this one was actually pretty fun 2 write. nice change of pace from the nonstop action lol
XVI.
colloquy (ˈkäləˌkwē)
[noun]
a discussion.
He'd always wanted to go sightseeing. To have the freedom to decide, to roam the world as he pleased and just bask in the plethora of culture and people and harmony. To taste foreign foods he'd never be able to find in the United Federation, or walk through towns completely opposite to the rigid skyscrapers of the metropolises and the smog-filled skies that seemed to follow him everywhere.
Ray was always more hesitant. No matter how much Mighty insisted on what a breathtaking experience it'd be to leave their congested little apartment and take a breath of fresh air, he always wavered by the front door. Dr. Eggman was probably to blame. Mighty couldn't remember a time when he wasn't trying to fuck up the planet in some way or another.
And he couldn't really blame Ray for being scared. He opted to be a hermit and hide from the world, because it was what he knew, it was safe. No mad scientists or giant robots could hurt him when he was locked away in his bedroom.
But then Mighty would see that other guy—Sonic the Hedgehog—bearing that vibrant smile as he dashed down through streets, no more than a swash of blue across television screens broadcasting his valorous battles. He was fearless and brave and strong and he made Mighty want to be better. Even if he couldn't be a superhero like him, he still wanted to do something to help the world be a better place, too.
He convinced Ray of such, eventually, when Dr. Eggman disappeared for a while and everything felt more peaceful than it had in years. They moved out across the country to a small island just off the east coast and into a quaint little town called Knothole. It was the best change of pace Mighty could ask for, and it was even better to see Ray starting to break out of his shell.
And then Eggman returned and Sonic went missing and—and everything went to shit.
So Mighty vouched to do his best. He started working on the emerald tracker and he wasn't particularly good at it (his only real experience was hazy memories of high school textbooks on the Chaos Emeralds, and a few years of working in construction after he graduated) but it helped him sleep easier at night in spite of the distant sounds of explosions and gunshots. He was trying his best to keep his little brother safe and contribute to the resistance's cause, because there had to be a resistance out there, just because Sonic was gone didn't mean they were completely alone.
It was a mistake, though.
A horrible, horrible mistake.
(Maybe if he'd just kept his fucking head down, Ray would still be here.)
With a labored grunt, Mighty heaved himself up on top of the building. He stopped and sucked in some air, before treading forwards and sitting down on the edge of the roof, overlooking the city below.
Soleanna was beautiful, even when it was swarmed with robots. It was otherwise completely vacated, with its old brick roads torn up and several of the structures filling it crumbling at their foundations.
There was a river just straight ahead, cutting right through the city. Its calm waters glistened delicately in the early afternoon sunlight, such a gentle sight that it made Mighty sick with nostalgia of the days where he'd just take Ray out to the creek not ten minutes away from Knothole, and they'd splash around and laugh and sunburn their shoulders from their carelessness.
He sighed and leaned back, watching the clouds drift by.
Ray had told him, once, that he'd like to visit Soleanna someday. It wasn't particularly far from Knothole and his favorite thing to do every year was watch the news broadcasting the Festival of the Sun. He wanted to go to the festival, and watch all the dancers and boats and fireworks in person.
Mighty remembered this so distinctly because it had surprised him to hear. Ray had been getting better with his timidity but he still hardly strayed far from home. But now he was saying he wanted to travel to a different country, a place he'd never been to before?
Soleanna must've really been something. Before—before it was ruined, anyways.
"You would've loved this, pal," Mighty murmured under his breath, letting his eyes fall shut. He had this awful headache rotting in his head ever since… that night, and some sleep could probably put a dent in it. Hell, this was the first time he felt somewhat relaxed in a quite while. It shouldn't have been taken for granted.
"Citizen, you are not permitted to be up there. If you do not come down immediately, your sentence will be worse."
Tension hitched up in his shoulders and he sat upright, gazing down to see a small group of Egg Pawns staring at him from below.
Fuck that.
Mighty huffed in mild irritation and hopped down, stomping in the face of one of the bots. The other two instantly panicked and blared out alarms, but he was swift enough to grab them both by the backs of their heads and conk them together. They fell to the ground in a lifeless heap, and Mighty pushed onward.
There was a fire raging in his fists. A ravenous urge to do something, let it all out, tear everything apart and just scream. He clenched them as his eyes landed on some more drones off in the distance, standing guard in front of some regal-looking building.
He tore forwards, his vision blurring around the edges as he lost himself for a while, ripping them all apart piece by piece, wire by wire, relentless and brutal and powerful with each punch and kick he threw. Sweat dripped down his face and he almost wondered if some of them were tears.
He shelved those thoughts before they could get the better of him.
Eventually it all stopped, because there was nothing left to fight and he was just left standing there, alone, in a graveyard of circuitry and broken metal bits. The strange building loomed over him enticingly, though, and Mighty wiped his brow and decided to step inside, because what the hell else did he have to lose.
It was dark inside. There was rusted technology and computer screens everywhere. The main console on the other side of the room was the only one actually online and operating, and it looked as though it had been recently abandoned from some of the Egg Pawns he'd probably, incidentally, just destroyed. He approached it with a veil of guardedness over his gaze, ready for more enemies to jump out and surprise him.
None did. He decided to lower his fists and shake off the tension in his shoulders; he looked up at the screen before him.
It read about information on some new security boost to where one of the Chaos Emeralds was located. Apparently Dr. Eggman just repaired an abandoned machine he'd used once, many years ago.
The document was vague enough that it never said the actual name of the thing and only alluded to it in its report. It did, however, provide coordinates to where the emerald and presumed guard dog was. Because that's what this thing was—the attached pictures told Mighty as much.
He had no idea how big it was because it was really just blueprints and schematics and other techno babble written on the margins of the images that he couldn't even begin to decipher, but it looked menacing enough. It was a robot dog, and it supposedly had just gotten several new upgrades to its arsenal.
That fieriness itched beneath Mighty's knuckles again as he skimmed through the documents.
He really needed to blow off some steam for a bit and, hey, he was riding solo now, so it wasn't like there was any risk of collateral damage. Not like the last time he faced off with Eggman's forces, anyways.
(Last time there was too much collateral damage. Last time he'd fucked up too badly. Ruined everything.)
Besides, maybe Tails was right. Mighty wasn't helping anybody by just moping around and feeling sorry for himself.
He was tired of sitting on the sidelines and settling for doing the best he could, being some supporting character for the heroes. It was time to actually do something and take action and knock Eggman and that fucking jackal down a peg.
Mighty clenched his fists, and his nails dug hard enough into his palms to scar.
Amy Rose most certainly did not drink under any circumstances—well, maybe with some exceptions, sure, but never enough to even feel slightly tipsy. It was just never something that appealed to her, and maybe some would call her prudish or persnickety for someone like herself (an adventurous young adult), but alcohol was always just different. Why would she purposefully want to wreck her liver like that? Fuck herself over with alcoholism?
That begged the current question wracking her brain though: why did she feel like she'd just woken up to the worst hangover on the planet?
She groaned, a long and heavy thing that poured out of her with the nasty flavor of morning breath, and sat up in bed. It was late morning, which was even more off-putting, because Amy always made a point to be up by nine at the latest. Right now, it was almost noon.
Her head ached incredibly so and it was enough to stop her from slipping out of bed, and instead to slacken her shoulders and raise her hands to her temples. It felt like her brains were boiling inside her skull, which only trapped the raging heat inside of her. She felt nauseas; like she didn't have any control. The past few days had been an absolute blur and she had nothing to make of them except for headaches and tears and darkness.
The sun glimmered through the window blinds to her left, and she squinted at it curiously.
Knothole. Right; they've been staying here a few days, because…
HQ. It—It had been destroyed, and…
—and—
She remembered why she hadn't really moved from her spot since they got here and she first laid under the covers. They provided a security that nothing else could, a wall to block everything out and let her mind fall silent. An empty chasm for her to scream and cry out her frustrations because what the fuck was she supposed to do.
Knuckles was gone. He was—Infinite—who even knew what they were doing to him.
The door squeaked open and a pair of blue ears peeked around the corner, almost hesitant.
"Hey," came his voice, a few beats later. Sonic stepped into the room. "How are you doing?"
Amy rubbed her eyes and flopped back against the pillow. A heat rose up her face as she suddenly was permeably aware of how red and puffy her eyes were, and the thickness in her throat; her messy quills; the fact that she hadn't spoken to anybody in days.
"Could be better," she muttered. Sonic visibly slumped.
"We're, uh. Why don't you come with me over to Sally's? We're holding a meeting."
She drew her brows together as she looked back at him. "A meeting?"
He smiled and shrugged a bit uncertainly. "Well, yeah. We need a game plan. We've got a water god and an echidna that need saving, and everyone's taken a little breather, so I think we're ready to get back into action, don't ya'?"
The way he looked at her, so genuine and considerate, with a definitive tenderness retained in his gaze because he knew, he knew how hard this had hit her and how much she was grieving, warmed Amy's heart. She looked him over, blinking away the sleep in her eyes. Her lips twitched as she locked onto his arm—the robot one, in particular.
"I like the upgrade," she settled on, after taking a pause to find something to say.
Sonic's grin widened and he showed it off for her, flexing his joints and wiggling his fingers. It moved more fluidly than before, almost gracefully, and all of the cracks and dents were completely absent. It seemed stronger; somewhat more natural on him, in a strange sort of way—as if a shiny, cybernetic arm could look natural on anybody. But its new coat of paint—a brilliant red that shimmered in the incandescent light, certainly looked better than that bleak, murky purple it once donned.
"Me too. Tails fixed it up for me. He's a wizard."
"Tell me about it," she said, willing the strength to climb out of bed. Her knees just nearly buckled beneath her—which could probably (definitely) be attributed to her short-lived streak of laying in bed and isolating herself for days—but she regained her balance and joined the speedster in the doorway without much more fault. She decided then that she should probably carry the conversation before he started getting too worried about the remnants of wateriness in her tone. "... How is everything with you guys?"
And he looked as chipper as ever despite her, but there was a brief, fleeting moment where there was almost something worrisome in his eyes. "Fine. Why do you ask?"
Amy frowned as he closed the door behind them and they started down the trail towards Sally's house. "Sonic, we haven't seen him in months."
"He's…" he maintained his smile but it looked a little tight, "He's doin' great, Ames, really. That first night he was pretty emotional, but he's acting completely normal now. He'd tell me if something was bothering him, I'm sure."
She considered that for a moment and thought, yes, they're brothers, of course they would talk about that kind of stuff, but then that was immediately followed by a remembrance of Sonic's track record with bottling up his feelings, and how much Tails has learned from his mannerisms and habits, no matter how unhealthy, and thought, no, probably not, they're idiots.
But maybe that wasn't her place to intrude.
"Just check up on him every now and then," Amy decided on, cautious with her words. The hero eyed her weirdly like he wasn't expecting that piece of advice, before he just shrugged and kept quiet because they'd reached their destination, anyways.
Sally's house was a grandiose thing—compared to the rest of Knothole, that is. It was fancy enough to adorn pearly white pillars and tall glass windows along its walls. The interior was boastful, with a huge open living space and a large dining table right in the center. All of the big players were already sat around it and talking amongst one another, probably waiting for this little meeting of theirs to commence.
Amy followed Sonic around the table, and they took the remaining two empty seats, sandwiched between Rouge and Shadow. Said ultimate lifeform exchanged a poignant glance with his fiancé, as if they managed to condense an entire conversation into three seconds of eye contact, before he cleared his throat and stood up from his seat.
"So, we've all been doing some discussing over the past few days," he began, and the room fell appropriately silent. Shadow could make himself assertive when he wanted—not in a menacing or cruel sort of way, but just in the fashion that made one clamp their mouth shut because he clearly knew what he was doing. Amy always admired that unabashed boldness about him, in a way.
He fiddled a bit with his glove cuffs, pressing his lips together like he was probably trying to figure out where the hell to start, which was understandable, everything just seemed to be a lot, lately.
"We have a few problems on our hands," he settled on. "The major one is that Infinite now holds the advantage over us. Not only does he have Chaos, which can easily be turned into a weapon as some of us learned several years ago, but he holds one of ours hostage. Our other issue is that upon returning to HQ, we found the Master Emerald to be completely shattered; we collected the shards but we don't know if it's possible to reassemble them."
Rouge frowned and considered this. "Well, it must be possible. I've witnessed Knuckles repair it in the past, no problem."
"That's all fine and dandy," Sonic said, leaning back in his seat, "except for the fact that Knux is kinda out of the picture, at the moment."
"So we go save him," Bunnie replied.
"Not that simple," cut in Shadow. "Again, we're at a disadvantage. We don't even know where they're keeping Knuckles."
Tails straightened in his chair; his namesakes swished anxiously behind him. "What about the emeralds? Couldn't we just use them to warp to him, or repair the Master?"
"The kid's right. It's worth a shot," Vector shrugged.
From beside him, Espio crossed his arms; there was a certain carefulness to the action, a tenderness to touching the wound on his chest. "Chaos Controlling ourselves to Knuckles could be a death sentence, for all we know."
Sonic furrowed his brows. "Maybe that's a risk we should be willing to take. He could be in danger right now—"
"And by doing that we'll inevitably put both ourselves in danger, and him more so," Shadow said, a finality in his tone. "We don't start a rescue mission until we have a concrete plan that guarantees success. In the meantime, Tails is probably right. Finding the rest of the Chaos Emeralds can't do us any harm."
"You think we can repair the Master Emerald with them, though? We won't even be able to get the full set. Eggman's still got, like, two," Rouge reminded them.
Silver began twirling around his empty coffee mug in the air, and he reeked of something he was quickly growing weary of masking—jadedness, or maybe just an annoyance with the fact that they were all sitting around and talking instead of doing something. "Might as well try it. Besides, if we have the emeralds, that means Eggman doesn't."
Sally tensed in her seat. "Won't that also just paint a big target on our backs?"
There was a quick beat that passed through them all, heavy with anxiety, and Shadow turned to look at her; scan her features. He was quiet for a moment, before he said, "We already have two emeralds of our own. Infinite has already attacked Knothole a few days ago, as well. If they wanted to attack us again, I think they'd already have done it."
"But if we get three more emeralds, that changes things," Tails murmured, and he spoke softly and kept his gaze trained on his lap but there was a slight change to him. He looked scared, now. "Five is a hell of a lot more desirable than two, especially when it means obtaining those gives Eggman—all seven."
Espio grimaced. "He's right. We can't risk the effort of finding the rest of them, just to spoon-feed them to the doctor."
"Or maybe that'll be beneficial," Silver said, and he still only seemed halfway tuned into this conversation as he continued spinning the mug around idly. "At least it'll draw them out of hiding."
Rouge narrowed her eyes. "Are we sure that we want something like that night at HQ to happen again? Just in the hopes that maybe it'll help us find Knuckles?"
"Or what happened here," Gadget whispered, the first thing he'd said since Amy and Sonic had shown up here. He was strangely withdrawn, and his shoulders were risen as he hugged himself, like he might just fall apart completely if he tried to relax. Amy studied him briefly and he seemed to suddenly grow aware of the fact that she was doing so, before he pointedly evaded her gaze. Weird.
"You guys are acting like we're just gonna be sitting ducks once we get all the emeralds," Sonic uttered, raising a brow as he scanned the group. "I dunno about you, but as soon as we've got the firepower I'm gonna be taking the fight to them."
Tails made a face at that, almost a scowl or a flinch, and said, "Okay, fighting aside, I think we should still be prioritizing the M.E.. It's probably our only chance at sealing away Chaos again."
"Which we can't do without Knuckles," Sonic shot back.
And, yeah, now it was just a deep, ugly scowl. "I just think we should have a plan on how to deal with the literal god before we rush Eggman's forces, guns blazing. It's also probably not healthy for the planet to just, not have the Master Emerald."
Sonic threw his arms up. "What do you suggest we do, man? All we have is some green shards and a few leads on where the Chaos Emeralds are. That's it. We need to do something."
"We need to prepare. We need a contingency plan."
"I get that you're worried, Tails, but we're kinda on a time crunch here—"
"We can't just—"
"Guys." And the hostility split into two, all eyes landing on Amy as she exhaled sharply and squeezed her eyes shut, before peeling them back open and forcing down the swell of sharp emotions that surged up the back of her throat, a burning rush like the hastiness of bile in a morning hangover.
Tails dropped his gaze to glare at the table, and Sonic's own heated look fell into something that of remorse.
She tried to breathe in normally. The air struggled down her throat, like she was forcing it down unwillingly. "… I can do it."
Shadow cocked his head, the embodiment of serenity amongst the chaos; a usual position one would find him in. "Do what, exactly?"
"Fix it." She swallowed. "The Master Emerald. Knuckles has been training me in utilizing Chaos Energy—connecting with it—for months. I can try to repair the emerald."
"Cool, great." Sonic licked his lips and shot an uneasy glance at Tails, who was still glowering at the table, stewing away in his thoughts. "Uh, in the meantime, why don't we start gathering up the rest of the posse?"
They all looked at him weirdly.
He deadpanned, "The Chaos Emeralds, guys."
"Right," Silver nodded. His mug was now back on top of the table, untouched. He sat rigid, like whatever that little sibling squabble was had been enough to cease the boredom that once consumed him.
"Maybe we could also… steal Eggman's, while we're at it?" Rouge suggested. She quickly caught onto the skepticism thrown her way, and explained. "Look, he's gotta be pretty preoccupied between Chaos and Knuckie. And the last thing he'd expect is for us to go after the emeralds, instead of saving our friend. We actually have an idea of where they are, anyways."
Antoine lit up and smiled. "Yes! Young Tails finished up that tracker last night."
Amy quirked a brow and stared at the teen curiously. He was currently deeply fixated on a miniscule scratch in the wooden tabletop, although his ears twitched at the sound of his name. The kid really was a wizard, between giving Sonic a practically brand new arm and making an emerald tracker in the span of a couple days.
"Well, where are they?" Vector asked, looking to the kit expectantly.
Tails shifted in his seat, not making any direct eye contact with anyone. "I couldn't pinpoint their locations too specifically, but I got some general locations. There's one in Chun-nan, one over by Red Mountain, and one by Seaside Hill. Then there's one over in Chemical Plant, obviously Eggman's. And—the last emerald's just a little to the east of Soleanna, I think, in the middle of the desert, but I'm assuming that's also in Eggman's possession because Shadow was telling me he had a lot of reinforcements in that area. I dunno how guarded it'll be, but we should definitely be wary if we go."
"I agree with Rouge," Shadow said. "I think we should get all of them. If we all split up and gather them simultaneously, then the doctor won't even have enough time to counteract us before we already have them all."
Tails lifted his gaze to meet the ebony hedgehog's. "And then what?"
He ran a hand through his quills. "Then… we hope for the best. I don't know."
"And you all are comfortable with this plan?" the teen pressed, searching all of their faces.
Sally shrugged. "It's probably our best chance. Infinite and Dr. Eggman already know where we are, or will know soon enough. If anything, maybe the Chaos Emeralds will give us some extra security."
Amy nodded, and turned to look between Sonic and Shadow. "Where'd you put the M.E. shards?"
"The basement in this house, actually," the speedster said. "It was the biggest, nicest one."
"Okay," she responded, automatically, making to get up and take her leave. "I'm gonna go see what I can do, now. You guys can figure out how to divide and conquer with the emeralds."
"Actually, um."
Silence swept over the room as they all turned to the source of the voice, and it was that wolf again, Gadget. He looked jumpy and tense and reluctant to speak in the first place. He rubbed the back of his neck, as though contemplating whether he should even continue or not. The war in his head seemed to eventually give out.
"There's… something I think I need to say," he started, tripping over his words. "Just—Just so everyone's aware. So that we're on the same page, I guess."
Gadget rose from his seat and puffed out his chest, fists clenched at his sides, as he braced himself.
If there was anything he could compare this moment to, like a memory or a feeling or whatever, it was most definitely that awful, twisting sensation he'd always felt back in high school, whenever the teacher called on him and he could feel the entire classroom watching him, waiting with bated breath to see what answer he was going to conjure because obviously he had no idea what was going on, and there was just this imminent feeling whirling around inside of him because he just knew that this could only end in disaster.
But, well. There was no going back now. Just had to rip of the band-aid and get it over with, right?
Gadget absorbed the silence for a moment. Reveled in it. In the innocence of their gazes, the vague confusion, because this could very well end with them all—despising him, kicking him out, who even knew.
"I… knew him," is what he ended up saying, his tongue like cotton in his mouth and his head sort of spinning. It didn't seem to clear up the confusion in the slightest, though, so he reluctantly elaborated. "Uh, Infinite, I mean. We knew each other, before. Before everything."
He could see Tails, out of the corner of his eye, sat beside him, fidgeting in his seat. He could see the grimness etched into his features; the dread. It made Gadget dizzy to think about, because it just blindsided him with memories of red and flames and rubble and an innocent fucking kid losing his life, his neck broken like it was nothing—
"What do you mean, you knew each other?" When Gadget blinked back into reality he made the brilliant discovery of this voice belonging to Shadow the Hedgehog, the ultimate lifeform that could snap him in half like a twig. There was a terseness in his tone that made him tense up even more than he already was.
For a passing moment, the wolf just chewed his lip and chose his words carefully. "We, uh, we dated. We went to—we were roommates. He was majoring in physics. His name was Zero, and he was kind and funny and a little eccentric but so passionate and caring. And he—he never would've done any of this, what Infinite has done. Not in a million years."
Oddly enough, Sonic was the one staring directly at Gadget, with wide eyes and a strange softness to his features. Not like the deepening confusion or the flickers of anger seen across the rest of them. Gadget almost found a solace in it—he elected to focus on Sonic's genuine surprise and nearly sympathetic look instead of everything else.
"And," he gulped, "and I'm not, like, saying this to redeem Infinite or something. I know that whether Zero is in control of himself or not anymore, that it doesn't change the fact that he's done horrible things, regardless. I-I'm just… I hope you guys keep it in mind. He's not this cold-blooded murderer—not entirely. Deep down, somewhere in there, he's a genuinely good guy. I swear my life on it."
Nobody really said anything for a few seconds.
Then Amy Rose turned on her heel and left the room without a word.
The silence thickened into something intensely more uncomfortable than before, and Gadget felt a pang of guilt in his stomach that didn't sit well with him.
"Thank you for… telling us," Shadow finally said, and he looked rigid as he did so. On edge. "It's something to keep in mind, I suppose. But for now we should really focus on the Master Emerald and retrieving the other emeralds."
That seemed to kick-start things back into working order. More people started standing up and heading out, a small handful tailing after wherever Amy went off to. And Gadget just lingered behind until he was all alone, standing before an empty table, listening to the ghosts of his words and trying to ignore the way they clawed at his temples like the phantoms that hadn't stopped chasing him since he'd fled a dorm room filled with the blood of his friends, back in Westopolis.
"Hey, Ames?"
There was no reaction. Sonic wavered at the base of the stairs, Silver just behind him, as they both stared at her back with slight concern. She was faced away from them, sat in the middle of the basement, the shards of the Master Emerald laid out before her. Sonic locked his jaw.
"Amy?" Silver tried, raising his voice a little more. "You alright?"
She jostled, suddenly, and gradually shifted until she was turned around to face them. She looked—drained. Sad.
"I can't do it," she said, and Sonic crossed his arms, this defensive, automatic thing to try and reel in the messy, muddled feelings that slithered up his chest at the sound of her voice. She almost looked on the verge of tears and Sonic was not about to lose his cool right now, not when she needed stability more than anything.
He carefully approached her, before kneeling beside her and hazarding a glance to the discarded M.E. fragments. "What do you mean?"
"I don't—I—I'm not him. I can't do it."
And he decided to just give her a smile, because she probably needed to see it. "Hey, that's fine, we'll figure it out. Why don't you come with us, help us find the emeralds?"
"You don't understand," Amy sighed, digging the heels of her palms against her face. "I'm the only one out of all of us that even has a chance in fixing it. If I can't do it, then we're screwed."
Silver leaned against the railing of the stairs. "Is there any way the emeralds could help out? Maybe the extra energy could make it easier on you."
Sonic nodded because yes, at least it was something, before turning back to the pink hedgehog to await her response. She contemplated for a moment, wringing her hands anxiously.
"I guess we could try."
He grinned. "Yeah, of course. Let's just worry about getting all of them for now. They're, like, miracle gems or somethin', right? They're bound to be useful somehow." He started to help her to her feet, before Silver narrowed his eyes at them.
"Should we put the M.E. in a… more secure location than the middle of the floor, while we're gone?" the psychic wondered, and Amy blinked owlishly before shaking her head.
"Right, yeah. That's probably a good idea."
Sonic and Silver eyed her briefly, before turning to head back upstairs, as she crouched down to scoop up all of the shards and place them back in the box she'd gotten them out of, tucked safely in the corner of the basement—a completely inconspicuous spot.
She cradled the pieces in her arms, the coolness of their touch slightly worrisome, because she was so accustomed to the natural warmth that constantly wafted off of the stone, a lingering presence of its continuous flow of energy. As she started to cross the room towards the box, though, her vision turned a little blotchy as she grew light-headed. It was probably just a head rush, or maybe just her exhaustion from—
(—there was a glimpse, sharp as it sliced through her vision, of matted red dreadlocks and wide violet eyes. He was so angry, he was screaming, through his gritted fangs, clutching the bars of his cell. Something unseen screeched, the guttural roar of a beast, and he was begging someone to stop, stop hurting it, please, you don't know what you're doing—)
Amy gasped for air. She was on the ground, the emerald shards strewn all around her.
Sonic called, from somewhere at the top of the stairs, "Ames, what was that? You good?"
What was that? A vision? Her fingertips tingled with the residue of Chaos Energy, and it left this wispy sensation that spread up her palms and wrists in a disturbing, rolling motion. She shuddered involuntarily, glancing at all of the shards. Was it—was the emerald trying to send her a message?
She cleared her throat, gathering all of the shards again and wobbling back onto her feet. "Y-Yeah! I just tripped, I'm fine."
"'Kay!"
Amy blinked rapidly, her vision still a little spotty as if blinded by a camera's flash, except she could still see splotches of red fur and iron bars, so foreign and strange but also so close, like if she just closed her eyes and reached out she could hold Knuckles' hand.
Sonic yelled down, again, "Ames, you comin'?"
It stirred her from her train of thought, and reluctantly, Amy stowed the fragments away in the box, locked it, and rushed back upstairs, trying fruitlessly to shake off the vexing feeling in her stomach.
But it never quite faded.
ohoho,, a kinda boring dialogue-heavy but Important chapter. mighty's off in soleanna lmao, tensions are rising within the resistance, gadget made his confession, and amy's having weird visions now? hmmmm
(also i'm not really sure when the next update will be, bc i've been procrastinating my summer assignments and school starts in a few weeks so i rly gotta concentrate on that stuff. stay tuned, tho!)
