Disclaimer: I do not own any of the recognized characters or gameplay patterns within this fanfiction. Sonic the Hedgehog, Tails, Eggman, Blaze, and all related characters of such are owned by SEGA. All original character's are owned by me, unfortunately.

Exasperation 7.3

Katia wasn't laughing as Tails pounced to the ground of the dais. "The rings are holy! Why do you...collect them?" she shouted at him the instant her feet touched the ground.

"Reminds me of home. Special Zone rings help with healing and various other things. I haven't seen any actual rings here though, just these ones. Nice to see, even if we can't take them out," Tails answered with a grin. He looked around the dais, only to see hills and hills of flowers of various colors. The entire rainbow was present in some variety, from the greens of the stems to the reds and purples on flowers he'd never seen. Blues, yellows, oranges...the entire spectrum was visible clearly.

Some of them had odd shapes for their petals too, from the normal open rounded shapes to what he was fairly certain was a spiral pattern forming into a drill. There were others that connected to three dimensional shapes, and some that were connected to other flowers entirely. It was almost alien, in multiple ways. He was in no way a stranger to odd terrain, having seen more than his fair share of it, but this was different. And he got the feeling that there was more to this place than he thought.

"The rings of the rainbow road are holy. You still shouldn't touch them."

Tails rolled his eyes, keeping his head far away from where Katia was looking. "So which flowers does Plague...Flora, need? Reminds me, I need to ask her how she knows me. What do you know of her?"

"Of the witch? The previous witch took her in a few years ago, when I was young. Then he went off and died, leaving her in there."

"Males can be witches?"

"Why couldn't they be?" Katia asked. "Being the witch is merely a title for those that pursue the realms outside our own. To honor them, they lose their name and all previous titles, including father, mother, sister, brother...they become only 'the witch'."

"That honestly sounds horrifying."

"It is a great honor!"

"I'm sure that it is, but I'm not sure I can really see how," Tails answered as diplomatically as he could. Being stripped of everything that made a sapient, all connections to the world, in order to have a title...he guessed that it wasn't originally an honor, but a punishment. It had the sound of one. Then again, most things in Ikan'Thoa were like that.

Katia stepped onto the flowers, breathing deeply as she smelled the air noticeably. She had her spear in her hand, the same metal one that she'd taken off the side of the wall earlier. Now that he didn't have only dim torchlight or the radiant light of the teleportal rings, he could see the various designs on it. Lines upon lines cross each other up and down, twirling around the handle. "You should mimic. Take in the smells that are around us," she suggested. "It's easier to find the right ones when we know what we're smelling for."

Tails shrugged and took a deep breath. His nose told him of scents he'd never tasted before, things that didn't make sense. It wasn't just pretty smells, but there was something heavy here, something jarring. As if lead was running around, infecting each flower with its scent. Iron wasn't heavy in the air, so it wasn't blood. That was something, at least.

"The flowers of Revianah are known for being amazing to look at and smell. They're known for bringing lightness where once was only darkness."

Poetic, Tails thought. Or insanity, based on the various metals that he was smelling. Heavier elements too, like mercury. If he knew what the scent was for something radioactive, he'd think it was here, too. This wasn't just a flower garden, was it?

Tails spun his tails into the air. "You can fly!" Katia spoke with reverence as she watched him. He raised an eyebrow at her; she knew that. She knew that he could fly...didn't she? Maybe he'd never brought it up.

He reached down and grabbed her arms, bringing her up. She was lighter than she appeared. "You can smell it, right?" he asked as he flew higher up. This place was dangerous, and already he knew he was in trouble.

"It's the smell of the flowers. Of Revianah."

"It's the smell of mercury and lead," Tails answered instead, "two extremely dangerous metals, and I'm pretty sure there's more in here."

"What's...mercury?" Katia stumbled on the pronunciation. Tails blinked, more in surprise that he was able to handle it despite never hearing it in the past. He didn't say its name in common.

"Quicksilver, it's also called," he answered. "Practically odorless. I've worked with it before, that's how I recognize it. Just breathing the vapors of mercury is dangerous and can lead sometimes to instability," he finished, looking around the flower patch for someplace to land. He was good for another few more minutes, but he always tried to have a landing spot known ahead of time.

"Revianah is not dangerous! Revianah is for those couples trying to get with child!" Katia explained, trying to wiggle out of his grasp. Then she froze, and let him carry her as he kept heading away from the rainbow road dais.

"I'm not going to touch that with a ten foot pole," Tails muttered, copying Blaze, as he found a spot that was mostly normal type flowers that he'd known and seen. He didn't smell the other odd scents anymore, but that didn't mean they weren't there. It could also be that he was simply used to it. And that one was far more dangerous.

Although...Tails landed softly against the flowers, letting Katia stumble. They were soft against his feet, with a hint of something harder, as if waiting for the spores and the thorns to come out. He waited a moment before he took a deep breath. No burning sensation in his lungs. No coughing. He'd been around mercury enough to know the common signs, the instant ones. Not a single one.

Was he just paranoid now? Had this world gotten to him, due to the rosuvel and the crayak, that he no longer could see the beauty in the world, but rather the cruelty that lies underneath it? Had this world finally gotten to him, down to its depths? He wasn't studying the flowers for their beauty, he realized. He was studying them because he half expected them to rise up from the ground. To cause another earthquake, to shove him down and break his neck-

He paused, taking a deep breath and forcibly calming himself. "They sent us out here for a different reason, didn't they?" Tails guessed.

"Obvious, wasn't it? I tried to tell them it wouldn't work. Lightning never listens to channelers whom he overpowers," Katia said. She laid down against the flowers, her legs open and allowing him to see what lay bet-

"Very," Tails said, blushing madly as he looked away. He heard a slight giggle from the red fox next to him. It was a good sound, almost heavenly in a way, and it made him want to mark her as his own, if only so he could have her laugh forever.

His eyes narrowed as he followed that thought. It felt different than his usual thoughts. It almost...it almost felt like the control of the dryads, or of Eggman's machine back when he tried that interstellar amusement park weirdness.

Given that thought, he shuffled it aside, letting it go to its logical conclusion. "You're very strong willed," Katia purred into his ear. When had she gotten up? He jumped forward a few feet, flying gently into the air. Her clothes were shuffled and shredded, hiding nothing now. "This is traditional for Revianah. If nothing else, we should abide by tradition," she said. She gave him a look up and down, "although you're already doing that part well enough."

"Katia..." Tails said as he landed, his eyes narrowed as he looked around. "Where's your spear?" he asked pointedly. The vixen stopped, and blinked in surprise. She shut her eyes for a moment, before shaking her head.

"I just had it, I still...where is my spear?" Katia said quietly. "Did you steal it? Did you steal it, Miles Prower!?" she turned, her eyes glowing red as she snarled at him, jumping at him instantly.

Her spear found its way through her heart as she tried to pounce. Tails' eyes widened as he looked behind her, adrenaline flooding into his body as he saw...Katia, her hands empty as if she'd just thrown her spear. Her clothes were gone, and she covered herself with one hand, flushed and embarrassed. The Katia in front of him smirked before she vanished quietly, the spear dropping into the flowers. Her clothes fell to the ground, already in tatters. Acting quickly, Tails grabbed it and ran over to what he hoped was the real one. "What was that?" he asked.

"Double," Katia said, "It's a rare parasite that lives in some of the flowers. They're supposed to only be on the edge of Revianah, that's why we were supposed to take the rainbow road. They shouldn't have been able to get this close!"

A bundle of flowers moved next to them, rising gently above the others. "Oh I called it!" Tails said as he grabbed Katia's hands and poured on the speed as the...flower monster, a monster made of flowers, or alternatively a giant mound of flowers attempted to drop everything it had on them. All over more mounds started showing up, and Tails saw them as they were. They weren't flower monsters, they were earth creatures. Similar to the earth elemental back at the Elemental Mountain, except these were...made of more flowers than they were earth and dirt. The flowers roots wrapped around every corner and held tight.

They had faces, and had the general shape of a sapient, but unlike the dryads where it was easy to tell what they had been before, these ones couldn't be told. Tails took to the sky, pulling Katia up with him as one of the creatures tried pulling her down.

"I hope you know what those things are?" Tails asked after a moment. The entire flower patch was full of them.

"We called them ents. They're normally nice, even this deep in Revianah. They don't bother us most of the time, and in fact they use our energy to sustain themselves."

"And how do they do that?" Tails hesitated to ask. Knowing his luck, it was probably through sucking out their soul or something similar. Of all the times to not be Sonic.

Katia pretended to seem to not answer. "How long was my double here? It took me out in only a moment. The last thing I remember is coming out of the rainbow road and turning to chastise you about the holy rings."

Tails shuddered. He hadn't even...that was nearly five or ten minutes. He hadn't been able to tell the entire time? "Five, ten minutes or so."

Katia shuddered. "I barely saw you as I came to. It's how I knew to run after you, but she had my crossbow. She must have dropped my spear when you picked her up."

"And your clothes."

"And my clothes," Katia repeated, looking down. "What all did she say, about Revianah? Sometimes a double will give decent explanations to ensure that two sapients are separated. They can't talk back, but they're smart."

"This place is meant for copulation, and reproduction. And then tried to seduce me. After claiming this place wasn't dangerous."

"Sounds like a double. They have mysterious ways about them, sometimes. Not entirely inaccurate though. It's intended to be a safe haven, for the purposes of reproduction. They say the scents of the flowers helps. But the ents...they aren't intended to attack."

"I guess that's just what they call luck," Tails murmured. He landed softly on the flowers, feeling the petals underneath. The same scent of mercury and lead...but this wasn't actually mercury, was it? Humans had labeled mercury odorless, but it wasn't, not to him. But to have the same scent here...what was it for?

Katia landed on the ground next to him near flawlessly, before she sat down cross-legged, ensuring that her spear or her arm hid everything. "If it is luck, it's bad luck."

"That's what Spark said, after I told her we met one of the giant foxes in a forest...far from Ikan'Thoa. Not sure how far it is from here," Tails said.

Katia's ears perked up. "A luck based fox...Oh! A ewing! I've always wanted to see one up close. How big was it?"

"Big enough that it could eat both Blaze and myself in one gulp without needing to swallow," Tails deadpanned. Katia stared, before her face grew incredulous.

"It tried to eat you? An ewing!?"

"Everything's been trying to eat us. From leviathan's, to bears, to earth elementals, to trees, to the sand whale...pretty sure we're on everything's menu," Tails kept up.

—Side B—

Blaze felt another small jolt burn its way into her shoulder. She slowed down, letting Spark jump off her back onto the soggy and boiled ground.

She hadn't thought she ran all that far. But now there was only brown and dead grass everywhere around her, and the soil felt dark and warm. There was a sense of unease about the area, and the area reflected it. There was hardly any blue sky left, now covered completely by various clouds.

"This is Vianex," Spark announced, "Or at least that's what I'm led to believe," she finished. Blaze looked around at the various dead hills, the tall mountain farther off. Various small rivers came from it, carving into the ground in small streams rather a large rushing river.

"Looks...like there's not much here," Blaze responded. There were a few dead grasses, but most of the color was grey and drab brown, as if there was hardly any water here. Judging by the large desert only a handful of minutes away, there probably wasn't. She wondered then, if this counted as a desert too? It wasn't as hot as the other one, fortunately.

"There really isn't. But that just means that everything here is dangerous," Spark answered.

"What I'm more curious about is that it is dangerous. By all rights, it shouldn't be. There shouldn't be any predators here, because there's nothing here to eat," Blaze thought aloud. The dirt was crumbly and soft, yet contained a heat to it that she felt all the way to her core.

"What makes you say that?"

"Because everything big has to eat something smaller, with the smaller things eating up vegetation, or bugs. There's no insects out here, so they have to eat the grasses. But notice this," Blaze said as she reached down to show the vixen, "this grass is dead. And layered on top of other dead grasses. There's nothing here. So therefore, nothing small to eat. Ergo, nothing should be out here."

Spark shrugged. "Something is, though. We don't know what it is, but it's taken out all of the scouting parties so no information comes back."

"I think the information we can come back with is, 'everything is dead'," Blaze deadpanned.

"I don't think the elders would appreciate that."

Blaze sighed. "No, they probably wouldn't. Come on then," she motioned, jumping over the small stream with ease. She gave it a side-glance a moment later; it was a stream, of water. She reached down for it, and let her hand just barely touch it.

Instantly she pulled it back, her hand wet and burning hot. "Either it's very hot, or its acidic. Knowing this place, I'm going to go with acidic," she noted aloud.

"Why would it matter? Either way, we can't drink the water," Spark questioned. She landed silently next to Blaze, her fur gently blowing in the quiet wind, small jolts and bursts of electricity emitting from her fur.

"Acid kills plants, generally. Some like the more acidic soils, but if it's bad enough to burn, it's more than enough to kill," Blaze answered. "Which means that at the top, it's probably the source of it."

"Why would that matter?"

"We can determine the type of acid. If it's volcanic, or if some other source. Tails is better than me at that kind of thing, though," Blaze answered.

Spark nodded, and her face reddened after a second. "Tails is...nice, isn't he?"

"I have a feeling that what I think of as nice is not your meaning," Blaze answered. She started walking up, following the acid stream as it went up the small hills and mountains. She made sure to stay a few feet away from the stream; enough that it was impossible for the dirt to crumble and have her fall in. Judging by the way her hand burned when she dipped a finger in, it would not be pleasant, nor quick.

"I mean..." Spark tried again, "He's...nice."

"Try again."

"I don't have any other words!"

"Then do as Tails suggested, and put it as a story," Blaze suggested. Spark blinked, before her blue eyes darted to the ground. That should keep her occupied for a few minutes, Blaze thought. It wasn't that she didn't want to hear Spark's thoughts on it, just that knowing the reason she was here was because the elders wanted Tails to be held to Ikan'Thoa was...disgusting. Even in the furthest outreaches of the Sol Empire, Blaze had never heard of a village acting like Ikan'Thoa did. Not with regards to their own free will.

Free will, actually. A thought came to her; Lightning seemed almost specialized to take it away. She could feel the bolts as they went through her head, trying to change the way she thought. Except that despite all of his skill, he seemed to forget she was a pyrokinetic, not an electrokinetic.

"Where are all the adults? Your parents, Katia's parents...?" Blaze asked after a moment. "I don't remember seeing many parents around the children." There were the cooks, and other gatherers like Fern, but even they were surprisingly young. It was as if no one made it a few years past child-rearing.

"There aren't many. Usually the elders send the fathers off after they've had a few children, and they never come back. And then the mothers a few years later. Just the way of Ikan'Thoa."

There was something there that tripped Blaze's mind. The elders sent them. "Is it possible that they're being targeted? Is there a hunter for that?" Blaze asked.

"No," Spark answered with such emotion that it put Blaze's into the defensive. But it was so quick, so heartfelt..."No, that's not possible. The hunters all know what they hunt before they get sent out."

Blaze nodded. It wasn't a rehearsed answer, but it was a...far too quick of one. Was Blaze just being paranoid, now? Or were the elders seriously brainwashing the kids without the parents around specifically so they can do what they want? The theory sounded crazy in her mind, but something told her she wasn't entirely wrong.

But why? What would the end game be? "I have that story now," Spark spoke abruptly. Blaze jumped a bit to the side as the dirt crumbled where she was standing, the dirt landing into the acidic water with a slight hiss. Blaze stared at it for a moment. That answered one question; her end would not be quick if she fell in.

"Alright. Let's hear it," Blaze said. There was a large portion of her head that didn't want to, but she had a feeling she should. It was just her luck to essentially be relationship counselor to teenagers. It wasn't even adults, either, or people that could think.

"There once was a girl, exiled on the side of community. She was small, but powerful, and everyone knew it, so they ensured she was shunned. There were no games with her, only the training. Day in and day out, she was told that she was worthless without her powers. Her parents killed in front of her."

Blaze stared at her in surprise. That had happened!? She knew that Spark had mentioned that back in the witch's hut, but she hadn't mentioned that she'd been there! And yet hadn't she just gotten through saying that it was impossible for the elders to have a hunter unit dedicated to hunting elementalists? Right...free will overwrite. That was another part of her crazy theory. This place was going to mess with her head far more than the world was.

"And then...she rose. The quests were more dangerous, the respect she earned better. And then down the pipeline came the rumor that she was next to be the elder. So the elder's son came around, and started the beat the girl at everything, through various methods of cheating. Everything he could do to try to break her, he would do. Beat down her will, and force her to join him.

"And then...came the Exceptions. And with them came hope. A fire caller, and a lightning channeler. The elders saw their abilities as worth keeping, so they gave the girl and another the chance to move up, to be better than they were."

"I think I'm going to be sick," Blaze muttered under her breath. Her ears kept listening though, and the vixen didn't stop talking.

"So the girl got first go, because the other wasn't 'as special'. They went to a swamp, and despite her best attempts, the Exception kept her off. But he wasn't digging at her, to get under her skin. He hadn't mocked her, mocked her inability to prove worthwhile to him."

Good, Blaze thought, because if he had then there would be another very uncomfortable discussion that she'd be having with the two tailed fox. Uncomfortable for him, rather.

"And yet, when the time came, the girl felt it necessary to use a technique that almost killed her. Rather than being thankful she was out of his hair, the Exception rushed back to the gates, breaking a holy decree to ensure she healed."

"I'm fairly certain that the word you're thinking of isn't nice, it's 'being a decent sapient'," Blaze answered. "Everyone should be doing it. Are you saying that's fairly uncommon?"

"It is. The elder's son was quite forward when he told me I'd never amount to anything, and that any attention I get would quickly be warded off once they saw me."

"Looks aren't everything, Spark. The decent ones prefer your brain and your soul to anything on the outside. I've had my fair share of bad suitors, but nothing quite like that."

"But...why is Tails 'decent'? What makes him that way?" Spark asked.

"That's not an easy question. That's like asking 'why are you into stories when you're such a powerful kinetic'?" Blaze suggested. "That answer shouldn't be easy for you, and I know that it's not. The answer lies in that's just how he is. He was always kind, even when I first met him."

"Kinetic?" Spark asked, her head tilted inquisitively.

Blaze blinked. She had used kinetic, hadn't she? She'd meant channeler, but the generic term came out instead. "It's another term for elementalist."

"Is that what they're called where you're from? Kinetics? And how long ago did you meet him? Has he been with you this entire time?" The questions came out fast and furious.

"I'm a pyrokinetic," Blaze answered, "You'd be an electrokinetic, same with Katia and Tails. Sonic, another friend of ours, is an aerokinetic."

"Strange terms. I find I prefer channelers, callers...the elder's terms," Spark answered. "And you never answered. He doesn't see you as a mother, does he?"

Blaze shuddered. "No, I'm fairly certain he doesn't. I met him around seven years ago, when he was eight. I was fourteen."

"Years?"

Blaze sighed. "Winters, then. How many times the season they were born in repeated. But...we're not from anywhere near the same place."

"I don't think that matters much. You taught him about how to be hunter, how to survive out here. For all of Ikan'Thoa, you are essentially his mother."

"I don't think his actual mother would take kindly to that," Blaze said. "And truth be told, he taught me a good chunk of it. At least, how to do things that I've never thought I would have had to do. How to build, the importance of weight distribution on long trips-"

Spark stared at her, "That one's oddly specific. And what did you two...build?"

"House. Shelter, really. If there was more food there I'd have suggested we head back, but winter was already making food scarce up there."

"North? Towards the elemental mountain?"

"Exactly. North of there, by maybe a few hours walking pace. We weren't far," Blaze said as she pushed herself up a small hill. Vianex was almost all before her sight now.

It wasn't pure brown or grey, or even a pure mix of the two. There was plenty of black, and little bits of red. Far off in the distance she could see a small segment of blue; maybe some water, perhaps? But it looked like paint, so maybe one of the other scouting parties?

"Come the rebirth time, it would be nice to see it, I think. Could we?" Spark asked. "If we...make it through here."

"I'll talk to Tails, see what we can do. I know he'd want to go back, he built a communications tower that allowed him to send a message out. He hasn't gotten anything back though from what I've gathered. What's that out there?" Blaze asked, pointing towards the blue painted spot.

"That's the sigil of a scouting party. They use blue as it blends in, yet is easy to spot from a distance. Especially here. We should go see if anyone is still there."

"And there's probably going to be a trap and then we'll have to fight our way out," Blaze muttered under her breath.

"Most likely, yes."

Blaze sighed.

Exasperation - A feeling of extreme annoyance, mostly caused by doing the same thing or having the same thing done on another multiple times.

Makes sense now, don't it?

Until Next Time.