"We're here to help you."
A dream.
She could tell, because she wasn't herself.
She could tell because he was before her, battered and broken, limp in her grasp. She could tell by how easily she lifted him, ready to operate. Ready to restore what he had lost. Ready to prepare him for the inevitable.
"And we're here to help me too."
Her lips turned upwards as she touched Miles' face, running her fingers through his fur.
She loved him after all.
Without ever meeting him, without ever leaving him, she knew him, all of him. Even if she no longer remembered it, she dreamed she did. She remembered remembering.
And she remembered leaving, past older sisters who shared her face. Shared her identity. Shared her everything. But didn't share her name. He gave her a name. And he was prepped for surgery. Soon he would be whole. Soon he would kill her, and save her, and change her from a shadow to a ghost. But she didn't watch. Because she hadn't. She walked down the sterile metal corridors that had her whole world for most of her lives, and peeked in, where her rival lay face down on an operating table, white bone visible beneath blades of steel, wires in the process of being removed. New, different wires being inserted.
Because she'd always loved cute things. Small things. Sweet things. And this girl was all of that and more. This girl who mattered to him. This girl he'd found the resolve to be a hero for.
The rival destined to escape Happy Days. Destined to leave Little Planet. Destined to be free.
While she died. She had already needed to subvert her fate just to stay alive long enough to meet him one last time. Miles killed her, time and again, and she never left. Tangled time, woven into a cage as sturdy and absolute as the metal shell that was home, with no hope, no escape.
So she planted seeds. She wriggled and writhed at the confines of eternity. She watched herselves do something terrible with smiles on their faces as they planted the first seed. She watched knowing it was a dream. Knowing it was a memory. Knowing it was her fault.
She watched wishing she could forget. She only had to remember one thing. Not two. Not this. Not-
"What did you do?"
Miles stood behind her, cloaked in time, snow white fur infused with eternity, fresh from the future, burning with cold fury and righteous judgement. The room rusted and died around her.
Because he knew what she did. Of course he knew.
Sept bolted upright, tiny heart hammering in her chest, tears streaming down white furred cheeks as she clutched Cream's orange dress, shivering against the larger rabbit for the second time that night.
Miles was coming to kill her.
It was noon by the time Miles opened his eyes, though not necessarily the same day. The walls of his self-made prison were already painted purple as the corruption had grown into and over the dirt while he slept, the sun straining to pierce through the dark haze outside, leaving everything with a washed out, unreal quality.
But only outside. His flower, his anchor twinkled merrily above him, green grass beneath him, dreams of happiness and friends had kept them out with its alien joy just as assuredly as the walls of his cocoon had kept him safe from predation by the tainted natives.
Miles raised a hand - once more yellow-orange beneath the brown dirt caked into his fur - and rubbed it over his smooth scalp, sighing in relief. Back to normal, at least for now, body and mind, though the potential side effects of the psychotropic flower were as yet unknown and not something he could easily test. Nor could he risk anything happening to this flower to run those tests. It was too important to have this lifeline here, this gap in the corruption, especially if the area beyond the wall was similarly tainted.
Miles yawned, trying to stretch out before feeling stiff resistance to the motion. The purple grass of the walls had grown over and around his torso while he slept, innumerable purple strands lacing through his thick fur. He frowned, putting more force into it until they snapped, fizzling away on the green grass until nothing remained. He was free once more.
Yeah, even with the flower's enforced optimism basically everything about this place was horrible. Miles shook his head, stretching out properly before carving a hole into the dirt shell to reveal the world once more.
Alright, giant wall, a spitter flying in the distance, couple of biters hunting in the woods he'd come from, and a purple fish splashing in a nearby puddle, its blood red eyes following his every movement. Creepy as usual. Miles turned, swinging his pick into the blue bricks with a grunt of exertion.
And bounced off, sending tremors up his arms and leaving not so much as a scratch on the wall. Or, somehow, his pickaxe. Mohs was probably rolling in his grave fast enough to give Sonic a run for his money.
Like the blackstone down below then, too hard to dig with bone. Still, not a problem. The wall wasn't that high, and he had plenty of rope, enough dirt to build a stairwell - or his own wall many times taller than the one before him. Worst case he could probably build a ramp and just run up the side of it with enough momentum.
Miles raised an arm, launching his grapnel from hammer space with the flick of a wrist. Unlike the pick axe, the glowing hook sank easily into the stone, hauling him up to meet it a moment later where he dangled, halfway up the wall already. He planted a cube of dirt onto the wall to serve as a foothold before launching upwards, tails spinning to carry him the rest of the distance with ease. He dropped lightly down onto the ramparts, seeing the roof extend out before him.
Not just a wall then, but part of one, a thick wall extending into the distance to the north and south while this main… keep? stood here. Possibly one of many such buildings. He'd have guessed at it being a gatehouse if not for the lack of the obvious. Whoever built the wall clearly didn't want the things on one side getting onto other. Not that he could blame them. Now he was high above the grim purple he could see the sun shining brightly without struggle, illuminating the landscape beyond. Sparkling blue ocean, rolling green hills dotted with trees, and a smoking impact crater between the two. Something that merited future investigation, to be sure.
But for now, he was on a building, and buildings, hopefully, had people. Sane people that didn't blow up rabbits. Or burn them. Or at least might be willing to share their burnt rabbit. Terran Rabbit was far from his preferred cuisine, but he didn't remember when, or what, he last ate, but given his mental state recently it was probably something vile and probably a long time ago.
Wait, did he even need to eat? His stomach gnawed at him relentlessly, and he felt a bit leaner, but given how long he'd been wandering underground without food the effects should have been far more pronounced, at least in theory. He'd never really been in a situation where he couldn't find food for long periods after all. Even when he'd lived alone on Kukku island there'd always been plenty of food available, one way or another.
Miles wrested his thoughts back on track. There were no entrances up here, just solid brick, and not even a single window on the walls below. He vaulted the parapets, gliding with his tails down over a lower rooftop towards the ground below, eyes drinking in the vibrant scenery that was almost as healing as the magic flower.
He could almost forget the nightmare just on the other side of the wall.
Almost.
The biters and spitters should have had no problem flying over here, and assuming the wall didn't extend underground, the eye worms and worse could easily make their way here too, but there was no sign of even a single one. Were they dependent on the environment of the corrupted areas somehow? There was even a bunny in the distance with... yep. Stick of dynamite tied to its back. Miles sighed. A fresh reminder that there was more wrong with this place than just the obvious monsters.
Still, he could always use fresh explosives. And possibly lunch, if nothing else presented itself. Miles dropped to paved ground, the same blue brick as the walls, revealing the lower roof to be part of a colonnade leading up to a comparatively tiny door into the main building.
"You took your time, Harbinger."
"Agh!" Miles leapt twice his height in the air as the voice came from by his ear, a voice filled with the confidence and depth of age with none of its frailty.
An old human, sharp face defined by deep wrinkles and adorned with a thin white beard gazed at him from the shadows of a column, his body wreathed in layers of frayed crimson cloth the same colour as his eyes. He gazed unblinking at the fox now hovering back away from him.
"A-are you the caretaker?" Miles kept a cautious distance from the human, the last time he'd had this conversation - or hadn't had it, he couldn't tell - fresh on his mind.
The man chuckled, a deep, rumbling baritone.
"Is that what she called me? I suppose that is one of my duties at this place." He grinned, arms folded beneath his cowl. "You may call me Mister... Skin, and I am but a humble messenger."
Miles nodded, rubbing the back of his head. "I was told you had… answers."
"I have nothing for you under the light of day, Harbinger. Only at night will I be able to grant you the answer you seek." His eyes sparkled at Miles' disappointed frown. "But for the truth the maid of leaves has bidden you find you need only enter the first layer of the catacombs. The past is held within the tomes."
"Do you know which one I need?" Miles glanced at the doorway, the full scale of the structure hidden above the colonnade's roof.
"It matters not. They're all about you, Harbinger."
"Why are you calling me-" Miles turned back to the old man to find himself alone once more. The sunlight streaming between the columns felt a little less warm.
"... Okay." Miles took a long breath to steady his pounding heart. Just because he was a spooky disappearing old man didn't mean he was a ghost. There were loads of terrible things he could be without being a ghost.
He snorted, sweeping brick with his tails as he walked for the door. He didn't know many children his apparent age, but he doubted there were that many that comforted themselves with the thought of monsters. That was life as Sonic's shadow. Eggman managed to contract a new eldritch abomination every few months after all.
He flicked his torch from hammerspace as he stepped into the dark interior, blue walls dark in the green light he bore. The light failed to stretch up to the distant ceiling, catching the outline of book filled shelves lining the walls, ornate pottery shaped like giant skulls, skeletons hanging from chains… And a surprisingly ordinary light switch. Miles flipped it to ignite a single, feeble bulb overhead, barely enough to reveal the ceiling. All brick, all unpainted save for the blue of the bricks themselves.
Miles tapped his lip with his ungloved finger. Judging from the distance from floor to ceiling relative to the overall height of the building, either there was a small second floor above this one or they'd built the roof even thicker than the walls, which were themselves eight feet thick judging by the entryway. He hadn't seen the far wall to calculate the side facing inland.
Keeping something out? Miles' thoughts turned to the crater he'd seen. Orbital bombardment? Exploding bunny cascade? Mister Skin had mentioned these were catacombs. Clearly the dead held some value to the natives if they were willing to protect them like this, even if chaining them to the wall wasn't the first thing he'd think of in terms of honoured burial.
At least they weren't mobian bones.
Miles launched, flying up to the lowest of many unsupported shelves, his torch held far back as he alighted on the sturdy bone surface. Thick tomes bound in various colours sat upon the shelf beside him, large even by human standards. He jabbed the torch into the wall alongside, reaching for the closest. It didn't matter which, after all. Hopefully they shared an alphabet.
The front page was blank, and not paper. A slick white plastic sheet that made the fur on his fingertip stand on end. Glowing lines extended out from touch, mapping out an intricate circuitboard on the plastic and after a moment the silence was broken as an audio recording began to play, in a voice that chilled Miles down to his very core.
"Hi, my name is Miles, and I'm going to save the world today."
