A/N: This was a tough one, which means it's the first day to use an alternate prompt.

Without further ado, let's move on to the reviews and what matters most: the prompt!

3 Reviews

Guest

That's pretty much how my thought process went XD

thor94

I had better ideas for some of the prompts than others, but I'm pretty satisfied with how Day 4 went.

MrGoodWriter96

Oh hey, I know you! I've read your stories Where Am I? and New Chance for Romance!

But yeah, jljj1996 isn't just one of my favorite authors, but his story truly gave me the push I needed to start writing Sonic fanfics, and then some! Even though he hasn't updated in almost 5 years, I can confirm he's still alive and well, and I'll be ready for the next chapter of his story whenever it comes out!

CreativeKitty975

I immediately knew I had to use the Phantom Ruby in this prompt, but having the illusions keep happening to him even after the Ruby itself was gone was the fun part.

Day Five: Sunburn
Alternate Prompt: Motion sickness

"See anything yet?" Amy asked Tails in front of her as the X-Tornado soared over the endless plains of Kansas.

The fox piloting his iconic plane consulted the radar. "Umm… Not yet," he replied. "It could be a while, though. Sometimes the Emeralds are buried deep underground which can make them tricky to spot on radar."

Traveling along with Tails and Amy were Chris and Danny, who were both sitting in the back compartment and wordlessly enjoying the view passing below them. However, it quickly got boring after a while, since it was very little more than tall grass and farmland, with the occasional road and town.

"How many Emeralds does Eggman have again?" Danny asked.

"He has two that I know of, and we have one so far," Tails responded as they slowly banked to the right. "Which means when we find this next one, we'll have the same number of–"

Suddenly the entire plane lurched, and Chris held onto the sides of the plane, his heart racing.

"Wh-What was that?" Danny asked from in front of him.

"I think we're coming up on the Emerald now," Tails said.

"Don't worry, it's normal for that to happen," Amy tried to reassure both boys in the back compartment. "It's just the Chaos Emerald we have sensing the other Emerald. Actually… it never happened before we came here to Earth, but it happened enough times that we all know what to expect at this point."

"Oh, okay," Danny said.

"Just a heads up, there might be more turbulence," Tails warned. "So don't be scared if–"

The plane shook again, more violently this time, and all four passengers yelped as they tried their best to hang on. But Chris found that he was getting dangerously close to hitting his head on the ceiling or one of the sides of the canopy.

"Th-This is really bad!" Amy yelped.

"Hang on!" Tails said between gritted teeth as he gripped the yokes more firmly.

Chris couldn't take it anymore. It felt like the plane was trying to rattle his skin loose from his bones. The first time he experienced this, he reassured himself and his friends that it was like an earthquake in the sky. But today, it felt like an understatement. He could barely hold his lunch down, and to his surprise and horror, he was starting to feel queasy.

The plane finally started to slowly drop in altitude, but it only seemed to make his nausea feel worse. At times it almost felt like the plane was free-falling, and while he trusted Tails' piloting skills, this seemed to be something that was beyond his control.

Just when it couldn't get any worse, the plane started to spin uncontrollably, and Chris couldn't help the panicked yelp that escaped from him. He wasn't the only one panicking; Amy, Danny, and Tails were freaking out too. Chris genuinely thought they were going to crash.

They must have only been a few hundred feet above the ground now, and Tails grunted as he struggled to level out the plane. And finally, it did, at least fifty feet above the barren plains. Tails pulled up, but he didn't fly as high as he had been before.

"That… was scary…" he admitted.

"Y-Yeah…" Danny agreed.

"Mhmm…" Amy added.

"We're almost there, maybe just two more minutes," Tails said, trying to ease the tension in the air.

"U-Uhhh…" Chris tried to say, but his mind was completely frantic. "I-I think I'm gonna throw up, what do we do?"

"Um… Uh-oh…" he could faintly hear Tails saying from the cockpit. That was not a good thing at all, and Chris knew it with all his heart. "Uh, g-gimme just one more minute! I'm landing now!"

Except Chris didn't have one minute, because his stomach chose that exact moment to lurch.

"Guys, he's gonna puke!" Danny exclaimed.

Even as Tails was already in the process of converting the X-Tornado to X-Cyclone mode, Chris heaved all over the floor of his compartment. Amy and Danny both covered their ears. Tails would have done the same too, except he was busy landing the plane, which required concentration from him.

Once Chris finally finished vomiting almost a minute later, the cockpit was eerily quiet. Chris' stomach felt sore, and he was a bit dizzy. He wiped the tears out of his eyes from the effort he involuntarily put into the last minute.

Tails quickly opened the back compartment to air it out, since the smell was overpowering. Danny leaned over the side of the plane to take deep breaths of the much fresher, cleaner air outside.

"What happened?" Amy asked as the front compartment also opened. "Did you get motion sickness, Chris?"

"I-I think so…" Chris quietly admitted. "It never happened before though…"

"Yeah…" Tails said, equally as confused. He flew over to Chris and Danny to help them down, his face immediately scrunching up at the odor. "We gotta get that cleaned up before we take off again."

"S-Sorry…" Chris apologized, feeling ashamed. His cheeks and head were feeling hot, and he couldn't hold his gaze with anyone.

"Chris, you shouldn't blame yourself for this," Amy told him as Tails set Danny down on the ground next to her and went back for Chris. "There's no way we could have known you would get motion sickness like this."

"But…" Chris looked down in dismay at the floor beneath him as he unstrapped his harness. He was too flustered to tell Tails what he was really thinking. He knew how much Tails liked to keep his plane clean both inside and outside, and he was picky when it came to bringing food inside the plane because it tended to leave crumbs everywhere.

"It's fine," Tails told him, trying to sound reassuring as he took Chris' hands and flew him down to the ground. "Like Sonic said, you can't control what happens around you. We'll get this cleaned up and then go find the Emerald."

"But…" Chris looked up with determination. "But if we don't find it now, Eggman will get to it first and–"

"Chris," Amy interjected, and Chris took a step back, looking in her direction. "Sonic's here too, and he's looking for the Emerald on the ground. You know he's gonna get there before Eggman any day, right?"

Chris hesitated before nodding. However, he knew Tails felt the same way, because sometimes he prioritized helping Sonic over things like this, and it led to him having moments of self-doubt and lack of adequacy.

"You doing okay, bro?" Danny asked.

"Y-Yeah, I think so," Chris said. "I think I wanna rest for a bit before we keep going." He glanced at Tails and Amy in uncertainty. "I-If it's okay."

Tails looked up from where he was fetching cleaning supplies out of the side compartment of the X-Tornado. "Sure it's okay," he said. "Actually, we can all rest for a bit while I get the plane cleaned up, and then we can find the Emerald. And like Amy said, Sonic's looking for it too."

"It'll be okay, Chris," Amy said, gently patting his back.

Even though Chris was feeling a bit sick still, at least he didn't feel like throwing up anymore. He looked at his three friends and smiled.

"Thanks, guys."

A/N: That concludes day 5! It was taking me too long to think of a decent scenario for any of the prompts, since "Sunburn" and "Heatstroke" were a bit similar to me. I was originally thinking of having a day at the beach result in sunburn for Chris, but it wasn't whumpy enough in my opinion. For heatstroke, I considered either a desert planet in the Metarex Saga, or a Chaos Emerald hunt in Death Valley, but the real reason is I had no idea how to write heatstroke. "Healing salve" sounded simple enough, except I couldn't think of a prompt for it, and I couldn't think of anything at all for "If my pain will stretch that far." So I ended up settling for an alt prompt, and I had a great idea of what to do with it.

Tomorrow's theme is "Not Realizing They're Injured!"