Note: The following takes place in the middle of the early AM hours after Ch. 2: Day 12 in the South Island forum, but before Ch. 2: Day 12, pt. II in the Westside Island forum.

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There were a lot of things she had steeled herself for when she had sensed an emerald nearby - a military base. A well-guarded royal palace. Some kind of...bizarre city-themed deathtrap made by that strange strange fat man. To say she was shocked to find a simple apartment building would've been something of an understatement.

She had managed to subdue her initial urge (bust in, find the emerald, beat up whoever got in her way, take the emerald, beat them up again, leave), due in part to how suspiciously normal the building seemed. Instead, she took to the streets and began to ask around as to whether the building had any significance. All she could ascertain is that it had been abandoned for some time. Eventually, she came to the conclusion that the only explanation she could think of was that someone was trying to hide the emerald there. She also realized it didn't matter. She had to get it.

As the guardian of the Sol Emeralds, it was Blaze's duty to find them, wherever they may lay.

That was what she told herself as she took a flying leap from the building across the street. A well-timed burst of heated air from her feet made the distance child's play to cross. She landed on the roof with a small thud and began to look around. She didn't need to worry about being seen. It was night, and nobody was around.

I can feel the emerald...it's close. She started to look around for an entrance. She'd hate to have to get in by breaking a window, honestly.

While there were no windows or skylights on the roof (only air conditioning units, exhaust fan ducts, and antennae), there was a door standing up as part of a sheltered stairwell exit protruding from the top of the building.

On the other side of that stairwell exit, out of sight, was someone listening—waiting for just such an arrival.

Rock had grown disquieted by the thought of waiting in the safehouse. What was it Rekk had said about it?...


As much as Rock may have trusted Rekk implicitly, he didn't trust others. As such, he'd silently taken his pillow, a blanket, put his full uniform back on, and made himself comfortable against the sloped back of the stairwell structure on the roof.

The cool night air felt good, and the sounds of the city were a familiar comfort. Still, he was a light sleeper; the second those boots hit the gravelly roof, he was up... and stepping calmly around the side of his hiding place. No weapon was in hand yet, though he wore a hard, suspicious look on his face.

"..."

Blaze's ears twitched slightly before she turned her head in Rock's direction. Immediately, the pieces started coming together. To say he looked military would've been erroneous, this man radiated military.

"...I'm here for the emerald." No point dancing around it. "I need it, and I don't have very much time." The 'so get out of my way' was unspoken. She was a lady, after all.

Her judgment was right; at the same time, though, it was clear that he was no average grunt, and certainly not a night sentry; he was confident enough to come out with empty hands, no armaments beyond a holstered pistol and sheathed knife on his hip, and in a dark blue uniform so unconcerned with camouflage that it had a solid red stripe up each side. It looked more like an elaborate flight suit.

And the "soldier" heard the haste in her voice, but still took a second or two to filter, then respond, phrasing his response in a way that, at least initially, seemed intent on avoiding a needless fight with such a prim-dressed stranger. Appearances were always deceiving, though, in every direction.

"You don't look like the kind of person I expected to come try to kill us in our sleep for an emerald," he admitted in a casual, but quiet voice. He shifted his weight, relaxing onto his rear foot. "Why'you want it?"

Blaze let out a low scoff at 'kill'. She continued to quietly observe Rock, glancing towards the stairwell he'd just come from as he finished speaking. For the moment, she remained still.

"It is my duty," she said quite simply, her eyes still on the stairwell. "The emeralds were disturbed from their natural place. I must regather them and see that they're protected." She slowly glanced back towards Rock. "I'm no assassin. I have no intention to bloody my hands under any circumstance. But I will have the emerald." She held out a hand. "So, I'll ask once. Where is it?"

Rock's brows slowly raised; slow steps carried him around in front of the stairwell door, while his eyes watched the cat intently. "You're not from around here, are you?" he asked rhetorically, with a hint of amusement. "'Disturbed' has been the natural state for a while."

He stopped, standing in the way. It was obvious enough that the emerald was inside. She had to have known; he knew that she knew; everyone was in the know.

"Much as it sounds like we're on the same side, here, I'd hafta be pretty ignorant to just give you somethin' this important without knowing who you really are," he explained levelly and seriously.

Blaze sniffed lightly. Were she a more base person, she might've said something snarky like 'Bingo!' at Rock's rhetorical question. As it was, she just let him finish speaking.

"As I said - it is my duty to protect them. I am their Guardian," she said, equally as calmly. "You already know everything about me that's relevant to the situation. Telling you anything else would only waste both of our time."

Rock very nearly snorted air out his nose trying to stifle a laugh, complete with involuntary grin and dip of his head. "H'yeah, okay," sputtered the monkey. He visibly felt bad for his reaction, though, and struggled to straighten his face quickly, if only because the girl seemed so deathly serious. " I—... seriously, look, maybe you should consider starting your, ah, guardian career with somethin'... less dangerous. Maybe you could intern on Angel Island or somethin'."

Blaze's eyes slowly narrowed at Rock's reaction, ending with a flick of her tail at the 'intern' comment (which she had totally heard). Strange though it may have been, she was at least attempting to be diplomatic, in her way, but her patience was rapidly reaching its end. She could've argued his doubt in a hundred different ways. She just didn't give enough of a crap.

"I could teach you something about what's 'dangerous'," she muttered under her breath, before saying out loud, "I've wasted enough time already," and heading for the stairwell.

Rock stayed right where he was, but leaned his back against the stairwell door for added emphasis. He folded his arms across his chest, visibly slumped and relaxed, and, with detectable smugness, obstructed the way.

Blaze glared at Rock for a moment, and gathering all of the rest of her patience took in a deep breath.

"Stay in my way and I won't hesitate to go through you." She paused briefly, and her eye twitched slightly.

"Please, move."

"Threats and politeness," mused Rock with a smile and raised brows as he looked at her from the bottoms of his half-lidded, mismatched eyes. (All he needed was a toothpick hanging out of his mouth to complete his look.)

"You got a nice attitude," he said out of the blue in a genuine, complimenting tone, straightening his posture and pulling his back off the door, but still staying in the way. "Can't let you through, though."

If Blaze felt complimented, she didn't show it. Instead, she heaved a small sigh, in a 'Oh-boy-here-we-go' sort of way.

"Unfortunate."

In that same instant, her leg swung up and one of her feet shot at Rock's chest fast enough for one of those heels to punch a hole in his stomach. That in itself wasn't the shocking part; someone with Rock's perception would've been able to see that much coming. The shocking part was that from the knee downwards, her leg was enveloped in flames. From her placid expression, they didn't seem to be bothering her at all, but they were still very real, and also very hot.

Of course, he looked relaxed, but was wound like a spring; it was nothing surprising that Rock jigged sideways the instant she moved to strike, spraying gravel. However, whereas he would have probably tried to do some sort of really impressive counter or something on a normal day, once his conscious thought processes kicked in over his muscle-memory reflexes, aided by the sensation of his eye on that side getting dried out from searing heat, he only found himself single-mindedly interested in keeping the hell away, at least until he knew what was he was up against. (The big char-mark on the metal door from where her foot passed near it didn't make matters seem any safer.)

"Here I thought there was only one guy who could do that with chaos energy," he blurted quickly as he moved, hands raised defensively and stance low.

Once Rock had moved away, Blaze had immediately returned to standing straight, not adopting a fighting stance as he had. In fact, at his comment, she allowed herself a wry laugh.

"Were it so easy," she said cryptically. Rather than followup her attack, she just reached out, trying the knob on the door with her right hand, while her left remained at her side, balled into a fist for the moment.

A low stance came with its advantages—like access to the ground.

He lunged and flung a handful of small rocks and dust at her face from the gravel-ballasted roof. Knowing that a target momentarily robbed of vision would almost invariably guard or strike out in the direction of the crap getting thrown in its eyes, he used his second of surprise to pass as deftly as he could to her other side. Skidding as he made a grab for her arm, or the fabric of her coat's back, or whatever he could grip well, he made a fluid attempt to outright throw her—not off the roof or anything horrible like that, but just some distance from the door. It seemed that, for whatever reason, he wasn't inclined to try to strike her.

She hadn't really expected him to just let her go like that. But she figured she'd try.

A spray of rock was also not on the list of what she'd expected. The arm she'd placed to the knob shot up over her face to protect her eyes while she strained to keep track of him as he moved, quickly. The burst of speed as he moved from one side to the other temporarily threw her off guard, but only temporarily. When his hand reached out to grab her arm, she reacted, pulling at her arm that had been grabbed and moving her other under it, leaving her free hand open and right in Rock's vicinity. Before he'd get the chance to throw her, a ball of fire the size of a baseball was shooting from her hand at him.

It probably said something about Rock that he followed through to try to throw her anyway. You know, despite being point-blank fireblasted by some otherworldly pyrokinetic cat.

It helped that he was in full uniform, and that it was largely flame retardant. However, flame retardant means that it's less likely to catch fire, not that it won't necessarily transfer scorching death heat. As such, he was quite well toasted beneath his dark blue jacket, though he refused to show it outwardly beyond the involuntary gritting of his teeth.

By contrast, Blaze let out a "hnnn!" as she was heaved into the air and thrown away from the stairwell, landing on her feet a short distance away. She hadn't met too many people who took a point-blank attack like that and decided to keep attacking. She immediately moved into a fighting stance of her own, ready to attack once more.

As the cat prepared herself, Rock coughed out a pained-sounding "Okay."

"I misjudged—I'll give y'that much," he admitted. (That is to more politely say she wasn't merely a loon or overzealous kid out emerald-hunting.) "Just tell me why you think you're the 'guardian' of the Chaos Emeralds all of a sudden."

Initially preparing to charge Rock, Blaze paused. One of her eyebrows slowly crept up and she returned to standing up straight.

"I don't," she said simply. "I know that I'm the guardian of the Sol Emeralds. Because it has been my duty all my life." She pointed downwards. "I don't know what you've heard, but what you have here is not a Chaos Emerald. I'd like to think that I'm capable of telling the difference," she said with a slight huff.

The primate shook his head, sighed and scratched at his forehead. "H'aaaalright, this explains a lot."

His hand dropped limply, thwapping audibly against his thigh. "It's the dark blue Chaos Emerald," he insisted tiredly. "I have more familiarity than I'd like. Believe me. It's brilliant-cut. Yours are emerald-cut. This one split off from the dark blue Chaosol Emerald that exploded in the Yellow Desert a month or so ago."

After just a brief pause, he thought to add: "I don't even want your emeralds. We're tryin' to get the Chaosol Emeralds so we can split them apart again and get this crap back to normal."

For once, Blaze looked confused. Then, a look of realization came, and finally, she just shook her head, looking thoroughly annoyed.

"I see," she said, her voice suddenly a lot smaller. Somehow, the term 'wild goose chase' didn't properly encapsulate how she felt at the moment. She let out a long sigh, crossing her arms.

"If that's the case, I imagine you'll understand that it's incredibly important that I find the Sol Emeralds and return them to my world," she said. "If you've already split at least one of those...Chaosol things," she didn't seem comfortable referring to them as 'Emeralds', "Do you have any idea where the Sol Emerald is?"

Rock raised empty hands in a listless shrug. (One hand stayed lower than the other, owing to the fact that the arm it was attached to was scalded tender, and chaffing.)

"They don't explode like nuclear bombs, so they haven't been a priority," he said honestly. "All I can tell you is that the green one was separated in Empire City earlier. It might still be in that area—y'know, if GUN didn't already get their mitts on it."

"Empire City..." she repeated under her breath, already walking towards the edge of the roof. It really seemed as if she was going to jump off without so much as a 'peace out', before she paused, turning her head back slightly.

"If I find the Sol Emeralds that have already been split, I will have to separate the rest of these...Chaosol things to recover those that remain. In that event, we'll likely cross paths again." She turned around, placing a hand to her chest. "My name is Blaze."

Rock blinked a couple times and set his hands on his waist. This person had stormed in, tried to kick him in half, then proceeded to set him on fire, get information, then turn to leave with little more than an introduction.

He could respect that.

"Name's Rock," he answered with a slow nod. "If I run across any of yours, I'll hang onto'em 'til I see you again."

Blaze nodded. "Then I will do the same."

And then she flipped off of the roof, seemingly floating away for a few seconds until she dropped off to another roof and was quickly out of sight.

...

Rock gingerly touched his burned arm, and glanced around aimlessly a moment. Without anything else to do, he dragged his feet back to where he had left his pillow, breathed deeply, and collapsed in a mighty deflation back where he laid before.


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