VOLBNOST
(Mobius)


"Must you leave?"
"I'm sorry." The red creature stood, holding the hand of his mate. "We have to go back."
"I understand."

The man gave a sad smile. Taking off his hat, his head went down, revealing the thin gray that had begun to seep into the redness.

"But a thousand years changes everything, Knuckles. Julie-Su."

The man looked back at the red creature, his face still not betraying his true age, which had enhanced slightly since the last time he stood near the sunset-drenched desert doorway. The two echidnas returned the look, their eyes reflecting their new age and maturity.

"I know." Knuckles shrugged. "But it's a risk worth taking on my part. I…" I know we could never return unchanged. Least of all you….dad….
"Knuckles and I talked it over," Julie-Su added. "We have to learn what happened to the world. Because its something that has bothered us since we awoke."
Yeah." Knuckles turned to the sunset. "I guess we should leave."
"Wait."

Suddenly, the man shimmered in the colors of sundown, and in his place stood another red creature, this one with a small goatee. He walked over to the younger creature and embraced him.

"Be careful, Knuckles."
"Don't worry, dad."
"I will come as well one day." Knuckles could feel the hands on his back tremble. "I will return. But there is so much I must do…I cannot return until I resolve those things…"
"It's ok, dad. I'll be fine."

Locke released his hold on Knuckles, giving him the hat. The two stepped back, and Knuckles looked behind.

"I'll see you again, dad. I'll tell you what happened." Knuckles put on the hat. He then waved in the distance. "And we'll come back to see you guys too!!!"

In the distance, several shadows slowly raised their hands and waved. With a nod, the two echidnas turned away, hand in hand, and began to walk. Their bodies suddenly shimmered in white, then transubstantiated into opaqueness, before disappearing completely through the invisible warp.

"…………..Good bye."

Locke simply looked at the empty space for several more minutes before slowly turning around. The shadows walked towards him.

"Is this what you want to do?"
"It's…not so much what I want to do…" Locke looked up. "It's what I must do."

The shadows appeared in the sunset. Their sailor suits blew in the wind.

"Come on, Locke." One of them, wearing a black suit, turned and walked. "We must hurry."

---------------------

The waters quietly lapped as the ships weighed anchor.

"Home, this is Seaway 3. Do you copy, over?"
"Copy, Seaway. Over."
"We are at the coordinates specified. Over."
"Roger that. Over."

The orange echidna took off his hat and wiped his brow as he left the radio room. Walking down the hall, he gave a nod to several men who were hoisting up a net from the side. Opening a door, the echidna looked at his watch before entering.

"Captain."

His first mate, a dark brown echidna, looked on as he closed the door to the cabin.

"Damn, it's hot."
"I don't know, sir. Fishing is better than staying home and cleaning up the god-awful mess those plants made, sir."
"Too true, too true." The echidna murmured. "It's been a week, right?"
"Right, sir."
"Three days since we saw that flash too." The echidna captain looked over at his first mate. "Any news from home?"
"The Council has ordered a full-scale clean-up. They're getting the job done."
"So all we have to do is get our quota of fish and-"
"Sir?!"

A fisherman suddenly burst into the cabin, out of breath.

"Sir."
"Hmm?"
"I think you need to come out here…"

The captain sat up and walked outside, his hands across his chest.

"What is it?"
"Sir……" The fisherman's face was pale. "We….we were fishing……as normal, sir…."
"Yes, yes. And?"
"……………………We found something."

The fisherman led the captain over to the other side of the massive boat. On the deck was a large brown bag. Several of the sailors were surrounding it, their faces drained of color.

"We….we found it…it….floated into the bow as….we……we docked." The fisherman stuttered. "I….we……we caught….caught it."
"Calm down, son."

The captain bent down, slowly sniffing. His face was confused, though his confusion gave way to utter shock and horror as he slowly opened up the bag.

"My god…." His voice cracked. "Get me the doctor."
"I told you." Another fisherman whispered, his voice cracking. "What did I tell you?"
"Now, dammit! GET HIM!! Hell's bells, do I have to do everything myself!!"

The captain jumped up and pushed his way through the mixed crowd of horrified and gawking fishers and sailors, throwing open the door to the radio room.

"Get me Albion Command!" he roared as he burst in. "This is going to be one hell of a trip!"

-------------------------

"Holy!!"

With a grunt, the blue creature picked up the large bundle of vines before dropping them down, panting. Beams of sun seeped through the vine-infested forest. Scratching its mud caked head, and looking down at his body, which was completely soaked in dark dirt, the creature gave a sigh.

"Uugh! Not cool!" It turned towards some shrubbery. "Hey, Sal! Some help here!"
"Go ask someone else!"
"Everyone else is back in Knothole, cleaning up there!"
"Do it yourself, Sonic."
"Man!" The hedgehog moaned. "What do I have to do to get some help? Sing?"
"Why don't you shut up?!"

Out from the bushes came a red-headed squirrel-like creature, its blue eyes seemingly blazing. Mud and dirt was also caked into her skin.

"Woah! Time out, Sal!" Sonic began to sweat. "There's no need to get violent!"
"Well, excuse me if I'm just a little upset, hedgehog."

Sonic gave a gulp at the mention of the word 'hedgehog'. Ooh ooh, she's pissed. She hasn't called me that in years…

"For starters, some freak storm has completely covered everyone and everything in…..these vines!" Sally angrily motioned around. "Second, Knothole is partially decimated, and so we have to start building parts of the city almost entirely from scratch on very limited resources."
"Well o-"
"Third, half the city still hasn't been recovered. Fourth, building is NOT a good thing to do right now because at any given time Eggman could come prancing through here because he probably knows that we've had this problem."
"Well, Sa-"
"And finally, I'm dirty, I'm tired, I haven't slept in a week ever since we unburied ourselves, and frankly I'm just a little cranky." Sally bent back down. "So if you have a problem with it, you can go shove a chili dog up your coccyx!"
"Time out, Sal!!!"

Sonic dropped his load of vines and walked over to the bushes, pulling Sally up.

"Don't touch me!"
"Sal, calm down! There's no need to panic-"
"Panic? Panic?!?!?" Sally started laughing. "I'm not panicking!! I am PISSED!!!!"

Sally then proceeded to pound on Sonic with her fists. The hedgehog winced as the blows hit his chest.

"WHY ME?!?" she screamed. "WHY ME?! I'VE HAD A BAD ENOUGH YEAR! I didn't ask for this!!! I didn't ask for something like this to happen! My people! Why did this have to happen?! Whyyyyy…."

With another gasp, the princess collapsed onto Sonic's chest, too frustrated, too far into angered to care. For a few moments, there was silence. Sonic simply held her up and looked down at her as she shuddered.

"Sal…..your parents'll be fine."
"I'm sorry, Sonic…" Sonic felt Sally's head bury into him. "I…..I just…..I can't deal with this. This is too much for me."

With nothing more to do, Sally simply started crying, her body quaking. Fighting off his more immature thoughts, Sonic nonetheless felt his face turn red as he patted her back. It was small comfort, he knew, but it was better than nothing.

-------------------------------

The waters lapped quietly into the sand, dampening it, eroding it, as it always had. The sun quietly began to dip beneath the horizon as the salty high tide lapped over the bodies on the beach. Two sore bodies, side by side, painfully twitching from the arduous trip they had undergone.

"Ooooh….."

The pink echidna's eyes slowly opened, and her hands slowly began to go to her head. Though her dreadlocks had virtually disappeared on Earth, replaced by soft near-shoulder length bangs, Julie-Su still felt hair inside her mouth as she licked the salt on her parched lips. She slowly rolled over, moaning, before slowly sitting up, her face covered in sand.

"Uuugh….my aching everything…."

She looked down at her chocolate-colored cloak, now caked with sand, and rubbed her eyes, only to quickly separate the two. Her hands were salty, and it had stung her pupils.

"Knuckles….."
"………Huh……….?"
"Why did we do this?"

The red echidna mumbled something before sitting himself up.

"I guess we won't be doing that again anytime soon, will we…"
"My arms hurt." Julie-Su shuddered, her sore parts numbing. "If I knew we were going to have to swim all the way to land, I would have simply stayed behind with Locke, or I would have flown for parts of the trip."
"Maybe." Knuckles rotated his arms to crack them. "But that would have not been the best idea. We both want to know what happened to our world, and even though flying might have been…haaah…..the best option, I would have had to have used my power, and Aurora only knows the consequences of doing that in a world we know nothing about anymore."

The two stood up, albeit with groans. Knuckles wiped his back off and picked up his hat, his eyes looking off into the distance of the land.

"If I'm not mistaken, this is the Eastern Coast of the Acorn Kingdom." Brushing the sand off of his arms and placing the hat on his head, "it should lead to the Great Forest if we keep going west. Or what might have once been the Great Forest."
"Knuckles…"

Julie-Su took of her cloak, airing the sea stench out of it. Knuckles looked over at her, and could not help finding himself gawking at his girlfriend's figure. This was mainly because he had not taken a good look at her for a very while (God, he realized. Before the massacre!) and the cloak had been the only thing covering her, as her old clothing had been destroyed in battle. But even if the black shirt had not been destroyed, Knuckles knew that it could never have complemented his girlfriend's new, curvier figure. Her hips were more defined, as were her breasts. Though it shouldn't have been a surprise to the spellbound echidna, specifically since they had both aged six years, not just in mind but also in body.
Wow. Knuckles found that he couldn't take his eyes off of her. So….beautiful……

"Knuckles."

Knuckles' eyes widened as Julie-Su looked at him.

"What are you doing?"
"……Nothing." Knuckles could feel his face blush slightly.
"…….suppose we find something which reminds us of our old home." Julie-Su shook her head. I'm not stupid. I know what you were doing… "What should we do?"
"I…don't know yet." Knuckles replied. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see…"

Rubbing his nose, the echidna began to walk off of the beach and into the soft, mossy grass. Replacing her cloak, Julie-Su followed him, setting the course towards a world they left behind.