AN: Gosh, it's been so long! I've been trying, but there's not much I can do, huh? I hope this makes up for everything!

Disclaimer: I neither own nor claim Sonic, Sega, or Sonic '06. Chameleon, Imperious, Ghost, and Samantha are property of Nobel 6. Thunder is propety of Gnat1. All music is owned by their respectful artists. (Gosh, my Disclaimer has gotten so long!)

Claimer: I own and claim this plot and all characters not affiliated with the above mentioned.

XXXXXXXXXX

September-21-2506

12:26 Mobius Time

[Now Playing: "Krwling" by: Linkin Park]

I looked around... Here it was: the place where we first met.

I feel a slap across my face, forcing me down. I was sprawled across the table, my blonde hair dangling in front of my eyes. I sighed. I'd gotten myself into yet another bar-fight… for money, of course. I normally win though; these suckers normally don't get the first strike in. He had gotten lucky; I was already a bit unsettled from the alcohol.

I knew I'd lost and I shook my head, wiping the blood from my chin. I probably wouldn't be able to get back up after that… It had been a gang fight, 3-on-1. I didn't stand a chance. Accepting my defeat, I slid the money across the table to the men who'd beaten me down, but they wouldn't stop there. With smug grins on their face, the head honcho hoisted me up by my collar.

"You know, you're a feisty one," he said with a smirk, shoving me against a wall. "I don't like feisty. You need to learn your place."

I hadn't exactly understood what he meant by that. To my understanding, men and woman had the same rights. Maybe I was wrongs. In the next second, it didn't matter.

The man who had pinned me to the wall was unconscious, and I thought I heard a crack from one of his ribs. Another man, suited in a grey trench coat, black pants, and white shoes, had his leg outstretched, as if he'd kicked the man. He gave a slight growl and a glare to the other men. "Get out of here!" he barked at them as he stood over their leader. The other two ran off soon after.

He looked at me and brushed some of the hair out of my face, looking into my eyes. "Hey, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I had responded with a smile… That was the first time I met John Murray.

…

Imperious walked in on his subject, finding her asleep, grinning as if in a dream. With a grin, he tapped her head, causing her to wake up. She looked around, noticing that she was barred to a wall by the constraints on her wrists and ankles. The two glared into each other's eyes, the woman's blonde hair falling over her emerald irises. "How are you feeling today, Samantha?" he asked with disdain, as If he wished no good feelings upon her.

"Depends on what day it is," Sam cattily responded.

"It's Monday."

"Well darn," the woman chuckled out mockingly. "I hate Mondays."

The two entered another lock of gazes in silence momentarily. "John will come for me," Sam stated confidently. The dragon that stood over her could've sworn her voice cracked, suggesting that it was more of an attempt to assure herself rather than an act of defiance.

He gleefully decided to crush the act. "That seems highly unlikely," Imperious denied as he glanced behind him, at Chameleon. "Chameleon, bring 'the Spark'."

The ninja reptile silently nodded as he rushed off, into the darkness. Samantha only chuckled. "The Spark', Imperious?" she mocked him with narrowed eyes. "Really; are you planning to interrogate me? That's so cliché."

"No, Samantha. I'm not interrogating you," Imperious argued with her as Chameleon returned, carrying with him a small stasis tube that held a spark of fire. "What I'm about to do to you is much worse."

The dragon held two small gems in his hands. The red and purple chaos emeralds were clutched in his hands, glowing with energy as the spark of flame phased through the canister, floating in front of Sam. "Do you know what this is, Samantha?" Imperious asked, more of a rhetorical question than anything.

"No."

"Then allow me to explain," the dragon began as he gestured to the flame. "This is an essence of the Flames of Disaster; a fragment of a fragmented god. You may refer to it as a wisp of Iblis."

Samantha widened her eyes to the godly wisp that floated in front of her. She quivered in anxiety and looked back over to Imperious, fearing what he would do with the small light source. "What are you doing?"

"You're going to be the vessel," imperious explained as the Chaos Emeralds gleamed with a bright light and the fire began to swirl. "Whether or not you like it."

As though it were a ray of light, the fire beamed toward her, swirling around her and begging to be sealed into her. She widened her eyes and arched her back, screaming in pain from the process. Her eyes rolled back in her head, though she remained conscious all the while of the burning pain that afflicted her.

She felt as though something was tearing at her insides, with the essence of the flames attempting to pierce her soul and combine with her. As scalds appeared on her cracking flesh, she felt the flames' heat eventually begin to die off, returning to the stasis tube. She was left with burns across her body, her rippling red flesh flaking off as she tried to catch her breath.

Tears dripped out of her eyes as she looked back up, into Imperious' eyes, seeing them full of disappointment. "Again," the dragon demanded as he forced the flames upon her once more, drawing echoing screams of pain from the girl. Imperious almost appeared bored by the situation that was set before him, as though her pain was not amusing enough for him. He only watched as her skin peeled and cracked, burning away from the intense flames that coiled around her.

In a mere few moments, with trial after trial of implanting the flames, the dragon turned away, not caring for Samantha's whimpering as he made his analysis. "The flames rejected her," he made note of the flames' activity as he spoke to Chameleon. "She is not a proper vessel… We will need to do further research."

As they left, Sam let her head hang down again, tears dripping onto the floor. She sobbed silently, heaving breathes into her chest as she felt the pain. Help me John… She prayed. Please…

[Stop Music]

^/\^|v\/v

~ ("A team is where a boy can prove his courage on his own. A gang is where a coward goes to hide."—Mickey Mantle) ~

Syaoron the Fox presents

Following the Events of Sonic '06

Accompanied by Various Music and Themes

Remnants of the Past

Chapter 5

Gang War

^/\^|v\/v

Koran Federation

April-15-2499

13:20 Mobius Time

[Now Playing: "Burning in the Skies" by: Linkin Park]

The five gazed around them, looking back and forth between the bandanna and scarf gangs, wondering what kind of mess they'd gotten themselves into. "You picked the best spot to drop us, didn't you Knuckles?" Thunder mused dryly.

"It wasn't my fault!" he exclaimed as he pointedly glanced back at the lion in confusion. "I'm telling you, I just went where you told me to!"

"Guys, stop the pointless bickering," Silver muttered, keeping his voice down. He sweated nervously as he looked back up to the gangs. "I think they're watching us."

"What gave you that idea?" Tails mocked him with a sideways glance and a smirk. "We're the only ones here, besides them. What else would they be watching?"

As the group bickered, they soon noticed a boy down below the bridge waving at them. "What are you doing?!" The young dove shouted up to them, his eyes widened in shock that they had remained on the bridge. "Get out of there! You'll get caught in the crossfire!"

With quick consideration on their lack of knowledge of the location, the five scurried down the rubble, beneath the bridge's expanse. They hid behind the wreckage of a bus, looking through the cracked windows at the inevitable conflict. As Ghost examined the groups he took notice of their stances and frowned. "Hey, what's up with that?" he spoke out of a displeasing observation. "They don't have any weapons… no guns; no swords or bows. What do they use to fight?"

He suddenly saw them all raise their hands, a strange energy seeming to perpetrate the air. All at once, the streets lit up with light. "They can use Chaos Energy?" Tails questioned as he saw the familiar blasts of orange and purple energy going back and forth between the gangs, causing explosions here and there.

"Powered by a Sol Emerald, from the looks of it," Silver mentioned as he noticed the color of the blasts. It occurred to him that the blasts took on orange and purple, and he begged to wonder what the goals of the gangs were.

"You mean the Artifact, right?" the young dove asked them, which attracted their attention. "It came to us a couple months ago and it's been emitting strange energy for a while now. That's why these gangs have chaos energy,as you call it."

The dove then held his hand out, a red flame appearing in his hand. "Everyone here has that power," he explained. The small flame floated above his head and he smiled. "It's a bit different for everyone, but everyone has the power to control chaos energy here."

As the dove looked back up to the fight, he suddenly ducked. "Get down!" he shouted to them. The five dove to the ground just before a stray light beam destroyed the bus.

"We should probably get out of here," The dove suggested, receiving a unanimous nod from the anachronistic group. With gusto, the dove strayed away from the fight, with the group following closely behind. "I've got a small gang myself actually… We're trying to stop the quarreling of these two gangs."

"Do you now?" Ghost asked as they rounded a corner into a small alleyway. He received a short nod from the dove in response. "By the way, what's your name kid?"

The dove smiled and looked at a nearby wall. He pressed a few bricks in, answering, "I'm Inri."

"No last name for yourself, Inri?"

"No, not exactly," he answered as he revealed a passageway into the building's basement. "Follow me," he instructed them, using his chaos powers to light a torch to take through the halls. "This is our base of operation. It's not much, but it's a place to call home."

At the end of the stairwell, Inri exited into a small chamber, lighting up a string of torches on the wall, revealing a dozen other of Inri's companions—all of which were of the aviary branch—circling a small fire. "This is my gang," Inri introduced them all at once. "I would introduce all of them formally, but that's unnecessary. I don't assume you will be staying very long, will you?"

"Not particularly long, hopefully," Silver answered as he took a glance at the small gang. "We're actually looking for a certain item."

"It's come to our knowledge that the item we're looking for is this Artifact you told us about," Tails clarified to Inri. The young kit looked into Inri's blue eyes in hidden wonder, seeing a ghostly figure, but he quickly shook his head and the figure was gone. "If you could help us obtain it, we'd appreciate it."

At the mention of the Artifact, a falcon from the fire ring and glared at the kit. "I knew it! They're after the Artifact!" he exclaimed with a pointed finger. "We can't trust them, leader! If they get their hands on the Artifact, who knows what they'll do?"

"That's quite enough, Judas," Inri cut the falcon off, signaling for him to sit back down. Inri smiled to Silver and nodded, as if he understood something. "These are my new friends," the dove explained. "They are going to be removing the Artifact from our city and they'll help us bring about a new wave of peace."

"Peace? Is that what you think will happen?" Judas retorted again, trying to reason. "We need to find and keep the Artifact for ourselves! That will help us keep the peace; not giving it to complete strangers."

At this time, another one of Inri's followers, a young swallow, spoke up, "We should trust leader Inri's words, Judas!" His childish, maturing voice cracked slightly, and the little boy blushed.

"Oh please," Judas rolled his eyes at the swallow, flicking the child in the forehead. "What do you know about decision making? You're just a kid, Peter. You can't just blindly trust one man; we have to come to a consensus on these matters!"

"Hey, I'm not a kid!" Peter responded hastily. "I'll have you know that I can make decisions for myself. I have what it takes to make a decision, but I have faith in Inri!"

"Faith can't lead you everywhere in the right direction."

"Ha! Says you; a man with no faith."

"I have faith! But I also have commonsense."

Inri looked back and forth between the two and side, squawking out, "C'mon guys! Cut it out!" His piercing order silenced the two, who nodded and sat back down. As they settled down, the dove breathed a sigh and looked back toward Silver once more. "It won't be easy. Every gang in the city is trying to get the artifact. You encountered the two strongest gangs earlier."

"Wait, you mean the guys with bandanas and scarfs?" Silver questioned, trying to understand.

"That would be correct," Inri replied. "However, we cannot give you much hospitality. We have enough money to pull rations only for ourselves. I do have a friend however who can take you in." The dove gestured back to passageway. "Go find The Manger Inn. Tell them Rex Iudaeorum. They will be able to accommodate for your needs."

Silver listened to the odd phrase, wondering what it meant. With a shrug though, he offered his hand to shake, which Inri accepted gleefully. "Thanks for your assistance," he gave his thanks as the others began to turn away, and he soon followed in suit.

As they exited from the hidden passageway, Ghost gave a sidelong glance to Thunder, raising his brow. "They're an odd bunch, aren't they?" he commented. "Twelve guys practically worshiping Inri? Don't you find that the least bit strange?"

"It is a bit odd, to have that kind of loyalty," Thunder speculated. He took one final glance at the stone wall before it sealed itself back up. "Let's go find this Inn, shall we?"

[Stop Music]

^/\^|v\/v

"Quite the place, huh?" Silver mused as he lay on a bed. They had arrived at the prestigious inn only a few minutes ago, and already it had seemed very hospitable. With their thirst quenched and stomach filled, they relaxed, trying to get everything together.

"It really is," Tails agreed. The suite they had been offered was very accommodating, with a large living room, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a kitchen. It was almost like a small house in essence. The kit glanced up in thought. "And to think that Inri has access to such a nice place."

"It makes you wonder why he doesn't take advantage of it," Ghost shrugged, wondering what had compelled their new friend to give them this room. "Didn't he say he only had enough rations for him and his gang? Why wouldn't he just bring them here?"

Thunder knocked on Ghost's head, figuring that the human was uptight about the entire situation. "Come now, John," he chuckled as he tapped his forehead. "What's with the sudden paranoia? Inri seemed like a nice guy."

The words did nothing to comfort the concerned man as he leant back against the wall, sighing. "That's a hard trait to come by, you know," he said. "Unconditional kindness, I mean. I wonder what game he's playing…"

He left them with that thought as a chilled silence fell upon them. The echidna felt almost suppressed by the air around them, and Knuckles gritted his teeth, narrowing his eyes. Silver nodded to the echidna. "You feel it too?" he asked, to which Knuckles nodded slowly. "Someone's watching us…"

The kit was about to turn his head to the window when Ghost stopped him, turning him away. "No, don't turned," he ordered the young one. "He'll just run away if you do that."

Tails followed the order, looking around for something to spot their stalker with. He noticed a full-body mirror opposite to the window and he squatted, trying to get a good look at the surrounding area. "He's a grey weasel; white scarf," the kit reported as he caught sight of their perpetrator. "He's on a roof top, about twenty meters behind us and fifty meters up."

Thunder smiled lightly as he pulled out the yellow and white Chaos Emeralds he had borrowed. "Then let's bring the fight to them," he said with a confident smirk as they all disappeared in a blip of light.

Across on the building, the weasel widened his eyes in surprise as they vanished from his sight. "W-what the heck?" he murmured, anxious about their whereabouts. "Where'd they g—"

He stopped his monologue as he felt someone grab him from behind, cold steel touching his neck. Ghost smirked from the rear as he pressed the knife up against his neck. "Nice you of you to drop in," he mocked as the others surrounded him. "Now tell us why you're spying on us."

The weasel shuddered as he felt the knife cut slightly into his neck and he shivered. "L-look, I don't know anything," he muttered, frightened. "I swear I'm just following orders."

"Following whose orders?" the human demanded harshly, glaring down at their subject. "Answer our questions, or my firm hand might just slip."

The weasel remained in silence, looking down and chuckling darkly. "Katsuyo sends his regards," he answered, whistling loudly. Ghost immediately recognized it as a signal.

He clenched his fist and sliced back with the knife, slitting the weasel's throat. "He's a weasel if I ever saw one," Thunder declared as he backed up against the others. They were being surrounded. Scarf-garbed Mobians had escalated to the building's roof, surrounding them.

"Ha, that was a pun," Tails chuckled lightly, as though he only now saw the joke. "You see, because what he did was weasel-like, and he's a weasel, and—"

"Not the time, Tails," Knuckles said as he dodged a chaos spear. "We've got a problem to deal with."

[Now Playing: "Meant to Live" by: Switchfoot]

The group that surrounded them readied a volley of chaos spears, firing off at them in a quick burst. Ghost managed to shove the others out of the way as he dived to the side, pulling a couple knives from the sheathes on his hip and throwing them with deadly accuracy at their enemy.

Tails back-flipped, dodging another spear before getting up close, whipping his tails around to try and hit one of them, but they were grabbed by a leopard who smirked at him. The kit only smiled and twirled up his tails, spinning them around violently and battering his enemy, before he kicked the leopard off the roof. He looked down for a short time, feeling slight regret as a dog came up behind him.

He was only saved as Knuckles delivered a crushing punch to the canine, causing his ribcage to collapse in. "C'mon Tails," Knuckles assured him, turning the kit around. "We've got a battle to win."

Meanwhile, Thunder moved about with lightning-quick speed, delivering kicks and punches in small doses. The green lion kicked up on one of the enemies, spinning to the side to backhand another opponent, performing many consecutive attacks in fluent succession. He was caught off guard as one of them fired a chaos spear at his feet, tripping him up.

Silver remained in the back, hurling chunks of stone at the gang members from afar with his psychokinesis. As he noticed Thunder's fall, he reached out with his hand, surrounding the lion in a glow of blue that suspended him, keeping him from falling off the building. He set the lion back on the building, letting him continue pulverizing the enemy.

Tails and Knuckles were back to back in the meanwhile. As an enemy charged, Tails whipped around a kick, forcing the attacker back. "I'll have to thank you for all that martial arts training, Knuckles," Tails said confidently as more began to attack. Tails took the arm of a cat and swung him around, knocking him against the other gang members before he delivered a fierce kick to the feline.

"You can thank me later, Tails," Knuckles said with a chuckle as he sidestepped a punch and threw forth one of his own, crushing the skull of his attacker. He then pounded his fist against the roof, shattering the ground and spiking up the ground, catching his opponents off guard. Not to his knowledge though, his recklessness was causing the roof to cave in.

"Knuckles, what have you done?!" Silver shouted as he began to use his psychokinesis to hold the roof together. He glared at the echidna, who sweated nervously, deciding not to attack the roof any longer.

Tails sighed, thrusting a fist to one of the remaining gang-members, attacking him with relentless combinations of kicks and punches. However, the owl was a slightly more skilled fighter, blocking many of the kicks and striking a fierce punch to the kits jaw as he found the opening.

Tails flipped backward, regaining his balance and throwing himself back into the fight. He jabbed up at the owl, who caught the punch and twisted Tails to his knees. "What are you, a little child?" the owl mocked him as he reared back a punch. "Learn your place!"

Before the punch could connect, Knuckles flew in with a kick, knocking the owl off the building. "Hey Tails, you okay?" he asked the kit hastily, helping him up.

Tails nodded meekly, deciding not to linger on the thought. "I'm fine, Knuckles," he assured his friend as he grabbed a hold of Knuckles' wrists. "Should we try it?"

The echidna almost immediately smirked. "I thought you'd never ask," he mused as the kit flew up into the air, with Knuckles in tow. The kit then spun around, flinging Knuckles off toward the other enemies. With a fierce war cry, he pounded into them, landing firmly on the ground with a trail of bodies behind him.

They looked around, smiling. There didn't appear to be any more enemies in the area; however, that changed as Ghost took another glance to Silver. "Silver, watch out!" he shouted to the white hedgehog as an enemy snuck up behind him and readied a kick. By the time Silver realized he was being attacked, it was already too late.

Silver skidded across the roof top, moaning from the kick as he rolled over, onto his feet. "I lost control of my psychokinesis!" he exclaimed shortly after as the roof rumbled, collapsing and bring down all the other floors.

In the rubble they stood, trying to regain their bearings. "Ugh, what happened?" Tails moaned as he held his head, a bruise on the back of it.

"Silver lost his focus on holding up the roof, so it collapsed," Ghost answered, looking around at the ruinous rubble. "It doesn't look like any of them survived, though."

"Hey, look up there!" Silver shouted out, pointing to a scarfed wolf who stood atop a hill of the rubble. A glare pierced them, his decisive eyes and ears listening to them as he thought about them.

With a smirk he nodded to them. "So, you're the new bunch that appeared in our most recent gang war, huh?" he asked, interested in them. "And you've taken a liking to Inri, huh?"

Thunder raised a brow, crossing his arms defiantly. "So what if we have?" he asked, suspicious of the wolf.

The wolf then raised his hands, as if in surrender from any other accusations. For a moment, his dark glare subsiding. "I know what you're thinking," he said with an innocent expression. "You think I'm a bad guy, but I'm not!"

This surprised them slightly, that this wolf was submitting himself as someone who wasn't an enemy. From the recent attack, they were certain he was against them, but by the way he had surrendered himself, he didn't appear to be evil at all; rather he seemed to be a kind person.

The wolf smiled and waved to them, a bright expression coming about his face. "My name is Katsuyo Masayoshi. I'm wondering if you could help me out."