The Prophecy; Fulfilled (Part Two)

Chapter Nine -

Sorrow soon engulfed the group like a cloud lingering over their heads as they moved about. While the boys covered the hole back up with dirt, all three of the girls went hunting for flowers. Although, in such a place, it was rather difficult to find decent quality flowers. Nevertheless, they ended up being struck with luck and had stumbled over a patch of bright white flowers whose petals stretched desperately towards the soft moonlight that melted through the cracks between the leaves in the trees above. They plucked as many as they could and brought them back, laying them gently on the gravesite.

Cream the rabbit, with her teary hazel eyes, walked up to the orange fox who was kneeling beside the grave with a pained expression. "Tails, do you think it's good enough?" She asked with a tad bit of a whine behind her voice.

He stood and dusted off his knees, then his hands. "We did the best we could," He said solemnly. They hadn't had a coffin or anything, and ended up having to wrap Miya in several layers of cloth. They could have taken the time to build one, but if they wanted to catch Sonic before anything else happened.. He felt a pang of guilt in him, but faked a smile to the bunny and turned to walk towards his plane before she could question him about it. The dead woman wasn't the main thing that was bothering him; it was the fact that he knew that his best friend had killed her. It scared him out of his wits to consider the fact that maybe his intention had been to kill her instead of it being an accident, which is what he had been told. But every time it popped into his mind, he scolded himself for thinking so. It felt like he was betraying Sonic.

In the background, Valentine had been sitting there in rather deep thought, although she was being oddly expressive and ocassionally made faces as though she were angry. Shadow, who stood leaning against the side of the house directly diagonal to her, had been fighting with himself, but eventually caved into one side and walked up to her.

"What's wrong with you?" He asked flatly.

Her crimson gaze flickered to him for only a second before falling back to the ground. She brought her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. "Nothin'. Just thinkin'."

He eyed her suspiciously. "Apparently so. You were over here making some ugly faces."

The cat's white muzzle turned a soft shade of pink, and she turned away. "Well, you shouldn't've been watching me," She said, then shook her head. "We gotta go," She mumbled as she stood and turned to take her leave.

"Are you feeling any better?"

She stopped in her tracks, but she didn't turn to face him. She hesitated, but eventually a warm smile found it's way to her face, although he couldn't see it. "Yeah, I am. A lot better," She said, and left it at that as she started to walk over to Tails. He followed after her but lagged behind. When she approached the plane, she noticed that her cousin, Cakt, was in the cockpit, and Tails was having a hard time getting her out.

"We can't take the plane," Tails said. "It's nothing more than a piece of junk right now, and I don't have the equipment to fix it properly. So we have no choice but to go on foot." He started to continue, but stopped himself and took a different direction. "Knuckles won't be back for a while. I don't know what to do about that.."

"Who?" Cakt asked, tilting her head in curiosity.

"Our other friend," Tails said, then shook his head. "How is he supposed to find us? He went to go get the master emerald, and—"

"The master emerald!" Valentine suddenly exclaimed, hands to her cheeks, grabbing everybody's attention.

"..Yeah.." Tails said slowly.

"The master emerald!" She exclaimed again. "That's just what we need! Let's hurry it up!"

"..But how will Knuckles find us?" Tails asked.