girls' day out

“So… I guess we’re the most popular humans in the Dream World now, eh?”
“Thanks to our boyfriends, yeah.”
I smiled at Jewel’s response. She was absolutely right… if it weren’t for our romantic situations, she’d be lost in spite of her connections to this world…and… I’d probably be dead…
“Hm…” I wondered aloud. “So… what’s it like, having three boyfriends?”
Jewel smiled widely at my sudden question and shook her head. “Not three, four,” she corrected me, holding up four fingers to show it. “Selph counts now, too.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “What, you’re in love with your Nightmaren now, too?”
“Maybe,” she shrugged, still smiling. “We both love each other a heck of a lot the way it is… and he’s been a huge influence on my life… if it weren’t for him, I’d be a completely different person talking to you right now. I might not even be talking to you if it weren’t for Selph.”
“Isn’t that thanks to all your boyfriends?” I asked, a little confused.
“Oh, sure,” Jewel replied, “But Selph has really helped me be a better person. Although I don’t deny one bit how majorly my other three have affected my life.” She looked down and smiled, sighing. “Ryou mostly. If it weren’t for him, I might never have met the other three. It’s amazing how fast and how deeply we fell in love… mostly because I was only 12 years old when I did…” She laughed. “Twelve!! And I’d have laid my life down for him in an instant.”
“Yeah, you fell in love pretty early,” I laughed also. “And you keep falling in love, too.”
“Oh, I know, I know!!” Jewel exclaimed, smiling. “I just can’t help it. They’re all just so… well, something about all of them… we were just destined to be together. If we weren’t, well, who knows what life would be like now…” Her smile faded and a sad expression took its place. “Marik might have tried to take over the world again… his Yami would probably have come back, probably would’ve killed him… he would’ve stumbled back into a heck of a lot of trouble either way…and Chaos… he might… he might’ve…” Jewel put a hand to her forehead, her eyes suddenly shining with tears. “…I’m sorry…I really don’t want to think about it…”
I could only look back at her sadly as she tried to fight the tears. “…It’s all right, Jewel. I understand.” I said at length.
“Yeah, you do,” Jewel answered, smiling through the pain. “You really do.” She straightened up again, facing me with a knowing look. “Thanks, Jen.”
I smiled. “No problem. We both need someone to talk to about this kind of stuff, and, hey, we’re the only two girls around who have experienced these kind of things…”
“Yeah,” Jewel said, looking down. “Not that I want anyone else to have to experience them, you know… at least not the pain part…and we’ve both had our share of pain, eh?”
I laughed sadly. “Mm-hmm…but there’s always more coming, you know…”
Jewel laughed once, but it came out more like a sob. “Tell me about it…” I looked over at her, puzzled. “If I could take that pain away from him… if I had to die to take that pain away from him, so he’d never have to suffer like that again… then I’d do it. I’d gladly do it.” She wasn’t holding the tears back now.
“Chaos Zero,” I said knowingly, as Jewel put a hand over her mouth, eyes shut tight. Trying to keep from crying.
“I’m sorry, Jen…” she managed to apologize. “I’m so sorry. I’m probably making you remember things too…”
I smiled sadly. “Just a little…it’s all right, though. Don’t worry about it.” I told her.
She had both hands folded tightly across her chest now, trying to hold back the sobs. It was amazing…how much pain they suffered because of each other… and they only loved each other even more because of it…
…Just like D and I.
We’ve known each other for three years now… a little longer than Jewel knew Chaos…and we were just as bad.
I never thought, in my entire life, I would fall in love as deeply as I had with him… and that’s the odd part. D wasn’t even human. He was a Jewel Monster, as they were called… strange but amazing beings that lived here, in the Dream World. He had come to Earth to try and keep his world’s immense war from spreading there, and that’s how I had met him.
It’s funny… thinking back on those early days…I had thought of him as just some new guy in the school… but still, he was different, in some way. Not just in that he was nicer to me that any other person I had met, not just that he was just as alone as me…
He became my first true friend-- and I knew it was the same for him. It was amazing back then just how happy I was around him, how much we trusted each other, how he made me feel like my life was worth something for once.
And then that fateful day came along. He told me everything… what he was, where he was from, why he was here. And, surprisingly… I didn’t care. To tell the absolute truth, I loved him even more for it- for trusting me with his secret, for risking everything by telling me. I loved him even more because he was this creature he said he was… and because he had loved me for who I was. But…
…I wanted to be like him. I wanted to become what he was, whatever he was. And not just so we’d be similar in that way… but so I could be closer to him in that way, so I could stay with him for the rest of my life.
That was what I wanted. It was what he wanted, too. And I will never forget the night it actually happened… I had never been so happy in my entire life.
I was that much in love with him. And I’ve stayed that way through everything…
It was because of a war that we met, after all, so I could only end up caught in it sooner or later. Because I had fallen in love with a wanted man, I had the most feared being of his world after my life… and after his. That was the first time I felt the pain… the kind of agonizing pain in your heart that comes from you realizing the truth…that because of my love, he would have to suffer… and I would suffer because of his.
It seemed that was the way relationships went in the Dream World. But, in spite of that, everybody was talking about D and Jenny. We were so much in love, in spite of everything—in spite of his terrible past, in spite of the pain we brought each other, in spite of all possible consequences, we only loved each other even more.
And then Jewel fell in love with Chaos Zero, and I realized that, compared to them, we had it easy.
You see, on the surface, both our relationships looked the same- but on the inside, I could only look on in amazement at what they had to go through, and wonder how in the world they had survived this long.
Sure, D and I had to fight XX constantly, but they did too, even if it wasn’t directly. But… not only did Jewel have to fight the forces of evil…
…She also had to fight her boyfriend.
You see- Chaos had a bit of a problem. Whenever his negative emotions became too powerful for him to handle, whenever they went out of control… he went Perfect.
Perfect... You say that word around either of those two and they’d start to cry. Just like Jewel was now. It was their biggest weakness—their enemies could either threaten Jewel to the point where Chaos lost control, or simply force him into that dreaded transformation… and that happened more often than they could handle…
It obviously hurts Jewel terribly. She literally has almost died—and actually did once, that’s a long story—several times already, all for the sake of protecting or saving Chaos.
Because when he went Perfect… it wasn’t Chaos in control anymore. He would turn into a monstrous creature existing only to destroy, to cause total Dastation. And when he finally came back to his senses—usually by force—he was an emotional wreck.
D could relate, I thought sadly… he was possessed for 14 years, after all…
I can only imagine how it must feel to see the person you love suffer like that again and again… and to not be able to do anything about it! Just thinking about what D had to go through before I met him hurt like you wouldn’t believe…
I wish I could take that pain away from him… or the memories, of the terrible things he was made to do…
What must it feel like to live with such painful thoughts haunting you?
“…Jenny?”
“Huh?” I said, startled, as I looked back up at Jewel. She had stopped crying, but was now looking at me concernedly.
“Jen, sweetheart, you’re crying. What’s wrong?”
“Oh,” I managed to say, surprised when I realized there really were tears in my eyes. Wow… I hadn’t even noticed. I must really have been deep in thought…
“Oh, Jewel?” I suddenly asked, as I wiped the tears from my face. “A-are you all right now?”
“Oh, sure,” she said sadly. “I’m sorry, I just get so worked up sometimes… especially over what happened recently…”
“You don’t have to tell me if it hurts, Jewel,” I said quickly as I noticed the pain in her eyes. But the pain suddenly faded as they widened and she looked at me in total shock. “You mean you haven’t heard about it?” She asked me, stunned.
“…Um…no, I haven’t…” I managed to reply, a little embarrassed. How the heck fast did word get around the Dream World? Either that, or how far behind was I in the news?
Jewel made a small sort of laugh and looked off to the side. “Well,” she began, “It’s about Chaos and I, obviously.” I nodded, smiling.
Jewel took a deep breath and sighed loudly. “All right, Jen, if I start crying while I’m telling you this, then just ignore me and tell me to keep talking.”
I laughed. “All right, Jewel.”
She smiled back sadly before closing her eyes. She took another deep, painful breath, and suddenly continued. “—Eggman took control of Chaos again.”
“What??” I exclaimed. Before Jewel had met Chaos, when he was still a creature of destruction, he was under the control of a wannabe super villain named Eggman. Eggman had been trying to get Chaos back to use in his evil schemes for quite some time now, but always failed by one way or the other. The only problem now was that Eggman wasn’t a wannabe anymore. He was really becoming a formidable, cruel opponent.
“It’s true,” Jewel said painfully. “He—I don’t know how it happened, but—he brainwashed him or something, and he turned back into the way he was before we got together…”
She was stumbling over her words now, obviously shaken even by the memories. “It was… it was terrible. He was with Eggman in the city, so I immediately knew something was wrong, but when he didn’t recognize who I was, I just… I…I couldn’t…” She stopped, her eyes flooded with tears. Suddenly she smiled at me. “Jen, you’re supposed to tell me to shut up now,” she said sadly.
“Oh, sorry,” I laughed weakly, but I couldn’t help but feel amazedly worried. What that must’ve felt like…!
Jewel closed her eyes. “Well, anyway, I figured I could snap him out of it, but Eggman sent his robots on me so I couldn’t move. Then… he had an Emerald…” She choked back a sob. “Before I knew it, he had given it to Chaos, and… I knew we’d be suffering through hell again pretty soon.” Her voice had become hard, but it was still breaking. My own expression saddened, half in pity, half in horror. I knew what she meant. Not only did negative emotions cause Chaos to go Perfect, but Chaos Emeralds did too… except a lot slower, and in a much more painful way…
“So… what’d you do?” I asked quietly, afraid but curious as to her answer.
She looked up at me. “I couldn’t do anything,” she replied emptily. “Then, of course, Sonic showed up, and what do you know, he had an Emerald too. So guess who got it soon after that?”
I didn’t reply. I could only look at her suddenly blank, drained expression. It was always a problem when that happened…. when you felt life was just too painful to go on with…
She sighed. “So Chaos was in his second stage now. Turns out that was all Eggman needed, so he decided to leave. The only problem was that he knew how to teleport now, so he didn’t have to go up in some little ship instead. So I panicked, as I wanted to save Chaos but had no idea where they were going, so I pulled a sneak teleport on them and rode the wave.” She looked up at me. “You know, to teleport while concentrating on their own transportation wave, so you go exactly where they did.”
I nodded, but was too concerned to let her continue just yet. “Jewel… are you sure you’re okay?” I finally asked.
It was as if she was released from a spell. Her expression suddenly flooded with emotion and she broke into sobs.
“I’m sorry,” she managed to reply through her tears, “I’m so sorry…it’s just that it’s too much for me sometimes, so I try to ignore it, but…I can’t. I just can’t.” She sobbed again, harder than before. “It just hurts so much…it hurts so much…”
I didn’t know what to say. I had never lived through something as openly terrible as what Jewel was telling me she lived through. But even as I thought upon this, she bravely straightened up, took a deep, shaking breath, and went on.
“Anyway,” she continued, so abruptly that I would’ve laughed if our situation wasn’t so painful, “I ended up somewhere inside their ship…in a back room, like a storage room or something. Chaos and Eggman were just outside the door- I could hear them. I immediately turned invisible when I heard Eggman say to himself he was searching for Sonic and my whereabouts, so he knew he wouldn’t be followed. He couldn’t find me. That got me worried at first, but when he didn’t elaborate on it, I calmed down a little. Well, as much as I could in my current situation…” She smiled weakly. “Anyway, Eggman tracked down the next Emerald by using the two already in Chaos, so we were beginning to head after it. And… I’m not sure what happened then, but… for some reason Chaos came into that room where I was.”
“What? Really?” I asked as she nodded. “Well… what did you do?”
“I nearly died, that’s what,” she said as her expression saddened even more. “The look on his face was just so empty, so confused…it really hurt to see him like that. But he kept looking around that back room until he finally left, and I wondered if he had sensed me in there or something. That’s when it hit me.”
I blinked, taken by surprise at this statement. “What?”
She looked at me, a remnant of that hope in her eyes as she spoke. “The Chaon Ruby. That’s the only way he could’ve felt me there, even in his current condition. I could only pray Eggman hadn’t taken it out of him somehow, that he had overlooked it or simply forgotten… so, for the first and hopefully last time in my life, I wanted to see him hit Chaos 3.”
“W…why?” I managed to ask.
She continued, almost excitedly now. “Well, as Chaos 4 he gets a visible central spine and tail from the Emeralds, so Chaos 3 should start the spine in his upper back or something…and if the Ruby was still in him, it should affect that transformation in some way.” I nodded, understanding, as she suddenly sighed. “It would undoubtedly hurt, as he shouldn’t have the two in him at the same time, the Ruby and those Emeralds. But it was the only way for me to know if I could possibly save him in that way or not.”
She looked back up. “Anyway, Eggman happened to find two Emeralds then… both within a relatively small area, and not that far away either. So, obviously, he decided to go down and get them. However,” her eyes glanced down again, “If Sonic and the others knew about those Emeralds too, he’d have a bit of a problem getting them for himself. So he decided to check the area for them again. I left the back room as he did… I was still invisible, but I wanted to know what he was up to. He couldn’t find Sonic or the others on the scanner, so I figured that was all he needed, but then… he decided to scan for me.”
“For you?” I asked incredulously.
“For me,” she asserted, a serious expression on her worried face. “Now that was a problem. Sure, he was going to find me, I was right there! So what was I going to do?”
Jewel suddenly stopped, a sort of grim nervousness washing over her. “I was going to do something insane, that’s what.” The words came out incredulously, exasperatedly. 

(Me telling about the third emerald and such, the others nearby, sonic showing up again, etc. and such. Don’t forget about when I had to teleport again, but had to stay in mid-space for a painful amount of time (as I didn’t know where to teleport to) and ended up going into skull jester morph as a result. So on and so forth, Chaos ended up still having the Ruby in him after all, thank heavens,  so that helped me a lot. I think Knuckles or somebody has another Emerald, because I think Chaos gets to his 5^th form there, and it’s really freaky looking… a cross between his fish stage and that mutant thing for his 6^th. Something happens where he senses me again, goes to hit me, but I turn blue invisible so his hand goes right through me. I’m an emotional mess right about then, as I’m in a lot of pain and have no real idea as to how the heck I’m going to save Chaos from himself THIS time. Anyway, we end up back on Eggman’s ship, so I basically sit next to him, not really caring if he tries to kill me anymore, but caring too much to give up on him. Such and such and such… I don’t remember anything after that, I’ll try to tonight and write it tomorrow, or Tuesday… I think at one point Chaos hits his Ultimate Negative (Perfect Infinite), but that might’ve been just a worry of mine. It’d be scary if he did, and however the heck that would happen, he’d have to have gone Perfect already… which isn’t good, I don’t want him to go Perfect again… *sigh* Oh well. Thank goodness I just don’t remember this lovely little escapade, since it’s over already but my mind’s a blur, so I’m as happy as can be after living through all that crap, you know. So now Chaos and Marik and Bakura can complain about rabid fangirls and love at first sight and sneaky tricks involving homunculi (which was terribly funny) like they did this afternoon, as Jenny and D stare at us like we’re absolute lunatics, which we are. It’s funny though. D wants to catch up to Chaos relationship-wise, but heheh, Chaos keeps taunting him that he can’t because he and I have all those weirdo abilities and he doesn’t, which is true. Oh, and D teasing Chaos that he probably wants to marry me already but there’s no priest psycho enough to marry us, and everyone just basically arguing over my strict “no marriage” thing and all because it’s too dang awkward and besides I’ve already vowed myself to God, plus I’m a celibate but if I ever did have the possibility of getting married I couldn’t possibly rule out Ryou and Marik and Selph because I love them all too… oh well see you later.)

(That’s right, it’s Tuesday, and although I have to write down all the important things I wrote on Sunday (see the other hidden paragraph above), I remembered a few more things yesterday that I’m going to forget otherwise. All right. First off, when Chaos hits 6, later on he ends up in the same city where he first met Sonic. Funnily enough, Sonic happens to be there when Chaos and Eggman arrive. So am I of course. Anyway, there’s a fight of sorts, but I don’t remember anything of that… only thing is, at the end, Eggman ends up secretly and/or suddenly having the seventh Emerald. I’m not sure if he sneakily found it in the city nearby while Sonic and the gang were fighting Chaos 6, he might’ve, either that or he had it all along and was waiting until then to use it for whatever evil reason. Probably. Either way, I don’t think Chaos stays Perfect for long, thank God. Mostly because I freak out and, well, you know, become an emotional mess like I usually do when that happens. Anyway, I start frantically thinking up a way to get him the heck back to normal as fast as I could, not caring what the risk would be to me. So, take a guess at what I did? Yep—pulled my infamous Incident #2 trick: from the first time I ever had to face Perfect Chaos, and my first spontaneous, painful, and insane- but effective- strategy to revert him back… a suicide dive. Yep, that’s right… went Cherubell, flew into him and attacked directly. Well, it’s a miracle neither of us died or were hurt too bad… mainly Chaos just turned Perfect Angel from the emotional overload attack I had blasted into him from the inside… not to mention his Chaon Ruby would act as a receptor/amplifier for that, with my Millennium Crystal and such… but back to the point. It’s the first crazy idea that comes to my mind, and since I’m so heartsick and don’t want to see Chaos suffer through this crap for a second longer, I do it again. And… it works. Eggman is furiously stunned, as he had no idea I’d done that before and that it actually worked, and well, neither of us died from it either. Only problem is, I’m absolutely drained from the explosion of energy and Chaos is in terrible condition. This is because it was the Chaos Emeralds that caused him to go crazy this time (I don’t think that was ever the case before… it was usually from negative emotional overload… I’m not sure about that one time in this same city when Sonic caught us together afterwards… he heh!!), unlike all the other times before. Anyway, the seven Emeralds are all over the street area (wherever the heck we are), and there’s a significant amount of blood too, although I’m not sure whose, probably both Chaos’ and mine. However, even though he’s back to Chaos 0, his eyes are still terribly blank, and I realize he’s not back to himself yet. This delivers a crushing blow to me as I’m really at a loss now. But before I can do anything else, Eggman tells him to fight me or destroy me or something like that… I think he might’ve even convinced Chaos that I was the enemy…but, whatever it was, Chaos suddenly turns black and nine wings appear on his back—one really freakish one that does not look like it should be there. I mentally freeze, terrified and really beginning to panic—he’s gone Perfect Infinite. That form is possibly even worse than his normal Perfect transformation, as although he’s still himself in that form, his negative emotions completely take over, so it’s a lot harder to get him out or stop him. Anyway, he immediately starts fighting me. Initially he takes me by surprise, and keeps moving so insanely fast I can barely fight back, which I do, but not much. Anyway, at one point I hit the ground and can’t summon the strength to get up. Chaos stands in front of me, not doing anything. Eggman starts screaming at him, saying “don’t just stand there” and telling him that if he killed me than there would be no one powerful enough to stop him or Chaos, and they would have absolute power. I suddenly realize a frightening juxtaposition in this situation to a very infamous one with the J-Monsters. (You know what I’m talking about.) I’m starting to cry now, not much at first, but it’s the kind of crying that just inevitably comes on from that terrible, agonizing pain in your heart, the kind you get when someone you love is suffering and it seems that, no matter what, you can’t do anything to help them. (The hurt is comparable to the equally unbearable pain you get when you just can’t be near someone you deeply love, and it’s too much for you to handle…maybe they’re both the same thing? …) Anyway, I end up saying (sort of to myself) “Chaos, if he’s XX, then I hope you’re D.” My point being that (if you don’t know, for whatever reason) D was being used to do evil fiercely against his will, while D’s fellow Guardian, was committing similar acts of evil willingly. And I sure as heck didn’t want Chaos to be doing what he was doing out of his own free will. And yes, Eggman’s fitting XX’s part frighteningly well. (Maybe Eggman’s involved in XX’s schemes somehow?) Anyway… my memory around here is blurry again… curse this memory… but Chaos just won’t move. Eventually Eggman screams again for him to kill me and get it over with, but Chaos suddenly says that he can’t do it. (Being totally honest… I nearly burst into tears at hearing his voice again—he hadn’t spoken at all during this whole incident, you notice, and Chaos talking again is most likely a sign he’s coming back to normal.) Eggman is, of course, stunned, as in reverting Chaos back to how he was before he met me (however he did that), he did just that—Chaos didn’t talk, his eyes were virtually lifeless and he didn’t seem to have any common sense or morality at all when he was in battle. Now Chaos is suddenly reverting back to his actual self, when he shouldn’t be, at least according to Eggman. Anyway, Eggman keeps yelling at him, but Chaos either doesn’t reply or simply says he just can’t get himself to do that to me. When Eggman demands why the heck he feels like that, Chaos can only say he doesn’t know. I’m getting pretty hopeful as I might be able to fully bring him back now, but I’m still unsure if it’ll actually happen. (It hurts when I do that… I don’t want to doubt, I want to trust, but human nature makes it hard…) Anyway, I’m still hurting terribly inside, and as a result am sort of careless yet. I start saying things to Chaos, like it didn’t matter if he killed me or not, it was his choice, his orders even, and I had no right to interfere with it…self put-downs like that. Anyway, at one point I’m just feeling terrible and stop resisting and talking altogether, but Chaos suddenly says something… I think I first tell him that he could kill me if he wanted, it’s fine with me (you can tell how far gone I am now), and he suddenly replies with “Jewel… I can’t.” I recognize the Chaos I know in his voice and I look up at him. Suddenly his black color literally just falls from him like ink, and all nine of his wings just dissipate or shatter or something… so he’s back to normal, blue Chaos Zero. But then his eyes go back to normal the way they did the first time... you know, because his irises are emerald green (the whites are light green) they just sort of phase out from it… it’s pretty neat-looking. But either way, I recognized this meant he was back. I couldn’t get myself to even say anything, though, half from emotions I couldn’t even begin to vocalize, half from fear of crying if I opened my mouth. Seems Chaos felt the same way, as he simply walked over to me and helps me up from the ground. As soon as I’m back on my feet I hug him as hard as I can, not holding back tears. Chaos holds me tightly also, but seems depressed and dazed or something… some sort of confused expression hiding nearly unbearable emotions. I notice this and ask him if he’s feeling all right. Chaos then suddenly lets go of his emotion and starts talking about what it was like when he went back to his “old self”, he wasn’t fully aware of what he was doing… as if his memory and personality had been erased, but he was still somehow that person. He apologized several times, each with a terrible sort of self-hatred, for hurting me like he did and making me suffer through that whole event anyway. I constantly stopped him mid-apology, protesting that I hadn’t even held it against him and it wasn’t his fault anyway. Our conversation goes on like this for a while, with Chaos insisting it was his fault and feeling terrible about what he did this time, and me protesting that no one held it against him, he hadn’t hurt me, I wasn’t upset with him or anything, etc. But one particular time after I told him this, he just looked up at me with this pained, regretful expression and insisted once again that there was no way to change the absolute truth; he had hurt me badly, both physically and spiritually, even if he hadn’t done so directly, and he couldn’t forgive himself for it, no matter what I said. But I just smiled at him and replied, “Chaos, I love you…you couldn’t hurt me if you tried.” Chaos realizes how sincerely true my words are and can only start crying again over what happened.)