Silver made his way down the stairs, wondering where he could stay. It should be somewhere nearby, he thought. Otherwise, that would defeat the point of trying out a domestic life. But even though Espio wasn't the only person Silver knew in this time, he was the only person with whom Silver was friendly. Unless he made a new friend in the next day, he would have nowhere to go except back to his own time.

When he got outside, he started heading in the direction of the forest. But just as he got there, he heard a whispering voice call his name. He spun round sharply but he couldn't see anybody there.

A few seconds later, the voice called his name again, so he followed the sound. It seemed to be leading him to the floating island in the sky. Activating his powers allowed Silver to follow it all the way up to the island, where he found a very tall altar with steps leading up to the top.

"Silver," the voice called again, sounding much closer this time.

Silver began to slowly ascend the stairs, a cold kind of nervous anticipation spreading throughout his body. As he wasn't from this time, he had no idea who the voice belonged to, so he didn't know what it wanted from him. But for some reason, he couldn't stop himself from following the voice all the way up the steep stairs.

When he reached the top, he was confronted with a massive green jewel, larger than Silver himself. It was so shiny that as he approached, he could see his reflection in it. It was such a beautiful jewel...and it looked like a larger Chaos Emerald. He could feel a similar hum of power coming from this jewel too. All he wanted to do was...reach out...and touch it…

As soon as his hand made contact with the jewel, he felt his psychokinesis activate of its own volition, surrounding the jewel with white energy. Immediately after this, a small explosion sent Silver flying backwards, almost sending him flying right off the altar. He pushed himself to his hands and knees and stared in shock as the emerald began to glow. It got so bright that he had to shield his eyes.

Then a wispy female voice began to echo around the island: "The servers are the seven Chaos... Chaos is power, enriched by the heart... The controller exists to unify the chaos…"

When Silver sensed that the light had died down, he slowly opened his eyes. To his shock, he saw a figure slowly emerging on top of the jewel. He slowly rose to his feet, his eyes wide, as the figure became more and more opaque, finally settling on the form of an orange echidna wearing a light brown vest, light brown skirt, white boots, and white gloves.

Around a minute after Silver first caught sight of her, she was completely opaque. Then she fell.

Forgetting briefly that he had powers, Silver lunged forwards and managed to catch the echidna before she hit the ground. Her eyes were closed and she hadn't responded to the sensation of either falling or being caught. Only the steady rise and fall of her chest told Silver that she was alive.

"Hello…?" Silver said hesitantly. "Can… Can you hear me?"

There was no response from the echidna, so Silver sighed and tilted his head up to look at the sky. The sun was at its peak now but currently hidden by clouds, creating a light but not bright atmosphere. The rest of the sky was bright blue, with only a few wispy clouds. It looked very similar to the sky that Silver had left back home, and it was a sky that he knew he would never get used to seeing, after spending his entire life waking up to look at a sky that was dark and filled with smoke and often orange flames. He wouldn't get used to seeing it but that didn't mean he appreciated it any less.

As he stared up at the sky, he failed to notice that the echidna was waking up until he found himself being roughly pushed away. As he got to his feet in surprise, he heard a different female voice shrieking, "You cannot fool me, Chaos! Return to your true form this instant!"

Before she had even finished her second sentence, she charged at Silver and began pummeling him with her fists. "H-Hey, calm down!" Silver yelped, managing to grab both of her hands and keep them still. "I'm not Chaos, whoever or whatever that is! I'm Silver the Hedgehog and y-you just came out of that massive emerald there…" Silver blinked as he fully realised what had just happened. "What's going on?"

The echidna pulled her hands out of Silver's grip and narrowed her eyes at him. "How do you know of the Master Emerald?"

"The Master Emerald?" echoed Silver. "Is that what that is? Look, I have absolutely no idea who you are, who this "Chaos" person is, or what that Master Emerald thing is. I'm from the future and I haven't been in this time for very long."

"The future?" The echidna momentarily forgot her anger. "How is this possible?"

"I used the power of either the Chaos Emeralds or the Sol Emeralds to travel back to this time. I only need two to make the trip, and the Sol Emeralds actually originate in my time, so it's normally pretty easy to do."

"You are...not Chaos." She took a few steps back, then turned to face the Master Emerald, clasping her hands together. "This place has a different energy to it. I sense that things are not as they used to be." After a few seconds, she turned back to Silver, a neutral expression on her face. "I am Solaris the Echidna, daughter of Princess Tikal, granddaughter of the great Chief Pachacamac. I apologise for attacking you; I was disorientated."

"N-No problem…" Silver couldn't stop staring at the echidna who had just emerged from the Master Emerald like this kind of thing happened all the time. "Who's Chief Pach… Paka…?"

"Chief Pachacamac is the great leader of the Knuckles Clan," Solaris replied. "He is my grandfather but neither my mother nor I agreed with his warmongering ways. I wonder if he has taken the clan elsewhere while I was sealed inside the Master Emerald? That would explain why he is nowhere to be found. Oh, I cannot wait to see my family again!"

After a short pause, Silver said, "Yeaaaah, I'm gonna have to get Espio for this one. I have absolutely no idea what's going on and I doubt he will either but at least you'll have a better chance with someone who's actually from this-." Without missing a beat, he suddenly switched topic as he only just registered something that Solaris had said: "-Hold on, did you say Knuckles?"

"Yes, that is the name of my clan," Solaris said. "It is a noble clan, strong yet-."

"Sorry, but I gotta interrupt you there." Silver grabbed Solaris's hand. "Come on, let's go and see my friend. He might be able to help you."

"Oh! Thank you." Solaris smiled. "I am glad I met you."

His cheeks tinged red, Silver led Solaris towards the steps of the altar. As they both began the journey down to the bottom, neither of them noticed the water-like creature sliding out of the Master Emerald and beginning to seep into the soil.