Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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Known Timeline of Events

(THE DISTANT PAST)

-The Hedgehog Dynasty is the established monarchy.

-Master Emerald gives prophecies of a future 'Chaos Born' who will be Hero of Mobius.

-Prophecies are depicted in Echidna murals.

-Echidnas divided into two clans: the 'Nocturnus' Clan and the 'Knuckles' Clan. 'Knuckles' Clan assume sacred duty of guarding the Master Emerald.

-The two clans war over territory.

-Tikal's father, Pachacamac, ('Knuckles' Clan) attempts to forcibly take the Master Emerald to use against their enemies.

-Perfect Chaos wipes out most of the Knuckles Clan.

-Angel Island is formed and separates from what will one day be called the Mystic Ruins.

-Tikal joins with the Master Emerald.

-Nocturnus Echidnas disappear into the Twilight Cage before they can dominate the planet. Gizoid remains left behind.

-'Knuckles' Echidnas break off contact with the rest of the world in order to protect themselves. Angel Island hides above the clouds.

-The Hedgehog Dynasty eventually ends.

(THE PAST)

-Acorn Dynasty is the established monarchy.

-Despite attempts to survive, the remainder of the Knuckles Clan begin to die off, unable to increase their numbers again.

-The Last Echidna, Tikal's descendent, dies after she lays one final egg - Master Emera/.. ...[ERROR:CORRUPTED] ... egg with ./.. .haos Ener.. but keeps .. .\|..[ERROR:CORRUPTED] ... yet.

-Archaeologists dig up evidence of the 'Fourth Great Civilisation' = the Ancient Echidnas. Discovery of the Mystic Ruins.

-Prophetic murals are unearthed.

-Professor Gerald Robotnik seeks to create the Ultimate Lifeform on the Space Colony ARK. Fails.

-Creation of the Biolizard.

-Professor Robotnik studies the Fourth Great Civilisation - discovers 'Cha.. //...' prophecy.

-ARK scientists work on the possibility of ti.. [ERROR:CORRUPTED]... . Discovery of Time Stones and Little Planet.

-Begin to scan the future.

_*_*_

-Scans of the future pick up the trace of a. .///.. ..nic. Correctly assume him to be the C...s [ERROR:CORRUPTED]... .

-Wait unt.. \\..n.. is older .nd st.on . [ERROR:CORRUPTED].... .

-Gerald Robotnik and a handful of scientists make preparations to travel into the future.

_*_*_

-Gerald Robotnik and a handful of scientists travel i... ..|||||[ERROR:CORRUPTED]. ...... . Find .. 5 y... ... ...,

extrac. ... [ERROR:cORRUPTED]... ... and ... ... .

-Return to the Past and use ... D.A .. ///]]]... creating the Ultimate Lifeform.

-Professor Gerald makes a deal with the Black Arms and splices Black Doom's DNA with the DN. .. ...,{}{}{}||| ... '..aos ..rn'.

-Shadow the Hedgehog is created.

-The events shown in 'Sonic Adventure 2' and 'Shadow the Hedgehog' flashbacks occur.

-Preserved D.. .. ...[ERROR:CORRUPTED] ... ..| .. confi..ated but not dest//...d.

(THE PRESENT)

-Present Day Master Emerald senses probes sent from the Past. Anticipates the arrival of the '..ao\//. ... and hatches a new Guardian from th. ...[ERROR:CORRUPTED]... .. ... ta... ...||| .. ... .ears:

-Knuckles is born. Becomes the Last Echidna.

-A year later, Ivo Robotnik attempts to take the blue Chaos Emerald from Jules and Aleena.

-Chaos Emerald detonates and finds a host to contain the chaos energy - drawn to the unborn hoglets since they are 'pure'

 - Sonic's embryo is killed.

-Finding the host is dead, Chaos Energy reconstructs the host's DNA with its own properties and reanimates the embryo, bringing it back to life.

-June 23 - Sonic the Hedgehog is born.

_*_*_

-Ivo Robotnik's brother, Ira, tracks down Jules and Aleena after five years, searching for Sonic.

-Jules is killed. Sonic escapes.

-Aleena, Sonia and Manic's fate: unknown.

_*_*_

-S////////////////[ERROR:CORRUPTED]////D//////

-Sonic survives by himself in the wild with no memory of his family or of his past at all.

-Dr Robotnik focuses on creating his Empire and abandons his previous plan to capture Sonic.

-Reunites with Sonic. The events shown in 'Sonic The Hedgehog' occur.

-Sonic unknowingly saves Miles Prower from bullies. Miles starts to follow Sonic.

-Sonic discovers Miles and renames him Tails. Sonic begins to raise Tails in the wild.

-The Battle of Robotropolis - Ira Robotnik is caught and taken to an asylum. Cream's father is killed.

-The events shown in 'Sonic The Hedgehog 2' occur.

-Dr Robotnik finds old research which discuss the science of t... .\\.... (isn't aw... he inherited the research from his ....d[ERROR:CORRUPTED]..th..). Turns his attention back to Sonic - collects life data and creates Metal Sonic. Also unearths the original preserved ... sample but doesn't have any way of using it yet so .. ...[ERROR:CORRUPTED] .. .. storage.

-Time Stones are collected.

-Amy Rose meets Sonic the Hedgehog for the first time.

-Events of 'Sonic CD' occur.

_*_*_

-Dr Robotnik discovers existence of the Master Emerald and misleads Knuckles

-Events of 'Sonic 3 and Knuckles' occur.

-Sonic and Knuckles eventually become friends after a shaky start.

-Dr Robotnik loses one of his bases to the government. ... /////...ple is confiscated.

-Begins to be known as Dr Eggman.

_*_*_

-Events of all Canon Sonic Games occur.

-Sonic Allies discover the Twilight Cage. Procurator Shade is the only member of the Nocturnus Clan to escape and return to Mobius with the Allies.

-Sonic and Silver meet. Silver begins to regularly visit.

-All characters involved in 'Sonic 06' continue to have memory dreams of the erased events.

-Sonic Allies grow up into adults.

-Events of 'Chaos Born' occur.

(THE FUTURE)

-Echidnas are thought to be extinct.

-Hedgehogs are a critically endangered species.

-G.U.N. is disbanded. Some members come together to form 'PeaceSpace'.

-The hedgehog that will one day be Silver is born. Mother is too poor to take care of him so leaves him at an orphanage.

-Recognising the risk of future dangers, PeaceSpace seek to re-create ultimate life in order to protect themselves.

-Avoiding the path of Project Shadow, PeaceSpace make several changes so that the government will approve and not fear an ultimate lifeform.

-Hoglet at the Orph./.age unfortunately doesn't .\\..ve .

-Using the origi... ...[ERROR:CORRUPTED] ... DNA .ample, PeaceSpace take the ... [ERROR:CORRUPTED]... ..dgehog and re.|||.. it with the ... [ERROR:CORRUPTED].. ... .

-Silver is born and is returned to the orphanage to grow older.

_*_*_

-Silver turns 14.

-PeaceSpace disbands.

-Silver tasked with travelling the time ways and correcting events that will doom the future.

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Chapter Text

Metal walls. Walls that curved up and round to form a huge empty tunnel. Metal walls of a metal tunnel down which a lamenting groan of wind could be quietly heard, a weak echo of the blustery world far away.

"Foolish wind. I hate it. It serves an unworthy master."

A network of cables and wires and pipes sprawled over the floor like a topographical view of some river delta but where rivers would have ran to the sea, this splurge of cables all linked up to a humming generator and from that to a series of old brick-like computer screens which may have once upon a time been treasured family appliances many years back. Now they had been recruited from scrap heaps and recycling centres to have their systems pulled out and pulled apart, to be upgraded and revamped to perform a new task for a new user. And all while they bleeped and buzzed, processing data meant for newer, sleeker computers, the constant wind droned on and on and on.

"I hate it. I hate the wind. It serves an unworthy master."

Down the curved metal walls ran the wires and across the dusty metal floor and around red metal feet...

"I hate it," Metal Sonic went on thinking in his head, rage and frustration fuelling his willpower as he battled with the files that were being read out on the computers. The screens fizzed a bit with static but Metal Sonic went on persevering, realising that he was just as stubborn to achieve his goals as his organic template was known to be. Such a thought only angered him more and, at long last, the files cracked and a flood of new information presented itself before him.

On the screens, file names began to appear and they were all ready to be opened.

"Y-Y-Y-You/ have done it?" chirped a synthetic child-like voice down at Metal's feet. "You h-h-have/ //done it?" The voice, so innocent and yet so sinister, reverberated with a crackling sound not unlike interference on a microphone. It belonged to the Tails Doll, sat obediently at Metal Sonic's feet like a trained pup, his felted head lolling back against the robot hedgehog's sturdy leg.

"20 years worth of encrypted codes, firewalls and security systems cannot keep me from a deadlock file," Metal Sonic replied, lifting a clawed fist in triumph and pulled the wires that he had plugged into himself during the code-cracking process. He felt Tails Doll's head lurch forward as the small 'toy' began to creep up Metal Sonic's body to latch itself to his shoulder, tapping his robotic brother with his antennae as he went.

"You're in! You're in! /At last! W-W-We're// / in! We're in!" he sang softly, pushing his face against Metal Sonic and tapping him affectionately.

More metal appeared as the final member of the robotic brotherhood came stepping from the darkness of the tunnel, his joints grinding painfully with every stride.

"Would have been sooner if we used a G.U.N. computer," Metal Knuckles felt the need to say, lifting his huge claws and welcoming Tails Doll's antennae which provided him with a surge of refreshing energy to recharge his systems. The robotic echidna's voice was raspy, probably due to the fact that many years worth of dust had clogged his audio systems. If he'd been organic, someone may have come to the assumption that he was a heavy smoker.

"We needed this to be secret," Metal Sonic reminded him. "If we used the G.U.N. computers, we would have been discovered."

"It is well enough that Dr Robotnik's database could be downloaded into Tails Doll." Metal Knuckles nodded his head appreciatively at the floppy fox robot who's empty stare gave no impression that he was grateful for the compliment.

Metal Sonic's optics briefly flickered to Metal Knuckles. "You have been gone a long time. Have you done what you wanted?"

Metal Knuckles produced a whirr of satisfaction. "My mission was a success."

For four years, Metal Sonic, Metal Knuckles and the Tails Doll had hidden themselves away in the remains of an underground resistance base found beneath the ruins of a radioactive power plant belonging to Eggman not far from Scrap Brain Zone. The whole area was deemed too dangerous for civilians and it had been abandoned as a ghost town by the military forces. The resistance group that had used the base had cleared out shortly after the attack from Infinite a long time ago and only a few homeless beggars were found littering the tunnels which the three robots had made short, messy work of. Since breaking from the control of the Robotnik family and escaping the destruction of Christmas Isle with the downloaded data from the facility, they had been working on breaking through the deadlocks that were inaccessible to even the old Commander of the G.U.N.

===Accessing===

##GuardianUnitsofNationsDatabase####DeadlockFilesAccess##

###ERROR###ACCESSDENIED###ERROR####

#ACCESSGRANTED#

~Data Retrieval~

Data Retrieved:

File:SouthIslandFile:DrIvoJulianRobotnikFile:Robotropolis

File:SonicTheHedgehogFile:DNAStorageFile:ProjectShadow

File:SonicTheHedgehogFile:DNAStorageFile:ProjectSilver

Tails Doll squeaked excitedly and Metal Knuckles's green optics twinkled with interest as he stepped up beside Metal Sonic and watched his team leader open up the first file which turned out to be hazy black and white photos of Mobotropolis (before Robotnik invaded it) and accompanying documents and newspaper articles. For robots, it didn't take them long to read everything.

"...Time travellers?" Metal Knuckles repeated uncertainly.

"From the past," Metal Sonic growled and narrowed his gaze at the screen. "The humans of Space Colony Ark."

"You mean to tell me those foolish flesh bags managed to tamper with the fabrics of space-time?" Metal Knuckles spoke. Had his robotic voice been capable of portraying emotion, it would have been riddled with disgust.

"Not only tamper but penetrate it." Metal Sonic pointed a lethal claw at the screen. "'Following what appeared to be a freak storm, reports came to say that a group of approximately 5 travellers appeared as though emerging from ripples of visible air on the outskirts of Robotropolis, then called Mobotropolis'," he read, "'and it was only for the reason that several witnesses all confirmed such a statement that modern day scientists have thus brought forth the theory of Time Travel. What purpose the travellers had come for, few seem to know as Robotropolis was declared a 'Forbidden City' by the South Island Council just weeks after Dr Robotnik invaded in the late 1900's.'"

"And the true reason as to why they were there?" Metal Knuckles grunted.

As if to answer him, Metal Sonic selected the next deadlocked file to only be presented with a series of video logs recorded by none other than Professor Gerald Robotnik, Dr Eggman's grandfather. He was looking healthier than he had been in his later years of life and when he spoke, he did so with an eagerness, an energy that was waiting to delve into science, a familiar spark that seemed to light a fire under all mad scientists and one that would only be too easily passed on to the professor's grandson, Ivo Robotnik, in years to come.

-----

"-evious attempts to create Ultimate life. We call it the Biolizard but it remains as a reminder to us how far we are from achieving our goals. I fear... I fear that there simply will never be a creature that can utilise the power of Chaos at will. The secrets to such a feat remain buried with the extinct Echidna species and their ancient prophecies will never be fulfilled. But if only for my granddaugh-"

"-the answer that might have eluded us all these years. Our work in the science of traversing space-time may unintentially show us the way. The murals found in the architecture of the Mystic Ruins are over 4000 years old but are still legible and our many months of trying to decipher the meaning behind it has left us with one conclusion: the only other people to have spiritual connections to the powers of Chaos are Hedgehogs, a species that ruled the planet alongside Echidnas before the fall of that great civilisation-"

"-e no record of one as blue as the mural would have us believe and many of my scientists are ready to admit that we have been mistaken and the creature from the mural has been misidentified. I can be in no doubt, however. We continue to scour the timeline in search of-"

"-owing closer and closer. With fine-tuning, our instruments may yet reveal-"

"-ound it! The missing piece of the puzzle! Data shows that the subject will not be born for decades to come but it is enough for our science! We have only to discover the coordinates and a team will be assembled to collect the necessary samples that will finally unlock the key to creating the Ultimate Lifeform. Maria may yet be saved!"

-----

Metal Sonic, had he a mouth, would have sneered at the video screen and at the big-headed human that sat there talking away to himself. Most of his synthetic life was filled with utter contempt for organics and their petty emotions and all the weaknesses that went with them but... Well, there was a little part of Metal Sonic that, dare he even think it, harboured some pride over the fact that he had been modelled in the image of a hedgehog.

Modelled in the image of a hedgehog that this so-called 'man of science' believed to one that held the genetic key to achieve 'ultimate' life.

-----

"A success. With the subject that we believed to have been 'chaos born' captured and the samples extracted, we have been able to acquire all that we need though we have been forced to abandon the subject. I pray that his memory has been sufficiently tampered with so that he will not recall anything of himself before our arrival."

-----

Tails Doll let out a soft whine and his head sagged over Metal Sonic's shoulder, his dead black eyes fixated on the next file, all too eager or nosy to see what secrets they held. It was even shorter than the previous two; just a photocopy of a short letter:

"Dr Silo,

I am writing to inform you that our agents have been successful in acquiring all samples found in the possession of the Robotnik family. The Hedgehog DNA, which we believe to have been used for the classified 'Project Shadow', is now on its way to your facility where we have been assured that it will be safely stored until there comes a time when 'Project Silver' can begin.

Regards,

Dr Von Schlemmer"

Metal Knuckles's throat gave a creak as he turned his neck. 

"What now?" he asked.

"...We want to be rid of all our enemies," Metal Sonic answered him. "With the right equipment, I may destroy three hedgehogs with one fatal blow. A fourth one after. But we must be sure of this information and the only way I can confirm it is by journeying to the future."

Tails Doll awkwardly lifted his head. "Q-Q-Query: How/ ///are you going to do that? Little Planet is not due to appear-ear in the a-a-area for/ /many months and that's where the Time Stones are."

Metal Sonic reached up and took Tails Doll into his hands, assessing his weight and density, feeling the circuitry and electricity that coursed through the body.

"I won't use the Time Stones," the robot hedgehog simply replied and, giving the Doll a quick pat on the head, turned to the robot echidna. "Metal Knuckles, what was it that you took time away to do?"

Metal Knuckles took a second to admire his long sharp hand blades before answering. "It has been four years. I have updated information on our enemies."

Tails Doll heard the sharp hiss that came from Metal Sonic as the robot's optics flickered in a dangerous rage. 

"...Sonic has been barring me for all that time."

"Selfish. Selfish. Selfish," Tails Doll sang, letting his antennae glow.

"What then have you to report?"

Metal Knuckles gave an annoyed grunt.

"...My Inferior has already procreated an offspring." He made eye contact with Metal Sonic. "It would seem that your Inferior is about to do the same."

Chapter Text

Finishing his juice, Knuckles took up the Mobius Monthly and disinterestedly cast his gaze over various articles about current events and only briefly took interest in anything that looked as though it might involve him. There was always a small section on page 7 called 'Angel Island Tracker' where readers could keep up to date with where some people believed the floating isle was located at various times of the year. This month, according to eye witnesses and atmospheric scientists, Angel Island was passing by the West Coast of Metropolis before it was most likely to return to the coast off the Mystic Ruins. 

They were correct.

The magazine then buckled as a weight descended upon him from above and suddenly there in Knuckles' lap was a small, pudgy little puggle which looked up at him in delight. Ruby-Lei was 3 years old now and had all the charm and personality to go with it. With her rich red fur and her dainty white cresent on her chest, she was the spitting image of her father in every way except for her white-tipped locks and her mother's teal coloured eyes.

To find her appearing in his lap and crushing the magazine took Knuckles by surprise and he looked up at his wife who had deposited her on him.

"Here you go," Rouge smiled. She had her coat on and a bag was slung over her elbow as she stepped over to the nearest mirror to check her hair and makeup.

"Pardon?"

"I'm working today, remember?" Rouge said, brushing her shoulders.

Knuckles felt alarm bells ringing in his head. "You finished your Work Leave?"

"Time flies when you're having fun, hey sweetie?" Rouge smiled. "Anyway, there's your kid. Don't let her walk off the edge of Angel Island will you? I'll see you when I get back." She briefly dug through her bag to make sure she'd remembered to pick up her essentials.

"But," Knuckles protested as Ruby, dressed in nothing but pull-ups, began to slide down her father's legs, "I thought we were going to think about Day Care? Or a sitter? What if the Master Emerald needs me? I've not actually looked after her by myself since she learnt to climb."

Boy, had that been a nightmare: walking in to find Ruby halfway up her nursery wall.

"Neither have I. You be sure to tell me what it's like, won't you? You can pretend I'm still in the house. You're good at that aren't you?" Rouge stood by Knuckles' armchair and grinned at his large purple eyes. "Heh heh. You're such a cutie."

"And if there's an emergency?"

"Then you're lucky you have so many friends that can come and help you out." Rouge checked her watch and then the clock on the wall for good measure. "Look, I'm going to be late if I don't leave now. If you're really in a stew, drop her off with Shade or something. She's an echidna."

Knuckles glanced sadly at his daughter as she climbed back up his legs to slide down again. "Shade's on vacation and she wouldn't want Ruby anyway."

"Fine!" Rouge sighed, beginning to get annoyed. "Pawn her off on Tails or Amy and stop keeping me from going to work. I'll bring food home. See ya!" She blew a kiss to the puggle. "Be good for daddy."

"Bye Ma!" Ruby called, waving a fist. "Bye Ma! Buh bye!"

Knuckles stood at the window of their house under the shrine with Ruby in his arms, watching as Rouge took to the skies outside and flew out of sight beyond the trees. 

Ruby waved until she couldn't see her mother and then, after a twinge of sadness, turned to her father expectantly, as though he had some magical cure for this mild seperation anxiety.

"So it's just you and me, pug," Knuckles grunted, sitting back down in his chair and plopping the little echidna on his legs. "Think we'll survive?"

Ruby considerd the question for a second and nodded dramatically. "Ya."

"Atta girl," Knuckles smiled, stroking his daughter's head. "Echidnas are born survivors. Perfect Chaos might have wiped most of us out but we're still hanging on. That's the kinda attitude I'd expect from the youngest member of the Knuckles Clan."

Pleased with her father's praise (and not completely understanding what else he was talking about), Ruby clentched her fists and buried them into Knuckles' sturdy chest with the comical frown on her face that was often saved for when she was feeling extra tough.

"Knoockles!" she grunted in a funny deep voice which made her father laugh. Then she paused and rather than continue the 'beating' she was giving her father, began to carefully trace the outline of the white shape on Knuckles' chest.

"...I see me moooon," she sang.

"That's the mark of the Guardian," Knuckles told her with a soft expression on his face. "At least I think it is. Either that or it's just a birth mark that's passed on. Pretty sure my father had that mark. And my father's father. And the father of my father's father. Or maybe the mother of my father's father's..." He stopped when he noticed that Ruby wasn't listening to him. "...Look, you have a 'moon' too. Sorta upside down though, eh?"

Ruby stroked her front, admiring her white marking and looking very pleased with herself.

"Can I be going gardan," she asked. Her voice was a little muffled from where she was looking down at herself.

"You want to go in the garden?"

"Go... Go be guarding."

"Gardening? You want to check on daddy's grape vines?"

"Guarding!"

"Guarding? Oh, you mean being the Guardian?" Knuckles hesitated and looked at his daughter proudly. "...Well... sure! If you want to take over from your Pop one day... But it takes years of training and, you know, you're very young. Not sure what your mother would think..." 

He looked out the window a tad wistfully before looking at Ruby's big round eyes, his voice slowly betraying a touch of sorrow. 

"And it's a full time job, too. You want to spend the rest of your life looking after the Master Emerald? You wouldn't want to... live your own life? Meet people and... and make friends?" His voice went funny. "...See the world?"

Images of his lonely youth trapped on Angel Island briefly passed through his memories. Waking up every day and patrolling the island before taking his position at the top of the shrine for the rest of the day, whether it was raining, snowing or storming, through the harshest winds, coldest temperatures, and blistering heats. Sometimes, when the clouds parted, Knuckles could spy the world down below, carrying on with their own lives which were full of variety. But he had simply learnt to cope with loneliness and accept it, enjoy it even.

That was when life threw a curveball at him in the shape of a blue hedgehog.

"Ah, what am I saying?" Knuckles laughed, relieving Ruby who had just been starting to get worried. "If you end up growing up and making friends with the likes of any kid of Sonic's, you'll be dragged onto all kinds of crazy adventures, just like I was. Better get used to that. Hedgehogs are a right pain." He proudly smiled as his daughter hugged his huge hand and squeaked. "...Come on, then. Best go see the Old Girl upstairs."

Up the steps to the top of the shrine, Knuckles carried her. Ruby had only been to see the Master Emerald a couple of times when she was young due to the fact that Knuckles didn't want the Master Emerald to bond with her too soon and choose her as the next Guardian before she'd had a chance to make her own decision. While she'd still been in the womb, Rouge had often remarked that it felt as though she was more in tune with the Master Emerald than she'd ever been before.

Knuckles felt the Master Emerald warm up a little as he appeared with the younger echidna in his arms.

"There you are, Ruby-Lei. The Master Emerald is happy to see you. Remember what I told you?" he asked, putting Ruby down at his feet.

"Mm-mm," Ruby nodded, holding onto her father's leg as though she had suddenly grown shy of the giant emerald. Then, in a quiet voice she began to address the mighty jewel. "Servers are seb-sebern chaos embalds. Chaos be power en..en... " (she'd always had a problem trying to pronounce this word) "en-itched by the heart." That was all she could remember for now.

In response, the Master Emerald glowed and Ruby beamed up at her father.

"...The Master Emerald likes you, pug," Knuckles commented, patting Ruby's head.

"I love Master Embald." Her slight speech impediment, which everyone knew she'd probably grow out of, only made little Ruby's voice sound sweeter.

"Yeah..." Knuckles closed his eyes and inhaled slowly. "The Master Emerald has been singing. Can you feel it?" He stood there silently, his eyes closed as he breathed gently. Ruby watched him endearingly though she couldn't feel anything yet. She was still far too young. "...I'll bet it's just as excited as you are about the baby hedgehogs."

Ruby's eyes started to shine and she began to hop up and down in sudden excitement.

"Are they coming yet, Papa?" she asked eagerly, looking between Knuckles and the Master Emerald expectantly.

"Nearly, Ruby," Knuckles murmured. "Very nearly."

When the doors opened, creaking along the way, Orbot didn't immediately rush in and risk having his head removed from his shoulders as many an eager young bot had done before him. Edging in slowly, Orbot made sure to know his master's whereabouts before he fully entered the room. 

Dr Eggman was at his chest of drawers and staring at himself in the mirror.

"...Good morning, Doctor Eggman," Orbot greeted quietly, hovering by the exit should a quick getaway be needed. Eggman ignored him and a few minutes passed without either of them saying anything. "Can I get you anything?" Orbot tried asking and then, as Eggman's gaze turned to him in the reflection of the mirror, hurriedly added, "Ah... Uh... By which I mean, anything to eat or drink? I'm not sure I can deliver any kind of, um, Freedom Fighter or any of the Resistance to..." Eggman scoffed and turned away, kicking over his bin as he went. Another job for the robots to get round to doing. "...you."

Eggman disappeared into his en suite and didn't reappear until he was fully dressed in his usual red suit.

"Any plans for the day, Sir?" Orbot tried again.

This time Eggman did answer him. "I always have plans."

Orbot coughed awkwardly. "...For the day, Sir?"

Eggman sat down on his bed and bared his teeth at the red henchbot.

"Get out!"

Cubot almost found his partner plowing him down when he came hovering by his master's quarters. Taking a moment to compose himself after his dash from the room, Orbot cleared his mechanical throat.

"I know I've said this before, Cubot," he murmured, "but I'm worried about Dr Eggman. I think he's... Well, I think he's losing the plot if you know what I mean."

"I hate it when that happens," Cubot sighed, misinterpreting things, as usual. "Just when you're getting into the book too."

"No," Orbot groaned, "I mean Dr Eggman might be... how to put it delicately... not firing on all four cylinders." Cubot stared at him, still puzzled. Orbot rolled his eyes as, once again, he had to resort to spelling everything out for his dim-witted friend. "He's going crazy."

"Oh," Cubot nodded. "Why didn't you just say that in the first place?"

"Because I can hear the pair of you dolt-brains!" Orbot and Cubot jumped as Eggman's shape appeared behind them. "And of course I'm going crazy. It happens to all of us when we reach our time."

Cubot chuckled and made a poor show of trying to talk behind his hand to Orbot. "Guess his clock is set a little earlier, huh?"

"I can still hear you!" Eggman brought his hand down and slapped it smartly against the back of Cubot's head. It didn't do much in relieving the scientist of his pent up frustration and he slowly made his way to the kitchen with sagging shoulders. "Ah but what's the use in hiding it? The pile of Retirement Home Junk Mail just gets bigger and bigger."

"It surely is remarkable how the mailman can seem to get here to deliver mail but no-one else can," Orbot chirped up merrily as the two robots followed, adding today's delivery of Retirement Home advertisments to the pile.

"Why would anyone else want to deliver mail?" Cubot mumbled, sifting through the pile with a little interest.

"I was referring to the fact that the lair is cloaked and many miles out to sea. The military armies and the world leaders couldn't locate us but a humble fellow in powder blue shorts can get his letters all the way to our front door without any problem. Remarkable."

"What is remarkable," Eggman spat, making himself a coffee, "is that I'm still no closer to finding that renegade of mine."

Orbot and Cubot exchanged looks. "...You mean Metal Sonic?"

Dr Eggman's darkening face confirmed the question. "He took off four years ago with Metal Knuckles and the Tails Doll and now..."

"It sometimes happens in families," Cubot shrugged. "Some kids just have no respect. They leave the nest without so much as a thank you or a goodbye. Where's the appreciation?"

Eggman gave the yellow robot a withering look. "I sometimes wish you'd leave the nest."

Chapter Text

"Hold my hand," Silver warned, making a snatch for the toddler's waving arms. "I said hold..." Losing patience, Silver held out his other hand and caught the boy in a shimmer of blue psychokintetic energy. "There. Happy now?"

His 2 year old son, a strong-willed silver furred kitten, hung in mid-air with a look that suggested he was both enjoying being the air and feeling frustrated that he couldn't move. Wagging his purple-tipped tail, he began to wiggle about.

"Ah, ah, ah, no," Silver scolded, safely manouvering the child over the road and putting him safely down on the other side. "We're by a busy street so you're going to have to do as you're told and stay with me until we get to the park." He took the kitten's paw in his own again and felt the youngster pull. "Stop squirming. All right, all right, we're here now."

With a mew of delight, Steele scampered forward into the park and made a jump for the sandbox.

"So glad that kid is still in diapers," Silver had thought to himself, not for the first time. He certainly didn't want to get an angry phone call from some park warden to complain that his son had been using the community sandbox as a litterbox instead. He'd grow out of it, Blaze had assured him.

In all honesty, Silver was amazed he even HAD a son. He and Blaze had narrowly avoided a royal scandal in the Sol Dimension when Blaze had discovered herself pregnant before she and Silver were due to wed but, sadly for the new parents, she had miscarried their first offspring.

Since the wedding, there were grave misgivings about the future of the Sol Throne for the doctors believed that the combination of Silver's psychokinesis and Blaze's pyrokinesis prevented a healthy embryo from growing. It was, therefore, a happy surprise when Blaze had given birth some time later to a healthy handsome prince with long silver fur.

Fur that would have to be washed clean of sand at this rate.

"Being a single parent is hard, huh?" a deeper voice commented and Silver jumped.

"Oh, Shadow... " Silver smiled awkwardly. "Ha, you come here often?"

Shadow looked around at the crowd of chattering parents and their small squealing broods. "Don't be an idiot. I know that's hard for you but please don't."

"Oh dear. Did you only have three glasses of whiskey for breakfast this morning?"

"Well, you wouldn't know, Mr I'm-Anyone's-After-A-Cup-Of-Soda."

Silver gave a laugh and sat down on a bench to keep an eye on Steele. "I know you probably don't come down to the kid's park just to soak up the atmosphere so what's the matter? I mean, given that you know I come here with Steele..."

"Yes, you should congratulate yourself; not everyone can say that I've taken the time to personally seek them out." Shadow flinched as a smiling rabbit apologetically dashed by him to retrieve her child from the top of the climbing frame.

"If I painted myself blue," Silver grinned, "I'm sure I'd be seeing you a lot more often."

"Oh Silver..." Shadow gripped his hands, reminding himself that there were children around. "You're just... SO funny."

"That's your laughing face is it?"

"Silver..."

"Okay, okay." Silver held up his hands and departed from the 'banter'. "What did you need me for? Is it, perchance, anything to do with certain new-born arrivals which are due any day now?"

Shadow blinked at Silver. 

"What? Oh, that..." He coughed. "I'd completely forgotten about that."

"...No you hadn't."

"You want to start a fight about it?" Shadow warned, leaning on the back of the bench. "Here? In front of your own son? I'd hate to do that to the boy."

"I'm not looking to fight you about anything, Shadow, I just wanted to see a little excitement."

Shadow looked towards Steele who was shyly watching another little toddler play with his bucket and spade as though he was trying to muster up the courage to ask to have a go.

"...Are you excited?"

"About Sonic's kids?" Silver smiled, his quills rustling as he turned his head. "Heck yeah!"

Shadow went very quiet and slowly sank onto the bench beside Silver. His face was unreadable.

"Come on, Shadow," Silver sighed, dropping his smile. "...I've never seen a baby hedgehog before. You know how hard that is to think about?"

All around the playpark were children of a diverse population; cats, dogs, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, wolves, bears, birds, reptiles, horses, sheep...

"I, a hedgehog, have never seen the juvenile form of my own species. Of course, I'm excited. It's something totally new to me."

"...What's so important about that?" Shadow shrugged.

"Well..." Silver shrugged, "I guess it's not so important for the average person but there weren't exactly hedgehogs running about the planet in the future during my old time. Even now with the new timeline in place there aren't ANY hedgehogs that live near me that I know of. They certainly aren't having kids, that's for sure. I guess it just feels nice to see that you aren't part of an extinct species. I totally get how Knuckles felt when he found out that Rouge was having an echidna."

"Were you disappointed then," Shadow quietly said with a smirk, "that Blaze had a kitten?"

"What? Shadow, come on..."

"All right, fine. I am sorry that I said anything," Shadow shook his head and willingly decided to drop the subject about Sonic's impending fatherhood, "I'm actually here because, amazingly, you haven't been picking up your communicator calls recently. As usual."

"Been busy. And when I'm not busy, I'm back in my own time where, you know, it's hard to get a signal over the space-time continuum."

Blaze and Silver's arrangement for raising Steele was to have him spend equal amounts of time in Blaze's world, where he could benefit from the energy of the Sol Emeralds, and in Sonic's world, so he could spend time with children his own age and form strong bonds with the Allies' offspring. The future, Silver had firmly decided, wasn't fit to raise a prince like Steele. It was too turbulent and, above all, too lonely.

"Well, I'll cut to the chase," Shadow was saying. "GUN have been getting reports about some kind of spike in chaos energy over in the West. My team have been sent to scope it out."

"That's nice."

Shadow glanced at Silver. "...Are you in?"

Silver turned away from where Steele had now made friends with the other kid and blinked at Shadow in surprise. "What?"

"I'll have Rouge and Omega with me, of course, but I need..."

"...help?"

"A second opinion, actually," Shadow stopped himself from growling. "Trust me, if I DID need help, YOU wouldn't be the one I'd go to."

"Oof," Silver chuckled, "you sure know how to kick a man down, don't you?"

"I've been told I'm good at that, yes."

"So you need my opinion on, what, time travel? The power of the mind?"

"I'm pretty sure you heard me mention chaos energy."

Silver took a moment to comprehend the conversation, running it through in his mind over and over again.

"You..." He made sure to establish firm eye contact with Shadow. "You're coming to ME about chaos energy?"

"Knuckles is on Emerald Duty and Sonic..." Shadow rolled his eyes. "Well, he's currently a bit preoccupied with being a father-to-be. Won't wager much on his attention being fully on the mission. That leaves the only other hedgehog that's had direct contact with chaos energy which is you."

Silver nodded and turned his head away, a million different thoughts passing through his brain. Finally, coming to a decision, he stood and slowly approached the sandbox.

"...Hey, Steele?" he smiled down at his son. "You wanna go see Uncle Tails, Aunty Zooey and Rosemary?"

The Mystic Ruins was awash with summer greenery when Silver and Shadow arrived at the house which joined onto Tails Workshop. The noise of the waterfall was distant but the mist was still heavy enough in the air to create very pale rainbows among the clouds.

Down the front path and past the rows of brilliantly golden marigolds went Silver with Steele while Shadow shuffled half-heartedly behind them, more eager to be off and getting on with a mission than making house calls on a couple of foxes and their plant daughter.

After the doorbell rang a few times, the front door opened and there stood Zooey the Fox having recently dried herself after a bath from the looks of her fluffed fur. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a red top and had a gentle smile on her face which was specially reserved for any friend of her partner.

"Silver and Steele!" she beamed. "What a nice surprise..." Then she caught sight of the darker hedgehog standing behind who ackowledged Zooey with a nod. "Shadow too? Did you need Tails for something?"

"Uh, no," Silver told her and held Steele's paw tighter as the kitten tried to pull his father into the house. "Hopefully not, anyway. I've just been asked to help out with a mission for Team Dark and, well, I was wondering if you'd be okay to just watch Steele for a few hours..."

Zooey had noticed Steele's impatience to go and fish out the toys that Zooey had collected should honourary nephews or neices come visiting. 

"Of course it's fine! Rosemary! Rosemary, you've got a visitor!" she called into the house.

PIT, PAT, PIT, PAT, TUMP-TUMP-TUMP-TUMP, PIT PAT, PIT, PAT came the sound of delicate feet on the upstairs landing and then down the stairs and then across the house. Sliding into view on the polished wooden floor came 6 year old Rosemary-Foxglove, looking more grown-up than ever.

"Has Uncle Sonic and Aunty Amy's babies come!?" she immediately asked, her blue eyes shining. Silver had to bite back a smile.

"No, sweetheart," Zooey chuckled and stepped to one side. "It's Steele."

"Hi Steeley !" Rosemary's brief moment of disappointment soon vanished. She loved her younger 'cousins' and demonstrating this she came over and took Steele by the hand. "Come see what I'm doing." So Steele obediantly trotted in behind Rosemary, waving his free hand behind him as he bade farewell to his father without looking back. As the pair of them vanished from view, they could hear Rosemary still chatting to him. "...It's big girl stuff so you won't understand because you're only little but I can show you... Are you excited for the new babies? I am. My daddy says I get to hold one when they get born..."

Silver shook his head. "Sonic and Amy must be feeling the pressure from these kids to get on with things."

"It's the first time that Rosemary has been old enough to get properly excited about a new baby," Zooey shrugged. "Don't think Steele is anywhere near as excited but he's being polite about it. Bless him. Anyway, it's not a problem. Cream is coming over at some point to do some gardening with Rosemary and I'm sure we'll manage. I'll keep him for as long as you need me too. The pair of you better take care though."

"Thanks, Zooey," Silver said. "And tell Tails I say hello."

Tails was walking through the back door which lead into his workshop when Zooey came through from the hallway after saying goodbye and closing the front door.

"Was that Silver I heard at the door?" Tails asked, peeling off his oil stained gloves to throw in the wash.

"Yes," Zooey nodded. "Shadow too."

"Silver AND Shadow?" Tails murmured, looking a trifle worried. "What did they need?"

"Silver was just dropping off Steele." Zooey pointed into the dining room where Rosemary had an assortment of papers and pencils and toys spread out. The kitten was sat next to her with a fat blue crayon in his paws that Rosemary had given him for his own piece. "He's helping Team Dark with something from what I can gather."

Tails gnawed his bottom lip. "...Did they say what?"

"No." Zooey glanced at Tails with a frown. "Why?"

Her fiancé (for Tails and Zooey had been engaged for about a year), leant against the wall and tried wiping at the dark oil stains on his fur.

"This morning my computer detected abnormal chaos energy readings somewhere to the West, beyond Westopolis," he explained. "Just thought it was a coincidence. The G.U.N. would have been likely to send someone like Shadow to investigate."

Zooey didn't like the sound of that. "...What do you mean by 'abnormal'?" 

After all, the world was full of chaos energy. It was the very stuff the Mobians breathed alongside oxygen. It ran through all of them, with some people more affected than others.

"Sudden spikings," Tails told her. "Areas where highly concentrated amounts of chaos energy are, well, 'errupting', for want of an easier word."

"So like little flares of chaos?"

"Yeah, kinda like that." Tails straightened up again and gave a small smile. "I guess Shadow, Rouge and Omega have been sent to check things out."

"Well," Zooey sighed, "here's hoping it's just some underground energy veins that have broken through the surface."

The hoglets were due that summer and in the meantime, Amy Rose had been advised to take slow strolls every once in a while to help things along. 

"It'll be a nice quiet time for you and your husband," the doctor had said. "I went on walks with my partner just before the baby was due," said the lady waiting in line at the pharmacy. "A nice amble stroll through the park is so romantic," the midwife had gushed.

Yeah, well, none of them were married to Sonic the Hedgehog.

To be fair to him, Amy had thought, he did make the effort to slowly walk beside his heavily pregnant wife for most of the way and he only went to sprint off around the country a couple of times which didn't take him very long. He surprised Amy by keeping pace with her this time and trying not to mimic her slight waddle as they turned for home.

"You getting tired, Ames?" he then asked, noticing her expression change. She was leaning on his arm and he felt the increase of weight as she walked on and on.

"A little," she admitted. "My back is aching and my ankles are really hurting." She was more than ready for the hoglets to be born.

Seeing as baby hedgehogs were extraordinarily small at birth, Amy wasn't as big as you might expect a human to look carrying more than one child but it didn't mean that it didn't wear her out just as much.

"See," Sonic tutted, "told you we should have taken the short path."

"Yes, okay, I know," Amy moaned. "I'll be fine."

Sonic then stopped walking. "That's right you will - come here."

"What are you-?" Amy began to ask and then shrieked as the blue hedgehog bent down and carefully lifted Amy off her feet and slowly leant her back in his arms, carrying her bridal style. "SONIC!" she screeched. "Sonic, put me down! This is embarassing!"

"There's no-one around for you to get embarassed in front of," Sonic laughed, beginning to walk along the path again.

"Look, I'm too heavy," Amy went on complaining. "Put me down!"

"Heavy? Nonsense. I'm just skilled enough to carry my wife and children all at the same time. Those spats with Knuckles really pay off."

"You're not exactly affording me any dignity here, darling."

"Dignity, shmignity. I've always carried you this way. I thought you liked it." Sonic smirked at her with his eyes half-liddded, in an attempt to look flirty. "You used to put your arms around my neck and gush about how brave and handsome and heroic I was."

Amy sighed, folding her arms and surrendering to the situation. "But the doctor said I'm meant to do the gentle strolling. Nature isn't going to care if the father does some gentle strolling too."

"What if I do some running?"

"Not with us in your arms you're not!"

"No," Sonic's flirt face was back on again. "I mean you could stand in the middle and watch me do all that exhilirating running around you that seemed to get your spikes in a spin and perhaps the excitement will cause-"

"Don't talk like that in front of the children!" Amy gasped, her face heating up. "They can hear us you know!"

"Eh, they won't know what I'm talking about." Sonic looked down at Amy's tummy warningly, "But just in case you do, you'll have to wait until your older before we have THAT talk."

Amy laughed and was ready to scold some more but by that time, Sonic had carried her all the way back to their cottage. Or Amy's cottage, really, seeing as Sonic was still a nomad traveller by nature. Not that he hadn't been sticking around in the past couple of months in the event that the children he'd fathered would arrive soon...

"Here we are," Sonic announced, using his very talented feet to open the door once Amy had leant across and unlocked it. Navigating the porch and the hallway table and finding a safe route to the front room, Sonic managed to lower Amy into the cushions on the sofa. "Now, my lady," he told her, taking her jacket, "you stay there and I'll bring your slippers and a drink."

"Yes, Husband," Amy chuckled, kicking off her shoes and reaching for the remote.

Sonic wasn't so fussy with Amy usually but, whether he could pick up on something or not, he seemed extra attentive to her needs. It was usually the mother that 'nested' in her final stages before the birth but Amy had never known someone to 'nest' as much as Sonic seemed to. She personally believed that it was his fear and excitement mixed with his 'out of this world' levels of chaos energy that was making him alert and sensitive.

In truth, Amy was partly glad for this; she liked being the more laid back one for once. She could afford to be too, because she was absolute certain that it was because of Sonic's Chaos biology that had meant that she'd had a relatively easy pregnancy. Besides the back pain and ankles.

Turning on the TV, Amy was confronted with a talk show: Late Night Sit Down with Jimmy Falcon. Not usually what she'd traditionally watch but his opening pitch seemed to interest her:

"-there still robots running loose? This is the big question we're asking here today and it seems that, if our recent audience poll is anything to go by, a lot of people are saying 'yes'. Joining me on the show this evening, let me please welcome, Candy the Mouse, internet Vlogger sensation, and Alex Kid who I am sure many viewers will recognise as-"

She supposed it was better than watching that cooking programme with Gordon the Ram, or wincing at Jerry Springbok.

"Sweetie," she called over her shoulder, "did the mail come today?"

"It's in the hallway. I'll bring it."

"-want to thank you both for being here. Now regarding the audience poll, we're getting plenty of the same arguments which are that just because Eggman isn't taking center stage, it doesn't mean his robots are out of the picture. Candy, I know you mentioned something like this on your recent vlog-?"

"One pair of snuggle slippers, one washed and fluffed robe, one healthy fruit drink and three letters delivered fresh today," Sonic announced as he came into the room.

"Thank you," Amy smiled, "and I'll expect you'll want a tip?" Lifting her face she kissed him on the cheek.

"What do you want to do for food tonight?" Sonic then asked.

Amy wrinkled her nose. "I don't know. I don't feel like cooking, to be honest."

"Never fear," Sonic grinned. "I'll whip us up something."

"And by something, you mean chili dogs."

"Hey, no, I can do... an omelette!"

He never failed in making Amy laugh. "Sounds delicious."

'Candy the Mouse' was still chatting away on the television screen:

"-oint remains that I wouldn't trust Dr Eggman not to make more robots. I mean, when you reach that stage in life, what else have you got except your hobbies? I don't even think Eggman knows how NOT to make robots. So then you have to ask, where does he keep them all?"

"World getting paranoid?" Sonic murmured with a half-hearted smile.

"They always do," Amy sighed, leaning back and balancing her mug on her tummy as Jimmy Falcon began to talk again.

"-ports on robot sightings have doubled over the course of a year but the government has yet to make an official statement regarding the people's fears. Now, Alex, you mentioned in your article that you believe that there may be reason behind this?"

"Yes, well, the short answer is that they're keeping quiet about this because, as is usually the case, they're scared about the result or... sorry, the response from the population if they're told that they aren't as secure or as safe as the higher ups would have them believe. But, you know, to give them the benefit of the doubt, there is the possibility that we ARE perfectly safe and that they have FULL control of the situation and these robot sightings are just nuisences to them."

"Yes, and with some of the Sonic Allies working for the G.U.N. we can be assured that there will not be any Eggman robot spared. But that seems to do little to comfort the likes of one viewer who had this to say-"

Amy idly flicked through her post as more chatter continued on the TV. It wasn't until that whoever they were talking to suddenly started to get a little more aggressive that she looked up in curiosity.

"-means there are double the chances of encountering one! Do the math, people! Why would there be an increase in this if not because of the fact that Eggman is making more robots than he can handle? Besides this, and I hate to bring it up, but we have had absolutely NO news regarding Metal Sonic which, as has been agreed, is one of Eggman's more dangerous robots. The last we heard of it was from four years ago when the official statement came and now nothing and, as a nation, we have a RIGHT to know if we should be anticipating another appearance from it again or if we're allowed to relax. And, I'm sorry, but the very fact that it's now public news that Sonic the Hedgehog is due to be a father can only spark further interest from the likes of Dr Eggman and ESPECIALLY Metal Son-"

The television was abruptly switched off.

Dropping the remote control back down on the sofa, Sonic shot Amy a strained smile. "Well, we don't need that now, do we?"

She hadn't really thought about it before.

About what Eggman and his minions would think about Sonic's lineage passing on.

About what Metal Sonic would think... and do.

Once Amy had settled for an afternoon nap after lunch, Sonic quietly slipped out of the house and went for a quick sprint over the fields and didn't stop until he'd reached the coast, startling several gulls that went flying off into the air, squalling and screeching angrily.

Taking a large gulp of air, Sonic braced himself.

"...Okay, Metal. Don't think I haven't felt you trying to tug away at the back of my head for the past four years. What do you want?"

For a moment, he didn't think he'd get a response. It had been a while since he'd last seen Metal Sonic at the destruction of Christmas Isle and he'd done his level best to block the robot from his head since then. But, to his surprise, after a few minutes of silence, a voice began to talk to him from inside his thoughts.

"...Nothing you can provide in your living state."

"So you don't want a cup of sugar?" Sonic smiled, albiet cautiously. "Movie recommendations? Fashion tips?"

There was still something about Metal Sonic that scared Sonic, not that the hedgehog would ever admit that and talking to him wasn't his favourite thing to do. That didn't mean, however, that he was going to stop his old joking ways.

"Sonic..."

No, for as long as he could outrun an enemy and trusted in himself, he'd never give his respect easily. Least of all to Metal Sonic...

"Run an errand for you?" he went on teasing. "Need more coffee? Just wanted to say 'hi'?"

"You've been shutting me out for all this time," Metal Sonic growled in his head. "And only NOW have you allowed me to establish a connection. So, really, it should be ME asking the questions, not you. You're the one wanting to talk."

Sonic laughed out at the sea. "I guess having an analytical computer brain has its perks. Of course, it makes you a real buzzkill..."

"You're too far away for me to mentally hurt, Sonic, but that does not mean I will not try."

Sonic's smile wavered.

"...Yeah..." he muttered, "I believe you."

The ocean waves shooshed the cliffs, the taste of salt beginning to settle on Sonic's lips. He watched the horizon and tried to use his connection to Metal Sonic to guess where the robot might be. But they were too far away from one another and Metal was keeping himself secret so the only thing to do was to cut to the chase.

"...Where are you, then? You and your... Well, do you call them friends?"

"If I were the one asking, you wouldn't be in a hurry to divulge your location. Why should I be any different. We are, after all, practically twins..."

"You wish," Sonic hissed. "You're not even half the hedgehog I am."

There was no word from Metal.

"...Look, this thing between us..." Sonic began, his smile utterly depleted. "It's JUST between you and me."

He thought he could feel Metal Sonic tilt his head in curiosity.

"Why such a statement, Sonic?"

"Because whatever it is you're planning, it doesn't involve anyone else. It's our fight, our war."

"On the contrary my friends have insisted on supporting me. Our fight may be between us but that says nothing for THEIR fights."

Sonic cursed. Of course Metal Knuckles and the Tails Doll were every bit as sour as Metal Sonic. But Tails and Knuckles were seasoned fighters and had been capable of defending themselves for years. Amy was another matter and all Sonic wanted was some confirmation that Metal wouldn't target her or her unborn hoglets.

"...So Tails and Knuckles are going to face trouble," Sonic nodded with reluctant acceptance. "But no-one else. That's it. Three of you and three of us. Just like old times. Remember?"

"You mean to say you won't call on any of your other friends to help you?"

"No. If it's between your team and my team, then that's how it's going to stay."

"You seem very adamant in this." Metal's voice could be mistaken as playful if he had any idea on how to voice emotion. "Any reason as to why you've given these specific demands?"

"Last time we saw each other, everyone was involved. People got hurt." Sonic immediately thought of Rouge who had been expecting Ruby at the time. He remembered the very real fear that Knuckles' unborn daughter was miscarried. "We're not repeating that."

He waited as Metal Sonic toyed with him.

"...I will have to consider it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm due to make a social call on someone."

Alarm bells rining in his ears, Sonic's quills tightened. "On who?"

But Metal Sonic had disconnected now.

"Metal! On WHO?"

Chapter Text

The old factory had been rebuilt a dozen times but it was still in shambles no matter how functional it was. When Metal Knuckles clipped the remains of a saw-weilding badnik carcass, he gave a growl of annoyance.

Metallic Madness Zone was one of Metal Sonic's favourite places but when it looked like this, it wasn't exactly an award-winning location and most of it had been built from the oringal remains which had been transported from Little Planet to it's new location on Mobius. It had got to the point where Eggman (Robotnik at the time) had simply given up on repairing all the damage and repainting every scratch when he knew that the likes of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles or even Amy Rose would be along to wreck the place.

Sparking wires hung from the ceiling and the sharp edges of blades and saws were strewn along walkways and protruding from walls. A few badniks which were still barely online and hadn't had the power to move for years could only watch as Metal Knuckles, following the Tails Doll, passed by them without so much as backwards glance. Cages which were broken and bent out of shape were stuffed to the side and the old lasers and weapons were rusted and clogged with dust. The original zone on Little Planet must have looked a lot more impressive in comparisson to the rebuilt zone on Mobius.

"How can such simple-minded organics cause such a mess?" Metal Knuckles asked, mostly to himself.

"Inconsiderate-ate," Tails Doll answered and then began to giggle maniacly. "Eye for an eye for an eye for an eye!" he sang, hovering over the ground with his head flopped to one side. He may have had robot circuitry inside him but his plush-like outer form was soft and didn't have the strength to support the processor in his head.

"In time, my friend, yes," Metal Knuckles told him in a dark tone. "You and I will pay back our Inferiors when we are ready."

"But not just for R-R-Robotniiiik/."

"No. Metal Sonic broke us from our code. We are free to proceed as we want."

Tails Doll flicked his antennae side to side as he floated along, sometimes stretching out his arm horizontally to slide it along the surface of the wall nearest him. As he was doing this, he twisted his neck 180 degrees to look back at Metal Knuckles.

"You feel... anger?" he asked. The Tails Doll was a support unit with the ability to recharge and take care of his larger, stronger metal brothers. He also had the capability to sense what sort of mental condition thye were in.

"For the Eggman? No," Metal Knuckles replied. "For my Inferior? ... Yes."

"Wasn't fair..." Tails Doll whispered, turning his head back with a sickening cl-ACK. "They get free life. What do we have...? So/ ///s-selfish."

"Organics always are," said Metal Knuckles. "But fret not, we will be avenged."

Tails Doll lead Metal Knuckles through the factory, climbing and sliding down through the maze of pathways. "W-W-Weeee/ must wait for Metal Sonic-ic to complete his investi-ti-gation."

"I am sure he will not be long about it." Metal Knuckles' green optics shimmered in a brief burst of excitement. "He was created to keep pace with his Inferior. Hedgehogs are not known for slow feet. Speaking of, Tails Doll, if you would...?"

The red antennae began to glow a little brighter and Tails Doll surged forward. "Finding. Finding. Finding."

In one of the larger chambers sat a huge pile of twisted metal debris, the victim of a brutal assault from a hedgehog, a fox and an echidna. It's form was scarred and blackened from where its systems had burnt and exploded, leaving behind a dead husk... and several capsules all around.

"Found! Found! F-F-ooound//!" Tails Doll chirped, flying over and examining the capsules one by one.

Metal Knuckles look at them with a cold hard stare. "Is there not one that hasn't sustained damage?"

Tails Doll flitted from one to another, checking it over, discarding it if it wasn't good and moving on to the next. Finally, he stopped at one capsule and his antennae flashed in triumph.

"...Analysis: This one good. This one perfect."

Metal Knuckles came over and glowered down at teh dusty capsule.

"Show me," he ordered.

So Tails Doll opened the capsule to reveal the occupant inside.

Metal Knuckles nodded approvingly. "It still functions. Excellent work. Metal Sonic WILL be pleased."

They'd arrived an hour ago but it wasn't until they'd really searched the area that Team Dark and their additional member stumbled across a plausable site for their sudden energy readings.

"It's an excavation site," Shadow had announced, looking down into a large gorge where old buildings could be seen in the rocky faces of the walls, as though they had been sunk into the ground over the course of however many years.

Whatever work had gone on here, it had been abandoned before completion, from the looks of things. Traces of archelogist tools, such as a bit of brush and the odd page from a notebook, had been carelessly left behind which could only suggest that the people working here had left in a hurry.

Rouge caught a breeze and glided into the gorge, sweeping the area and landing with a gentle flap of her wings. Silver landed somewhere behind her, looking around in absolute amazement, no doubt wondering what sort of state these very ruins would be in back in his own time. The bat, an expert in this environment, took another study of the space around her and prodded the toe of her steel-capped boots into the ground.

"Probably an energy vein running through here," she murmured. "A likely reason why the archeologists left."

No-one tampered with the planet's energy veins, especially since the Dark Gaia incident many years ago. But if the flares were anything to look into, there had obviously been a breach of some sort.

As Shadow inspected the walls, Rouge picked up a stray piece of notepaper. The writing was barely readable and most of it was erased anyway but there were some words that the bat was able to pick out.

"Hey that's... 'The Fourth Great Civilisation'..." she read to herself and then stared up at the ruins embedded into the rock. She took in the unique style of stonework and the faint glyphs that had been scratched out around it. "This is echidna arcitecture." She recognised the similiar style of art from various ruins and buildings around the Mystic Ruins and on Angel Island. Knuckles had overseen the structure of the new Emerald Shrine over their house and the carvings were very similar.

"Guess these people were trying to dig up baby photos of either Knuckles or Shade," Silver joked, taking a step in Shadow's direction. Shadow was just emerging from one of the large doorways having briefly taken a look inside.

"Scans indicate high levels of energy coming from these ruins," Omega told them, turning around with a blue light flashing on his chest.

"What were they used for?" asked Silver, appearing next to Shadow. "I mean, we're nowhere near the Mystic Ruins and I figured that's where Knuckles' clan used to live before Angel Island, you know, actually became Angel Island."

"Shade's clan," Shadow answered in a quiet voice. "'The Fourth Great Civilisation'. They focused on science and technology but they still retained their old beliefs."

Rouge appeared on Shadow's other side. 

"Mmm. Definitely looks more 'Nocturnus' style," she agreed, deciding she was the leading expert on echidnas now that she had married one and mothered another.

"Let's just find out the cause of these chaos energy readings," Shadow sighed, turning towards the next ruin.

For half an hour, the team of four went from ruin to ruin, recording on readings and looking for signs of tampering but they couldn't work out where the energy was coming from. Whenever it seemed as though they were getting close, the readings would wobble and move. Eventually, it got to the point where Shadow felt suspicious.

"...Are you picking up anything?" Shadow discretely whispered to Silver as Omega lead the way into yet another temple which had been built into the wall of the gorge, mostly buried.

Silver had grown very quiet in the past ten minutes and he shuffled uncomfortably from foot to foot.

"...I'm picking up an uneasy feeling in my quills but nothing that reminds me of chaos energy," Silver admitted.

It had been a while since he'd last used Chaos Energy seeing as he had to put in more of an effort to absorb it, unlike Sonic and Shadow who attracted Chaos Energy much more easily, but he would never forget the feeling it gave him as it ran through his veins. It was like being plugged into a power source which could have powered you for centuries - and probably would! It wasn't a feeling you let go of in a hurry.

Shadow's face darkened. "...I feel the same."

"Fellas," Rouge called from the back of the room.

The ruin they had entered was one of the largest and the one that seemed in best condition. Figures carved out of stone decorated the walls and the collumns that were still standing were ornate and beautiful. It was likely an old place of worship or perhaps somewhere where echidnas could come and speak with their clan's spiritual elders, otherwise known as Mitres. Shade's Mitre had been Imperiator Ix.

"Energy readings are at peak percentage," Omega said, updating them all.

Shadow came up to where Rouge was pointing at a small alter-like table where a small buzzing piece of equipment, which stood out in contrast with the surroundings, could be seen flashing occassionally. 

"So this is our source."

"Device recognised as an Energy Generator," Omega informed them. "Identity label confirmed: Eggman Industries."

"Doctor Eggman wanted us to come all this way," Rouge scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Inconsiderate fool."

"I believe he was hoping Sonic would come," said Shadow, stating the obvious. He would have rolled his eyes had a flash of movement in his peripheral not snatched his attention and he immediately snapped his head round in suspicion, a growl brewing from his chest. 

"We're springing a trap for Sonic, are we?" Rouge looked around her and laughed. "Big Blue owes us for this one."

"...So where's Eggman?" Silver asked, noticing that both he and Shadow were having trouble keeping their quills from rising into a defensive position. Shadow was also not paying attention to the generator any more, he further noted. In fact, Shadow looked ready for a fight...

Before he could question it further, Omega suddenly began to bleep out a warning.

"Alert! I'm picking up seismic readings in the earth. Quake iminent!"

Seconds later, the ground shuddered like jelly underneath their feet and they all struggled to keep their balance as a dust littered down on them from above. Several small rocks fell down a short distance away and a large crack split through one of the pillars near the entrance but, other than that, once the shaking stopped, there wasn't any other apparent damage.

"What on Mobius was that!?" Rouge coughed and spluttered, wafting the dust from her face.

Silver shook his spiny head and rubbed his nose. "Please don't be an underground snake monster..."

Shadow's voice beside him did nothing to encourage him. "It isn't..."

That was when the ceiling gave way and the team had only a second to look up with gaping mouths as several tons of rock and earth came cascading down on top of them.

An outside observer might have been right to say that they were buried but, if they'd looked just a little later, they would have noticed that some of the rocks were giving off a pale blue glow. Underneath these rocks was a white grey hedgehog with his arms outstretched and a huge grimace on his face as he kept the cave-in from completely burying his friends. Omega only got dinged a little bit on his arm but he barely noticed that.

"Don't worry," Silver tried to smile, not letting his arms wobble, "I got it."

To answer him, a second load of rock came thundering down and Silver only just caught it in time with his power, earning another wince on his face.

He gave a grunt and straightened up, wrinkling his nose and forehead in concentration. "...Still got it."

When the third load rained down, Silver's arms did shake a bit and his ears flattened against his head.

"Okay..." he squeaked. "Starting to... It's starting to get a bit, um... Yeah... "

"Hang in there Silver. I'll dig us out," Rouge told him, scrabbling away at the rocks with her claws and feet. "You boys going to help?"

Shadow, after getting a nod from Silver that he was okay, nodded back to her. "Just be careful, Rouge. I know who did this and he's more than likely still around."

Rouge detected the apprehension in Shadow's voice. "Who did it?"

Omega let out a noise which could easily have been mistaken for a growl; he could sense who it was as well now.

"Gah!" Silver suddenly cried, stumbling a bit and closing his eyes as he tried to keep the rocks off everyone. There wasn't any room for him to dump it all aside so he had to stay where he was. "This is... kinda giving me a headache... "

Rouge dug faster. "We're on it, hun."

Rouge was the first out of the pile, followed by Omega. 

But just as Shadow was climbing from the rocks, a sharp smack was heard as a flash of blue appeared from the darkness and slammed into Omega, carrying them both forward into the gorge and out of what was left of the ruins.

From there, a short sharp burst of laser fire was enough to short-circuit Omega and leave him in the dirt, sparking and whining.

"Omega!" Shadow thundered, rocketing out into the open and spin-dashing their attacker. But he was met with nothing but air as the assailant moved out of harm's way. Shadow whipped his head round with his pointed teeth bared in a hiss.

Red organic eyes met red robot optics.

Metal Sonic hissed back.

"You piece of junk!" Rouge shouted and then gasped as yet another cave-in began. She had barely enough time to flit out of the way before another small avalanche added itself to the tomb already forming around Silver.

"Please tell me you lot are clear!" came Silver's very muffled voice from inside the pile. "I can't hold much more of this and I don't want to bury you!"

Rouge tried shouting back that they were fine but she had to make another dodge as Metal Sonic took a shot at her. Shadow instantly retaliated by charging at Metal with his quills brandished out in front of him, hitting his mark and throwing the enemy through the air away from Rouge and Silver. Metal Sonic fizzed angrily and extended his claws, blocking Shadow as the darker hedgehog came in for another shot. It was a short-lived victory as Metal Sonic found himself under assault from a barrage of laser fire.

"Attacking a superior robot?" Omega snapped. "Shame on you."

Now with both Shadow and Omega on his back, Metal Sonic was forced into a defensive position.

"REALLY starting to hurt now, guys!" Silver was calling again. His arms were aching but that was nothing compared to the agony in his head as he tried to keep an intense amount of weight off himself with nothing but his mind. If he kept it up too long, he could be in for one gruesome nosebleed. "Guys?"

"Omega, Shadow!" Rouge shouted over her shoulder, pulling at the rock pile. "Keep him off me! I'm getting Silver out of there."

Omega let off another round at the enemy but Metal Sonic avoided the gunfire, flying forward and grabbed the larger mech's arms. Shadow used the window of oppurtunity to throw himself at him again and following it with a Chaos Spear. Both attacks landed and Metal shuddered as his circuits sparked. Shadow had little compassion for the likes of Metal Sonic nowadays and didn't let a second pass before he was on the offense again. Metal had to fire all his thrusters to avoid another hit and then call upon his agility to dodge the attacks from Omega.

Rouge went on pulling at the rocks.

Metal Sonic continued to dodge and scratch at Shadow when he came close and eventually infuriated him enough to shoot another Chaos Spear which, with timing on Metal's part, shook the wall of the gorge and caused the whole face to collapse down on top of them, slowing down the attack and giving Metal Sonic a moment to turn his attention to what Rouge was doing on the other side of the gorge.

Having recovered from his assault, Metal Sonic narrowed his eyes and shot forward towards her.

"Rouge!" Shadow called, pulling himself from the debris. "Incoming!"

The bat growled as she turned, already sending out a kick in perfect time to catch Metal off guard and repel him away from her but she was quick to lunge forwards after him, grabbing Metal by the arm and swinging him round in an arc to smash him against the ground.

Metal Sonic lifted his feet and kicked her off just as Shadow and Omega came on the attack again. However, it was anger that now fuelled Metal Sonic and he weaved around their attacks with infuriating skill. Omega activated his guns and unleashed a barrel-load of pellets at Metal which went pattering against him and against the wall he was blown towards as a result.

What was left of the ruin now collapsed down on top of Silver and he let out a cry of pain.

"One... One more of those and I'm... and I won't..." His little voice couldn't be heard by any of Team Dark. 

But it was heard by Metal Sonic.

The robot fired his thrusters once more and, flying forward, grabbed Shadow by surprise. Lifting the Ultimate Lifeform up into the air, he swung round and used the momentum to shoot Shadow down at Rouge with enough force to stun both. Then it was another well-aimed shot to Omega's back before he then played his trump card by pulling out the white Chaos Emerald and, using it's power, shot a powerful blast down at all three members of Team Dark. The ground trembled one last time and the entire gorge began to crumble as the wall's integrity failed to stand up to the punishment.

It gave Metal the opportunity to turn his attention to the only one who he hadn't had the pleasure of battling today.

Silver turned his head, his fur dampening with the exertion he was putting on himself to keep the rocks from crushing him. He couldn't work out where any of the others were so he didn't dare risk tossing the debris away but he was considering it when he saw that the one peering in through the rock at him was Metal Sonic.

"...Uh... "

The last thing he recalled were sharp claws flying towards him.

Omega had run to retrieve Silver but the force of the avalanche of rock threw him aside. Looking up, Shadow caught sight of Metal Sonic with Silver dangling from his hand, flying over the destruction. 

Shadow had little choice but to use Chaos Control to get his team out of there! 

His knees buckled as he pulled himself from the gorge and Rouge fell from his grip onto the grass as they teleported to safety but a cry from her brought him to his senses.

"Silver!"

Team Dark looked up in time to see Metal Sonic vanish with a Chaos Emerald in one hand and an unconscious Silver the Hedgehog in the other.

Chapter Text

First there was a polite, knock knock knock. Then, not a second later, thump thump BANG BANG BANG on the front door. The movie had to be paused as Amy looked round fearfully and Sonic immediately tightened his back muscles.

"Who's that?" Amy cried, hugging one of her throw pillows.

"Stay here, Ames," Sonic told her, getting to his feet. "I'll go see."

Opening the front door, Sonic almost jumped to find a badly bruised Team Dark crowding Amy's doorstep. Omega was stood at the back, robotic expression giving nothing away while Rouge, who had knocked first, had been moved to one side. Up in front, and no doubt the one responsible for the more aggressive knocking, was Shadow wearing an expression that promised a swift end to anyone who hindered him.

Sonic opened his mouth to voice his surprise. "Sha-?"

"We've lost Silver."

Sonic closed his mouth again. Shadow wasn't one to joke around or to jump to conclusions like that without reason. The two hedgehogs gazed into one another's eyes a few seconds before the blue speedster opened the door wider and let the team in.

Amy was on edge when Sonic returned, accompanied by Shadow, Rouge, and Omega who had made sure to close the door after him, being a considerate robot.

"... I'm calling Tails," Sonic flatly stated, heading to the phone.

"What's happened?" Amy asked calmly, knowing full well that panicking wasn't going to help her.

Shadow was watching Sonic make a phone call but he spared Amy a quick, considerate glance. "Metal Sonic took Silver.”

Tails came over immediately within the half hour and began to debrief each member of Team Dark which eventually turned into a conversation that went something along the lines of:

"You're telling me that Metal set a trap to specifically catch Silver?" Tails said rhetorically, talking to himself mostly. "You sure he wasn't hoping for Sonic and just made do with Silver instead?"

"I don't get it," Amy said. "Was Silver the actual target?"

"He seemed to be," nodded Rouge, "from what I could see."

"Then why..." Tails wagged his tail in agitation and held his chin. "Surely Metal would know that Shadow would have been more likely to go to Sonic about joining you guys on the mission."

"But instead Metal was counting on Shadow bringing Silver," Amy murmured.

"How do you make a trap specific enough to target one person? Something as broad as an energy spike could be an open invitation to anyone."

"Basically, what we've gathered is that Metal knew Sonic wasn't going to show up. Is that it?"

"It's just the question of HOW would Metal know?" Tails sighed. His back and forth with Amy wasn't giving him anything satisfactory but no-one else besides Rouge seemed to be making an effort to chip into the conversation.

"They have that mental link, don't they?" Rouge said, nodding her head towards Sonic who had leant himself against the wall.

"The mental link has to be two-way in order to work," Tails told her, "and Sonic's been blocking Metal for years. There's no way Metal could have used it."

"Let's stop wasting time on trying to theorise Metal's trap-making techniques and instead focus on the fact that Silver's gone," Sonic then said quietly.

Rouge sighed and rolled her bruised shoulder. 

"I better head back to Angel Island," she said. "I can get Knuckles to contact Blaze through the Master Emerald."

Shadow looked up sharply. "We're sure that's a good idea?"

"Ha! You want to NOT tell her what's happened?" said Sonic. "Besides, Steele will be wanting a parent before long and I don't want to be the one to kneel down and try and tell him that his dad's been taken away by a deranged robot."

"You better come over to my place," Tails said. "We're looking after Steele at the moment. Blaze will want to go there."

"Good idea," Amy answered, already heading off to get her coat.

It was draughty when Silver began to regain consciousness. Draughty and drippy.

And dark, very dark.

It took him a few seconds to adjust to the low level of light, but rather than occupy himself with trying to work out where he was, he could only focus on the thumping headache in his temples.

"Hnngh? Wh-Where-? Ow..." he could hear himself mutter as his hearing came back to him. He blinked his golden eyes several times and first took note of the cables and wires all over the floor and the sound of the wind somewhere in the distance. There was a medium sized television screen set up to his left but it wasn't showing anything but a black background and single flashing green text cursor.

Then he realised he couldn't move. His hands and arms were tied to the chair he had woken up in and that was the same for his feet and legs. His lower torso was also secured so the only part of him that he could pull from the chair was his upper body and that didn't really do anything at the moment except give room for his back quills to stand on edge which was something they felt like doing right about now.

"What in the...?" 

He flinched again as something dripped onto his shoulder. It turned out to be a small droplet of blood which shone in brilliant contrast to his powdery pale fur when it caught the light of the single lightbulb that hung from the ceiling. He had clearly sustained an injury somewhere on his head if he was bleeding but he didn't pay any mind to it as he chose to instead look around at the bizarre rounded tunnel.

"Oookay... Uh, hello?" 

He stopped as images of the ruins in the gorge flashed by him and he remembered a sinister robotic face. That meant that Metal Sonic had brought him here and could very well suggest that the same Metal Sonic was still lurking in the area. It wasn't a comforting thought.

There was a shuffle down by his feet and when Silver looked, he actually shrieked.

The Tails Doll was sat there, legs crossed, hands in lap, just like a nursing child. It was staring up at Silver with round dead eyes as though waiting to have a story read to them but, other than that, wasn't moving or saying anything.

"Oh... my..." Whatever word was going to come after that was lost as Silver tried to steady his racing heart and keep his quills from rising up and digging into him. "...H-Hey there."

He jumped as the Tails Doll squeaked and hopped up to it's feet in an unnatural lurch and then flew off into the darkness. Silver couldn't quite see beyond a certain point so the fact that he now couldn't anticipate where that terrifying doll had gone seemed to frighten him even more. 

'But,' he firmly told himself, 'you aren't going to show that you're scared. That's what the Tails Doll wants - it LIKES people to be scared of it.'

Silver shuddered. He remembered being told about the Tails Doll before he had ever lain eyes on it. Back when he was still a teenager.

"The Tails Doll is nightmare material," Amy Rose had once explained. "Dr Eggman created the Tails Doll and Metal Knuckles as partners or helpers for Metal Sonic. The thing with Tails Doll though is... he's not like the other two. He isn't a metal skinned robot. He's an endoskeleton wrapped in cloth with a computer brain and a twisted AI. Don't turn your back on him. Ever. He can move in absolute silence and you won't know he's there until... Well, you get the idea. From what we can gather, his main function is to keep Metal Sonic and Metal Knuckles going. Resupply them with energy or whatever. Additionally, he's practically a swiss army knife. Once he's got you, he could be capable of doing anything - he could be hiding all sorts underneath his fabricated skin. Like Inspector Gadget... except more Tails-like. And insane."

Silver tried turning his head but he couldn't see very far no matter where he looked. He couldn't see the Tails Doll and he certainly couldn't hear him.

What he DID hear, however, was the threatening approach of heavy metal footsteps and what he COULD see were a pair of sharp red optics glaring at him from the dark.

Metal Sonic emerged through the curtain of shadow from the direction that Tails Doll had run to. Silver grimaced as he caught sight of the plush bot holding onto Metal Sonic's back like a baby monkey would cling to its mother, peeking over Metal's shoulder with it's unsupported head hanging way over to one side.

"Hello again," Silver gulped, trying to image a worse situation than this! Metal Sonic and the Tails Doll, two of the WORST robots ever created, kept quiet. "...Erm... Am I allowed to ask where I am?"

Somewhere in Metal Sonic's throat, Silver heard a buzz.

Then the screen on the left began to type out a single word and a robotic 'text-to-speak' voice replied: "No."

It was the same automated voice that Silver remembered him using last time. Metal Sonic normally couldn't talk but, in the time he had spent trying to upgrade himself, he had found a way of using audio clips hashed together from old voice files from Dr Eggman's systems to give the impression he was talking by using computers.

"Right," Silver murmured, cursing the fact that he sometimes talked too much when he got nervous. "Can... can I ask why I'm here?"

"YeS."

There was something about Metal's eyes that Silver found very hard to look away from.

He hated that it was a robot. He hated that it was a hedgehog. He hated that it was modelled after Sonic... He hated it.

"...Ah, uh... Why, um, why am I here?" he asked.

"I brOugHt yoU heRe," replied Metal Sonic's fake voice from the television screen. "I NEed yOu."

"Oh, okay." Silver swallowed again and felt his neck tighten. "Okay. Well, um..." He coughed awkwardly. "This is a little embarrassing but, uh... I'm not Sonic. I mean I- I know I look like Sonic, 'cause, you know, same face and all but, um... No, I'm not Sonic. I'm Silver. See, it's clever because of my fur, see? Too grey to be white and uh... hehe... too white to be grey so..." He coughed again. "...Silver."

Metal Sonic did not seem impressed but Silver was too nervous to stop now.

"...And my shoes are different..."

"SiLenCe." Metal Sonic barked via the screen, taking a step towards his captive and causing the hedgehog's ears to flatten. "I knOw wHo YOu arE, SILVER thE HeDGeHog."

"...So you know I'm not Sonic."

"It's A grEaT shaMe, bUt yeS. I knoW, MorE thAn aNyoNe aliVe, THat yoU Are noT SONIC." From the robot came an odd sound which could very well be mistaken for a sigh. "I'll lEt hiM fRet aBOut me For A liTTle WhilE loNgEr."

Silver looked from Metal Sonic to Tails Doll, who had yet to alter his creepy, broken-neck posture as he stared.

"...Look, uh, Metal Sonic..." he began, trying to moisten his dry mouth. "I, obviously, don't know what you're planning on doing or why, for some reason, you've decided to bring me to... wherever the heck we are right now... but you know Sonic isn't going to like this, don't you?"

The way Metal's optics glimmered was enough to let Silver know that, had he a mouth, Metal would be smiling.

"Yes, I Am cOuntINg on it."

"OH!" Silver then said in realisation. "So this is a, what, hostage thing? Is that what we're doing? 'Turn yourself in or your friend gets it' type of deal?"

Metal tilted his head slightly. "AnD whY WoulD I chOosE you As My viCtiM aNd gO thRougH aLL THat effoRt of MimicKing chAOs enerGy to DrAw you iN wHen I CoUld haVe mAde tHingS EaSy by GOing aftEr the LikEs of TAILS or AMY oR EVen KNUCKLES?"

"Huh..." Silver quietly mused, "...that's a fair question. Ah!" He looked triumphant. "Because if you took a really close friend of Sonic's, you could run the risk of him getting REALLY mad at you. And we've all seen that, right? We've all seen Dark Sonic (well, that's not entirely true, I suppose). So by taking me, you can avoid that?"

"AlloW me To shUT dOwn yoUr tHeory, SILVER." Metal lifted one hand and scratched Tails Doll under the chin. "YoU arE noT heRe As my hoStage."

"Oh," Silver hummed. "Not good enough to be a hostage?"

"YOu arE heRe to Help mE."

Silver looked up sharply. "I... beg your pardon?"

"FreT Not," Metal Sonic told him. "YoUr serVicEs wiLL not Be reQUired fOr toO lonG. TheRe is sOMe inForMatioN whicH I neEd to conFirm anD fiNalise And, in oRder to dO so, I aM in NeeD of soMeoNe wHo is inTunE with tHe simPle sCience of tIme TRavel."

That took Silver by surprise and he frowned. "You want to travel through time? Why? AH-!"

He let out another shriek after he was cut off by darkness suddenly enveloping his vision as a pair of thick industrial goggles with black plastic 'lenses' were tightly strapped around his head, blinding him from seeing anything. They smelt of burnt rubber and metal and they felt suckered to his face no matter how hard he shook his hurting head. Beyond the putrid stench of the goggles, Silver could also pick out the scent of another robot and he didn't need all his brain cells working to figure that it was probably Metal Knuckles - just to complete the creepy little trio.

The automated voice continued to speak to him without the visual aid of the screen.

"DiD you nOt hEar?" Metal Sonic was saying. "I haVE inforMAtioN which NeEds to be claRifieD and I am unABle to Do this heRE. The tiMe gaTes that I ONce useD a lonG tiMe aGo no loNger worK wIthOut thE tiMe stonEs. So you Will takE me to THe fuTUre."

"Take this thing off my face!"

"ANd alloW yoU to uSe your miNd poWErs?" A flat robotic chuckle. "I tHINk noT."

That was when Silver felt his blood run cold when something wrapped itself around his arm. Something soft on the outside but had something hard and sharp on the inside.

"Hey! Hey get off me!" Silver cried, envisioning the Tails Doll being right there. "Get off!"

"I am nOt neeDinG yoUr conSent wiTH this, SILVER," he heard Metal Sonic continue saying. "I do Not NEed your PeRmiSSion. TheRE is no cHoiCe for you. Do You uNdersTand?"

"Wh-What's that?" Silver practically whimpered, feeling the tiny paws squeeze his arm tighter. "Is that the Tails Doll? Get him off me!"

Metal Sonic took great delight in seeing Silver squirm and he glanced to the Tails Doll who was still perched on the back of his shoulder. "...It's noT the TAILS DOLL. ThE TAILS DOLL is wiTh mE."

That seemed to frighten Silver more. If it wasn't the Tails Doll... "What's touching my arm? Get it off!"

"I aSKed you A queStiOn," Metal told him. "Do yOu UnderstAnd whAt you neEd to dO?"

"I'm not helping you do squat!" Silver venomously spat. His agitation at not being able to see or safely use his powers or even to see what was touching him was giving way to aggression. "What kind of information are you looking for? How do I know you're not going to use that information against my friends?"

Metal Sonic took a step towards him. "...I gO tO the futUre To look fOr infoRmatioN aBout you. DOes thaT makE You fEel bettEr?"

Silver heard the step Metal took. More importantly, he heard what Metal said.

"What!? No! Not really!" When Metal didn't seem to say anything else, Silver tried calming himself down by taking long even breaths. "...W-Why? Why information about me? What do you want?"

"I Want tO knOw whaT cOnnEcts you To SONIC THE HEDGEHOG."

And there it was. Silver knew, just like everyone knew, that sooner or later, Metal's actions converged on Sonic. Metal was his Master's Pet, after all.

"...Uh..." Silver replied. "Well, a long long time ago, in an erased timeline I'd like to add, I was misinformed by some guy called Meph- OW!"

Metal Sonic slapped his palm against Silver's face, careful not to let his claws scratch him. He didn't want the hedgehog too badly banged up but he couldn't abide anyone acting like Sonic. It was bad enough that Silver looked like Sonic (but Metal had a suspicion of the reason behind that).

The robot took a step away and patted Tails Doll on the head. 

"ComE - let us lEAve him Be for noW," he told him and then to Silver said. "Don't wOrry, wE'll leaVe our frieNd here witH you for CoMpany. She's verY goOD at mAking GuesTs feel weLcome. WHen you arE restED, SILVER, you Will be eXPected tO eaRn your keeP."

"...But I don't live here," Silver squeaked, smarting from Metal's sudden slap. He heard Metal Sonic leave followed by the second pair of heavy feet which belonged to Metal Knuckles. He heard the Tails Doll giggling which grew fainter and fainter as the robots left him. "I DON'T LIVE HERE!"

The grip on his arm remained.

Chapter Text

Orbot zipped by various badniks which were either on patrol or waiting on stand-by for a command as he made a bee-line for the main room.

"Dr Eggman! Dr Eggman, Sir!" he called as he flew in, crashing with another patrolling badnik as he did so. "Whoops! Sorry, Motobug#k7249. Dr Eggman!"

"Quit shouting," Eggman grumbled, sat in a chair at his desk, idly looking through camera footage. "I've got a headache."

"Sorry Sir." Orbot lifted a data pad. "I have a report, Sir. From Crabmeat#dd446. You know, the one who featured in the background of your 2002 Employee Calender for the month of April? The third badnik from the left? It was holding a trumpet?" Eggman lowered his glasses a little and glowered at his robot henchman. Orbot quickly took the hint. "...Well, Crabmeat#dd446 was stationed in Metallic Madness Zone..."

Eggman made a noise at that and leant back in his chair. "I haven't been back there in a while..."

"No Sir," Orbot nodded, "but we recently were sent a report: Metal Knuckles and the Tails Doll were seen in the facility."

Dr Eggman gave a jump and leapt from the chair, turning his full attention on Orbot.

"...What!?" he practically bellowed in excitement.

"We've made sure to check the other operational Badniks in that area," Orbot told him, feeling confident that Eggman's response was positive. "Their video feeds have confirmed it."

"It was JUST Metal Knuckles and Tails Doll?" Eggman asked, his voice lowering. "There wasn't any sign of Metal Sonic?"

Orbot's optics dimmed. "No Sir. But there's more. It is believed they took something from the area."

Dr Eggman paused, his mouth in a grim line across his face. Taking several shallow breaths, he lowered his overweight frame back into his chair, running his hands over his chin in a show of mild discomfort.

"What did they take?"

Orbot checked the report. "We, uh, don't know just yet. But we're working on it."

"Then find out!" Eggman barked, his sudden flare of anger causing Orbot to jolt a few centimeters into the air. "Metal Sonic was particularly fond of Metallic Madness Zone. He knew the inside and outside of that place and you could guarantee he knew which working robot was stationed where. He knows the machinary, the knows the pathways, he knows which of the cameras are on the blink!"

Eggman spun round in his chair and held his head in hands.

"One of the lasers has a hiccup? Metal knows," he mumbled. "One of the saw blades has a chip in it? Metal knows. He's sent the other two to get something for him and I want you to find out what because whatever it is, Metal knew it was there." He looked back to Orbot and raised his voice again. "Do you understand? We could be close to tracking Metal Sonic down if we know what it is he's after."

"Yes Dr Eggman." Orbot saluted and quickly retreated from the room to find Cubot.

Eggman took off his glasses and rubbed his old eyes, eyes which had seen plenty of things that the average human couldn't even begin to imagine.

He wanted to know where Metal Sonic was. Without Eggman's guidance, that robot could get severely out of hand even IF he was doing something in Eggman's name.

Steele was delighted to see his mother when she arrived at Tails' house with Knuckles, Rouge and Ruby-Lei. His mother's calm demeanor, however, drastically changed once he and Ruby had left to continue drawing with Rosemary under Cream's watchful supervision.

Blaze swept each of the heroes stood in the room with a piercing gaze. "Five minutes starting now, tell me everything."

So Team Dark recounted their story of their trip to the ruins (Knuckles took a discrete interest in their brief description of the Nocturnus Clan's buildings) and Sonic revealed that he'd managed to establish a very brief contact period with Metal Sonic shortly before Team Dark's run in with him.

Blaze listened to each of them with a passive expression, keeping quiet after they'd finished, as though reviewing everything in her head.

That was when she wheeled round and grabbed Sonic by his furry chest, small tongues of fire igniting around her wrists.

"Why?" she demanded in a loud voice. "Why Silver? What does your freak metal copy want with Silver?"

"I don't know," Sonic told her, eyes widening in a panic as he attempted to prise Blaze off him.

Tails placed a hand at her shoulder. "Blaze..."

"You're meant to know Metal, aren't you?" Blaze went on, her pupils becoming wide and round. "Life data, I was told. What's going on his sick head?"

"If I knew," Sonic replied, "I would tell you."

"Please, Blaze, let him go," Amy begged in a distressed voice.

Wrestling her emotions under control again, Blaze immediately released Sonic, smoothing his fur back into place and apologising profusely to which he responded with a gentle hug.

"If you want someone to blame, blame me," Shadow said, stepping forward. "I'm the one who asked him to come with us in the first place."

"No..." Blaze sniffed, holding her arms as she broke the hug with Sonic. "I'm sorry." She wiped at her eyes and lowered her head as her voice resumed it's usual soft tones. "Did... did you see where Metal Sonic took him?"

Shadow also avoided eye contact by turning his head. "He used Chaos Control. Disappeared into thin air."

"Let's think logically," Amy then piped up in an effort to keep the conversation going. "What possible reason could Metal have for wanting to hurt Silver? That walking scrap iron only wants either total domination (be it for himself or for Eggman) or..." Her voice trailed off and her throat tightened. She hadn't said Sonic's name but her silence implied it quite loudly.

Knuckles cleared his throat. "So it wasn't a simple case that Silver has Sonic's face." (He metally congratulated himself for unintentionally rhyming.)

“By that logic, why didn't Metal settle for Shadow?" Rouge pointed out.

Shadow let out a hmmph. "That robot couldn't hold me long enough."

"...So what's our next move?" asked Blaze. "I mean, given what this team goes through on a regular basis, I'd assume someone's got a plan brewing, right? Tails?" 

She turned expectantly to the fox, fully trusting that the genius had a plan of action already mapped out in his fast-working brain.

Tails, however, bit his tongue and turned his blue eyes on his best friend. "...I know it's selfish of me to ask, Sonic, but could you do something?"

Sonic balled his fists. 

"What do you need?" he asked.

"I don't need anything," Tails answered, shaking his head. "I'm just thinking that we have to find Silver and the likelihood is that he's wherever Metal Sonic is so..." He shrugged and wagged his tails again. Foxes didn't wag their tails exactly like a dog did, they tended to snake their tails so that they swished.

Sonic's face clouded. "You want me to find Metal?"

"I was thinking maybe if you tried synchronising...?"

"I haven't done that in years, Tails," Sonic said with a grimace. "Communicating is hard enough when it's a two-way connection but when I'm shut out, I'm shut out. Synchronising is another thing altogether."

"What would make it easier?"

"Well, not synchronising." But looking at the faces of his friends, Sonic let out a long sigh. "...The only thing that might work is if I'm close enough to perhaps pick up a trace of him. If I put enough concentration into it, of course. But that'll mean sprinting off all over the planet which can, essentially, be likened to trying to hold out your phone in different corners of the room when your Wi-Fi is dodgy."

"And even then, you're not guaranteed Internet acesss," Omega quietly whined. He was crouched in the corner by the potted plant in the window.

"Right," Sonic agreed. "But that would be my best shot and I couldn't promise anything."

"...Would… would you do it? For me?" Blaze asked, staring at her close friend, very intensely.

Sonic hesitated. On the one hand, he desperately wanted to save Silver and help Blaze... but on the other hand...

He looked at Amy.

...On the other hand, his wife was due to give birth any day and who knew how long it would be until Sonic could find Metal.

"Oh, of course," Blaze said, realising the situation. "This couldn't have happened at a worse time..."

Amy, who was sat on the sofa, adamantly shook her head. 

"No, don't worry about me. I'll do my best to NOT encourage anything but, at the end of the day, it's out of my hands." Holding her tummy, she did look a trifle worried.

It was another side effect of Sonic's chaos energy: the doctor's had warned that once Amy went into labour, there was a high chance that birth would be imminent. No child of Sonic's would take their sweet time when it came to being born and there would only be literal minutes between the start of labour and the actual birth. They'd be out within the hour and there was a real possibility that Sonic might miss the birth altogether.

"Well..." he said, knowing this, "don't be by yourself."

"I won't be alone," Amy assured him. "Blaze can come stay with me, can't you?"

Blaze looked surprised. "Steele too?"

"Well what sort of Aunt would I be if I said no to that cutie pie?" Amy smiled.

Blaze nodded and finally found a smile of her own. "It's the least I can do seeing as I'm practically forcing Sonic to go off to find a Wi-Fi signal..."

"Hardly 'forcing' him," Rouge chuckled. "You know Big Blue has a soft spot for Silver. Just like he has one for Shadow here..."

Shadow let out a very quiet growl under his breath. "I thought we agreed to not fight in front of Omega, Rouge."

Rouge simply smiled.

"Rouge is right," Sonic said. "Silver's my friend. I'll do what I can."

Before he left, Sonic popped in to see his nephew and nieces, saying hello to Cream as he did so. Cream offered a small smile as Cheese fluttered over to coo into the hedgehog's ear.

Then she came in for a hug of her own. Cream was a slender young teenager now but the one thing she hadn't grown out of was a hug. 

Rosemary was the first to see Sonic when he let Cream go and stepped into the room, beaming at him.

"Uncle Sonic!" she greeted with perfect pronounciation.

"Uncle Sonip!" Ruby greeted just after with a slight lisp.

"Unca Snic!" Steele greeted, more interested in saying it quickly than focusing on how to pronounce it properly.

"Hey guys," Sonic smiled at them, heart wrenching at the sight of Silver's son, who had no idea what fate had befallen his father, "are you playing nicely?"

"I drewed the b’bies," Ruby proudly announced, holding up her piece of paper.

"She drew the babies you and Aunty Amy are going to have," Rosemary felt the need to repeat. The young precocious part of her liked the fact that she was more grown-up than her playmates and there were times when she felt as though their 'childish' talk needed translating for the adults.

Sonic studied the drawing and sweat-dropped at the sheer number of blue and pink (predominantly pink) scribbled balls there were all over the paper.

"Wow," he whistled, "that's...that's a lot of babies..." He and Amy were the only ones who knew how many hoglets they were having but the thought of having... he did a quick count... 18 of them was more than a little daunting.

"She says they're all rolled up into hedgehog balls and that's why they're all round and spikey," Rosemary explained.

"I hope they aren't rolled up when they're born," Sonic murmured to himself. "Poor Aunty Ames... I notice there are a lot of pink ones there, Ruby-Lei."

Ruby still had her pink pencil in her hand and she jabbed it at the paper. "Pink one here and here and here."

"She thinks most of them will be pink like Aunty Amy," Rosemary said, in a manner-of-fact way.

"And let's see... one blue one. Aw, just one?" Sonic pouted comically.

"I drewed a bluuue one here." Ruby pointed to the single blue ball in the middle of the page.

"She thinks you'll have one blue one," Rosemary echoed, picking up a pencil off her lap. She was getting older and, as a result, her colours were growing brighter and her foxglove shaped skirt was beautifully yellow which meant it was easier for darker coloured stains to show up. The upper half of her looked a lot like Cosmo still.

Sonic shrugged and glanced at the silver kitten sat at the table, busy running his red crayon around the page. "...I notice you're not chipping in with any comments, Steele."

Steele looked up when he heard his name and politely held out his hand. "Unca Snic! Wid-de a-wanta cayon?"

"No, that's okay buddy," Sonic replied, before Rosemary could 'helpfully' translate, "you keep the crayon and do your drawing. But hey listen..." He looked up and spoke to the whole table. "I'm going to go out for a bit and I need you three to be EXTRA good for the grown-ups, okay? Keep a close eye on them for me and make sure they look after you. They've promised they won't do anything naughty and they won't have any tantrums - even Uncle Shadow - so can you all promise me you'll do the same too?"

"Am a good girl," Ruby informed her uncle, very proudly.

Rosemary, however, began to let her eyes shine in delight. "Are you going to run, Uncle Sonic?"

"Uh, yes," Sonic nodded, knowing full well how obsessed the youngsters were with his fast feet. "Yes, they'll be a bit of running, yep."

Rosemary's little smile grew into a grin. "Really REALLY fast again?"

"FAAAAAAASSSSS!" Steele suddenly shouted and, with renewed vigor, began to zoom his crayon around the page.

"Heh, I do tend to run a bit fast don't I?"

"Really fast ‘n go BOOM!" Ruby exploded her hands out as she said this.

"Oh, yeah that's-"

"Daddy says it's called a sonic boom and that's why you're Sonic and it makes a BIG bang like an explosion and it happens when you break the..." Rosemary hesitated for a second halfway through her rapid explanation and gesticulated her tiny hands. "Um, the sound wall thingy."

"Sound barrier," Sonic nodded. "Mm-hmm. That's what I do. But that's why I don't run that fast all the time, because it would hurt people's ears."

Rosemary picked up her pencil, began to continue drawing, and then stopped again. "…Why is the sound wall invisible?"

Sonic rubbed at his ears. "You know what? Why don't you ask your dad that, eh? He'll tell you all about soundwaves and sound barriers and compressed air. But I've got to go now."

Rosemary's pencil fell from her hands as she looked up in an instant. 

"Is Aunty Amy having the babies now?" she gasped.

"...No, Gumdrop," Sonic sighed, sorry to disappoint. "Not yet."

The bird song wasn't quite as merry around this part of the forest and only a few brave birds felt the need to chirp out a few notes. The uneasiness wasn't lost on Big the Cat, nor on his companion, Froggy III.

Still, fishing was fishing.

"Fishing, fishing, fishing..." Big was singing, to make up for the lack of bird song, trying to convince them that singing was safe to do. "You think I'll catch a big one, Froggy?" Big asked, baiting his line and settling down on the side of the small river. "Hope so. I'm real hungry!"

Froggy III rubbed at his face and croaked before hopping away a little distance. Big could see him from the corner of his eye as the little amphibian explored the area, not straying too far but enjoying a little taste of freedom. Big had just cast his line when he heard a very sharp croak from off to his side.

"What you got, buddy?" the cat asked, climbing up onto his feet and coming over.

Froggy III was still hoping around the object and he croaked again. It was a fish that had washed up on the mud bank. But it wasn't the sort of fish that Big would touch with a ten foot fishing pole.

"Oh, that's a bad fish," Big hissed. The fish was sickly pale and had discoloured eyes. It had been dead for a long time, by the looks of things. "No good, Froggy. Huh, another one..." There was a weak splash as a similar looking fish came wriggling up on the bank. "What if someone tries to catch one of these fish, Froggy? These are bad fish. Someone could get sick. Better find out where they're coming from..."

Looking upstream, Big began to follow the river, picking up Froggy III with his fishing rod and carefully stepping around the muddier, squelchy parts of the river bank. After a few minutes, Big came to a halt when he almost walked face first into a chicken wire fence that ran straight through the middle of the forest. It was covered in warning signs, deterring anyone thinking about climbing over or trying to get in at all. The blaring 'Radiation Warning' symbols were a deterrent in themselves without the writing that went with it.

"That's not good," Big mewed to himself, frowning at the water of the river that ran through the fence from the other side. "This water is bad, Froggy, don't swim in it." Pausing in silence to slowly get his head round things, Big came to a conclusion. "Someone could get real sick. We better tell someone about this..."

"You know I'm always wondering if I have everything I need and I KNOW the answer is yes, but I still end up buying an extra pack of diapers," Amy was saying, shaking her head as her things went through the checkout. "Every time."

Blaze had accompanied Amy while she went out shopping that evening for extra food for her and Steele. Cream was going to take Steele round to Amy's house once he had spent enough time with Rosemary and Ruby. But Blaze was still being quiet that evening, humming one word responses to Amy's questions and offering weak smiles when Amy had asked her about food preferences.

"Sonic was going to make omelettes tonight," Amy tried saying, fishing for her purse in her bag. "My lazy backside didn't want to cook..."

"Oh, I'm sorry," Blaze immediately began to apologise. "I didn't-"

"No, no! I was going to suggest, why don't we get take out? You hungry for anything?"

Blaze folded her arms and shrugged. "...I don't know."

The pink hedgehog glanced at her and felt her heart break for Blaze. 

"...I understand," she replied in a soothing voice. "Just let me know if you suddenly get a hankering for shwarma. Oh, personal question, did you get any weird cravings when you had Steele on the way? Because every time I see a pack of humus, I just want to grab some cucumber and dive right in, you know? I'm not even that keen on humus..."

"Amy, you know when Sonic went missing?"

Amy had finished paying for her things and Blaze was now carrying the bags.

"...When?" Amy had to ask. "That time four years ago? Or way before?"

"Both, I suppose but… When you were engaged and we didn't know where he was." That was the incident four years ago which had involved a brother of Eggman's. "How did you cope?"

Amy stopped and gave it proper thought. 

"...The same way I've learnt to cope since I accepted the kind of person Sonic is," she answered. "Whatever happens to him, I just have to accept that he's got things under control. He survives. The same goes to the likes of Shadow and Knuckles..." A gentle hand rested itself on Blaze's shoulder. "Silver's a lot like Sonic, in more ways than the obvious. Silver's a survivor too. Whenever Sonic goes missing or appears to be in trouble then, yeah, I'm worried. But I'm also confident that he can walk out of it okay. You have to trust that Silver can take care of himself."

"I know..." Blaze sighed, trying to smile as they continued walking towards the exit. "He's just... so naive sometimes."

"If it makes you feel better, Metal Sonic was designed to deal with Sonic, not Silver," Amy said with a sparkle in her eyes. "Wouldn't surprise me if that tin can just gives up trying to work out how to deal with him."

She then stopped as she almost collided with another shopper as they came to the automatic doors.

"Whoop. Sorry ladies," the gentleman apologised instantly, taking a hurried step back and shoving what appeared to be drumsticks into the pocket of his jacket.

"No problem," Amy smiled politely. "After you."

"When you got here first?" The stranger, a green coloured hedgehog with unruly spines, shook his head and held up his paws. "I insist. Pearls before swine, as my sister likes to tell me."

"Ha, sounds like something my husband would say too," Amy chuckled and gratefully walked out with Blaze at her side. "Thank you."

Blaze and Amy took the slow path home. Though it was evening, the summer sun was still up and decieving people into thinking it was still relatively early.

"That hedgehog looked a little like Sonic, didn't he?" Amy commented.

"You think every hedgehog looks like Sonic," Blaze replied and she laughed for the first time. "Thank you, Amy," she then murmured, "I don't know what to do with myself sometimes."

"Well, if you really want to," Amy grinned, "when we get a hold of Metal, you can have first crack at him."

"I can promise several rounds of Burning Blaze on him, that's for sure."

The two friends laughed properly for the first time, their worries briefly cast away and the memory of the charming green-coloured stranger soon forgotten.

He'd had to wait until the next morning before putting his feet to the road so as to not disturb people but, as soon as the sun came up, he was away.

By now, he'd had to have covered half the planet already, running down every walkway, road, street, highway... Every public footpath, every offroad pathway, every hill and mountain and brook and field. He looked like a police dog which had been let of its leash to track down a criminal and, when all was considered, that was exactly what Sonic was.

Half the planet... in 20 minutes. 5:00-5:20. Slow compared to his usual standards but not a bad time given that it wasn't a straight run but rather a giant game of hide and seek.

But he wasn't following his sense of smell, keen as it was. Rather, it was the tiny flutter in the back of his head which was only felt when his notorious metal counterpart was in the area or trying to reach out to him that he was following.

Sonic slowed as he neared a town, aware that while breaking the sound barrier was exhilarating and got his molecules in a dance, it was (as he had told the children) also extremely loud for those within distance. His trademark sonic booms gave others an adrenaline rush, certainly, but prolonged booming was not only disturbing to the wildlife but also damaging to the ears.

It was well that he knew his planet like the back of his hand so that he knew when he was passing by civilisation and he could check his speed in time. Even then, some people still claimed there were times they could hear him coming - something akin to an ominous approaching thunderstorm.

The town square was bustling with traffic and pedestrian activity, no sign that they were suffering any kind of attack from Eggman or any of Eggman's badniks which was a welcome relief to the hedgehog. Any indication that innocent people were under an oppressive pressure from Sonic's enemies would have been picked up almost immediately, especially by someone who had developed a seventh sense for anything which reeked of Robotnik.

It was therefore both a comfort and an annoyance that there was no flutter of Metal Sonic.

Hissing under his breath, Sonic quickly made a rapid search of the whole town, travelling so quickly that only a handful were aware that their famous hero had paid a visit. But the search turned up nothing and Sonic stopped to curse to himself befor preparing to move on to the other half of the planet.

"I can't afford this," he continuously repeated over and over in his head. 

Silver and Blaze were counting on him and he had the oppurtunity to find Metal Sonic along with that. To top it off, Amy could contact him any second and annouce that his hoglets were about to be born.

The reflection in the shop window revealed a very torn hedgehog when Sonic looked. He desperately wanted to just run back to Amy to be there with her for the birth but the uncertainty of when the babies would be born was enough to argue that there was a very high chance that, in the time they waited, they might lose Silver.

Sonic's eyes examined himself and rested on the sight of his neck.

Four years ago, he'd suffered under the hand of a malicious Dr Eggman and only been able to walk away from that bearing a horrendous scar. The fur had grown back thinly but the shape of the scar could still be traced and felt where the fur had grown awkwardly and on damp evenings it ached. 

The blue hedgehog lifted his hand to his neck and rubbed it, his eyes darkening as a dangerous urge to pay Eggman back threatened to cloud his judgement. But he shook it away before it became his primary focus.

Silver was too important a team-mate to allow him to be lost to Metal Sonic and he was much too valued as a friend to allow such treatment befall him.

Kicking in his heels, Sonic took off, a trail of dust giving the only indication that he was there at all.

And just as he sprinted through the country, something in the back of his head ever so briefly fluttered...

Chapter Text

Dr Eggman looked up sharply as Orbot and Cubot returned.

"Well?" he snapped impatiently.

"None of the large machinery have been taken, Sir," Orbot told him. "Or tampered with."

"What about other equipment?" Eggman pressed. "Weapons?"

Cubot made an odd noise. "...We're down a capsule."

Eggman's frown deepened. "What kind of capsule?"

"One of the minibot capsules for the Gachapandora Mech," Orbot said.

His master said nothing. He simply rubbed his temples and looked worried.

"...Does that mean something, Sir?"

"...It means that we've got more to worry about."

If you were to ask Silver if he had any flaws he may have admitted that he tended to talk more when he got nervous around new people. When it was something he couldn't see, blinded and tied up in a cold metal tunnel, chattering seemed to be the only thing keeping him focused.

"I don't live here," he was muttering to himself. The unknown friend of Metal Sonic's had released his arm but that did nothing to calm his nerves because now he hadn't the faintest idea where it was. He was ridiculously tired but he wouldn't dare sleep - not with those robots out there and unaccounted for. "I don't live here. I don't... I don't live here. I don't live here... I got friends. ... It's cold. ... I can hear the wind. ... "

"He hAteS it."

Silver jumped and almost bit through his tongue. It was the first time that the voice, who he could only presume belonged to this other robot, had spoken to him and what was even more unnerving was the fact that the voice sounded as though it belonged to a very young roboticised girl.

"Ffff-" Silver broke off before he swore. "Who-?" His mouth went dry and he felt his spines begin to tremble again. "You're the, um... the one keeping me 'company'." He thought he heard something move over to his left. "A-Are you going to hurt me?"

A pause.

Then the robot girl's voice came again, "No."

Silver turned his ears this way and that, swivelling them as far as he could stretch as he tried to pinpoint the source of the sound.

"... Where are you?" he asked.

His answer, however, was a long high-pitched giggle and the returning sound of heavy metal footsteps.

"It's beeN sevEraL houRs. GoOd morNing," Metal Sonic's fake voice now addressed him. "ARe you ReaDy?"

"What am I doing?"

"You aRe telliNg me HoW I can tRaveL to thE futUre."

"You can't," Silver said defiantly, bracing for another sharp slap. "Not unless you have the Time Stones from Little Planet. Or at least two Chaos Emeralds."

"I haVe 1 CHAOS EMERALD."

"Well... that's not enough."

The slap didn't come but he did hear a warning growl. 

"And aM I to asSuMe, theN, tHat you havE two CHAOS EMERALDs on yoUr perSon at All timEs for WHen you muSt TravEL?"

"Er," Silver gulped, "no it's different for me."

"HOw sO?"

Silver was being backed into a corner. "...It's complicated."

At that moment, the goggles which were blinding him were removed but because of the darkness around him, Silver didn't flinch at the sudden ability to see. He did flinch at the sight of Metal Sonic, however, stood only 30 centimetres from his chair. Metal Knuckles was walking round to the side with the goggles hanging off his arm and the Tails Doll now finding a perch on his shoulders instead.

In Metal Sonic's hand, sat perfectly in his palm with two floppy legs hanging either side, sat another doll, slightly smaller than the Tails Doll.

"InTroducTion," Metal Sonic said, holding his hand out closer to Silver so that he had to lean away warily. "ThiS is THe AMY DOLL. She wAs the oNly salvAgeabLe oNe lefT of HEr BAtch wheN METAL KNUCKLES and TAILS DOLL went tO retriEve HEr. She haS beEn the onE LOokinG aFter you. You oWE her your GraTitude."

The doll was about half the size of Tails Doll but still had the chilling dead eyes and the messily stitched seams. Except this doll was pink felted and resembled a younger version of Amy, dressed in a green and orange dress.

"There's an Amy Doll now?!" Silver cried. "Since when? Does Amy know?"

"HArdlY your buSineSS," Metal Sonic answered him, letting Amy Doll hop off his hand on into Silver's lap, much to Silver's discomfort. "AMY DOLL is knoWn for pOssessiNg a spECific sKill seT. As I'm Sure you'vE Been tOLd, the TAILS DOLL sUppOrts anD suppLies METAL KNUCKLES And I wiTh pOWer. The AMY DOLL is mOre inteREsTed in orGanIc crEatuRes suCH as yOursELF."

"Define 'interested'," Silver almost stammered, keeping the Doll in his sight at all times.

Amy Doll, stood on two legs, flopped forward and hugged Silver's chest, almost reminding Silver of the moment he had met organic Amy for the first time when she had mistaken him for Sonic. Except he wasn't so much 'weirded' by this hug - it was more accurate to say that he was petrified.

And he had every right to be once he felt a bolt of hot electricity connect with his spine and go shooting up into his head.

Opening his mouth, Silver screeched as Metal Sonic sadistically watched.

"THe AMY DOLL can coNnecT to aN orgAnic NeRvous sYStem," Metal Sonic was helpfully explaining, once the pain passed. "And, liKe her Inferior, shE is paRTIculaRly cliNgy. QuitE diffiCult to REmove."

Silver was shocked a second time before he could say anything. This time, however, a metal container somewhere behind him lit up in a blue aura and was thrown across the room as, in his pain, Silver had accidently caught something with his fluctuating psychic power. He whimpered again and grit his teeth, trying not to let his mental state flare up as waves of pain coursed up and down his back.

"I'm sure You're FinDing it haRd to thINK stRaight," Metal Sonic simply said, unfazed by the now splintered metal container that Metal Knuckles and Tails Doll were looking at. "So lOng as AMY DOLL has yOu in her GRaSp, you Won't be uSing your PoWer freeLy. Now, ARe you goiNg to tEll me WhAt I want to KNow or mUst AMY DOLL coAx the aNswer ouT of yOU?"

Silver arched his back as Amy Doll shocked him again and a lightbulb exploded somewhere down the tunnel. He could barely keep it together and he was terrified what his power might do.

"On a mOre UNsiGnifiCant noTe, AMY DOLL caN alSo deToNate liKe aN exPloSive..."

"A machine!" he gasped out as Amy Doll ceased her torment. "I can... I can mentally connect to a machine in the future which uses the powers of chaos to pinpoint my own year and open up a time portal. Like a doorway." He was panting heavily, his lungs and heart working over time to keep from failing him.

Amy Doll looked up at Metal Sonic proudly and she was rewarded with a stroke.

"Our futuRe oWNs the scieNce of tiMe traveL and no-One besiDes yourSElf useS it?" Metal Sonic asked as he petted Amy Doll's head.

Silver could feel the sweat around his face and it was dampening his fur as he heaved air.

"I wouldn't say that the entire future owns it. Only the company that built the machine."

"And tHat coMpaNy... Who arE theY?"

Silver opened his mouth but only gulped more oxygen, adamantly shaking his head.

"ThE G.U.N.?" Metal Knuckles prompted from the back.

Silver was too tired to protest any further. "...What remained of them."

"THEy werE your emPLoyers?" Metal Sonic asked but Silver weakly shook his head.

"N-No. They just gave me the machine. I think. I can't remember." He was being truthful and Metal Sonic could see that in his eyes.

"Do you remEmber anythiNg abOut your PeOple?" he asked, "The oneS thaT gAVe yoU suCh imPressiVe taleNts?" A long claw was lifted up and was gently tapped against Silver's forehead.

"My... My people?" Silver's brow furrowed more but he was so tired that he couldn't even think and he let his head hang. "No I... Not..."

"It mAtteRs litTle to Me." Metal Sonic nodded at Amy Doll. "TurN your AttenTion to ThiS maCHine of yours And oPen a doORWay for mE."

"Why?" asked Silver, his heart sinking as he felt Amy Doll take hold of him again.

"I've alrEady TolD you Why," Metal Sonic answered. "I neEd inFormAtion onLy fouNd in The futURe."

"Information about... me?"

"That iS correCt. ProceEd."

It took Amy Doll ten minutes to finally break Silver enough for his vulnerable brain to keel to their wishes and a glowing, almost translucent wormhole shimmered into view just behind Silver's chair. As it did so, the Chaos Emerald in Metal's possession began to glow.

"The CHAOS EMERALD is reaCtinG," Metal Knuckles noted, stepping forward with Tails Doll.

"CHAOS ENERGY is inDeed inVolvEd," Metal Sonic nodded. "But I DouBt it iS jUst the mAchiNe's doiNg..." Saying that, he looked pointedly at Silver who was now slumped miserably in his chair with his eyes shut and his limbs shaking. "HavE AMY DOLL enCourAGe a neW poRtaL in 3 hOurS."

By his calculations, he'd be back in this world at 12:00 noon.

Metal Sonic walked toward the portal and made a show of patting Silver on the head as he passed by. Amy Doll found that entertaining and she hopped up beside Tails Doll to share a giggle with him.

But just as the robot hedgehog stood on the threshold of the portal, he froze as a familiar tingle caused his processor to buzz warningly. It was a signal which activated once it felt the nearby source of its programming.

"...SONIC?" Metal Sonic murmured quietly to himself, making sure that his connection to the blue hedgehog was firmly shut off. He could only sense Sonic if his counterpart were actively seeking him but there was no telling how far away he was. "He is close. Years of trying to reach him and he is only now within my grasp just as I must leave? This is the situation in which fleshly beings say 'typical'. No matter. I will be gone before he can do anything. And when I return..." Metal Sonic stepped through the portal to the future. "I'll be sure to give him the attention he deserves."

No-one else he had left behind knew that Sonic was within a certain amount of miles to them. The rest of 'Team Metal' didn't have the same bond with Sonic that Sonic's metal counterpart had. Silver certainly wasn't in any shape to be picking up on the warmth of Sonic's Chaos Energy signature.

He did, however, turn his head slightly to get a better look at Metal Knuckles, with Tails Doll and Amy Doll hanging off both shoulders.

"What are you after?" he asked, his voice sounding a little croaky at first. Metal Knuckles glanced at him briefly but otherwise ignored him. Tails Doll cocked his head on one side and waved his antennae and Amy Doll just twitted to herself. "...So Metal Sonic leaves and that's it? Vow of silence?"

"TheY don't liKe talkinG to aNYone but thEir Inferiors," Amy Doll informed him, nodding her head to Metal Knuckles and Tails Doll. She then flopped over and slid down Metal Knuckles' arm to the floor, clumsily hopping over to the chair. "BuT I don't MInd talkING tO you."

Silver shivered as she came closer and he felt his fur bristle as she came and began patting at his feet. 

"Is Metal Sonic your spokesperson then?" he asked her.

"He iS our coMmaNDer," Amy Doll replied and, for a second, Silver thought he could imagine an awed voice full of respect coming from her. Of course, her voice was a roboticised young child's voice so that imagery didn't last long. "He's beEn onLine loNGer thaN anY of uS. He Is stRong."

"And what does your strong commander want? If no-one else will give me a straight answer..."

"He waNts infOrMatioN abOut y-"

"I mean in the long run!" Silver interrupted her, his professional 'Member of the Resistance' side overcoming his naïve 'Prisoner of War' side. He'd only relented to the robots when he feared his power was on the brink of becoming unstable, otherwise he'd still be tight-lipped about things right now. "What's he going to DO with said information? What's the end goal here?"

"...He WanTs whAt wE aLL waNt."

Silver raised an eyebrow questioningly and Amy Doll giggled again.

"To cOnquEr the WoRld for oUr cReaTor and to bE riD of oUr Inferiors."

"Inferiors?" Silver echoed in confusion. "What do you..." But he then answered his own question. Instead of imagining Metal Knuckles, Tails Doll and Amy Doll, it was now just normal Knuckles and normal Tails and normal Amy, in their organic bodies stood in front of him.

Inferiors. Organic inferiors.

"You want to kill my friends?" Silver hissed.

"Be riD of tHem," Amy Doll corrected. "ThaT's whAt I saiD. And anY wHO atteMPt to pRotecT theM."

Silver gave another tug at his wrists. "...For being emotionless robots, you four do know how to hold a grudge."

"Not hOlDing a gRudGe." Amy Doll shook her head. "TherE shOulD onlY be One oF eveRythINng. No mOre. There cAn be ONly onE..."

Silver had heard that before from Metal Sonic. It was clear that the same loathing of their organic counterparts carried over through all of them, hereditary or not.

But thinking of Amy in particular caused Silver to worry. After all, she was an expectant mother. What would these robots do if they found out about Sonic and Amy's children?

"You wouldn't... you wouldn't hurt Amy, would you?"

Rather than answer him, Amy Doll just smiled in her head and tapped her nose with her felted paw.

Chapter Text

In a grey, cloudy city, Knuckles was an appreciated blob of red for Rouge to focus on as she made her way past the commuters. He had his back to her as he sat on the bench, watching the fountain spray like the child he so often was at times, oblivious to the stares of awe that others were giving him and his daughter.

But upon recognising the approach of familiar footsteps, the echidna turned his head.

"Well?" he asked, checking his wife up and down.

"Doctor said there's no lasting damage," Rouge told him. She had been to get checked over by the G.U.N. medic. "It's all superficial and I'll heal in no time. Part of the gig, sweetie."

"Yeah," Knuckles muttered as he stood up, "but I know what Metal Sonic's like. Cuts through organics as easily as Sonic cuts through robots."

Rouge waved a hand at him non-chalently.

"I came off fine. Besides, I've had worse from you, you big brute."

"...You want me to say I'm sorry again?"

"Let's just get going," Rouge sighed. "I want to stop by the apartment before we head back."

They had planned to stop by to visit Rouge's old apartment that she had once shared with Shadow and Omega before she'd married Knuckles. She still considered it as her apartment and she still had the key to the front door.

"Has Shadow not spoken to you?" Knuckles asked, looking around to see in which direction Ruby had gone in.

"No," Rouge replied and looked downcast. "He's been quieter than usual. No communication from him at all."

"Okay," nodded Knuckles. "I'd better save that lady over there from Ruby."

Ruby had gone wandering around the fountain, trying to catch the stray droplets that escaped over the sides. Her little white dress was damp by the time she'd caught sight of a pretty lady sat reading a magazine by herself.

She'd always been fascinated by hedgehogs. They were so like echidnas but their paws were smaller and daintier and their spines grew differently. She only knew four hedgehogs and thought that maybe this lady might like to know that there was going to be a boost to their kind very soon.

The lady had smiled through Ruby's excited ramblings about her Uncle and Aunty's babies that were due and how she was sure there were going to be lots of pink ones.

"Hey Ruby?" Knuckles called gently as he approached. "Come on, sweet, we have to get going." He looked at the lady. "Sorry if she's been bothering you." Even Knuckles was surprised to see a hedgehog. They were becoming much more uncommon.

"Oh no, not at all," the lady replied, beaming at the puggle. "She's an absolute angel! And quite the celebrity. I'm honoured."

"Celebrity? Oh right," Knuckles nodded his head, remembering that the entire planet had got quite caught up in the birth of Ruby-Lei. There was a whole 'endangered species' charity funded for her. The nod, however, turned to a shake once he realised that his daughter was fingering the woman's necklace. "Ruby, that's not yours."

"Oh you like it?" the lady chuckled, showing Ruby her shiny necklace in the shape of a keyboard. "She's so sweet!"

"So like her mother too," Knuckles hummed and took his daughter by her paw. "Ruby, you're not setting a good example for mama if you go around trying to take other people's jewellery. It's time to say good-bye."

Ruby waved her chubby hand. "Bye-bye."

The raspberry furred lady waved back. "Good-bye!"

Rouge was smiling as she watched Knuckles walk Ruby back towards her, one little paw lost in her father's large mitt.

"Like mother like daughter," Knuckles muttered with a smirk.

Rouge shrugged and took Ruby's other hand proudly. "You train them young."

Shadow wasn't talking to anyone. Not that this was something unusual but his standard amount of silent judging wasn't as high as it usually was. He stood without crossing his arms and he stared down at something invisible on the ground and would only move his head a fraction if Omega spoke to him.

He and Omega were back at Team Dark's penthouse apartment but Shadow hadn't slept since yesterday. It was a spacious place (to accomodate Omega's large frame) and was situated on the outskirts of Westopolis city where it was relatively more peaceful than the traffic and noise of the city central. The G.U.N had moved their headquarters to Westopolis several years ago and Team Dark felt that being close to work made the commute easier.

The penthouse provided an excellent view of the cityscape but no-one suspected that this was the reason that Shadow took to standing by himself on the balcony. That was where he was found when Knuckles and Rouge stopped by with Ruby.

"Hey," Knuckles had murmured in Rouge's ear quietly at some point during the early evening. "Maybe you should talk to him." He nodded his head out towards the dark hedgehog through the window.

Rouge looked at him doubtfully. "You think it's a good idea?"

"You're one of his best friends, aren't you?"

"Doesn't mean he always trusts me with his feelings," Rouge sighed. "You know Shadow - he doesn't often open up about anything."

Knuckles shrugged. "No harm in asking, is there?"

So that was why Rouge cautiously approached one of her closest friends while Knuckles was being entertained by his daughter playing with a very large and very dangerous robot who, incidently, loved Ruby to the core. Ruby was telling him all about the nice lady she'd met by the fountain.

Shadow flicked an ear in Rouge's direction as she walked out onto the balcony and shut the double glass doors behind her.

"Knuckles was wondering if you wanted to grab a drink tonight?" she said. It was a small fib but she had picked up a few ways of initiatiing conversation with a socially inactive hedgehog.

Shadow leant against the balcony side and tapped his toe against the ground, demonstrating a tiny habit he'd picked up from Sonic.

"I'll pass."

Rouge quietly let out a long breath as she mentally prepared herself to give Shadow a good talking to.

"...You're not still upset with yourself are you?"

"I don't get upset," Shadow instantly retorted. He'd said that so many times that Rouge had accurately predicted it.

"You should know better than to lie to me, Shadow," Rouge scolded fondly. "We've known each other how long, and you think I don't know how upset you get over things?"

Shadow flicked his ear again but didn't reply. Rouge slowly sauntered over and stood at the rail nearby, stretching her wings and feeling the wind resistance soothe her.

"If there's a small part of you," she murmured, "somewhere underneath all that tough exterior, that thinks that you might be to blame for what's happened, I want you punch it really hard. You got that?"

"..."

"Shadow."

Shadow grunted. "...No promises."

Rouge had a funny smile on her face now. A small smile that indicated triumph but also regret.

"...So you ARE still upset."

Another few seconds passed during which a pigeon had flown over to perch on the rail, took in the sight of two GUN agents, thought better of it, and flew off again.

"...Well, I've had to sit through your 'broods' more times than is healthy for me and the last thing I want is to have to suffer another one of them," Rouge finally said, folding her arms and leaning against her hip.

Shadow frowned and also folded his arms as he straightened up. "I'm not... I'm not brooding."

"Are you kidding me?" Rouge felt like laughing. "You're stood out on a skyscraper balcony, you've got your arms crossed and you're staring out at nothing. The only things you're paying attention to are your own thoughts."

The black and red hedgehog twitched his sensitive nose and finally looked at his friend.

"I didn't need to bring Silver. We could have managed on our own."

She'd done it. She'd got him to open up. And she felt terrible for it.

"I probably would have insisted you bring someone along," she told him in a soft voice. "So then the fault would be mine. I mean, the fact I didn't dig Silver out of there faster..." Rouge looked away. "No-one's blaming you."

"Blaze has every right to," Shadow mumbled.

"And yet she doesn't." Rouge smiled properly at last. "Nice having friends that trust you, isn't it? Now you can look at it like you used to look at situations - full of doom and gloom. Or you can look at it as we've always had to look at it when these things happen (and, let's face it, with this group it happens all the time), and that's to think positively."

She began to check things off on her gloved fingers.

"That day when Knuckles discovered that he wasn't the last of his kind when he was attacked by his own kind. We got Shade as a new ally out of that. You remember when Sonic got caught by Eggman, chained up and tortured for 6 months? He came back smiling. And then the fiasco four years ago..."

She lightly hit Shadow's shoulder with the back of her hand.

"Then there's you. You seem to dive into certain-death and vanish for months on end so we all end up worried sick about you but then you'll randomly turn up in the middle of a massive battle to show off and help turn the tides in our favour." Rouge sighed and shook her head. "Life used to be so much less complicated when I was a solo treasure hunter."

"Well you're the one who ruined that for yourself," Shadow piped up in a low voice, a sparkle of mischief in his eye.

"Could you blame me?" Rouge chuckled. "Confronted with a beautiful giant emerald and a rugged red wildman all at once?" She looked away, still smiling. "You'll see. We'll be teasing Silver about this by next week. In the meantime, we wait on Sonic. He'll find Metal."

Shadow seemed to think about this and, at long last, produced his own kind of smile.

"...A drink would be nice."

Settled in the spare bedroom at Amy's house, Blaze woke to find her young son cuddled in her arms. This wasn't unusual; Steele always managed to wake up at some unearthly hour and quietly join either one or both of his parents in bed until one of them woke.

This time, however, Steele had watery eyes and a quivering lower lip as he tried pressing his head into his mother's chest, letting out tiny mews as he exhaled. Realising that his mother was awake, Steele looked up into his mother's eyes and sniffed.

"Dada?"

Blaze's breath hitched in her throat. The only time she had cried in front of Steele was when he had just been born, premature and fighting for life. She wasn't ready to start crying in front of him now.

"...He'll be back soon, baby," she whispered, the lump in her throat stinging her.

"Dada?" Steele went on squeaking, eyes filling more and more with tears. "Wan Dada..."

"Shh shh shh." Blaze pulled him onto her tummy and rocked him back and forth. "It's okay. I want Dada too."

"Dada."

"Uncle Sonic has gone to find him."

Steele's ears pricked up. "Unca S’nic getta Dada?"

"That's... That's right." Blaze paused as a sudden and very jarring thought struck her. "...Come on, Steele. Come with Mama."

Throwing off her covers and pulling her robe around her, Blaze lifted Steele up and hurried downstairs and into Amy's kitchen where she found the pink hedgehog, with her sweet round tummy, whisking up some batter in a large bowl.

Amy looked over and smiled kindly at them both.

"Good morning!" she greeted. "I'm making pancakes. Who wants some?"

"I'm sure Steele would like some, wouldn't you?" Blaze smiled in a strained way at the silver coloured kitten in her arms.

"...Wa Dada..." he sniffed, torn between getting excited for pancakes and hanging onto the fact that he was missing his father. It had only dawned on him during the night that he hadn't seen or heard from his father in hours and he hadn't even come to read him his bedtime story.

Blaze sighed and wiped at her eyes.

"...Steele is missing Daddy today."

Her smile dropping, Amy stopped whisking and lowered her head.

"Oh..."

Giving a loud and not very princess-like sniff, Blaze set her son down on the ground and watched his little tail flick back and forth.

"...Amy?" she asked quietly. "What will Sonic do if- when he finds Silver?"

Amy started to slowly whisk again.

"Well, he could do one of two things," she replied. "One: he finds Silver and then he calls us to let us know. Two:..."

"Two: he runs in to save Silver and we run the risk of gaining or losing both of them."

Amy gripped her whisk tighter, reminding herself to keep calm. She had thought of that possibility many times: the thought that Sonic would jump in and be the hero he was used to being. That hedgehog was an oppurtunist and if an opening came where he had a shot at saving Silver, he wouldn't hesitate, regardless of the danger.

"Maybe I should get a hold of Shadow," Blaze murmured. "Send him after Sonic just to make sure."

"Sonic will be fine. I trust him," Amy swallowed, lifting her head and resuming the pancake making with a new smile and a bright look in her eye. "And he knows if he breaks that trust, then he's in mighty big trouble. Now then - pancake?"

His gut instincts were leading Sonic through a heavily forested area where the trees seemed to grow so close to each other that they were practically sharing trunks at times. There was probably a clear footpath somewhere in this forest but Sonic hadn't the time to look for it. The flutter had briefly come and gone and all he had to follow now was the faint echoes of that flutter which wouldn't last long.

Picking his way over fallen branches and logs and over gnarled roots that protruded like enormous growths from the dirt, Sonic was again reminded of the planet's incredible diversity of life. The natural Chaos Energy of the world meant that Mobius' plants didn't always stick to the traditional 'green' pigmentation and instead were able to grow purple or blue or pink leaves in a variety of shades atop spiral shaped trunks. The forest Sonic was currently traversing appeared to have mostly normal tree trunks but grew dark blue leaves which meant, if Sonic wanted to hide, he could blend into the natural glow of the forest with almost no effort.

Those of purple fur would also be hard to spot and just as Sonic was beginning to recognise a familiar scent, something large and very purple indeed came galloping around the trees with deceptive agility for his wide frame.

"Holy-!" Sonic shouted in surprise, his quills standing on end for a couple of seconds before he laughed off his brief fright. "Ha. You sure startled me, big guy."

Big the Cat had stopped himself before he had plowed into the hedgehog and he hurriedly tried to smoothe down the hero's quills.

"Sorry Sonic," he apologised. "I was just making sure there was no-one fishing around here."

"How come?" asked Sonic, kindly declining Big's attempt to sort out his tense spines.

"The fish here are bad," Big explained with a wrinkled nose. "They'll make you sick. Look, I'll show you." He then turned and went thundering back in the direction he'd ran from. Agile he might be, yes, but quiet? Not a chance.

"Big, I don't really have the time to...!" Sonic stopped mid-shout and sighed. "Well, I suppose it's the direction I'm going in anyway."

He followed Big until they reached a river running through the forest. The trees were spaced out much more which Sonic was thankful for but he didn't like the idea of sinking his beloved red and white 'sneaks' into the river mud. Big, on the other hand, squelched straight down and pointed into the river.

"Look, see?"

Using as much forest debris as he could to prevent a one-way trip into Amy's bathtub at home, Sonic made his way over and peered into the dirty water to see a very lethargic fish with odd coloured eyes swim weakly against the current.

"...That's a very sick fish," Sonic agreed and then noted a dead fish which looked similar which had washed up on the other side.

"I think they're all coming from upstream, that way," Big said. "But there's a fence there where I'm not allowed to go."

Sonic's interest peaked. "...Show me?"

The barbed chicken wire fence was an eyesore in a place like the forest but there was no mistaking its function and Sonic expertly identified and interpretted the symbols which had been stickered all over it.

"This is near that old Robotnik power plant," Sonic murmured. "The area is still polluted and radioactive, that's why this fence is up. Probably why the fish are so sick." Down where the fence had been built through the river, there was a hole where the poisoned fish were likely escaping from.

"Poor fishies," Big muttered to himself, hugging Froggy III close to his fluffy chest.

Sonic froze as another faint flutter came to him and he cursed his bad luck.

"...The thing is, I think I need to go in there."

Big looked horrified. "Why?"

"I felt a trace of Metal Sonic coming from that direction."

"Metal Sonic?" Big's large ears flattened and he swished his tail. "Ohh... I don't like that robot. I hoped he'd gone down when your island sank."

"...It wasn't my island, Big. It was Eggman's."

"Still hoped he gone down."

"Yeah, me too." Sonic looked through the trees on the other side of the fence and could just about get a whiff of a power plant scent. "But if Metal IS in there, then that's where I'm heading." At Big's quizzical look, Sonic explained, "Metal Sonic took Silver. We don't know why but hopefully soon I'll find out where."

"Silver too?" Now Big looked even more anxious. "Poor little buddy. You'll get sick if you go in there."

Sonic clenched his fist. "...Maybe..."

Then he stopped and thought about it. After all, he was a Chaos Being; someone with highly abnormal amounts of Chaos Energy coarsing through them. Someone who could absorb the energy and store it as power (or use it as a weapon in Shadow's case).

Four years ago, the question of Sonic's origins had been raised and, according to Dr Eggman, Sonic possessed the unique title of being 'Chaos Born' - someone who's very atoms and molecules and DNA strands were constructed by Chaos Energy. It was supposed to explain why Sonic seemed to endure injuries and trauma like no-one else did and why he could initiate Chaos Control with a fake Chaos Emerald and why the ancient Echidnas had prophesied about him and why the Chao were drawn to him so much and why he could change into so many forms...

But this had never been proven and Sonic had chosen to destroy the only evidence that could have proven it. Chaos Born or not, Sonic didn't care. But if the unpredictable powers of Chaos had anything to do with his survival...

"... or maybe not." Sonic smiled. "If Chaos Energy can let me survive for short amounts of time in space and keep me from suffering any lasting effects from Chemical Plant Zone..."

"Then maybe it will shield you from the bad air," Big finished his sentence, looking hopeful. "...Maybe."

"That's what I'm counting on, pal," Sonic nodded and then looked up at the large cat. "I think you better stay here."

"I think I'd better stay here too," Big agreed. "Froggy won't like it in there."

"How about you try and find a way of blocking up that gap in the fence so the sick fish don't get through? We don't want anyone eating them. Might even stop them swimming back upstream to breed."

"Okay," Big smiled and watched as Sonic scaled the fence and dropped down on the other side.

It ought to have been the opportune time to phone in some support.

But, as predicted, Sonic forgot.

Chapter Text

It was a small and rather modest apartment, not exactly decorated in any lavish detail seeing as the walls were plain grey and the ceiling was sound-proofed and the carpet was thin. In fact there wasn't much to it at all; an old sofa with a patchwork throw, a beanbag which looked as though it had been thoroughly punctured by a spiky back and was clumsily repaired with more patchwork pieces, a handmade coffee table in the middle, a side table by the sofa with a tilted lampshade, a few minimilistic pieces of artwork depicting grasslands and forests on the wall... Silver didn't seem to put in much thought when it came to sprucing up his living quarters.

The only thing that seemed to stick out and jar against the simplicity of everything was the enormous wall-mounted television screen that seemed to take up the entire wall and the unusual aparatus which, Metal Sonic concluded, must be the machine and equipment that Silver had spoken of before.

Metal Sonic looked around the area a second time. The curtains were drawn which meant that the entire place was dark and, from the looks of things, in need of a vacuum cleaner. Through one door was the kitchen which consisted of an island counter with just one barstool, an oddly designed refrigerator (perhaps it was the common model and design of the future) that made a continuous low humming noise, a futuristic looking microwave (also oddly designed), a coffee machine and the folded remains of a pizza box. In the sink were three mugs and a plate, washed but not yet put away. The bedroom was a little box room holding an haphazardly made bed and a chest of drawers with a mirror.

It wasn't what you'd expect the home of a time-travelling, pyschokintetic hedgehog hero to look like.

Another thing that seemed to stand out (in Metal's opinion) was the lack of photographs around. There were no little selfie pictures framed on the side table or anything to suggest Silver had any friends at all.

In fact there was only one photo which was hanging in front of the machine: the subjects were an older female hedgehog posing formally with an extremely young Silver the Hedgehog who looked only a few months old. The female appeared to be a brown-orange colour and bore no resemblence to Silver at all. She wore a very strained smile on her face and her eyes were tired.

But there wasn't time to admire the decor and Badniks we’re not typically programmed with an appreciation for interior design anyway.

Metal Sonic soon turned his attention towards searching the place for anything that might give him a clue as to where he could find the information he wanted. It was clear to him now that Silver probably kept things minimilistic and hid all his personal things just in case anyone came over. Time Travel clearly wasn't a common thing in the future and Silver was making sure to hide all evidence that pointed to the fact that he galavanted down the time stream every other night to see his inter-dimensional Fire Queen wife or to see his closest friends that were probably regarded as historical characters in this day and age.

Searching the kitchen was pointless but the bedroom seemed a likely place for Silver to hide things so that was where Metal started, ransaking his drawers and feeling around for any hidden compartments. His search proved fruitful when he discovered an old shoe box stashed under a floor panel beneath the bed and pushed right to the back of the wall.

Opening the box, Metal Sonic stared down at the hundreds of photographs, big and small, of all Silver's friends back in the past. There were photos of Sonic, of Tails and Knuckles, of Amy and Cream, of Shadow, Rouge and Omega, of Vector, Espio, Charmy, of Shade and of Big and of Marine... and especially of Blaze. Nearly half the box were just pictures of Blaze, candid as well as posed. Some of the more recent ones included a glossy photo of Silver and Blaze on their wedding day back in the Sol Dimension and then another they had taken for their second wedding reception which they apparently had put on specially for the friends that hadn't been able to travel through the dimensions the first time. Then there were photos of them on their honeymoon and...

Metal Sonic clutched the photograph carefully between his claws.

...a kitten. A newborn silver coloured kitten with a purple tipped tail. The messy writing that had been scribbled in pencil on the back read: Steele. Premature at Aug 1st. We don't know if we'll ever be able to have another...

When Metal Knuckles had told him that the Sonic Allies were beginning to produce children, passing on their genes in creating miniature versions of themselves, he hadn't wanted to believe it. But that was nature - the animal kingdom constantly sought to secure their geneology by producing offspring to carry on their code and pass it on to the next descendent. 

A bastardised form of immortality, it felt like. It was selfish. It was sickening.

Metal allowed Sonic to believe that he didn't know anything about the existence of his future children. But the truth was he did. He knew very well what Sonic had done.

However, as Metal had to keep reminding himself about, it was a matter for a later time. Right now, he was operating systematically and he soon resumed his first mission by entering the sitting room and finding out how to turn on the television.

The place looked like a secret hideout in many ways so perhaps there were agents who had private methods of contacting Silver. There were no computers but there was the huge television which was full of channels that Metal Sonic hadn't heard of and each channel was full of programmes and series that were unfamiliar to him. Except for re-runs of that 'Kitchen of Chaos' show with Gordon the Ram. However this wasn't Metal's first time seeking out secrets and, sure enough, he eventually found an inconspicuous hidden 'channel' on the TV. There was nothing on it apart from a spinning grey logo in the shape of a spiked ball. Obviously, there was some kind of password needed but Metal Sonic wasn't in the mood to play around with it and, when desperate times called for desperate measures, sometimes the best way was the most direct one.

The window blind was pulled back with such force that it fell from the railing and light flooded the room providing Metal Sonic with his first look at the future.

The sky was a strange colour, a clear indication that pollution was still a severe issue and the city skyline had a constant thick cloud shrouding the tops of the very sleek and shiny skyscrapers. It was nearly, but not quite, the flashy visions of the future that people liked to fantasize about. Down below, walking in the streets, were tired looking Mobians going about their day to day business. The cars, which weren't exactly flying cars but seemed to glide over the ground without wheels, looked a little more futuristic in both shape and style. A couple of people were on motorised skateboards, and there were some questionable fashion choices but, other than that, there were a few similarities to Metal's own time to be seen.

The future was constantly changing and morphing depending on what was happening back in the present so perhaps this not an accurate depiction of Silver’s version of home. 

But Metal didn't have the patience to study something as mundane as appearances and, on another note, he rarely had the patience for doors: the window he had unveiled was much more practical.

A frazzled looking doe, struggling with bags, and her bleating pint-sized fawn were turning down an empty street when a dark shadow descended on them and had knocked them both to the ground. There was no-one around to jump to their aid.

"What-?" the doe began to shriek and then found her voice failing her when she took in the sight of a very sinister looking hedgehog-shaped robot. "What are you?"

Her son gripped her arms, his eyes bulging with fear. "It's the Hedgebot! The Hedgebot from Gramama's stories!" 

The legend of the evil Hedgebot was one that nearly every child knew. Metal Sonic had left such an impression on the future that he was now immortalised as the dreaded 'Bogeyman'.

"You WiLL tEll Me whaT I waNt to kNow," Metal Sonic demanded, taking a step forward and further instilling faith in the young fawn that he was worthy of being feared.

"Please!" sobbed the doe. "No! Leave us alone! I beg you leave us alone!" She dropped her bags, clutched at her son and hurriedly shuffled back so that she was against the wall. At once, a cold metal hand grabbed her face and pinned her mouth shut.

"CeASe youR screAms anD no HarM shAll coMe to You or yOur offSPring," he warned as he flashed his red optics. He only released the doe once she had miserably nodded her agreement to those wishes.

"Wh-what... What do you want?"

"ThIs." Metal brought up a hologram projection of the screen that had been on Silver's television showing the spinning grey logo. "You knOw tHIs?"

The doe glanced at it, shaking violently out of fear.

"... Peacespace?" she whimpered. "That's... That's a storage company. What do you want with them?"

"WheRe is tHeir baSe?"

"You mean their warehouse? Just outside of town. North. But they're no longer running. The company went bankrupt ages ago." She flinched as Metal suddenly disappeared, his business with the woman concluded.

Sure enough, just as the doe had said, the warehouse complex was situated on the fringes of the suburbs. It was quiet and looked empty but Metal suspected that was a front. True, according to Silver, the company that employed him were disbanded but that didn't mean they hadn't left some titbits behind for Metal Sonic to snap up. First things first: getting in.

There was one lone and very cold security guard stood outside looking bored out of his skull. He glanced up sharply when he heard the growl of Metal's engines.

"Who goes there?" he called into the air, readying his gun. "Hello?"

Unfortunately, he never found out who it was that killed him.

This had been the moment Bryce had been dreading. The shadowed face of her superior wasn't one she enjoyed talking to on a good day, let alone a bad one.

"Yes Sir," she repeated to the screen. "Silver is not here."

"Where is he?"

She made sure her voice sounded steady.

"...Well, I would guess he's gone back in time again, Sir."

"Back in...? Again? What do you mean, again?"

"We, uh... We think he's been making frequent trips, Sir. But because he keeps returning to almost the same time he leaves, we've not noticed until recently. He's looking older all of a sudden."

Silver was a hedgehog that kept his distance from the science facility when it was possible. He wasn't exactly retired but he seemed to prefer not being ordered around and didn't appear to show any interest in being tied down to their organisation which, when Bryce thought about it, was fair enough. But that didn't mean Silver was a stranger to her and his sudden ageing hadn't gone unnoticed by anyone at Peacespace.

"How long?" her superior barked, his voice sounding angry. "How long has he been visiting?"

"Well, by our observations, he's looking like an adult, Sir. Mid to late twenties?"

"So he's spent years away?" roared the voice over the line. "...Where in time does he keep going?"

"We're not sure on that. We've hardly had any time to study his tacheon particles..."

"Dr Capella-Flynn, find out where he keeps going and stop him! We need him here, young, fit and healthy! Not wasting his life back in the past! Get a hold of Professor Von Shlemmer. Search his house too! See if he's brought anything back with him - that'll give us a clue."

"Yes Sir." She went to shut off the connection but he beat her to it and, after pondering the dark screen, she leant back in her leather chair with a moan, taking off her ear piece and rubbing her gloved hands over her face.

"I caN savE you THat trouBLe."

Bryce jumped and shot to her feet. The voice had sounded so warbled and false that she could have mistaken it as belonging to a robot...

She prevented herself from screaming as, sure enough, a blue coloured robot stepped from his hiding place in the corner of the room. 

"Who are- What are you?"

And how had he got in without alerting security?

The robot's red eyes gleamed brighter.

"I can Tell you WHere SILVER THE HEDGEHOG is aNd whAt he is doiNg."

"You can?" With her finger in her pocket, she was in position to silently called for emergency backup once she'd assessed whether the robot was a threat or not. "Wait, you didn't answer my question."

"My nAme is METAL SONIC."

She was actually able to feel her heart skip a beat.

"As in... the famous badnik created by Dr Eggman over two centuries ago?"

"JuSt as SILVER has jOurniEd to thE PAst," Metal Sonic growled, "so tOO havE I jourNied fRom thE pAst."

Her fear and suspicion being replaced by excitement, Bryce gripped her chair.

"You're from the past?" she gasped. "Really? Then you know what Silver's doing?"

He had her where he wanted her.

"He Has beEN liviNg a liFe sePErate FRom thiS timE," he explained. "He has mAny frieNds in My timE... and He haS a cHild."

"He WHAT!?" Bryce clamped a hand over her mouth. Young Silver, their Silver, was a father? "Are you telling me he was able to reproduce in the past! That's- that’s incredible! We might be able to find a birth record of his offspring somewhere." 

Scientists had doubted whether Silver was capable of reproducing though they lived in hope that he could - if only to preserve the all-important Blue Chaos Born gene.

"DouBTful," Metal interrupted her eager thoughts. "The moTheR of hiS chiLd is of ANother dimeNsion. BirtH recORds fOr his SOn will bE founD thERe. Not In thiS woRld."

"...Drat!" Bryce hissed through her teeth. "There might have been a chance..." She broke off, suddenly remembering her present company.

Tilting his head slightly, Metal Sonic picked up on her abrubt pausing.

"A chanCe of whAT?"

Narrowing her eyes, Dr Capella-Flynn gripped her pocketed handheld tighter.

"...Who exactly are you? Are you really THE Metal Sonic from all those old horror stories? Because there must be a damn good reason as to why you think I'll be willing to tell you anything if that's the case." She had only a second to let out a squeak of shock when she felt cold claws press over her mouth as she stared into the sinister depths of Metal Sonic's computerised eyes.

"I aM feeliNg grACiouS enOugh to oFfer you a TRade." She could feel the slight vibrations as Metal spoke from his throat. "I Will tell yOu wherE in timE SILVER liKEs to visiT and, iN retuRn, you sHall allOw me To accEss yoUr datA fileS."

Trying to avoid having her lips cut off, Bryce was thankful when Metal removed his hand to allow her to speak. She was also thankful for still having a hand on her handheld and she used that moment to press the button.

"But I can't... What?"

"This coMpany, PeacESpace..." Metal said. "WHat is yoUR staTus?" He gripped the woman's throat again.

"GAH! We are not... Peacespace disbanded. After Silver saved us from the Flames of Despair, we- we thought it would be safer -gah- to keep low profiles. The Followers of Robotnik would make Silver a target-"

"What dO you mEan by tHe FlaMes of DespAir?" Metal Sonic instantly asked, a dangerous whirr sticking in his chest. "What waS its NAme? Was it CallEd IBLIS? SOLARIS?"

"N-name? It had no name."

"WAs it coNnecTed in aNY way tO SoleANna?"

"The old city? What are you talking about? Soleanna City divided into two towns nearly a century ago. Why would they have anything to do with the Flames of Despair?"

"...Then thaT timEline rEmaiNs eraSed." Metal Sonic turned his head away briefly which gave Bryce time to look incredibly confused. But there wasn't time voice any questions when Metal returned his attention to her "...I offereD yOu a DEal."

"Get your hands off me!" shouted Bryce, struggling at last. "You know we might be disbanded, but there are still enough of us around!"

It would have been tremendous timing on Bryce's part if, at that moment, the armed guards came bursting into the room with guns locked, loaded and pinned on the robot but, the truth was, they had to wait in awkward silence for about 30 more seconds before that happened.

Even then, it wasn't the thrilling rescue that was often seen in the films.

Metal Sonic, despite having no expressions to give, gave security an annoyed look and could have tsked if he wanted to before dropping Bryce and making short work of the meddlesome guards, dashing from one to the next and leaving them unconscious, if not dead, behind him. The entire exercise only irritated Metal and when he returned to Bryce, he had no patience left.

"A gReat shAMe," he told her, gagging her with his hand again. "If you haD alloWed me to LooK At youR filEs, I woulD havE GLadly toLd you whERe SILVER is and what He is dOing and wHO he is FriEnds with. I'm suRE you wOuld Have beEn inteRestEd to knoW that, woULdn't yoU?"

Bryce moaned something unintelligible and made a furious noise but all that resulted in was her being tied to her chair with a rag in her mouth as Metal Sonic took control of her computer.

There on the screen spun the Peacespace logo and all it took was for Metal to plug himself in before the screen changed to a list of files ready to be accessed, much to Bryce's horror.

With a computerised mind, Metal made a quick read of the files.

"...genetic engineering, comparative genomic hybridisation, cytogenics, Fenton reactions..." Metal continued on in his head. "Splicing - cutting out parts of the DNA and adding it to an organism. Cloning - creation of an organism that is genetically identicle to the original (desirable traits to be copied - link), GMOs (Genetically Modified Organism) /genetic information manipulated to give different characteristics/"

Finally, after his deep searching, Metal found the file he needed: a video log titled 'Project Silver'.

A middle-aged man was sat in front of the camera with a dishevelled, tired appearance but with a glint in his eyes that spoke of fear and anticipation. His name badge was obscured slightly so that all that could be seen of his name was 'Von Shlem-'. He was staring straight into the camera and spoke naturally, no sign of referring to notes at all.

"Well over 2 centuries ago," he was saying, his voice heavily accented, "scientists made it their mission to create ultimate life. For some, it was to be used to enhance our knowledge of medicine in the hopes that we could live longer and stronger. Others, however, saw the creation of ultimate life as a weapon. An army of these super-soldiers could almost guarantee total domination of not only our planet, but that of any other planet harbouring life out in the cosmos. The work of Professor Gerald Robotnik and his team was a success. They completed Project Shadow and birthed the Ultimate Lifeform, a creature capable of extreme strength and endurance with the powers of Chaos at its disposal. Recognising the danger of such a lifeform, the G.U.N. made it their mission to wipe out all trace of Project Shadow and, in this, they were just as successful. The fate of Shadow, Professor Robotnik's 'Ultimate Lifeform' is unknown and his whereabouts were kept a mystery.

With this message, I hope to have it recorded for future history that we, once again, in the absence of any data left over from Project Shadow, have created ultimate life.

We live in dark times. Poverty and disease threaten us all and our resources are near depleted. In our time of oppression - oppression from criminal forces, from ancient evils, from the followers of The Eggman, from the hostile aliens of other planets - we have turned to one hope; to once again create an Ultimate Lifeform to save us and to protect us. It is my dream that this, our silver lining on the storm cloud, can bring us hope.

Thus, Project Silver is a success. Without the inclusion of the Black Arms Species but still retaining the original hedgehog DNA, we have spliced together another GMO, one capable of psychokinetic power. We have, however, taken a risky precaution. The original subject for the project, the only hedgehog infant to be found in all the orphanages we searched, prematurely died from suspected Cot Death but we've made a breakthrough in the science community in taking this infant hoglet, our silver lining, and altering his genetics, infusing it with the original Chaos Born DNA and actually resurrecting a completely new being! Hedgehogs are a dying species and we have little time to look for another so I pray that those hearing these words understand how our desperation moved us to use the remains of a child to create our future. Of course, we have named him Silver.

Arrangements have been made to keep Silver under the care of either a suitable surrogate mother or an orphanage caretaker to raise him. This may be our undoing but I strongly feel that this inclusion of moral standards will prove that this is not an Ultimate Lifeform to be feared but, rather, to be hopeful for. Perhaps the fact that Silver was born an ordinary hedgehog might persuade authorities that he is to be trusted and not to be treated as Project Shadow was once treated. It would be wise to withold the knowledge that Silver was born from a dead body. Like a true phoenix.

This has to work. Our new modified Ultimate Lifeform MUST be our silver lining. The original DNA sample that Professor Gerald Robotnik took for the creation of Project Shadow will not last much longer and we do not know what became of the Chaos Born hedgehog or of his decendents. As I have repetedly said, there are very few hedgehogs left - they are critically endangered! And of the precious few that we have tested, not one of them holds the dormant Blue Gene that was so crucial to the creation of Shadow and Silver. It must be the original DNA. We have tried and failed to preserve DNA samples taken from Silver; alas, the gene-sequence is not viable. Our young GMO is still being raised and we wait until he is of proper age before we test his abilities and to see if the Chaos Born's DNA has successfully fused with his own. If Project Silver fails, then our chances fail with him. This is our final hope for the future.

Perhaps Project Silver and, should he still exist, Project Shadow... perhaps they can lead this world to peace. Those born of Hope and of Fear, from the Past and for our Future. And perhaps, through them, the legacy of the legendary Chaos Born will be remembered forever."

The video ended and went to static.

Metal Sonic's mind swam with the information, processing it into new storage files.

"It maY intEreST you tO knoW," he said over his shoulder, "that SILVER THE HEDGEHOG has yEt to fatHer a HedgeHog chilD. His soN is Of the Cat SPecies, like ITs moTher. You Will reciEve no 'BluE GeNe' frOm the likEs of hiM."

Of course Bryce couldn't reply but she did struggle.

"And I was right," the robot continued to himself. "Without Sonic... Shadow and Silver will cease to exist. If the legacy of the Chaos Born IS to survive, it shall survive through ME."

Bryce stopped and listened with growing amazement at the unsettling noises coming from the robot.

"There can only be one Sonic."

Chapter Text

Bobbing up and down went Vector's motorboat, over the waves, some 40 to 60 miles off from the Emerald Coast. They had shut off the motor and were just having a drift for a little bit while Vector read his book and Charmy sat at the prow with a fishing line. His music player was beside him but it had run out of life an hour ago so the bee, now a full 20 years old, had resorted to singing his own tunes.

"1, 2, 3, 4, 5," he sang, "Once I caught a fish a-live. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. Then I let it go a-gain." He paused for a second to see if Vector would say anything but he didn't. "Why did you let it go? Be-cause it bit my fin-ger so. Which fin-ger did it bite? ... This little finger on my right!"

"I'll bite more than jus' yer finger."

There was the complaint that Charmy had been waiting for. 20 years wasn't really enough time for Charmy to 'mature'.

"You know, Vec," he sighed, inhaling the sea air, "I was kinda hoping we'd go fishing on a lake or something. What am I going to catch way out here in the ocean?"

"We ain't after the little lake fish, Charmy. We're here fer a REAL feast," Vector licked his teeth. "Maybe a Marlin or something. A fish that'll knock Espio off his feet when he gets back."

Charmy glanced doubtfully at his little fishing line.

"With this, I'd call myself talented if I was able to catch an old boot. Probably should've brought a net or, you know, an experienced, real-life, fisherman."

Two years ago, the Chaotix had discovered a jungle tribe way out in the East while they were on the trail of a bandit. The tribe had been a little community of mostly chameleons like Espio but a family of geckos and a salamander had been accepted among them it seemed. Once the Chaotix had helped them with a particularly stressful fight with a rival tribe of snakes, they were given assured friendship and hospitality. One of the Tribe members had taken a liking to Espio and had requested that the Matriarch of the Tribe agree that he be allowed to stay if he so wished.

Espio had agreed to stay and help train their defence force but only for a little while - his first duty was to the Chaotix and to his place as one of the Sonic Allies.

"He sure is taking his sweet time over in the jungles, isn't he?" Charmy commented and he could sense the toothy grin on Vector's face.

"Ah, ya know why THAT is."

Charmy cleared his throat and mimicked the voice of the tribal chameleon.

"'Oh, thank you for helping to save my people, brave warrior. You're so quick and nimble! I'm falling for you hard!'"

"Naw, Charmy," Vector tutted, "they didn't say that exactly."

"Nah, it was something subtle like 'Won't you stay and teach your skills to our inexperienced soldiers so we aren't left defenceless?' but it was said with a ton of hidden subtext which was something along the lines of 'Can you stay so I can make out with you up in my treehouse shack? Also, marry me.'"

The two of them laughed very loudly out on the open sea, where no-one but the gulls were around to hear them.

"Well, he's a good looking guy so you couldn't exactly blame 'em," Vector pointed out.

"Don't reckon Esp was all that interested anyway," Charmy shrugged. "Jungles are great and all but there aren't many mysteries to be solved there."

"Even Detectives retire eventually."

"Ha! Yeah right! Knowing you, Vec, you'll be a least a hundred- AH!" Charmy cried as he bumped his music player off the side and watched it go plunk into the water. "My music player!"

"Well that's gone and done it," Vector grumbled, standing up and coming over to stand next to the bee. "Smooth work, Charmy."

"Wait, no!" Charmy went on. "Tails made it waterproof! It should be okay, if I can just get it back."

"Charmy..."

"It's got, like, five thousand songs on there!" Charmy pleaded. "It's got your playlist and everything! You know how long it will take for me to get all that back?" He wasn't a kid anymore, that was for sure, but some of his baby boyish cuteness had still carried over and Charmy could summon it at a moment of his choosing.

Vector rolled his eyes. He was an older croc now, pushing 35 years into his prime of life, which meant that he was at peak performance as far as lifespans were concerned.

"...Yer lucky I'm feeling in the mood for a swim. Be warned though, I can only dive to a certain depth, you got it?"

Without waiting for a response, Vector stripped off his jacket, chain necklace and headphones before he dived into the cool water and disappeared from view with a few swishes of his thick tail, leaving behind a string of tiny air bubbles which Charmy tried to follow for as long as possible.

He sat there and waited and waited and waited, eventually glancing up at the morning sun to check the progression of time. It was about 10:00 in the morning.

After a while, the water stirred a little distance from the boat and a green scaly head popped through the surface, missing the boat by about four meters.

"Did you get it?" Charmy called as Vector came swimming over to him.

Grabbing the side of the boat, Vector held out his clawed hand. "Here."

"You're the best Vector!" Charmy grinned after thanking him, taking the small device back. "The absolute best!"

"Yeah, yeah, I know." Vector hadn't climbed back into the boat. He remained where was in the water with one hand still clutching the side and the rest of him turned back out towards the open sea.

"...What's the matter?" asked Charmy.

"There was somethin' down there," Vector told him. "Looked like something of Eggman's."

"...A 'currently in use' sorta something or an old kinda something?"

"Old. And big. Pretty sure it was a warship."

"A warship!?" Charmy's eyes widened. They hadn't had to deal with any of Eggman's warships in years! Not since Charmy was a pre-teen anyway.

"...Back to base, Charmy," Vector suddenly barked, pulling himself up onto the boat with a simple flex of his shoulders to check the coordinates on his handheld. "We're gonna suit up and come back to scope this thing out."

"You got it, Boss."

When Vector and Charmy returned to the area an hour later, now kitted out in their diving gear, they made sure to anchor the boat before diving down in the area that Vector had previously swam. Down, down, they dove, the water so clear at first but growing darker as they swam further from the sunny surface. Even down on the ocean floor, there was still plenty of light to see by but, living up to its name, the water of Emerald Coast had gone from crystal blue to a glassy green colour.

Charmy paused in mid-paddle as a large ominous shape appeared in front of him and he stared in absolute shock as Vector continued on, fearlessly leading the way.

"Woah," Vector heard Charmy whistle over their built-in communicators. "You weren't kidding. THAT'S what I call a warship..." Charmy kicked his legs and swam closer, drawing up beside Vector as he squinted forward to read the writing on the hull of the ship. "'The Egg Carrier'..."

With a strong flick of his tail, Vector positioned himself directly above the wreckage.

"I'm sure I've seen somethin' like this in a picture."

"Maybe Sonic will know," Charmy suggested, peeking his head in through a large hole that had torn the port side.

"I'd stake my entire fortune on Sonic knowin'," Vector grunted, already taking pictures with his underwater camera.

The two detectives split up, swimming in different directions to scope out the ship quicker. Charmy swam in through the hole while Vector did a slow examination of the outside and the debris around on the seabed. The bee, now taller and more slender (though not as tall as Vector), was able to wriggle through other holes in the side and discover room after room of flooded warship as well as all the fish and other aquatic creatures that had made the sunken vessel their home. He even found the remains of Eggman's old chair in the main control room all covered in barnacles and starfish and, just to make his sentiments know, gave it as strong a kick as he could despite the water hindering his power.

"Yo, Vec?" Charmy said as he stuck his head through another hole which lead back outside. "This thing hasn't been used in years. Look at it."

Vector was up on what would have been the deck, examining the pipes.

"I am," he replied as Charmy came swimming up. He pointed to the metal pipes. "And it's pretty clear that a whole heap of fightin' was going on around here. See that? Them grooves in the metal? These dings?" Sure enough, in the metal were deep scratches and several tears. "Classic signs of one Sonic T. Hedgehog." His eyes looked beyond the pipes towards another piece of ship where the metal had warped and bent. His keen detective mind was quick to pick out a familiar mark in the ground; a wide dent with two puncture holes. "Well, well, well... Knuckles too, huh? Well where's there's a Sonic and a Knuckles..." Vector ran his hand over a scorch mark on the metal, "...there's usually a Tails."

Charmy kicked his legs and turned around in a circle.

"There's nothing of this place. Just dead beat robot remains," he said.

Vector didn't say anything in reply. He was lost in his own thoughts, thousands of theories coursing through his crocodile brain as he slowly swam back and forth, looking at his pictures, looking at the wreckage, looking at the remains of robot pieces that were scattered around the area, looking at one remaining robot shell that was still mostly intact...

"...Vec?" Charmy called to him softly. "Yo, Vector, watcha thinking?"

"I'm thinkin'," replied Vector, "there's somethin' 'bout this that feels familiar. That I oughta know."

"What kinda something?"

"Somethin' Amy was sayin'. Yer remember when we were round Knuckles' place when Ruby was born?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"They started talkin' 'bout Chaos."

"You mean that watery monster thing that was sealed inside the Master Emerald? What's that got to do with this?"

"Nothin' much." Vector was hovering over the beat up robot with the giant hole in it which, other than that, had kept in pretty good shape. "'Cept that they said Egghead had a warship and Amy kept mentionin' a robot that, apparently was a lot like ol' Omega. I'm wonderin' if that's what this is."

"Robots like Omega?" Charmy frowned, looking around him. One or two of the robots did have a similar resemblance to Omega, that was true, but unless it was the erosion of the sea that was playing tricks with him, Charmy thought that these robots looked a little taller and their limbs were thinner. "But wouldn't Egghead have kept these? He had a load of old robots back in his place on Christmas Isle before Ira Robotnik blew the place up."

"Maybe the Warship went down before he could do that." Vector shrugged. "I'm just puttin' clues together here. Like the fact that we're not far from the Emerald Coast which borders Station Square which was targeted by Perfect Chaos..." It was as though voicing that had made Vector come to a decision. "Charmy," he barked as he bent down and lifted the dead robot, "give us a hand with this."

Blinking hard to shake the exhaustion, Silver had spent the last 3 hours fighting sleep. Metal Knuckles, Tails Doll and Amy Doll had left him alone, though what they were doing was unknown which meant that Silver wasn't in any hurry to fall asleep and drop his guard.

The dripping sound in the background wasn't soothing, it was irritating. And the wind howling sounded ominous, not cosy. Silver wasn't sure how long he'd be kept here, listening to the tunnel sounds, awaiting torment from Amy Doll to allow Metal Sonic to return and threaten his friends' safety.

Eyes heavy and face dropping into the fur of his chest, Silver yawned very loudly.

"Ooh, attractive," whispered a voice.

Silver's head shot up and he looked around warily. He could almost swear that the voice had sounded just like Sonic the-

"Sonic?" Silver hissed under his breath as a blue hedgehog crawled out from under a stack of crates, slinking over the ground on all fours like a wild animal and slipping behind his chair in one swift movement.

"Shhh!" Sonic hissed back, pulling out a couple of loose quills from his back in order to pick Silver's locks (it was a trick that the hedgehogs had learnt recently).

"Please tell me you have backup," Silver whispered, fearfully searching the shadows for any signs of the robotic monstrosities, or better - the familiar face of another friend.

He heard Sonic discretely cough behind him as he went fiddling with the metal clamps. "Uh... Well, there's Big. He's about 50 miles southwest of here."

"Sonic..."

"Save it for now, buddy." Sonic reached over and patted Silver's shoulder. "We've got to get you out of here as soon as possible." Sonic could see the state he was in - Silver's fur was slick and dirty and some of his quills had fallen out from stress. His eyes were bloodshot and his lips looked dry. Then there was the gash on his head which had matted the fur and quills with clotted blood. A dried blood streak ran from the wound down the side of Silver's face and had spotted his shoulder with red dots.

Whether it was relief at being rescued or fear of what might happen, Silver's eyes began to water.

"Metal Sonic isn't here," he whimpered.

Sonic grit his teeth and nodded. "That's what I'm counting on."

"He's gone forward in time," Silver went on whispering, gasping for breath as he mentally walked himself through the steps to avoid a panic attack. "To the future."

The frown on Sonic's face grew. "When's he due back?"

"Less than fifteen minutes," replied Silver, his hands trembling. "Amy Doll will be here before then."

Ears immediately pricking, Sonic looked up sharply. 

"...Amy Doll? I thought all the Amy Dolls were... " He shook his head. "Never mind. We can be gone in ten minutes."

"Gone?"

"Silver, do you know how hard it is to keep my location a secret from Metal?" Sonic said, moving into Silver's line of sight. "If he comes back and I'm still here, he's gonna know about it. Unless I put a great deal of effort into clearing my mind and, with you here and in the state you're in, I don't know if I'll be able to concentrate on doing that for very long, he's going to be on my tail the second he arrives."

"Don't you wanna know what he's doing?" Silver pressed. "What his plan is?"

Sonic looked at Silver's sorry state again and sighed. "...Right now, pal, you're more important."

Silver took a shaky breath. "...What if I want to know what he's doing? He went to the future to get information about me."

"What?" Sonic gasped as quietly as he could, his ears fixed on listening for the approach of something robotic. "Why?"

"I don't know." Silver shook his head miserably. "They won't tell me."

Sonic gnawed his lip. 

"The area outside is full of radiation," he told him. "You're in the middle of an old Eggman power station. I managed to get this far with the help of a little Chaos Energy and by finding the opening of this tunnel in good time but I'll have to run extra fast if I want to get us both out of here."

"Please, Sonic," Silver squeaked, "I have to know what he's doing."

"We'll find out eventually. Blaze has been worried sick about you and Steele-"

"'Eventually' might be too late." Silver looked over Sonic's shoulders, worry etched in his eyes. "...These robots..." he gulped, "they hate their organic counterparts. They call you their Inferiors. If we don't find out what they're going to do then you four are in serious trouble. Again."

Sonic thought back to his previous long-distance conversation with Metal and how he had made him promise not to include anyone other than was necessary. Before, that had meant just he, Tails and Knuckles. If Amy Doll was now on the scene...

"...Why would Metal Sonic need information about you if he wants to get to me?" Sonic asked, his voice sharpening more than it should of at the thought of what he would do if one of those robots so much as looked in Amy's direction.

"That's what I'm saying," Silver insisted. "Leave me here so I can find out."

Shaking his head, Sonic brought himself back to the present and remembered he had the welfare of his other friends on his hands as well as Amy's. 

"I'm not leaving you alone, Silver. No way."

"You can't stay here..."

Simultaneously, both hedgehogs' ears twitched in the same direction as they heard something like a door quietly clang in the echoing distance. It could only mean that one of the robots would be coming their way.

Sonic spat a curse under his breath and went back to work trying to fiddle with the locks. He would have tried using one of his more traditional methods for freeing Silver but he didn't want to risk hurting his friend or alerting the enemy that he was there.

"Sonic, no!" Silver protested with a moan. "Metal will find you! Go!"

Sonic might have ignored the warning had his sharp hearing and sense of smell not warned him of the imminent approach of a Team Metal member. So he flattened his ears but rather than dash away to safety, instead retreated back to his hiding place off to the side before Silver had time to protest against his decision to stay on the scene.

Especially since Amy Doll was now nearby and quickly appeared into Silver's line of sight.

"Are yoU talkiNg to mE?" she asked sweetly.

Silver tried keeping the same tone of voice he had used before.

"...Uh... Go!" he repeated. "Leave me alone!"

"No," Amy Doll said, shaking her head. "We hAve to briNG METAL SONIC baCk hOme."

There was no sign of Metal Knuckles or the Tails Doll and that worried both Silver and Sonic, who was watching the scene in front of him and wishing he could just break the Amy Doll and rush off with Silver in tow - but if there was one thing that Silver valued, it was knowing your enemy's motives. Silver had spent much of his naïve youth being watched over by the likes of Blaze and Sonic and the others which had shaped him into a much more responsible adult.

That wasn't to say that there wasn't still a child-like innocence to him and when Amy Doll tormented him enough to make contact with the future, Sonic had to press his eyes shut and block out the sounds of Silver's cries. He could feel the chaos energy inside him flaring up and burning his veins, just as it did whenever he turned into Super Sonic.

Only there weren't enough Chaos Emeralds to achieve a Super state which meant that the only form Sonic could possibly have taken was the one achieved by negative emotions... the dangerous form that Sonic had sworn to never ever use again unless the situation called for it.

Taking slow breaths, Sonic was thankful when Silver stopped screaming but now had to concentrate even more when the portal opened and his metal counterpart emerged from the future.

It had been years since Sonic last saw Metal Sonic so he almost couldn't afford to look, for fear that he would lose his grip on what kept him hidden...