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autisticshadowthehedgehog · 2 years

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Whatever It Takes

based on the Chaos Emerald Filmverse Theory and Potential Roster

When the emeralds were first split, only one was left on Mobius. They all would eventually find their way back, of course, because the emeralds always found their way to each other. But when the separation began, there were six planets chosen for the six remaining emeralds. The Morganite went to the Voxai, the Heliodor to the Kitsune, the Johnkoivulaite to the Sol planet, the Goshenite to Cascade, and the Maxixe to the Zoah. Then the last one, the Aquamarine, stayed home. They didn’t tell anyone that, of course. Claimed they’d all been split. It would be stupid to leave one where anyone could find it, right? So nobody looked there, in the most obvious place. All they had to do was move its position out of sight, and it was out of the minds of anyone on the planet. It must be somewhere else in the universe, of course. Of course it would be, why would it still be here?

The Shrine of Chaos used to hold all of the emeralds, but after the split, the shrine was left abandoned. Or, well, almost abandoned. Each shrine to Chaos became a chao garden whether that was planned or not, so as the years went on, and the shrine was forgotten, it became known as a simple safe haven for the chao. A little hidden garden behind a waterfall, in a lush green valley, with clean rivers and blossoming flowers. Nobody quite remembered that it had used to house the emeralds– a few scholars, sure, but most people just vaguely knew they had once belonged to one of the chao gardens, though there were so many scattered across the planet it was hard to keep track. Everyone mainly assumed they’d been kept with the Master Emerald, mainly the echidnas who still thought they should hold the powers of chaos themselves. But the powers of chaos, by their very definition, were not meant to be contained.

But the little teal emerald, the aquamarine of unimaginable power, that stayed in the garden. There was an elaborate series of tunnels in the mountains beside, one that had been constructed centuries ago. And only one person, of each generation, knew how to navigate through. It was a difficult skill, passed down from parent to child in years of intense teaching. The lessons included more, of course– caring for the chao, caring for the emerald... and protecting both if the need should arise. They all knew the dangers that came with housing something so powerful, and so they would have to be prepared for anything.

The guardians lived just on the edge of the garden with their family, and even then, only a few of that family would know of the garden’s true purpose. It was just safer that way, they wanted news to spread as slowly as possible. (Not at all would be most preferred, of course.) And the next guardian would be selected by the chao themselves, those who were the closest living creatures to that chaos energy, who had once known the god Chaos themself.

The last guardian was selected when she was eight years old. She had no idea she was the last, or what that would mean for her family or future. At the time, she just knew that she went into the garden with her father, who began to clear the trees, and suddenly she was surrounded by the chao. It was strange, she had been there so many times, helping her parents and playing with the creatures inside. But now, it seemed as if she’d become a chao magnet. They were pulling on her legs, swinging on her outstretched limbs, hugging her chest... she couldn’t say she didn’t like it, of course, they were very soft and gentle and it just felt like she was being covered by fluff that was ever-so-slightly ticklish, and had begun to sing their cute little songs. So she laughed, not realizing that the whole colony had gathered around her, harmonizing in a song she had not heard before. She didn’t notice her father lowering himself from the trees, staring in wonder.

To her father, she was the child he’d perhaps expected to be chosen the least. She was more like her grandparents, or her aunt and uncle; she preferred to spend her time in the house, cooking or cleaning, or going out to the back to assist with the farming. She wasn’t a leader, nor did she want to be; she was content to just help whoever she could, do what she could from the sidelines. Her brothers were more adventurous, her cousins more daring. But when he thought about it much later, he realized it did make sense. She was the one who cared the most about their home, about the chao, about keeping their world a peaceful, safe place. Her brothers and cousins weren’t ill-intentioned, not at all, but they had their own ambitions, desires for adventure and a life of excitement. While that would make them good in fighting enemies, it wouldn’t make them good at living forever on the farm, keeping their importance secret and spending most of their time patiently learning the tunnels, keeping the garden running, or keeping the chao happy. Nothing really came after the emerald anyway, so they would be ill-suited to this job. Really, this little girl, one who wanted nothing more than to help, didn’t even care for the credit so long as some good was completed, was the perfect choice.

And so, at the age of eight, Vanilla the Rabbit became the last guardian of the last Chaos Emerald.

---

They told her that very night. Her father returned home with her, letting her run off to tell her brothers and cousins all about how sweet the chao had been that day, and he quietly pulled her mother aside and whispered that they’d chosen her. So after dinner, they asked to speak to her privately, and went up to their room, closed the door, and explained.

They weren’t just guardians of the chao garden, they informed her, but of the teal Chaos Emerald, which hadn’t left their planet after all. It was hidden in the caves, with only her father knowing the way, but the chao had chosen her as the next guardian. He would teach her how to care for the gardens, how to defend them, and how to find her way to the emerald if the situation called for it. It was an important job, but one they had to keep quiet for everyone’s safety. Before today, only he and her mother had known.

She was quiet throughout the talk, but then again she always was. When her parents had finished, she simply asked if they really thought she could do it.

“Of course,” her father had said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “The chao wouldn’t be wrong. They see our souls, you know. And if they’ve chosen you, they’ve chosen right.”

She smiled, then, her eyes lighting up with joy. She sat up a bit straighter, and then nodded.

“Whatever I can do.” she said. “Whatever it takes.”

---

It was hard to keep secrets from her family. She lived in a huge household, after all. Though their home was small, they seemed to somehow have enough room for everyone, and though it meant it was often a little loud and a little busy, none of them minded much. It just made them feel closer together. There was Vanilla and her brothers– one older, who was always playing pirate in the backyard with sticks for swords, and one younger, who liked to scamper up the walls and leap back off, who was always playing pranks on anyone nearby. Her father had a sister, who lived there with her husband and their four children, and her sister’s husband’s parents and sister, the latter of whom had her own daughter who was much older than the rest of them and liked to remind them of that. Vanilla shared a room with all of the children, and while sometimes the others would complain that they wanted their own rooms like their friends in the village, she never found it stifling. So long as her brothers didn’t steal the books on her dresser, and her cousins didn’t spill food on her bedsheets, and nobody messed up the toys she kept on her shelf, she didn’t mind sharing. She liked having people there when she awoke, and she couldn’t think of what she would do with a big room of her own anyway. What would she put in there? Maybe more books. Maybe she could move her knitting materials there instead of the living room... but she liked having it by the fireplace. So, no, she was happy where she was. It did mean, though, that when she came home from the gardens, and they piled on her to ask what she’d done that day, she had to come up with some convincing tale.

“Oh, you know,” she’d usually shrug, as her younger brother clung to her arm, “We pruned the trees– the harvest’s coming in soon. Then we checked over the flowers and the water– still clean– and made sure the chao were eating alright. One of them nearly flew into my face on accident, it was kinda funny.”

“Do you have bruises here?” the oldest would ask, holding up her arm.

“Hit the side of the mountain on the way there.”

She hadn’t; it had been an accident during her training. Her father had felt awful about it, but she told him over and over that it was alright, it didn’t even hurt and she didn’t notice until he pointed it out. It had been sword training that day; they worked with a variety of weapons, as many as they could find, to be ready for anyone who could show up. Blasters? They had that covered. Spears? Arrows? That they could handle. She had to be prepared for a duel, though, just in case, and swordfighting always seemed to be her weakness. She’d trip over herself, and swing too slow or too weakly.

“I don’t want to hurt anyone.” she said, sitting on a rock by the river during a break.

“I know you don’t. But you should be ready to do whatever it takes.”

“Maybe I could talk them down.”

“Maybe you could. But remember–”

“Whatever it takes. Yeah.”

She fell silent, and he wrapped his arm around her. “I’m sorry this burden has come to you.”

“Don’t be. It’s important.”

“It can be important and scary at the same time.“

Vanilla bit her lip. “That’s true.”

“We... we would have waited until you were older, I wasn’t chosen until I was your brother’s age, but... we never know how much time we have. My Zari died before I could finish memorizing the tunnels.”

“Really?”

He nodded. “I was terrified. I’d tie a rope to a tree, and the other end to my waist, and then walk inside, knowing that if i lost my way, i could follow the rope. And one night, the rope broke.”

“What?”

“I don’t know when it did. But I turned around, and suddenly there was a frayed rope dragging just a little behind me.”

“That must’ve been really scary.”

“It was! Especially because nobody knew I was there. But you know what happened?”

“What?”

“I found my way out.” he smiled softly. “And I realized I hadn’t needed the rope for a very long time. No matter what happens, I know you’ll find your way. But I just want to make it as easy for you as we can. I want you to know that no matter what, I am proud of you.” He paused, and then let out a laugh. “And so are the chao.”

Vanilla blinked in confusion, and then he gestured to her left. She turned, seeing that three chao had clambered up beside her. One moved, then, snuggling under her arm, and another flopped atop her skirt. She giggled, reaching out to pet them and letting the sun shine down on her.

---

It took a lot of time, a lot of training, but thankfully everything but the fighting was something she enjoyed. She liked reading and learning, she liked gardening and farming, and of course she liked the chao. What was difficult, though, were the tunnels.

Her father had drawn her a map, and had her memorize the route from there. Then, he would tell her to draw it “from the left” or “upside-down.” She had to know where she would be at any point, had to remember both where the emerald was and where the exit was. When she started getting the hang of that, he would begin with “You’re in the fourth tunell up, third to the right, and you’re facing straight ahead. Which fork do you use to get to the emerald?” She knew those were important things to know, incredibly important, possibly the most important thing she would do (as nobody had come to steal the emerald for years, so she probably wouldn’t even have to fight), but wow it was hard.

She was about eleven or twelve when she finally got them down to the exacts. Though she hadn’t yet been taken to the tunnels, she felt like she knew them better than she knew the nearby village. Better than the back of her hand. If she was alone in a room with her mother or father, they’d turn and call out a tunnel and a destination, and she’d think for only a second, clenching her fist to help her thoughts, before spouting out the her directions. (If her mother asked, she’d write down what Vanilla had said and run it by their father to make sure she’d been right.) Once, they’d accidentally done it in front of a younger cousin, and they’d had to make up a story behind this “weird inside joke” to cover it up as quickly as they could.

So, after ensuring she knew what she was doing, her father told her it was time to see the emerald for the first time.

She was nervous, of course, but he held her hand the whole way to the chao garden. Then he pushed aside some ivy, showing her the tunnel entrance.

“Now,” he said, “You lead the way.”

She took his hand again, and stepped into the cavern. It was different, being inside, even more different than she’d expected for the last few years. It was cold, and the walls were either made of loose stone or very thick dirt, she couldn’t quite tell. But that had been what those random tests were for– to soothe out the nerves. Keep her straight. And, well, if they got lost, Father would get her out. And if she was separated from him... she’d find her way.

But she found her way right then, and her father stopped her as she turned towards a bend by moving his hand to her shoulder. She flinched and looked back, still adjusting her eyes to the darkness, and feeling a bit of worry that she’d just got them horribly lost.

“Good job,” he said instead. “It’s right over there.”

Her breath caught in her throat. She wasn’t sure whether to smile or cry.

“Go on when you’re ready.”

She hesitated, meeting his eyes as best she could in the darkness. Then she nodded, and stepped away. She clenched her fists to focus, and pulled her ear back, and then turned the bend.

She instantly gasped, stumbling to a stop as her eyes grew wide. Up ahead was a circular room, about as big as the cottage where her family lived. Right in the center, the floor seemed to rise into a pillar, reaching up just a bit higher than the average mobian could reach. And atop the pillar was the Chaos Emerald. It radiated a bright blue, calming energy, and as it ever-so-slowly spun, the light it emitted flickered across the walls, rippling and making it seem as if they had just journeyed into a mystical, underwater grotto. She squinted, and realized it was spinning midair, hovering just a little above the pillar, as if to say “I could rest here, but I’d rather show off.”

Her father came up behind her, and it took her a second to notice. Then, she whispered, “Wow.”

“Yeah. Wow.” he nodded. “Trust me, I had the same reaction.”

Vanilla stared for a little bit longer, just taking in the magical jewel. Then her eyes flickered downwards, and she cocked her head to the side, narrowing her eyes in concentration. At the base of the pillar, she could see a few more sparkling lights.

Her father followed her gaze, then said, “Come, I’ll show you the ritual.”

She walked with him, and they stopped just a few feet from the pillar’s base. He knelt, and made a symbol with his hands, which she copied. Then she glanced back to the base; now that she was closer, she could see three of those lights, spread around the pillar in a circle; with the pattern, she expected that three lights would probably mirror them on the other side. The one closest to her was a flickering blue, though darker than the Aquamarine, and to its right, a shining purple. But the third, the one to the left... well, there was a little circle of red, dipping into the pillar a little, but it didn’t glow like the others.

“These,” her father said, startling her out of her thoughts, “Are the lights of the other emeralds.”

“The lights?”

“They’re far away, but the emeralds will always feel each other.” he said. He reached forwards, pointing to the blue light. “That would be the Maxixe. Do you remember–?”

“Clarity.” she said quickly. “It brings clarity, confidence, and love after it has been lost.”

“Right. And this...” he sighed, and then pointed to the red. “This went out before I was born, when Zari was still training.”

“That would be... bixbite.” Vanilla said, recalling what she’d read. “Courage, strength of purpose, loyalty. And... that was the first one that was lost?”

“Yes. But even then, Zari said, its light shone until one day it... didn’t. We don’t know what happened.”

“Could it have died?”

“If someone found a way to kill a chaos emerald,” he snorted, “Then kudos to them. These things are resilient.” He knelt down, and pointed. “And see that pink light? That was the emerald, but it changed color when I was a child. That makes it a Morganite now, though I’m not sure...”

Vanilla considered the dark red spot for a moment. Then she said, “And we have Aquamarine, up there.”

“Yes. And what is that for?”

“Healing– physical and emotional. Empathy, trust, justice, service, embracing change... and acceptance of the light.”

“Very good.” he then reached over and ruffled the fur atop her head, and she let out a faux-annoyed groan. “My little girl’s so smart, isn’t she?”

“Father.”

“And now, this cave is ours.” he paused. “Well, ours and the chao. They come in and out from time to time.”

“Hmm, do you think they broke your rope?”

“No, I’m pretty sure I just wore it out, but it’s a possibility.” They laughed together for a moment, and then he reached down and touched her cheek, waiting until she turned to face him. “I’m so proud of you, Vanilla.”

“Thank you, father.” she turned, looked up at the light, and then said, “I... think I’m proud of myself, too.”

“You should be.”

---

She was fifteen when she ran into Casein at the market. They knew each other vaguely before– whenever the children of the nearby farmers went into town, clinging to their parents’ skirts or pants and trying to adjust to the sudden noise, they would eventually find each other and play a gam while their parents talked or traded. Casein’s grandfather ran the old mill near the creek, and sometimes when their families were in town at the same time, his grandfather would talk to her father or mother or aunt or whoever was taking them that day, and she and her siblings and cousins would wander off with him to look in store windows or start a game of hopscotch. The other farmer children would join them, and they would play for however long it took adults to stop talking. Which, knowing adults, was a long time. Sometimes they brought up how their farm or mill was going, or talk about the animals they raised, but they usually just fell into the games and forgot about themselves for a while.

Vanilla wasn’t sure when exactly she’d met Casein; he was a year or two behind her, but they’d always vaguely known of each others’ existence due to these run-ins. She knew that he was a lot quieter than her brothers, and preferred books to people, because sometimes during a game he would hide under a bench and read until his grandfather came to pick him up.

She went into the market, though, when all the adults were busy with some problem on the farm. She had been alone there once or twice, but it was still strange, wandering around without anyone else there to guide her. She kept herself focused on the list of what they needed to pick up, so that the jostling crowd didn’t bother her.

She ran into Casein then– literally. She had her eyes glued to the paper, and she ran right into his side. Then they were both on the ground, scrambling to pick up whatever had fallen from her basket.

“Sorry, sorry!” she said. “Ugh, I wasn’t– my fault, I’m sorry–”

She sat up, trying to get everything back into the basket, and Casein said something quietly.

“What?”

“I said it was probably me.”

“No, definitely me. I’m sorry again–”

“It was me. It’s my first time in the market alone, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

His face flushed and he glanced down, then, a little embarrassed. Vanilla froze a moment, thinking.

“Well, I’ve been alone once or twice. I can show you what to do.”

She wasn’t sure why she suggested it. Maybe it was just her natural inclination to help, but even she knew she wasn’t an expert on the marketplace and he should probably ask someone else. But he nodded, and they helped each other up, and she took his arm and started showing him where to go.

At the end of the trip, he asked if it would be weird if he wrote to her farm. She said she supposed it would be fine, but only if he attached a book recommendation, she’d been running low on good things to read. He said she’d have to send one back, and she said of course, and then he had to rush home to make sure his grandfather was alright. Vanilla nodded and, to her surprise, planted a kiss on his cheek before racing off.

A few days later, her cousin came in with the mail and cooed teasingly that Vanilla had an admirer. Vanilla blushed and hid under the table as she read his letter, while her older brother stomped her cousin’s foot for her.

A week after that, the Maxixe’s light beneath the emerald flickered and died. She asked her father what that meant. He didn’t know.

“The Bixbite went out,” he said quietly, “Maybe all the lights will go out eventually. It doesn’t mean the emeralds are dying, just that it’s been a while since they’ve seen each other.”

That was an unrealistic hope. One they had to cling to.

---

It was a year after that when her father died.

A sickness spread through the surrounding area. Though they were careful, some of the family caught it– her father and younger brother, her aunt, her aunt’s parents and sister-in-law, and one of Vanilla’s cousins. Her aunt’s parents-in-law died first– they were old, her mother told the weeping children, so the disease hit them hardest. Even after they had buried them, Vanilla held out hope that everyone else would get better. Her brother and cousin recovered first, and soon were helping around the farm with the other children as they tried to do the work of all the bedridden adults. Well... children. Vanilla had always thought of them as the children– the third generation of the household. But most of them weren’t children anymore. Her cousins’ cousin was nearing twenty-three, her brother twenty. Two of her cousins were eighteen, and it wouldn’t be long until all of her family was grown. It was strange to think of them as adults. It was even stranger to wonder how that had happened, how everyone had matured on their own as she helped around the farm or the garden, or trained with Father.

When Father got worse, Mother insisted that everyone who wasn’t sick go to the chao garden until everyone healed. They set up a tent, and Vanilla sat with her younger brother and younger cousins and showed them the stars. She was worried, for most of the trip, that one of her relatives would stumble upon the caves and she’d have to rescue them and explain everything. She didn’t worry about Father. He would get better.

Her aunt got better, but stayed at the farmhouse to take care of Father. She tried to send Vanilla’s mother to the garden, but she’d hear nothing of it.

One night, the chao were singing a song Vanilla hadn’t heard of them before, one that sounded melancholy, depressed... something the chao didn’t normally feel. A few minutes later, her mother came to the garden, the fur under her eyes still damp, and told her children that they would have to come home to say goodbye.

Vanilla was numb as they donned masks to prevent themselves from breathing infected air. She was numb as they said goodbye, staring at her father in a weak state she never would have believed of him. She was numb as her little brother cried into their mother’s dress, and as their aunt told them they had to go, and that no, honey, they couldn’t get closer, this was the safest distance. She was numb still when her aunt took her brothers out of the room, and her mother knelt down and said her father wanted to give her something, and if she was careful, she walk go up to the dresser. Vanilla did, and her father sat up as best he could and passed a thick, leather-bound journal across the table.

“All the guardians have written in this.” her mother explained, because her father was unable to. “It’s your turn now.”

She took it numbly. And she remained numb when she returned to the garden, hiding the journal in her skirt pocket, and when her mother came the next day and said their father had passed in the night. She remained numb during the burial and the disinfection of the house, and when people came to pay their respects and drop off food and ask how she was doing, she had no answer to give them.

She wrote back to Casein, but when her family had cleared themselves as safe from the sickness, she went into town to get food, and she ran into him there.

“I’m safe,” she said through her mask as soon as she saw him.

“I know, you wouldn’t come into town if you weren’t.” he said. They stared at each other for a while.

Carefully, he said, “How do you feel?”

Her eyes hit the ground.

Then, hesitantly, he said, “You don’t feel at all, do you?”

She looked back up.

“I felt the same when my parents died.” he said. “It was so long ago, but I don’t think I’ll forget it. Everyone talked to me like they expected me to be crying. But I didn’t feel anything, and that made me wonder if there was something wrong with me. But... no. A lot of people feel that way.”

He held out a hand, and whispered, “I get it.”

She took his hand, and they went shopping together.

When she returned home, it was time for her first visit to the garden without him. She’d been avoiding it for weeks, but her mother had gently reminded her that the chao would miss her, and she had work to do. So she put the journal in her pocket and slipped away after a strangely quiet dinner (all of their dinners had been strangely quiet for a long while), and went to the garden.

The chao crowded around her, singing. It was bright, but not too much so. An attempt at comfort. She petted them gently, and quietly moved around the garden, checking everything out. Her mother had taken care of it the past few weeks, and she’d done a good job. Vanilla wondered how her mother could work so hard when her husband had just died. She supposed that staying busy kept her from thinking about it. She did that sometimes, when she was baking, focusing only on the ingredients and mixtures and patterns and not on whatever had happened that day. They must be similar in that way.

When she finished looking over the garden, she stopped at the cave entrance. She knew that if she went in and got lost, none of her family would be able to find her now. But she had to go in, it was part of her job, and so she took a breath and then a step inside. She was surprised that, even in her emotional stupor, she still knew the maze by heart. She didn’t even have to think as she wound around identical corners, her eyes adjusting faster than she would’ve thought possible when she was a child.

She reached the emerald and went to sit underneath it. It seemed to shine a little brighter when she did, as if to say something to her.

She looked down to the base, and felt cold.

The Bixbite had gone dark fifty years before the Maxixe, so her and her father had assumed it must be a fifty-year thing. But as she looked down, she saw that the Goshenite’s light no longer shone.

She stood up and walked, slowly, around, seeing the blank Maxixe and Bixbite beside each other. The Morganite shone. The Heliodor shone. Then she knelt down, staring with wide eyes, as the Johnkoivulaite flickered, like a dying flame.

“No, no, no, do not...” she whispered, as she knelt beside it, staring, trying to think of what to do. But what could she do?

She stared for several silent minutes, and then the purple light went out and didn’t shine again.

There was a moment where she blinked and rubbed her eyes and tried to see if she had imagined it. Then she checked the Goshenite again. And then back to the Johnkoivulaite. The lights were out.

That was when she finally broke down and sobbed.

She returned home the next morning. Her brothers asked her where she’d been.

“With the chao.” she responded, her voice hoarse, and then she went to work on the farm.

---

Everyone and everything seemed to start slipping away then, somehow far too fast and far too slow all at once.

Her aunt’s sister-in-law passed away quietly from a different sickness, and her daughter married her long-distance partner and moved out to their farm.

Her younger brother and cousin expressed a desire to study at a school several miles away, and their parents gave permission, and then they were gone.

Her oldest cousin got married and left, and then her older brother came home with news of a ship that was hiring sailors. He’d always wanted to travel the sea, ever since they were little children and he would encourage them to play Pirates when they should be weeding. They hugged him and told him to write, and he was gone, too.

Their aunt and uncle announced their intention to move in with their oldest child and help their farm, and they took both their remaining children with them. The next year, one of them also married, and Vanilla and her mother traveled to the ceremony.

Her cousin closest to her in age asked how things were on the farm now. “Quiet,” was all she could say, and it was true. Everyone had gone on with their lives; her little brother was on track to graduate, and then he wanted to teach in the city. Her older brother had sent them a letter a month ago, and gifted them decorated feathers he’d purchased from Soleanna. With the cousins gone, it was just her and mother. They didn’t talk much, not for lack of affection, but just because neither was very good with words. It didn’t matter, they continued to do everything together. They had to care of the farm, which took more work with just the two of them, and they had to shorten the crop so they didn’t overexert themselves. They would bake together, and fall asleep on the couch reading together, and go visit the chao together. The chao, at least, were unchanged.

Vanilla once asked her mother if she’d like to learn the cave layout. To see the emerald. Her mother declined. She was happy where she was, and she trusted Vanilla to be taking care of everything.

Vanilla wasn’t sure she trusted herself.

“The Morganite went out,” she said, when she was eighteen. “The heliodor’s the only one left.”

Her mother simply smiled. “What was it your father said? That if someone knew how to kill an emerald...”

“Kudos to them.” Vanilla laughed. She looked down at the clean, flowing stream beneath them, and asked, “Do you miss having everyone around?”

“A little. But I’ve found you can enjoy silence as much as you enjoy noise, if you just find things to like about it.” her mother sighed, and looked up at the sky. “Without other voices, you can hear the flickies, and the wind, and the leaves. It lets you know that the world is still turning.”

And the world kept turning.

She had been seventeen when she and Casein started courting. A little after that talk with her mother about the silence, she brought him to the chao garden. She didn’t tell him about the cave or the emerald, but as she watched him play with the chao, and begin to weed the garden without even being asked, she knew it would only be a matter of time. When she was nineteen, they sat under the waterfall that bordered the chao garden and the farm, and he asked if she wanted to get married.

She would’ve liked to say she held it together, but when he asked, she immediately squeaked and toppled off into the water. He jumped up, concerned, only for her to throw herself back out of the water, shout “yes” very loudly, and then tackle him in a hug, getting both of them covered in the river water.

Everything was beginning to get bright, then. Her brothers both confirmed they’d be home on time for the planned wedding date. Her cousins were coming, her cousins’ cousin and her new children. The flowers seemed to bloom a little more as she walked past them, the sunlight a bit warmer, the chao singing louder. Even when she went to visit the emerald, it seemed somehow even brighter than it had been when she first saw it, even though five lights beneath it were out.

She was visiting the emerald on that night, when she was almost twenty, when one of the chao came to get her from the tunnels. It seemed worried, so she walked it back to its nest, and then walked home, only to find one of the women from the village pounding on her door.

“It’s your mother,” she said, and Vanilla felt that numbness wash over her again.

Her mother had gone into town to plan for the wedding, only to fall into the water. Her head hit a sharp stone, which must have knocked her out, and by the time they found her, it was already too late.

She sat with Casein that night on the steps of his mill, and neither of them said anything.

When she eventually went back to the farm, it was too quiet. She tried to clean, but the silence was deafening, and so she ran to the chao garden and sat with them. When they cuddled on her lap, she cried and hugged them tight.

Casein would have delayed the wedding as long as she needed, she knew, but when her brothers came back for the funeral, she told them that the date hadn’t changed. “Mother wouldn’t want us to sit around and feel sorry for ourselves, now would she?” she said, as they sat under the spreading tree they’d buried Mother under. So the wedding would go on as planned, on their farm, under the arch her parents had married under.

A few nights before, as her cousins set up the decorations and argued with each other over placement, she managed to get Casein alone in the chao garden. They sat in the silence that wasn’t as deafening as it had been when her mother died, and then she spilled it all. That the garden held an emerald, that her family had guarded it for generations, that the lights beneath it had been going out, that she hadn’t told anyone, anyone before, and now that her mother was dead she was the only one to know and it was killing her.

He was quiet, and then he kissed her on the forehead, and told her that it must have been hard to keep that all inside. She told him if he didn’t want to join her in the responsibility, they could call off the wedding– it was the last thing she wanted to say, but she knew she had to give him the choice. Instead of responding, he kissed her again, and told her he wasn’t going anywhere.

Her mother was supposed to walk her down the aisle, and she cried that morning knowing that she wouldn’t. Her brother walked her down instead, as Casein’s grandfather walked him. It was a small gathering, of just family, and that was all either of them would want. Only a little while later, her older brother went back out to sea, and her younger brother back to town, and her cousins back to their own farms. It was just Vanilla and Casein, then, but the silence started to become nice when it was just them. They were both quiet people, and they would start their mornings sitting on the deck and hearing the song of the flickies and the buzz of the insects. It was harder to hear them when people talked, and so they stayed silent so that they could listen better. When it rained, they heard each drop-drop-drop on the ground, and that was somehow the most calming thing they’d ever heard.

---

That was how the next few years went on. Just her and Casein, sometimes with his grandfather visiting, sometimes with them visiting him. They got letters from her family, and farmed the land, and took care of the garden, and went on with their lives.

Their first anniversary, Vanilla walked Casein to the emerald, guiding his hand and laughing as he stumbled. “I don’t know how you do this all the time.” he muttered.

“Years of practice, dear.”

She watched with excitement as his eyes lit up once they reached the gem. Seeing him see it for the first time, it was as if she was a child again, making her way through the tunnels for the first time.

When they made it out, he told her that that was very nice, but he’d prefer to stay out of the caves, and she laughed and told him that was fine, he’d just have to help her out with the chao, something he was much better at.

The only other time he went in with her was when the Heliodor light went out.

The Morganite’s light had turned pink a few years back, and then it had flickered and died, but the Heliodor shined on until, one day, it didn’t. Vanilla had Casein come look, and as they looked at the completely dimmed lights beneath the emerald, he told her that, really, there was no way for them to know what caused it, or how to fix it.

“But...”

“But?”

He hesitated. “Your brother’s theory–”

“Is ridiculous.”

“It could make sense. Nothing can kill an emerald, but if they... changed form...”

It had been a ridiculous rumor he’d sent back, because really he was their only source for news outside their town. The rumor said that the Zoah emerald, after being stolen, had come to life as a little mobian. That he was under the care of the last of the Great Owls. When Vanilla first got the letter, she dismissed it as a silly rumor, probably started by some random owl who wanted to seem more important than she was. But then they heard the rumor that the Sol empire’s princess had taken an emerald’s power into herself, that she was hidden from public view so that her new abilities wouldn’t be taken.

“Also a rumor,” Vanilla had decided, “From what little I know of the Sol Empire, they love to make people scared of them.”

Then the rumors of Cascade. The planet had turned from a utopia to a warzone in less time than it took to think about it, and Vanilla had been afraid, then, because most people believed it was because of the Black Arms.

“Cascade is far from us,” Casein had told her, then. But when, years later, reports came back that the Black Arms had been looking for an emerald there, that it may have taken form and fled, they’d both gotten a bit concerned then. Vanilla still didn’t believe the reports– the owl’s claim must have gotten out of hand– but the idea the Black Arms were still looking for emeralds... they weren’t a species to be reasoned with. If they found them...

It would be fine. They’d lasted this long without being found out. They could last longer.

---

When Vanilla found out she was pregnant, her and Casein were both over the moon. They cleared out the old nursery, setting up the crib her parents had used for all their children, going into town to find cute toys and building their own. When Vanilla went out to the gardens, Casein got fresh paint, and when she returned they fixed up the walls. He went a bit overboard, sticking things to every table corner, even though she reminded him the table was higher up than the baby would be able to reach, but “You can’t be too careful, ‘Nil, kids are a mess.”

“I know kids are a mess, I used to have three younger than me running around.”

“And about a million adults at the same time. It’s just us two.”

“Yeah, and only one kid.”

“Unless we end up with twins.”

“I think at this point we’d know if I was having twins.” she straightened up, then, and kissed his cheek. “Trust me, honey, when kid two comes along, we’ll know what we’re doing.”

It didn’t happen like that.

The world kept turning, and Vanilla had to stop working. Casein, his grandfather and some friends from town helped with the harvest, and then her husband would come back inside and sit with her and a light the fireplace, and they’d talk about name ideas or go through a book until one of them fell asleep. When he was out, she would sew or knit or read, or sometimes make her way to the kitchen and bake whatever she could.

The harvest passed, and winter came, and Casein died.

They’d been at home, almost asleep, when someone came to get them. The sloths, a few farms away, had their house collapse, and they were trapped in their basement. They’d heard Casein and Vanilla had the proper tools. They just wanted to borrow them, but Casein insisted on going, on helping as best he could. He kissed her on the cheek and told her he’d be right back, and left her in the silent farm.

She busied herself cooking, then, wanting the sloths to have something to eat once they were rescued. And everyone helping would be hungry once they finished. When Casein came back, she’d give him dinner, and then the next morning they could start delivering food to everyone else.

The next morning, Casein’s grandfather came to her door, and said that the basement had caved in halfway through the retrieval. Casein shielded the sloth’s four-year-old son with his body, and he hadn’t made it out.

Vanilla didn’t believe him at first. “Oh.” she said, and she didn’t say anything else.

It was a blur, then, just as it had been when her parents had died. Too fast, too slow. It seemed like forever that Casein’s grandfather stayed with her, telling her that if there was anything he could do, if she needed anything, all that stuff. It seemed like too fast before the funeral, and everyone expected her to say something, but she couldn’t think of a single word. People stopped by with food, offers to stay around and help, offering her a place to sleep if she was too alone. She only shook her head. People asked if she’d written her family. She hadn’t. She hadn’t seen them in years. She hadn’t read their most recent letters, either, her mind too jumbled. It was too silent. The silence was too loud.

The first rainfall after the funeral, she was sitting in bed, staring at the wall, a hobby she’d taken up recently. She heard the drop, drop, drop on the roof; the rain had started a while ago, but she’d only now processed the noise. As she did, she stood up, her mind as clouded as the night sky outside, and walked out of the house. She walked across the farm as the rain drop, drop, dropped onto her head, soaking her clothes, and walked to the garden.

The chao crowded around her, chirping and squeaking as if they were asking her questions. She kept walking.

Her mind was in a haze, as if she was dreaming while awake. She’d heard the rain, and remembered sitting on the deck with her husband, and thought, he’s not home yet. He must have gone to the garden.

She didn’t see him in the garden, so she went into the caves. He must be looking for me. He’ll be lost in there. I’ll just bring him back out.

She didn’t know how long she was in the tunnels, then. Longer than usual. Longer than she should. She wasn’t sure where she was going, either, only that her feet were moving while her head was somewhere far away. Walls twisted and turned around her as she stepped, barefoot, over either loose stone or thick dirt, she’d never figured it out. Maybe Father would know.

Vanilla only snapped back to reality when her water broke.

The second it happened, and she realized what was going on, her eyes flew open, and she stumbled back into a wall. She let out a cry as a sting leapt to her back, and her legs nearly collapsed, suddenly feeling heavier than lead. How long had she been out here? Why was she out here?

Where was she?

No, no, she couldn’t be lost. She knew these tunnels better than she knew herself. She couldn’t be lost. She... she didn’t know where she came in from, where had she even been walking to? Focus, Vanilla, you know these tunnels. You know these walls, they don’t all look the same, they do all look the same, everything looks the same...

Go.

Vanilla started running. She had to keep going through the tunnels, she had to get out. Nobody knew she was in here. Nobody knew these caves existed.

Casein knows.

Casein’s dead.

She ran for what felt like an eternity, as pains began in her chest and her feet began to skid and stumble. Vanilla saw light flicker ahead, and raced towards it. It was the light of the emerald, still shining atop its pedestal. She could find her way out from here. She knew where she was now...

She dropped to the ground and couldn’t get up again, and she began to scream.

She was alone, then, in that room full of teal light, and once again she didn’t know how long it took. Time slipped away and she was just clinging to her skirt, or to her ears, or to the ground, desperately trying to crawl away, but she didn’t have the strength to hold herself up. Somehow a million thoughts were going through her mind and none at all– the baby’s coming. The baby’s early. The baby shouldn’t be coming. The baby’s not supposed to come for weeks. Well, the baby’s coming. The baby shouldn’t be coming. Casein should be here. The whole family should be here. They were here when everyone was born. Why am I alone?

Why am I alone?

She passed out about then. When she opened her eyes next, a chao was floating in front of her, floating just a little bit above the ground. Her mind was clouded again, and hurt, and every inch of her body hurt, and the chao was flying away now, there were other chao singing, she could hear the singing but it was so loud... she shut her eyes, just as there was a burst of light to her side. She felt the rumble of the ground, the flash behind her eyelids... and then it was dark. It was too dark.

She opened her eyes. The teal light was gone.

She sat up, ignoring the cries of her arms as they hoisted her up, of her back as it straightened, of her legs as they slid across the ground. Yes, she sat up, and she turned and blinked. It was dark, too dark. No light, no light. No emerald. No...?

The chao were beside her as her eyes adjusted, from those years of experience in the dark tunnels. They sang, and helped her lean against a wall, and then dropped something in her arms.

Something was crying.

Vanilla looked down, and saw a tiny rabbit kit, pressing itself against her chest as it let out a tiny, high-pitched wail. It kicked the air, its hands in a tight fist. Its ears flopped over, much too big for its body, and it shifted away, almost falling from her grip. Instinctively, she tightened her hold, and that was when it clicked.

Oh.

She looked down at the baby in her arms, the crying child, and began to tremble.

It was hard to tell in the darkness, but the baby was the same color as the neutral chao beside her, singing happily and peering over at the child. The same bright teal.

No.

Tears sprang to her eyes as she began to shake. She looked back up the emerald pedestal, where nothing rested anymore. No light at all.

Her baby cried again.

---

Days, weeks went on and Vanilla did everything she could.

She heard knocks on the door sometimes, worried calls inside. She didn’t respond, pouring through every book she could find. She snuck into town one night, breaking into the library to steal whatever few books on magic they had. She probably would have felt bad about that once upon a time, but she had to. She couldn’t be seen in town, it would become obvious the baby had arrived and she wasn’t about to answer questions about her at the moment. And she needed to protect her child.

All the stories clicked into place now. The rumors were true, all of them, all of them were right. The emeralds had taken form, had come to life. But not randomly, no. She had no doubt that something had been wrong when she went into labor. Her baby must have been weak, the chao must have thought they were helping. And there must have been many, many desperate families across the galaxy who managed to get their hands on an emerald. She didn’t know why it was all happening now, in the last several years, but the emeralds were finding their place in this universe.

But that place was not going to be her daughter.

Cascade had fallen because of the emerald living there, she knew now. Every time her brother sent her a letter now, there was news of another planet that the Black Arms had taken. They didn’t have a pattern, so she couldn’t tell if they were getting closer or farther away, but she wasn’t taking the chance. She’d knew what they could do. What they would do. What they would not do, because she was going to get the emerald out of her daughter. That baby was not going to grow up sparking with chaos energy, her fur shining in the obvious teal that anyone could tell belonged to the lost Aquamarine. Anyone would take one look at her and know what she was, and the word would spread, and then the Black Arms would come and kill them all. And worst, they would take her daughter, to do Chaos only knew what.

It wasn’t happening. No. She was going to fix this.

Whatever it takes.

After pouring through every story, legend, account or textbook on magic she could get her paws on, her mind sparked, and she raced up to her room, which she hadn’t been in since her daughter was born; she’d spent all her time in the nursery with her, terrified to leave her alone for a second, only sleeping when her body passed out from exhaustion. But she made it to her room, and threw open the dresser drawer. Her father’s journal was in there, and had been for a while. But she ripped it out and raced back to the nursery, and as her daughter slept, she poured through every crinkled page, nearly ripping them out in her haste.

She read everything as fast as she could. Everything that each guardian had noted about the emeralds, about the garden, about the magic flowing through it all. She spent the rest of the day and all night on it, breaking only to feed her daughter and shut the windows when someone came knocking again. By the time she was done, she had a plan.

The night was almost over when she gathered her daughter up in her arms, bundled her in a blanket, got everything she could need in a basket, and ran back to the garden.

The chao crowded around her and the infant, curious and confused, as she laid the girl on the ground. She lifted stones from the river, placing them around her. The ground, and the stones, would be flowing with chaos energy, from the chao that had lived there for generations. She would need that. At least, she assumed. There had never been a need to separate a chaos emerald from a living being. But God, she needed it now. She had spent the last several days combining the knowledge she could gather and remember of the emeralds, of magic, of ceremonies, of... of anything.

She cut parts of her fur off, spreading them over the rock circle, scattered the petals of flowers, the leaves of the trees. It was a lot of items, but she wasn’t sure which she would need and which she would not, and she didn’t want to pull a trial-and-error for the rest of her life, so she just dumped it all and hoped for the best. Finally, at the end, she removed her glove, cut her palm open with a knife from the kitchen, and let her blood drip into the circle. She heard the chao cry with alarm, but at the moment, she didn’t care about anything but the baby sleeping on the grass in front of her.

She laid out papers, then; her notes, on every separation spell, every ancient language that had been attached to the emeralds at any point. She began to recite, in one language and then another. She tried to keep the pattern from all of the spells she’d read– the word pattern, syllable pattern, thought pattern, movement pattern. There were patterns, scattered across those spells, and so in order to make her own she had to know them, study them. She was lucky her cousin had gone through a magic phase when she was twelve, they had some books still in the house, there were some in the library donated decades before she was born, there were things she remembered her father teaching her about the emeralds and the chaos energy inherent to it.

Over and over, repeating the spell she’d made. If this one failed, she had other drafts. If the blood dried, she would cut her hand open again. Whatever it took. Whatever it takes.

Her voice broke after a little while, but her eyes stayed locked on the paper, keeping her from seeing the chao begin to gather around her. Separating rituals were supposed to be for experienced spellcasters. She didn’t have time to become one, nor find one. Even if she could find one, nobody could know about the emerald. Nothing was going to happen to her daughter. Nothing.

Then, as she recited again, her words slipped into her native mobian. She hadn’t considered it a language for her spells, but she fell into it anyway as tears began to form. She spoke instinctively, as her ears fell into her face and her hands clenched the dirt and her voice wobbled and her throat clogged up and she felt everything, too much of everything.

I will not let this happen, I will not let my daughter live in danger. Even if it destroys the emerald, I don’t care anymore.

Nothing is more important than her.

The rocks began to shine.

Vanilla sat up, nearly breaking her chant, but she let the words finish, falling from her lips as a teal light sparked between the river stones. Then, just as the sun began to rise behind her, her daughter began to awaken.

The little rabbit kit kicked and yawned, raising her hands towards the sky. She scrunched up her nose, then, and let out a cry. Vanilla leapt to her feet, instinct telling her to grab her daughter immediately, but... no. The light had spread into the circle, the child, whose cries seemed muffled, tired.

The light began to fly up, and then to spin. Vanilla stepped back, realizing, suddenly, that the chao were singing. She didn’t know if they knew what was happening, only that they were doing what they could. That was all any of them could do in life, really. Whatever they could, and whatever it took.

The light then pushed itself inwards, surrounding the infant. Then, slowly, it rose, and as Vanilla watched, the teal leaked away from her fur, like dripping paint, only flying into the air instead of to the ground. It lifted and spun, just a few feet above her, her fur turning whiter and redder the more the light went on.

The light stopped, then, floating just a little bit above the baby. It began to fly up, and the kit’s cries worryingly quieted. Vanilla screeched, racing forwards and accidentally knocking the river stones aside with her feet. She knelt down, picking up her daughter and holding her up, and cried with relief when her daughter let out an annoyed wail. She held the little rabbit to her chest, feeling those large ears flop against her hands, feeling the shaky breathing of the infant in her arms and clinging to her as if she were the last thing on the planet.

Her baby looked a lot like her. The same cream-colored fur, the same patches around her eyes, atop her head, the same fluffy tail. Her ears looked like her father’s, though, and she had his light orange tint instead of her brown. She was there, and she was alive, and she was okay.

It took Vanilla a while, again, to notice the chao beneath her, pressing against her, crawling onto her legs. She looked up only when her daughter quieted, and then turned in her arms, her face staring, unfocused, into the distance. Vanilla looked to the chao, and then forwards, and saw that the light was still there. It was flickering teal, sparking with energy, as if it were some kind of flying fire, or stationary lightning, or... really, she didn’t know how to describe it.

It floated closer. Vanilla flinched back, but the light kept moving, and the chao made little interested noises. It stopped just a little bit from them, and then held in the air. As if waiting.

The baby in Vanilla’s arms looked to the light, squinting her little eyes. Then her head turned, looking down at the surrounding chao. The chao made their little noises again, sounding excited. One flew up under the child’s ears, giggling as her fur tickled against them.

Then, as Vanilla watched in amazement, her little girl turned back to the light, lifted a hand, and touched it.

The light turned inwards on itself, and Vanilla scooched them back, watching as it began to shine brighter, more energy flowing and sparking and glowing in her view. Then, with a start, it began to take shape. Instead of a formless light, it began to shrink in on itself and form into a teardrop, then sprouting more little circles beneath. It...

The light drifted to the ground, just as it began to take color. Then, in a moment, the light was gone, and the sparks were gone, and on the ground was a neutral chao, looking as if it had just hatched. It curled on the grass, yawned, and began to sleep. At the same time, the baby in Vanilla’s arms curled against her chest and began to snore again as well.

Vanilla stared in shock, looking from her daughter to the new chao. The other chao didn’t share her stunned state, and simply went to the newcomer, singing happily. With the other neutral chao around it, it looked completely normal.

But it wasn’t, was it?

It couldn’t be a new life. The emerald had taken hold of her daughter, so she doubted if it could become a random life it wouldn’t have done so long ago. It had formed the light, and hadn’t left. And it had only changed when the little girl had touched it. Had... willed it to change.

She didn’t know how to describe it. But... a bit of her daughter’s soul was attached to the emerald. It had been, since it had become part of her, and always would stay with her. But it had taken form, a form that was intrinsically attached to her. One that would stay with her.

She would guess, much later, that the light had told the newborn to choose its form, the form that her power, her soul would take. And her daughter had chosen for it to become a friend.

As the sun rose, Vanilla walked back to her farm, carrying her daughter in one arm and the little chao in the other. She set them both into the crib, and knelt down to watch them for a long time. Then she sat at her desk and wrote to Casein’s grandfather.

“I just had the baby. She was sick, but she’s better now. Casein said if she looked like me we would name her Cream. I think that’s a marvelous name. Please come see her.”

---

She got a few questions about the chao. She just said that she’d accidentally given birth in the chao garden, and a chao had hatched at the same time. “The chao must have thought it was fate,” she said, “Because they pushed them together.”

A little lie. It weighed on her a little, but it lifted whenever she saw her little Cream smile.

She had been worried, the first couple weeks, but the chao really did act like a normal chao. No sparking energy, no odd coloring, no strange behavior. Well, a little strange behavior. They seemed to be progressing a bit slowly for a chao, but her daughter was progressing a bit fast for a mobian. She was babbling soon, and then walking. Vanilla had been worried that she may hurt the chao on accident, but despite still being an infant, Cream seemed to know exactly how to treat her friend.

And the world moved on.

Years pressed on. The farm changed, the village changed. Casein’s grandfather passed, but he’d at least gotten to meat his great-granddaughter, smiling with joy at how much she reminded them all of her father. She sent letters to her family and got letters back, promises to visit. Sometimes they stopped by, and little Cream would hug their legs or bounce in their arms. But mostly, it was just them. Just Vanilla holding Cream’s hands as she took her steps, just the little chao snuggled against Cream as she fell asleep on her mother’s lap, just Cream peering out the window, eyes wide with amazement at the change in weather.

It was silent, mostly, but it wasn’t as deafening as it used to be.

Well, and then Cream started talking, and wouldn’t stop, so the house was always filled with her excited laughter as she chased her chao around, or built a tower of blocks, or ran outside to pick flowers and run back in to give to her mother. She was a joy, an angelic child; Vanilla didn’t think she’d had a tantrum since she was a few months old, and she seemed to be filled with an eager desire to learn, to experience the world around her, and to help everyone who needed it.

Her favorite thing, though, was going with her mother to the chao garden. She loved each and every one of the chao– the light, the dark, the neutral, the speedsters and swimmers and every one she came across. She would flop among the flowers while her mother kept up the garden and let the chao cuddle with her, or play with them to her heart’s content. But above them all, she had the closest connection with her little chao, who followed her everywhere. Vanilla had feared, at first, that they wouldn’t be able to be separated, but one night Cheese wandered into the garden while Cream was asleep and nothing had happened. She probably could have let the little chao live in the garden, then– and she would have, if they had wanted to. But they returned with special flowers to put in the fur of the rabbits, and Cream clapped her hands with glee and a polite “Tank you,” and Vanilla had known she couldn’t separate them.

She wasn’t sure, really, if the little chao was its own person or not. It seemed to be, but it also seemed to be part of Cream. Then again, that was as if asking if Cream was her own person separate from the chao. She supposed the answer was “yes” and “no.” They were the same, and they were separate, and they had a connected soul, bound by the emerald that had faded into them.

When Cream was little, she named her chao. Vanilla wasn’t quite sure when, only that one day Cream sat up in her chair and cheered for “Cheese.” Vanilla had gotten up to get her food, before the chao cheered as well and flew over to her. “Cheese, Cheese, Cheese!” Cream had said, hugging them tight, and the little chao was Cheese from that point on.

Cream tended to wander, and at first that had worried Vanilla greatly, but it seemed that if Cheese was with her, they couldn’t get into any trouble. And she eventually figured out that if she asked the chao to babysit, they would do so, keeping Cream in their garden and watching her carefully while Vanilla rushed to water the plants or harvest from the trees. That took a lot off her shoulders, and she made sure to thank the chao every time she picked up Cream, and Cream would then copy her and thank them. The chao would chirp, and Cream would giggle, while Vanilla would realize that the chao were trying to tell her not to worry about it. She’d cared for them all her life, after all. Even if she didn’t have Cheese with her, Cream was Vanilla’s daughter, they’d be happy to take care of her.

It was still quiet, then, when Cream was at the garden. Vanilla would tend the farm and look up at the sky and listen to the flickies and let the wind blow through her fur.

Yes, the farm was quiet now. But the world kept turning, and so she would keep moving on.

Cream was at the garden one night, when Vanilla was cleaning the house– it was hard to do with such a young child underfoot. She had finished on the counters and was moving on to the floor when the door opened.

“Mama!” came Cream’s sweet little voice. “Mama!”

“Cream?” Vanilla stood, and began walking through the kitchen, towards the entryway, her feet picking up the pace as she went on. “Cream, what are you doing back here? You’re supposed to be at the garden.”

“I kno’, but I found a friend by the waterfall and I wanna show her our flowers, and I think she needs food– can we make her cookies? Please?”

Vanilla had made it to the room by that point, and completely froze over.

Cream was still gabbing on– since she’d learned to talk, she really didn’t stop, did she? Beside her was Cheese, floating and chiming in with the occasional “Chao! Chao! Chao!”

And beside them, a little girl, maybe eight or nine– perhaps older, and just short. She seemed to be a hedgehog, reaching up to press her quills against the side of her head to try and adjust the style. Her eyes were clouded, blank... and a shocking green. They shone, like an emerald’s light. And her quills, they were a startling pink, one that most mobians didn’t get. The same pink of the Morganite’s light, that had died... about the same time this girl would have been born.

“–and she said she wants to see the roses, and she also said she hasn’t seen a waterfall before and I asked where–”

The girl looked to Vanilla, then, and their eyes met. For a moment, Vanilla felt tense, worried.

She had worked so hard to keep her daughter safe, to keep any trace of the emeralds away from her. And this girl... this girl must be the Morganite. She had to be, and even a normal mobian like Vanilla could tell that she had an energy about her, like the chao in the garden, a chaos energy in her blood.

The girl blinked, and Vanilla looked at her eyes again. They were... dazed. Lost.

Numb.

It was a look Vanilla recognized well.

Vanilla swallowed, and then stood up a bit straighter.

“What would you like to eat, dear?” she asked. “We have plenty of food. Or would you like to sleep?”

The girl stared at her, confused. Then, slowly, as if mobian wasn’t her first language, she said, “I’d like to see the roses... if that’s... alright.”

“Of course. Follow us to the garden, then we’ll get you some water.”

Cream ran forwards, taking one of her mother’s hands as she babbled on. Cheese floated beside her. Then, slowly, the little pink girl grabbed Vanilla’s other, outstretched hand. Her eyes were fixed on the other hand, as if she wasn’t sure how to hold hands at all. Slowly, Vanilla brought them outside to the flowers, and let the girl stare at the reds, whites and pinks that bloomed against the leaves. Cream explained how roses bloomed and how they watered them and how they had thorns that Mama wouldn’t let her touch, and Vanilla watched the girl carefully. Then, the girl said she needed to sleep.

“You can have my room! I’ll sleep on the couch!”

“No, no.” Vanilla sighed. “We have other beds in the Nursery.”

“Sleepover? Sleepover! Yay, Cheese, Sleepover!”

Vanilla knelt in front of the other girl as Cream and Cheese danced around. She looked to her quills, and then met her eyes again.

She remembered something her father said, long ago, when she was about this girl’s age, and he’d told her that she was a guardian now. The emeralds had been split, he said, but legend said they would find each other again. They belonged together, and it was only a matter of time before they united once more.

Well. She wasn’t sure if her daughter still counted as an emerald now. But it was connected to her, and while the distance had kept her safe, and would keep her safe for years to come, Vanilla realized, then, that she couldn’t halt fate completely. The least she could do, then, was help her daughter. And this child. And whoever else came to her door.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” she asked.

“A-Amy.” she said. She glanced to the flowers, and then said, “Amy the Rose.”

She flinched, then, as if she hadn’t meant to say that. Vanilla sighed. The Morganite was the Rose Emerald, wasn’t it? “Amy Rose.” she said, and the little girl smiled. “That’s very pretty. I’m Vanilla. I see you met Cream and Cheese. Do you have anyone with you?”

Amy’s face fell into that numbness again, and she shook her head.

“Well,” Vanilla said, “You have us now. Would you like to see the rest of the garden? I’m sure the chao would love to meet you.”

Vanilla picked up Cream, then, holding her at her side, and grabbed Amy’s hand, and took her to the garden where the emeralds had once laid. The chao swarmed the girls, and as Amy giggled and stroked them, Vanilla looked to the river, and then to the ivy, hiding the caves nobody had touched in years.

I’m the guardian. she thought to herself. And whether that’s to one emerald or seven, I will do what I’m supposed to do, and take care of them. Whatever they need.

And whatever it takes.

#sonic 2020 #sonic cinematic universe #sonic fanfiction #vanilla the rabbit #cream the rabbit #chaos emerald theory #mine #connie writes

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autisticshadowthehedgehog · 2 years

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“Power Enriched by the Heart” - Chaos Emerald Filmverse Theory Fic Fun Facts

Spoilers below!

“FAQ” will denote questions I get asked a lot. The rest are just for kicks.

First off, the Word Counts:

Morganite!Amy - 6,986

Heliodor!Tails - 3,191 - the shortest

Johnkoivulaite!Blaze - 7,502

Bixbite!Shadow - 12,074

Goshenite!Silver - 7,094

Maxixe!Sonic - 4,686

Aquamarine!Cream - 12,478 - the longest

Longest to shortest: Cream, Shadow, Blaze, Silver, Amy, Sonic, Tails

Fun Fact Corner time!!

Morganite!Amy – The Rose Emerald

Was gonna be a one-shot and then I said “fuck it”

FAQ: Yes, the Voxai are a canon Sonic alien race! They’re from Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, and Thebes is their leader following the Overmind Revolution. (The Overmind names are accurate as well.) When Thebes mentions a “Croesus,” whose family Amy helped out, that was a real character too.

The green emerald turning pink is an actual thing that happened in the game; when I saw that I was like “oh hell yea time to throw this in my theory” and then it all kinda fit? Amy’s psychic-adjacent powers, her quill-style... it just all fell together. So if this doesn’t happen in filmverse... well, I won’t be surprised, Chronicles doesn’t get touched for the most part, but it’s like. gift-wrapped for them

You might ask, “Connie, if you assume the emeralds attach themselves to babies that already existed, how did Amy end up in the glass?” Good question. I didn’t think of that when I wrote this because, again, it was going to be a one-shot. My guess at this point is whoever brought Amy to the emerald died or had to flee before she fused with it.

The Overmind slowly getting more and more corrupted is something that kinda happened in-game; Thebes mentions that they used to be cool but got corrupted by the void they were all trapped in. Since we don’t have a void, this time it just happened due to them getting power-hungry.

Honestly the MOST fun with this chapter was writing the Voxai reacting to mobian anatomy. It’s much more similar to human anatomy, and the Voxai are super different, so I had to like. figure out how an alien who looked and acted nothing like us would react to it. I also liked the bit where he’s like “wow not having a hivemind must be lonely af,” as we would think it would be stifling/invasive, but it’s something they’re used to, like how we’re used to not being a hivemind.

I wanted it to be clear that Amy was not neglected or shunned by the society, but still felt isolated simply for being a vastly different species. So everyone is nice to her, of course but the planet isn’t built for her and she notices, which fuels her anxiety.

Also, yes, her saying “Cause that is who I am!” is a reference to the Shadow’05 motif.

And, yeah, the Morganite is literally called the Rose Beryl. filmverse please tell me you’re using this concept please

The Black Arms don’t get named for several chapters, but yes it is supposed to be them attacking at the end of the chapter, hence the paralyzing gas.

Original drafts had Thebes taking Amy to the temple previously, and he’s like “This is a very sacred place, we should be respectful.” and she’s like “So where did you hide the snacks in here.” “Over there.” I thought that might make the chap too long. If only I had known how long the Shadow and Cream chapters would get.

Also, yeah, “daughter” and “dad” were used for the first time when Thebes sacrifices himself for Amy. bc fuck it I love pain

Originally was going to end with Amy disappearing into the portal, but I wanted to write her getting up and moving herself on (inspired by “Next Right Thing”). Then I was like “yeah she should meet Cream.”

Heliodor!Tails – Catch the Wind

This ended up being the shortest and tbh I expected that; I considered padding it out by sticking my “Tails hates Thunder” one-shot to the end, but decided against it cause all of these chapters were gonna be depressing anyway, let’s let Tails be happy here

Had to be careful not to call him “Tails” after the intro paragraphs– he didn’t have a name as a loner, and then Longclaw named him Miles. Tails is a Sonic-specific nickname.

It was also fun to write a hyperintelligent toddler who was raised outside society. So, like, he knows what’s going on, but he hasn’t processed much of language yet, since he lives in isolation.

In case y’all don’t know, my theory for Tails in Movie 2 is that he’ll be raised by Longclaw and will get the death scene that was cut from the first movie.

I needed a reason she would find Tails, so I had her follow Chaos Energy. And, yes, Tails brings her the same sunflower Sonic brought her.

Tails’s powers are wind-based, so it’s less telekinesis and more airbending.

“Your branching went well.” is a reference to how baby owls hop between branches before flying. Honestly I don’t know if this is the official term or if I’m just remembering my Guardians-of-Ga’Hoole phase, but yea

Writing flying was also interesting too, seeing as, you know. We can’t do that. And I haven’t been skydiving or anything so I don’t know shit, hope it came out okay.

Johnkoivulaite!Blaze – From the Ashes

Phoenix imagery inspired by the part-bird!Blaze fanon theory. I thought about incorporating it here but that might get a bit too complicated.

Also yes, Johnkoivulaite was only just discovered in 2019, so it doesn’t have any “meanings” yet. Someone get on that

FAQ: Gardon is a real character, from Sonic Rush Adventure. tbh I thought he was older than he seems to be in-canon but fuck it, my fic my rules

Honestly, I was about a section into this when I was like “who should Blaze’s people be fighting?” and then I remembered that Robotnik isn’t on Sally’s planet so she’s gotta fight against something else and went “oh yeah. it’s all comin together”

It was hard thinking of missions for Blaze to do without putting her in the line of combat, bc even her imperialist parents know that would be a bad idea, so it was mostly “set fire to stuff so we can do the fighting.” They definitely intended to use her in the army once she was older though.

The few paragraphs of Blaze in the ocean for the first time may be my favorite part of the whole fic.

The first child to attack Blaze, before Sally, was supposed to be Bunnie, but I couldn’t decide if she would have prosthetics now or later, so it wasn’t very clear.

FAQ: Did I intentionally write Blaze and Sally in a lowkey romantic way? Not at first but like, why not?

“Is that the right word? Parley? I mean I wanna do a talk on neutral ground, but I don’t know pirate terms very well. That might just mean ‘meeting.’” this isn’t Sally talking this is me

“You’re the princess, aren’t you? That’s what we thought, but last time you were seen in public you weren’t purple.” This was about when I figured out my main theory on how the Chaos Emeralds were made, so this was an early hint that Blaze was brought back to life by the stolen emerald.

Blaze is about eleven when she meets Silver; Sonic is roughly ~13 in the filmverse, so that would make Blaze about twelve while the first movie is going on. The idea was that she’d spend a year with Silver and the Knothole Freedom Fighters before whatever happens and she meets Sonic– perhaps 2-3, depending on when she shows up in filmverse.

The “coyote with a sword” who’s about her age is Antoine.

Sally also met Silver inbetween her first talk with Blaze and this meltdown; she didn’t know other emeralds had become people when first talking to Blaze, but when she sees her again she said, “We’ll play with chaos!” referencing that she’s going to call in Silver.

The original draft had another gap between Sally yelling at Blaze and the Silver meeting, but I decided against it in order to keep the pacing flowing.

Silver’s meltdown at Blaze makes more sense in retrospect, but yeah, he’s confused that anyone would use their powers for evil, esp since he just figured out that his were meant to protect.

The end of this chapter, her diving into the water, was planned from the start. Also: the island she intends to swim to, a “southern island,” is indeed the Southern Island that Marine is from.

Bixbite!Shadow – Wish Upon

Fun fact on this one: 5/7 of the chapter titles are three words long. This one is two, while Sonic’s (chap6) is four, so it evens out.

I knew for a fact I wanted this to be Maria POV before I even wrote the other chapters. She’s a fascinating character who doesn’t often get to tell her own story. It was real fun trying to figure out what would be interesting about Earth to someone who grew up in space.

Maria is about two years older than Shadow; since I had him iced at ~13, she’d be ~15 when she dies.

And writing the Black Arms from her toddler-dream-vision was also fun as fuuuuck

Maria’s middle name, Yuri, is a reference to her Japanese voice actress, Yuri Shiratori.

The mention of her mom building the crib or tinkering with boxes is a ref to the Robotnik Inventor Gene that seems to be present lol

“She wanted it to have as many stars as possible, so that her little girl could always reach for them when she awoke.“ and the chapter’s closing line are references to “Reach for the Stars” from Sonic Colors.

gonna be real, her dad dying in a collapse is similar to how Cream’s dad died. Was that intentional? No, I was having trouble thinking of non-disease ways someone could die

“Well, Maria, we can’t breathe in space, so we doubt Shadow would be able to.” “I bet I could.” ref to the fact mobians can somehow breathe in space???

“He’s right, Grandfather, they’re too chunky, and I can taste the specks.” this was pandering to me and me only. I’m autistic and could taste.... idk what else to call them! the specks in vanilla ice cream!! and everyone made fun of me but guess who has a diagnosis now bitches

Maria being “homeschooled” is also pandering to me and me only

Maria being fun-loving and a bit of a prankster was a) in an attempt to make her seem more human, b) an attempt to connect her personality to Rouge and Sonic, c) the Cain Instinct™. I have two sisters i know how it works

Her and Shadow folding cranes while talking about Earth is a ref to Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes.

one of the kids being named “Jean“ was a reference to the og singer of “Reach for the Stars,” Jean Paul Makhlouf.

“Oftentimes he’d just sit beside Maria and mess with his bracelets while she and Melissa got into arguments about their interpretation of Arthurian legends...” “Melissa” is a reference to the english voice actress for Merlina, Melissa Hutchison, from Sonic and the Black Knight, and lowkey to my sister’s Merlina theory.

“Rebecca” was a reference to one of Maria’s english VAs, Rebecca Honig. "Marc” was Marc Thompson, the english VA for the Commander in ShTH.

The “You must really like watching the planet spin, Shadow” is a rough adaptation of the flashback Shadow has in SA2 when he asks why he was made. Taken more from the Japanese lines than the English ones.

“We started attempting lifeforms before you were even born. Your mother helped us design the first but it didn’t turn out so well.” = Biolizard

The implication with Gerald’s ramblings is that Black Doom helped them create a body for the emerald to host, and to their surprise, the emerald really wanted to be alive.

“Oh my God,” she said, dumbfounded, “There’s a bottomless pit in here.” Why DOES Gerald’s computer room have a bottomless pit what is WITH that

The “three Robotnik passwords” are a running joke with me and my sister Cori “birdsareblooming”: either hitting it really hard (which Shadow did in ShTH), EGG (reference to the real time fandub of SA2) or a family name cause they’re sentimental bitches.

The cannon they see is the eclipse cannon; it being created around the time Shadow was born references Gerald planning to double-cross the Black Arms.

Tthe “noctune study” and “gizoids” Maria sees mentioned are a reference to Sonic Battle and Sonic Chronicles, where it’s revealed Gerald was studying the Nocturnus clan and their gizoids, specifically Emerl.

“Maybe Earth is obstructing his view of Venus?” If anyone doesn’t know, this is a Looney Tunes joke.

I also liked the idea of Maria being able to ground Shadow and make him think things through; he’s very impulsive without her.

It’s implied a bit in ShTH that GUN knew about the Black Arms, so that was the implication as to why they freaked out on seeing Shadow.

Also the end scene is 100% my headcanon for how the ARK massacre went, with Maria saving Shadow instead of herself.

“Wherever one of your aunts is, or...” Reference to the fact Eggman, you know, is her cousin, so her Robotnik parent had at least one sibling.

Goshenite!Silver – The Silver Age

Named after the subseries comic that Gold appeared in!

Originally I didn’t name Silver’s home planet, in later chapters it’s referred to as Cascade, which was the name of Molly’s planet in Sonic X season three.

Silver’s parents were both enby.

Gold being his sister in this one-shot was mainly for two reasons: 1) Exploring the idea of the sibling of a living emerald and what they would be feeling, 2) I needed someone for him to be traveling with lol

“I don’t like starting fires” = reference to him fistfighting the fire demon in like every scene of Sonic 06

Silver and Gold don’t know the name of the Black Arms, hence “the Destroyers”

Gold’s “maybe you’re right”s to Silver were intentionally a bit repetitive; due to her telekinesis, she has a bit more pessimistic worldview after hearing the thoughts of so many desperate people. But she doesn’t want Silver to lose his optimism when they lost so much else.

“may Illumina help you” is a reference to Illumina in Sonic Shuffle, one of the many Sonic gods.

“He began to glow with a soft, silvery light, though against the river it almost looked cyan.” - Silver’s telekinesis is cyan in the games, but considering how the Sonic filmverse powers look, if Silver’s the silver emerald his magic would be silver. and now Silver doesn’t look like a word

“and it wouldn’t be until later that Gold hit a growth spurt.” Gold is four feet tall in her comic appearance (when she’s 15); at the same time, Silver is 3′3. Gold is among the taller mobians

Gold’s “accident” was my way of incorporating her telepathy in; the idea being that a bit of the chaos energy prevented her from dying, and so she has a little. Not an even split like Cream and Cheese, but enough that she started getting that psychic shit

“Every planet they’d been on had eventually succumbed to chaos. Everything would eventually, he thought. But then it would grow back. Like the sprouts in the ashes.” Formally, this is a reference to the IDW comic short of Silver and Blaze growing a garden. Informally, I was thinking a lot about The Beatrice Letters at the time.

“It’s not your fault, either. We’re just kids.” the thesis of the fic lol

Thinking about the telekinesis as like. extra limbs? Was really fun to write

“Carefully, she took his hand; as she did, he caught a climpse of the glow under his glove, swirling in a circle.” A reference to the marks on his gloves.

I knew that I wanted to end Silver’s time on this planet with him and Gold burying the bodies. Just a simple act of respect for people they barely knew– or, in the Black Arms’ case, their own enemies, really shows their characters.

The original intention was to end the chapter after they hopped through the ring, but I felt like I kinda needed to explain how they found their way to the Freedom Fighters, seeing as we saw them in Blaze’s chapter. After that, it took me a while to find a decent end spot. So Dulcy my beloved it was

Maxixe!Sonic – To Act Too Soon

Yes, I intentionally wrote it so that readers might think the POV character was Longclaw, sorry about that, I thought it’d be fun lol. But I did have some foreshadowing, including:

The title: it’s part of Aleena’s lines in the Sonic Underground opening: “To act too soon could seal their fate.”

The ship being called The Queen.

The bit after children were mentioned saying “And she had someone very important to help today,” implying that Sonic was already in the picture.

When talking about a quill pen, and it says “she’d take one of her own,” I did intentionally leave it ambiguous whether that was a feather quill or hedgehog quill to further sow confusion. But yea, her pen was a feather, her quills are, you know. hedgehog

The mentioned Zoah are also an alien species from Sonic Chronicles.

The Queen was a reference to Aleena’s title, but served a dual purpose to referencing fellow thief Fang the Outlaw’s aerobike, the Marvelous Queen.

Ref to the Babylonians is a ref to Sonic Riders.

“It had happened to the Metarex, it could happen to any of them.” Reference to the headcanon/theory that the Black Arms were the ones who attacked the Metarex/Cosmo’s species in Sonic X.

The repetition of Aleena thinking “If you have time to worry, you have time to run” is a reference to the similar line Sonic says to Elise in Sonic 06.

Her “ceremonial sword,” while not mentioned, was intended to be Caliburn from Sonic and the Black Knight.

“It was noisier than she expected, but hopefully that would be chalked up to the heating system.” Movies never talk about how loud crawling through the vents is

Her thoughts about being orphaned at ~3-5 is a reference/parallel to Sonic leaving Longclaw at the same age.

Gods mentioned: Gaia, Illumina, Solaris, Chaos. Illumina and Chaos were explained, Gaia is from Sonic Unleashed, Solaris from Sonic 06

Many people were surprised that Sonic Underground made an appearance here. So was I; I wasn’t sure at all what I wanted to do for Sonic’s one-shot for the longest time, since basically everything he does was chronicled in the first film. Then I thought “what about the literal moment the emerald fused to him,” and I ofc had to think of a parent to grab it for him. I honestly prefer Aleena + his sibs to the other parent(s) in canon, I think they have a lot of potential, so... Aleena it was.

Was a bit hard ending it after the emerald, so a little clarification: I left it ambiguous how they got separated, but my idea was that they had to separate for his safety, and she left him with Longclaw knowing that he’d be protected there.

The lullaby she’s singing is “Someday” from Sonic Underground.

Aquamarine!Cream – Whatever It Takes

I knew this was gonna end up the longest and I wrote it anyway bc I’m a masochist and now I don’t know what words mean.

I wanted to bookend, by starting this chapter and the first one the same way, and ending both the first and last chapter with Amy finding Cream.

The Heliodor is said to have gone to the Kitsune– which is, you know. What Tails is

I couldn’t think of any other words for “shrine” so I had to use that like eight times in a paragraph.

“Mainly the echidnas who still thought they should hold the powers of chaos themselves.” Reference to the “warlord” echidnas in movie 1, led by Pachacamac.

The chao declaring her a guardian by surrounding her was lowkey a reference to the chao choosing to show Tikal the Master Emerald. The chao know who to trust.

It was very important to me that Vanilla keep her simple character– she is content with a simple life, doesn’t want to show off or get credit for everything. Despite being a guardian of an emerald in this universe, she needed to still remain her nice, humble self. I hope I got that across!

FAQ: I did make a family tree to keep track of Vanilla’s fam. One is nameless, the other with random names I thought up after writing the fic, with the idea that they’d all be dairy-based.

Vanilla’s father’s Zari (“Daigo”) used ze/zir pronouns!

I feel like “Sarasson” was a she/they. Just a feelin i have

The tunnel memorizing would have been like. my nightmare. thank God for Vanilla knowing how to read that shit

The mention of Vanilla clenching her fists while remembering the tunnels is a muscle-memory thing– sometimes clenching your fist helps you remember things.

Yea, the scene of her and her father at the emerald was highkey inspired by the opening scene of Raya and the Last Dragon.

The lights of the other emeralds were added in order to give Vanilla a reason to think the other emeralds may have turned into mobians, and get that fear in her before Cream was born so that she’d be extra desperate to separate her daughter and the gem.

FAQ: the green emerald changed to pink when it was still a gem, a little before Thebes took over guarding. It became Amy much later.

Her husband, Casein, was named after a protein often found in dairy.

The journal was a last-minute addition to the one-shot, as a way to explain more of her research into her spell.

The paragraph about how her mother liked to keep busy, and how Vanilla liked to focus on baking– haha yeah I was listening to “What Baking Can Do” during that mayhaps

The family eventually moved on with their lives– her brothers were never really happy being farmers, her cousins and aunt/uncle moved to another area– unfortunately leaving Vanilla alone, after being used to living in a huge family her whole life.

Her brother sending feathers from Soleanna is a reference to Elise’s feathers in Sonic 06.

“The world kept turning” still had my music blaring and ended up with “Dos Oruguitas” which. yeah influenced the Casein stuff

The sloth farmers were a lowkey reference to Rocket and his family from Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog.

Gonna be real, I had Vanilla pass out mainly because I don’t know how mobian labor would work. How long would it take– it takes about a half hour for a rabbit to give birth, and 4-8 hours for a human, so like??? What do we do here

The intended implication of what happened when ‘Nil was passed out was that Cream was stillborn or born very very weak, and the chao and Aquamarine jointly decided “well that’s not happening” and had her fuse with the gem.

Yes, baby rabbits are actually called kits! Found that out

The novelization of the Sonic movie mentioned that his electric blue fur was part of the giveaway for his power, so it made sense to me that some of the more oddly-colored emeralds would be obvious giveaways, hence Vanilla’s panic. Silver, Tails and Shadow are relatively safe, because silver/orange are normal colors and Shadow got the goth Black Arms blood, but Blaze and Sonic were basically fucked. Amy is only in danger if people know that the Emerald changed to a Morganite.

The implication behind the spell is that it probably wouldn’t have worked if Vanilla hadn’t cared so much; she wasn’t an experienced magician, she was making up her own spell, she didn’t know at all what she was doing, but the love and determination she had at that moment fueled the chaos energy. Also, not technically canon to the fic but I like to think the Aquamarine was like “yeah they’re hunting Maxixe for sport rn I should probably find a way to protect this host”

The intention with Cheese, too, is that they’re similar to a daemon from His Dark Materials; a technically separate but still intrinsically-connected soul to Cream.

Amy doesn’t know that Vanilla knows about the emeralds; there was supposed to be a scene where Amy tearfully infodumps everything she knows about the emeralds and Vanilla pretends to be surprised and then continues to support her as she had before, but the chap was already long enough, and it seemed like them going to the garden was a good place to end it.

I did leave it ambiguous how old Amy was– 8-10 about, but the thing is that would make Cream very very young. Then again, she’s running round on her own when she’s six in the games, so mobians must just age fast. Or maybe that’s just Cream. Anyway, Amy spends at least a year with Vanilla and Cream before her inevitable filmverse entrance.

#chaos emerald theory #sonic cinematic universe #sonic fanfiction #mine #connie writes

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autisticshadowthehedgehog · 3 years

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The Rose Emerald

I got bored and I hyperfixate so this is based on the Chaos Emerald Filmverse Theory and Potential Roster

What was left of the Chaos Emeralds were split across the universe after the loss of the red gem. None of the selected planets for safekeeping were allowed to know where any emerald was sans theirs, and most of the emeralds were kept under heavy guard, heavy security, and intense secrecy.

When the fifth emerald was given to the Voxai, it was a shining green- some said brighter than the Master Emerald itself. The Voxai, of course, took their duty to guard the emerald as seriously as they could; the Overmind gave suggestions on how to build its safe place, how to keep it from those who would use it for destruction. For decades, it sat untouched in a glass chamber, inside a temple hidden amongst the Beta colony.

The second guard of the emerald, after the death of the first, was Thebes, and he’d been very nervous about his job. He’d been especially nervous when he reached the emerald and it was no longer green- the psychic energy that emanated from not just the Voxai, but from their planet itself, had leaked into the gem, regardless of their best efforts, and now it was a pale, shining pink. Almost the same color as the markings across Thebes’s translucent shell.

Not too soon after Thebes had begun his guard duties- checking on the emerald and the temple, keeping it clean and stable, making sure nobody else had broken in- the emerald started doing strange things. Glowing, rocking gently in its enclosure, seeming to breathe. The Overmind hadn’t heard of such behavior from the previous guard, and Thebes was getting quite concerned. First it changed color, then it started doing... this.

One day, he came into the temple, floating along the light, icy air of their home planet, but when he looked upon the glass case, he saw no emerald. Instead, there was a small creature- strange, not like the Voxai at all. There was no shell, only some kind of spikes along its skin, and four thick limbs waving in the air. It had a hole in its face, which it was using to make loud, angry noises. The only thing recognizable was the shade of pink. The emerald’s shining pink now coated the creature- no, the child. It was an infant. A baby.

Thebes had to be careful bringing it to the Overmind, not wanting to leave it alone but also not wanting to drop it as he flew. But without an extensive tail (only a puny one), and without familiar limbs, it was hard to even figure out how best to pick it up. Eventually he managed to use his left wings to hold it to his chest, but then it kept screaming and spitting some kind of liquid onto him, which was very unpleasant.

He finally got it to the Overmind, and after several hours of confused discussion, a deep dive into the nearest library, and frantic scrambling to get some kind of nutrients for the infant to get it to stop crying, they finally had information for Thebes. And instructions.

“It’s a Mobian- the kind of alien that held the emeralds first.” Overmind Leucosia explained, as a carrier was tied to Thebes’s shell. “It seems that the Chaos Emerald has shifted into an infant mobian- we must do further research to determine what this means. In the meantime- you are the emerald’s guardian still. So guard the child.”

Thebes had very much not wanted to hear that. He had enough anxiety as it was, he couldn’t add a child on top of that. He didn’t even know how to take care of Voxian children, and they were easy- just a few mental outbursts here and there. And now he had to care for an alien child with needs he couldn’t understand and with the strangest appearance he’d ever seen, and...

Overmind Riadne seemed to sense his fear, and reached out to him, sending a gentle wave through his mind. It calmed him, the comfort she was offering him leaking into his body, his wings flickering slower and his tail swooshing from side-to-side.

He finally moved his gaze downwards, to the carrier strapped to him. Inside of it, the little baby Emerald was curled up, its tiny hands clutching onto the material, rubbing its face against it. It had stopped crying, and instead just looked peaceful. Happy.

“Okay.”

---

The Emerald had given itself life. And it was now a little mobian, crawling across the floor, putting its mouth on anything it came across and falling over with the slightest breeze.

Mobians were very different than Thebes had ever thought. Only a few of them could fly, and they saw with what Thebes had thought were simple markings on the face. They often had differing skin, differing heights and weights, and very strangely, differing minds. Voxai could be individual, yes, but they had a hivemind to connect them, to make them part of each other. The Mobians had no such connection, leaving them all alone to think on their own. How lonely that must be, Thebes thought. To not be able to calm another’s fears, or cheer another on in such a simple, yet intimate way.

The Overmind’s research had yielded nothing. No tales of the emeralds taking form, no tales of any changes in the stones... Thebes wondered if it was his fault, but he couldn’t think of anything at all out of the ordinary he’d done leading up to the transformation, nor could anyone else. But nevertheless, the Emerald didn’t seem to be turning back, so they just had to work with what they had.

Thebes floated to the child, brushing it with a wing. It felt him, and looked up, letting out a loud noise that Thebes had discerned to be laughter. It reached up its arms, trying to grab his wings and lift itself high into the air.

It will need a name, Thebes thought. If it will stay mortal.

The child lifted its arms again, its fists opening and closing, trying to grab onto its guardian. “Up-mi!” it called- it had recently begun attempting to communicate, though its words made little sense. “Uh-mi!”

What is that, little one?

“Uh! Mi!”

Amy. That was a name that meant beloved.

That was fitting.

---

Amy had moved into childhood, and she still would not stop getting into trouble. She climbed on everything she could, trying to get high enough to jump on a Voxai for a surprise ride. She would grab small objects, swinging them around as some kind of game. She poured through tablets, her eyes faster than light as she absorbed whatever information she could get her hands on.

“Thebes, what does ‘sy-kick’ mean?” she asked.

(They had found that while she could connect to the hivemind, it was a very weak link, and so it was easier for her to speak aloud, and for the Voxai to respond in their normal way.)

“Psychic, Amy.” Thebes replied, floating beside her. “It is a word often used to mean one who connects to another’s mind- or sees forward into the future.”

“Like you!”

“Like the Voxai, yes.”

“Am I psychic?”

“A little. We’re not entirely sure what the expanse of your abilities is.”

“I dunno what that means.”

Yes, it took her a bit longer to learn larger words than it would the average Voxai child. “We don’t know what you can do.”

“I can do this!” Amy jumped, grabbing onto his wing and swinging back-and-forth. “Whee, whee, whee!”

Amy was certainly a strange child. She shouted, she cried, and she had to always be moving. She didn’t seem to have an appreciation for stillness whatsoever, and instead needed to run, or jump, or climb, or swing. She could not fly, was barely connected to the hivemind, and was always being loud.

She was a strange child, and she was the Voxai’s child.

It had taken them quite a while to get used to her, but by the time she seemed to gain sentience, the whole colony had gotten into the swing of letting her run and play in her own way. And it wasn’t as if she wasn’t like them whatsoever- it barely mattered that they couldn’t connect to her thoughts, as she always spoke them aloud. She would try to help as much as she could, using her strange limbs to carry materials to and from construction sites, or help garden the small, sparse patches of land that could produce nutrients. She would watch the Voxai children play their own games, and join in when there was a game that didn’t require wings or an intense connection to the Overmind. If she couldn’t join in, she would cheer everyone on, or find a way to play referee, so it was never like she was lonely or left out.

She had a strange way of showing physical affection, too, but they accommodated her as best they could. While Voxai would usually show affection via their hivemind- or, if they had to be physical, by brushing wings or tails- Amy was always grabbing onto some part of them. Forget simple brushing, Amy would climb up their tails, swing on their wings, and cling to their backs, leaning against them and just feeling them breathe under her. At first, it was strange, but it seemed to help her- the more physical affection she got, the more comfortable she seemed, so soon the Beta Colony was used to treating her a bit differently, in pretty much every way.

Yes, she was a strange child, and she was the Voxai’s child. But most importantly, at least to Thebes... she was his child.

He had been there when she learned how to walk- he’d studied for months on how mobians moved so he could best help her amble along. He was there when she picked out what nutrients she liked to eat and would throw the others on the ground, and he would teach her that was rude and she really should have just expressed that she didn’t want them. He was there when she started to speak, learning along with her how best to communicate. He was there when she fell asleep against him that first night, curling his wing around her like a blanket, and he was there, teaching her how to spell and count. He took her to the library to study whatever languages they had, fascinated with how quickly she picked them up, feeling intensely proud of her for running to the nearest librarian to practice her sentence structure. He was there when she scraped her knee and began to cry, and they figured out how to make it feel better. He was there when she’d cry again, reading a sad book, and he was there when she’d run to him, reciting quickly something funny she’d read in a different story in hopes that he would laugh, too, at least in his own way.

Whenever he expressed how proud he was of her, he could see her eyes light up, and then she’d shut them tight and wiggle her nose a little, her smile brightening even the darkest of nights. If he had to express disappointment- if, for example, she said something unnecessarily cruel to another child, or she hid the scroll she broke instead of admitting to it, she would get very upset, leaking water from her eyes, and she would promise to never repeat the behavior, knowing now that it wasn’t right. Thebes hated seeing her upset, but then later, when she did the right thing instead of repeating wrong behavior, he got to be proud of her again, and see her bright smile.

She wasn’t perfect, by any means. Mainly, she had some issues expressing her anger in a healthy way. More than once he had to show disappointment in her breaking something in a fit of fury- though, honestly, he wasn’t quite sure if her way of breaking things was normal for a mobian or not. She would kick a rock and watch it shatter into pieces, or punch a wall and create a gaping hole. He didn’t think mobians were supposed to do that- and it got even stranger when she would stomp on the ground during a tantrum and create a crater, or lift up an entire house to grab a lost toy. Most worryingly, when she was angered, her normally green eyes would spark with energy, glowing the same pink as her quills. He knew that most Voxai couldn’t do these things, certainly, and though she was clearly not a normal Voxai, he wasn’t sure if she was a normal mobian, either.

He also wasn’t sure if that was good or not.

---

Once every cycle, Thebes would take Amy to visit the Overmind, so they could check on her progress. Afterwards, she would play with a toy they’d found for her, while the adults would discuss their research. Since she’d started talking, Amy was always very well-behaved when with the Overmind, addressing them by name and asking them how their cycle had been, answering all of their questions with a smile while bouncing on her paws and letting her tail wag back-and-forth. Then she’d go play, oblivious to whatever discussion was happening around or about her.

That started to change as she got older, though, and it was because of Thebes, unfortunately. Thebes had been unable to hide his discomfort at times, and though he’d told a questioning Amy that nothing was wrong, really, she could sense that something was troubling him.

Indeed, as the years pressed on, he felt that the Overmind was... becoming strange. The hivemind was meant to encourage them all, but sometimes he’d hear whispers of the Overmind being too pushy, sending out instructions that some Voxai couldn’t make themselves disobey. He’d never experienced it himself, but the more he visited with Amy, the more he started to see signs of something strange going on with them. He didn’t know if it was the stress around the lost Chaos Emerald, a corruption of power, a new behavior they’d picked up from another planet they’d trade with, or a combination of all of it, but they were, indeed, getting pushy. They’d ask him questions that were normally considered impolite, about himself and about Amy. At times, they talked about her as if she wasn’t at all alive, as if she were still an emerald locked up in a hidden temple. That above all made Thebes angry. She may have once been that emerald, but now she was Amy, his Amy, who loved to read and play in the garden and climb on whatever she could find, who was curious about this world and any other world she researched.

It worried Thebes, but not enough.

---

One cycle, when Amy was about eight or nine years old, the Overmind stated that in their research, they thought she may be able to summon things with her mind. Bring items out of nothing. Thebes thought this was ridiculous, but he agreed to try with her.

It took several weeks of work, of Amy sitting on the ground, imagining items she’d want to create, and then growing bored and wandering to the garden. Thebes would help as best he could, but in her natural Outermind state, as well as the strangeness of the situation, he couldn’t do much.

One day, she sat with him on the floor of their home, and said, “I don’t know what they want from me, really. What would make them proud of me?”

Thebes sighed, and brushed her with his wing. “Don’t think about that, Amy. What matters is I am very proud of you for trying. You don’t need to succeed if you cannot do it.”

Amy smiled and wiggled her nose at his praise, but then said, “I think I can. I really do. But I keep changing my mind on what I should bring about.”

Thebes considered. “What about those tools you use to help us build our homes? We only get those during trading periods with other worlds- wouldn’t it be useful if you could get them whenever you wanted?”

“That would be nice.” Amy nodded, considering. “I’ll try that.”

It took much longer, but she seemed more focused after that, sitting and humming and trying to make things out of thin air. But Thebes could sense her getting frustrated every day she failed, and though he assured her she didn’t need to do anything she was incapable of, it seemed every day she wanted more and more to do this magic.

Finally, one day, in the garden, she’d sat down among the stones to try and summon something. Then she stood, angered, and stomped a stone into shards. “This is awful! I can’t do it!”

“You don’t have to--”

“But I should be able to! I should be able to do anything with my head, like the rest of you! But nooo, I can’t even do anything normal! I don’t even look normal!”

"Amy.” Thebes said stiffly. “You are normal for your species.”

“Pfft, as if! I’m pretty sure most mobians don’t form out of magic emeralds!”

“Amy, please keep yourself controlled.”

“Why does it matter? I can’t even be like you!” Amy huffed, tears springing to her eyes. “How can I be anything special if I can’t be normal first? No, I’m just weird little Amy! Strange little Amy! Dumb little Amy!”

“Nobody thinks that.”

“They should! Cause that is who I am!”

In her fury, Amy turned towards the large stone behind her, and acted instinctively; what she had wanted to do was punch it, get some of her anger out by destroying the rock she’d sat against. Instead, her hands reached up behind her, in a position not very equipped for punching. And to both her and Thebes’s surprise, in the few seconds it took her to swing, a colorful, extra-large hammer appeared in her hands, and she brought its face to the rock. The impact turned the rock to an explosion of dust.

When the cloud settled, both Thebes and Amy stared in shock. Then, slowly, Amy smiled, and laughed, looking down at her hammer. Then she spun, laughing harder, beginning to dance. “Thebes, look! I did it! I did it! I made something! I made something! I did it right!”

It turned out she didn’t need to think like a Voxai to do it- to retreat into her mind, to focus on the energy around her. What she had to do was think like Amy. To think with her heart, her feelings.

Of course, Thebes was proud of her, but he also had a heavy heart at her previous words. After she’d calmed down, she threw the hammer into the air, making it disappear. And once she’d calmed from that action, which she thought was equally impressive, Thebes took her inside and sat her down.

“Amy, do you really think you’re incapable? That you’re... what was the word?”

Amy curled in on herself; it was an action she did when she was embarrassed, or upset. “Weird? Strange?”

“Amy, you’ve never been like that.”

“Don’t lie.” Amy sighed, glancing up at him. “I know you all just put up with me. I don’t act like a Voxai, and whenever I try, it feels wrong. I have to climb things and touch things, I can’t fly or lift things with my brain, I can barely even hear the hivemind. I’m just a weird outermind.”

“Has anyone told you this?”

“No... but I can tell.” Amy sighed. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed that I have to have you fly me up to certain areas, cause nobody thought they’d have someone who couldn’t fly wandering around. Or that there are games I can’t play, or that I don’t have wings and my tail is too small, and I have these legs and arms that none of you know what to do with. I can tell I’m... different.”

Thebes floated beside her, and then curled against her, draping his wings over her like a blanket, as he had when she was just an infant. “Different does not mean wrong, Amy.”

“But it makes it harder on all of you.”

“And we don’t mind.” Thebes brushed against her again. “Do you remember when Croesus’s family’s home was destroyed in that quake, but you ran there before everyone else at night, before we could rebuild?”

“Yeah.”

“And you figured out that it was a location very sensitive to quakes, so you found them a better spot and started building on your own?”

“Yeah...”

“That was all you. You used a Voxai sense, to feel the world around you, and your own research to figure out what was wrong with the location. And then you used your strength to begin building.”

“I guess.”

“Amy, you’re not a Voxai.” Thebes said quietly. “But I don’t think you’re quite a mobian, either. And you’re not a simple stone, locked away without a mind. You’re Amy, the Rose-Colored Emerald who became the Rose-Colored Hedgehog. You’re a curious girl, a temperamental girl, and overall, a kind girl who wants to do no more than help those around her. And that is not ‘weird’ or ‘strange.’ That is not even ‘normal.’ That is special. You are special, to me and to everyone in this colony.”

For a moment, Amy was quiet, and Thebes was worried he may have made things worse, due to the tears that returned to her eyes. But then she leapt up, clinging to him as she always did, burying her face against his skin, and he knew she was going to be alright.

Unfortunately, that didn’t last long.

---

Their next appointment with the Overmind, Thebes was under the impression that Amy was simply playing in the other room. He would discern later that she, instead, sat there, eyes shut, doing her best to connect to the hivemind, to listen to what they were saying, to figure out if they were proud of her for her summoning- which she’d been practicing since her first victory- or upset at her for doing it in a strange way. There was more she’d wanted to know, too- she was curious as to what they talked about when she was busy, fearful that they were saying bad things about her, and... well, recently, she’d become concerned about Thebes’s occasional worry, his distance when thinking about the Overmind. Thebes could tell that Amy wanted him to stop being scared, he just never thought she’d stop her playtime to figure out what was worrying him so.

Unfortunately, this was just about the worst time she could have listened in.

The Overmind had compiled their years of research on Chaos Emeralds, mobian culture, and Amy’s own behavior, and concluded that her magical abilities were powerful beyond their imagining. Her fits of strength, her glowing eyes, were all things that they’d never heard of any species doing, let alone mobians. The summoning only confirmed what they thought- her origins as an emerald had given her not just power, but what seemed to be an unlimited power.

Thebes stayed quiet as they presented this, but then their words turned to what they could use her power for. It was, again, as if she were a simple stone again, one that had been locked away to prevent those from using this power in the way the Overmind was discussing. They brought up how her strength could be used as a weapon, her energy to summon great things for the Overmind and terrible things for their enemies.

“What enemies?” Thebes asked. “We have always been a peaceful society.”

“But with this power,” they tried to say, “We could have a better planet, one without seas of rocks, without quakes.”

“We are fine with the rocks. We don’t need a planet of branches to get tangled in or dirt and water to drag us down.”

“You are not thinking clearly, Thebes. Just because you are used to what you have doesn’t mean you can’t want more.”

“You are trying to use her for battle, something that we hid the emerald to prevent from happening. But now you know what she can do, you want to use her for violence. Have you thought about what she wants to do with her power?”

“She is one of us, and thus in service to the Overmind. So she will be happy to do what we tell her.”

“That is not what your power is supposed to be used for.”

“Perhaps it is. Perhaps we should encourage you to think so, too.”

That must have been when Amy broke; Thebes had a strong will, she must have known, and would have resisted the Overmind trying to force him into something he didn’t want to do. But she had fear, the fear that he would be forced into a shell of himself, that the Overmind would take her away from him and use her in a way that wouldn’t make him proud.

She burst into the room, screaming for them to stop, to leave him alone, and her eyes were glowing pink, her body sparking with that intense energy. They turned to see her, and she raised her hands, wanting to simply express her anger. But again, she acted instinctively; her hands formed around the summoned hammer, and she slammed it into the ground.

The energy that burst up caused chaos. Everyone in the room with Amy felt their connections to each other severed as they were thrown back, into the wall, thudding against it as the child screamed. A blinding light seemed to burst from her, flowing into the sky and across the colony. For a few brief seconds, there was no hivemind, and everyone was alone, and began to panic. Even when it returned, there was that fear, that horror that it might happen again. The blast of energy also hit several stones, several homes, causing them to shake, a few to burst.

When Amy came back to her senses, her eyes widened with horror, and she dropped the hammer, causing it to disappear before it hit the ground. She stepped back, looking in fear at what she’d done, and then she ran.

She couldn’t get far before Thebes caught up, curling his tail around her to carry her to someplace safe and calm. But she screamed as he lifted her, kicking and screaming for him to let her go, to let her get away from him, and the Overmind, and everyone. He could feel her energy as she screamed- she was not angry, but she was terrified, a level of fear he’d never thought her capable of.

He took her to a quiet cave, and when he dropped her, she curled into a ball, crying and screaming ot herself.

“Amy,” he said.

“Don’t touch me! I’ll hurt you again! Don’t touch me!”

He realized that he would not be able to reason with her in this state, and that made him fearful- reason was what he knew best, after all. But he had to remain strong, remain calm, to keep her from panicking farther. So he floated back, and for a long, long, while, let her get her emotions out. She screamed and sobbed, pounding her fists against the floor to make small craters, slamming herself into the wall to cause it to rumble... it was terrifying, how much the small child was capable of, and how she didn’t seem to care if she hurt herself in her breakdown.

But finally, finally, after what felt like forever, her cries quieted, and she stopped slamming against the stone, and instead curled up into a ball, finally calming herself. Slowly, Thebes approached, though he kept at a distance in case she did not want to be touched.

“Amy.” he said again. Then, when she did not respond, “Amy.”

“What?”

He sighed and floated beside her, brushing her quills with his tail. “You are not to blame for what happened. You didn’t know that was possible.”

“But I hurt you.”

“I’m alright. I’m more concerned about you.”

“I’m a monster.”

“Never.” Thebes lowered himself, so that he was covering her with his wings. “It is like I said. You are Amy.”

Amy slowly unfurled from the ball, and then climbed onto his back, wrapping her arms around him in an embrace.

“Are the Overmind gonna take me away?” she sniffled.

“I would never let them.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone.”

“I know.”

“I like it here. I don’t want another planet.” Amy pressed herself farther against him. “I don’t even want Mobius. I just want to be here, at home, and make everyone happy.”

Thebes felt his heart swell. “Then you shall stay. Amy, my Amy, you make us happy just by being here.”

“What if I just ruined it? And everyone’s scared of me?”

Thebes considered, and then said, “I know I would never be.”

Amy sighed, and then embraced him tighter. “Then I guess it’ll be okay. So long as you’re still here.”

---

Thebes had to smuggle Amy back to the house, fearful of questions or some kind of repercussions from the Overmind. But when they were finally back in their colony, at their home, Amy quickly scampered into her makeshift bed, curling beneath the blankets that had once been the sling Thebes used to carry her as an infant, and soon was snoring soundly. Thebes wasn’t quite sure what to do while she slept, so he tidied the house, and then sat at the window, staring out into the sky. He thought it best to let Amy sleep, to let her dream of a place without trouble.

What he didn’t know is that that would be the last time she’d have that luxury for quite some time.

---

Amy awoke to the rumble of the ground, and the sound of screams.

Thebes flew to her as fast as he could, and saw her rubbing her eyes, having momentarily forgotten what had happened the previous day. She blinked up at him, sleep still a distant glimmer in her green eyes- he realized, only now, with a heavy heart, they were the same green that the Chaos Emerald had been before it changed. The emerald within her soul.

“Wha’s going on?” she asked blearily, as Thebes swept her up in his wings.

“We’re under attack.”

“What?” That was almost a foreign concept to her. Then she blinked away her exhaustion, and began to tremble. “The Overmind?”

“Worse.”

“Wh- what’s--?”

Amy soon found out, as Thebes swept her onto his back and began to fly as fast as he could. Amy began to shake, letting out startled cries, as she looked to the sky, which had turned blood-red, something dark and looming floating above them and blocking their light. Around her, Voxai were scrambling, panicking, their thoughts a jumble bursting into a confused hivemind. They flew as fast as Thebes could manage, but even in the quick movements, Amy could see the shadows of creatures, strange creatures she couldn’t recall reading about, leaping onto Voxai, smashing them into the ground, screeching and roaring.

“What are they?”

Thebes was hesitant, but then he said, “They’re here for you. So we have to get you safe.”

“What?”

“They must have sensed that explosion of Chaos Energy. So they want your power- and trust me, what they could do with your power is worse than anything even the Overmind, even in this state, could imagine.”

Amy grabbed onto him tighter, shutting her eyes and trying to think of something, anything else, to block out the screams, the crashes, the roars.

When Thebes began to slow, Amy opened her eyes, scared he might have been cornered. Instead, she saw them floating in front of some tall, elaborate building- far more decorated than any other practical Voxai residence.

“Where are we?”

Before Thebes could answer, they heard more screams, more screeching- and then, a horrifying hiss. They turned behind them, and Amy whimpered as they saw a thick gas spreading in the area behind them. As they watched, every Voxai that came in contact with it completely froze, unable to move. Their screams, however, could still be heard in the hivemind- they were conscious, but unable to move at all, leaving them ripe for the taking of the invading monsters.

Amy finally let out a terrified scream, and that pushed Thebes fast enough to act. He took off flying again, into the temple, the one where Amy had been born so long ago. He could only hope he could outrun the gas for long enough to save her.

He burst through the temple, only slowing whenever it seemed that Amy was slipping. He could feel her tremble against him, looking up and around at the temple halls, curiosity and confusion bursting into her fear.

Thebes had not been in the temple for about a decade now, but he still knew the pathways, every nook and cranny, and before long he was able to get them to the chamber that had once held the emerald that became the hedgehog clinging to him now. Once there, he let Amy slide off his back, and flew to the wall, counting the bricks.

“What are you doing?”

“Only the Overmind knew we had one of these,” he said, “and only the guardian of the Emerald’s Temple knew where it was. And... here! Amy, move this stone.”

“The Emerald’s Temple?” Amy asked, realization dawning on her. Then she ran over, pulling a loose stone from the wall as Thebes said. There was something behind it, and she reached inside, pulling out...

“A ring?”

“It’s a teleporter.” Thebes explained. He hooked it around his tail, taking it from her. “It will take you far away from here, where they won’t be able to find you.”

“Wh-what?”

They heard roaring, then, echoing through the temple halls.

“They’re inside.” he said, almost disbelievingly. Then, he shook his head. “You have to leave, before that paralyzing gas reaches you and you can no longer escape them.”

“But you’re coming too, right?”

Thebes took a deep, steady breath. “Those monsters will be here before long. I will not let them follow you.”

“What does that mean? Thebes?”

Thebes then flung the ring into the air. With a jing sound, it expanded, opening up into a huge, dark portal. On the other side was a world Thebes knew Amy had read about, one where she’d be able to survive until she found someone to care for her.

“Listen to me. Your power is unlike anything we could have imagined. That means there will always be someone looking to use it for evil. Do not let anyone use you. Your power is yours- which means it is something beautiful.”

“What are you saying?”

“You must hurry.”

“No!” she stomped her foot, causing a floor rumble. “I won’t leave you! I’ll fight them, I’ll protect you! I’m not leaving!”

There wasn’t time to argue, and Thebes knew it. Even with her strength, he doubted a child as young as she would be a match for the invading creatures, especially with their paralyzing agent. He couldn’t let them use her for their dark ends, hurt her for their horrible means.

He wrapped his wings around her, as he had when she was a baby. Then he spun, and flung her into the ring.

“Thebes!” she screeched, and he watched his daughter disappear into the ring portal, and, as best he could, sent her a calming wave of energy before it could close and the aliens could reach him.

---

Amy ran to where the portal had been, clawing at the air, then the dirt beneath her fingers, much more dirt than she was used to. “No! No! Thebes! Thebes, bring me back! Dad! BRING ME BACK!”

Her eyes sparked with that pink energy, tears flowing from her and landing on the ground, before turning into steam from the magic within her. It finally hit her that the ring would not open again, that Thebes had sent her away, and that... that Voxai... they must all be...

She sunk to her knees, unable to hold herself up any longer. She stared into space, letting the strange wind hit her, feeling the strange plants under her, and letting herself cry.

This was her fault.

No.

But it is. They were after me. My power.

Amy hugged herself, despair overwhelming her.

Then, slowly, Thebes’s words entered her mind. “You are not to blame for what happened. You didn’t know that was possible.”

But if it wasn’t for me, they wouldn’t be dying right now.

What would Thebes say to that? “It doesn’t matter. It happened, and you must go on.”

How could I go on without my family? My home?

“That is for you to decide.”

She shivered, hugging herself tighter and curling into a ball, hearing those last words in her head. “Your power is yours- which means it is something beautiful.”

Right now, it sure didn’t feel beautiful.

But after a while, she sat up, the words ringing in her head. Thebes sent her away, but not out of fear of her. To keep her safe. She couldn’t let that be in vain. She couldn’t sink into despair in the middle of this strange place. That wasn’t what Thebes would want.

She struggled to her feet, taking a few steps before sinking again. And then she got up, and took another step, and another, focusing on making her way across the unusual terrain.

She walked for what must have been hours, the sky above changing from its dark black to a bright blue. It seemed strange, that the sky could brighten when her home was gone, that anything could be light ever again. She felt heat against her quills as she pushed through tall plants- trees, she thought, from her reading. She found a long trickle of water- a river. It was strange, seeing one of those- usually on Voxai, their water was extracted from the small plants that survived on the stone. It was amazing that someone could have so much water it flowed across the land.

There were stones in the middle of the river, and as she hopped across them, she felt a brief flash of home- except these rocks were wet, and slippery. It was almost like a taunt, reminding her she would never be home again.

But she followed the river. Most species needed water to survive, so she’d find someone. As she walked, she wondered if she wanted to do this at all- what if they wanted to hurt her, too, and Thebes’s sacrifice had been for nothing? But then, what if she wasted away in the woods, dying because she didn’t understand how this world worked? No, she had to at least see who lived here. This had to be a planet she read about, right?

She’d been walking for so long her legs ached, but she kept pushing on, until she finally reached the river’s end. She looked up at a huge waterfall, amazed by the roar it produced, the droplets flickering onto her. She’d never seen anything like it.

There was a rustle behind her, and she jumped, turning. On instinct, she pulled the hammer, again, out of air, in case one of those monsters had followed her.

Instead, something flew at her, too fast for her to react. But when it stopped, right in front of her face, she saw it was something organic, something alive. A bright teal creature, flapping with tiny pink wings. It had legs and arms like her, and blinking eyes, these a dark blue as opposed to her green. It stared for a long while, and she stared back, the two of them trying to figure each other out.

She heard a rustle again, and the creature retreated a little bit, turning to look. Amy’s stare was then directed at what emerged from the plants.

A mobian.

She was small, miniscule. A little girl, with the same body shape as Amy, the same head, limbs... but she wasn’t a hedgehog. She had long ears, so long that she tripped over them as she waddled over, and a puffy, bushy tail.

“Hi!” the creature said, in the Mobian language. “I’m Cream, and this is my very best friend, Cheese. What’s your name?”

Amy kept staring.

“Maybe you cannot talk yet.”

Amy swallowed a cry, and then carefully said, “I’m Amy.”

“Oh! You can talk! I’m so glad. A lot of people don’t visit the garden, mama says. I bet she wants to meet you. We take care of the chao, like Cheese. Do you like chao? Do you want some food? We have cookies--”

She sure talked a lot for someone who was so young- barely past the toddler stage, probably. At least, Amy figured. She didn’t know how fast mobian children developed. All she knew was... herself.

Amy turned to river, watching her rippling reflection. She was filthy, with red cheeks and dark circles under her eyes. But she looked mainly up at the quills on her face, which pointed outwards, spiking like jagged stones.

Slowly, as the rabbit talked, she reached up, pulling her quills down. If she pulled them to point down, against the sides of her head, it almost looked like a Voxai shell.

“--my house is back this way. I bet Mama will be real real happy to see you, we like having visitors. And we have pretty pretty flowers! Do you wanna see?”

Flowers. Amy had never seen one up close before. She wondered if there’d be one the color Thebes had described her as. The Rose-Colored Emerald, he’d said.

“Okay.” she said, and followed the rabbit through the garden.

#sonic fanfiction #amy rose #sonic 2020 #the dark brotherhood #sonic chronicles #voxai #mine #connie writes #chaos emerald theory

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