Belong

Chapter 7 - Power Practice

This is... a situation, Silver thought to himself as he watched the trembling shape of his friend inside the sleeping bag where the hedgehog had gently put him. He had intended to wait for Venice to wake up after he fainted in the library and then talk to him about what exactly had happened, but once the survivor had come around he had immediately started panicking and crying, clutching his head so hard Silver feared he would make himself bleed and haphazardly lifting and moving every small object in the vicinity. Realising that they'd probably not get far this way, he had quickly collected his Miles Electric and all the salvageable books and diaries he could find, shoving them in his backpack for safekeeping as he lifted Venice and quickly flew them back to their hideout. The terrified hedgehog had been in shock all the way, his powers pulsing out of his body uncontrollably. He had curled up into a ball on his side immediately when Silver lowered him in the sleeping bag, the entire shelter getting filled with a teal colour, and he had utterly refused to come out or talk to him for the hours that followed. It made Silver's heart clench with pity and concern.

As he was stirring the soup he was preparing, keeping half an eye on Venice as well, Silver let his thoughts drift. He had seen the psychokinetic marks that he himself had as well on the other's hands before, as vague as they were, meaning it hadn't been a trick of his mind after all. His own experience with his powers had taught him that if he were to overexert them to an insane degree, they would turn grey and he would be unable to access them until they had fully recovered. However, that had only happened to him a handful of times when he was a little kid at best, entirely incapable of controlling his powers the way he could now.

Silver knew that his birthright had developed in an unique manner due to the way he had grown up. In the destroyed, burning future with everything out to get him he had deemed it a necessity for his blessing to be as strong as possible, and as such he had spent torturous hours and days practicing the best ways to manipulate his environment as he saw fit. His efforts had paid off quickly enough, showing themselves even as he had grown older and was able to pull off more impressive feats than he had ever dared dream about; with a chuckle he thought about how easily he had created his Meteor Smash to battle Sonic when they were sparring for the Chaos Emerald that one time.

While Silver had struggled with his powers when he was a young child they were now completely under his control except for the direst of circumstances, where they took over only when he was boiling with anger or in a life-threatening situation. But Venice seemed to be around his age, and yet he had been completely held in the power's grasp instead of the other way around, incapable on getting the slightest semblance of a grip on them... had he simply not been able to practice his powers the way Silver had? Or had he discovered them only very recently? Silver's mind drifted once more to the facility Venice so sparsely mentioned, and he felt his himself tense thinking about what could possibly have happened there to make his friend so terrified of using his power. He could certainly come up with a few scenarios...

Realising the soup was about to boil over, Silver quickly removed it from the fire and put it in two bowls, before making his way over to Venice as he had done multiple times in the past few hours, though all those times it had been to no avail. He hoped that the food would lure him out where Silver's words had failed.

"Venice?" He gently set down the bowls a bit wayward from the sleeping bag, then gave the thing a very gentle shake. Judging by the shifting of the teal light that was strongest at the very end of the sleeping bag he could have sworn that Venice cowered even more, if that was possible. "I brought you some food. Are you hungry?"

His question resulted in a small shuffling sound from the bag, which he considered to be a good sign. Soon enough two blue eyes peeked out from inside its depth. Silver tried to smile as encouragingly as he could muster, trying to push away his worry and concerns for the time being. Although Venice refused to leave his safe haven fully, he did extend a hand with a brightly-shining teal mark for Silver to place a bowl in, and he also didn't crawl back into the sleeping bag entirely. Settling next to him and slurping his own soup, Silver wondered how to best bring up the conversation of Venice's powers. He certainly wasn't planning to sweep it under the rug and pretend like nothing had happened, though he was quite sure Venice would have preferred it that way. What should I do?