::Return - Chapter 4
Itara turned the small red gem in her hand over, inspecting every crevice and indent and glint of light that bounced off it from the computer screen behind her. When she first found the gem, there had been a hint of power emanating from it but now there didn’t seem to be much of anything remaining in the broken crystal. She wished she could ask what had happened but knew the ghost couldn’t communicate without a body, even less so without the power to control said body. She hadn’t expected things to go well for the ghost doll after Solaris finally appeared, but she hadn’t expected this much damage, either. He had a fair warning when she shared half her power with him, that whatever happened after would be entirely on him, though. Was it Solaris? Or did something else attack the doll? Or were her powers simply too much for him to handle? She couldn’t be sure, but she didn’t imagine it mattered much at this point, either. Whatever happened, happened. She would consider this repercussion for lying to her for so long and hoped he learned his lesson. Perhaps someday, she may find him a body again.
In the meantime, they had bigger concerns. Sonic and company had returned to their own base to update the others on what they’d learned and were planning the next part of their own attack while she and the robots worked out their part. Itara had given them as much information as she could supply considering the state of the timelines and they would be meeting back up to discuss further actions once the area around the anomaly was clear. She’d finally put Kipper’s gem back in her pocket and moved to grab her notebook again but was stopped short when Zero suddenly stood in front of her. She hadn’t even seen where he’d come from and his sudden appearance caused her to jump. He was always so silent and unseen compared to everyone else, it was easy to forget he was there at all, but when he did want attention, he made it clear.
With a huff of annoyance, she stepped back to look up at him, “What?” Her tone conveyed all of her annoyance. On accident.
His eyebrow lifted as her outburst caught the attention of the other two but he paid them no mind as he stated, “I want to discuss the plan moving forward with you.”
Itara’s cheeks puffed but she let it out with a huff of air, “Fine, fine, just… let me finish what I was doing.” She waved him aside, though he didn’t move so she walked around him, instead. She grabbed her notebook and pencil and flipped to a blank page at the back to sketch something out. The other two robots crossed the room to find out what was going on as RK moved behind her to see what she was doing.
“Kipper?” he questioned, confused.
Itara nodded curtly and continued her drawing. Once she was finished, she pulled the gem back out of her pocket to show him, “I found it while I was in Station Square. I was thinking of asking Kelly to remake his body. At a later point.”
“Tch, like that troublemaker deserves a body again,” Metal scoffed.
“He won’t be able to move it for some time, I guarantee it,” Itara explained as she pulled the paper out, folded it, and tucked the gem back into her pocket. “Okay, now what?” She looked up at the clearly impatient Zero but was far too used to it to let it bother her.
“If the energy source you’ve found is somehow what you think it is, what are your plans to make use of it?” Zero demanded.
“Well, it depends on exactly what it is and what’s causing it but,” Itara explained, reaching up to scratch behind her ear, “If it’s the same thing that brought you here in the first place, I’d like to try and open it again and reverse the direction. My theory is that it’s another portal and there’s something behind it that’s the actual source of power.”
“Wait, you want to go through it?” RK frowned.
Itara looked up at him and nodded, “That’s the working idea, anyway. But it’s going to be entirely reliant on what it is in the first place. If it’s a portal, I intend to follow it. If it’s an object, I’m going to try to bring it into this timeline. If it’s a person, well…,” she looked off and gave her ear a light tug, “I’m going to hope they’re strong enough to fight Gods, I suppose. And that I can convince them to help, rather than hinder.”
“That is my concern,” Zero stated flatly, “depending on what it is, exactly, there’s cause for concern that it may only worsen the situation. You have no clear idea what is actually going on or what’s truly the cause of the reading. You’re simply going through with all this on the mere hope that it’s going to help rather than destroy us all.” His eyes narrowed sharply as he leaned forward to tower over her further. Itara glanced up at him, her ears flattening against her head as her gaze turned to the floor. Her spines bristled under the sharp glare.
“Well… I…,” she stammered, her voice wavering.
Metal moved to put himself between them and glared back at the other robot with an equally threatening stare. “If you have a better answer, I’d love to hear it,” he bit back with a cautionary coolness. When Zero gave no immediate response, he stood back up straight, shrugged, and looked away, “like the kid said, this has been our best bet since this all started and she’s the one with the most information here. We’ll look into the location, get what we can from it, and move from there. It’ll depend on what it is, after all. We’re not going to go jumping in all willy-nilly.” He turned a glowing red eye back to the other robot, daring him to argue, “You’d think you’d be more ecstatic to get home.”
Zero scoffed and crossed his arms, meeting Metal’s warning with confidence, “I want nothing more than to be rid of this world, but I’m not going to get myself destroyed by the blind optimism of a child, either.”
“I’m not a child,” Itara muttered, though kept her eyesight down and away from them.
“Then take more responsibility for the power you hold over this world,” Zero snapped. Itara winced at the tone and he continued, “you’ve gained the trust of everyone around you and they’re all counting on you to know what you’re doing and what you’re getting them into. You’ve asked them to trust you and they have and now you’re responsible for what happens. Relying entirely on mere hope will only get everyone around you killed!”
Itara curled further into herself at the accusation, but where she had no response, Metal and RK both turned on the third bot with a fury. The argument turned to threats, edging dangerously close to a battle that caused Itara to want to curl up more. However, when she realized a fight was on the verge of breaking out, she quickly uncurled and moved between them all.
“Stop! Stop…,” she pleaded. All three robots were in defensive positions. RK’s claws were up, Metal Sonic’s arm was lit up and sparking violently, and Zero’s hand hovered near the hilt of his saber. They gave no indication that they’d heard her so she yelled a more commanding, “ENOUGH!” Once she was sure they had heard her, she turned to Metal and RK, waving them down, “stop… this isn’t the time for that.” Metal didn’t appear all too eager to back down but they both reluctantly lowered their stances, though kept a sharp eye on the third bot. Satisfied with their response, she turned back to Zero and glared up at him, “You too. I get it, okay? You think I don’t know what’s at stake? What can happen if I mess up again? Like I haven’t seen it once before already? Like I haven’t seen it several times by now?” She shook her head and her demeanor dropped along with her scowl, “I know everyone’s counting on me. I know it’s on me to get it right, to consider everything, to make sure what I do is the right thing. I know more than anyone, about the timelines, the Gods, the threats. But that’s why I know this is the right path. I know this is the answer. I can’t explain it, not properly, probably never in a way you’ll accept but… you just have to trust me, too. I’m not relying entirely on instinct or simple hope, but… a little hope goes a long way, too.”
Zero scowled down at her, studied the pleading look on her face, and slowly dropped his hand from his hilt, though the glare never left his face. “Fine. But I’ll be watching. Closely. Just as you’ll do anything to save your world, I’ll do anything to return to mine. If you put that at risk…”
Itara shook her head and sighed with relief, “Don’t worry. I won’t.”
He made her swear it and turned away, storming off out of the basement, leaving Itara to deflate and drop to the floor, her ears dropping along with her. She gave a heavy sigh, of both relief and exhaustion, but looked up again when she felt someone pick her up. She frowned up at RK as he fixated her in his arms and looked between him and Metal, “You guys… think I’m doing this right… don’t you?” After a moment of consideration, RK nodded while Metal shrugged.
“You’ve always figured things out, despite all odds, I believe you’ll figure this out as well,” RK explained as he walked over to grab the folded-up sketch from the table to hand it to her.
“You’ve always been annoyingly right,” Metal scoffed, “why would that suddenly stop now?”
Itara glared over at him, but when he smirked, she did as well. “Well, I’m glad you’ve finally realized that I’m always right, at least,” she grinned, getting an eye roll from the blue robot, “but Zero is right to a degree. I need more than luck or optimism or hope. I need to be right about this.” She looked over the notebook on the table. The last time the pages went black, the timelines reset. Did that mean the same thing was going to happen this time? Was it caused by the power source? Or was it Solaris for some reason? But why were there several days between the last page and whatever was coming?
As she silently considered everything and the bots went back to their various tasks, another set of steps plodded down the stairs from the house, though only Itara turned to look. It took a minute for her to be able to see from her position, but the much taller human boy came into view about halfway down the stairs. He looked equally unsure and fired up and Itara wasn’t sure what they were in store for this time. Simon had been a pillar of exhaustion and amusement over the years, though he calmed down a great deal from when they first met. He was still a bit excitable, as he had been so long ago, but age and the end of the world matured him more than even Itara expected. Even Lynda, the human woman who spent a good portion of a year trying to sleep with what she hadn’t known was a robot, had calmed down and become surprisingly helpful.
It was a good thing, too, because she and Kelly didn’t get along great at first. Kelly’s rough-around-the-edges, eccentric personality clashed disastrously with Lynda’s social elitist, suburban mom habits. They were polar opposites in every detail and Kelly wasn’t one to hold back punches, both figuratively and literally. Mira, who was far more of a social elite than his wife, managed to dissuade most fights, but Lynda came dangerously close to getting her face punched in several times in the first year or two. But, as it turned out, being forced to live in close proximity to someone for eight years while the world burned around you made even the worst fitting personalities grow complacent with one another. It probably helped that there were three short-tempered robots always present to step in before anything got out of hand, as well.
Simon, similarly, learned to calm down and deal with the situation much quicker than his mother and the hedgehog woman. He still bothered Itara about her powers often enough, especially when she had to use her fire powers for any reason, but she’d gotten used to the curiosity and would just show him what he wanted and he’d let her return to whatever she was doing. Eight years was a lot of time to kill, after all, and it’s not like she had much better to do most of that time. Entertaining Simon kept her mind off the destroyed world and the constant threat of her father dragging her back into the battle.
By the time he reached them, his uncertainty had left his face and he looked almost too fired-up for any of their liking. They never knew what to expect with Simon and the inner workings of his head. The head that Itara could no longer reach and she deeply resented that fact. She knew Simon would get taller than her, he was human, after all, but she hadn’t expected it to be so much so quickly. While she remained stuck at just under three feet, Simon had gotten to be just over five and was still growing.
“What is it, Simon?” RK questioned first and glanced back at the teen.
“I want to help.”
All three of them stopped to turn back to him again, causing him to square up, though whether it was from determination or fear, none of them could tell. Metal eyed the boy suspiciously while RK and Itara mentally sighed. “Simon… we’ve talked about this,” RK stressed, “there isn’t-.”
“No, I know,” he interrupted, shaking his head, “I know I can’t leave the base or help fight monsters or anything like that.” RK raised an eyebrow, which nudged him to continue, “But things have changed now, right? We’ve put the shield down and everyone’s getting active again. We found Sonic and Shadow and you guys are all working on some plan to save the world. I want to help. However I can. Even if it’s just helping repair something, I want to help. Please, I want to save the world, too.”
RK and Itara exchanged glances, RK mostly looking to Itara for an answer. Itara’s brows furrowed as she considered it and shuffled off RK’s lap to grab her notebook. She knew it was useless again but maybe there would be something. She was wholly unsurprised to find nothing of use, of course.
“Come on, Itara, there’s gotta be something. Maybe I can help fix the shield?”
“You think your tiny human body can fix that giant hunk of iron?” Metal sneered.
“I’m taller than you now,” Simon glared, getting a look of utter rage from the bot, but turned a pleading look back to Itara and RK.
“Metal’s right in that vein, the shield is best left to the robots-.”
“But Kelly’s helping!”
“Kelly is also a brute who doesn’t take ‘no’ for an answer and is weirdly strong even for a mobian,” Itara huffed, shaking her head. Her adopted mother was strange for a number of reasons. “But… I may have an idea.”
Simon’s face lit up and Itara turned to RK, “What are the chances of getting at least Lynda and Simon to the other base without incident?”
Confusion spread across both Simon and RK’s face, but RK’s eye lit up as he ran the numbers and responded, “Decent, depending on how we do it. Why?”
“Well,” she looked away from the others, letting the silence linger a moment before turning back to explain, “I think Simon and Lynda would be more help to Sonic and his team than us. Most of our work from here on out will either be with the computers or out in the field but Sonic has a base with other surviving mortals. I think they could help them out quite a bit.”
“Wait, you want us to leave?” Simon faltered, his pleading look turning to downright horror as Itara turned back to him.
“You want to help, don’t you? Sonic needs more help than we do, plus… you’ve been wanting to see the others again, haven’t you?”
The color drained from Simon’s face but his eyes lit up again at the mention of others, “You mean… our friends…?”
Simon had asked, many times, about their classmates, their friends, the rest of the neighborhood. She’d dodged it every time, for a multitude of reasons. In regards to their friends, though, she’d forgiven Simon for the incident at the festival long ago, knowing he and Sceira, at least, hadn’t actually turned on her. They were scared, it was expected. But Camilla. Camilla had always been aggressive towards her. The festival was only the tip of the iceberg. Susan, too. There were timelines where Susan found out about Metal and RK being robots before the festival. Despite all of it being meaningless in the end one way or another, it caused problems. For that reason, Sceira was the only one she’d ever looked in on outside their group. Simon and Sceira were the only people close enough to her for her to care enough and Simon was with her. But she didn’t want to explain that to him and, instead, dodged his questions about their friends.
“Some of them, yes,” Itara confirmed, “things are about to get even more hectic around here and not even I know what may happen for sure. Not even to this house. But you know a lot more than most since you’ve been around us for so long, I think you’d be helpful for the others to have around. Besides, I’ve heard Sonic mention that Knuckles has been training whoever he can get to take interest to fight off the monsters. We’re not really the training sort but, who knows, maybe Knuckles will show you a thing or two.”
The color returned right back to Simon’s face as he nearly bounced with the sudden excitement. RK, however, only silently scoffed and turned back to the computer. Itara glanced towards the robots before motioning towards the stairs again, “Let’s go talk the details out with your mom and see what she thinks.” Simon nodded ecstatically and bolted back up the stairs. Itara took her time and RK grabbed her attention before she could leave because of it.
“Are you sure?”
She nodded, “My time travel abilities may be on the fritz again, but I get the feeling that base is safer than ours. With the shield down, it’s better to move everyone over there instead of keeping them here. I doubt I can convince Mira and Kelly to leave without me, but if I can convince Lynda, Simon, and Ned to relocate, I want to.”
“And what about us, then?” Metal questioned.
Itara smirked, “What? You want to go hide out with Sonic, too?” As expected, Metal’s face twisted into downright fury at the accusation and he turned away from her. She laughed and turned back towards the computer, “I suspect, should anything happen here, you are fast enough to escape it. The same goes for RK. I’m less concerned about two extremely advanced robots and a time traveler than I am about the mortals. Strong as the others are, they’re still only mortals. I’ve kept them safe for as long as possible, but I’m going to have to be far more cautious moving forwards. Everything is about to change and I don’t know how or why.”
Silence drifted through the room for several minutes, Itara staring intently up at the maps and running programs, running several scenarios and possibilities through her head… until RK interrupted her thoughts by reaching over and rubbing her head.
“You’ve really come a long way since you first reactivated me.”
Itara’s face flushed up as she stammered and glared over at him, “W-What do you mean? I…!”
RK smirked and ruffled her spines before returning to the computer, leaving the flustered and stammering Itara to sputter at him as she attempted to recollect herself. Metal only rolled his eyes, though even he was hiding a slight smirk at the small hedgehog’s reaction.