"Me?" Knuckles looked at the somewhat angered hedgehog.

The question does seem to make the hedgehog even more mad. "Yeah you! How could you have come to the past?"

"What are you talking about?" Knuckles backed away as the seemingly younger hedgehog advanced towards him.

"Woah! Woah! Hey!" Sonic shouted as he stepped in between them, looking at the silver intruder with a little more panic, but he didn't show it. "I don't know who you are or why you're in my house, but Knuckles didn't do anything to you, so leave him alone."

"I can handle my own battles, Sonic..." Knuckles mumbled, but otherwise kept quiet about the blue hedgehog stepping in. The silver one, however, was fuming, yet a curious glint was in his eyes. His eyes searched through the frightened Project, curious Tails, brave Sonic, and confused Knuckles. The hedgehog started to calm down.

"Right. This must be him from the past..." The white hedgehog nodded to himself before addressing the small group. "I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. I am Silver the Hedgehog, and I am from the future, approximately 30 years from this very day."

"Future?" Project asked warily "You can time travel?"

"When this stupid headset works, yes." The one called Silver nodded.

"If you want, maybe I could fix it." Tails offered, choosing to forget about what just happened.

"Eh, sorry kid, but I'm not sure you'd be able to fix it." Silver said.

"Tails is the smartest person I know, and he loves to build and fix stuff." Sonic said. "I'm sure you can fix it."

Silver looked at the young fox for a second, but then sighed and handed him the headset. "Okay... But don't break them more than they already are."

"No problem." Tails smiled. "I'll just take a look at them and see what the problem is." Then he walked downstairs to his workshop.

"Don't worry." Sonic smiled. "It's in good hands."

Silver nodded, and Sonic continued. "How about we introduce ourselves? I'm Sonic, Sonic the Hedgehog, and that genius fox was Tails. The other hedgehog is Project, and the echidna is Knuckles."

Project wave nervously, and Knuckles nodded his agreement. Silver stared at Sonic with huge surprise and curiosity as he stepped closer to the Blue furred one.

"You..." He said. "You're the legendary Sonic the Hedgehog? You're real?"

"Of course I'm real! You're only from 30 years in the future; I'm not that old." Sonic chuckled, but seeing Silver's serious yet amazed face, stop. "Wait... I-I died"

The silver one nodded. "Yes... very close to now actually."

"What!?" Project frowned, tears threatening to come. "B-But he can't die!"

"How? Did Eggman finally get to him?" Knuckles wondered, eyes wide.

Silver briefly glared at Knuckles before saying, "I cannot say how, why, or when. It goes against the rules of time travel."

Sonic was looking down, his eyes closed. He wonder what could have happened. What did he do to cause his death? Did he step the wrong way when dodging? Was he saving someone?

Did he want to die?

Confusion swarmed inside him, but he wouldn't let himself show in front of his friends. "Well, I guess I'll have to be more careful in the future."

He was really glad Tails was in his workshop.

"Right." Silver nodded. "I'll stay here until my headset is repaired. Then, I can look for the missing gemstone of my time. I hope that you have a place for me to sleep?"

"Yeah, it's called the couch." Sonic smiled. "Sorry, project as our spare room."

"I-I can sleep on the couch, if you want..." Project said nervously. "I mean, I don't have a place of my own, nor have I had guests before, but I believe that guests should be treated well."

"That's nice of you, but I'll be fine on the couch." Silver smiled to the shy and nervous black hedgehog.

"Well that's settled, how about I show you around?" Sonic asked. Silver nodded, and Sonic looked at the other two. "Want to come along?"

"As long as we don't run into G.U.N., sure." Project replied.

"I have to go back to the Master Emerald, but you guys go on ahead." Knuckles said, walking out the door.

"Okay." Sonic smiled. "Let's go."

The three walked out, and Silver's eyes were wide.

"The past... looks so beautiful..."

The notorious Dr. Eggman sat in his base, waiting for the test results.

'How could Shadow have survived, anyway? He fell from space, to Earth...'

Eggman pondered it a bit, until a deep, dark voice came from the shadows.

"Where is the prisoner?"

Eggman almost visibly shook at the one who interrupted. That voice, that came from no mouth, had haunted him ever since he first heard it.

"H-He got away." Eggman stuttered out with some hesitance.

Lizards like, forest green eyes appeared in the shadows, both set in a deep, icy glare.

"My leader will not be very happy with you..."

"I-I can get him back!"

"Hm..." The eyes disappeared. "Very well. You have two days to bring him back or else you're dead."

The three hedgehogs took a nice, relaxing walk through the forest. Silver looked at everything with pure amazement. Project looked at Silver, curiosity biting at him, but he was too shy to speak. Finally, he gained the confidence to ask him.

"Why are you so... amazed? Do they not have trees in the future?"

Silver looked at Project. "We have trees, but they are so spread out and so rare that I've hardly ever seen one." He looked around again at the nature that surrounded them. "The animals are in a live, the sky isn't blue, and there is no sun from what I could see... Only Darkness welcome the ones that survived."

"The future sounds awful..." Project said, ears going down.

"It is..." Silver sighed. "All because of one who was too powerful, one that tore the world in half, one that knew the legendary blue blur's weakness..."

Sonic had been absentmindedly listening to their conversation, but the instant silver talked about the one who takes over the world in the future, he was definitely paying attention. At the word weakness he shivered as one word came to mind. Water... He was deathly afraid of water, especially since he couldn't swim. But then he started to wonder. Everyone knew about his fear, besides Shadow, and he survived countless water traps with the help of his friends and a friendly, but not too friendly orca, so it would have been easy to get out.

Was it a different weakness?

He shook out of his thoughts as they came up to his house. He smiled as Project kept the conversation going between him and silver. He seemed to be getting out of his comfort zone, as he was talking to someone other than him and Tails. A small but strong feeling welled up at the thought of how much project was talking to Silver than him, but he just ignored it.

The sun was going down along with those strange feelings as Project sat beside him on the couch, as he watched TV, and fell asleep with his head on Sonic's shoulder.