"A blood witch?" Rouge sat at her vanity in her dorm brushing her hair. "Shadow, you're being paranoid" She squinted at the hedgehog's reflection in her mirror. He stood in her doorway and leaning against the frame with his arms crossed.
It was the same size dorm as his but it seemed more open. Pictures of friends and magazine cut-outs added color to an otherwise drab gray wall. A soft fuzzy rug next to the bed in pink that matched her bedspread. Overall it was very cute and maybe a little juvenile for someone her age.
"I'm being prepared, Rouge." He was annoyed with her waving off the possibility. Rouge picked up a spray bottle filled with sweet perfume and spritzed it on her neck.
"Rouge…" He grew impatient. "It's not a date."
"Hmph!" She turned to pout at him. "We're going to be in the vehicle for a long time and in the big ancient building even longer than that. I want to smell nice at least."
"You always smell nice. In the time I've known you you have never been smelly. We don't even leave for another hour," he put his arms up in frustration and walked over to her, "What perfume is that?"
She smiled coyly. "It's called 'dark kiss'." She pursed her lips.
"Ooh, dark kiss." He mocked her playfully. "Who are you trying to be fancy for anyway?"
Rouge turned back to her mirror and smiled at her reflection. "Myself." She blew her reflection a kiss.
Both Rouge and Shadow's ears swiveled to the noise of Hope running down the hall. "Hey guys!" she said breathlessly as she came to Rouge's dorm. "Ooh you smell nice!"
"Thank you, Hope! What's up?" Rouge shot a sassy look at Shadow and he rolled his eyes in return.
"President Tower was considering asking Sheptilah to join GUN if the mission goes well; but that's not why I'm excited!" She was bouncing on the balls of her feet and grinning wider than they've ever seen.
"I was about to point out that you didn't like the woman." Shadow sat on Rouge's bed and almost fell into it. It was like landing on a warm marshmallow. He was caught off-guard by how plush it was and struggled to sit all the way up.
"Rouge, your bed is eating me alive." He held out his hand so she could pull him out of it.
"What is it, honey? The suspense is killing me!" Rouge stood to help Shadow get unstuck from the bed.
"There's a Chaos Emerald near or in the ziggurat!" Hope chirped. "So we get to kill two birds with one stone tonight!"
Shadow smiled. "That's great!" He turned to Rouge and asked under his breath what the bed's stuffing was.
"Memory foam pellets," she winked, "I sleep like the dead on it."
"Why are we leaving at night, anyway?" Shadow brushed his spines back down. "Wouldn't going during the day be more practical?"
"It's exclusively Cabbot's decision. He thinks Sheptilah is nocturnal and prefers moonlight over sunlight." Hope shrugged. "She's certainly not nocturnal but he says it's 'her house' so it's a matter of politeness according to him. I think he has a crush on her."
"I know I prefer working by moonlight," Rouge stated. "It also helps Shadow blend in better to his surroundings. Sometimes all you can see his white breast fluff floating in the darkness."
"I'm stealthy no matter where I am," he puffed out his furry chest. "I am the Ultimate Life Form."
"Yeah and you just almost drowned in a mattress." The bat snickered.
He turned away and huffed. "Cabbot is a married man, Hope. He better not have a crush on anyone but his wife."
"His wife's dying," Rouge frowned, "She is a poor candidate for a kidney transplant, right? So she basically lives tied to that dialysis machine. It happens sometimes. Your spouse starts dying so you look… elsewhere for later."
"Just because your wife is dying doesn't mean you start planning to sow your oats elsewhere," Shadow crossed his arms, "It's just crass."
"Grandpa, nobody says 'sow your oats' anymore." Rouge teased him. "Besides I was kidding about the crush thing. I think he wants her to heal his wife."
"Tower is going to blow a gasket if he finds out." Hope furrowed her brow. "But it is better to ask for forgiveness and not permission."
"Tch," Shadow scoffed, "He's desperate if he is resorting risking his career by dealing with witches… but I understand." He was thinking about Gerald and Maria. His scowl softened into a slight frown and he looked lost in thought. "I understand completely…"
"Try not to summon me by accident anymore," the Overlander lightly patted Sonic on the head, "I'm always happy to drop in, though. Anything that gets me away from Thunderbolt."
Sonic blushed with embarrassment. "Again, sorry about that."
Sheptilah looked around in the darkness. "Since I'm out here I might as well explore the island a little."
"I got my eye on you," Sticks gestured with her fingers, "Alright! Everybody off my property! Scram!" She shooed her friends away and slammed the door to her hut. She then moved to her window to spy on the group still outside her home.
"Sheptilah, I actually have questions for you! I am way into archaeology and I want to learn your language and everything." Amy smiled broadly and sweetly.
"Ask away," the human walked away and gestured for them to follow her, "But I reserve the right to not answer."
"I actually have a lot of questions, too," the little blond fox twisted his tails together nervously, "And I'm afraid of the answers."
The Mobians turned on their luminous garments to light the way. The human was amazed at the beauty of the neon lights embedded into their clothes and accessories.
"This is nothing; you should see what I have back at my workshop. You have so much to catch up on after having been asleep for thousands of years." Tails beamed proudly.
"How long is a 'year'? We measured our passage of time in seasons. I'm sixty-four seasonal changes old and we only had two seasons: dry and dry but with a little rain." The witch shrugged.
"A year is three hundred and sixty five days long and there's four seasons to a year in this hemisphere so that makes you about thirty-two years old." The pink hedgehog was amazed at the differences between the cultures already.
"Five thousand and thirty two," Sonic corrected them, "Give or take."
"Wow! You look good for your age." The echidna laughed. "You must be a great-great-great-great-great-great-great," he inhaled deeply, "Great-great-great grandma!"
"Thanks," Sheptilah giggled, "Yeah I do look great for my age, huh?"
Sheptilah was careful to step over rocks and twigs that got in the way on the dirt path, "I never had children. Even if I wanted them I didn't have the chance. We were fighting those creatures all the time. What's the life-expectancy of your average human in this time?" The witch asked the group. They were near the ocean now and the air smelled of it.
"Uh… about seventy years." Tails answered. "Why?"
"How old is Doctor Eggman?" The human tilted her head.
"Physically? I think he's in his forties. Emotionally he's about five or six." Amy smirked.
"Wonderful," Sheptilah chuckled, "We have about thirty years left of his nonsense."
They came to the empty main street of the small village. The cobblestone road was cold and slightly damp but it felt nice to walk on. The area was dimly lit by street lights that desperately needed maintenance.
Then came a strange noise in the distance that rapidly got louder. It was Eggman on his little hovering vehicle with Orbot and Cubot in tow. He saw the group and abruptly came to a stop, throwing his lackeys forward and onto the ground with a loud metallic clatter.
"There you are!" The man shouted. "Don't run off like that." He scolded Sheptilah as if she was a child.
"Eggface!" Sonic dodged the incoming Cubot, "What do you want?"
"I don't want to deal with you right now, you filthy mutated rat," he spat, "I'm here for the lady ." Ivo landed his vehicle and hopped off of it. His two robots groaned and stood up.
"Where's your chinchilla friend? Are you hiding her in your pocket?" Sheptilah smirked. "Go away I'm busy."
"Thunderbolt? I sent her back to Soumerca. I came to find you because GUN called and said they sent a ship to come pick us up right now. We're leaving for the ziggurat tonight ." Eggman looked nervous and unhappy.
"Seriously?" Her shoulders drooped. "But why not during the day?"
Eggman sighed deeply. "Probably because it's too hot during the day. Come on, they'll be here soon."
Sheptilah turned to her new Mobian friends and bid them goodbye, "We will talk more later. I can't wait to see all the wonderful things you have to show me."
She turned and felt the air with her fingers until her nail snagged on something invisible and she pulled open a portal to Eggman's tower large enough to accommodate the man and his weird flying machine.
Sheptilah closed the portal behind her and turned to Eggman. "There's some things I'd like to discuss with you before we leave." She motioned for him to follow her as she walked off to the meditation garden to sit on the grass. Orbot and Cubot followed curiously. Sheptilah patted the ground next to her indicating she wanted him to sit next to her but he opted to stand instead.
Orbot and Cubot took the hint and sat next to her.
"Sit, Doctor Eggman. I don't bite. Sit." The witch was getting annoyed. "Even your robots understood." She stretched her legs out in front of her and leaned back on her hands, resting her cheek on a bare shoulder.
"Ugh, fine, but these pants are dry-clean only." He sat cross-legged in the grass next to her and they looked out to the ocean. "What do you want?"
"I'm sorry for breaking your washbasin. I was scrying for my familiar as an impulse and I got scared of what I saw and… I guess it broke in my grip. I will fix it."
"Scrying? What's scrying?"
She used her magic to swirl up an image of a mirror floating in the air between her hands, "Staring deep into a reflective surface for divination."
"What did you see?"
"It was more like... feelings than things I saw." The smoky illusion changed to Mobius from high above in space.
"Seeing the planet from so high up… this and the feeling of falling. Like falling forever…" She sighed. "I don't remember the rest." She was lying; she remembered it all but didn't want to think about it. She closed her hands to make the illusions vanish.
"Listen… I have to ask you why you are the way you are," she flexed her ankle until she heard it pop, "Because I don't understand you."
"What's to understand? I'm Doctor Ivo Eggman and I am going to rule the world!" He clenched his fist victoriously and his robots next to Sheptilah clapped politely.
"For someone who hates Sonic and his friends you were awful gentle with him back in Soumerca," she sighed softly, "And for someone who loves his so-called empire you seemed unaffected by all the bodies of your people in your base."
Eggman looked down at the blades of grass gently swaying for a moment before taking a breath, "I knew if I was rough with him you'd have slapped me upside the head."
"Oh, please!" She guffawed. "I've known you for about three days and even I can tell that's a lie; but you're right I would've smacked you. You're not afraid of me."
"It's complicated." To say nothing of the corpses he really was not about to throw the hedgehog across the room after pulling him from the vent in her presence.
"Let's play a game: I'll tell you a secret if you tell me yours," she raised her eyebrows playfully, "I have a lot of secrets."
"Okay," he was hesitant, "What's your secret? You never shaved your legs in your life?"
She looked off at the rolling waves glittering in the moonlight. "For years I've wanted to throw myself into the sea. I wanted to melt into the salty abyss and exist there forever."
"That's not much of a secret." He was expecting something more substantial than that. "Lots of women want to be mermaids."
"Ah, I guess I have to be more literal," she inhaled deeply. "For as long as I can remember I have wanted to die."
"Oh." He half-chuckled. "I'm not that kind of doctor, either. I cannot help you." That's when he noticed the raw-looking portion on her upper arm where the metal scraped her.
"I'm not asking for your help," she smiled at him, "I'm just saying. I never wanted the responsibility thrust on me. I knew we were all going to be wiped out by the beasts and I figured why draw it out?"
"What happens if you die since we're bonded?"
"I don't know. You might die with me. I want this bond severed so that doesn't happen because I guarantee you that fighting these witch-eaters will kill me this time," she coughed, "But I think the planet might benefit from you being gone."
"Flattery will get you everywhere," he flashed a crooked smile, "Don't die before the bond is removed, I have stuff planned for next week."
"Like what?"
"I want to expand my meditation garden and try that new meat-lovers pizza coming out at Meh Burger."
She gagged, shaking her head. "Ugh, meat. After what I saw yesterday I don't think I'd be able to eat meat even if I did."
"Sheptilah, I always regret losing assets. I'm used to them being robots and not living things but I still regret their losses." It was true. Doctor Eggman did not show much emotion other than anger and haughtiness but seeing some horrible things in his life did keep him up at night sometimes. Cubot and Orbot grew bored with only getting half of the conversation and wandered off.
"Assets," she looked at him with those poisonous violet eyes, "As if they were objects."
"You know what I meant," he waved her off, "I didn't know any of them personally. You compartmentalize and move on with your life."
"Compartmentalize and move on." she repeated. "So you do have a heart, maybe; but you were going to leave Thunderbolt to die," she laid back and rested her hands behind her head, "And that's someone you know pretty well."
"If you weren't here she would've died. I'm pretty sure she actually was dead for a moment there but you brought her back." He checked the time on his gauntlet and wondered where the Hell the GUN ship was and why it was taking so long.
"You think too highly of me," she chuckled, "I can't do necromancy."
"That's a shame; I was hoping you could revive my mother." He pouted jokingly.
"I'm sorry. When did she pass?" Sheptilah frowned.
"No, she's still alive but sometimes I'd like to kill her more than once."
There was a pause before the witch understood and laughed. "You think you had it hard? I had two adoptive moms. Two . I lived in a constant loop of 'go ask your mother'."
"Two moms?" He raised an eyebrow.
Sheptilah nodded. "Yeah. My biological mom was a friend of theirs. She was killed by a witch-eater not long after I was born so I was raised as the princess by queens Tiamatu and Lulu. When my moms retired I became queen."
"Wait. One of your moms was named Lulu? You have the names 'Sheptilah' and 'Tiamatu' and then Lulu?"
"Lulu means 'well mixed person', as in well made from fine clay. Your name is Ivo," she squinted at him, "Ivo. Eggman. Doesn't mean anything in my language."
"I am named after a strong, vibrant tree species!" He pushed out his chest defiantly. "What does your name even mean?"
"Banana."
"What?" He couldn't hold in his amusement and laughed so hard his glasses almost fell off his face. "Banana? " He was gasping for air between giggles.
"Oh, shut up," her face was red, "Bananas were rare to us and we liked the curved golden ones because they looked like a crescent moon during harvest season. They had big brown seeds in the middle that were not unlike my freckles!"
He wiped a single tear from his eye and wheezed. "Oh that made my day."
She frowned at first and then started laughing, too. It was pretty funny. "You can just call me Tilly for short. It's what Rouge called me." She stood up and removed the glamour keeping her hair bobbed.
"Look." She pointed out to the sea. The GUN ship was slowly approaching. Eggman stood as well, brushed the soil from his backside and straightened his coat.
"Finally!" He brought his gauntlet up and typed something into it. Orbot appeared moments later with a silver briefcase in one hand and a small box in the other and presented it to the doctor.
"What's this?" Sheptilah asked with upturned eyebrows.
"Just some provisions," the briefcase was heavy but he lifted it with ease. "Weapons and the like. I also have this for you."
Orbot lifted the box to give it to Sheptilah. She took it and opened it gingerly. Inside was a little pin in the shape of his logo.
"This is a tracker," he explained, "Since I can't communicate with you over a radio due to the language barrier I figured I could give you this pin so I can find you if we get separated."
She affixed the pin to her leather top. "Thanks." She thought it looked a little ugly but it would be a good idea to have it due to the nature of the ziggurat's inner chambers.
Unlike the other one they were in the day before this GUN ship was large and imposing. It landed with a heavy thud. The ship was black with the association's logo emblazoned on the side in a deep red. Something hissed and a door slid open. A set of metal stairs unfolded and down descended Boris Cabbot.
"Mr. Cabbot!" Sheptilah waved."Nice to see you again." She walked up to him and smiled. Eggman sighed and followed suit after giving Orbot orders to keep the lair on the tightest lock-down while he was gone.
The two were escorted into the ship by the director. It was open on the inside with a few soldiers sitting next to each other all strapped in and wearing full combat gear. She couldn't see their faces behind their alien-looking helmets but recognized the red fox from the other day.
"But where is-" Sheptilah was interrupted by a familiar voice.
"Yoo-hoo," Rouge called attention to herself. She was strapped in her seat securely next to Shadow, both were wearing warm-looking jackets. Omega was securely fastened into the back for balance.
"There you are! And our grumpy hedgehog friend," she sniffed the air, "Someone smells nice."
Rouge shot Shadow a smug look. "Told you." She muttered smugly.
"You're wearing that to the desert at night?" Cabbot gestured to all of Sheptilah. "Won't you freeze?"
"I don't have anything else," she shrugged, "I'll be ok. The cold night is not that bad."
"I admit I was wrong!" Sheptilah was hit with ice-cold air the moment she stepped off the ship and shivered. She wrapped her hair around her bare arms. Each shaky breath was visible.
"The ambient temperature is four degrees Celsius." Shadow walked past and zipped up his jacket. "Slightly above freezing."
"I envy your chest fluff." Sheptilah squinted at him. Rouge followed behind and looked around with a sensor. Three other GUN operatives got off the ship and set up computers and other monitoring software around the entrance. They were looking for both a Chaos Emerald and those witch-eaters. Omega descended from the ship and stomped around scanning the area but finding nothing.
It was a beautiful clear night and the sky was littered with stars behind a glowing moon. The ruins of the ziggurat looked so small compared to what she remembered with many of the layers and stone houses missing. Time was a cruel mistress.
The ziggurat itself was made up of six layers, each about half as tall as the one it was sitting on. A long, steep and crumbling stairway led straight up to the top with ramps to move up and down each layer where homes and businesses once stood. There were still stains down the sides where artificial waterfalls once flowed.
Cabbot opted to stay inside the ship and monitor from there with Hope still at the fortress.
"The ziggurat regulated its own temperature back then," her teeth chattered, "It was always beautifully mild." Her voice got high pitched and squeaky.
"Oh for the love of-" Doctor Eggman stepped off the ship and took off his jacket and plopped it on Sheptilah's shoulders like a cape. He felt pity for the poor woman but began to regret this act of kindness after he felt a slight chill. She wasn't expecting it to be so heavy, but it was warm and she felt better.
"Thank you," she put her arms in the sleeves, "I think I could live in this coat it's so big." She hugged herself and snuggled into it.
"Aww, how cute!" Rouge teased. "What a gentleman." Rouge's ears were getting numb from the cold and she was rubbing the tips with her fingers to keep them warm.
"I've always been a gentleman!" Ivo huffed, "Have I ever been untoward with a lady?" He paused. "Don't answer that."
"There's something I have to tell you about the ziggurat before we enter." Sheptilah giggled nervously.
"Oh, here we go." Shadow complained.
"So… the inner chambers move. They shift around constantly when someone is inside. It's to protect our giant cauldron and our family grimoire among other things like the royal coffers. So we are gonna get very lost very fast. If you stick by me things will be okay since I am the queen and this is my house."
She tried to stand confidently but the cold made her hunch over and shiver instead.
"We're all going to die," Eggman groaned and switched to an overly dramatic voice, "I never saw Paris."
"Royal coffers?" Rouge perked up. "You mean like gold, jewels, other valuables?"
"Well, y-yes. I have no use for most of it anymore so you can keep whatever you find." She coughed.
"How do we get inside?" Her ears stood straight up and her grin was so wide it almost took up her entire face.
"Up the stairs to the great temple where there is a secret passageway to the inside." Sheptilah pointed up at a few lonely columns that stood at the very top.
Rouge was energized by this information and grabbed the witch by the upper arm and started running up the steps. "Let's go, let's go! I want those jewels!"