Chapter 19: Absolution's End (Last Part)

Half an hour before Pretorious fetched the prisoners from their cells...

"Silver? Silver, are you awake?"

"Hrm...?" went Silver, forcing an eye open. It'd taken him far too many hours after the lights went out to manage to calm himself enough to fall asleep.

"If...we get seperated somehow, and you end up going back to the future without me, then there's a few things you need to know about."

Silver sat, stretched and yawned. "Don't be silly, Pia," he said. "How could I go back without you? You're the one with the time machi- Oh yeah, they took it. Either way, I'd never leave you behind."

"Hear me out," said Pia, leaning against the forcefield seperating their cells. "Your apartment, when Pretorious shot you, the other you, that wasn't the first time I met...you."

"What do you mean?" Silver asked, trying to keep up.

"I tracked Pretorious to his lair in my time. Once I got inside, I was attacked by a really nasty robot. It nearly got me, except I was saved by someone who looked exactly as you do. Same age, same lack of clothes, same everything. It was you. And you, he, knew me. He talked like he knew everything that was going to happen. And...he knew things about me that I've never told anyone else. Things not even my father knows. Well, NOW he knows, but I'm sure he didn't before this confusing mess started."

Pia told Silver everything she remembered from the encounter. He was nice enough not to offer any follow-up questions when she told him the thing she wished the other him hadn't known. She could definitely live without seeing that expression when he heard it, though.

-

"And what do you think of that, my friends?" Pretorious asked at the end of his speech.

Dr. Pretorious hadn't been joking about his literary ambitions, it seemed. He spent easily as much time questioning the pair for their views as he did showing off the marvels of the Gi civilisation. When at first it was clear Pia wasn't going to cooperate, he even produced the most sincere apology he could muster for inadvertently tearing open old wounds with his ill-gotten knowledge of her life. When that didn't work, he threatened to have the Gizoids administer a moderate amount of physical punishment. To Silver. That worked to get Pia to respond.

Pia was distracted by her loathing for the situation of being so close to Dr. Pretorious without being able to deliver his just desserts, but Silver couldn't help get swept up by the sheer fascination for this amazing city. Pretorious seemed to enjoy his enthusiasm, and happily answered every question the white hedgehog had.

"And what's that building down there?" Silver asked, again, as the luxurious transportation vehicle carried the group on their way to the next point of interest on Pretorious's tour.

"Ah, that would be the main centre for Research & Development," Pretorious responded. "At the moment the laboratories must be experiencing an unusual flurry of activity, as the Gi's best and brightest attempt to learn the secrets of our dear Temporal Protectorate agent's time travel Jumpsuit. There is very little chance that the tinkering scientists will succeed in unraveling the workings of the device before the catastrophe that will destroy the Gi, but best of luck to them. Do not worry, my fellows from the future. I will get rid of that Jumpsuit in time for the rerouting of history. Once the Gi's future is secured, there will be no need for time travel devices to be readily available until they become a fact of natural technological evolution. Whatever you may think of me, I do respect the the hazards of unnecessary tampering with time. It is hardly hypocricy to at the same time answer when there is a need for NECESSARY tampering with time."

The firedancers were still out there, or maybe it was a different group. Silver watched and waited until...

"You talk too much," said Silver and jumped out the window.

Silver had, like most hedgehogs born after Sonic the Hedgehog, practiced the innate hedgehog spin motion at some point in his life. He'd never got any good at it, but he certainly could roll into a ball in mid-jump well enough to shield himself from the sharp edges of a shattering glass panel - if he absolutely had to.

With the wind in his ears, Silver couldn't make out what was being shouted after him, though he was sure he could hear both Pia and Pretorious's voices.

Animaloid hedgehogs are naturally earodynamic. They can't glide on the air like echidnas, but they can certainly control their descent well. Silver held his handcuffed hands forward and aimed for the plumes of fire generated by the flying felines. The burst of heat was far more shockingly painful than he'd imagined it would be, and he was sure his fur caught fire for a second. What mattered was that the display on the futuri- ancien- high-tech handcuffs blinked out as its circuits were fried.

"Rrrgah!" Silver shouted as he tore his hands free, and immediatelly wrapped his body in a psycho-kinetic glow.

Using his levitation to fly right into gravity's grip, Silver accellerated towards the large building below. He'd probably only have a few moments before Pretorious summoned too many guards to avoid, so he had to make every second count.

This had to work, this had to work, this had to work... Silver kept telling himself that. He was going to survive this, and make his escape to the future in one piece. He had to. What Pia told him proved without a doubt that there was no way he could get caught or killed here. Right? Of course, what Pretorious said about time being so malleable and such also made sense, given how much they'd changed in history already. He couldn't get overconfident. Pia had met a Silver who pulled it all off just right. This Silver really hoped he was the same guy.

It was surprising how easy it was to tear apart the platings that made up the golden roof of the R&D building. This underground place never experienced bad weather of any kind, and their remarkable technology and power of the Chaos Emeralds was probably enough to ward off any damaging earthquakes or other natural hazards. The Gi didn't need reinforced walls outside their jail cells. Silver wasn't gonna complain. The room he dropped down into was a classroom, surprisingly enough, and fortunately an abandoned one. The chalkboard was as mundane as everything, and most of the furniture was plain old unpainted wood. Huh. So even the Gi had some areas they didn't feel compelled to cover with gold.

Silver stepped out into the hallway. No sign of any-

The hedgehog started running without looking behind him, the instant he heard the voice. He didn't really care who'd shouted. The pitch alone was enough, as it compressed the gist of the message "You're not supposed to be here!" exceptionally well into a mere three syllables. As soon as Silver turned the corner, he found himself face to face with a crowd of elderly animaloids. Even in a world where fashion had deviated so far that it settled for just two colours, Silver easily recognised the group as scientists. Common sense said go the other way, but previous experience said to go towards the most interesting thing around, so Silver rushed right through the crowd.

T0he unseen pursuer shouted again, confirming Silver's initial assumption.

Hopping over a fallen owl, Silver entered the most impressive laboratory he'd ever seen. It was another place where the call for gold went unanswered, as the walls and furniture were all regular sterile laboratory white. Pia's grey Jumpsuit lying spread out on the central table immediatelly caught Silver's eye. Before the flabbergasted science Gi-eeks could stop him, he snatched the suit off the table and hurried towards the open door at the opposite end of the room.

Okay, so they'd figured out how to turn the Jumpsuit visible. That was a bad sign, but it didn't mean they'd damaged it in any way, right? It still worked, right? Oh man, it better be easy to operate...

Running and putting on a pair of pants is always a humorous operation. Silver could levitate, and kept a fine speed even as he got his legs, torso and arms into the Jumpsuit, then zipped it up. It wasn't an actual zipper. Silver had idea what it was he closed the suit up with, but it turned an opening into a seal so tight you'd swear... It was tight. Pretty darn tight.

"Wasn't there supposed to be a helmet to this thing?" Silver muttered.

Next thing he knew, a see-through hood grew out of the collar of the Jumpsuit and closed over his head, very uncomfortably over his spikes. The Jumpsuit had obviously been sized up for Pia in particular. One-size-fits-one. As soon as the helmet was in place, Silver saw text appear before his eyes, and the grey edges of the suit faded into complete transparency. He was sure he'd now have no chance of finding the buttons on the invisible Jumpsuit, but from the perspective of the wearer, they were all clearly highlighted and in plain sight. So that was how Pia did it.

"Okay, now to make it work. Er..."

Three Gizoids appeared around the corner ahead. Silver turned back towards the way he came, and now finally got a clear view of his pursuer. It was a raccoon. A raccoon wrapped in psycho-kinetic aura.

"Just my luck," Silver said to himself as the super-combat robots and the animaloid who shared his power closed in slowly.

-

"Well," said Dr. Pretorious. "This is certainly embarrasing. I suppose there comes a time when a man must admit he's lost. I'd been looking so forward to watching you fade from existence as the chain of events concerning the death of your father finally caught up with you, but that doesn't seem too likely now, does it?"

Pia looked away from the broken window to see Pretorious pointing his pulse pistol at her. He didn't look too happy about it.

Dr. Pretorious shot his nemesis, twice. Then he walked over to where she lay and knelt down.

"Let's see if anyone can die properly around here. Ah, here we are. No pulse, no breath, no stimulus. Dead, dead, dead. I suppose it all goes to show that if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself. Twice."

Pretorious didn't laugh. He wasn't really gloating, either. He'd been anticipating the final defeat of his nemesis for so long that this was frankly an anti-climax. It didn't feel right at all. Oh well. At least he still had Silver left to hunt down. He might provide a better sense of closure.

-

The Gizoids fired. The raccoon's eyes widened as the robots' target disappeared before his eyes, leaving him standing right in the wake of the projectiles.

-

Silver didn't waste any time once he'd confirmed his arrival on the heads-up display. He ran into the kitchen, saw the vile machine about to strike Pia where she lay trapped on the floor, and grabbed the first sharp thing he saw with his power, flinging it at the metal tentacle wrapped around her leg. Gritting his teeth in anger, Silver then lifted the whole machine up off the floor and smashed it into the wall, over and over, until it stopped moving.

Pia got up on her knees and looked around to see him.

"D-dad?"

Silver B smiled.

-

The Usual:
- Is Pia really dead?
- Okay, but is she going to stay dead?
- What does it take to avoid getting a cliffhanger smacked in the face around here?