Ashly was late for school again. This was going to spell trouble. She hadn't meant to stay up as late she had, it had just happened. And worse she didn't have what she needed for the day. There was going to be hell to pay. She could hear the screaming, angry, disappointed voices now. They were never kind or forgiving when she failed to deliver. It almost made her want to quite, give up, surrender, but no, she wouldn't quit, she wouldn't surrender, she wouldn't give them that satisfaction. Plus, they were just too important to her, all of them.
That was when she saw it, on the ground, in the shopping district's parking lot. It couldn't be, this was too easy, this only happened in badly written fiction! But she was late as it was, so she guessed it didn't matter. She slowed down and took the time to pick up and examine the item. Not a scratch on it, and no telling who it belonged to. The cover art however, and the list of songs on the back, was all she needed to know. Just to be on the safe side, she play it on the way there making sure it wasn't some porn song hidden under a cute mask.
The songs were friendly, upbeat, cheerful, not traditional but still good, and they had a hypnotic feel to them. She ended up humming them. She only showed up a few minutes later than normal, Oscar and Clair were waiting inside for her holding the fort. They looked slightly frustrated but happy to see her.
"Sorry I'm late," She whispered to them. "But I've got something like I promised." She held up the music compact disc.
"Good." Oscar breathed, "We were going to crack if we had to handle them ourselves for much longer."
"Or just walk out." Clair promised.
"Don't say that." Ashly needed all the help she could get. Finally she addressed the little lethal horde before her. "Good mourning class!"
"Good mourning Miss Dusk." The kids all chimed to their kindergarden teacher.
Ashly formally let the class start, which could only begin while she was there. As usual there was a bit of a conflict over who got to play with the stuffed animals. She dispersed the extras over the legos and building blocks.
Once things had relatively settled down Ashly knew it was time to keep the savage beasts tame.
"Hey I don't recognize that CD." Clair asked not having paid attention before: the teacher aids having long since memorized the class room's entire music collection.
"I found it on the way to work." Ashly explained. "I realized I hadn't brought one of the CDs from home with me and was worried we'd have a disaster on our hands."
"You should just keep them here." Oscar opinionated. "It's not like anyone is going to steal them from here."
"I'd rather be safe than sorry."
Ashly put the disc with the little blue baby thingie on the cover into the player and hit the start button.
The music filled the class room, feeling even more enveloping then when Ashly had heard it in her car. Every child in the room took note, even Oscar and Clair found themselves entranced by the melody.
A couple of the kids had been conflicting over who got to have what (as kids always will): this ended as soon as the music reached their brains, sharing became the only thought process they knew concerning the situation. They sat happily on the green carpet surrounded by the blue painted walls.
As the first track ended, Ashly had never seen the entire class so well behaved. She had to remember to write a letter of gratitude to the recording company that had made the disc. Oscar and Clair took stood are perfect attention for anything Ashly might need. And Ashly knew she would deal with anything wrong that happened swiftly and decisively.
While the music had always been background before, now it was truly feeling like the heart of things. A couple of the tikes pushed and pulled at the plush toys to make it seem as if they were dancing to the music too.
Ashly slipped past and among her charges, making sure nothing disrupted the peace and innocent happiness they were all having. The outside world had no right to interfere with such a innocent joy. She'd deal with anyone who'd dare.
Oscar and Clair didn't move an inch from where they had been when the music started, just standing there not feeling the least bit tire or bored. Their expressions look a tad blank, but not frighteningly so. Their eyes were a tad wide though, and their hands were balled into fists.
Greg who was Ashly's best behaved kid accidently spilled some gold glitter on himself at the arts and craft table while his partner Seth spilled some silver glitter on his hands. Not they really cared or noticed. They were too busy into what they were drawing. Though they felt more like drawing right on the floor then on the table.
A girl spilled some purple water color paint in her hair, but instead of crying or shouting, she just giggled and calmly put her hair into pig tails. As if talking this as a cue, a boy dumped some blue water colors in his hair and began trying to put it up. A slightly smaller boy in white overalls put orange water paint in his hair while another boy put red in his hair and tried to make them into locks for no good reason. A grumpy boy grabbed what was left of the red paint and streaked it through his black hair. Ashly saw this, and felt no alarm or need to stop them.
One of a pair of girls playing patty cake absentmindedly kicked off her shoes and socks, the other girl followed suit.
A lad took off his red shirt showing off his tiny bare chest, no one shouted or told him it was against the rules.
The child’s bare chest wasn’t flesh toned at all... but of course not. Those that Ashley protected weren’t humans, what was she thinking?
The children’s hands were small and seemed to be part of the arm itself. The same with the feet and legs. Small wings were on all of the children’s backs, varying in shape and color.
The only exceptions were Oscar and Clair, and their bodies seemed... shinier than even the kids’ with glitter on them.
The colors of the kids who put watercolor in their hair, with the exception of the grumpy child, seemed to completely wash over their small bodies. The one kid instead had black wash over his body.
Small dots appeared over the heads of the children.
Oscar and Clair seemed to get propellors on their heads, and all the children’s heads changed shape. Most seemed like little water-droplets. There were some exceptions, however.
The color of the glitter on Greg and Seth's hands spread across their entire bodies, removing hair, finger prints, and markings, leaving pure gold and silver liquid like skin.
The small ones where quickly shedding their clothing as it got too big for them, performing a ritual most human beings outgrew by age three leaving all of them for the world to see.
Oscar and Clair's attire just pretty fell apart as they wore them, the adults getting smaller until they were no bigger than the kids. The aid's eyes became orange, reflective, like the back lights of a car while the kid's just got larger and innocent. The music continued and Oscar and Clair got a slight spring in their step, perfectly mechanical in nature.
Ashly's skin became blue, then transparent, her internal organ except for her brain and part of her nervous system dissolving into blue gel like the rest of her body, her hair become two blunt and short tendrils on on her now taller head as her body lost stature. Her finger save her thumb merged together as two spikes appeared on each wrist. All of it the same blue liquid.
Her dress and blouse fell -through- her onto the ground she was standing on, dissolving into the grass. Her eyes became green, then solid green, as all of her face's other features faded along with the rest on her body, losing any detail that defined it as male or female. A thick tail slithered out of her rear with a scythe at the end made out of the same material as the whole of it's form.
The stuffed animals moved on her own, their colors dulling, their eyes seeing and blinking, plastic becoming nail and bone, stuffing flesh and blood.
The clouds painted on the walls began to move as the barrier lost definition and you could no longer tell where the corners of the room were.
The other toys in the room, along with the furniture turned to stone, becoming only vague shapes of what they once were. The song still playing in the winds slightly for all to hear.
Chaos watched over them as it had and always would, and would destroy anything that threatened their existence. The Omachao would be the translators needed to explain things to those too closed hearted to hear the water deity's words/thoughts. And the Chao, having absorbed the traits of the animals that had wandered near as they always did, look ready to mate, to further progress their numbers that were far too few. Chaos looked on, and all was good.
"NO!"
"Julan?"
"I refuse! I refuse! I REFUSE!" The planet tilted.
The universe, Chaos, The Chao, chibi animals, and the two Omachao all blurred, becoming impossible to distinguish. They refocused into a classroom, some human kids, their stuffed toys, two aids, and their teacher.
Ashly held her head, the events of a short while ago feeling like a dream, but she knew they had been real, somehow, they had been real. The feeling of having bones and a defined form feeling odd for a few minutes after.
Clair and Oscar had similar reactions, padding themselves over, making sure there was skin and hair and not bolts and a windup key and thoughts opposed to programming.
The kids looked a the stuffed animals, why weren't they loving and playing with them like they had a minute ago. Hadn't they? They knew they had been somewhere bright and cheerful, and hadn't had a care in the world (even those six year olds have), but . . . it felt like a ghost, an echo, like it had been real but they hadn't been.
Greg and Seth were split between feeling that they had been denied their favorite toy, and had been spared being taken by some big black Strange like they saw in all the cartoons.
"You ready to explain things yet Tails?" Amy asked. They were in a middle of an empty grass spot on top of the mountain range around Mystic Ruins.
"I can't explain it, it was the same feeling when Rings and you first arrived, that there should have been something here." Kyle explained. "But . . it's like it came . . . then went back . . " These feelings had never steered Kyle wrong before and he wondered if Void was behind it somehow. But . . . then where was the trap? Was Sonic in danger? Then why just him? Why Tommy in danger right now with him gone?
Kyle had a hasty retreat, certain he would find his brother missing or his friends under siege when he got back.
-Everywhere and Nowhere-
"Julan, how, how could you?! We spent forever find the right hearts, the right situation! The right medium! The right time! The right place! You've ruined it all from here on! You know that right? We can't do it with those again! You know we can't transform them to, back, then into the new form again! One round way ticket is the -rule-!"
"Don't you mean one way ticket? A clan to chao to rebuild the race, and their god to watch over them again . . . at the price of lives so innocent that a demon couldn't get within a mile of them . . . what we did was a crime! A crime I couldn't be a part of. So I made things right."
"How could you do this?" His voice was gloomy, depressed, like she had sold out his trust. "The Chao are doomed with their god! And we had plans to use Chaos when it was time to eliminate Eggface! It was for our survival!"
"Hikari, Yami, Buddy, Cheese, Chaocola, survive in spit of your words of doom. You sought a heart that reflected Tikal . . . you succeeded, Tikal wouldn't in a thousand years do what you had me do. To be Tikal is the reason I'm still here and not on the other side of the gates, and to be Tikal, to be me, I couldn't let this go on. I'm sorry Zonic, I can't be a part of this anymore. I saw those children change . . . and all I could see was my father's troop stomping chao in the ground to claim the chaos emerald! In the name of my people's survival! For the greater good sacrifices must be made my father lectured me! Both of them! "
"This won't change anything! I'll still have to do this! You'll just be making more work for me and giving yourself a lot of misery! And our biggest project is coming up! You can't walk away from that! I'm in charge here! Not you!"
~I feel like I don't know you. ~ "But I won't be the one doing it, I know I can't stop you, and I know that I can't waste myself trying to stop you, but at least this way . . . I won't be the one robbing people of their lives, raping them of their memories and selves."
"This is still about -him- isn't it?"
"Wake up Zonic, not everything I do is dictated by my connection to him. I did this, because for me, for Tikal, it was the only right thing to do. I can't leave yet. There is still more to do, but I'll no longer be a accomplish to murder. So see you around, maybe."
"Julan. Julan~! Stop! Stop or dead or alive this will hurt worse than anything!"
"If you have the resolve to do it, then just pull the trigger and be done with it and send me on my way."
Tikal turned and slowly walked away from the blue hedgehog in gold and purple armor. The laser mounted on Zonic's arm went off several times, each other doing sever damage, nothing, living or dead could continue after those blasts. Tikal simply vanished to wherever she was going, wherever it was, it was away from Zonic, far away.
The blue hedgehog suddenly found his heart feeling like a black hole. He looked up at the ceiling with the blast marks from each of the wasted charges in the laser cartridge. He couldn't do it, he couldn't stop her, he knew his formal higher ups were going to give him hell for this. But he had already lost the only thing left he had that was important to him, not that he had realized that until just now.
And maybe all this, was still part of the Sister's design.
"Charlie." She called. He saw her. Like how he remembered her.
"You're calling me that name again, that must mean I'm dreaming again, and given how you look, and how I'm missing my dreads and name sakes, I guess a dream is the only place this can be."
"It is a dream."
"And like the others it's going to be a half memory when I wake up?" Knuckles asked.
"Not for much longer. I'm done with it Charlie, I'll only be on the side of sanity for now. I don't know if I'll be able to repair all the damage, or weather I'm doing more harm than good with what's ahead, but I have to do what my heart tells me is right. I can't escape it."
"Sounds like me, when I told dad to come off it when he lectured me for teaming up with True Blue to save Sally, I still don't regret it."
" . . . . I guess . . . then I have to accept that too."
"Hey! Cut down on the look! It doesn't fit the scenery!"
"No . . I guess it doesn't." She kissed him. He would remember that when he woke up.
Julie-Su shot visual daggers at the sleeping Knuckles with his kissing expressing and held out arms in the bed next to her not bothering to pull the sheet over her body. ~That had better be me!~
~Fin
(Hats off to furry web comic I can't even remember the name of now, hats off to Spawn the comic and Robotech third story)