Queen's note: -does a happy wiggle dance- The fluffy, I get to write my grey fluffy again! FLUFFY ECHO! (I missed writing him, I'm such a dork)
Chapter Twenty Three:
Echo
Insistent tugging on her arms drew Jessy's attention downwards, cocking her head to the side to look over the lip in her helmet to see the kit, slowing down as she did so. Tails had his own helmet on still, but was reaching up to touch it, "What is it Tails?" Jessy asked once slowed enough.
"Can we stop Jessy?" Tailed yelled enough to be heard, speaking just a little too loud as a youth would.
The large, converted motorcycle slowed more before stopping behind the runner. It would take Sonic a moment to realize Jessy wasn't keeping up with his jogging pace. Not that they had been going very fast to start with, as the two were searching for the real life equivalent path of the line on the map. She checked the power stone's charge in her motorcycle, both on the display in her helmet, and then around Tails to check the physical readouts.
"What's wrong Tails?" Jessy asked, taking the helmet that Tails pulled off, hocking it on the back, they were at a slight tilt with one foot bracing the vehicle.
"It's not wrong..." The kit wiggled and flicked his namesake tails free from how they had been tucked. He leaned forward, careful not to touch anything he shouldn't on the motorcycle, taking in the leafy green trees surrounding them on this half overgrown dirt road.
"Have you seen this place before?" Jessy asked, glancing up at movement, Sonic was coming back with ears pricked. The woman pulled her own helmet off, unzipping her jacket all the way as the becoming heat of the summer day started to affect her.
"I think so," Tails blinked, and then gave a wiggle of repressed excitement, "Its around here! Home is around here! I saw this place before Sonic! Mama took me for a walks around here." He reached out first to grab at Sonic's hand, ten squeaked as he was picked up and hugged by the blue anthro.
"Really?" the male asked, Sonic's ears were up, interested as he looked around, setting Tails down but holding the kit's hand. "Well, let's see if we can't find something more familiar."
"Is that grammatically correct?" Jessy asked suddenly as she got up to push the motorcycle. Though 'Big Mac' was still humming as it wasn't fully turned off, it had since been fully converted to run on power stones in the group's stay in the Metropolis Zone. Jessy and Sonic not needing as much sleep as Tails, the mechanic commandeered Rouge's privet garage in exchange for doing a paint pattern on one of her new cars.
Sonic slowed, looking up through the green leaves of the trees that bowed over the dirt road above, seemingly to half hide it, "Even more familiar?" He tried after a moment, grinning as Tails giggled.
"I think so?" Jessy frowned and then shrugged, glancing down at the fox kit as he was allowed to run ahead, his twin namesakes waving in the air excitedly as the boy ran to an ancient fallen tree. A giant old pine that was starting to crumble but still remained solid, yet had smaller trees growing out of it, its root mass stood a good fifteen feet up and a few trailing, cord like roots still dangled down over a few feet of the dirt road.
"Sonic! Jessy!" Tails bounced in place, excitedly, pointing at the fallen monster tree, "I remember this! Daddy climbed up to the top with me! He let me hang onto his tail and pulled me up and momma took picture- then yelled at Daddy when he jumped down with me on his back!" Tails gasped in air, turning shinning sky blue eyes back at the other two, "But we were so hiiiigh up! I remember seeing the Guardian- Echo waved at...us..."
The boy trailed off, blinking. Tails looked up at the crown of roots, feeling it was too high to climb himself.
"Oh yeah?" Sonic asked as he took a step back, and then he was faightly blurring as the hedgehog nimbly scaled up the tree to perch on top.
"Yeah..." Tails ran back to grasp the human's hand, "Jessy! Can you come stand here please?"
Arching an eyebrow, the woman propped her motorcycle up on its stands and let herself be dragged, "Okay, what for?"
Tails pulled on both of Jessy's hands, and then stopped to look back at the tree where the blue anthro was, but the kit didn't notice that the older male was staring almost blankly into space, "Mamma was standing here, Daddy was almost where Sonic was and..." Tails stepped back, his eyes unfocused as the boy was working to reconstruct his memory better, trying to use some of those ways that the old nomads used to do that he heard about at bed time over the last months with Sonic and Jessy, "We came from... that way I think."
Jessy lifted a hand partly, realizing what Tails was trying to do, and couldn't help a swelling lump of pride that half tried to choke her, for the look of focus as the kit was trying to remember the smells of that day. Remembering his path from that point, and then backwards, telling her aloud as if trying to explain an important nonmedical path in the old times. After a few moments she looked up and blinked at Sonic, tilting her head at his expression, or lack thereof. That zone out he had when something she couldn't see or sense was what his full and complete attention was on.
For the dark blue hedgehog, everything had taken a coppery tint, time slowing to a crawl as the hedgehog shifted mental gears. As if he were running near or at his top speed, rather than standing perfectly still. It was something Sonic was learning, getting used to becoming hyper aware of his environment while in one spot let his sense just absorb more of what was around him.
This wasn't something Sonic could focus on doing long, but some latent thing from back... back before he had woken up. That first time before finding himself in the middle of the road and before the truck, yet the anthro was also reminded of something more resent. It felt like the energy that came off the Warp Rings, after traveling through four of them to not only get to Metropolis but through two of its sub-Zones and back into the Old World.
What was that truly called again?
Chaos...
Not just an expletive of a sorts but a real kind of energy, or rather three kinds.
Sonic blinked, coming out of it, wondering how exactly he knew of the different kinds of Chaos as the last minute of conversation bleed back into his consciousness. He flicked his ears up at the head tilt Jessy was giving him, sensing the unasked question before Sonic realized he turned to look in the derection Tails mentioned the Guardian had come from.
Sonic jumped down, landing lightly as he kept his balance on one foot then stared at where he had picked up that Chaos energy. Now that he was aware of it, it was semi-beacon like, pulsing that nutral Chaos out ever four seconds.
"I think you're right tails, its this way." Sonic said, smiling at the kit and holding out his hand, "Want to go see?"
"Yeah!" Tails nodded, brightening as he came over to grip several of the hedgehog's fingers, "I was right?"
"Only one way to find out," Jessy said from behind as she stepped back to get her bike, fallowing after the two at and easy pace, after making sure helmets and the shrugged off jacket wouldn't fall. Her over shirt was pulled off so it was only Jessy's sensor top on in the rising heat of the day. How did the two anthro's manage not to flop over, being covered in fur like that?
"I think it might be this way..." Sonic said, pausing after a few minutes' walk to look down a path that crossed the dirt road, like an older trail in a park might.
"It looks familiar..." Tails murmered, staying with the blue furred anthro. It wasn't until he turned around to make sure Jessy was still with them that he saw it, sucking in his breath and gripping Sonic in fright.
"What is it lil' buddy?" Sonic asked, turning his attention down, and seeing the fear in the kit his quills lifted in an instinctual reaction, turning to scan and then paused. Sonic pointed up at the half broken robotical thing lodged into the tree, "Hey Jessy, look."
Jessy craned her neck to look up, but it wasn't ontil she was by the two that she really got a good look, "Whoa... does that look like its been...torn?"
Realizing it was safe, Tails' grip eased a bit, though he looked around with a nervus swallow and sniffed, "Do...do you think those mechs came back?"
"No," It was Jessy who spoke as she pointed up, "Look closely Tails, see the trailing moss that's over that wing part? Not cushed under it? And the green moss that's growing in a few edges, like with cars that have been sitting for a long time? I bet this was here through the winter." She smiled down at the fox as Sonic picked him up, "remember that Junk yard we went to in the sub-Zone? When we got some power stones?" at the nod from Tails she pointed up again, "See the edges of the broken metal?"
"...It doesn't look sharp." Tails realized, as what was said sank in and he committed this to memory, what he could use in the future to help tell the age of mecha.
"It doesn't look like a new crash," Sonic noted himself, looking at the ground, "None of the undergrowth is broken Tails. It must be left over, just stuck up in that big fur."
Tails relaxed with a sigh, wrapping his arms around Sonic's neck in relief, "So Fox Valley is alright?"
"Maybe?" Jessy swallowed, hoping so for the kit's sake, then gave the hedgehog a look and a small motion to keep going. "Like I said, only one way to find out." Jessy said, preying to the northern winds that this Zone hadn't suffered like that Hive had. She wasn't sure if Tails' could hadn't it, having been going mostly on the hope of getting home. To come all this way over and so close, if... if...
Jessy shook her head, pushing with the toes of her boots to go forwards as Sonic lead the way, like he was being drawn to something unseen. The dark blue hedgehog shook his head, the long quills rattling against each other as he did so in a secondary movement before he paused on the track, seeing what was ahead in a small clearing first.
"Ohh…yeah that's it Tails. I bet my tail on it." The mentioned appendage twitched and flicked as Sonic moved into the area, stepping aside to let Jessy come up beside him.
"This will never not be amazing." Sonic looked up at Jessy's voice, the spell of wonder he had been under braking a little. The mechanic grinned at her fuzzy brother, pointing to the ever so slowly rotating Warp Ring that was hovering, pretty as you please. "No lines. And... does that look like its healthier than the others?"
"It does," Sonic said thoughtfully as he put the fox down before resting a hand on top of Tails' head. The kit soon had his arms wrapped around the right leg of the older anthro as he still stared at the Warp Ring with wide eyes, overcome with nervousness suddenly.
It was so tempting to reach out and touch the golden ring... Jessy gripped the handle bars of her motorcycle tightened for a moment. Touch a Warp Ring and you go somewhere else if you're ready or not.
"Sooo…" Sonic tipped one ear up as he tilted his head to the side. "Ready?" he looked down as the hedgehog felt a shiver, emerald eyes softened before he knelt down wraping an arm around the small body. "Hey, heeey Tails. Its going to be okay. In the end, I promise it'll be okay."
The kit looked up, trying to hold in tears from anxiety, "Promise?"
"I. Promise." Sonic put a hand over his heart on the two tone chest.
Another hand rested on Tails' head.
"We both promise." Jessy added crouching beside the two, smiling warmly.
Tails sniffed, and then jumped to grab both, trying to hug the hedgehog and human that had been taking care of him, and brought him home, at the same time. Sonic laughed and managed to hug Tails for a bright, tight moment between them. That seemed to be what was needed to get the kit grinning again, bolstered by honest affection and care for him.
Sonic stood with Tails back in his arms once more, waiting for Jessy to get the motorcycle again. He shifted to let her grab his shoulder, and then reached out to touch the Warp Ring. For a moment, the world shifted and time held still. Everything around them turned to streaks and blurs of color as they passed through the Warp Ring.
Abruptly everything returned to normal and Sonic's next breath of hair smelled not of heat warmed plants but cooler, wet stone. He blinked a few times, looking around at what looked like a have cave-cavern, opening to the view of a impressive, ovel shaped valley between two mountains, in the distance a faint haze of the Zone boarders were seen as the group came out and into the open road way. This Zone wasn't as large as some, but just as old, and Sonic could sense there were sub-Zones tied into it, at least three. More than enough to help support the population
Knocking the kick-stand out and cutting power to the motorcycle, Jessy took a few steps aside to get a better look at the valley below and in front of them. "So this is Fox Valley? Wow...ts beautiful Tails!"
"It is."
The three spun around at the new voice to their left. Sonic's quills flaring automadic as he held the kit tighter before his eyes bugged out a bit. Gaping with his ears laid back at the form that was materializing out the tree shadows.
Almost glowing red eyes narrowed as the Guardian loomed over the Nomads from seven feet, gray in fur and quill color. The anthro stepped fully out of the shade cast from the thick trees around them fully and towards the, "You had better have a good reason to be here with a kit that's been missing for over seven months."
Tails screamed.
Back to review responses again (I miss interacting with readers!):
ChojisGirl: Its coming, just not in this story.
Karygarcia21: Thank you very much for saying so, and for taking the time to read thus far :3