Mephiles: I apologize if I've caused confusion but the story is most certainly not finished and will not be for some time as I have several confusing theories to explain before I call it quits. So please note their will be another Chapter after this. As always I hope you enjoy and will appreciate your reviews.
Chapter Three: A Question of When
Silver's world was engulfed by light, bright piercing light, which seemed to sear through his eyes into his mind, branding his thoughts like a hot poker. With a sudden mental wrench, all his memories seemed to come loose, toppling outward as the light forced them out, pouring forth from his conscious and pooling before his mind's eye.
He saw snatches of his entire existence, highlighted moments of his waking memories, as his life literally flashed before his eyes. 'I really should have been more social' He thought to himself regrettably, mentally wincing as he saw himself pass puberty again and silently marveling at the strange lack of worry or concern he felt at his peculiar predicament. 'Oh well, on the bright side you at least won't have to worry about failing your mission anymore' Optimism reminded him. Silver didn't like being optimistic
Slowly the bright light began to recede and Silver even risked opening his eyes a little. Embolden by the fact that he was no longer suffering an endless sequence of flashbacks and confident that he was not blind Silver opened his eyes completely and…
"OUCH" Silver's cry echoed outwards from him in all directions, attracting the attention of everything in close proximity to him and accidentally deafening some sensitive mammals in the area.
Silver could not of cared less though, as he was currently howling in pain as he clutched his left leg to him so tightly, that you had to wonder whether he was trying to cut off his blood circulation.
After a short and rather humiliating sequence of one-legged hopes and unmentionable curses, Silver finally stopped cringing long enough to look around himself. He had fallen, if falling was the right term, from the blinding column of light into what appeared to be…
"No way" Silver said to himself as he gazed in a mixture of shock, horror and disbelief at the world before him. Where their had been fields of Elysian grass their was only ash. All around plains of black charred earth stretched for miles in any direction. Unnatural flames leapt from every available vent and pore, scouring whatever life remained in this hellhole.
Silver could make out no horizon, as the sky appeared to have been replaced by a fast blanket of smoke. Lightining crackled at regular intervals creating the only source of illumination in the bleak landscape. Except for the flames. The Flames. Silver found he could not take his eyes off of them, not that this was hard, as there appeared to be flames wherever you looked.
But to him they meant more. Something about them jarred at is mind. He stared, mesmerized by the breathtaking beauty yet simultaneously repulsed by the untold destruction that it had caused. As he stared into the crimson flames he began to make out shapes. At first they were just formless blobs, slowly dancing around each other, but as he stared he began to see more, so much more.
Within the flame, or his own mind even, he could no longer tell where one began and the other ended a young hedgehog fought. Within the flame he was fighting, fighting an insurmountable tide of monstrosities as all around him the fiery tide lay waist to homes, people, animals and nature indiscriminately.
There was no safe haven from their wrath, no mercy. They were relentless. With each one destroyed a thousand more would be ready to take its place. Soon Silver could see himself overwhelmed, feel himself overwhelmed. He howled in pain as the creatures forced him into their fiery embrace, slowly consuming him.
"ROOAAAARRRRRRRRRRR" The roar rent the world in two, the earth trembled beneath it. Silver's head snapped back so quick he could feel it crick. He panted heavily, staring back at the flame he had been engrossed in before. 'Was I…Inside of it?' Silver thought, thoroughly puzzled. For a moment he had felt as if it had been him personally battling against those creatures, losing to them as they dragged him down.
Silver tuned his head towards the roar and gaped. Some distance away the most terrifying creature in his memory reared above the forsaken world. It was enormous, so large that Silver could not think of appropriate adjectives to describe it. It appeared in a classical demonic form, with molten magmas and a hard coal body replacing red and black flesh. Four monstrous and damaged horns sprouted forth from its vaguely reptilian face, a titanic mouth and colossal arms merely added to its terrifying visage.
Silver had not taken any of this in, as he would have been running rather than standing his ground if he had. But to Silver the only thing he realized was…
"IBLIS" Although he had no idea how he knew the name and what possible reason he could have to hate the creature so much, he could not suppress the rage.
Reason and control were flung aside as rage and hate boiled through him, seething to the surface. His powers flamed around him, growing with the inferno in his heart. Teal fire engulfed him and spread out warping the air around him until it rippled in the wake of his advance.
He threw himself forth, telekinetic power burning inside of him, as he race through the sky towards the fiery terror. Farther and farther he flew, higher and higher the flames of the creatures body lapping against him, contrasting savagely with his own flames as the colours clashed and fought. Finally he reached its face and hovered level with the creature's enormous eyes. Golden eyes stared deep with resolution into a set of equally resolute red eyes. The battle was set.
From far away a feline made her way rapidly towards the scene. Anyone watching would soon become aware of her erratic behavior though. Her body seemed to jerk at inappropriate times, or jump seconds after she had tripped. The entire scene could lead one to believe that the feline probably hadn't had much experience in the body for some time, or enjoyed imitating a badly maneuvered marionette.
'Faster, got to go faster' She urged herself onwards, constantly keeping a sharp eye as she made a beeline towards the battle before her. Although all she could see was a tiny insignificant speck of white, wreathed in teal flames, as it hovered before a Blazing Titan of destruction.
Silver struck first, lashing out with his arm he allowed his powers to lance out in a focused beam from his palm to the creature's forehead. It slammed into it with a resounding crash, smoke and coal hurling outwards from the creature's face and spilling past him. Any stray pieces of shrapnel approaching Silver soon found themselves deflected by a barely visible, luminescent barrier of power.
As the smoke cleared, it revealed a deep furrow in the monster's forehead. With a roar of outrage it lashed out with one of it's enormous arms towards the tiny speck, which was Silver. Silver easily dodged the blow, slipping under the beast's clumsy attempt at attack and pressing onwards to land in the deep furrow.
The monster let out another roar of fury, brining up both arms above it's head, as it prepared to smash Silver to a pulp. Silver rammed his hand deep down into the creature's head, concentrating as he struck out with all his power, channeling it directly from himself into the creatures mind. The monsters arms fell numbly to its sides as it began to emit a hellish roar, shaking its head violently from side to side.
But Silver would not let go, the more he dug his power into the monster's mind the more he learnt. Like with his own mind images began flooding him, but these were not the small incoherent recollections he was used to. This was like watching it on the big screen, sound blaring around him as scenes unfolded one by one containing nothing but death He saw flashes of cities burning, of children screaming as they were engulfed in flames, of futile attempts to stop the monster. To stop Iblis.
Iblis…Iblis…IBLIS. The word filled every inch of him with fury; he struck deeper down then ever before, tearing the barely sentient creature's mind asunder in vengeance. 'To kill so many, with no reason, yet it doesn't even know that there are other life forms on this planet. It's…' Silver could not continue the thought.
His coherency was overtaken by mindless rage as Iblis's mind overwhelmed his senses. Then it stopped, as if someone who Silver would forever be indebted to had suddenly pressed the pause button, and silence settled around him. 'Is this still Iblis's mind?' Silver thought to himself. Slowly a new scene began to unfold, but there was no death in this one, although there was certainly the desire for death. In this final scrap of Iblis's mind Silver saw.
"Me?" He asked confused. The other Silver smiled. "YOU ARE MINE SILVER THE HEDGEHOG" As the words echoed forth from the world around him, he saw his copy smile, then vanish in a flash of fire as the scenes began again, but Silver was in them now.
Iblis struck back, his every word tearing away what precious grasp on reality Silver still had, scourging his mind clean of rationality as it burned within him. Ash and blood was all around him, he could see it, smell its venomous reek, and he could even hear the final cries of Iblis's victims.
With a final roar, Iblis forced Silver from his mind and dug deeper into Silver's own. Silver caught a last image of a burning face and an evil chortle, before his world became as black as the one around him.
'This world was devastated before I was born, a harsh, bleak place. Life is a struggle and the people live without hope, how did it get this way? No one will answer me directly but the always point, to the flames.' Iblis. The memory hovered through Silver's mind as he flitted in and out between consciousnesses, repeating itself over and over again as he grappled with his mind, seeking answers to his predicament.
"Who am I?" He asked, not aware that he had said it out loud.
"Your very brave, but a bit reckless in my opinion," Silver jerked upright at the unexpected response. He quickly recognized the mysterious cat girl from before, when his head started to spin all of a sudden and his stomach seemed to come up into his throat. He vomited.
"See, you should have waited till you were feeling better before you got up," She told him in a calm and collected manner, seemingly nonchalant about the strange situation. Silver watched her warily, once he had recovered of course, and memorized her form to his mind… purely to better understand her if she was a foe, of course, and not at all in appreciation of her appearance, as that would have been just plain foolish. Of course.
'Get a grip, she showed up, your in a different world now, find a solution!' Responsibility reminded him. 'Don't trust her, she's obviously working for Eggman Nega' Silver thought, courtesy of paranoia. 'Stop thinking for me' Silver roared at his own mind. A bit upset at his inability to control his thoughts.
"Tough isn't it, controlling your thoughts" Silver stared, flustered by the girl's control of the situation. "Go on ask the question we both know you want to ask" Silver thought briefly about asking some ridiculous and obscure question merely to spite her apparent 'all-knowingness' but excused it as an immature fantasy and asked the logical question.
"Where am I?" he asked as he looked about his apocalyptic surroundings.
"Where? Your just outside Crisis City of course" she answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Silver stared dumbfounded. She smiled, causing Silver no end of awkwardness as he felt little jolts in his stomach. "That doesn't help you though does it?" she said with her wane smile.
Silver shook his head, currently at a loss for words, and desperately hoping he wouldn't end up with a bunch of memories he didn't recall ever experiencing before this trip. "That's because we're currently in a sort of alternate time zone, where in certain events have yet to come about. Events which will irrevocably change you, me and the timeline of this dimension in a similar manner as to what happened in your own dimension," she volunteered all in one breath.
Silver blinked twice, and thought about her statement slowly. Ulterior time zone? Own dimension, irrevocably changing the timeline? 'Ah great, more time travel' He thought bitterly.
"Hence the appropriate question would not be a question of where, but rather a question of when?" she said with a sigh, looking around the burned city as if it was a nostalgic haven of sweet memories.
Silver paused. "Sooooo? When?" He asked with a wane smile of his own.
Mephiles: So thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it, please drop a review if you want and thank you to everyone who has already reviewed. Again their will be more chapters and I ask that you keep in questions concerning Blaze, Silver, Iblis, Solaris and the reason why he has no recollections of anyone from 06 as they will be answered in due time by the story. Thanks for everything.