The Curse of Day/Part3H

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3rd Day, 7:00 AM
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In Starlight City, a train pulled into a station. This train contained a fair number of occupants, including a certain team of five Mobians. Most of the train's occupants had come for normal reasons, but this team had gone to the city on a mission: to get a magical Sol Emerald that was located somewhere unknown in Starlight City.
Lee stepped onto the platform, his arm still covered, and started waiting for the other members of this party. Behind him came Kennedy with a stoic face, showing no emotion, and Alexia, who was trying to hide behind the two. Both were seemingly lost in thought.
Padparadscha trailed behind the others, wheeling her kickbike and looking torn between enthusiasm and concern. She was excited to set foot outside the Westopolis metropolitan area for the first time in her life, but the fact that she was now engaged in a vigilante hunt for a megalomaniac had begun to sink in while she lay in the wagon-lit the night before and stared at the ceiling for hours, trying to fall asleep despite her unfamiliar surroundings.
Skylor discreetly followed the group, using a map she'd found to navigate the city.
A sudden blast of Chaos Energy shot towards the train station; not enough to damage anything or to be visible to the naked eye, but enough that Kennedy would have noticed it. This blast of Chaos Energy was followed by a few others. The overall shape of the blasts, spaced in time, could be likened to an object falling down stairs.
Kennedy grunted, recognising the type of energy that was fired at them. He looked over the group, motioning for them to follow him. "Strange... I think we should study the Chaos Energy that just appeared," Kennedy advised, not knowing they wouldn't have been able to see it. He turned on his energy-sensors and dashed toward the source, Aqua quietly following him.
“Chaos Energy‽” Padparadscha stepped onto her kickbike and scooted after Kennedy, holding tightly to the handlebars.
As the party sped down the green-paved, streetlamp-hemmed boulevards, startled pedestrians scurried out of their way, squawking imprecations. The first few streets were easy enough to cross (although the light was against them at one, it wasn't a busy intersection), but inevitably they came to a broad thoroughfare where six lanes of traffic barreled perpendicular to the course Kennedy had set them on.
Kennedy simply jumped over cars, determined to find the source of the particularly peculiar energy. Alexia, trying to not get into a crash with any of the cars, tried to dodge the incoming assault of traffic without using any of her powers, sighing when a car had almost hit her.
Skylor jumped down from a nearby rooftop, rushing inbetween the speeding cars.
Padparadscha had stopped sharply when she saw the traffic, nearly tumbling head-over-heels as her kickbike caught on the curb, and she stared after the others with pure astonishment. "Heroes," she muttered, when she could stop holding her breath because they seemed to have miraculously gotten safely to the other side. She waited another moment, and when the traffic came to a halt and the "walk" sign glowed green, she stepped back onto her kickbike and whizzed off after the others.
On the other side of the thoroughfare—next to the street corner that the group had landed on—was a staircase down to a local subway station. Several people could be seen on the staircase, scooting out of the way of something and giving it funny looks. It took only a moment for the group to see what was going on: A metal humanoid was flying up the stairs clutching a cyan gem, which was emanating the signals that Kennedy had been sensing before.
Kennedy, without thinking, teleported to the humanoid and fired a beam of Chaos Energy at it for a point-blank assault. The humanoid squished down to the floor, causing the beam to miss and hit a bit of the stairway ceiling. This caused a small amount of rubble to fall from the ceiling, making the pedestrians start running out of the subway and screaming. Evidently Kennedy's course of action was not very popular with the passersby.
Kennedy pointed to the nearest exit. "Everyone needs to leave the area right away or else they'll be in trouble! Run!" Kennedy teleported behind the humanoid, aggressive. This thing isn't a robot... my sensors say it's just metal. Kennedy's arm glowed green, allowing him to manipulate the rocks and pebbles on the floor and fire them at the humanoid.
The humanoid dodged the projectiles again by turning into a snake-like form and wrapping around Kennedy's torso, squeezing him tightly while bonking him in the back of the head with the Sol Emerald. Meanwhile, the civilians continued running out of the subway, except for the curious few who stuck around to watch the battle.
Alexia, realizing the humanoid had the Emerald, trapped it in an ice sphere, accidentally trapping Kennedy—and the Emerald—in there with it. Kennedy charged a Chaos Blast, waiting to decimate the humanoid, which was busy trying (and failing) to wiggle free, repeatedly banging itself against the interior of the ice sphere in the process. Kennedy smirked as he unleashed the blast, which destroyed the humanoid, broke the ice, and sent several objects—and people—flying, including Alexia, the onlookers, and the Sol Emerald. The Emerald, apparently still intact, bounced down what was left of the stairs, landing in the booth of one of the subway workers, a tall, teal Mobian mouse in a gray uniform, who apparently had not heard Kennedy and was still sitting behind his booth.
"OY!" he yelled, leaning out of his booth and shaking a fist at Kennedy. "What're you doin', throwing objects like tha—" He then noticed the devastation in the subway entrance. "What in heck has been happenin' here?" he said concernedly, climbing out of his booth.
Alexia looked at the other members of the group in horror. "Please, you all need to grab the Emerald!"
Upon the mention of the Emerald, the mouse turned to where the Emerald was. "That?" he said, picking it up. "Is this another one of those Chaos Emeralds, or alternate Chaos Emeralds, or what...and why," he said looking up at them, "why do you want this, and why're you throwin' it at me?"
Lee, who had seemed to vanish earlier in the street, showed up with a very irritated Skylor.
Skylor growled at the mouse. "Give me that."
"Nuh-uh," said the mouse, holding the Emerald behind his back. "First you tell me why you want it. I'm not inclined to give this...this thing to random strangers after one of them," he gave Kennedy a dark look, "throws it at me."
"We want it...so we can save your city." Skylor said, her hands flickering with flame and anger.
Padparadscha climbed to her feet with some difficulty, having been thrown onto her shell by Kennedy's blast. "Hey, hey, don't be rude," she said, shuffling between Skylor and the mouse. "Mr. Kashon," she read his name off his employee nametag, "I think there's been a misunderstanding here. My friends are a bit agitated because someone was just trying to steal this very pretty thing -- it looks like an Emerald, don't you think? And we tend to call it that, which does unfortunately attract unsavory characters -- and in the tussle it accidentally ended up getting thrown and hitting you. We're incredibly sorry about that, by the way. I do so hope you weren't hurt. I'm a doctor; would you like me to check and make sure you're all right?"
Kashon chuckled. "I'm okay, kid," he said. "But you still gotta give me a reason why—excuse me, I think someone's phone is ringing," he said. "Blue kid over there, your phone's ringing."
Sure enough, Alexia's phone was ringing.
"I'm gonna give you a minute to answer the phone while I figure what I'm doing with this Emerald," said Kashon. "And don't try to force me to give it to you in that time, either." With that, he walked back to his booth and sat down, still holding the Emerald behind him (now between him and the wall).
Kennedy growled at Kashon, not liking how he was seemingly an adversary to their cause. Kennedy eyed Kashon very warily as the mouse hid the Emerald, reminding himself to send a telekinetic message to Skylor. Though my plan might not be admirable, I hope you understand. We let him not trust us for now, but if he's going to waste our time, we pounce, take the Emerald, do a fast explanation, and leave. We don't have the time to convince anyone who gets in our way to help us, and we can't distract ourselves with minor issues as unimportant as this.
Alexia, not sensing Kennedy's annoyance, reached into the invisible pocket once again and fumbled with her phone, quite startled by the sudden ringing. She put it to her ear, not happy with the mouse's hostility, but not exactly mad, either. "H-Hello...?"
"Hello, this is mission organizer Taru-Na," came a familiar voice out of the earpiece. "I heard that a lot of things blew up in your general area, and that there's some kind of a battle over an Emerald. Could you give the phone to the G.U.N. officer on duty, who I think is supposed to be a teal mouse named Kashon, so that I can explain to him what's going on and get him to stop harassing you, which he's probably doing because he thinks it's part of his job? Thank you."
Alexia nodded and walked over to Kashon, jitterish and nervous. Without even speaking, she put her phone out for the mouse to grab.
"Wait, what's goin' on?" said Kashon, who evidently had been thinking about something else. "Oh, okay, you're tryin' to give me the phone." He picked it up and put it to his ear. "Hello? Who's this?...Oh right, you. What do you want?...Yeah...Yeah, I've seen em. What about 'em?...Oh right, the angry one said somethin' about that...All right, sure." He removed the phone from his ear.
A voice came out of the phone, saying, "Please return the phone to the blue hedgehog."
"Oh, right, sorry," said Kashon, holding out the phone to Alexia as the phone made an audible sound of Taru-Na hanging up the call. "Here ya go." Kashon then turned to the group, tossed the Emerald to Lee (who was the only one far enough away from Kashon for him to throw the Emerald effectively), and said, "All right, this is apparently all a huge misunderstandin', and you guys really are savin' the world...Sorry that wasn't obvious at first, but I get people lyin' to me like this all the time, and I thought you were just like everyone else. Super sorry about that." Kashon started walking back to his booth, muttering, "Plus, this is the second time in the past week that I got threatened with gettin' lit on fire..." He then stopped walking, turned back to Skylor and said, "Oh yeah, pro tip for ya: Don't threaten to blow people up if you want 'em to trust ya. Just mentionin'." He then continued walking back to his booth, saying in a barely audible growl, "Some heroes, blowin' up random subways..."
"I don't need you to trust me." Skylor growled back.
Kashon shrugged at Skylor, then, having reached his booth, climbed in and sat down.
Lee's eyes visibly flashed red and he dropped the emerald in panic. Kennedy flinched at Lee's sudden shift in behavior, making him recheck Lee's energy signatures to be safe. He found...another entity, shocking the Chaos Creature. Kennedy decided to ignore it and looked at the group. "I take it we are ready to proceed to our next destination?"
Padparadscha, who had been momentarily distracted by a passing Mobian with a tree on his head, turned back to the group when she heard the question. "Maybe we should call Taru-Na and find out what safe place she had in mind for us to hide the Emerald," she suggested, pulling out her shiny new Lightning δ excitedly. She looked at Alexia, and asked, "You have Taru-Na's number, right? Do you want to call her, or can I?"
Alexia, who still had her phone out, jolted when Padparadscha mentioned it, causing it to fumble out of control. Alexia stopped before it could fall out of her hands, sighed, and gently handed it to Padparadscha. "Y-You may call her."
"Thanks, Aqua!" Padparadscha said, enthusiastically. She carefully copied Taru-Na's number from Alexia's phone into her own, then handed Alexia back her phone and called Taru-Na. She held her smartphone to her ear, listening to the ring tones from the other end as she waited for Taru-Na to answer.
The ring tones eventually stopped, immediately followed by Taru-Na's voice saying, "Hello, may I ask who's speaking?"
"Hi, Taru-Na!" Padparadscha said, "This is Padparadscha. I'm calling on behalf of the group to tell you that we have the light blue Sol Emerald. What should we do with it? Is there some place we can put it where it will be safe from -- from anyone who wants to use it for evil?"
"Yes, there is," responded Taru-Na. "It's over on West Side Island. Not South Island—that's the one you're on—West Side island. Geez, who gives these things names?" said Taru-Na under her breath (but still audibly). "At any rate, this island is where two of your destinations are, so you'll probably go there eventually. The safe place is—" Suddenly, the line started cutting out. "—Metropolis—West Side Island—got that?—line cutting out—not—hear me—" The line cut out completely.
If anyone looked around, they might see that everyone in the vicinity was apparently having similar trouble with their mobile phones, and that, apparently unbeknownst to the nearby civilians, this area where everyone was having trouble centered on a small plane in the sky...
Category:The Curse of Day