Belong

Chapter 9 - Another First Meeting

They had been walking for a while now, Silver either between typing on his machine (he had called it a Miles Electric, Venice recalled), or enthusiastically pointing out plants and the occasional insect. Venice took in everything he was so passionately told, listening intently with his ears pricked. The bright yellow thing in the sky, the sun that Silver had used to come up with his name, felt nice on his skin, and he loved the warmer temperatures that he had told would be here. While he had been in the past for only hours at most, he already infinitely preferred this era over Frozen City. He could see why his friend loved it so much, he had never seen such beautiful scenery in his life.

"The Restoration Headquarters are located in a city called Sunset City," Silver explained to him as they walked on the path towards a valley that laid sprawled out between mountains. "It's located in the middle of a lake! They built it very ingeniously, with a huge bridge connecting all the different islands that the city is made of." His gaze grew disquieted. "It was the best place for us to put our base during the war, with the lake ensuring that Eggman had trouble positioning his forces in the city. Not that that stopped him..." Venice frowned at the other's melancholy tone of voice. While Silver loved talking about the past, he mentioned the war he and his friends had fought in only sporadically, and whatever had happened between that and his trip to Frozen City even less. Venice considered it better to not bring it up. It was clear to him that the hedgehog had suffered massively during that time.

Venice could see Silver take a last look at his Miles Electric and then glanced out over the fields towards the city they were walking to. Now that they had come closer, Venice thought he could see the sunlight shimmering out of the city in an odd manner, and a red structure in its middle. Also, the buildings weren't connected to each other like they had been in Frozen City, instead consisting of clusters with the weird sunlight coming from between them. Next to him Silver whooped with excitement, his earlier sadness forgotten. "That's Sunset City! We made it!"

Looking at the city as well, Venice wasn't too sure what to make of it. It certainly looked prettier than Frozen City had, and definitely also much less destroyed, but it was still quite a distance away from where they were standing right now, and he honestly just wanted to curl up somewhere safe and go to sleep. He also had not yet forgotten the incident with the collapsing highway... That bridge certainly didn't look like it was on the ground, what with the yellow pool of light that it was located on top of. What if he walked on it and it collapsed under him as the road had done in Frozen City?

Unknowing of his worries, Silver grasped his hand and enthusiastically began to pull him along, clearly desiring to get to the city as quickly as possible. Not wanting to let him down, Venice followed gallantly, supressing his fears for now as he ran with the hedgehog over the path, the city coming closer on the horizon. As long as Silver was with him, nothing bad would happen for sure.

However, as they got closer to the city Venice thought he'd get a heart attack. There were people on the road, and they looked nothing like him or Silver. His friend had explained to him that there were more inhabitants of the past than just the two of them, but Venice still felt his skin crawl as they went past the visitors of the area. They were staring at them, undoubtedly looking at how they came running past as maniacs, and Venice glanced in fear at all of them. This was quickly becoming too much.

Silver suddenly skidded to a halt, and Venice nearly collapsed against his back. Wondering why they had stopped, he peeked past the other's shoulder. In front of them, two people were arguing, both waving their hands around and clearly looking very distressed. Venice noticed how oddly they were dressed; they both had a green scarf around their neck, though not made of fur like his orange one, and they wore green boots with black tips and similar-styled green gloves. One of them noticed the two hedgehogs near and gasped excitedly, and the other, wondering why the first's attention was no longer on her, looked as well and followed suit. They made their way over to Silver and him, waving excitedly, but instead of scaring them away Silver... waved back?