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 7.4
Tails watched as the moon began to rise in the far corners of Revianah. The dusk of the sun was enough to wash the fields in the flames of orange and red, giving a soft pink hue to the sky. But as the sun finished setting, there was an unearthly darkness around. Katia wasn't too far, curled up into a small ball on their little hiding place. She seemed only mostly unconcerned about her nudity, something that concerned Tails more than he cared to admit.
The pale moonlight greyed out all of the other colors as the moon rose, and Tails saw small green trails of light emanate from the flowers, glowing up to a full bloom of color.
Thousands of the lights came out, trailing upwards before disappearing, coming out from the ground again. Occasionally one would touch another, sending them bouncing around and colliding with others, before order quickly reaffirmed itself, and they began rising normally again. It was as beautiful as it was haunting. Whether those were actual spirits or just something the plants did at night, which Tails was quickly hoping was the case, he didn't know.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Katia said from her resting place. She pushed herself up, quickly crossing her legs and holding one arm over herself. "They say that at night, the spirits begin to congregate at Revianah, which makes it easier for a spirit to...anchor itself."
"It is quite nice. I wonder what causes it though?" Tails hesitated to ask, but the question left his mouth before he could think about it.
"You don't believe in spirits?"
"Trust me, I do," Tails said, his body withholding a shudder. Nightmares of Perfect Chaos, Finalhazard, the Starfall Islands, and those ghosts from Sandopolis Zone all ensured he was a believer. He remembered Tikal, no matter how much the others liked to pretend they didn't. The fact the echidna could essentially traverse through time was only one of the things that made her scary. To say nothing of Chaos.
"Then why is it hard to believe they're spirits?"
"Because spirits don't disappear," Tails said, pointing to one of the green lights near the top. As he pointed, it slowly died out, it's light fading before coming up again from the ground. "They stay, and they act."
"You say that like you've met a few."
"I have. No, this is something else," Tails said. He reached for his bail bag. His hands found the Miles Electric, but they also found the blanket that he'd had stored away. An idea came to him to at least help himself out, although Katia would probably appreciate it too. He pulled it out gently, before unfolding it. "Here, use this until we can get back. It can't be comfortable...like that," he said, holding it out for the vixen to take.
"You seem quite comfortable with it. None of the other males I know seem to be though. Why is that?" Katia asked as she reached for the blanket. She rubbed her hands over the material, feeling it stretch underneath her pulling. "This is...quite nice. Not tacky, not itchy...what's it made from?"
"Most of us, where I'm from, just have gloves and shoes. And a large part of me misses those, honestly," Tails said, his hands resting on the flowers. "But I'm pretty sure both of those burned up while we were in the desert. The blanket's made from...I don't know the words. A special material, combined from a dozen others and mixed together."
"Think that Ikan'Thoa could ever weave something like this?" Katia asked, the blanket covering her waist easily. She tried folding it over her shoulders, before she gave up, letting it just cover her waist. Tails resolved to not stare.
"It's possible, assuming you have the materials. It's not a complicated weave, just the materials are hard to get."
"If all of you wear only shoes and gloves, why do you not look, if it's nothing unusual? I'm not complaining, but it is strange," Katia asked. Her voice changed, as if her head had tilted a bit.
Tails kept staring out at the green lights, and not at the red fox behind him close by. "Well...it's not unusual for us. For the girls it is, but they have less protection than we do. Not sure how it is here."
"It's about the same. Amount of protection. Is that why Blaze is seemingly unconcerned about seeing you in...everything, whereas you seem quite concerned about watching me? Or Spark, I presume. She did try to mate with you first, at the swamp, right?"
"She tried," Tails answered, "And that sounds...about right. It's hard to explain different customs."
"How did she try?" Katia asked. There was a tone of accusation there, as if she thought he was lying.
"Uh...I'm not comfortable telling anyone that kind of thing-"
"Because it's a private thing? You saw the signs; the fire caller district is much less private about that than the channeler district is...apparently. You know I won't say anything."
"I don't, actually. I barely know you, to be honest," Tails said. "And shouldn't we have been trying to find those grasses instead of just waiting around here all day?"
"That's fair, I guess. Ask me anything, then, so you'll know me better!" Katia said, standing in front of him as she knelt down in front of him. She ignored his desire to try to actually finish their quest. Tails' eyes immediately went anywhere but right in front of him. He kept trying to watch the green lights, part of his mind trying to figure out what could cause that.
"Anything," Katia responded as her hands went to his head and gently forced him to look into her eyes. Her hands were hard and calloused, a warrior's training payment, but yet the fur was soft and taken care of.
"What do you want?" Tails asked after a moment as he tried to get his head out of her grip. She blinked, and slowly let go.
"I want you. I want the life that I'm supposed to have. I want the kids that'll come from our ties. I want...I want something better."
"And if that's just Lightning talking through you?" Tails asked. "I noticed what he was doing this last time. How often does he do that, forcibly tell you what to think and say?"
Katia stared at him, her eyes losing color. "Pretty often, actually. Every time he sends us out."
"And thus why don't you want out!?"
"Because that is how I get out!" Katia yelled at him. Her eyes lit up with an inner flame, the same type that he'd seen on Blaze was when she was worked up. "I get out by ensuring that he can't control me anymore! It's too dangerous to brainshift on a woman carrying!"
Tails watched for a moment as he smelled salt in the air, small droplets of water coming from out of Katia's eyes. "Brainshift...? It has a name?" he asked.
"It has a name. It's a power that all lightning channelers can do if they're strong enough, but the only way to be trained in it is by the elder. And even then, traditions dictate you can only be taught if you're next in line."
"By forcibly running...Katia, it's killing you. You and Spark, and everyone else he's doing it to."
"Tradition says he's only supposed to do it on rogues and traitors. This current incarnation of Lightning is...much more liberal with it. It's supposed to be safe."
"Safe? There's nothing safe about messing about with biochemistry! There's nothing safe about messing around with the brain!" Tails snarled.
"And what can we do!? We're helpless before him. Even Spark, powerful as she is, can't do anything about it. The most we can do is keep our head down and get with kits as fast as possible. Even the witch knows that." Her head turned to the side.
There was a twinge at the side of Tails' eyes, and they reflexively looked at that direction. He felt another small jolt, as if being struck by someone with a static charge, and he recalled Sonic's face and his speed. There was a third, but Tails exercised his power over it, similar to what Blaze had said. He kept it still, dwindling it to nothing.
"And that's why," Katia said softly. "I'm not strong. I'm not powerful. I'm just...a warrior. A fire caller descendant, with channeler abilities. Outcast on all sides. And an Exception with barely any training can do more with his ability than I can, with a lifetime behind me."
"You were trying to brainshift me."
"I was," Katia said. "Because I know I can't do any harm. The large changes cause instant loss of function. But me? Even the small changes are beyond me."
"Doesn't matter. Don't do it again," Tails said with steel in his voice. There was an odd scent to the air, one that he recognized from his time with Spark. "What made you think that was okay?"
"Because I could do no harm. I don't have value, in Ikan'Thoa. I never have, and I never will. I'm as good as nothing but meat."
Tails stared at her, and for the first time truly looked at her. Holding nothing back, he stared at her jawline, thin and triangular, a near perfect vulpine muzzle. Muscular arms and a toned chest. Her legs were long and lithe, with plenty of hidden muscle underneath the red, black, and grey fur. She shivered under his watchful eye.
"You...will always have value. Don't...don't say that. Not to me," Tails said. "I..." he was lost. What did he say? What could he say? What was it that Blaze had said when he had broken down, and was diminishing his own power and abilities? All he could do was be smart, and yet for all of that intelligence he was hopeless here.
A stroke of inspiration hit him, and he reached forward to grasp Katia's hands. "Here, close your eyes," he said. "You are worthwhile. Always. Because you are alive, and thus have the ability to change and alter, to be who you want to be."
She closed her eyes, and her breathing mellowed out. The fur on her hands were soft, but the callouses underneath it caused his own fingers to be itchy and feel like he needed to scratch. "You are alive. Repeat that. You can change. Always."
"You can change."
"Not me. You. Repeat; I can change. Because I am alive, and I have value alone because of that."
"I can change. I am...alive."
Tails felt small sparks try to jump into his hands, but with a force of will he kept it out, pushing it back into Katia's. "To live is to know Chaos, and Chaos is power, enriched by the heart," Tails murmured. He wasn't sure where those words came from, honestly. It was similar to the chant Tikal had taught Knuckles about the Master Emerald, but it wasn't yet the same.
"To live is to know Chaos. And Chaos is power-"
"Enriched by the heart," Tails muttered the words just as Katia repeated them. He felt a stronger jolt from her hands, trying to snake its way up his arms, and yet he grabbed hold of it and pushed it back down.
He smelled acrid smoke as he looked down, seeing that the small bolts of electricity were going from her into him, and being pushed back down into her, but she wasn't accepting the charge back. But since it had nowhere else to go, it's energy lashed wildly around, striking into the ground and flowers around them, striking into her fur and charring it as it burned into her skin.
Yet still she sat on, as if nothing was happening. "Chaos is power, power enriched. Chaos is power...and the Bringer of Chaos is here," Katia said softly, her eyes opening wide. There was no sign of intelligence behind them, no bright or shine, and Tails couldn't see the green behind them.
"The Bringer of Chaos, the Anomaly, the Guardian of Sol have awakened. The future cannot be stopped. The Blooming Tides have long awakened, and with every turn a new season starts," Katia chanted, her voice hollow and loud. The green lights from the flowers danced above them, congregating around into a halo of light above her. "O Bringer of Chaos, the Anomaly will Bring the End. Guardian of Sol, Remember that what has not been Forgotten."
"Katia? What're you talking about?" Tails muttered as he backed up a bit, dropping her hands. They acted as if they were still being held up, the muscles relaxed completely yet still held in the air.
"This Land will Die, and the Path will Open, only once the Cycles End. Seek the Blooming Tides. End the Blooming Tides, End the Cycles, Open the Path, and Kill the Land. Bringer of Chaos, Guardian of Sol, End the Blooming Tides," Katia pronounced, her voice unchanging, haunting and echoing throughout the flowers.
She closed her mouth and let her eyes rest, before she fell to the side, her body limp and her eyes staring into nothing.
Tails stared, wide eyed for only a second before he rushed forward. He wasn't sure what happened, but something had changed, somewhere, with that pronouncement. The weirdest part of all to him weren't just the words.
She had spoken in common.
—Side B—
The blue building wasn't as far off as Blaze had thought it was, and within an hour could easily see it fairly close by.
It wasn't in ruins, but Spark still gave a small gasp as she came up to it. It looked fine to Blaze, although maybe a bit worn down. It was brick, solid brick and clay, painted with the blue lines on the outside to give it contrast. The bricks looked fine to Blaze, although she could see a few grasses poking out of the cracked sides a bit. There was no door, but there was a hole covered by strings of beads, much like there was for Katia's door in the fire caller district. Spark forced the beads open, her crossbow pointed at anything that caught her eyes.
Blaze followed, giving it a small fireball for light. The inside was poorly lit, with the blue paint having leaked into the inside of the stone at one point. There were bodies slumped over a small desk, mummified by dryness and hadn't yet decomposed fully. There didn't look like any bits missing, but the smell was infuriating upon her nose. She could only wonder what it was that Spark smelled.
The building was tiny, only two rooms. The first room had the table and the bodies, and a couple of chairs, while the other one had two beds and a desk. Pages fluttered about in the wind, dancing all over the beds.
"I'm guessing this was the scout team?"
"It was, yes. One of them. The longest of them, actually. The first team," Spark said as she grabbed at the fluttering pages, attempting to stack them neatly together. There was a bit of leather off to the side, the good leather that Blaze almost missed. It looked like it had been a book at one point.
"Were there only two?"
"Four. Two and two. One in here and one out there, and two to go out and scout. Common scouting methods when checking out someplace new," Spark answered. She looked at the pages her red eyes starting to water. "These are useless. I can't read this," she muttered.
Blaze looked over her shoulder. "Why can I...?" Blaze asked as she looked at it. Written in common. But...how? There was no way that any of these sapients knew any common, let alone enough to write in it.
"How? It's blank," Spark asked, her eyebrow raised as her red eyes pierced into Blaze's. The cat reached down and grabbed the first page, setting it out. The writing was hard to decipher, but she could clearly see the lettering in common.
"Not sure. It's not blank to me," Blaze answered. Her eyes narrowed, "It's possible it's just faint," she said, holding it up and holding the flame behind it, allowing the light to go straight through the thin parchment.
"Oh, I can see it now. It's just a bunch of scribbles. Not real writing."
"Each language has a different set of scribbles. It's common, Tails' and I's native language," Blaze explained. "It reads 'The ghost is here. Spirals, everywhere. I see nothing but spirals, twisting and turning. Rilek is a spiral. Jumo is a spiral. I am a spiral. Infinite turns the clock. The ghost is here."
That wasn't ominous, Blaze thought. Not one bit. "Spark...how spiritual are the people of Ikan'Thoa? How much of an afterlife do you believe in?" she asked. She wasn't one to talk. She'd talked with an actual ghost just two days ago, and before that fought off skeletons with fire and speed. She really had no room for the hypocrisy.
"Ikan'Thoa is generally...spirits are everywhere, if you know where to look. The witch leads the hunts, when it comes time to purge them. It hasn't happened in my lifetime, though."
"And malicious spirits?"
"Are you asking if they exist, or if they don't exist?"
"Asking what you think," Blaze said. "The note said something about a ghost and spirals."
Spark blinked. "A ghost, and spirals? Why would those matter?" she asked hesitantly.
"I do not know," Blaze answered softly, "but it mentioned that everything was turning into a spiral. Rilek and Jumo, I'm assuming those two back there, were turning into spirals, as was the writer."
"Odd," Spark murmured. "I did know a Rilek and Jumo, ages ago. Vianex is still fairly new when it comes to exploration, and those two left far and long before Vianex was found."
"Was it these two?"
Spark shook her head. "No, they weren't. But those aren't uncommon names. The ones I know are lightning channelers, and these don't have any of the scars from channeling," Spark said.
"Scars? You get scars from it?" Blaze asked, her eyes focusing over Spark's body. The fox shuddered under her scrutiny.
"A lot of the time. Here," Spark muttered as she stepped forward, parting the fur on her arm, showing the white snake like cracks that appeared all over arm. Blaze grabbed at her arm gently, her hands running over Spark's fur, feeling the small raised bumps, entrenched like lightning upon a sky.
Blaze said nothing, and let the matter drop. But there was little chance that was natural. A kineticist wasn't immune to their own power, of course, but their body in general was resistant to a lot of it, and was proportional to how powerful they were. It would take a lot of fire a long time to hurt Blaze with it. As powerful as Spark was, there was only one reason her body would be littered with scars from it.
If she had been doing it wrong from the start.
"You never mentioned your parents. What were they like?" Blaze asked as she walked out of the outpost. The dirty grey and brown vision of Vianex greeted her eyes.
"They were...okay," Spark started. Blaze turned to ask her to offer it as a story instead, which always seemed to open the girl up a bit, before the vixen continued, "Like most hunters, they weren't around a lot. Then they had me, and they realized what would happen when I awakened early. Most elementalists don't awaken until they're four or five winters old; I did when I was three. That's when Lightning started sending them on more dangerous missions, demanding them to bring back more food. 'For Ikan'Thoa', they told me. 'The village above all'. For a few more years were gone more than they were there, and Strike, Lightning's son, promised to teach me more about channeling because they couldn't.
"It took a few years more, I was around eight winters old or so before the district was broken into, and the cabin was assaulted. They broke down the door, and my mom shoved me into a closet and told me, promised me, that I would be okay," Spark said, and her eyes deadened and her tone turned blank and emotionless. Blaze closed her eyes, knowing that what was next was not going to be fun.
"That's about when the screaming started. They burned some weird squiggle on both of them, and then they just... started asking them questions, burning them with fire or lightning whenever they refused. When they were done, they started to burn the cabin down, but that's when most of the others in the channeling district had woken up, and were able to bring down the flames. I told the elders what I saw, and Lightning knelt down and simply told me I was wrong, and the matter was dropped."
Blaze had to stop herself from sending a flare into the sky. The way Spark had just tonelessly said 'the matter was dropped'...maybe she was a bit too much like fire. She held out a hand and burned off some of her anger by creating a large fireball, stuffing it more and more with fire. By the time it was nearly her size, she thought she could finally take a breath that wouldn't be shouting.
"That's impressive control," Spark noted absently. "You don't need to be angry, for my sake. Strike taught me more, and when it was obvious I was more powerful than he was, and thus next in line for elder, that's when Lightning started dropping hints."
"I think I should be angry. I think you should be angry."
"I've learned anger does nothing. It just makes me tired, because nothing will change. And I've done terrible things in the meantime-"
"That's called surviving."
"No, it's not," Spark countered. "Surviving is what I was doing before. Before you and Tails came here. I knew the path my life would take, and I was okay with it. And then..."
"If you're talking about when you tried to seduce Tails, he told me."
"I wasn't told to seduce him. I was told to lay with him, at all costs," Spark said flatly. "And I wanted to. But...he was too nice. And he listened, and when I tried it anyways...he whimpered. And it flashed to my mind that what I was doing was no different than what had happened to me, stuffed in that closet, hearing my parents whimper and scream and shout."
"But you didn't go through with it."
"You're not listening! No, I didn't, but I wanted to, I wanted to feel him, I wanted to-"
Blaze watched as Spark got angrier. She had seen the small emotions played out, the smugness, the slight cheer, the brokenness. But she had never seen anger from the vixen. Even Katia got pissed off, especially at herself, but never Spark. She could feel the charge in the air, slowly growing thicker.
Sometimes the easiest way to correct an error was to charge it head-on. Lightning jumped from Spark's body to the outpost stone, lighting up the blue paint. It jumped to the various sticks around, to the dirt below, and Blaze had to withhold a smirk.
For nearly a minute, the lightning show went on until Spark stopped, dropping to the ground. "I'm a terrible being..." she muttered, small tears in her eyes.
"Not terrible. Just put in terrible circumstances. Most of us wouldn't be any better in your shoes. Your place. The fact that you didn't go through with it, even when you know that it would make things easier for you...that doesn't make you a bad person," Blaze lectured. "Also...look around."
Spark looked up, seeing the scars into the ground and outpost stone from her lightning frenzy. "But...it didn't hurt. It should have hurt! I wanted it to hurt!"
"It shouldn't, actually," Blaze said simply. "Otherwise I wouldn't exist, and I'd have burned out ages ago. You were taught to use it at a lower voltage, causing your body to act as the conductor." It had been a long time since Blaze had learned the basics of electricity, but that sounded right to her.
"That's how it's done!"
"And yet most of the other channelers don't have that, do they?" Blaze pointed out. "Ask Tails about electricity and lightning. He knows more of the physics behind it, but suffice to say, remember that feeling."
"I was angry, at myself, at the world, mostly at myself. I...almost died in the swamp. I burned out my eyes," Spark said tonelessly. "I honestly thought I'd burned myself out entirely."
"And yet here you stand, capable of a lightning storm on a whim. While standing on the ground, no less," Blaze smirked.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
"Just something Katia mentioned. That it was impossible to generate lightning while standing on the ground, except for the strongest channelers."
"That is true. But I am one of the strongest channelers, and an internal channeler, so I don't know how that fits your point."
Blaze sighed, a smirk still on her face. "It's a physics thing. Get Tails to tell you," she said softly as she started walking off.
As bad as her background had been, growing up with two different sets of memories and lives, she honestly felt she was the lucky one. She knew her parents, and still had her father around. Tails had Sonic, the poor soul, and Spark and Katia had...no one. Katia had Sticks, but that didn't matter much in the fire caller district.
Blaze was the oldest one, and she had no doubt she was the most mature. But she was still young, and liable to make mistakes. But she couldn't afford mistakes. She was the Guardian of the Sol Emeralds.
On a whim she felt for them, feeling the small sets of seven embers that burned within her soul. The fires were quiet, and small. Just as they had been last she checked. They weren't charging.
The Sol Emeralds weren't charging.
Not happy with the Blaze and Spark conversation.
Also, for the first time in the fic, title drop!
Until Next Time.