Chapter 2. Not much in the way of authors notes excpet that I will be done describing Aleutian'a house after this. Finally get to see the underbelly of this place.

Disclamer: I own nothing of the Sonic Franchise.

Offerings

By: Mauser

The late morning sun pierced through Aleutian's fur coat that warmed his skin. The radiant light invaded his dilated pupils through his eyelids, causing him to stir finally. Opening his eyes, Aleutian was at first blinded by the sun, but as his pupils constricted, the cloudless blue sky enveloped his sight. The culling from the gulls broke the strain of sleep even further. He breathed in deep, sucking in the humid saltwatered air through his nostrils as he regained his bearings. Aleutian felt himself swinging in the lone breeze, finding his lower extremities covered with a white knitted blanket. He closed his eyes again and opened them. Static floaters danced around his sight as he looked out to the rolling waves that crashed over the rocks of the cliffs and the beach.

Exerting the muscles of his left arm, he lifted himself up from the swing and placed his feet down on the deck. As his wary head came too, he traced the thin lines that made up the grains of the wood on the deck. His trance was soon broken when he heard glass being piled together from inside his house. He quickly got up and slowly plodded his way inside, his bare feet feeling as if they were being scorched on the warm deck.

As his feet slapped down on the cool, soothing tile floor of the kitchen, Aleutian saw his father holding up pieces of the broken mirror in the air without even touching the shards as his hand floated six inches away from the glass. With the release of his concentration, Locke dropped the broken pieces into the trash can that was at the base of the door. He then looked up at his son with an expressionless face. "How are you feeling?"

Aleutian placed his left hand on the side of his head, rubbing it to soothe the ache. "I don't know yet," he whispered, "My head hurts really bad right now."

"Do you remember anything from this morning?" Locke asked next, nodding with his words.

Aleutian shuddered as he shook his head, almost looking as if he were going to cry again. "Yeah, I about plastered my brains over the wall. Then, after awhile, I thought I was in the next life because I couldn't breathe."

The scarred echidna closed his eyes, seeing the flashes made by his pupils dilating from the sudden blackness from his eye lids. The flashes went from blue to green in an instant, making it look like someone had flashed a camera at Aleutian.

But he saw something else with his sight; "Tell me dad, did a two tone eyed lop come and pay me a visit?" Aleutian asked, directing his question at his father with a narrowed look.

"You have an interesting friend, son." Locke replied, almost with a smug.

Aleutian sighed with a grimace. "What few I have left."

"You haven't chased them off with your attitude, have you?" Locke asked, wondering what his son's answer was going to be.

"No, death has taken them." Aleutian breathed.

He continued on in, climbing the two steps that led into the living room, turning down the hall and back to his room. Stopping short at the door frame, he noticed that his father had gotten all of the shattered mirror pieces off the blue carpet. With his thoughts of having his bare feet sliced by the glass vanishing, Aleutian slowly made his way over to his night stand. He flipped opened the box and saw his pistol lying snug in its holdings. Closing it back, he piled it on his bed and went looking for his socks and boots.

Locke stood by the book cases that lined the north wall by one of the front windows, studying what his lost son had. The titles impressed him. The subject matter ranged from war and fighting styles, to romances and cookbooks. But the title he saw that made him reach up and pull a book away from the uniformed row spiked his curiosity: "Stopping Violence with Mere Presence."

"You seem to share the same interest that your brother has about reading," Locke commented.

Aleutian appeared from the hallway with his boots on and the wooden box in his hands. "Those are some of our favorites," he said, "If you want, you can borrow that one. Very insightful on how to make someone think twice before attacking you."

"How so?"

"The author tells how you can give someone a certain look and stance that makes them feel like they've just been in a fight and lost big time without laying a finger on you," Aleutian summarized with a half smile. "You'll get a kick out of it."

The young Guardian then turned and went for his duffel bag at the back of the couch. He placed it and the wooden box on the small table, that divided the kitchen and living room, before sifting through it, grabbing the pictures and his journal out of it. Aleutian then paced back down the hall and went into his cluttered office, only coming back out with his journal still in his hands along with a tan colored back pack that slung over his shoulder. From it dangled a small clear cord from it while sporting three pouches. The largest one could hold up to three days worth of rations.

"I need to go back to Knothole," he announced as he placed the bag on the table.

"What for?" Locke asked with a shrewd voice, "Your kind needs you along with your brother."

Aleutian took a deep breath before he answered. "I need to talk with Elias about Mathias and some of the unknown allies from the past."

"So, you are going to open up to him and not me!?" Locke almost barked out, folding his arms across his chest.

"Just certain things father. Things that they need to know about so hopefully they can find victory quicker. If they can defeat Eggman there, then our fight back...home," the thought made Aleutian cringe for some reason, "ceases."

"Your brother believes that, and it's why he hasn't returned home."

"Good, they can use his powers! Besides, isn't what's supposed to do anyways? That was your vision if I remember right?"

Locke traced his eyes over the thick fibers of the blue carpet. "Yes, you do remember well. So what about you?"

Aleutian faced the case that held his weapon, then he looked down the hall at the picture of him and Emi-La. "I need to keep a promise, father. I will return, but I think I need to help the Freedom Fighters for a little while. But I will return."

Locke nodded. "Okay son. Get what you need and we can use my warp ring to get us there. Archy will be tagging along."

"Who?" Aleutian shouted, his temper coming back into play, "your messenger?"

"He was doing what he was asked to do..."

"...Yea, but not telling you the whole truth. If he had any sense of duty to you and our kind, he would have told you what happened to me over two years ago...!"

"...Aleutian!!" With the fury of the purple smoke and Archimedes' voice, he appeared on the small table with all four of his arms crossed and staring at the back of Aleutian, who soon turned around to confront the one who he always hated to talk to. "It was Mathias who told me to stay quiet about you and Emi-La that day, so don't be going off half-cocked, lad, about what my duties are," Archy harshly said. "I did a lot for you, and all you can do is thank me with your cold bitterness?"

"Why should I!?" Aleutian seethed out. "You buried my Fiancée without me being there..."

"...You were on Death's door step, MATE!" retorted the fire ant with two of his right arms pointing at Aleutian.

"Yea," Aleutian seethed out, "but apparently I wasn't important enough to you! You just buried my Emee and left me, telling no one about what had happened!"

"I did tell your fa..."

Aleutian slammed his fist right next to Archimedes on the table. The impact sent the fire ant up about two inches in the air before coming back down. "LIAR!" Aleutian screamed out almost in tears. "If you would have gone back on your word, my father would have been there for me! Not now!"

Archy took a deep hollow breath before he tried to finish his thought, "I told your father that you were lost. It was what Mathias wanted me to say. The Dingo had hoped that Locke would then come for you...but your father said that you were as good as dead to him. It is not me you should be blaming. Its your father."

Aleutian slowly turned around and shot his cold stare at Locke. "You said what?" he eerily asked.

Locke looked at his son's fierce eyes before looking down at the floor in defeat. "I thought you were defying me again, and that you'd totally lost your ways. I didn't know you almost died."

He then thought hard, asking himself why Mathias would play a head game during his son's time of great need. There had to be a reason. "What did you and Mathias see in my son, Archy?"

Archimedes crossed his arms again and gazed at Aleutian. "It was not what we saw; it was what we heard. Your son started mumbling in his sleep before I left. Mathias knew what you were saying but it sounded like evil speak to me; 'Cravan mas thumpsun daron,'" he quoted.

"What does it mean, Aleutian?" came his father.

His son took in countless deep breaths, lowering his narrowed eyes on Archimedes. Without a word, he turned and marched back towards the closet, grabbing his duffel bag as he went along his way.

Locke came up beside Aleutian as his son opened the closet door. "What does it mean? You're not into sorcery and evil magic, are you?"

"No father. It not only means that Archy can't speak, but he is also deaf," Aleutian quietly said as he grabbed one of his blasters and placed it into his bag.

"And what are you going to do with those?" Locke asked next as he saw his son put another weapon in his bag.

Reaching up for the spare energy cells, Aleutian replied, "You'll see."

Aleutian found himself in the kitchen, grabbing his last blaster and spare cells while leaving his body armor where it lay. Clutching the bag in his right hand, he marched outside with a hard determined stride. Locke followed him with Archy perched on his shoulder.

But before they stepped off onto the grassy ground, Aleutian stopped them with a sudden turn. "You two stay here. None of you are fit to see the grave of my equal."

"I already have looked upon her..."

"...Not while I'm present beside her you don't!" Aleutian harshly fired back before his father could finish his protests. "What you two have and haven't done for me doesn't allow the time and honor to be with me and her in the same space of air!"

With his blemished face relaxing from the tense muscle strain of his fierce anger, Aleutian started off alone to Emee's final resting place on the bluff.

Locke shouted to his son, hoping his point would drive home to him, "You were the one who abandoned us..."

The fast moving breeze sent Aleutian's locks fluttering behind his head, sometimes making a lone dread wrap around his throat. He would swipe it away with annoyance, but his thoughts on minor physical inconveniences vanished as his stout march brought him closer to Emi-La. With every step, his knees grew weaker, almost becoming sluggish when a mere few paces were left to close the gap. He dropped his duffel bag behind him before he stopped at the granite tombstone.

With an everlasting look at the side of the stone, Aleutian wet his lips before asking the question to which he would never get an answer. "Are you calling for me? If so, I am here."

The answer came in the form of calls from the gulls that flew below the bluff. With the wind picking up, Aleutian slowly sat down beside Emi-La's stone, leaning up against it, feeling the warmth that radiated it from the sun. For Aleutian, the warmth felt as if she was there, saved fo her physical presence.

"It's been forever autumn without you," he said, his head slumped over onto the stone now. "The wilting leaves of a tree much resembles my heart, turning dead with each passing day with spring looking as if it will never come to renew me." Aleutian choked back his tears briefly before he told her spirit of what was to come of him. "But the change of season is upon me now. Your calling from this morning, I think, is what is bringing the warmth to melt the ice in my heart; turning it into water that will bring life back to me."

He stood up from the soft grassy carpet of Mobius, grabbed his bag from behind him, and strolled to the edge of the bluff.

With the bag falling again to the ground, Aleutian unzipped it and produced a blaster from it. The full length trigger guard traced down to the edge of the magazine well, pointing towards Aleutian as he held it flat in his right hand. For reasons that he quite didn't understand, this particular blaster, and the others that laid at his feet, didn't feel right in his hands anymore. In a sense, they never had felt right. But he had never felt right for over two years.

Grabbing the hilt of the blaster, he chucked it to Neptune, tracing the obtuse rolling weapon to the sea as it fell and splashed in the water below. Picking up another one from his bag, he too offered it to the God of the Sea. With the last one leaving just as easily as the rest, its flight lighter and faster without the emotional baggage, that Aleutian thought he was going to send with it. He thought was going to regret it that he would surly miss them. But he didn't, and he was glad. These pistols that he carried with him for only a few weeks, and never had to use in anger but more of show, left his red furred hands with great ease to his astonishment. And with the cells that powered them, falling from his dark grace as well, Aleutian felt a heavy fog of gloom lifting from his soul.

Picking up the now empty bag, he slowly made his way back over to Emi-La, kneeling over her stone and gently tracing its inscription.

"That was for you, babe. Hopefully when I come back this round, you will see the Aleutian you remembered. Just wish you were by his side when he returns." And with a hard squeeze on the stone he whispered. "I love you, and I'm still committed to you and your promise. I just lost my way."

And with that, he painfully, yet joyfully, went back to his house...and back to his father.

Locke saw the staunch improvement in his son's mood as Aleutian walked past him, striding in steps with a hint of a swagger as he glided by.

"So now what?"

"I pack and we leave. Just a few things, that's all."

"You're not taking that pistol with you?" asked Locke with Archimedes still ridding on his shoulder.

Aleutian paused at the door before he replied, "Yes. I have a purpose for it right now."

With a hard left turn, Aleutian made his way to the door that sank lower than the rest at the south end of the house. The squeaking of the hinges moaned as he opened the door, exposing a dark world before him. He flipped a switch that brought forth light down the wooden stairs. With every step sounding as if it could be his last, Aleutian traveled down them, stamping his right foot down on the concrete foundation that signaled that the old decaying stairs were still hanging on. Fishing his left hand over for another light switch on a bracing post that held part of the house up; and what was left of the stairs, he found it and flipped the lever to the wooden ceiling. Hard shunts filled the damp air as breakers switched on automatically. With every breaker thrown, a section of lighting would illuminate the dark underbelly of the cozy house, brightening the basement in all directions.

As the shunts died, the creaking of the stairs were reborn as Locke made his way down. He breathed a quick sigh of relief that he hadn't plummeted to the hard grey concrete floor from the rickety stairs, only to take in a long gasp when his eyes were met by the sight of what was hidden under the house. To his left, a wall with rifles that hovered a few feet off the floor, ranging from many eras: from the first bolt-action cell exchangers, to some of the latest repeating blasters. Aleutian had stacked them on their shoulder stocks with the barrels pointing at the ceiling. The gap that the ceiling and barrels had left wasn't spared: a multitude of pistols and a few sub-guns littered the wall, showing their slides, barrels and safety catches. Locke couldn't count them all but he could gauge the length from his vantage point to be about four yards. When he turned a little to look behind him, the row continued on for another yard before it disappeared behind a column and out of his sight.

Locke shifted his eyes back to the south. A few more support columns that held up the Mobian ground where the house had ended, creating more space to the basement. He could see what looked to be a car of some sort, that stood on tires instead of air, and was under a pale, canvas covering. Beside that, a heap of twisted metal of what looked to be a small fighter ship. Locke could make out the skeleton of a shattered canopy on top of the wrecked fuselage that had burn marks which overlapped what was left of the blue paint. The left side had a wing that was curved up and back from the center, while the right side had no wing to speak of. The jet engine that Locke could see, didn't look like much of one at all. Engines of that type didn't have huge cylindrical fans, and very few at that. The twisted skin was speckled with clumps of dirt with dead grass and roots in some areas. But then he realized that it was a combustible engine that turned a prop. He saw the four bent paddles that gave thrust to the ship, a heap of junk like the rest of it, posted upright behind the plane.

"I don't think the ocean is deep enough to hold all these," he commented to his son about his weapons.

"These, I keep. When this war is over, I want to open a museum either in Echidnaolopis or Mobotropilos when Elias rebuilds it. I do have duplicates of some of these, and those I will keep as my own. Most of these weapons you see here have been liberated from certain people. I shoot them from time to time. Some I have used on operations that I did with my equal and others. But my greatest pride for them is this: I have them, no one else does, and that means that they can't be used against me, my brother, or my kind."

Locke sighed before he spoke. "So you did keep true to your word in your letter."

"Up until two years ago, father."

Aleutian then tested his father's situational awareness when he turned around and pointed towards the back of the long basement. Locke stood in shock but yet became pleased at what he saw. Behind the steps were five rows of bookcases. Where the weapons had begun, ended the first bookcase, and that was where Aleutian went. He reached up on the top shelf on his tip toes and grabbed the first book from it. He clutched it in his hands for a moment with a trying look on his face before he placed it into his bag.

"What's that one about?" Locke asked.

"I don't know," Aleutian lied for once, "I have never read it nor will I."

"Well, what's the title, lad?" asked Archy from Locke's shoulder.

"It has none," Aleutian replied as he stepped past the stunned two.

Making his way to the west wall, Aleutian stopped in front of a long workbench. Assorted tool boxes alined the wall on top of the maple table. At the center of it was a blue reloading press that showed the signs that it had seen better days. The powder cannister was still halfway filled with a black explosive substance, but beside that stood another one that had a clear liquid inside. At the very end of the workbench was a metal box that had several black cords coming from it that sprang up to the ceiling, snaking along the top until they either disappeared into the ceiling or sprang towards one of the light fixtures.

"So what are you using for power?" asked Locke, already guessing what the box was used for.

"A power ring that I snagged from a Swat Bot some moons ago. The house was originally powered by a small nuclear reactor, but the motor that the steam had powered kept me and Emi-La up all night. When we came across a few bots that somehow got a hold of one, we crashed their party and took the ring."

"So, how long did it take you to build this house?" asked Locke.

Aleutian shook his head sadly. "I didn't, it was gift to me and Emee from Lopper. Some of the books were already here, but my travels and some of my friends have turned up more. I've read most of them, but not all."

Opening a long drawer from below the table, Aleutian grabbed ten pistol mags from it with only three being loaded. He hoped that the springs weren't worn from being loaded like they were for such a long time. Weakened springs caused failure to feed, which he had experienced before. He could forgo the pain of doing malfunction drills --especially in a fight– by going stickily to laser and plasma weapons, but those weapons could never be discharged in silence. The jacketed projectile that he fired from his weapon was crude, couldn't stop a bot worth a hoot, and left a rank smell. But some of the Mobians and Overlanders that he had to deal with needed to be serviced with what Aleutian called, "a tool," his "hush-puppy" (as Emi-La had came to call it), that was given to him by Lopper as well.

Closing the drawer, he opened another one below it, grabbing four white boxes from it, and some webbed gear as well before he closed the drawer and zipped his bag. He turned to his left and was about to go and place his bag in his hover car when he realized it wasn't there.

"Oh man..."

Locke smirked at his son's exaggerated voice, "What?"

"I left my car in Mathias's garage."

"And I take it that it's..."

"...With Mathias now," Aleutian finished with a groan. "That makes two cars in the span of a week."

"Like I said, I have a warp ring we can use. It was how we got here last night," volunteered Locke

"Good, I didn't want to take this one anyways," he said as he pointed towards the covered car.

Reaching the main and only floor of the house, Aleutian went back to the closet and grabbed his brown aviator jacket that he quickly put on. He unzipped his bag one last time to place the tan colored backpack in it. With everything packed and ready, he nodded at his father.

"I'm ready. As soon as you get me there, you two can take off."

"Actually Aleutian, we aren't going to leave," came Locke. "We are going to train you and help grasp your powers back..."

"...I don't want them!" Aleutian fired back harshly.

Locke gazed into his son's seething eyes before he spoke, "Why? Your abilities that you were born with can..."

"...No! I don't want them!"

Seeing Aleutian's face the way it was, the scars projecting his anger even further, Locke decided to let it die for now. It was something else that Archimedes was going to have to answer for.

"Very well, but we are training you," he pointed out again, almost forcing the issue. "Your strength is weaned from depression, and your house is lathered with dust. Your friend Lopper wants us to help you find your way, and that is what we intend to do."

Aleutian slumped his shoulders as he let out a painful sigh. "I hope you two succeed."