Chapter 21 Aftermath
Dusk is back in that creepy place...that negative void with a purple sky and black clouds and non-existent ground.
"I'm back here again..." Dusk mumbled. At that second she heard a scream come from behind her.
Dusk whips around to see an impossible sight...the Egg Gorilla is standing there, only a deep blue instead of yellow.
Its like she was watching the fight with it again...Sonic was pinned under the right hand, Amy was underneath the left foot, and another Dusk was in the left fist.
"No Eggman..stop it now..." the other Dusk muttered, "Eggman...stop hurting...my sister...you must..."
The other Dusk yelled out and a shadow tentacle erupted out of nowhere and slammed the Egg Gorilla over, releasing the hedgehogs from its grip.
Dusk saw her copy softly land and become engulfed within purple haze while the robot stood up. Without moving, the copy commands the tentacle to attack and proceeds to tear off the robot's arms...but that's where the replay stopped.
Instead of pulling the Egg-Gorilla down, the tentacle continued to rip the robot apart. Dusk watched in horror as the large robot was reduced to a pile of scrap in mere seconds by her copy's power. Then an even more terrifying thing happens...the copy turns on the other Sonic and Amy.
Those two are pummeled by copy-Dusk's mighty power, and real Dusk falls into a state of pure terror. Each yell that Sonic releases and each shriek Amy lets out terrify Dusk even more and as much as she wants to fight her copy, she couldn't. It was like she was frozen and was being forced to watch this beating.
Eventually copy-Dusk halts her beating of Sonic and Amy and turns toward the real one while the Egg-Gorilla's remnants and the other two hedgehogs fade away. Slowly, copy-Dusk walks towards the real one until she's finally close enough for Dusk to see its face and would've screamed if her voice worked...
Its eyes were nothing but white, its face was in a twisted smile, and the dancing haze of purple made the copy appear to be pure evil.
Finally motion and speech return to Dusk and she lets out a scream while running from the copy as fast as her legs could go. After a couple minutes Dusk looks over her shoulder to find the copy was right behind her. Despite Dusk speeding up as fast as she could, the copy keeps pace.
Dusk tries to form a tentacle to fight it off, but her powers refuse to work. After a few failed tries, Dusk gives up and just tries to get away from her demented clone. Then, she starts falling...as if the fake ground had run out.
Dusk looks to see where she was going and saw nothing but an abyss of pure black rushing up to meet her. She screams a little as the abyss surrounds her...
Now there was nothing...no falling sensation, no negative-sky, no clear earth, no noises, nothing. Suddenly a pink flash of light appears in front of Dusk and assumes the shape of Amy.
"Amy?" Dusk asks, surprised at what she was seeing.
The light tilts its 'head' to look curious, then is quickly destroyed as a whip of blackness cracks through it.
"Amy! No!" Dusk screams.
Dusk suddenly bolts upright with a yell, then quickly flinches from a lashing pain in her back. She's panting hard, she can feel a cold sweat everywhere on her body, and her hands are trembling.
She gulps a little as a replay of the apparent nightmare plays back in her mind in fast-forward. "These nightmares...they are absolutely terrifying." she mumbles while trying to wipe the sweat off of her forehead. "Was that really me though? I was..."
Dusk's sentence cuts off as she hears a door open, a voice exclaim "Dusk!", and the feeling of arms around her neck and soft fur on her cheek. Amy had caught her sister in a hug.
"Oh Dusk I'm so happy...you're finally..." Amy stops as Dusk pulls her closer, holds her tighter, and begins crying on Amy's shoulder.
"Amy...please tell me it wasn't real...tell me I didn't really destroy the Egg-Gorilla."
"Dusk?" Amy asks in concern, "What's the matter? You did destroy the Egg-Gorilla."
"No..." Dusk whispers, "No..." her tears begin falling faster.
"Dusk? Please, what's wrong? Why are you crying?" Amy asks, now a little scared.
"Amy...I saw it...I saw myself destroy the Egg-Gorilla...then I turned on you...I watched as I pummeled you and Sonic...I was terrifyingly vicious...the images of my attacks hitting you...they keep playing over and over...Amy please, I'm so scared."
"Dusk, you aren't making any sense."
Dusk suddenly pulls away from her sister and buries her face in her hands, weeping in fright, only looking at Amy when the pink hedgehog forces her head to lift up. "Dusk, take some deep breaths and tell me what's wrong."
The purple hedgehog does what she's told and manages to calm down enough to speak normally. "Amy...I had another nightmare, but this one was of my fight against the Egg-Gorilla. I saw myself attack and damage that robot, but unlike before I couldn't stop. I saw myself tear it to shreds, then go after you and Sonic. Once I was done with you two, I tried to turn on myself. Oh Amy, it was all so terrifying!"
Amy lightly smiles at her sis, sits on the side of the bed Dusk was in, and lightly draws her in for comfort. While Dusk rests her head onto Amy's shoulder, the pink hedgehog begins to lightly slide her hand down the purple one's back. The gentle gestures have a very quick effect on Dusk, calming the purple hedgehog from a distressed state to a calmed one.
Dusk tightens her grip a little and whispers, "Thanks Amy." into the pink hedgehog's ear.
"No trouble at all Dusk. Sisters watch out for one another, remember?" Amy feels Dusk nod to reply. The two remain together for another minute before Dusk pulls back.
"I'm feeling better now...How are you doing?" Dusk asks.
"Eh, I'm alright. My leg hurts and I had to get a few stitches, but I'm fine. Doc's say it shouldn't even leave a scar." Amy replies.
Dusk sighs, "That's good news. Now could you tell me what happened after I destroyed the Egg-Gorilla?"
"You passed out. You've been out for almost two days."
"Two days?!" Dusk repeats in shock. "I've been out cold for two whole days?!"
Despite preparing for this reaction, Amy still winces a little at Dusk's response, "Yea. Sonic, the rest of the group, and I also...told the public about you."
"You did WHAT without me?!"
"We had no choice Dusk! To make sure you were okay we had to take you to a hospital and...well..."
Dusk doesn't reply right away instead she looking around at the room she's in. She didn't notice it before on account of her nightmare, but Dusk was in a hospital bed.
There was that draw-around curtain, a couple of chairs for visitors, a closed window at the end of the room, and every other usual object in a hospital room. She occupied the only bed in the room and was in an un-appealing, light-green hospital gown.
Dusk blushed a little at the somewhat embarrassing outfit before turning back to Amy, "Alright...how did the people react?"
"Well..." Amy hesitates, but her expression told Dusk all she needed to know.
"That badly huh?" Dusk asks while lying back down, her back was starting to get sore.
"It wasn't all that bad...they seemed to understand our point, but I don't know exactly how they feel about you."
"I can probably guess." she replies in a saddened tone.
"Cheer up a little Dusk. If it helps any, the rest of us were all concerned for you."
The purple hedgehog raises an eyebrow and asks, "Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails? Or the whole group?"
"See for yourself." comes Sonic's voice.
The two sisters turn around as the rest of their gang comes in. Everyone but Shadow seemed to be present, and the sisters understood why he wouldn't be here.
"So...you told the others..." Dusk stops in mid-sentence, allowing Sonic to finish with, "How you destroyed the Egg-Gorilla and saved Amy's life? Yes."
"We're convinced, you've changed." Blaze says, a tone of gentleness in her voice, "Welcome to the crew."
"...and I've got a gift to say welcome." Tails adds as he hands a box over to Dusk.
Dusk curiously opens it and her expression lights up when she sees her Extreme Gear inside, all shiny and new. Not a single dent, crack, or scratch to be seen.
"You re-built my skates?" She asks while taking them out of the box.
"Sort of. I salvaged what I could from your old pair, and built some new skates around that. Those are faster, stronger, more durable, and have better handling than your old pair. My gift."
Dusk would've hugged Tails had he been closer, but resorts to a simple, "Thanks."
Tails chuckles a little, flicks his tails a little, and replies, "Not a problem."
"So...how are you feeling?" Silver asks.
Dusk shrugs, "I'm a little tired, my muscles feel weak, and my back hurts, but that's about it...guess I'm a lucky hedgehog."
"Hey Dusk? Could you maybe tell us about that power boost you got?" Sonic asks, "I'll admit, that was impressive and I think all of us are curious about it."
Instantly Dusk's good mood vanishes as she sinks into the bed. "I would rather not talk about it..." she mumbles, sounding upset and distracted.
Nearly everyone raises an eyebrow out of curiosity and Sonic is about to ask again, but is quieted by a look from Amy. Instead the blue hedgehog says, "Oh, well if you don't want to, that's okay."
A quiet "Thanks." is his reply.
Several more conversations are held before everyone disperses. By then, afternoon had changed to evening and Dusk settled down and tried to drift off to sleep again. She did it, and luckily it was a peaceful sleep.
However...she had one more visitor that day.
The visitor appeared out of nowhere and did so with so little noise that Dusk hardly flicked an ear.
Dusk was sleeping with her back to it, so the visitor silently walked around to the other side of the bed. It knelt down to get a better view of her sleeping face, and smiled a little. She seemed so peaceful and docile while asleep...and kinda cute.
The visitor watched her body softly move with each breath, then set a small gift down on the nightstand. It took one more look at Dusk before whispering something and disappearing in a flash of light.
The light flash disturbed Dusk and woke her up, but by the time her eyes opened, the visitor was gone. The purple hedgehog let her eyes adjust to the darkness and noticed a silhouette on the nightstand that wasn't there before. She clicked on the lamp and gasped...
...it was a rose. A beautiful, snow-white rose.
"Where did this come from?" Dusk whispered while picking the rose up, being careful to not twist the thorn-less stem or damage its frail petals. She took a sniff and sighed...it smelt so beautiful and fresh, a smell she hold only experienced before when she strayed from Eggman's base so long ago.
Then she noticed something else...a small note tied to the stem. Dusk gently removed it, and took a look at what was written. It wasn't much, just one simple sentence...
A gift, hope you feel better soon and welcome to the group.
That was it. No signature was present and Dusk hadn't learned the handwriting of the others yet, but she had a pretty good idea of who left her this gift.
Dusk smiled and looked out the window for a minute before setting the rose and note back on the nightstand and slipping back into sleep, a content smile on her face.