(The Perfect Harmony of Hearts)

Chapter Ten

Midnight Fantasies?

(A/N: Wow, lots of no-chatting-chappies, eh? Whoops!

And also, the underlining in the documents seems to go away for some reason, at least if it's also in bold...anyone know why?)

S-H-A-D-O-W-P-A-W

His arms wrapped around her in a tender embrace from behind, with his hot breath tickling the back of her neck. She shivered, wanting to shy away and yet wanting to get even closer to him, and as she was stuck between the decision she felt him move his head so that his breath was now in her ear. She nearly turned to frozen ice and yet melted away at the same time, in such a daze that she barely recognized his voice telling her, “It isn’t too hard, being a hero.” She could feel his chuckle vibrate through his chest and course through her, making her sigh softly at the feeling. He then whispered, “All you have to do is open your eyes…”

“…Hn?” The feline sat up in the dark room, her eyes blinking to try to adjust to the unnatural shades of gray around her. The only other light was the soft yellow slit that slipped through the door connecting to the hedgehog’s room, with the scribbling of a pencil breaking into the muffled silence around her. She frowned, wondering why the door was open, but she was really too tired to care as she leaned forward to brace herself with the palms of her hands as she stretched her arms out in front of her. Nearly stretching out completely, she let out a long sigh as her mind slowly lifted the haze and tried to sort out her thoughts into something orderly. After a couple of minutes of just sitting there, she was able to actually understand herself and wonder what exactly woke her up.

‘Wasn’t I dreaming about something?’ She sat up a bit straighter and crossed her arms, looking up blindly at the ceiling that hid in complete darkness. She was sure that, before she had opened her eyes, there had been something else playing on the back of her eyelids. She felt something in her mind, as if it was just sitting there in boredom, and yet she couldn’t quite place her claw on what it was. It was like that one actor you couldn’t quite remember the name of, but you know that the movie you just watched had him in it. She always hated that feeling, and she loathed it even more as she was left in the silence of her thoughts. Eventually, she was drawn to the sound drifting in from Shadow’s room and was compelled to get out of bed and check to see if he was actually still awake. With a glance at the clock, (one in the morning) she was sure that no one in their right mind would be up this early…or was it ‘this late’? She waved away her silent ramblings as she tiptoed to his door, peeking in the small crack with the saying ‘curiosity killed the cat’ fresh on her mind. ‘Aww, screw it, I’m too tired to care…’

After a moment of squinting at the seemingly bright light in his room, her vision focused so that she could clearly see the hedgehog sitting at his desk with an arm propping up his head while he continued with his work. She was amazed that he could actually stay up this late doing something as boring as paperwork, and the surprising guilt and pity she felt for the guy actually started to make her want to do her own work. Not that she would tell him that, though. Shaking her head slightly at his crazy antics, she watched him for a moment more, writing down with a determination that seemed slightly strained at the tedious work, before she turned around to return to bed, the darkness of the room hindering her journey for a second. Before she could go far, however, she was stopped by his voice:

“I know you’re awake, cat.”

A little irked that he had noticed her and that he still called her that, she heard him moving slightly in his chair and reluctantly turned back to see him with his torso twisted to the left so that he could face her. He rested his left arm on the back of the chair, looking at her a bit bothered and with a look of tiredness in his eyes. She had never really took the time to study him, what with her obvious hatred and opposition towards him, but now that she had the chance she noticed how weary he looked sometimes, especially now in the dead of the night (err, or maybe it was morning?) while staring at words that probably began to bleed together over time. He seemed a bit more casual now though, not wearing his specialist suit like he usually did, and gave her a good view of his chest once more; all the fluffier, and white, like last time. It looked like cotton, and after a moment of toying with the idea of playing with it like a ball of yarn she shook it out of her head with a scolding to herself, immediately noticing that Shadow was examining her emotions once again. She realized that he did that almost all of the time, as if trying to dissect her like a frog, and it angered her that he would be so analytical with something like thoughts and feelings, especially hers.

She then noticed the necklace around his neck, the familiarity of the cross bringing her back to the day she accidentally stumbled into his room. Nearly flushing in the face at the embarrassing thought, she pushed away the blush that threatened to humiliate her by wondering why he wore it so often. ‘Is he a religious type of guy,’ she wondered, looking at him curiously. He didn’t seem like the type to be all ‘do-the-cross-and-pray-to-God’, but then again looks can be deceiving. She knew that was definitely the case with most people, including herself, and so she let her mind explore her questions as she stared at the silver cross. It was just so familiar, now that she thought about it, and she wondered why she felt that way for a while until suddenly it hit her…

She laughed, and then she snatched the sacred pendant that weighed down his fluffy chest and yanked on it hard, satisfied when he grunted in discomfort…

‘Oh, my God!’ Her eyes widened in shock and horror. ‘That necklace was in my dream! Which means…’ She had a sharp intake of air. ‘I was dreaming about him?!’ Her surprise was too much, making her mouth drop down slightly as she stared at the cross sitting at its rightful place on his chest. She nearly had a heart attack, and the whole dream came back to her in a rush. With jumbled images making homage to her cluttered mind, a single thought came out loud and clear: ‘What the hell was he doing in my dream, and – and hugging me like that?’

“Are you going to say something?” His smooth voice cut through her thoughts like a hot knife through butter (such an overused analogy…), making her snap her head up slightly to look at his eyes. They looked at her with a hint of amusement and curiosity hid in the gesture of him raising an eyebrow, and she almost spat at him. ‘Dammit! He’s so damn self-centered…bastard! How dare he come into my dreams at night?!’ Not really taking in the fact that he had no control over what she dreamt about, she decided to convert her shock to anger and to let it all out on him. He deserved it, anyways.

She scoffed and rolled her eyes at him, as if her moment of terror had never happened. “Well, you’re the one who was all like ‘I know you’re awake, cat’,” she glared at him and added, “By the way, it’s Shadowpaw; not cat, not feline, Shadowpaw.” Her eyes narrowed dangerously as he laughed at her, and she spat, “What’s so funny?!”

“Oh, nothing,” he smirked at her, “other than the fact that your face is red.”

She froze as he continued to laugh, looking much like a deer in headlights. ‘I’m…wha?’ She gave a quick glance around the room and then found her reflection in the mirror – she was blushing. Her face grew even more red, and she turned slightly so that she wasn’t looking directly at him as she stared at the wall. ‘Shit! Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit! Why am I blushing?! Shiiiiiiiiit!’ She mentally tore the fur from her head, and then imagined wiping that smirk off of his face by taking a handful of his chest-fur and ripping it out. Feeling a bit consoled, she grinned at the idea of causing him pain, and she heard the chair squeak with his movements. She turned her face to look at him with his legs straddling the back of the chair to stare at her better, and she blinked and tilted her head. “What?”

He slightly tipped his head to the side, too, as if mocking her or trying to see what she saw when she did that, and he asked, “What were you thinking about? It seems rather interesting with that devilish grin you had.”

She smirked at him, her eyes twinkling mischievously, and she hummed, “Mm, nothing, really. Just thinking of fur.” She loved the look of confusion in his bloody orbs, and she nearly laughed at the way he tilted his head farther. But, she kept her composure and instead got confident; she walked up to him so that they were a few inches apart, reached out and held up the pendant on his neck to take a closer look at it. It was an ordinary ornament, just a plain silver cross that felt warm on one side and cool on another. ‘Strange…’ Heat usually spread out evenly through matter, especially through metal, an excellent heat conductor. A bit puzzled by it and its simplicity, she asked the hedgehog without taking her eyes off of the necklace, “Do you always wear this? I’ve seen you wear it at least twice.”

“Are you mentioning when you burst into my room as I was changing?” She could almost feel him smirking at her as she blushed once more and retorted, “I did not burst in! I thought it was the closet!” Her fuse was growing short with him mentioning that incident, although this time she did bring it upon herself. “And you’re avoiding my question.”

He sighed, his breath sweeping across her naked hand, and she randomly noted that she had taken off her gloves and put them on the table beside her bed before he answered her, “Yes, I do wear this; I usually have it either underneath my shirt or in my pockets.” He looked at her as if daring her to say something about it, before he asked, “Why do you ask?”

“…No reason.” She let go of the pendant as if it had burned her and turned away; with the dream still fresh in her mind, she was a bit uncomfortable and thought that maybe she shouldn’t have been so cocky. “I just…you just don’t seem like the religious type, is all.” She shrugged, mentally trying to ease off the tension she felt being near him right now. “Curiosity, I guess.”

“And you know how the saying goes,” he commented wryly, and she rolled her eyes and scoffed. She scowled at him, wishing he’d someday take the time to listen to himself and grow a real sense of humor. “Oh, yes, I’ve been told it so many times that I even say it to myself whenever I get interested in something.” She turned and stepped away a bit so that she could look around his room, a bit comforted by the fact that it was just as plain as hers; although he had his own stuff in the room, there just wasn’t that touch of personality, and so she took a bit of consolation that she wasn’t alone on suffering miserably (although he didn’t seem like he cared). It was silent in the room as she examined everything, frowning a bit at the neatly made bed. ‘He hasn’t gone to sleep at all?’

She turned back and was going to ask him about it, but was surprised when he was suddenly standing right in front of her. Too deep in her thoughts was she that she didn’t notice him standing up and walking over to her. Once more, there was barely a few inches between them, and her breath caught in her throat as she came nose-to-cross with the pendant again. It was so close that, if she wanted to, she could reenact the dream and grab it… She mentally shook herself as her eyes trailed up to look at him staring down at her. His eyes were filled with curiosity, satisfaction, and something like mischievousness that swirled around like a swarm of angry bees, and it took her a moment before she noticed that his mouth was moving. She barely caught the words, “…saying that to yourself often?”

“…Hn?” She blinked owlishly, thoroughly confused, and he smirked at her and repeated, “Have you been saying that phrase to yourself often? As in, since we’ve left HQ?”

Wondering what he was getting at, her eyes flowed over to the ceiling and she answered, “Mmmmm, a couple of times.”

He smirked impishly, making her feel a bit uncomfortable near him, and he leaned forward so that they were nearly touching and said in a voice that was like velvety silk wrapped around an assassin’s knife, “So, you’ve been…interested in something?”

For some reason, his teasing had more of an affect on her than he could imagine. She gulped as images from her dream came back to her, and her face started doing impressions of a tomato as she stuttered, “W-what are you t-talking about…?” She didn’t know why she was so nervous; all of a sudden, her arms quivered, and her tail twitched anxiously. Something wasn’t right, something…was all too familiar…something…dreaming…

That was it! Something happened like that in her dream! Her damn dream just had to mess with her head, now, of all times! He wasn’t exactly helping, either; he just had to stand so close to her and just had to look like he shouldn’t be single or…aww, dammit! ‘I am never going to sleep ever, ever, ever again.’ With that vow done and over with, she gulped and took a shaky step back, as if she was going to collapse. “I…I think I’ll go back to my room now.” Turning on her heel to leave, she was only stopped from escaping the nightmare when suddenly his hand was on her shoulder. “Are you running, cat?”

Her muscles locked up, and her mind froze at the touch. Despite his cold and calculating personality, much like the pendant had shown, his hand was very warm even through her clothing. It was a very firm hold, showing (once again) that he was a man of purpose, and she hadn’t realized that it was quite chilly in the rooms until he had touched her. She shivered in reaction, to which the contact was quickly broken, and she was grateful for the loss (although now she felt extremely cold). As she tried to quickly regain control over herself, she stammered, “I-I need some sleep.” She then stiffly walked to her room as swiftly as possible, not caring how she left the door between the rooms open as she crawled into her bed and covered her head with her blanket. She had just backed down and let that damn hedgehog win a battle, after such a long time of her strong resolve and bitter feelings towards other people in particular, and it was all because of some goddamn dream!

“Damn,” she cursed under her breath, “I am never sleeping again.”

Unfortunately, just like that strong resolve of hers, her promise dissolved on the wind as she felt her eyelids grow droopier and heavier. Eventually, exhaustion from the day and night caused her to leave the conscious world to instead wander in the pits of her mind, which to her were the pits of Hell itself. The warmth unnerved her, remnants of her last waking thoughts, and she pulled the blanket down so she could breathe easier and sighed heavily in her sleep. Fortunately for her, she had no other dreams, and was left in the darkness of the room to be overcome by the even deeper darkness of her mind.

S-H-A-D-O-W

The hedgehog still sat at the desk hours later, staring at the papers that seemed to mock him as his eyelids drooped and his elbow slipped further down the desk. He tried to sit up and stay awake, but he had gone the last two nights without sleep. There was no way in hell he could do it another night. He wondered why she could go to sleep so easily when she still hadn’t done any of her work! ‘That feline –’

He stopped, his mouth twitching with the ghost of a smirk, and corrected himself. ‘No, Shadowpaw – she’s as lazy as a sloth.’

Sitting up straight once more in an attempt to not fall asleep at his desk, he continued to write as he thought about the feline’s behavior when she had come into his room earlier. He had been puzzled when her expression changed from exhaustion to shock to disgust to pure hatred and anger, but he had acted as normally as possible, until she had started to smile at some inside thought. And her answer just made her seem even more insane, with her walking over to get a closer look at his pendant rather oddly, as if trying to change the subject, like he would give her some answers to her questions. He did, to some extent; after all, in the game of ‘war’, trading of secrets is done with equal exchange, for the most part.

Then, he remembered the hand that had grabbed his necklace: her right one. On the back of it, he had noticed but hadn’t really paid any heed to a scar that went across it at an angle, starting from below her pinky and ending at the base of her thumb. After he also noted that her hands were white and that she didn’t even need anything on them for her to look as if she had on gloves, he started to ponder where she had gotten the scar. ‘Considering she’s a pilot with a fiery temper, there are many possibilities: a fight with someone else, accident (phhbt, right), or of her own doing. All of them are confusing and require in-depth explanations.’ He frowned, then shook his head to scatter the thoughts from it as he reminded himself that he was supposed to be working. Distractions were not something a pilot could afford to have.

He sat up straight again and went back to writing, yet inevitably his eyes finally closed while his arm slipped and his head hit the desk, but he was out like a light before it even touched the cool surface.

T-A-I-L-S-&-C-R-E-A-M

“Hey, Tails!” The rabbit ran up to her cousin sitting at his desk and writing things on blueprints, and she tilted her head curiously. “Whatchya doing?” She put her hands behind her back and started to rock back and forth on her feet like the child she was, smiling brightly at him. She didn’t understand why he was always so busy; after all, Sonic and Knuckles were nice enough to do most of the work, and Tails didn’t have anything to do otherwise, so what could he possibly be spending his time on?

“Hm…” The fox put a hand on his chin and thought. ‘How could that be?’ He barely noticed Cream standing there as he bent back over to continue with his studying, frowning at what sat before him. He had been surprised to one day have Sly in his office, but before he could get a chance to look at him starry-eyed, the red fox laid down the facts. It seemed that the Black monsters had cut into the radios of Shadowpaw and her team and somehow blocked their escort from receiving or transmitting any signals, meanwhile grafting their own signal to correspond with the radios and allow them to speak to them. And somehow, they had reverted everything back to normal without a scratch or sign of how they did it. It was just mind-boggling, but he was determined to figure it out.

“Hmm…maybe if I recalibrated the…” He trailed off as he began to do some formulas, doing every which way and thinking of every possibility to try to combat the problem the best he could. He didn’t have time to slack off, and thankfully Sonic and Knuckles were doing their own paperwork so they didn’t need him to check up on their Zoids. Working hard, he scribbled down a note while scratching out another, before suddenly he felt a hand on his shoulder stop his hand from writing more. He looked up into the face of his rabbit cousin, and the look of worry was evident. He sighed and put down the pencil to tell her he was busy, but she went before he could start, “You’ve been working so hard for so long, Tails.” She looked at him sadly and put up her hand to squeeze her pointer and thumb fingers together. “Can’t you take an eensy-weensy little break?”

“I can’t, Cream.” He turned to look at the blueprints. “They need me…”

“But you can’t just sit here all day and do nothing all day but scribble and think about theories and hypothesizes and stuff!” With her naivety and age, however, she stumbled over the words, and it took a moment before she got back to full-speed. “After all, you can’t work on an empty stomach!” She held up a paper bag and offered, “Here.”

Tails sighed and relented, grabbing the bag and setting it on top of one of the blueprints. There was no empty space on his desk, and he moved aside a couple of papers to find his pencil before starting to write once again. Cream looked at him, still worried, but she let him continue working as she sighed and went to look for Simmy. Perhaps he would play some games with her. She shut the door behind her and skipped off down the hall, her smile appearing on her face as soon as the problem’s presence had dissipated. She hummed a bit as she went, looking down other hallways for her other cousin but not getting any luck.

The fox shook his head at the door as it closed and turned back to his desk, glancing at all of his work. He sighed and shook his head. “I wish Shadowpaw was here…” Sure, she would interrupt his work and end up putting him behind a bit, but…she was always there to cheer him up, as well as tease him, and she was sort of like an older sister to him. In fact, with all of her teasing and her playful smirks, she was exactly like a big sister. Now, the silence he experience freaked him out a bit, before he reminded himself that she would be back and he would soon be wishing for her to get on her next mission as soon as possible.

“Being a little kid sucks,” he murmured to himself as he went back to start his work, but then a knock on the door made him stop with his pencil hovering just before the paper. He sighed at another interruption and said grudgingly, “Come in.”

“Now, is that a dying animal I hear?” The voice made his ears perk up, and he turned in his chair as the door opened to reveal his ‘idol’ standing before him. His eyes widened as the red fox chuckled, “Oh, no, that’s just the sound of a pouting little boy.” At first he just blinked, but then Tails realized he had just been made fun of, and he crossed his arms and pouted as Sly laughed. He walked over and ruffled his bangs good-naturedly and told him, “Alright, stop sulking and get your mind off of Shadowpaw; we’ve got a job for you to do.”

Tails nodded, but then frowned at him and asked, “Hey, how do you know that I’m brooding over Shadowpaw?”

Sly grinned at him and answered, “Because you’ve been like this since they’ve gone, and I’m pretty sure you aren’t like this because Shadow left.” Then, he put a hand to his chin and his grin deepened into a mischievous smirk. “Although, I do miss the presence of that other pretty lady with ‘em; she was quite good company.” He grinned to himself, and then, at Tails’ confusion, he shook his head and said, “Well, come on, then! We’ve got work to do!”

G-A-B-R-I-E-L-L-A

The flying fox (A/N: a type of bat) sighed and shook her head. She turned and shouted down the hallway, “It’s still not working, Kicker!” After a moment of silence, she mentally cursed the kangaroo and wondered if he really even did anything! Her other partner certainly didn’t, the damn bird… Well, fine! If they weren’t going to fix anything, she was going to do it her–

“Hey, Gabriella! I got the communicators to work finally!” She turned just as Kicker ran into the room excitedly, waving said device in the air. His ears were so big and floppy that they laid down flat against his head like a puppy-dog’s, and his long yet thick tail flopped onto the ground as he stopped running and started to jog in place. He never seemed to be able to sit still when she wanted him to, and yet when she needed him to do something he was just too lazy. Seriously, the people she had to put up with!

She motioned for him to come over and told him, “Well, come on, come on! No need to be a rabbit and hog it!” She giggled as he pouted at her, but he then handed it over and she pressed the ‘call’ button to get HQ. They had been trying to get a hold of them with their transport’s communications, but it had been blocked for some reason, and so they had to try to get their neglected communicators to charge up so they could use them instead. Now, they pressed the visual button as the other specialist came into the room so that they would get to see who they were talking to, and waiting impatiently for the ringing to stop. Finally, it was picked up, but even before the face flickered onto the screen they started to talk at the speed of light.

“What the hell happened –”

“You’ll never believe –”

“Those idiots just had to –”

“Hey! You ain’t a little genius yourself, you –”

“Will you two just be –”

“Quiet!” They all shut their mouths with an audible and simultaneous ‘click!’, and they stared at the red fox before them who sighed and shook his head. Kicker got a bit brighter and said, “Oh, CTM! Thank God that you’re –”

“Hey, some of us don’t believe in ‘God’.” The bird sneered at him, and the kangaroo glared at him as Gabriella sighed and went on to talk to the Chief of Technology and Mechanics. “So, what happened down there? We couldn’t grab a hold of you with our communications for a while there.”

“Well,” he began, “this isn’t the only case that it’s happened with; not too long ago, another team out on a mission experienced difficulty talking to each other as they encountered some Kingdom pilots. We think that the Kingdom may be the cause of it.”

“Really?” The flying fox frowned at the news, her wings twitching on her back in thought. “We haven’t seen heads or tails of any Zoids, let alone the enemy’s. Ya sure?”

“Yes, positive,” he nodded to reassure them, then turned to someone standing behind him…who the screen couldn’t see. Now off screen, Sly said, “Now, Tails, how about you take a seat so they can see you.”

Gabriella watched in amazement as suddenly an orange fox appeared and adjusted the camera so it was level with him, and she exclaimed before she could stop herself, “It’s a Joey!” At the sound of the kangaroo term, Kicker immediately looked up from his argument with his partner and mumbled, “Wha? Who said what to a wallaby?”

The flying fox scowled and told him, “No, I’m just saying that it’s a kid!” She pointed at the screen, and all three of them leaned forward to stare at the flushed face of the young fox. Sly, still off screen, chuckled and told them, “Don’t be fooled, guys; he may be small, but he’ll probably take over as Chief of Technology and Mechanics one day!” He laughed a bit more and encouraged him, “Show ‘em, sport!”

Tails gulped and looked at all of the eyes staring at him. “Uhh…” He cleared his throat and then started with the confidence of familiarity. “What was the particular magnitude and range of the waves your ELEFANT received from the strong foreign electromagnetic force that disrupted the radio waves of your data lines?”

There was complete silence on the specialists’ side as Sly’s raucous and wild laughter rang out on the other. Gabriella stared at the young fox with wide eyes and breathed, “Whoa…that’s a real shocker.”

Kicker blinked. “That knocked me from my trip to see the moon!” The bird beside him nodded in agreement, for once.

“Alright,” Sly came back onto the screen, a childish grin still plastered onto his face at what he had surprised them with, and he nodded, “now time for a full report.” The other fox nodded as well and got himself comfortable to listen to them as they began to explain what had happened to them.