Guardians and Rituals

Then... 1 year and 6 months after The Union.

It was dawn again. It was 6 p.m. when it happened, 6:35 to be more precise.

Trip knew this perfectly because at that hour the sun was positioned precisely within one of the loops that adorned the eastern horizon of the Northstar Islands. All her life she had learned the exact moment it happened and the correct position to see it in all its magnificence, because it fascinated her, she absolutely loved it. It was one of the few things she considered herself good at, seeing the sun perfectly centered in that loop. Seeing it made her forget her mistakes and regrets. After being forced to help Eggman and Fang that time ago, she had a very long period of time watching the sun. After The Union... she practically spent every day there.

It was overwhelming, as if all the curses in the world had shattered the dam that held them back. Bewilderment, then fear, then panic, then came the heat, and with it, thirst and hunger. Each day it seemed as if the sea and the rivers were fleeing the fishermen, until finally they disappeared. Then the plants began to wither, the large fruits that characterized the island shrank and rotted. The Flikies fled the island in flocks, and those left behind...

Trip focused on the sun, perfectly positioned inside the loop; it was the only thing she could do well at that moment, see the sun within the loop. As a guardian, her duty was not only to protect the precious and dangerous Black Onyx, but also her tribe. To help them, to provide them with what they needed, that's how her grandfather had raised her. But she was never good at fishing, she never picked the best fruit from the trees, every hut she built fell to pieces, and although she was fast, she wasn't that strong or smart. Whenever it seemed she was about to make an improvement, she tripped. She always tripped. Always.

She couldn't trip if she saw the sun inside the loop. she could do things right, for once. She could be something more, something different from what she was... But then came "the demons."

It was the only way she could identify them: six horned monsters, fallen from the sky, who, with an army of robotic chimeras, ravaged everything in their path, and took the rest. The little food stored, the meager water collected, the people. Trip had to fulfill her mission: protect the Black Onyx. She did the best she could, safeguarding it deep within the island. The deranged purple demon pursued her atop his mechanical moon, destroying everything in his path, even the loop through which Trip viewed the sun. He couldn't catch her, and when he got bored, he left with his people the same way they had arrived. Despite having done her job as she should, Trip was far from satisfied. She had protected the Black Onyx, but not her people or her home. That attack happened a month ago, and during that month the situation on the island worsened, drowning Trip even more in helplessness.

The loop was gone; the sun could no longer position itself perfectly in its center. Now, as the sun set and was about to disappear below the horizon, it only reached a kind of empty cradle behind which it simply vanished. It was an emptiness that mirrored the one inside Trip, as if the world were telling her there was nothing she could do right. Nothing at all.

Then, It was dawn again

Behind her, a blazing light enveloped her, like a second sun rising in the morning. When she turned to look at it, she feared she would be blinded by the glare. No matter how much she covered her eyes or closed them, the light remained, and it advanced. She felt afraid. Was this another misfortune for her and her tribe? Another cruel twist of fate? Perhaps the last? Despite this, she felt fascinated, as if a supernatural force were drawing her in, just as the true sun did.

Trip tried to look directly at the light despite the risk of blindness, and she could make out a silhouette in the glow. The silhouette of a feline, a feline extending a hand to her. The memory of the first time she felt she had done the right thing flashed through Trip's mind, when a small pink hedgehog girl reached out to offer her help. She accepted, thus making her first friends outside the tribe, friends who helped her confront and defeat Eggman.

That's why Trip approached the luminous feline. She approached even when she realized the glow came from enormous, wild flames. She approached even when the heat made her feel like her scales were about to melt. She approached closer and closer, step by step, blindly. Could they be a new friend? Someone who could help her and her tribe?

She took another step... And tripped.

Her feet tangled, and she tumbled toward the flaming silhouette. For a split second, she wondered if her scales would withstand the heat long enough for her to apologize to the silhouette for her clumsiness. But then she felt herself being caught in a warm, comforting embrace. She could feel the heat of the flames around her, but not on her. The feline helped her regain her footing, and it was then that Trip could finally look her in the eyes. She smiled.

Now...

Trip was lost in her memories for a moment. It always happened when she had to visit the Black Onyx "temple" to receive its blessing. Although calling the place a "temple" seemed a bit odd, since it was nothing more than a cave found within the territory that, at Blaze's request, the Felidae ceded to the Sungazer, who then modified it to resemble the interior of one of the royal temples on Northstar Island. Inside the dark stone enclosure, the red lizard stood alone, as was now tradition. Only one apostle at a time performing the ritual; Mighty had already completed his a while ago and was waiting for Trip outside.

She pulled a thick leather pouch from her hood, from which a small portion of the Red Sol Emerald peeked out. It was imperative for the apostle to not touch the Emerald directly after the Black Dragon's blessing ended. But inadvertently, Trip brought a finger too close to the revealed portion of the gem, and a small burst of flame caused her to drop the emerald to the ground. Clumsily, she picked it up again and quickly carried it near the Black Onyx. The Emerald began to glow and levitated out of the pouch on its own, orbiting the Onyx.

Trip moved away and sat on the cave floor while she waited. Distracted, watching the emerald float around the onyx like a satellite orbiting a planet, she began to hear whispers.

Guardian... Sad guardian...

Trip grabbed her helmet and covered her head with it, just like her grandpa had taught her countless times to repel the Black Dragon's voice. She'd once asked Mighty how he managed to fight the dragon's voice without a helmet, and the armadillo told her he didn't hear any voice, only his own thoughts. When she asked Ray the same question, he gave the same answer. Did Trip imagine the voice?, It was best not to tempt fate; 'the devil knows more because he's old than because he's the devil,' they say, and Grandpa was older than the devil (or at least that's what Trip thought).

After a while, the Emerald stopped shining and fell to the ground. When Trip touched it, nothing happened. As she tried to invoke the power the Emerald granted, she felt her blood heat up, and small balls of fire formed at her fingertips, which Trip made dance around her hand. The ritual had been a success; the blessing would last exactly one month, after which it would have to be repeated.

The way in which they discovered the blessing was curious.

When the alliance between the Sungazer Tribe and the Felidae was formalized, and they already possessed at least four of the seven Sol Emeralds, Blaze expressed her inability to access the Emeralds' power, as they rejected her. This frustrated her because she wanted to use them to search for more people from her dimension. Trip mentioned how, when the Chaos Emeralds arrived on Northstar Island, they unlocked a series of abilities that Sonic and his friends had never seen before. At the time, Trip didn't know why, but his grandfather suggested that perhaps the Black Dragon's influence within the Black Onyx had something to do with it, in the same way that it happened with the giant animals and fruits. This led Trip to suppose that perhaps something similar could be done with the Sol Emeralds if they were presented to the Black Onyx. So they tried it.

As the Emeralds approached the stone, they glowed and levitated around it, rings of wild fire swirling around it in a violent, frenzied dance that nearly destroyed what little had been built of the Sungazer's new home, until it abruptly ended. Blaze tried to grab one of the Emeralds, but a burst of strange black fire repelled her, incredibly burning part of her hand. When Trip rushed to her aid, she tripped and fell onto one of the Emeralds. Nothing happened. As she took the gem in her hands, she could feel the power emanating from it coursing through her body.

Blaze concluded that, since she was unable to use the Emeralds directly, she would need the help of trusted individuals to use them on her behalf. When she asked Trip if she would lend a hand, Trip readily agreed. Thus, she became the Second Apostle.

Trip emerged from the cave, head bowed, staring at the emerald in her hands, lost in thought. Then her helmet struck something, and she fell flat on her backside.

"You need to watch where you're going, girl," a familiar voice offered her a hand; it didn't belong to Mighty.

Looking up through the helmet visor, Trip met Knuckles's smile.

"You're finally awake!" exclaimed the lizard excitedly as she sat up and jumped to hug the echidna. "I missed you so much, Mr. Knuckles!"

"Me too, girl!"

Trip lifted his helmet and looked to both sides.

"Where are the others?"

"On a tour of the country. Stick, the crazy raccoon, is now bothering your tribe taking pictures of them."

"Knux came to catch up with us," explained Mighty, who was standing nearby. "Now that you've finished your ritual, it's your turn to tell your story with the queen."

"Of course, of course! You see..."

Nestled within the lush jungle that stretched across the length and breadth of Novo Reino dos Sol, the new Sungazer settlement flourished, albeit in its own unique way. The wooden huts were neither large nor elaborate, seemingly built only temporarily, yet they bore the marks of time. A sense of transience permeated the air. For the Sungazer, this was not their new home, but a temporary refuge, perhaps still yearning to return to their beloved island to the west.

Trip, Knuckles, and Mighty strolled among the huts while chatting and being greeted by the other lizards.

"I see..." Knuckles pondered what he had heard. "I'm sorry you were forced to leave your home..."

"Me too... B-but we're okay! Thanks to the Queen and the kindness of the Felidae, we've managed to find a place that feels like home."

"That's what I see. I'm surprised at how green this whole country is, seeing how the rest of the world has become a desert. How do you manage...?"

The trio was covered by a large, dense shadow, then a drop of water fell on the tip of the echidna's nose, another on its shoulder, and a third on its head.

"It can't be... Rain?"

"Uh... Not exactly...", Mighty corrected, pointing upwards.

Suddenly, a deluge of water fell upon the entire village. The trio quickly ran for cover under one of the huts.

"If there's one thing we can celebrate about the 'Captain', it's that she's punctual with her duties," Mighty joked, looking up at the sky.

When Knuckles fixed his gaze on the sky, he saw that there was not a single cloud, but a gigantic flock of floating ships from which water emanated and rained down on the town.

"Aren't those the ships of that girl Marine?" asked the echidna.

"Yep!," Trip replied. "The Celestial Marine, more than a military force, are the ones who collect water from the clouds to make it rain throughout the kingdom."

"Collecting water from the clouds?"

"Marine's idea," Mighty added. "At first, it was taken more as a joke than anything else. You know how, even though you see huge clouds in the sky and there are even storms, it almost never rains, right?"

"Yes. The last time I saw normal rain was 4 years ago, and it didn't last more than 1 minute."

"Well, that's a serious problem," Mighty continued. "When the Felidae' water supplies started running low and the plants were dying, Marine said something like we could 'milk' the clouds for water. No one but Blaze and Tails... I mean, Miles! took it seriously. Miles came up with some kind of 'Condenser-thingy' to store huge amounts of water in a small space, while Blaze made Marine her Fifth Apostle and gave her the Blue Sol Emerald to enhance the water powers she apparently already had. Even I have to admit, she does a pretty good job."

"I wonder why the clouds don't rain," Trip mused. "I know Marine can stop the rain from falling thanks to the Blue Emerald, but she always says it's hard to force the water to obey her, as if it had a life of its own..."

"It could be..." Knuckles added. "Before The Union, I remember seeing Chaos, the god of destruction, abandon the Master Emerald just before it was shattered. Chaos has a very close relationship with water, so maybe that explains the lack of rain and the evaporation of the oceans... But I'm just speculating."

"Miles also tried to figure out what had happened to the oceans and the clouds. But that was before Cosmo...", halfway through, Trip regretted saying too much.

"Before what? And who is...?"

"B-before Miles focused on his current project!" Mighty interjected. "You know, the machine that will make 'The Separation' possible."

Knuckles shifted his gaze between the lizard and the armadillo. Both seemed to be hiding something. He could have been suspicious, but he'd already heard things that sounded more compromising and delicate, so he concluded it was just something personal that wasn't his business.

"Do you really think it's possible?" the echidna asked, changing the subject. "Reversing The Union? A Separation?"

"Miles says it's... What word did he use? 'Feasible'? The point is, it can be done, according to him," Trip said.

"And do you trust what he says?"

"Why wouldn't we?" Mighty asked, shrugging. "I mean, as much as he wants us to call him 'Miles' and as much as he's been acting weird lately, he's still the same two-tailed yellow fox we all love," he concluded with a smile.

Knuckles could see over his shoulder that Trip seemed more hesitant. An uneasy feeling settled over the echidna's fur; he couldn't tell if it was the cold and dampness of the artificial rain or something else. He would have to wait for the rain to stop to find out.

I feel compelled to clarify, at least in case, that while I try to stay true to the canon (to the extent that it suits me), there are many things that are more Headcanon than something official.

The whole Black Onyx influence on emeralds, animals, and fruit thing? Made up. Trip's helmet blocking the Black Dragon's whispers? Complete fabrication. Even today, we have no explanation of why the Chaos Emeralds gave Sonic and the others special powers in Sonic Superstars, or what the heck the Black Dragon does. Knowing SEGA, their official explanation would probably be, "They're just cartoons, kid. Don't be a pain."

For whatever reason, my biggest fear is that in the distant future, some Sonic fan will use this fic to justify non-canon explanations. It's a silly fear because do I really believe this fic will ever become that famous? But one has to be wary...