The World Caves In

The Crossing

"Are you actually being serious right now?"

"I am! I'm not taking a single step further!"

The two are close to where Phoenix had his hideout, but they have to cross a wide rushing river, which Sonic is apparently not a big fan of.

"Come on, we're almost there. Surely there's some way you could get across?" Phoenix being quite annoyed would be a rather large understatement. He's been trying to convince Sonic to continue for the past ten minutes. "Can't you use your speed to run across the top of the water or something?"

"It's too uneven, I'd lose my balance and fall in!" Sonic huffs, crossing his arms and turning away. "Not to mention there's not enough space for a run-up. We'll have to go upstream and find a way- Woah!"

Sonic is interrupted as he's suddenly lifted up into the air, being held by under his arms.

"I'll carry you over then. We don't have time to be meandering about." Phoenix sets Sonic onto his shoulders. "Just hold on, don't want you falling off."

Without hesitation, Phoenix starts wading into the rushing waters, slightly put off-balance from the speed of the river, as well as the extra thirty-five Kilos on his shoulders.

Sonic holds on tightly, but he trembles. One small slip and it's right into the drink he goes. Then the current would probably carry him the whole way to the ocean, where he won't have enough time to get to land. His head is swimming with worst case scenarios.

Phoenix moves slowly, stumbling every so often, either from a sudden shift in the current or the uneven terrain of the riverbed below. He just about loses his balance when his foot hits a root sticking out of the riverbed. He tips over, recovers, sways hard in the other direction. He reaches up and grabs onto Sonic, just to ensure they aren't separated if he falls.

"Don't worry, I got you." He firmly plants both feet back onto the ground, keeping his balance once more and stepping over the root. "If worst comes to worst, I can just throw you to the bank."

"Uh- Please don't do that. Not that I don't have faith in you but... Just please don't- Okay?" Sonic tenses up, trying to hold on tighter but that's hard to do without hindering Phoenix further.

"Alright, alright. Not much further to go anyway."

And with a few more slow strides, they clear the river and Phoenix sets Sonic back onto the ground. He shakes off his legs, his lower half being completely drenched.

Sonic is visibly shaken from the crossing. "Don't- Don't do that again! What if you dropped me?!" He points an accusing finger at Phoenix, who just shrugs and crosses him arms.

"Then I'd grab you before you floated off. You don't weigh that much, you know?" He sighs puts a hand to his head and walks off towards the coast. "Come on, not much further."

As the pair come to the low coastal area, a large vessel in the ocean comes into view. A seemingly unremarkable steel-based ship with plenty of flat area on the top. A carrier.

"There it is. That's where I've been hiding out." Phoenix points at the vessel. Its a decent distance out, too far to swim.

"Huh, so how do you get to it? Teleportation? Transportation beam?" Sonic puts a hand to his chin, thinking about how they would possibly get to it.

"Boat." Phoenix replies simply, pointing to a speedboat beached on the sand. "That's how I got to land, that's how we get back to the ship. Hop on."

"Do we seriously have to go on the water again? Isn't there another way? Surely you have some high-tech gear that can just teleport us, right?" Sonic tries to practically plead for another alternative, but unfortunately, there are none.

"Yeah no. Teleportation technology doesn't exist yet. It's not likely to exist for another hundred years at least." Phoenix starts to push the speedboat back into the water. "This is the best we got for now. Trust me, it's a lot safer."

Sonic huffs and begrudgingly gets onboard the boat. Instead of sitting on the available passenger seat, he sits on the ground just in front of the seat and half-curls into a ball.

"There's seatbelts Y'know. You don't have to do that to avoid falling out." Phoenix gets into the driver's seat and turns the vehicle on, reversing the speedboat to turn away from the beach.

"Don't care." Sonic grumbles and curls up more, hiding his face. Maybe he's not feeling all too up for conversation now.

The drive to the carrier is unremarkable and uneventful, only the gentle rolling of the waves. Neither of the two speak up for the whole way, until Phoenix docks the speedboat at the carrier, where a floodgate on the ship opens to allow the watercraft to enter. However that works.

"And we are here. Thank you for bearing with me, I understand that you're... Not too fond of water now." Phoenix steps off of the boat and onto solid ground, as solid as it can be on a ship at least.

"Yeah, thanks for realising that." Sonic uncurls and also gets off the boat, stretching to get the blood flowing again. "Huh... This place is interesting. Looks a lot less sleek than anything Eggman made."

"This is a G.U.N designed Carrier. They focus function over form. No need to pretty up a weapon of war." Phoenix waves for Sonic to follow him as he starts walking. "But it's been abandoned. Not sure why, but at least that means I can use it as a hideout."

They head up the central stairs, going up many, many flights before reaching near the top; the bridge. It's rather tidy, for an abandoned ship. It's just very... Dusty.

"You okay with waiting here for a bit? There's something I'm gonna do below deck." Phoenix grabs a bag of tools by the door and slings it over his shoulder.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll wait here." Sonic hops up on a seat next to a control panel, kicking his feet up on it, staring out at the endless horizon. He feels somewhat at peace... Before he looks at the ceiling and lets his arms fall off the sides of the seat.

"Ugh, I'm so boooooooored..." He looks around for something to do before spotting a book in a compartment under the console. "Hm, what's this?"

He takes the book out from the compartment, dusting it off with his hand and squinting at the title.

"Operating Manual: Blitzkrieg Class Carrier"

Sonic opens the book up, flipping through the pages. It's not the most interesting thing in the world, but it keeps him occupied for the moment. But then he gets an idea.

"The table in the centre of the bridge is a Geoscape, from there you can select a location and the carrier will move directly to it... Okay, guess that makes sense."

Sonic is following the directions from the manual, and as the carrier still has power, the aforementioned Geoscape comes to life as a holographic globe, showing a dot marking the carrier's current position, right under a tiny landmass shown on the Geoscape as 'United Kingdom'.

"Huh, this is pretty cool!" Sonic excitedly continues following the instructions. All he had to do now was set a course, and of course, he picks a random spot on the globe.

The whole carrier begins to shake as it comes to life, beginning to move through the water, rocking the whole ship.

Who knows where they may end up.