For those who have figured it out; yes, the name of this chapter comes from the song of the same name by Avril Lavigne. I believe it fits well with Chloe during this chapter. If you haven't listened to it look it up, if you don't like Avril than just look up the lyrics and read them while you're reading this or after and I think you'll see what I mean. I hope you all enjoy, read and review please!
Orange eyes opened to the sight of the dark wood ceiling that marked a certain full blood's living room, the owner of the eyes sitting up slowly. The moment they did however a cold and damp cloth fell from their forehead that they hadn't noticed, the owner looking at it in confusion.
"A cold...cloth?" Chloe asked, as though she expected someone to answer her. She'd seen Custard and Kamana's parents put them on their foreheads when they had a fever...her parents had never done that because the chameleon hybrid had never had a fever, everyone always assumed that she simply couldn't get sick like her mother.
"Chloe!" The sound of her name caused the girl's head to snap up, looking at the one who had called it.
"Mach?" The detective asked, suddenly looking concerned. "Are you feeling alright?" It wasn't that she didn't remember him calling her by name before, it was simply that she'd assumed that it was merely a spur of the moment thing and would not happened again...to have him call her name made her worry that perhaps HE was sick.
"Are you alright?" Mach ignored his half-sister's concern for him; he wasn't the one who had nearly died from wearing too many Inhibitor Rings.
Maybe he inherited Mom's mental instability after all. Chloe thought simply, the only explanation that she could think of for his behaviour. "Yeah, I'm f-" The orange eyed girl suddenly realised just how weak she felt and was suddenly amazed that she managed to sit up at all.
"Don't push yourself." The red eyed boy said immediately, pushing her slightly which caused her to fall back so she was lying down again.
"Why are you...?" Why did he suddenly care if she was weak, he hadn't shown any care before.
"I already told you; if we lose you we'll never get our world back." And...here came the rage.
"Of course, how could I have forgotten?! All you care about is your precious Child of Chaos!" The hybrid snarled angrily, much more angry than she should have been considering that the full blood merely wanted his world back to the way it was supposed to be. Her eyes tears up behind her visor for reasons she couldn't comprehend.
"Chl-" He was cut off by the enraged Child of Chaos.
"Don't you dare say my name! Only my friends are allowed to say my name, Full-Blood." The 'hero' had never heard anyone spit the word Full-Blood so viciously before, and he quickly realised he very much preferred to never hear it again.
"I didn't mean-" Again the boy was cut off.
"I don't care what you meant!" The girl sounded much more dangerous than her currently weak body would allow, but it was clear that she didn't care about that either. "Don't ever forget, Full-Blood, I'm not doing any of this for you! I'm doing this for Sugar, Fist and K'aak...so THEY can have their lives back, not you." Without warning the detective disappeared in a flash of her personal light. The eyes of the streaked hedgehog widened and he quickly ran to the door, slamming it open in hopes of seeing her.
"Chloe!" He called despite what she had told him about calling her by name, if he couldn't find her soon she could be in danger. Chloe's fever had only broken shortly before she woke up, she was still weak and couldn't use much Chaos Energy let alone fight. "Chloe!"
When the chameleon hybrid appeared at her destination she was no less angry than she had been upon her disappearance...though she supposed that was to be expected with travel like Chaos Control. It took her a minute to get her footing, she hadn't realised that she was so weak that travelling across the distorted city would cause her to nearly fall to her knees.
"Why...why am I crying? I knew that he doesn't...doesn't care about anything but the Child of Chaos..." Chloe couldn't understand why she was crying, why the confirmation that he didn't care about her as her was so upsetting to the hybrid. She trembled as she tried to hold back the sobs that wanted to escape her throat, yet nothing seemed able to do such. She walked slowly into the building, finding the phone...she hit the button to play the answering machine.
"Chaotix Detective Agency, Vector here. Sorry to say, but we can't answer the phone right now...we're probably busy with a case; so just leave your name, number and case for us. We'll get back to you as soon as we can." The orange eyed girl simply stood in front of the machine, she wasn't crying anymore...the building was clearly long since deserted along with being distorted like the rest of the world, it seemed that Mach and Sugar were right about the Chaotix breaking up.
"Is this what will happen back home if we fall apart...?" The detective murmured sadly, beginning to wander through the familiar building.
It was smaller than the one in her timeline, but that was to be expected since even if the adults did end up having families of their own here they were no longer living in this old place so they had no reason to have made it bigger when they lived here like they had back home. The kitchen had been left a mess, long abandoned dishes in the sink growing mold.
"Without Mom around no one really cleaned...they probably had a lot of trouble with food and rent too..." Chloe remarked, feeling an urge to clean the kitchen up like she'd seen her mother do so many times before...however it also felt wrong to clean it, this wasn't her world so she shouldn't mess with things any more than she had to.
The hybrid had ended up in the room her mother had stayed in as Clowy, the alias which had become the hybrid's namesake. It was distorted like everything else, the bed all that remained in the room...she remembered her mother once saying that she'd lived out of a duffle bag before the young detective had been born, the red eyed woman had moved into the girl's father's room after that and got a dresser.
"This room is...far too bare..." This had been Chloe's room growing up, the walls had been painted the purple-pink that was her personal Chaos Energy and light. The bed covers and sheets had been black, the twin pillows orange like her eyes...her dresser had been the dark purple she preferred to wear, with the drawers yellow and red along with her bookcase beside it. It was only during this remembering of her room that the orange eyed girl noticed the note on the bed, faded ink and paper from years of being there it seemed...she slowly picked it up.
"Vector, Charmy...I apologise, but I must leave. I ask you not to search for me, I want to remain unfound. I'm sure you have both noticed as well, how lifeless this place seems now that Clowy admitted to Sonic who she was and left to be with the Sonic Heroes...I can't stand to stay in this place without her, again I am sorry. I cherish our time together and wish you both the best. Goodbye my friends; signed Espio the Chameleon." The girl could imagine her father's voice speaking the words of the note, unable to stay without the woman he loved there as well...she could understand why he left, the hole that must have been left behind in his heart from her mother choosing the Sonic Heroes over the Chaotix.
"Dad...it really hurt you, didn't it? You finally opened up to Mom, only for her to prove that she didn't love about you..." She was crying again, the feeling from realising Mach cared only for the Child of Chaos returning and making her cry harder. Once she had finished crying again she returned the note and went back downstairs.
"One message saved. Play message?" The phone asked Chloe as she pushed to listen to the messages, the girl pushing another one to listen to this saved message.
"Hey Vector, its Charmy...I haven't had any luck finding Espio, it looks like you were right about him going into hiding. Look...I really don't want to say this, but maybe it's time for us to move on. Without Espio we just aren't the Chaotix, detective agency or not. I'm gonna...find something to do with my life, something that would make Espio proud. I hope you have a good life Vector...goodbye. I'll miss you." The machine 'beeped' while the hybrid was still in shock about the way the little bee had spoken, she had heard hundreds of stories of the childish Charmy Bee when he was still young...to hear him so serious at such a young age was unnerving.
"End of messages. Play last message again?" Listening to the message again the young detective realised that the Vector of this timeline had likely done the same over and over...with Clowy's choice of the Sonic Heroes the man had entirely lost his purpose and mismatched family, it was to be expected that he couldn't handle it and ended up dying listen to this message...a sad way to die, of that the Child of Chaos was certain. A sudden explosion brought her attention to the door suddenly, a horde of the fake beings that looked like the true enemy storming into the building.
"I won't be able to use any Chaos Energy against these guys right now..." The ninja-trained girl welcomed the headache this time, fully willing to relinquish control to her more destructive and instinctual side. "That's perfect...I needed to get out some frustration."
"What do you mean Chloe disappeared?!" Sugar demanded, clearly angry with their leader.
"We were just talking, I swear! I...I guess I said something wrong, she suddenly got really angry with me. After snarling a bit she just up and disappeared!" No one had ever seen their leader so nervous and unsure of himself...he clearly knew what it meant for their mission if anything happened to the eldest hybrid.
"We do not know the distance Chloe can go with the amount of Chaos Energy she had..." K'aak pointed out, sounding concerned as he had for their mechanic when asking her if she was mentally well.
"Miss Clowee miit get hurt..." Fist whispered in worry, the first thing he'd said since finding out that the chameleon hybrid was gone.
"Alright, alright. Where would she go then?" Mach asked, trying to return to his normal way of acting...but his worry for the young detective made that far more difficult than it should have been.
"...Home." The yellow flier said suddenly, everyone looking at her oddly. "I do not mean her timeline, I mean where the Chaotix used to live! Home!" She exclaimed, everyone suddenly understanding what she meant. Without delay they all left the house at their top speed towards the abandoned Chaotix Detective Agency Headquarters.
Looks like Mach screwed up royally, huh? Hopefully him and the others will be able to get to Chloe and help her, if she needs it that is. Either way, hope you all enjoyed. See you all later.