Darkness. He was acquainted with it well by now, the air and gas devoid of light. A nonexistent veil given form only from the delusion of a blinded sentient. But as well as he knew it, he also knew not to underestimate it. For the darkness may cloak you well, but may also hide your enemies.

The night here was not absolute. Holographic data streams flickered far below like fireflies in perfect formation, shades of varying light trickling back up to their procession above and flashing geometric patterns across the segmented green-globe that surrounded the large room. He closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in the recycled air, his ears twitching as he heard the mecha clank across the floor, feeling the raw pulse of energy from the Chaos Emeralds he carried with him. Unwanted questions formed only a few minutes ago popped again into his mind, and he banished them with absolute focus, emptying his brain of distractions.

The clash of metal on metal stopped, and his feet followed suit in reflex. Opening his eyes, he stood at the center of an all too familiar place. Clover-shaped lights made of raised gold were embedded at intervals along a disc-shaped platform, mingling with a bluish hue cast from the four large ringed orbs that floated in the air above. In the middle rose a pillar of segmented crystal, surrounded by sheets of glass that stretched to the inner ring of the platform. Standing before this and directly in front of them was a single seat and console, the latter covered by a myriad of strangely-shaped buttons which were outlined in azure light given off from the single large screen that towered above it.

The Cyclone moved forward on his right, and the ultimate life form watched in silence with his arms folded, a common stance of his, as the Kitsune in the pilot's seat disembarked from his mecha. The twin-tailed fox's footfalls seem to ring with every step as he approached the controls, stopping before them as his gaze slowly rose up in nostalgic awe.

Tails extended gloved fingers over the console slowly, seemingly afraid to touch the master controls for the entire space colony and the super weapon housed within it. After a moment and lifetime of hesitation, he pressed a large, polygonal button at the top of a six-sided matrix surrounding a gridded green lens. The console hummed in response, lights blinking to life as if from a deep slumber, a holographic interface spinning up clockwise and appearing over the lens. It slowly rotated, with a top like that of a brilliant cut gemstone, the dark secrets it hid begging to be known once more.

Pausing, aware of the four sets of eyes following his every movement, the kitsune took in another long breath before pressing one of the light-forged facets, the shimmering side clicking in with only a touch. There was a beep of acknowledgement, followed by several more as windows began to wink onto the large screen. Power fluctuations, Operating Systems, Core wavelength, readings, irrelevant data, all these things and more opened as Tails pressed more and more buttons on the strange keypad.

Something caught his eye and he stopped clicking away, instead highlighting a directory file. Widening it, it opened into an active (at least, formerly) project listing. Four subfolders were present, Project Shadow, the most obvious, sat at the top with highest priority. But three more were present as well: Project Gizoid, Project Eclipse, and Project Gateway.

Tails' eyesbrows knitted in thought. Project Eclipse was obvious in its subject, but Gizoid and Gateway were still news to him, and he guessed to the others present as well. Both had been mentioned in Gerald's last log, though he still had found the references vague and could only guess as to their purpose, especially with the former.

Leaving the files be for now but making a mental note to read the reports later, the kitsune switched to security records instead, trying to find the last user in the system. Eggman and he had been right in their suspicions it seemed, for someone had been operating from this station up to only ten minutes ago. And yet, something was off. According to the console commands, whoever it was had not only been responsible for changing the password to Gerald's logs, but also had extracted them from the main archives and then distributed them with varying security clearance throughout the colony's network. But… That would imply the intruder had intentionally been feeding info to them all along.

Baffled, Tails scrolled down to the bottom of command logs, reading the last console lines. It seemed that whoever had been in the system had been rerouting a great deal of emergency power to both the Eclipse Cannon and a sealed area just below the weapon's core. Squinting, he noticed that a system of floodable chambers below said core had also been drained and opened section by section, opening a passage to the formerly inaccessible chamber. Despite himself, he couldn't help but be a little impressed by the clever solution.

Static flared. Five pairs of eyes shot to the source of the sound, the glass monitor looming over the Eclipse Cannon's controls. It flickered, once, twice, a solid pool with impossible ripples twisting about upon its surface. And then it was restored, files gone and replaced with a face smiling with evil glee into the camera. Pupils dilated, a gasp came from somewhere behind, but the kitsune spared none of them so much of a thought as he stared into the grinning face… of himself.

A minacious chuckle came forth in the form of audio from the screen, and Tails took an unconscious step back, tripping and falling into the hub's chair. He scrambled back to his feet as quickly as he could, but the slight was caught regardless, his evil twin's lips peeling back to reveal the tips of his canines. "So," said his clone, "we meet again, Miles the Fox."

"And who are you?" asked Shadow before the kitsune could even respond.

Cold eyes flicked across the screen, settling on the speaker. The black hedgehog caught just a twitch of an eyelid, a flicker of a dark emotion on the evil fox's face mingled with recognition before it settled back into that of a smug malefactor. Shadow, however, couldn't conclude why as he did not recall this doppelganger in turn, as obviously displayed by his question. That annoyed him, but he stuffed the emotion back down within the cauldron of his other feelings. He'd tried living with emotions before, and remembered all too well where that had got him. The ultimate life form had long since decided it was far better just to throw them all away.

Meanwhile, the gaze of the kitsune upon the screen had shifted back to his twin. "Oh?" said the clone, "You didn't tell your friends about me Miles? Decided not to mention our little bargain?"

Eyes narrowed. Distrust stained the air. Only Cosmo remained immune to this attack on the kitsune's character, prior knowledge helping but unnecessary to the absolute faith she had in Tails.

Said fox felt his hand clench reflexively to the accusation, staring coolly in turn back at his evil twin. "What do you want, Mephiles?"

The demon purred at his naming, his smile growing unnaturally wide and full of gleaming fangs. "The same thing I've always wanted."

"I've heard it before," said Tails boldly. "Revenge, right?"

Mephiles' eyes narrowed to slits. The kitsune could have sworn the temperature of the room dropped ten degrees from the icy glare, so ancient, so full of primordial hate. His breath stopped, and he felt his heart lurch for a moment, locked under a vast well of willpower.

Then he felt himself gasping for air, Mephiles having suddenly broken into hysterical laughter. His shrieking cackles was the sound of shattering glass, booming thunder, the sundering of mountains; a force both of nature and yet horribly mutated – utterly, irrevocably wrong. And as he laughed, his form shifted, cracking apart like polluted putty. His lips twisted, swelled, stretching together and melting seamlessly. Colors inverted and faded, edges splintering into razor-sharp points. When it was over, the five found themselves staring at a crystallized version of Tails in hues of ebony and gray, a hellish form that the real kitsune was all too familiar with.

"I know what you're here for," said the dark counterpart of the twin-tailed fox, his voice deeper and chillingly familiar to half of those present. The monitor beeped in tune, receiving commands from a remote location. "Answers. Why the ARK has come to Mobius. You needn't look any farther for that one – For it was indeed I who brought the colony into your world."

Eggman, who'd been silently listening up until now (probably a record), shifted in his seat, a bald brow going up a few centimeters. "Why?" he asked simply.

The shade didn't even spare the Doctor a glance. "So that you would find the truth," he said, "among other reasons. And the last of that truth, all of the answers, are right… Here." He pointed down, to a single folder that winked open under a clawed finger. It contained only two linked files, both video clips.

Tails blinked only once, the sole sound in the room the low beeps of data streams flowing in the distance below. Mephiles' clawed hand curled back, and without another word the doppelganger vanished from the screen. The kitsune stared at the monitor for a few more seconds, and then, as if in a trance, reached out and opened the first file. The screen shrunk away into a singularity in response, turning completely black. That black then faded to gray, then to the dim lighting of the very control room they stood within. Every other second, lines of static and primary color would flicker over the video, indicating that whatever they were watching was old indeed.

The camera zoomed in toward where they stood now, the control panel to the Ark's central systems. The room in the past was different, as the massive crystallized form of the Eclipse Cannon was absent from the center of the chamber. A little in front of the console stood two hulking humanoids, their three-fingered hands and bird feet sporting long talons and patches of scales. The brutes seemed to be chiseled out of muscle, black skin taut against sinew and bones, their limbs highlighted at the end by crimson. The most alien was the head – faceless, round orbs whose only feature was a pair of wide, golden, insectoid eyes.

These alien monsters were not alone either; for behind them at the console hovered one even more massive. A tattered robe hung from it, covered in the faded markings of something akin to a priest's garment. The being had no legs – It simply hovered in the air, the frayed fabric and innumerable sigils and trinkets overlaying it hanging down like eldritch pendulums. It also possessed claws much like the two creatures behind it, and from the back of its knotted head came a pair of wickedly long horns.

Audio kicked in, and the group almost instantly recognized the voice of Gerald Robotnik coming from the console. "-kind of power and ability to manipulate matter is a godsend, an example of what a true ultimate life form should be capable of. With the proper genetic harness to cap and control chaos energy, you could stave off cancer, aging, and all the biological timers that mortals like even he must endure. If only I had a body like his, a fetus, SOMETHING to work wi-"

The recording was silenced as a clawed finger pressed a large button on the holographic hemisphere. There was a dark chuckle, full of ancient power like Mephiles', yet unique in its own way. Where the doppelganger had a basic voice that hinted of muted but vast strength below the surface, the alien's basked in its own power, its vocals echoing with every syllable. "Interesting," spoke it, a hand reaching up to stroke an unseen face. "Four thousand years have passed since the destruction of the last civilization, and upon returning I find the product of that visit has been in the hands of this world's newest and greatest mind."

The robed form turned, Rouge, Cosmo, and Tails all gasping while only Eggman and Shadow stifling the mixture of surprise and revulsion. The being face now revealed to them was… monstrous. Truly, that could be the only word to describe it. The black flesh of the face was folded, twisted back in knotted layers that left rivets of deteriorated hide across a sunken skull. Upon the forehead, three gleaming eyes burned in the colors of lava, their only mars a single obsidian slit down the middle of each. "But I suppose the professor's tinkering with an outdated weapon is irrelevant. There are more important matters to attend to in the present."

The hovering being pointed to one of the landwalkers, it now occurring to Tails they were likely of the same species. "Return to the Comet," the floating one ordered, "and gather a hunting party. Find this 'Sky the Hedgehog' and bring him back to the ARK. If he resists, then bring his corpse instead."

The smaller alien made a sort of wet grunt, a gesture of acknowledgement, before turning to depart down the walkway that led out of the central control room from the past. Its apparent superior watched it leave with those blazing eyes before turn back to the console and stretching out a single digit to resume the log. Before it made contact with the console, however, the static that had been present in the background of the recording suddenly flared loudly, the video obscured by shades of flashing color. After a moment, the second file opened in its place upon the screen and began to play.

The new setting of this recording was not the central control room of the colony, but appeared to be some place back in the labs. Iron framework lined the walls, and circuit boards glimpsed out from beneath the floor in some places. The center of the room held a cushioned operating table, Gerald bent over a form on it and clearly agitated in his frantic movements. Behind the professor and slightly to the right was the same eldritch being from the last video, robed arms folded across the strange necklaces and chains adorning the alien's chest.

"Well?" asked he, for while the entity's gender remained questionable, the deep voice it produced seemed far more masculine than feminine. "What do you think? Will this body suffice?"

Gerald's shoulders twitched with thinly concealed rage as he backed away from the table. Another wave of shocked gasps came from the party, only Shadow remaining mute this time, and even his eyes widened which was as good as a scream from the black hedgehog. Lying across the cushioned surface of the counter was the shattered corpse of Sky the Hedgehog, gored from innumerable wounds, broken bones tearing free of sundered flesh.

"I think," said the professor, contained fury leaking out from under the calm surface of his voice, "That you are a monster without peer Black Doom, and I regret the day I ever pleaded for your help on this project."

Black Doom, as so the alien was named, was silent for perhaps a second. Then the eldritch monster's three eyes all closed as his swollen head bobbed in laughter. "Says one monster to another," rebutted the alien after a short chuckle, unfolding his arms. "I offered you my aid Gerald; all of my resources and power to be put toward this single end. But temptation is not a one way street; it is a bargain you and only you can willingly accept. When you took my hand, any blood to be spilled upon it was then smeared on yours as well."

"And how does this help that goal?" shouted the elder Robotnik, the anger simmering below bursting out in a violent torrent. "Life is the secret to the ultimate life force! Life! Not death! Not a corpse! You brought me a broken body, devoid of any brain function or soul! This does not help my research in the slightest! It is cold, pointless, and unchangeable murder!"

The alien's laconic laughter echoed out again from no discernable point upon his anatomy. "So Self-Righteous," spoke the eldritch entity. "But not entirely correct."

Black Doom spread his left arm out in beckoning, two of his minions coming from beyond the camera's view. The hulking humanoids each carried large glass containers filled to the brim with an opaque crimson fluid so dark that it almost appeared black. Setting their cargo down carefully aside the body of Sky, the two retreated just as quickly beyond sight.

"Blood," said their master after a questioning glare from Gerald, "my own, in fact. I am very old, Gerald. Millennia of your planet's rotational cycles have passed by in my existence, and still I endure. The potency of that is distilled in the fluid that runs through my veins, along with the genetic template of all my offspring – the entire Black Arms race. Pump it into this body, and even the worst of its wounds will regenerate with time. I have little doubt as well that, with a some tinkering upon the base genome, you will be able to combine your theory of chaos energy control with the malleability of the Black Arms to create a true, unaging, ultimate life form."

The professor stared at Black Doom, the alien overlord twice his size, literally looming over him, his eyes and their emotions invisible behind the thick lenses of his glasses. Then, finally, with a dulling edge of quiet defiance: "That is still useless. There is no mind left in this mortal shell. An immortal husk is still just a husk, and I think not even you would deign to call such an 'ultimate' anything."

"Now you're just looking for excuses," said the supposed progenitor of the Black Arms. "I know of your work with the Gizoid, professor. You created an artificial soul, a free-willed mind, based on your granddaughter and imbued it into a mechanical being, a synthetic framework four thousand years old. If you can do that, I hardly think that infusing a spirit of the same design into a brain-dead body can be anywhere near as great of a challenge."

Gerald went silent again, and for several seconds didn't even seem to breathe. Then, with the slow gait of a man weary of burden greater than his years, turned back to the corpse of Sky the Hedgehog. The professor gazed sadly down at the ruined form, extending a hand hesitantly forward and resting it on the dead Mobian's side. "Forgive me," he seemingly asked the body, a tear rolling down from beneath an opaque lens, "Because I will never forgive myself for this."

The scene began to fade again into static, but a single glint at the edge of the camera caught the corner of Tails' eye. Not even sure why, the kitsune stabbed the freeze button, only waiting for a couple of seconds as the image clarified. In that time, however, ice froze in his gut as the source of the flicker, a shape lingering in shadows of the far side of the room, resolved into a solid figure.

"Oh no…"

The form was different than he had seen before. A pale shade of purple tinted the majority of his crystal body, with a long, pointed tail and stalactite dreads hanging from a wide head. It reminded Tails somewhat of Knuckles, but there was no mistaking the eyes. The kitsune knew the cold calculation from those slitted, wide-set, pus-yellow irises regardless of the shadowy form they took.

Tails simply stared at Mephiles the Dark; frigid, emotionless, and present at the conception of the idea to reanimate the dead grandfather of Sonic the Hedgehog… The body of whom would serve as the vessel for Shadow, the ultimate life form, infused with the blood of Black Doom, a soul copied from Maria Robotnik, and designed by her grandfather Gerald.

Plans within plans. Wheels within wheels.

The whirr of hardware knocked the kitsune out his stunned stupor from the rapid fire revelations delivered in the last five minutes, windows suddenly popping up all over the monitor with alarming frequency. The segmented lights of the enormous orbs floating above them beginning to slowly spin and pulse, bars fluttered across the screen with power fluctuations resonating throughout the station.

"Wha- What's going on?" asked Cosmo worriedly, having also broken from the trance induced by the truth of fifty years ago.

Tails was already trying to figure that out. With his fingers flying across the interface, it didn't take him long. "The Eclipse Cannon… is preparing to fire?"

With the lands of his future Empire endangered, Eggman snapped out of it as well. "What's the target?" he demanded, driving his mecha right up beside the console.

Pressing a few more buttons, the kitsune brought up the targeting system and checked the coordinates. In that moment, every other revelation and fear he'd felt the entire day went dead in comparison to the total horror that gripped him as he stared at the small house nestled in the lake-side foothills.

His house.

…His flower.