A/N: All right, here it is, the third chapter of Chaos Chao and Good Wishes!
But first, to answer Matthew's review: Ding ding ding! We've got a winner! Have a special chao-shaped e-cookie! …Of course, if the story is coming off ENTIRELY as a parody of Paper Mario, then I'm not doing this very well. '^_^
Suggestions from all of you on how to make this better are always welcome! Now let's go!
ooo
Chapter 3
The Visitor
ooo
Amy Rose saw white, and then…
She found herself floating in some sort of cylinder-like chamber within a chamber. Immediately above her was a painted pink spiral, and below her was what looked to be some sort of blue liquid goo stuff under a glassy barrier. The mini-chamber was being supported by four columns, within which she could see energy shooting and crackling.
Unfortunately, she only floated for a second before dropping onto the barrier. She fell to her knees and put her arms out for support—bad idea, she realized as she yelped and winced from the pain in her right arm. Using her left arm, she pushed herself up, exited the little chamber, and looked around.
The big chamber was mostly comprised of transparent glass. When she looked down, she could see a dark sky with blood-red clouds. Side to side were windows that offered a vista of stars, and looking up revealed a non-windowed dome over the whole place. The dome seemed to show the polar opposite of the sky under her—it depicted a sunny yellow and blue sky with fleecy-white clouds.
Where am I? Am I in space? Amy wondered. But then a voice called out to her.
"How did you get here?" it asked. "Oh! And who are you?" it then hastily added. It was a girl's voice, neither high nor low-pitched, and its tone was guarded, yet polite.
"My name is Amy Rose, and I have no idea how I got here," she answered, moving her right arm to strike a thoughtful pose out of habit but then instantly regretting it.
"You're… Amy Rose?" The voice sounded surprised, but then dismayed as its invisible (to Amy) owner noticed the wound in the hedgehog anthromorph's arm. "Goodness, you're hurt!"
"Ah… yeah," Amy responded, growing a bit weak from the pain.
"I'll be able to help. But first, you need to come with me to the Chao Garden."
"A Chao Garden? There's one here?" Then Amy saw its entrance: an opening flanked by two statues of regular baby Chao holding vases (with real flowers in them!), and columns in the shape of bones. The rest of the entryway was grey and rocky, with moss on some of the rocks.
"Go through that entrance, and you'll reach it," the voice instructed. "Don't worry, I'll be coming along too."
"Thanks… You know," Amy realized, "I never asked your name!"
"It's Auntie," the voice replied sweetly. "And it's wonderful to meet you."
"Same here!"
And with that, Amy passed through the entrance.
ooo
There was the blackness that Auntie was accustomed to when switching areas, and then the two arrived in the Chao Garden.
It was a nice place, the Chao Garden. Hemmed in on two sides by grey mountainous rock, it offered a stunning view of an endless blue ocean on the opposite side. The ground itself was carpeted with lush green grass, and palm trees carrying luscious (for Chao) yellow fruit were dotted around the area.
What was most important in this instance, however, was the fourth side. Over there was a small series of cylinder-shaped cliffs where a sparkling clear waterfall with a hint of blue cascaded all around the center one. The waterfall barely concealed another cave just behind it in the cliff, but where that entrance led wasn't relevant right now.
No, the small pond at the bottom of the waterfall was where Amy needed to go—its water had a peculiar healing power that, even though Auntie had been here a long time, was still a mystery to her.
Immediately on their appearance, the Chao noticed them, an "!" expression forming on the emotion balls above their heads (as well as their faces).
"Auntie!" they all cried out in dishamorny as they saw her. Of course, to Amy, this came out as typical Chao babble.
"Aww, Chao! How cute…" Amy cooed without much of her usual excitement. Her arm was beginning to hurt pretty badly.
Auntie grimaced. "The water in that pond over there can heal you. Will you be able to reach it?"
"Yup!" Amy said with peppiness that wasn't entirely forced. She might be hurt, but she had never been one for giving up!
So she hurried as fast as her injured self could over to the pond. Auntie followed her, even though she was still invisible to the pink hedgehog.
"All right, I'm here! Now what?" Amy asked as she stared in the direction she estimated the owner of the voice was.
"Drop all of the items you've collected," Auntie instructed, "and dip your injured arm in the water."
"Hmm… okay…" The anthromorph pulled out her hammer and all the gem capsules she'd collected, dropped them on the ground, and promptly kneeled, sticking her wound in the nice, refreshing-looking water.
Suddenly, she felt a cool, tingly feeling in her arm as she saw its wound begin to heal up. "Whoa! What's going—" Then she felt it spread from her arm to her entire body.
"Gosh…" It was an exhilarating feeling, but inexplicably familiar. Somehow, it reminded her of home, and running… and Sonic.
It left, and Amy was wide-eyed as she pulled her arm out of the water. "What happened?"
She looked around as if for answers, but instead she saw all the Chao in the garden huddled in a semicircle around her, the Piko Piko Hammer, and those gem capsules, staring with wide eyes.
The healing had gone better than expected, but Auntie was shocked about something else—did that other girl suddenly gain Chaos Potential before her very eyes? And if so, how? So Auntie attempted to break the silence gracefully by "hmm"-ing and asking if Amy was okay.
"Yeah… I'm more than okay, actually," Amy answered, surprised, and then smiled. "I'm feeling really great! Thank you so much!" she enthused.
"It's- it's okay," Auntie stammered, still surprised herself, but then smiled back (even though Amy couldn't see it). "By which I mean, you're welcome!"
Amy laughed, but then became thoughtful. "Auntie, can you tell me what happened? I felt this weird feeling in my arm while it was healing up, and then through my entire body…"
Auntie was silent as she thought hard.
"I guess you don't know either, huh?" the pink hedgehog realized, and paused for a moment. "Well, my arm's healed up, and like I said before, I feel really great!" She got up, spun in a circle, and then pumped her fist. "I should be A-okay!"
"Well, if you're feeling better, that's good to hear," the other responded.
"Yeah!" Was it a trick of the light, Amy wondered, or was there a faint blue glow now where Auntie's voice was coming from? "And now…" Amy became determined. "I can go back to where I was and help Sonic!"
"…With what?" Auntie asked curiously, then frowned. "It doesn't have anything to do with that horrible wound your arm had, does it?"
"Well… it does. But I'm not going to let that stop me!"
Curiosity blended into dread as Auntie began to understand what was going on. "Were you…" she picked her words carefully, "were you two fighting someone?"
"Well, um… kinda." Amy realized that she PROBABLY shouldn't have said so much—even though Auntie seemed nice, the hedgehog anthromorph didn't want to blow her and her friends' cover, accidentally involve Auntie and her Chao, or worse. But then again, there were few ways you could explain a gunshot wound to the arm.
The Chao, who had begun to slightly calm down, began to freak out again and their eyes grew wide. A real fight! It was one thing to hear of it in stories that weren't real, but hearing of one that actually happened was incredibly scary!
Of course, most of the hatchlings, having little understanding of regular tongues, had no idea what was going on, but some of the older Chao covered their friends' ears anyway. Mammy was among those, trying to shield as many of the hatchlings' ears as Chao-ly possible.
"Auntie," Oldie suggested quickly, "you should probably hear our visitor's tale away from the rest of us."
"Right." Auntie nodded seriously at the older Chao and turned to Amy, who had somehow gotten a vague understanding the two were talking about her and not scaring the Chao. "If you don't mind, could you walk with me a bit? I'd like to hear your story—"
"But Sonic needs me!"
"—so I know what I can do." Auntie finished. Before Amy could say another word, "You won't even know how to get out of here until I know how to help," she added.
The pink hedgehog was downcast, and kicked her foot at nothing in particular. "Darn!" She looked up pleadingly at that faint bright light. "Then we'll need to do this really fast!"
"You can count on it," Auntie reassured. "Here, let's head over to that small cliff." She set off for it; Amy picked up her hammer and followed behind, but in her haste she left the gem capsules floating above the ground.