Forget everything you saw, Sonic lied to himself, they were all robots. No humans or Mobians. All robots with synthetic skin and bones. By the time Sonic had gotten out of the shower his hands and feet were pruney and spines were pressed flat against his back.
The bathroom mirror was fogged over which was just as well- the cobalt speedster didn't want to see how awful he looked when exhausted. He grabbed a towel and vigorously rubbed his spikes dry; procrastinating by drying as many as he could individually.
Sonic then decided to focus on getting something to eat and walked zombie-like to his kitchenette.
He opened the refrigerator and looked blankly inside. It was as if his brain couldn't process what he was peering at. He saw vague shapes: lumpy things wrapped in foil, jars of chili sauces and random fruit haphazardly thrown around cans of soft drinks.
He lingered in the cold radiating from the appliance for a moment. Sonic gingerly shut the door without getting anything and flopped into his hammock and prayed for a dreamless sleep.
Amy pinched the bridge of her nose with frustration. She had her tarot cards spread out in front of her looking for guidance. She was in her bedroom sitting with her legs crossed facing the headboard with the cards spread out on the neatly arranged blankets.
Sweet sandalwood incense burned. Pink and white candles spread about the room flickered impatiently.
The pink hedgehog had done this many times, each spread becoming more and more complex; but this time her cards were giving her mixed signals and were hard to read. She had a tarot handbook next to her and her own grimoire full of notes to refer to and neither was helping. Clearly she would have to simplify her spread and questions.
She gathered up the cards and shuffled the deck; taking extra care to feel the smooth cardstock the images were printed on. The illustrations were gorgeous watercolors where all of the subjects were different flowers instead of people.
"Can I trust the witch?" she held the deck to her lips. "or rather can we trust what she says?"
The first card she had pulled was the King Of Cups, reversed. She pulled another card and laid it sideways on top of the first: The High Priestess.
Amy wrote this down in her notebook and moved to the next set question without putting the cards she pulled back into the deck.
"How do I protect myself?"
The first card in response was The Lovers. The next one was Ten Of Cups, both upright.
Again she penciled in these notes. She always wrote down the results before calculating the meaning.
"How do I protect my friends?" She asked this one last question before stopping for the day as she was getting sleepy and hoped to nap after this.
Her result was death and Seven Of Pentacles, again both were upright.
The first two cards, she figured, meant that Sheptilah was emotionally manipulative and powerful, but not untrustworthy. Because that makes perfect sense, Amy scoffed. She's manipulative but you can trust her. The second set meant to befriend the witch and make her like family. The third answer was simply that change only comes from investments.
Fine, she thought, be obvious. What a sassy deck I've got.
A familiar chime cut the silence. Amy wrapped her cards in the red silk handkerchief they arrived in and felt around the bed for her phone.
"Where is that darned thing," the chiming continued, "I hear you! Stop yelling at me." She found it tucked under her pillow.
[WhiteEcho] Amy, how are you doing?
It was a text from Rouge.
[Th!nkP!nk] hey, I'm ok. Hbu?
[WhiteEcho] I wanted to check on you
[WhiteEcho] stuff at the base was bad
[WhiteEcho] and Sonic just left
Amy got up and blew out her candles. 'Stuff at the base was bad' was understatement of the year. She took her phone with her into the kitchen to get herself a snack. She found a half-eaten muffin to finish off.
[Th!nkP!nk] I'll be ok
[Th!nkP!nk] wait he was held there all night?
[WhiteEcho] yeah. He wants to come with us
[WhiteEcho] to some ancient building but we all said NO
[WhiteEcho] so he's probably grumpy
[WhiteEcho] keep an eye on him ok? We need you all to stay on the island
[WhiteEcho] and defend it
[Th!nkP!nk] I always got my eye on Sonic! ❤︎❤︎❤︎
[WhiteEcho] you're so cute, don't ever change ok?
[Th!nkP!nk] never!
Amy chuckled and put her phone on her coffee table and laid back on her sofa. No matter what was happening in the world she knew she could always rely on her friends. Even the aloof ones.
Hope was in her dorm writing up notes for Cabbot on her laptop. The lights were off and the only illumination came from the soft glow of the computer screen.
Wednesday December 10th
- Thunderbolt the chinchilla's Soumerca base is attacked by the 'witch eaters' and put on lockdown
Sunday December 15th
- Doctor Ivo 'Eggman' Robotnik claims he discovers the witch Shep-til-a in the southwest quadrant of Dust Hill
- Shep-til-a is brought to GUN by Shadow and Rouge for questioning and voluntarily surrenders herself to cell block 5
Monday December 16th
- Shep-til-a is given a medical work-up and leaves the premises
- Thunderbolt's distress call makes it through
- Doctor Eggman requests assistance from GUN at Sheptilah's behest
- Sonic the hedgehog, Amy Rose the hedgehog, Tails the fox, Knuckles the echidna and Sticks the badger all come along but remain outside
- Thunderbolt the chinchilla along with thirty-three Egg army survivors are removed
- Doctor Eggman is given a GUN communicator by President Abraham Tower
[Last Edit: 12/16 11:20]
Hope was sick to her stomach. The very concept of being forced to work with Doctor Eggman, even if it was from a distance, made bile wind its way into her throat.
Ivo was her uncle. They were related. She is related to a monster.
All the chaos and bloodshed he's caused and will cause. She rested her elbow on her desk and her chin in her hand and stared at the screen with her upper lip curled.
On top of all that, another witch has wormed her way into the Kintobor family drama. Apparently Regina Ferrum and the Naugus twins were just the beginning. Now they have some ancient queen to deal with and the eldritch abominations that come bundled with her.
Great. Wonderful. Fun-filled times ahead.
However... unlike Regina, Sheptilah's magic doesn't work with iron. That's her weakness; her Achilles' heel. She can't understand typed or pre-recorded language, either.
If Sheptilah proves to be untrustworthy, Hope pondered, we can always throw her in the Special Zone with Feist to suffer with everyone else.
A knock on the door broke her concentration.
"Come in." She called, closing the lid on her laptop. Shadow stepped in holding a foil-wrapped hot dog.
"You missed lunch so I brought it for you." He turned on the light. Hope's dorm was just as bare as his was save for pictures of Team Dark plastered on the walls.
"Oh, thank you." She took the food and munched on it. "I totally lost track of time. I was writing up the summaries for Mr. Cabbot."
"I figured you were busy," he sat on the edge of the bed, "Are you doing okay?"
"Yeah, I'm just… old family memories bothering me. You know how it is."
"If it makes you feel better, the witch said she was going to kick Eggman's ass when this was all over." He grinned at her.
"Did she really?" Hope's mouth curled into a smile. "It's a lot to kick. I hope she's up for the challenge." She took another bite. "So you trust her?"
"I don't trust anyone that works with Eggman, but it's not entirely her fault. It's actually somewhat my own fault, too. I let him destroy the moon years ago and she doesn't know this."
He stared at his metal skates. "All those people that died in the Soumercian base… they died because of my indirect actions."
"Shadow," Hope sulked, "None of this is your fault. Nobody could've known this would happen." She set the remains of the hot dog on her desk and sat next to the hedgehog.
"Still," he began, "I thought I was making up for my past. I guess it will catch up to me over and over again."
Hope wrapped an arm around his thin waist and pulled him in for a hug. "You've already done that and then some. This is Eggman's past that's catching up; not yours."
Shadow felt great comfort in Hope and it wasn't simply because of her resemblance to the late Maria. She was one of the few Overlanders he could stand to be around for more than an hour. Hope is a trusted confidant and wise beyond her years- so he always turns to her for advice when he can't find his own answers.
The hedgehog rested his head against her shoulder gently. He was quiet for a while, lost in thought.
"Something else is bothering me, too." His ears flicked impatiently.
"What?" Hope sighed.
"She's way too nice." Shadow closed his eyes and wrinkled his brow.
"Wait, her being nice bothers you?"
"Yes," he stood up, "And I think she pretends to be weak to feign innocence."
He didn't trust many people but he certainly didn't trust strangers that come bearing armfuls of gifts and promises.
"And the witch orb. She just bit into her hand like it was nothing so we could simply summon her if need be; and those promises that she'd fix whatever Eggman broke. I think she is manipulative and more suspicious than she lets on. Why everyone seems to trust her right off the bat is beyond even me."
"She bit into her own hand? " Hope's mouth curled in disgust.
"Yes. Just… right in the area between your thumb and forefinger." He held the fingers apart for emphasis. "She bit right into them and drew blood and picked up sand. The witch orb works as she described it but… it was just weird." Shadow has seen a lot of nonsense but witnessing someone self harm by taking a bite out of their own meat was unsettling to him.
"Yikes." The skin between her fingers ached just thinking about it.
Hope then sat up with a start and grabbed her laptop and opened a search bar.
"I was doing some casual research on witchcraft and what you just said reminded me of something I saw." She was typing frantically. She brought up a webpage detailing blood magic rituals.
"This may be out of date since she's thousands of years old but," she scrolled down, "it sounds like she may be a blood witch. If this is correct, and it may not be, blood magic performed using the witch's own blood is irreversible."
"Irreversible? " Shadow knew nothing of magic beyond technomancy and crystalmancy.
"As in, the spells cannot ever be broken; even by the witch themselves. So those witch orbs are permanent." Hope paused.
"That also means anyone whose blood she comes in contact with she can use to curse them or kill them by mixing it with her own."
"That could explain why she's so quick to heal people and uses her hair for it. The ends were pink with it after the run-in at the Egg base." Now the wheels in his head were turning.
Sheptilah was leaning on the sink and staring deeply into the reflection of her eyes in the mirror. The witch had gotten out of the tub and caught her own vision in the silvery surface and was drawn to scrying without intending to. The sound of the water going down the drain was the perfect white noise.
Show me, after a few minutes she felt her ears begin to ring, show me my familiar. Her eyes unfocused and her vision blurred.
Show me. She felt angry. Very angry. The world was whirling around her.
Suddenly the world shifted as if she was high up, walking precariously on a narrow surface about to fall. The feeling in her stomach of being dropped from high up was nauseating.
Her breath quickened and her grip tightened. Her knuckles were almost as white as the porcelain she was clutching.
Death. She felt death pounce. Something hot entering the back of her head and an explosion of color and then blackness. The sensation of heavy iron holding her arms and legs down.
The feeling of running in a loop-de-loop and pushing yourself forward with tension.
The taste of sugar overflowed in her mouth making her teeth ache and saliva drip from her chin.
The feeling of drowning with your lungs full of water overcame her next. That dreamy, warm feeling of drowning when you accept that you are about to die and go with the flow of it.
Blood everywhere that wasn't yours.
Starlight was the next thing that came into her mind. Starlight so blinding and beautiful and something golden and fiery in your line of sight. She wanted to catch whatever it was with all of her heart.
The planet from high above looks so beautiful and strange. Was Zanu really this green?
A strange kind of twinkling music coming from instruments she did not yet know the name of drowned out the incessant ringing in her skull. Brightly colored lines in the shapes of an archer and a whale. Lights that felt ice cold to the touch.
Who is my familiar… She demanded again. Flight- the feeling of being thrown high into the air only to be caught and let down gently. Sheptilah was experiencing all of these sensations at once and shivered.
The feeling of questioning your own reality. She was suddenly unsure if she existed or was a dream. Who am I? Who am I? The words bounced in her brain like distorted echoes in a tunnel.
Who is my familiar? Tell me, Universe. Who is it? Where are they?
Sharp. Round. Sharp. The adjectives kept changing. Which was it? It could not be both.
Hot. Cold. Why is this so conflicting? Blue eyes. Eyes as blue as the morning sky.
"I can't move my feet."
She felt intense fear trying to access whomever it was that was her familiar. Something was blocking her and it began to hurt. She felt pain shoot up her arms and feet as if her bones were snapping. Sheptilah tried to snap out of the scrying herself but it was not working.
Then a crack. The clatter of something breaking on the floor 'woke' her along with the painful thud in her foot.
Her vision refocused and she saw she had chunks of porcelain in her hands and another had hit her toes. She broke the sink.
She looked up into the mirror and for a brief second saw herself with only one glowing eye. The vision came and went like lightning.
Sheptilah looked around and saw she was still wet and dripping. She heard the tub still draining. She checked the water level and realized wasn't even scrying for more than a few seconds when all Hell broke loose.
She was afraid of her familiar.