Shadows of the Future
Chapter Fourteen
Homecoming
(Explanations, rating, and disclaimers can be found in the beginning of Chapter One.)
"STEAL the ship?!" bellowed Electra in shock, after she, Knuckles, Amy, Sonic, and Tails had all reunited and shared the basic gists of their stories. "STEAL the SHIP?! Have you gone NUTS Tails? How on Mobius are the six of us supposed to fly this thing all by ourselves?!"
"EIGHT of us," came a familiar high-pitched voice from the doorway.
"JOLT!" cried Electra, rushing forward to hug her friend. She hesitated for a moment at the robotic Number Six, then went ahead and hugged him too. "Where have you been? What happened to you?"
"LATER." Sonic cut her off. "Right now, we've got a ship to steal. Right, Tails?"
The little orange fox nodded seriously. "This ship is our ONLY way home, guys! Think about it. A great big transporter brought us here, but...have YOU seen any transporters HERE powerful enough to get us back?"
The eight beings looked at each other.
"I'll take engineering," said Number Twelve.
"I call sciences," said Six.
"I'll do the shields", said Amy, not having any idea what she was talking about.
"Weapons for me," grinned Sonic, "in case anyone decides to come after us."
Knuckles snorted. "YOU just like to see things go 'BOOM'; that's the real reason. I'll handle sensors."
"I'll monitor the environmental controls," said Electra.
"I'll make sure all the doors and stuff are closed," said Jolt.
"And I, of course, will be the pilot," concluded Tails. "By the way--does anybody know where any of those controls ARE?"
* * *
Princess Sally sighed again. "Nicole, check the perimeter for anything suspicious," she said.
beep "Nothing out of the ordinary found," came back the voice of her hand-held computer. "And may I remind Her Royal Highness that she has had me perform this same scan for the twentieth time in the past hour alone?"
"No, you may NOT remind me of that!" snapped Sally, tossing her red-brown bangs out of her eyes indignantly. "And I'll thank you not to keep count!"
"NOted," said Nicole with an electronic sniff.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Nicole," apologised the Princess, "it's just that it's so quiet around here, and boring, what with Sonic, Tails, Bunnie AND Rotor gone..." she trailed off. "I just have no idea what to do with my time..."
"PREENCESS!" yelled a heavily-accented voice, as Antoine D'Coolette came rushing into the room, face pale and uniform hanging askew, "Preencess SallEE, come queekly! Zer is a--zer is a great beeg--eet's comeeng really fast--wat ze ELL eez ZAT?!!" He pointed out the window.
Sally gasped and follwed the frantic coyote outside. A GIGANTIC fireball was heading straight for them--or rather, straight for a large clearing in the Great Forest. Animals were running every which way trying to avoid the area. Oh, gods, no, thought Sally. Please don't let it crash. It'll cause SO much damage! Please...
And then, as if her prayers had been answered, the strange object suddenly ceased its mad plummet, slowed down to a crawl, and landed gently on the ground.
Sally and Antoine looked at each other, uncertain about approaching the still-smoking monstrosity.
"You go first," said Sally, gesturing towards the Thing. "You ARE my personal guard, after all."
"No no no," said Antoine, shaking his head and backing away a step, with his hands held up in a warding gesture. "YOU are ze leadAIR. I only follow."
They were so busy arguing, they didn't even notice as a hatch in the side of the Thing opened. "See, I TOLD you I could fly this thing, Sonic!" came a voice that sounded a lot like Tails. But Tails was gone...
No, he was here! "TAILS!" exclaimed Sally, rushing to hug the little fox. "And Knuckles! Amy! Jolt! Electra!" She saved Sonic for last. "Sonic! I thought I'd never see you again!" She grabbed him and gave him a great big ol' kiss on the mouth before he could protest.
"Saaaallllleeeeeeee," he whined, "there's PEOPLE watching!"
"Let them," she grinned wickedly and kissed him again, on the cheek this time.
Off to one side, Knuckles watched the happy couples together--Bunnie gave Antoine a similiar greeting--and sighed. If only Lorinda could have been here with us, he thought sadly. She and Sally could have been such good friends. She could have lived with me, up on the Floating Island, among all those trees and flowers that she loved so much. And she never got to see them. She didn't even get to see her OWN world become free. WHY did she have to die so early, WHY?!
The extreme sadness that crossed his face was not lost on Electra. But she didn't know what was causing it.
The one person who, surprisingly, was NOT watching Sonic and Sally kiss and burning up with jealousy inside was Amy Rose. That was because she was far too busy talking to Tails. "Wow, you're really smart, Tails," she said as they walked through the trees together. "The way you can fix all those things, and the way you figured out how to fly that spaceship so FAST! I was KINDA scared, but I knew you wouldn't REALLY crash us. How do you DO it?"
"Well," began Tails as they disappeared from view, "it's like this..."
* * *
Eventually, the ENTIRE gang--Freedom Fighters, Chaotix, and others--met for a victory party on the beautiful tropic beaches of the Angel Island Zone. The two new people--Number Twelve, whose real name was Kalo, and the robotic Number Six, renamed "Quicksilver" after his appearance, had both been introduced and given assignments. The technical-minded Twelve/Kalo had been made an honourary Chaotix member, and would be taking over the work Rotor started of fixing the machinery on the Floating Island--so that they'd have a backup source of power should something happen to the Master Emerald again--and Quicksilver, who was forever "on the side of freedom", had been made an honourary Freedom Fighter. Of course, they both had yet to prove themselves, but in the happy, festive air of the party, that didn't really seem to matter.
And the ship? Sally was all for cannibalising it for parts, when Tails pointed out that they might have NEED of a working spaceship someday. And besides, since it already HAD its own independent food supply and air source, it would make one HECK of a heavy-duty base, should Robotnik ever decide to come down on them in force! So they left it where it was, in the clearing.
They WOULD have held the party in Knothole, but the only way to get Bunnie and the Chaotix down from the Island would be to use Dulcy--never a good idea--or the transporters, which were now working again. "And you ain't gettin' ME ino one of those contraptions again no mattah HOW hard ya trah!" Bunnie had said vehemently over the com link. "Ah don't want that thang scatterin' mah molecules all ovah creation! If you wanna invaht me to a party, you teleport YOUR lil' butts on up here! Tails can take me back down in his bahplane! Ah'm a nurse, not a flahin' Walenda!" So they had moved the party up to the Island, and everyone admitted that actually, what with the cool water and warm breezes, this location was BETTER for an outdoor party than Knothole. Everybody LOVED the nearby Hyrdocity Lake, and took turns swinging over it on vines and then dropping in. Except Sonic, of course, who stayed a mile away from it. But he scarfed down enough chili dogs to feed TEN hedgehogs and got out his electric guitar (which Vector, ever interested in music, had been borrowing--that's why it was on the Island instead of Sonic's house on Mobius) and soon everyone was dancing. In short, a good time was had by all.
All, that is, except Knuckles.
Electra saw him, sitting all by himself at a picnic table under a coconut tree, far away from the merriment, and her heart went out to him. Poor guy, she thought. All his life he's been so lonely, the last of his kind, missing his people terribly. And now that he finally HAS found them, he realises that he's even more alone now than he was before, in a way! She decided to approach him.
"Hi," she said softly, so as not to attract attention from the others.
Knuckles looked up briefly. "Oh, it's you," he muttered. "I suppose you might as well have a seat." He gestured to the table's other chair.
"She was really special to you, wasn't she?" Electra asked softly. No need to say who she was talking about. They both knew.
Knuckles sighed. "Yes," he said, so quietly that Electra could barely hear it. "She died to free her people. I keep telling myself that. But it just doesn't make it any easier."
Electra stood up and patted his shoulder. "Maybe it's not SUPPOSED to make it any easier. Maybe a loss doesn't really count unless you HURT for a while." She took his hand. "Come on, Knuckles. Dance with me."
"Dance?" he looked up at her in disbelief. "How can I dance now?"
"It's a party," she smiled. "Everybody's dancing. After all the things we've been through lately, all of us--even little Amy had a rather harrowing experience or two, did she tell you that?--we all NEED a break, a time to cut loose and be silly. Come on, Knuckles. I'll make you a deal. Dance with me today, and you can be sad all you want tomorrow. I'm sure she would understand."
A slight trace of a smile started to cross Knuckles' face. "Why not?" he shrugged. "I've got nothing to lose."
"THAT'S the spirit!" said Electra, and they started swaying through the crowd.
Sonic had stopped playing his guitar by now, and was telling the story of their adventures--including the parts he hadn't personally been in--to the other Freedom Fighters and the Chaotix. He was mangling some of his parts pretty badly, Knuckles noticed, but somehow, he didn't really mind right now.
He also noticed that even after they were done dancing, Electra didn't let go of his hand right away. And he didn't mind that, either.
When Sonic got to the part of the story where Knuckles, Electra, and Amy had defeated the evil Queen and destroyed the Dark Master, Espio interrupted, "So THAT'S what that was!"
"Don't interrupt!" said Charmy prissily, back in form again. Vector, Mighty, and Bunnie exchanged a sarcastic, knowing glance.
"That's what what was?" asked Sonic, confused.
"That--kind of--WAVE of something that washed over us in the Hidden Palace after the Master Emerald recharged," answered Mighty. "Now I realise why it made us feel so weird--it was Chaos Energy!"
"Where do you suppose it went?" asked Rotor. "The extra energy, I mean."
"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that," shrugged Vector. "Probably just went right through the atmosphere and into outer space, by now..."
* * *
I am.
I have not been before.
Before. What does that mean? What am I?
WHERE am I?
Wet. Fluid. Currents. Tiny objects flitting by, blocking my line of sight. Sight. Do I HAVE eyes?
Columns. Pillars. Machines. Things left behind by a missing people.
People? What are those?
Am I a people? Are those people, noisy, heavy things, making strange sounds nearby?
Water. This substance surrounding me is called water. How I know this I am not sure. I am in the water.
I am also OF the water.
Or maybe the water is ME.
What AM I?
I do not know.
But one thing I DO know for certain...
I am hungry.
Original Story © June 1, 1999 by Chaos Theory T. Echidna, a.k.a. Tiffany J. Knox. Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Amy Rose, the Freedom Fighters, Mobius, the Chaotix, and the Floating Island and all places, people, and objects pertaining to those things are © Service Games Inc. (SEGA). All OTHER characters (Jolt, Electra, Riku-Dari, etc.) and places created by the author. All rights reserved.
Click HERE to read my Author's Notes--to clear up unanswered questions, explain the in-jokes, and more.