2: A New Oath. A New Life
"Okay, Miss Su, I need your full name on this line, and then sign it on the next, please." Taking the offered silver pen from the dark skinned human woman, Julie took one last read through on the passage she was about to sign under:
I _, do hereby pledge my honor and commitment to the United Federation, and to all its citizens, herein to my service to them. I will obey all lawful and moral orders given to me, to protect the Federation Charter of Rights and Governed from all enemies, foreign and domestic. Unto this, my honorable service is my charge.
A breath in, a twinge of doubt–but an elation of something new upon her. She pressed pen to paper:
Julie-Su~D. Luger/Mari-Su~House Dimitri
Signing the last line with her name and scion as she had printed above, she handed the pen back to the black-skinned woman. The lady, her grey uniform simple in decoration, but pressed to a standard Julie knew the lady took pride in her service, offered her right hand. Julie took it.
"It's a big step, ma'am," the Sergeant said, shaking her hand.
"I know," she returned with a smile.
The lady placed her free hand on Julie's shoulder. "We are very grateful to have you all."
A swallow to quell her emotions. "I hope we will not disappoint."
The human released her hand, took up the last pieces of paper she had been signing for the last few minutes and looked around the softly lit Tactical Operations Center.
Our new Freedom HQ, Julie sighed to herself.
The main floor was small compared to the larger tactical center at Empire City. After all, Station Square's Fort Amanda was more of an outpost–albeit a large one–than the main military base she when she first arrived from Angel Island. However, where she currently found herself now was considered the Annex from the base, lodged just southwest of the main city of Station Square. It was affectionately known as Clip from its codename given to it. She had read the documents presented to her about it no more than a weeks prior. A new unit to stand-up for threats unknown. She, and her people appearing from a different zone– from a different plane in time–had been the flashpoint. The leading sentence was still fresh in her mind:
By order of the President–
It shocked her, but also somehow placed her soul in drive. Yet, she felt her eyes still fixated to the rearview mirror.
Her desk sat at the end to the right of the board of six flat-screen monitors–only three showing images of city camera views, one with blue screen asking to be connected, and two blank as they weren't connected. A lamp was on, her computer off, the white plank clean of pictures and trinkets, and a black office chair with a cutout for Islander's tails for her. She was taller than the cubical partition that separated her side from her dear friend Saffron's desk. The bee was standing in the lit office on the other side of the modest tactical center, her back against the wall next to the curled flag of the United Federation. A flash from a camera, Saffron's smile still bright on her face.
A new beginning for everyone.
"I guess, I'm next," she said to the sergeant. The woman was placing her signed documents in a square filing case.
Sergeant Dickerson rose, Julie figuring she was about two foot taller than her. Another similarity from her world to this Earth–humans were still taller than Mobians. Islanders, she corrected herself.
"And I need to find Captain Rykor–" She looked over her shoulder. "Which one is he?"
Julie pointed to the burgundy colored male echidna standing and talking next to Remington. "He's the one to the left, with the missing lock on the right side of his head." She almost wanted to bristle again when Dickerson said her old sergeant's name. Another colored lens added to the kaleidoscope of their new paradigm shift.
"Thank you," the human said, looking to Julie with a welcoming smile. "Oh, I have to ask–what is the D for in your name, and I guess, your title?"
A nervous smile exhumed from her, but her voice offered pride mixed with a memory of hurt. "It's short for daughter, in my culture. I'm the daughter of Luger and Mair-Su."
"And House Dimitri?" Dickerson asked.
She swallowed with the question. "The path that was set for me long ago."
"I see that Remington has the same title?"
Julie nodded. "He is my nephew...step-nephew to be exact."
"Well," Dickerson offered her hand to her one more time. "Here's to your new title...Captain."
She took it, her mind beginning that spin of shock she hadn't gotten used to as of yet. "Thank you, Sergeant."
"It'll take time to get used to the new customs we have."
Julie released her hand. "Thank Goddess there isn't much change in that."
"Yeah. Well, best of luck to you and your people."
Dickerson stepped away and went to the two male echidnas. It was surreal seeing Remington and Rykor being...friendly. Co-workers. Granted, they had worked together not only in Albion, but when Remington had lost his head and was Grandmaster of the Frost Legion. It took her Equal to be coaxed to become Enerjak by Doctor Finitevus that Knuckles tried to right to world's wrongs. In doing so, Remington regained his mind, and had his cybernetic's removed. She almost had her's removed–something she now wished her equal, though not him entirely, had achieved. But the two would later fight side-by-side for their kind's very survival against the old enemies in the Twilight Cage that Thrash had sent them back to. And against Lien-Da. Remington had been the shoe-in for Julie-Su's mutiny against her half-sister–when her colors had once again changed to the demented, power hungry echidna they all knew would find a way to return. And she had on the forest planet they had detected a signal from across the zones. Rykor, however, had been the unknown wild-card that turned into her trump card when it mattered. Apparently, he still held Remington in better light as a leader than he had for the Komissar. It was even a miracle Rykor was even alive. It was the only thing Julie had thanked Finitevus for...freeing him in order to serve Remington in the Frost Legion.
And now...now the former Dark Legionnaire and the former head of the Echidna Security Team were talking shop–a new shop–and new suit jackets, slacks and collared shirts that she kept hearing them ask each other for recommendations for what shirt colors best complemented their furs. They were adapting well, their visages held the elation of their new circumstances.
Acceptance. Where was hers?
"Hey, girl?"
She blinked away from her shadow stupor, finding the voice that pulled her out looking at her with a caring frown. Saffron's antennas didn't move were aiming forward to Julie. She wore a yellow shirt they had been gifted to her from the Restoration Project back in Seaside City nearly two months ago, her shoes being similar in color but not the fur-fuzz that she had gotten before. Her dress, however, was a nice blue, a definite change from the yellow dress she had worn back on their Angel Island.
Back on their home...in their time and space.
"You okay, Jules?" the bee asked, her hand finding Su's.
"I'm–I'm making it, Saffron."
"Hey, you're doing great today. Especially for a Wednesday!"
She was so kind. When Julie's denial ran its course and reality took her by the dreadlocks, dragging her very much how Thrash had before pitching her through the super-charged warp-ring, Saffron had been there, returning the unspoken favor of Julie saving her life from almost being ravaged and torn apart from Tasmanian devils that had ambushed them near the Master Emerald. Black thoughts had coursed through her, and the pink echidna seemed powerless to stop them.
But she wasn't alone. She could hear the blonde haired bee at night crying through the walls of their adjoining apartments. Names were cursed, others were cried out for their return. Charmy! Saffron occupied the same boat as she; only Saffron cast away her optimism to the sea; Julie's strangled hers by command of her Soultouch to keep it from drowning her.
He was still there, deep inside her, seemingly cursed to reside in her heart, but not at her side.
"Besides, it's our first real day," Saffron jokingly said, poking Julie at her black blouse.
"Wish it was like a school day, unlike the one I'm having."
She saw Saffron recoil at her words. "What's going on?"
Julie took a moment, before collecting her thoughts. "I saw Doctor Quack, today."
"Really!?"
Saffron waited with a breath, Julie not sure how to respond. "He...he is well. Still the smartest doctor we remember."
The bee's eyes softened, the echidna knowing what she was asking through them.
"No...No he didn't recognize me," she said with a trimmer.
"But...he is well?" Saffron asked. "Does he still have his missing eye? His family?"
Julie shock her head. "No on the eye-patch...but I didn't see a ring, either."
The bee held her gasp, her hand still going to her lips. "Oh no...Elizabeth? The kids!?"
"I–" Julie cliched her fist, her cup coming to the brim. "I–don't know."
Saffron gave her a tug at her hands. "Hey, we knew this was going to be a thing...Silver and Blaze told us so. At least we can hold the memory of the good people...and their best moments."
"How can a hurt be good, daddy?"
She closed her eyes, blacking out her left for a mere second, her small voice from a past she couldn't recall reverberating through her. Where did that memory come from?
"I know, but–" She bit her lip, the other face coming to her. Over Saffron's shoulder to Julie's right was the far cubical desk of Shadow. He was sitting there, his red eyes presently on a screen, though his posture in the chair giving a warning to not disturb him. "You're not going to like the other thing we found out."
"Girl, I'm not liking a lot of things. Doesn't mean I can't discard them."
Julie knew that it was directed at her, but she filed it away internally. "You sure?"
The soft nod, the steady stare answering her question.
"Does Downtown Ebony Hare still piss you off?"
The bee's eyes widened. "You have to be kidding? I thought he would have been killed by the Egg Grapes or–maybe it's not the same one?"
"I don't know, girlfriend. But he paid a visit to the people we saw at the hospital a few weeks ago at Seaside. Bought something from them." She sipped in an apprehensive breath. "Blackjack Bulldog is with him."
Saffron shook her head, perhaps to shake off the past. "Don't–don't read in too much into that, Julie. It'll tear you up more than you are, and you're already fraying at the seams." Julie felt a knock at her gut from Saffron's remark. "Besides, if it's those two dirtbags–what's that word I keep hearing from Remington and those Chaotix guys–we'll pinch him again!"
Julie felt her right eyebrow rise. "Pinch him?"
"Yeah!" Saffron struck her fingers out and demonstrated it to Julie at her abdomen, picking at her blouse and the fur and skin underneath. "You, know, this?"
Julie tried to hide her giggles as Saffron pinched her a few more times, looking around the room hoping no one was starring at them. "Oh, stop it!"
A deep male voice crashed over the conversations of the TOC. "Yo, Captain Su. It's your turn to try and break the camera!"
She looked over Saffron's head. The tall human that leaned out from the center office door held a stance of command and relaxation. It was disarming given his broad shouldered chest, hidden under the G.U.N. issued dark grey uniform, yet, Julie always felt it necessary to never keep Lieutenant Colonel Hugo Brass waiting. His head was oval, but solid as timber. Eyes stern when attentive and resting, matching jaw line that sported a clever beard Julie had heard being referred to as "mutton chops." It was also why Brass held the name "Iron Fist." Not from his muscular arms and hands, but of his slight resemblance–and only a slight one from what a human Sergeant Major quipped to her when she was getting her introduction to G.U.N's firearms and weaponry training a week before–to an old rock-and-roll front-man.
"Coming, sir!"
"Shake a tail–leg. What have you."
The olive skinned Lt. Colonel darted back into his office, the one Saffron had come from before chatting with her. "Well," Julie asked, "how do I look?"
Saffron feigned a once over of the echidna before giving her a disheartened frown. "Girl, you're a wreck." Julie let her shoulders fall, tilting her head as her face sagged. "But, you're a pretty wreck!"
Light from a door cracking open from an office to their far left corner got Julie's and Saffron's attention. A weathered human man's face peered through it, his hair and mustache white and grey, cut with a flat top but not shaven like a high-and-tight. "Shadow," he said, his voice seasoned and measured with command, "need to see you." The hedgehog never responded. He just kept staring at what Julie could see was his computer screen. "You too, Miss Su."
She snapped up in bearing. "Sir, I'm about to get my picture taken–"
"Roger that, Captain. Come, after then."
She nodded. "Okay, sir."
The door closed, the room dimmer, save for the office where she was needed. Saffron squeezed her hand and let it go. Only smiling, Julie stepped away, passing by her chair, then Saffron's, the bee's new leather bomber jacket, fur collar and sleeves, hung on her chair. Gifts from Honey the still had her caprice jeans that were still a little loose on her, a blue shirt, and her teal and black vest she had seemingly forever, along with her boots. A whole new culture where just having fur wasn't enough to cover her anymore, though, she did conclude that it was bound to happen the older she got. She would love to be in them, not this heavy, restrictive "professional" wear she was being saddled with. It reminded her of the black robes of the Dark Legion: made for intimidation, not for combat. Same could be said for what she wore, now.
And it itched. Not as bad as the hemp rags and hoods she and the exiled Echidnas and Legion had to make when the clothes on their back tattered and frayed. Where their first venture out of the Twilight Cage brought them: a desert planet, a signal of de-stress calling for help, only to find they were too late. Rocks were piled, and a pair of weather, once white mittens with twin spikes at the knuckles were covered to hold them down. The stone marker read Sabre: Father and Grandfather.
The signal came from deep in the deceased Guardian's grave. Yet, Lara-Le had nodded, said a prayer, and brought a light to their situation: They were on the trail where Locke had ended; to find the Brotherhood from where Dr. Finitevus had banished them.
But just from their brief month on the planet, she never knew sand could get into places that could, or should not be. Her new cloths and fur getting used to each other was a far cry from the chaffing of sand, especially if the wind decided to be the enemy. Like their brief run-in with the Nocturnus Clan.
She shuddered at the thought, black as what her stride was taking her towards.
Walking up to Shadow as the hedgehog was just standing from his chair, his red eyes still on the screen, Julie couldn't help but use them as a guide for hers to his monitor. A bright grin of new found luck and gloating beamed at her from a boy fox, his fur red and gleaming in the sun, his brown hair on his head slick from apparently being in the water. Sandwiched in his hand was a small object with some sort of circular emitter protruding out from the left side, wires jumbled and cut protruding from the other. The picture had a weird blurred film over it, with a white streak down the right side.
"Who's that?" she asked, knowing what the answer was already.
Shadow cocked his head in a stretching fashion. "The unfortunate late Jeffery Livingston," came a breath from his lips.
She shallowed her empathy. "Is that what his grandmother was describing?"
"I believe so."
She strayed an eye to Shadow, his posture the same sitting as he now stood. Indifferent. "It's smaller than she let on," she said, only to receive a nod. "And what's with the graininess of the picture?"
He let his face betray himself for a mere second. "It's from the radiation."
"Did someone else take that photo?"
He shrugged with his head. "Unknown. The NEST team from Naval Station Sullivan is talking with his friends, and looking for the junker that gets these kids to dive down and bring up Eggman's destroyed weapons."
"So," Julie began, her eyes narrowing with trepidation, "how many more were exposed?"
He turned and began walking away from her, though his eyes were still to her. "Unknown."
Brass came back to the threshold of his office. "Come on, Tempest. The Corporal would like to get back to Fort Amanda, and I'd like to get my office back!"
She nodded, gave a faint smile and began to walk over. She gave one turn of her head to see Shadow opening the door to Tower's office. And beside the line of desks one step up from her was Remington. His own eyes were at Shadow's computer screen, leaning against the cubical partition with his right arm over the top. His suit jacket was open, a green buttoned up shirt under it, the collar and top button undone like Shadow's. No ties, per policy. They were a hazard in a fight than an added dress for convenience. Yet, his black hair was at a length that wasn't close to military regulation, but it still contrasted well with his brown fur.
And so did the gold ring on his right-most dreadlock. He had married Komi-Ko in the Twilight Cage maybe two–three months before they found the forest planet, searching for another signal and a place to hopefully call home. The ring was a week old, finally showing his bond to his long relationship with the black and purple-furred Echidna, their Soultouch long ago cemented. It was now the process of them choosing when to celebrate their first anniversary. Dates and times of memories–all lost.
What about your Soultouch?
"Poor kid," he said.
"Yeah," was all she could respond, a voice from within her being trying to whisper–to still be relevant in her constant presence.
"I'll chat with you later about him," Remington gestured.
She nodded to him before stepping the last few paces needed, nearly marching into Brass' office.
To her right was the white wall with a sheet of the same color tightly pined against it. To the left of it, the dark blue flag of the United Federation hung on a wooden pole, a brass pike at the top. If she were to pull it up, she would see the dark red broad stripe down the middle with a white circle at the center, a blue ring bordering the inside. Three white stars outlined the circle, denoting the three city-states of the Federation. Five less from what she remembered from her time of Mobius.
Brass was behind his large wooden desk, looking down at documents and the perfectly arranged black leather I.D. holders, six in total. Behind him was a four shelf bookcase, not long enough to take up the whole meager office, but enough to hold a number of volumes of books and photos. Two plaques were on the top shelf, facing each other from either side. One she could see was a certificate, the other was a symbol with a ribbon top, a tabbed bottom, and two arrows crossing in the middle. The lower semi-circle tab read: De Oppresso Liber.
Next to him was the female corporal, she was looking down but at a laptop computer, typing in information. Her hair was black, wrapped behind her. Her dark grey uniform had an interesting contrast to her yellow hue skin, her brows straight and upturned, her face slender. "Okay, Captain," she began, "please state your name and birth date."
"Julie-Su. Day two-two-seven, thirty-two twenty-seven, Twilight Cage."
The corporal looked up. "Okay?" She turned to Brass, who nodded to her, than back to the echidna. "What would be your age?"
"I was four months from turning nineteen when I was thrown from my plain of time," she said, her heart attempting to sink. She didn't truly know how much time had passed with her and the Knuckles Clan passing between zones. She knew the Twilight Cage time was slower than the Prime Zone's time that the Dark Legion had been exiled from. That was the only time she could now count: this was her third time being exiled, only once being voluntary. And it had found her love. "I really don't–" she swallowed. "I don't know my true age."
Brass nodded. "Remington and Rykor have said the same thing."
"Okay," said Corporal Shinzu. "Blood type is Islander, A-B negative–"
"Would that be Mobian?" Julie asked, looking to Brass.
"We have still yet to determine that," he replied. "It's going to be up to Matriarch Lara-Le and members of the Restoration to determine new titles and what-nots."
Just hearing Lara-Le's name made Julie sink internally. She wished her here, to see what her last command to her was about to bear.
And her mind somehow placed her back four weeks prior. Four weeks after learning her friends were relatively just memories. Memories she hoped she was strong enough to hold on to. Blaze, the lavender cat, the princess of another dimension, broke the sad truth while Julie was learning to work her new cybernetic arm. She still remembered the tears flowing from her natural eye, feeling the phantom tears of her replaced left wanting to come. She didn't know what pain was worse; the raw nerves still fusing and healing in her arm and eye in Sunset City's hospital, or that the people who she knew, that were right there, were not the same from her world. Living shells of ghosts, living different lives.
Knuckles...
She hid for two days after she and Saffron returned to Lara-Le and the Clan when her physical therapy ended. It was Saffron that knew where she went, to let Julie lock herself away to only drink through her weeping tears. Finding an abandoned hut far and away from soul or being became a comfort that ended when Lara-Le found her. The Matriarch didn't have to search hard; she was sure her wailing could be heard through infinitum. She hoped her crying would have reached her Knuckles' instead...to be the beacon to find her...beacons they had been searching for to return home.
Two days of crying turned into two days of numbness. Like she was in transit on a train that she didn't care what the destination to be.
On the fifth day of being back on Angle Island after her denial ceased to live as she welcomed her own from the pit of her heart, a ship came to Mystic Ruins where the Knuckles Clan was starting their new beginning. It would be the blessing she didn't feel she needed, nor wanted. The red G on the side produced four humans when the door opened; one being General Abraham Tower. Lara-Le greeted and talked with them for a long while, with Julie contemplating what her existence was going to entail...if at all.
"You are to go with them," Lara-Le told her. "You don't need to be here."
She wanted to protest, her pull to serve and help what was left of her people would not quit as it never wavered when they were jumping through Zones. Yet, neither was her Soultouch to her. She wanted to see him. To lay her eyes on her equal to see he was there...that he was safe–
"He will not be the one you are wanting, dearest." Lara-Le's eyes hid something from her when she told her.ྭ A deeper truth...a possible worse reality She could still see Blaze behind her, her head turned down and away, the long quills of Silver the Hedgehog looking to her, holding her hand.
And so she was banished, but only to see him with a mere glance before she boarded the ship that took her and the five that Lara-Le had said would go with her. The Guardian was standing next to Lara-Le–mother meeting her son...who wasn't her son. He held an untrusting stance as he listened, Julie just seeing Lara-Le explain to him who they were with Blaze and Silver looking on. It was Lara's own posture however, that rocked Julie before stepping on the grey colored, twin tilt-rotor ship. It was not being of a mother, but of someone looking for sanctuary. Lara-Le possessed the strength Julie knew she didn't. She would have crumbled once she saw the unfamiliar expression Knuckles would have given her when she professed her love to him...a love he never knew existed between them. For in this time, it never did...and maybe...and maybe never will.
It was Lara-Le's last order to her as Matriarch: to runaway for her own safety from herself.
"Okay, ma'am, if you would step to the sheet, and we'll get you picture for your credentials and your military I.D."
She smiled to the corporal and took her place in front of the sheet. The camera was lowered for their Mobian heights. Julie was worried her neck was going to be strained from looking up so much to her new human counter-parts. "Do I smile?" she asked.
Hugo Brass chuckled, the Corporal standing up from her laptop. "If you like, but you only get three takes before I tell you to bring a better face."
And Julie let out a laugh, then smiled–and the flash was instant.
"Oh, perfect!" said Shinzu. "Now turn towards the flag a little bit and we will get your full profile picture.
Julie frowned. "Do I have to wear this dress?"
Brass shook his head. "Yes, Captain, you have to."
"I can't wait till I get my uniform," Julie protested with mirth.
"Soon, I hope. Supply has been slow, especially with the rebuilding."
At least your war had an end, Julie confided to herself.
She turned with her remark, placed her hands by her side, ready for her right eye to blink and her left to do so as well. It was what sealed her loyalty to these new people. The kindness with which she had received at first was jarring, making her untrusting of them, feeling that her kind were being set up to be used again. It seemed to be an Echidna past-time. But when she let them do the one thing she didn't know was possible, when she laid on the surgical bed and let them drip the anesthesia into her veins to put her out, she awoke to her left eye sore once again, absent the horror and pain when Lien-Da had replaced it with a hot fragmentation from the mine she had set. Of what took her arm. And nearly her life.
She cried after feeling the relief of her eyelids closing and opening. She could now blink like she had when her natural eye was still in her socket. No more phantom limb syndrome.
"Stand tall, there, Tempest," Hugo said, his smile bright. "You have a new life."
And she hoped not to squander their gift to her.
She inhaled, letting her face become firm with fortitude...and thanks...and waited for the flash.
"How's she doing?"
Shadow looked away from the framed newspaper he had been staring at since he shut the door to Tower's office. It hung next to the coat rack that had the Major General's dress uniform hanging from it. Shadow could still feel the flames on his body just from staring at the picture under the large printed headline, "Letter of Reckoning."
"I'm not having to tell her what to do," he answered.
Tower was reclined in his heavy leather office chair, his desk a barrier between him and the hedgehog. The General held a Cryptex smart phone in his hands, his face in a muse as he typed. He wore his uniform white buttoned up shirt, a black tie with it, clean shaven to fit his square visage. "What are your observations about Miss Su?"
Shadow looked around the room to gather his thoughts. Tower's office was sparse with furnishings given the enormity of the space. The same type of bookcase was behind him that adored Brass' office, and two chairs were pushed against the large walnut desk. Tower was in transit, the command of the new group he had asked Shadow to be in was to be exchanged to Hugo Brass when he made full Colonel, which was soon to be.
"She seems naïve."
"And you would be wrong, my friend." Tower tapped something on the phone, then opened a drawer and placed it in his desk. "That girl has done things in the recent past that I think you would be in agreement with."
"And that would be," Shadow responded, crossing his arms.
Tower locked eyes with him, though not in challenge. "The needful, from what Lady Lara-Le explained."
This twitched a pointed ear. He let his red eyes return to the newspaper page in the frame. The mountain backdrop was filled with smoke, the burning wreck of the Letter of Gabriel on its side, broken at the bow and starboard section. The battle over the skies of a small town called Shanksville some eighty miles from Station Square where Gabriel met the Eggfleet. Before meeting its end, Gabriel and her crew were able to knock out three of the large Egg cruisers before being overwhelmed with fire and damage that sent the ship to the mountainous floor. Shadow had been close to unleashing himself on the rest of the Eggfleet. But gravity won out–along with selflessness.
He can still remember pulling Captain Amanda Tower from the burning wreckage. Her soft white skin blackened by smoke, her eyes falling lifeless.
"Why do you keep that up?" he asked.
Tower turned to the newspaper then back to Shadow. "A reminder of failure...and redemption," he said softly.
The hedgehog stiffened in his pose, glancing to Tower. And I got two medals for it, he wanted to say under a charged voice. He never wore them. Not because he didn't have or needed a uniform...because he felt they belonged in the zip-lock padded bag, rolled up in the back of his locker not more than a few meters from where he was standing.
"I want you to keep an eye on her," Tower broke in.
"So, I'm a babysitter, now?" Shadow noted.
But Tower still leaned back in his chair. "No...I need you to be a mentor to her." Shadow relaxed his posture some, unfolding his arms. "She know's of you, but not this you, from my understanding."
The small briefing from yesterday went through his head with Tower explaining about the phenomena of a Geneses wave from a time and space either years or light years away, and people from a different time and zone appearing. These Echidnas were one of them. Team Paladin Sigma was the response: to track and ensure that these appearances were not nefarious or a threat not only to the U.F., but the planet at large. It was an agreed upon circumstance that the Restoration Project was helping with. At least, that was what Tower told Shadow.
To hear that he had existed in another time wrangled at him from somewhere he did not know. "She knows me?" he asked.
Again, Tower kept his voice even. "She knows of you," he repeated. "She is going to ask questions about you. And you maybe surprised at what she says."
The thought Shadow had came across his mind didn't make him comfortable. Did she know who created him? Why he was made?
Maria?
A knock came from the closed door. Tower straightened in his chair, Shadow shifting some, placing his hands behind his back.
"Enter," said the General.
The door opened with a second pause from Tower's voice. The pink echidna stepped through it, and closed it behind her. Shadow followed her with his stare, noting her gate as a march, her eye and iris forward, stopping at attention in front of the General's desk.
"Reporting as ordered, sir," she announced with a voice that matched her rigid bearing. Even in her attire, which she looked uncomfortable in, she stood at a solid attention, Shadow even noting her tail was angled down at a forty-five degree.
Tower also looked on at her before saying, "At rest, Captain." She relaxed, the General as well. "How are you adjusting, Miss Su?"
The question seemed to take her by surprise. "I'm–I think–I'm doing okay." Her head turned to Shadow, her face asking how much he and Tower had been talking about her.
"I know this has been a very hard time and transition for you and your people," Tower said. Julie's attention returning back to him. "It's been making me question if sending you so fast into the field today is the right move."
A pause lingered in the air before she said, "It's been keeping my mind off things."
He nodded, taking a scant eye to Shadow. "How have you been sleeping? Is the apartment all right?"
Shadow watched her swallow. "It's been a struggle, sir. But the apartment is okay."
"And how is Miss Saffron doing?"
She blinked at this, Shadow also noting the relaxed candor from Tower. "She's–she's been okay. She either comes over to my end, or me to her's. We talk...make meals together."
Again, the General nodded. "And how are your dreams?"
This time Shadow saw her hesitated before answering. Her mouth had slightly opened, her eye darting between Tower and him. "Constant...sir," she clenched her teeth, Shadow seeing her fight off her emotions. "I've–been having these dreams of my father, recently...Dreams of him I'm not supposed to have."
"How so?" Tower asked.
"Because," she began, her struggle for composure wavering. "Because my memory was wiped at an early age...I wasn't suppose to remember my parents."
Tower nodded before opening a drawer from his desk, pulling a hardcover book from it before extending it towards the pink echidna. "I have scheduled you up for therapy sessions beginning next Monday at Fort Amanda. This gives you five days starting today to write your thoughts and dreams in this." She took it and leafed through it. Shadow could see the pages were blank. "And every morning I want you to surrender it to me until you start your therapy sessions."
"Sir?" she began to protest.
"It's non-negotiable, ma'am," Tower curtly said. "And you have my word it is not to spy on you, or be critical of your thoughts." She held her pose and stare on him. "It's to make sure I know what is bothering you, so I know how I can talk to you...or if you come and talk to me about things." He gestured to his door. "It's always open to you at this juncture. Same with Major Remington, Captain Rykor, and Captain Saffron. They all got journals with the same orders. It even goes for Komi-Ko and Teri-Lu"
She lowered her head and swallowed. "I–I understand, General."
Tower then fished out two white envelopes from the same open drawer. "And for your two's assignment tonight," Shadow's head cocked in annoyance, "you two will be attending a social function in Central City." He handed the two envelopes to Su, he then passed one to Shadow. "Shadow, you will be dropping Miss Su off at Cabrera' Fashion on Main and Fifth here in Station Square." Tower checked his watch. "It should take her an hour or more to get fitted if you get her there at fourteen-fifteen."
Shadow's saw the hint; he would be able to watch Hope get on the bus at the school at three o'clock. "Yes, sir."
Tower nodded. "The second envelope has a black company card. Be mindful of your expenditures, Captain."
She nodded, placing the envelopes into her journal before looking back to Tower.
"One more thing, Miss Su." Shadow watched Tower pause, taking in a breath. "Do you have any doubts that concern you?"
The way he asked the question Shadow felt the General was not only addressing her as an individual, but as the leader of the people she had come with. Yet, the brown echidna with the dark hair was higher in rank than her?
"Sir–I, I do, but I don't think it would be..."
Tower's let his fingers slide under his moustache when she cut herself off. "Captain, I want you to speak your mind to me. I take council in all my officers so I may hear a different point of view about things. For you, I want to know what your doubts are so I can hopefully address them."
The stammer was in her face, but not her voice. "I–I worry that...we are being taken advantage of?"
"How so?" Tower responded, but not as an affront to him or her.
"Well, sir," she began, "my race–culture, we were the most advance race and species in technology and intelligence." Then she tilted her head. "We were also very hubris because of it–and it lead to our downfall. We also have a bad streak of trusting the wrong people."
"Do you believe we are the wrong people, ma'am?"
Shadow felt the echidna's shock when his eyes fell on her face. She was seeing Tower of who he actually was. It was the only reason why Shadow had ever trusted him for so long. Why he was with GUN now.
The echidna reached up and touched the edge to her left replaced eye. "Sir, what you and your people have done for me and those who were Legionised, your people's kindness has–well, shaken my core." She pursed her lips. "It's given me pause." And she did for a moment. "It's made me feel we have a debt to you, and my service is here to repay it."
"And that, Captain, is where you are wrong," Tower said. Julie's back straightened. "We've taken the example that the Restoration Project has done, and we are paying it forward to hope we get miracles from the banking on our karma points. You are our first big step."
She blinked with her eyes. "Karma points, sir?"
"It's a phrase we have here. Storing up good deed points for good fortune down the road." Tower's gaze broke to the newspaper page hanging on his wall before turning it to Shadow. "We learned a lesson, Miss Su."
There was a grave marker not more than ten miles from where they were with Tower's name on it. It belonged to his sister. Her first name was also the name of the fort where Shadow slept. He shifted his head on the thought.
"Your service with us is to pass the knowledge, tactics, and standards down to your people when they are ready to stand a full military up," Tower continued, looking to the echidna. "We are here as a cooperation between a nation rebuilding,–" He leaned over his desk to her, his eyes becoming soft, "and a race and people on the verge of extinction that are getting a new tomorrow.
"And further more," His hands clasped in front of him, "and Shadow can attest to this–" he nodded to the hedgehog before looking to Su, "–I am not here to gain stars on my shoulders. I am here for a result to have a peace for all others. I expect all those under my command to have the same principles and mission. Are we at an understanding, Captain."
She took a breath that molded her face from finding comfort in his words. "Yes, sir. I think we do."
"Very, well, then, Miss Su, and–" A heavy knock came at the door. Tower lifted his head. "Yes!?"
The door opened and Hugo Brass poked his head through it. "Excuse me, Chaos, but Komi-Ko and Teri-Lu have returned with the circle of diabetes." He let a sly smile come across his divided bearded face. "We are ready for the swearing in."
"Ah...to make you officially an officer," Tower said, looking to Julie-Su. "Very well, be there soon, Hugo."
Brass nodded and closed the door. Tower returned his eyes to Julie. "Anyways, get dolled up tonight. I want you to work with Shadow in doing practice surveillance on people there. Profile them, ask questions. And I want you to get immersed in the new culture. Remington seems to be doing fine, but since you are a female, you are privy to places us guys can't go to." He turned to Shadow. "Simple enough?"
She nodded. "Yes, sir." Shadow just bowed his head in acknowledgment.
"And one more thing–what of this Downtown fellow? Remington said he got handed a ten year sentence from you people back in your time line?"
"Yes, sir...He dealt drugs to people. Got a friend of Saffron's killed because of it."
"Does he sound like he could be the same guy?"
She hesitated, seemingly holding back a nod. "It sounds like it, but seeing an old friend...he didn't recognize me, today– so, I can't say for sure."
"Okay...we have U.F. Investigation probing around with him. Plus our intel-folks checking on things. This place you are going to–the Havana Club–has popped up with his name on it a few times. You might see him there." He turned to Shadow. "Use discretion, and don't fluster him if you might see him."
Shadow gave a nod. "Yes, sir."
"Very well, then," Tower looked to Julie. "Dismissed for your Oath, Miss Su."
She went rigid at attention and gave a crisp salute. Tower, however, stood up from his desk...but did not return it. Instead, he walked around to her, coming between her and the chairs. He stood shoulders over her, as he did with Shadow. Taking his hands, he angled Julie-s right hand more over her eye. "That's a nice salute, Julie. Has a small swagger, but has enlisted written all over it." He then took her arm and straightened at the elbow for a tighter angle. "You are an officer now. It will fit the more you get used to it." Then he gave his, more out an example than to return it for military courtesy. "And it's the last salute I want from you for sometime."
Her hand went down but her eyes went up and wide. "Sir?"
"Su, you are going to be out in the field for a while. There are few assholes running around here, particularly a sniper by the name of Fang. I do not want you to sniper check one of us by saluting. So get out of the habit of throwing that hand up."
He then took her at her shoulders. "Ma'am, we are here for one another. We will help you through your adjustment. And I am very happy to have you with us." Tower kept his stare at her, Julie nodding with a smile but saying nothing. Tower then turned his attention to Shadow, his eyes becoming focused. "We are all here for each other."
"What was this place, again?"
The numbness Julie still felt slipped from her, feeling her body returning to the corporeal. "What?" she asked Remington to her right. They were standing at the top level of their TOC, Remington's arm holding him up on the board of communications equipment. Komi-Ko was in Brass' office, chatting with the two women from Fort Amanda. She was the last to have her pictures taken.
"What this place was before they gutted it for our own amusement?"
She searched her memory, finding the vague explanation she had heard. "I think it was a screening room for some of the big film companies at a place called Hollywood. Somewhere in Westopolis."
"Ah, that makes sense." Remington looked around. "Aisle seating, what was a projection screen is now our main tactical feed."
"Easy parking garage that's secured for us," Julie added.
Remington gave a smirk. "And our own very big locker room. Plus coffee breakroom–"
"And the armory behind it," Julie finished with a chuckle. "Course, not as big as Fort Amanda's," she added.
Remington stared out reflectively before grinning. "I tell 'ya, Su. There are some weapons there I wouldn't mind pumping into Thrash."
Rage stirred in her from the Tasmanian Devil's name coming from Remington's lips. "I get the first trigger pull," she growled.
He left it at that, holding himself up on his arm, watching Komi-Ko smiling, her dreadlocks long with their black and purple fur, her hair properly done up unlike the matted mess it was for the time they were popping in-and-out different zones. Then the last place they found themselves...when Silver had found them in the forest.
"So what did Tower talk to you about?" he asked evenly. She looked to him, finding his eyes one of comforting, but suspicion.
"Mostly about me and how I am doing–"
"And how are you doing?"
She felt her jaw tighten. Was everyone watching her?
"I'm–I don't know, Remington."
He looked to her thoughtfully, then turned back to the open room.
Her own mind was still panting from the anger he had lit, however. Her right shoulder began to throb, not from any injury but of the felt recoil from the firearms and blasters they had trained with for four days after their baptism with presentation slides of Standard Operating Procedures, Code of Military Justice, medical exams, practical exams, and written exams that she was ashamed she cheated on a few. Her replaced eye and internal data storage made a lot of tests open book for her.
But it was exhaustive, nonetheless. Now a thought percolated in her mind.
"Was the EST weapons qualification ever that stringent?"
Remington shook his head. "No. What GUN put us through was pretty rough, especially with handguns and blasters." Just the mention of handguns made her hand still feel sore just from firing a magazine from Shadow's forty-five pistol. How he was able to handle it, and handle it well, was beyond her. Her groupings after the first shot might have well been hit with a scatter gun. The black hedgehog's groupings, however, were extremely tight.
"What about the Legion's standards?" Remington asked.
She raised her right brow. "GUN exceeded it."
"And what about the questions they asked us before we got here?" Remington pondered aloud to her. "It was more than just simple information history."
Julie bowed her head in agreement. "If feels like they were selecting us as well."
"Bingo," he whispered with a knowing wink. "And those standards we passed felt more like good-enough for a waiver to get us to the real standards down the road."
She looked to him, searching for what he was leaning towards. "Are we being used for something different."
Remington kept his gaze still at his wife before Julie saw him look to Brass. "Do you know what de oppresso liber means?"
The etched scroll in the symbol on Brass' bookcase came to her. "No."
"It's from a language here from an ancient civilization once called the Roman Empire." He eyed her, Julie hearing Brass' voice with a saying he gives her when she complains of wearing more clothes than she wishes. "It mean's to free the oppressed."
"Did you search this internet for the meaning?" she asked, considering she should have as well. But she had taken the road of intellectual laziness for reasons. Overloading her senses with cultural shock had done enough already to her.
"No...he told me," Remington said, shifting his posture. "He told me he was special operations. Did a few tours down south in some political hot spots before Eggman kicked off the Egg War, not counting the Black Arms crisis. He says he's killed both human, Islander, and Eggbots alike."
And it made her uneasy. Not that she wasn't a killer herself, but it was the mind set she has known. "That sounds like Legion shit."
Remington cocked his head at her answer. "Your old Legion never partnered up with foreign forces to train them to fight their own wars." He looked to her, his stare cementing something in him. "Brass and the Paladin Team Sigma mission is to infiltrate in, find friendly forces, train them to be more effective fighters, and crush their common enemy."
"And where do we fit in?" Julie asked, keeping her voice low.
Remington shook his head. "I don't know."
A moment passed when she let her thoughts slip. "Tower was very candid with me in there. Basically being up front and honest about my doubts. Same thing we are talking about."
"And Brass has been the same with me and Rykor."
"Not to mention they have been pulling out all the stops for us. Hell, I have a personal overseer of my finances to make sure my bills are paid for me, and to keep an eye on my expenditures–"
"That was at my request," Remington allowed. A face of betrayal filled her that he didn't blink from. "It's to make sure you are slowly adjusting instead of getting hammered with new responsibilities all at once. Me and Komi were used to paying rent and the like–you have not."
A weight from his reasoning did lift from her. He was correct that she never had an apartment or house to herself. She had either lived in the barracks with the Dark Legion, couch surfed between Lara-Le and Wyn's apartment, or Haven, then lived with Knuckles at Freedom HQ...then beside him in ruins...on the ground at Angel Island with the glow of the Master Emerald.
And now, not at all.
Her hand would go to Knuckles' head, holding it as she heard the muffled whimpers at night after his father Locke died to save him. She didn't know what to do for him...but be there. Distance was a boundary she closed little by little with him, almost replaying her part to gain his love. Until she began to awake in the morning, or at night, with her tucked into his arms.
She could see him turning towards her, the open warp ring before him to Albion, his stare of love...the promise he would return to her. And his lips opening to her...
I love–
And her father laying on the floor, holding his chest, struggling to breath. Struggling to command his heart to beat.
"Do you remember–" She cut herself off, unknowing whether to break a bond with her inner-self to divulge something she still didn't fully understand. But Remington had turned to her. His quizzical eye reminded her she needed to grab her journal from her desk before she left with Shadow. She had placed it in their before taking her place beside Remington. "Do you remember my father at all?"
The slight turn of his head and the pain she feared she unearthed from him made her rethink her decision. "You're asking me to remember something when my head has had so much toying with between Finitevus and being in the Egg Grapes...and Enerjak restoring me back?" But her begging eyes made him swallow. "No–no, I do not remember grandfather Luger," he replied, looking off. "I can only thank my father for doing the only kind thing in his life and that was sending me to Echindolopis when I was too young to remember. Apparently, Kragok didn't trust Aunt Lien-Da, either." He leveled his blue eyes to her. "Why do you ask?"
She did her best to project herself confidently, but her lips stammered from seeing her father on the floor, her small hand trying to reach out to touch him.
"I've been having dreams of my father," she began, "and I don't know where they are coming from." The look he gave her matched her own conclusion she knew he had. "I'm not supposed to remember him...but I am. And the dreams are vivid. I can feel him, touch him...hear him."
He looked away, his stare drifting around the TOC, focusing on the open passage way down and to the left from them that led to their break room, their lockers and to their meager motor-pool. "This Genesis wave has upset a lot of things–Lady Lara-Le and Blaze don't even know what the full ramifications are. Maybe your dreams may have something to do with it. Maybe the wave has opened up a part of you that Lien-Da and my father had tried to close off.
"Maybe it's blessing."
She took in a resisting breath. "It doesn't feel that way, Remington." She found his eyes when he returned her stare to him. "I just–I don't need this, right now."
Light poured out when General Tower opened his office door next them. Remington canted his head while Julie-Su turned, breaking their conversation that she felt was a mistake in starting. The man pulled his grey uniform jacket on as he cast an eye to them. On his right breast were six rows of ribbons in a set of five each with a marksmanship's badge and a parachute with wings. His shoulders adorned two silver stars.
"You all ready for this?" he asked to the two of them before closing the door.
Remington spoke with a smile and confidence. "I do believe we are."
"Well, let's do it to it."
Julie and Remington followed Tower to Brass' office where conversations were spilling out from the door, she noting Remington's pace being uplifted with pride and fortitude. "You seem to be adjusting well to this."
He stopped and looked to her. "Well, I'm happy that I'm not waking up in the sand or forest just to find a shovel and dig a hole to relieve myself in." He then turned his eyes to the gathering of Echidna, humans and the only female bee. "And Komi-Ko is safe...along with my dear friends. I can't ask for more, right now, Su."
Tower's voice boomed into the office. "Brass, where are we doing this?"
"I guess we can do it here, since we have the flag and everything."
Tower looked over his shoulder to Remington and Julie-Su. "C'mon, Captain and Major. My uniform is getting hot."
"Ah," Julie perked up, fostering a grin, "now you know how I feel."
"And me," came the low voice from the cubical below them. Shadow, turned his chair from his computer screen, allowing his annoyed face turn to Tower.
"Wow," Julie quipped, "we have something in common, ah, partner."
Shadow turned to her before standing up, adjusting his shirt and shoulder holster. Neither smile nor frown etched his face. A small frown found hers, however.
Walking back into Brass' office they were met with a stuffiness of now eleven people almost shoulder to shoulder inside. Teri-Lu was fixing the paper plates and plastic-ware, Komi-Ko handling the cups. Remington's former red-furred secretary was adjusting well enough that she seemed to fall right back into her former profession. Remington was glad she had pulled through as well as she had through the Zones. Civilization was doing well for all of them...even for Su. They most certainly appreciated it more.
Brass' desk had gone from a processing table to a bakery stand in short order. Six black leather identification holders were folded over, waiting for them. There were also four boxes that Su surmised contained firearms in them: four for her, Remington, Saffron, and Rykor, who was standing next to Teri, looking nervously at the cake in the center. Julie noted he was holding his arm up close to his stomach. His burgundy fur looked better than it had some months prior, though. He still had the severed lock that had a white cap to hide the nub. She still remembers the training accident when he received it; her first witness to pooling blood and screams when she was thirteen. It was surreal for her to have him standing, half hiding a smile as he chatted with Teri, then looking to Brass like they were best friends from long ago.
"Can we just eat the cake now?" she heard Rykor say.
"Nope!" Brass shot back, "not until we make you all official."
"Hey," Julie laughed, "beats sand rats and side-vipers, right!"
Rykor bristled, "Oh, any day, there, private!"
Brass' looked up to Julie, then Rykor. "Wait, what did you say?"
Julie gave a sigh, her smile staying. "Beats rats and side-vipers. What we ate in the desert and forest–"
"Among other things," Teri-Lu said with a hint of disgust in her voice.
"So," Brass began, a smirk coming across his large face, "you're telling me you guys and gals have eaten snake?"
Julie eyed him. "Yeah...we kinda had too."
Brass stepped to the center of his desk and extended out his fist. "To fellow snake eaters!"
She extended her right fist and tapped his, Remington and Rykor doing the same before Saffron, Teri and Komi added theirs in. "To fellow snake eaters!"
"And to keep other's up at night!" Brass exclaimed.
A chorus of "hell yeah's" filled the air.
"Tower," Brass' nearly shouted, "this week just got a whole lot better."
The grey haired man nodded. "It's only up from here, everyone." He turned to Su and Remington. "It's time to start your new lives."
And the five echidnas and the one bee lined themselves side by side next to their new flag of services. One Julie was hoping to maybe be her last oath to take. Saffron shuffled next to her, giving her a smile of excitement. She returned it, only to have a heavy hand find her right shoulder. Turning her head, Rykor filled her sight, her former sergeant giving her an affirming smile. They said nothing; the past had done so; the present offering a new mending of wounds between them.
Tower took a sheet of paper from Brass' desk. Looking to his second in command, then to the corner next to the bookcase where Shadow was standing, his face emotionless, yet nodding with his eyes closed to them, the General took in a breath:
"Please raise you right hands, and repeat after me."
Julie did as he'd commanded, lifting her head high, filling her lungs to stand with a renewed pride.
And General Tower began.
"I–"
Knuckles' turned face, his violet eyes, beamed to her from long ago in that instant. And she read his lips...
–love you...
Please leave comments and critiques.
I really wanted to world build with this chapter, particular for G.U.N., and also to establish Hugo Brass and Abraham Tower. Plus, I brought back some old faces. to make up the new Echidna Security Team...but not. I really wanted to do more with this chapter, but I can add it in others.