A/N: I'm getting much deeper into my writing than I probably should be… I'm only saying that because finals are quickly approaching. Oh, and I've finally found multiple ways of dealing with writer's block. If any of you want to PM me, I could give some suggestions that could possibly be of use. Just half a year ago, I wouldn't have been able to maintain the managing of two big stories at once, but now the ball is rolling faster than ever.

If it tickles your fancy, check out the poll on my profile and put in your two cents if you feel like answering the question. Also, check out "Picking Up Chicks for Dummies" if you haven't already. That is all I have for now.

Let's get back to the matter at hand, shall we? Things are starting to heat up! Oh, and this is another chapter that's centered on Sky, so bear with it. I promise you it ain't bad.

CHAPTER 15: Yin and Yang

The ground was rocky and dry, almost as cold as ice. The light that reflected off the craggy surface was a ghastly, dim shade of blue that seemed to rise slowly and weave about like a specter in midair.

Those were the only two things Sky could recognize at first as he awakened from being curled up in an apparently deep slumber on the ground. He groggily raised his head up a few inches, looking around him only to see an accompanying black atmosphere that was dotted in various areas with stars and other objects. Those weren't the light sources, however… He picked up on that rather quickly, even while trying to gather his bearings. Pain shot through the lynx's body as he sat up and shakily shifted to a kneeling position. His teeth were grit tightly together and his eyes were squinted shut as he struggled to endure whatever was overcoming him. It was all so strange and so sudden, like his awakening on frozen wilderness after being teleported from his obliterated village only when he was an adolescent. He could feel an ominous sense of anguish, lurking about and sending repeated, crawling chills down his spine.

Where was its source? No matter where he looked, the ghoulish source of luminescence had yet to be found… all until a large rumbling noise from above caused his ears to twitch while his body convulsed once out of fear. When Sky directed his gaze above, to his despair, he located where the light was coming from. His colorless pupils shrunk while beads of sweat trickled down his face and his neck. The apprehensive lynx's realization of what it really was caused his heart rate to increase so that it beat like a timpani within his rib cage and made his chest rise and fall at a much faster rate.

Shining down upon the sedimentary wasteland was Div Sablast, the giant, menacing sphere of white itself.

He had seen it countless times as a child from his home, so why did it present him with such a fearful presence? Even the outer space itself was tingling with an impending, inevitable disaster of some sort. Though his pain-stricken body was shaking violently in response to his fear, Sky was all too familiar with this feeling. His eyes were fixed upon the suspended globe, and he couldn't break himself from being hypnotized as the lynx felt an unseen force begin to constrict him—black matter.

Not only was it beginning to suffocate Sky, but it was also causing Div Sablast to rumble even more violently like an active volcano. The lynx began to squeeze tears out of the corners of his eyes, and he tossed and turned about in a mad panic until he stood on his feet, legs trembling as he was on the verge of succumbing to seizure. At long last, he was able to draw in a gulp of air to open his lungs. Above, the tremulous white shadow began to calm down… but once its activity stopped, silence ensued. Sky's mouth gaped open slightly while he was still mesmerized by the sight above, but he subconsciously tried to muster as much courage as he possibly could, clenching his fists and standing up straighter. Much to his alarm, however, things very quickly took a turn for the worst…

BOOM!

A massive explosion, one at ear-splitting volume and possessing a vastly destructive force, shook everything within its galactic radius and almost triggered a quake where Sky was standing. The lynx leaped backwards and yelped loudly as he was practically thrown towards the ground, slamming hard onto his side from midair and tumbling over a few times before coming to a halt and being labeled with bruises and gashes. His battered body immediately flashed with agonizing waves of shock and his vision temporarily turned white. Regardless, Sky tried to reach past his own pain as he knew that he had to at least try and comprehend what was going on around him before he could escape this cataclysmic situation… or lose his grip on sanity.

And so he propped himself up on his elbows, experiencing a heavy ringing sensation that gave him a splitting headache, but he fought through the throbbing and forcefully opened his eyes, attempting to clear his double vision so he could focus on what exploded. While the muscles in his arms and legs screamed as they threatened to buckle, the lynx somehow managed to keep upright while getting back on his feet. He clutched his aching forehead with one hand and held his other arm upright and out to the side to keep equilibrium. Lifting his gaze once more after a moment of recuperating, his next realization made Sky's heart sink in utter desolation.

Div Sablast, surrounded by a growing ring of dust and sediment, was violently splitting apart into two giant halves, and an incredible white aura flooded out of its fissures as a result of the blast, raging through its surrounding space until it reached Sky's location and activated an earthly tumult of even more destructive proportions.

The petrified lynx shielded his face and looked away as his body was being pushed and blown in the opposite direction by roaring gusts generated from the mystic force's impact. Once Sky found the strength to peer ahead after enduring the first phase of the sudden tremor, he immediately used the last of the instincts that he had within his sane grasp in order to arch his body backwards and fall over while still keeping his feet on the ground, avoiding an instantaneous collision and barely being grazed by an incoming meteor about twice his size rocketing towards his location with frightening velocity. It screamed past and detonated loudly behind him, carving an extremely wide crater just yards away. Sky remained on his backside for only a split second, and he forced himself to ignore his muscles as they were rending apart in a last resort effort to give him the strength he needed to move. His pupils became slit as they opened once again, and his more animalistic traits kicked in, allowing him to leap forward and burst into a sprint as he put his reserve energy to use.

He didn't quite know what he was running from… Adrenaline was the only thought that flowed through his chaos-stricken mind at that moment, and he didn't want to look back since he was sure that there was to be another surprise. Sure enough, as his body willed itself into a blinding dash, he became surrounded by more explosions. Some were directly in front of him while others were almost right beside his path. A shower of hellish asteroids rained down mercilessly from the crumbling Div Sablast onto the rocky surface far away from it and threatened the lynx's every step, and so he didn't dare slow down. It seemed as though time was decelerating drastically because of Sky's sensation, and the violent sounds of the meteors were drowned out in a muffle so that the only noises echoing within his subconscious were his own breathing and the rapid beating of his heart. His conduit of escape became a parkour course as he weaved about and navigated his body gracefully through the sediment storm, scaled up and over mounds and crevices, spun around sudden flares and combustions that threw shards and shrapnel in every direction, and burst through clouds of smoke and dust that resulted from the intense fires created from the impacts of the meteors.

However, his efforts yielded no positive effect since the shower was not showing signs of abating at all. Instead, it only gained momentum and intensity as Div Sablast increased its rate of blowing apart. With every new collision and furiously approaching wave of space rocks, Sky's concentration was fading… Inevitably, to his dismay, his pace was slowing. The muffled noises were now coming into full detail and blasting their intense, rupturing volumes, amplifying the ringing in his head and causing blood to trickle from his ears. Panic was setting into his consciousness once more. He began tripping over the uneven crags jutting out of the ground and he came close to being fried multiple times by near misses with the incoming barraging projectiles. Finally, he found himself slowing to a jog while there was no energy left for him to suck in another breath of air.

But wait… How was he even breathing in the first place? What could possibly have happened for him to end up on this… moon? Why was his second home planet turning into smithereens? Those were the last questions that ran through his mind as he gave in and crumbled to the ground, falling on his front and letting his vision fade to white. The ground rumbled and shook violently in front of him and the asteroids no longer possessed any sort of volume. There was nothing left for him to continue onward, so Sky let the flames of hell engulf him.

Sorrowful tears obscured the last of his vision in a watery blur… Nothing remained.

…

The door opened so quickly that it smacked against the wall perpendicular to its threshold and almost dented it, but it happened so often that those who were anywhere near or inside the room rarely noticed. The white-coated staff members who were taking a rather slow pace as they worked nonchalantly turned their attention to whoever had just entered.

Briskly making his way to a small bed near the back center of the cluttered area, a rather young-looking monkey dressed in the same white coat and wearing an I.D. that distinguished him as a chief medical doctor looked around and gave an exasperated sigh. He seemed to have been surveying the room as he glanced panoramically at the cabinets and wardrobes that were full of equipment and machinery before he stepped over towards the side of the bed, which was occupied with a patient. Beside the mattress was an odd-looking control panel, complete with a confusing assortment of knobs and switches, and a dashboard with multiple screens and monitors that carefully measured and displayed the patient's heart rate as well as a few other significant bodily processes.

After he adjusted a few settings on the monitors, the doctor gazed down at the peacefully unconscious invalid, a snow-white lynx. He had a thin white sheet draped over him reaching up to his bare chest, which very gently rose and fell as he was in a deep slumber. A few tubes that were connected to his body snaked out from underneath the cover and were plugged in to his surrounding machinery. The monkey cracked a slight smile and shook his head slowly, addressing the other doctors in the room quietly, "There's a new threat that's putting us in danger yet again. It's amazing that there haven't been many others injured, what with all that the Lylat's suffered already from these new disasters… But it's also funny how this is the second Star Fox team member that's been brought to this hospital within the past week."

There was one among the group, a swine leaning against the wall, who answered, "Yup… The General's been getting anxious to send out intergalactic patrols ever since Zoness, but he's nervous that if he even lifts his finger… well, this place would be overcrowded in the blink of an eye. We aren't getting anywhere in figuring out what this foreign substance is."

"Well, perhaps we'll get some clues from this one," the monkey motioned towards the patient. "McCloud told me he was from some unknown location outside of the Lylat, apparently the same place where this mysterious matter originated as well."

"C'mon, Dash… I wish you would have told us that earlier," the swine replied somewhat urgently after a few seconds. "I was nervous when we first got him settled in that the monitors would catch on fire from the insane readings they were showing. He's far from normal, and there's no other person who could survive for even a few seconds with… whatever's inside of him."

"Precisely what I mean," the chief doctor turned back to the lynx. "You see, it would appear as though his organs and bones give off radiation like his insides were coated with polonium… but it's much different. Rather, he's adapted to these highly energized elements over many years, and his body would shrivel up and turn to stone in their absence. He can't live without them… but that's not all. After some research on the more threatening substance that was found within Zoness's radius, Cornerian scientists have discovered that it has a chemical composition that's highly similar to the one in the lynx's body… The only difference is that it's much more potent, reactive, and spontaneous. It's also very contagious if it isn't kept in the right conditions."

The swine, as well as the rest of the group, had been leaning forward and listening intently as the intelligent chief revealed most of the answers to the many questions they had all mentally formulated about their new patient and the black matter. They soaked in the new information for a moment, and then another member of the group, a brown-furred rabbit, spoke up, "Why are we just now finding out about this?"

"I must apologize for that. Things have been hectic, and Peppy asked me to assist other medical teams at multiple posts before I ended up here," Dash sighed while rubbing his eyes.

"Also, when did this one become a member of the Star Fox team?" the hare added inquisitively.

"Right when he came here. At least, that's what I've heard," Dash chuckled a little. "Fox checked in for head trauma, Sky Felis here checked in for a concussion… I can only imagine what that featherbrained fool Lombardi will get wheeled in from an emergency vehicle for."

"Oh, and uh…" The swine from earlier butted in when the chief doctor finished. "Why didn't you become a pilot? You always said you dreamed of soaring with McCloud and the others. Now you're here, hanging out in hospitals and labs and helping patients in the medical field… Not that anyone's disappointed or has a problem with that or anything, I'm just curious."

"There's a time and a place for everything. My heart lies with Venom, but I want to benefit the Lylat as much as I can during these trying times, so I'm willing to perform my duties elsewhere… For that, I'm temporarily leaving Venom in charge of some of my most trustworthy colleagues while I'm here doing work. Anyways, my goal is not only to reconstruct my home planet, but it's also to help mend the damages dealt upon Corneria and the other planets from the Aparoids, the Anglars, and from whatever else there is which could threaten Lylatian safety. Perhaps I will fly among the stars as a mercenary someday… but I believe this to be my priority presently. Right now, I feel as though Sky will help to provide the key for solving this major crisis… Also, he is quite an interesting subject to observe." Dash concluded by clearing his throat and getting back to the matter at hand. "Now, has Sky's condition changed at all since my arrival?"

"No, sir," a few of them responded simultaneously. The whole team of doctors slowly made their way over to Sky's bed as they began working together to update his status.

"Good… It looks like he's functioning up to speed," the chief confirmed silently to himself.

However, after a moment, his eyes focused in on the lynx's chest as he subconsciously noticed something odd. It remained that way for a minute or two in silence before one of the assistants picked up on what he was doing.

"Um… Dash?" There was no response. Instead of trying to get his attention, the rest of the team followed his gaze towards Sky's upper body. They couldn't tell any sort of difference… He looked at ease, about as tranquil as a napping newborn, with a few twitches in his eyelids every now and again as well as his lips bending and stretching almost completely inconspicuously so that it was somewhat noticeable. What could possibly have caught the chief's attention?

Dash was frowning now. Sure, Sky may have looked normal, but he was disappointed that the others couldn't distinguish the patient's twitches and sudden movements as unusual. The apprehensive monkey had been the first to recognize that they were gradually occurring more as time passed. Dash knew that something was disturbing the lynx, but the others only gave him confused looks as though he were hallucinating. He glanced around the room before muttering, "Look again."

Right when those words escaped his lips, Sky's head gave a slight jerk to the side. Immediately after that, his chest steadily upped its rate of rising and falling. One silent gasp after the other, the team was drawn wide-eyed and shockingly towards Sky once again as they at last saw what Dash was talking about. His ears and his eyelids were beginning to twitch not once, but a few times in a row, sometimes even in sync. His head moved very slowly from side to side, and his breathing rate continued to grow faster by the minute, which was also confirmed by the noisy monitor next to the bed that sped up the tempo of its metronome-like beeping as a result from his heart rate. The swine doctor from earlier was the first to exclaim in an awed whisper.

"He's… dreaming! Quite vividly, I would say!"

As if on cue, the white lynx's lips started moving apart, and with every moderately sharp exhale, a quiet mumbling was heard. It started at the volume of an extremely low hum and escalated to a louder muttering once he had begun to move his arms and legs as well as continuing the twitching of his face and head. Even though his unconscious words were incomprehensible, a given for most people if they were in comatose state, his body language helped it to be interpreted as expressions of fear, denial, and sheer anxiety, just as a helpless victim would say once tied down and unable to escape after watching their executioner take slow strides towards their struggling body with a murder weapon or torture device cocked and ready. Dash frowned again, but this time it was because of the amount of stress that Sky was being put under while deep within his own spiritual realm… It was also because the thermometer indicating his normal body temperature had jumped all the way up to 102 degrees Fahrenheit in less than a few minutes. The chief leaned against the side of the bed and stared pleadingly into his troubled patient's closed eyelids, uttering a silent prayer.

Whatever critical danger is causing you pain… I hope that it may soon subside. Please, be safe, Sky Felis.

…

With a sudden gasp of air, just as though he was first being born or surfacing a body of water after being deeply submerged for more time than his lungs could handle, Sky felt a jolt being sent through his body as his eyes snapped open and feeling was brought back to his arms and legs. Assessing himself, the white lynx noticed that he was already standing, and that the pain he had felt from the Div Sablast explosion was now gone completely… There wasn't a mark or painful bruise to be found underneath his fur anywhere.

Scanning the area, Sky realized he was in the spiritual realm almost immediately. Except… It wasn't. There was no color except the same ghastly, murky shade of blue that haunted him in his last vision. There was no moon's surface beneath him either. Looking down at his feet, it was as though he were floating in midair… like Div Sablast shortly before it-

No, he had to stop thinking about that. It might not have had as much of an effect while he was narrowly trying to escape a hellish death, but now it hurt him deeply and caused him great fear inside of his heart. His stomach continued to boil with anxiety, and he could feel himself break out into a cold sweat, even when he was all alone in such an empty place. Sky forced himself to thus take a deep breath and keep focused on his spacious, silent surroundings… his own dour vacuum. He could lose himself in his lethargic thoughts and stay like this until he woke up, wherever the hell his physical body was at that moment.

But then again, as always, there was something else present…

He couldn't see it clearly right off the bat, but a shadowy puddle was materializing just in front of him. It expanded its diameter and gained depth, but it wasn't until it touched Sky's feet that he finally saw it. With another gasp, his pupils shrunk as his muscles tensed… It felt mortifying and disgusting, the freezing violet shade that sank him to his ankles, and he began to quiver while his hands shakily balled up into fists by his sides. When Sky peered at the revolting mass a second time, it began to withdraw into a smaller shape, letting loose a quiet, ominous howl that made the pale lynx sick to his stomach as it reverberated endlessly around the realm. The horrid substance then transformed into a tarry slime and oozed off the ground to form a blackened sphere just meters away, one that distorted and bent as though there was something imprisoned within it that was trying to break free.

Sky's lips drew back as he grit his sharpened teeth again once it all came to him. Furrowing his brows and squinting his slit eyes to fix the orb with a determined glare, Sky felt the fear very gradually seeping from his body as he became warmer from another Celestian spirit's essence inside of him. It was none other than black matter that was haunting his subconscious, and the force that grew within the lynx gave him a burning desire to expel it… get rid of it, tear through and obliterate the damned substance for causing him grief.

Appearing to sense his sudden anger, the sphere mutated and bent into a different shape… It formed into a body, sprouting arms and legs as well as a spherical form at the top end which resembled a head. It was only a dark-violet outline at first, but its transformation hastened and revealed much clearer detail as its color turned a pale white… and it sprouted fur all over, exactly the same as Sky's, with the black striped patterns over its chest and a spotted, thin tail swishing from its lower backside. As seconds passed, the black matter took on the lynx's precise form and developed into a doppelganger, acquiring his facial features and bodily definition… Sky stood rooted to the spot, angered even more by what his sight was registering. The real lynx's face was much more contorted with rage, and there was now a hint of green that glimmered within his slit pupils and illuminated the space around him.

Sky stood face to face with his own clone… Very slowly, it met his gaze with blood red eyes that exhibited pure wickedness, and its lips cracked into a demented, evil grin that spread widely into both of its cheeks.

Once they first made eye contact, after the black matter finished undergoing its changes, the surrounding spiritual realm sparked and burst immediately into a blend of violet and green from both of their powerful auras. A dense emerald cloud flooded from Sky as he trembled whilst he was containing his newfound, unknown force that completely overcame his spiritual being and sent surges of power into his body. The doppelganger spouted a much darker shaded aura that greatly contrasted with Sky's, and for a moment the two confronted one another and waged battles with their colliding energies while their bodies stood still and their ignited stare was unbroken.

The silent tension was finally broken once Sky inhaled and spoke in a low growl in his native Zelenoan tongue, his eyes ablaze with green hatred, "You… must leave. Or be destroyed."

In response, the black matter gave a sickening chuckle and spread its grin even wider, causing a black fog to spew from its mouth once it spoke in a rasping tone with a volume that countered Sky's intimidating snarl, "You cannot destroy me… It was I who murdered the whole of your village. You are nothing but a weakling."

That was the trigger.

In response, Sky's flames flickered much more brightly and flared out violently in every direction as the enraged lynx let loose a powerful, deafening roar which pushed his clone backwards as well as its diminishing cloud of dark energy. The lynx's mouth gaped open during his outrage, and his eyes continued to spark with blinding light while the muscles in his body bulged and flexed to create a frightening, dominant presence that couldn't possibly have been rivaled. The spiritual realm was filled with swirling fractals of green and white, completely overpowering the black matter and shrinking it so that its presence was almost unnoticeable.

After Sky's warcry concluded, he jumped forward with claws unsheathed and fangs bared to seize his clone and rend it apart maliciously. However, once the black matter came within sight, his vision very quickly began to fade into white…

The green disappeared from his vision as well.

…

"Dash, don't you think we should do something? Like… sedate him? I mean, just look at his body! It's convulsing!"

The team of doctors backed up a few steps, all except for the chief, Dash, as Sky began to shake and seize up in his sleep. The monkey jerked his head around as he took a quick gander at his patient's monitors, which displayed that the lynx's heart rate was over 200 beats per minute and his temperature exceeded 110 degrees Fahrenheit. The technology was going absolutely haywire, similar to the patient's mental condition. Disregarding that, Dash looked back at the violently shaking lynx who had his mouth open and was moaning and grunting quite loudly with closed, squinted eyes as he was in the middle of his nightmare.

Worse, the chief could have sworn he saw a green light that enveloped his body as though it were radiation… Finally he was forced to take a step back from the bed.

"Th… There's that black substance! There's some of it inside Sky!"

Underneath the sheets, Sky tried to move his arms and legs as he tossed and turned about, which caused the bed to shake and emit rusted squeaks from the amount of pressure it was receiving. The whole team of doctors, save Dash who kept his composure quite well, let out a frightened gasp and flinched once the lynx arched his back and let out a painful, shrieking cry while his claws dug into the sides of his mattress. His green radiance was growing with intensity, and Dash cautiously continued to take backwards steps until he was safely out of reach of any piece of equipment that could quite possibly fly in his direction.

The light bulbs in the area flashed like strobe lights until they popped and went out as Sky finally sustained a loud scream, making half of the scientists faint and the other half cover their ears and cower on their knees against the wall. Near the end of his cry, the mad lynx opened his blazing eyes and jumped out of his bed to rip the tubes from his body, kicking the large frame into the wall next to it with a loud slam and causing its dashboards and monitors to fall over and hit the ground while the rest of the electricity inside the room went out. Sky stood on his feet with knees bent and arms held out to the side, taking sharp heaving breaths and keeping his teeth bared as he frantically looked around the room and surveyed his surroundings. He was bare-chested and only wore a pair of his tattered training shorts while he was being kept in bed, and his flaring luminescence was now the only source of light inside the room.

Sky fixed his eyes on the group of petrified white-coats as they sobbed and covered their heads while remaining against the wall. Then, he growled menacingly and glared at the only one who dared to stand in front of him… Dash calmly countered his furious gaze with a set of cyan pupils, and he stood up straight and kept as still as he possibly could while being confronted by his feral patient. The monkey was mouthing phrases like "Be calm," "It's okay," and "Do not succumb."

Instead of reading his lips and taking Dash's advice, Sky snarled and drew his lips back even more as he asked, "Where the hell is Wolf?!"

The monkey did his best to keep his stance and his outer shell from faltering, refusing to let his blood become chilled from the intimidating animal who threatened to rip his throat out at any moment. Instead, he held his gaze and almost whispered back, "Wolf O'Donnell is not here. You must regain control over yourself."

It took the wild lynx a few seconds to register that fully… Thoughts spun chaotically inside of his brain and his heart felt as though it had turned black and blue. Slowly but surely, Sky became conscious of his own self enough to stop the heaving of his chest and thus slow his extremely rapid heartbeat. As the gazes of both Dash and his patient were still unwavering, the rage that the lynx had previously felt deteriorated until there was no other dominant emotion present inside of him except panic and anxiety.

Thankfully, the glow that engulfed him faded out until the room was dark… His original topaz glimmer returned to his pupils. The rest of the doctors in the room stopped whimpering as they realized that the beast had apparently gone away, so they took a glance towards Dash and his patient, exhaling from relief and releasing their pent up worry as they gripped their heads and chests and slumped down further against the wall. Sky's legs straightened up, and his muscles were no longer fully flexed.

The lynx only gave Dash an expression of confusion. His head jerked from side to side, noticing the amount of damage that he had caused and then breaking out into a sweat again. The truth punched him hard and almost made him choke. It was him that the others were trying to hide from… It was him that they were trying to control while he had almost broken out into a rampage. Even though he didn't have any recollection of it, the horrified and crestfallen lynx pieced things together and realized that he had been containing an incredibly dangerous force inside of him that was highly resistant and reactive to black matter. He had yet to figure out what that mysterious force was, but that wasn't important now. Before he was hospitalized, Wolf had not only put him out cold, but he had transferred some substance to his own body. It was only a small amount, but it was enough for him to almost lose his sanity… Now his bed frame was lodged into the wall, and the accompanying computers and control boards were all dented and had sparks flying from detached wires.

Sky looked at the ground and felt his stomach lurch over a few times in a row as though he were going to vomit. He couldn't look his doctor in the eye, which made the monkey tense a little and tilt his head while feeling a pang of sympathy towards the disconsolate lynx. Dash took a step forward once he saw a few tears form in the corners of his patient's eyes, and he reached out a hand towards his shoulder after seeing him bite his lip and shake his head slowly.

"… Sky? Are you-"

Before Dash could finish, Sky clutched his stomach with both hands, leaned over a bit, and gagged. Nothing except a drop of spit came up, but he still had an absolutely bitter taste in his mouth that he couldn't get rid of. A hot tear trickled down his cheek before he stood up straight again and fell backwards into the wall behind him. He tried to respond, to force an apology out of his mouth, but he choked up too much and only managed to mutter something that wasn't understandable. Seeing that the monkey was walking towards him, Sky reached out and shoved him weakly to the side with one arm while trying to make his way towards the door, and he opened it shakily and stepped outside while beginning to sprint down the hospital hallway…

Dash ran after him after a few seconds and leaned out the door frame, ready to call out and try to stop him from getting any further, but his eyes couldn't spot him anywhere. He blinked a few times, just keeping focused on the wall at the end of the hallway, wondering what had overcome the lynx…

Sky kept running until he was outside the hospital. He sprinted through the sidewalks of downtown Corneria. Only one thought crossed his mind as he blindly dashed through crowds of people and lines of cars… The blaring horns and commotion didn't matter to him anymore.

What the hell am I even doing?

…