Time. Time is a forced controlled by no one, yet controls everything.
Every creature, living or non, is affected by time. Time is boundless and
master less, a force unable to be controlled or contained. But, what would
happen if that were to change? What if someone could actually harness time,
and contain it? What would become of the world? If time was forced to
succumb under an evil master, the rest of the world would be forced to deal
with the consequences, unknowingly, while the changes made vast rifts in
time and ruined both the past and the future. However, in the hands of
someone of good alignment, the contained time would be more like a
guardian, to make sure that nothing would happen on earth, and all trials
and tribulations could be eliminated before they ever became a threat to
begin with. Rifts would be made to undue the past and therefore making the
future bright and glorious.
Generations ago, much like Knuckles' ancestors harnessed and created the emeralds, Amy Rose?fs ancestors managed to capture time into several glistening gems, which soon came to be known as Time Stones. The gems were heirlooms to the family, passed down from time guardian to time guardian, kept aside in case a situation arose that would need to be fixed with them. They knew the dangers and perils of holding such gems, because if they were to fall into the hands of evil, then the entire equilibrium of time on Mobius would have been shattered, and life would cease to exist, as we all know it.
The time stones soon became a myth, for even though its owners knew of its power, they didn't broadcast it, and just kept them hidden in a chest under one of the floor boards in their room. The true powers of time were hidden, covered up, forgotten. Until one day, when it became apparent that Ivo Robotnik was preparing to overthrow King Acorn. The two hedgehogs who were currently the guardians over such powerful gems were horrified: Not only did they have their precious stones to look after, but they also had their darling baby girl who was not even a year old at this time. The worried parents came to a quick decision: The mother left their daughter, named Amy Rose, with her good friend Rosey, who had taken in a bunch of orphaned children under her wing and accepted Amy happily once explained the whole situation. Amy's father grabbed the chest with the time stones, and under the secrecy of nightfall they ran off to a secret location, where they used the time stones to bend time and teleport themselves to a far off, secret location: Little Planet, one of the moons of Mobius. They regretted having to leave their child, but there was no other option. Someone outside the Rose family could not possess the time stones.
Years passed, and all memories of the time stones and their owners faded away. Amy was raised with the notion that her parents, like the other children under Rosey's care, were killed because of Robotnik. Rosey had to lie to the pink hedgehog because she swore secrecy to Mrs. Rose, and could not break a promise to a good friend. Amy Rose led a wonderful childhood, despite the situations that she had to be sheltered from, for she was surrounded by many wonderful friends and playmates, even if she was the youngest girl; the youngest overall was Miles Prower, a two-tailed fox everyone called Tails.
Among the others were Sally Acorn, princess and heir to the dying kingdom, Rotor the Walrus, Antoine D' Coolette, child of the leader of the royal guard sworn to protect the king, and, most of all, Sonic the Hedgehog, a blue speed demon who loved showing off. For some reason, it was probably because Sonic was so outright, rebellious, and strong-minded, Amy admired him. He fit in well, while she was naturally quiet and shy. This admiration led to a crush, which caused Amy to try to show her affection in the only way she knew how: by trying to smother the life out of the blue hedgehog. Sonic didn't like this at all, in fact, he was still in the cooties stage when Amy would try to pounce him or play dress up with him or whatever. And whenever Sonic would run away from her, screaming like a banshee in fear, Amy was always left by herself. Yet, she never gave up. For years she had this crush on Sonic, and for years Sonic would always show disgust, although Sally would scold him sometimes to just humor the younger girl and be nice to her.
When Sonic first hit his teen years, Amy had turned 9 years old. Sonic was rarely around anymore, since he had become the hero of Mobius he started going out and learning more about this Robotnik fellow, who had succeeded in overthrowing the King and now ruled as dictator over a dying planet. Sally became closer to Sonic, in a sense that she wanted to play hero too, and was vital to restore the kingdom back to what it was and find her father, with the aid of NICOLE, a small handheld computer given to her upon Rosey's passing away. The children were old enough to start tending for themselves, and each one started getting involved in a specific trade. Antoine began reading books on being a good royal guard, and Rotor began dwelling further in his ability to build things with Tails as an apprentice. Everyone had a purpose.
Well, everyone except Amy Rose. She didn't fit in the same way everyone else did. There was no one to play with anymore, except for Tails even though he was busy a lot, and Sonic was never around to shower with affection. During this time, Amy's happy-go-lucky self seemed to fade as she just watched the residents of Knothole become a family without her. She was an outsider, she concluded, pain stinging deep whenever she overheard Tails call the Princess "Aunt Sally". She was too shy to get that close to others. Many a days were spent crying in her room, faking sick when someone came to get her and saying that she just wanted sleep so that they would leave her alone. Yet all Amy wanted was to fit in somewhere.
Then, one day, it happened. While everyone was eating lunch, Sally gave Amy a letter that came for her in the mail. It was the first letter the young hedgehog ever received, and it was in a big manila envelope, too. Amy was excited at first, but that turned into full joy as she read who it was from: Mr. and Mrs. Rose. There was no return address. Lunch was soon forgotten as Amy ran into her hut, slammed the door behind her, and ripped open the envelope. A shiny shard, a piece of a gem, fell out from the envelope and landed, glisteningly, on her bed. She picked it up and looked it over, noting that someone had managed to tie a piece of leather around it, making it into a necklace. She picked up the paper inside and began to read:
Dearest Amy Rose,
There is so much I must tell you, in so little time. As you already know, I left you with Rosey when you were a baby and told her to tell you that I, we.. well, me and your father, were dead. We did this to protect you, sweetie. We didn't want anything bad to happen to our precious little girl.
Amy's heart pounded as she read this, tears welling in her eyes as she gripped the paper so tightly, her hands were shaking. "My parents.... my parents are still alive!" A lump formed in her throat, which she forced down with a hard swallow as she read on.
Child, there is a reason why we left you. You see, generations ago, our ancestors created gems called the Time Stones. We don't know why they were created, not exactly, no definite history was written out for these gems although the story goes that we created the Time Stones in case the echidnas used their emeralds against us for evil, as a back up plan to ensure the safety of our race.
Amy thought for a moment, rereading that paragraph over and over again, letting it sink in. She remembers vaguely a tale of the Time Stones, for there was a chapter Rosey went over in history class that dealt with myths and folklore. She never would have imagined that they were real, and were actually linked to her heritage. She read on.
We are currently living on Little Planet, one of the moons that orbit Mobius. We wish we were there to watch you grow into a beautiful young girl, but we had to keep the Time Stones out of Robotnik's grasp. Making sure that you were protected came first, because you were too young to deal with such a burden. These stones can manipulate time to any degree, and they needed to be hidden. And so, we moved them to this planet.
Alas, our time grows short, for what I feared has happened. Robotnik has detected energy from this satellite and has sent a bunch of his troops to start digging the planet to find where the energy is coming from. He has managed to chain down Little Planet, taking it from its orbit around Mobius, and restrained it. The base of the chain, I'm not sure of, but I believe its somewhere in the Great Desert. Your father and I have hid the time stones in seven secluded locations, but it won't take long before Robotnik finds them. We're trying to hold him off as much as we can, but we need your help, Amy. That's where the shard comes in, enclosed in this letter.
You must use that shard, which is still a functioning piece of time stone, to come back here. You contain something that your father and I lack, Amy, and that is the key to unlock the time stones for good. You still possess Youth and Innocence, and those are needed by a Rose descendent to unlock the stones and stop Robotnik. Hurry, child! Come to Little Planet soon. Love always, Mom and Dad.
Amy was in near hysterics when she finished reading this letter, eyes frozen on the last sentence of the neatly written document, entire body shaking and tears leaking from her eyes. She placed the letter down and slumped over on the bed, quivering like a frightened puppy, although her hand moved to pick up the time stone shard by its string. It glowed softly in the setting sunlight, casting an eerie blue light on her walls before fading to black and returning to its normal appearance. Amy let her small fingertips brush the smooth surface and edges: apparently whoever cut this took special care to not damage the gem. The gem itself felt oddly cold, which stood out because it was very warm outside. She turned her eyes towards the sun and watched it as it slowly sank below the horizon.
"Don't worry, mom." She whispered to herself. "I'll leave just before daybreak."
Daybreak eventually came, and Amy snuck out into the darkness of Knothole Village with the time stone shard cold against her skin, hidden under her dress. She would've made it out of the village without anyone knowing if it wasn't for Sonic who happened to come back from a scouting mission at that very moment. He watched Amy walk off and was about to call to her when a breeze blew a small piece of paper in front of him. He snatched it and read it, before stuffing it into his backpack and running after her. Dammit, he thought, She could get hurt! By the time he managed to catch up to her, Amy had already given Dulcy a cookie, which convinced the sleepy dragon to give her a lift. With a tired sigh, Sonic tailed them on foot.
Amy was dropped off in the desert, and noticed that there was nothing around. Hmmm. She thanked the dragon and gave her another cookie before she flew off, just as Sonic skidded to a stop by her side. He confronted her along the lines of ARE YOU INSANE?! But Amy shrugged.
"You wouldn't help me anyway." She said, turning from him and walking off. "You don't like me."
Sonic sighed, hearing these words, and bit his tongue a moment, formulating the next sentence that was to come from his mouth. "Stop.... that. I... do... well... I.. ummm.. DO *cough* like you." His voice got really small at the end, but it didn't matter. Amy was overjoyed, and lunged to give him a tight bear hug, one that almost squeezed the hedgehog in two.
"Yaaaaaay!"
Sonic, meanwhile, was turning a darker shade of blue. ?gCan I help you now??h He wheezed and Amy let him go, before telling him her situation. And how she needed to keep the Time Stones from Robotnik, where Sonic interjected that he read the note already. At first Amy was annoyed, but then she figured that would waste less time and began formulating a plan with the blue hedgehog. Before they could come up with one, however, a blue blur flew by overhead and snatched up the pink hedgehog.
"SONIC!" Amy cried out as the form carried her up and out of sight.
Sonic sighed. "A hero's work is never done." With that, he zoomed off to follow the blue blur, eventually getting lead to where Little Planet was chained down.
Robotnik kidnapped Amy Rose because he figured that maybe she had a link to the time stones, since her parents were found in hiding here. Both were killed, she was informed, and she would join them if she didn't tell him the locations of all the gems. She said she didn't know, which was truthful, but Robotnik didn't care. He managed to find some on his own, but Sonic had done the gem hunt thing before and was really good at finding them in secret locations. Soon Sonic had all but one, and that was the one Robotnik had.
A race against Robotnik's greatest creation, Metal Sonic, would free Amy, because he needed her to obtain the last time stone and use them all together. The metal creation wasn't fast enough, and soon crumbled to pieces. The two of them together worked to defeat Robotnik and obtain the last gem, escaping from his fortress before it crumbled down entirely. However, with that explosion rocked the whole planet, and soon Little Planet threatened to collide with Mobius! With Sonic's encouragement, Amy summoned together the Time Stones and created a rift in time, going back to the past enough so that no one knew of what happened, just Sonic and Amy. Little Planet was back in orbit; the time stones were back with Amy, yet she felt sad that she couldn't bring her parents back. At least Mobius was safe. For now.
With the world back in order, Sonic and Amy took the time stones off Little Planet and buried them in a secluded area in the swamp. They made sure to dig a hole, cover the chest that contained them up completely, and even placed a rock on top. Leaves were scattered around, to make the area more natural. After that, they swore to never utter a word about them and left, allowing time to pass and memories to fade. However, ignorance can only be bliss for so long.
No one expected a common worker of Robotnik's would obtain all the emeralds. Nor did they know that he would use their energy to find the soft radiation that led down into a hole a few feet deep, to a crusted box that contained some of the most powerful gems of all time. The creature used them, pulled them out, and together, with the emeralds began to control everything.
The worst had happened.
A mortal had become a god.
Generations ago, much like Knuckles' ancestors harnessed and created the emeralds, Amy Rose?fs ancestors managed to capture time into several glistening gems, which soon came to be known as Time Stones. The gems were heirlooms to the family, passed down from time guardian to time guardian, kept aside in case a situation arose that would need to be fixed with them. They knew the dangers and perils of holding such gems, because if they were to fall into the hands of evil, then the entire equilibrium of time on Mobius would have been shattered, and life would cease to exist, as we all know it.
The time stones soon became a myth, for even though its owners knew of its power, they didn't broadcast it, and just kept them hidden in a chest under one of the floor boards in their room. The true powers of time were hidden, covered up, forgotten. Until one day, when it became apparent that Ivo Robotnik was preparing to overthrow King Acorn. The two hedgehogs who were currently the guardians over such powerful gems were horrified: Not only did they have their precious stones to look after, but they also had their darling baby girl who was not even a year old at this time. The worried parents came to a quick decision: The mother left their daughter, named Amy Rose, with her good friend Rosey, who had taken in a bunch of orphaned children under her wing and accepted Amy happily once explained the whole situation. Amy's father grabbed the chest with the time stones, and under the secrecy of nightfall they ran off to a secret location, where they used the time stones to bend time and teleport themselves to a far off, secret location: Little Planet, one of the moons of Mobius. They regretted having to leave their child, but there was no other option. Someone outside the Rose family could not possess the time stones.
Years passed, and all memories of the time stones and their owners faded away. Amy was raised with the notion that her parents, like the other children under Rosey's care, were killed because of Robotnik. Rosey had to lie to the pink hedgehog because she swore secrecy to Mrs. Rose, and could not break a promise to a good friend. Amy Rose led a wonderful childhood, despite the situations that she had to be sheltered from, for she was surrounded by many wonderful friends and playmates, even if she was the youngest girl; the youngest overall was Miles Prower, a two-tailed fox everyone called Tails.
Among the others were Sally Acorn, princess and heir to the dying kingdom, Rotor the Walrus, Antoine D' Coolette, child of the leader of the royal guard sworn to protect the king, and, most of all, Sonic the Hedgehog, a blue speed demon who loved showing off. For some reason, it was probably because Sonic was so outright, rebellious, and strong-minded, Amy admired him. He fit in well, while she was naturally quiet and shy. This admiration led to a crush, which caused Amy to try to show her affection in the only way she knew how: by trying to smother the life out of the blue hedgehog. Sonic didn't like this at all, in fact, he was still in the cooties stage when Amy would try to pounce him or play dress up with him or whatever. And whenever Sonic would run away from her, screaming like a banshee in fear, Amy was always left by herself. Yet, she never gave up. For years she had this crush on Sonic, and for years Sonic would always show disgust, although Sally would scold him sometimes to just humor the younger girl and be nice to her.
When Sonic first hit his teen years, Amy had turned 9 years old. Sonic was rarely around anymore, since he had become the hero of Mobius he started going out and learning more about this Robotnik fellow, who had succeeded in overthrowing the King and now ruled as dictator over a dying planet. Sally became closer to Sonic, in a sense that she wanted to play hero too, and was vital to restore the kingdom back to what it was and find her father, with the aid of NICOLE, a small handheld computer given to her upon Rosey's passing away. The children were old enough to start tending for themselves, and each one started getting involved in a specific trade. Antoine began reading books on being a good royal guard, and Rotor began dwelling further in his ability to build things with Tails as an apprentice. Everyone had a purpose.
Well, everyone except Amy Rose. She didn't fit in the same way everyone else did. There was no one to play with anymore, except for Tails even though he was busy a lot, and Sonic was never around to shower with affection. During this time, Amy's happy-go-lucky self seemed to fade as she just watched the residents of Knothole become a family without her. She was an outsider, she concluded, pain stinging deep whenever she overheard Tails call the Princess "Aunt Sally". She was too shy to get that close to others. Many a days were spent crying in her room, faking sick when someone came to get her and saying that she just wanted sleep so that they would leave her alone. Yet all Amy wanted was to fit in somewhere.
Then, one day, it happened. While everyone was eating lunch, Sally gave Amy a letter that came for her in the mail. It was the first letter the young hedgehog ever received, and it was in a big manila envelope, too. Amy was excited at first, but that turned into full joy as she read who it was from: Mr. and Mrs. Rose. There was no return address. Lunch was soon forgotten as Amy ran into her hut, slammed the door behind her, and ripped open the envelope. A shiny shard, a piece of a gem, fell out from the envelope and landed, glisteningly, on her bed. She picked it up and looked it over, noting that someone had managed to tie a piece of leather around it, making it into a necklace. She picked up the paper inside and began to read:
Dearest Amy Rose,
There is so much I must tell you, in so little time. As you already know, I left you with Rosey when you were a baby and told her to tell you that I, we.. well, me and your father, were dead. We did this to protect you, sweetie. We didn't want anything bad to happen to our precious little girl.
Amy's heart pounded as she read this, tears welling in her eyes as she gripped the paper so tightly, her hands were shaking. "My parents.... my parents are still alive!" A lump formed in her throat, which she forced down with a hard swallow as she read on.
Child, there is a reason why we left you. You see, generations ago, our ancestors created gems called the Time Stones. We don't know why they were created, not exactly, no definite history was written out for these gems although the story goes that we created the Time Stones in case the echidnas used their emeralds against us for evil, as a back up plan to ensure the safety of our race.
Amy thought for a moment, rereading that paragraph over and over again, letting it sink in. She remembers vaguely a tale of the Time Stones, for there was a chapter Rosey went over in history class that dealt with myths and folklore. She never would have imagined that they were real, and were actually linked to her heritage. She read on.
We are currently living on Little Planet, one of the moons that orbit Mobius. We wish we were there to watch you grow into a beautiful young girl, but we had to keep the Time Stones out of Robotnik's grasp. Making sure that you were protected came first, because you were too young to deal with such a burden. These stones can manipulate time to any degree, and they needed to be hidden. And so, we moved them to this planet.
Alas, our time grows short, for what I feared has happened. Robotnik has detected energy from this satellite and has sent a bunch of his troops to start digging the planet to find where the energy is coming from. He has managed to chain down Little Planet, taking it from its orbit around Mobius, and restrained it. The base of the chain, I'm not sure of, but I believe its somewhere in the Great Desert. Your father and I have hid the time stones in seven secluded locations, but it won't take long before Robotnik finds them. We're trying to hold him off as much as we can, but we need your help, Amy. That's where the shard comes in, enclosed in this letter.
You must use that shard, which is still a functioning piece of time stone, to come back here. You contain something that your father and I lack, Amy, and that is the key to unlock the time stones for good. You still possess Youth and Innocence, and those are needed by a Rose descendent to unlock the stones and stop Robotnik. Hurry, child! Come to Little Planet soon. Love always, Mom and Dad.
Amy was in near hysterics when she finished reading this letter, eyes frozen on the last sentence of the neatly written document, entire body shaking and tears leaking from her eyes. She placed the letter down and slumped over on the bed, quivering like a frightened puppy, although her hand moved to pick up the time stone shard by its string. It glowed softly in the setting sunlight, casting an eerie blue light on her walls before fading to black and returning to its normal appearance. Amy let her small fingertips brush the smooth surface and edges: apparently whoever cut this took special care to not damage the gem. The gem itself felt oddly cold, which stood out because it was very warm outside. She turned her eyes towards the sun and watched it as it slowly sank below the horizon.
"Don't worry, mom." She whispered to herself. "I'll leave just before daybreak."
Daybreak eventually came, and Amy snuck out into the darkness of Knothole Village with the time stone shard cold against her skin, hidden under her dress. She would've made it out of the village without anyone knowing if it wasn't for Sonic who happened to come back from a scouting mission at that very moment. He watched Amy walk off and was about to call to her when a breeze blew a small piece of paper in front of him. He snatched it and read it, before stuffing it into his backpack and running after her. Dammit, he thought, She could get hurt! By the time he managed to catch up to her, Amy had already given Dulcy a cookie, which convinced the sleepy dragon to give her a lift. With a tired sigh, Sonic tailed them on foot.
Amy was dropped off in the desert, and noticed that there was nothing around. Hmmm. She thanked the dragon and gave her another cookie before she flew off, just as Sonic skidded to a stop by her side. He confronted her along the lines of ARE YOU INSANE?! But Amy shrugged.
"You wouldn't help me anyway." She said, turning from him and walking off. "You don't like me."
Sonic sighed, hearing these words, and bit his tongue a moment, formulating the next sentence that was to come from his mouth. "Stop.... that. I... do... well... I.. ummm.. DO *cough* like you." His voice got really small at the end, but it didn't matter. Amy was overjoyed, and lunged to give him a tight bear hug, one that almost squeezed the hedgehog in two.
"Yaaaaaay!"
Sonic, meanwhile, was turning a darker shade of blue. ?gCan I help you now??h He wheezed and Amy let him go, before telling him her situation. And how she needed to keep the Time Stones from Robotnik, where Sonic interjected that he read the note already. At first Amy was annoyed, but then she figured that would waste less time and began formulating a plan with the blue hedgehog. Before they could come up with one, however, a blue blur flew by overhead and snatched up the pink hedgehog.
"SONIC!" Amy cried out as the form carried her up and out of sight.
Sonic sighed. "A hero's work is never done." With that, he zoomed off to follow the blue blur, eventually getting lead to where Little Planet was chained down.
Robotnik kidnapped Amy Rose because he figured that maybe she had a link to the time stones, since her parents were found in hiding here. Both were killed, she was informed, and she would join them if she didn't tell him the locations of all the gems. She said she didn't know, which was truthful, but Robotnik didn't care. He managed to find some on his own, but Sonic had done the gem hunt thing before and was really good at finding them in secret locations. Soon Sonic had all but one, and that was the one Robotnik had.
A race against Robotnik's greatest creation, Metal Sonic, would free Amy, because he needed her to obtain the last time stone and use them all together. The metal creation wasn't fast enough, and soon crumbled to pieces. The two of them together worked to defeat Robotnik and obtain the last gem, escaping from his fortress before it crumbled down entirely. However, with that explosion rocked the whole planet, and soon Little Planet threatened to collide with Mobius! With Sonic's encouragement, Amy summoned together the Time Stones and created a rift in time, going back to the past enough so that no one knew of what happened, just Sonic and Amy. Little Planet was back in orbit; the time stones were back with Amy, yet she felt sad that she couldn't bring her parents back. At least Mobius was safe. For now.
With the world back in order, Sonic and Amy took the time stones off Little Planet and buried them in a secluded area in the swamp. They made sure to dig a hole, cover the chest that contained them up completely, and even placed a rock on top. Leaves were scattered around, to make the area more natural. After that, they swore to never utter a word about them and left, allowing time to pass and memories to fade. However, ignorance can only be bliss for so long.
No one expected a common worker of Robotnik's would obtain all the emeralds. Nor did they know that he would use their energy to find the soft radiation that led down into a hole a few feet deep, to a crusted box that contained some of the most powerful gems of all time. The creature used them, pulled them out, and together, with the emeralds began to control everything.
The worst had happened.
A mortal had become a god.