Prower's Castle-Dining Hall

Knight Island, American coast

OCTOBER 23RD 1922 7:34PM

Mr. William Needlemouse, Dewitt Highcastle, Jules Needlemouse and "Master"

"I don't know, Charlie..." William sighed, watching with head in hand as Master, Jules and Dewitt padded down the hallway before him, "There's something wrong about him..."

"Relax, Will," Charles said, strutting alongside William, "I've met the guy before. He DOES seems to be the kind of guy us people would avoid, but...well, he knows his stuff." Charles Prower was the husband of Eliza Prower (hopefully you could've guessed that by now) and he too was of a light yellow colour in fur, though his fur was dirtier than Eliza's by a considerable margin. Unlike his wife, he was wearing period correct clothing, a white shirt with pinstriped trousers and jacket, a red tie lodged in his coller. He wore glasses with round, thick rims and had what looked like a cog around his ear. Most noteably, however, was his left arm. He had lost it when first working on the machines and creations he and his wife were now famed for, and now his arm was a mass of endlessly clicking brass cogs of various sizes and speeds. The fingers were a bright silver, the fingertips electroplated gold from unknown ways, almost like a fingerless glove.

"I suppose," William said, sighing, "But what exactly can I do? What is this stuff he knows?"

"I'll give a clue," Charles said, nudging his friend with his mechanical, leather covered elbow, "All will be explained at tonight's meeting party. The ultimate in futuristic tech!"

William looked blank, "The heck do you mean?"

Charles smiled smugly and rested his hand on the door the two had finally gotten to, "You're about to find out..."

Once more, the door creaked open on it's rusted hinges and saw the two in. William was quickly basked in the lovely glow of a thousand candles littering multiple parts of the room, highlighting picture and vase, casting the most eye-catching shadows on the many sculptures littering the area. Beside the back wall, there was a table stocked with the most delectable treats that could be seeable with the eye; roast and stuffed turkeys and chickens littering the middle and surrounded with a sea of sweet treats and multiple types of fruit in tasteful ways and odd colours. Master and Jules could be seen near the table, with Master playfully hanging a fuit over Jules' nose until the child simply jumped up and took a huge bite out of it, leaving himself hanging like a dog on a chew toy before dropping with a chunk of sweet apple in his mouth. Master simply chuckled and ruffled the grinning Jules' fringe, looking much happier than he seemed on the boat to the castle. Dewitt and Eliza were nearby, discussing something that was inadudiable over the course of the music.

On the other side of the room, there was a large stage, the length of the room and a little bit higher than Jules. On it stood a large, complicated machine made from various boxes and curves, sheet metal and bolts holding the thing together and having a rather large set of telsa coils, about four or five littering a small area, small amounts of bright blue electricity streaming between them at random intervals. On the stage also was a long metal stick with a black reciever stuck on the end (a microphone) and a small table with a grammophone that was playing 1920's music. Littered around the rest of the room was multiple other party-goers, dressed in the finest tuxedoes and cocktail dresses and dancing slowly and methodicly to the music.

"Nice party," William mused, "You really need to outdo yourself every party, huh?"

"Well..." Charles said with a smug grin on his muzzle, "I don't wanna brag. That would be rather inpolite. As the technology me and my wife conjure up become more advanced, so must the parties be able to increase in grandness. I know we'll falter one day, but not TO-day. Get my drift?"

"...Kinda."

"Oh, well I did say that you'll see what makes us tick and what keeps us going. And..." Charles checked the watch on his robotic wrist, "That's about now."

Charles fiddled with the watch and pointed it towards Eliza. Eliza's face peered over the crowd and then to her own watch, then back to her husband. She smiled in a strange way and slowly walked towards the stage. Once upon it, she signalled to Master, who was still at the back. He noticed and slowly carried the somewhat sluggish Jules over to William and put him in his arms, then hobbled towards the stage too.

"And what'll be this new sort of...thing?" William asked.

Charles grinned again, "Prepare to lose your excrement."

Charles climbed onto the stage just as Eliza switched off the grammophone and activated the micro one, "Right, testing!" she called out, her voice echoing around the chamber. The group below stopped dancing and stared at the microphone, "Right...ahem, hello...to the yearly Prower Knight Castle party. I hope you've been enjoying yourselves so far, but now I must turn your attention to the reveal of this year. And this time, I will pass the honour of such a thing over to our favourite; Master!"

"Thank you, Eliza," Master said timidly, stepping up to the microphone, "Now then, those among this group today have noticed I have appeared at the numerous parties, year after year after year, without may have asked yourself why when I don't do much and come from a country that is about to fall from grace...you see, there's a reason for that. I...am from the future."

A large gasp spread around the room from numerous surprised party-goers, mixed with cries of shock and confusion which would only come from the mind of a 1920's gentleman. William's mind was also in this state, shouting various times inside his head, repeating "I knew it! I KNEW it! I knew IT!"

"Indeed!" Master said, his voice now full of pride and glee, "I was the one that gave all the special ideas for the tech to these two wonderful foxes. THEY made the devices, I showed them the devices from the future. You can behold all the miracles (and some of the more crappier parts) of the 2010's. Let me put it this way, it's very different. Obviously. But even then, I wouldn't be able to actually be here and supply the machines without special tech to transport it. I could digitize it, but that would take weeks and there are moral problems...I'll explain later."

"And it was here that out friendship started," Charles suddenly spoke up, "We both needed to find a way to get them here, and fast. And that's when Master told me of this special substance all around us in the air..."

"Basically, it's unnamed for now," Master noted, "BUT...one thing I know is that it keeps a sort of...record of everything ever put there. Every year, every day, every hour, every SECOND, it remembers it all. Hell, it's even able to co-exist between universes! Tap into the right frequency of this power and you're able to open portals not only to another time, but also another WORLD."

"The other world thing, however..." Eliza shrugged, "Is somewhat unstable. We can't keep the portal up and running with 1920's power. It just isn't enough juice. But the records say SOMEONE was able to do so, so it IS possible, just not now."

"Instead, we'll just show you the other use for it," Charles said, approaching the machine mentioned before, "And with THIS little number, it should be rather easy. Right, Master Guy, start it up!"

"With pleasure!" came Master's reply, hands rubbing in excitment. There was a sudden burst of energy in the once before tired and somber dark brown hedgehog, suddenly climbing onto the top of the device with the utmost of speeds. He reached a control panel stuck just out of view on the top of the machine and mashed random buttons at seemingly erratic paces. The machine then started to hum and light up with the brightest of devillishy red glows, grey streaks of electricty bouncing around the telsa coils. Master put on a pair of heavy duty goggles and headphones, before giving a thumbs up to the Prowers, who did similar.

"Better cover your ears, people!" Charles yelled over the infernal racket created by the device, "This is gonna get LOUD!"

Jules started to cling to William tighter than before, a small whimper starting to leak from his throat. William also clung tighter to his son as the humming increased in pitch and volume. Charles scooted over to the lower console and too mashed buttons with wild abandon, spraying more and more electricity around the various coils and causing the room to heat to odd temperatures. As the wine boiled like bottled volcanic springs, the electricy around the coils suddenly crossed and made a sort of circle with the result. This cause a loud clap of thunder, then a bang of exploding energy before another ear-splitting noise. With that noise, however, came the spawning of a large energy-window, basking all before it in it's grey light, causing young Jules to dig his head further into his father's chest in fear.

"IT'S WORKING!" Master yelled over the inferno, his voice now quick and rather energetic, "WOOOO! Say hello to the future, ladies and gentlemen!"

William's eyes slowly adjusted to the extreme light levels just as the light itself began to die down, the machine's smoking form slowly ceasing it's whirrs and bangs, with only a low hum keeping the portal alive. The portal itself showed the exact hallway that he and Charles were walking down at the start of this chapter, but so much was changed you wouldn't think that at first. The strange mural of the double-tailed fox with the tablet remained, but the rest of the hallway was in a small amount of ruin, stuck in a limbo of both the 1920's and the long distant future of cobwebs and faded art.

William was the first to speak up, "It...it doesn't look any different!"

"Of course not!" Master said, "This place is somewhat...untouched in 2013. Because that's exactly what this is. July the 5th, 2013 to be exact. Around..." he quickly scooted over to the lower control panel Charles had bashed with mechanical strength, "About 5:15PM."

"Wait, look!" came the sudden voice of one of the women in the crowd, pointing a velvet sleeved arm at the portal, "People!"

Master's face suddenly brought on a look of befuddlement and looked upon the portal with focused, detailing eyes. The slight sound of him muttering under his own breath could be heard, very faintly and sounding like "This can't be right. This place is left desolate for 70 years..." he then stood up and simply said "Oh."

Indeed, in the portal were two figures. Both were male with somewhat similar features, being long spindly arms and legs, bushy quills of varying lengths and only gloves and shoes to their beings. One was orange and a wolf, sporting a cape and standing taller than the other, who was blue with a lavender neckband, their colours still seeable against the washed out grey bleakness of the hallway. Willam's mind once more went into a confusion panic at the sight of the blue hedgehog, who looked almost like him and little Jules, minus the coloured fringe at the front.

"Well, I wasn't expecting that!" Master said, facing the crowd again with uncertainty, "Uh...would William Needlemouse and Dewitt Highcastle please make their way to the front?"

William looked nervously at Jules, who had now stopped digging into his father's chest and was looking at the figures too, and then to Dewitt, who simply shrugged and began making his way to the front. Willaim did also, handing Jules to Master and then getting up onto the stage. Master continued to hold Jules as the group inspected the portal.

"Oh yes, this is 2013..." Master said, gleaming with shocked happiness, "Dewitt, William...these two are Lowell Highcastle and Sonic Needlemouse. Your grandsons."

William quickly lost the ability to utter even a surprised squeak, the sheer concept of what was happening leaving his voice lost in the midst of the mindscrew vortex this portal was giving off. Trembelling, he slowly tapped on the portal, making echoing sounds almost like tapping on a glass window. The two beings became alerted at this and rushed to the portal too. The wolf was showing a complete stoic face, looking upon the two with simple confusment, casting glances at Master and then at Dewitt.

"Master!" the wolf finally said, "What've you done NOW?"

"Oh, two way communication, that's new!" Master gleamed some more, "Lowell, Sonic. Meet your grandfathers in their 1920's prime! William Needlemouse and Dewitt Highcastle. And THIS little guy..." he hoised Jules up to the portal's window, "Jules Needlemouse. Your father in training pants."

Jules simply smiled and waved. The blue hedgehog inched towards the portal, getting a closer look at Jules and William. He then smiled and stepped back too. The wolf also stepped back, sitting down with crossed legs and the same look of confusion spreading across his face.

"That reminds me," the wolf said, "I think I found one of your lollipops, Jules.

William looked confused, "Jules took some lollipops with him?"

"Yes. Of course they're ruined from age, soured and suger scarred, but yours are on the south balcony if you still want them. They're still wrapped in the packet so you should be okay."

"Thanks, !" Jules said out happily. He gave Master another short hug and then lept away, sprinting down the hallway at full speed and bursting through the doors like paper. The wolf smirked.

"Well, the kid is fast. You're just like him, Sonic. Well, except that you haven't got shot through the eye."

William's eyesa widened in shock, "Wait, WHAT?"

"Oh, uh...probably shouldn't have said that...Master, the reception's starting to fade."

"Oh dear, we seem to be over-doing the power supply," Charles sighed, checking on the nearby moniters, "We better shut her down now."

"So you're my grandson, huh?" Dewitt asked the wolf, "Not a bad-looking guy."

"You ahould wait until you see him as a child," the blue hedgehog cooed, "He's so embrassingly adorable."

The wolf blushed a very deep red in response, "Dammit! I told you never to look through my family album!"

"Wait, one last thing!" Dewitt called out, "I'm not married yet! How do you come around?"

"I can't tell you!" the wolf reminded, "Paradoxes are very dangerous things! Trust me, Archie-Sonic agrees with me and he's a dumbarse! And, truth be told...I'm not sure."

There was a sudden flash as the portal suddenly became all fuzzy and almost cut off. The hedgehog and wolf sighed.

"Looks like we've gotta go!" the hedgehog said, "Well, it's been short. But it's also been FUN!"

"We'll see you in about three decades," the wolf said too, "Around the 1960's. 'Cause THAT'S gonna be fun...maybe."

At last, the portal gave one final sputter and vanished in a shining grey light, leaving only two more echoing remarks:

"Hey Lowell, if our parents are in their 40's and they're currently in their 20's in 1922...how does that make sense and why're WE in our teenage years?"

"*sigh* Master never did give a shit for cannonicity. As long as it involves guns somehow."

...And then finally cut off, bringing the once virant and noise-polluted room to an utter standstill. As William and Dewitt tried to recover from this event, the crowd was as silent and still as the most remote of graveyards. The faces stuck in the crowd couldn't make a single sound between them, nor move an inch or breath a...breath. They just couldn't come to terms with what they had just seen. Some of the women even fainted from the shock. Catious and somewhat nervous, Master slowly stepped up to the microphone. His face was twisted into a mixture of anticipation and fear and his words were once more stuttered and timid.

"...A-Any questions?"

From this question alone, the crowd below him began to swarm around the stage, barking multiple questions strewn from confusion and fear at what the machine could do. Master simply shrugged and slowly made his way to the crowd below to answer them.

"How did you even come across this sort of stuff?!" William asked on the way, "Why're you showing us this?"

"Because it's fun," Master said back, "And now you know who I am. Master, god of Universe 112233CHARLIE and time travel extraordinare! And if you think it's great now..." he quickly smirked, "Wait 'till I tell Ken Levine!"

PROWER CASTLE - Master Bedroom bathing quarters

Off the coast of Mobius Alpha

July 5th 2013, 9:33PM

Oliver Maruice "Sonic The Hedgehog" Needlemouse, Lowell Theo Highcastle II, Kathrine Lowhouse and Blaze "Frost" Cattington

Lowell sighed to himself as he washed his murky face with the fresh water. It had been one hell of a long day. From the very start of the adventure on the docks to the meeting of the ghost, from the awkward lunch to unpacking the suitcases for one long month of living in a haunted castle-all while avoiding that damn ghost, whoever she was.

It was at this time that Lowell could turn to the full-length mirror on the other side of the bedroom and take a good look at himself. As said before he was a wolf, about 1 foot taller than Sonic, with rather dirty and unkept orange fur, his hair styled in hedgehog-esque spikes with black werehog-tips, rather like the emo fringe spread across his bad eye. His eyes were a dark, crimson red to go with the vampire thing and connected to a furry muzzle, it's fur darker in colour than typical Sonic character skin and a large fang poking out of his mouth. His belly spot was also furry and had a large red scab on the right side where his heart used to be, slightly below a large black coller witha red gem stuck in the centre. His cape, a dark one with yellow insides, connected to that and reached his shoes, one blue with green circles and one green with blue circles while both with black socks and soles. He wore grey fabric fingerless gloves and had knee and elbow pads along with a belt stuffed with various flash grenades. A large wolf tail lightly brushed the back of his legs and then wove a little in the air, covered in the same black markings as his "hair".

The musing over his apperance over, he shuffled away from the bathing chamber and stumbled towards the bed, tired and thus disorientated. He then sighed sadly clambered into his lonely bed. Sonic had made sure that their girlfriends got seperate rooms for...some reason, he never specified. This left Lowell in his own room; alone, sober and somewhat paranoid of the ghost that could sneak up on him while asleep.

Lowell darted his eyes across the room to the end of his bed. A fully loaded Mossberg 500, adorned with an olive paintjob, a magazine instead of a tube and a scope, was lying by the end. So just in case the ghost wanted to get into his dreams, which typically consisted of Kathrine and a bathtub of chocolate pudding (the things the youth of today think of...), he could just grab the shotgun with two quick shots. Or at least that would be the idea.

Unfortuently, Sonic had placed his bedroom at the end of one long corridor and the bathing room only contained a bath and a sink, but no (functioning) toilet. The only working one was at the OTHER end of the corridor. Where he was most vunerable.

And he had to go.

Lowell sighed at Sonic's obviously cruel joke and kicked the sheets away, shuffeling towards the door with the M500 in hand. With trembelling fingers, he slowly grasped the doorknob and twisted it with the pace of a snail, opening it with an unearthly creak. From there, he stepped out from the warm light of his room into the dark, ghost-filled gloom, sealing his fate by the door to his own room slamming shut behind him. He dug out the torch he kept in one of the many pockets inside his cape and fumbled with the on switch. The beam of light shot down the corridor, casting many beams of it towards the odd paintings that dotted the walls, all revolving around the two-tailed foxes with their cog-filled tech looking high and mighty over the one-tailed folk below them. Lowell sneered at such a disgraceful approach to boasting and continued his journey to the toilet, which was long, cold and harrowing. Every single time he expected the ghost to appear from the ether to take his life, he'd suddenly remember that- being undead- he didn't have one and the ghost was nowhere to be seen.

Surprisingly, he managed to reach the bathroom intact (or as intact as you can get after an event that tears out your heart and gives you aichmophobia). Once inside, he locked the door, put another set of drawers behind the door for good measure, put the shotgun to the side of the sink and did his needed buisness. He then washed his hands and stepped outside once more, shotgun in hand and feeling a tad more confident.

"Well..." Lowell mused to himself slowly, "At least there's been no ghost."

"I know!" came that eerie voice again, "You were so close!"

The giggle spread throughut the room, causing Lowell to pump the shotgun in a reflex action and jab it's barrel in the vauge direction of the voice. He could feel his skin go colder than it normally did and, even worse, he could hear him self breathing. Hellbloods never needed to breath, but when they did...

Well, they were incredibly scared. And so was Lowell.

There was another gust of wind and the pink mists once more began to pile up and circle around Lowell's posistion. This time, however, the mists were slowly starting to form a body of some kind. A small, female body that looked vaugly familiar. Of a pink hedgehog. A sharp pang started to form in the back of the wolf's mind. Lowell couldn't help it. He had been trained to hate the form he was seeing with a passion. Well, and the fact his scared mind could become suddenly become irrational. He could feel his finger tighten on the trigger and there wasn't much he could do about it. It was then, and only then, he could feel cold, slimy fingers reach out and touch his shoulder with a giggle. He could feel his body twisting almost uncontrollably and aiming at the ghostly figure, squeezing the trigger and firing a shot in the ghost's general direction. The buckshot passed through the figure and such figure seemed to react, cowering in shock and fear, making a general shot in the dark. The ghost set herself up again, looking awkwardly disturbed from the shot, almost as if it set off something in her mind.

The figure's hands began to tremble from what seemed to be anger, her face scrunching into one that showed only the purest of rages. Her once formed body began to fade in a single pinkish colour, yet still in the shape of the hedgehog he rememberd to well. Then the figure rose up and let out a shriek at the top of her specteral lungs.

"ANCESTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOR!" she wailed, causing lightning to strike Lowell's posistion, "I KNEW IT! I KNEW ALL OF IT! IT WAS YOU! YOU AND YOUR MASTER! YOU KILLED ME! YOU SUBJECTED ME TO AN ETERNITY OF SUFFERING AND HEARTBREAK! NOW PREPARE TO SUFFER AS I HAVE SUFFERED!"

More lightning stiked the ground and Lowell could feel every synapse in his brain scream at him to run as fast as he could possibly run, which was quite slow oweing to the nerf so he wasn't seen as another Gary Stu OC. See, that's what peer pressure does to you. Anyway, Lowell let out a bloodcurdeling scream and sprinted back down the hallway towards his room, his movements paniked and shuffled, his footsteps almost softened into melody from the shrieking of the ghost. The gun was held high and fired repeatedly at the raging thing, but every shot fired was a shot missed by the ghost. It wasn't long before Lowell hit a wall and slowly slid down to the floor. The ghost continued her assualt, slowly and yet ever so surely. He raised the shotgun one last time...and heard a click. It was only then that he remembered the shot he had wasted and the gun was soon slapped out of his hands. The ghost shrieked again and was then suddenly...stopped via a hand on her shoulder. Kathrine's hand, more specifically. The ghost suddenly calmed and sank through the floor, muttering "What did I do wrong? ...Did I over-react again?"

"Wow, what's with all the noise?" asked a very tired Sonic, watching Kathrine breath a sigh of releif, "The fastest thing alive needs his handsome sleep!"

"Yes, but the CAMPEST thing alive doesn't," Kathrine snapped back, "Something terrible caused the ghost to attack Lowell. I heard a few gunshots and screams and next thing I know she was about to turn HIM into a ghost too. Poor guy...scared of ghosts and yet you bring him to a haunted castle? New low, Sonic. NEW LOW!"

"Hey, it's not as if it was MY fault it's haunted..." Sonic began to argue, but soon trailed off. Lowell had caught his attention, now a sobbing lump vaugly in the fetal posistion, strained breathing hearable between those sobs, "Wow...never seen him like this before. Better get my camara, I'll probably never see this again!"

Kathrine grabbed Sonic by the scuff of Sonic's neck as he began to make his exit, being pulled back to Kathrine's own side. From there, she pulled him close by his chest skin, "Now then, I want you to get all his stuff and move it into my room. Tomorrow, we shall sort this out FOR GOOD! NOW GET MOVING!"

Sonic did as he was told and was quickly gone. Kathrine crept closer to Lowell and managed to pry away his arms long enough to hug him, stroaking his "quills" slowly.

"All he did was accidently shoot her..." Kathrine thought to herself, "In this universe, that's a typical hello. What happened to that ghost? And why did she look so much like...Amy Rose?"