Chapter 10: The Space Between Futures
Amadeus stood his ground, ever vigilant of his surroundings.
Marty looked almost terrified; his chest felt like it was clenching in and out of itself from the stress.
"I've never seen anything like that in my entire life." he said, panting through the sentence.
"Because you're just a child." said Amadeus.
Marty couldn't see his expression, but he was sure by his tone of voice that he'd rolled his eyes.
The area around them was weird…like an unstable metal foreground.
"This place again, why is it so important?" Marty said. "This is where Anna took me before that I barely got out of."
"This is an unstable platform formed by Anna, and your interference, time is not effective here." said Amadeus. "This is the grey matter between dimensions of time, as you might put it: the hallway between rooms."
In from of them were two clear portals, circular shaped, but with nothing behind them, it looked similar to a warp-zone.
They swirled in white, both close to each other, but Amadeus was right, they were both separated.
"Look within each of them for the final proof." Amadeus said gravely.
Marty raised an eyebrow and came closer to the portals, but with enough distance.
The first one, (Future 1) was very bleak within, he saw images of Blake coming into power, raising his hand as the world came tumbling down.
He saw Rex and Sonic fighting viciously, Sonic using his speed while Rex accompanied him with his strength.
He saw the moment he lost his mother…he also saw many freedom fighters falling to Blake's soldiers.
He saw himself only younger, along with a lot of other cadets.
He saw himself being trained, he saw himself promoted and put on his quest, and then he saw…and witnessed Rex's death…and it looked to be soon.
All Marty ever wanted was to fix time so that, both him and his father could lead normal lives…and from the way things were looking…he wouldn't have the chance.
"NOOOOOOOOO!" Marty said in distress, about to launch himself into it, but Amadeus slapped him.
"Foolish boy, don't you know warping yourself in there without a time stone is suicide?!" he shouted.
"But I have to save him! I can if I go back in time and stop it!" Marty said.
"No!" Amadeus said, stomping his foot on the echoing floor. "Do you think anything good can come of your death?"
Marty shut his eyes sorrowfully, and then stepped over to the other one.
Inside this one, he saw quite different situations, the good ones being Trixie and Ken's life playing out nicely, Flame and the others as well, but he saw Anna's shadow roaming over it, almost the same treat Blake had before his rise to power.
He saw deaths of very important individuals because of her plotting; it was very grim as well…
"What do we do, umm, Amadeus was it? Well what can we do? Both futures have horrible things happening in them…if I choose one…wouldn't it be wrong of me to? Just to save my father…" said Marty.
"Fate is a funny thing…" Amadeus said, sounding…almost sad. "I don't think it's for us to decide, you may be changing people's destinies around with the taking of the bad, others might end up dead where they otherwise wouldn't have…either way, your father's death is only one and that future already had a good many dead…but even if you look though these portals, they will never give you the whole story."
Amadeus sat down on the cold floor, his cape wresting as he did so.
Marty's eyes were watery…he was terrified for his father.
"Look boy, I have experienced this before, I brought you here to give you some sense. You see these portals will play out time, small portions and not much into the future. They were created by time when each separated from the other; this room is what makes traveling through time possible. I keep explaining this because you always seem to miss the point; you think this is a simple thing to manipulate. If you really want to stop them from either, colliding with one another, or from imploding, something needs to be done." Amadeus said, sounding very serious.
"I know I know! But what am I supposed to do? Studying them won't help anything without a solution!" Marty said hastily.
"There is a solution…but you won't like It." said Amadeus. "You are unaffected by either and will not make an impact unless you die or are absent from both of them for too long, Anna is the exception cause she 'is' an energy and not considered a person. Anyway, it's impossible for both of us to be in two places at once and, I am already present in both futures."
Marty blinked. "So, there are three of you?"
"Yes, I am probably doomed to stay here till the day I die, if I stay in either for two long time will react. But you however, you are missing from both now." said Amadeus.
"So basically you're saying, since there's a 'you' in future 1 and future 2, you have to stay here, and since I'm missing from both, one of the futures I never existed in?!"
"Yes, now time makes the second future your permanent future, the place you will HAVE to live in if you don't want everybody dead. Because of that you won't see the father 'you knew' ever again, and over time you might find a brother or sister born in your stead, in the second future." said Amadeus. "But that's only the beginning boy; you're going to have to fix this mess. One of us…could sacrifice our existence…but for that to happen we'd need to destroy the connectors so time resets itself, which would mean we'd…need to destroy the chaos emeralds, for now and forever."
Marty's jaw dropped. "THAT'S CRAZY!"
"It's not really suicide…we'd just be different people, you'd grow up differently and I would…" his sentence stopped there, knowing something in his clouded mind. "If it will save everybody we need to think about being selfless, we need to put everybody else first."
"Who are you Amadeus?" Marty asked bluntly.
"I'm a simple hedgehog, put in complicated circumstances, I know the value of life and I understand sometimes we need to put others first." said Amadeus. "This is one of those times."
Marty looked back into the portal playing out his life…it made him realize…he was right…he hated the fact to death but…he was right.
End chapter