Given the interest I've seen in this, I'll aim for weekly updates about this long. If I can find the time, I'll try to post twice a week, but don't count on it. (If you'd rather have shorter chapters more often, message me or leave a review and I'll see what I can do.)
Sorry for the slow-moving plot. But hey, it means they get to just chill for a bit before the storm, so that's something. :)
The lab was only a couple blocks away, so the walk took maybe ten minutes at most. Of course, Sonic spent those ten minutes waiting, and tapped his foot pointedly as they approached. "Come on, already! Can't you hurry up?"
"How about no?" Silver snapped. "Just because you run all the time doesn't mean we can, or even want to!" (Sonic decided not to point out that Silver did want to, and had said as much several times.) "And with all that time, did you bother checking for triggers?"
Sonic gave him a blank look before facepalming. "Damn it, Sh- you know who is here. I'll be right back."
As he zipped inside, he heard Silver say, "As you can see, Sonic's brain isn't as fast as his feet."
"I heard that!" he called over his shoulder.
"Heard what?" Sonic turned to see that he'd gained the whole room's attention. "Is someone else there?" Tails asked, setting down the gizmo he'd been holding.
"Well, yeah," Sonic said, trying for a relaxed stance as he counted heads. Shadow was just sort of standing there, and Knuckles was eating a sandwich. "Hey, Shads, could you-"
"I've told you not to call me that," Shadow growled.
"Yeah, yeah, sorry about that," he said quickly, glancing back automatically. What if Shadow's voice…? No, that was paranoid. "But could you, just, step outside for a sec?"
"Why?" Shadow looked at him as though he'd suggested inviting their worst enemy to a celebration of his defeat. (Which, come to think of it, was partially true.)
"Oh, nothing big," he said, casually leaning back on the door frame – and almost falling over when he missed.
"Uh…Sonic, are you okay?" Tails asked, frowning as he righted himself.
"Me? I'm fine, obviously."
Knuckles fixed him with a doubtful look as he headed for the kitchen. "Sure, that's totally believa- what is he doing here?!" The echidna was pointing past Sonic. Toward the door. Er.
"Knux, calm down," he said quickly. "I'll explain, we're trying to not-"
"Mephiles? How is he even alive?"
Sonic grimaced, realizing that Shadow had come over without him noticing. And if Shadow could see Mephiles…
Sonic spun to face the door. Silver was saying something, then stopped and shrugged helplessly at Sonic. Mephiles was frozen, staring at Shadow.
"Great, we were hoping to prevent another flashback," Sonic said as he stepped outside. "Silv, what's he-" He stopped talking when he heard Mephiles' rambling.
"-dark here someone let me out what did I do it wasn't me why am I here not my fault what happened to-"
"He started when he saw Shadow," Silver said. "And I can't snap him out of it."
Sonic grimaced. "Well that's just great." He turned to the trio of confused faces behind him. "Shadow, get somewhere out of sight. I'm not dealing with this again." Shadow nodded, but glared at him to make his wish for further explanation clear before leaving. Sonic breathed a sigh of relief, then turned back to Mephiles. He gripped the dark being's shoulders and shook him. "Mephiles. That's a memory. You aren't there, you're here. Listen to me. That isn't happening."
Mephiles' voice got quieter as Sonic spoke. He shook his head as though waking up and blinked almost sleepily at Sonic. "…Did something happen?"
"Whew," Sonic said, releasing him. "I mean, nothing important." He gave a surprisingly convincing smile.
Mephiles looked at him doubtfully, but shrugged and dropped it. "Why are we here? You never told me." He looked at the unnamed pair warily.
Knuckles folded his arms and glared at the two hedgehogs. "That's a good question. Why is he here?"
"Knuckles, please just-"
"No," he snapped, cutting Silver off, "I will not calm down. Not until I get a good explanation for this. Or is there one?"
"Come on, Knux, do you really think I'd bring our enemy here without some reason?"
"I never know with you. And no offense, Silver, but he's tricked you before."
"Well it's true. Why do you think I called Sonic?"
"If you were going to call this moron-"
"Hey, wait just a-!"
"-you could have called-"
"Hey." Everyone turned to Tails, who was watching Mephiles. "Do you know who I am?"
All eyes turned to Mephiles, who looked like he might turn and bolt. After a tense moment, his shoulders slumped in defeat. "How do all of you know?" he asked, voice soft and almost childlike.
Tails stepped to one side, gesturing toward the door. "If we're going to talk, how about we do it sitting down?"
"You can't be serious!" Knuckles said. "You're just letting this go?"
"Knuckles," Tails said, voice calm and even, "his life never happened."
"Exactly! So how is he-" Sudden pause. "Oh." He looked at Mephiles again. "Oh."
The dark one tensed. "What do all of you expect to learn by staring at me?" he said, most definitely not whining.
"Uh… sorry." Knuckles averted his gaze and quickly went back inside. The others followed.
A minute later, they were settled in Tails' living room. Silver and Mephiles sat on one couch, Sonic and Knuckles on the other, and Tails took one of the arm chairs. ("Shadow's going to kick you out. That's his favorite spot." "Shut up, it's my house and I can do what I want.")
One quick explanation later, Knuckles was a lot less hostile. Mephiles, on the other hand, had pulled his knees up to his chest and only offered monosyllabic responses to direct questions.
"Will he be okay?" Silver asked.
Tails looked uncertain. "I think so. You did this a few times when you came… returned… joined us in our time."
"I did?"
The fox shrugged. "I think it's the memory overload. The rest of us had fewer flashbacks, since most things we saw were familiar before… the thing, but everything caused them for you. But you never commented on it, so nobody else did."
"What now?" Knuckles asked. "We've got an amnesiac hopefully former enemy who looks like Shadow. What do we do about it?"
"Well," Tails said, "we'll have to tell the others at some point. We don't need another showdown scene." Silver looked sheepish. Sonic gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder. "And he'll need to stay somewhere, unless he already has some idea."
Sonic shook his head. "We asked, and he said unless we counted a box of packing peanuts-"
Mephiles sat bolt upright and glared at Sonic. "Those things are the work of the devil!"
Tails and Knuckles seemed too stunned to comment, and Sonic only seemed capable of facepalming, so Silver spoke up. "Of course," he said, using a tone like one might use to calm a child or a feral animal. "We know. Let's not think about that, okay?"
The anger drained out of Mephiles and left him looking confused. "…Okay? What's going on?"
Tails' eyes brightened. "Ohhhh. He latched onto it as a trigger. Like the green thing."
Silver groaned and buried his face in a pillow. "Can we please stop talking about my weird memory issues?" he said, voice heavily muffled. "We get it, I'm the weird one, let's move on please."
"And we've got more important things to talk about," Sonic said. "Like, what are we gonna do about housing? He can't stay with us because of… you know."
Tails shrugged. "He can stay here, if he's okay with the noise." They turned to Mephiles.
"…Noise isn't a problem. Why would it be?"
Sonic raised a brow. "Some of us sleep better when there's not constant clanging going on."
"Sleep?" Mephiles tried to place the word, then gave up. "What's that?"
Silence.
"You know," Sonic said, "if it was safe for Meph and Sir Ultimate out there to be in the same room, they'd be fast friends."
"Sonic." Silver sighed. "Mephiles, sleep is something most beings do to heal and replenish energy. Maybe you don't have to."
"Oh," he said, hoping his sudden discomfort didn't show too much. Why was he so different from other people?
"Welp," Sonic said, jumping to his feet, "I'll go talk to our friend. Be right back." He dashed out.
The remaining four stared at each other in awkward silence. Silver's gaze happened to fall on the TV. "Hey, Mephiles. Are you familiar with video games?"
"You're kidding me," Shadow said flatly.
"Nope. It does sound pretty insane, huh?"
Shadow sighed. "Not as insane as some of your adventures. At least this one is somewhat logical."
"Should I be offended by that?"
"No. It's simple truth." Shadow easily dodged the clod of dirt kicked at him. "Mature."
"Whatever. That isn't the point."
"No, the point is that you're taking one of our most powerful enemies at his word."
Sonic shot him an exasperated look and folded his arms. "You just said you believe it."
Shadow replicated the pose. "I said it's logical. You can't tell me this isn't suspicious."
"Of course it is," Sonic groaned. "But it makes sense. His whole life was centered around Solaris, so he lost all his memories."
"And there's another problem. How does he still exist?"
Sonic flung his hands up in the air. "How should I know! He still exists, he's got the weird memory thing, and he thinks packing peanuts are evil!"
Shadow's face went blank. "Packing peanuts."
Sonic shrugged. "Tails thinks it's like Silver's green thing. Honestly, it was funny the first time, but now it's just kind of weird."
"Very well. I believe you."
"About the packing peanuts?"
He received a scathing look. "About his memory. Mephiles never had much sense of humor."
"Okay, what?" Now Sonic was annoyed. "So him acting scared wasn't enough to convince you, but being angry at packing peanuts is?"
"He did what?!" Saying Shadow was shocked would have been a massive understatement. Sonic might have pronounced himself pregnant with Shadow's child and gotten less reaction.
"I did mention that," Sonic said. "If you'd been listening-"
"Mephiles acted scared?"
"That's what I just said. Again."
"…I can't picture it."
Sonic rolled his eyes. "If we can get you two in a room without him blue screening, you won't have to."
Shadow frowned thoughtfully. "Would he? The worst flashbacks were usually caused by new inputs, blackouts aside. So the problem should be lessened by exposure."
Sonic blinked a few times. "Didn't think of that. Don't think Tails did either."
"Go ask," Shadow said, barely getting to finish his sentence before Sonic was already back inside. "Idiot," he said, smirking.
"Back," Sonic said, skidding to a halt. He stopped and stared. "What?"
Nobody reacted to his arrival. Silver and Mephiles were too focused on the game, and the others were trying not to laugh.
"No, you're supposed to use the wisp on – okay, that works. You're on my head. Why are you on my – oh for Chaos sake!"
"Well if these 'controls' made sense, you wouldn't have fallen into the pit!"
"Whatever. You'll get it eventually. Wait, stand on my head!"
"You just said-"
"I know, but here we can- yes! Super drill!"
Tails finally looked up. "Oh, hey, Sonic. Silver decided to introduce him to video games."
Sonic snorted and leaned on the couch. "I noticed. But Sonic Colors? Really?"
"It's a good game," Silver said, not looking away from the screen. He paused when they hit a checkpoint and turned to Sonic. "So?"
"Weeeell," he said, "he was wondering if seeing each other more would stop the flashbacks. It's mostly new stuff that caused them, right?"
"Wait one second," Knuckles cut in. "You're saying he wants to cause a flashback on purpose?!"
"Knuckles, wait," Silver said quickly. "He has a point. We know repeated exposure is a thing."
The echidna still looked unconvinced. "Tails, what do you say?"
"Hmmm… I can't say for sure. But Silver has a point." His face took on a determined look. "We can't know unless we try."
"Wait, what are we trying?" Now that he wasn't focused on the game, Mephiles remembered that he probably shouldn't let his guard down around these people. Especially the red one.
Silver hesitated. "Well… we think that you might get fewer flashbacks if you're exposed to more triggers. And our friend is a major one."
"How can you tell?" he asked with narrowed eyes.
Sonic shrugged. "Because you had a blackout flashback when you saw him."
Mephiles started to speak, then clamped his mouth shut (metaphorically), looking faintly queasy.
Silver cautiously placed a hand on Mephiles' shoulder. "If it makes you feel any better, I got some bad ones too."
"Yeah," Knuckles said. "Every time you met one of us."
"Give me a break, I lost a huge chunk of my memory!"
Mephiles ignored this exchange, staring at Silver's hand with an unreadable expression. He slowly reached up, took hold of Silver's arm, and pushed it down to the seat between them. Everyone watched this procedure in silence.
Silver spoke up after a moment. "…Can I have my arm back?"
Mephiles blinked, realizing he hadn't relaxed his hold on Silver's arm. He chose to pretend he hadn't heard the question.
"Sooooo… should I get him?" Sonic asked eventually.
Tails nodded. "The sooner we know, the better." And Sonic was off again. "By the way, in case you missed it, I'm Tails. I'm a mechanic, mostly, but I know a lot about medicine from being Sonic's best friend. That's Knuckles. Don't let him scare you, he's just stubborn and protective."
"Don't tell me you're just going to trust him!"
The fox gave Knuckles a look. "Come on, you're supposed to be one of our more observant people. Don't you remember signals at all?"
"What are-" The lightbulb above his head was almost tangible. "Oh."
Mephiles narrowed his eyes in a scowl. "What is this subtle sign that makes everyone trust me? Please, I'm dying to know."
The door creaked before anyone replied. Everyone turned as the two hedgehogs reentered the room.
If Mephiles were more familiar with typical biology, he would have said he heard his blood rushing in his ears. As it was, he only knew that all sound vanished, and a series of images and sensations passed through his head: glass, movement, running, darkness.
The moment passed and he began to regain his senses. Someone was talking.
"-go? Okay, seriously, ow. Tails, do you have a crowbar somewhere? I can't get him off."
He blinked a few times as his eyes refocused. Then he glanced down and realized he was holding Silver's arm far too tightly and oh shoot that's blood. He yanked his hand away like it was on fire and squeezed his eyes shut, bracing himself for whatever they would do.
"Well, Sonic," an unfamiliar voice said, "I believe you now."
"Shadow, now is not the time. Silver, are you-?"
"I'm fine. Mephiles, you okay?"
He cautiously opened one eye a crack and saw Silver giving him a worried look. "You… aren't mad about…?" He glanced at Silver's arm, where pale grey fur was turning red.
"Huh? Oh, this?" He shrugged. "I've done worse to myself tripping on nothing."
"…"
"What?"
"How?"
"Enough." Everyone jumped at Shadow's voice. "The point of this exercise is not to discuss Silver's clumsiness and its defiance of basic physics. Mephiles."
Mephiles looked steadfastly down at his shoes. "I'm fine. A little disconcerted, but that's all."
"In that case, I'm a bit more offended by my arm."
Mephiles looked at Silver, face carefully blank. Silver held up his hands. "I'm kidding, don't worry so much."
"What makes you think I was worried?" More like how did you know, but he wasn't about to say that.
"Well." He glanced at the others, who shrugged or turned away. "Wow, helpful. It's because you aren't suppressing your signals at all, so anyone with decent empathy can read them."
"Okay. Now explain in a way I actually understand."
"It's kind of-" Tails began before being interrupted by Silver.
"Hey, Sonic, maybe we should call Amy, she could explain better."
"What?! I mean, uh, let's not. Heh." The momentary shock vanished behind Sonic's usual grin, but he still seemed nervous somehow.
"Okay. That was an example of how the signals work." He ignored Sonic's annoyed reply. "Basically, it's a form of species-specific body language. It's easy for me to understand hedgehogs and similar species, but I'm not as good at reading, say, Tails."
The thought of having his emotions on obvious display was not pleasant. "You said it can be suppressed?"
Tails nodded. "Right. It takes some effort, but once you get it, you're set."
"I'd be happy to teach you," Silver said.
Mephiles shrugged. "If you want." From Silver's smile, he concluded his gratitude was showing more than he'd intended.
Silver blinked and looked around. "Hey, where'd everyone go?"
They were surprised to see that Sonic, Shadow, and Knuckles had all vanished. "That explains the weird silence," Tails said. "But I'm surprised we didn't notice."
"Well, they were in a hurry," Sonic said as he rejoined them. "Knux and his emerald as per usual, and Shadow has some sort of GUN mission."
"They could have said something."
Sonic shrugged. "You know them as well as I do, so not really. Anyway, I have a date with Egghead to finish, so… catch you later!" the vacant space finished.
Tails sighed in fond exasperation. "Can't even stick around to finish his sentence."
Silver snorted and stood. "That's Sonic for you. Anyway, I should go tell Blaze and Amy the news."
"Can't you just call?"
Tails and Silver both looked at Mephiles. "Why?" Silver asked. "It's not far, and this sort of thing goes better in person."
Mephiles was silent. He wasn't about to admit that he didn't really want Silver to leave, especially since he wasn't exactly sure why. "It just seems like a waste of time."
Silver and Tails exchanged a glance. Silver shrugged. Tails shook his head slightly. "It can wait. They'll be by later to pick up Amy's toaster."
"Still with the toast genies?"
"I did warn her about Sonic's experience, but she didn't realize how frustrating it would get."
Mephiles shook his head slowly. "I will never understand any of you."
"Probably a good thing." Silver flopped back down on the couch. "I think it's about time we changed games. Tails, Olympic Winter Games?"
"Only if I get to play too."
"Well, yeah!"
These jokes are amazing and nobody can tell me otherwise.
