2.
The lonely child genius named Miles was in his secret laboratory, working and tinkering at his ridiculously huge inventions… Or so he would have, if his obnoxious and noisy sister wouldn't have been there… Destroying everything she would touch.
"HI, MILES!!!" She screamed with her high pitched girly voice.
"CREAM! GET OUT OF MY LAB!!!" Yelled back the geeky fox but to no avail.
Suddenly… A humongous anthropomorphic battle mech came out from nowhere… A maniacal laugh could be heard from it's cockpit.
"HA-HAHA, HAHAHA!" A very stupid laugh, indeed.
"Oh no! It's my arch nemesis, EGGMANDARK!" Cried the irate vulpine.
"Prepare to suffer humiliating defeat, Miles! I'M THE REAL GENIUS AROUND HERE!!!"
Miles was about to react, when…
"Miles! The dinner's ready!" Said the new feminine voice.
"Mum? I thought you was dead!" Said the confused kit.
"Oh, but I am…THANKS TO YOU!"
And there she was… His mother… His robotizied mother… And he was terrified.
Her mechanical self was staring at the frightened cub with her red glowing eyes.
"Well? Don't you want to hug your mommy?" She said while extending her lethal claws toward the fox's direction.
"N-no… NO! STAY AWAY FROM ME!!" Cried the distressed Kitsune while stepping back in fear… Only to come across another familiar figure.
"Ehi son, wanna play baseball with your old man?" Said the robotic voice of his father… Who was holding an iron mace… With bad intentions.
"I-I don't wanna…" Miles tried to mutter when yet another silhouette came in his view.
Oh no… Anybody but him!
"Ehi there, little buddy! Wanna do a race with this mondo cool hedgehog?" Sonic… Metal Sonic confidently asked.
And now, the scared kid was surrounded. He curled into a ball and started crying…
"Please… Please… Leave me alone… Leave me alone… It wasn't my fault… PLEASE!" He desperately pleaded not noticing an improvise change in the scenario…
He rose his head and gave a good look around… He was back in the forest… And he was not alone.
A dramatically familiar shadow was upon him.
"COSMO!!" He cried in hope.
"VOID!!" It solemnly responded.
Miles gulped.
The now recognizable outline of his latest foe took a red Chaos Emerald out of nowhere and yelled.
"I WILL FREE MY MASTER, IXIS NAUGUS, FROM HIS PRISON AND CLEAN THIS WORLD FROM IT'S IMPURITIES!!"
The fox was utterly confused by that remark. Void continued.
"I'LL DO IT FOR MY MOTHER'S MEMORY! FOR COSMO!!"
And than, without any logical explanation, Miles was back in his secret hidden laboratory, in his regular dream…
Strange things happen… IN MILES'S LAB!!!
"Do you think he's okay?" Asked the understandably worried chipmunk lady to the red "shaman".
"Yeah… He'll survive. Although with those injuries, he will probably be asleep for a day or two…" Responded Knuckles right after using his amazing healing abilities on the young sleeping kit in the bed.
Sally Acorn sighed in relief.
When her adopted son showed himself with those ugly injuries, she was overtook by panic and her instinctual reaction was to activate the emergency call system on her wrist com.
No longer after receiving the alarmed message from their former commander in chief, all the Mystic Ruins F.F. rushed for her hut in a great deal of concern.
For the time being, Knuckles had to explain to the squirrel the latest developments… She didn't seem happy with the news.
"YOU'VE LET A ROBOT TO COME IN YOUR BASE!!!?" As a matter of fact, she was furious.
The red echidna had seen this coming a lot of time ago and calmly explained his motivations behind his decisions and course of actions…
"Tails wanted to…"
For some reason, that didn't quite convinced his interlocutor… Which was fuming like a ship, by now. Definetelly not a friendly sight.
Outside Tails's room, the other three F.F. were sitting on old chairs… just thanking the merciful Chaos for not being the sacrificial goat for Sally's wrath.
"There's something I don't understand…" Said the pink hedgehog, Amy Rose, in the feeble attempt to distract herself from the devious screaming sounds.
"What is it?" Replied Blaze, the object of Amy's conversation… Of course it couldn't be Espio, could he?
"Why didn't Knuckles immediately heal your wounded wrists in the first place?" Asked the hedgehog while observing the cat's bandages.
Blaze looked down at her wrists as well, a sore expression in her face…
"Because… He wanted me to feel the pain."
"WHAT!?" Yelled a bemused Amy.
"Yeah… He said that feeling the pain is what keeps us all alive… He wanted me to truly tasted it… So I would appreciate more the gift of Life… And wouldn't do that insane gesture, again."
Amy gave another look at her wounds… Compassion in her eyes.
"Do they hurt a lot?"
Blaze stared back at her.
"Like Hell…" She answered.
And without any advice, the pink girl hugged her cat friend tightly. Blaze felt a little awkward at first but than she hugged her back.
"I.. I really wouldn't know what to do… Without all of you." Muttered the young feline.
Amy sweetly giggled, sincerely moved by the cat's confession.
Espio was asleep, dreaming about 7 chameleon samurais defending a random village from bandits… Whatever.
In that precise moment, Knuckles exited the room he was in, visibly traumatized…
"I had no idea… She knew ALL those words." Yep… Amazingly enough, He's been…
OUT-CURSED!!!
He set on a spare chair and calmed his shaking self. He than looked the others dead in the eyes before talking.
"We need to find Sonic." He said while cracking his namesakes.
Undeniable agreement was showed in the others' body language.
"Do you really think he's the responsible for what happened to Tails?" Asked Amy.
"I don't know… But he's the only track we have…" Quietly replied her leader.
"But he can break the sound barrier on his bare feet! He could have gone anywhere… He could have gone back to Robotropolis as we speak!" Blaze logically stated.
"If that was true, than the other F.F. bases' defense systems would have already detected his passage… A blue blur does not passed unobserved… And they would have advised us by now… No, my theory is that he's still somewhere around the county…"
"What makes you think that?"
"Because, right now, he's afraid… He's like a lost child… In a world that doesn't belong to him… At least, not anymore. I can understand that, since I used to have the same problem… When I became the last of my kind."
Knuckles's unusually profound reasoning left everybody wide eyed and speechless… In Espio's case, only wide eyed.
The red one's face frowned quite miserably, realizing his mistake… He let his emotional barriers to fall, even if for only a moment, and now, they all knew his deepest sorrow.
The tragedy of being the last of a whole species… Alone in a foreign and cold world.
Or at least… He thought he was. He still had hopes…
He hoped he could find his lost family, his parents and sisters, and embrace them once again… Somehow, he felt they were alive somewhere… Or perhaps, he was just deluding himself.
"Knuckles?" The voice of a preoccupied cat girl interrupted his train of thoughts.
"Eh? Oh yes… Listen, I'm gonna look around the county for that hedgehog… Who wants to follow me?" He asked.
Blaze's determined gaze was the un-mistaking answer he was looking for.
"Very well, Blaze… But first…"
Suddenly, he grabbed the cat's arms and healed 'em.
"Here… You won't need those bandages any longer." Muttered the crimson healer.
Blaze simply smiled and nodded in silent gratitude before disposing of the aforementioned bandages.
"Say… Knuckles?" An amused Amy asked.
"What is it?"
"How come you haven't muttered a single curse in almost 10 minutes? Did Sally beat you THAT badly?" She slyly remarked.
"SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!" He finally yelled.
"That's the Knuckles we know and love!" Said a laughing Blaze to a blushing redder echidna.
Clean, calm water. Golden, warm sand. The relaxing sound of the waves. The soft wind through his quills.
Emerald Beach was definetelly The Sight.
He was accustomed to loneliness… He embraced it… All in the name of his quest.
To destroy the cursed beast and save this world from it's fury… But even for the cold hearted being he chose to become, this breath taking view couldn't be ignored.
His arms were crossed and his eyes were closed, he was just tasting it… The peace of it all… The same peace his soul couldn't obtain… At least, not until that moment.
He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the fresh sea air and enjoying it, as much as he could.
"Hi! I didn't think I'd find someone else here this early in the morning."
Immediately, the silver hedgehog uncrossed his arms and turned his head to stare at the new comer… Ready to fight if necessary.
He was quite surprised when he saw who is guest was… Or what he was, for that matter.
It was a creature different from any beings he'd ever known. It had a rotund and nose-less face, light grey skin, green bushy hair and empty black eyes. He wore a black suit with a cloak on it's shoulders… And he was smiling a friendly smile at the hedgehog.
It spoke with a rather juvenile voice.
"My name is Void… May I ask you your name?" He greeted politely.
"… Silver. I'm Silver the Hedgehog." Responded he's interlocutor, escaping from his trance.
"Nice to meet you." Void said while approaching him.
Now that they were near each other, Silver could notice other interesting details about this individual… First of all, the hedgehog was slightly taller than him, a foot and a half at least (not counting the vertical head quills) and secondly… Void appearances, somehow, resembled the one of a plant…
Strange.
"Isn't it beautiful? The sight, I mean…" Void was staring at the sea. "… I always love to come here when I need to clear my thoughts." Than he turned to his guest. "You're not from this zone, right?"
Silver shyly nodded while staring at sea as well.
"So… What brought you here? Vacation… Or, perhaps, some unfinished business?"
The hedgehog turned to the plant like creature, almost in surprise.
Just… Who is this person?
The cloaked being smirked at him. What Silver didn't know was that Void had a very peculiar ability… An ability he inherited from her mother… He could read the others' soul through their own eyes.
He didn't have many difficulties in doing so with the silver rodent… Anyone could have noticed that he was troubled.
"It's good to have a purpose in life… I, myself, have one… Just be careful in what you wish for… Or it could consume you." He smiled one last time, before disappearing into nothingness within a green miasma.
The hedgehog literally freaked out.
"That was… Chaos Control! Who was that guy!?" He asked himself. "And how did he know about my mission!?"
An exaggerated number of questions crossed the silver one… Until he decided to dismiss them as "not fundamental".
The only thing he cared about… Was his mission.
And nothing would have distract him from it's accomplishment. He took one last breath…
And rose in midair.
Vengeance was near.