Saga would never pretend to know what the Professor did to find the tears. Waiting for him to find the closest to them proved to be nerve racking on her, nonetheless, and so she prepared her fourth cup of coffee for the day. Just the smell alone could calm her; she would take a deep breath in and just let the warmth overtake her senses.
"You always liked your coffee black." a teasing voice whispered in her ear. Immediately entering fight mode, Saga whirled her fist around to smack her surpriser, but they had stopped her just inches away from their face. Seeing who it was proper, Saga growled.
"You should have let me hit you, Infinite." she spat.
"I don't want to fight you." the jackal claimed, letting go of her fist. "I want to apologize."
"Like I said," Saga huffed as she picked up her coffee cup. "You should have let me hit you."
"Saga, for once, just bear with me on this." he informed her. "I know I have a long way to go to earn anyone's trust. I want to start with you."
The cat wisely chose not to answer this, instead raising an eyebrow while taking a very long sip of coffee. Infinite took this as a sign to continue.
"Saga, what happened between us may have been just a month ago for you, but for me it's been years. A war happened for Chaos's sake!"
"And what side were you on?" the cat questioned, taking another -purposeful- sip. But that inspired Infinite to do something he had never done before- he took Saga by the hand with both of his and looked her dead in the eyes.
"My puss, for once in your stubborn life, cut the snark and let me talk to you." he even said to her with a determined expression. "I need you in my life now more than I ever did back with the Jackal Squad. There are things I can never take back because of some innate fear of losing what's important, but strength wasn't as important as keeping those who matter the most."
"Nice greeting card pitch."
"Saga, please," Infinite begged, getting down to his knees, "I had to sit through a vision -a different lifetime- where I had to watch my Squad die all over again, with you taken as a trophy. And by the time I found you, you were already… already gone… Already… defiled."
This made Saga reclaim her hand and move several paces away from Infinite; the jackal remained where he was on the ground, knowing that it was not his place to stand yet.
"We both know how dangerous you can be if your powers get out of hand." he still continued. "And we both know that I can help you channel them. I couldn't save my squad, but I can help you. Let me help you Saga, please. Let it be the first stepping stone for us to be equals again."
The cat remained where she was, unsure of how to react or respond. Her mouth opened, but a strangling sound came out instead of words; eventually she was able to get out an "Infinite… I..." before trailing off again.
"I need to go." Saga finally admitted, quickly getting away from there and back to the Professor's lab. On her way out, she just barely ran into Shadow. She gave him a mumbled apology without thinking about how long he had been standing there. Shadow gave her a small raise of his eyebrow, then turned to Infinite and looked on with interest; so the jackal wasn't afraid to beg now? Interesting. It could have been a one off show and it might not happen again, but it was still interesting.
Taking his musings with him, Shadow also returned to the Professor's lab. When he entered, he took a look up on the main monitor and grimaced at the information displayed- the Professor had narrowed most of the results down to the general area, but the tears were near unpredictable. And while he didn't understand much of this generation's technology, Shadow also understood that they needed better equipment to narrow these things down if they wanted to secure all of them. Taking claim of a corner, Shadow kept his eyes trained to the monitor as it continued to calculate the tear.
It was quite some time before he realized he knew where the tear was located. In a sense of disbelief, the hedgehog declared -surprising everyone in the room, including Infinite as he came back in-, "The tear is at Green Hill."
"Hmm?" the Professor responded, looking up at the monitor. "Oh my, you're right Shadow! The closest tear is located in Green Hill Zone. You few decide who goes to close it while I find a way to get you there!"
"I'll go." Silver immediately decided.
"But shouldn't Saga go?" Saffron just as quickly observed.
"I'm not going alone." huffed said cat in defiance.
"You won't be." Silver smiled, placing a gentle hand on her shoulder. "I'll be with you all the way."
Saga looked at her friend and eventually put on a small smile. "Promise to buy me expensive coffee after?"
"Of course." Silver smiled in return.
Meanwhile, Infinite looked on with some measure of disgust. He hadn't even noticed that Shadow was coming over to him, and nearly put himself into fight mode when the hedgehog said,
"Go with them."
The jackal looked at him and blinked.
"You're joking." he snorted. The glowering glare the hedgehog gave was unwavering, soon causing Infinite to curse, "Good Gaia, you're serious."
"If you want her to start believing that you'll help her, you need to show it." Shadow told him, his voice boarding ambiguity. "Everyone you had tortured is dead. No one knows what you've done in your past. Go prove that their punishment wasn't for nothing."
For awhile, Infinite wasn't sure how to react. Was this normal? Did something happen to Shadow during Infinite's sentence too?
"What are you going to do?" the jackal finally asked. "Since you don't have to creepily stare at me anymore, and everyone you know is dead too?"
To this, Shadow grimaced.
"I'll find something." he grumbled before leaving the lab.
. . .
Silver could never actually recall being in Green Hill during Sonic's time. He barely knew anything about his time's Green Hill, in retrospect. It was still a very beautiful destination, to be sure, with natural palm trees dotting the upper plains and a soft breeze pleasantly teasing the clear blue sea water to anyone on the hill. Every so often, there was even a weathered totem pole or two that needed someone to come by and show them some love once more.
"The last time I was here, Eggman had made a desert of the place." Infinite idly noted. "It's amazing how nature reclaims its property if given enough time."
No one had given him a reply as Silver was trying to make heads or tails out of the tracker the Professor had made, and Saga was looking increasingly ill with each step they took. Perhaps knowing that he wasn't going to get an answer, Infinite put a finger on the radio headset and called in to the Professor's lab.
"Is the signal still to our left?"
"Yeah." Saffron's confirmed from the other end. "You're real close to the signal, but you could do with moving more north, Nth Degree."
"Nth Degree?" Infinite repeated, sounding amused.
"If we're going to use radios, then we need nicknames." came the confident answer.
"Saffron, that's ridiculous." Silver rebutted into his headset.
"Aw, come on Bugzapper." Infinite teased right back, "Let Spitfire have his fun."
Silver was ready to talk back but was stopped when Saga let out a weak, "Guys..." and seemed to be pointing at something not far from them. The two redirected their attention to her and saw soon after what Saga was pointing at; there was the tear they were looking for, shimmering in the air like a ripple of water.
"So," Infinite spoke up with a click of his tongue, "Now what do we do?"
"Saga should be able to..." Silver started to say before looking at the cat. Saga was trembling now, staring at the tear in some sort of terrified trance; her tail happened to flick to the side and the tear responded by quivering slightly. There was no way that Silver would gain her attention without something happening to the tear as well, so with a sigh he said, "Maybe I could use my telekinesis instead."
Letting out a calm sigh to relax himself, Silver then made his way over to the tear. After getting himself to a close enough position, Silver raised his hands and allowed them to be enveloped in a light blue aura. The aura enclosed the tear as well with some concentration- now moving his hands to come closer together, the aura around the tear started to close too.
Suddenly, Saga snapped out of her trance to shout, "No, Silver, wait!" before the tear burst out of Silver's barrier and even wider than before. Thrown back by the reaction, Silver was put in a daze as something started to come out of the tear. Infinite was first to notice this and quickly ran to the hedgehog- getting him out of the way just as the thing coming out of the tear landed right where Silver had been.
The three of them all looked at the thing that came out of the tear. It looked like a white, half spherical carrier with a large checkered wrecking ball attached. The carrier started to lift itself into the air, allowing the wrecking ball to be suspended a meter off the ground. Sensing Saga first -as she was almost directly in front of it- the carrier made its way to the cat, swinging the wrecking ball with full intent to harm her. Neither of the boys was going to let that happen, Infinite just happened to be the first one to react.
With a bellowing cry, the jackal jumped up high and slashed the carrier from the back as the wrecking ball moved forward. The sword easily created a gash in the side of the carrier, the carrier itself paused in place as it calculated Infinite's placement. Before it could do anything, however, the carrier became enveloped in a light blue aura.
"I've had enough of this." Silver demanded, flinging one arm off to the side and causing the wrecking ball to disconnect. With a flick of his wrist, the wrecking ball was sent back into the tear. Taking the opportunity, Infinite gave himself a running start before leaping into the carrier's cockpit.
"Which button, which button?" Infinite gleefully said to himself as he raised his sword over the control panel. "How about… this one!" and with that, plunged his sword directly into the panel and then dragging it across. Withdrawing his sword, the jackal looked over the now mess of wires before finding himself pleased with the destruction and getting out of the cockpit.
"Toss it!" the jackal shouted to Silver. The hedgehog gave him an affirmative nod before tossing the carrier back through the tear as well. Silver then redirected his telekinesis to the tear again, this time he did not try to close it and instead looked at Saga.
"Saga, you need to close the tear." he called to her.
"You've done nothing else anyway." Infinite teased as well.
"I..." the cat hesitated, but gave a sigh in defeat. "Fine."
Saga then marched closer to the tear, despite an increasing sickness, and gave Silver a conflicted look.
"I have it sealed, just close it." her friend told her. "It should be easy."
"Should be." she repeated. Having satisfied her sass for now, Saga held out her hand and concentrated on the tear. Slowly curling her fingers in, she tried to envision the tear getting smaller and smaller. She had to give it to Silver, having his telekinesis hold the tear made it much easier than she thought. It wasn't much longer that the tear was properly closed- letting out a small pop sound to indicate that it was gone for good.
"Good work Saga." Silver congratulated his friend. The cat looked over at him and didn't smile.
"If the rest of the tears are like this, I don't want to be a part of it." she told him. "I feel like I'm about to puke out my intestines."
"Not when I helped you." Infinite spoke up, moving closer to the duo. "You used to use these tears like you owned them."
"Opening is easier than closing." Saga spat back.
"Maybe it's the coffee, stunting your growth." Infinite then snickered. Saga all but hissed at him in return.