TINGE THE HEDGEHAWK

2. i asked this in a discord server, but im curious about input from you guys here: as writers/rpers, do you ever find your muses kind of just... chill around you?? like you'll be at the grocery store and out of nowhere one of ur muses makes a comment about something on the shelf, or you'll be in the middle of remembering embarrassing memories and ur muse starts critiquing what happened like a shitty movie?

bc on one hand its pretty much harmless but on the other hand im wondering if anyone else has this happen to them bc if not i think i have deeper rooted brain problems than i first thought

it happens to me to the point im straight up having full on mental conversations and i have inside jokes with my muses. 

anyway uhhhhh hi i ended up getting absolutely LOST in the discord rp sauce. i’m going to see if i can’t revive my muse for tinge or kukku at some point, but tumblr desktop is really pushing me away and making discord feel like a much better rp option as opposed to a blog now :|

as a more general update: quarantine’s been going well. i’ve been exercising a lot more lately, dropped some weight that was making me feel shitty, and i feel really good. do u have ANY idea how fun it is to run as hard and fast as u can to the sonic adventure 2 soundtrack???? 100% recommend. on top of that, i’m trying to work on my upper body strength and i’m gonna try forcing myself to use my ring fit more often since it works my arms really well.

lastly, this is kinda random but i’m looking to commission someone to draw a char of mine. theyre not a sonic oc, but i’d love to see them in the sonic channel or sonic x style!!!!! dm me for more details/dm me on discord if youre interested!!! ;_;

tldr:

The Turbinid-Dragon scales had stopped falling. Reap drew herself away from Tinge’s upper ‘personal space’ bubble, dropping back down to the ground. She locked in place when the person finally came into view… Next to a gigantic (to a human- 12′) seven-tailed scorpion. It was glistening, collapsed to the ground as it puffed and huffed in agony. Stood before it was the being Tinge dared address, garbed in complete metal with a glowing purple line where the eye-holes should have been.

“…. Another Hollow, and not one of my design… How interesting..” It completely ignored her words. The seven-foot-tall being circled Tinge slowly, examining her from head to toe. “… A mix of a hedgehog and a hawk… And somehow colored black, with red stripes…. Wears shoes, too…- Probably an attempt to ignore The Blessing… But why would you ignore such a gift?”

It raised both hands, as if exalting the insane mish-mash world around them. In one hand rested the jewel Tinge was after- glowing and pulsing. Everywhere the being went, The Abyss weakened around it,- poisoned by a magic far removed from its own. The being watched Tinge for any reaction as its head returned to a more proper position.

“…. The Hollow is not affected by it… How interesting… I must examine this phenomenon further…”

Reap took a step back. She could feel the magic of The Abyss weakening in her when Bondrewd stepped closer, and strengthening when he backed away. A warning hiss escaped her.

❝ I’m not a Hollow. I was born like this. Everyone on my homeworld is like me. Well, kind of. Obviously not a planet of hedgehog-hawk hybrids, but, y’know. ❞

As she stood there, inspected by the figure, she idly used the jets in her boots to push away any of the fallen scales. She didn’t want to get poisoned anytime soon. Toxins in her or not, Tinge masked her disgust well, able to piece together from Reap’s reactions and the strange figure’s voice who this was: none other than Bondrewed, or perhaps a clone of his.

She kept her beak sealed, not telling him anything else about her. All he needed to know was that she came from another world, one very far from the Abyss, and that the Chaos Emerald ought to be resting with her. The energy giving her plumage its golden undertones lightly crackled as she drew closer to the gem.

Tinge watched as the world appeared to wither around him, but the Emerald stayed true: an intense shade of purple, the most alluring shade it could be. The hedgehawk lightly held out her hand, palm turned up, looking the figure directly in the eye, hot pink pupils to a neon purple line. An energy surrounded her hand, and it began to surround the Emerald as well.

“Good thing you’ve got your standard issue ‘Flash Light,’” Dr. Coomer says erroneously. He’s. Trying his best. If he were slightly more lucid, he might pick up on him startling Tinge -

But instead, like a curious animal, Dr. Coomer leads her to the first building near them. It takes two punches to snap the boards off one window, and he rather casually reaches into the window itself to wipe away old pieces of glass.

“Ladies first! We’ll surely find Silly Straws in here.”

❝ Uh, yeah, a flashlight, hah. ❞

Was he possibly perceiving her Chaos energy differently? This world felt different, in the way a world would feel if it did not usually contain anthropomorphic talking animals like herself. The facility had a strange energy about it too, like Chaos energy but wrong. 

The hedgehawk nodded to the scientist and hopped in through the window, looking around the abandoned old facility. On the ground: a bright orange silly straw, bent into the shape of the Black Mesa logo.

“…. Interesting… I know of many cave raiders that would have killed to have such an ability… All I can feel… Is the magic in me falling apart… The closer we get to your ‘Chaos Emerald’…. I do not like this…. Considering the voice I hear… You may have to fight… But I pray I am merely hearing things…”

The roars of the Turbinid-Dragons began to fade… Reap’s eyes slashed to the ground. Sandstone. Not just any sandstone.- And the voice- it was now grunts, pained and clear. Something crashed into the ground ahead- again and again and again- without pause or care.

“…. But they live on the fifth layer… What would one be doing down here????…” Seven hits. Fast as lightning, and harder than obsidian. She had enough plating to deflect any hits, and Tinge was fast enough to evade the beast… But the voice… The voice was what had her the most terrified.

“Well…. It would seem- that this gem truly- can weaken The Blessing…- How- unfortunate.” All at once, cold and calculating… And yet warm and fatherly. It chilled Reap to her very core.

❝ Oh, Reap, please don’t hurt yourself. I know you want to help me, but I don’t want you to get shredded apart trying to get lil’ old me home. Trust me, I can handle myself in a fight. And with the Emerald? I can be even more of a b— ❞

She stopped talking to hear the new voice. Tinge felt the same chill. Ugh. How it reminded her of who had made her. She allowed multiple Chaos energy spheres to circle her, going faster and faster until they made a thin force field that wouldn’t hesitate to zap anything that came close, and would bounce off any sort of little projectile.

Tinge could feel Reap’s discomfort. Could this be...? No, it couldn’t. No, no, no.... She ran a hand up her arms, as if rolling up sleeves, and walked straight up to the... thing. She wasn’t even going to give him the grace of being called a creature. If she was getting out of here, Tinge would rather go big, or go home: literally.

Her Chaos force field folded itself into her feathers and quills, practically unnoticeable as anything other than a golden iridescence like that of a hummingbird’s feathers.

She cleared her throat, walking up. No, Tinge wasn’t REALLY going to...

❝ I don’t know who or what you are. But you have something that belongs to my world. My kind and I would appreciate it greatly if you’d return it. ❞

Fortunately fire wasn’t an ability Omen had in skillset so there was no risk of that unless something unlucky occurred.

Not that the forest remnants itself wouldn’t be a danger without the flames however, as not long after she landed atop a rock, a loud whistling and whooshing was heard and coming through the growing abyss was a whole tree quickly spinning through the air horizontally! that mad fiend had just decided to throw one of the downed remnants right at her….that would certainly explain the brief pause in pursuit after that last spindash that connected.

The fog had gotten lighter actually given this pause. It seems the shadows were moving in tandem to where Omen was, she’d never escape the grip of the abyss without escaping Omen either.

In the darkness out of view was the rapid, thudding sounds of Omen going into another sprint, quickly gaining ground again, the shroud returning to its near blinding density. Even if that makeshift projectile of a tree didn’t hit its mark he was sure to be on her heels again! The demon was actually just having fun at this point, not caring so much about catching her properly…..though if he did it wouldn’t stop him inflicting as much pain as he could.

No, Now it just wanted her to fall into terror and despair, break the mind and the body, it didn’t matter in what order.

“͞F͝ơr҉ a ̀f͠a͡brica͢t͏i̛on̴ t͠h͝a͢t claims ͟to ͡be ͘re͢l̨a͠te̡d t҉o ̛on̸e ha̷vin͜g ̀a̵ ti͘tlè o̶f ‘Ulti̡m̵a̧t͞e̷'̧ ͘Y͡o͞u̕r҉ ̵ mǫck͢ery ̸o͢f͜ t̕he͡ ̴w̸or͡d is̕ ̶d͜i͘s̴s̸ap̸ointiņg̢, ҉al̸l͢ y̢ou c̀an̴ ̵do ̴is͏ ͡ru̷n!̢ Y̵our c͏o͝wa̷r̸dic̸e͡ re͡ve͡a͡ls̀ y͢our͡ ̵we͜ak҉n̡e̴sś,̷ just͡ stop r̴esis͘t̴i̴ng a͟n͡d̨ ac͞cept͢ you̷ ḑéath ͞by ̀my han̷d̡!"̀

Now who was the one taunting?

She looked up at the demon, seeing the tree spinning rapidly at her. Well, it looked as slow as a snail to her, seeing as she was revving herself up to get going fast again. A smirk crossed her beak. An evil laugh escaped her. She would’ve thought the creature would’ve seen through her ragged bluff.

❝ I can’t believe you actually fell for that. ❞

The hedgehawk proceeded to jump to meet the wooden behemoth, winding up a punch, and slamming her fist into the tree, returning the plant right to its sender. Mildly disappointed that the demon didn’t come straight at her, she figured she’d do it herself. Curling into a spindash again, she used the tree as a stepping stone to hurl herself right at the demon’s head, getting quills all up in his face.

She wasn’t going to play nice. Fighting rules were out the window when it came to a life or death situation. Forget Chaos Energy, Omen was catching hands as she flailed her fists around, uncurling from her spindash and aiming to deliver an elbow drop straight to the ground below.

“Yeah. It’s different from my zone’s Metropolis, lot less greenery, but from what I can tell it’s still a grand city.”

Grand but still quite strange to him. All of that bare concrete and glass. Hopefully they had more than just this one park to help deal with the air pollution a city like this usually makes.

“I didn’t get the chance to see much of this zone on my last visit. I’m off the clock so I decided to take another look for myself. Plus I was curious about you, but I think I mentioned that already.”

“Ya know, before you explained I thought you actually were this zone’s Shadow.”

❝ Less greenery!? I wanna see what your Metropolis looks like! ❞

Tinge looked up and around at the white and glassy buildings, various roof and sky gardens around, vines hanging from some trees, and plenty of plants on the sides and tops of the buildings. They’d been growing since the city was reclaimed from Eggman’s empire. She loved the city.

She watched as more of the scales fell. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what they looked like. Probably not the stereotypical fantasy dragons Tinge pictured in her mind. And she doubted they could spit flames. Maybe toxic gas? This place was so strange she wouldn’t doubt it.

Most demons usually would fall with enough effort, given how they usually focused on quantity over quality. Omen however wasn’t simple fodder by any means, being the second in command and next in line to becoming darkness incarnate wouldn’t mean much if any old methods were capable of slowing him down. A monster this significantly powerful wouldn’t go down without a fight. 

Each successful spindash would only enrage the fiend further, he’d attempt to catch her each time, intending to stop this game of cat and mouse they were playing as she evaded him. Each swipe of those claws getting dangerously closer too in the process given how he was learning the motions she made, there were points the wind of his swipes would breeze against her quills.

It was more like she was fighting a rabid animal at this moment, A very strong and enduring one at that as it would charge forward relentlessly after her, akin to a berserker with no end to its strength and momentum as more of the poor forestry was being ripped apart.

The growing darkness didn’t help either, before long it would be impossible to see! Her test spear would penetrate the thick smog, giving an ever so brief view of the light outside of the demon’s influence, but it would be swallowed back up in short time, the fog seemed to be moving around too, as if following where both Tinge and Omen would go!

Tinge, realizing she was getting into a pattern, began to shake it up. Two spindashes in a row? You bet. No spindash for at least half a minute? Sure thing. Nearly all the trees within the sphere of darkness that was choking her vision were down, damaged... She hated when fights caused this level of destruction, the poor little Mobini... She sighed.

This clearly wasn’t working. She’d have to think of something new. She summoned a few spheres of Chaos energy to orbit around her head and body, giving her enough light to see around her for about ten feet, she landed on the ground, no longer any standing trees to jump around. If she survived this, she would attempt to restore as much of the forest as she could.

May the devil help Omen if he set anything on fire.

The hedgehawk ran until she was standing atop a sizeable rock, appearing to stop to catch her breath. Woe is her, she’s so tired from this fight... It would sure be a shame for him to swoop down at her at a high speed. Of course, Tinge wasn’t actually as battered or exhausted as she looked. 

A clone of Shadow the Hedgehog. He could certainly think of many reasons why someone might want to do that. But he, and by the sounds of things she, did not have the full context onto why. So while he did have more questions for her, Knuckles decided that it would be wiser to leave this topic where it lay.

“So kid, what have you been up to?

❝ Not much. Just painting, hanging out with my Chao, enjoying the summer weather. You know how it goes. Great time to go out and do just about anything. Think I might drop by the library tomorrow. ❞

She sat back on the bench, her head just resting on the top of the back of it.

Reap followed cautiously behind Tinge as the hedgehawk began moving once again. She had to speed up, eventually leaving the ground entirely and just becoming a wall of shards that chased after the hedgehawk to keep up. They were traveling closer to the light- closer to the more dangerous monstrosities of The Abyss.

And then the sound began. Two, actually. The hiss of scales in the air was her first alert. The second was the chirping, purring roar of a Turbinid-Dragon… Two, males based on the squeak at the end of their roars. She sped up to her breaking point, slicing into the air directly above Tinge. Her entire body coalesced into a single-plated shield as the scales began to fall. She had not anticipated a territory fight, today… How unfortunate.

The final sound was one that had Reap’s magic shuddering. A voice- faint, but growing ever closer. It was only a word and then it was gone, but it had still existed.- Deep and gruff, although not unkind. It was nearly the kind of voice a stereotypical father would have… But Reap knew what that voice was associated with.

“…. Turbinid-Dragon scales… Do not touch, they are poisonous… Deadly to even the most healthy of warriors… Leave them be…. They will settle their dispute….” She did not voice her concern over the voice she heard- not quite yet. She had a guess as to who had caused the Turbinid-Dragons to roar so angrily… And she didn’t like it.

Hearing Reap speak of scales, Tinge came to a roaring halt, just inches away from coming in contact with one. She practically jumped backwards, looking everywhere around her for the source of the scales, what they were, why they were fighting; all of her senses enhanced themselves to prevent getting any of the creatures’ toxins anywhere near her tiny body. If one touch could easily kill a human sized being, what could it do to Tinge...?

One would think “not much,” as her genetic basis did not succumb to poisons or disease so easily, if at all, despite the great pain it would cause... But her other DNA could easily nullify those powers, seeing as ingesting a certain yellow fruit was enough to send her into shock.

The hedgehawk kept low, returning to the pose she’d had earlier, trying to detect where the Emerald would have been. Again her ear twitched, both of them did, quickly. It was much closer than before, she could feel its energy almost calling her.

❝ It’s close. I can feel it. ❞