Bliss For The Sol

Chapter 1

The train rattled along the track at a steady pace, its rhythmic clickety-clack sound slowly lulling the passenger seated by the window in the middlemost carriage into a pleasant state of mental vacancy, making her wonder, if only for a moment, if this was how volunteers in her stage show felt when she put them under.

Whimsy Blissclaw's travelling magic act had been quite successful in recent times, garnering quite the little profit in the past few months alone. It was safe to say that her skills as an illusionist and a mesmerist - the latter especially - had put the anthropomorphic cheetah on the map; seeing her face plastered on electronic billboards in every big city she visited was as gratifying as it was humbling, and hearing people cheer and applaud at the very mention of her name was kind of intoxicating, if she was being completely honest with herself… and yet, there were times when it all became just a bit much.

Fame, as was so often said, is not all it's cracked up to be, and Whimsy had learned as much the hard way. Schedules, contracts, expenses, paperwork, an agent who seemed more concerned with how much money and recognition Whimsy's act was garnering rather than how the cheetah girl herself felt about anything… She was glad to be away from it all right now. It hadn't been easy to convince her agent to let her take some time off, but in the end, she had managed to persuade him - without resorting to using her hypnotism skills in an abusive way, no less.

Whimsy sighed contentedly as she sank further back into the uncomfortably firm and partially torn fabric of her seat, just glad to be able to sit down for a reason other than doing her make-up in an assigned dressing room right before a show. No managers yelling at her to get a move on, no costume designers or make-up artists fussing over her appearance, no agent constantly on her case, be it over the phone or in-person… She smiled contentedly. "It's nice to get away," she decided aloud in a soft whisper, her eyelids, which had already been half-closed, finally drooping shut.

The sound of the door at the end of the carriage banging open harshly jerked the stage magician back to reality, the sudden noise making her jump. She glanced around, noticing someone striding down the path between the parallel rows of seats. He was an anthropomorphic hedgehog with coarse, deep black fur and crimson quills, his chest bearing a patch of white fur that looked decidedly softer than the dark fur that covered the rest of his form. He wore little more than a pair of white gloves, a gold ring-like bracelet on each wrist and somewhat rectangular shoes of white, red and gold. A scowl adorned his muzzle, his red eyes reflecting his very serious, no-nonsense demeanour.

For a moment, Whimsy thought that this newcomer was just a grumpy passenger who had moved from a more noisy part of the train to the designated quiet carriage for the sake of some relative peace… but then her feline ears drooped when she noticed that this dark hedgehog was glaring right at her, that he was coming towards her. Was he a ruffian looking for a fight? The cheetah didn't want to stick around and find out. She got to her feet and picked up her purple and gold suitcase, hoping that this fierce-looking hedgehog would give up when he saw that she was getting off at the next stop, which was less than a minute away now, but as soon as she stepped out into the aisle, facing away from her fellow passenger, she shrieked and stumbled back as he suddenly appeared right in front of her in a flicker of blue light. The stage magician's orange eyes widened, her pupils shrinking in dread; this guy could teleport.

"Whimsy Blissclaw," the dark hedgehog said curtly. It didn't sound like a greeting - more like a confirmation that he had found and pinpointed his target. "The Sol Emerald. Hand it over," he continued, taking a step towards her as he spoke.

A small gasp betrayed Whimsy. He knew. Somehow, this cold, fearsome hedgehog knew of the curious gemstone that she kept in her possession. But how could he know? The cheetah had made it a point to keep the strange gem that she had stumbled across all those months ago a secret. Her agent didn't know about it. Hell, her own mother didn't know about it. How could this stranger, this hedgehog whom she had never met before today possibly know about it? Was he some sort of spy? Some sort of hitman? An international jewel thief who had been following the octagonal green gem for some time now? If he could teleport, could he also sense the presence of valuable minerals? These were the many thoughts that raced through Whimsy's mind as she struggled to refrain from panicking, the scowling hedgehog closing the distance between himself and her all the while.

"I d-don't know what you're talking about!" she protested in a fretful stammer, trying to think her way out of this on the fly. If she could just convince him that the gemstone she possessed was not the one he was looking for, then maybe he'd leave her alone? "The only emerald I have is the one given to me by my grandmother before she died! A good luck charm for m-my career!" This was a lie, of course; the circumstances in which Whimsy had come to possess the Sol Emerald had nothing to do with her family, but anything that might throw this guy off the trail was for the better. She had, at least to some extent, learned from experimentation what the gem she held was capable of, and she knew that such power shouldn't fall into the wrong hands. That's not to say that her own hands were the right ones necessarily, but even so.

"Save it," the dark hedgehog said sharply. "Do I look like a fool to you? You have no idea what that stone is capable of. Hand. It. Over," he concluded icily, raising his left hand as he spoke, the entirety of such crackling with red energy that looked frighteningly unstable.

"St-Stop!" Whimsy yelped fearfully, holding up a hand of her own in feeble defence. "Please, I…! I'll give it to you! Just don't hurt me!"

"Hmph," the hedgehog grunted, the crackling energy around his gloved fingers fading away to nothing. He lowered his hand slightly, holding his open palm out expectantly. Whimsy, meanwhile, went about kneeling down and opening her suitcase, moving slowly and cautiously, careful not to make any sudden moves. She moved a few of her belongings within the case aside, making sure that her aggressor couldn't see exactly what she was doing. She found what she was looking for and slowly straightened up, the object enclosed in her gloved hand.

"Here," she said, holding her hand out towards his. "Just take it and…GO!" she suddenly shouted, thrusting the smoke bomb she had procured onto the floor, causing a thick cloud of white vapour to envelop nearly half of the carriage in an instant. The hedgehog coughed and spluttered, taking a step back, having been momentarily caught off guard. Whimsy hastily snapped her suitcase shut, picked it up by the handle and raced for the far end of the carriage just as the train pulled into the subway station with a resounding mechanical hiss. She leapt from the train onto the platform, startling several of the people who had been looking to clamber aboard, two or three of them even getting knocked over in the confusion. As Whimsy raced to the nearby staircase and made to round a corner atop it, she dared to glance back in time to see the dark hedgehog step off the train, his fist clenched and his scowl nastier than ever, showcasing his teeth in a truly threatening grimace. His head whipped around in an instant, his gaze fixating on the spot where Whimsy had been standing in time to see her hurry out of sight, the fold of her brown overcoat being the last thing to disappear from view as its fabric whipped about.

Whimsy ran as fast as she could, drawing the attention of a few passerby due to her speed and the obvious panic etched across her fur-covered visage. She made it out of the subway and into the broad daylight of the afternoon. She started down the sidewalk, hastily excusing herself and apologising to everyone she bumped or startled as she passed. She then shrieked as a crackling orb of dark red energy struck the pavement just in front of her, having sailed over her shoulder and missed her by a hair's breadth; she hadn't lost him. He was still on her tail, and almost literally at that. Whether his attack was a warning shot or if he had actually missed his mark, Whimsy didn't know and wasn't waiting around to find out.

"Stop!" she heard him bark coarsely at her and she dared to look back again, only to shriek when she saw that her pursuer was less than ten paces behind her, moving swiftly and seamlessly along the sidewalk as though his sleek shoes were roller skates; the 'air shoes' that she had seen advertised on TV, perhaps? It didn't matter. All that mattered was that she had to get away. Fortunately, Station Square was a densely populated place; it wouldn't be hard to lose this guy in a big crowd… or so Whimsy hoped.

Whimsy practically flung herself into a walkway between two buildings and found herself in a narrow shopping arcade filled with people, numerous display stalls erected outside of a variety of stores. The cheetah girl raced past the nearest one, deliberately upending a crate of tennis balls as she went, sending the lime green orbs scattering and rolling across the walkway, much to the alarm and outrage of passerby and the man managing the stall alike. Whimsy continued with these acts of vandalism as she hurried down the alleyway, even swinging her suitcase around to knock over display items and signs, doing her darnedest to put as many obstacles between herself and the fiend that pursued her. She glanced back a third time, seeing no sign of the dark hedgehog amidst the chaos she had caused. She allowed herself a nervous grin. She'd done it. She'd lost him.

"Ugh!"

Whimsy grunted in surprise as she ran headlong into someone while not looking where she was going. She started to utter a somewhat clumsy apology only to feel a gloved hand around her throat before she was two syllables into her sentence, realising too late that it was the dark hedgehog. Evidently, he had teleported right past all of the mayhem and clutter she had created in the arcade to completely and effortlessly cut her off.

"The Sol Emerald," he snarled viciously, lifting her off the ground with just one arm, showcasing surprising strength for someone who was little more than three feet tall. Whimsy dropped her suitcase and clutched desperately at her throat, trying in vain to prise his fingers away from her neck. "Where is it?!" the fiend went on, his grip tightening, increasing the cheetah's panic tenfold as she struggled to draw breath, her eyes bulging in primal terror as her brain was cut off from oxygen.

Whimsy opened her mouth to beg her assailant to stop, to let her go, to just let her catch her breath, but all that came out was a strangled, unintelligible rasp. She lashed out with a wild kick, but with her airway blocked, she couldn't think straight, couldn't channel the focus she needed to make any sort of precise strike. Realising that there was no other way out of this, she thrust a hand down the collar of the shirt she wore beneath her overcoat and pulled out the bulky gold, octagonal case she wore as a necklace, bringing it into view, desperately prising it open with shaking hands to reveal the Sol Emerald inside, the jewel almost falling out from how violently the cheetah's shaky grip was causing it to wobble.

The dark hedgehog slackened his grip considerably, allowing Whimsy to draw in a great, shuddering breath of air, the oxygen bringing her a truly profound sense of relief… but he did not let her go. With his free hand, he slowly took the Emerald from its case, stared at it for a moment, no doubt looking for signs of it being a fake… and then at last, he set Whimsy down feet first on the pavement surprisingly gently, seeming satisfied, his borderline murderous expression having subsided, his muzzle settling back into its usual scowl.

"Thank you," he said curtly, and then he vanished in another flicker of blue light, leaving Whimsy to collapse forward, throwing out her hands to catch her fall. That, she was keenly aware, had been terrifying. She had genuinely thought that she was going to die, and all for a lousy gemstone. She remained splayed there on all fours for several moments, whimpering fretfully, a few tearful sniffs escaping her. After several moments, she glanced up, half-expecting the dark hedgehog to suddenly come back, to insist that the Emerald he'd given her had been a fake, but it seemed he was long gone.

And knowing this, Whimsy began to chuckle in relief, glorious relief… to say nothing of glorious triumph.

"Ha ha ha, yes!" she declared in a quiet murmur, thrusting her fist forward to meet the air as she straightened up, grinning broadly. She'd done it. It had been a truly terrifyingly close call, but she had done it. She unbuttoned her coat and reached into a pocket just inside it to pull out the real Sol Emerald, unencumbered by any kind of protective casing, completely exposed in her hand. It had been hidden in plain sight.

Shortly after Whimsy had become aware of the unfathomable power that the Sol Emerald held, she had guessed that somebody would come after it sooner or later. She'd made a point to acquire another emerald - an actual, traditional emerald gemstone of vibrant green, meticulously cut to match the Sol Emerald in shape, size and weight. She'd had to hypnotise the gem cutter to oblige her and keep quiet about the whole thing, but it had evidently been worth it.

Of course, the decoy emerald had no supernatural powers to call its own, but with any luck, by the time the dark hedgehog noticed as much, she, Whimsy, would be long gone, and the fact that her pursuer hadn't come back yet made it clear that he was, at least for now, satisfied with the mere fact that he had seemingly acquired his prize and wasn't immediately concerned with the power that it didn't have.

Whimsy allowed her self a cheerful, joyous laugh as she picked up her suitcase and started off down the street. "Oh, he just got Whimsy'd!" she declared, chortling breathlessly, still not having quite recovered from the scare she'd just had. "Oh, man. I need a pick-me-up after all of that," she declared, glancing around as she made her way down the sidewalk of this less populated street, looking for a place of business where she could relax for a little bit, maybe grab a cold drink while she was at it. Her eyes settled upon a small café. She smiled. "Just what the magician ordered! Oh, I hope they have iced tea, or at least some pineapple juice."

As Whimsy made her way over to the café, the establishment next door to it caught her eye. Sandwiched between the café and a small antique shop was a comparatively large beauty salon of luxurious proportions, the interior looking very clean and professional, with many a velvety black chair positioned in front of many an adjacent mirror. The black paintwork over the display window contrasted the ornate gold letters that spelled out the name of this decidedly glamorous-looking place of business:

Pamperus Peculiarus

Salon & Spa Extraordinaire

Whimsy let out a low, impressed whistle. "Dang, somebody sure went out of their way to stand apart from the adjacent businesses," she mused aloud. She then looked thoughtful. "I can't remember the last time I went to a salon; I'm so used to having my head fur done by dressing room staff, and that's always more rush than brush, if you know what I mean." She then frowned slightly. "Since when do I talk to myself this much?" She shrugged and turned her attention back to the café next to Pamperus Peculiarus, a bell tinkling overhead as she pushed the door open and stepped into the petite coffee shop.

The café's interior was quite a shift in atmosphere compared to the street outside, with smooth jazz music playing softly on an unseen radio, the aroma of roasted coffee beans reaching Whimsy's nostrils and prompting her feline snout to twitch in response to the scent. She smiled, feeling herself start to relax even as she stood there. There were a number of round wooden tables spread out before her, only a couple of such having patrons seated around them at present. Whimsy started towards the bar at the far end of the room, soon stepping up to it in time to have the barista, an anthropomorphic parakeet, greet her with a hearty "What kin Ah git ya, luv?" in a distinct Southern drawl.

"What've you got that's cold?" Whimsy asked without delay.

"The refrigerator, I'm guessing!" a voice from somewhere behind Whimsy called out without missing a beat, the speaker immediately bursting out laughing at their own witty remark. Whimsy turned to see an anthropomorphic cat who appeared to be just a few years younger than her sitting at the nearest table, grinning broadly, a latte in hand. She had pale blue fur that was sharply contrasted by her shoulder-length head fur, which was partially dyed a vibrant bubblegum pink. A pair of purple eyes that were just full of life and playful mischief complemented her cheeky grin nicely, and her distinctly fluffy, whisker-like facial fur of a rich, creamy colour was, Whimsy had to admit, rather cute, as were the cat girl's feline ears that bore tufts of that same creamy-coloured fur. She was dressed in a tank top that covered her ample, well-developed chest while leaving her navel exposed, a pair of dark grey jeans that were noticeably torn in several places, white gloves that bore ruffled, fur-like protrusions around the wrists, and green and black shoes that had a somewhat sci-fi look to them. The tank top had the words 'Try The Eyes, Buddy' emblazoned across the chest in static black letters. "Ah, don't mind me, missy! I'm just a kook who's always looking for a good laugh!"

Whimsy chuckled, putting a hand on one hip as she turned to fully face the kooky cat girl. "I can relate to that. Well, the 'looking for a good laugh part', anyway - not sure about the 'kook' part… though I'm pretty sure I've left the impression that I'm a kook on a lot of people during my travels."

"Wait a minute," the cat girl said, furrowing her brow slightly and gazing intently at the cheetah woman, surveying her from head to toe. Suddenly, she let out a very over-the-top gasp, her purple eyes positively bulging. "I don't believe it!" she exclaimed a little too loudly to qualify as an 'inside voice', pointing at Whimsy with a violently shaking arm. "You're… You're her! I mean… she's you! Th-The magic hypnosis lady! From that stage show on TV!"

Whimsy chuckled once again. "Guilty as charged," she said, stepping forward and holding out her gloved hand. "Whimsy Blissclaw, stage magician and mesmerist extraordinaire… or at least, that's what my business card says I'm obligated to call myself," she went on as the still very much star struck cat girl tentatively reached forward to shake the cheetah's hand. "Off the stage, I'm just plain ol' Whimsy - just another gal looking for an iced coffee. Speaking of which," she said, glancing back at the barista behind the counter, "I think I'll have a frappé, please. Extra chocolate sprinkles."

"Oh, wow. It really is you!" the blue-furred cat girl exclaimed, as though she were still trying to affirm such to herself. Her look of awe then turned into a huge, gleeful smile. "Oh, man, wait 'til my guy hears that I met a superstar on my coffee break! He literally won't know what to say!"

"Heh. Yeah, It's always good to meet a fan," Whimsy said somewhat uneasily, her now forced smile reflecting her obvious discomfort as the kooky cat girl continued to shake her hand, both parties' arms rhythmically going up and down, up and down like pistons. "You, um, wanna take your arm back now so I don't run off with it?" she asked half-jokingly.

"Oh! Sorry!" the cat girl cried, looking embarrassed as she quickly withdrew her hand. "Got a little caught up in the moment. My bad." She then shook her head as if to clear it. "I'm…" She screwed her eyes shut for a brief moment. "Come on, Xal, get it together!" she hissed softly, seeming to be talking to herself. She opened her eyes and cleared her throat. "Xalonis Peculiarus. She's me. I mean, I'm her. I mean, THAT… is who I am," she babbled somewhat clumsily, letting out a awkward giggle, averting her gaze, a tinge of red visible on her cheeks even beneath her luxuriously fluffy facial fur.

"Peculiarus, huh? I'm guessing you're in charge of that salon next door," Whimsy surmised. "Gotta say, you're pretty young for someone who runs their own business. Must be pretty tough at times."

"Tough?" Xalonis repeated, looking a little surprised at that notion. "Nah," she then said, giving a dismissive wave, sounding amused. "I've got everything I need right at my fingertips, and that's no exaggeration," she declared, chuckling while rubbing the thumb and forefinger of her left hand against each other, again averting her gaze as she did so, her demeanour suggesting that she knew something that Whimsy didn't. "I'm actually pretty proud of my place. I'm always looking to expand my clientele and—" She cut herself off with another wide-eyed, over-the-top gasp. "Ohmygosh, I just got the literal best idea!" she said, suddenly on her feet and inches from Whimsy's face, much to the cheetah woman's alarm. You should totally swing by my place after you're done here! I'll give you the deluxe package on the house! Shampoo, haircut, manicure, pedicure, massage, facial, makeover - the works! And I do mean the works. I've got this exfoliating seaweed wrap dealio that I've been just dying to try out on someone, and I recently picked up this body butter stuff that smells beyond divine, and…! Oh," she said, seeming to catch herself as she finally noticed the wide-eyed look that Whimsy had developed. "I'm… coming on way too strong, aren't I?" She took a step back, noting how Whimsy didn't look any less alarmed for it. "Yep, that's me. Good ol' Xal The Gal, always putting her foot in it. Nearly scared off my guy the same way when I first met him." She sighed, now appearing crestfallen. "Ah, maybe I should go before I make an even bigger fool of myself," she concluded, draining the contents of her mug before setting it down on the table before her. "Really cool meeting you," she added before turning and starting for the door.

"One frappé. Git it while it ain't hot," the barista said from behind Whimsy, who seemed to be a little more at ease now, watching as Xalonis made her exit. "Yeah, that goofball hairdresser comes in 'ere fer lunch most days, talks the ear off o' anyone who'll listen about some fox boy she befriended. She's all enthusiasm, no tact, that one; doesn't know when tuh rein 'erself in ninety percent o' the time."

"Xalonis Peculiarus…" Whimsy mused quietly to herself, reaching behind her to grab her drink off the counter, soon talking a long, indulgent sip of such. She seemed to be lost in thought as she stood there. "Hmm…"

And thus, one Sonic OC of mine meets another, because I'm sure someone other than myself was waiting on the edge of their seat for that to happen. Heh.

Next chapter when? When it's ready, I would guess. Lol!