The temple was bigger than anyone expected! It was a little bit more sophisticated than it should have been. Old death traps awaited unwanted visitors, or so said the paintings on the wall, and only wheels could turn certain doors.
Jade stopped to stare at one of the paintings of the seven emeralds surrounding a person and two separate pictures showed different outcomes. One picture was drawn in yellow paint, which was now faded with time, while the other was stained in black with demon-like eyes. "The outcome of taking in the Emeralds," Orbot mused in almost a whisper. "Fascinating, isn't it? It'll either be used for good or it'll corrupt…."
"These ancient people must have found out what each of the Emeralds' purpose was." Eggman called to them across the room. Orbot and Jade rushed over in their curiosity. The sudden movement made one of the robots guns shoot her leg. Jade put out her hands to catch herself and one of the tiles pushed inward under the weight.
"It looks like the white one brings life to living creatures…the green one…"
While Eggman talked with Orbot the tiles beneath her suddenly gave way. Jade screamed and attempted to find something to hold on to. The further she went the more her chest burned just inside her lungs. It was hard for her to breath. Her lungs started to feel as if they might collapse. They squeezed until she couldn't take a breath big enough for her to scream. When Jade landed it wasn't as hard as she expected. The ground beneath her was soft and wet.
"Jade!" Eggman called down. "Don't move! You figure out a way down there!" Eggman's voice became muffled at the end so Jade barley heard him. The burning in her chest became so intense that it took all her energy to stand and take in her surroundings. She was in a large room with a shining green emerald on one end. In the room flowers and grass grew in the brightest colors! Vines came from grape vines that shouldn't have been growing and from a skylight Jade barley noticed the sun shown so that it hit the green emerald by midday.
Slowly Jade approached the Emerald. The burning grew and grew in a way that should have been painful, and in a way it was painful but it was a good pain like massaging away a stress knot. It all went away just as quickly as it came when she touched the Emerald and held it close to her chest. Finally she could take a deep, slow breath, and the warmth inside of her was nothing more than a memory and was replaced with the warmth of the new green emerald reacting to its shiny white brother.
Before Jade could turn around a hand flew out and grabbed the emerald. "Feeling better?" Orbot asked while his creator was holding the emerald in a greedy manner.
"Much better, yes."
As they walked back Orbot asked her all sorts of questions. Whether out of pure curiosity or simply obeying an order from his boss Jade was careful in her answers.
"So you're like a walking talking Chaos Emerald detector!"
It wasn't really a question but Jade answered anyway, "Yeah I guess I am."
"And it's only a burning in your chest?"
"Yeah, it really hurts sometimes, though. Like someone is in here burning my chest." It was only half a lie. She wanted Eggman to take her wherever they were just in case they found someone.
"Fascinating!" Orbot folded his hands in front of them while they were climbing onto the ship. While Eggman made his way down a corridor Orbot and the more intimidating robots escorted her to her cell. Then Jade realized just how long the trip was going to take. She wouldn't see her little brothers or sister for a long while. She wouldn't see the Hex for a long while. Worst of all is she wouldn't see her big brother for a long while.
The moon shined on her that night while she looked out the window. "I hope you're drawing with the stars, big brother," she whispered to herself.
A memory flashed into her mind that she was most fond of. Shortly after Sonic and his friends left the Hex and she started to regain much of her strength the Deadly Seven, as they now liked to call themselves, laid in the grass of an open meadow and stared up at the stars.
Zor and Zeena fell asleep next to each other, Zik fell asleep propped up against a tree that was close by, and Zazz had just started to doze. It was late that night when Jade started tracing the stars with her fingers.
"What are you doing?" Zavok had both eyes closed. She assumed he was asleep.
"If you look close enough you can see patterns in the stars." She waited until his eyes were open again to show him. "See? That one looks a little like a cat!" She traced it out for him to see. "And that one more toward the west with that shiny star in the center kind of looks like a flower."
"Yeah I see them now…" By the tone of his voice she could tell Zavok wasn't serious.
Jade punched Zavok and squeaked when it only hurt her. He laughed. "Shut up! It isn't funny! It really hurts!"
"It is to me!"
Jade giggled at the memory. It was the first time in a long while that they hung out like that.