A black and red hedgehog stood on a hill over looking a small town, nestled in between the dips and rises of the plain. The sun set behind him, casting shadows across the rolling hills, a calm breeze causing his quills to sway gently as he stared forward, arms crossed in a serious and stoic pose, the fading light glinting on the bands he wore on his wrists.
"It looks so peaceful," he muttered evenly. "Which of course means that something bad will happen. The world likes it like that, especially now. It's places like this that temporarily escape the displeasure that everywhere else around them experiences."
A streak of light shot into the air, followed by another and a delayed bang. The hedgehog immediately tensed, head snapping up as green and white sparks fell from the sky accompanied by whoops and cheers from the town below. More fireworks flashed in the sky in a seemingly pointless spectacle of happiness, and the lone figure smiled wryly.
"Not the smartest choice ever," he stated to himself. "Safety is more important than morale. Instead of fireworks they should have defenses. Now that everything knows that they're here, I'll have to safe them."
The hedgehog sat down in the tall grass, waiting for the danger that he knew was inevitable.
Lucy the Hedgehog looked up at the sky, pale blue quills shining in the multi-colored lights from the fireworks. The other citizens around her cheered as another crack sounded while she simply grinned.
"They're very pretty, huh?" she asked, looking down to where she thought her son would be. She rolled her eyes slightly with a smile still on her face, kneeling down with her light yellow dress scraping on the sidewalk. She looked through the legs and feet of the crowd surrounding her, trying to spot a specific gray-white hedgehog wearing blue and yellow boots or where he could possibly be. Lucy noticed an alleyway between two houses and figured that would be a good place to look. She stood and wove her way through the crowd. She peered down the lit gap, looking around a trash can and surprised to find her son sitting there with his gloveless hands covering his ears.
"What are you doing?" Lucy asked gently, picking him up off of the ground.
"It's too loud," he stated fitfully, dropping his arms to his sides. "I'm trying to get away from the noise."
Lucy suppressed a laugh.
"But don't you like the colors?" she asked, pointing up at the sky where a bright cyan burst flashed, followed by a bang. The little hedgehog nodded with a loud wince at the crack.
"Yeah, but not the noise. It's way too loud."
"You'll just have to get used to it," she told him gently. "There's nothing I can do about it."
She held her hand out to the side for him to grab, which he did.
"Don't run off like that again, alright, Silver?" Lucy told him as they walked back down the alley to rejoin the crowd. "Let me know what's wrong next time."
"Okay," Silver replied, looking up at her with shining gold eyes reflecting the firework's light.
"You're too young to go wandering off on your own," the older hedgehog continued. "Five isn't old enough to go off on advent-"
"I'm five and a half," Silver corrected her.
"Alright, five and a half," Lucy laughed. "But no more running off!"
"I won't," Silver promised right before grabbing his ears again as the crowd began cheering loudly, a barrage of fireworks launching into the sky in a flurry of colors and a crash of sound. It all ended a few moments later, growing quiet and still.
"Why was the noise different from when the sparks were flying?" Silver asked.
"Light is faster than sound, so when the fireworks pop the sparks reach our eyes faster than the sound reaches our ears. And don't ask me why, because I don't know."
One last, giant golden firework broke, filling the sky with streaks of sizzling light that went from gold to changing and shifting colors. Lucy smiled at Silver's look of awe and wonder plain on face, which was quickly replaced with urgency as he slammed his fuzzy hands over his ears. Lucy blinked before a huge BOOM tore through the air, causing a chorus of gasps from the congregated crowd and making her hearing muffled. She checked to make sure Silver was alright, only to see him smiling with what she suspected was pride in preventing his ears from hurting too much.
"They should make quiet fireworks," he stated. "Then things like that won't happen."
Lucy nodded, ruffling up his quills a bit.
"That would be a good thing, huh? Then little hedgehogs wouldn't go hiding in alleys."
He stuck his tongue out at her playfully, laughing lightly in a mischievous way that was cut off moments later as the sky lit up; not with a firework of any sort, but with the face of a stocky woman with thick red hair, a large pinkish nose and dark red sunglasses with a devilish grin projected in the air. Lucy quickly scooped Silver up in her arms, face aghast as she stared at the impending figure.
"I would like to thank all of you little animals for alerting me of your existence," the woman began haughtily. "Raiding this place for energy sources will be much easier than Starbreak City."
"You're that crazy scientist!" Someone in the crowd shouted. "The one that's descended from the Heroes' foe!"
The projection grinned wryly.
"Right you are, my little friend. And with no one to stop me, I can do what he failed to do. Happy 'Hero Day'!"
The picture blinked out, a giant robot falling out of the clouds and landing on the sidewalk, on top of a few townsfolk who's cries of fear were cut short. Lucy grimaced as the crowd erupted into chaos, everyone scrambling as robots crashed into buildings and onto the road, firing a combination of sleep darts and bullets into people. The pale blue hedgehog turned and ran through the alley she had been through minutes previous, holding a silent and stunned Silver against her shoulder.
This is bad. Very, very bad.
"Wait!" Silver yelled suddenly. Lucy skidded to a stop, looking down at him and breathing heavily.
"What?! What is it?" Lucy demanded in a panic. "You're not hurt are you?"
"No, but I have an idea to stop her!" the gray hedgehog beamed. "If all of us can fight back the robots, it'll be like what those two guys everyone's been talking about lately did!"
Lucy sighed sadly, starting to run again and entering into the shopping district.
"Sweetheart, there's nothing we can do but run," she stated. "No one can do what they did all those years ago. The gems they used are gone, and even then no one could use them. We're just not like they were. And no one these days has powers anymore."
Silver pulled a face, obviously unhappy with that answer.
Lucy jumped as a robot smashed into a building beside her, spraying rubble into the streets. She swallowed down a scream as it turned to her, backing away just as a dark yellow streak shot through it. It exploded a moment later, the source of the destruction blasting onward into another robot. Lucy took her chance, dashing onward.
If we can escape from the town, we'll be away from the robots.
She shut out the screams and cries from her fellow villagers, focusing on the path ahead of her and the small hedgehog shuddering in her arms.
Shadow blasted through robot after robot, ricocheting off of buildings and dodging bullets, darts and metallic punches. And the random people that were running around, just so he could go out of his way to save all of them. He span through the first of a robot that was about to hit a little girl, only for her to get shot by a dart and fall over unconscious. Shadow growled irritably, scooping her up and blasting over to another random person and setting her down in front of them.
Too many robots and too many people to save. Almost makes me wish I had someone else here.
He turned, seeing the area littered with chunks of metal, people that he was too late to save and a few fires beginning to start. Since there were no more robots in this particular area, he took a step back and jumped on to a rooftop, running across and dropping into another crowd of robots.
Silver was very confused. And scared. All he could see was his mom's quills, back, and the ground that they ran past, covered in small rocks and pieces of metal. He felt like he should be able to do something, to help everyone, and himself and his mom. But there was nothing anybody could do against the robots, except for that one thing that blasted the robot apart.
If only I could do something like that. Then I could help everyone.
He was shaken from his thoughts as everything lurched forward. He shouted in surprise as he was sent into the air, landing on a pile of small rocks and dust. He winced sharply, sitting up and dusting himself off a bit before he noticed his mom crouched down, grabbing her leg and almost crying. He quickly stood up and ran the few paces he needed to to get to her. Silver shuddered faintly at the sight of blood dripping down her leg, staining her fur and gloves.
"Are you okay?" he asked hurriedly, hugging her and making sure not to bump her leg.
"I'm f-fine," she said, slowly standing up with a grimace on her face. "We have to keep going."
"No, you need to rest!" Silver insisted, a tone of fear obvious in his voice. Lucy just shook her head.
"No. We'll be safe once we get out of town, and we're almost there."
Silver pulled a face, more than worried for her. But he knew she was right. When they got away from the robots, she would be safe and she could rest then.
"Okay," he said.
Lucy nodded.
"Alright. I can't carry you with my leg hurt, at least not at this moment, so you'll have to run beside me, okay? If the area gets harder I'll carry you again."
"Okay," Silver repeated, following her as she started moving at a quick pace, at least what could be considered a quick pace with such a bad limp. He clenched his hands together, desperately hoping that they would be able to make it out.
So, a few things. This takes place in the '06 timeline, with Crisis City and Iblis and Elise and all of that. A few things I should mention; older Silver hasn't gone back in time yet, and he wasn't in the past since that hasn't happened yet; every hero is dead except for Shadow since he's pretty much immortal. And Shadow doesn't have any Chaos Powers since the Emeralds have been inactive for a very very very long time. I'm exerting creative licence and going against that Silver was born into a world destroyed by Iblis. Eggman-lady is named Esmeralda Robotnik, and she admires Eggman as much as he admired Gerald. She wants to take over the world too. And Silver doesn't have his powers yet! He also refuses to wear gloves, any footwear besides boots and he won't wear socks unless he's wearing boots over them. He's a finnicky little thing. And mature for his age. Lucy is light blue with cyan eyes, Amy-ish bangs, and back quills and markings like Silver.
I think that's all of the info for now. Let me know what you thought, and if you noticed any errors it would be great if you could point them out.
- Streak out!