Sally never told Silver or Knuckles about the red gem she had in her pocket: the Phantom Ruby. She wasn't sure whether or not it even was a Phantom Ruby. It very well could've been a chaos emerald.
The day after she spoke to Knuckles, she went to the village's library to gather some more information about two hundred years ago. In order to conceal her identity, she borrowed a blue cloak from Knuckles. After all, the last thing she needed was a mob of people shouting questions at a two hundred year old back from the dead Princess.
In her time at the library, she learned that the battle where the Freedom Fighters died, the Last Stand as people referred to it was the turning point of history. Apparently, Sonic had a plan to roboticize the entire human population at once. The Freedom Fighters caught wind of it and set out to his headquarters to stop him.
The battle didn't go well. The Freedom Fighters were killed at the hands of Sonic's mecha soldiers. Rumor went that Tails fought Sonic completely by himself... and perished.
Sally blinked at that paragraph in disbelief. Surely Sonic wouldn't resort to destroying Tails...
She simply didn't understand how the hedgehog could've reacted so severely to her death. She expected crying, maybe a funeral. At worst, she expected Sonic to have a minor personality change... not this. Not something so radical.
Her train of thought was interrupted by Silver as he walked inside, waving her over. Sally reluctantly set her book down and greeted him at the door. "Hey,"
"Guess what time is it!" the white hedgehog said excitedly.
To amuse him, Sally pretended to consider. "Two o'clock?"
"Training time!" Silver finished with jazz hands.
"Huh?"
He looked at her as if she were insane. "The Last Stand was a major bloodbath. The best of the best were effortlessly defeated. Going in unprepared is suicide,"
"So is pestering me before I had lunch,"
Ignoring Sally's threat, Silver went on. "You'll need martial arts training, more target practice, proper weaponry, and armor,"
"Um... really, Silv?"
"Yes! Let's get going!"
The duo stopped walking at an open clearing set with training dummies in a circle.
Silver had given Sally a plasma blaster. The bulky contraption was strapped to her back, making the hike a true pain. It was half her height and weighed what felt like a hundred pounds, which was a lot considering that the average weight of a Mobain was eighty pounds. Sally was seventy five, making her borderline anorexic. Bunnie hadn't been kidding when she said she needed to eat more.
"Time to get to business," Silver said, clapping his hands. "I'm gonna use my powers to move around the dummies and you're gonna try to shoot them. Simple as that,"
Sally unstrapped the blaster from her back and cocked the magazine. The blaster made her arms ache from the weight. If she wasn't so athletic, she would've dropped it by now.
Silver channled his power and the dummies were immersed in teal light before hovering above the ground. Sally shot at one of them, sending her a quick jolt and a green beam of light toward the dummy. To her dismay, Silver moved it to the right just in time.
Sally shot again at another dummy and missed. The said dummies circled her and moved at changing speeds. It was as if Silver was mocking her. She shot again. And again. And again. And again. Not one shot actually landed.
She looked over at Silver, who was supressing a grin.
Sally growled in frustration and began shooting blinding in a barrage. She closed her eyes and shot at random in a frenzy, shouting words the author would rather not repeat here.
When she opened her eyes, every single dummy was skewered with holes and the tops of Silver's quills were burnt.
"Oh, um..." Sally trailed off sheepishly. "Sorry,"
Silver reached a hand behind him and felt the top of his head. His eyes widened before he closed them and sighed. "Remind me not to cross you. I'd congratulate you, but you didn't even have your eyes open. That was luck, not skill,"
"I can barely even hold a blaster this size," the Princess complained. "Can't I use a sword or bow staff instead?"
Silver shrugged and snapped his fingers. Almost instantly, a bow staff covered in teal light appeared in Sally's hands. It was metal but lightweight. It even had black padding in the middle for a firm grip. Sally couldn't help but feel elated, even if it was over an object of all things.
The dummies were covered in teal light and the blows they'd recieved from Sally's shooting frenzy faded, making them look new again. They stayed closer to the ground in their floating this time but still hovered around in a circle.
Sally clutched her weapon firmly as she decided her first target. She was about to strike when wham! A rogue dummy collided into her back, sending her sprawling forward. Luckily, she managed to regain her footing. She sent Silver an irritated glare just as another dummy rammed into her side.
A third attacked toward her front, but Sally quickly held out her staff and the dummy ran right into it, impaling itself. The Princess smirked in satisfaction, only for her to recieve a blow from behind that sent her to the ground.
"Guard all angles!" Silver advised urgently, as if this were a real battle in The Last Stand. Sally peeled herseld off the ground and rammed her staff into a side attacker. Another aimed for her front only to be met with a similar outcome.
Then it hit her: the dummies were attacking in a pattern. Smirking, she stuck the staff from behind her and looked over. Another dummie had been impaled. The pattern went on a few more times before Sally looked up one second too late; a dummy was plunging downward toward her head.
The cloth doll hit her forehead with so much force that Sally knew for certain that it'd leave a huge mark... and a horrible headache.
As she yelled out and held her head, Silver's powers dropped the spinning dummies, sending them to the ground with loud thuds. He approached Sally and offered his hand. Begrudgingly, she took it. "Nice work today," he allowed.
Sally did a double take as she rubbed her forehead. "Nice work doesn't usually involve concussions,"
All the white hedgehog could do was shrug. "That's how Blaze trained me and look how I turned out," He began walking down the hill, leaving his student with a puzzled look.
"Where are you going?" she asked.
"To Knuckles's place," Silver yelled over his shoulder before stopping to look at Sally. "If you want to defeat Sonic or save him depending on how you look at it, we'll need more information about his abilities and past battle strategies,"
Sally rolled her eyes almost arrogantly. "I grew up with Sonic. I know him better than he probably knows himself. He's a hit and run kind of fighter. He'll land a fierce blow, retreat temporarily, and repeat the sequence,"
"That's how he fought before, back when he was still the good guy and relied on his own brute force," Silver reminded.
The chipmunk lingered for a moment, looking into space befoee answering. "He's not a bad guy,"
"He's not necessarily a good guy with what he did in your timeline, or rather what he's doing, with the link and all,"
"He's not a villian,"
Silver scanned the girl's flustered defensive facial expression before sighing. He needed to word this carefully. "I knoa you're used to him being the selfless hero-"
"Because he still is,"
"- but with the way things are now, Sonic really is a villian,"
"How about we settle with misunderstood?"
Silver bristled. "I'm not saying he's a bad guy, just that he's doing some bad things. Take Shadow for example. Remember the stories of all the stuff he did after losing Maria?"
"Yeah," Sally said, nodding. "He worked for Eggman and almost let the Space Colony Arc ram into the planet,"
"Back then, he was technically a villian until he met Sonic and changed up his act. Is he a villian now? No,"
"Er..." Sally hesitated for a moment, grimacing. "Can you not compare me to Maria? She died, after all. Like, really died,"
Silver shurgged. "Whatever floats your boat,"
The two Mobains continued the rest of the walk in silence, both wondering to themselves: What exactly is a villian?"
A/ N: Sorry for not updating yesterday. I kinda sorta maybe got grounded...
