IF YOU DIDN'T SEE THE REPOST OF CH. 35 OR READ THE HUGE NOTE ON THE TOP OF IT, PLEASE DO SO NOW. THE NOTE EXPLAINS EVERYTHING, AND EVERY CHAPTER FROM THAT ONE ONWARD HAS BEEN EDITED, SOMETIMES HEAVILY.

Notes on the edits I did: This chapter is the original Ch. 41, the one that comes directly after the chapter you all read last time, and retains the original title of "Threads That Bind". It was edited here and there (mostly to take out Selene) but was largely left alone. Yes, I left in the bottom scene that has several OC's. Yes, some readers hate the OC's. Did I leave this simply because I like Kath? No. I do like Kath and all, but I left this scene because this exchange of dialogue is meant to be important later on. Not because Kath will save the day, though. That's up to our main characters like Sonic and Jet. So, for those of you who hate the OC's, I'm sorry but bear with me if you can, okay?

Review Reply/Replies:

Hello, thatguy4643! Ha, yeah, that was a good one. I enjoyed using that idea. :) Yeah, I'm so glad it's finally time for me to start reposting! I'm stoked! Just sorry I made you all wait so long. ^-^"

~台風の目~

"Threads That Bind"

~台風の目~

In spite of the late hour, the desert was still hot, quite horribly so. The sand burned. The wind was dry and much too warm (not to mention the fact that it felt like sandpaper). Nocturnal creatures howled and screeched in the distance. And yet... the stars twinkled beautifully. The two moons provided a soft, gentle light. However, very little of that actually held any measure of his attention. Yes, he was hyper-aware of the creature (as he knew those sounds and knew that the particular creatures making them were as savage as savage could be), but he paid attention to little else as he and the others walked. Jet had long since mastered the ability of paying attention while not actually doing so at all. It was how he was able to remain lost in thought without ever going off track as he led Silver and the others to Hakir.

As was fairly common, the subject of his thoughts drifted from here to there and elsewhere. At one point, he thought about his kids, then about Selene (a train of thought that hurt and was quickly cut off), then, strangely enough, about a pastry Arthr had once tried to bake. That last thought was rather short-lived and he brushed it aside, only to find himself randomly recalling the conversation that he'd overheard Sonic and Kaden having earlier about Kaden's parents. That thought shifted a bit to idle musings about what his parents may have been like. It then morphed into thinking idly about how many similarities he and the hedgehog shared, something he ordinarily wouldn't have pondered over much in a situation like this. However, the thought stuck. Suddenly, he was actually very aware of how many similarities he and Kaden had with one another. It was a bit odd, and something that had seldom ever occurred to him before. He'd never given it very much thought at all. Now, however, he was. And, for the sake of temporary mental entertainment as they walked, he organized the information his mind provided him into an internal list that he pondered for some time. After that, he finally lost interest in the subject. Even if that hadn't happened, he soon would have been distracted from his thoughts, anyway, as some creature he knew did not belong here started screeching horribly at them from the sky. Looking up he saw the eerie black silhouette of some monstrosity with a massive wingspan. The others, of course, noticed it as well. As they all stopped walking, Silver asked slowly, "Hey, Uncle Jet... what Badlands beastie is that?"

"No Badlands creature flies," Jet responded tersely, already drawing Alkarus. It was a familiar weight in his hand, comforting in its own way. He couldn't even count how many times this blade had saved his life (okay, so that was a lie and counting all the hundreds of times would have been easy), and he trusted that it would be up to the challenge again today. The sound of scraping metal met his ears, and he knew that Sonic and Kaden were drawing their own swords. That left three people with no weapons. Normally, that wasn't a problem, but here... there were no powers. Those three needed weapons. On that thought, he took his backpack off and, in a single fluid motion, grabbed his aura gun, his dagger, and his retractable steel staff. He tossed them all neatly behind him, landing each weapon in the hands of a person who could use each properly. Silver caught the staff, Blaze caught the dagger, and Wave caught his special gun.

The swallow gave him a confused look, her aura (and probably her eyes, not that he looked) showing clearly to him the question on her mind. Why did you give this to me? I don't have aura powers.

Giving her a small glance, he gave her his silent, simple reply. Try.

During this silent exchange, three more of those strange flying creatures showed up (of course they did) and the first one swooped down, talons outstretched, to try to kill one or all of them. Those wicked, oily-looking black talons slammed against Saika with a horrible metallic shriek, and Kaden was forced backward, skidding on his feet as he tried to fend off the creature. More of the creatures appeared, giving one opponent for each member of the group. Jet jumped up and slashed at the first bird thing that dared to try to maim him just as Silver extended the borrowed staff and slammed it rather forcefully into the head of another "beastie". Blaze unsheathed her dagger and cut a sizable gash through a bird-thing's wing just as Sonic very nearly lopped the head off of his own opponent. And yet, the thing somehow continued to live, and it still fought viciously in spite of the wound. Sick, disgusting globs of black blood spattered the sand.

Ignoring that for now, Jet dodged a fierce swap of talons just as Wave finally got over her internal debate or whatever was wrong with her and fired the gun. A brilliant and bright short burst of pinkish color, the very color of her aura, shot out of the gun as a sort of small laser. It hit her opponent square in the forehead. But, instead of dropping like a rock, the creature continued to fly and try to kill her. At least she'd proven to herself that she did have the ability to use the gun. So Jet didn't worry. Precious seconds passed the group by before a rather horrific shriek prompted both him and Sonic to whirl around. They watched as Kaden's enemy fell to the ground, headless and dead. Somehow, Kaden didn't have a spot of blood on him (Because he's often just badass like that, Sonic seemed to be thinking). The dark hedgehog joined his grandson's fight, and soon that enemy was dead as well. Blaze cut through the opponent one too many times not long afterward, and it too finally perished not very long before Wave shot her beast to death. Then Jet whipped and, like Kaden had, simply beheaded the creature he was fighting. Funny how they were all apparently being badass right now. No one had any of that disgusting black blood on them. That was probably a miracle of some kind.

The blue blur himself was the last to defeat his enemy. The last remaining bird-like-thing soared upward into the sky, perhaps attempting to flee, but didn't get up more than maybe about ten feet before Sonic jumped up after it, Caliburn's blade poised to strike. He stabbed it downward, and the creature let out some terrible noise as it's body jerked and twitched... then went limp and began to fall. As he ripped Caliburn free of the creature's heart, black goop splattered him and also rained down on several people down below him. In the end, Jet, Kaden, and Blaze also got goop on them. Silver made a face. "Ew," was the young hedgehog's only comment.

Disgusted but choosing to ignore it as best as he could, Jet simply sheathed his blade. Blaze tossed the dagger back to him with a grateful nod, and the staff and gun soon followed. Sonic landed neatly on the ground, appearing supremely grossed out. "What do you want to bet that these things were a present from the Nocturne Clan?" he muttered, flicking some goopy blood off of his hand. It hit Jet on the shoulder, and he flinched slightly in disgust, barely able to force himself to not otherwise show how disgusted he really was.

"I'd bet everything I own, if Blaze and I didn't need it all," Silver responded, making the universal yuck face as he looked at the goop in his aforementioned wife's fur. To her credit, neither she nor Kaden seemed terribly bothered by the gooey blood. Hooray for them, Jet supposed. He, however, was severely grossed out. This was so nasty. "Seriously, though, why sick bird-things on us if those bird-things could be defeated so easily?"

Thus began a glorious (not really) debate between Silver and nearly all of the others, excluding Kaden. The debate created no answers, plausible or otherwise, of any kind, and Jet soon got sick of listening to it. Taking a seat in the sand and tuning their voices out, he unsheathed his dagger and focused on carefully scraping as much goo as he could manage out of his feathers.

~台風の目~

Late into the night, Marthal and the others were speeding over the landscape in the four ships. With Kaden being gone, Marthal took over piloting his ship. Rouge was flying with Jet's kids. Other than that, however, everyone was more or less sitting or flying in their usual places. As always, the channel between the communicators was open so that anyone could hear the others at all times, just in case. Marthal had an app open on his communicator that would translate whatever anyone said into text that he could read, and his communicator was sitting on the dashboard where he could see it. As such, he took quick notice of it when a conversation started up between some people. Amy had started it, and she was expressing her worries over her husband, father-in-law, stepson, daughter-in-law, and two friends.

Soon, others joined in. "I think they'll be fine, but… I'm worried too," Cream admitted quietly.

"Honestly, I'm sure they'll be alright. Together, they have more than enough skill to take care of themselves," Locke responded after a short moment. "Each of them has been through plenty by this point."

"That's part of what really has me worried," Rouge said suddenly. "They've all been through a lot in their own ways, and there's no way that bad things aren't going to happen to them again, wherever they are."

Hardly a comforting thought, Marthal mused.

Tails gave a small sigh. "Even then, they've fared against much worse, and Sonic and Kaden are both really, really strong. Jet is a lot stronger, too. I think he might even be able to best those two in a fight, though maybe not easily." He paused for a few seconds, then continued with his train of thought. "Still, them being possibly on their own is worrisome by itself."

"It's even more worrisome since they don't seem to be on the planet anymore," Marthal murmured, speaking up for the first time.

"That's true… Not having them around scares me, too. All we can do is wait and hope they'll be alright, honestly. It's not like we can just completely abandon everything and go looking for them," Keiri said, mostly in response to Marthal.

"That's not good enough," Shadow muttered from the pilot's seat of his own ship. There was a fairly lengthy pause and multiple people glanced over at him. Finally, he spoke again. "They'll be fine," he corrected himself in a mutter. After that, he fell silent and said nothing more.

Knuckles, moving on from the topic that just entered everyone's minds, spoke. "Sonic can take care of all of them. I'm sure of it."

"And Jet is more than capable of lending his aid," Analia murmured, joining the conversation for the first time. "I am sure that he is more than willing, too."

"Chao, chao!" Cheese exclaimed, suddenly entering the conversation. "Chao chao chao chao chao!"

"Cheese says that he thinks they'll be just fine," Cream helpfully translated for everyone. "And that he agrees with Knuckles and Miss Analia both."

"Good to know," Vector chuckled.

As the adults continued this conversation, one of the kids opened up a new channel just for themselves and the other children. With that, a new conversation was born. The conversation started off fine, more or less, but then Kimmy began crying (the poor thing) because both of her parents were gone. Hannah was quick to jump in and try to soothe her. "I'm sure that they'll be fine, Kimmy," she murmured. "They're strong, just like my dad. They can handle any bad guys they meet, I'm sure of it."

"Yeah! All of them are really tough! They've beat up robots, fought crazy people, and even giant… thingies! They can handle anything!" Lia jumped in, trying to help Kimmy.

"B-But I miss them!" Kimmy wailed. "And Papa and Grandpa, too!" The sound of all this crying made Lucas uncomfortable (much like it would have with his father if Jet were in his place), and he found himself not saying a thing at the moment.

"Stop worrying already," Jason grumbled. "People already said that they'd be fine."

Ten refrained from sighing at Jason's response, and instead responded to Kimmy. "Kimmy, everything will be okay," he said reassuringly. "They'll be back before you even know it."

Sniffling quietly, Kimmy mumbled a small reply. "Okay…"

Sen gave a small smile. "Don't any of you worry. We'll be alright and so will they. All of us will see each other soon."

"Yeah, Sen is right," Sarai murmured calmly. "Everything will be alright in the end."

"Probably," Lucas agreed, finally speaking up. "Dad and the others wouldn't let anything too bad happen. They never would."

While the others kept talking, Cream found herself gazing out the cockpit and out over the innumerable stars. A small smile tugged at her lips in spite of it all. Everything will be okay alright in the end. The villains won't win this time.

We'll all be okay.

~台風の目~

It was still late at night and Jet and the others were still traveling as quickly as they could manage to the cave system Hakir. The goop had more or less hardened by now, creating a constant annoyance that prevented Jet from getting totally absorbed in his thoughts like he had been earlier. As such, he was pretty aware of the specific things that Wave and Kaden were saying as they talked. Likewise, he was aware of Silver and Blaze murmuring to each other as they walked at the back of the group. The only ones who were quiet right now were he himself and Sonic. He decided not to be the one to break that silence. If he wants to talk, he can do so when he's good and ready, he thought, internal tone a bit irritated just because it was still hot and he hated that.

After a long, quiet couple of minutes, Sonic moved back a bit and walked beside Jet, prompting the hawk to glance at him. He quietly sought the right words to try and start a conversation with his old friend before speaking. "How far away do you think we are?"

Looking away again, Jet looked at the stars, which he had been using as his guide for quite some time now. "Over an hour," he eventually responded, keeping it brief. His tone didn't at all betray the poor mood this heat had put him in.

The blue blur gave a slow nod in response to this. "Are we making good time, then?"

The young king gave that some thought. "More or less," he answered. A small pause, then he added, "All things considered… we could be doing much worse right now."

"Very true," came the simple response. "I'm just glad we got out of that scrap without getting hurt."

"We didn't get hurt..." Jet agreed slowly, "...but you did get us covered in sludge."

Sonic rolled his eyes a bit at this. "I didn't exactly mean to do that, you know." Jet just shrugged lightly, offering no verbal reply. "Anyway, past that, we're still going on well. Like you said, things could be much worse."

A second of consideration, then Jet hummed a small agreement. ...I suppose so...

Sonic looked up at the stars, deciding to change the subject. "Do you still like astronomy?"

This was such a random question that it actually caught Jet by surprise, though he didn't much show it. After a long moment, he conceded a nod, only to then ask, "...Why?"

With a small shrug, he simply motioned up. "Different stars are visible here, different moons, different planets, all of it."

"And?" Jet responded. He was so used to all of these different sights by now that he didn't quite catch where Sonic was going with this. It didn't help that he hadn't gotten much sleep in the past week or better. Plus it was still so damn hot…

"I'm wondering if you've ever studied this or mapped it out like the genius you are." Sonic replied after a short moment, his gaze shifting back to Jet. "Have you?"

Internally, Jet felt himself sort of tense up at the blatant compliment. He had never been the best at accepting praise and the like, and the fact that he didn't agree with Sonic in this situation didn't help him to accept it. But he made no outward comment on that. "Yes," he said instead, answering Sonic's question in lieu of another reply. "I have."

The blue blur smiled. "That's nice. Anything else interesting that you've been able to do?"

Honestly, Jet debated not answering, if only because he didn't feel like talking. And yet, talking was helping him to keep his thoughts off of his traumatic memories of this place. If only for that latter reason, he obliged the hedgehog and replied… sort of. "A lot of things," he said enigmatically with a small shrug. "Too many to list."

"Name something, then," Sonic responded. "Anything." For the moment, Jet stayed quiet, sort of hoping Sonic would drop it. But he was quickly proven wrong. "Do you still build Babylonian tech?" He asked, being less vague to help Jet along.

Finally, Jet gave in and gave a real reply (not that his other replies had been in anyway "fake"). "Yes. ...A lot."

"What kind of things have you made?" Sonic lightly pressed, hoping his friend wouldn't close himself off.

"Weapons and defense technology, for the most part," Jet disclosed. He didn't bother going into detail about what else he'd made, specifically. Not right now, anyway.

"Nice," was Sonic's reply. He then thought for a moment on something else to say, since he didn't want to push too hard on his friend. "Anything else you've done?"

Thinking, Jet tried to come up with an answer that didn't require too much detailed explanation on his part. "I learned how to play more instruments," he eventually said when he couldn't think of anything else.

Sonic smiled at this, quietly remembering how much Jet loved music. "What's your favorite that you've learned how to play?"

Though he was honestly torn, Jet did end up making a decision. For him, it was a tie between two instruments (the piano being one of them), but he only mentioned one. "The Metola," he told Sonic eventually. "It's similar to a guitar."

"You'll have to show me sometime when we get out of this place. It sounds interesting enough," Sonic said with a smile.

A small shrug served as Jet's agreement to that statement. "You can likely learn how to play it fairly easily."

"Then maybe you should teach me one day."

"...Perhaps."

Sonic gave a soft chuckle in response, sighing softly. "You should. It'd be fun."

"That wasn't my concern," Jet admitted with a very slight sigh betraying itself in his tone. "The problem would lay in finding the time to take a break from work and whatnot."

"I understand that. I'd have to do the same, to a certain extent."

"Mm," was the noncommittal hummed reply. Sonic looked forward again, searching for a new topic. When he eventually came up with something, the conversation flawlessly resumed. Everything was so casual, but Jet seemed to sort of be feeling awkward about it all. Still, they were talking... and that was all that mattered for now.

~台風の目~

Six-year-old Kath looked up at his mother with a subtle expression of confusion. "Felorn?" he repeated in question.

His mother, who was kneeling in front of him in his bedroom, nodded. "Yes," K'aria confirmed. "Have you heard of them before?"

"Yes," Kath responded. "I read about them in that tome of ancient legends." He paused briefly, then added, "Oh, and they were briefly mentioned that book on the history of imperialism in the Selta Quadrant of space."

"Did those books explain to you what they are?" K'aria asked him, very serious.

"They're beings corrupted by Darkness," Kath replied without having to give his answer any thought. "They allowed themselves to be corrupted by greed, power-lust, hatred, anger, and all manner of other things that the Darkness thrives on."

"Who else does that sound like?" K'aria inquired, pressing him to make the connection.

He already had. "The Therians," he murmured.

"Yes." A soft sigh escaped his mother's lips. "The last thing I want is to burden you, sweetheart, but you're more than capable of understanding all of this. We both know you are." Heavenly blue eyes looked up at her. "Someday, Kath, this may be very important. Most likely within your own lifetime." She sat down on the floor and pulled her young son into her lap and arms. He didn't like to be held typically, but he allowed it... if only because this was his mother. Her fingers lightly combed through his hair, a gesture that was notoriously capable of soothing him. As such, he felt himself relax a bit. "Someday, the Nocturne Clan will likely be freed," K'aria murmured. "As with the last time they were at large, they will likely seek others like them to aid in their war. The Therians are, in many ways, worse than the Clan ever was. The Clan will be drawn to them. If an alliance is formed, it could spell the end of many, many worlds. Such a thing must be avoided if at all possible."

There was a period of silence as Kath allowed this all to sink in, then he wriggled himself free of his mother's arms a bit, unintentionally ruffling his hair in the process. "If things come to that... Azerel and I will take care of it."

The pup perked his ears and looked at Kath with a sort of 'What are you volunteering me for?' expression.

"Even if you two do not or cannot get involved," K'aria told her son, "you must at least pass this information on. It may very well be the key to the future of existence."

Kath's eyes hardened with determination. "I will," he told her. A solemn promise. "I won't let it happen, Kacha. I'll do whatever it takes."

~台風の目~

3,891 words this time around. Much thanks to Blazing Winds, who helped me write a lot of this chapter originally. In the second scene, he wrote in all the parts for Locke, Tails, Knuckles, Keiri, Cheese, Lia, and Sen. In the second to last scene, he did Sonic. I kept much of his work here.

Note: "Kacha" is sort of a play off of the Japanese word for "mother". In my made up Babylonian language, it means the same thing and is extremely respectful. It's pronounced "Kah-chah". For the record, I'm not entirely sure if "Kacha" is a word used in Japan, though I do know that some similar words are used. Posted (at about 8:40 p.m.) 08-12-17.