EPILOGUE:
The Lights In The Sky Are Stars
"The Pan-Galactic Spiral Peace Conference..." Rotor said, looking out over Mobotropolis, the New Capital that was built a short distance from Sonic City. "I hope it goes well..."
"We may all be Spiral races," said Silver, feeling the gray stubble on his chin, "But we are all from different parts of the universe, and we all have different ways of thinking. In the end, it's taken twenty years to put together."
"And it would have been impossible for anyone else," smiled Cobar, "President Silver."
Silver looked at the aging couple beside him. Rotor's whiskers were drooping, and Cobar's fur was losing its color. They were not young anymore, and neither was he. Silver had arthritis in his right wrist, and he was developing premature wrinkles from all this governmental heavy-lifting.
But it would all be worth it one day, when he and his Blaze - and their Aurora - could take to the stars and meet with other Spiral lifeforms.
"I wonder... where he is right now..." Silver wondered aloud.
Silver had not seen Tails since that day when Cosmo faded away, and neither had any of his fellow Freedom Fighters.
"Don't worry," Rotor said, placing his hand over Cobar's. "He's out there, I'm sure, watching over us. That's the kind of man he is."
熱砂の荒野を抜けて大グレン団が行くのだ
The drill on the end of the old wooden staff seemed to spin on its own, making no impression in the bedrock whatsoever.
To the other diggers, it seemed to flash gold for the briefest of moments, then...
The bedrock broke.
And water gushed out.
"Water!"
"It's water!"
"This guy's amazing! He broke through the bedrock on his own!"
High-fives went all around.
But the one who had broke through the bedrock - a man of indeterminate age, a fox with two tails, wearing a simple golden ring set with a seed-shaped diamond on a string around his neck - merely wiped his brow and began to follow the scaffolding back to the surface.
The cheering had already reached up here.
The chief of this above-ground village, an old heron, bowed in gratitude.
"Thank you, kind sir," he said in a gravelly voice. "Now, our village will not have to go thirsty. If only there was some way we could repay you—"
"Flowers."
The old heron tilted his head. "Huh?"
"Plant seeds and grow flowers," said the two-tailed digger, his Light Chao returning to his side. "That's all I ask."
"Y-yes, sir. Of course, sir," the heron chief said shakily, the nearby radio announcing the latest exploit of the Super Galaxy Chaotix Detective Agency.
サリーとニコール
The hologram showed a red-furred echidna in his mid-twenties, dressed in a white-and-blue skintight suit called a 'plugsuit'.
"This is Mace," he said, saluting. "Me and Demi-Na have been chosen for the Fremerald Squadron to represent Möbius at the PGSPC. We won't allow the Spiral Nemesis to occur." He smiled. "I'll see you later, Miss Alicia. Miss Nicole."
Sally smiled at her wife of eighteen years, Nicole, and they shared a warm smile, looking out the window as the hologram faded away. Their relationship had begun awkwardly, with Nicole's first true outburst of emotion as a Spiral lifeform, and had developed over the years into this.
The students departed for the day, waving to Sally & Nicole.
"Good-bye, Miss Nicole!"
"See ya, Principal Alicia!"
"Bye!"
"See you tomorrow!"
Sally & Nicole waved them off happily.
チャーミーとクリーム
"Rutan, get off of Demi-Na's case!" Cream said sharply. "Her personal matters with Mace are personal, and should be on a strictly need-to-know basis!"
"I was just playin'," shrugged Rutan.
Charmy sighed, fingering the Core Drill around his neck.
It was not one of the Core Drills that helped form Tengen Toppa Fremerald.
Cream had really taken to giving orders to these Fremerald recruits for the PGSPC. Then again, they had to make a good impression. They started out, last week, by declaring the Emerls found in the Anti-Spiral's Death Spiral Field to be neutral items, that no one Spiral race could use, and would be locked away in a museum somewhere, their Core Drills locked away at a separate location. This would go far to alleviate whatever tensions that would exist.
Of course, Freedom Emerl was exempt. It was the emblem of freedom across the universe now, and respect for it far outpaced fear of it.
Breaking from his reverie, Charmy faced Cream.
"So, is that everyone?" he asked.
"We're waiting on Allie," she said, and at just that moment, a squirrel girl with red hair and a large, bushy tail burst in, wearing a pink plugsuit.
"Sorry I'm late!" cried Alexis Acorn.
"Better late than never," Charmy smiled.
Cream seemed to think now was not a good time to press the issue of punctuality.
She smiled up at Freedom.
Charmy smiled up at Emerl.
"It's finally time, right, Charmy?" she sighed.
"Yeah."
They both looked beyond, to the stars, where the Super Galaxy Great Freedom waited in orbit for them...
シャドウ
"Captain," said Helen, her new mechanical leg-braces squeaking a little as she turned to face the black-and-red hedgehog-shaped creature in his highly decorated blue suit, "The Fremerald Squadron are about to launch from the surface with Freedom Emerl in the lead."
Shadow smiled.
"Alright."
He had not aged at all in those twenty years. To be honest with himself, it was depressing to think that everyone present was going to die one day, while he himself would live forever, never aging, never making any lasting friends.
But - Shadow thought - that just made it all the more reason to enjoy the time he had with them.
And he understood completely why Tails let Cosmo go.
Shadow returned to the present, addressing the main engineer, a young wolf-man named Marcos.
"Spin up the Super Spiral Engines!" he ordered. "As soon as the Fremerald Squadron are aboard, Super-Teleport into deep space!"
Marcos gave him the Freedom Fighters salute - a thumbs-up with the right hand - and the monitor winked out.
Shadow addressed the main bridge now, giving them the Freedom Fighter salute. He grinned as well, for effect.
"We're representing Möbius out there. Put some spirit into it, people!"
They saluted him as well.
マリーナ
Merlina, in a simple red dress with white trim that went down to her knees, walked along the pathway through the old volcanic soil, using her staff for support as usual. She carried a bundle of flowers in her other arm.
In time, she came to her destination.
The white plinth, etched with a hurdle of heroes charging forward, led by a ferocious echidna with a drill for a right arm.
In the distance, there stood a katana with the shredded remains of a red cape decorated with a flaming skull with pointed shades. The volcanic soil in which Sonic was buried was very fertile; a cluster of bluebells had sprouted around the katana.
Nearest to Merlina, though, was a simple white tombstone, which bore the mark of a white seed and read:
THE FLOWERS ARE FOR COSMO
Roses grew around it.
Merlina set the bundle of flowers at Cosmo's grave, wiping a tear away and brushing a strand of graying magenta hair behind a pointed ear.
'What a magnificent world you have created, Cosmo,' she said, smiling at Cosmo's final resting place, 'You and Miles have created a heaven where the Spiral may forever bloom, and never wither.'
テイルスとマイルス
The fox who was once called Miles "Tails" Prower wandered the streets, looking for a place to settle down for the night. He reached the beach at the edge of town, palm trees dotting the edges of the streets. He had dug out a well for a village some miles out from here, and...
There.
Was that...?
It was a small boy, with reddish hair and... were his ears pointed?
Tails smiled. Merlina had found a man who would love her for her, and not hate her for having been a mind in the Anti-Spiral. Or perhaps a less dogmatic selection of Avalonians had fled to and persevered on Möbius for the past two thousand years...
The kid was trying to drill a hole in a coconut held between his feet, but the drill kept sliding off. The boy was beginning to make crying noises.
"What's wrong, kid?" asked Tails, approaching.
The kid started, looking up at the mysterious hooded fox man. The boy had no nose; evidently males of Avalonian descent were very close in appearance to Cosmo's race. Perhaps Avalonians and Seedrians were cousin Spiral races...
'I can't drill a hole in this thing,' he said in his faintly accented voice.
Tails sighed, dropping to his knees, the chains tied around his pants clinking together.
"You're putting too much force behind it," he explained. "Try turning the drill more gently."
The kid returned to his drilling, but more slowly and gently.
'Like this?' he said.
Moments later, the drill punched a hole in the coconut.
'It worked!' the kid smiled; he was missing a tooth. 'You're awesome, mister!'
Tails smiled. "Of course it worked. Who the hell do you—"
But the kid was draining the coconut of its milk already. When he was done, he smacked his lips, not even looking at Tails anymore.
'Yummy!' squeaked the kid.
Tails smiled wearily to himself.
"Nah, guess I'm nobody anymore."
Green lights lit off from across the water.
From Mobotropolis.
Green comets were streaking in tight formation, in a tightening spiral as they set for the Super Galaxy Great Freedom, waiting in orbit.
So, Silver's done it, Tails thought. I knew he could.
'Whoa! Look!' the kid's eyes were sparkling as he waved up at the far distant heroes. 'It's Freedom Emerl! Look at all the Freedom Emerls! Are they going to battle? Will they win?'
Tails stood up again, resting on his shoulder the drill-staff he had fashioned from a wooden stick he'd found the week after Cosmo faded into his heart, and from the old hand drill he'd found at the Mystic Plateau in the wreckage of a Gizoid that was once called Zheuque.
"No," he said simply. "They aren't going to battle, but they will win over friends."
'Friends?' said the boy eagerly, as the green comets disappeared into the golden flagship. 'Can I go meet them, too?'
Tails smiled.
"Of course you can," said Tails. "The lights in the heavens are not enemies. The lights in the sky are stars."
Kukku emerged from the folds of Tails's brown cloak, his ball a floating yellow orb of light now that he had evolved into a Light Chao.
"Chao!" Kukku said.
"Yeah, they're stars," Tails went on. "Stars where our Spiral cousins are waiting for us."
Super Galaxy Great Freedom vanished in a flash of green light that momentarily turned the night sky green.
He looked down at the magenta-haired boy.
"What's your name, kid?"
The boy pouted.
'No!'
"Your name is 'No'?" Tails joked. "Whatever your name is, it's one to be proud of, I'm sure."
'My name is Miles!' said the boy in a disgusted tone.
Smiling appreciatively at Merlina's train of thought, Tails stared Miles in the eye.
Miles was stunned. This fox man had different-coloured eyes. His right eye was as blue as the sky, with a large, black pupil, but his left eye was gold, with a glowing, spiral-shaped pupil.
"Miles is a name to be proud of, kid," Tails said to Miles. "You'll want to treasure the name your parents gave to you. That, and it's my name, too."
'Really?'
"Yeah," Tails said. "By the way, would it be an inconvenience to ask for a place to stay tonight?"
'Daddy will be okay with it,' Miles said, 'Because Mummy's off doing her year thingy where she goes somewhere and comes back a day or two later.'
"Sounds good," Tails smiled. "But before we head off, perhaps you'd like to hear a story?"
'I have to be home in twenty minutes!'
"Then I can tell you part of the story, and next week, we can meet up again and continue?"
'Okay, mister!'
Tails sat down beside Miles, who folded his hands eagerly.
'What kind of story is it?' he asked excitedly.
Tails set down his drill-staff, ruffling Kukku on the side of the head...
And began:
"This is the tale of a man who has yet to realize what his destiny is..."
完
The End