Ancient Secret, Inner Emerald

Hard Realizations

They all stood, stunned to silence for a long, deafening moment after the hedgehog stopped talking.

He and Amy stood dumbfounded at the new information but the echidnas were a different story. Knuckles was staring at Tikal with a mix of betrayal and disbelief. Finding out that one of the only people who knows the history of your culture had been leaving such a huge part of it out couldn't exactly be easy. And Tikal... Tikal looked horrified.

"You've- you've been awake? Alive inside the emerald this whole time?"

"Every second for the last three thousand years." He replied plainly in a joking tone. He waited a second before glancing at Tikal again and cracking up.

"Oh I know right? Trapped with nothing for that long? Alone with only your thoughts, that's enough to drive anyone INSANE isn't it?!" He laughed. "Relax Ti, my sanity is intact"

"Debatable" Knuckles muttered and the hedgehog frowned.

"I had plenty of experience being alone with myself beforehand, you of all people should know a thing about that Knuckles." He shot back. "Another few thousand years alone wasn't anything new." He rolled his eyes.

"But that's horrible!" Amy cried indignantly.

"No! What's horrible is watching new incarnations go about the world while you sit there rotting! You don't know what it is to watch the world move on through brief flashes of another person's life. Knowing the world is changing while you're stuck living on the whim of another person! That's what's horrible!"

"That's how you knew the islands' new names... You heard us talking while Sonic was collecting the emeralds." Tails realized.

"Of course it was," he said in an exasperated tone, "please, I've known you all for years! I've known you, Tails, since you were just thiiiis tall!" He laughed cheerily flipping upside down to display the height.

"Although, Sonic's life is an oddity amongst them all." He smiled "I've seen more while he's been around, but everything is always so brief. You know how Sonic is, he never just sits around to stare at the emeralds from afar." He laughed.

It was so unsettling to hear this- this stranger talking about his brother as if he'd know him forever. Knowing that he'd been inside all along, watching them. Seeing them through his brother's eyes.

"None of it would've happened though if Chaos hadn't ruined my life! They ruined everything!" He screamed.

"I was meant to help people! I was meant to teach people new things! I was made for learning! Not to be used as some weapon! Out of anyone they should've understood that and they turned their back on me!"

"Chaos didn't mean to!" Tikal blurted out. The hedgehog looked at her for a moment before letting out a loud exhausted laugh.

"And that's the worst part isn't it?" He asked in a hurt voice. "I wasn't even enough of a thought in their head for them to realize they had killed me. "

"That is not true!" Tikal stamped her foot passionately. "Chaos would never have hurt you on purpose! It was the emeralds that overwhelmed them! Chaos never would've done that to you on purpose and they certainly wouldn't have condemned you to the emerald if they knew! They couldn't think straight with all the energy rushing through them!"

The hedgehog looked shocked, surprised at her outburst as if he wasn't expecting her to defend the other.

"But... how could you know that unless..." His eyes went wide with a sickening horror as a new idea dawned on him. "Unless you've been talking to them."