"Everyone's busy fixing this mess," Amy said as they walked away from the ruined section of the city, heading down a familiar route now changed by the destruction. "It'll be easier if we just use the Gaia gates to get around. I don't think the temple would have been hit…"

Thankfully it had not. They got in easily—they were regular patrons, after all, and Amy's hero status got her special perks—and Amy lead the way to the portal room. Together the three of them considered the doors. Initially they'd thought only seven were functional (assuming you had something to power them, like a Gaia or a Chaos Emerald), but with a little experimentation they'd figured out that Whip could reactivate the defunct doors, though only temporarily; the moment he left the door stopped working again. He'd even been able to activate the door to Chun-Nan despite Eggman disassembling the other side, which suggested to Pretzel that the doors were more of a way to channel and anchor Whip's power rather than being teleporters in and of themselves.

"This one should do it," Amy said, walking up to one of the scratched doors. "Whip, would you…?"

Whip eagerly flew up and smacked his paws flat on the door. He narrowed his eyes in concentration, and a moment later the symbols on the door—including the scratches—began to glow with white light. He flew back, and Amy tugged the door open, revealing a blank white space, as was always the case with the broken doors.

"Here goes," Amy said, tucking her purse into hammerspace. Pretzel hopped onto her shoulder and Whip landed opposite her like they'd rehearsed it. They all knew the routine by now. Amy stepped through the door, the world twisted, and then they were standing outside an overgrown jungle temple.

Whip immediately shot off to explore, but Pretzel stayed on Amy's shoulder, squinting against the sunlight. "Where are we?"

"Oh, that's right," Amy said, picking her way through the ruins with an ease that suggested she'd been here many times before. "You didn't come with us when we tested this door. This is Mystic Ruins," she explained, gesturing grandly to the aged temple. "A friend of mine lives near her."

"Big!" Whip chimed in energetically, flying back to join them. "He's really nice! And kind of weird. He gave me fruit!"

Amy nodded. "You'll like him, Pretzel. Come on, it's this way."

She skipped merrily into the jungle, Whip fluttering at her side and chattering about what snacks Big would have this time and is this fruit edible and do cocoa beans taste like chocolate and several other, mostly food related things Pretzel couldn't be bothered to pay attention to. Amy listened with smiles and nods and polite hmms, occasionally interjecting with a "don't fly too far ahead!" or a "no don't eat that it's poisonous!" Pretzel took up the rear, slinking after them in silence. The jungle was warmer than she would have liked, but at least it was also humid and muddy, and the trees cast a lot of shade. And there were bugs everywhere. Bugs were always a plus. If this Big person chose to live out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but trees, bugs, and mud, maybe they actually would get along. Would he be open to a roommate? No, wait, it was still way too hot for her tastes. Maybe it got cooler at night?

As they walked, Pretzel heard a sound, different from the chirps of birds and insects, growing louder and louder. For a moment she was worried they were approaching a road, but then the source came into view through the trees: a river. A little ways more and she saw a simple wooden hut amid the greenery. She wasn't sure "hut" was even the right word for it; it didn't have any walls, just a couple of wooden poles holding up a leaf roof, a single lantern, and several dead fish on a string. The floor was a wood platform, raised slightly above the river bank with stilts. The only "furniture" was a stone-lined fire pit set in a hole in the wood platform, over which hung an old metal cooking pot, and what looked like a nest of leaves off to one side. Wood stairs lead past a small boat and down to the river. And that was it. No steel or cement or glass, no buzzing electronics, no roads nearby to conduct noisy traffic, no sidewalks crowded with pedestrians. Just a simple hut in the middle of the jungle. Pretzel loved it immediately.

"Big!" Amy called with a wide smile, waving energetically. "Over here!"

Pretzel took her eyes off the hut and followed Amy's gaze to the riverbank. She immediately took a step back, spreading her wings and arching her back instinctively. A massive figure was rising from beside the river. And it was massive. The creature had to be at least three times Pretzel's height, even if she wasn't hunched over like she often was, and they had the mass to back that height up. They were a predator, clearly, a cat, with thick fur colored the same purple as the ocean's depths. It reminded her of Blaze, actually; perhaps they were related? They certainly carried themselves with the same majestic dignity. Massive ears—each one alone was bigger than the head that bore them—framed a face with gleaming yellow eyes and jaws that surely contained an array of deadly fangs. Not that it would need them; the cat's limbs seemed, to Pretzel, as big as tree trunks, and she could only imagine the claws hiding under those yellow gloves. This person— no, this being was huge.

"Hey Big!" Amy called again, running up to him with the confidence of someone who wasn't less than two feet tall.

Wait. Big? That was his name? And Pretzel had thought Sonic was unimaginative.

Whip flew right up to the being, this forest giant, this jungle spirit, with his usual confidence, even grabbing Big's arm as he chattered about snacks. Big tolerated this annoyance with the grace of the great whales of the deep, the serenity of the powerful. Though to be fair, most people had more tolerance for Whip than Pretzel expected them to. Amy said he had charm. Pretzel didn't see it.

She approached slowly, folding her wings as this "Big" showed no signs of attacking. Why should he? What could possibly be a threat to an apex predator such as this? No; predator wasn't right. She could sense his aura, now, the gentle waves of serene calm, a still, undisturbed pool untouched by the chaos around it. That was not the serenity of someone who needed to hunt; this was someone who had ascended the food chain.

He also had a fishing rod, so he probably lived off fish, not tiny furry mutants. Pretzel personally had never eaten seafood, on principle, but if you had to eat meat, she could respect that choice. Anything aquatic was bound to be superior to its land-born alternatives, obviously. If there was such a thing as "sea chocolate" it would probably be the best thing ever. (And as much as Pretzel loved fish, they were. Really dumb. It was their own fault if they let something as obvious as a fishing rod catch them. Who was so easily defeated by a stick?)

"Big, this is Pretzel," Amy said, gesturing Pretzel forward. "She's been staying with me. Pretzel, this is my friend Big."

"Hello," Big said, blinking serenely down at her. His voice was deep and slow, the exact opposite of Whip's high-pitched yammering, so that was an instant addition to the rapidly growing list of reasons Pretzel liked this stranger. He crouched down—which made him twice as tall as her instead of three times—and extended his hand. "It's nice to meet you."

Pretzel studied his hand for a moment, then, with careful reverence, slapped it with her own. It was an odd position for a high five—Sonic usually held his hand up vertically, not horizontally—but at least it was easier for her to reach. Big nodded wisely and stood up. Amy made a weird choking noise and Pretzel glanced up at her, but she was clearly breathing just fine. Whatever.

"So do you have any food?" Whip asked, completely ruining the moment.

Pretzel shot him a glare, but any potential argument was cut short by a croaking noise nearby. Pretzel's head whipped around, and her eyes widened as she saw a bright green creature climb out of the river and start hopping toward them. She'd seen frogs before, but never one so big and brilliantly colored, or one with a pronounced tail for that matter. It had orange stripes, which was not one of her favorite colors, but she could admit it looked quite striking paired with the cool green.

"Oh! This is Froggy." Big crouched down to scoop the frog up, then held him level with Pretzel's face. "Froggy, this is Pretzel."

Froggy and Pretzel stared at each other, nose to nose, for a long moment. Then Froggy looked at Big, croaked, turned back to Pretzel, and hopped on top of her head. Pretzel froze, hardly daring to breathe. Froggy shuffled around a bit before settling down with a content ribbit.

"He likes you," Big intoned with sage wisdom.

Pretzel stared up at the frog—or what she could see of it, since it was sitting on top of her. One of its feet was on her third eye, which was more decorative than functional. Most people found its blank stare creepy, but the frog seemed wholly unbothered, as did Big.

Big gave the frog a fond pat before walking over to his hut. Pretzel remained where she was, dazed by the sensation of this little living being perched on her head. Froggy seemed perfectly content. Was he sleeping? Pretzel followed his lead, closing her eyes and letting herself soak in the jungle ambience. It was peaceful, just sitting still, listening to the river gurgling gently nearby and feeling the cool touch of Froggy's webbed feet, the squish of the mud beneath her claws.

"Pretzel," Amy said, crouching down beside her with an amused smile. Pretzel blinked up at her, rising from whatever trance she'd slipped into. "It's time to go."

Reluctantly Pretzel lifted Froggy from her head and set him down on the ground with utmost care. The frog croaked with displeasure before hopping over to join Big, who had stowed his fishing rod with a strap on his back. Big gently picked the frog up and set him on top of his head.

"This way," Big said, pointing into the jungle, and strode off.

Amy scooped up a now frog-less Pretzel, letting her settle around her shoulders, and picked Whip up from where he was busy eating what had to be Big's entire fruit stash. Then she followed Big into the jungle.

"Where are we going?" Whip asked once he'd inhaled what fruit he'd been able to bring with him. "Weren't we going to save the world? Is Big going to help us?" He gasped excitedly. "Is Big leading us to an ancient magic temple where we'll get cool magic powers and a wise old woman will tell us how to stop the bad things and we'll save the world!?"

"Not quite," Amy said, smiling at him. "We are going somewhere special to ask for advice, though I doubt Knuckles would appreciate you calling him an old woman."

Pretzel, currently slung around Amy's shoulders like a prickly scarf, looked up with interest. Knuckles. Both Amy and Sonic had spoken of him several times, and even Rouge had mentioned him that one time she stopped by, but Pretzel had never gotten the chance to meet him herself. Apparently he didn't like leaving home, a trait he and Pretzel shared which had thus far kept them from ever crossing paths. Even Whip hadn't met him, judging by the flood of questions he was currently spouting.

Pretzel kept her own questions to herself. She just hoped this "Knuckles" lived somewhere like the jungle, and not in a city or somewhere else horrible and populated. Unfortunately her hopes of avoiding civilization completely were dashed as, after an hour or so of walking, they reached a proper road with a sign indicating where the nearest town was.

"Let's head that way," Amy said, much to Pretzel's disappointment. "They might have seen Angel Island. And we could use some supplies," she added with a self-reproving grimace. She'd only brought a couple jackets and some snacks, which wouldn't be enough if they ended up away from home for more than a day. To be fair, with the state Empire City had been in it might have been a month before they got their hands on proper supplies. If only Pretzel had thought of that earlier. She could have delayed this whole "adventure" by at least a week. Oh well. At least she'd gotten to meet a frog.

"Maybe they'll have ice cream!" Whip suggested eagerly.

For once Pretzel was on board with his train of thought. Much as she loved the mud and dampness of the jungle, the heat was really starting to irk her.

"Maybe," Amy agreed with a smile and turned to Big. "Do you still want to come with us? We can find our own way now that we're on the road."

"I'll come," Big said simply, and Froggy croaked agreement.

As they started walking again Pretzel hopped off Amy's shoulders so she could slink through what shade was available on the road. Without the overarching trees or nearby river, the heat was much more stifling. It was a relief when Pretzel heard a familiar sound: waves.

"Mystic Ruins isn't far from the ocean," Amy explained at Pretzel's questioning glance. "The town we're heading to is probably coastal." She frowned. "Though I wonder why we haven't been passed by any cars. I guess not a lot of people come this way…"

Soon the town came into view. Or what remained of the town, anyway. The first row of buildings they passed were fine, but as they drew closer to the ocean more and more of them looked like they'd been batted about by some giant, irritable cat. Pretzel drew closer to Amy, flattening her ears. This town had been hit by a storm, a fierce one. (One like the "storm" that had hit Empire City?)

Amy frowned, setting Whip down as they reached the beach. Here the buildings looked the worst hit. Several had collapsed altogether. "This doesn't look good." She glanced up at Big. "Could you look after Pretzel and Whip? I want to ask around."

"Can I come?" Whip asked hopefully.

Amy shook her head. "I'm not going to be doing anything interesting, just asking questions. I'll see if I can find a snack, okay?"

"Okay," Whip agreed, pouting.

Big set Froggy down and sat on the sand, casting his line out into the ocean. Pretzel found a shady spot under some of the rubble and flopped down. It was still far too hot for her taste. Maybe she should try lying in the ocean; it would be in the sun, but it would also be in the water. Would the two cancel each other out?

"Pretzel, Pretzel, Pretzel!" Whip landed next to her with a thump, spraying sand over her wings. "Come play with me!"

"It's too hot for playing," Pretzel grumbled, stretching out further.

"Hot is perfect for playing! Come on, pleeeease?" He did his best puppy dog eyes, his most powerful and deadly weapon.

Unfortunately for him, Pretzel was one of the few people immune to Whip's cute factor. "No." She rolled over, pointedly putting her back to him. She flicked her tail to spray him with sand for good measure.

"Why are you so boring all the time?" Whip whined. Pretzel stuck her tongue out at him. Whip huffed and flew off to pester Froggy instead.

Once she was reasonably sure he wouldn't come back and pounce on her, Pretzel got up and dug into the sand, flopping down again after unearthing the cooler layer beneath. It didn't help much. She looked over to where the others were playing. Whip, brow furrowed with intense focus, was trying to sculpt a sand castle worthy of the frog. Froggy watched his efforts imperiously, occasionally croaking critiques. Pretzel snorted as Whip's latest attempt collapsed into a pile of sand.

"It'd work better if you got the sand wet," Pretzel called helpfully.

Whip stuck his tongue out at her. Touché.

Pretzel was considering sneaking up on Whip and dousing him with ocean water (and weighing whether his surprise would be worth Amy's wrath) when she felt an icy chill, wholly out of place on the humid and sunny beach, run down her spine. Prickles of unease raised her fur, and she fought the urge to bolt for cover.

Something was watching her.

Pretzel kept still, casting her senses around her. Nothing. Carefully, with a manufactured air of laziness, she rolled over on her back. There was no one behind her. She couldn't hear or smell anyone, either; it was just her, Big, and Whip. Yet the feeling persisted. She was being watched.

Pretzel stood up with an exaggerated stretch, trying not to betray her unease. She walked over to where Whip was playing, struggling to keep her tail from twitching, and sat down. Surreptitiously she scanned the beach. Still empty. The feeling of being watched persisted. Was she just being paranoid? Should she warn the others?

Whip nudged her, and Pretzel started at the sudden jolt of bright energy. He blinked innocently at her. "Are you going to help with the castle?"

"Um," Pretzel said, blinking down at the pile of sand. "Sure." At least this was an excuse to keep close to the others. Whip especially was prime kidnapping bait. He needed someone who didn't trust every smiling, candy-proffering stranger.

She'd only just started digging into the sand when a loud noise had her whipping around, wings rising. Seeing that the noise came from a group of children running onto the beach only slightly lessened her alarm. Pretzel had known, kind of, about children when she woke up, in the way she knew other random, unhelpful things such as the difference between an eel and a moray and what boats were (but not, apparently, what screens or phones or chocolate were). Children were young, underdeveloped people whose brains didn't quite work yet. That was simple enough; (almost) every species had them.

What Pretzel struggled to understand was when, exactly, someone stopped being a child. She didn't see how a measly few years could make the difference between a child and an adult. Every person Pretzel had met fit the young and dumb criteria of children, so where was the distinction? How could someone who'd only lived, say, fifty years be considered "old"? That was just five decades. That was hardly anything. Really, everyone Pretzel knew should be considered a child. Babies, the lot of them.

The main distinction Pretzel had found between "children" and "adults" (or "teenagers", as if everything wasn't already complicated enough) was that children had no impulse control. Whatever they thought, they said; whatever they felt like doing, they did; whatever they wanted, they took. They tended to be horribly unpredictable and horribly loud. In that way they were a lot like Whip.

Speaking of Whip, he jerked around at the noise as well, but unlike Pretzel his face lit up with excitement. "Hi!" He called, darting into the air and waving vigorously. "Do you want to play?"

The kids stopped short, as anyone should when addressed by a strange mutant dog thing. Pretzel crouched lower to the sand, readying herself to grab Whip and run. Most people hadn't reacted to them with hostility, but you never knew, and Amy wasn't here to defend them if things went south. She glanced down the beach and was relieved to see Big watching them from his fishing spot. He didn't look concerned, so probably this was okay?

"What are you?" One of the kids—a bird of some kind, maybe a quetzal?—blurted out, breaking the awkward silence. Pretzel let her wings sink down. The kid didn't sound hostile, just curious.

"I'm Whip! Who are you?"

While her brother befriended the random strangers, Pretzel slowly backed away, trying to decide if it would be better to bolt for the shade or dive into the ocean. She froze as one of the kids, a young jaguar girl, laid eyes on her.

"Oh!" The jaguar gasped, putting her hands to her mouth. "Hi! Who are you?" She crouched down and extended her hand, making clicking noises like she was trying to call a cat.

Pretzel stared at her. Two options. Option A: answer the girl's question, thus revealing herself as a Person Who Could Talk and probably flustering the kid into backing off, possibly leaving herself open to be approached by a different child. Or, Option B, make inhuman screeching noises and convince the entire group that she was some sort of feral monster that had crawled out of the sea and was going to eat them all. There was really only one clear choice.

Pretzel opened her mouth to do her best impression of nails on a chalkboard when Whip beat her to it.

"That's my sister, Pretzel!" He said, flying over to throw his arms around her like the person with no respect for personal space he was. Pretzel growled at him, but the moment had been lost; she had been clearly revealed as a Person Who Could Talk and thus both approachable and condemnable, and the jaguar girl wasn't even flustered.

"Oh wow," the jaguar breathed, eyes round with awe. "Are you a dragon? I heard there's a whole tribe of dragons in Chun-Nan, are you from Chun-Nan? And that eyeball on your forehead looks so cool, can it see stuff? Can I touch it?"

"She's not a dragon," the quetzal said, rolling his eyes. "Obviously she's a snake. Idiot."

"Idiot yourself," the jaguar snapped back. "Snakes don't have fur." She blinked at Pretzel. "Are you a hybrid?"

"…yes," Pretzel said, since that was the simplest explanation she could think of.

"That's so cool!" The jaguar said earnestly. "Ooh, and your claws glow too!" She pouted and looked at her own hands, flexing her not unimpressive claws. "I wish my claws glowed. I asked Mama if I could paint them but she said I have to wait till I'm older."

Pretzel looked at her claws like she'd just noticed them for the first time. People had commented on her… appearance before, but "cool"? That was a new one.

"Can we play now?" Whip interjected. "I want to build sand castles!"

"It'll never work if you do it like that," the quetzal said with the authority of youth, looking down at Whip's pile of sand with disapproval. "You need water to make it stick together."

"Told you," Pretzel muttered.

Whip pouted.

"I'll go get my bucket," the quetzal said, nodding to himself. "You guys go look for shells and stuff."

"We don't have to do what you say all the time," the jaguar argued, putting her hands on her hips, but the rest of the kids had already taken off down the beach in a pack of yells and jostling elbows. It was an impractical method of searching; didn't they realize they'd find things much quicker if they actually split up (and if they stopped fighting over each shell they found)? The jaguar huffed, but she started picking up seashells from around her feet as well.

"Why are we looking for shells?" Whip asked curiously.

"To decorate," the jaguar said, intent on amassing a pile of… things. Some were shells, but there were also several sticks of wood, bits of rock, pieces of seaweed, and what Pretzel was pretty sure was a chunk of warped plastic. "Don't you want your castle to look pretty?"

"Definitely," Whip nodded his head seriously. "Froggy deserves a beautiful palace."

Froggy croaked his agreement.

"Hey— um— red dog!" One of the kids called from down the beach, where several of them had clustered around a palm tree. The trees, Pretzel noticed, had been left unscathed by the storm. Hopefully that didn't mean anything. "You can fly, right?"

"Me?" Whip blinked, then beamed. "Yes! Me! I can fly!" He grabbed Pretzel's arm. "Come on, let's go get shells!"

Pretzel didn't see how they could be getting shells out of a tree, but it wasn't worth pointing out to Whip. More concerning was the implication that she was expected to participate in this castle-building venture. It had been one thing when it was just Whip and Froggy, but all these strangers…

"Pretzel's going with me," the jaguar declared, and before Pretzel had time to react she had been slung over the jaguar's shoulder like an abandoned sack of potatoes. "And we are going to find the best shells on the whole beach."

That was enough to awaken Whip's competitiveness. "Not true!" He declared, puffing out his chest. "I'm going to find the best shells!" And he flew off to join the kids around the tree.

"Come on, Pretzel," the jaguar said, starting off down the beach, still carrying Pretzel. Her grip was surprisingly strong.

Pretzel considered wriggling free, but she didn't have to when the jaguar spotted another shell and promptly dropped her. Pretzel landed on the sand, shaking herself out, and glanced longingly towards the shade. She considered making a break for it then and there, but… she glanced back towards the jaguar's pile of shells, and then towards where Whip was fooling around with the other kids. Clearly they didn't know what they were doing.

Pretzel's eyes narrowed. Oh yeah. They could totally win this.

"The best shells will be closer to the water," she told the jaguar. "You focus on covering more ground and I'll look under all the debris, since I'm smaller."

"Do you know a lot about shell hunting?" The jaguar asked.

"It's a hobby," Pretzel said, shrugging. "Also I'm basically a sea monster, so this is my element."

The jaguar grinned, showing her fangs. "Oh, we're totally going to beat them!"

Pretzel grinned back.