Dib07: Yeah, i hope you people are reading this out there. Yeah. Huh.

Chapter 7: The guileless

Sonic's spikes cut into metal like his spines were a lethal blade. He made his way over to Knuckles in the throng of madness. The echidna was in a bad state but he was still swinging energetically as if he had no wounds on him at all. Sonic pulled up beside him and fought right at his side.

"Why didn't you ask for help?" Sonic asked him.

"Do I look like I need it?" He asked, voice crisp with sarcasm.

"Yes."

Knuckles always had a ring of dead robots round him. He made a perfectly clear circle with no enemies or bodies inside the circle. Then, when he saw fit, he moved on to another location and did the exact same pattern. Sonic kept it to himself, but Knuckles wasn't only a fighter in the field of war, but he was also an artist!

With enough energy to lit up a city, Knuckles moved out of the earlier circle he had made that was lined with dead robots, and started his sixty-fifth one. Sonic propelled himself almost heedlessly into a fresh charge of robot troops. When he was done, his glamorous spines sported blood and they were also black with oil. The metallic stench of blood in the air always frightened Sonic. And the blood on his spines was his. He couldn't keep throwing himself at the enemy and dunking them with attacks. His body, though designed in many ways to do battle and be the fast creature on earth, was not a war machine. His spikes were getting worn out. The same went for Knux's fists. The red guardian's gloves were tearing apart at the seams, revealing bloodied claws as he hammered each robot into oblivion.

Knuckles saw Sonic pause and cocked his head at him. "What's the matter? The fighting getting a bit too much for you?"

Sonic shook his head and in spite of all things, laughed. "No." He looked to the horizon and his chuckles died quickly. "It's going to get dark soon, Knux. We'll have to withdraw when that happens, and let the nightfighters continue."

"And if they're not strong enough?" A robot got close enough to punch him, but Knuckles beat the machine to it.

"Then they'll reach our camp… and we'll have to fight, or be murdered in our sleep." Sonic replied morbidly.

Knuckles spat at the floor, which made the blue hedgehog grimace. "Pah. Murder. They've been doing that to our people for decades. I won't let them kill countless more in the night like the cowards they are."

Sonic nodded and raced back into the swarm again. The fight was instant. He met head-on with a robot, and he hurled its left arm into the air with a backward flip of his feet.

Machine gun gone from its appendage, it turned on the animal with savage vengeance burning in its cold pinprick eyes. Sonic met it with an equally chagrined glare and he curled into a ball and let his spikes do the work. He cut into its sheathing like scissors would cut through velvet. The robot soon lay disabled at his feet. You couldn't really kill a robot, because it was never alive to begin with. Robotnik had stopped robotizing creatures way back when he found that they had too many weaknesses. They were a valuable source of energy for a badnik, but they could also be freed again, and at rare times, attain free will. So, instead, Eggman found alternative sources, such as the chaos emeralds like Clave, or the power from his numerous generators. So, whenever a robot fell defeated, nothing erupted from its silver innards but oil and wires. It just felt empty killing this way when all he was doing was knocking down animate objects. It wasn't living. They were just machines in vast amounts. Robotnik had always fought cowardly, and today was no exception.

Sonic breathed heavily in his stationary position. The snow was coming in again. It blew on an eddying wind. It was falling heavily enough to form small white clusters over the bodies of the defeated, and it fell thick enough to gather on Sonic's fur. Sonic knew he didn't have time to stand and watch it fall, though he would have appreciated the chance to take the backseat and merely gaze.

A young, frightened voice reached his ears in the crowd of battle and snowfall. He knew that voice.

He turned and regarded Silver levitating towards him. He looked scared out of his mind, but his eyes still shone with determination. "Shadow's too far in the center of the battle," the hedgehog cried, "you've got to help me!"

"Help you with what?"

Silver landed on the floor and he raced up to him. He was so close; he could smell the blood, oil and sweat on Sonic's grimy fur. "He'll die! Don't you remember? You need to help me get him to safety!"

"Let's not be hasty." Knuckles put in, as if he disliked calling attention to himself. He guarded them from attack as they spoke. "Think about it. Shadow is perfectly capable of taking care of himself. He's immortal and don't forget he survived from falling into the planet's atmosphere from ARK."

Silver's eyes narrowed, as if this very fact was an aberration to life itself. With a redolent look of disbelieve and impatience, he said quickly, "if you guys aren't going to help, I'll do it myself. I always wind up doing everything myself anyway! You're all useless! Some heroes you are!"

Knuckles punched him in the stomach.

Silver's eyes widened and for a few moments, he couldn't breathe. He was completely winded.

Holding his stomach, he backed off, his eyes shimmering with tears of agony.

"Silver," Knuckles said, teeth revealed, "don't you dare judge us. We're doing everything we can to make things right. Now go back to the future or wherever you came from. We don't need you!" Then he whispered to Sonic, "why is that mad child here anyway?"

That gave Sonic an idea. "I need your chaos emerald!" His face lit up with excitement, "Silver, hand it over, quickly!"

The white hedgehog struggled to focus his eyes on him. He tried to get the air into his lungs. "What?" He coughed, "without it, I can't get back home!"

"I'll give it back to you! Now Silver!"

The hedgehog grunted. His face darkened, not with anger, but with pain. He grabbed the emerald from his spines and threw it at Sonic. His aim wasn't accurate and it hit Sonic square in the head. Knuckles groaned feebly.

Not caring if he had hurt the blue hedgehog or not, Silver began to limp away. "It ends now!" He called out morosely, "I'll sort this mess out! Just watch me!"

"Silver!" Sonic's voice tilted towards one of rage, "come back here!"

"Don't!" That one word echoed a sense of déjà vu in Sonic's mind. "No! I'm know what I'm doing!" A red flush of fury tinted his cheeks. "Stay back and let me do this!"

"Do what?"

"Save the world. Heck, I may as well go back into the past and change all this, so that there isn't a war." He looked so dejected and angry.

Sonic cursed softly, "you can't do that. Will war will happen no matter how you try to change things. You can't go round trying to fix things Silver. And don't forget that you are just a child."

"A child am I?" He choked.

"Yes. How old are you anyway?"

Silver looked like he was positively glowing with fury. "Worry about your own self. I don't need anyone."

Sonic's brow furrowed at Silver's unfavorable retort. He would not be admonished by a pup. Silver was nothing more but an insolent child in the eyes of Sonic. And if that fool of a hedgehog thought he could whittle about thinking that there were no rules in the games of war, he was going to get hurt.

The wind plucking at Silver's crown of fur on his head as he surged forwards, he made a run towards Shadow. The virile fight was all around him. The clash of opposing sides, the shriek of screams, the echo of robotic limbs clattering to the floor as machines fell. The tumult of it all pounded in the young hedgehog's ears. But his attention was focused on the Ultimate Life form, and the war around him was almost completely shut out. Which wad a bad mistake. Ignoring a battle when it was right in front of you was never a good thing, whether you were on the winning side or not.

A bullet, or whatever it is, can not be felt at first. Sometimes it all depends on where you have been struck. It is often felt more in the groin or stomach region. First you notice the blood trickling down the exit wound, that's if the bullet has gone straight through at all. Only then does the pain begin. Silver must have been running for a good couple of yards before he felt that pain. Then, life as he knew it flashed into a world where nothing but panic and fear collided with each other and even his earlier task to get to Shadow was forgotten.

He felt like he had been bitten in the chest. The agony was atrocious. But the pain he was feeling didn't explain itself. Why was he hurting?

He crashed to his knees, but he didn't notice. Sonic was yelling his name fiercely over and over, but he didn't notice. Silver put a hand to his chest and pulled it away to reveal a splash of dark red over his satin gloves, but he didn't notice it.

He was reeling, reeling towards unpleasant darkness. For most of his short life, he had control over the most invaluable of things. He had control over time. He could control his past. But never in his life had he thought that he couldn't control the simplest of things. His own fate.

Silver closed his gold eyes and opened them again some seconds later. But he wasn't looking at the ground, which was what he was expecting to see. Instead he was looking up into the shimmering sky. The clouds overhead reflected deep in his iris's.

"Silver?" Sonic was holding him close. "Can you hear me? Look at me!" That was why he was seeing sky. He was being held face up.

"I'll transport us out of here." He could hear Shadow. He was close, but not close enough to be in his field of vision.

"Right."

Shadow touched Sonic's shoulder and they moved behind the perimeter of the front line. It wasn't a great distance to ensure safety, but it was better than their first position.

Silver choked in pain, and his voice was nothing but a whisper in his throat, "what's going on? My chest hurts!"

Sonic bit his lip and heard the true child inside him. He wasn't even a teenager. Why did this happen to someone so young?

"Silver, listen to me." Silver could hear him through the thorns of his pain. "I'm gonna get you help. But you gotta promise me one thing. You gotta promise to keep awake. Got that, buddy?"

The hedgehog's face was pinched white with pain. He started to cough. Shadow winced. "I… I promise…" He was so roped with pain that most of the sanity left in his mind didn't understand what Sonic had meant. But he said what he wanted Sonic to hear, for perhaps that meant the sooner it would be to get help.

Sonic stood with Silver gently cradled in his arms. Shadow retreated back a few paces, a rare look of shock on his face.

The white anthropomorphic hedgehog felt like he had a giant splinter in his chest, and whenever he chanced a moment to inhale, icy cold hurt raced across his nerves.

He blankly looked up at the sky, and the stone-like clouds lumbering over the hills. He wanted to cry. He wanted to pour his heart out. The pain made him think of his mother, of Blaze and of the friends he had made. Tears welled up in his eyes, making his vision appear watery and hazy. He could feel something moist and warm trail down his arms and side. He was too dazed to realize that it was his own blood streaming over his soft white fur. It left deep crimson stains where it looked like it would always remain.

Knuckles had seen it all happen, but he was too far to help in any way. Robots with every type of weapon blocked his path and he could only watch as Sonic gathered Silver in his arms and raced away with Shadow.

So that was three good fighters gone.

Now what?

Knuckles turned into the battle, but his soul wasn't in it. Instead of noticing the sparks, and the fire in his step, he felt how tired his muscles were, and he felt the hurting of his fists whenever he clubbed them into an opponent. Yet he still managed to be graceful. It was an adept echidna quality.

He started forming a new circle on the ground with the robots he killed. It was the only thing he could do to distract himself. Then, as luck would have it, he saw the Chaotix not far from his location. They were perhaps half a mile away, fending off the attack as best they could in defense rather than offense.

Knuckles started heading towards them.

Claws. Gun fire. Confusion. A stray missile, or a calculated shot, exploded near Tails' Meteor and it cracked the windshield. Though this damage wasn't enough in itself to decommission the battle, Tails decided to land it. He did not want to fly in an aircraft that had a cracked window. He was scared that if it shattered, it could spell doom for him. Fortunately for him, he landed to the north of the army where he rammed into a tall badnik that had a bulky chest and long jointed legs. The robot fell and for some reason, self-destructed when it landed on the floor, thus taking his whole platoon with him. Tails engaged the brakes after initiating the landing gear and the Meteor stopped at last on a snow bank. The one big problem was, he was far from any ally in sight.