Mephiles: Yayyy the next chapter is up, thank you for all reviews they are always greatly appreciated. As for your question concerning Blaze, don't worry I'll anwser it in the story at a later point suffice to say it deals with tthe nature of multiple realities and dimensions and the effects that tampering with the time stream can have. Thanks alot and I hope you enjoy this next one.

Chapter Two: Ghost Town

Silver trudged on miserably, silently praying for some or other miracle to liberate him from his torment. His "tormentor" seemed to be oblivious to his obvious discomfort and continued to prattle on nonsensically, about topics ranging from her favourite colour to the state of the weather.

Silver merely grunted periodically as a means of response, hoping that she would eventually realize his lack of interest and shut herself up for the rest of the journey. His hopes were in vain though; as the girl's optimistic mood appeared to be a barrier no known force could penetrate let alone break.

"How much farther?" Silver pleaded, interrupting his companion's spirited discussion with herself about the nature of rainbows and whether they truly held enough magic to create their very own pot of gold.

The girl looked up at him, her mouth still open as the final words of her conversation died away slowly into the back of her throat. Silence reigned temporarily and Silver relished the brief moment, feeling as if it had been almost a lifetime since he had last experienced it.

The girl, having gathered her thoughts pointed towards a near hillock. "Just over that hill, Mr." She answered in her annoyingly cheerful and jolly manner. Silver winced as the brief silence was shattered once more by her relentless desire for conversation. He raised his head to examine the lush, green and wooded hillock.

"But you said that three hills ago" Silver whined, his controlled and serious manner abandoning him in the face of a torture the likes of which he would not even of wished upon Eggman Nega. The girl flashed him one of her blindingly radiant smiles, and Silver flinched at the sheer perfection of her sparkling teeth.

"Don't worry I promise that there will be no more hills after this one, just have faith" Silver gaped again at the strangely mature and wise words, so at contrast with her normal tirade of pointless small talk.

Silver breathed a deep sigh of relief as he finally crested the hillock's apex. There, in the valley below, as the girl had promised, was a picturesque little village. It seemed to personify the term quaint, along with homely, and perhaps a little bit of nostalgia thrown in there somewhere as well.

With a squeal of delight the little girl scampered down the incline towards her home village. Silver could not help but smile a tiny bit at the girl's unbridled joy. One day, he promised himself, he would have that to. 'As soon as you actually catch Nega that is' He reminded himself curtly. Silver turned himself to leave, his mission complete, but after a few moments found that he had not moved an inch.

Silver stared curiously at his stationary feet and then felt his gaze drawn inadvertently back towards the girl's hometown. 'No Silver, remember your mission, you've already fulfilled your obligations to her' His sense of duty reminded him. Silver blinked and stared down at his rebellious feet. "Traitors" he hissed at them, but found that the acidic tone of his voice wasn't enough to persuade them. 'She's so young, she could get hurt, or never find the right home' His conscious lamented to him. 'Oh come on the village is tiny, everyone probably knows where she lives, she doesn't need our help' Silver guessed that was either cynicism or a rather perverted common sense.

'Since when did my thoughts have personalities of there own' Silver pondered and like that his head was clear. Silver looked down at the many houses. At last, and with a horrid wrenching feeling deep down in his stomach, he began to walk towards it.

"Ahhhh… Little girl" Silver called out awkwardly to the air around him, fiercely berating his lack of sense at not asking the girl her own name. To his disappointment the air held no answers, it merely hovered, empty. 'Empty? Wait a minute, where are all the people?' Silver's eyes roamed around the no longer homely looking village. Up close it was a rather creepy place. For one thing it seemed to be abandoned.

"Silver?" Silver spun around raising his forearm before him, a nimbus of teal power flickered about him, as a several bricks found themselves roughly pulled from their mortar to form an adequate shrapnel wall. Silver gazed at the voices location but saw nothing. He allowed the bricks to fall slowly to the ground, keeping a wary eye out for any unwanted surprises.

Silver continued his search through the village, which to his mind seemed to have become surprisingly large all of a sudden. The voice had been that of a female, a mature, regal tone almost like one an older sister would of used. It had, like so many other things to his dismay, seemed quite familiar. As if he had been rather well acquainted with its user in some past life. The longer he thought about it the closer and closer those memories seemed to come.

Flashes of fires and a ruined world, of fighting of destruction… of him, younger and fueled with passion, and of…

"Bl…bl…Bla" The words were ripped from Silvers tongue as he swiveled his head rapidly towards a small alleyway which appeared to of materialized as if from nowhere before him. From in its bowels Silver could hear echoing shrieks, shrill screams of terror and desperation. Abandoning his caution by the wayside, and leaving his brief quest for memories buried deeper within his mind, he raced down the alley.

He allowed his powers to wrap itself around him, creating an aura of teal light to better illuminate the dank confines of the hidden alleyway. He came to a sudden stop, feet skidding across the cobbled road, as he came to rest before a dire scene.

The little girl he had met from before was now desperately attempting to escape the clutches of a much larger assailant. She squirmed and writhed in his grasp but to no avail, as the larger figure seemed to be completely unbothered by her attempts at escape. The assailant's attention appeared to be resting completely on Silver now. Or at least so Silver believed, the figure did not appear to have any eyes, but a affixed blob like shape atop his humanoid torso gave the definite impression of a face. Swathed completely in dark bandages covering almost every inch of his form from view, the few patches of bared skin were a horrible gray colour, appearing lifeless and leathery.

"Let her go" Silver demanded, once he had recovered from his curiosity at the creature's bizarre from. He squared his feet and bent his knees, dividing his weight evenly between both feet. His telekinetic powers doubled in strength, the teal light about him shining even brighter, the intensity of his power forming harmless flames of light that caressed his form gently.

The creature gave a raspy breathe and dropped the girl turning to face Silver, it let loose a terrible wail, shaking the ground around it before leaping towards him, Large claws slicing through it's bandages as it lunged at Silver. Silver leapt aside in time, lunging out at the creature's now exposed underbelly with a forceful thrust of psychokinetic power. The air rippled in its wake, forming silent shockwaves, which slammed into the creature.

Rather than flying back as he had expected, the creature's underbelly burst, black bandages and gray skin parting to reveal a set of long and prehensile tentacles. Each one writhed of it's own accord, thinning out towards their point's and ringed with black and white flames. The tentacles sprouted forth and quickly entangled Silver before hurling him into a nearby wall.

Silver yelped in pain as his body smashed against the hard wall, dust and debris fell about him as he slowly raised himself. His vision swam before his eyes briefly and he could taste blood in his mouth. He just had time to identify the shadowy blob moving rapidly towards him, before he felt his world explode around him as blackness claimed his sight.

Silver lay on his back, at least he hoped it was his back, as his thoughts and mind spun above him like the cosmos, slowly fading away from his grasp. Slowly…slowly…fading. "No' Silver whispered, although he had a feeling it had probably come out as a bloody gurgle. "No" This time their was no doubt as to what he said.

Slowly, with pain wracking every inch of his bones, his nerves screaming at him as if there was fire running through his veins, Silver rose. First one leg, shakily rising, and then the other. Silver raised his back, straightening vertebrae by vertebrae until he was once more upright.

He took one more deep breath to remind himself where he was, raised his hand calmly out towards the back of the creature which was once more approaching the girl and concentrated.

WHAAAAAM. With all the force of an atomic reaction, scintillating waves of teal energy slammed into the creatures back. Wave after wave fell upon it, until, with a storm of dust around it, the entire town was obscured from view.

Once the dust had settled, and Silver had stopped hacking and wheezing himself to death long enough to open his eyes, the creature was gone. An immediate sense of emergency fell upon him and he searched left and right furiously for the little girl. He breathed a sigh of relief as he found her, half obscured behind a broken wall.

"Are you alright?" Silver asked, surprised to find himself genuinely concerned for her well-being. She looked up at him and gave a small smile. "Thank you Silver, I can now give you my gift without any further hassle" The girl looked up at Silver, meeting his stare with her own.

But to Silver she was no longer a little girl. He now stood face to face with a tall feline, deep eyes filled with eons of wisdom stared into his own, regal apparel adorned her feminine features and silky fur covered her entire form. Silver gaped as she extended her hand and placed it on him slowly. There was a flash of white light, a flood of images overcame Silver and a single thought ran through his head, 'Blaze'

Throughout the entire town not a noise was heard, silence reigned supreme settling with renewed vigour, furious at being momentarily supplanted by the three noisy life forms. They were gone now and not a soul was left in a village. All that remained where the ghost's of memories dwelling in their ghost town.

The End

Mephillies: As always I hope you enjoyed it and will appreciate a review or two. Thanks For everything