Across the Rift (SNT X Rookie/Gizmo)

Chapter 7: A Date?

Rookie looked a bit worried while SNT waited for Rookie to continue telling the truth. Maria walked into the room yawning. "What happened? I heard screaming." She grabbed Gadget's cup of coffee and took a sip. "SNT's from another dimension!" Gadget blurted out. Maria's eyes widened. "You are! So that's why you look so different now! I just thought my memory was fuzzy since we only talked once. How did you get here?" "A portal opened up from my dimension and took me here. I was eventually able to get back with your Tails' help." SNT recalled. "I can't believe this! How many dimensions exist!? I can't believe Tails figured out how to make portals to other dimensions!" Gadget tried to grab his coffee cup before realizing it wasn't in the coffee maker. He saw Maria drinking out of it but didn't say anything. "I'm able to come to your dimension with this watch." SNT held her hand with the watch up. Maria and Gadget looked in amazement. Gadget then realized something. "Wait. Giz why are you wearing a watch? You're from this dimension." Rookie looked nervous "oh um.. I-" SNT interrupted him. "I'll tell them." "It's fine I can tell them. So Gadget, you know how I said me and SNT's first encounter with each other was disastrous." He started. "Yeah?" Gadget didn't like where this was going. "She may have.. kicked me out of this dimension.." Rookie squeaked out of himself. The room was uncomfortably quiet. Rookie waited a bit before continuing. "Her watch prevents that, while mine keeps me from glitching out a bunch when she visits..." Gadget took a bit of time to process what he just heard before grabbing Rookie and shaking him back and forth. "Why didn't you tell me this!" "Be-cause I kn-ew you wou-ld re-act thi-s way." Gadget stopped shaking his brother and calmed down. Rookie was a little disoriented. "At least you two figured out a way to both exist. Why does it even happen in the first place?" Maria asked fully awake thanks to the coffee. "I don't know. Tails is still trying to figure that out." SNT said. SNT looked to see how Maria and Gadget were processing things. Gadget look shocked by all of this while Maria looked like she was thinking about how to react about this revelation. "We could tell you the rest when you're ready. I am staying here for a week. The watch made me stable enough to do so." "I'm going to take a walk to clear my mind and think about this." Gadget said. He walked out of the kitchen and went outside. "Yeah I also have to think about this." Maria said putting the half empty cup on the kitchen table before joining Gadget.
SNT looked at Rookie to see how he was holding up. Rookie was watching them leave. When he couldn't see them anymore Rookie collapsed towards SNT. SNT was startled but she caught him. He looked up at her. "T-that went a lot better than I thought it would go." He gave a weak smile. "It looks like you need to lay down." She gave a smile back while looking concerned. He stood up and walked towards the living room before laying down. "Was it THAT hard for you to tell them? You had your guard up the whole time we told them." SNT asked getting some breakfast that Gadget made. "I was worried Gadget would react really poorly towards this." SNT decided to let him rest for a bit. She continued eating her breakfast. When she finished she spoke up. "How about we do something to clear your head?" "That sounds good." Rookie sat up from his couch. "Let's go to Tails' lab. I want to have him set up a mail system so we can schedule more visits." "I wonder how he's gonna react when he finds out my Tails perfected the watch?" "He's definitely going to freak out." The two went outside and started to head towards Tails' lab. The lab was far from Rookie's house so SNT offered to fly them to it. Rookie accepted and SNT picked him up and started flying. SNT looked around the city. No matter how many times she comes to Rookie's dimension, she always enjoyed looking around. "I can't wait to explore this dimension again!" SNT said enthusiastically. "I'll be happy to show you around. It's definitely improved from the war torn place you first saw. How about we do that after Tails is done setting up the mail system." S nodded her head. The two were able to see Tails' lab. SNT flew to the ground and the two of them started walking the rest of the way. Rookie looked at SNT. "How are you SNT? Do you feel fine being here? No dimensional weirdness." "I'm feeling good! The watch really stabilizes me well. My powers also seem to be in control." "Maybe you should wear inhibitor rings like Shadow." Rookie said not being serious. SNT imagined herself wearing inhibitor rings. "You think that'll look good on me?" Rookie imagined SNT doing a cool pose wearing inhibitor rings. He blushed. "Yeah. You'd look great with them."
They arrived at Tails' lab and Rookie knocked on the door. Tails opened the door. Rookie noticed he had bags in his eyes. "What can I do for you Gizmo?" He then saw SNT. "It seems like Dimension-B Tails has finally done it! You have to let me see how he did it!" "Sure. We also want a way to communicate using our watches across our dimensions." SNT said. Tails motions them inside and they head to the workstation. "I can get that done! It does mean I have to take off the watches so..." SNT and Tails looked at Rookie. "I'm okay with that.  I'll go first." He took off the watch and put it on Tails' workbench. He glitched for a bit before disappearing from Tails' pov. "That wasn't suppose to happen." Tails said concerned. "He's right in front of us still." SNT informed Tails sounding concerned. Rookie waved at Tails even though Tails can't see him. "It's okay! I have a theory for this!" Tails started to think of something to make sure they don't freak out. "He's in Null Space because your watch was upgraded drastically causing this to happen. If we re-sync them we should be back to normal." SNT and Rookie believed it. Tails went to gather some supplies needed to improve the watch. He flew to the top of a shelf and grabbed a toolbox labeled "inter-dimensional watch tools". He sat down and started tinkering with the watch. "I can't believe I cracked inter-dimensional science! Well the other me. But still! I can reverse engineer the watch and see how he did it! Hey SNT that wrench I gave to Dimension-B Tails is still there right?" "I didn't hear anything from my Tails so no." SNT wondered what that has to do with the watch. "Fantastic! So my theory was correct. That means living organisms are harder to transport across dimensions. Non-living objects can adjust to the molecules of the other dimension and are able to match them." He finished Rookie's watch. Tails turned his chair around to face where he last saw Rookie. "You're going to have to still keep the watch off Gizmo. It's going to take a bit for it to power back on. Shouldn't be long though." Tails then turned his chair to SNT. "Now it's time to work on SNT's watch. I should be able to do this quick without any issues."
SNT takes off her watch and cautiously puts it on the workbench. Tails started to work on the watch. "I'm just adding the mail system so it's going to be a lot quicker to get this done." SNT glitched. Her bangs got smaller, she lost her super strength and she lost her tails. SNT looked at herself. "Haven't seen you like this in a while." Rookie commented. "Done! You two can get your watches now." Tails put the tools back into the toolbox and scooted away from the workbench. SNT grabbed the watch and put it back on. She glitched back to her true form. Tails flew to put the toolbox away. Rookie grabbed his watch and came back to the dimension. Tails looked over to him. "Welcome back! How was Null Space?" "Boring?" "I've always had a question lingering ever since we discovered where you go." "What is it?" "Have you ever encountered Infinite in there? He basically lives there now with Scratch and Grounder. I even had to save Team Shadow and your brother when Infinite hijacked the show that one time, also Sonic and Amy went there when the badniks ruined their Halloween last year. So that made me curious." "I haven't which is lucky. But I'm a little scared that I will since he knows how to track me." "Well you won't need to go back so there's no need to worry anymore!" SNT said hugging Rookie. Rookie's face turned red. Tails motioned Rookie to hug back. Rookie was too nervous to do so and SNT let go. "Now that I've finally figured out how all of this works, I'm going to get some sleep before I stay up any longer!" SNT and Rookie stared at Tails. "..How long have you been awake?" SNT asked. "Okay I admit this project may have costed me some sleep but.. Yeah I'm getting some sleep now." He walked out of the workstation and towards the nearest piece of comfortable furniture. "It's time you show me around this dimension!" S excitedly left the lab. Rookie followed. "You got any relaxing places we can hang out in?" S asked. "There's this small diner not too far from my house. Me and Gadget use to go there for lunch." "But it's still the morning?" She looked at her watch to see it was 2:26 pm. SNT was surprised to see the time. "What time did we wake up?" Rookie shrugged his shoulders. "Let's go to the diner."
The Dimensional Duo went back home. Rookie grabbed his wallet and called out for Gadget and Maria. "Maybe he took Maria back to her home." SNT suggested. They went back out and Rookie led SNT to the diner. When they got there they noticed some familiar faces. Two of those being Gadget and Maria. Gadget spotted them and waved. SNT and Rookie went to their booth. "Just the people we were looking for. I was wondering where you went." Gadget said. SNT and Rookie sat on the other side of Gadget and Maria. "Sorry for not telling you where we were going. We went to Tails' lab for our watches." Rookie looked around for a menu. He grabbed one from an empty table. SNT and Rookie looked at the menu. After deciding what they wanted, Rookie put the menu down. "Glad to see your both taking it well now." SNT said to Maria and Gadget. "It's still hard to process. I bet you guys must be feeling the same way about what I told you yesterday. These past two days have been interesting to say the least." Maria said. "Excuse me really quick." She got up and went to throw away her wrappers. "We should discuss that later. Right now we should enjoy this! It's not often that we're able to have all this time to hang out." The waiter showed up to their table. "Shadow!" SNT said in shock. "I thought you worked as a mailman?" Rookie asked. "I also work here." Shadow waited for Rookie to order. "You did cause a lot of damage." Gadget said to Shadow. Shadow chose to ignore Gadget. "Order before Maria comes back. Rouge is stalling her." Shadow looked over his shoulder. Maria and Rouge were having a friendly conversation as Rouge wasn't in uniform. "Just get me what my brother ordered but without the tomatoes." "I'll have the onion rings." SNT handed the menu to Shadow. Shadow left and he nodded at Omega who also wasn't in uniform. Omega walked over to Rouge and the conversation with Maria ended. Maria walked back to the table.
"Sorry, Rouge gave me extra details on what we're going to do at work." Maria sat back down. "It's fine." Gadget finished his food. "Are you going to leave now that you finished your food?" Rookie asked. "Nah. I mean if Maria wants to though then yeah." Gadget looked at Maria for her answer. "I'm okay with staying a little longer." Maria agreed. A different waiter showed up and gave Gadget and Maria their bill. Gadget looked at the price and noticed a "Gadget Tax" adding to the total. "Gadget tax? Why is it 10 dollars!" Maria looked and saw it. She giggled. "Why would the restaurant charge you specifically?" "Hopefully we don't have to pay any SNT tax." SNT said to Rookie. Everyone laughed at that. "I wouldn't be surprised." Said Rookie grinning wide. "Luckily you won't since you didn't get on anyone's bad side." Gadget said paying the bill, smiling. "They probably do that to the regulars." Maria said giggling a bit. "Quick Rookie put on a disguise so they don't recognize you!" SNT put her goggles on Rookie and took off his glasses. "How do I look?" "Not good enough! they'll probably charge extra because you tried to hide your identity!" Gadget chuckled.