Gail listened very intently to Espio's story about Gerald, leaning in closer and forgetting just about everything else around him. It certainly did explain a lot about why the Robotnik clan was as twisted as it was. He wondered what would happen if the military hadn't--
"Wait," he spoke on the tail end of that thought. "So...we have Gerald before all of that happened to him. It sounds like that is what pushed him off the deep end. Maybe he's going to be an OK guy after all."
The thought was a happy one, that was for sure. However, it definitely hadn't resulted in his grandson being any different. It definitely was too bad things hadn't worked out that way.
"But why in tarnation would he change around Dr. Robotnik though? I keep wondering if it really was something inside Gerald, or if Robotnik did something to his head."
The wolf spared a glance at the door to Gerald's room, where one of the ninjas seemed to be fetching their prisoner. As he waited for Gerald to appear, he also couldn't help but ponder the ramnifications of Robotnik's grandfather being here younger than his own grandson.
"It just...kind of makes your mind hurt, don't it?" Gail actually rubbed the side of his head as he spoke this. Now he started idily pulling on one of his pointy ears, in a rather unusual action. "Meeting your own grandfather but he's younger than you. What if the same thing happened to us?"
Suddenly Gail pulled his paw away from his ear, as he spared a small chuckle. A crazy thought had just came to his head.
"Man though...it would never happen to me. I am NEVER gonna have kids! If I was too much trouble to my dad I could never picture me being in his place! It's darn creepy thinking about what MY son would look like!"
On the other side of the planet, Augustine Strafer would briefly find his head hurting from an irony headache.
“ That’s the gist, but there are a few details. Like, how it was G.U.N who was funding the project. They were apparently trying to figure out immortality and what have you. And Professor Gerald was really using the project to figure out a cure for his granddaughter. She had some terminal illness, and honestly he was probably close to the cure since he did complete the project.” He closed his eyes as he looked down, “But I guess G.U.N got something of a conscious near the end of all of it.”
He looked up, looking out towards the ninja in front of the door. He had to agree with Gail, he was having a hard time understanding everything too. He may not have known what he was talking about when he said that Gerald ‘changed’, but he had to wonder why he had tried killing someone- and then wanting to help them. Then again, Gerald obviously wasn’t very stable.
“I don’t know about you, but I think if you blame the world for you’re granddaughter’s death and not the people responsible I think the guy must have been a little un-hinged to begin with. Also, I think it’s one thing to meet you’re supposed grandchildren and another to find out you’re grand-kid is Egg-Head. That’s just got to be depressing.”
Or embarrassing if that man was you’re father. He was fairly sure that’s how Cornelius felt. It seemed like anyone related to him would just look at him and roll there eyes in annoyance by his pompous and childish behavior. Let alone being horrified due to his insanity. And now that he thought of it, didn’t the Doc say he looked up to his grandfather? That had to make things worse for the poor man.
All he needed to do was put the tray back onto the table- he wasn’t going to have the stomach to talk and eat. Or really even discuss matters, there wasn’t enough time to clear his head. But he had to talk now, so he was going to have to deal with it. As he stood up, he made sure that he didn’t hit his head on the ceiling about him. But he didn’t put the book up surprisingly. Instead he kept it open in his hand, looking at the words on the page as he walked out of the door.
The girl found this very strange; It seemed like he’d done this sort of thing before. But it wasn’t worth noting in the notes. She quickly scribed down the remaining thoughts on him and closed the scroll. As she left, she’d handed over the notes in clear ninja fashion; meaning that no one saw. The guard would know who to hand the notes too.
By the time Gerald would get there, he wouldn’t have heard anything past what Chadin would say, if at the most hearing the ending parts. He kept his eyes to the alchemy book, holding the somewhat large text with one hand. His face was clearly covered by it, but it was easily to tell that something was wrong as his body slumped. Not only that but he was very quiet. He didn't have anything to say at the moment, he was simply lost in the information he was trying to cram into his head in the early morning in order to stop thinking about other things.
"Ugh..." I groaned as I held my hand up over my eyes in frustration. "Look, I'm sure at least someone here finds this all very fascinating and everything, but this is pointless. Whatever happened to the Gerald in your zone means pretty much diddly squat here. Besides, he's already proven unreliable and untrustworthy. At this point, I don't care what his reasons are, I don't trust him and neither should any of you. He can drop off the side of a cliff for all I care right now. Serves the double-crossing weasel right."
"What matter's now is figuring out if Robotnik really is dead and getting those chaos emerald shards back." I added some additional emphasis to the urgency by pounding my fist onto the table.
Omega watched everyone speak in turn, though he seemed to listen to the deer's words the most, nodding along. He clapped his hands together, holding them. "Well, I think I've heard enough on him then. He sounds all around nuts. As for the emerald shards, I gave the few I had to Sonic for safe keeping, back when I first met him. I found them along with my friend Whip, if anyone has seen him. He's an orangish rabbit, he gets sick around the shards, so he's pretty useful in finding them."
"No idea what might have brought up the change...", Espio said as he placed his left elbow on the table in thought, hand holding his chin. "But I do know that this dimension is very unstable...and theres no telling what effects it may have on those of us here.", he noted. "Perhaps we should play things light with him...he could be of use if he truely wasn't himself back then..", he said as his head turned up to the upper staircase, where Gerald was slowly being lead down the stairs.
He did raise a brow at Chadin's statments, his words laced full of anger and mistrust. It was pretty clear he wouldn't be shifting his opinion on the matter anytime soon, so Espio thought it best to move matters along for now.
"About Robotnik..I highly doubt that he has left this earth yet...", he said in a tone hinted with regret over having to say it. "Before your ship arrived, I saw another ship headed off in the direction of Robotnik's mobile air fleet. It was last seen heading towards Robotropolis. It's unlikely he failed to get medical attention in time for whatever injuries he seemed to have had inflicted. He wasn't piloting the hoverpod, but it was just as clear the other two occupants wern't in much of a state of distress."
"Now... I've been assigned to go and infiltrate Robotroplis to get back those shards from Robotnik. More likely than not, he will be keeping them safe in the city. Your assistance would be most welcome in taking back what we need to restore this distorted world back to normal. Only when all the emeralds are restored can we undo a chaos control on such a massive scale.", he said beginning to sell his proposition to follow them without bluntly saying he was to follow them since they would be going anyway. "We can use the hover craft the village mechanics have fixed up as well as the hoverpod."
He then looked over to Alpha. "You gave them to...this Sonic? I haven't heard anything about Sonic having shards last night.", he asked fairly amused. "And...is your friend on the island? I'm sure I could assemble a search party to look for him and bring him to the area the hovercraft has been hidden. An "emerald radar" could be of use.", he added to the group discussion with a nod.
It would be about now where Gerald was lightly tapped on the shoulder by the guard to have a seat at the foot of the table. "Now...the floor will soon be open to you, Gerald. Care to explain your "misadventure" back in the launch base?", he casually asked. He would get more information with honey than vinigar...
Meanwhile, the guard stepped slowly out of sight, taking a look over of the attendant, who in actuality was just another spy and mental adviser had wrote.
He’s appears to be very restless. Said he didn’t get any sleep and he looks it. Clearly depressed, but I’m not sure if it’s anything to do with what’s happened. Seems a lot deeper. Also, he just might have a guilty conscious; not sure, but it sounds like he might have one. Otherwise, I don’t see any violent actions; actually he seems quite polite.
I’m not sure what’s going on, but it’s safe to say to be easy on the guy.
-Saka
P.S: From what I can tell, Gerald has a very calm and gentle aura, though theres a strange, out of place miniscule hint of darkness laiden within him. It's very strange...I highly suggest Espio continue to monitor him outside of the village.
He nodded to himself, leaving the inn and then taking off as a blur to the Elders chambers.
As the topic of conversation turned to Chadin, Anu found himself with nothing to say, so he turned his attention back to Ji.
(Anu) "Your Highness?"
(Ji) "I'm thinking of trying this one, but I have no idea what it is. I'm not sure what any of these are, actually."
(Anu) "We could ask."
"Look, I'm sure at least someone here finds this all very fascinating and everything, but this is pointless. Whatever happened to the Gerald in your zone means pretty much diddly squat here. Besides, he's already proven unreliable and untrustworthy. At this point, I don't care what his reasons are, I don't trust him and neither should any of you. He can drop off the side of a cliff for all I care right now. Serves the double-crossing weasel right."
Gail felt rather sorry Chadin felt that way about their human companion. Honestly, he wanted to know more about the circumstances of what happened inside the factory ship before passing judgment. There were too many unknown factors here. However, that thought melted away pretty quickly at Espio bringing up something much more exciting.
"Now... I've been assigned to go and infiltrate Robotroplis to get back those shards from Robotnik. More likely than not, he will be keeping them safe in the city. Your assistance would be most welcome in taking back what we need to restore this distorted world back to normal. Only when all the emeralds are restored can we undo a chaos control on such a massive scale.", he said beginning to sell his proposition to follow them without bluntly saying he was to follow them since they would be going anyway.
"We can use the hover craft the village mechanics have fixed up as well as the hoverpod."
Everyone around the table would hear an audible smack as Gail punched a knuckle into the open palm of his other paw. This was accompanied by a very big grin, putting his sharp teeth on full display. While others might be unnerved by the idea of going into the lion's den, so to speak, the wolf clearly relished the opportunity.
"That'll be awesome! We take one of his own ships and sneak right inside! Then maybe while we're after the shards we can go hunt him down and finish what yah started, Chadin!"
He said the last line with an enthusiastic fist pump. It was like they were about to have a spirited game of paintball or something. However, when Gerald came over and Espio asked him to explain his actions around Robotnik, the wolf fell silent and listened with rapt attention. He needed to know what had made Gerald backstab Chadin all of a sudden.
“What?” Sonic replied, looking towards Omega. “You haven’t gave me nunthin’! And besides, I haven’t even see you before. Look-”
He started to pat his coats, meaning to show that there was nothing in them. But before he could even possible say that there was nothing inside, he felt something strange in his right pocket. Wait, but nothing was supposed to -be- in his pockets. He wasn’t carrying anything on him when this crazy mess happened. With a surprised and confused look, he reached into the right pocket and pulled the object out.
With the ends of his index and thumb, he held out two emerald shards. Sonic was obviously puzzled as he looked at the glowing gems that had been in his pocket for some time now.
“Now how the hell did those get there?!” he exclaimed. As Gerald finally came up though, he toned himself down and with a somewhat aggravated face placed the shards back in his pocket. It was a question for another time.
Gerald jumped a little when he felt the guard tap his shoulder, but then sighed when he realized he was just signaling him to sit down; in which he did.
"Now...the floor will soon be open to you, Gerald. Care to explain your "misadventure" back in the launch base?", he casually asked. He would get more information with honey than vinigar...
Hearing the charmelon gave Gerald a pause for thought. Now at first he was expecting the reaction of everyone thinking he was untrustworthy because of him being related to Robotnik. He thought this was what everything had been about from the beginning. But when Espio stated ‘misadvenutere’...well, it seemed to be implying differently. He blinked from behind the book. What did he mean by that? Setting down the book slowly, he gave Espio as confused look.
“...What do you mean misadventure?” he asked meekly, being completely sincere. “ What, this isn’t about the fact that I’m related to that...that madman? The fact that it was all his fault for this entire mess with the dimensional merge? Or what about the city that’s under his control in which he’s using people as slave labor? How he’s practically destroyed trillians of lives that never made it through the event; or-or all of those who’ve been torn apart from there loved ones? All because he wanted...he wanted to take over the world?!”
It seemed like the more he mentioned, the more and more upset it appeared. The whole thing was just snow-balling down over the things that have been mulling over in his head. And it didn’t just stop there.
“And-And it’s all my fault! If it wasn’t for me, none of this may have ever happened! I mean, he looks up to me for pete’s sake! He’s doing all this horrible things, trying to me like me; but not even getting the point! And what’s worse is that I’ve practically got all of that....that blood on my hand too! Oh God...”
By this point his break down had reached a critical point. These were the types of thoughts that were weighing him down. And in a way, he knew some of things he shouldn’t really feel completely bad about. But in his condition, his mind was literally picking the theoretical things apart, and his guilty conscious was taking the blame for it. So as his hands combing through his air, with his elbows on the table, he looked down the table looking incredibly distraught.