Every Dark Cloud has a Silver Lining

by Carvcr Edlund

Eggman is at it again. In his quest to find another way to defeat his blue nemesis, he creates a strange weapon in his sleep. Having no idea what it does, he decides to test it out on Silver (the slowest) to see just that. What does it do? Will Silver's life be changed forever? What will the others think if they find out? Read to see. Rated T for language, and adult themes.

1. From Bad To Worse

Author's note:

(Go ahead and skip the first paragraph, it's not that important, but the next stuff sorta is.)

This is my first Shadilver/Silvadow ish story, and probably my only one. A little Mephilver, and ScourgexSilver, and maybe some other people liking Silver, but mainly Shadliver. Don't expect all the chapters to be this long. There probably won't be a whole lot more, and they will probably be only about half this long each, just because they come out faster that way. It's not Yaoi (well, not as far as I know, I'm not really clear on the whole yaoi thing), no m-preg ect. As you can probably guess from the cover picture, this is female Silver, so there is gender bending. Thing is, Shadow and Silver are my favourite characters, and I would hate for them to always hate each other. Plus everybody's always so mean to Silver because of his hair and stuff, I figured I'd let y'all know how it feels to be bullied. Oh, and neither Silver nor Shadow is gay. You'll see if you read.

WARNING: below is mentioned in the story eventually (well, except for the house description), but if you want to get some background details first, that is why it is here.

Well, the basic storyline before the story starts is this: It's a year after Sonic next gen ('06). Silver is 14 and his life sucks, Blaze is dead, or missing, or whatever. Silver is stranded in Sonic's time (Mobius prime), and Shadow pretty much bullies him whenever given the chance. The only person who is even remotely nice to him is Amy, and she's always chasing after Sonic. Eggman has been quiet for a while and everyone is dreading some big attack. Silver lives alone in a small cottage he built with his psychokinesis when he got stranded, it has five main rooms (bedroom, kitchen, living room, extra room, and an attic) that are all fairly small, a bathroom downstairs, and its two stories high. Silver hardly ever goes into town for fear of running into Shadow, and the general people that make fun of him. Mephiles is out there somewhere, low on power, hiding in the shadows trying to build up enough to attack again. He has a special grudge against Silver because Silver was going to help him, but turned to the other side and helped Sonic and the rest to win. Oh, and unless I say otherwise, this is all in Silver's first person point of view. Most of this stuff is explained later, but in case you get confused, I also put it first.

By the way, here are the ages of the characters:

Silver: 14 Sonic: 16 Shadow: 16 (physically) Tails: 8 Eggman: 52 Amy: 15 Cream: 6 Scourge: 17

Blaze: 16 Big: 18 Espio: 17 Charmy: 9 Vector: 20 Vanilla: 19 Rouge: 18 Knuckles: 17

And the couples:

ShadowxSilver/Mercury SonicxAmy KnucklesxRouge TailsxCream VectorxVanilla Bigx...Froggy?

Charmy= forever alone Eggman= forever alone Espio= too ninja for a girlfriend. (Maybe an OC)

Plenty of romance, but I don't really plan to have any lemons unless you guys give me good feedback, and ask for it, then I'll add them. This story is pretty flexible, it could go in a few ways. I may even make a beginning part, then have a couple other stories that are like, alternate endings. I read and value any and all reviews, and if I feel that you want a response, then I will private message you.

WARNING: MILD anti-Sonic and friends stuff in the beginning.

I don't own any of the Sonic the hedgehog characters, that honour goes to SEGA (c)

Mercury, Kyle Tygre, Sofia, and some other random characters are my OCs, but I guess Mercury isn't really that original. Full sized picture of Mercury on my deviantart account biagotmilkandjelly also, she is the cover picture.

Link to my deviantart account:

Since I'm using a picture from deviantart, I have to give myself permission to use it. So: I, biagotmilkandjelly, give myself permission to use my picture as the cover of this fanfiction XD

Okay, so thats about all from me. Most of my authors notes wont be this long, they're usually just a couple of lines. Yeah, so no flames! You know what to expect. If you don't like it, then don't read it! Kapische?

Sorry for any mistakes in spelling/grammar, I try to catch as many as I can, but nobody's perfect! I appreciate any that you tell me of, and I will do my best to fix them ALL XD

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Chapter 1- From Bad to Worse *you might want to read the author's note first (hint, hint)*

"Hey Silver," he whispered in my ear. I knew the voice all too well. It crept into my ear and sent shivers down my spine. Nearly every experience with that voice has ended in my pain, frustration, and humiliation. But I can't let him know how terrified I am, that will just encourage him.

"Oh, hi Shadow. Nice day today, don't you think?" It was a pretty nice day, it was the end of April, the sun was out and there wasn't any sign of rain. It was warm too; warm enough that I had decided to go and get groceries for the week two days early. Nonetheless, as I said this, I made for the main road, trying to get into public so that Shadow wouldn't pull anything.

"Hmph, if you like that sort of thing." He stated, sounding unconvinced. He was keeping pace with me, just following on my left side as I drew ever closer to the welcoming mass of people on the main street. I knew I wouldn't make it though; Shadow had as good as caught me. He was just toying with me at this point.

"Why wouldn't you like it? The sun is a nice change to the bad weather lately." I was just trying to keep the conversation going now, the longer I kept him talking, the closer I could get to the open street.

"There are too many people out when the weather is good, and I don't particularly like crowds." He responded, continuing to keep pace with me. I vaguely wondered why he hadn't stopped me yet, I usually never made it this close to the street, it was only about twenty meters away, I might actually make it!

"Well I'm sorry to hear that, everyone should be able to enjoy days like this." I told him truthfully. Only 15 meters now…

"Mm-hm…" he muttered. He paused mid-stride for a second, seeming to think about something. I took my chance and sped up. He caught up in no time, though he still allowed me to head towards the main road. Less than ten meters…

We both remained silent, I couldn't think of anything to say. Five more meters…

He kept in stride with me, but didn't move to cut me off. Just a few more steps…

I gave a small sigh of relief when I made it onto the avenue filled with Mobians and humans. The road was lined with bright shops and streetlights. I glanced to my left to see that Shadow was still following me, only half a step behind. That was odd; he usually stuck to the side streets and alleys. Then again, it was odd that I even made it into the main street.

I made my way through the crowd to the supermarket. Shadow continued to follow at my side. It was really strange how he just followed without saying a word or making a move to attack me. I half-expected him to say 'later pothead' or 'see ya around Cocahog' and then disappear into an alley, but no such luck.

I finally got to the store and started collecting the groceries on my list. Shadow continued to follow. By the time I made it to the cash register, I was really weirded out. We'd only exchanged a few words while I was doing my shopping, and it had been mostly Shadow ridiculing my choice in purchases. Otherwise, he had silently followed me the whole time without really bothering me. There wasn't very much on my list, and it only took me about twenty minutes to collect it all and go to the checkout counter.

There was a nice-looking cat at the counter, she had grey fur and white paws. I knew her from other times I'd been to the store, her name was Sofia. She was one of the few people who didn't make fun of me; in fact, she'd even complimented my quills from time to time.

I put all my groceries down and greeted her with a smile. "Hey Sofia, how're you doing?"

She grinned back. "Hey Silver, I'm having a great day, how about you?" She started checking in my groceries and bagging them.

"Oh, you know how it is, same as usual. The sun is a nice change though, what do you think of it?" I answered. Shadow shifted behind me and pulled something out of his leather jacket's pocket (he had taken to wearing one since the incident with black doom). I ignored it.

"The sun makes it so beautiful outside, I can't wait for my shift to end so I can really enjoy it!" she told me, putting the last of the groceries in a sack. I pulled out my wallet to pay. But Shadow stepped in front of me.

"Here. I'll pay for it." Shadow handed her his credit card.

I kind of just stood there with my mouth half-open. Sofia seemed pretty surprised as well, but she took the credit card and swiped it. Shadow finished paying and took his credit card back. I was standing there with a look that was probably priceless on my face staring at the dark hedgehog in disbelief. He saw my expression and smirked.

"Close your mouth and take your groceries, Silver." He practically laughed in my face. I had no idea of how to respond so I did as told. I waved to Sofia as I left the store with Shadow still following, and his smirk still present.

I began to head back home, still wondering what the heck Shadow was up to. Once I made it out of the main street, I decided to ask him.

"Um, if you don't mind my asking, why did you pay for my things?" I turned around to face the ebony hedgehog. He seemed prepared for this, and stopped without needing to back up. He smirked at my question.

"You chose a good day to come into town, pothead. Today would be Maria's birthday, and I try to do something decent every year on it." His smirk faded a little as he turned to leave, and for a second, I almost pitied him. I knew what it was like to lose a friend.

"Okay, thank you. Good-bye Shadow, have a nice day." I said my farewell and turned to leave, thinking about my only real friend.

Blaze sacrificed herself to contain Iblis in order to spare me and our world. Every day since that moment I keep telling myself 'it should have been me, it should have been me.' But the really frustrating thing is, Blaze should (hypothetically,) still be alive. Sonic got rid of the flames of disaster before they were released, so my world should be back to normal, and Blaze should have never had to sacrifice herself. But I might never know, because I was stranded here, in this time. 200 years in my past and unable to get back home. And even if I did go back, nothing would be the same. Blaze and I might not have ever met, or even existed! It's not like I haven't tried to get back, both Shadow and Sonic have attempted to help send me back after we potentially saved the world from Iblis, but something keeps going wrong. We can open a portal, but it doesn't go anywhere. Tails ran some tests on it, and he says the problem is that the destination that we're imagining doesn't exist anymore. So that pretty much tells me that my world has changed dramatically, and now I have no idea of how to get to it.

I tried to get used to life in this time, but I just don't fit in. My quills, for one, make me a target for gangsters and jerks. My powers freak a lot of people out, but I've always used them for everything before, so it's hard to limit how much I use psychokinesis around other people, and when I do, it makes them think that I'm a total freak. And then there's the fact that my entire life, since the day I could walk and talk, I've been fighting for my life, and now (well, besides Shadow and sometimes Eggman) I don't ever have to fight anything. I always thought that once we beat Iblis and saved the world, Blaze and I would be happy and everything would be peaceful. But life was not turning out that way. My best friend, and the only person who every truly understood where I was coming from is missing, dead, or has never met me and has no idea who I am. I'm stranded in a time where I don't fit in, and even on nice days I am wary to leave my house. I generally kept to myself, passing the time by painting or learning how to cook fancy food because there was nothing else to do.

When Eggman attacks, I am expected to help, but never once thanked or appreciated. Shadow beats me up at every opportunity, Chaos knows why. Sonic is still sore about my attempt to kill him the first time we met, even though I have apologised for my mistake a thousand times over. Amy is nice to me, but she only ever talks about Sonic, and she's usually following or hanging out with him or her team. Tails and I don't get along very well, mostly because we are both very smart, and are constantly trying to outdo each other in intelligence. When he wins, he childishly rubs it in my face, and when I win, he says that I was using psychokinesis to cheat. He doesn't care that the reason I'm so smart is because I'm trying to learn as much as I can about this time so that I can fit in, so I've been reading as much history and science and mathematics books as I can. It also helps that I have an eidetic memory. But even all that knowledge does not help me blend. I don't know most of the rest of our 'friends' very well, and I don't really want to meet anybody else that will potentially bully me.

Sometimes, I almost wish that I would just cease to exist. I don't think anyone would really miss me. Amy has other people to rant about Sonic to, and Tails would be happy to be the undisputed smartest again. Shadow would find a new punching bag, he has plenty. Sonic probably wouldn't even notice, he'd be too busy running around taking all the credit as a hero. Sometimes, I wonder why I haven't yet. Sonic getting rid of the flames of disaster obviously changed the timeline drastically, and my memories haven't changed at all. I, as I am in existence at this moment, shouldn't exist. Either I shouldn't have these memories, or I should have gone to my new world, or I should just... Not exist. I think it has something to do with the chaos emeralds. Shadow, Sonic, and I were using them when Sonic went back in time with princess Elise. I think the Chaos energy preserved me and my memories from changing. Shadow and Sonic also remember all of it, which backs up my theory. But Amy, Tails, and the rest have no idea what happened. As far as they are concerned, I'm just some hedgehog with strange choices in hairstyles who shows up and helps them out every now and then. Shadow, Sonic and I tried to explain what happened to our friends, but it gets really confusing with all the time travel. They just conclude that we made it all up, and Sonic is just bragging about saving the world. Again.

So what am I? Just a creation of Chaos energy? Does this make me immune to time-paradoxes? Is everyone right? am I just a freak? I don't know why I keep torturing myself with these questions, but they haunt me when I have too much time to think. I almost wish something would happen to distract me...

I stopped dead. I had just stepped into the shadow of something huge. I slowly lifted my eyes from the ground to look at the cause. The shadow ended at an enormous pair of metal feet. Each one was larger than me. Connected to those feet were thick metal cylinder-shaped legs that held up the probably huge weight of the giant, metal, egg-shaped, red body of the machine. There were arms sprouting from either side, with two-pronged claws meant for grabbing at the end of each. The top of the body was made of glass. though the sun was causing a glare on it, I guessed who was inside the cockpit. My suspicions were confirmed only seconds after that prediction.

"OH-HO-HO-HO-HO-HO!" The familiar laughter of one Doctor Eggman boomed down on my ears. As if it wasn't loud enough, his huge mecha amplified the sound to deafening proportions. It was loud enough that anyone within a kilometre should be able to hear it. Too bad the route to my house was so out of the way that there wasn't anybody around to hear it for at least three kilometres. I had to clasp my hands over my poor ears to make sure I didn't go deaf. Needless to say, I dropped all my bags.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. I lectured myself, There you go again, feeling sorry for yourself, and look what happens. You run into Eggman, and he's probably not celebrating his dead best friend's birthday with an act of kindness. If Blaze were here, she'd tell you it was your own fault for not paying attention. Dammit, quit thinking about Blaze! Focus Silver, you better pay attention if you want to get out of this!

The doctor finished laughing. "HO-HO. I have you in my grasp now, hedgehog!" I looked around for an escape route, but there were badniks in every direction. It looked like I'd have to fight my way out of this one.

When I looked back to the mecha, I had to immediately dive away due to the huge claw speeding directly for me. I hit the ground hard and saw some motion from the corner of my eye, so I did a barrel roll away and came back to a standing position. The other claw was embedded in the ground right where I had been only a second before. I hadn't done this in a while, and I was breathing hard. I was too surprised and unfocused to use psychokinesis yet, so it was looking pretty bad. As the mecha drew back to get ready to attack again I tried to focus my powers. The best way to do that is to calm down, and talking helps.

"What do you want Eggman?!" I yelled, putting all my anger and frustration into that sentence. It came out sounding way more confident than I expected. Well, I am pretty pissed off.

"Oh, nothing much, hedgehog. I just need to test one of my inventions on you!" he grinned maniacally.

His mecha finished readying itself, and it swiftly moved in my direction again. I ran in the opposite direction. There was a badnik ready to fight me, but it looked much easier to beat than the huge eggman robot. I ran head first at the short robot and called on my powers to fling it as far away as possible. I still wasn't mentally prepared enough to throw it, but I managed to push it back several meters so that it was no longer a threat. I grit my teeth and tried to run faster, the mecha behind me creating tremors with its steps. There was no doubt that this mecha was built for speed from the pace of the heavy footsteps advancing behind me.

Two more badniks came at me from either side. I used my powers to stop them long enough for me to dive between them, barrel roll, and keep running. I heard the two robots crash into each other behind me, then a loud crunch as both of them were crushed by the advancing mecha. I had almost made it to the edge of the forest, I knew if I could make it in there, I could escape. The mecha would be forced to slow down because of the trees, and I could disappear in the foliage. But that wasn't gonna happen. This mecha had clearly been designed to fight Sonic or Shadow, it was faster than most of the ones I'd had to fight before. Unlike Sonic, Shadow, Blaze, and the others; I couldn't move very fast. I was pushing myself past my limit to get away, and I still was only barely ahead of the huge machine, and it was gaining on me. My boots didn't help at all either, they were (and always have been) a size too big, and were no good when it came to running for your life. They were built for protection and endurance, they could withstand fire, water, ice, mud, you name it. I could walk for weeks with hardly any rest without my feet hurting too much. I'd had the same pair since I was ten, yeah, they'd lasted that long, and still looked good. Yet they were absolutely worthless for running fast.

I was halfway to the woods when it happened. The mecha was directly behind me, and I knew there was no way I could outrun it. So I prepared to fight. I mentally got ready to throw a psychic knife at it. What I was planning was pretty risky, and I had to be ready and alert or it wouldn't work. I counted to three before dropping on my back and sliding under the machine. I focussed my powers into a concentrated spike in the palm of my hand and moved my arm in a swiping motion across my chest. The attack hit its target, and flew straight into the joint between the leg and the body of the machine. It was stronger than I had expected, and the machine reacted violently to the unexpected blast. Immediately, there was a small explosion and I threw my hands in front of my face to protect myself from the sudden wave of fire and heat. I knew what came next, and I threw myself forward in a desperate dive before the full weight of the mecha's body could crash down on top of me. But I wasn't fast enough, and I certainly wasn't lucky.

"Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhgggg!" I screamed as at least twenty tons of metal fell directly onto my outstretched right leg. There was a loud pop as Eggman shot himself out of the cockpit in his weird hover pod thing. The mecha shifted from the weight displacement, further crushing my leg under the hunk of metal. I screamed again while my vision blurred, but I somehow managed to remain conscious.

"You stupid little rodent! You worthless white rat! You ruined my beautiful machine! How dare you! Have you any idea how long this took me to design and build? Are you as thick as you look? Now how am I supposed to use this against Sonic?..." The doctor continued ranting, and I weakly attempted to pull my leg out from under his so called, 'beautiful machine' before he realised that I was stuck. I only managed to discover that the bones in my foot were crushed, and moving it was not an option. The pain caused by this revelation caused me to cry out yet again.

The doctor turned around mid-rant. "You little-" he froze in surprise when he saw my predicament, "you're- you're trapped! OH-HO-HO-HO-HO! I've caught you! HA! So it wasn't all for naught! I beat you! I, doctor Ivo Robotnik, have won! I knew I could catch you! You are the slowest after all! Now I can see what my invention does!" He grinned evilly, and pulled out a large, dangerous looking gun out of his hover pod.

It was about a meter and a half in length, and was fairly simple in design as far as appearances went. It had a sleek shape, being small and pointed at the shooting end, whilst being plump and round at the back, vaguely resembling a teardrop. I couldn't see much more than that, because my vision was not at its greatest, and turning to look in Eggman's direction was incredibly painful.

Even through the pain of having my leg crushed under several tonnes of steel, I picked up on what the doctor said before pulling out his weapon. "S-see what it does?! Wh-what's that s-supposed t-to mean?!" I hate it when I stutter, but I can't help it when I get scared or hurt.

The doctor laughed as he flipped a switch, causing the gun to whirr as it powered up. "I have no idea! I built this in my sleep, being the genius that I am! It has no effect on my robots, but it must do something ingenious! That is where you come in, before I use this on Sonic, I would like to know what it does. You are the slowest of all Sonic's friends, I was sure that if I could catch you off guard, there would be no way you could get away! And I was right! It cost me a mecha, but I have you in my crosshairs!" The doctor took aim at me, squinting one eye in order to get a better perspective. I closed my eyes and tried to make myself as small as possible, preparing for the worst.

I heard the blast, it was a small sound, but it echoed in the second of silence before it hit. The energy beam hit me directly in the side, and there was a burst of light as it made contact that made my closed eyelids glow. It didn't hurt though, there was this big tingling sensation all over me, from the tips of my quills to the toes on my feet. It kind of tickled, and the pain in my leg disappeared for a second. I even laughed a little.

Then the comfortable tingle faded, and was replaced with a burning sensation all over my body. My scalp felt like it was scalded, and my chest seared. My heart sped up until I thought it might burst. My throat felt like I had swallowed hot coals. My feet felt like they were up in flames, but that wasn't even close to how much pain my hips and the space in between was dealing with. When I couldn't hold it in any longer, I screamed. It was long, pained, and set my own fur on end. I flailed out of the curled up position I had been in. I flung my arms out to either side, and thrust my head back against the ground. I could see Eggman above me, covering his ears from the sound of my screams of pain, and he started to fly his pod away. The burning sensation got more and more intense, and I became convinced that I had been set on fire. The next minute became a routine of scream, gasp for breath, scream again, gasp for breath, and repeat. I was wishing that I would just die or pass out or something, when all of a sudden, the pain sky rocketed. I arched my back, threw my head against the ground, and screamed louder than ever before. When I had no more breath, I collapsed, and blacked out.

I don't think I was out for long, because the sun was in about the same place as it had been before when I woke up. The burning sensation was gone, but my leg was still crushed under the mecha. Thankfully, it had gone numb, and I couldn't feel it any longer. I looked around, Eggman was no where to be seen.

I was lying curled up on my side. There was something soft tickling my back, so I stretched out and moved my arm behind my back to push it away and see what it was. When I turned my head to see what the soft thing was, it moved away before I could get a glimpse of it. But then it was on my other side. And when I turned my head that way, I ran into the same problem. I wasn't in the mood to chase anything, so I just grabbed it and pulled it around so I could see it. As soon as I pulled it forward though, there was a tugging on the back of my own head. Someone was pulling on my... Hair? I quickly looked at the thing in my hand. It was long, soft, white hair. I pulled on it, and at the same time, there was a tugging on my head. Did Eggman give me a new hair style? My hands immediately flew up to feel my signature five quills, but they weren't there. In their place were long, white quills that lay down flat on my scalp, going all the way down past my back to nearly reach my ankles. My eyes widened and I let my hands fall down from my hair to my face. My face felt different. The cheekbones in my muzzle were higher, and on the ends of my eyelids, there were long eyelashes.

"What the..." My voice was different. Higher, and more... musical? I guess that's the word.

There was a whooshing sound, and I whipped my head around to see the doctor flying in on his hover pod. He had another mecha with him. My heart sank when I saw it. All thoughts of my hair disappeared when I saw him fly in. He saw me sitting up, and made a relieved motion and looked back down to his keyboard.

"Thank goodness you're awake, I was worried I might have killed you! As much as I hate you hedgehogs, I wouldn't want to be a murderer!" He looked back to me and his jaw dropped. His eyes widened, and his black sunglasses actually fell off of his nose, displaying his black eyes with red pupils. "Sil-silver? Is that you?"

He was staring at me in disbelief, but he wasn't looking me in the face... He was staring lower, more like at my abdomen. Worrying about my chest hair, I looked down at my chest and nearly passed out again. My chest hair was gone, and in its place was... Something that I should not have. Something no male should have. Large, round; I think the technical term is breasts.

"Ahhhhh! What the hell?!" I was completely in shock. There was nothing covering them, because I never wore anything besides my boots and gloves anyways. Then I looked back up to Eggman and realised something. Eggman is staring at my breasts!

"You pervert!" I shouted, leaning down and doing my best to cover my chest. Eggman shook out of his daze.

"It uhh, it appears that... That my machine has changed you... from a male... to a female..." He took off his large red jacket and tossed it on top of me. "Use that to cover yourself, hedgehog."

"Well, change me back!" I demanded, seriously pissed off, and freaking out. I gladly wrapped the huge, warm jacket around myself and sat up again.

Eggman pulled out his weapon like he was about to comply, but then his expression hardened, and he grinned evilly, his eyes glinting in the sunlight. He put the weapon back down and picked up his glasses to perch them back on his nose.

"No, I don't think I will! This invention is pure genius! Good luck getting yourself free, hedgehog. I'm taking this weapon straight to Sonic, he won't know what hit him! Another time, Silver!" And with that, he flew away, laughing maniacally with his mecha following.

"No! Eggman, get back here! You can't do this to me! I'm- I'm not done with you yet! EGGMAAAAAAAAAAN!" I screamed as loudly as I could, but it was no use, he was already too far away. I was stuck there, staring at the place where he had disappeared, wishing he would come back and say: 'just kidding' and shoot me again, but no such luck.

I was too scared and exhausted to scream, and in too much shock to cry, so all I could do was sit and stare. I knew the only way I was going to get out of this was to lift the mecha with psychokinesis, so I began trying to calm myself down. I sang songs that Blaze and I had sung together back before Mephiles tricked us into fighting Sonic in this time. I hummed the tunes to nursery rhymes, lullabies, campfire songs, even 'She comes around the mountain'. Eventually, I relaxed, I was still majorly freaked out and in shock, but I'd managed to push it all down and suppress it. I know that isn't healthy, but what was I supposed to do? I took a deep breath, and turned my attention to the huge bulk of scrap metal crushing my leg. It looked and felt incredibly heavy, but I was confident I could lift it. I closed my eyes, and focused. I imagined the huge machine being lifted and moved away. There was a groan of metal, and then a crash a few meters away as the mecha was tossed. The pressure was taken off of my leg, and I peeked my eyes open to see what I'd accomplished. The mecha had been tossed farther than I had expected, and it had been much easier than I thought it would be too. I was pretty impressed with myself.

Now that I was no longer trapped, I took a look at my right boot. It was completely smashed, and damaged beyond repair, the shiny golden ring at the top was demolished, dented and crumpled around my leg like a chewed up tin can. The leather was ripped in places, and there was (oh dear lord) dried blood showing through and plastered onto it. The beautiful red gem at the top was smashed into small pieces, and the place where my foot should be was flattened and twisted. I knew I couldn't walk in my boot when it was ruined like this, so I gently started to slide it off. But the ring was caught on my leg, part of it was actually piercing the skin. I sighed, and psychokinetically pried the ring apart, and off of my leg. The rest of the boot came off fairly easily, and soon my foot was exposed.

It actually didn't look all that bad, except for the blood. It was stuck in the 'ballerina' position. Toes pointed down, heel curled back, foot flat out. The heel was smashed flat into the foot, keeping the foot stuck in that position. I tried wiggling my toes, but there was no response. There were cuts all over it, but most of them had started to seal up and nearly all the blood was dry. There was no way I could walk on it, so I looked around me for something that I could use to support myself. I was close to the trees, and there were plenty of large sticks and branches lying around. I saw a smooth, long, mostly straight one and floated it over.

I propped the stick upright in the ground and used it to lift myself up on my good foot. I kept my crushed foot above the ground, I didn't want to risk making it any worse. I looked sadly at my ruined boot on the ground. They had been a gift from Blaze for my tenth birthday. Actually, it wasn't really my birthday, it was more like the anniversary of the day she had found me. I was two and she was four when we found each other, but I didn't know my birthday, so she just decided to celebrate the day that she found me. I used to fight barefoot, because I had long outgrown the shoes that I had been found with. She had found an old store that wasn't completely destroyed, and managed to find some shoes. They weren't that great the way she had found them, but she had found some tools to clean them up with and give them a design. It was the greatest present I had ever gotten. I remember being so happy that I could explode, even though they were way too big for me. They slowed me down when I fought for a while, because I kept tripping over them, but I eventually got used to it, and grew into them a bit more. I never wanted to take them off, they were, and still are, my most valued possessions. Now one of them was ruined. Blaze would be so disappointed in me, she'd tell me that I should have been more careful, that I should try harder to be quicker. She'd also make me fix them, and tell me that she wasn't going to help me even though we both know that she would help me anyways because I'd screw it up. God, I miss Blaze.

I tried taking a step towards the boot so I could pick it up, but nearly fell on my face. I clung desperately to the stick as I tried to get my other foot back into my boot properly. It had pretty much left the boot behind, coming out up to the ring before getting caught. My foot was too small for my boot again. I sighed again and unclasped the ring on my boot. I pulled out my foot, seeing that it was noticeably small compared to the shoe next to it. Great. I have tiny girly feet. Well, it looks like I'm going to have to go barefoot to the hospital. I picked up my left boot and hobbled over to my right one to pick it up as well.

I wasn't that far from my house, so I started in that direction, hoping to drop off my shoes and maybe see if I had a shirt and pants somewhere that I could switch the jacket for. It took me a while, but I eventually made it home. I pushed the door open, it was never locked, nobody knew where I lived, or cared enough to find out. And there was nothing really worthwhile to steal, unless you count my paintings, but I don't. Then again, I do have artist's prejudice. Anything I make naturally looks bad to me. Somebody must like them though, because I keep getting a ton of rings from this anonymous buyer who apparently likes my oil paintings a lot. That's really the only reason that I have enough money to pay for groceries and television and whatnot. I just put one that I was proud of on the Internet anonymously one day, and within a couple of days, I got a bid for it starting at five thousand rings. Apparently this guy had a bunch of rivals, and there was a heated bidding war on it before he finally won it for fifty thousand rings. He said he was pretty happy, and that fifty thousand was a total steal. After that, he and his rivals always bid on my paintings. He usually won, but every now and then one of the others would out bid him on the smaller paintings. But they didn't win cheap, the least I'd gotten for a painting was twenty-five thousand. I'd say that I manage to make a pretty good living off of my paintings.

I wonder if I'll ever see that first painting again. It was an impressionistic rendition of Sonic, Shadow, and I battling Solaris in our super forms. The flames were layered so that they looked almost like they were moving in spirals. There was the face of the monster composed mostly of shadows, it wasnt very obvious, but when you noticed it, it stood out a lot and appeared very menacing. Sonic, Shadow, and I were portrayed as dots of light flickering amongst a sea of shadows in the centre of the beast. I think it depicted the battle pretty well. I hardly ever signed my art, and if I did, it was always just a cursive 'H' for hedgehog done in silver paint or ink. But I have incredibly messy and loopy handwriting, so half the time, it looked more like an 'M'.

I dropped my boots by the door and shuffled up to my room to see if I had any clothes at all to wear besides Eggman's jacket. I dropped my stick on my bed and started rifling through my closet. I sure had a lot of junk in it, like old blankets, video tapes, CDs, DVDs, a soccer ball, old paint tubes, I even found my hair brush that I had been looking for everywhere. But the only pieces of clothing that I could find was an old pair of jeans that I have no idea where I got, and my old gloves that I had outgrown. I looked down at the gloves I was wearing and saw that they were all baggy on my hands, and much too big. Also they had a little blood on them from my foot. I grudgingly pulled them off and replaced them with my old gloves, which (guess what?!) fitted perfectly. Lovely. Dainty little hands to go with the feet. I searched my room some more, but failed to produce a shirt.

I cursed myself for thinking I'd never need a shirt, and banged my fist on the desk. Then I sighed and picked up the pair of jeans I had found. They were kind of big for me now, but that just made it easier to pull over my injured leg. When I had gotten the jeans on, I started working on making the jacket fit better. When I was double wrapping the triple extra large jacket around myself, I got a sudden idea. I grabbed my stick and nearly flew down the hall to my bathroom.

I rummaged around in my bathroom closet for a couple of seconds before yanking a light blue towel off of the top shelf. I dropped the jacket off and closed my eyes so I didn't have to see myself in the mirror. I blindly wrapped the towel around my torso as tightly as I could. It actually worked pretty well, and stayed on once I tucked in the corner behind my back. I opened my eyes to see my handiwork. I was shocked by the person staring back at me from the mirror. She had long white quills that cascaded down her back so naturally that the only word to describe it was beautiful. There were two defined locks of hair that came down the front on either side of her face, falling in front of her shoulders and reaching her hips. She had large, amber eyes that looked back at me with the same confusion that I felt. Her eyelashes were long and full, matching her eyes very well. The towel wrapped around her body showed off her form very well, displaying her small waist and full, but not too large breasts. The jeans were too big, but that made them look a bit like cargo pants, which actually looked very good with the towel. I had a feeling that nearly anything worn by this body would look nice.

I raised a hand to my cheek, and the girl in the mirror did the same. I smiled to myself and couldn't help but think that as a girl, I was very easy on the eyes.

I shook myself. "No Silver. You are going to find Eggman and make him change you back." Great. Now I'm talking to myself. I picked the jacket back up. The sun was going back down and it was about to get cold, so I might as well bring the jacket, because a towel was not going to be enough. I put my arms in the sleeves and then pushed them up as much as I could. I left the jacket unclasped, there was no need to close it now that I had a top.

I grabbed my stick and went back downstairs. I took my wallet from the side table and walked through the front door. The night air was frigid, and I pulled the jacket tighter around my shoulders before beginning my trek to the hospital.

About thirty minutes later, I made it to the main road into the city. I began following it when I saw a familiar pink car heading away from the city. I sped up and looked for a place to hide, Amy couldn't see me like this! She'd tell Sonic, and he'd tell Shadow, and then the three of them would tell everybody else! They would never let me live this down! Sadly there was no place to hide, and Amy, being the kind of person that she is, saw my messed up leg and immediately pulled over.

"Oh my gosh! Are you okay? How did your leg get like that? Do you need a ride? Nevermind, just get in my car! I'll take you to the hospital!" She hopped out of the driver's seat to open the passenger side door for me.

I looked in the direction of the city. It was still quite a long way away, and I was starting to get feeling back in my foot. I glanced at Amy, waiting expectantly for me to get in.

I sighed. "Thank you, but I can get there on my own." I started to walk towards the city again.

"No way! I mean, I can respect that you may not want to take a ride from a stranger, or that you want to prove something, but there's no way that I'm going to just let you walk all the way to the hospital by yourself with a leg like that! It will take you forever!" She started herding me into the car.

Wait, a stranger? She doesn't recognise me? I guess maybe she wouldn't, I don't really look all that much like myself. And I don't have my boots... Maybe I don't have to tell her who I am! She won't notice that I'm gone once I fix this, I'll just be one more person she helped out... But what will I tell her my name is? Not Silver... What does Silver sound like? Silvia? No, that's stupid, she'd see through it. Well, silver... Like quicksilver... What's another word for that? Mercury, right? That sounds okay, if she asks my name, that's what I'll tell her.

As I was mentally preparing myself, Amy pushed me into her car, not giving me any other choice. She handed me the buckle and told me to put it on before closing the door and running around to the other side of the car. I rolled my eyes and buckled up as the overexcited pink hedgehog got her car running and turned it around on the nearly empty road. Once she got her car straightened out on the road, she glanced back over to me.

"That looks really bad, how did it happen?" She looked back to the road as she asked.

"Umm, something heavy fell on it, I don't have the best luck." I responded, smiling sheepishly.

"Gosh, I guess not. What fell on it?" She asked, catching me off guard.

I couldn't think of anything to make up, so I told her the truth, sort of. "Well, I ran into this really fat guy with a giant robot thing. I managed to break it, but it fell on my leg." I tried to make it sound like I had no idea who the guy was.

Amy slammed on the breaks, causing both of us to jerk forward. "Wait, fat guy with a robot? Did he have a big moustache and wear a red coat? Was he bald?" She stared at me intently.

I blinked. "Ummm, yeah, why?"

"Oh my gosh! No way! You ran into Eggman! How long ago was this? You beat the robot? How big was it?"

"Whoa, slow down! Uhhh, it was a few hours ago, around two. Yes, I beat the robot, and it was enormous. If I had to guess, at least thirty meters tall, easy." I don't know why I was telling her all this, but Amy has a way of making you want to talk about things.

"Wow! That's crazy! And you didn't know who he was? Where do you live? Oh my gosh, how long were you walking before I found you?" She started the car again.

I smiled at her excitement. "I had no idea, how do you know him? I live pretty far out of the way, there isn't a road to my house. I've been walking for about half an hour or so. Thank you by the way, its really nice of you to offer to help me. What's your name?" I figured maybe I should ask her what her name is just so I don't confuse her by accidentally calling her Amy when she hasn't told me yet.

"Oh, I've know Eggman for a long time, my boyfriend is a hero, and Eggman is a bad guy that we fight a lot. He's bad news, you should try to stay away from him at all costs." She glanced back at my foot. "But I guess you already know that! I can't believe you live that far away! Do you have any neighbours? We should totally hang out some time! You're very welcome, it's not a problem, especially if you've been walking for half an hour! I am way more than happy to help! My name is Amy Rose, what's yours?" It's crazy how she keeps so many conversations going at once.

I tried to keep up. "Your boyfriend is a hero? Who is he? You don't have to tell me twice about Eggman, I've learned my lesson. No, I don't have any neighbours, but living on my own is nice, I like the quiet. Half an hour is nothing, it takes me an hour and a half to walk to town whenever I need groceries or anything. And my name is Mercury, nice to meet you."

"His name is Sonic, he's great! In fact, we just got back from a fight with Eggman, he had some weird gun with him, but of course, he couldn't hit Sonic, he's too fast! Sonic smashed it, and beat Eggman as usual." She grinned at me. I felt like ice had just been dumped down my back. "Eggman ran off again though, so we didn't get him behind bars. It's nice to meet you too."

"Yeah... Was that gun shaped sort of like a teardrop?" I asked, hoping against hope that it wasn't.

"Yeah, how did you know?" She asked looking really surprised.

"Oh, umm, its just because he had a gun when he attacked me too. I was wondering if it was the same one." I answered, kind of lamely. "And your boyfriend destroyed it?"

"Yeah, Egghead was pretty upset about it too, he nearly exploded! It was pretty funny." She pretty much sealed my predicament right there. Now I have no chance of getting back to how I'm supposed to be. Eggman even told me that he had no idea of what it did or how he made it, because he did it all in his sleep. It's really unlikely that he would be able to remake it, and even more unlikely that he would even help me.

I was staring at the road and thinking about all this when I realised that Amy was trying to talk to me. "I'm sorry, what were you saying?"

"I was asking you if you wanted to hang out some time, you seem like a really nice person. Why did you just space out there? Is something wrong?"

"Uhh, no, its just my leg, sorry. Hanging out sounds fun, when were you thinking?" I changed the subject before she got too interested.

"I understand, you don't have to apologise, silly! How about tomorrow? You'll probably stay at the hospital, right? I'll bring a few friends and we'll rescue you from the doctors, then we can go to the mall!" She grinned, already planning her whole day.

"Ugggghhh, I hate hospitals, I wish I didn't have to stay the night, but they're definitely going to make me." I complained, tossing my head dramatically backwards to convince her that I was fine.

"Hahaha, you remind me a lot of Sonic, he really hates hospitals too! He's also the kind of person who would try to walk all the way to the hospital with a messed up leg. I think you two would get along. Hey! I just had the best idea! I should invite all my friends tomorrow! That way they can all meet you! Sonic, Knuckles, Tails, Cream, Charmy, Rouge, Vector, Vanilla, Espio, maybe Big if he's not chasing froggy again. And Silver too! And maybe even Shadow if he wants to! It's gonna be so much fun!"

This is a problem. She can't invite me! And what would I do if Shadow showed up! I need to turn my cell phone off, so it won't go off in case she tries to call me.

"Yeah, sounds great... Are you sure all those people can come with such short notice?" I was hoping she might decide against it.

"Well, some of them might be busy, like Vector, Vanilla, and probably Big. Shadow doesn't usually like talking to people, so he might not come, and Silver might be busy, but he usually comes. Most of us don't work on the weekends though, and Sonic and Knuckles don't work at all, so everybody else should come, and if Rouge likes you, then maybe she'll get Shadow to come too!"

"That's pretty cool, how did you meet all your friends?" I asked, reaching into the pocket of my jeans to switch my phone off.

"Well, we all pretty much met because of one bad guy or another, and the chaos emeralds! Most of us met because of Eggman, but for Silver, Knuckles, and Rouge, we mostly met because of the emeralds. I'm not sure exactly how we ran into Silver, he says that nobody but Sonic, Shadow and him remember what happened because we weren't using chaos energy when time was reset or something? Anyways, Silver is pretty interesting, but he likes to keep to himself, and he's got kinda weird hair. Knuckles is the guardian of the master emerald and chaos emeralds, so we found him when we needed them for the first time. He and Sonic have been friends ever since, but Knuckles is really aggressive sometimes. Rouge is actually a thief, she was trying to steal the emeralds when we met, but she's good at heart, and now she helps us out a lot. She and I are pretty close. Enough about them though, you'll meet them all tomorrow! Tell me about you! How old are you? Where have you been all this time? How have I not met you? What do you like to do? What's your favourite colour? Are you wearing a towel? Where did you get that jacket? It looks way too big for you! What's your phone number? Do you have any powers?"

"Wait! Wait, I can't keep up with all the questions! How about I tell you five things now, and then you can learn the rest tomorrow." We were almost to the hospital, so we wouldn't have that much time left to talk anyways.

"Okay, deal. So first, what are you wearing?"

"Well, I'm wearing jeans, a towel for a shirt, and that big Eggman guy's jacket."

"Wait, why a towel? And how come you have Eggman's coat?!"

"That's two things..." I smiled slyly.

"Okay, fine, just tell me!"

I thought up a lie quickly. "Well, I have Eggman's jacket because his machine ripped my shirt when I was fighting it, and I guess he figured it was the least he could do since he broke my leg. And the towel is a fashion statement. Don't judge."

Amy smiled. "Nice, but I'll make sure to bring you a change of clothes tomorrow, you can't go out in public wearing a towel! Plus your jeans are probably all messed up because of your foot, and that coat is way too big. But somehow, you mange to make it all look good."

"Thanks." I grinned at the compliment, no one ever said that I looked nice.

"All right, so do you have any powers?"

"Uhh, yeah. I can lift stuff with my mind, it comes in handy when you're short like me, but I don't really use it much. It came in handy when I fought that Eggman guy though."

"Wow! That's the same as Silver! I think its an awesome power."

"Thanks, okay, last thing."

"Wait, I thought I had two more!"

"Nope, you asked me what I was wearing, then you asked me about the jacket, and about the towel, and then about my powers."

"I thought the jacket and towel were one thing!"

"I said it was two."

"I thought you were talking about in total, like what you were wearing and the jacket and towel were all two!"

"Nope."

"Awwwwww, c'mon!"

"Nope, last thing."

She huffed. "Fine, you're no fun. What's your phone number?"

I can't give her the same number, she'll figure it out! "Actually, I don't have a cell phone."

"What?! But everybody has a cell phone! Then that doesn't count! I get to ask something else!"

"Okay, I guess that's fair." I have been lying to her anyways.

"Ummmm, okay, how old are you?"

"I'm fourteen, how about you?" We pulled into the hospital parking lot and I unbuckled.

"That's cool, I'm fifteen. Well, I guess I'll see you tomorrow then!" She waved to me as I got out of the car and hobbled into the hospital. I waved back and hurried to the lobby.

The lobby was big and open, and there were only a few people waiting in chairs since it was late. I was looking around at the posters on the walls and wondering if I should find somebody or just wait when a Saint Bernard rushed over to me.

"Lord of Chaos, lady! You best have that taken care of right away!" He exclaimed, pushing a wheelchair over to me. I had my stick taken away by another nurse, and a third nurse pushed me into the wheelchair. Five seconds later, I was being rushed down a hallway, presumably to a doctor.

I wasn't lying when I told Amy that I hated hospitals. In the future, the only thing Blaze and I could do when we got hurt or sick was wait it out; try and find some medicine to inject by ourselves; or if it was an injury, fix it by ourselves with medical supplies. Needless to say, we both had some pretty bad experiences with needles and other medically-related supplies. And when I came to this time, and got stranded here, I had to register myself in the system and get all the shots for disease protection, as well as get tested for any illnesses that I might be carrying. It quickly became very boring and tedious. Also, all the doctors wanted to do tests on me because of my powers, and they only left me alone once I agreed to a few MRIs and CAT scans. So yeah, I don't like hospitals.

I arrived in a big room with a high metal table. The nurses tried to lift me onto the table, but I refused, opting to get up on my own. They protested, but I ignored them. They fussed over me for a few minutes, cleaning up my foot and putting that annoying papery poncho-thing on and questioning me on how it happened. Finally, a doctor came in with a couple of nurses following behind him. He shooed off the first three nurses, except for the Saint Bernard, then he got to work.

He didn't say much, which was fine with me, he just took a good look at my leg and asked if he could take an X-ray. I was pretty surprised, every doctor I had ever run into hadn't cared for my choices, they just took scans and stuff without asking. I agreed to the X-ray. I took a closer look at the doctor, he was a young cat with light orange fur and black tiger stripes, he was wearing a clean white doctor's coat over his blue scrubs. If I had to guess how old he was, I would say somewhere between 20 and 25. He had two pens in his coat pocket, and a name tag that read 'Kyle Tygre DO, MD, GP' his eyes were ice blue, and when he looked at me, I felt like he was seeing more than just what I looked like, I felt like he could see me with all my secrets, and mistakes, and anything I was proud or ashamed of all at once. I was awed and terrified at the same time. It was very confusing, that gaze made me feel safe and comfortable, while at the same time I felt like I was failing an exam or being judged in the Olympics.

He quickly got to work setting up the X-ray machine and making me lay down. For once, I just did as told, I didn't want to make him upset with me. He was a very good doctor, he didn't do anything without asking me first, and he got his job done quickly and efficiently. He was definitely the best doctor I had ever met. Soon there was an image of my foot on a small screen next to the table. I didn't understand it that much, all I saw was a big white blob sort of thing that was vaguely in the shape of a foot, but doctor Tygre looked at it disapprovingly and took a few notes in a clipboard that I hadn't noticed before.

"All right now, what's your name?" He asked, looking up from his clipboard.

"It's Mercury, sir." This guy was definitely a 'sir'.

He nodded his head and scribbled my name on his paper. "And how old are you?"

"Fourteen, turning fifteen in June."

He wrote that on his form as well. "Only fourteen? You look to be somewhere around sixteen or seventeen. Very mature for your age."

"Thank you, sir." I blushed, then mentally cursed myself for being stupid.

"Please, call me Kyle, or doctor Kyle if you must. How did this happen?"

"Of course sir- I mean, doctor Kyle." I blushed again, embarrassed, and he smiled for the first time since entering the room. It was a nice smile, it made his eyes seem less calculating and scary, and he had smile wrinkles around his eyes that made him look super friendly. "Um, something heavy fell on my leg."

He rolled his eyes. "Well, that much I can tell. What were you doing? What fell on it?"

"Oh, um, I was trying to get away from this fat guy named Eggman, and he had a big machine. I ended up having to fight it, and it fell on my leg when I broke it." I smiled weakly, I wasn't sure he'd believe me.

He just nodded and scribbled something else on his clipboard. "What time was this?"

"After noon, I think about two."

He raised his eyebrows. "And what took you so long to get here?" He sounded skeptical.

"Well, I was stuck under the robot for about two hours, or maybe a bit longer, I'm not sure. Then it took me about forty-five minutes to get home so I could put on something else because my shirt was ripped, and I stayed there for almost half an hour. Then I went from my house to start walking here and I got to the main road in about half an hour, then a girl named Amy saw me and gave me a ride the rest of the way, and that took another twenty minutes. Oh, and in case you don't believe me about Eggman," I slipped the jacket off from under the paper poncho thing, "I have his coat. He gave it to me when my shirt ripped."

"Okay, I believe you, and your story checks out, Eggman came into town at around two forty-five, so if he attacked you first, that makes sense, and he didn't have his jacket on him, so now I know why as well." He wrote some more things on his clipboard, it took him a little while because he was writing a lot. When he finally looked back up he smiled warmly again. "All right, Mercury, everything seems to be in order. I'm just going to check your immunisation records in the system real quick, and then I'll be right back. Bernie will keep an eye on you." He gestured to the Saint Bernard. I sort of freaked out on the inside, I'm not in the system! I'm completely made up! I didn't exist a few hours ago! I guess it showed on my face, because Kyle paused. "Gosh, darling. Bernie doesn't bite, what are you so worried about?"

"Uhh, nothing, sorry. I'm just anxious is all."

"Come on, you can't pull that over on me. I have a degree in psychology, I know when something is bothering people, spit it out." He gave me a piercing stare with those icy blue eyes, and I knew I wasn't going to get away with anything but the truth. Or at least, some of the truth.

I sighed. "Don't bother looking at your computers, I'm not in the system." He raised his eyebrows, but allowed me to continue. "I don't live near here, I've lived kind of on my own way outside the city, and I've homeschooled myself for the most part. I don't go into the city much, and this is the first time I've been to a hospital. I got all my shots, but my mom gave them to me, she used to be a nurse, I don't know her first name, or my last name, and she disappeared a few years ago. I don't know who my dad is either." Except for the part about this being the first time at a hospital and the details about my mom, most of that was true. I don't know who my parents are, and I don't know my own last name.

I managed to convince him that I was telling the truth, and he nodded sympathetically. "Okay darling, in that case, we'll register you in the system after I take care of your foot. Do you think you can remember which shots you've had?"

I nodded my head. "I have an eidetic memory, I could name them all now."

He looked impressed. "Really? then go ahead, and I'll check them off."

So I started to list the ones that I'd gotten a month ago, careful to leave off the ones that people weren't supposed to get before they turned thirteen. Thank you, eidetic memory.

When he'd checked off the last one, he capped his pen and put it back in his pocket. "Wow, your mother did a good job of getting all your shots, you only need a few more, we'll take care of that now." He walked over to a cabinet. "You say that she left you on your own a few years ago?"

"Yeah, just before I turned twelve." That was about the time when Blaze and I started separating to fight Iblis off on our own and only meeting at night, sometimes after a day or two if our meeting place was compromised.

"And you have no idea where she went? Or why she left?" He pulled out several pre-prepared needles and tubes with injections of medicine inside.

"No, not really. She just left and didn't come back. But I've been fine, I took care of most of the house stuff anyways, and she was gone most of the day, so nothing really changed."

The nurses were all quietly staring at me in pity, and doctor Kyle continued putting the shots together. "I'm sorry, everybody should be able to have a good family when growing up." He finished assembling the injections, and walked over. "Could you put your arm out for me? Don't tense it up, that will just make it hurt more than it needs to." I nodded and put my arm out for him. He offered me his hand. "You can squeeze my hand instead if it helps."

I took his hand gratefully. "Thanks doctor Kyle."

He got the first shot ready in his hand and one of the nurses held my arm steady for him. I looked away. He was right, not tensing my arm made the shot hurt a lot less, and I barely felt them at all. Five or six shots later, he let go of my hand.

"Good, that's all taken care of, Julie, could you take this form to the computer and start registering Mercury? And send in Arthur please." He handed her his clipboard. The little nurse nodded and scurried out of the room, a few minutes later, a wolf that looked a little older than Kyle came in. His name tag gave him the same titles as Kyle, plus a few more, so he must be a doctor also.

Kyle welcomed the other doctor and turned back to me. "Mercury, this is Arthur, he is our anaesthesia expert. As long as it's all right with you, he will be making sure that you are asleep while I fix your foot. If you'd rather stay awake, just tell me, and we could do a local anaesthetic, but most patients don't like seeing themselves cut open. I don't know how you are money wise, but local anaesthetic is just a bit cheaper than a full anaesthetic. And you need a guardian to sign a form for full anaesthetic since you are still a minor, but since you have none, you could sign it yourself, or I could take responsibility."

I thought about how to respond for a second. "Money isn't a problem, I'll sign the form for myself."

Kyle nodded and pulled out another form. "If you don't mind, how much money do you have?"

I grinned and took the form. "Over a million, I don't spend the money that I make on hardly anything. It builds up quickly."

Kyle looked impressed. "How do you make money if you don't ever go into town?"

I put my signature on the form, writing Mercury as neatly in cursive as I could. It actually looked pretty nice, apparently my handwriting had improved. "I make art. I sell it anonymously online, and it makes me a lot of money."

"Impressive, then it looks like your hospital bill won't be an issue, so far it's somewhere around twelve thousand."

I smiled again. "Not an issue, I'm making another piece of art, and I'll probably make up for that cost and then some."

"All right then, lets not waste any time, Arthur, do your thing. You won't feel a thing, Mercury." I nodded in agreement and Arthur pulled a metal cylinder with a mouth piece out of a cabinet. It looked kind of like a fire extinguisher, but bigger. "Okay, before we start, what's your favourite colour?" He pulled out a few coloured mesh-fabric bundles.

I pointed at the one I liked. "The yellow one. The others are too neon."

He nodded and put the other fabrics away. "The yellow is my favourite too, you have good taste."

The other doctor rolled his eyes and finished setting up the anaesthesia tank. "If you two are done chatting, I need put this over your head, girlie."

I nodded and he put the mouth piece over my mouth and pulled the strap behind my head. A nurse came in with a rolling table covered with surgical tools, and Kyle put on gloves and a surgical mask. Then Arthur switched on the gas pump, and I breathed in. Everything went fuzzy, and the last thing I saw before falling asleep was Kyle picking up a few different knives.

---

Amy Rose POV

I dialled the number again. Why isn't he picking up? The call went straight to voicemail. Again.

'Hello, you have called Silver the hedgehog, I am not available at the moment, but leave a message and I will call you back as soon as I can. Thanks, and have a nice day.' There was a beep, signalling for me to leave a message, but I hung up. I'd already left him a message.

Silver is the last one I have to get a hold of, I've already called everybody else. Sonic is coming, and so is Knuckles and Tails. Cream is coming with Charmy, Espio, Vector, and her mom. Rouge is coming, and I managed to convince Shadow to come too, mostly because he has nothing better to do. Big isn't coming, but I didn't really expect him to. This is really weird, usually Silver picks up on the first ring, and he never has his phone off. I wish I knew where he lived so I could go find him.

I really wanted him to come. He's always so bluntly honest that it's funny, and he's the only one who knows exactly how to get on Shadow's nerves. It's always really funny when both of them hang out with us. Shadow hates it when Silver reminds him who's taller, and Silver is the only one of us with enough courage to poke fun at Shadow. I also think Silver would totally get along with Mercury, I mean, they even have the same powers! Maybe Silver will find a new friend in her, someone to maybe make up for the loss of Blaze. Maybe then he'll want to hang out with us more too. I know he's kind of uncomfortable around lots of people, which is why I don't ask him to come along much, but it's always more fun when he does come. He's a really good listener too. I decided to send him a text.

'Silver, I met this girl today, she's really nice, and she has the same pwrs as u. Pls tell me if u can meet us at the mall tmrw at 8. Thnx, bye.' When I finished, I pressed send, and set my phone down to charge. That would have to be enough for now, if he comes, he comes. If he doesn't, oh well.

---

Silver the Hedgehog POV

I woke up to an empty room. It was still dark outside, and the clock said that it was almost midnight. It was a different room than the one I had fallen asleep in, and I was lying on a bed. I sat up to look at my leg. In the dim light, all I could make out was the general shape of the cast. It was big and bulky, and it felt pretty heavy. My foot didn't hurt anymore, so either they had numbed it, or it was getting better already. There was a wheelchair and a pair of crutches next to my bed. My stomach growled. I blushed, hoping nobody had heard it, and it rumbled again, louder. I hadn't had any dinner yet, and I was starving. I got out of the bed and grabbed the crutches. It was much easier to walk with them than it was to walk with the stick I'd had earlier.

In almost no time, I was out of the room and making my way down the lit hallway. I ran into a nurse about five minutes later, it was Bernie the Saint Bernard.

"What are you doing out of bed?" He looked surprised.

I was about to tell him when my stomach answered for me, growling louder than ever. I turned red in the face as he smiled and laughed knowingly.

"Don't worry, I'll take you to the food court. Just follow me."

So I did, he lead me to a set of elevators where we went to the top floor, labelled 'Cafeteria'.

"Here you are, just go ahead and order something, all you have to do is tell them your name and they'll give you food. It's free for patients."

"Thank you, sorry to bother you at this hour."

"No problem, its my job. I'm going to go get Kyle, he wanted to know when you woke up, just stay here, okay?"

"Okay, I will. Thanks again!"

He smiled and waved, turning to leave and go back down in the elevator. I walked over to the serving counter. There was a single lady behind the counter washing dishes. She looked up when I approached and put down her dish.

"Hey there, sweetie. What do you have in mind?" She dried her hands on a towel and pulled on a pair of plastic gloves to prepare food.

"Uhhh, what do you have?" I didn't want to trouble her too much.

"I don't have anything prepared at the moment, so go ahead and tell me what you'd like and I'll whip some up. And I'll need your name too."

"Oh, right, my name is Mercury. I'll just have a sandwich, if that's all right. Do you have Nutella and jam?"

She checked a list on her computer. "Mercury... Got it. Yes, we do. I'll go and make you one right away." She disappeared through a door and came back with bread, a jar of Nutella, a jar of strawberry jam, and a butter knife. She made the sandwich expertly, with an even layer on both slices of bread. She put it on a plate and stuck a toothpick flag in it for fun. She pushed it over to me. "There ya go sweetie, do you want anything else? How about something to drink?"

"Thank you, um, yeah, do you have tea?" I took the plate from her and she nodded.

"What flavour dear? We have Earl Grey, passion fruit and pomegranate, green tea, and classic Tetley tea."

"Green tea please."

"Sure thing, just go sit down and I'll bring it to you."

I went to sit at the closest table so she wouldn't have to walk very far, there was already someone sitting there, his arm was in a sling. He was the only other person in the cafeteria besides the lady that was making my tea. I put my plate down next to him and he looked up. He was a green hedgehog, he had sapphire blue eyes, and he wore a black leather jacket and black jeans with metallic studs. He had a couple of earrings and was wearing a few gold bracelets on his arms. He vaugely reminded me of someone that I knew. He pretty much looked like trouble, but I had already put my plate down, and it would be rude to leave.

"Hey beautiful, my name is Scourge, mind telling me yours?" He asked once I sat down.

The way he was staring at me made me feel very uncomfortable. "Uh, hi. I'm Mercury, nice to meet you."

"Mercury is a nice name, how did you break your leg?" He took a gulp from his cherry coke.

"Something really heavy fell on it, how did you break your arm?" I took a bite of my sandwich, it tasted really good.

"That doctor Eggman guy came into town earlier today, he mistook me for that idiotic Sonic loser. It's a good thing that I'm tougher than I look, or I might not have gotten off this easy, it's only a fracture. I did all the real work, but as always, Sonic came in and finished him off, so of course he's the hero. Nice cast by the way, the yellow looks good on you. What're you doing up so late?"

"What a coincidence! I was fighting Eggman's robot and when I beat it, it fell on my leg. Thank you." I blushed involuntarily at his compliment. "I could ask you the same thing, I'm up late because I got to the hospital late, and I didn't have dinner before I got here." The lady came around the counter with my green tea and set it down in front of me. I thanked her and turned back to Scourge, who looked impressed and surprised. I took the last bite of my sandwich, wow, it hadn't lasted long, but I felt pretty full.

"You took out a whole Mecha by yourself? That's hardcore, girl. I'm up late because I want to be. Also 'cuz the docs are all tellin' me that I need sleep, so I'm staying up to annoy them." he leaned in to whisper to me. "It's pretty funny, you should have seen the look on my doc's face when he finally got me to my room, and then I demanded to get a soda! He just gave up, and now he's letting me do what I want." He leaned back and laughed. "I can't wait to get outta here in the morning, me and my gang were planning to hang at the mall. Hey, you wanna come with? It'll be a ton of fun, and I can show you around, you must be new around here, cuz I ain't seen you around before, and there's no way I would forget a face as pretty as yours. So, what do you say?"

I hesitated and took a long sip from my tea to hide the pause, this guy obviously didn't think much of Sonic, he probably wouldn't take too well to me declining his offer to hang out with Sonic and his friends instead. "I can't wait to leave too, I don't think much of being stuck in a hospital. This is my first time in one." I tried to change the subject, but Scourge wasn't fazed.

"Really? So is that a yes?"

I decided to stay vague. "Actually, the girl that gave me a ride here already offered to take me to the mall with her friends. They're picking me up here in the morning. Maybe some other time."

Scourge didn't look like he was about to be deterred. "But I'm hanging at the mall too, why don't we all hang out together?"

I didn't really have a choice but to tell him. "Well, if we go to the same malls, I'm not going to stop you. But, you see, the girl that I ran into was Amy Rose, she's Sonic's girlfriend. At least, that's what she told me. And I'm getting a feeling that you don't like Sonic very much."

Scourge scowled. "Well, you would be right. Sonic is a completely stuck-up jerk. No, that doesn't even begin to describe how much I dislike him. Why don't you ditch him and hang out with me instead? He and his friends are all losers, you won't be missing out on anything."

"I already promised Amy I would come, I'd love to hang out some other time, but I'm not the kind of person who ditches people." I'd never met this guy before, but boy, did he have one heck of a grudge against Sonic.

Scourge was about to reply, but then the elevator dinged and slid open noisily. Doctor Kyle walked out of the elevator followed by the nurse from before, I think her name was Julie. Scourge gave the doctor a distasteful look and finished the rest of his coke. He then crushed the can and made a perfect shoot into the bin, hardly even looking.

"See ya in the morning, Mercury." He got up and left, glaring at Kyle on the way out. I wondered what had gotten into him, why he disliked Kyle so much.

Kyle coughed to get my attention. "I'm glad to see that you're awake and feeling well. I just need to talk about your records for the system." I nodded, signalling him to go ahead. "First, I need to know your house address. I also need any phone numbers you have, and any illnesses you've had in the past. That should do for now."

When I had been to the hospital before, when I was still male, I hadn't had a house yet, so I had no problem telling him where I lived. "I live five kilometres directly southeast of the city. It's kind of in the middle of nowhere, so it doesn't have a name, and there isn't a road to it. It's close to Eterna Forest. I don't have a phone, or a cell phone. And I haven't had anything more serious than the flu or a cold. Is that all you need?"

"That will do for now, but we may need to contact you, so I advise you get a phone and give us the number. Do you have an email or something that we could reach you at?"

I thought about it for a second, drinking the last of my tea before answering. "Yeah, it's painteronfire , I usually check that once a day." That was the email that I had used to sell my art at. I put my mug on my plate and picked them both up to take back to the cafeteria lady. "Is that all?" I asked again, Kyle nodded and wrote my email down. I left the table to give my dishes to the lady.

When I was done with that, I returned to the elevator where the doctor and nurse were both waiting as well. I said my farewells at my floor and got off. I made my way back to my room, thanks to my eidetic memory, I remembered where it was. I was still wearing just a towel and jeans, but there was a pair of hospital pyjamas on the bed's footboard. I grabbed them and walked back out of my room to look for a bathroom to change in. As soon as I walked out the door, I knocked right into someone. Our noses crashed into each other, and I stumbled back, rubbing mine.

"Ow, ow, ow... What the...?" I looked up too see who I'd crashed into. It was Scourge. "Oh, uh, hello again."

Scourge was rubbing his own nose as well. "Sorry Mercury, I just wanted to check up on you. I don't trust doctor Kyle, his eyes are... Strange. I can't explain it, but he makes me uneasy. So what'd he want?"

Wow this guy is persistent. "Oh, I just needed to update my hospital records, no big deal. Thanks for caring, though."

I couldn't believe my eyes. Scourge... Blushed. I don't know the guy that well, but I can tell he doesn't usually blush. Does he like me or something? Oh my gosh, he can't like me! I'm a guy! Well, I don't look like a guy... But that's besides the point. At heart, I'm still Silver.

"That's cool, no problem. Well, I can tell you're busy, sooo... I guess I'll just go back to my room then. See ya." I watched him head back down the corridor, fast walking, then running once he got around the corner. I recognised that far too well. That's what I used to do when I did something awkward around Blaze, and wanted to get away before she judged me. Ugh, just great. He liked me.

I sighed and followed a sign that pointed to the bathrooms. When I got there, there was a depressing moment when I wasn't sure which bathroom I should go in. I was still a guy mentally, I think. I didn't want to see any girls in the girls bathroom. But it would look really weird if a girl walked into the boys bathroom... Thankfully, there was the family bathroom, which was just a little room and the door locked, so I chose that one. It didn't matter which gender you were for that bathroom.

I locked the door and closed my eyes shut to get changed. Even though it was my own body, I felt like it was wrong to look at myself. I got the pyjamas on without a problem. They were a good fit, I vaguely wondered how they knew which size I was. When I opened my eyes, once again, I was impressed and surprised with the young girl in the mirror staring back at me. I really was very pretty, and I could see why Scourge might like me. Now I remember all those times Sonic and Shadow made fun of me for being girly, and saying that I looked like a girl. Boy, were they wrong. This was what me as a girl looked like, and they were way off. I still vaguely resembled myself, like my arms still had glowing blue stripes, and my fur was still the same shade of silver-white as it had always been, and the two locks of hair that framed my face looked a bit like two of my five quills from before, except they hung down rather than stuck up. My eyes were still surrounded by a thick black outline, but it looked slightly thicker than before. My eyes were still amber coloured. The biggest difference in my face was that my eyes looked much bigger in my face, probably because my face was smaller, and my hair covered a lot of it. But I can see now why Amy didn't recognise me. My hair and body alone are more than enough to make me unrecognisable. Also, I was at a least a good five centimetres shorter than I normally was, not counting the extra height my hair usually gave me. I used to be three centimetres taller than Shadow, now I was probably two shorter, that's going to bug me. One thing I always held over Shadow was how I was taller than him, but now I couldn't say that anymore. I really hope Shadow doesn't come tomorrow, it will be so awkward for me. I'll have to pretend like I have no idea who he is, but I don't know how long I can hide the fact that he scares the shit out of me. Yeah, it would be better if he didn't come.

Then something caught my attention. There was a glowing in the pocket of my jeans on the floor. I picked them up to check inside, sitting on the sink counter. It was my cell phone, I had accidentally turned it on when I dropped the jeans on the floor. I looked at the screen. '23 missed calls, 1 message, 1 text' it said. They were all from Amy. There was no way I could call her back, but she had texted me, so I might as well text her back.

The text read: 'Silver, I met this girl today, she's really nice, and she has the same pwrs as u. Pls tell me if u can meet us at the mall tmrw at 8. Thnx, bye.'

I texted back: 'Sry Amy, she sounds nice, but I've got some issues atm, I can't come to town tmrw, cya some other time.' (For you non-texters, atm means 'at the moment')

I hoped that was good enough for her. Of course, if I couldn't figure out how to get back to being me, I wouldn't see her again, ever. But, at least I can still text her. I'll have to come up with a reason for why I've disappeared in case I can't fix myself, but I'll deal with that later, I'm too tired now.

I picked up my jeans and put the phone, now off, back in the pocket and folded them up. I also picked up the towel and folded it too. Then I unlocked the door and walked back down to my room. My bare foot made almost no sound on the tile, only the crutches made a small creaking sound, but every now and then I heard foot steps behind me. As soon as I turned around though, they stopped, and I couldn't see anything strange. I brushed it off, I was probably just imagining things, it is pretty late. By the time I got to my room, it was really bothering me though, I felt like someone was watching me. I got in the room and locked the door, then I covered myself in the blankets and tried to sleep. Eventually I gave in to exhaustion and drifted off.

---

Mephiles the Dark POV

I watched from the shadows as my prey fell asleep. I had been following Silver for at least a month now, building up my strength so that I could strike the final blow. Something strange had occurred today though. I had gotten bored of following and teleported to Silver's house to wait for him there. But instead of Silver arriving soon after I got there, a girl with a very bad-looking leg had come long after I had left Silver. She could not fool me. Silver may have somehow changed his form to that of a female, but his soul remained the same. The pure soul that will be mine soon enough. He could not hide from me by changing his form. I will take that pure soul of his, hers, whatever. I will take it and use its purity to power myself and wreak vengeance on all those who stood against me before! The power from the purity of someone whom has never done, or attempted to do, an evil thing in their life will make it so that nothing will be able to stand in the way of Mephiles the Dark! Silver will die, and through that death, I will rule all of Mobius. Nothing will remain.

But I couldn't keep a thought from nagging at the back of my mind as I watched the sleeping girl. Silver made quite a beautiful female. No matter how much I tried to shake it off, and remind myself of how much I despise the hedgehog, the thought remained, and grew. She looked so innocent and fragile, when Silver was male, all I wanted was to crush his innocence and purity, and use it to power myself. All I saw in innocence was power. Now, looking at this beautiful girl, I could see why innocence was valued so much more than that.

I could see why the cat, Blaze had cared so deeply for this hedgehog, and why my enemy, Shadow was so frustrated and jealous whenever he saw Silver. I could see why Amy was always wanting to ask him to hang out with her, but afraid that if she bothered him too much, he wouldn't want to be her friend. And why Sonic brags so much more when he's around Silver, and Tails tries to keep proving that he's smarter. All of them can sense his innocence, just as well as I can see their emotions. Blaze wanted nothing more than to protect his innocence, though she referred to it as him being naive. Shadow is far from innocent, and so he feels jealous of such purity. Amy is one of the most pure of the group, so she naturally wants to be closer to someone as innocent as Silver. Sonic and Tails both feel inadequate when faced with Silver, so they try their best to best him in other ways.

Even her lies today hadn't tainted her in any way, they had all been uttered under the belief that she was now a different person, and most of them were based off of truth. Silver was truly amazing. How he possibly managed to say so innocent in a world so cruel and unforgiving was truly a mystery to me. I had worried that Shadow's bullying of Silver could have ended in the destruction of his innocence, but even the Ultimate Life Form could not ruin Silver. Silver was even so innocent as to be ignorant of how pure he was.

I had been drawn to him in the future as well, the same way that a moth is drawn to a light in the night. His entire life, he had tried to do nothing but good. He risked his own life for that of others, he fought Iblis off, but seeing his fighting in a different way from Blaze, which is what made him pure, and not her. He saw the war the same way that a child might, as 'right and wrong', he did not see what Blaze saw. She saw Iblis as an oppressor which needed to be destroyed completely, and should not be given any chances. She saw the war as 'us versus them'. She was willing to sacrifice herself, and others in order to achieve her goal. That made all the difference. Silver would never let anyone else get hurt in order to win, and that nearly got him killed many times, but his powers served him well, and he always managed to survive. He never thought badly of anyone else, even Shadow, Eggman, and myself. I could tell that Blaze was on guard from the moment she saw me, but Silver immediately accepted me and gave me the benefit of the doubt. And deciding to take out Sonic was something that was very difficult for him to comprehend. And in the end, one single girl was enough to stop him. The word of one girl which he barely knew was enough to convince him to not go ahead with something that could possibly save his world. His best friend and I had both told him it was the only way to win, and he still did not take his chance. I had chosen Silver for the task of destroying Sonic because I had hoped to destroy his purity along with releasing Iblis, but my plan had failed, and Silver had ended up helping in my downfall. In that instance, his innocence had almost worked in my favour, but once again his purity protected him and he aided Sonic in winning the war.

For chaos sake, she couldn't even tell one white lie today without making reference to the truth or feeling like a terrible person. I mean, come on. Everyone lies. But Silver had lied, or bent the truth, more today than he had in his whole life. How is that even possible? Yet he, she, Silver was still completely innocent and free of impurity. I guess that made my plan still possible.

Silver had not willingly looked at herself naked yet, but I feared that as soon as she did, the innocence would be tainted, causing my plan to no longer work. I had to work quickly. But I could not seem to bring myself to lay a finger on her sleeping form. I told myself that I would need to be stronger before I could take her soul, and that it would be no fun to extinguish her while she slept, that I would enjoy it more when she was awake and could fight back. I left in search of more power. I will come back at sunrise and continue my watch, perhaps I will be able to attack when she wakes.

---

AN: Wow, 25 pages... So that's part one. I hope you liked it! Don't forget to fave, follow, and comment.

yay for random Mephiles stalking!

SONIC SHADOW SILVER ROLE PLAY XD

Silver: Yes! Favourite and follow this story! I know the future, and you will like it! Foooooollllllloooooowwww iiiiiiiiiiiitttttttttt. I dare you!

Shadow: Geez Silver, chill. I think they get the point. So what does happen in this story? Do I get to laugh at you for turning into a girl? Because that would make me happy. Sort of.

Silver: you'll see...

Sonic: Hey guys! What's up? Anybody wanna go get some chilidogs? Tails and Knuckles won't go with me, they said something about already eating, but I'm starved! Lets go!

Shadow: ...

Silver: ...

Shadow: Since when do you need somebody to go with you?

Sonic: What? Can't I just want a friend to hang out with?

Silver: Yesterday you said I was a loser and a slowpoke. And you yanked my quills. And now I'm a friend?

Shadow: ... Faker, I'm not your friend. Get over yourself.

Sonic: C'mon guys... You know I didn't mean that Silver; and Shadow, I'm one of the closest people you have to a friend. You two should just come with me out of respect for all the times we've kicked Eggman's butt together.

Silver: *stares*... Shadow? Do you have respect for Sonic?

Shadow: *smirks* not in the slightest, and you?

Silver: Ditto.

Sonic: Come on, please? Just this once? You don't even have to buy anything, just come with me!

Shadow: First, why do you need us to come with you? I'm not moving until you spill it, Faker.

Silver: Same here, Iblis Trigger.

Sonic: *sigh* Fine. It's because Scourge and his gang are by the chilidog stand. And I owe Scourge fifty rings. I need back-up or he'll beat me up! I have the rings I owe him here, but he'll beat me up anyways if I'm all alone. I need you guys! Tails and Knuckles won't help me because they aren't really a match for his gang, but you two are!

Shadow: Doesn't sound like my problem.

Silver: *sympathetic* Fine Iblis Trigger, but only because I'm a nice person. You better remember this next time you wanna make fun of me. And Shadow, come on, its not like you have anything better to do. And you'll have fun terrorising Scourge...

Shadow: *imagining the possibilities* okay, I'm in.

Sonic: woohoo! Thanks Silver! *glomp mode activate*

Sonic grabs their arms and runs off to the chilidog stand. Scourge doesn't stand a chance ;)

Thanks for reading! -Silverfangirl96