You'll see some tension between other hinted pairings here, as well as a light conversation between the team to fixate the mood.
Reviewers:
To Shadow of dimentio: Thanks! :) I'm glad you like it.
To She Who Greeted Death: Thank you! And this will definitely be continuing. I have almost all of the chapters done except for the final few, I'm just taking my time with uploading. xD
To Blazelve: Yeah, I finally just decided that I got enough support for it to put on my fanfiction account. I hope it goes well :) Thank you!
Also, the fact that people who have already read most of this still care enough to review on here I really appreciate it guys :)
I don't own Sega Characters
Chapter three: Concerned Conversations
Sonic sighed once again, making sure to let out an extra burst of air so his irateness was known.
"Sonic, would you quit sighing all over the place? I don't want your breathe on everything," Knuckles grumbled from his sprawled out position on the sofa.
The team was scattered throughout the rec room, Knuckles lay on the couch with his arms over his chest and eye lids rested, trying to take a nap with the blue hero bothering him from the love-seat to his right.
"But I'm so booorrreed," the blue hedgehog drawled, flopped in an abnormal posture with his leg dangling over the arm of the chair, his neck craned over the other with is foot bobbing up and down.
Amy looked up from her doodling on her sketch pad and beamed brightly. "Hey Sonic, would you want to see my art gallery?"
Sonic scoffed, not even glancing at the bubble gum hedgehog. "No thanks Ames, maybe later."
"Oh...okay," she answered, ears visibly drooping. Everyone in the room who had heard the conversation took a pitiful glance at Amy, knowing that being shot down hurt her more than she let on. Her emerald eyes veered back down to her sketching.
Knuckles peeled open one eye to look at the passing conversation that took place between his two co-workers, snorting softly and shaking his head at the stupidity in his blue friend. "Idiot," he muttered to himself.
Tikal walked over from the snack bar area and placed a tray of food on the end table. "Eat up guys. We have heavy training tomorrow," she stated, causing Sonic to abruptly sit up from his spot at the scent of wafting chili dogs.
Snatching up the treats, he smacked one down hungrily before beginning to devour the other.
Tikal snickered lightly, "slow down Sonic or you'll choke on those chili dogs."
Knuckles grumbled again, "why do you always make chili dogs? Those things are nasty. Now I have to find something else to eat," he stated with a frown, still reluctant to move from his bed on the sofa.
The brown echidna sighed, placing hands on hips, "Knuckles. There's a taco for you, also a bag of chips, pasta for Amy, and a salad for Rouge...wherever she is. I make meals for everyone, not just Sonic."
Violet eyes snapped open as he sat up hastily. "A taco?" he asked, turning his gaze down to the tray of food to see the delicate build of goods. With a content smirk, he grabbed his meal and chips and began decently eating. "Tikal, you're my favorite cousin," he complimented.
Tikal let out a huff, "I'm your only cousin Knuckles."
The red echidna meekly shrugged his shoulder as he began to divulge in his dish.
Amy closed her sketchbook and walked over to pluck her pasta from the tray. "Thanks Tikal. By the way, where is Rouge?"
"Right here," a voice said, as heels clicked into the room. She plopped down on the sofa next to Knuckles, who was very aware of her closeness and scooted over just slightly to put a distance from her body. "I was checking on Shadow," she announced, picking at her salad with a fork. "He's so stubborn."
Everyone paused in their eating momentarily, even Sonic, who was currently sucking at his gloved fingers to rid of the grease.
"How is he?" Tikal asked worriedly, taking her spot around the living area to eat her own delicate of shrimp.
The ivory beauty sighed exasperatedly, "like I said, he's stubborn. He won't tell me anything he's thinking or feeling at all. I don't know what to do with him."
An empty silence filled the air between the team, all scraping for a subject that held positive news.
"Er, where has Tails been lately?" Amy wondered aloud to break the growing tension.
Sonic spoke up, finally shifting so he moved into a straight seating. "He's been locked in his lab tinkering with that new energy stuff. What's that called again?"
"Diciorum," Rouge answered, crossing her legs and playing the empty salad dish down on the coffee table. "The Commander is hoping that it will have various uses for upgrading weaponry and other things, whereas Tails and all the scientists are seeking as to what its even made of."
"So he's trying to debate whether it's a compound or a mixture, whether it be physical or chemical. Or, there is the possibility that it's an element, and the atoms can't be broken down any farther. It all depends on the reactants, and how many substances were formed to make it, if it's electrons are willing to share ionic bond with other elements. If there actually were any at all. The last possible theory is that it could be similar to the Master Emerald, and hold power based by magic. Magic is scientists greatest mystery, an unsolved question to never be answered. Tails needs time, so our job is to keep gaining more power cores of this Diciorum energy, and he can proceed with the research."
Everything dropped dead. All eyes glued to Amy, who was nonchalantly poking at her noodle dish after her long speech. Glancing upward, she caught everyone's astonished looks and shrugged, "what? I know things. I've been captured by an evil scientists more times than I can count. The robots are sometimes chatty."
Long seconds passed as everyone continued to stare.
Getting annoyed, Amy sighed, and stood with her half eaten dish. "Well see you guys later. I've got things to do. Places to be," she stopped at the corner of the door and sent one last disappointed look at Sonic, who was oblivious to the gesture, before disappearing completely.
As her footfalls fell away, Sonic spoke up with a grin. "Wow! Who would've know she was actually doing something useful the billions of times shes been nabbed by Eggman?" he laughed.
Everyone else remained solemn, Rouge glaring at the hero harshly, as Knuckles rolled his amethyst eyes.
Realizing that he was laughing alone, Sonic seized his giggle fit to a chuckle and looked at everyone questioningly. "Guys? What'd I do?"
Tikal sighed unhappily, before standing and plucking the empty dishes and proceeding to the kitchen area to wash them.
Knuckles muttered under his breath before leaning to rest on the back of the sofa, as Rouge stood and scowled at him. "You're an oblivious idiot, you know that?" she snapped, before clicking her way out of the room on her heels.
Sonic frowned, confused at the sudden change in his friends. Turning to the remaining red echidna, he gestured exaggeratedly, "what did I do?"
The guardian sighed heavily, "and I thought I knew nothing of woman."
"You have to churn the energy inside of you Blaze, focus on the tingling feeling in your palms to generate the power to draw there," he spoke from directly behind her.
Blaze pinched her eyes shut, doing as she was told and centralizing her thoughts to the fluctuating power that stirred in her. Directing the power to her palm that she held open up in front of her.
"Good, now bring it to the surface, and when you feel ready, try shooting a small form of energy across the room."
Once again, she followed the instructions, and with a jolt, the energy shot from her hand and blew into the wall of the training room, which was luckily close to indestructible. The power that convulsed from her shot gave a kick, which knocked her back just slightly.
Her body bumped into his chest, as her eyes fluttered open. She expected him to back away, but instead felt him press up against her further, to her astonishment.
"You're getting better Blaze. It takes a lot of practice to bring your energy into a chemical form," he complimented, his deep voice ringing in her twitching ear.
Stepping away from him, she turned and gave a small grateful smile. "Thanks Shadow."
The ebony hedgehog raised an eyebrow, "for what?"
"I wouldn't have gotten this far without you coaching me. When you probably have several other things you could be doing," she offered for example, shrugging before turning back to the dent her energy beam had made in the wall.
A shuffling sound approached her from behind, and once again she felt his body press up against hers, but this time, she complied, and remained in the closeness of his touch.
Arms slowly snaked around her, and her eyes widened to their own accord in knowing what he was gesturing at.
He slowly brought his lips to her ear, his breath caressing her fur as he whispered, "there's nothing I'd rather be doing."
The scene then lead to their first kiss, the first of many to come in sharing one anothers' breath.
Blaze shivered, something she hasn't done for a long while. Her body never shook with a chill to the spine unless she was cold, which never happened with her inner flames trapped within her.
He had used to make her shiver. Her skin would tingle with anticipation of his touch, the brush of his lips, the caress of his fingers gliding over her waist and muzzle.
But he was gone now. That was for sure, and that was the way she planned to keep it.
Everything that reminded her of him she wanted to burn, to reduce to a pile of ash. Whatever the impact, it wouldn't hurt nearly as much as it had when he broke her heart.
She was locked in her room, a small yet essential plain quarters that she called her own. Her new life wasn't all that different from her old one, but it wasn't all that same either. She had made new friends, her now best friend being Silver, but there were times when she would miss Knuckles gullible antics, Rouge's gestures to fluster the echidna, even Amy, who kept her beautiful art work hidden from her co-workers, but trusted her enough to reveal her secret.
Adaptation. She told herself she should be used to having to adapt these days. There had been so many times in her life that had taken huge turns and toll on her stability, yet she had pulled through in the end. She always did.
But this time was much harder. In her time with GUN, she had become emotionally involved with someone, and that had been her downfall. She always knew emotions were a pain, only lead to things and changes such as these, yet she had fallen hard, and left to feel the impact of the asphalt.
"Hey," a voice called from the doorway to her room. She had been so lost in heavy thoughts, she hadn't even heard Silver knock.
She turned and gave him the tiniest of a forced smile, "hi Silver."
Silver took this as an invitation and closed the door behind him, leaning against the wall as he tried to study her face, get a read on her thoughts. "You okay?" he asked tentatively.
Blaze nodded, her face turning to look out the window once again as she spoke. "Yea, just thinking."
"About your old friends?"
Her head whipped around as she narrowed her eyes at the younger male, "none of you business," she snapped, harshly, only after realizing that it was just Silver being his sweet self.
He held out his palms in surrender. "I didn't mean to pry, I was just thinking you might like to talk about it."
Blaze sighed, her shoulders dropping from their tense posture. "Nah, I'm good."
A silence stretched between the two, until Silver finally spoke aloud the question that had been berating his mind, "you...you aren't thinking of going back are you?" he asked timidly, his ears drooping just the slightest in a pleading gesture.
Blaze dropped her lids, "no. never." she responded immediately, looking her young friend firmly in the eyes to confirm her answer.
Silver let out a relieved breath. "Good, cause I'd miss you. Grey, Espio and Scourge would too. And Fiona would also, she's just wouldn't admit it," he relayed, smiling cheekily as he spoke.
Blaze couldn't help my give him a smile in return, "thanks."
"Anytime! Now I was also wondering if you would like to join us for dinner. Grey made chicken strips and fries, if that interests you," he coaxed, hands clasped behind his back and rolling on his heels.
The feline shook her head, "sorry Silver, I think I might pass. I'm not in a very social mood at the moment."
Silver nodded in understanding, "I figured you would say that. That's why I already brought you a dish," he announced, and the door opened to show a plate with a delectable meal steaming. The entire dish glowed with the cyan blue aura of his psychokinetic force as it floated over to the end table that rested by her bed.
"Again, thank you Silver," she said, bowing her head gratefully. He waved his hand as he left, the door clicking shut behind him.
The small tilt of her lips dropped into a straight line, as she was once again alone with the sound of her own thoughts, and the birds that sang outside her window in the evening.
Mentally, she was preparing herself, preparing herself emotionally for tomorrow, knowing all too well who she would encounter in a fight for the energy core.
The anger inside her burst alive, her tail steaming with smoke as flames licked her form. She hid heart break well, buried beneath her in a wall of complete and utter fury, denial, as well as despair.
Emotions meant nothing to her now, that much she had always known. That very rule was the same one she was choosing to live by to the end of her days.