Through the Looking Glass: Chapter 3-B
Third Dream
Banjo found himself in the uninviting room with the metal walls again. Thankfully, he was greeted by the sight of Rouge sitting in the bed, looking down at the floor with a rather shocked look on her face. The bear strode over to the bat and sat down on the bed next to her, the bat only then looking up from where she sat to see a smile on the bear's face.
"Hey, Rouge," he said. "You look awfully down..."
Rouge dismissively waved as she looked away from her friend. "A teenage girl was almost killed today," she said, a slight grimace forming on her face as she said this. "If I hadn't intervened, Eggman would've killed her..."
Banjo's smile instantly fell upon hearing this, and then the bear scooched closer to the bat.
"Really?" he asked. "I hope Sonic didn't catch wind of that..."
The bat sighed, looking at Banjo now. "Thankfully, Sonic and his friends didn't see anything about the girl," she said. "I'll be honest, I think it's a good thing; the poor girl looks like she was abused all her life."
Banjo nodded solemnly. "I'll bet," he said gravely as he looked away. "Abused, huh...?"
"Hm?" asked Rouge, her head perking up as she heard this.
Banjo looked to his dream companion before shaking his head. "It's nothing," he replied.
His mournful tone told otherwise, however. The bat noticed this, and instantly she had one of her arms on Banjo's shoulders. "Oh, come on, you know I can't tell anyone," she said. "I'm a friend, you know? And besides, these people don't know who you are..."
Banjo sighed, looking down at the floor solemnly as he thought about this.
"I had a younger sister," he replied. "She was the best thing that ever happened to me, you know?"
Rouge's eyebrow rose, partly from curiosity and party from surprise as her arm retreated away from the bear's shoulder. "You did?" she asked. "I never would've guessed."
"Yeah," he said. "She was kind, smart, and extremely caring. I remember how fun-loving she was too..."
"I see..." said Rouge, nodding in reply. "But why are you referring to her in the past tense?"
"Well..." continued the bear, twiddling his thumbs together as he thought about the painful memories again. "She..."
Rouge could tell that this was greatly disturbing Banjo, but something nagged at her to find out more.
"Did something happen to her?" she asked quickly. "Like... did she die?"
The honey bear shook his head softly, and Rouge noticed his grip on the matress increasing greatly. "Worse," he replied. "She disappeared without a trace ten years ago."
The bat was shocked by this, topaz eyes registering pity as a gloved hand came to her mouth.
"Oh, no..." she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "I'm... I'm so sorry, Banjo... I mean..."
"Don't," said Banjo, enclosing Rouge's hand with his own and looking her straight into her eyes. "I've gotten enough of that. I know you mean well, but..."
The bear looked away as he released her hand, shaking his head sadly. "It's just so... hard... not to know your sister's fate."
"I'll say," replied Rouge as she crossed her arms in front of her. "I'm surprised you're taking it as well as you are now."
"Well, ten years of missing someone rubs it in a little harder than anything else," was the bear's reply. "You get used to it after a while. Plus, I've got help in trying to locate where she might have gone now..."
The former G.U.N. agent nodded slowly as she heard this. Deciding the conversation had become too dark, she decided to change the subject.
"So, do you know why we're seeing each other here?" she asked.
Banjo looked at her with a shrug. "I dunno," he replied. "Must be the emeralds."
"Can't be," replied the bat with a wink. "I've had friends that have had all of their adventures with these things, and never once have I ever seen them dreaming of each other. Do you have something else that's got magical properties."
The bear scratched his chin as he thought about Rouge's question. Finally, though, his sapphire eyes lit up as he turned to Rouge.
"Well, yeah," he said. "Kazooie keeps a magic wrench by her at all times. And since she sleeps at the foot of my bed..."
The two people looked straight ahead of them before turning to each other and nodding. Rouge stood up at this point, and Banjo noticed the change in the distribution of weight on the mattress as she began pacing around the room.
"That would make sense," she said as she rubbed her own chin. "Except, I don't think it's enough with just five of the Chaos Emeralds and your wrench to do anything. So there must be something else..."
Banjo remembered the files he had looked at with Kazooie during the day, and then he remembered the large green jewel that one Knuckles the Echidna was supposed to be guarding. Thinking of this, he raised one of his fingers in the air. "Could it be the Master Emerald?" he asked.
The agent turned around mid-step, looking at Banjo with a look of disbelief in her eyes. "How did you know about that?" asked Rouge.
"Well, my friend that knows everything?" asked the bear. "He knew lots of things about you and your friends, so I asked him."
Hm... thought the bat as she rubbed her chin. "And how would this friend know so much about us, hm?"
"It would take me forever to explain," replied Banjo. "I'll tell you some other time. So then, back to the Master Emerald..."
"But that's strange," replied the bat as she moved over to Banjo and sat back down on the bed. "Because the island it's situated on..."
She paused suddenly in her speech, her eyes widening in shock.
"Rouge?" asked Banjo, concerned for the bat as he turned to face her.
"I... This can't be good," she said finally. "It could mean a few things. It could mean that the Master Emerald could be way too close to one of us... or..."
"That it's the link that serves as our... well... dreams?" asked Banjo with a shrug. "And that it's somewhere in the middle?"
Rouge nodded. "I don't know at this point," she said. "Whatever the case, I'm not saying anything to Eggman!"
The bear winked at this. "I think that's as good an idea as any," he said, standing up so he was next to the bat. "Even with that IQ of his he can't see this happening, so maybe this will be our hope..."
Rouge shrugged at this, sifting a hand through her fur to get her white bangs out of her face as she looked at Banjo. "You know, Banjo, I'm actually kind of curious," said the bat softly. "That witch... Grunty? What did she have to her credit?"
The bear chuckled softly as he draped an arm over her shoulders. "Well, she had a bunch of machines that were always easy to work with," replied the bear. "She also had magic on her side, and..."
Rouge suddenly gave a confused glance at Banjo's snort at the end of his sentence, and suddenly he noticed the furry hand that was over his muzzle that was trying to hold in a chuckle.
"What, is it something like horrible rhymes or something?" she asked.
"Oh, yes," replied the bear, chuckling a little more than before. "They were pretty bad..."
Rouge rolled her eyes, wondering what Banjo saw as a bad rhyme. With a brief flash in her eye, she decided she'd try and emulate the evil witch that Banjo was always fighting.
"Was it something so bad as what I say now, or was it worse than that when you know how?" asked the bat, rhyming intentionally.
In reply, the bear simply gave the bat an empty stare, surprised at how she had nailed it on the head despite never having met the evil witch in the first place. Rouge looked down at the ground, and when she looked up a nervous smile played on her lips as she awaited Banjo's answer.
"You got it," he said, flabberghasted at what he had heard. "Now do that for every sentence you speak and you've got it down.'
"_Every sentence?" she cried in disbelief. "She did that every single sentence she spoke?"_
Banjo shrugged at this. "Pretty much," he said. "There was one time where her sisters forced her to stop, but other than that it's always been one bad rhyme after another..."
"Oh, my..." said Rouge, sitting down on the desk that they had conversed by the night before. "Actually, you probably know about all of my adventures now, right?"
Banjo had to calm down enough to answer with a slight nod, hoping that Rouge would get it before his unoccupied hand came to his stomach.
"Well, you think you could tell me about those adventures?" asked the bat, patting to a space next to her on the desk.
"Sure," replied the bear as soon as he had managed to stop laughing his head off about Rouge guessing about the bad rhymes. Banjo then sat on the desk next to Rouge, their feet dangling over the metallic floor.
It was then that the bear began speaking about his many adventures across the Isle 'o Hags, from when Tooty had been kidnapped by Grunty through the witch's two attempts at revenge to the events that had taken place at Showdown Town. Rouge seemed quite interested in Banjo's life before she had met him, and as the narraration went on Banjo could feel Rouge's gloved hand laying over his own. In reply, he simply blushed and continued his story, straight through until the end of the dream.
Banjo woke up that morning feeling extremely gratified. The sun was up, and somehow he had managed to wake up at exactly the same time that Kazooie did.
"Broo..." Kazooie cooed as she woke up. "Morning, Banjo."
"Morning, Kaz," replid Banjo similarly. "I saw Rouge in my dream again..."
"Yep?" asked the breegull. "I hope that went well."
"It did," he replied, jumping out of bed. "What do you say to some breakfast?"
Kazooie nodded sleepily as Banjo slung the signature blue backpack over his shoulders. "Sure," she said.
"Then let's get moving!" replied Banjo, walking over to the kitchen as he exclaimed this.