Rachael nodded stiffly, and walked off. Omega followed a few moments later, when he was fairly sure she couldn't see him. He was wrong, of course. Rachael was fully aware of his presence; it's just that she really didn't mind. In fact, it was kind of… cute, him following her. She jumped up into a tree, and started moving along the canopy. The rustle of brush behind her indicated that Omega was still following. So… a game, then? So be it. She jumped from branch to branch, landing lightly each time. Omega was a tad heavier, and was having some trouble keeping up.
But Rachael never looked back, never let on that she knew he was there. It was a game of… cat and cat, really. And then, abruptly, she ran out of trees. Her muscles had already reacted before she could stop, and she jumped out into space… right above a small pool of water. Omega dropped to the ground in front of the pool with a slight smile on his face. Rachael was soaked, from head to tail. She saw Omega smiling at her, and her eyes flashed as her tail lashed the surface of the water. She stormed out of the pool, arms across her chest, and into the bushes.
Omega started to follow her, but was stopped by Rachael's statement of, "If you come peek at me, I will personally scratch out your eyeballs."
This was followed shortly by her shirt being hung over a branch by her arm from behind a bush. Her jeans followed, and then her bra. Omega, a Teenager, lost no time in distant observation of a lady's undergarments. Her bra was a simple affair, just white, without much padding. It was apparently supposed to hook into place, but Omega was by no means an expert in this matter.
And then, her panties were placed on the branch next to her bra. Much like the bra, they were simple, with a low cut in back to allow for her tail. But a subtle sheen underneath the water suggested a more expensive material. Omega cleared his throat, and feeling stupid for his unnatural gallantry, said, "Um… are you trying to tease me? Because if you're not, you may want to move your panties and bra to places where I can't see them from where I'm standing…"
There was a silence from behind the bush, after which a hand snatched the undergarments from the branch with some dark murmurs. "Um… I'm sorry you fell in the pool, Rachael…" Omega said, because it seemed like something to say.
The bushes burst apart in front of him to reveal an extremely testy Rachael clad in bra and panties. "Look, you," she said, oblivious to Omega's eyes locked on her chest due to rage. "I don't need your pity, so you can just…"
She stopped, and seemed to realize that she was nearly naked. Then, she noticed that Omega was staring. Indignant, she slapped him across the face. This snapped him out of whatever hormone-induced fantasy he was engaged in. "Ow!" he said, holding his right hand to his cheek. "Was that really necessary?"
"Yes, it was! You were staring at my breasts!"
"Well, YOU walked out wearing next to nothing! What did you expect me to do, kneel down and worship the Tri-fold Spirit?"
Rachael blinked. "What the hell is the Tri-fold Spirit?"
"Um. You didn't read what I put in the Archives, did you?"
"Well, no. It was thirty-five pages of text!"
"The Tri-fold Spirit was the being that Kun'nuk'kles and most of the Echidnas worshipped. I think that Kun'nuk'kles himself was of a slightly different sect of the faith than the rest of his Race…" Omega explained.
"Oh. Is that it? I was thinking that it sounded a bit… familiar, somehow."
"Um. I think my arm might have a microwave emitter…"
Rachael blinked again. "What does that have to do with anything?" she demanded.
"Well, for one thing, it would dry your clothes off faster."
"Oh… yeah. You should probably use that…"
Underneath her fur, although it wasn't visible, Rachael was blushing, and she didn't much like it. It was confusing. Omega walked over to the branch where her clothes were hanging, and concentrated on his arm. His hand started reconfiguring itself into a magnetron and he pointed it at the clothes on the branch. This is when he discovered why you don't use microwaves to dry clothes. While they DO become dry as the water vaporizes, it also heats up the clothes… a lot.
They didn't burn, however, and so, he didn't realize how hot they were when he took the shirt and handed it to Rachael with his left arm. "Yeouch!" she shouted as she tossed the shirt away.
As luck would have it she threw it directly on Omega's head. "Ow, ow, ow…" he murmured as the cloth slowly cooled on his head.
When it was cool enough, Rachael snatched it away from him and pulled it over her head so she could wear it. It still fit, thankfully. She snatched her jeans from the branch and went behind the bush to put them on. She came back out fully dressed, and slightly less annoyed. "All right… now that THAT fiasco is over with… why were you following me?"
"I… I'm not entirely sure. I just didn't want you to leave me behind."
"Leave you behind? This is an island floating in the sky! How could I leave you behind?"
"I never said it was a RATIONAL thought…" Omega grumbled.
For some reason, Rachael found this incredibly funny. She laughed and laughed, until she was out of breath. Omega just stood there, puzzled as to what the joke was. "Tell me…" Rachael said, after she recovered from her bout of laughter. "What exactly happened to you, so that you became as you are now? I know about the Anthromorphization machine that Eggman has now, but why exactly did he use it on you?"
"Um… my memories are a bit unclear before Eggman Anthromorphized me… but, as far as I know, which is what Sonic told me, I was just in the right place at the right time."
"How so?"
"I bit Eggman. That much I remember. I also remember… that he didn't taste very good."
Rachael burst out laughing again. "That's really all I know," Omega explained, a bit disturbed by her laughter.
This triggered even more laughter, so Omega fell silent, rather uncomfortable. "I… I'm sorry for laughing at you… but it's just the way that you SAID…" Rachael apologized, stifling a small giggle.
This was really quite disturbing… although he had not know Rachael long, she seemed to come across as someone who didn't laugh too much, because that might make her lose focus of her anger. "Are you feeling all right?" he asked.
"I'm fine… can't I have a bit of fun without somebody asking me that?"
"Well, frankly, you come across as someone who NEVER has fun because you're too busy being angry at everything."
Rachael frowned, and for a moment, had a pained look in her eyes. "Do I REALLY seem that way, Omega?"
"Yes. Yes you do."
She sighed. "Well, I can trust you to be honest with me… you're not as civilized as the rest of them, and don't find lying as easy…"
Omega blinked. "I'm sorry, was that a complement or an insult?" he asked.
"A little of both, I should think," she said with a smile, and then sat down on a handy rock and sighed. "I'm not mean. I like to laugh, and I like to have fun… but there isn't much to laugh about. It's just that… life acts like a story, so often. Things have climaxes and endings, even though they SHOULDN'T have to end. It's called Narrative Casualty. Things happen as if someone were writing them down, but had no idea what the ending was going to be. Explanations can be found for almost every situation, even when the situation is something utterly tragic… I'm sorry, I must be boring you…"
"No… not really," Omega assured her. "I'm not much of one for philosophy, though. Things happen. Be prepared to change what happens next by reacting to what has already happened, in the here and now, that's my policy."
"You're a very simple cat, Omega," Rachael responded. "You don't seem to have all the doubts and worries of the world…"
"Oh, I have them. It's just that I ignore them. It's not possible to change the past, and the only way to change the future is by acting in the NOW. Why worry about tomorrow? It's going to happen, regardless of whether you worry or not. But some things, I have to worry about. Like the fact that E-151c is not going to be happy to see me. At all."
Rachael smiled. "I can imagine."
"Yeah, I suppose you would. But now, I'm not sure about what I have to do. I mean, how am I supposed to weaken something thirty times my size? The only weapon I know how to use that could get to it would be a chain weapon, but I don't have one anymore."
"Hey, you don't know that it's THAT much bigger than you…"
"Yes, I do. Those soldier versions that were sent after us were larger than I am. The Queen will be scaled up to the same ratio, I'm thinking…"
"That's ridiculous! Everyone knows that if you scaled an ant up to that size, they would be crushed under their own weight…"
"Yes. But you didn't see the soldiers that came after us. They were mostly covered in metal plating instead of a chitin exoskeleton. I'm thinking that that would compensate for the lack of internal support… and besides, Eggman may have actually made some internal supports for them. We have yet to kill a single one to find out."
"Well, maybe you're right… this could definitely be a tough battle… first, we'll have to fight our way to the Queen, and then take her down."
"Nicely put… you do realize, of course, that there will probably be hundreds of them to fight?"
"Yeah… but there's an ancient saying from where I'm from… 'When fighting hundreds, kill hundreds, one at a time.'"
"How very… militaristic…"
"Well, I come from a place where everyone is a cat anthromorph of about the same size… there were a lot of fights."
"Hmm…"
"I'm curious…" Rachael said, changing the subject. "What was it like, being a feral cat?"
"Well… I don't remember much… but I think that it was hunt, eat, fight, sleep, wake, hunt, fight, eat, sleep… or something like that," Omega replied.
"How very… animal…"
"Well, I AM an animal… or, at least, I was."
"Oh, you poor-" Rachael began.
"Please don't," Omega interrupted. "I get more than enough of that from Amy."
"Amy… that's Sonic's girlfriend?"
"Yeah. When we first met, I sliced her belly open… I still feel guilty about that…"
"Weren't you under the influence of the Eggman?"
"Yeah, but not under his control. I had free will, and I used that free will to hurt somebody. That's not right."
"Well, you're DESIGNED for combat… sort of."
"That's no excuse for harming the innocent, Rachael. It never has been, and it never will be."
"Hmm," Rachael replied, thinking.
Omega saw a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye, so he glanced in that direction. It was just the pool… probably just the wind rippling the surface. But… there was something else here, watching them… no, there couldn't be. He or Rachael would have spotted it, heard it, or at least smelled it by this time. None of his senses were telling him that he was being watched, and yet, he was SURE that he was… he shook it off. No time for insanity.
"What's wrong?" Rachael asked, suddenly wary.
Omega blinked and shook his head. "It's nothing… I'm sure it's nothing."
Rachael looked doubtful, but seemed to calm down. "All right… if you say so…"
"Lets go back to the jet… I'll bet the rest of them are wondering what happened to us…"
