Apparently getting nearly beaten to a pulp by Amy's hammer had done much to improve the Phoenix's mood. Pretzel and Whip found Amy stroking the Phoenix's beak and giving it a talk about controlling its temper and choosing its friends wisely. How much of it the Phoenix understood Pretzel didn't know, but it certainly looked content.
One of the no longer possessed civilians piped up to tell them that the Phoenix normally lived in the temple nearby. Or, rather, what had once been the temple. Eggman had done a thorough job of converting it into his base, and the Chun-Nan residents were still working on reversing the damage. Amy decided they should escort the Phoenix back to make sure it didn't cause any more trouble, and so they could investigate Eggman's old base just in case. Whip, thankfully, didn't bring up the idea of taking the Phoenix home with them; whether that was because he was having a rare moment of tact or because he'd just forgotten, Pretzel didn't know, but she was grateful nonetheless. At least the Moray hadn't tried to tear Whip apart or needed to be beaten into submission by Amy.
(The Moray might have tried to kill them, given the chance, but the point was that it hadn't, and so therefore Pretzel's pet was clearly the better behaved of the two.)
Pretzel recognized Eggman's base as they approached. Back during The Incident, she and Rouge had snuck in together to try and steal Eggman's Chaos Emeralds, but instead… Pretzel shuddered and glanced at the Phoenix, remembering Rouge's echoing scream. It had been brainwashed by Light Gaia then, no more to blame than the Moray, but the terror of that moment echoed in Pretzel's mind nonetheless, and she quickly looked away.
While Amy went to check out what remained of Eggman's base, Whip accompanied the Phoenix to its "nest" in an area that looked a little more like a serene sun temple and a little less like a technological madman's evil lair. Pretzel went with him, just to make sure the Phoenix didn't go berserk again (and that Whip didn't get it addicted to chocolate or something). She didn't need to worry about Whip's safety, at least. The Phoenix adored him, constantly nuzzling him and making cooing noises like a dove. It almost made it look nonthreatening. Almost.
"I know Sunshine seemed really nice," Whip was saying to the Phoenix as they reached its roost. "I like the sunlight, too. But you shouldn't hurt people, okay?" He patted its beak. "You need to be more like a campfire, not a wildfire."
The Phoenix cooed agreeably. Then it grabbed Whip in its beak. Pretzel lunged forward, but Whip was giggling, and her panic faded as she realized the Phoenix wasn't eating him, just trying to put him in its nest.
"I can't stay," Whip told it, wriggling free. "I have to finish my quest. But I'll visit!"
The Phoenix cooed sadly, but it didn't stop Whip as he left. It did, however, give Pretzel what she thought might have been a warning glare.
"Hey, I've been looking after him just fine the past two months!" Pretzel protested. The Phoenix continued to stare at her judgmentally. Pretzel huffed and followed Whip out. Stupid birds.
"I didn't find anything in Eggman's base," Amy told them disappointedly as they joined up again. "Nothing we didn't already know, anyway." Then she smiled, looking towards the Phoenix's nest. "But we still made progress! One more fragment down, however many more to go!"
"We're great at this!" Whip cheered, high-fiving her.
"A lot," Pretzel said. "There are a lot of fragments left."
Both Amy and Whip gave her disapproving, "don't kill the mood" looks.
"I'm just saying," Pretzel insisted, raising her wings defensively. "If we keep going one fragment at a time, it'll take forever."
"Forever?" Whip asked.
"Months, at least. And that's if we keep up this pace, which we probably can't." She didn't know about her and Whip, but she was sure Amy wouldn't do well on a routine of constant fighting and portal jumping with hardly any downtime. "Who knows how much destruction the fragments could cause in the meantime?"
Amy sighed. "And we left Empire City in such a hurry. My parents will be coming home soon…"
She cast a longing glance towards the building that housed the portals. Or the remaining portals, anyway; apparently Eggman had disassembled several of them. Pretzel wanted to think they'd become completely useless once taken apart and separated from the temple, but with their luck they were probably a key part of Eggman's latest scheme. Hopefully Sonic could handle it. (Hopefully Sonic was alive.)
"Maybe we could split up?" Whip suggested. "You can go back to Empire City, Amy, and make sure everyone's alright. And—" he hooked his arm around Pretzel's, who immediately stiffened and gave him a warning look. He remained oblivious. "—me and Pretzel can go find the next fragment!"
Amy chewed her lip. "Wouldn't that just slow things down?"
"Probably," Pretzel said, pulling her arm free as she thought Whip's proposal through. It was a stupid plan, really, and a month—no, even a week ago she would have balked at going on a trip, alone, with Whip, to fight terrifying monsters, but…
But Whip was changing, and he was changing in a good way, not a reverting-back-to-Light-Gaia way. He'd defended her from Dust Devil, trusted her about Midnight, and looked to her for reassurance after Sunshine. If Whip could learn to actually listen and think things through for a change, well, then maybe Pretzel could learn to be a little braver. Step out of her comfort zone, fight some monsters, go on a quest with her brother. Maybe it would even be… fun?
With that in mind, Pretzel continued speaking. "But… Amy, maybe if you get a chance to rest in Empire City you can think of a better plan."
"My plan is awesome!" Whip protested.
"And in the meantime," Pretzel said, ignoring him, "we can learn more about the fragments."
Amy folded her arms, staring them down. "This isn't just you trying to get rid of me, is it?"
"Never!" Whip objected passionately. "You are essential team member Amy!"
"You're the brains of this operation. And brains need rest." Seeing the hesitation on Amy's face, Pretzel added, "We'll be fine, Amy."
Whip slung his arm around Pretzel's shoulder, which she reluctantly allowed. "We're the dream team! With my speed and Pretzel's slowness, we can take down anything!"
"Your speed and my slowness? How about your flightiness and my ability to actually focus?"
"I am flighty!" Whip agreed cheerfully. "Super good at flying!"
Amy sighed, glancing up at the sky. The sun had set and it was fast growing dark. "How about we sleep on it? They offered us a room here for helping with the Phoenix, and we could use the rest."
"I'm not sleepy!" Whip protested, and was immediately betrayed by his own yawn.
"We can get dinner, too," Amy suggested, and naturally Whip was sold.
Though she didn't need sleep, Pretzel was relieved to get a break. Being nearly destroyed by two Light Gaia fragments was enough excitement for one day, thank you very much. She still had a lingering weird melty feeling from Sunshine's attack, like she might dissolve into shadow without warning. The food helped. It was good food, too, though not as much chocolate as Whip would have liked. It reminded her of a restaurant they'd gone to with Sonic, Rouge, Shadow and Blaze when they visited them in Empire City two months ago, right before Blaze returned to her dimension. That had been the last time Pretzel saw all four of them together. She hadn't seen Blaze at all since then, and even Rouge and Shadow (who actually lived in her dimension) hadn't visited until they'd all come to say goodbye to Sonic a few days ago.
Sonic. Where was he? He'd clearly lost his Gaia energy, but what about the rest of him? Was he alright? Pretzel didn't think he was dead. He couldn't be dead. But why else would he have been cut off from her so completely? Sure, the Gaia energy had been taken, but Pretzel was still able to connect with Amy just fine, if not to the same extent as Sonic, and Amy didn't have any Gaia energy (or at least, not any more than everyone else on the planet). Was it just the distance? Or was there something more?
When they went to bed that night, instead of walking in dreams, Pretzel tried something new. Her connection with Sonic was gone, but not like it had never been there. A… stump, she supposed, remained, like when a limb was cut off. Now she poked at the wound experimentally, trying to trace what had caused it and where the missing limb had gone. The stump remained stubbornly unresponsive. In fact, it even seemed to be resisting her.
Wait. What if… what if it wasn't that Sonic had been cut off, but that she had been blocked? That seemed like something Eggman might try, right? If that was the case, than surely all she had to do was remove the blockage.
C'mon, Pretzel thought through the mental equivalent of gritted teeth. She shoved at the barrier, bombarding it with her energy. Give!
The barrier resisted, and resisted, and then without warning it let her through and Pretzel experienced something like falling. Falling up, into the sky, up, up, up, past stars and moon and into the glassy pool of the heavens, reflecting the world below, until her momentum jerked painfully to a halt and she fell flat on her face in a pool of shadows.
Shaking herself, Pretzel scrambled to her feet and whirled around, scanning her surroundings suspiciously. She was on a boat, a small sailing ship not unlike the ones she'd seen in Adabat. Waves lapped softly against the sides. Pretzel leaned over the edge of the boat to peer into the ocean, but instead of clear water the waves were a roiling mass of dark shadows, too murky and inconsistent to make any sense of. The strange sea stretched as far as Pretzel could see. Dark and empty. Above her was a sky devoid of stars. The crescent moon, hued an ominous purple, shone cooly overhead, illuminating the boat's solitary journey through a sea of darkness.
The whole scene felt… strange. Distant, like she was straining to make it out from far away, or watching through a foggy window, even though she was right there on the boat. Dreams—and this was obviously a dream—normally had a certain etherealness to them, but this level of disconnect was unusual. Was it because of how she'd accessed this particular dream?
Someone was in the boat.
Pretzel turned to see a Mobian wolf, kneeling beside her and looking at the dark waves. He was short, with a stocky, broad-shouldered build and long arms. His fur was purple-black, fluffed against the chill of the dream world, with icy blue-grey tufts on his wrists and ankles and matching tips on his ears and tail. His eyes were a cool green.
Patterned along the wolf's arms and legs were unusual scale-like markings that glowed a soft purple in the dark. Most of them were a simple rounded shape, but the one on his forehead stood out to Pretzel. It looked like a crescent moon, with a small oval floating between the two tips; together the shapes almost formed an eye. Matching marks were on the backs of his hands and the sides of his feet. The symbol felt familiar; everything about the wolf felt familiar, but the strange fogginess of the dreamworld was making it hard to figure out why.
As Pretzel watched, the wolf leaned over the side of the boat, trailing a hand in the false sea. His fingers passed through the shadows like they were mist. He sighed softly. And then he looked right at her.
Pretzel backed away on instinct. If recent experience was anything to go by, it never meant good things to be noticed in a dream. But the wolf didn't look aggressive. He just looked… sad.
"Who are you?" Pretzel asked. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. Distorted.
The wolf tilted his head at her. Had he not heard?
"WHO. ARE. YOU?" Pretzel repeated, enunciating loudly.
The wolf spoke, his soft voice distorted and crackling, like Amy's phone when it had a bad connection. She couldn't make out what he was saying in the slightest.
"WHAT— Oh, forget this." What did you say? They were in a dream, after all; wasn't like they needed to talk out loud.
That's much better. The wolf sounded pleased. His voice was still distant and oddly tinny, but at least she could actually understand what he was saying.
Why did I find you? Pretzel demanded. She'd been looking for Sonic; how had she ended up in the dream of this stranger?
I was going to ask you the same thing, the wolf said, amused. This is my dream, isn't it?
Fair enough. Still, something had brought her here. There must be a connection. Was this guy somehow involved with what happened to Sonic?
Where are you, anyway? Pretzel turned around slowly. The dream didn't give any hints, other than the boat. Are you in Adabat?
We're traveling.
Pretzel received a brief impression of two blurry faces that disappeared before she could study them. One of the faces seemed familiar, but like everything in this dream, the feeling slipped through her grasp before she could make sense of it. And the more Pretzel tried to grab on, the more the dream seemed to fade, dissolving around her as the waking world pressed more and more urgently. She was running out of time.
Who are you? Pretzel demanded urgently. How are you connected to all this?
That's the problem, isn't it? the wolf said, a wry, melancholy smile curling across his muzzle. I don't know.
And then the dream was gone, and Pretzel woke up with more questions than answers.
After they'd had breakfast, Whip, in a surprising display of focus and being able to remember things, again brought up the idea of them splitting up.
"I don't know…" Amy said hesitantly. "Are you guys sure about this?"
"Definitely!" Whip said.
"About as sure as I am about anything," Pretzel said, which really meant "not sure at all", but they didn't have to know that.
"C'mon, Amy," Whip pleaded. "We can do this!"
"And you need to check in with your parents, anyway," Pretzel added.
Amy sighed. "Alright, but we'll need a way to keep in contact."
She took something out of her hammerspace and handed it to Pretzel, who turned it over curiously. It was some sort of mechanical device, clearly, though it didn't look like Amy's phone or Rouge's tablet. Smaller, and without the screen, just buttons and a speaker.
"Keep that with you. If you guys need me, you can call by pressing—" Amy leaned down to point at the device. "—this button."
Pretzel nodded and tucked the device into her hammerspace the way Rouge had taught her.
"So where's the next monster?" Whip asked, his tail lashing excitedly. "Where should we go, Amy?"
Amy took out her phone, squinting at the screen and making swiping motions with her finger. "Hmm… Mazuri… Apotos… Spagonia… Adabat… All the places with Gaia temples have been having the same sort of strange weather…"
"Adabat?" Pretzel interjected, remembering the wolf.
The boat had looked like the kind she'd seen around Adabat, hadn't it? Maybe that's why she'd dreamed about him, because she and Whip would meet him soon. The implication that she was gaining some sort of prophetic ability on top of everything else was… alarming, to say the least. But maybe the wolf was Adabat's Gaia fragment. It would make sense; wolves were one of her creatures, and he'd had a clear moon/darkness motif going on, which fit Dark Gaia perfectly. And those glowing markings had been similar to the ones Hurricane and Midnight had.
"Where's Adabat?" Whip asked, looking between Pretzel and Amy.
"We were there just… has it really been three days?" Amy blinked, then shook herself. "That's where we said goodbye to Sonic and Tails, remember?"
"Oh!" Whip perked up, delighted at something being familiar for once. "I do remember! I know that place!" He wrinkled his nose. "It was wet."
"It'll be warm, though," Pretzel pointed out. "Warmer than Holoska. And there's that bean porridge stuff you like."
"Ooh, Amy, Amy, can we get bean porridge?"
Amy smiled. "I think I still have some cash from last time." She dug through her subspace for a moment before handing Pretzel a small pouch, which Pretzel carefully tucked away. "And remember, you need to pay for things. You can't just take them."
"I would never!" Whip protested hotly.
Amy looked at Pretzel.
"I know, I know. I won't get us arrested."
"No. Crimes." Amy told her firmly. "Even if you can get away with them."
Drat. She really did know Pretzel too well. Pretzel pouted.
"Stay safe, both of you," Amy said as they at last made their way to the temple, where Whip activated the portal to Empire City. Another reason for the communicator; Amy would need to let them know when she was ready to be picked up, since a Gaia was required to use the temples. "I'll see you soon!"
And with that Amy was gone, leaving Pretzel and Whip completely unattended for the first time in months. Pretzel wondered if Amy was already regretting her decision as much as Pretzel was.
"Let's go let's go let's go!" Whip chanted, impatiently slapping his palms on the Adabat portal. The moment it lit up he nearly gave himself a concussion from flying into the door. He glanced sheepishly at Pretzel. "Could you…?"
Pretzel rolled her eyes and shoved the stone door open. "You're such a lightweight."
"That's why I'm better at flying!" Whip said cheerfully. He sniffed at the breeze blowing through the door. "Isn't it nice this is somewhere we know? This is gonna be so easy!"
"Stop tempting fate," Pretzel said, but honestly? She agreed. Maybe this saving the world gig wasn't so bad after all.
