This chapter is inspired by a picture I did for Deviantart. Only Ozzie and the Talpideans are mine. Sonic, Chip, and the others belong to SEGA and the Sonic Team.
'Where have I seen those eyes before?'
When Chip first heard about Ozzie through Sonic, he was delighted at first, of course, at the thought of getting to know more of Sonic's friends. However, when Chip did meet Ozzie, something felt...off—and not just for Chip. The burrower had stared at him as if he were trying to piece together something long-forgotten as well.
So no, not off..."nostalgic" would've been a better description.
Why, though, Chip struggled to fathom. He figured the familiarity Ozzie invoked in him and vice versa had to do with both of their still incomplete memories.
'That sounds like a good reason,' Chip thought. 'The Talpideans worshipped me almost as much as they did Dark Gaia, after all. Maybe I met another Talpidean who had the same sort of deep, lonely-looking eyes as Sonic's old-time buddy.'
So then why did the loneliness in Ozzie's eyes seem...immortally deep? 'Like it's something that's existed for longer than anyone's been alive...?'
Chip wasn't too sure he'd like the answer; in all truth, it terrified him pale. 'But darn it, I have to know! Ozzie's linked to the last piece of my past somehow, and I need to figure what that connection is. If I do, then maybe I can even help Ozzie figure out who he is, too.'
"Yo, Chip!"
"Gah!" the addressed jumped a little at the sound of the Azure Wind's voice. He calmed a little and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly once he noticed the gang staring at him with confounded stares. "Uh...Yeah, Sonic...?"
"We gotta burn rubber, buddy," the Blue Blur thumbed to the desert temple just up ahead, "Nightmares are all over that place so we better keep our guards up."
Along with the others, Chip nodded in agreement, but hesitated a little after doing so. "Oh right! Uh, Ozzie's coming with us, right?"
Amy rolled her forest-green eyes at him. "Of course, he's the only one who can read his people's language right and the rest of us don't have much time to learn it either."
Except when the group finally reached the vicinity of the temple, well...let's just say that they weren't expecting the DG Minions to move aside for them so easily. In fact, when they reached the doors, two Deep Nightmares opened the way for them and even politely ushered them inside like butlers.
"Huh, well this definitely registers a 15 on the weirdness scale," Sonic observed in a hushed voice as he and gang made their way down the main hall.
Tails leaned over to his big brother figure and whispered, "Do ya think they're waiting for us to make the first move, Sonic?"
"Beats the heck outta me, Tails...," Sonic shrugged his shoulders but maintained his wariness, "but we better stay on our toes just in case."
Chip would've agreed, but something about the way these dark creatures were staring at them—no, the way they were staring at him and Ozzie, of all people—both unsettled and amazed the miniaturized god.
And Ozzie returned the looks right back, looking just as perplexed by the Dark Gaia minions' behavior as his friends. He wouldn't admit this, lest he worries everyone, but he had a strange sense of déjà vu here. Had he been here before he'd been cryogenically frozen 3 centuries ago?
A Big Mother awaited them at the end of the hall, where she stood guard in front of a massive pair of heavily carved, stone, double doors. She opened the way and led them to a chamber so massive and tall that the gang could barely see the ceiling when they looked up. Talpidean symbols and letters could be seen all over the wall and ceiling, recounting stories with detail that even famous novelists of the past would have envied.
None of these details were what freaked the Sonic Team out. That honor belonged to the sheer number of DG Minions that surrounded them, every variety under the rainbow eyeing the gang without moving a muscle.
Ozzie started a little when the Big Mother gestured him to step up. Sharing an unsure and nervous look with Sonic, who assured him that he and the others had his back in case this was a trick, the Talpidean cautiously stepped forward. Then all of a sudden, every DG Minion—from the Little Rexes to the Killer Bees to the Red Titans—straightened up, got down to their knees, and bowed their heads. It only took Ozzie a second to realize what they were doing...and his jaw dropped to the ground once he did.
They were bowing down to him. Him...Of all people...of all Mobians...
Why?
("Too Late—Orchestral Version" by No Doubt)
Knuckles shook his head at the surrealism of this event. "No offense, Ozzie, but...what the heck did you ever do to warrant these guys acting like this?"
Ozzie shrugged his shoulders, now at a pure and unfathomable loss. 'My guess is just as good as yours, Knux.'
Chip tilted his head then looked down in thought. He heard Sonic asking him whether he was alright, but the miniature god responded instead with, "I...I think I know. Ozzie...you said you wonder why sometimes you feel like someone else, right?"
The mole narrowed his eyes and nodded. He trusted Chip's judgment, scatter-brained as it could be at times, yet he couldn't ward off a strong sense of premonition in his heart, so he let his tiny companion continue.
After taking a deep breath, Chip dared to move on. "According to the legend of your people, they came from the essence of Dark Gaia and were tasked to keep the world safe until he and I returned from deep sleep."
"And...?" Ozzie patiently urged him to continue.
"And, well...have any of you ever wondered that since I ended up with a form that lets me associate with the people of this planet, that it could be the same case for Dark Gaia?"
As Chip stopped there to let his words to sink in, the other members of the Sonic Team needed not long to understand the significance of their friend's words. Their reactions were instant.
Sonic's eyes sprang to the size of dinner plates. "No way...!"
Knuckles shook his head in denial. "You can't be serious!"
Tails took a fearful step forward. "But that means..."
Amy clasped her hands together in fear. "I don't like the sound of that!"
Cream cradled Cheese to her chest like a teddy bear, both of the children terrified out of their wits. "Us either, it's too scary to think about!"
Only Ozzie remained calm; inside, he trembled. With poise he couldn't believe he still had, he wrote a few statements into his notebook and showed them to Chip. So Dark Gaia is walking among us then... but in that case where could he be?
For a moment, Chip twisted his face up as if in grim hesitation. Then with a heavy sigh, he uttered with calmness that betrayed his hidden turmoil, "Dark Gaia...is right here."
This time, even Ozzie couldn't help gasping. Like well-trained soldiers, Sonic, Knuckles, Amy, and Tails tensed for battle, ready for someone or something to leap out at them at any moment. Cream and Cheese huddled close to their stepbrother for protection.
Once again, only Ozzie did not join in, even though he numbly wrapped an arm around Cream out of instinct. Like Chip, he never raised his guard up, but still paled at the inner premonition he sensed being validated piece by piece.
Like a twin, Chip sensed Ozzie's discomfort yet also knew that he had to make the right choice...despite the fact that dealing with the consequences of it wouldn't be easy. "He was always with us; in fact, he's been with us—or you guys, I should say, ever since Amy and Cream met him in the Talpidean Ruins."
"That's impossible!" the rose angrily retorted in confusion, "Dark Gaia was never there! The only ones we met were that crazy robot and—and..." Like lightning, all thoughts but one in her head vanished, the remaining one a realization that chilled her to her very core. Her friends proved no different.
But the epiphany affected Ozzie the worst. Hyperventilating suddenly, he slapped a hand to his chest when he felt a panic attack coming. Backing away as though struck blind, Ozzie never noticed his friends circling him. What was going through their heads this instant?
He was too scared to find out, so instead he focused on himself. His heart pounded like a war drum against his ears, his blood pumping hard and fast due to the excess of oxygen. 'It's not true. It's not true. It's not true. Please don't be true. Please don't be true.'
The more he sensed Chip's intense, sympathetic stare on him, the more Ozzie felt like disappearing...running away...But he knew that no matter how far he ran, the truth would always hang over him.
Too much...It was too much. It had to be a lie. It had to be a cruel, sick joke. That's what he wanted it to be. That's what he needed it to be.
Otherwise he'd break.
His faint hopes crashed with Chip's next words.
"Ozzie...it's you. You're Dark Gaia."
Clear nighttime skies hung over Apotos as the waves crashed against the warm, soft sand.
The scenery did little to alleviate the solemnity that had long befallen the Sonic Team.
All of its members, from Sonic to Tails to Knuckles to even the usually optimistic Amy Rose, were stone-silent, still trying to digest what they'd learned. The most detached of them was Ozzie, who sat alone with Chip on the distant shore of the beach. Nothing any of them, even Sonic, said managed to nudge the stunned mole out of his deep stupor.
"I...I still can't believe it...," Amy weakly trailed off, unwilling to complete that thought even in her mind.
With meditative huff, Knuckles shot a rare look of sympathy to the dark figure of their friend. "I always thought there was something strange about that kid, but I never thought it would be because of this." He turned to his cerulean rival. "So what do we do now?"
Sonic hopped off the box and faced all of his friends with a determined expression. "Ozzie is still Ozzie, no matter what he is, what he used to be, or what he's meant to bring about. And even when Ozzie does become Dark Gaia, we won't give up on him."
Tails joined his best friend's side. "Sonic's right; Ozzie's had our backs when things got tough for us. We gotta do the same for him, Knuckles!"
The mentioned echidna held his hands out in verbal defense. "Hey now, it's not like I don't care about the guy! I do. It's just...," looking away from the fox with a strange twinge of sadness, Knuckles let his tough façade melt a bit, "If bringing about darkness only to be defeated then sealed back within the earth is to be his destiny..."
"It doesn't have to end that way for him!" Amy insisted. She continued when Knuckles shot a look of shock at her. "You may find this hard to believe, Knuckles, but destiny can be changed. Just because a prophecy says Ozzie will become Dark Gaia and destroy the world doesn't mean he'll do exactly that, right? He knows better!"
When the echidna still seemed like he was struggling with what Amy just told him, Cream threw in her two cents next. "She's right, Mister Knuckles. Isn't destiny what our hearts decide, not what others decide for us? You could've left the Master Emerald a long time ago and been like Mister Sonic."
"Well, I didn't and I don't intend to." Despite feeling initially outraged, Knuckles perked once he realized Cream's point. Closing his eyes with a smirk, he hummed. "Ah, I see where you're coming from now. Who knows, maybe becoming his original self will help Ozzie more than he thinks it will."
Tails looked back to the beach. He could faintly discern that Chip was sitting in Ozzie's lap. Not only that, but he also appeared to be sharing some words with him. 'The real problem will be convincing Ozzie of that. I sure hope that's what Chip's doing.'
Meanwhile...
For the last hour and a half, Chip and Ozzie had sat there on the Apotos shoreline, listening to the soothing waves as the former tried to talk sense into the latter. Chip still couldn't forget how unstable Ozzie became right after he'd revealed to him his true identity. To both of them, that moment felt like another lifetime ago.
"Do ya see where I'm coming from, Ozzie? It's your life, no one else's. You gotta take a stand for yourself and be true to who you are." Chip cringed a little once he realized how corny that advice sounded. He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "Uh...heh, heh, sorry if what it said sounds the way it does, but that doesn't mean it isn't true."
"You're right."
To this immediate answer, Chip gaped. He hadn't expected a response to come so quickly. 'Has Ozzie already come to terms with who he is?'
Such proved to be the case for his larger friend scooped him up in one hand and lifted him up so that they could see eye to eye more properly. In the depths of those chocolate brown eyes, Chip saw the same sadness and fear from before...but as he gazed closer he also saw resolve and devotion to the people Ozzie loved.
"My life..," the burrower's eyes suddenly became wild and determined, like a jungle cat willing to face a larger opponent, "My choice...Heart..." Tilting his head back, Ozzie closed his eyes and grinned for the whole world. In the space of a moment that felt more like years, he felt at peace.
And he'd carry this peace with him even unto death.
Chip looked to the ocean as well, sunlight beginning to peek over the horizon and painting the sky with faint traces of salmon and orange. In between the sun showing itself and the moment the light touched their eyes, Chip finally understood his friend's final word.
He grinned as well.
Heart: that was all they needed to fix this mess. The two of them, Sonic, and their friends just had to believe.
Maybe things would turn out for the better after all.
A little light for those who feel lost this holiday—Happy Thanksgiving!
