.
Notes:
Sorry about the delay between chapters (I say, as if there isn’t a lengthy gap between updates anyways).
I got hit by a car.
And then the hotel I was staying at nearly blew up.I’ve been sitting on this mostly complete chapter for a while, actually. It has parts I really like, and parts I’m not super fond of. Real mixed bag on this one.
(Also, as a disclaimer: I am fine!!! The car wasn’t even moving that fast. I just wanted to do one of those ao3 authors notes that’s Like That you get me)
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“I’ve already checked over the entire island twice,” Sonic says. He’s walking just slightly faster than Knuckles is, which means Knuckles is mostly left looking at his raggedy, disordered quills. Heh, he should totally… where was he going with that thought?
“TWICE, Knuckles,” Sonic says again, catching his attention. As emphasis, Sonic makes a V shape with his fingers, and brandishes it at Knuckles. “If I didn’t find it, then Amy and Sticks probably did. That, or Tails’s figured something out.”
Knuckles looks down at his own hands, and makes a similar V with his own fingers. Ah! That’s two fingers, for twice! That’s clever. He’ll remember that for later.
“Well, my translation wasn’t wrong,” Knuckles says, because it wasn’t. “Sticks’s syntax is wrong. You can’t connect the—“
“Please,” says Sonic, “please stop talking to me about Babylonian.”
“I’m beginning to think we paired up with the wrong people,” says Amy, appearing in front of them as if summoned. Oh, they’re in front of the middle room. Did they find the key? Knuckles wanted to find the key.
“Sticks won’t even tell me how she learned Babylonian, let alone anything about how to speak it.”
“They’re always watching,” a nearby bush hisses. Amy reaches into the bush and pulls out Sticks— what was she doing in a talking bush? Knuckles will have to ask her later.
“I’m guessing you guys haven’t had any luck either.”
“Nope,” says Sonic, popping the P. “I think our translators are faulty. Here’s hoping Tails’s come up with something.”
“… wasn’t Tails with you?”
“Nah, he said—“
“You left him alone??? ”
Knuckles walks past them, into the big room. Sticks looks like she wants to follow him, but also like she thinks the floor is poisonous. If it is poisonous, then Knuckles must be immune to poison, because it just feels like floor.
He wants to take another look at that door— without Sticks nearby to mess him up.
… Hey! Wait a minute! “Ha! Hey, guys, I found the key!”
As evidence, he pulls the key out of the door, turning around to show it to them. Sticks, the only one looking, squints at it, before turning around and crossing her arms, muttering something about her translation being mostly correct that’s mostly lost under Sonic and Amy arguing.
“— he’s perfectly capable of being left on his own!”
“Like you would know! The last time you left him alone—“
“Well you weren’t there for that! This is totally different, he wanted to be left alone this time!”
“Oh, so now you’re taking into account what he wants—“
Knuckles puts the key away, for later, and moves over to interrupt them. “Hey guys. Where is Tails, anyway? Shouldn’t he be saying things right now too?”
Because that’s what Sonic and Amy were doing right now, mostly, just saying things at each other. Considering most of what they were saying was about Tails, Knuckles thought Tails deserves to join in, and he probably would have, if he were still around.
“… what do you mean ‘ where’s Tails ’, he’s just in there, isn’t he?” asks Sonic.
“Nope,” says Knuckles, popping the P just like Sonic did.
“Maybe he forgot something at the Tornado?” Amy suggests.
Sonic vanishes, and reappears a moment later in a gust of wind. “Nope,” he says. He doesn’t pop the P this time.
“Check again, maybe you missed him.” Amy says, crossing her arms.
“Already did.”
“Check slower . Honestly, how can you even see anything when you’re—“
Sticks cuts her off, “Maybe he got eaten by bush monsters! They hate eating fur, so we’d have to look for fur!”
A long pause, during which Knuckles considers saying something, but fails to come up with anything. Sonic fills the silence, “That horrifying mental image aside, Sticks is… kind of right. We should spread out and look for him. He might have figured something out and took off.”
“He could at least warn us first…” Amy sighs, running a hand down her face. “Knuckles, you check inside any buildings. Sticks, you check the gardens— please try not to get distracted digging. I’ll go see if he did go back to the Tornado, and Sonic… you can run around.”
“Gee, thanks,” Sonic says, “Nice to know my unique skill set is really being utilized here.” Knuckles goes to ask him what that means, but he’s already gone.
Well, he has a job to do, anyway! He’s gonna be great at checking buildings! The best! He’s even gonna start right now. He’s already looked in the central building, but he hasn’t actually checked it. Tails could be in a corner, or under the decorative rug. Knuckles makes quick work of checking each corner, moving on to tearing up the rug before the thought occurs that Tails could be hiding right behind him, and he’d never be able to tell.
He starts trying to turn around as fast as he can, but Tails must be even faster because Knuckles doesn’t even catch a glimpse of his fur. How can he get eyes behind him? He could ask Amy— she’d know!
Stepping back outside, he takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. There’s Sticks, to the left, and… there are the emeralds, moving towards her. Sticks seems stationary, so he starts moving towards her too— she might know how to look behind him fast enough to see if Tails is there. Sonic streaks across the back of his awareness, too far away and moving too quickly to be pin-pointed, so Knuckles decides he’s the last choice. Even if Tails manages to be behind Knuckles fast enough to evade all of them, he won’t be faster than Sonic.
Opening his eyes again, he finds himself on a familiar stretch of path— he and Sonic had gone up and down it at least five times while looking for the key. Maybe six. Or more— Knuckles didn’t have enough fingers to count more than five.
Sticks is there. She’s halfway down the path, staring into a bush like it hides the secrets of the universe.
“Hey Sticks,” Knuckles says, waving, “How can I check if Tails is behind me?”
Sticks doesn’t look up from her bush. “He’s not behind you! He’s in here.”
In the bush? But that would mean— “Did he get eaten???”
“Yeah. Look, there’s his fur! They left his fur behind!”
Knuckles looks, and there it is, a clump of orange fur. Stuck to the bush. Tails got eaten here, and Knuckles didn’t even notice. He didn’t even notice! Did Tails see him walk past? Did he try to call out for help??? Knuckles had seen the bush rustle, but he thought that was wind! What if it was Tails? Being eaten!?
He falls to his knees next to Sticks. He’s an awful friend— right there! Tails was right there , and— what is he going to say to Sonic, to Amy? Tails was so young, too, just a kid! He sinks to all fours, pounding a fist against the earth.
“… What are you two doing?” A voice that sounds like Amy asks.
“Tails got eaten by this bush,” says Sticks. Knuckles can’t say anything. His mouth feels stuck shut.
“No he didn’t,” says the voice.
Sticks points at the fur, “Look, they only left his fur behind. I warned you! Bush monsters!”
Knuckles punches the ground again.
“… Huh. That is his fur. What’s it doing out here?”
“I’m a terrible friend,” Knuckles manages.
A hand lands on his shoulder, and he looks up— he can’t really see much past the tears, but he’s pretty sure that is actually Amy. Makes sense why the voice sounded like her, then. How can he possibly explain this to her? He was supposed to keep them safe.
“Oh, Knuckles. Look, it’s okay, Tails didn’t get eaten.”
“He didn’t?” Hope, sudden and wild— but how can Amy know?
“He didn’t,” Amy repeats, before gesturing at the terrible bush. Knuckles has to wipe his eyes to see it properly. “If Tails got… eaten… here, then wouldn’t there be a lot more fur left behind?”
That’s true. “That’s true! He has a lot of fur!”
Sticks frowns at them, and then at the bush. She is the expert here, so Knuckles waits to see what she thinks. She studies it carefully, tilting her head to the left, and then to the right. Slowly, she reaches forwards, grasps the stem, and with one swift move, yanks it up.
Bush now in hand, she tilts it left, then right, then left again. “Huh,” she says, “I guess it’s not a bush monster after all. They usually scream when you rip them up.”
Knuckles breathes in and it feels like the weight of the world has fallen away. Almost before he realizes it, he’s standing, scooping Sticks up by her armpits and spinning her in the air. “He’s alive! He’s still alive!!!”
Sticks hisses and thwacks him with the bush.
“… uh, hey guys. What did I just walk in on?” Sonic asks.
Amy answers, “Sticks managed to convince Knuckles that Tails had been eaten by a bush. He was pretty upset.”
“A bush, huh? Nah, Tails is way too tough to be taken down by a bush.”
“Oh, yeah? If he’s so tough , then why did you— ack !”
The earth under them lurches, and on instinct Knuckles drops to a knee, shifting Sticks closer to his torso with one hand while scooping up Amy and Sonic with the other. The initial lurch— past them now, and then the impact, those are the parts of a falling island you want to worry about. The land will take most of the damage, and they’re above sand— which, while not ideal, is better than rock or a city. Water would be ideal. They’re nowhere close enough to water for that thought to count. Bracing for impact is the best course of action, and it’s the least Knuckles can do to hold on and make sure everyone’s ready.
The drop isn’t as far as he’s used to. Impact comes soon— sooner than he thinks it should, and it’s much gentler than it should be.
“Woah,” says Sonic, slightly muffled, “what was that?”
“Tails musta found the emerald,” Sticks answers, writhing her way free, “good thing he put it back before the island fell.”
Amy pushes up against Knuckles, physically removing him. “Wait, how do you know that?”
“The island fell. And then stopped falling.”
“Yeah,” Knuckles joins, “That’s what islands do when they have emeralds on them.”
Both Amy and Sonic give him weird looks as they stand. Not his fault they don’t know how to handle falling islands.
“Okay, putting that aside for now,” says Sonic, “how did Tails get to the emerald in the first place? He said it was behind the door— it’s not like he had the key.”
Correct! Knuckles has the key.
“Maybe they have a back up key,” Sticks suggests, narrowing her eyes at Knuckles, “That one of us can find.”
Amy looks at Sticks funny— “Wait, why a back up key? What about the first key?”
This is his chance! “I have the first key,” Knuckles says, feeling pride swell in his chest.
“You what,” Sonic and Amy say in unison. Sonic continues— “Since when? Knuckles, if you picked that up without telling me,”
He trails off. Knuckles waits a moment for him to finish his sentence, but he doesn’t. So, “I did tell you! I told both of you, you were just too busy talking to answer me.”
“Knuckles,” Amy says, stepping forwards, “ where did you find the key?”
Oh, he knows that one! “In the door!”
.•.•.•.
Knuckles isn’t totally sure why they’re going back to the main room when he’s already checked it for Tails. Maybe they think he’s behind the door? But that doesn’t make any sense, since Knuckles is the one with the key. Amy is very clever, though, so maybe she.. thinks they should get the emerald first? Trying to think about this is making his head hurt.
He pulls the key out as they come up on the door, feeling it rumble slightly in his hand.
Oh, wait a second! If Tails— Tails, if he— no, that thought is too slippery to hold on to.
He slides the key into the lock, and gives it a gentle twist. It stops buzzing as soon as it’s home, and the door pulses softly with light before sliding open.
Sonic is already inside, Amy just a step behind him. Sticks, clinging to his shoulders, pushes against him like she’s urging him forwards, and Knuckles follows them into the dark.
.•.•.•.
Okay, so. On Tails’s list of bright ideas? This one probably belonged near the bottom. He had been ready to slip his night vision goggles back on, but— it was like there was a curtain of darkness over the door, and as soon as he was through everything was lit like daylight.
Which was weird. Because Tails didn’t think you could get much further from the term ‘daylight’ than this.
‘Infinite’, maybe, infinite fit, even if he didn’t like that word very much.
Blue also fit. Everything was very… blue. The floor? Blue. The ceiling? Also blue. The walls? Well, there weren’t any. Even as he turned around and looked behind him, the door he had come through was gone.
So, like he thought. Probably a bad idea.
He was dedicated now, though, no turning back. Even if his ears were pressing flat against his head.
He just needs to get the emerald, and then he can leave. As a precaution, before he moves anywhere at all, he produces a piece of chalk— it’s mostly worn down to a nub already, and he’s pretty sure it’s the only one he has on him, having absentmindedly stashed it weeks ago, the last time they were at camp— and marks a circle on the floor. He almost leaves it at that, but… he did leave the key in the door. Just in case, if the others do figure it out and follow him… he checks the Electric, and which direction it points, and then hastily scrawls an arrow pointing the same general way. There. That should do it.
Discarding the chalk, he double checks the Electric, and starts walking.
How much farther is it? The Electric won’t tell him, no matter how much he pokes and prods.
The clock function is missing. He didn’t realize until he thought to check the time— but the clock is missing. Maybe he should have brought a watch? If he did, would it have worked normally, or would the face be blank? Or would it have just… refused to tick?
There’s absolutely something messing with his Electric. He would be worried, but— aside from the missing clock, it’s not deleting anything. The emerald is still an ever present beacon.
He looks back down at the screen after squinting into the void for a while— the emerald locator has been closed, and his hastily cobbled together translator is open. He waits for a while before pulling his locator back up, but nothing changes.
Ugh, maybe he should have let the others know what he was doing. Sonic, at least, would have made progress faster.
It’s not messing with his Electric anymore.
He’s just starting to consider taking a break when he finally spots it— a distant spark, bright white where previously there was nothing. He pushes himself back into motion, tiredness melting away as he gets closer and closer— that’s it! Sat on a sort of plinth, glowing softly, that’s the emerald. It’s a white one, this time, shape longer and narrower than any of the others have been.
Eager, he reaches out to take it. His fingers brush it’s craggy surface, grip just starting to tighten as he lifts it, and
.•.•.•.
Sonic is starting to feel— something.
Not worry. Decidedly not worry, he thinks, absolutely anything other than worry.
Impatience. Yeah— yeah, that’s it, he’s feeling impatient. More than he was before. When they were looking for the key. Or when Knuckles revealed he had the key since Chaos knows when— maybe that was more irritation, actually.
But yeah, impatience, that’s what he was feeling.
He had never really stopped being aware of it. Everyone else moved so slow . It took a week of travel what he could do in a day. It took hours of walking what he could do in a minute.
Usually, it didn’t matter. Usually there was a common goal in mind, and he could speed off as he needed to.
And, sure, there is a common goal in mind here, yeah, which is, at current, follow the arrow inside the chalk circle and yell at Tails for being reckless once they find him, but.
Progress is so slow .
He could totally be there already. He doesn’t even fully know why he isn’t there already— probably because he isn’t that worried, really.
Tails can handle himself.
Tails better be able to handle himself.
“ Sonic ,” says Amy, disapprovingly, and Sonic realizes he’s been walking faster than the rest of them, and slows back to a crawl.
And there’s that, yeah. Amy’s really been on edge around him lately— three guesses why, he’s not totally oblivious. Him and Tails are fine, though, they’re getting along fine.
Amy also has all the other emeralds right now, and for reasons he’s struggling to put his finger on they seem important. Plus Eggman is after them, and Eggman is his problem. And that Shadow guy— what was up with him, anyway. Not that he was much of a problem. Made himself scarce after turning over the red emerald.
Seemed— freaked out, maybe? After hearing about Em— or Maria, as he put it. Well, she hadn’t reached out to them since, which was probably a good thing. Meant she had nothing to reach out about, right?
“ Slow down ,” Sticks gasps, and Sonic realizes he’s sped back up. Whew, Sticks is looking rough. So are Knuckles and Amy, actually— it kind of looks like maybe Sticks was the only one with breath left to call out to him.
It’s not like he was going that fast.
Obligingly, he slows down, and, after a moment’s consideration, stops entirely. All three of them follow suit, heaving for air.
“Okay,” Amy says, between gasps, “What is up with you.”
What is she talking about. Nothing is up with him. “Nothing’s up with me.”
“I called out for you to slow down— who knows how many times, and—“
“Twice!” Knuckles says, holding out two fingers and looking extremely proud of himself.
“Okay.” Amy swallows heavily, takes another deep breath, and then straightens up, one hand pressed to her chest. “Okay, I called out to you twice, and you didn’t respond at all.”
“I slowed down the first time!”
“Twice after that.”
Sonic scoffs, failing to come up with a response to that. Amy, thankfully, doesn’t seem to need one, just rolling her eyes before she continues speaking.
“Alright, Knuckles, hold on to Sonic. Make sure he doesn’t take off again.”
“Wait—“ he says, but it’s already too late, Knuckles has him by the hand. He gives the big guy an irritated look, and attempts to pull his hand free, to no avail. Knuckles, for his part, gives Sonic a big smile that has the slightest hint of mocking to it.
“Good, thank you,” Amy says, “and now, if everyone has caught their breath, we’ll continue at a normal pace.”
This might as well be torture.
Seven eternities later, step after dragging step, Stick finally spots something, a distant white light. Apparently that’s all it takes for Knuckles to finally let go of him, because barely an instant later he’s there, looking at the white emerald laying on the plinth.
Emerald’s here. Where’s Tails?
On a hunch, he moves around to the other side of the plinth, and sure enough, there he is— sprawled out and dead asleep.
No, hang on, that’s not quite right. Why would Tails choose here of all spots for an impromptu nap? Unless he decided to wait for them, but then why move to the other side? Tails was reckless enough to come here on his own, but not reckless enough to sleep unguarded in a strange environment or risk getting himself disoriented and lost. Something’s wrong here.
He squats down to give Tails’ shoulder a shake, but he doesn’t react at all. He’s still got the Electric, and a trail of drool is starting to carve its way through his fur, so Sonic isn’t too concerned, but still… it’s weird. He gives him another, firmer shake, but still no reaction.
Hm.
He stands back up, and takes a look at the emerald, then around. Aside from the rest of the group approaching, there’s nothing around, ergo, nothing that could have knocked Tails out.
Maybe he should try picking the emerald up? Just for a second, to see if the island really does start to fall. What would Tails call it? Testing a hypothesis? Yeah, that sounds good.
He reaches out, lifts the emerald.
Nothing changes.
Except— something does. But there’s nothing there— nothing, as in, a total lack of presence. It’s not that there’s suddenly more nothing, or less nothing. It’s that Sonic, hand wrapped around the crystalline surface of the emerald, is suddenly much more aware of just how much nothing there is.
Like an electric shock, he jerks his hand back.
Nothing changes, and nothing attacks him or Tails. There’s nothing there .
Tails grumbles something, and shifts a bit like he’s starting to wake up. Sticks reaches them first, Amy just behind her, and Knuckles a couple seconds after that, and still, Sonic watches the emerald.
As ever, nothing changes.
Notes:
Not… totally sure on the ending on this one. But I’m very tired and I want to get this chapter out. I might come back and change it later? But for now it’s fine as is. Acceptable.
Chapter 14: Legato
Summary:
Legato is a musical term referring to when notes are played smoothly, and without articulation between sounds.
Notes:
I lived
Anyway second go at uploading this chapter because ao3 died on me the first time. If this uploads twice please let me know as I am liable to not notice
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
He feels the first stirrings of consciousness paired with the sound of an argument. A loud one. Familiar voices, which he holds onto like a lifeline to draw himself out of the dark.
“I’m just saying,” one of the voices, pink, Amy, says, “we can’t leave this here!”
“We can’t take it!” A raspy voice rejoins, brown, Sticks. “It’s keepin’ the whole island up!”
“Yeah!” Red, Knuckles, “it’s, uh… TWO times as important that it stays!”
“Since when have either of you known anything about weird mystical floating islands?” That’s Sonic. What are they even— oh. Right. He had— he was, oh, if they’re here, then— he’s in so much trouble.
Better to face the music, though. His eyes feel a little crusty, so he rubs them open, unable to resist a yawn as he does so. The movement must catch everyone’s attention, because the argument stops dead in its tracks.
“Tails!” Amy says, and he finds her kneeling next to him, “oh, thank goodness, you’re awake! We figured you’d wake up eventually, but I was still worried!”
“I wasn’t,” Sonic inputs, dry, from over Amy’s shoulder. He’s hanging back, not even looking at Tails, and his comment earns him an angry glare from Amy and twin confused ones from Knuckles and Sticks.
Amy turns that angry look on him next. “What were you thinking! You can’t just go after an emerald on your own, we were all worried!”
Sonic opens and closes his mouth, seemingly thinking better of making another smart ass comment. Tails drags his attention back to Amy, finding genuine distress tucked under the raw edges of her anger.
“I’m sorry,” he says, mostly meaning it, “I just wanted to be helpful.”
It isn’t untrue, really, but it’s more peripheral to what his actual goal had been— proving to Sonic he could handle himself. Having thoroughly failed that, though… he didn’t want it brought up at all as a possibility. And the quickest way to shut down Amy’s line of questioning was to poke at her emotions.
Sure enough, her face does a funny little thing that really makes him feel terrible, and then she’s helping haul him to his feet.
“Just… don’t make a habit of it, okay?”
He doesn’t plan to.
“Well, now that you’re awake,” Sonic says, clearly unable to restrain himself, “maybe you can help point out to these two that we kinda need to take the emerald.” He jabs a thumb at Knuckles and Sticks, who are standing closer to the emerald podium than anyone else. Sticks has her arms and legs wrapped around it, and when Tails looks at her, she hisses.
“You can’t take it! The island will fall again!”
Again? That was right, wasn’t it— he had tried to take the emerald, and… nothing had happened. He just… hadn’t taken it. Why hadn’t he…? He shakes his head, clearing out the train of thought.
“We need to take the emerald, guys. Eggman’s looking for them too, remember?”
“I’ll bite him,” Sticks promises.
“That’s a good point, Tails,” Sonic says— uncharitably, Tails wants to say something quite rude about it being a very easy point to make, likely paired with an insinuation that anyone with half a brain could put that together. He doesn’t, but the hot flash of irritation remains.
“We can’t really afford to split up,” Tails says, “As long as we keep the emeralds with us, and we keep on the move, they should be safe. It isn’t safe here.” Sticks hisses at him, but he doesn’t back down. “Could we maybe… take the emerald, but gently?”
Sticks stops hissing, and Tails knows he’s won.
There’s still some back and forth, but no one can come up with a good counter to the argument he’s provided.
“Fine then,” Sticks eventually spits, which cinches the deal, “who’s gonna take it?”
“Ooh!” Says Knuckles, “I will! I’m great at flying islands!”
Before anyone can ask what, exactly, he means by that, he’s already reached out to grab it and woah— there’s that… that nothing again. Judging by how everyone staggers, they feel it too.
Well, everyone except Knuckles, who has his eyes sealed shut and a look of immense concentration seared across his muzzle. The emerald shines white hot in his hand, there’s a low rumble, and then the distinct feeling of riding an elevator. They’re moving down.
“This is weird,” Sonic says, craning his head around like he’s looking for the source.
“It’s all elevators,” Sticks hisses, crouched low on all fours.
Tails is personally wondering about how Knuckles knows what he’s doing, but he’s not going to voice that aloud.
After an indeterminate amount of time, Knuckles pops his eyes open, grinning. “Done!” And he lifts the emerald from the podium.
No sooner than is that done than the Nothing reaches a peak, and they’re ushered out. It’s bizarre to be pushed along by nothing, and quite discomforting, but in no time at all they’re back in the room they started the hunt for the key in, though it looks significantly more damaged than it was when Tails left.
Sticks lunges onto Knuckles’ shoulders as soon as she realizes where they are.
Amy takes the emerald from Knuckles, and stores it with the others in her hammer, which goes into hammerspace as soon as she’s done.
The walk back to the Tornado is quiet. Sticks is still pissed that they had to lower the island, Knuckles is pleased with himself that it worked, and Tails doesn’t even want to bother thinking of what Sonic might be feeling.
Tails inputs the coordinates for the closest emerald, and they leave.
Behind them, a Guardian of the Garden that has long gone to ruin— and longer been forgotten— sighs with relief as its ancient shackles are broken.
Notes:
Not super pleased with this chapter, but by god I needed to get it done so I could Move On. Next one should be more fun :)
Chapter 15: Flat
Summary:
A flat is a tonal half-step below a natural note in pitch.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Several days of quiet travel see them to Chun-nan, which is somewhere Tails always meant to visit but never found the time to. While everyone else clambers off of and out of the plane, doing various stretches after a period of relative inactivity, Tails keeps prodding at his Electric. He can pinpoint the locations of the emeralds they already have, but the one they’re looking for is… odd. Instead of giving him a concrete location, it instead gives him a radius, which means a couple days of searching.
Unless Sonic decides to run off and do it all on his own again.
Amy pulls him out of that bitter line of thought before it can go any deeper, grabbing the Electric out of his hands. “I said, we’re going to go get food. Come with us?”
It’s phrased as a question, but Tails recognizes it for what it actually is; a demand. Fresh food does sound good, anyway.
Tails gives the Tornado a quick once-over, and, satisfied with his findings, joins the group.
“Finally,” Sonic groans, “thought I was gonna starve to death waiting.”
Tails doesn’t dignify that with a response.
They find a food stall swiftly enough by following the smell, and it’s not long after that that they’re seated around a table and eating. It’s really good, if a little spicy for Tails’ taste. They’re about halfway through the meal when a hand slams down on the table and a boisterous voice goes “well I never thought I’d run into you all at the same time!”
Tails follows the hand up a scaly, green arm, and finds himself looking at an unfamiliar dragon. She’s primarily green in colour, with two little yellow horns, and a frill of pink that starts around her forehead and trails down the back of her neck, vanishing under a purple tunic. The pink is picked up again on the underside of her wings, which are half-unfolded and make her look much bigger than she actually is.
“Hi-“
“Hey-“
“Long time no see,-“
“Dulcy!”
Amy, Knuckles, and Sonic all say at once, before pausing to look at each other.
“You know Dulcy?” Amy asks.
“I know Dulcy?” Knuckles… answers?
Dulcy grins wide, showing off a collection of sharp, ivory fangs. “Sure do! Nǐ hăo, everyone. What brings you to my little corner of the world?”
“We’re looking for emeralds,” Tails says, surprising himself. Dulcy turns her attention to him, and a distant, quiet part of him wonders if he could have been friends with Dulcy too.
“Emeralds? Any specific kinds, or are you treasure hunting?”
“ Chaos emeralds,” Sticks says, poking out from under the table. If Dulcy thinks it’s odd to have someone join the conversation in this fashion, she doesn’t let it show.
“I don’t understand…?”
“It’s more that they have unique formations, and they give off a special type of energy,” Tails says, “I’ve been using that to track them. But the one in this area won’t give me a precise location.”
“Huh,” Dulcy says, “you know, I might know just the place to check. Haven’t been there in a little while, though, so no promises.”
“Really?” Amy says, hands folded under her chin, “any lead would be amazing! You’re the best, Dulcy.”
“Can we go now?” Sonic asks, already jogging in place. Tails hadn’t even seen him stand up from the table, but that’s nothing new.
“No, no, finish eating first. I love this place, their food is the best.”
“Ughh,” Sonic huffs, sinking back into his seat. Tails chews his next bite purposefully slowly.
“So, how did you all meet?” Dulcy asks, “or have you known each other for a while?”
“Oh, we go back ages,” says Knuckles.
“About two months,” Amy corrects. Tails thinks her estimate is a little generous, but don’t correct her.
“It’s a long story,” Sonic says.
“It really isn’t, though,” Tails says. “Amy and I ran into Sonic outside some old ruins, he woke up a snake named Lyric. Amy kicked his butt, he kicked our butts, we met up with Knuckles and managed to get an emerald off of Lyric, and we’ve been looking for the rest since… and we kind of… picked up Sticks along the way.”
“I’m here voluntarily,” Sticks says, writhing her way out from under the table to claim a dumpling from Amy’s plate.
Their table tries to fall back into the awkward quiet that’s been following them since the Nothing, and everything that surrounded that incident, but Dulcy doesn’t let it. She asks questions, laughs, jokes, and eventually manages to pull the life back into their group, though Tails can’t quite shake the feeling that things have just been shoved under the rug to be dealt with later.
It’s hard to say how much time has passed when they’re finally done eating, and ready to head out, but the sun has lowered in the sky a fair bit.
Dulcy leads them along a twisting path, a fair ways out of town, all the while telling them about this old temple that she had noticed a while back while flying past. She never went inside, but there were emerald-looking reliefs on the exterior, she recalls, so it’s a good a place to start as any. By the time they arrive, the sun is just beginning to set, and Tails is wondering if he should have tried to park the Tornado closer.
“Is it weird that I feel like something bad is about to happen?” Sonic asks.
About two seconds later, a villainous laugh rings out over the courtyard they’ve just stepped into, and a mech rises into view.
It’s made primarily out of dark purples and reds, long, thin strips of metal mimicking feathers making up the bulk of the mech’s exterior. In body, it’s round, with a long, thin neck, delicate head, and two bird legs. It also has two wings, which are raised in a display of threat, and there are two bulbous pods at the base of each wing; Eggman is in one, and Lyric is in the other.
“… You know, something is oddly familiar about this, but I can’t put my finger on what,” Sonic says.
“Sonic!” Eggman booms, talking clean over him. “What a surprise to see you here! Not!”
“We’re here to take your emeralds, hedgehog,” Lyric says.
“… that didn’t feel super villainous enough. Howsabout ‘We’ll be taking the emeralds now!’ instead?”
“Would you cease with your inane prattling? I grow tired of hearing it.”
“Not that this isn’t entertaining,” Sonic cuts in, “but I have places to be, emeralds to collect. If you wouldn’t mind…?”
“I would mind!” Eggman snaps, and the mech rears it’s head back, opening it’s beak to fire a glowing white blast that has them scatter. “Yes! Eggbird!” Eggman shouts, and then the fight is on.
Dulcy immediately reveals that she can breathe fire, a neat little thing that she puts to work melting the Eggbird.
Knuckles, for his part, uses one of the walls in the area to jump onto Eggbird’s neck, pulling loose fistfuls of sheet metal even as it cuts at his hands. Sonic is, as ever, a blur on the battlefield, but without fail the Lyric-controlled wing bats away his every try at a spindash. Amy manages to get in close to the feet, and hits one of them hard enough that one of the toes comes clean off.
Sticks throws a boomerang hard enough that it cracks the glass on Lyric’s side of the mech, wedging in and obscuring his vision, at least a little.
Not enough that he doesn’t see her, though.
“You!” He hisses, and the Eggbird lunges forwards, even as Eggman scrambles.
“What are you doing, we need to go up!”
Lyric ignores him. The left wing, the one Lyric controls, shoots out and slams into the ground, razor feathers eating into the earth. The whole thing vibrates a second later, the sound of Sonic bouncing off of it ringing out, but no one is paying attention to that.
“Sticks!” Amy shouts, loud enough to tear at her throat.
Because, in the same motion, the head of the Eggbird had struck towards Sticks, who couldn’t move out of the way quickly enough.
An earth-shaking thud, as the Eggbird’s razor beak sinks into the earth.
Despite the fact the Eggbird is clearly vulnerable, no one moves. Silence.
A low laugh.
“Finally,” Lyric says, “one irritating pest out of my scales.”
“You just tried to murder her,” Eggman says.
“Tried? I succeeded. Which one next? The fox, maybe?”
“That’s not— I don’t kill people, what’s the point in that! I can’t enjoy Eggman Land with blood on my hands!”
“If that’s how you think, then you’re weaker than I thought.”
There’s a low hiss, and a crack, and the rest of the dome that had been protecting Lyric crumbles. In the same movement, Lyric swats something out of the air and pulls himself out of the cockpit, disgust written all over his serpentine face. The thing resolves into Sonic, who catches himself by skidding across the ground. He looks furious. Tails mostly feels disconnected. Sticks— she can’t be, gone , can she?
“It seems the next pest I’ll be ridding myself of is you, Doctor. Good luck dealing with the hedgehog on your own.” Lyric reaches up to fiddle with something on the round bauble of his chest piece, and then he’s gone.
“Wow,” says Eggman, “that guy was terrible by my standards, which are notoriously low!”
The Eggbird yanks its beak free, straights back into a neutral, standing position, though the wings are still spread.
“Anyway,” Eggman says, “here,” and the Eggbird opens its mouth again. This time, instead of an attack, what tumbles out is distinctly more Sticks-shaped. Knuckles sacrifices his advantageous position on the bird’s neck to catch her, but she barely tolerates that— Sticks is a hissing, spitting ball of fury and dirt.
“@$&=*%!” She screeches, which is not a noise Tails thought the voice box could produce. “$&*+%!! You +%=#!”
“Oh thank Chaos,” Amy says, “she’s okay.”
“Yes, and you have me to thank for that,” Eggman says. “I’ll take my payment in emeralds, emeralds, or emeralds.”
“How about in a butt-kicking instead?” Sonic asks.
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
Without Lyric to control his half of the mech, or predict where Sonic is going to be, the fight is pitifully easy. Eggman retreats to lick his wounded pride, and the rest of them circle up around Sticks, who has a couple gashed and bruises, but who seems to have come out of the whole experience remarkably intact.
“I’m gonna tie that snake in a knot with my bare hands,” Sticks says, vibrating angrily as Amy washes dirt out of one of the scrapes on her arms. “I’m gonna turn him into a pretzel.”
“Did you know him?” Amy asks, “he seemed to know you.”
It’s the wrong thing to say. Sticks clams up immediately, eyes wide and wild like she thinks’s she’s being watched. Her expression is still mostly fury.
“Quite a guy you managed to make enemies with this time, Sonic,” Dulcy says, breaking the awkward tension again. “I need to get back to check in with my group, but if you need anything just swing by, yeah?”
“Tell them hi for me,” is Amy’s distracted input.
Dulcy bids her farewells, and takes off. Amy finishes bandaging Sticks. Tails pokes around on his Electric, mostly trying to avoid thinking of what just happened, and Knuckles and Sonic poke around in the dirt where Sticks almost died.
Just after Amy releases Sticks, Knuckles approaches her, cradling something in his hands like an injured baby bird. He holds it out, and Tails gets a look in the second before Sticks snatches it up.
It’s one of her charms, the Wave one. It is no longer holding together, the crack down the middle has progressed into a full split. Poor Wave has been cleaved in twain.
Better, Tails thinks, the charm than Sticks, but she doesn’t seem to share that opinion.
The noise she emits is best described as a howl. Really soul wrenching stuff. Tails would feel worse for her if he didn’t just watch her almost die.
“Hey, I got the doors of the temple open!” Sonic shouts over, when Sticks’s wail loses its volume.
“We can glue it back together,” Amy offers, as Tails hurries over to Sonic. At the minimum, Sonic does wait until everyone is gathered to push the doors open more than the crack he had them at, even though he has his arms folded and foot tapping the whole time.
Tails braces himself for the inevitable gauntlet. Every emerald up to this point has had some ordeal attached to it, and he’s not sure that Eggman counts.
The temple floods with light as the doors open, braziers flooding with fire as the open air hits them. It’s a path, a set of stairs, and then the emerald. This one is purple in colour.
“Wow, this is suspiciously easy,” Sonic says.
“It’s probably trapped,” Amy says.
“What?” Sonic shouts back, from where he’s already picking up the emerald.
Tails braces himself for just about anything. The temple could explode, or sink into the earth, or send a giant boulder rolling after them. There could be spike traps, poison, acid, fire, gas, something.
Nothing happens.
Sonic strolls back down the hall, whistling and tossing the emerald in one hand, because he’s obnoxious. Tails grabs it off of him and starts scanning when he’s close enough, and yup, it’s the real deal.
That was… bizarrely easy. Discounting the whole Eggman-Lyric encounter.
Well, Tails isn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. They’re another step closer to collecting all the emeralds! Just two left. Hopefully, they’ll be as easy as this one.
Again, discounting the Eggman thing.
Notes:
uh oh the bad guy besties have split! Surely there will be no serious repercussions to this.
I was unbelievably tempted to end this chapter on Sticks’s near death as a cliffhanger, but just couldn’t make it work. Someday I’ll make one of those work…
Dulcy was meant to have a much smaller role— she isn’t even in the rough outline for this entire fic, but she introduced herself and then refused to go away. Hope I did alright writing her. For some reason I kept wanting to give her an Australian accent, every time I wrote on of her lines I could only hear it in a thick Aussie accent. I don’t know why this happened.
I wrote a good chunk of this chapter A) at like 4 in the morning and B) with one of my kittens going to sleep on my face, so please either disregard or let me know about any spelling or grammatical errors haha. I can barely see this note past his ear
Chapter 16: Pianissimo
Summary:
Pianissimo is a term telling musicians to play a piece very softly— or, as the case may be, quieter.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Emerald in hand, there’s not much point to sticking around. Dulcy had pointed out plenty of landmarks on their way up, so heading back is just a matter of stringing them together again, though in reverse. Sonic volunteers twice to run ahead, feeling a little unsettled from the events of the evening, and both times Amy makes it quite clear that he’ll be staying with the group.
Tails is walking with his nose buried in his Electric, and Knuckles is carrying Sticks in a piggyback as she mourns her charm. Amy is leading the charge, and Sonic isn’t really in the mood to talk to her, so he doesn’t.
“Huh,” Tails says, about halfway back down. “The emerald we just collected— its energy is concentrated in one place now. That temple must have been doing something.”
“Or it could have been Eggman,” Sonic says. Despite his reasonable input, both Amy and Tails turn back to look in the direction of the temple with something hungry in their eyes.
Luckily for Sonic’s continued sanity, that also puts Knuckles and Sticks back into their line of view, and clearly the sight of the distraught badger puts a halt on their dreams of hours of boring looking at rocks.
“Yeah, maybe,” Tails says, and the hint of excitement in his voice is gone.
“We can always come back later,” says Amy. “Maybe after we’ve collected all the emeralds! Who knows what seven of them might do in there.”
Tails hums a noncommittal answer, and they press ahead.
On the outskirts of Chun-nan, they find an anxious Dulcy pacing back and forth. She brights visibly upon seeing them, “oh, good, you guys made it back! Hey, it’s late, why don’t you stay with the Shijin Warriors for tonight?”
“We’d love to!” Amy responds, bouncing over to grab one of Dulcy’s hands with both of hers. “I’ve been meaning to properly catch up with you guys for ages! How has Cinder been? Did Jian finally figure out how to go to bed at a reasonable time? Is Bunker willing to let me see her family’s artifacts?”
“Good, no, and maybe? I haven’t asked.”
Dulcy turns, though she keeps a hand linked with Amy’s, and begins leading the way back to her house. Sonic doesn’t bother paying much attention to what they’re saying, too busy enjoying Chun-nan. It’s been a good long while since he’s actually been able to swing around this chunk of the globe, and it’s always refreshing. Earlier, there had been the looming problem of the emerald, but now he’s much more at ease.
There is something a little off, actually, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. It could be the time of day, though night usually doesn’t bother him… but it feels like something else.
He doesn’t get time to narrow it down before they’re arrived at Dulcy’s, a cozy place barely big enough for the group already living in it. Jian is sitting on the porch, sipping at a cup of tea, and while she seemingly has nothing to say to them she does wave.
Stepping inside, the house is quiet, and dimly lit. Cinder and Bunker must be asleep, then, so Sonic makes a mental note to keep quiet.
“Oh!” Amy says, in a stage whisper, “do you have any tape? Or glue?”
“Uh,” says Dulcy, but before she can get any further Sticks is in front of her, holding up the broken charm like an offering. “Oh. Yeah, I should have something. Wait here,” and she sweeps out of the room.
“Why would she get something if we need glue?” Knuckles asks, at a regular volume.
Amy shushes him, and then pauses, listening. When it seems like no one woke up, she relaxes.
“By something, she means glue, Knuckles.”
“Ohhh.”
Standing at roughly the back of the group, Sonic notices Stick’s fur puffing up before anyone else does. Unfortunately, even as speedy as he is, he isn’t quite quick enough to stop her before she screeches “SNAKE!”
He does manage to grab her before she leaps onto the nearest countertop, writhing and snarling, but it’s too little too late. The damage is already done.
Dulcy reappears, clutching a bottle of glue with a baffled expression. Both Bunker and Cinder follow her a moment later, both very clearly drowsy. Cinder does perk up upon seeing Amy, flinging around Dulcy in order to wrap Amy up in a hug.
Dulcy flicks the lights on, seeing as everyone is up, and the dim room comes into focus as Sonic realizes exactly what it was that has Sticks so wound up; there is a lot of snake themed decor in this room. The room in question is a combined kitchen/living/dining room/entryway, with a door in the back that clearly leads to the bedrooms, if how everyone came out of it is any indication, and just about every visible surface has some sort of snake themed decor. Carved into the countertops. Embroidered on the pillows. Little snake salt and pepper shakers. The tap looks like a snake.
Sonic, arms still full of Sticks, turns to make a joke at Dulcy about the sheer amount of snake happening in this room, something to do with secretly being a fan of Lyric despite their earlier encounter, and pauses. He hadn’t really noticed before, but there are snakes embroidered along her collar. Cinder has snakes lining the edges of her skirt. The ceremonial tattoos on Bunker look like snakes.
And, thinking back on it, just about every landmark Dulcy had pointed out had snakes on it, didn’t it? That, or it was a straight up snake statue. And the temple, too, had been practically coated in snakes.
The takeout containers they had eaten lunch out of had snakes on them.
He just hadn’t thought much of it.
Was Chun-nan always this snake obsessed? He had thought they were significantly more interested in dragons, phoenixes, that sort of thing.
Sonic hands Sticks off to Knuckles, joke lost to thought. Maybe he just overlooked them?
The front door opens behind them, and Jian steps inside. She weaves through both groups, beelining for the kettle. Before she pours, she pauses, and turns to look at Sonic, a question on her face.
So, that’s how he ends up sitting on their deck at some point past midnight, sipping at a mug of tea. He’s only ever done this once or twice before, on rare nights where Jian’s sleeplessness would raise its head at the same time he was in the area. Jian is nice, if quiet company, but if Sonic is being fully honest he doesn’t mind the quiet. It’s nice to slow down and smell the roses, every once in a while.
Even if he could have done without the tea. The warmth is nice against the cool night air, but he would have been happier drinking just about anything else. The house periodically pulses with chaos behind them— mostly Sticks, but he can hear a lot of yelling from Bunker, Knuckles, and probably Dulcy mixed in there too.
“Lively group you’ve got,” Jian says eventually.
“You don’t know the half of it,” Sonic says. Jian chuckles, but doesn’t enquire further.
They finish their tea, and by then, it’s quieted down inside. The lights are off again, but Amy and Dulcy are still up, conversing in muted tones on the couch. Jian takes his mug from him before he can even think of washing it, so with a shrug he heads towards the guest bedroom. As predicted, it’s already full, and it looks like they’re settled on the sleeping arrangements they used in that inn. Tails is curled up on his half of the bed, face illuminated by his Electric.
“Where we headed to next?” Sonic asks, not entirely sure what prompts him.
“Umm…” Tails blinks, looks up at him, and rubs his eyes. “Soleanna. Not too far, about, two days flying?”
“Soleanna, huh?” Sonic frowns, the name is familiar, but he can’t… ouch . It feels like someone clapped his head between a pair of cymbals. “Always meant to visit.”
If Tails has a response to that, he doesn’t share. Or maybe he does, and Sonic completely misses it because he’s more focused on the crackle of pain that’s taken up residence in his skull.
He shuffles over to the window, and leans back agains the sill. The cool night air that drifts in is soothing against his suddenly raging head, so he leans into it.
Soleanna. Has he been there before? He thinks— maybe? Trying to focus on this is just making his head hurt more.
He doesn’t get much sleep that night. By morning, his headache has faded, and he chases the remnants of it off with a brisk morning jog. And wow, there is more snake iconography in Chun-nan than he thought possible. He wishes he had noticed yesterday, because this is some prime mocking material for Lyric. Maybe he’ll bring it up next time, if it doesn’t feel stale by then.
Swinging back to town, he finds the Tornado in the process of taking off. It’s only some quick thinking, a convenient roof, and a whole lotta speed that lets him hop aboard before they’re too high up for him to catch.
“Pushing it a little on that one, buddy!” He shouts back towards Tails, but if there’s a reply, he doesn’t hear it.
At least, he doesn’t hear it until two hours later, when Tails brings them down because there are storm clouds brewing up ahead.
It turns out there have also been storm clouds brewing on the Tornado, which is to say; as soon as the propeller has slowed enough to not be incredibly noisy, Amy is yelling.
“I thought you said he went ahead!”
“I thought he did. I said where we were going,” Tails says, studiously avoiding eye contact.
Sonic opens his mouth to add to the conversation with a cheeky remark or two, but Tails’s response reminds him of their next destination, and no sooner than he thinks oh yeah, Soleanna than does the headache return with a vengeance.
“I could’ve caught up,” is what he ends up saying, probably. If there’s a response he doesn’t catch it.
It feels a bit like someone has filled his brain with glass and shook. Every step he takes sends pain shooting from his temples down his jaw, and in the few steps it takes him to go from the side of the Tornado to an inviting looking tree, he’s nauseous with it too. Closing his eyes helps a little. Curling up helps a bit more, blocking out more light and sound.
An invariable amount of time later, a hand shakes him out of it. The nausea has faded. The pain has lessened, though not gone entirely. Knuckles, he thinks, hands him water, and then they’re riding the Tornado again.
Contrary to any hopes he might harbour, the closer they get to their destination, the worse he feels. Nighttime brings temporary relief, but morning shatters it. He grows snippy and irritable. Neither Knuckles nor Sticks seem affected by his sour mood, but Amy takes up a nasty glare like she was born with it, and Tails stops acknowledging him at all.
Whatever. He’ll knuckle through this, and deal with whatever happens on the other side.
The journey passes in fragments. Amy glaring at him for something he’s said. Sticks mushing a hand against his head, which he swats away. A lot of time spent pressing his forehead to the cool wing of the Tornado.
Sonic truly couldn’t begin to guess how long they spent in transit, so it’s a surprise when he raises his eyes from the paint of the Tornado to see Soleanna itself looming in the distance.
He blinks.
It’s nighttime, the sky painted with plumes of flame as celebratory music heralds the arrival of the princess, the thin gondola spearing through water with ease. Sonic can’t make her out super clearly from his vantage point, but something about her seems sad.
He blinks.
The wing of the Tornado paints a hazy horizon line. Someone is calling his name with some amount of concern. He smells iron, and raises a hand to swipe at the skin under his nose— it comes away red.
He doesn’t get much more warning than that. He slips into unconsciousness before he realizes it’s happening.
Notes:
sticks screaming SNAKE is the equivalent of someone walking into your house and going COUNTERTOPS. Like. Yes? Correct.
Anyway, onto Soleanna, huh? Well, I’m sure nothing significant will happen there. Def don’t tell anyone about your weird headache either, Sonic, I’m sure that won’t have any— oh, it’s having consequences? Darn.
Chapter 17: Accelerando
Summary:
A tempo gradually increasing in speed.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Sonic has been more rude than usual for the past couple days, and Tails, along with everyone else, has had it up to here with the guy. Amy is one snarky comment away from staging a full on intervention of some kind. Knuckles is one snarky comment away from bursting into tears.
Tails, though, is one snarky comment away from spinning the plane until Sonic flies off.
That is, of course, an unserious hypothetical. He’d never be able to shake Sonic before shaking just about everyone else— and even though Amy was strapped down, she would kill him.
It’s somewhere on the way to a joke, even. A little spark of humour as he imagines the look on Sonic’s face as he gets flung into oblivion.
When Sonic lets go of the Tornado, it isn’t funny at all.
He’d probably survive the fall in any case, but Tails can’t help that it makes him feel better that he was already bringing the Tornado down, and that Knuckles flings himself after Sonic and manages to pull off a mid-air catch.
Amy unbuckles herself before the Tornado is at a full stop, swinging over the side and jogging to where Knuckles is cradling Sonic in his arms. Sure, Sonic has been a massive jerk for the past couple days, but he’s still their friend . Complicated history with Tails notwithstanding.
“What’s wrong?” She asks, pulling out a bit of cloth to wipe away the blood coming from his nose.
“His face is bleeding!” Knuckles says, sounding distressed.
“It was the rocks,” Sticks says, tone barely above a hiss, “sharp time rocks!” She sounds confident, despite the fact that what she’s saying is completely meaningless.
There doesn’t seem to be a cause. Sonic’s nosebleed peters out after a minute or so, and while he doesn’t wake up, he doesn’t seem to be in any distress. Knuckles refuses to put him down, so they end up carrying him with them into Soleanna.
.•.•.•.
Sonic wakes up to the gentle rhythm of being carried, pries his eyes open to find sharp sunlight on familiar streets.
“He’s awake!” Knuckles’s voice rings out, and then Sonic is being put down. It takes a moment to gather his scattered thoughts, and in that time, the group converges on him.
Whoa, he thinks.
Since when was Knuckles that big?
And Amy doesn’t usually wear that style of dress.
And Tails has goggles, those must do something cool.
But primarily, Tails looks worried, so; “Hey lil’ buddy,” and for some reason saying that makes Tails look like someone punched his heart out, cut right through the core of him— “whoa, what’s wrong?”
And Sticks grabs the sides of his face and shakes him, howling “I GOTTA GET THE ROCKS OUT,” before Sonic manages to bat her off and zip away.
“Whoa, talk about a head rush,” he says, giving his head a shake on his own terms. “Oh, are we in Soleanna? When did that happen?”
“You passed out,” Amy says, tone flat. “We were worried.”
“What? Nah, I’m fine. Raring to go!” As Amy says that, he does recall the weird headache that had plagued him, but whatever! It’s gone now, and what’s in the past stays there. There is some lingering weirdness, but it’s fine.
Really though, Knuckles is like twice the size Sonic thought he was… why did Sonic think that? He’s always been this size.
Except—
Oh, that train of thought hurt to follow. Okay. Not doing that again.
“I’m gonna go say hi to Elise,” Sonic says.
“You’re— Elise— the princess?” Amy manages, tripping over herself. “You know her?”
“Yeah,” Sonic says, “we’re old pals. I helped her out a while back, with… with, uh…” the thought was right there, but it’s slipped away now. “With something.”
“You’re acting really weird,” Tails says.
“What? No I’m not. When did you get goggles?”
“I,” Tails blinks, “I’ve had them the whole time?”
“… yeah, you have. Don’t know why I asked that. Anyway, see you!”
He vanishes in a zip of blue, oblivious to the groups overall reaction.
“That was weird,” Amy says.
“Yeah, even by my standards,” Sticks agrees, which is the truly concerning thing.
Sonic, though, is feeling relatively carefree as he streaks through the streets of Soleanna. He isn’t sure what it was about this place that had him so on edge in the first place, it isn’t like he hasn’t visited before. It’s a gorgeous sunny day, and as he takes a sidetrack to trace along one of the city’s canals, he takes a moment to wonder how long it’s been since he’s seen
si
Elise. A while, for sure. It’ll be good to see her again.
That thought in mind, he turns, boosts up a wall, and claps eyes on the royal castle. It’s a tall building, and there’s a flash of colour against the stone near the top of one of the spires. He narrows his eyes, and can just pick out the colourful form of Elise, waving to him from a balcony.
A second later, she’s stumbling backwards, feathers in a ruffle, as he pops up onto the railing. She looks a lot better than she did when Sonic first met her— happier. Her feathers are a glossy, vibrant orange, as opposed to the washed-out colour they had been before.
Her beak cracks in a smile, “Hello, Sonic.”
“Heya, Elise. Long time no see!”
“Indeed. I get the feeling you aren’t here on a social call, however.”
Is he not? No, he isn’t. There’s something he’s here for. What is he here for?
Elise reaches into her plumage, and produces a gem. It’s a deep, rich blue, contrasting starkly against her feathers, and she gives it a fond look before handing it over.
Sonic takes it, bounces it in his hand. “Hey, thanks!” Easy enough it was almost a little boring.
“You had better get going,” Elise says. “I’d love to chat with you more, of course! But there’s a lot of stuff out there that needs you, Sonic.”
“Yeah, I guess so. I’ll visit again sometime!”
“I’d like that.” Elise smiles, all fields and breezes, and Sonic drops off the railing and into the city below. It doesn’t take him long to find his friends, tossing Amy the emerald.
“Check out what I found,” he says, cheeky.
Amy nearly drops it, fumbling it from hand to hand before she finds her grasp.
“… really?” She asks, once she’s not in danger of dropping it. “Just like that? No fights? No weird flying islands, or thieves, or anything? You just have it?”
Sonic shrugs, “Well, Elise had it.”
“And yet again Sonic handles everything by himself. Great,” Tails says. “Come on. There’s one left.”
“I thought there were two left,” Knuckles says, trying to count on his fingers.
“Yeah, there’s the greenie and the greenie,” Sticks agrees.
“That’s the same colour, Sticks,” Amy says.
“Oh.”
Amy hands the blue emerald to Tails, and then prods Sonic pointedly in the chest. “And don’t you go thinking you’re off the hook! Just because you’re in a weirdly good mood right now doesn’t mean you’re forgiven for how you were acting earlier!”
“Hm?” Sonic casts his mind back, and several memories of him saying, well, to put it gently, unkind things surface. He sucks in a breath between his teeth. “Eesh. No, you’re right. I’m sorry about that, guys— I had a killer headache, but that doesn’t excuse the way I was acting.”
Sticks leans over to Amy, “I think he’s been replaced.”
“Shockingly, I’m not sure I disagree.”
“Yeah, this is weird,” Tails says, having finished checking that the emerald is the real deal. It must be, because he’s tucked it away with the Electric. “Next thing you know, he’s gonna do something totally out of character, like, I dunno, apologize for ditching me?”
“What are you talking about? I never— Tails, I never ditched you.”
Tails barks out a sharp, disbelieving laugh. “Nope, it’s still him! I’m going back to the Tornado.”
He takes off, and Sonic makes a move to follow, but he’s stopped by a hand on his shoulder. Amy looks thunderously upset, even though she doesn’t say anything. And then, as if to prove a point, she summons her hammer, and pops it open, handing an emerald to Knuckles, and another to Sticks.
Dismissing the hammer again, she sniffs disdainfully, and starts the walk back to the Tornado. Knuckles and Sticks both look torn, but they keep ahold of their emeralds, and, after a moment, they follow her.
What the hell just happened? Sonic tries to make sense of it, fails. The tender beginning of a new headache finds a cradle in his brow, but he doesn’t let that stop him from following his friends.
Silently, everybody gets on the Tornado, and it carries them onward.
As Soleanna fades into the distance, so too does Sonics memories of what just happened. By the time the Tornado touches down in the evening, the memory of gaining the emerald remains, but all surrounding context is gone— he couldn’t tell you who the young phoenix that gave it to him was, nor if there was any connection between them beyond a purely transactional one.
So too does linger the memory that Tails (and everyone else) is upset at him again, but why eludes him.
Maybe this would be a topic worth prying into, investigating beyond the surface, but… well, it doesn’t really bother Sonic that much, and, as said— everyone’s upset at him right now.
Even if he doesn’t know why.
In any case, their campsite that night has a visitor— emerging from the tree line, and looking about as pissed as Sonic expects him to, is Shadow.
“How many emeralds have you found?” Is what he opens with, instead of anything a regular, polite person might say.
“Six,” Amy says.
“Stopping by for a social visit?” Sonic prods.
Shadow crosses his arm, scowl deepening. “I’ve located the seventh, then, on Angel Island. Lyric has as well. He’s prepared for your little group.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Tails says, “but you might as well just give it to Sonic. He’s gonna run off and get it on his own anyway.”
“What has gotten into you?” Sonic snaps, tired of the constant little barbs Tails has been throwing.
“What’s gotten into me? Nothing! I’m just tired of pretending that you’re a team player when you do nothing but leave the rest of us behind!”
“Oh, so that’s what this is about? Huh? Tails is upset he’s getting left behind again, so he’s throwing a fit?”
“You’re such an asshole!”
“Yeah, well, you aren’t exactly being a gem right now either!”
“Both of you cut it out!” Amy snaps, but she goes unheeded. Both Sonic and Tails are on their feet by now, in each other’s faces.
“You ever consider this is why I left you behind? Because you were being a little jerk?” Sonic prods. Tails’s expression drops, genuine hurt flashing through, before his guard is back up.
“If I had realized you were such an asshole I never would have missed you!”
Sonic throws his hands up, “Fine then! I suppose I’ll just go prove you right then, will I?”
He’s gone in a flash, wind tearing through the campsite.
Tails maintains his guard for one, two, three, four, five seconds, and then it cracks. And then it breaks. And then he’s crying, big, ugly tears.
Amy is at his side in an instant, pulling him into a hug.
“He left me behind after a fight with Eggman,” Tails admits, choked. “I messed up and got hurt and he freaked out.” He swipes at his eyes, has to take a few shuddering breaths before pushing on. “I thought he was coming back, for so long. I really thought he was gonna come back for me.”
He doesn’t need to say it:
Sonic didn’t.
“… I know where Angel Island is,” Knuckles volunteers, once Tails has cried himself out.
“Yeah, so do I,” Sticks says. “Bet we can get there before Sonic.”
“Probably not,” Shadow says, crushing that hope before it even has time to start. “However, he’s probably going to need help. Lyric is a bigger threat than he thinks.”
“You go help him, then!” Amy says.
“No.”
A pulse of energy, and Shadow is gone as quickly as he came.
“… we should go,” Tails says, after a long silence. “I’m really angry at him, but if he’s in trouble then I… I want to help.”
“Are you sure?” Amy asks, taking one of Tails’s hands in both of her own. “You don’t owe him anything.”
“He was my first friend,” Tails says. “I’m really mad, but… I still love him.” He swipes at his nose, sniffling. “I thought he was kinda like my older brother.”
With contributions from both Knuckles and Sticks, they plot out their last destination. Angel Island turns out to be a little island not far off the coast— it’s actually really close to the third emerald they collected. If Tails remembers right, he had quietly chosen to pass it by in light of going after the one in Babylon Gardens, because that one was moving and he was curious.
The next morning, when everyone is packed and piles onto the Tornado, Tails, thoughtlessly, lingers for a moment, waiting for the spot in front of him to fill.
It doesn’t, of course.
Sonic is long gone.
Notes:
ahem. bit of a strange chapter, no? it’ll all make sense in time. probably.
anyhow. I’m sure this is all fine. It’s not like that’s an ominous sentence to end a chapter on, or anything… *whistles an innocent little tune*
Chapter 18: Sforzando
Summary:
A dynamic instruction that requires players to play a note abruptly and loudly.
Notes:
I’ve been affectionately referring to this chapter as ‘the trolley problem’ in my notes ever since this story began. Glad to finally be here.
Chapter Text
Tails brings the Tornado down onto Angel Island like he’s done it hundreds of times before. The island itself is swarming with robots— it seems Lyric has been hard at work— but even so, there’s a clear trail of destruction, a line of smashed robots that no one has bothered to clear up. Knuckles and Sticks drop to the ground early, to clear the area and make sure they aren’t swarmed as soon as the Tornado comes to a stop, but they almost didn’t need to— the robots are… strangely docile.
“This is weird,” Sticks says, “I don’t like it. They shouldn’t be here.”
“I agree,” Knuckles says. “No one should be on Angel Island.”
The latter half of his statement is directed towards the closest robot. It shuffles away, mindlessly.
Despite that, it does look like Angel Island was inhabited. Recently, even. One of the robots has a Meh Burger wrapped stuck to its face.
There’s really no where else to go but to follow the destruction, is there?
It’s an unnerving, quiet walk, for the bulk of it. The robots will watch them go, but otherwise… they’re just mindlessly moving.
That changes the second the path dips underground.
Knuckles is bringing up the rear of the group, studying the island with a practiced eye, so he’s the one that notices the problem first.
Tails sets one foot underground, and every single surface robot starts beelining towards them.
“Uh, guys?” Knuckles says, “We have a problem—“ and then the hoard is upon them.
It isn’t like they’re actually that tough. In fact, they pop apart pretty easily— there’s just so many of them! The robots push them deeper into the cave, something that would almost be a retreat except more and more just keep coming.
“Shadow could have been more specific!” Amy grunts, catching a dozen of them with one swing of her hammer.
“There!” Sticks cries, pointing to an opening in the onslaught. It’s a decorated entrance of some kind— Tails breaks for it first, followed by Sticks. Amy comes next, and Knuckles tears a chunk of rock out of the ground, flinging it down a tunnel and knocking out a sweep of robots… that are just replaced by more, and more, and more. Knuckles runs after his friends, runs into his friends, and finds everyone has come to a stop just inside the room.
The reason why is pretty immediately clear, even to him. There’s a podium, a set of steps stretching up to it, every step crowded with robots.
Atop the podium there’s a pedestal, with a shining green gem on it, and loosely coiled around that, is Lyric. He looks relaxed, at ease.
“Oh,” He says, “I was wondering when you’d get here. Awfully irresponsible of you to let one of your friends go off alone.”
The robots, behind them, stop their push. They wander off, as if their job is finished: this goes unnoticed.
“Where’s Sonic?” Tails asks, curling his hands into fists. Sonic got here first, but Lyric still has the emerald. “What did you do to him?”
“What did I do?” Lyric’s mouth turns up in a smile, and he leans forwards, “Well, if you want to know. I found him— alone. I fought him. I won.” He leans back again, smile showing all his teeth, and he studies them. “You don’t believe me. I can tell. Nevermind that I’ve bested him every time we’ve fought before. You believe in him. I wonder why. Fear? Faith?”
Tails doesn’t answer. There’s a lot of robots— maybe too many for them to handle without Sonic. But they don’t need to take down all of them, just reach Lyric, and then—
“It doesn’t matter. You asked me what I did to him? Why don’t I show you.”
He uncoils, rising in height as he reveals the other person on the podium with him. Sonic. Eyes glazed, bruised but standing, Sonic.
He looks terrible, haggard in a way he wasn’t when he left them. He isn’t even looking at them— his gaze is fixed at some distant, unknowable point. And affixed to his head, in a sort of twisted crown, is a band of metal. There are three flat purple circles adorning it, one between his eyes and the others on each temple, blue panels sticking up just at the edges.
“Sonic?” says Amy, and Tails can see her lowering her hammer out of the corner of his eye.
“I can see why you’d think him invincible,” Lyric continues, as Sonic sways lightly on his feet, “all that power and speed at your fingertips… it can be… intoxicating .”
He studies one of his metal hands as he speaks, before gesturing at them, seemingly disappointed by their lack of reaction. “You don’t understand. Why don’t I help you? Sonic,” and Sonic straightened, head tilting towards Lyric, “attack Tails.”
Tails was on the ground. He didn’t remember being on the ground, thought he had been standing, and then his front lit up in pain. He wasn’t bleeding, but thought maybe he had cracked a rib— maybe more than one. It hurt. It could have been much worse, if— if it was Sonic that hurt him.
(And of course it was, nobody else was that fast.)
Tails looked up just as Amy put herself between him and Lyric— and Sonic. Saw that Sonic was back on the podium. Saw that he had the Electric.
“Do you get it?” Lyric asked, and it sounded like he was laughing at them.
Knuckles snarled from somewhere behind him, a sound echoed by Sticks. Tails realized they were surrounding him, didn’t know how to feel about it. Ignoring his ribs, he stood, found Sonic’s blank eyes from over Amy’s shoulder.
“We get it,” said Amy.
“Good. I’d hate to have to make him do anything else.” and Lyric didn’t sound like he’d hate it at all.
“What do you want,” Tails asks, failing to pitch his voice into a question.
“Oh, that will be easy for you. The emeralds, of course.”
Tails didn’t look away from Sonic, not like everyone else. He didn’t miss the subtle shiver that passed over him, the twitch of a glove.
“I don’t think I need to tell you what will happen if you refuse, of course. Hand them over, and I’ll return him , good as new.”
“We can’t give them to him,” says Sticks, voice as quiet as it ever gets.
“We have to,” answers Knuckles, and Tails realizes he’s holding his emerald without ever realizing that he pulled it out.
The emeralds are passed forwards to Amy, who hesitates before stepping forwards. A ripple passes through the collected robots before the ones closes hold out hands, and Amy sets the emeralds down. They’re passed back to Lyric without breaking ranks.
“Perfect,” says Lyric, the sound of his hands scraping over rock deafening. He’s not even looking as his tail moves to hover over Sonic’s head, grip on the end affixing itself to the edges of the band.
There’s a hum, and then a low hiss as whatever technology Lyric has packed into his suit activates, lifting him from the floor. The ceiling above him cracks open, sunlight falling into the room like rain.
“Don’t let it be said I go back on my word.”
He yanks the band free in a single, sharp movement, and then rockets up, into the light. All seven emeralds go with him.
Sonic staggers, goes to a knee. Clutches his head and groans.
The robots, as one, move. Half turn upwards, firing at the ceiling. The others turn inwards, firing at the podium.
Sonic looks up in the second before impact.
Tries to smile.
Rocks the size of buildings fall, and take it away.
.•.•.•.
“ NO !”
Tails doesn’t think he’s the only one making that noise, doesn’t think much of anything at all.
His knees hit the floor. Sonic is— the wall of rubble in front of them seems impenetrable. Knuckles is there, in front of him, a smear of red struggling to lift one of the largest rocks.
no no no no no no no his fault if he had just kept his mouth shut and not hassled Sonic then —
Tails is at the edge of the pile, clawing at the loose debris. His tails pound out an agitated rhythm behind him- thump-thump thump-thump, one-two one-two .
Someone grabs him, pulls him away. He struggles. Wrenches his ribs. Doesn’t care. Everything goes blue.
When they touched down on Angel Island, Amy wasn’t really sure what she was expecting. She had thought, maybe, Sonic had cut the metaphoric head off of the beast, and the robots were without direction. And then, when they attacked, she worried that maybe the opposite was true.
She was really mad at Sonic right now, that much was true. Tails had become dear to her, like a little sibling, and the thought of leaving him without good reason— yes, she was angry.
But…
Sonic had gotten dear to her, too. They all had, their little ragtag group, and Amy wants nothing more than to put it back together. A good old fashioned team rescue is just what the doctor ordered!
She didn’t imagine failing.
Why would she ever imagine failing?
Everyone is clawing at the rubble, as if there’s anything they could do. They’re too frantic to be careful, and unless they’re careful, they could make it worse.
But Sonic is dying.
He’s not dead. Amy refuses to believe that. He isn’t dead.
But he is dying.
A sharp rock tears through her glove and bites into her hand, shocking sense back into her.
She takes a step back from the pile.
Sticks has clambered up the side, seems to be going for a top-down approach. Knuckles is tossing away boulders the size of cars and he’s barely making a dent. Tails is on his knees, hands scrabbling ineffectually, and Amy’s heart aches.
She is going to kill Lyric.
Because there’s no way. There just isn’t. Even if Sonic is alive under there, they have no way of reaching him, not in time.
Sonic is…
She reaches forwards, tries to pull Tails back before he can destroy his hands. He’s crying, she realizes. Sonic made him cry again.
She’s crying too.
Sonic has to be…
Tails fights her, “No, no, I have to get him out, I have to,” he says, wrenching free of her and continuing to dig.
Maybe Amy is wrong. Maybe she’s misremembering— the rocks might have been smaller. Maybe Sonic is closer than she thinks.
She can’t quite bring herself to believe that.
Sonic……
Is…
“Oh no,” a voice gasps out from beside her, drawing her from her stupor, “I’m too late!”
Cyan energy grabs Sticks, Knuckles, Tails, yanks them all backwards, towards Amy. And then, that same energy lifts every rock in the cave.
.•.•.•.
About a month ago…
The forest is quiet, lit by the gentle light of the moon. Leaves glimmer with leftover rain, animals slink through the shadows, and a cold breeze tugs gently at Shadows quills.
He isn’t sure why he’s standing here. He hasn’t been sure of anything for a very long time. He is sure that he is angry. He is not sure why. It festers inside of him, a wound with no source, an injury with no healing.
Grass rustles underfoot as he steps forwards, the occasional twig snapping. He could go faster, use his skates, but something tells him that’s a bad idea right now.
Something disturbs the quiet, a gasp cut off halfway through, and Shadow turns in its direction. The foliage is dense, grasping branches and clinging leaves, but he pushes through it regardless, entering a clearing. Most clearings are natural. This one is not. Carved out of the earth in a great circular pattern, reminiscent of...
reminiscent of...
(reminiscent of what? something’s wrong.)
In the center, there’s another hedgehog, face down on the charred earth. Blood stains fur, and Shadow takes a step further into the clearing.
Shadow kicks the other hedgehog onto their back, intending to assess the damage, and electricity leaps between them like fire, like chaos. It burns, it burns, it burns, and Shadow remembers.
“Silver?” He asks, but of course Silver is unconscious and can’t answer him. Two timelines of memories collide in his head, meaningless mash, but Shadow is fairly used to a less than stellar memory. He can work it out later.
That is Silver, though. The time traveller. The one who is supposed to fix paradoxes like this.
Looking at him, though, Shadow thinks he must have tried, and failed. He pulls the limp hedgehog up, tries to remember where he had lived— GUN is gone now, as are Rouge and Omega. A… cave. He thinks.
Twin memories of each timeline are fighting for relevance, but Shadow has dealt with amnesia more than enough time to be effective at compartmentalizing it all away, only pulling at the important bits. Like where he lives. A cave.
Picturing it, he pulls at chaos control, only to have the ability snap in his face like a rubber band. He ends up stood several feet left of where he started, and without Silver, who hits the ground with an unpleasant thud. The long way back, then.
The cave is hardly a home. He’d consider it embarrassing, if he wasn’t aware of how badly whatever had happened had messed with his head. Silvers pulse is steady, but he’s freezing— Maria needed to be kept warm. He starts a fire with a chaos spear, and feeds it through the night.
By morning, Silver still hasn’t so much as stirred. Shadow gets water into him, but has no food. He’s had time to think, while looking over the other— and he realizes he doesn’t know what the rest of the world looks like. He had been trapped inside his own head, before.
Sonic is undoubtedly out there. So are the chaos emeralds— he can’t sense them like he could before, but without them the world would already be ruined.
He does consider investigating. But he has the best possible source, right here, with him, and so instead Shadow elects to wait until Silver wakes.
A week passes. Shadow keeps Silver alive with water and broth, monitoring his pulse, his breathing, all steady. By any account he should have woken. He has not.
Rain begins to patter down outside, and it occurs to Shadow that it’s possible Silver is hiding a wound— he had forgotten that not everyone healed like him.
His fur and quills are still matted with blood and dirt, and Shadow hauls him out into the downpour to give him an efficient scrub down, and it’s only then that he finds it— a slim disk, buried in Silver’s quills. He pulls it away, finds it arcs with energy between his fingers before burning itself out, and Silver jerks upright.
“—DON’T!” He yells, before looking around, bewildered. “Shadow?”
“Silver,” Shadows says coolly, as if he hasn’t been single-handedly keeping the other hedgehog alive.
“I need to— ouch!” Silver attempts to stand, and fails spectacularly. He only doesn’t faceplant because Shadow catches him. “Sorry. Guess I’m not at one hundred percent yet.”
“You could say that.”
“Listen, I don’t— I don’t really know what happened, but there’s this snake— I think his name is Lyric? He’s really bad news, Shadow.”
Silver explains what little he knows about the snake— which truly isn’t much more than “He’s up to something. I don’t… I don’t know what, but he’s up to something bad.”
“We need to get the chaos emeralds,” Silver says, clutching the blanket Shadow has given him closer. If he huddled any closer to the fire, he’d catch. “Before Lyric does. Lyric getting them would be bad. Really bad.”
“I get it,” Shadow says, feeding another piece of scrap to the flames. “You’ve said that a dozen times now.”
Silvers recovery doesn’t prove to be a quick one. He has a number of inexplicable injuries, and the night after he woke up, he develops an intense fever that leaves Shadow unable to leave him for too long. Thankfully, Shadow has the luck of encountering Sonic and his little group of friends, who are already on their way to collecting the emeralds themselves. He lends them a hand, but it’s clear they don’t have the memories he does.
When there’s just one emerald left to collect, Shadow returns to the cave to find Silver’s fever is broken.
They arrive on Angel Island just as Lyric leaves. Shadow sees the multitude of colours in his arms and curses, running after him. Silver, with his finely honed intuition for averting disaster, goes somewhere else.
Sonic, when they find him, is breathing.
Chapter 19: Grave
Summary:
Grave means solemn in Italian. In music a grave marketing indicates an extremely slow tempo below 60 BPM.
Notes:
Happy Holidays!
Chapter Text
At first, there’s chaos. Trying to assess Sonic’s injuries, mixed suspicion and gratitude towards the stranger who rescued him. The realization that Sonic is going to need medical help, tempered only by the proximity of the ARK. Transport. Arrival.
Big Guy, the Biolizard, and Em are both surprised to see them again, but that surprise doesn’t last long in the face of Sonic’s injuries. Em directs them to the medical bay. Big Guy makes a pretty good nurse.
And then… things settle into being boringly calm. Sonic will wake up, Em tells them, it’s just a matter of when.
Tails doesn’t have his Electric to keep his hands busy, anymore, so he spends a lot of time tinkering on the Tornado. Alone, mostly.
Knuckles and Sticks both spend most of their time out of the ARK— they’re the ones to go with Tails on a trip out to pick up food, and other supplies.
Amy sticks close to home. She tries to check on everyone regularly, but stress is clearly wearing her thin.
And as for Silver… he’s usually in the medical bay, studying Sonic with furrowed brows. He has a lot to talk to them about, he says, but it had better wait until Sonic is awake.
So.
They’re just waiting.
And waiting and waiting and waiting.
.•.•.•.
Sonic is underwater. He can see the surface, distant, shimmering. There are reflections dancing across it, oblong, indiscriminate. Colour, mostly.
He dreams. He’s part of a small band of freedom fighters, and he’s marrying his childhood friend to become the king. He’s a lonely kid single-handedly fighting Eggman, and he’s a guy surrounded by friends as he defeats a time god. He’s a hero, and a villain, and something in between. He’s a king killer, a freer of planets, a monster that parents use to scare their children into behaving.
He’s just a guy who loves adventure.
He’s just dreaming.
He isn’t the first one to realize that he’s awake. In fact, he’s barely started to open his eyes when Amy shouts “SONIC!” and grabs at him.
There’s a loud clatter, a yelp, and Sonic feels a bit like he’s moving through molasses as he shrugs Amy off. “Whoa. What happened. Did anyone…” a dream floats past, ephemeral and hazy, “anyone get the number of that gun truck? Ow.”
“You’re awake!” A complete stranger says, grinning. There’s a sideways chair behind him, probably the source of the clatter, “And you remember?!”
Sonic squints at him, but he’s pretty sure he’s never seen this silver hedgehog before in his life. “Who are you?”
“… oh.”
Amy presses a cup of water into Sonic’s hands, and he realizes, with a start, that his throat aches. He takes a tentative sip, and ends up downing the whole thing and almost choking. Amy pats him on the back as he recovers, and he becomes uncomfortably aware of a number of aches and pains.
“This is Silver,” she says, as he splutters. “He helped rescue you from the rubble. What even happened?”
“Where’s everyone else?” Sonic asks, master of dodging questions.
Amy pulls back, and fixes him with an unimpressed look. “I will go and get everyone,” she says, “if you promise to tell us all what happened.”
“As long as you repay the favour,” Sonic says, “My memories get kinda fuzzy after a point.”
“Deal.” Amy sticks out a hand, and they shake on it. “Keep an eye on him,” she tells Silver, and then she walks out of the room.
“… you really don’t remember anything?” Silver asks, resettling the chair and sitting back down.
“I remember plenty!” Sonic says. “But somehow, I get the feeling that’s not what you’re asking.”
Silver folds his arms, looking troubled. “But then how did Shadow remember?” He mutters, mostly to himself. Sonic takes the chance of distraction to get out of bed and stretch.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sonic says, cracking most of his spine in one go, “but I’m sure we can… figure something out!”
“But how,” Silver says, before looking up and jumping out of his chair. “You’re not supposed to be out of bed!”
“Chillax. I’d go stir crazy if you kept me in bed all the time.”
Sonic is in the middle of wondering how long of a run he can get away with when he’s grabbed by cyan blue light and hovered back into bed.
“Stay put,” Silver says, and the light scatters.
“Pretty nifty trick you got there,” Sonic says. “What even was that, telekinesis?”
“Psychokinesis,” Silver says. He looks rather proud of himself, which just annoys Sonic. Who’s this guy, to say what he can and can’t do?
Sonic zips out of bed, intending to pass right through the doors and get away scot-free, but Silver was clearly anticipating this— he’s just grabbed by the cyan light again and floated back to bed. It’s almost demeaning. Scratch that, it’s totally demeaning. He feels like a toddler.
Sonic folds his arms, and narrows his eyes at Silver. “So what’s your deal, anyway? Where’d you even come from?”
“It’s a long story,” Silver says. “I’m not sure that you’d believe me.”
“Try me.”
“I’d rather talk to everyone at once. No point retelling the same story over and over…”
Sonic sighs, feeling boredom settling in. “Ugh, Amy is taking forever. You sure I can’t just go on a short run?”
Silver shakes his head, looking very proud of himself. “It’s no use trying to get past me. My powers—“
Sonic pops out of bed, sweeping Silvers feet from under him, and—
A bolt of lightning leaps from between them—
Silver catches himself before he can hit the ground, annoyed, but Sonic isn’t going anywhere. He’s pressing a hand to his forehead, but before Silver can get properly concerned, he shakes his head and blinks rapidly, and then looks down at his hands like he’s never seen them before.
“Whoa. Talk about a head rush. I think,” he shakes his head again, “I think you have both more and less explaining to do than you think.” Then, of his own volition, Sonic moves back to the bed and sits down.
It’s this sight that Amy comes back to, everyone else in tow. Em and Big Guy both express their relief at seeing Sonic properly awake— apparently he had woken several times previous, but had been incoherent— and then excuse themselves.
“Well?” Amy prompts, once everyone has gotten themselves settled. There’s an air of relief in the room, mixed with tension— while both Knuckles and Sticks are plainly relieved to see Sonic awake, Tails is gripping the edge of his seat tightly enough he’s probably going to leave dents.
“In a second,” Sonic says. “I have something I gotta do first.” Amy recoils, opening her mouth, but Sonic hops out of bed again with complete disregard for any of them except Tails. He sinks to a knee in front of him, puts a hand on his shoulder.
“I’ve been a real jerk to you lately, Tails, and you didn’t deserve any of it. What happened with Eggman… I was a coward.” Tails blinks, surprised, opens his mouth, but Sonic presses on. “I should have trusted you more. Failing that, I never should have left you. For that, and for how I’ve been behaving… I’m sorry, Tails. Really.”
“I’ve been kind of a jerk too, you know,” Tails says, and his voice is a little ragged. “If you can forgive me for that, I guess I can forgive you.”
A laugh trips out of Sonic, and he pulls Tails into a hug. After a beat, he’s followed by Amy, Knuckles, Sticks. Silver lingers on the edges, but he’s smiling.
“So,” Sonic says, once he’s distangled from everyone, “What happened was this…”
.•.•.•.
Lyric couldn’t have made it more obvious that this was the right place if he had tried. The place was crawling with ‘bots, and by no means were any of them Eggman tech.
Sonic cut through their swarms like a hot knife through butter, following the stream of them to the source— a hollow cavern with Lyric and an emerald in it.
“Oh?” Lyric said, turning to see, “Look who it is. And alone, too.”
“I don’t need any help to beat you, scale face!”
“Not your strongest insult.”
Sonic launches at him, a lightning fast ball of spikes that has torn through countless robots, and Lyric catches him with a single hand.
“Really,” he said, “don’t you have anything better than that? No matter— you’re just in time. I’ve just finished working on…”
Sonic stops listening to him, struggling to wrench free of Lyric’s grip. It shouldn’t be a hard hold to escape, but he can’t so much as wriggle one of Lyrics fingers.
“Ha! There it is.” Lyric fished a circlet out of a pile of scrap, looking it over with a discerning eye. “I’m going to enjoy this.”
Sonic, in the end, couldn’t to anything to avoid Lyric putting the thing on him.
Nothing.
Lyric directed him into a wall, and the impact jostled the circlet just a little.
Nothing.
Spindashing at a stationary target, but seeing a familiar face.
Nothing.
The ice-water shock of the world flooding back in, and not realizing that he was in danger until everything had dropped into darkness.
.•.•.•.
“Sounds like mind control to me,” says Tails. “Which makes sense, given what we saw.”
He launches into an explanation of what happened, neatly cutting around the bit where Sonic attacked him. Amy gives him a look, at that, but she’s still riding the high of reaching resolution between them, and unwilling to potentially tap into another argument.
“Yikes,” Sonic grimaces. “Hope he doesn’t have another one of those on hand.”
“I think he does,” Tails says. “I don’t remember him dropping it after taking it off of you.”
“Well, seeing as you aren’t going to run off on your own again, I don’t see how that’s a problem,” Amy says primly. “Right, Sonic?”
“Right, right. I was wrong to leave you guys behind.”
“As long as you don’t do it again!” Knuckles says, grinning. He offers Sonic a fist bump, and Sonic gives him a slightly odd look before reciprocating.
“I been patient!” Sticks says, springing onto Sonic’s bed on all fours, “what’s your deal, huh? You some sorta future guy? Think you can come and muck up our past, huh?” She jabs aggressively at Silver, who holds his hands up in a show of surrender.
“That’s… not totally wrong?” Sticks attempts to launch herself at him, but she’s waylaid by Sonic.
“Hang on, I wanna hear him out.”
“I am from the future,” Silver says. “Two hundred years from now. I don’t… really remember what happened, but I was attacked, and now the timeline is totally different. I want to try and fix it, and I’m pretty sure Lyric is the source.”
“Makes sense,” Sonic says, grimacing. “I always knew something was off, I just couldn’t put my finger on what. Aside from Shadow, have you found anyone else? Rouge, Omega… the Chaotix, maybe?”
“Um.” Silver says. “I thought you didn’t remember anything.”
“I didn’t,” Sonic says, emphasis on the ‘n’t’, “Until I touched you.”
“What are we talking about?” Knuckles asks.
“Have any of you actually touched Silver? Shaken his hand, or whatever?”
There’s a pause, as everyone casts back over their memories. No, Silver has only been using his psychokinesis to interact with people.
Silently, cautiously, Tails offers his hand to Silver. Just as slowly and carefully, Silver takes it.
A bolt of lightning jumps between them.
“Whoa,” Tails says, “that’s so weird! I, I remember… whoa. Hang on.” He presses a hand to his head, as if he can physically reach in and sort out the memories.
Silver looks at his hands, as if he’s uncovered some new and unknowable power. In a way, he almost has. “I’ve been able to do that THE WHOLE TIME???”
Chapter 20: Key
Summary:
In music, a key refers to the set of notes belonging specifically to a major scale or its relative minor scale.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Silver offers his hand to Amy, who hesitantly grasps it, gasping as the bolt of lightning sears between them. Knuckles takes his hand with confidence, only to fall flat on his ass as the lightning strikes. And Sticks…
Sticks circles Silver, squinting suspiciously, pokes him with the end of her boomerang, and then, with all the aching slowness of someone trying to defuse a bomb, she pokes the centre of his hand with a finger.
Nothing happens.
Despite this, she leaps back like she’s been burnt, screeches, and vanishes under Sonic’s bed.
“Um,” Silver says.
“Yeah, she does that,” Sonic says. “So, let me run a couple things past you,” he continues, squinting at Silver.
“I think we all have questions,” Amy says. Knuckles is silent, clutching at his head.
“You’re from the future,” Tails says.
“Uh, yeah. I’ve been travelling back in time for a while now, but this is the first time the timeline has been… well, like this.”
“Ever since Soleanna, right? Wait…” Sonic rubs at his forehead, “No, after that…”
“Soleanna?” Silver furrows his brow, “no, I haven’t been there before. You’re probably kinda mixed up— do you remember both timelines?”
“Boy, do we ever,” Tails says. “It’s… really confusing.”
“I wish I could help more,” Silver says, “but all I’ve got is that I arrived back in my time, and… it was a good future. I wasn’t planning on travelling here again unless I needed to, and then… I remember something happening with Lyric, and then I woke up to Shadow in the rain.”
“It’s all his fault!” Sticks shouts from under the bed. She does not clarify which ‘his’ she means, but then, she doesn’t really need to.
“So, Lyric did something to the timeline?”
“Seems like.”
“Did something to the timeline, and did something to all of us,” Knuckles says. “I feel… awake, now. Whatever happened to me, whatever Lyric did, it really messed me up.”
“It messed all of us up,” Sonic says, but there’s no arguing that Knuckles had changed the most out of all of them. Someone had carved out his centre, the part of him that said ‘guardian’ and ‘protector’, and hadn’t left anything in its place.
“I… I need to think,” Knuckles says, hoisting himself to his feet. No one stops him, as he leaves.
“So how do we fix this,” Tails asks, once Knuckles footsteps are no longer echoing into the room.
“That… I don’t know.” Silver shrugs. “But Lyric has all the chaos emeralds right now, and that can’t be a good thing.”
“Agreed,” Tails says, and then, “oh man! Chaos emeralds! Those were the chaos emeralds, weren’t they? What even happened to them?”
“I guess they got just as twisted up as the rest of us,” Amy says.
“D’ya think Silver could fix them by touching them?”
“I dunno,” Silver says, “I think I might have run out of juice? Nothing happened when I touched Sticks.”
Sonic opens his mouth, pauses, and then flips to look under his bed. “Sticks.”
A pair of eyes gleam at him out of the darkness.
“You called them chaos emeralds, didn’t you? Back in Chun-nan. Dulcy asked what kind of emeralds we were looking for, and you said chaos emeralds.”
“That’s right!” Tails says, “I remember that! Sticks, how did you know?”
“Are we sure that wasn’t just… Sticks being Sticks?” Amy asks.
Sticks slides out from under the bed, arms folded. “I don’t know! How do you know? Aliens! They tie you up and put rocks in you!”
Silence.
“Just Sticks being Sticks?” Amy offers.
“I’m always me,” Sticks says, “but sometimes they tell me things! I don’t have any tinfoil.”
Longer silence.
“Someone should go check on Knux,” Sonic says.
“I’ll do it,” Amy volunteers, and when she turns to leave, Sticks goes with her.
“It’s funny,” Tails says, “but now that I remember both timelines, I realize that my memory had a lot of gaps that didn’t make any sense. It’s like… there’s the main timeline, which we all forgot, and then the second timeline laid overtop.”
“I getcha,” Sonic says. “Not to mention the stuff where our memories don’t line up. Are you still sure the ARK was never in the sky?”
Tails flushes, folding his arms in mock offence. “Well, technically, it never was! In this timeline, at least.”
“Uh huh,” Sonic says, sounding unconvinced.
“And,” Tails says, changing the topic, “what about Station Square? It’s totally flooded, but there was no sign of Perfect Chaos.”
Sonic grimaces as he thinks back to that particular encounter. “I wouldn’t be so sure. I hate to say it, but Lyric got me pretty good back there too, but despite being knocked into the water, I didn’t drown.”
“Lyric sure has your number, huh?” Tails folds his arms, feeling the lack of his Electric to fiddle with. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone give you that much trouble.”
“I have to admit I’m curious about that too,” Silver says, reminding the both of them that he’s there. “It all kinda comes back to him, but I’ve never even heard of the guy before.”
Sonic tilts his head, considering. “He seems to have a personal vendetta against me, but I can’t think of anything I might have done to him.”
“You are good at messing with people’s evil plans before they really get off the ground,” Tails says. “Remember Eggman’s interstellar amusement park? He was on the edge of opening that when we shut it down.”
“True that,” Sonic says. “Man, all this thinking has me wiped. I’m gonna take a nap.” Saying so, he flops back onto the bed, and is out within seconds.
Tails makes eye contact with Silver, and jerks his thumb over his shoulder, towards the door. Silver nods, and they make to leave too, with one last glance back at Sonic.
“It’ll probably be a while before Sonic’s good to go again,” Tails says, as soon as they’re at a reasonable distance.
“Really? He seemed fine to me,” Silver says, glancing back as if he’s going to see Sonic zip past them.
“Sure, he seemed fine,” Tails says, “but he’s pretty good at pretending. Doesn’t want to worry us, I think. Anyway, I still need time to try and build a replacement Electric… the ARK has a ton of materials, but they’re all kinda weird.”
“Well, Gerald helped build the ARK, right? And he’s a Robotnik, so it makes sense that his stuff would be all screwy.” Silver’s powers ensconce him, lifting him gently into the air. He doesn’t seem to notice, keeping pace with Tails as he moves back towards the Tornado, and his temporary workbench.
“I guess so. Still, with changed like the Biolizard, or Em, I would have hoped… that…” Tails stops walking, sentence trailing off into fragments. Silver tilts his head, curious at whatever thought Tails has stumbled into.
“Em Four Dash Ar One Four. M4-R14 .” Tails turns to look at Silver, voice barely above a whisper, “Maria.”
It isn’t a secret, Shadow’s relationship to the Robotniks, and the fraught nature of it. Tails probably knows a little more than anyone thinks he does, and even with that knowledge all twisted up in the timelines, it’s still there. Maria, Shadow’s sister. Maria, who died protecting him.
Maria, who is now a robot without any memories in her databanks.
His first thought is, we have to tell Shadow . It’s stopped only by his second thought, which is, Shadow already knows .
“Um,” Silver says, visibly trying to follow the train of thought that Tails took. “Yeah, I guess that kinda… looks?… like the name Maria. What about it?”
What about it indeed. It isn’t like there’s anything for Tails to actually do, in the situation. Any knowledge he could glean about Em would now be soiled by his knowledge of Maria— he’d probably start trying to link them, even in ways that didn’t make sense.
It just… hits like a shock of cold water.
This is the person Shadow was willing to destroy the world over.
“Nothing, I guess. Just… kinda weird.” Tails lingers on the thought for a moment longer, and then presses ahead.
.•.•.•.
Amy isn’t actually totally sure where Knuckles might have gone, so she’s just following her intuition. That intuition leads her outside, a high ledge over green hill, and she pauses as the breeze ruffles her quills.
It’s… a mess, trying to untangle everything. She’s already got a plan in place to deal with that, but an important part of processing your emotions is letting yourself feel them, so she just stands, for a moment.
Feels the breeze.
And then, from behind her, “I don’t like it when you do that.”
Amy pauses, glances back. Sticks has her arms folded, and she’s stubbornly looking the other way.
“Sorry, do what?” Amy asks, because it’s important to get a baseline to that this conversation doesn’t spiral into misunderstandings.
“Talk over me! Or under me, like I’m not right there. I got feelings too! And thoughts!” Sticks throws her arms up, scowling, “just cause I’m weird doesn’t mean I don’t got thoughts!”
Amy opens her mouth to rebuff this, because she doesn’t like to think herself the kind of person to do that… but she has been that person, hasn’t she? They all have, to varying degrees— save Knuckles— but she’s the one that Sticks sometimes looks at like she hung the moon.
If someone dismissed her with ‘just Amy being Amy,’ she’d be pretty upset.
“I’m so sorry, Sticks, you’re right! It’s completely wrong for me to talk to you like that.” To her horror, she feels tears welling— this moment is not about her, she shouldn’t cry, but she’s been hurting one of her friends. Just because she has no memories of Sticks at all from the other timeline doesn’t mean that their friendship is any less real.
Sticks looks kind of alarmed. Amy surges forwards, takes her hands in hers. “Please let me make it up to you. Whatever you want, Sticks, I’ll do it.”
Sticks works one of her hands free, and swipes it through the air above Amy’s head, like she’s checking for strings. Then, she nods, “just don’t do it again!”
“I won’t,” Amy promises, and that does little to soothe the turmoil she’s now feeling. Maybe… “if you want to talk about what you meant before I dismissed you, I’ll listen,” she offers. Actions are better than words, but this was a hurt carved by words, so words will have to fix it.
“I dunno,” Sticks says, “A big green alien had that guy tied up and shoved a bunch of rocks into his chest. That’s all there is to say— especially when they might be listening.” Sticks casts a suspicious glance behind her back, but there’s nothing there.
Amy frowns, turning that over in her head. That is, essentially, what Stick had said the first time, just… expanded, a little. “An alien?” she asks, “what kind?”
“Big, green!” Sticks lets go of Amy’s other hand in order to gesture, stretching her arms up as far as she can. This adds nothing to Amy’s understanding.
“And by that guy… do you mean Silver?”
“Silver, gold, platinum,” Sticks says, “the hedgehog! The other, new hedgehog.”
Probably Silver.
“And rocks…”
“Big ones,” Sticks agrees, moving her hands like she’s forming a snowball. “Pointy!”
Amy isn’t sure what to make of that, but she refuses to dismiss Sticks out of hand anymore. “Do you mind if I ask you a couple more questions?”
Sticks sticks one of her fingers into her mouth, and then jabs it into the air. “North-east… yeah, but it’s gotta be a prime number.”
Amy pushes down the response of ‘you know what prime numbers are?’ in exchange for an excited smile.
The goal of finding Knuckles is all but forgotten.
.•.•.•.
Knuckles pushes through the foliage, feeling deeply unsettled. The Master Emerald is gone, the thrumming connection that’s been there for his whole life gone with it. He’s a failure as a guardian— and there have been other failures, yes, such as allowing its theft, or shattering it by his hand, but none quite so severe as allowing it to be erased from the timeline.
He’s moving in an attempt to push his mind away from that single, damning thought, and on to something useful, such as what he could do about the situation— but all that moving is doing is unsettling him in his own body. He’s so much bigger now.
He’s pushing past another bush, lifting leaves out of his face, when someone collides with his midsection with a solid “oof.”
Knuckles blinks, pulled out of his reverie, and realizes that things have faded from the quiet greens to a noisier atmosphere. Then he looks down.
“Careful there, Sonny Boy, you don’t know your own strength,” Chuck says, rubbing at his nose. The collision with Knuckles knocked him onto his rear, so Knuckles offers him a hand up while trying to figure out what, exactly, the guy is doing here.
He remembers meeting Chuck. The older hedgehog was nothing but kind to him, even though Knuckles was missing so much of himself.
Those memories do nothing to help Knuckles figure out why Chuck is so close to the ARK.
“What are you doing here?” Knuckles asks, because there’s no better way to get an answer.
“Well, prospects ‘round that old forest dried up what with our best members playing hooky, so I figured it only made sense to pack up and move sites. Reckon we’re pretty close to our goal, if you’re here.”
Chuck accepts Knuckles hand up easily, turning to gesture back the way he came. “Camp’s just over there, if you want to visit a minute.”
Knuckles looks, and sees a campground, swarming with activity. It looks like they’ve just settled down— probably why Chuck was about to move out, to look for ruins nearby. See if this camp is going to be temporary or… less temporary.
“Yeah, sure,” Knuckles says, “I could use some time to clear my head.”
Chuck smiles, turning back towards the camp. “My tent’s already all set up, reckon I can get a pot boiling. Coffee or tea?”
Knuckles grimaces, not recalling any particular like for either. Still, he’s sat through enough cups of tea when visiting Cream and Vanilla, so he can tolerate one more. “Tea, please.”
“Not my choice,” Chuck says, but in no time at all they’re seated over a boiling kettle, the fragrance of steeping tea clouding the air.
“You want to talk about what’s bugging you?” Chuck offers.
“It’s… complicated,” Knuckles says, at length. “And you probably wouldn’t believe me.”
“I’ve seen more than young’uns like you seem to think I have,” Chuck says. “‘Sides, sometimes it’s better just to get it out. Don’t you agree?”
Knuckles sighs, averting his eyes from Chuck. His quills are a paler, dusty blue, and he wears them slightly differently, but you could almost believe yourself to be looking at an older Sonic. Instead, he looks down at the mug of tea clutched in his hands, tries to focus on the liquid instead of the reflection of his face.
“So it turns out that all my memories of this… timeline, world, whatever, are fake. Some guy called Lyric went and screwed everything up!” His grip tightens on the mug, he deliberately loosens it before he can shatter the thing. “I’m supposed to be the guardian of the Master Emerald, but it doesn’t even exist anymore! Everyone thinks I’m an idiot, because I got so, I don’t know, screwed up by forgetting it, and my body is completely different,” he breaks off into a wordless noise of frustration, and takes a judicious sip of his tea.
As far as teas go, it’s not… terrible.
“What am I even meant to be doing,” he asks, rather plaintively. It’s not a question he expects Chuck to be able to answer, it’s more… posed to the universe at large.
“Well, for starters, you shouldn’t talk about yourself like that,” Chuck says. Knuckles looks up at him, finds the older hedgehog leaning towards him. His mug of tea sits abandoned, and he’s working the rim of his hat between his hands. He looks concerned, deeply so. “Now, I might not understand most of what you meant by that, but I can tell that you’ve undergone some big changes recently, am I right?”
Knuckles nods, because he’s not wrong.
“It’s normal to feel frustrated by that. But’cha can’t get angry at the past, all you’re doin’ is getting angry at yourself. And that won’t get you nowhere.” He stares at Knuckles until Knuckles nods again.
“Now, if you’re searchin’ for some big purpose in life, you’d better let me know if you find it. Because I’ve been lookin’ for the same thing a darn sight longer than you have, and I haven’t found shit.” The curse surprised Knuckles enough to draw a light chuckle from him. Chuck returns the smile in kind.
“No, you gotta get out there and do what makes you happy. I dunno what makes you happy, sonny, it could be guardin’ your master emerald, or it could be adventurin’ with your friends, but either way, you gotta do it.”
“And if I don’t know what that is?”
“Then you gotta find that, and trust me, finding that’s a whole heck of a lot easier than findin’ the other thing. And if Amy and Tails have been givin’ you trouble, callin’ you stupid, then you send them right to me.”
“No, no, they haven’t,” Knuckles is quick to assure. Chuck narrows his eyes at Knuckles, like he’ll be able to see if it’s a lie. He seems appeased, because he sits back, sets his hat down, and picks up his mug to take a sip.
“Was that all that was buggin’ you?”
Knuckles frowns, opens his mouth, closes it again. Takes a sip. The tea is still warm, so he opts to finish the mug before it can get any colder.
“I guess so,” he says. “It’s just… guarding the Master Emerald is what I’m supposed to do, and… I completely failed.”
Chuck hums, drinking his tea at a slower pace. “This Master Emerald of yours, I don’t suppose it’s awfully big, is it?”
“Uh, yeah, it is.” Knuckles tries to gesture, for a moment, and is once again thrown off by the proportions of his body. How big would the Master Emerald be next to him, like this?
“Hmm. Well,” Chuck sets his mug down, and hoists himself to his feet, brushing off his lap as he goes. “Don’t take this as me knowin’ for certain, but I have heard about some big rock or other roundabouts…” he stops next to a desk, shifts a couple boxes off of it, and smooths his hands over the map underneath. He presses a hand to his mouth, squints, and then loosely circles an area. “Here, I think.”
Knuckles moves over to join him, peering over his shoulder at the map. It’s pretty clearly well loved, various notes penned onto it. The spot Chuck is circling looks like a circle of lake— or maybe a round river?— with a perfectly round landmass in it.
“Now, I’ve been there when I was younger, travellin’ on my own, and I didn’t see anythin’ like the land here,” Chuck says, tapping a finger on the landmass, “but I reckon, if anyone can figure it out, it’d be you lot.”
It’s a start, if nothing else. Sonic always looks forwards— who would Knuckles be, to try and do anything else?
“Thanks, man,” he says, noting which direction the landmass is in. It looks like a couple days of travel, but it shouldn’t be too hard to convince everyone to check it out.
“I recognize that look,” Chuck says. “You’re planning on heading out right away, aren’t you?”
“Uh,” Knuckles blinks, startled to be called out so simply, “well, yeah.” A pause. “I could… show you where the ARK is first?”
“I’d ’ppreciate that,” Chuck says, smiling.
The older hedgehog is appropriately wowed by the ruin, letting out a long, low whistle. Knuckles lets him know about the pair living there, Em and Big Guy, and then takes him to say hello to Tails, who is, as predicted, in his little workshop area near the Tornado.
Amy shows up with Sticks in tow not ten minutes later, first throwing herself at Chuck in a hug, then fussing over Knuckles, and then cornering Silver in a conversation about aliens that he seems completely clueless about.
Everyone is receptive to the island, though there’s some concern passed back and forth about what they’re meant to do about Lyric.
“I can’t track the chaos emeralds right now,” Tails says, “since my Electric got smashed. We have no way of knowing where he went.”
“I don’t like him having all the emeralds,” Silver says.
“None of us do,” is Amy’s input.
“It’s not like we can do anything about that right now,” Sonic says, startling everyone. “‘Sides, if there is a version of the Master Emerald in this timeline, he’s probably looking for it too.”
“You should be in bed!” Amy says, but she’s clearly relieved to see Sonic on his feet.
Sonic shrugs her concern off, but he does sit down rather quickly.
“He has a point,” Tails says, offering Sonic the cushy chair he had scavenged from an office.
“Gotta find the Master Emerald,” Sticks says, which just seals the deal, really.
A few days later, when Sonic is firmly back on his feet, everyone is firmly settled in their memories, and Tails has a new rudimentary Electric, the Tornado takes off.
Chuck, Em, and Big Guy watch them go.
“Do you think they’ll be okay?” Em asks.
Chuck tips his hat back, catching one last glimpse of the Tornado before it’s fully out of sight, lost to the clouds. “I think as long as they stick together, they’ll do just fine.”
Notes:
In chapter nine, there’s mention of Chuck being interested in moving closer to the ARK! Looks like he finally got around to that, ey?
On that note, I have no clue where his accent came from. He just… had it.
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quartzite49 on Chapter 1 Tue 30 Aug 2022 03:56PM UTC
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anshiel on Chapter 3 Sun 25 Sep 2022 11:53PM UTC
Last Edited Sun 25 Sep 2022 11:53PM UTC
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