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 7.2

Tails wasn't sold on whatever this plan was going to be. Katia was walking far behind them, with Spark, and Blaze was next to him as they headed for the Special Zone rings. Although apparently Spark and Blaze's area weren't going to need them. That made him wonder if it was particularly close, then? "How fast do you think Lightning took to decide to do that weird thing with their heads?" Tails asked after a silent moment. He still smelled blood, although both Spark and Katia had wiped it off ages ago. They weren't talking to each other.

"Too soon. If I had to guess, it would be right after they did their reports. Did you feel like he was trying to control you, too?" Blaze asked. Her golden eyes were thick with worry and, now that Tails could see it easier, stress.

This was much more the Blaze that he remembered. Aloof, calm, but deep inside a raging inferno, just waiting for the one moment to be let out. "No. If he did try, I didn't feel it. But I did feel him almost 'reach' out for them." It had been hard to describe. It was as if the air had become charged with electricity, and yet there was no actual movement. Otherwise lightning would have erupted out of him striking at both of them...and hopefully not at Blaze, too.

"Keep working on that instinct. Ask Katia," Blaze said. "If you're sensitive enough to feel it, all you need is to get strong enough to control it."

"Wouldn't Spark be better?"

"Spark's a prodigy. You'd learn about as much about it from her as you could me. And electrokinesis isn't my specialty," Blaze answered. "No, in this case Katia is much better suited. Remember, she did say you were an 'external' channeler. I do suggest you wait to ask until later."

"When they stop crying blood, you mean?" Tails felt the snarl leave his lips, and he took a moment to calm himself down. It was no use getting worked up right now, it would just build up into a frenzy. He had more important things to focus that energy into. And the faster he got them done, the faster everything would be better.

"Yes," Blaze answered simply. There was a moment of silence before she continued, "Katia is going to try to sleep with you, just to let you know. Much the same way Spark was instructed to."

"I know. I'm...not sure how I should feel about that, honestly."

"Explain?" Blaze asked, one eyebrow raised. She seemed more standoffish now, as if he'd said something that had personally offended her.

"I mean...Spark told me that all they see is the electrokinesis, and that I can fly. They don't see everything else behind the scenes. They see me as meat, just...something to mate and have children with. They don't see me as me."

"Seems straightforward to me." Right, Blaze had been through similar in the past, hadn't she?

"I suppose you've felt that same way as I do now. How do you handle it? Just knowing that they don't care for you, just want you for what you are or what you can do? Not for who you are."

Blaze took a moment to take a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "It's complicated at the best of times. For me, I had to worry about the political fallout. I was shielded due to my position and my age, but my behavior then wouldn't be allowed now. You have that bonus of age, but we're also in much stranger territory. I don't trust either Katia or Spark, and not while Lightning has them in his grip, but there's only so long they're willing to wait."

"So either I go with it with someone I only barely trust, or we leave? Potentially get exiled, get killed by the Ikan'Thoans? That doesn't seem fair."

"When has fair ever been a thing here, Tails?" Blaze asked. Her eyes lit into his. "We're alone on a strange world that we can't get out of. The Sol Emeralds are trying, I can commune with them that much, but they're a long ways away from helping. We've run into leviathans, rocs, dryads...everything here has wanted to kill us. How is that fair?"

"I know," Tails murmured. Blaze had a point. There was nothing fair about this world, nothing normal about it. "I wonder then if it's worth trying to go against the wave. And just...roll with it. I'd enjoy it, I'm sure." It was hard to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

"Miles Prower," Blaze said, her voice ice cold and chilly. He almost got shivers out of it, and if he didn't know better he'd say she had suddenly awakened cryokinesis. "The thing that Ikan'Thoa has taken away from us is our ability to choose. Do not give that up just because it seems hopeless."

"So what can I do? Just ride it out, hope for the best?"

"Work on the boat designs. If worse comes to worse, I'll 'cut loose', as you said, ages ago," Blaze said softly.

He remembered that conversation, vaguely. He'd asked Blaze if she had ever just cut loose, just let go of everything she had. She had burned down a city, she had said. She knew she could do the same to Ikan'Thoa, too. And they always had that in their back pocket. For some reason that actually made him feel a bit better. They did have a secondary plan, even if he'd greatly prefer to not have to use it. Plan 'Burn everything' was still a go, apparently.

The guards at the entrance to the rainbow roads glanced at each other as they saw them all walk up. Their spears crossed each other. "Sending you all out again? Katia, you just came in not long ago," one of them said.

Katia spoke up, her voice still a bit harrowed and hoarse from earlier, "Yeah, Lightning needs us to go check out Revianah. The channeler Exception and myself."

"We've been told. Granted. Spark, you and the caller exception are not authorized. Where are you two off?"

"Vianex," Spark's voice said gently. One of the guards hid a wince fairly well, but Tails still caught it on the movement of his spear.

"My cousin got sent out there a month ago or so. Never came back. If you find him alive, tell him to come back?" the guard asked. "Otherwise...just let me know if he's dead."

Tails' worry was heightened, now. He sent a concerned glance towards Blaze, who shrugged at him. There was nothing that either of them could really do about it, was there? Spark nodded. "This is where we part ways for now," she announced quietly to all four of them.

"Looks like. Tails, keep working on that," Blaze took over. "Where is Vianex from here?" Tails heard her ask. Katia gently pulled on his hand, leading him to the cave where they kept the rainbow roads. Despite the cave, Tails still heard the guards, Blaze, and Spark quite easily.

"About three days travel north east. Close to the Great Desert, but more east than that," one of the guards said. Blaze sighed. Tails could imagine why; they had been close already. Depending on how big the Great Desert was that is. They had gone east when they'd first hidden in the desert, in their little rocky cave. Vianex would have been just on the other side of the mountains, if his internal geography was correct. Maybe a bit south of there, but it would have been near there for certain. He also wondered where these names were coming from. The other ones was simply a temple and a swamp. These ones were named. It made him wonder about how these names were developed.

He felt Katia grab his elbow, and slowly guide him deeper into the bowels of the cave. He felt a tickle at the end of his perception, and he saw Spark looking a bit sick. Katia's grip only hardened on him as she guided him down. "I can walk on my own," he said quietly as he pulled his arm away from hers.

"I know. I captured you first, remember?"

"And then marched us for several hours before letting us rest. Hard to forget that part, too."

"I wasn't sure if you were capable of thinking. I had to protect the village."

Tails sighed. Right...protect the village. Live for the village, as Spark had called it. "Why?" he asked after a long moment. There were no guards around, and they were nearly halfway to the Special Zone rings.

"What do you mean, why?" Katia asked. "Why wouldn't I want to protect the village? It's my home!"

"Doesn't seem to be worth protecting," Tails muttered under his breath in common. He switched back, "Just because it's your home doesn't mean that it needs to be protected. There's plenty of other hunters, plenty of farmers...it's going to turn, one way or another."

"And let me guess, you have plenty of experience with not needing protection?" Katia said, her voice sharp and harsh. Where this was coming from, Tails didn't know, but it gave him another side of her that he hadn't seen before.

"No, actually..." Tails started, before he let out a soft smile as he was reminded of all the times he did. "I've been protected most of my life. But when the threats are large and undeniable, and there's nothing left to do but fight...those are the times you should be protecting something. Not the small ones."

"What do you mean...?" Katia asked, her arms dropping to her side. "Shouldn't you always fight for protection? That's what protecting something means."

"That's what trust is for," Tails answered. "I trust Blaze to protect herself. She doesn't need me to protect her, in any way, shape, or form. But when the things we face off against get to be too much, that's when I'll step in and assist."

"Not alone?"

"Never alone. One of my friends...my brother, did that for a short time. Then he realized that it was better to fight with friends than to have them worried. Since then, he's gone on to protect not just villages, but the entire world. Several times."

"And he did it by himself."

"No, he did it with all of us. Even at the end, when the world was collapsing around us, he needed us to help him fight through the final part. He may have been the one to deal with final attack, and to end it, but he wasn't there alone. He will never be there alone. I won't let him. And he won't let me."

"But you're here, alone. Just with the Caller...just with Blaze," Katia asked. "How can you...how can you say that he won't let you be alone if you are alone, right now?"

"Am I alone though?" Tails asked, a small smirk playing on his lips. "I don't think I am. I have his memory carrying me. I have Blaze to help. I have Spark, and her stories. And I hope to have you, too. Thief as well, one of the cooks from the channeler district."

"Stories? Spark still remembers those?" Katia asked. "It's been too long since I've heard one...I thought the story back at the witch's hut was just a one-off."

"It was made up off the top of her head, but based on real events. She told me a few of the others when we were at the swamp, after I got her to open up the first night."

"Oh, yeah! What did happen there? I got that you hunted a rosuvel, but beyond that I didn't hear anything. I was trying to not bleed out because I got a small cut from a skeleton."

There were skeletons here? "Skeletons, as in just the decomposed bodies of sapients or skeletons as in the animated decomposed bodies of sapients?" Tails hesitated to ask. Did that also mean they had ghosts?

"The second. They were animated. Blaze kicked them aside easily though."

"Blaze does that," Tails said. Oh boy, they had skeletons here. Which means they probably had ghosts. He suppressed a small shiver. His last few experiences with ghosts weren't the best. "As for the swamp, you know most of the story. We got to where we were going, there was a rosuvel, we figured that's what we needed to hunt. Then we found a crayak, and got them fighting for long enough for Spark to use a 'Tempest'."

Katia's eyes were wide, "That's...wow. How is she still alive? After a Tempest...I didn't think anyone here can use that and still be alive. Maybe Lightning or Strike..."

"It seemed like it was mostly pure luck, and the fact that I'm a channeler too," Tails explained, looking away from her. He fingered the Charger in his pocket. He had that to fall back on, too. He felt the ground beneath him start to shift and change, the pressure starting to squeeze down on him. They must be close.

They walked into the room with the teleportal rings, and the sight of them flickered into Tails' thoughts again. Of the amount of times he'd seen them on Angel Island, and the possibilities that lie behind each one. Tails looked at each one, trying to find some way to differentiate them. Maybe they could use one of these as a shortcut at some point? There were no runes or writing to tell them apart though. How Katia and Spark managed to, he wasn't sure.

Katia walked up to one, her long tail swaying with her hips, framing her legs and backside perfectly to him. Was she doing that on purpose, he thought? Of course she was, another thought came in. She was gorgeous, but there was something missing, Tails knew. She grabbed a spear off the wall, testing it with some precise motions. Now it was mostly there.

She went up to one of the rings, the spear holding onto her back easily. "This one," she said softly, her voice low as if to respect the teleportal rings.

In his mind, and he knew in Sonic's mind, the rings would react less to respect and more to outright rudeness. Especially after Sonic was booted out because he missed one last ring. But he wasn't going to tell her that. He walked up to it, feeling the energy charge against his face. It was surprisingly welcome, a feeling that reminded him of the golden rings from home. "Alright. Ladies first," he said, swinging his arms wide as if offering her the ring.

"That's silly," Katia reacted, but she did get up onto the dais, her bare feet hitting the ground for only a second before she entered the ring. Tails smirked as he jumped in a moment later, ready to pounce into her as she came out of the Special Zone. Just because he knew what she was instructed to do doesn't mean he couldn't have some fun teasing her, right?

—Side B—

Blaze stared at Spark as the vixen walked towards the north, small tear drops still evident on her face. "I'm going to guess not everything is alright?" the cat asked after a long moment.

"It's okay," Spark answered quietly. They had left the village only ten minutes ago, and every once in a while Blaze could tell that there was another group coming in or coming out and passing them. It galled at her a bit that they were passing her, but it was Spark's show, not hers. She'd have burned the place down ages ago if it was.

"That's not a good answer," Blaze responded.

"You're not him. Don't try to be," Spark whispered. Blaze stared at her for a moment, before the cat nodded. Spark had opened up to Tails, not to her. And she shouldn't try to get her to open up immediately, and expect it. Spark wasn't Katia, who was so desperate for affection that she'd open up to anyone who so much as seemed like they would listen.

"Not trying to be," Blaze answered. "But it's common decency to ask what's wrong if someone is crying."

"We're going to die," Spark said simply. "Lightning ensured it."

"You'll have to explain," Blaze suggested. "A scouting party to a part of the world that no one's come back from implies high danger levels, but nothing that implies certain death."

"He didn't give us enough time. It takes nearly four days of travel to get to Vianex. And that's going at a standard pace. We're going slightly faster, and that's still six days for travel."

Blaze blinked, and tried to think back. So it was six days for travel at their pace. Nothing that would sign death...unless there was something she was missing. "We're in a race, with Tails and Katia, aren't we?" she asked after a moment.

"Yes."

"And if we take too long, coming back, they'll say something about failing the Exception test, and then kill us both."

"Yes."

Blaze stopped for a moment, before she started chuckling, and then ended up just sneering. A race. She could do a race. "Right. Grab on," she said, grabbing Spark's arms. She felt the electrokineticist attempt to shock her, but she was there during Tails' awakening. Nothing that Spark could do could mitigate against that feeling.

"We can't go fast enough!"

"Tails never told you, did he?" Blaze guessed, "that speed is kind of our specialty." She gripped the fox's arm hard and tossed it over her shoulder, slowly picking up the pace. The forest floor almost seemed to open to her, and she felt the trees slowly almost melt out of view. The earlier parties were passed instantly, some of them shouting warnings or exclamations of impossibility.

"Katia did say you were fast..." Spark's voice echoed in her ear.

"Katia knows nothing!" Blaze smirked as she started changing her pace. She fell into an easy stride just as the forest was about to end. "Hold your breath, and don't let go!" she shouted as the plains roared open beneath them. Blaze burst, feeling the speed of the air around her as it tried to rip her throat out. The blades of grass beneath her barely had time to fall by the time she had gone by. The distance between the forest and the river was only around a mile, mile and a half at most. Plenty of distance.

Sound compressed, and she knew that the river was up ahead. The river where she and Tails had been captured. Spark pointed to the east, just over the other side of it, and Blaze turned without missing a beat. The river was a mile wide, according to her memories of going through it last time. But last time, she was tired, and hurt, starting from a standstill. And this time...she was already at full speed.

She took two steps on the water, four steps, eight steps - each one her feet barely even touching the water as the flames called her forward. Spark was either having the time of her life or had passed out, and Blaze wasn't sure which, but they had to get passed the river before she could slow down. Not that she had much intention to. She jumped as her foot hit a rock, letting her momentum carry her upward and forwards. Sound roared back into her ears as the air pressure slowed them down.

With barely more than a few seconds of stillness, Blaze landed on the other side, her feet gripping the reeds easily. It was still heavily disturbed from the massive earthquake earlier, although it looked as if some portions were starting to settle into place. She'd passed over the worst of it while in the air.

Spark's arms had a deathgrip on her neck. Blaze chuckled, and with the casual patience of someone who had just broken the sound barrier for fun rather than existential crisis, tried to peel her off. "You alright there? Going supersonic isn't easy, but Tails and I are capable of it."

Actually, was Tails capable of it? He was capable of going nearly supersonic, but she wasn't sure if he could break the sound barrier. Or if he was always just a tad bit too slow. She should ask, next time they were at Ikan'Thoa.

The fennec fox vixen was staring straight ahead. She hadn't responded. "Spark?" Blaze asked again. "You didn't pass out, did you?"

"I can see your mouth moving, but I can't hear you," Spark whispered. Blaze nodded in understanding. She'd forgotten to mention that it would be best if Spark had held her ears shut. It wasn't the sound being loud that did it, but rather the wind ripping at them. Blaze had the flames protecting her; she wasn't about be hurt from it. Tails was used to it, and she was only mostly sure he didn't have some kind of earplugs that he'd built into himself for that express purpose.

"For next time. Rest," she said, making sure to enunciate the word clearly so the vixen could understand her. Her bright red eyes stood out easily, and her arms tightened around Blaze's chest. The cat would have to go slower, this time. She started out slow, slowly increasing her pace. Spark's grip was tight, but was slowly loosening as time went on and the sound didn't crush them. The ground was soggy, letting her feet fall into the dirt as she followed the river and its twists and turns.

The mountains stayed on her left, keeping the river on her right. The desert and its mountains stayed far away, and Blaze was grateful to it as she felt the small shaking that was the sand whale as it jumped. She saw it as it peaked over some of the mountains, and she forced another shiver down. It was warm, temperature wise, but nothing that Blaze couldn't handle. After nearly a half an hour at half speed, she felt a small tap on her shoulder, and she slowed down to let Spark down. "That was...can Tails go that fast?" she asked after a moment.

"Maybe not supersonic, but he can keep up."

"I think you passed every hunting party Ikan'Thoa sent out in around five minutes. What was that, before?"

"Supersonic. Faster than the speed of sound," Blaze answered. She hoped she wouldn't have to explain how that worked, and although Katia got it pretty well, Blaze also quite hadn't gone to mach one.

"Sound is instantaneous."

Ah. Yes, she'd have to explain. Tails would have been better for this... "It's not. It's just fast. Tails knows more about the physics behind it, but simply put, if you go fast enough you start to outpace sound itself."

"Is that why it was so loud?"

"No, that's the sonic boom. Sound doesn't like being collapsed, and that's essentially what it was being forced to do. Air pressure, truthfully," Blaze answered. "Didn't realize I was going slow enough for you to hear it. Tails never complained."

"You can go faster?"

"I can. Not like this, though," Blaze started. "You like telling stories, right? What about hearing them?"

"To be a good storyteller, one must also be a good story listener."

"Sounds right. Where we're from, there are seven artifacts of power and energy. Tails knows them as the Chaos Emeralds, jewels that house incredible power. I know of the Sol Emeralds, jewels that contain infinite fire. When used properly, the emeralds can channel that power or fire directly into one being. I'm already on fire inside...but my control over fire increases exponentially."

"Are they separate? These...Sol Emeralds and Chaos Emeralds?"

"They are. Two sets of seven gems. Tails might know of others, I'm not sure."

"How do you know these gems aren't used for death and destruction? Fire's good at that."

"We don't. The Sol Emeralds have a guardian that they've chosen, and that Guardian is intended to stay around them, ensuring they don't fall into the wrong hands. The Chaos Emeralds...ask Tails. He knows more about them than anyone, I think."

Spark nodded slowly. "Sounds like the Terra Stones," she whispered, "We're close to Vianex now. I...thought we were going to die. That Lightning had finally managed to find a way to kill me."

"That's his intention. But no...Tails and I are good at protecting. That's what we do."

"You're a guardian," Spark suggested, with a slight hint of a smile. Blaze nodded. A small jolt of electricity whisked its way around her fur, and another one joined in a moment later, before they both disappeared.

"What is Vianex? A mountain?" Blaze asked. "And we should reserve minimum an hour or two to get back to Ikan'Thoa. I'm not going supersonic in a forest," she said. Not without rings, at least. They still hadn't found any, either. Maybe they just didn't exist in this world. But the giant teleportal rings did, so probably the smaller ones did too?

"It's...a volcano. And the mountain surrounding it. Flows of lava are common. Mostly fire callers get sent out, especially if they're strong enough to resist the fire. But to send any other elementalist is almost certain death."

"Then it seems he'd have forgotten me. Or maybe he didn't, and was counting on me being here...what makes you so certain he sent you out here to die?"

"I failed to conceive," Spark shrugged. Blaze closed her eyes for a moment as anger soared through her, calming herself down as a bush behind her suddenly caught on fire. She'd have to meditate on that; it wouldn't do to get so angry that something else lit on fire just by being near her.

"I'm going to pretend that I don't need to burn everything to cinders, although I am still fully up for that plan," Blaze said gently. "And what of the place Tails and Katia got sent to? Reveniah?" her tongue twisted on the unfamiliar word.

"Revianah," Spark corrected. "It's a place of flowers, and herbs. Mates that promise each other eternity get sent there on their promise nights."

Blaze blinked. A wedding thing, for a couple's honeymoons. Strange how..."It alters chances, doesn't it?" she hesitated to ask.

"It does."

Of course it did. Everything about this world was messed up. A world of madness. And they were still nowhere near able to get home. "What all is it that we're looking to do, and the timing for it?"

"Most of the herb picking in Revianah should only take a day or three. Katia may make it take four, just to be certain if she mates with Tails."

"And we need to...?"

"Find any wildlife in the area, any sign of the previous scouting parties, categorize the wildlife, preferably through watching them, hunting them, eating them, everything. Find any useful plants and herbs that the witch doesn't already have," Spark intoned.

"A lot to do in four days." Spark stared at her with a dead look in her eyes. "But the mountain is over there?" Blaze asked, pointing to a small tip a few dozen miles away. There was no heat yet from lava, but she doubted that she'd feel it this far.

"It is."

"Grab on. We don't have time to waste, and I hope Tails figures to waste as much time as possible," Blaze said as she knelt down. Spark dutifully got on her back, hanging her arms around Blaze's neck.

Through jungles, ruins, forests, lakes, deserts...Blaze had seen it all in just one trip. Even snow and ice. Even one place that had ice and fire all at the same time. She bolted forward at quarter speed, giving herself a nice warm up as the river slowly separated itself from them, and the heat of the desert started to make itself known. She was pretty sure the last temple was a volcano, but wasn't visibly erupting anything. This one could be. Blaze sped up to half speed, feeling the ground as it shifted underneath her to the desert's sand.

She wanted peace, and needed a way out. She went to three quarters speed, feeling the snarl as it threatened to show on her face. She needed to be blank though, as fire could be. A calming presence, made for warmth in the coldest of winters. She felt a small jolt from Spark on her back, getting dangerously close to the sound barrier. She felt it pushing against her, and she relaxed just a bit. A dozen miles, when going at the speed of sound, would be over in seconds. At her current speed? Maybe a minute.

Spark may not have been innocent, but she was a slight more innocent than most of the others in Ikan'Thoa. But Blaze's vexation was on Lightning, and the other elders. Maybe Fire and Water were okay, but she hadn't yet met them for long. For now, she had to force herself to the path ahead. There was only one way to go, and it was right in front of her. The other ways all depended on the others. They all depended on Tails.

More info dumps.

I'll be honest, not entirely happy with this one. The reason this arc is called exasperation is two fold- it's for Blaze and Tails' growing exasperation with the village of Ikan'Thoa, and the author's growing exasperation with how many plot threads I dropped during the writing.

Until Next Time!