The caravan arrives at the site without any trouble. The fog that covers the land keeps them safe, as long as it's there, a product of the EverLake. Once the Little Planet arrives through the dimensions, the fog will sweep away and they'll have a very short time limit to get what they're looking for and get out.
Their guide starts to set up camp, barking orders, and she quickly follows with her little canvas tent.
The tents rise into the air across the field, sleeping tents first, then a larger mess tent that they come together to set up. She pulls on her section of the rope and it rises into the air.
They set up a line between the caravans and the tent, unloading equipment into the largest structure.
After that, the tent to store and examine anything they find is set up. Confusion comes to her as she helps pass over some of the equipment. She's not certain why there are so many boxes with military signs on them, as far as she knew all of the mainland military had fallen to Robotnik.
She doesn't ask.
It doesn't take long to find out that there's a town nearby. She makes the discovery herself when she joins one of the groups on the climb up the peaks, spotting the smoke rising in the air.
Justine scowls at her when she points it out, "Don't go anywhere near there." She growls, "We don't know who they're with and the last thing we need is for them to call Robotnik on us." She stalks off, shoulders raised, "Don't know why there's a bloody child-" She mutters to herself as she stalks off.
"Hey." Topaz calls, setting a hand on her shoulder, "Justine is right. She should have said it a bit differently, but this is actually a pretty risky trip. We're all a little on edge, keeping you safe wasn't something we had in the plans. We want to minimize the chance of Robotnik figuring out we're here until we're long gone, if ever."
She bites her lip, but eventually her shoulders slump as she stares at her feet, "Yes ma'am."
Of course, she doesn't listen for long. The campsite is boring, with most of the workers not even letting her help set up anything. Not to mention that she, along with Sonic, has been taking care of herself for years now. There's not as much food to eat as they'd planned, an error with paperwork she'd heard being the cause, along with a lot worse words, and the EverLake, despite being magical in nature, is not very tolerant to life. Every net put in has come up dry.
If there's something she can do to help…
She rushes off at sunrise, before anyone else is awake, with a pocket full of rings and a pocket full of Mobiums. The town is a ways away from the camp, and by the time she gets there through the forest, picking sticks and brambles out of her quills. Her headband had been lost somewhere, and her quills stick up around her face like prickles.
She looks… barely presentable, but at least presentable. Though, after a glance at the town, she's not sure they'll mind how messy she is.
The town is barely standing. Quite a few Mobians roam the streets, lugging lumber from one side to the other. Groups of kids race around after each other, playing games of tag, with not much else to do besides play with each other.
"You're it!" A small hare yells as he passes her.
She sticks out her tongue at him, "I'm not playing, I have a job to do."
The hare runs back, frowning at her before he seems to realize something, "Oh, I don't know you. What are you doing here?"
"I want to buy some food." She holds out a mobium and a ring, "But I'm not sure if anyone's gonna be selling anything. What happened?"
He scowls, heel scraping the ground, "Bots came through last week. They're looking for something." He grins, fist pounding into his hand as his mood changes, "But if they come back, I'll clobber 'em."
She feels her heart miss a beat as she runs cold. Robotnik was already checking the area for the planet.
"Be careful." She warns, "Where can I find the market?"
"Down that street." He waves, already starting to race after his friends, "Be careful lady."
"Rosy!" She yells back, feeling like she should at least be that honest.
"Shock!" He grins back, before turning and breaking into a run.
The market is easy to find, despite its lack of actual market items. The stalls are tattered, dust from the nearby desert turning them dim. There are the skeletons of at least a dozen stalls, only three of them are manned.
She heads towards the first one she spots, a large bear writing something down as she approaches. She can barely see him over the bins on top of the stall, but his stall says 'Farm Goods' on the chalkboard lower down.
Eventually, she clears her throat and the bear leans over the edge, raising his eyebrows in surprise at her.
"Hello!" She chirps.
His eyebrows furrow, "Hello." It's a lot less enthusiastic than hers. "Can I help you?" The question comes hesitantly after she doesn't say anything.
She nods, reaching into her pocket and pulling out some mobiums and rings, she holds them up into the air, "I need to buy some food for my camp. Do you have anything that keeps good?"
A hand closes around hers in a second, the bear lunging over the stall to curl her fingers around the handful. He pulls her up and over the stall until they can both see each other.
"Did you come from under a rock, child?" He hisses, "Don't go showing off things like that."
She blinks, and he must see the sheer confusion that fills her, as he sighs and runs a hand down his face, kneeling to her level. He reaches into her hand and pulls out the ring.
"This." He emphasizes, and she gasps when it vanishes in a burst of sparkles, "Only stays whole if someone touched by Chaos, is holding it."
"Oh." She shrinks back, "So I would have been shorting people."
"No. You would have put a target on your back." His voice lowers even more, "Robotnik is looking for people like you, and there are a lot of people who would sell you out just to keep their own skin safe."
Her ears fold back and she tucks her hand into her pocket, feeling the rings jingle. She hadn't considered that Robotnik was still looking for them. He'd come after Sonic, but he'd been after something else on their island first.
The bear huffs and his face softens. "Look, you have Mobiums, and a group to get back to. I'll give you a good price if you promise to keep a lower profile. You seem like a decent kid, but that's not going to help."
"Thank you." She murmurs, "I'm Ro-"
Her words are cut off when he glares, "I don't need to know your name." He stands, gesturing to a small step stool that leads onto the stall. He walks her through what will keep best and what won't, along with a few extras that she can't help but smile at when she sees him slip them into the backpack.
"That'll be five Mobiums." He rumbles, taking the cash with a huff, "Now, scram you rascal."
She grins at him, but hops down and makes her way back towards where she'd entered the town.
She's just made it to the shade of the trees, at the dim entrance of the path she'd taken, when the sounds reach her ears.
Something whooshes, off in the distance, and she hears faint yelling.
She sets the bag behind a tree and runs towards it before there's even any time to second guess.
She can barely remember what life was like before she met Sonic. Vaguely, she could recall her day-to-day, lessons with the nearby kids, playing in the park, and her parents.
She could remember the night she got taken from her room without missing a beat.
The fires had started first, distractions, to chase Mobians from their homes and make them easy to pick out. Her parents hadn't even had the chance to get further than her doorway before a net had scooped her from her bed and dragged her through a hole in her wall.
She'd been flown to Robotnik's fortress, with all of the other kids, immediately.
She hadn't seen a robot like that since Sonic had flown them to safety.
She couldn't mistake it for anything else.
The robot had Shock in its grasp, the hare yelling bloody murder as small sparks of lightning jumped off of him, skittering off the robot with little damage.
Robotnik was after… people like her. The bear had said. Shock was like her, just like her all those years ago, with barely a grip on any powers that might be there.
She's come up from behind, the robot preoccupied with firing at any of the villagers that try to get close, with its other hand. She's… not really sure what she should do.
What she could do.
So she falters, staring at the robot. She hadn't been able to do anything before, why would she be able to do anything now, other than putting herself back in Robotnik's clutches. She would leave Sonic and Tails all alone, never knowing what happened to her.
The wind pulls on her quills, just barely, as if urging her to turn and run like they had all those years ago. Get to safety and warn the camp that Robotnik's machines were nearby. Save herself.
But… Sonic had run, all those years ago. He hadn't spoken a word after the first day on the beach, for over a year. He'd shied away from ever talking about that day, about what they'd left behind.
And he'd still chased Robotnik off when he'd shown up on the island.
If Sonic could do it… Maybe she could too.
She's not sure what happens next, in the moments between when she makes her decision and when she is in the air, falling towards the robot with a wooden beam in hand. She brings it down its head with a hearty yell, the beam snapping in two on the robot, leaving its head dented, spinning, and sparking.
"Rosy!" Shock yells, sounding far away through the thrumming in her head.
She falls the rest of the way down, plopping butt first onto the ground, and shaking out her hands with a wince. She can feel the sting still there, traveling up her arms through her bones.
The robot sparks again and Shock drops to the ground while its head spins slowly, red LEDs staring her down in accusation. Its torso follows, spinning to face her, as its blaster levels with her head.
"Attacking a guard is forbidden. Punishable by law. Designation: Rosy. Is under arrest."
She can only stare, wide-eyed, at the barrel that seems to stare back, as her heart pounds in her head and her mouth runs dry.
Arrest.
Getting information from the mainland was rare and difficult, spoken only in low tones in the marketplace by traders that had found it worth making the journey, or by people passing through the paths through the woods, the island just a stop on their journey to as far away from Robotnik as possible. Arrest in the mainland didn't mean time in jail. It didn't mean a trial. It meant a slow and drawn-out trip to a machine that would rip away your thoughts and heart, turning you into something else, that would obey every word Robotnik told you.
Sonic had-
He'd crumpled, collapsing to the ground, unable to see them or hear a thing they said while they tried to snap him out of it, the first time they'd heard what happened to those in Robotropilous. When he'd come to he'd been silent for the rest of the day. She'd found him up in the middle of the night, carefully washing down the plane they'd escaped on.
The guard starts to approach and she can feel panic weighing down on her, feel everything creep up on her as, what is about to happen, really seeps in.
She surges towards it, pushing from the ground with all of her strength. She's not going down, not without a fight. If she gets dragged to Robotropilous it will be screaming. She reaches toward the robot, a yell full of desperation coming from her. Her hands don't connect.
Something else does.
It glows, feeling weightless in her hands that spark and glow, as she swings it.
The bat connects with a crack! And she lands on the ground.
The robot lands a moment later, about twenty feet away, creaking and sparking, smoke drifting away in a thick cloud.
"Rosy?" The familiar voice gets through to her, the haze falling away. Her hands release and the bat dissipates before it ever hits the ground. Most of the villagers are standing a distance away, Shock just starting to make his way towards her. "Rosy?" He asks again, reaching out his hand. An older hare grabs him, pulling him behind her, and away from her.
Her vision blurs again, this time as tears build in her eyes. She rips away into the woods with a sob, barely remembering to grab the very bag she'd come all this way to get.
"There you are." The sharp voice calls, as she finally emerges at their camp, mud covering her legs and brambles sticking to every bit of fur they could get to. Topaz's eyes widen as she sees her, arms falling to her sides as her tail lashes. She stalks forward, roughly patting her down as she checks her over.
"What happened."
It's barely a question, the cat watching her every movement.
She can feel tears trying to well up again as the memory overwhelms her. "Robot." She chokes out, the thought of lying, of covering up that she disobeyed, doesn't even come to mind. She pulls the backpack off carefully, handing it over. "I went to get more food and it started trying to grab people." It's an extremely short version of what happened. But she can't get any more words than that to come out.
Topaz's fur bristles, as she watches her, before she stands suddenly, bringing her fingers to her mouth and whistling. The bustle of the camp stutters to a stop as they turn to pay attention. "Timeline's moved up!" She shouts. There's the noise of complaining muttering starts up and she whistles again, sharp and loud. "Robotnik's scouts are in the area! We get on the planet and get off the planet. Cut down the number of sleeping tents, bunk up!"
The bustle picks up again, faster now, as the crew works on cutting down what they need to have out, and making sure what is out is hidden away.
After watching the bustle for a moment, Topaz turns back to her, eyes narrowing. "I'm sure." Her tail lashes, "You understand why we said to stay in camp now, and that this won't happen again. You're uninjured?" She nods, clutching her hands together, "Go get cleaned up. Get some food and go to sleep early."