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.
Blaze was not a lazy person by anyone's stretch of an imagination. She was almost always active, and if not, was doing something that would help others or herself, even if it was something as simple as meditating.
What it was rare for her to do was to laze around next to a river, watching fish jump over her feet as she waited for her clothes to dry next to a small fire she'd made.
All she had to do was reach down and she could grab one. Wouldn't take long, and the fish would probably die near instantly. Instead, she let them jump over and around her, her back against the grass as she let her feet soak in the water. It was odd for her, she knew, but considering that her ankle was now...not fully healed, but mostly healed with a small sense of soreness, so she felt she deserved to relax a bit.
It'd been two days since they had crashed, almost literally, into this place. The intersection of the stream and the river was nearly perfect for them. Tails had plenty of room to build up a small camp, and could catch fish with the best of them. Blaze, meanwhile, was ensuring that the fox didn't overwork himself and was letting herself heal too. She knew his body was scratched up bad, as was hers if she had to be honest.
Her tunic was in shambles, with the jacket portion almost completely missing except for a little near the top. The bottom portion had several holes in it, and while she could sew it up it's not like they had the right materials at the moment. Fortunately it hadn't gotten to the point of being indecent, yet.
But that all said, they also needed to be cleaned of blood and grime. And that was how she made her way far upriver, still within Tails hearing range but outside of his sight range, as she cleaned off her wounds. Tails would probably be doing the same thing, although he had less to worry about in terms of clothing damage. Although she would be making him put some bandages on his ribs once she got back.
The sun was high, and she felt surprisingly lazy. It was one of those nice days where she never felt like doing anything, but knew she would've had to. There was a slight wind to it, but there was a feeling in the air, and she knew that it promised a future storm.
Was it going to be a bad storm? A good storm? She didn't know. Most of the time when storms came around she went to a city to wait it out. That wasn't an option here, unless Tails made the campsite bigger than she'd thought.
She pushed herself up, shaking out her legs of any excess water, and slowly started gathering up her things. They should be dry enough, and by the time she made it back her feet should be dry enough to put her shoes back on. She, like most other sapients, did not like the feeling of her bare feet on most things.
Still, the grass was dry and soft, and made visible any sticks or rocks that would try to poke her. She danced around any that she saw, avoiding most of everything that threatened to hurt her.
They would stay here for a few days, they had agreed, and then they would look for a teleportal ring or a star post, both of which Tails had said would bring them to the Special Zone. She had never seen either, although that wasn't too surprising, especially once Tails had explained what he knew of the Chaos Emeralds.
The Chaos Emeralds were just that; chaotic. They were chaos, disorder, and disunity in solid form. The Sol Emeralds, her emeralds, were the near opposite. They were order, likeness, and sameness. The Chaos Emeralds attracted or repelled one another, often at the same time. The Sol Emeralds, on the other hand, liked to stay in the same place with the others.
It made guarding them much easier but much more stressful, as if one was stolen it was much easier to steal the others. But in return that meant they liked to stay together, and to stay in the same world. They didn't go off traipsing into alternate dimensions for the sake of causing havoc for both heroes and villains...although sometimes they pushed her to do it.
She wondered if there was a correlation there.
She jumped over the stream gracefully, in her mind, landing soundlessly against the grass that Tails had claimed as their campsite. In the middle lay a small tent, mostly sticks put together haphazardly.
The fox himself was sleeping on the side closest to the river, curling up in a way that made him appear younger than he was, more natural and less...old. He was cute, in an odd way. Blaze blinked. That hadn't been her thought, had it? She shook the thought out of her head. She hadn't thought anything had been cute in years, and she wasn't about to start now.
She wasn't Marine, who could go off about this cat she'd found for her for hours on end, describing them down to the details that Blaze wanted to hear the least. Most of the time without bothering to check if anything she was saying was actually true!
The blanket hadn't been put up yet, and Blaze took the moment to take the sticks down, widening them considerably. She was no architect, but she knew enough from other temporary shelters that she'd found throughout her travels. They needed to be comfortable, not cramped. Especially if a storm was coming.
She put up a few more of the taller sticks, using her own height to gauge them. Criss-crossed using other sticks, she gave one leg a good shake to see if it would collapse. It seemed sturdy enough. Less sturdy than when Tails had done it though.
"If you wanted to make it bigger, you just needed to ask," Tails said from behind her. He grabbed the stick she had just shaken. "This one needs to be a bit thicker and deeper."
"Even temporary, it needs to stand up against a storm. One will be coming soon," Blaze said. Tails stared at her in shock and worry, before he closed his eyes. His whiskers moved a bit, as if was trying to withhold a sneeze.
He opened his eyes and gave a sigh of relief. "I think it's a few days out at least. Maybe we'll be out of here before it hits."
"Perhaps. But I feel it's best to act as if we'll be here," Blaze answered. "And for that, we'll need more room for both of us to be comfortable, and enough room for a fire, and any food we'll need."
Tails blinked, as if suddenly realizing that was a thing. "Right...sorry, Blaze. I'll...uh...I'll get right on it. Wasn't sure if we'd need that much room..." he stuttered lightly, going to fix the small imperfections that Blaze had made.
Had she done something to offend him? He seemed a bit grumpier than usual. She shrugged to herself, before she started on the other side. By the end of the hour they had a decent setup made, and they started putting up some grasses and leaves over the top just at least to keep out the rain should it start.
By the time the sun started to set, it was a small livable hut with only a few corners for walls. But it would do, Blaze thought. There was room in the center for a fire, and plenty of room on the side, even if they had put walls, for the both of them on either side.
Granted, neither of them had beds or anything. Tails pulled out his pack and grabbed the small blanket, stretching it to make it bigger before he offered to her. "You want it?" he asked.
Blaze shook her head. "No, you take it," she said, curling up into a small ball. It wouldn't really have helped much anyways; the ground was rocky and hard in many places, while the grass made it a bit too soft where it was going. It was as if trying to sleep on a lumpy mattress that was only a few years over the expiration date.
The campfire was eating away at the wood happily, and Blaze let her control over it erode to the point of being a natural fire. She watched it for a few minutes, staring into the flames that encompassed it. Each flame was unique, each one individual, and it was only around for a short time...was that like her? Born to be unique, individual, born to burn out bright? The hotter the star, the faster the burnout.
Quiet snoring came from Tails' side, and she gave a quiet giggle. It was a slight sound, one of those that spoke of relaxation. It stopped and hiccupped in the middle before starting again, and that was probably at the point where Tails' ribs and lungs would start hurting if he was awake. Or even if was asleep right now.
The moon glowed bright above them, small moon rays being shoved through the leaves they had put on the top. It made Blaze keep a reminder to herself of which ones they needed to change out or move. It wouldn't do to go through all this and then find out they messed up on roof placement and got soaked anyways.
It was also colder here at night, she realized. The first night she couldn't tell, from the adrenaline rush of going through the trees at far too high speed. When she'd first gotten here, the fire was always at her back.
She didn't mind the cold, despite what many would say. The campfire burned itself out when she next looked at it, wondering when that had happened.
She gave a quiet yawn, before stepping out of the makeshift tent towards the river. It wasn't a loud river, but rather had a soothing sameness about its noise. She sat on the side, keeping a hold on the grass to make sure she didn't fall in all the way.
The moon's light reflected off the surface, only slightly disturbed by the moving of the fish underneath it. It gave an almost ethereal beauty to the scene, with the light of the moon off the trees on the far side. There was something sparkly over there, she realized, the shine just barely getting to her.
Blaze peeked one ear back towards Tails, hearing the fox's snore, before she leapt up. Running on water required speed and finesse, and she was good at both of those. She felt the fire rage in front of her, and instantly she shot off on the surface of the river. One foot, the other foot, and with barely a chance to leap off the third she was at the other side.
She managed to stop just before hitting a tree thirty feet in. She could see the long track marks where her heels had dug into the dirt and grass. It was too far for her to jump, although she supposed to could do a boost jump and hope for the best...oh well, that was something she could think of afterwards.
The forest on this side was just as thick as the one they came in on, and the shine was a lot harder to see on this side than it was on the other.
She walked a bit closer, seeing a bit of an ominous glow inside a small clearing. It was a golden yellow, easy to see from a distance now, and she realized what the shine was. The moonlight was bouncing off the golden yellow of the giant ring. Nearly twice her size, floating in midair, she saw it turn gently and smoothly.
Tails would know what to do. He was the expert on the artifact that was the Special Zone. Maybe he could use it to get home, and then she could...find another one? Or was the only one here?
She made a choice to go get Tails first anyways, despite the doubts that plagued her mind about what would happen afterwards. Would she be stuck here? Permanently, and friendless? She could subsist, certainly, but she doubted she'd be...happy.
-Side T-
Tails was having one of those nice dreams that he both wanted to make sure he never had again and wanted to keep having for the rest of time when he was woken up by Blaze. The lavender cat was dressed exactly as she'd been in his...
He shook the dream out of his head. Not something he could help, and he knew why he'd have it. His ears struggled to catch up with what she was saying, and his brain wasn't helping as it kept concentrating on things that weren't all that important right now. Or at any time, really.
"Hold on, hold on. What happened?" Tails asked suddenly. He knew he'd interrupted her, but he was still waking up. He hadn't drank coffee in years, Sonic had banned it after he'd had some when he was nine and ended up almost sinking an island, but this was one of those cases where he really wished he'd had some.
"Woke up early, couldn't sleep, found my way over to the other side of the river, and I think I found a giant teleportal ring," Blaze finished. She looked distinctly unimpressed at having to repeat herself, which Tails didn't fault her one bit.
"Oh. Alright...guess we'll need to find another way home then..." Tails said quietly.
"Why?" Blaze asked suddenly, her eyes narrowing a bit. "Shouldn't the Special Zone be able to take one of us home, you said?"
"Well yeah, but if you're still here than it didn't work, which means that my hypothesis was off," Tails explained. His sleepy brain was still working through thoughts that he really didn't want to have, and he was grateful that Blaze didn't seem to have noticed.
"I didn't try it though."
Tails blinked. "Why not!?" he shouted. She flinched a bit, and he toned it down instantly. "I mean, thank you for waiting but those rings are rare, and they pop up at seemingly random, exception being Angel Island!"
Blaze stared. "You mean they're time-limited? Only open for a bit?" she said slowly. Tails nodded. It was a thing that Sonic had first told him about, from South Island. Generally, they were only open for around ten or so minutes, and after that they closed and reopened elsewhere.
The one exception was the Floating Island, which had so much resonant chaos energy that they could stay open for days, a fact which Knuckles had found out the hard way when he tried to seal off one of them from both Sonic and him ages ago...only to find out it had stayed open long enough for them to undo the seal and find it.
He was particularly annoyed when he found that out, mostly because Sonic and Knuckles weren't getting along at the time. The echidna was only faintly friendlier with Tails. Faintly.
"Yeah, most of them are. Come on, let's go see if it's still open!" Tails said, rushing off the small blanket of leaves he'd used. He felt a flash of pain from his stomach, and he hesitated for only a moment. He'd be able to hover at least, or take some time gliding across the river.
As Blaze once again boosted across, a small wake of fire showing where she'd jumped across, Tails simply tried to gather up speed and jump across. He made it nearly half the river, he realized. Not too bad considering he'd barely started doing a run. He whirled his tails and uncurled, spinning them fast enough not to hover but to simply slow his fall.
He tails did feel as if they were trying to kill him, but by the time he landed he put it simply up to not being used to it. His back and tailbones were upset at him, but it was nothing he couldn't be without, especially if he could get home soon.
The thought of home spurred him on, almost out speeding Blaze on the way there. He heard the unique hum that all of the giant rings emitted, and he smiled as he heard it. They were close, so close!
He arrived in the clearing and attempted to jump, only to find the hum had stopped barely a second before. He watched as the ring glowed a far more brilliant yellow, like that of the sun, before it vanished into the air.
He landed on the other side of the clearing just as Blaze entered. "We missed it, didn't we?" Blaze asked succinctly. Tails nodded, quietly.
He took a moment to sigh, before he raised his head. "Two things to learn from this, though. One, the giant rings are in this world. They may not be for long, so we'll have to keep an eye on this clearing. That means that this world does have a connection to the Special Zone, so there's a possibility for us both to leave. Two, see how this area still kind of glows?" Tails said, pointing out the colors in the grass. It was a lighter yellow than the grass at the river's side, a faint glow that shined throughout the whole clearing. "It's faint, but you can still see it. That means it was here for long enough to infuse the energy into the surroundings. That takes a while."
"How long? Can you tell?" Blaze asked, kneeling down at the side. One of her gloved hands carefully lifted one of the blades of grass, a type of weed that Tails didn't know, but he thought might've been edible. Why was he thinking that?
"No, it's hard to tell. Depends on where into the Zone it connects, I guess? Most of the ones I've seen were from the Floating Island or when the Phantom Ruby decided to...do its thing," Tails said, giving a small shudder. "Those ones existed for a long time, so they, at least the ones on the Island, made it very obvious where they were, and they appeared always at the same places."
"But you can't count on those rules."
"It's chaos, no. Wish we could, but the ones that Sonic showed me on South Island kind of went anywhere they could. There was no rhyme or reason for where they came up. At least on West Island we had the star posts."
"Do you think we can find one of them?" Blaze asked, her eyebrow raising. She gave a quiet sniff to the flower she was holding, a small radiant purple one that matched her fur color, glowing a slight yellow.
"I don't think so," Tails said, trying to keep his eyes anywhere near the lavender cat. "It's generally one or the other. Probably not a good idea for the star posts either way, as those needed rings to be able to use, and I haven't seen any yet."
"I haven't either," Blaze said. She looked up, and Tails matched her view. The moon was starting to go down, and the orangeish light on the horizon meant that it was about to be the start of a new day. "We still have some fish back at camp. We should head back," she suggested.
Tails nodded, keeping a small mental map of the surrounding area. He could maybe make a map program that automatically updated with new surroundings on the Miles Electric using its scanner...but he had to shake those thoughts out of his head. He had a few other things he needed to use it for first. And it needed to charge.
Tails charged up a spindash on the side of the river, hoping to get enough speed to not have to use his tails this time. He jumped at what he hoped was the last second, but misjudged it by about a foot, but luckily at the right direction, jumping off early.
He still had to use his tails to land, but admittedly only for a second. He probably could've made it if he was okay with looking like a fool in front of Blaze, grasping onto the grasses...which Blaze had mostly burned away in her jumps to and from the other side of the river.
The river was moving slightly quicker, he noticed. Where one of the rocks in the middle was easy to see yesterday, now it was almost covered by the water at different points. Water was starting to enter the river. Could it start a flood?
Panicking, Tails looked around at the grass signs. Most of them weren't too high, and even now the river had to rise a few feet before it would plateau and hit where they're 'tent' was. Probably not, then.
Tails sighed in relief. Blaze was already in the tent, a few small fish tied to sticks roasting over a roaring campfire that he was sure didn't exist ten minutes ago. "What was that for?" she asked. "The sigh."
"I was worried the river was going to flood this area."
"No, it won't," Blaze answered instantly. "See how the grasses on the riverbank are the more water demanding ones, and the least ones are up here? They don't get water that often, and there's no 'line' of plants on either edge. If it does flood, it probably rises downstream first, and we'll have plenty of time to move when it comes down to it."
"I realized that," Tails said quickly. "I mean...I didn't know you knew a lot about plants."
Blaze stared at him, her golden eyes peering into his. "There's a lot you're missing, Tails. Besides, I have to know which plants burst into flame the best," she said, shrugging. There was an odd smirk on her face, as if she was bullshitting to his face and not expecting him to call her out on it. Was there some inside joke here that he was missing? "Fish?" she asked, holding out of the sticks for him.
"Sure, thanks," he said, quietly peeling back the scales. He watched the corner of his eye as she took a bite, scales and all, bones and all, through the fish. It was a tiny thing, barely the size of his hand, and yet it still took her almost five bites to get through it. He looked at it a bit closer, seeing the meat a slightly cooked color, and he decided to go for it.
The first bite of bones bit into his mouth, and he gave a startled cough as he spat it back out. Blaze was giggling quietly, her hand over her mouth as she continued to eat. "Bones, Tails. You have to watch out for the bones," she suggested.
"Bones, she says..." Tails retorted. Being more careful, he took a few more bites. It was surprisingly flavorful, despite being fresh caught and cooked and with no seasonings. It was not his usual palate, but he generally leaned towards berries anyways.
"That's how it is in the wilds. Eat slowly, carefully. You'll never know what's good or what isn't, until you find yourself either content or in the bushes retching," Blaze said quietly. Tails listened to each word, as it sounded to him as if she had experience with that kind of thing.
"Any suggestions, then?" Tails asked.
"Stick to things you know. If you're not certain, don't try it. Don't even touch mushrooms unless you know for certain. And cook everything to high temperatures," Blaze answered. She took a few more bites out of the second fish, before she waved her hand and the campfire went out.
"I'm going to go looking for another giant ring. And now I know they're time-sensitive, if I find one I'll go on in myself," Blaze said. "Stay here for the day, I'll come back tonight if I can."
"I can come with! I'm not that hurt," Tails said, trying to hide the wince of pain that shot out from his ribs. Blaze gave him an annoyed glare.
"You're still hurt. I am too, but I won't be going too far," Blaze said. She got up, brushing off her tunic and tail gently before she started to walk out of the site, Tails' eyes watching her go.
Tails watched until she was out of sight. Gently he pushed himself up and started to do a few stretches. He wasn't going to just be mission control anymore. He was more than old enough to actually be out there.
New arc! Let me know what you all think. Until next time!