Team Rose

"If you require our assistance for whatever reason, you can reach me at this number."

"Give us a call if you guys have any problems, okay? I'll get to you guys in two seconds flat."

Amy sighed as she rested her elbows on the table in front of her and her head in her hands. "Oh my god… What did we sign up for?"

"You had to know that our job would be difficult, to say the least," Blaze said.

"I know, but…" Amy sighed. "Sonic and Shadow aren't worriers. And they're worried about us right now."

"So these cell phone things," Silver said as he repeatedly flipped Amy's open and shut. "You use them just to communicate with people?"

"Rouge's idea," Amy said fleetingly. "She said it was a stupid idea to not be able to contact each other at a moment's notice, so she made sure we each got one."

"So not everyone has one?" Silver asked. "That's… weird. Everyone in my time has at least a phone like this. Everyone else… well… what you'd call a mini computer, I guess."

"Wait, so you seriously have one of those?" Amy asked.

"Not with me," Silver replied with a shrug, his expression sheepish. His eyebrows were furrowed slightly, and Amy could tell that he was mentally berating himself for not thinking to bring his with him.

"That's okay," Amy said briskly. "We'll manage." She exhaled sharply as she scooted her chair backwards, and she stood up and stretched. "Okay, guys. The others left, so it's just us for now. What do we do?"

"We can't exactly go anywhere until we figure all this out, right?" Silver asked. "We should probably make a list or something."

"I'm on it," Blaze said as she reached for the notepad and the pen Rouge had oh so kindly left for them at the center of the table.

"Right," Amy said as she pushed her chair in and leaned on it. "So… What do we know?"

"That there may have been an alternate timeline in which we all met and worked together," Blaze answered.

"Guys, we aren't going to get anywhere if we keep talking about what might have happened," Amy said exasperatedly. "We need to start with what we know."

"I met you," Silver quipped before Blaze could say another word. "Blaze was supposed to be with me, but she wasn't, and I was looking for someone – probably her. You were looking for someone too. I'm guessing Sonic?"

"Okay, great," Amy said cheerfully. "I remember that, sort of. We looked through a desert together, and you kept going on and on about how pretty it was."

"Did I…?" Silver said quietly. "But… for me to go on and on like that… That would mean that the world I came from in that time was…"

"… not as pretty," Amy finished quietly. "Okay. That makes sense, sort of. But why wouldn't we remember saving the world?"

"Maybe…" Silver muttered, rubbing his chin. "Maybe we had to rewrite history to save the world?"

"What was it that Tikal said?" Amy mused. "Blaze, make sure you get this down."

"I'm on it."

"She said that certain events that transpired and were erased from existence are resurfacing," Silver said. "So I guess that means that we did rewrite history to save the world at some point."

"But that echidna woman said that the events that we supposedly erased are resurfacing," Blaze pointed out, letting the pen drop to the table with a clatter. Knowing what we did to save the world means nothing when we can't remember what we were trying to save the world from."

"So you remember being there, for sure?" Amy asked Blaze.

"No," Blaze answered flatly, "but it's the most logical assumption." Amy and Silver exchanged confused looks. "It's no coincidence that we're all here, in the same time and in the same dimension, together. If anything, we can take it as a confirmation that we were all involved in these 'events that transpired but were erased from existence'."

Silver narrowed his eyes and stared downward. "But… we had to erase time to deal with… whatever it was we had to deal with… and it's still not gone."

Amy sighed. "You're right. There's no guarantee that we can fix it again."

"The most we can probably do is fix the situation temporarily," Blaze added, "though if there was a way to solve the problem entirely…"

"We don't even know what the problem is!" Silver exploded suddenly, slamming his fist down on the table. "How are we going to fix anything if we don't even know what's going on?"

"Calm down, Silver…" Blaze said quietly.

Amy rested her head in her arms on the table. "This is giving me a headache…" She groaned exasperatedly and buried her face in her arms. "We're going in circles! We keep going over what we already know again and again, and we aren't getting anywhere!"

"No, we're getting somewhere," Silver refuted. "Just… really slowly."

"I wonder if Rouge has water here…" Amy mused. "I'm not paying her, though. I don't care if all clubs do it – it's a crime to charge that many rings for water." Within seconds, a bottle of water was floating toward her, faintly glowing blue. Amy took it and smiled brightly at Silver. "Thank you, Silver."

"Don't overdo it," Blaze warned him. "If you exhaust yourself now, you won't be of much use later on."

"S-Sorry," Silver said shakily. "That's probably a good idea."

"So you just get really tired if you use your powers too much?" Amy asked. "And Blaze, you know that for sure? Does this mean that you guys did know each other at some point, for sure?"

"It's hard to say…" Blaze said slowly. "Certain things just come to me, seemingly out of nowhere."

"Oh yeah," Amy said. "Speaking of which, I don't remember meeting you before that time you worked with Cream, Blaze."

"Faulty memory, perhaps?" Blaze asked.

"I don't know…" Amy sighed. "Maybe I… never got the chance to meet you? But that doesn't make any sense, if I was traveling with Silver."

"I don't think you were," Silver quipped. "At least, not all of the time. I remember that after a certain point, you weren't there, and Blaze was."

"But why would I leave you?" Amy asked. "If the world was in danger, then I would've helped you try to save it!"

"Maybe I… didn't tell you everything that was going on?" Silver surmised. "Maybe we disagreed on something and went our separate ways?"

"But if your future was in danger, I wouldn't have just abandoned you like that," Amy said, sighing. "All right. We aren't going to get anywhere if all we do is think about possibilities."

"Perhaps we should see where all this happened," Blaze suggested.

"I don't remember, though," Amy said. "Do you, Silver?"

"There was a lot of water," Silver said slowly. "It was… well, the city was split into two parts, plus this foresty… thing… And there was a desert that I went to with Amy and a big, snowy mountain I went to with Blaze…"

"A lot of water?" Amy echoed. "So this place is either by the sea or by a river. Then a desert… a mountain… and a forest…" She sighed. "The only place I can think of that fits that is Soleanna." Silver and Blaze exchanged confused looks. "I bet you've never heard of it, huh? It's kind of small, and really touristy. We all went there for vacation this one time, during the Festival of the Sun, and it was so much fun…"

"So this festival," Blaze quipped. "What is it?"

"Oh, it's just this huge ceremony to honor their sun god," Amy explained. "Solaris, I think." Something occurred to her then. "Come to think of it… it was around this time of year that we went to Soleanna… What's todays date?"

"I don't see how you could expect me to know when this isn't even my dimension," Blaze said grumpily.

"June 21," Silver said helpfully.

"So the Festival's today, then!" Amy cried in alarm. "Come on, you guys, we need to go to Soleanna!"

The three of them managed to find a perfectly good view of the ceremony from the top of a building. "Is there any point in us being here for this festival?" Blaze asked.

"I guess we'll find out," Amy said, shrugging. "Tikal said that something that happened was erased from the timeline, but it's slowly creeping back, and it's causing a paradox. According to Silver, that something happened in Soleanna. I've only ever been to Soleanna for the Festival of the Sun, so that something must have happened either during the Festival of the Sun or not too long after it."

Blaze smiled. "I'm impressed," the cat said. "You managed to piece all of that together relatively quickly."

Amy laughed nervously. "Well, it's not like I pieced it all together at once. I just thought it would be a good idea to get here as soon as possible, and then everything just sort of… came together."

Silver kicked his feet absentmindedly as he watched the ceremony. He didn't know what to focus on – the dancers twirling and leaping on the deck of the yacht, the drummers repeatedly beating the giant drums at the head, or the red-haired woman with the gentle smile holding a flaming torch. When he saw the flames, he tensed.

"Hey…" Amy, from his right, laid her hand on top of his. "What's wrong?"

His stomach seemed to jump to his throat as he suddenly pictured explosions on the yacht, and flames everywhere. "Are you all right?" Blaze, from his left, asked, laying her hand over Silver's other one.

Their gestures did nothing to ease his anxiety, though he felt warm and happy nonetheless. "I'm okay," he said. "Just… this all looks familiar."

"That's good!" Amy said excitedly, squeezing his hand. "That means we're on the right track!"

"This looks completely new to me," Blaze sighed. "Either that means that my memories are taking longer to return, or that I was never here to begin with."

Something jolted in Silver's chest. "Never… here?" he echoed faintly. He clutched Blaze's hand tightly, as if it was a lifeline.

Amy gave his hand another squeeze. "Hey, it's starting," she said excitedly, bouncing a little.

So Silver turned his attention back to the woman with the torch, praying to every deity he knew of that the flames wouldn't go out of control. The woman approached the head of the yacht and raised the torch slightly. "We give thanks to these blessed flames," the woman said in an even voice. "O Solaris, Eternal Sun, may we have another year of peace, and may you bless us with your eternal light." She lowered the torch, and the flames spiraled upward.

Cheers erupted amidst the spectators down below, and fireworks flashed above at an alarming rate. One of the priests nearby took the torch from the red-haired woman and calmly dipped it into the water below, extinguishing its flames. The woman smiled and waved to everyone around, and the dancers continued to leap and twirl about the yacht. "It's so beautiful…" Silver said.

Amy sighed contentedly and rested her head on Silver's shoulder. "Yeah… It really is…"

Blaze suddenly stood up. "We should get moving," she said in a low voice. "If reality as we know it is falling apart, then we really have no time to waste."

Amy sighed as she and Silver helped each other to stand up. "Yeah, you're right…" she said. "So… where to?"

Silver turned to stare at the red-haired woman, and something clicked in his mind. "Wait… I know her! That woman, over there!" He pointed to the red-haired woman, who stared at the sky with an almost nostalgic smile.

"Huh?" Amy asked, looking in the direction where he was pointing. "Wait, but that's… That's the queen! How could you possibly know her?"

Silver's head was starting to hurt, and a significant part of him didn't want to think anymore. "I don't know… I just do." They couldn't have met only in passing – what he felt was so much stronger than that. There was something that seemed to draw him to the queen – something that made him want to protect her.

Silver moved on impulse, using his powers to slow his descent as he leapt off the building. Fortunately, the spectators on the ground were too preoccupied with the celebration to pay him any attention. He didn't even hear Amy and Blaze calling after him – he had to get to the red-haired woman.

… but it wasn't until after he'd managed to wade through the throngs of people and evade the guards to get onto the yacht that he realized that he had no idea what to say. All was silent, and time seemed to slow to a standstill as the queen stared down at him. "Miss Elise!" one of the guards called. There were perhaps fifty of them, all dressed in green, all pointing lances threateningly at Silver.

"It's all right," the queen said calmly. "Leave him be." She didn't appear angry or upset in any way, but she didn't smile when she addressed Silver again. "Can I help you?"

Silver's throat felt dry, and any words that somehow managed to float to his mind died in his throat. "I…"

"Silver!" Amy and Blaze had managed to push past the guards, and they now stood at the edge of the docks, staring imploringly at him.

Queen Elise came down to her knees so that she was closer to eye-level with Silver, though he still had to look up to see her eyes. She put one hand on his shoulder, her eyebrows furrowing in a strange mixture of confusion and concern. "Do I… know you from somewhere?"

It felt like Silver's throat was closing up, and it hurt to swallow. "I don't know…" he said in a pathetically small, weak voice.

Else exhaled slowly as she stood up and smoothed out her dress. Her eyes drifted over to Amy and Blaze, lingering more on Amy than on Blaze. "We'll talk tomorrow," she said quietly. "I do hope you'll come see me."

And at that moment, all Silver could see and feel were arms everywhere, and he was being dragged off the yacht. The next thing he knew, he was being thrown on the ground, and several guards surrounded him, glaring at him. "I—" he started, his voice cracking.

"Oh my god, I am so sorry!" Amy yelled as she shoved her way through the guards and made her way to Silver's side. "We promise, it won't happen again."

Silver couldn't stop shaking. "Y-Yeah…" Amy had one hand on his elbow as they walked away, though he could still feel the guards' cautious stares on him. "W-We need to see her tomorrow."

"Yeah, I heard," Amy said with a sigh.

They found Blaze standing alone, leaning against a wall. "What were you thinking?" she asked Silver much too calmly.

"Blaze, can you not?" Amy asked pointedly.

Silver's head hurt. He didn't want to think anymore. Amy and Blaze were starting to argue because of him, and as much as he wanted them to stop, he couldn't say a word.

I am so sorry for the delay on this chapter. Real life sort of ensued. ANYWAY, there's lots of dialogue and lots of spinning around in circles in this chapter. None of them really have any idea of what's going on, so yeah, they're going to talk about it and, by extension, repeat stuff they already know. A lot.

So the person with the best idea of what's going on in this is SILVER, because he's the one with the memories from the Sonic 2006 timeline. Amy doesn't have MEMORIES, per se, but she remembers Silver, even though, in the current timeline, she's probably only met him in passing. Blaze is the one kind of locked OUT of the loop, and she has the least idea of what's going on, so she can't do much except analyze what Silver and Amy put forth.

So… don't shoot me, but I really like Sonic 2006. Once you get past the absolute shit show that's Sonic's story, the game is actually pretty neat. Silver and Shadow's stages were really fun to play, in my opinion. And Silver is perhaps my favorite character in the entire franchise. Here's how I've always interpreted him: he remains sane by latching onto people around him. Blaze is his emotional crutch throughout the game, but when he first travels to the past, she's NOT THERE. Silver, understandably, freaks out a little. Enter Amy, who shows him a bit of kindness. Silver latches onto her, as evidenced by just how much her anger with him when he tries to kill Sonic BREAKS him. Then Blaze returns, and he latches onto her once more, though he still feels pretty bad about what happened with Amy. Later, Silver latches onto Shadow when they go further into the past to find out the truth behind the Solaris Project, given how quickly and easily Shadow earns Silver's trust. If you pay attention throughout all three stories, you'll see that Silver is the protagonist who is alone – really alone – for the least amount of time. Sonic and Shadow are alone more often, because they're so focused on taking down their respective antagonists. But Silver's almost always with someone – first Blaze, then Amy, then Blaze again, then Shadow, then Blaze again, then Sonic, then Blaze again. The only times he is ever alone is directly after Mephiles sends him into the past, before he meets Amy, and after Blaze sacrifices herself to become Iblis's vessel.

But enough about Silver's character (which I probably read too much into, so PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG). This story operates under the assumption that EVERYONE forgot the events of Sonic 2006 – even Sonic and Elise – but those events weren't completely erased from the timeline. Silver remembers the most because his experiences during that forgotten time were arguably the most traumatic. Everyone else feels some déjà vu, though Amy feels it a bit more strongly and can do a better job of analyzing it, since she's into tarot readings and stuff. As for Elise, she doesn't know the Sonic cast personally from before. Out of everyone, I feel like she'd remember either Sonic or Silver the most. Sonic is for obvious reasons. As for Silver, I feel like she has a bit of an emotional connection with him. When she first sees Sonic, she mistakes him for Silver. Silver gave her the Chaos Emerald, which she regards as a lucky charm. I don't think it would be too much of a stretch to assume that she'd feel at least SOME familiarity with Silver.

… as you can see, I've analyzed this game WAYYYY too much. If any theories/analyses above don't make sense, PLEASE let me know. And with that, please review!