"Hi Silver."
"Hi Blaze."
We sat in silence, sitting next to each other and hearing the outside noises of destruction that we were so used to pass on, not really looking or acknowledging each other. I pressed against Blaze for warmth, because despite the heat from the fire, the air still had a cold, freezing feel to it.
"Silver?"
"Yes?"
Do you think...Do you think there's something out there that's still....Good?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, puzzled.
Blaze took a deep breath, looking like she was wondering how best to word what she was about to say.
"Do you think there are any cities or secret places where the survivors are? Where....Everyone might be....Free?"
I stared at Blaze, expecting her to smile at me like she was joking and nudge me with her elbow to tell me so, but none of those things happened, and it occurred to me that she was being very serious about the subject. I didn't know how to answer, so I just shrugged. Blaze looked disappointed by my response and turned away, staring into the distance.
I felt down on the inside. Why was Blaze so cold to me these days? Was she mad at me because I have yet to come up with a solution to destroy Iblis? Hey, he's her problem too....I closed my eyes as my thoughts raced through my mind like speeding trains, desperately searching for their destinations. I was interrupted, however, when Blaze gave me a hard nudge in the ribs.
"What?"I asked in a slightly irritated way...I had been close to figuring out the answers to my own questions, or, at least, I had figured out SOME of the answer to ONE of my questions. I turned to look at Blaze with my best 'What do you want'? stare but she was staring too intently on something in the distance to really notice me.
I followed her gaze and my eyes landed on something that made my jaw drop. Standing there, in the wind, with smoke and red fire covering it's form, was a person. An actual, alive person. A person....
Thoughts whirled through my head excitedly as I thought, 'WE'RE SAVED!!!' but Blaze gave me a worried look and jumped onto her feet, creating two balls of fire, one in each hand, and glaring at the person with her amber eyes narrowed.
I followed in suite, standing next to her with my hands ready to inflict energy onto an object to make it attack the person if they showed any signs of being dangerous or wanted to harm us, but the person didn't even flinch as it started walking towards us.
"Who are you?" Blaze shouted to make herself heard over the hellish moans of monsters nearby, "And how did you survive?"
The person did not answer, and only continued walking. As the person neared closer, fighting through the thick, hazy smoke and jumping several times to avoid fires and embers along the way, i finally made out what the person looked like.
It was a short panther, with inky black fur and bright blue eyes, dark hair covering his right eye and in a long braid down his back. Despite the long hair, it was obviously a boy, and he was wearing a dark gray vest, dark gray shorts, and no shoes as he neared us. I noticed a bow and a quiver strapped to his back and some sort of metal collar around his neck.
"I'm Lance," he said in a smooth, calming voice. I lowered my hands but Blaze continued to glare at him, her hands poised, ready to fight him to the death if it came to that. the panther grinned, showing a row of slightly-crooked, bright white teeth, and his thin black tail flicked backwards and forward.
"I'm not here to fight you," he said, "I'm here to help you."
I woke up in the middle of Central Park, feeling hot and sweaty as several kids raced around like they didn't even see me passed out right next to them. The dream I had had was the day Blaze and I met Lance, someone who had...Well, I don't really want to talk about it...I tried to forget about Lance.
I sat up, yawning and rubbing the tiredness out of my eyes as I thought more and more of the situation currently at hand- How was I going to get Shadow and Amy together? i needed some sort of miracle...
And thank you, bless you the gods of Mount Olympus, my solution (or solutions) were walking through the park just as I woke up and pondered the fact that I needed desperate help. At the moment, a tall green crocodile, walking hand-in-hand was a slightly shorter brown rabbit, a chameleon, and a flying, buzzing bee were making their way across the park with a small light brown rabbit in tow, holding several balloons happily as she watched the gang in front of her.
Of course, I hand't known they were the answers to my silent pleas of help, so I just sat there and resorting to the only that felt natural to me at the moment- I cried, and I cried hard. Oh no. I am going to disappear. All my hard work will be undone. these people will live in fear for the rest of their lives...And all because I couldn't play matchmaker and get two hedgehogs that are supposed to fall in love with each other together for like a one night stand or something.
I cried and cried and cried until I didn't feel like crying anymore. Then I cried some more. It was a while before I felt a hand tapping my shoulder and I looked over to see a bee buzzing in my face, a look of concern plastered across the big smile he gave me.
"Hiya mister, you look like your having a bad day, I can help, you know I can, right, don't I look like the helping type? And oh by the way that's Vector and Espio they are boring but I'm the fun one okay, so why don't ya tell me your problems and I can solve them like a true detective and maybe you can pay me lots and lots of money so I can buy myself a candy bar and maybe a phone of my own cause Vector is too cheapo to get me a new one and I really wanna a new one!" The kid whined in my ear.
My hand flew up to my ear and I massaged it gently, feeling the little kid's high voice ring around in my ear and echoing slightly, it was enough to make anybody go deaf.I glared at him and sniffled a 'go away' before turning my back to him and starting to cry again.
I soon felt another hand on my shoulder, but I was way too tired to shrug it off, so instead I looked up at who had placed their hand on my shoulder this time and saw the crocodile from earlier, giving me a toothy grin with a purple chameleon watching curiously from a distance. The two rabbits must have left, because they were nowhere to be seen.
"Hey, buddy, are you okay? Ya seem kinda down in the dumps!" The crocodile asked in a goofy voice. I stared up at him, feeling my heart pound. Could they help me? Did they possibly know who Amy Rose was and Shadow the hedgehog, and know where they live? I was too immersed in my own questions to answer the one the crocodile had just asked, so he repeated his question, and this time I answered it.
"No, I'm not fine... I have a mission to do and I just can't think of a solution or anything, it's nearly impossible..."I sighed. I saw the chameleon and the bee walking over, apparently keen to take part in the conversation.
"No mission is impossible," the chameleon said in a smooth, deep voice that was laced with a natural calmness. "Everything has a solution, and every solution has a problem to go with it."
"Really?" I asked, smiling. "You could help me?"
"You got any money?" The bee asked in an excited voice, but Vector waved him away and said in his goofy voice,
"We'll take ya to our place, we just opened up our office again in this town, decided it would be good for business...You can tell me all of ya problems once we get there, and all that jazz." I frowned slightly confused at the statement 'and all that jazz', not knowing what jazz or the meaning of that phrase, but I just shrugged and pushed myself off.
"Okay," I nodded, feeling slightly better. if what the kid had said and he really did work with these guys, and they really were detectives, then they could possibly help me play matchmaker and get Amy and Shadow together...if they were good detectives, surely they've done things a lot harder than playing matchmaker, right?!
