My Sworn Duty!

❝ Well, hello to you too, tough guy. ❞ Rouge tilts her head, waving at him with just the tips of her fingers, the other hand resting beneath her chin.

     What a fascinating wishlist the gem thief had, but all the guardian had to offer her was a particularly hearty roll of the eyes. That, and a raise of the eye ridge toward her direction. Dropping in to lend a hand? "Tch... how uncharacteristically courteous of you."

     Like he was going to buy that. You look up a definition for the phrase 'ulterior motive' and you'll be face-to-face with Rouge the Bat herself in the top one hundred search results. "Thanks, but no thanks. Awfully kind, but I ain't lookin' t'get myself into any more trouble than today is already worth. It took me a lot'a searchin' t'get my hands on another one'a these—"

     ...A pause, a hit of realization. A glance to his back, and a final flick of violets moving to catch her emeralds. And just like that, he was already put in the corner this woman had such a knack for putting Knuckles in. By his back was a piece of his history thumbed sweetly. At his front would a sneer flash sharpened fangs in pierced irritation.

     Amy was the one who had given it to him, but wasn't it Rouge who had found this relic of Echidna civilization in the first place*? [*STH IDW #61-- Mun.] That's what Amy told him, anyway, and she didn't have any reason to lie about where she got it. She was also told to tell him that Rouge said 'he owes her one'. Ugh.

     —He could just keep his mission to himself. Who cared about being fair anyway? It's not like Rouge was actually invested in recovering the lost history of his long-gone ancestors. She'd surely buzz off sooner rather than later, and then he could...

     ...Sigh. Fine. He'll do it, but he'll probably hate himself in the morning.

     Oh, if looks could kill — At the ring of a painfully familiar voice, a face is quick to dirty itself with a scowl tried and true. This here, this right here was specifically why he kept to his island and tried to make visits to the surface as brief as possible.

A beat.

     "From one person deeply married to his work to another, I think you need a better hobby." A groan. Why is he the one telling this guy to get a life? The guardian bordered on hypocrisy, but at least he spoke honestly.

     Did he even care?! Because that pointed smirk and hefty glove being picked up into a brawler's position seemed to say otherwise. "Clearly y'don't know who yer talkin' to. I'd be more concerned with figurin' out how not t'burn out when reentering orbit if I were you."

     Now, no more talk! All that was left was to grip the fist taut, wheel back, and—!

     ...Oh. Downward would the other begin to dig instead, a sudden hole of dirt being spat up as the red echidna disappeared from sight. Stage fright, maybe? All bark and no bite?

     Nah, he just needed a wind-up was all. That dirt and pebble would begin to rumble once more, a lightning's whip of movement coming back for another pass. Stumble and fight for your footing— and, uh... maybe brace for impact.

     "Just shut up and BUCKLE UP, cosmonaut. I'm sendin' you t'go an' see if there are any parts left'a the Death Egg floatin' up there in SPACE."

     And the echidna was a man of his word! By Gaia did he put his back into it. It was the sort of punch that you felt before it even made contact. The weight of his glove had its own gravitational pull, it would seem...The titanic strength the red-dreaded powerhouse was known for had clearly been put on full display.

     A spiked fist was ignited with a burning orange flame, an uppercut digging deep into the rounded form of his friend. ...So, yeah...

. . . ?

Noticing the tapping at the glass, Shade's instinct is to tense, snap her eyes to stare at the window intently. That's strange, she's never seen one of this planet's creatures act in such a way. She wonders if it was hungry, but is quick to notice the note clutched in it's beak.

Standing from her seat, the echidna warrior moves across the room to slide the glass open. She tilts her head to the side, long, undone quills falling in her face. A letter for her?

...That never happens.

Taking the note gently, she gives the flicky the smallest pat before closing her window again. As much as she was curious, the suspicion arouse when she started to carefully unfurl the note, but it's mostly just her paranoia.

Appropriately, Shade's expression is that of surprise when she realizes who the letter is from. Ever since her exile and preventing Nocturnus from escaping the Twilight Cage, contact with Sonic and his friends had fallen a little bit short. Especially when it came to the Master Emerald guardian... she'd worded an appropriate apology for her misguided actions to him, but since then... It was mainly out of respect, avoiding coming near Angel Island.

So this invitation was.. well, a little unprecedented. But she wouldn't turn the offer down. Shade couldn't deny the chance to talk again with the other echidna was one she'd be more than grateful for. Isolation from everything she knew, her people... She wondered if he must understand this sentiment too.

The echidna warrior sets the note and it's contents down, she wastes no time getting dressed. She seldom went anywhere without her armor or headband. Can't ever be too careful...

Soon enough, the dark clad echidna steps through that warp ring, impressed by it's functionality. She takes in her surroundings for a moment, the old ruins of Angel Island hardly forgotten. Then she spots him.

     ...Gods, it was weird every single time he saw her. Like neither of them should exist. He felt a spine stiffen suddenly, yet he knew he should be relaxed and amicable. He was the host here, so to speak, and enough visits to the abodes of Amy or Vanilla were had to know that standing like he was about to jump and attack the other was not the way to go.

     Shoes sort of... shuffle for a second. Arms unfold from their tightened cross over the chest. Then perpetually balled fists kinda... dangle aimlessly at his side without anywhere else to comfortably place them. How about... the hips? Yeah, sure— wrists hit either side of his hips— wait, no, he didn't want to seem like he was upset with the other. He had a knack for always looking angry when that's just how he looks. Let's do just the one wrist, then. This was how casual people were supposed to appear, right?

     Ugh. This was why he never tried to have people over.

     "Yeah, everything's fine," he'd finally speak. "I just thought it'd be better to meet here than somewhere down on the surface. Sometimes it gets annoying having people stare at you like you just escaped from a museum. Plus, I doubt any coffee shop or public park is gonna beat out Angel Island in terms of peaceful atmospheres. It just made sense."

     A simple shrug as shoes make their way down the steps of the altar. "Hope the message wasn't too abrupt. I don't exactly know your daily schedule. As for my own?" There's a loose grin that falls away faster than it was spawned, a chuff of a chuckle while dreadlocks shake to and fro with the sway of his head.

     "Mine's filled with a lot of thinking. There are plenty'a times where I've got nothing else to do but sit and think while I'm looking after this all-powerful rock, and... and I was thinking... When you and I fought in the past, it's only now while I sit and recount that I realize how... familiar it all felt. Not the location or the reasons we butted heads, but how you fought. The who and what I was fighting. The tactics you'd employ and the raw vigor behind every motion.

     But then I recall when we fought side-by-side near the end of everything that had happened at the time. When we joined forces to strive for a common goal... nothing about it felt even remotely recognizable, even though our clashing had taken me back to a time it seems I and the rest of the world have forgotten."

     Eyes fall away, they drift to someplace else. "...I'll be honest with you, it disturbed me. How fighting one of my own sits deeper in my skin than taking up arms alongside you. So I just wanted to... have a chat, really. About what we are and the memories we still have of it. It's strange not being the only echidna left after thinking you'd always be this... this single hanging strand of a time nobody but you can remember."

She'd concocted all these retorts for him, each one made with increasingly heated insistence in perfect proportion to the swell of dread nestling itself under her ribs. They were all excuses. She knew that. And by the slowly deepening creases of waning patience in Knuckles brow, he knew it, too. Maybe it was because Knuckles' personal brand of disappointment felt so much worse than what she'd get from the others, but it bothered her so, so much that she'd dug her heels in before she'd reasoned why she would even want to do such a thing. Shame was such a potent emotion—and that nibble of spite wasn't helping.

She rounded on him, her quills raised with a frustrated anxiety that spun in her gut.

"Ohhh, just wait a minute! Let me just—!"

She whirled about again, looking frantically left and right. She knew she'd seen something of note, something that would take them where they needed to be. Not for any reason she could explain (and Knuckles certainly wouldn't have bought it if she'd tried); she just knew. Where had it gone, that sparkle of electric light? Where—?

Oh! There it was, two beads of energy twinkling for just a flash in the alley a yard from them, just off the beaten path. Of course, they hadn't been there before—the shadows of this place were generous in number, and she'd sworn it had been down the road (which was apparently just a big, fat, stupid circle) they'd been wandering instead. But it was a meaningful direction, and boy was she eager to have a real heading again.

     Ugh. It's a flash of pointed teeth in pure unbridled annoyance, an irked browline quirked to utmost irritation once the other wheeled around with yet another incorrect interjection. Frankly, it was downright impressive how fast this heroine could jump between being the wise combatant posing strategy and tact into a troublesome scenario, listening to everyone's advice on the scenario and wrapping it up neatly with two parts consideration and three parts execution...

     To the pigheaded little girl stomping her feet and balling her fists insisting that she's right where she's wrong. Talk about being multifaceted, sheesh. They sure had some real stubborn personalities in their friend group, didn't they? Normally it was Knuckles being the guy that goes 'I don't need a map', but Amy had him replaced in every sense of the word.

     Teeth are sucked, a sneer tugging at his upper lip. "No, I've waited more minutes than there are in the day! Instead'a walking around like we're goin' somewhere, lemme climb up one'a these buildings and see if I can discern literally anything else from topside! Cuz' lemme tell ya Ames, not a lot is gettin' done from down here!" It was a huff before shoes were quick to begin storming off. A well-known fact about Knuckles: when he said something, by Gaia's light did he mean it. Off toward one of the plentiful buildings was he taking himself, marching off to start a climb and finally see if they could—

     "Wh—?! AMY!!" Snatched~. Actually, he wasn't going anywhere, because APPARENTLY Amy had a point she was DEADSET on proving! Oh, his body hikes its temperature up high after that little stunt, the scent of burning charcoal making a strike for the nostrils as soon as a temper spiked. Strike one was getting them in this mess in the first place, and that was strike two.