Pretzel wasn't given long to dwell on her unease. A feeling of overwhelming light and warmth slammed into her mind with all the subtlety of a brick, and a moment later it was followed by a much more physical ball of red fur that nearly bowled Pretzel into the wall.

"AHA!" Whip squeaked much too loudly for how close he was to her ears. "I got you!"

Amy had said that if Whip was annoying Pretzel, she needed to tell him what he was doing wrong before lashing out. So because Pretzel was trying to be a good person now, she very politely stated, "If you do not get off I am going to throw you."

Then she threw him. Enhanced strength really came in handy sometimes.

Unfortunately it had little effect on Whip, and he bounced right off the wall and back over to her, unfazed. "Were you surprised? Did I surprise you? I totally surprised you, didn't I?"

"Whip," Pretzel said, very patiently, because Amy would want her to be and also if she made Whip cry again (she hadn't meant to, she'd just wanted some space, was that too much to ask?) Amy would take away her dark chocolate. "We are psychically connected. I am constantly aware of your presence. It is impossible for us to sneak up on each other."

"But did I surprise you?" Whip demanded insistently.

"…Yes. Yes, I was shocked. You gave me a heart attack. Don't do it again or I'll die."

"That is a lie," Whip pronounced solemnly. "Amy says we can never die."

Well there went her latest attempt. When had Amy told him that little tidbit?

Since Whip apparently wasn't going to be leaving anytime soon, Pretzel stood, jumped to the floor, and pointedly walked out of the room. Whip, of course, followed.

"Besides, if we can't sneak up on each other, how do you do it to me?" Whip demanded as they entered the living room. The living room was bright and clean and colorful, just the way Amy liked it, and it always made Pretzel feel out of place, like a black stain on a white carpet.

"Because you have the attention span of a chimpanzee," Pretzel informed him.

That, and she knew how to mask her aura to a degree (something Whip did not know how to do, and probably never would), but really it was mostly the "never paying attention to his surroundings" thing. She'd "snuck up" on him multiple times purely by accident. So had several other people. Even Charmy had managed to catch Whip by surprise. Her brother wouldn't last five minutes in the wild.

"Chimpanzees are smart, right?" Whip asked.

"They're cannibals," Pretzel said, because they were. Ugh, she hated monkeys. Apes. Whatever. Wasn't her domain anyway.

"That's gross. Let's talk about something else."

"How about the reason you attacked me?" Pretzel suggested, hopping onto the arm of the couch to peer judgmentally down at her brother. It wouldn't be the first time he was sent to tell her something and forgot to actually say what he was there for.

Sure enough, Whip jolted, eyes wide. "Oh! Right! Amy wanted me to ask you something!"

"And that was…?" Pretzel prompted.

Whip scrunched up his face, but was saved from having to remember when Amy herself walked into the room. Though "walked" wasn't quite the right word. Amy didn't walk like normal people did. She always moved with a skip in her step, often adding a little twirl for flare, like she was full of energy and love for life or something. Bizarre.

"Whip, did you— oh, good morning, Pretzel!" Amy also had a way of always acting like she was incredibly happy to see someone, even if that someone was the moody antisocial nightmare beast currently squatting in her apartment. "How did you sleep?"

"I did not," Pretzel informed her flatly.

"Mmm," Amy said in that "I'm concerned but I know you don't want to talk about it so I'll put it aside for now but just know I am going to bring this up again later" way she did sometimes. It was amazing how much could be communicated in such a simple sound. But Amy's bright smile quickly returned, impervious to Pretzel's mood-ruining abilities (how was Amy so cheerful all the time? Pretzel was exhausted just looking at her. Or maybe that was the effect positive emotions had on her? She still wasn't clear on how that worked.) "Well, Whip and I were going to stock up in case that storm hits tonight. Do you want to come with us?"

Pretzel sat up. "Storm? What storm?"

"It was on the forecast this morning."

"And the news!" Whip added. "They said a big hurricane was going to hit and that it was the end of the world!"

A storm. After all those nightmares of natural disasters… A coincidence? As if Pretzel could be that lucky.

Amy blinked at Whip. "That's… no, the world is not ending. But it would be good to stock up just in case, especially with Mom and Dad away."

Ah yes. The parents. Amy had those. Human ones, at that. She'd told Pretzel she avoided mentioning them around her friends for security purposes (since said friends had an unfortunate habit of attracting dangerous madmen, and Amy's parents were tragically underpowered compared to their Mobian daughter). Pretzel suspected it also had to do with the fact that pretty much everyone in Amy's friend group was an orphan. Amy had been surprised when Pretzel brought this up, but Pretzel figured she'd have to be a pretty pathetic dark god or whatever to not have noticed the general vibes of "my family members died tragically before my very eyes and now I have severe trauma" the group gave off. Even Whip had picked up on it, and he was as observant about these kind of things as the average brick.

"So, do you want to come with us?" Amy asked.

"No," Pretzel said, then added a "thanks" as an afterthought.

"Aww, come on!" Whip pleaded, jumping up beside her. "It'll be fun!"

"And it would be good for you to get out of the apartment for once," Amy added. "Maybe you'll make a friend!"

Pretzel highly doubted that, but she didn't say so, because it would make Amy sad and Pretzel was supposed to be nice now. Amy and Whip were both looking at her with hopeful expressions. Did they really want her out of the apartment that badly? Fine then. She did owe Amy for letting her stay here; the least she could do was carry groceries. And someone needed to keep an eye on Whip while Amy was busy preparing for the end of the world or whatever.

"Fine," Pretzel sighed. "I'll come."

"Yes!" Whip cheered. "This'll be so fun!"

"Great!" Amy said, sounding genuinely excited about this for some reason. "Just let me get my purse and my wallet and we can go."

"Why do you need that?" Pretzel asked as Amy returned, bag in hand, and the three of them headed out the door.

Amy hummed as she locked the door behind them and tucked the key into her purse. "Hammerspace is nice, but it's hard to keep organized, and it can have…" she wrinkled her nose. "…side effects."

"Like your hammer?" Whip piped up.

Amy smiled. "Kind of. And besides, this purse is cute."

"Like me!" Whip said, and Amy laughed and patted his head. Pretzel rolled her eyes.

The hallway and stairs were mercifully empty, but the street outside was a different matter. Pretzel kept close to Amy's shadow, wincing at the bright sunlight and noisy crowds. At least it wasn't hot. And the beach was close enough for her to hear the waves and smell the salt. That was one thing she loved about Amy's apartment; the ocean was never far away.

The summer had been absolutely miserable even without Light Gaia making the days longer, but now it was at last shifting to fall. The air was cooler, and some of the trees were already turning orange and red (why were orange and red the colors of fall? That seemed unfair; those were Whip's colors, in her season). The autumnal equinox (in the northern hemisphere, at least) was in a few days; Amy had given her a little calendar back when summer was at its height to give Pretzel hope for the return of cooler weather. Pretzel had been eagerly counting down ever since. (She was also counting down to Halloween—42 days and counting!—, because that just sounded like a great time.)

Speaking of Halloween. The tingling ominous sense of "something bad is coming" was back again in full force. She got that feeling a lot of the time, but today it was especially strong. The nightmares, and now this coming storm. Was it worth bringing up? Pretzel hesitated, but ignoring coincidences never worked out well when you were as involved in magic nonsense as she was, so talking it was. Ugh.

Whip had flown off to pester his favorite ice cream vendor, and Amy was looking at her shopping list with a slight frown. Best she tell Amy while Whip was out of earshot; this might be a Gaia thing, and they'd been trying to keep Whip from finding out more about that "until he was ready". Whenever that was. In Pretzel's personal experience, you were never ready to find out you were actually a monster who'd nearly destroyed the world. But maybe Whip was built different. At least he got some cool temples with the deal.

"Amy," Pretzel said, and when that failed to get her attention, jumped up onto her shoulder, even though that ran the risk of getting her noticed by—horror of horrors—other people. "Amy!"

Amy blinked and glanced down at her. "What is it, Pretzel?"

"Last night I dreamed about storms," she said. It was an oversimplification, but Amy would get it, and if anyone overheard it wouldn't immediately get Pretzel burned as a witch. Did people still do that? She wouldn't put it past them. "A lot of dreams about storms. Bad ones."

Most people in this modern day and age would have dismissed Pretzel as paranoid, but Amy Rose had the misfortune of being a close friend of Sonic the Hedgehog, as well as a babysitter for the two incarnations of light and darkness, so instead her expression was one of genuine consideration.

"I did hear something about that on the news," she said slowly. "That there's been a lot of strange weather around the world lately. Some people think it's just a side effect of the Gaia Incident, the world rebalancing itself, but…" she bit her lip. "Some are afraid this is just the beginning of a new disaster."

Pretzel nodded, tail twitching uneasily. It was a natural conclusion. There'd been no warning before Light Gaia emerged, and as many people had pointed out since the Incident, the existence of a Light Gaiasuggested there was also a Dark Gaia. GUN could reassure the populace that the problem had been taken care of all they wanted, but it wasn't like GUN had anticipated the first Incident, had they?

"This doesn't have anything to do with you two, right?" Amy asked.

"I… I'm not sure," Pretzel admitted.

Logically there was no way this could be the doing of either Gaia. Pretzel was pretty sure she'd know if she was causing natural disasters around the world, and if it was Whip's doing he would have blabbed by now. But… no one really knew how the Gaias worked. What if, by not getting sealed away like they always had in the past, Pretzel and Whip had kickstarted some sort of apocalypse? Maybe not having all that Gaia energy connected to the actual Gaias threw off the balance of the world somehow. Maybe they were supposed to be in the core, and their very presence up here was wreaking havoc.

Pretzel flattened her ears. Sonic had only stopped the Gaias from getting sealed away because he knew Pretzel was afraid of getting locked in that cycle again. Had her selfishness doomed the world?

Her thoughts were interrupted by Whip slamming into her at full force for the second time that day, which was frankly two times too many. Pretzel yelped, wings flapping frantically as she tried to keep a grip on Amy's shoulder. Amy winced at the claws digging into her and looped her arm around to support Pretzel while she regained her balance. Thankfully Whip let go of Pretzel and took to flitting around Amy like an energetic hummingbird, freeing Pretzel to resettle on Amy's shoulders and try to regain her dignity.

"What were you guys talking about?" Whip demanded. "What does what have to do with us?"

"I'll, um, tell you later," Amy said, clearly flustered. If there was one downside to her hosting Pretzel and Whip, it was that Amy Rose was not a practiced liar. She wasn't terrible, by any means, but she was no Rouge, especially not when caught off guard like this.

"The world is ending," Pretzel interjected before Whip could pick up on Amy's discomfort.

"Really?" Whip looked genuinely alarmed for a gratifying half second, before immediately smiling again. "That's okay! We'll stop it!"

Amy smiled too. "That's the spirit!"

Sure. Because it had been so easy the last time. Pretzel sighed and jumped off Amy's shoulder, returning to her preferred place in her shadow. It was easier to hide with her "shadow melty powers" (as Sonic called them) in proper shade, but she knew Amy preferred for her to stay nearby, and though she wouldn't admit it, so did Pretzel. Amy was safe. Other people… other people were something else.

Most of Amy's neighbors were well used to the presence of Pretzel and Whip by now; Amy's official explanation for what they were, exactly, was always deliberately vague, leaving the curious inquirer to happily fill in the gaps themselves (were they Mobians? Mutated Chao? Who knew!). She'd explained to Pretzel that most humans would attribute just about anything unusual to "Mobians" anyway. Actual Mobians tended to be more suspicious, but so far Amy's "they're from one of the uncontacted Chaos islands" explanation had worked well enough.

Still, there were always visitors and tourists around, and Pretzel preferred to avoid the stares and questions, even if Whip seemed to bask in the attention. This was one of the main reasons she hated leaving the apartment during the day. So many people. And they all prickled with their own resentments and regrets and joys, bombarding Pretzel with their every emotion, all their light and darkness on display. With each person she brushed against it was like Russian roulette, except all the barrels were loaded. Touch someone sad and she'd get a burst of adrenaline (and guilt, because what kind of person drew strength from other people's misery?), touch someone happy and it was like she'd just run a mile in the scorching desert. The best she could hope for was someone feeling only mild emotions. But no matter what she always felt something, and it was exhausting.

So as they turned away from the ocean and further into the crowded chaos of the city, Pretzel kept close to Amy's heels, trying to tune it all out. She focused on the contrast between Amy's merry red boots skipping and clicking down the pavement and Pretzel's own dark, strange talons silently trailing behind them.

"Hey!"

Pretzel glanced up sharply at Amy's yell, wings raising instinctively. But Amy didn't look frightened, only angry. She was clutching her purse, quills bristling as she whirled to scan the crowd, while Whip fluttered confusedly at her shoulder.

"Someone stole my wallet!" Amy exclaimed, stamping her foot in frustration.

Whip gasped, looking outraged. "That's horrible!"

"Was there anything important in it?" Pretzel asked, looking up at Amy.

Amy was still studying the crowd, hoping to spot the thief. "Just my allowance and a gift card. It's a good thing I didn't bring Mom's…"

"Don't worry, Amy! We'll find that thief and get your wallet back!" Whip struck a ridiculous pose in the air, chest puffed and feet spread apart, and hit his hand with his fist.

Pretzel's ears twitched back, discomfort curling in her stomach. Logically she knew that Whip was just imitating the heroes he saw on TV, but her mind went back to a rooftop in Spagonia, watching a mob of Light Gaia-possessed people pursuing a petty thief with mindless fury. The thief had escaped, but Pretzel had heard plenty of stories (and witnessed even more nightmares) about people who'd been less fortunate. That was the real horror of the Gaia Incident, beyond the droughts and the melted ice, beyond the terror of what might as well be a deity threatening your entire world. The real horror was not what Light Gaia had done but what it had made others do. For those who hadn't been possessed, the terror of being hunted by every other person on the planet seemed to never leave; and for those who had been possessed, the stains of guilt never quite faded.

Whip didn't remember any of that. So far he didn't possess the sheer cruelty he had as Light Gaia, but Pretzel watched with nauseas apprehension whenever he yelled at villains on the screen or got too passionate about a wrong done to one of his friends. His child-like sense of justice had yet to be warped into the self-righteousness Light Gaia had exhibited, and Amy didn't seem to see anything wrong with it, but it still made fear twist painfully in Pretzel's chest. It was hard, in those moments, to keep up the act. To keep pretending this was her brother, and not the creature that warped and possessed and destroyed to get what it wanted.

Pretzel was sure by now that Whip wasn't an act, wasn't some Light Gaia scheme to catch her with her guard down. That was more her style than his. Whip was genuine. And in a way that was worse. It was one thing for a monster to pretend to be innocent; it was another thing for an innocent to become a monster. She couldn't let that happen to Whip.

(And maybe the history books had been right. Maybe Light Gaia had been good, and all those cruel and horrible things were just Eggman's influence. Maybe it had been right, those memories of claws on her neck and burning white fury. Maybe it had been as simple as Light Gaia the hero and Dark Gaia the villain, Light Gaia the savior and Dark Gaia the destroyer, Light Gaia the good and Dark Gaia the monster. And if that was true, then… what would Whip think of her, his "sister", if he knew the truth? Would he reject her? Hate her? Tear her apart? Pretzel didn't know. Pretzel didn't want to know.)

So when Pretzel saw the thief, a weasel walking casually through the crowd across the street, his aura dark with smug accomplishment, she hesitated. Would Amy lose her temper if she saw the thief? What if Whip laid eyes on him and that cruelty woke again? (What if he saw that Pretzel had the same darkness, and hated her too?)

For a moment, Pretzel hesitated.

And then everything descended into chaos.