Chapter 23: Chaos Controlled (Part Two)

My name is Dr. Trevor Pretorious. I am a scientist. That is the simple truth. I am no god - I do not seek to rule the world. All I want are answers. My desire is only to understand...everything.

-

Pretorious flew over the scarred battlefield, taking it all in and revelling in what he saw. Moving through time by sheer force of will rather than technology meant less accuracy as to where and when he would arrive, but it didn't matter. He could see the primitive human tribes being slaughtered by the advanced war machines of the Gi. All he needed to know was that the Gi would rise to power even without the Chaos Emeralds. The premature extinction of the human race at their hands was no great loss.

"It's a wonderful world, after all. The Gi are out of hiding and pursuing their destiny with greater ambition than they ever did in the timeline that was. I give them my blessing. Well, not literally - there are depths of supernatural embodiment I shan't stoop to. When I give myself wings and start demanding tribute, it's time to give the power rush a rest."

The glowing green raccoon looked around, as the golden tanks fired their shells at the straw huts far below.

"I should know how this next part goes, by now. My nemesis and her young father appear in order to perform yet another misguided attempt to stop me. I may be kicking myself shortly for not simply killing them both after absorbing the Chaos Core."

On cue, Super Silver and Pia (quite happy without an additional prefix along the lines of "Super", "Burning", "Hyper" or whatever), shot out of the passageways of time and space and faced down their enemy.

"Now what? Oh, of course. The positive/negative energy issue. Goodness me, my face is red. Green, I suppose."

Pia's fur glowed vibrant red rather than pale gold like Silver's. She launched herself forward, generating a hurricaine of intense flames as she closed in on Pretorious. The raccoon's confidence evaporated as soon as he felt the heat through all of his energy barriers. Pia put on an evil smile as soon as she heard Pretorious's cry of pain.

"Hot enough for ya?" she called out.

"Please! The banter is easily as painful as the, well, pain," said Pretorious, looking hurt and afraid. "I should be invincible, but a form of positive energy is automatically the bane of anything charged with the opposite negative energy, isn't it? Let's see if it works both ways!!"

With that sudden giddy outburst, Pretorious unleashed a beam of white-hot death at Pia. The look on his face when the beam curved away and paused as a trapped sphere around Silver was priceless. The hedgehog fired the beam right back at Pretorious.

"Aaaaargh!! Argh! Ow! What a rotten trick to pull."

"This ends here, Pretorious!" Silver shouted.

"Gosh, what an original line. Would you also like to tell me that you'll make me pay for all my evil deeds? No, I know! 'You'll never get away with this!' - 'Face the power of justice!' and the biggest cliche of them all: 'I will protect the future!' Save your trite nonsense."

Silver narrowed his eyes.

"Egads, you just narrowed your eyes. Oh, I'm really 'going to get it now', right?"

The two heroes drew out their powers and charged at the villain from opposite sides. Pretorious shrugged, and vanished once again. It didn't matter. He couldn't escape now.

-

Before Silver and Pia left the Dawn of Time:

Super Silver laughed as he felt the incredible power flow through his body. Pia looked less extatic.

"Well, that's that," she said.

"What's what?"

"This Jumpsuit definitely wasn't built to handle the strain of a Super transformation. It's completely shorted out."

"Oh. I see. Well, then take it off. We don't need it anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"Can't you feel it? The...space, the gap, the hole...thing left behind by Pretorious's departure. Over...that way. We can follow him wherever, whenever he goes. I'm sure of it!"

-

Now:

Another battlefield. Pretorious descended to a barren grey terrain covered in the mutilated corpses of Gi soldiers and Black Arms warriors. He looked to his right with a start as a nuclear explosion lit up the horizon.

"The Gi must be so happy," he said to himself. "A proper challenge to entertain themselves with after countless centuries of fighting nothing but dull primitive tribes with no capacity to defend themselves. Nice to see the Black Arms putting up a better fight, as well. Those black structures to the West there hardly look like anything Earth should produce."

He wasn't surprised to see Silver and Pia appear above him.

"Sorry I had to rush off like that. I needed a moment to think. Don't worry, though, I shouldn't need to run any longer."

Super Silver wrenched hundreds of boulders from the ravaged terrain and threw them at Pretorious. The green raccoon didn't move an inch, but dissolved into a flourescent green mist at the last second.

"What the-?" went Silver.

"Isn't this a fine trick?" came Pretorious's voice before the green mist engulfed them both.

-

Pia opened her eyes. She was lying in gravel, next to a stone wall covered in grafitti. She could smell smoke, and feel heat rising everywhere.

The cat stood up. With her heart beating faster, she looked around the wall to see the courtyard she remembered far too well. The school building was engulfed in flames. There was a scream... That...one scream, over and over. That scream of dying pain repeated again and again, tormenting her...

The outline of Pretorious's face appeared in the plume of smoke rising from the burning building.

"Hello killer," he said. "I've given you a present. A trip to the point in time you were so desperate to return to that you violated every single law and standard of the Temporal Protectorate."

"No! You dastard, not here!" Pia shouted, trying to cover her ears. Nothing seemed to work to block out that horrible repeating scream.

"What's the matter? You should revel in this triumph. A burning valentine for your first crush, and a vengeance for rejecting you. You got your justice, killer."

"No! That's not how it happened! It was an accident..."

"So you say, because you don't understand yet. These are your memories, your thoughts, your guilt. I'm just here to watch the show. Ah, I'm so glad you didn't die back in Giozaz. To let your failures eat you alive is a far more satisfying victory. Ten years of therapy couldn't save you from your fear and hatred of this place, and you can't escape now. Your soul weakens here, your Super form fades away out there in the real world, and you finally die. A thorn in my side no longer."

The scream was growing louder.

"The moment of death played over and over again," Pretorious went on. "You should go inside. You know you're going to, even though every fibre of your body cries out in fear at the very idea of that place. Maybe you can save him, this time?"

Pia ran. Though her feet moved as if wading through glue, and the heat and pain in front of her seemed overwhelming, she ran right into the heart of the inferno. She cried out as she touched the searingly hot door handle leading into the classhalls. She could normally render herself immune to flame at a whim, but in this nightmare world her powers didn't work at all.

"Look at what you caused, killer," said the marble bust of the school's founder, now wearing the grinning face of Pretorious.

Pia ran faster.

"Look at all the damage you did," said a half-burnt drawing of a happy green raccoon.

Her face a grimace of pain, Pia beat out the spark that'd tried to settle on her furry arm.

"It's a miracle only one person died," said thirty shades of Pretorious lined up in a class photograph.

Pia kicked a classroom door open and ran through an emptied classroom where a ten year-old raccoon was finishing up the lengthy chore of writing the word "Killer" five hundred times on the huge chalkboard.

"Where is he!?" Pia shouted as she entered a hallway identical to the first one. The scream, louder than ever, was coming from every direction at once.

-

Silver was facing a similar experience. In the world the phantom Pretorious created in the hedgehog's mind, he was getting belittled and mocked through a series of repeating scenes. Blaze, the Command, Shadow, Terkal, everyone - telling him to his face all the fears and doubts he carried with him.

Finally, when Silver was at the verge of becoming a crippled puddle of self-doubt, Pretorious threw at him his current greatest fear of all...

"No matter what you try, no matter how much you want it, you'll never change," said Pia. "You're going to be a horrible parent, and I'll hate you forever for it."

Silver opened his eyes.

-

There! There he was, still alive!

Pia looked around in desperation for any way to get around the barricade of burning wreckage that prevented her from reaching the boy she could clearly make out on the other side. When no answer presented itself, and his coughing grew worse, Pia tensed to face her fears head-on and smash through the barrier. But before she could put one foot in front of the other, a powerful grip held her back.

"That's as far as you go, Agent Pia," said captain Silver of the Temporal Protectorate.

"No... No, you won't stop me this time! I won't let you!!" Pia pushed at her father with all her might.

The nightmare took a step further into darkness, as an explosion of fire erupted from Pia's hands and engulfed her father.

"Killer, killer, killer. You'll never change," said Dr. Pretorious, tapping the cat lying over her dead father with the tip of his cane. "Hmm... Perhaps 'murderer' is the more apt term. Such a violent death for the one you hate so much can only be premediated. Any court of law would agree."

Pia attacked Pretorious fiercely, her fists passing through his body as it dissolved into smoke. The madman's laughter remained, however, even as Pia finally gave up and let the tears come.

"AheeheeheeheeheeHEEHAAAHAHAAHAEEE!!!"

-

The glow Pia's Super form was fading fast. With no sign of Pretorious, Super Silver could only watch his unconscious daughter squirm in apparent agony.

"No, there has to be something I can do," he said aloud. "All this power has to be good for more than flying around and kicking raccoon butt. C'mon!"

-

Pretorious's laughter and the boy's screams both began to fade. Pia looked up, slowly.

The scene hadn't changed. The fire still roared, eating away at the school she'd once had fond memories of her time at. The boy, her best friend and first crush, lay dead. This...was the real memory.

She had run back inside, back then. She'd never been able to admit it to herself, but she'd always known the truth: the accident was all her fault. She should've listened to her mother's instructions on how to channel and control her powers better. She should've called for help right away instead of making stupid and misguided attempts at putting out the fire herself before it escalated out of control.

"It was my fault," Pia finally told herself. "And as I've always done, I'll spend every minute of my life making up for it..."

No sound from Pretorious. No taunts. No illusions, except the memory itself.

Pia opened her eyes.

-

The look of relief on Silver's face was a good sight to wake up to.

"Welcome back," he said.

"Thanks. sniff Where's Pretorious?"

"Gone, again. Let's go after him together." Super Silver punched his palm. "I'll kill him for what he's done."

"No!" Pia exclaimed. "We're not killing him. We'll beat him, take him back to the Chaos Core and restore it as it was, and then I'll bring Pretorious back where he belongs; spending the rest of his life rotting in a jail cell."

"What? After everything he's done? He tried to kill both of us! He's turned Earth into this...this..horrible warzone! You think he'll ever be sorry for anything he's ever done?"

"Probably not, but I'll regret it if I don't do everything in my power to bring him back alive."

"Oh...fine. Let's just get him before he pulls another trick."

Super Silver and Pia went forward again. Pretorious would soon have nowhere left to run.

In the next chapter:
- The end of the final showdown.
- The fate of Pretorious.
- Bringing history back on the right track.