Venice made his way backtracking through the decrepit lab. It was silent, chilling, and eerie. It was terrifying. Or would be if he wasn't numb to any physical stimuli right now. He still carried the princess, the Chaos Emeralds were securely tucked into his quills, and the flames were sealed. What's done is done. Yet everything felt off.

He retreated into his mind, approaching the glass that was heavily cracked, threatening to fall away at the slightest touch.

"I didn't want you to find out this way," Venice spoke, eyeing his copy through the splintered glass between him and Silver.

That was a lie. Silver needed to see this. He needed to remember. Venice had no idea how much longer he could keep the pain inside; Silver had to know. There was no right way to tell him without breaking him. Seeing it for himself, that seemed to be the right thing.

"I... didn't know..." He murmured, facing away from his reflection. "I didn't know that... mom and dad, they..."

There was a long silence as Venice sat on the other side of the glass, pressing his hand against the cracked lines as if he was longing for his other half. "You knew. You knew this whole time. You were just... blind to it."

"Blind?!" Silver turned his glare to the reflection, standing and stomping over to his copy. "I'm the one who's blind?! You could have at least told me what happened! You could've saved me so many years of-"

"It wouldn't have mattered if I told you or not," Venice spoke calmly, eyeing his twin. "Right way or wrong way, you would be devastated like you are right now no matter how you found out."

The young hedgehog stared at the mink, trying to desperately find any sign of lying or leading him on just to get a rise out of him. He didn't see it. He saw compassion, something he believed Venice to be incapable of feeling, masked only by his jurisdiction of an aimed gun at Mephiles. But now he could understand why.

Venice was merely him, but the part of him that despised what he's had to endure. He may look different, but he was him.
He was Venice. Venice was him.
Castor and Pollux like the ancient tale from the tomes of old.
Identical twins with different roles in the world.
In his world...

...Now he felt more stupid than ever before.

His realization was slowly dawning on him, pondering as his eyes widened.

"You're me..."

At the uttering of those words, the mirror cracked further before pieces of glass began to fall around the two of them, fading into nothingness like stars into the universe. Two entities now in a vacuum of space in his mind, a once heavily overcast and foggy place was clear as day. He was staring into his copy's eyes as Venice, so it seemed, had a relieved grin. He sat against the now nonexistent pane of glass, turned away from his copy.

He gave a faint chuckle. "I am. As much as you are me." He finally spoke, his soft voice just barely reaching Silver's ears.

Silver approached him, sitting in the formless void with his back against the other. He was real, he could feel the mink's back rise and fall in tandem with his own. They were in unison for the first time, he could feel the connection between them tied at the wrists and legs; tied at their powerpoints. They've always been connected, always tied together with the same mentality, the same memories. Maybe not the same thoughts and feelings, but they're in tandem as a marionette and the puppetmaster. All of this, the switching, the amnesia, it all seems to make sense now.

But then... what does that make them? Not brothers, but... guardians? No, that doesn't make sense...

The other gave a silent laugh, "I'm here to protect you." Venice finally says unmoving. "When Mephiles broke us to the point of becoming two, that was when I..." he makes air quotes, "'woke up'." He looked to the corner of his peripheral, just barely meeting Silver's golden glassy eyes. "And when you 'fell asleep'."

Silver turns his unreadable face away from his copy. He pulled his knees up to his chest, hiding his face into his arms as he let out a shaky breath. It was a lot to take in; realizing that you're in fact two people instead of one whole being is an enigma. A strain on the mind to understand in any aspect, but living it... living in the same body with another person...

"All of this... it's so much." He murmured. "Am I crazy? Is this it? Am I just... some broken puzzle with no pieces? Something that just can't comprehend anything?"

His quills bristled as he felt arms wrap around him. The feeling, the warmth... it mimicked Blaze's emotional comfort. He remembers this feeling. It was soft and constricting, yet secure. Not tight enough to hurt, but tight enough to make him melt into it.

"I am you, but the part that wants to protect you. The part that's hardened from everything Mephiles put us through." Venice spoke, sternness in the tone that made Silver feel smaller than him despite being the same height. "I... don't fully understand it myself. I only exist to protect you from the damage Mephiles has done."

"Then why didn't you stop him when you had the chance?" Silver's voice gets heavy, his shoulders trembling as he feels the sobs get trapped in his throat.

Venice can only muster a pitiful laugh, his grip around his other half tightening. "Because I didn't know how." The mink holds his twin closer to himself as he shut his eyes. "All I know is that Mephiles... he will pay for what he's done to our world... for what he's done to us." His tight hug loosens somewhat as if his inner feelings are making him feel less sure of his words. "I want justice for mom and dad. Justice for our future. Justice for us."

Silver shakily moves his hands up, wanting to push him away, wanting to scream and yell at him. He was angry for not being told sooner, angry at the fact that Venice didn't do something sooner, angry for what he went through. Angry for what he saw.

And yet...

He desperately held onto Venice's arms, hiding his face into them as he cried. He never felt so alone yet so full of a twister of emotions before. It was terrifying. He truly felt like a split piece of a whole, feeling lost and torn- disheveled from trauma and trying to cope in the only way he knows how.

When he opened his eyes, he could barely gather his external bearings. He was no longer in the void of his mind, but outside of the lab. He saw the princess in his arms and bit his cheek. He had to make sure she was strong, protected from everything after losing everything.

Funny.

He'd never thought he'd understand the young princess, but the memories of her father dying before him... it was all too familiar.

Outside of the lab stood Shadow. He observed the swirling violet mist of energy in the scepter he held. Darkness... it was odd. Inescapable blackness that will eventually shroud over light... the thought rang in his head, making him growl to himself. He hated thinking of endings. Especially bleak endings with no resulting peace at the end of a journey. The hedgehog's ears turned in the direction of the footsteps approaching, prompting him to look over at his acquaintance. He was thankful that now he has a distraction from his wandering thoughts.

Silver walked past Shadow, placing Elise down by a nearby tree to rest and was now staring blankly at her. He had a lot he wanted to say and a lot he couldn't bring himself to say. With a heavy sigh, he lowers his head. As he rises, he sees movement from the corner of his eyes, watching as Shadow (that's right, he almost forgot he was with him), placed a silver and purple scepter down beside her.

"You're just going to leave it here?"

"Yes. I already know what becomes of it in the future."

Silver looked down at the familiar deep purple energy radiating from the orb at the top. His fists clenched as he began to remember the shadow that stood before him as a child. His mind swirling in a whirlpool of emotions. He was drowning in memories, past feelings, and old wounds being torn open. He hasn't felt so much pain, anger, and confusion in his life. He wanted Mephiles to suffer. To feel his wrath. To understand that he won't be messed with ever again.

But... then the question is, couldn't he just go back in time and prevent Mephiles from breaking him? He could stop his parents from meeting an untimely end, he could destroy Mephiles before he destroyed his mind.

The mere thought makes Venice push himself to the front, taking full control. Needless to say, he harbored more hatred than Silver due to the years of abuse. If there was a way to keep himself from watching the traumatic flashbacks over and over again, he would take it in a heartbeat.

Venice tightly held the white emerald in his hand as he walked up to Shadow, burning desire in his eyes. The ebony hedgehog rose a brow at him as he saw his hand extend.

"Your emerald."
"Excuse me?"
"Your chaos emerald. I need to go back in time."

Shadow only stared into those icy cyan eyes. He turned his head away. He scoffed.

"What? You've lost more than your sanity if you believe I'm giving up my emerald."

"Then I guess I'm crazy." Venice grits his fangs, getting in Shadow's face. "I didn't say give it up, I said I need to go back in time."

"Do it yourself." Was the only response he spat back at him.

The alter paused, thinking it over. Reaching into his back quills, he held onto the rich blue emerald. He had two of them, that's all it took right?

He didn't have time for this. All of this thinking, this idiocy, all of these overbearing thoughts. Just Silver reliving it over and over again was enough torture.

He threw his hands up, emeralds held to the sky as he concentrated, "Chaos...!"

Venice could see the different timelines, different scenarios playing like film reels in his eyes as they illuminated with a bright frosted blue.

/Wait...
I need a timeline.
Okay, I can do this...
I'm already ten years into the past, surely going forward 200 years wouldn't be that big of a deal./

"Contro-!"

His energy halted, the rush of chaos energy going from freely flowing into his body to being sucked out back into the emeralds was too much too fast. He struggled to stay standing, willing his chaos energy to comply with him. Even if he was exhausted from his previous use of it, he had to do this.

No matter the repercussions.

"CHAOS...!" Venice shouted, his eyes tightly shut as he felt the possibility to will the power to his needs open up again.

/Ten years.
Ten years, back in...
Wait...
Would it be 200 years...?
I'm already 10 years behind the current timeline, and I wasn't-/

As quick as it energized him, the energy retreated into the emeralds. Too much too fast again. Almost as if he wasn't powerful enough to do it. Venice lost his balance from overwhelming vertigo, he kept his eyes shut as he tried to gain his equilibrium.

Shadow watched with a stoic look of pity. The kid has guts, trying to induce Chaos Control twice without another person. He's surprised he hasn't caved in from the raw power of the gems yet. He had to say, he admired 'Silver's' tenacity.

"Without a clear destination and motive, the energy fades. You have only a second to open a time rift." Shadow explained.

"200 years into the future. I know the time, I know the place, I..." He struggled to say, keeping his eyes shut as the dizziness was soon replaced by a deeply rooted melancholic bitterness.

He didn't want to remember.
It hurt too much to remember.

But he had to remember. He had to see everything as it flashed before him. The pain inflicted on him, remembering being tricked to do harm, being beaten down...

"Then it should be no problem."
"Then why is it being one?!"

Shadow is surprised by the outburst and only raises a brow. Despite just being reduced to an exhausted mess of trembling bones, the hedgehog stood strong, a desperate and burning hatred plastered on his face. The teen's eyes were bright and intense gold, his energy colors back to teal.

How in the world was this even possible?

He didn't look fazed at his voice, instead, he sighed as he had to explain the basics to him, "Only two people can induce Chaos Control to cause a time rift. Doing it by yourself, even with a plan or idea, won't work.

"Then do it with me!" He puts his hand holding the chaos emerald up, glaring at Shadow with determination. "We need to go forward, 200 years from now!"

"We don't have time for games." He shook his head.

"This isn't a game!" Silver shouted, clenching his free hand into a tight fist. "This is my life I need to fix!"

Shadow rose a brow. He was more confused than even Sonic was at trying to understand the laws of gravity. Still, wanting to fix things that have gone wrong in your life, that he understood.

"You can't. Whatever happened, happened, and you can't stop it."

Silver shoved him away, "What's that supposed to mean!?" he's had it with the ambiguity of everything. People who had answers not being upfront with him- treating him like a child. He was tired of it.

Shadow, steadied his stance and glared down the teen. He got in his face, hands resting at his side as if he needed to use them if things got out of control. "You can only play by the rules of time, you can't change them. Whatever happened to you in your life was destined to happen, even if you go back in time."

Silver shakes his head frivolously, taking a step back at the intimidating glare.

"What do you mean?"

"No matter how many times you go back, you can't change the past." Shadow's words are slow and careful as if he wasn't only speaking to Silver in this case, but reminding himself. "The past happened. You cannot change it."

Silver couldn't accept that answer, it was too vague. Too full of plotholes for him to understand it fully. Time travel, Chaos Control, the past... it was all blurring the lines between reality and falsehoods. He didn't like it because to him, it didn't make sense.

Why couldn't he go back and rewrite his past?

It seems easy enough: go back in time, kill Mephiles, and see his family thrive.

"I can go back in time and stop Iblis." Silver states. "I could probably stop him long before this happens." He gestures with an open hand to Elise and the scepter.

"Iblis will still exist," Shadow says crossing his arms over his chest as if this was a pointless talk. "The past is always guaranteed to happen."

/He's right./
[What?!]

Silver turned to face Venice who was standing behind him. He was furious to hear, well, himself, actually agree with what was being said. ["You can't be serious?! There's really nothing we can do!?"]

/"Everything in a timeline is prewritten before it happens. Unless you know exactly where you want to be, nothing will change."/
["I want to be 200 years into the future so that I can stop Mephiles!"]
/"But do you know where he is at that time? Do you know what he was doing? Where exactly he was then?"/
["I saw it! He was guiding Iblis towards mom and dad!"]

Venice shakes his head, laughing somewhat in annoyance and desperation. /"You still don't get it."/

["Then tell me what I'm missing!"] Silver steps towards the mink, glaring daggers at him.

/"Our past- everyone's pasts- are written before we even know it happens!"/ He raises his voice, standing to his feet and clenching his fists, /"So you go forward in time and you don't see Mephiles. Then what? You're stuck there, watching it happen all over again! Watching yourself get beaten, bloodied, and breaking all over again, Silver!"/ He spits out each incident, grabbing his copy's shoulders roughly. He hangs his head as he shakes it slightly, his breath hitching in his throat. /"I can't stand to have that happen to us again."/ He looks into his eyes, pleading, begging him not to try and argue. He feels the stinging in the corners of his eyes, the painful sobs he's holding back.

Silver's anger and irritation melt, he looks down at the grass below as he blinks back to where his body is. Venice was just as hurt as he was about all of this. Despite being the emotionally stronger side, he was... afraid. Afraid of watching it happen again, afraid of feeling it happen again. Of course, he was- he's been around longer than he knows.

Upon hearing it, Silver looked down at his two chaos emeralds and put them back into his quills. He was...
Despondant.
That was the word.

For the first time, he felt as if there was nothing worth salvaging. He couldn't go back and save his parents, he couldn't stop Mephiles- hell, he sided with him and almost killed Sonic, which would've effectively made him the Iblis trigger and...

"I could've stopped it... I could've... I could've saved them... but..." the hedgehog sat down on his knees in the grass as he struggled to find the words. "To know that I could've done something to stop him, all this time, and yet I did nothing..."

It didn't take a rocket scientist to know where Silver was getting at. Shadow knew probably more than anyone else what loss felt like. Having someone there one minute, and the next, gone. The black and red hedgehog turned his back on the kid, crossing his arms as he listened.

Silver threw his hands to his face, visibly shaking with a whirlwind of emotions inside of him. "This isn't fair! Why... Why do things have to be this way? I don't... I don't understand..."

He glanced back to the teen that knelt on the grass. He could feel his frustration, his misery. Whatever it was the kid saw or remembered was eating away at him. And, despite the battle just before they went back ten years, he felt as if he knew this kid before even meeting him. Shared trauma goes a long way, he guesses.

"Life doesn't and will never make sense." Shadow finally speaks up, his gaze fixated on the overcast sky above.

Silver's trembling lessened, letting his hands fall to his side. He stared at the grass below as tears continued to fall freely. His head and heart were a swirling mess right now. So many 'what ifs' running through his mind, so many times he could've changed how his life was, if only he just knew.

"I could've saved them. This power," he looks at his palms, eyes sharply fixed on the permanent circular pulsating marks within, "if only I knew sooner that I was powerful, that I could move things without a single thought..." He clenches his fists, eyes screwed shut at the memory, "I could've stopped them from dying."

Death.
Now it all made sense.

Of course, Shadow knew this topic better than anyone. He didn't need to tell his story. It was in the past, he put it behind him. But... he did understand the pain of losing someone close to you. Calling out to them as you see them fall...

"Put it behind you." He said, his voice was soft, less gruff.

Silver looked to the hedgehog, wiping some stray tears away.

Shadow turned to face the teen, taking a step towards him as he spoke, "the more you dwell on what could've done, the more pain you'll be in." He took a knee next to him, his ruby eyes staring intently into Silver's golden ones.

"I want him to hurt for what he had done."

Right before his eyes, Shadow saw the younger teen's eye color change from gold to bright light blue. It surprised him to see it firsthand, but he kept his expression the same. The kid's voice was different in tone as if he truly wanted to destroy what had destroyed his life.

"We all want that for those who hurt us." The ebony hedgehog paused, remembering just how he felt the same so many years ago. "But if you constantly look out to hurt them, then you're no better than they are."

Venice shook his head, clenching his fists as he grit his teeth. "He's no better than anyone. He deserves to-"

"Deserves to die, right?"
"More than anyone else."
"Because he took what you loved."
"Because he took my life from me!"

Admittedly, Shadow was surprised by the sharp change in the white hedgehog's voice. He saw the colors change once more and saw Silver look away from him.

"Before everything, before I was even aware of... anything, he... he killed them." He tightly shut his eyes, the memory of their charred corpses staining his vision, "I didn't even get a chance to... I-I couldn't reach my power, I..."

"...Whatever the case is," Shadow began, standing up, "you shouldn't let your past control you." He took out his green chaos emerald, picking his words carefully before speaking again, "when you let the past and what happened to take over, you started to replay every piece of hurt and pain that has ever happened to you; you give in to that voice that wants you to seek revenge." He shoots a glance at Silver, "Don't act for what could've been, act for what you can build from here on out."

Silver listened and reflected on what he was saying. He was right. If he gets too involved with the mind games, then he'll never act on his own accord. He may not have been able to back then, but he can now. And it's here and now that matters.

He wiped his eyes and took a big deep breath, trying to stop himself from giving in to the overwhelming sadness again. He had to pull through this, they're so close to solving this puzzle and he can't give up.

As he stood up, he heard Elise whimper in her sleep.

"Daddy..."

Both hedgehogs glanced at her, then at each other. Taking the blue chaos emerald, he approached her and knelt to her level. He watched the princess rest, her breathing was slow but she was alive. With gentle care, he placed the emerald in her open hand and closed her fingers around it.

"Its... a lucky charm." He smiled, trying to believe it himself at this point.

As Silver stepped away, he took the white chaos emerald from his quills and looked to Shadow. With a nod, both of them held their emeralds up.

"Chaos Control!"

A time rift split into space between them, swirling into a vortex of energy. Shadow jumped through. Silver hesitated before looking back to Elise. With a heavy sigh, he braided himself and jumped through.

Silver landed on his feet in the plaza. It was daytime and he could smell the salt from the sea in the air. What would be pleasant and welcomed just seemed to be a sensory overload at the moment. He couldn't stop replaying the death of his parents in his head, it was just...

"Silver!"

He looked in the direction of the noise, seeing Blaze running to him. She took him by his wrist, guiding him to the train station In a hurry.

"I saw Sonic run off towards that way! We need to follow the train east and we should come up to-"

"Blaze..."

The princess snapped her gaze towards him, "we don't have all day, Silver! We need to put an end to-"

"Blaze." His voice was soft, almost a whisper as he fixed his gaze on the pavement below. His free hand came to rest on top of hers.

The gesture made the cat stop herself from rushing. They stood there in the plaza, the sound of the sea behind them playing a melody of rhythmic waves that broke the silence.

"I... I need to talk to you. Please." His golden eyes finally met her ambers.

From his expression, she could tell that he needed someone right now. Whatever happened when she left must've been a lot for him to handle. The cat's hurried state settled and she focused on his downtroddened state.

"... Alright."