Fish-e: Geez, I really need to make time to write for this story….
Patty: She's been lazy!
Liz: She only owns the story.
(0o0)
She'd felt the pull of the Master Emerald and turned on the spot towards the direction it was coming from and half ran, half limped towards. Gradually, the red hot ground she had been on slowly turned into a cool forest floor, it was odd. And that's when she saw them. The four figure standing just beyond the forest, she stood there dumb founded at the four colorful characters, one of which seemed a bit distracted.
They we're racing.
She could see that even from her distance. It was actually quite funny, the blue one would call the black one a faker and then they would start to race, or they would annoy the red one and he'd start chasing them around throwing punches every once and a while, during this the orange one would tinker away with his little plane. They'd all laugh when one of them fell down or said something embarrassing. She remembered that she knew people like them, people who looked like them, and talked like them. They had been her friends, and she had many fine memories of them. Perhaps they were her friends and if she merely called out to them they would come to her, and they would laugh and fool around and maybe even save the world again. As they had once done when she and him had traveled back in time.
It hurt her to watch.
Not from the pain of the large burns that covered her body, though those did hurt, but from the memories of such happy times that she could never return to. For she had forsaken herself to save him, dooming herself to an eternity of containing that damned beast and never being able to see her friends again. But those weren't the memories that hurt the most, the ones of him did. He was kind, and funny, and a bit of a klutz, but he was also brave, and would do anything for her. The memories of him and these four boys, and not to mention the other ones, were the strongest memories she had. They were also the ones the Iblis had used against her, in an attempt to make her weak so he could break free.
He had made…illusions, much like the ones that you see in the desert, of her friends. Making them say that it was alright, that she didn't need to fight any more. Several times she had almost given in, but then she remembered that she had a duty. A duty to these friends and all others. A duty to protect them and keep this monster contained. She had to protect them, not only as a princess, but as their friend.
This is why she couldn't go to them. They weren't really there, they were just another illusion, one that the Iblis had forced on her after he'd beaten her, one he'd put upon her in her weakness. They weren't there. They couldn't be. She had made sure that they could not get into that damnation. And she defiantly couldn't be back. Not even the Master Emerald could bring her back, of that she was surtan. They were just an illusion, an incredibly good illusion. So she turned around, and walked. Or at least tried to, her bleeding leg made it a bit hard. But she walked on none the less.
She didn't make it far though, not before she caught her leg on a dead tree and fell, head over burnt heal, over the log. Smacking her head in the process she creating another trickle of highly attractive blood down the middle of her face. Good Emerald, she had lost a lot of blood. And it was starting to take its toll.
As she staggered up she didn't make it two wobbly steps before she fell backwards. Clutching her bleeding head she tried to stand, but the earth beneath her decided to start spinning uncontrollable, or at least that's how it felt. She suddenly felt desperately sleepy, and lay back against a tree. It couldn't hurt to just rest for a while, could it? No defiantly not, besides, it wouldn't hurt to watch the illusions of her friends for a little while longer, it was such a good one too. The Iblis had gotten their personalities just right, and the sounds and smells were so realistic.
Then a thought occurred to her sleepy mind, if this was an illusion, how had she felt that dead tree? And how had she received this increasingly annoying cut on her head? Illusions couldn't do that. But she felt the ground under her. She felt the tree behind her. She had felt that rock collide with her head. This couldn't be an illusion, she was certain. But then, how had she gotten here? And that would mean that the Iblis was free, after all it could only be contained with her to keep it there. And, more importantly, that would mean that those people were really her friend.
No. It couldn't be true, the Iblis had merely gotten better at creating illusion, yes, that was it. And it wasn't free.
She shook her head. Her brain had tired it's self out with all this thinking, she needed to rest. She closed her eyes and lay down letting her eyes close and brain start to turn dark when two things popped into it as it powered down. That she would be completely defenseless and a sound that sounded exactly like one of her dear friend saying a rather disturbing sentence, something about smelling blood. Then her brain shut off, as two worried hedgehogs ran through the trees in her direction, with a flying fox racing after them and a confused enchilada starring after them.
(0o0)
Fish-e: Alright, so this story isn't gonna be updates on a regular basis, but as soon as I can get into it I'll write more, deal?