Personally, Saffron hated the curfew with a rotting passion, and -as a result- ignored it whenever he could. Due to current circumstances and whatnot, tonight was going to be one of those nights.
"Alright Nela," Saffron decided as he situated himself in the now empty computer room. "How do we find out who that not-Shadow person was?"
"Give me a minute..." Nela promised. "I need to..."
Nela trailed off as something started to happen on the computer screen. Saffron had to squint to make sure he was seeing it right, and what he saw made him recoil in surprise; A figure seemed to softly glitch into existence on the screen- at first as a simple, Mobian like form before refining itself into a Mobian lynx. Saffron continued to gawk as the lynx Mobian started to color itself in, like a child scribbling colors into a coloring book. As the colors reached its body, the lynx started to gain clothes as well. When the lynx was properly colored and clothed, there on the screen was brown lynx Mobian with black markings on her face and her ears.
"How do I look?" Nela asked, but the lynx's mouth moved, admittedly scaring Saffron more than it should have.
"Does my avatar scare you?" the lynx curiously asked, again in Nela's voice, as it tilted its head at him. Words still failing to come out, Saffron just shook his head.
"Oh good." she smiled with a little clap of her hands. "Now, let's find out who you saw. Can you describe him for me?"
For this, Saffron shook himself from his surprise to answer her. "He looked like Shadow." he adamantly claimed. "But his bracers were gray. In fact, he didn't have any real color on him, he was just all gray and stuff. Oh! And he didn't have a mouth either."
"Oh, interesting!" Nela claimed as the avatar spun around, then extended its arms that some how made several windows appear on the screen. The windows then started to display several photos of Mobians Saffron didn't recognize. As more photos started to appear and disappear far too quickly for him to keep track, Nela's avatar brought up another window that displayed rounds and rounds of code that Saffron couldn't deceiver to save his life.
From there, a hushed silence filled the room as Nela (or was it her avatar?) shifted through all the data and possibilities that laid in Soleanna's history. It took some time, but the rapid change of pictures and data slowed down, and Nela's avatar turned to look at Saffron again.
"Saffron…?" Nela quietly said as if something was troubling her.
"Yeah?" the rabbit child nonchalantly replied.
"According to this data, you looped 13 times- 9 of those times there were severe causalities for your group."
He hadn't been aware of it at first, but Saffron had flinched. "Yeah, so?"
"I… I'm sorry you had to see that."
"It's not a big deal. With great power comes great responsibility, right?"
"Saffron, you're seven! You shouldn't be seeing those things!"
Saffron looked away, refusing to say anything else about the situation. Nela must have known this as her avatar pulled up a picture of the mysterious not-Shadow and some other data that she knew Saffron could read easily.
"This is who you saw." she softly said to him to gain his attention again. It seemed to work as Saffron looked back at the screen.
"Mephiles." Saffron read off the data.
"His full moniker is Mephiles the Dark." Nela explained, bringing up more files. "There was a reality where he was created as a half from Soleanna's god, Solaris through some rather unethical experiments. It's a complicated story for now, but Shadow apparently had a hand in capturing Mephiles the first time, and accidentally released him 10 years after. This allowed Mephiles to literally claim Shadow's shadow (try saying that five times fast, ha!) and took on his appearance for a time."
"So it was Mephiles that killed Infinite and Silver."
"Yes." Nela affirmed. "And those monsters they held off? They were creatures created by Mephile's twin and opposite, Iblis."
"Iblis..." Saffron once more repeated, playing the word around in his head as if it meant something to him. After thinking it over, he turned his attention back to the monitor. "What happened in that reality Nela?"
"A paradox, to put it simply, set in motion by Princess Elise the Third."
Princess Elise… the Third? Why didn't the current princess of Soleanna know that her ancestor caused a paradox? Did they not remember it? I mean, it was a paradox after all, maybe that had been part of its effect? Eventually, Saffron just let out a small, mystified, "Weird."
"Oh, definitely." Nela agreed. "And that's not even the start of that paradox and its effects on our current reality."
"Nela," Saffron started to say, "What do you-"
"Saffron, why are you still awake? It's past curfew."
The rabbit kid jumped a good foot in the air -knocking out the monitor cable for the computer, making the screen go black- before turned around to look at the Professor.
"I, uh… I was..."
The Professor simply stood where he was while Saffron choked on his words. There was a reason why Saffron tried to avoid the Professor (and yes, the Professor in particular, not just Silver and Saga) for a year.
"I was going to head back to my bunker." the rabbit kid finally said, refusing the look at the Professor as he got off the desk chair.
"Good boy." the Professor agreed with a nod. The Professor then watched as Saffron headed out the door without so much a blink. When Saffron closed the door behind him for the lab, the Professor gave a curious stroke of his chin before mumbling, "What a peculiar child..."
. . .
Silver was coming to the very quick realization that Infinite would wake up far before anyone else. While the jackal had not been in the kitchen of their dormitory, Silver had found him observing the front of the professor's lab.
"You know who built this place?" the jackal asked when he noticed Silver come up to him. "It's a sturdy little compound, I almost wonder if Eggman had a hand here."
"Doubt it." Silver disagreed with a little snort. "This place has been in the Professor's family for a good 50 years… some how."
Infinite raised an eyebrow. "How do you keep a military base in your family for 50 years? How does a military base even become family property to begin with?"
At first, Silver only offered a small shrug before his spine straightened with realization. "I… don't know." he admitted. "I never really thought about it- never really had to, honestly. The Professor offered us a home when we didn't have any; don't look a gift horse in the mouth, right?"
Infinite gave Silver a concerned glare, a glare that the hedgehog tried to shake off but couldn't.
"Bugzapper and Nth Degree do you read?" a voice from their headsets suddenly announced. Infinite didn't recognize it at first before realizing that he had heard it at least once before. But from where? "Please wake up World Walker, the Professor would like to see everyone in the main laboratory. Do be careful, if you scare her she'll shift in her sleep. Thank you!"
After the channel cut off, Silver let out a small, bewildered, "Weird."
"There are a lot of weird things in this compound," Infinite snickered without hesitation, "And I'm standing next to one of them. Do specify on what's off now."
"Well," Silver started, "That voice sounded a lot like the Professor's virtual home assistant. But its never been that specific on announcements. Usually it's like 'Someone is at the door, Professor' or 'You've got mail, Professor.'"
"Maybe it got an upgrade?"
"Maybe..." the hedgehog quietly agreed. He let out a small shake of his head before saying, "Let's go get Saga."
With a shrug, Infinite followed Silver to their home and carefully woke up Saga -who, come to find out, was still sleeping off the whiskey Infinite had spiked her coffee with last night. Silver wasn't pleased, but they didn't have have time to argue about it. The trio immediately make their way back to the laboratory finding that they were the only ones left to be there- even Shadow had shown up.
"Good, good! We're all here!" the Professor exclaimed as Silver and Infinite lead Saga to a chair next to Saffron. "Now I can make my announcement!"
Clapping his hands together in an excited manner, the Professor turned to his computer and started to quickly type several commands into the console. It did not take long before something started to appear on the screen; at first it looked faintly Mobian, and as it came further into view, it took on a form that looked a bit like a…
"It's you!" Saffron suddenly exclaimed when he recognized the figure. The Mobian lynx on the screen gave a small giggle that surprised everyone else, spare for Saffron and the Professor, of course. The avatar was so… animated- it was nearly uncanny. Shadow visibly shuddered.
"You didn't get in trouble for staying up late, did you?" the avatar asked in such a crisp tone of voice that it didn't sound like it came from the speakers, but from a real person standing in the room with the others.
Saffron flinched as he took a side glance at Silver before looking back at the avatar. "Well I am now," he bitterly declared. It caused the avatar to giggle again.
"Sorry..." it apologized, despite not sounding too upset about it. And while Saffron had assumed Silver would immediately reprimand him, the hedgehog was too busy trying to figure out where he had heard the avatar's voice from before.
"That voice…" he mumbled to himself before turning to the Professor, "It belongs to your home assistant, doesn't it Professor?"
"Aw yes, yes!" the Professor agreed with a happy nod of his head. "This new program, Natural Emulations of Lifeline Alternatives is that very program modified for our purposes! Princess Elise and her country were very accommodating when she promised us the equipment we needed. Now we can track tears even better than before, and we will know exactly who to sent out to ensure our mission is a success!"
"Hey, Natural Emulations," Infinite then teasingly shouted up at the avatar, "Can we call you Nela, or do you prefer N.E.L.A.?"
"There's a difference?" Saga questioned, scrunching her face up in some faint annoyance.
"Acronyms, my dear puss. It's all about the acronyms." he said back- the grin on his face was wide and boyish. The cat scoffed at it as if the gesture offended her.
"Just Nela would be fine." the avatar told them, even bringing up a small graphic on the screen that spelled the name out so everyone was clear on the spelling.
"Right," the Professor interrupted them all with another clap of his hands, "Back to the mission at hand, yes? Nela, show us all possible tear openings and report to us the most likely to close at this given time."
"Of course sir." Nela agreed with a small bow before the avatar blinked off the screen. In its place, several screens popped onto the screen- some of pictures that flashed by too quickly and others simply lines of data that gave coordinates and other things that not everyone could deceiver- before all the data froze to one spot and Nela's avatar appeared again.
"I have located a tear that has an 81.02119% chance of perfect closure, Professor." Nela declared. "To improve these chances of success, Silver and Infinite would be best for this tear." Now looking to the boys she added, "I would recommend bringing something warm, because it'll be quite chilly where you're going."
"Where are we going?" Silver warily asked as if he some how knew the answer already.
Nela's avatar grinned- the kind of grin someone gave you when they were about to be a smart aleck. "Artika of course!" she even bothered to cheerfully tell them. "Good luck!"
