Thorn In Your Heart
The pink hedgehog stood at the door, in front of the cat and the blue hedgehog. The cat's answer to her sudden outburst was not one that pleased her. "What's the matter?! What's the matter?! You're the matter!"
Blaze was taken aback by Amy's words. She hadn't been in this world very long and yet somebody was already angry at her. Sonic reacted faster than Blaze could and tried to calm down the fuming hedgehog.
"What's going on Amy? Why are you so upset?" He asked. The pink hedgehog turned her head toward Sonic, she looked even angrier.
"You come here smiling, chatting and holding hands and you ask me why I'm upset?!"
"Uh, we weren't and we aren't holding hands. Look Amy, I think you're misunderstanding something here."
"I'm misunderstanding nothing!" She yelled as she pulled out a giant hammer out of seemingly nowhere and smashed the ground in front of her, leaving a huge dent in it. The duo avoided the attack by jumping away and safely landed on the grass a few meters away from the house. "Don't act innocent Sonic, it's everywhere on the news, you and that cat!"
'That was dangerous. Where did she pull that hammer from?' Blaze thought. The cat had stopped listening to what Amy was saying as she didn't really understand what was happening until she tried to flatten both her and Sonic with her huge mallet. Blaze took a fighting stance while Sonic shook his head, the hedgehog wasn't about to get in a brawl with his friend.
"Amy, can we not fight and just talk about this? What's everywhere on the news?" The blue hedgehog slowly walked toward the pink one.
"As if you didn't know!" Amy answered, stomping the ground with her foot. "You, her, eating at your favorite place when it's past midnight and at a special table!"
"Oh that? It was just dinner between old friends, and nothing else." The hedgehog said. 'I wonder how the media caught wind of it…' He was sure that the staff had taken away any cameras or anything similar from the few customers that were there when he and Blaze went to eat. 'That guy with the cameras might have had a hidden one.'
"And you think I'm going to believe you? I don't remember you having any friend like her! Or maybe… she brainwashed you?! That's it! Don't worry Sonic; I'm going to save you now." Pushing the blue hedgehog away from her path before he had the time to say anything and quickly went near Blaze who was still in a fighting stance. She stopped a few feet away from the cat and pointed her hammer at her as if she was wielding a sword. "I'll take Sonic back, you evil seductress!"
Blaze still had no idea what was going through that girl's head, all she knew is that she had to brace herself for a fight. She noticed Sonic behind Amy, giving Blaze an apologetic smile while rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment, it was the second time the cat met one of his friends since she had come here and it ended up in a fight once more. The cat shook her head as if to say that it didn't matter. "Very well, come at me with all you have. This will be perfect for my daily training."
It seems like the comment about training did not please the pink hedgehog as she rushed at the cat and was the first to attack, attempting to strike directly Blaze with wide swings. Blaze quickly dodged and immediately countered with a kick, Amy quickly shielded herself with the hammer's handle. 'Those are some very fast reflexes.' Blaze thought, she followed up with a flurry of kicks aimed at the upper body which were almost all skillfully blocked by Amy, the cat feinted the last one and did a sweep kick, aiming for the legs which knocked Amy off her feet. Blaze attempted to punch Amy's stomach with her left hand while she was on the ground but was blocked once more by the hammer's handle, Amy then pushed the cat away before getting back up.
'Good thing I didn't use my dominant hand, I shouldn't punch with the left one for a while.' The cat thought as she checked her left hand, the glove was slightly torn and the pain stung but it wasn't the worst she had to live through. Amy saw the opportunity and decided to take the initiative by rushing head first once more, attacking with smaller swings. At first it might have looked like Amy was just wildly swinging her hammer but the attacks were slowly getting harder and harder to avoid. Blaze's back suddenly hit the trunk of a tree, she realized she had been cornered. 'That is no fluke; she purposefully pushed me there.' She thought.
Amy swung down diagonally, Blaze, in an attempt to avoid the incoming attack, leaped over her; she spun in midair to keep facing Amy, who had destroyed the tree in half with that strike. The pink hedgehog wasn't done yet, using the momentum of her swing she spun around as well and threw her hammer with all her strength at Blaze who was still in the air. Having no other choice than using her powers, Blaze used an explosive burst of fire to thrust herself down much faster. Amy was shocked that the cat had managed to perfectly avoid her pinpointed attack; she didn't have any time to react as Blaze lunged at the hedgehog and punched her straight in the face, knocking her down. Amy sat up, groaning. That punch had hit her hard and had disoriented her a bit, she had troubles trying to stand up but eventually managed to do so.
The hedgehog was about to say something when she had a panicked expression on her face as she stared at something behind Blaze. The cat turned around to see the hammer coming back like a boomerang. Knowing that the hedgehog wouldn't be able to catch it, Blaze picked her up and dodged to the side, avoiding the hammer with a shocked Amy in her arms.
The hammer crashed into two trees and destroyed them both before stopping at the third one. Blaze was truly glad she hadn't been hit once by it, it might have been the end of her. She dropped Amy to the ground. "That settles today's training." Blaze said as she walked toward the entrance of the house. The pink hedgehog stood up, confused by the acts of her opponent.
"Why?" Was the only thing Amy managed to blurt out. Blaze stopped in her tracks and turned around to stare at Amy.
"Why what?"
"We're enemies, why did you save me?"
"Enemies? I never said we were; you only thought like that because your mind was clouded. I hope it has cleared up a bit."
Amy fell silent; she couldn't find an answer to this. She felt a hand on her shoulder; she looked up to see Sonic with a smile on his face. "Sonic!"
"Feeling better?" He asked.
The pink hedgehog looked down as she realized she had had another outburst of nonsense and had almost hurt somebody without even listening to what they had to say. "I'm sorry…" she muttered.
"Hey, it's alright, we all need to release some steam from time to time. I'm sure Blaze didn't mind either, right Blaze?"
"Indeed, it was a good workout." The cat said.
A new voice was heard from the inside of the house, one that Blaze recognized very easily. A tall bunny woman stood at the entrance of the house, looking around with a worried expression on her face. "Oh my, what happened here? I was cleaning and listening to the radio when I heard loud sounds of crashes…" Vanilla noticed Blaze, Amy and Sonic in that order. She remembered how worried Amy was about the rumor of a purple cat hanging out with Sonic and Vanilla immediately understood that a fight between the two girls had happened. "Is everybody alright?" The bunny said as she rushed to their side, having pulled a first aid kit out of nowhere. She closely inspected Amy as well as Blaze before applying an excessive amount of bandages to their wounds, the cat and the hedgehog didn't even have time to protest as Vanilla quickly took care of the bruises. It ended up with Amy's face being nearly completely covered, Blaze's left hand looking three times bigger thanks to the bandages and Sonic on the floor, laughing at both of the girls.
"Miss Vanilla, it has been a while." started Blaze.
"Yes it has, I wish we had met in more peaceful circumstances but I guess this is fine too. I'm so glad you came to see us today! How have you been? Did you eat three times a day and sleep eight hours every night?"
"…Miss Vanilla, I do not have the luxury to do as such."
The bunny let out a gasp. "That's very bad for your health Blaze; you won't grow anymore if you continue to live like this!"
The cat only smiled at Vanilla's retort. It felt nice to have somebody that cared about you, even if it was excessive in the rabbit mother's case.
Amy observed the interaction between Blaze and Vanilla. The bunny had never told her she had met somebody like that.
"You two know each other?" the hedgehog asked, struggling to take off the bandages on her face that didn't let her see much.
"That's right dear! She's a friend Cream came home with one day. How she came here is er… complicated. I'm sure Sonic can tell you about it." The blue hedgehog nodded and, much to Amy's pleasure, started to fill her in on what had happened to Blaze so far. Meanwhile, Vanilla had begun to talk to the cat once more. "I had a hunch you were the cat the rumor was talking about."
"The rumor that started this fight… I would like to know what it is about in detail."
"Of course." Vanilla then proceeded to inform Blaze of what she had heard on the radio. Apparently the media had received photos from an anonymous sender with written details on how Sonic entered his favorite fast-food at an unusual hour with an unusual guest. Of course the medias clearly had taken advantage of it to transform it into something much bigger.
'Just as I expected, they twisted the truth… in a strange way. Had it been my dimension…' The cat thought. She was snapped back to reality as she felt something behind her tugging on her jacket. Blaze turned around to see a rabbit smaller than Vanilla with a very big smile on her face. "Cream!"
"Blaze!" Cream tackled the surprised cat with a hug, making both her and Blaze fall to the ground. "I'm so happy you're here, I missed you so much!" The bunny said as she buried her face in Blaze's chest. The cat hesitated a moment before hugging back Cream. "Did you miss me? Did you?"
Blaze got up with Cream as everybody else had watched, with mixed reactions. Sonic had his usual mocking smirk, obviously enjoying the embarrassment showing on the cat's face, while Amy and Vanilla both were giggling at how adorable Cream acted.
"Ahem, I did, Cream." Blaze declared, which made Cream overly happy. Vanilla was smiling sweetly until she realized they had been outside all this time when they could have been sitting comfortably inside of her house.
"Oh my, how rude of me to make my guests wait outside! Let's go inside, I'll prepare tea for everybody. Sonic if you would be a dear to clean a bit of the mess done by the battle, I would greatly appreciate it; I'll reward you with a homemade chili dog." The older bunny said, motioning the group aside from Sonic to follow her inside the house. Amy was the first one to go while Cream, dragging Blaze by her hand almost forcefully, hurried behind the pink hedgehog.
"Consider the garden like new already!" Said Sonic as he became a blur and immediately got to work.
After showing her guests to the living room, Vanilla left them to go and prepare some tea. That gave ample time for Blaze to take off the bandages and correctly apply the first aid that Vanilla had left on the table before leaving. She took care of her hand very swiftly before tending to Amy. The pink hedgehog's left eye was slightly black under and her nose had a bit of dried blood on it but nothing too bad, thankfully. Once she was done cleaning the blood on her nose, Blaze put ointment under Amy's eye and only put the necessary amount of bandage over it.
"Thank you… I-is it alright for you to patch me up? After everything I did to you…"
The cat shrugged. "It happens." She answered nonchalantly.
"What do you mean "it happens"? I could have hurt you- no, I did hurt you, just looking at your hand makes me wince in pain…"
"That was my fault; I made a mistake and punched that hammer of yours. My hand is not broken though so you shouldn't worry about it. I've had much worse than this." The cat checked her hand out, verifying once more that the bandages were put correctly. "You've already apologized as well, so everything is fine now."
Amy stayed silent after hearing this. She herself hadn't been in a lot of fights where she got injured badly, not even a bruise similar to Blaze's current one; she started wondering if the cat had been through fights where she had truly suffered terrible injuries. If anything, Blaze was really good at applying first aids.
The pink hedgehog tried to launch another conversation, feeling uneasy. "I heard you were a princess, is that right? So,um… How's life as a princess… from another dimension?" Amy hadn't understood everything Sonic had told her, but even so she got the gist of it. While the whole parallel world ordeal was confusing for her, she knew that she was talking to royalty; something she had never done before.
The cat took a few seconds before answering, memories from the past coming in her mind as she heard the word "princess". "I am more a guardian than a princess; I won't explain why as it would take too long." Blaze looked at Amy straight in the eyes before speaking once more. "I feel like you are nervous when talking to me, perhaps it is because Sonic told you that I was of royal blood? If that is the case then rest assured, I've never been one to see the differences between nobles and commoners. That's why you should freely speak your mind when discussing with me."
It was true that Amy felt uncomfortable right now and that facing somebody important in society was a part of it. It was only a small part though, the fact that she was currently trying to have a casual conversation with a person she recently tried to destroy out of madness was what bothered her so much. Blaze seeming to care so little about this too surprised the pink hedgehog a lot as well.
"I see…"
Silence settled in once more, much to Amy's dismay. The only sound that could be heard in the room was Cream's soft breath, the bunny had fallen asleep on Blaze's shoulder, she had played all day and ended up tiring herself out. Amy was about to break the silence again but Blaze spoke faster.
"I feel like I should thank you for that fight."
At this point, Amy was completely lost. "…Huh?" was the only thing she managed to say.
"It relieved a lot of stress, let's just say that I was slightly worried by how my world is currently faring, it also helped me do a part of my daily training." The cat smiled slightly at the hedgehog. "So thank you."
"You're welcome! I guess?" Amy laughed, not feeling uneasy anymore. "You know Blaze, you're weird but you sure are a nice girl!" The tension in the air that Amy had felt wasn't there anymore, she felt like she could talk casually with the cat.
A loud gust of wind came in the room as Sonic appeared in front of the girls, waking up Cream by accident.
"Wah!" the poor bunny exclaimed, jumping out of the couch and nearly falling on the floor. Sonic swiftly caught her before anything bad happened.
"Whoops." Sonic said "Sorry about that!" He then placed her back on the couch. The bunny thanked Sonic through yawns before immediately falling asleep once more, this time resting her head on the cat's lap before Blaze even had time to protest. "Anyway, I'm done with taking care of the garden, looks like you guys made up too! And you know what this means? It means that it's homemade chili dog time!" Just as the hedgehog happily exclaimed this, Vanilla entered the room with a large plate with multiple snacks, cups and of course, the hot dogs Sonic had been waiting for on it.
"I hope I didn't make my guests wait too much. Let's eat outside in the backyard, there's still plenty of sun left for us to enjoy." Vanilla said. Everybody nodded, Blaze nudged Cream a bit to wake her up but didn't manage to do so, Vanilla asked Blaze to carry the bunny with her so that she wouldn't miss on the sunlight and that once outside, she would quickly wake up and be in the mood to play once more. The cat sighed, but did as ordered, trying to hide her embarrassment.
Once outside everybody, aside from Cream who was still asleep, helped Vanilla to put everything needed on the round table that was in front of the garden before sitting down on the chairs placed around the table. They then all started eating and talking casually about everything and nothing.
"By the way Blaze, how did you avoid my last attack?" Amy asked.
"That was just her-" Sonic started but was immediately cut by Blaze.
"Simply a petty trick, and like any good magician, I can't reveal the secrets to it." Blaze said. Sonic raised an eyebrow as the cat gave him a quick look, almost something that looked like a glare, that went unnoticed by the rest of the table.
"Oh wow, you can do magic tricks?! Like with the cards and all?!" Amy exclaimed, very excitedly, waking up Cream in the process who quickly joined the discussion after hearing that her best friend from another dimension could do things any children of her age loved to see.
"I trained a bit when I had a little bit of spare time back home with cards, so I know a thing or two."
"Can you show us?" Cream asked, her eyes practically glowing from excitement.
"After eating you can play all you want with Blaze my dear." Vanilla said. Cream nodded and started eating whatever was in front of her.
"I just wish to confirm something Amy, it's because Sonic ate with me alone that you were angry after me, is that right?" The pink hedgehog nodded, her ears dropping a bit, it wasn't something she was very proud of and would have rather not have the cat bring up the conversation again… "Then it would only be fair of Sonic to dine with you as well in a similar manner." Amy immediately brightened up while Sonic swallowed his chili dog by mistake and immediately started coughing. 'Ho, an unexpected reaction from him.' The cat thought in delight.
"R-Really?!" The pink hedgehog exclaimed.
"Of course, there's no way Sonic would disagree with me." Blaze then, with a coy smirk, turned to stare at the hedgehog who looked like he had been asked to swim through the sea. "It would be rude of you to not treat all your friends equally, isn't that right Sonic?"
The poor blue blur struggled to find an answer. "Erm… err…" was all the sounds that came out of his mouth.
"What's this Sonic? Don't tell me you're going to refuse the request of a fair maiden?" Blaze said. Amy stared at Sonic with the eyes of a beaten puppy while Vanilla was silently giggling.
"…Alright." Sonic said with a sigh. Amy jumped out of her chair and gave Blaze a hug, almost making her fall out of her own seat.
"Blaze, you're the best friend EVER." She nearly shouted the cat's ears, making Blaze cringe slightly.
"Y-you're welcome." Blaze said. The pink hedgehog got off her and started dancing with Cream who hadn't really listened mostly because of how busy she was trying to imagine what kind of magic trick Blaze could pull off. The bunny still went with the flow and merrily danced alongside Amy. "Ahem, how about tomorrow night then? Same place, same hour. It will give both of you ample time to prepare yourselves." Sonic looked at Blaze, who understood that he was wondering what she was going to do while they were eating.
"Why don't you go and visit your new friend while I'm not there? I bet she'll be happy to see you." Suggested the hedgehog.
"That doesn't sound like a bad idea." The cat answered, remembering the VIP card she had gotten from Rouge.
Cream's ears perked up at the word "friend". "Can I come too?" Asked the bunny.
"I highly doubt your mother would let me take you to the place I'm going."
"What kind of place is it Blaze?" Vanilla asked worriedly.
"I'm not sure if you know much about Rouge, a bat, she apparently has a nightclub and she invited me to join her there." The cat explained. Cream's ears dropped, expecting her mother to obviously forbid her to go to such a place.
"Though I know her name, I haven't talked much with Rouge. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't let her go but considering you're in our world for only a limited amount of time, I'll allow Cream to go with you." Vanilla said, though still hesitant. "If she is a friend of yours then I believe I can trust her."
Cream beamed once she heard that her mother would allow her to tag along her best friend. "Really mom? Thanks!"
"Very well then, I'll make sure that nothing happens to Cream, and if something does happen I will take full responsibility for it. I'll come to pick her up tomorrow night."
"I'm counting on you Blaze." Vanilla said.
With that, the conversation went back to talking about everything and nothing, except Sonic wasn't as happy as before while Amy was overjoyed. Once done, Amy and Blaze were both pulled by Cream to play with her and Cheese while Sonic stayed at the table alongside Vanilla and started talking about what had happened so far to Blaze.
Tails finally appeared and greeted everybody, apparently his plane had some mechanical problems he noticed once he landed and couldn't help but fix them right away, which took him much longer than he had expected. He too was suddenly and forcefully pulled by Cream to play with her and the two other girls. Blaze did a few magic tricks using a pack of cards Cream had handed her, catching the attention of the younger group. After a bit, Vanilla and Sonic joined in the fun as well, the hedgehog trying to be as silly as possible while showing off cool moves such as handstands.
Because of Cream; Blaze, Sonic, Tails and Amy all stayed until late afternoon, when the bunny was finally completely exhausted. After saying goodbye, Tails took Amy in her plane and flew her home while Sonic, followed by Blaze, ran to the blue blur's house.
Obviously, the hedgehog had decided to take long paths and detours to make the trip "more enjoyable".
Once arriving at his house, Sonic jumped straight into his couch, not caring about making holes in it with his spikes. "Man I'm exhausted! I never thought that playing with a little girl could take so much energy from you." The blue blur said, sitting correctly so that Blaze would have enough space to sit down as well.
Blaze entered the house, seemingly out of breath. "We've ran at full speed for a whole hour and yet Cream is the one that made you tired?" She sat down, muttering a small thank you.
"Okay so maybe that run tired me a little tiny bit, but have you seen how much energy that kid has? If she had the same speed as me she'd probably last longer than me in a three hour race."
"…Three hour race? Did you really run at top speed for three hours straight?"
"Yeah! I think I ran a bit more than half of the planet. Running on the water was the toughest part but it was really fun."
"You're the craziest person I've ever met." She said with a sigh, closing her eyes as she rested her head on the top of the couch.
The hedgehog chuckled at that comment. "You're not the first one to tell me that."
None of them spoke anymore, enjoying the silence that had settled in. They started the day with little sleep and had worn themselves out. There was still something that had happened that day that bothered Sonic.
"So, why didn't you want me to say that you had fire powers to Amy? Now that I think about it, you avoided using it even against Rouge, the only moment you did use it was when she wasn't looking or when it was your only way to avoid Amy's hammer throw." He started. Blaze slightly opened her eyes up, knowing he would bring the subject up.
"I apologize for the look I gave you but I would prefer if my powers remained secret. I do not wish for the same things to happen here as they happened in my world."
"You can trust my friends Blaze, they're all an odd bunch, I'm sure they wouldn't judge you for your powers."
"How can you be so certain of it Sonic?"
"Because I trust my friends."
"Sonic, your friends are not as fearless as you are."
Sonic sat up, leaving holes in the sofa because of his quills, and raised an eyebrow at the cat. "What do you mean by that?"
"Do you honestly believe normal persons are not afraid of fire? By normal persons I don't mean you, me and anybody strong enough to go through an inferno without blinking. Unlike the other, natural elements of the world, fire has always been considered as the most dangerous and the most uncontrollable one. Even with all of its practical uses, it is always regarded in a very negative way. Of course, you would think that being able to control and tame even the hottest flames would make people look up to you but in reality this is not what they see Sonic. Do you know what they truly see?"
Sonic didn't answer.
"What they see is an individual having control over the most dangerous element known to living beings. It doesn't matter how hard said individual tries, he will forever be regarded as a threat, as a monster."
Silence settled in once more for a few seconds as Blaze stared at the ground, her eyes felt emptier than Sonic had ever seen them before. There were no emotions, no sadness, no anger, no pain, almost as if the cat was used to this and for Sonic it was worse than anything else. 'What the heck did she go through?' was the first thing he thought of. After another few seconds of complete silence, the cat stood up.
"I apologize for blabbering about useless things like the past; it looks like I've ruined an enjoyable moment of rest for both of us. I will now head to my room, goodnight Sonic." Blaze said as she started to climb upstairs. Before she could even take a step further, the blue blur suddenly appeared on the step above.
"You're far from a monster." The hedgehog started. Blaze looked up in surprise, staring at Sonic's eyes. "People may be afraid of your power, but I'm sure that if you work hard enough, then everything will work out in the end. One day, you'll be rewarded for everything you've done, I'm over a hundred percent sure of this, my gut instinct is never wrong." Blaze stayed silent the whole time, shocked at the hedgehog's sudden speech, yet she couldn't help but listen and take in every word he spouted. "You're one of the kindest person I personally know of. Sure, you've got a bit of a temper, but who doesn't? And even if someday, it gets out of control, I'll be there to calm down your flames by creating a strong enough whirlwind."
Blaze felt multiple emotions rising inside of her; she barely had time to express anything as Sonic continued talking.
"And two more things: First, the past isn't something useless, so you can rant all you want about it, especially to me. If you ever feel like talking about it, I'm here, alright? And second thing…" The hedgehog, with a smirk, cracked his knuckles before continuing "If anybody ever calls you a monster, demon or whatever the heck that's not a good thing, I'll punch 'em right in the face, whether you like it or not."
All of the emotions Blaze felt rising had reached a boiling point. The cat suddenly burst out laughing, surprising Sonic. "You truly are the craziest person I've ever met." She said with a smile, a sincere one. She continued to travel upstairs, muttering a barely inaudible "Thank you." when she was next to the hedgehog before heading to her room.
Sonic sighed in relief, heading to his own room and right as he passed next to the guest bedroom, the hedgehog spoke.
"You're welcome, goodnight Blaze."
I really like to think of Blaze as the forgiving kind to anybody who doesn't have any real evil intent. She doesn't seem like she would hold a grudge against anybody that didn't really mean to do harm.
