AN: I was finally able to finish this! I hope you all like reading this as much as I liked writing it.

Disclaimer: I neither claim nor own anything from Sega, Sonic, or Sonic '06. Music is only suggested and all rights are reserved for the appropriate artist. Ghost, Samantha, Chameleon, Imperious, Cynthia, and Jack are all rightfully owned by Nobel Six. Thunder is rightfully owned by Gnat1.

Claimer: I claim and own this plot and all characters no affiliated with the above mentioned.

April-16-2499

14:36 Mobius Time

[Now Playing: "Waiting for the End" by: Linkin Park]

Silver snapped his eyes open after the blinding light had passed on. He looked around warily, realizing that he was in a huge grey space. "What is this?" he asked into the open, trying to search for someone. "Tails? Knuckles? Anyone there?!"

"You won't find them. At the very least, you won't find them here."

Silver turned around and noticed that the dove child he'd known as Inri was standing before him, with massive angel wings protruding from his back, splaying out with a vibrant white shine in the feathers. The hedgehog stumbled back upon seeing them, amazed at the size of the wings that spanned two or three body lengths. "Inri?" he questioned upon seeing the dove. "But, I thought you were dead!"

The dove only shook his head and materialized two chairs in the grey space. "As you can see, that isn't so," he said. "Come, sit. I have much to discuss with you, young one."

The psychokinetic, though a bit nervous, sat down in one of the chairs and glanced over to Inri again. "So, where are we anyway?" Silver asked, confused. "What happened? What's going on? Why aren't you dead?!"

The glorious dove chuckled nervously and shook his head. "One question at a time, young one," Inri suggested, giving Silver time to calm down. Once his guest was tranquil, Inri went on explaining, "This is a rift in time and space that I created. I made it so that you and I could have our little chat."

Silver nodded, slowly understanding the situation. "And… you are alive! Why?"

"To tell you the truth, I was never truly alive," the dove admitted with a sigh. "I am—what your people might've called it—the Messiah. I am God's son incarnate, sent to help this city in its great time of need. When I died, my powers were unleashed in the way they were meant to be; through the body and eyes of a child."

Silver looked on at Inri, crossing his arms and humming as he processed this information. "How do I know you're this Messiah?"

In light of the question, Inri gave him a calculating gaze and spoke, "You're name is Silver, you specialize in psychokinetic powers. You're on a mission to collect all seven Sol Emeralds so you can rescue your good friend Blaze from a pocket dimension she sealed herself in."

A short silence existed between the two before Silver sighed. "Fair enough," he declared. "So… what exactly did you do to save everyone?"

Inri shrugged and waved his hand, creating a small window in the dimension, through which they could see the Koran Federation; its great buildings rebuilt, as if nothing had ever happened. People walked through the streets, unafraid of any imminent battles or raging wars. "I altered history," the dove explained. "Without the Artifact, there was no reason for quarrel between gangs. There are no extraordinary powers, and no one has any reason to fight anyone."

Silver was awed at the scene he saw, as serene as it was. But as he thought about it, he scratched his head, a bit puzzled. "So, what did you do with the Sol Emerald then?" He asked. "I mean, where is it now? I kinda need that emerald."

Inri only smiled and reached into the feathers of his wings. "Ah, but that's the best part, my young one," he spoke with an almost giddy smile. From his wing he pulled out a rectangular shaped gem with a white coloration to it. Light seemed to shine from within, and it illuminated the space. "I'm entrusting the care of this emerald to you, that it may never fall into evil hands. You are to be the sole protector of this emerald.

"Remember child, you are on a long and arduous journey that will take you to ever corner of time and space and back again. You will meet beings with more power than even I, and whether they are friend or foe to you, you must go through with this quest. The fate of the world is resting on your shoulders."

Silver nodded, still a bit awed from the things that he'd witnessed. "It's not just about Blaze anymore… is it…?" he muttered, a bit discouraged.

Though Inri shook his head, he reached forward and put a hand on the young hedgehog's head. "Though the scope of your mission may no longer be just your loved one, keep her in mind. She will be your light in the dark, and your hope for salvation when the proper time comes."

With his piece said, Silver's visions began to go white. He felt a daze suddenly come over him and he fainted.

[Stop Music]

^/\^|v\/v

~ ("Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies."—Mother Teresa) ~

Syaoron the Fox presents

Following the Events of Sonic '06

Accompanied by Various Music and Themes

Remnants of the Past

Chapter 7

Little Packages

^/\^|v\/v

Konan Federation

April-16-2499

9:16 Mobius Time

[Now Playing: "New York State of Mind" by: Billy Joel]

When Silver woke up, he was standing with the others. Of course, this sudden change in position caused him to stumble as blood rushed to his head. Lucky for him, Tails was close enough that he was able to catch him. "Ah, Silver!" the kit shouted in surprise. "You okay? What just happened?"

The hedgehog looked around, surprised to find that he was back in the new and improved Koran Federation. He swished his head around frantically. "Hey, where's Inri?" he asked. "And what happened to the fight? And the war? And…"

"Whoa there, buddy," Ghost said, trying to get Silver to calm down. "Slow down a bit. What war? Who's Inri?"

Silver looked around, still feeling a bit confused, wondering if his meeting with Inri had been a dream or not. "I… but… he… what?" he ended up muttering out his jumbled thoughts in confusion.

Knuckles rolled his violet eyes and pointed his thumb at a wolf wearing a police uniform. "Masayoshi here was about to give us a tour of the city," he explained, knocking on the hedgehog's head. "Did you fall and hit your head or something? We got here yesterday; does that ring any bells?"

Silver simply sighed, with only memories of the gang war in his mind. "Um… never mind," he disregarded his own words.

Now that everything had been cleared up, Katsuyo smiled and beckoned them to come with him. "Well, if everything is figured out, then how about I show you folks around the city?"

With a gentle nod from everyone—excluding Silver, who gave a puzzled grunt—Katsuyo led the way and everyone filed in behind him. The wolf led them all over the picture-perfect town and—just as Silver had seen in his time with Inri—the city was spotless, as though war had never even touched its borders. People bustled about, going from place to place, without a care in the world.

"We are a very trade-centered country," Katsuyo explained. "Seeing as we're a port city on a small island, a lot of our economy benefits from trading between countries and cities, allowing our people to live in relative calm."

As the anachronistic group traveled around with Katsuyo, they soon stopped at café for something to eat. The Scarf—as the café was called—was inhabited by many laughing and smiling people, who enjoyed their afternoon. As for the staff, Silver smirked. The one thing so far that hadn't changed in the city was that the staff all wore fancy scarfs round their necks.

Once they had all sat down and gotten something to drink, Silver sighed. "Um… guys?" he said, trying to speak up to everyone. Though it took a bit of time, they had quieted down enough for him to speak comfortably. "I, uh… I have something to tell you all."

Only Thunder smirked a bit. "Look at you, Silver!" he said. "Finally decided to come out of the closet, did you? Don't worry, we don't mind."

The psychokinetic hedgehog blushed and coughed up his coffee at the suggestion. "What? No!" he said as he regained his composure. After a laughing episode from everyone, the hedgehog reached into his fur and pulled out the white Sol Emerald that Inri had given to him. "I, uh… picked this up yesterday," he lied, trying to make it sound reasonable. "I wanted to give it to Tails to examine it, but he was already asleep."

Everyone at the table gasped as the object was brought out. However, Katsuyo frowned a bit. "Um… what is that thing?" he asked, unsure of what the object was.

Tails looked at the gem skeptically and picked it up to see it for himself. He took his time examining it, checking it with his energy radar and comparing it to Chaos Emerald he had. Everyone held their breath, waiting for the results and Tails smiled, putting the Chaos Emerald away after his tests had been administered. "It's genuine alright," he said confidently as he held up the white, rectangular gem. "A genuine Sol Emerald."

Knuckles crossed his arms, a vein pulsing on his forehead. "Wait, so you're telling me that we could've been out of here yesterday?" he stated, feeling a bit agitated. "Why didn't you tell us?! We could've been in another world, looking for another emerald by now!"

Ghost groaned and furrowed his brow. "Geez Knuckles, give the kid a break," he scolded the rowdy echidna guardian. "He was at least respectful enough to let us sleep. More than we can say about you."

Knuckles' face was flushed in embarrassment and he crossed his arms. "Whatever," he mumbled in defeat, at a loss for how to respond.

Tails stood from the table suddenly, pushing away his finished drink as he looked at the rest of his party. "If we have the emerald, we might as well get a move on," he declared. "No use in sticking around."

Thunder nodded, standing up himself. "He's got a point," the lion declared while putting his mug down. "For all we know, Imperious' men could be out searching for more emeralds and we're just sitting here."

Coming to this conclusion was enough to imbue them with the energy they needed to get going. After paying the tab, they all stood up and filed out of the café, one by one. Katsuyo stuck around for a little while longer, reluctant to go after them. "Don't you want to finish your coffee?" he shouted to them. Seeing as they ignored him however, he simply sighed and sat back down, sipping from their coffee.

When they had all arrived at the outskirts of the city, Silver took one last look at the city and smiled, glad that it had turned out better than he had expected. "Yo Silver, c'mon!" Ghost called him over, pulling the hedgehog out of his thoughts.

"Huh? Oh, coming!" he made his delayed response before running over to them. He watched as Knuckles and Thunder prepared the portal, incanting the words that activated chaos control and allowed them access to the Temporal Vestige.

As everyone leaped into the portal, Silver took another glance at the city and he sighed. "You know, I have a weird feeling I'm never gonna see this place again," he said.

Tails gave a sidelong glance to the hedgehog and blinked. "And that's a bad thing?" he asked.

Silver looked over to Tails, giving only a shrug. "No, not weird in a bad way," he clarified. "Just… weird."

The kit rolled his eyes. "Maybe you're just weird," he suggested before hopping into the portal.

Upon giving the city another once over, Silver shrugged. "Yep," he muttered to himself before jumping into the portal. "I'm just weird."

[Stop Music]

^/\^|v\/v

"Hey Ghost—or, John or whatever your name is… do you mind if I ask you something?" The man in question looked back at the silver hedgehog who had spoken to him, his eyes full of curiosity. "I mean, since we're just gonna spend time floating in the vestige and all."

Ghost raised a brow and sighed, turning around and facing the hedgehog. "Sure kid, go ahead," he offered unenthusiastically. What's the worst he can ask? he thought musingly as he tried to relax.

A short silence stretched between them in the weightless environment and they simply floated through it, drawing out the moment. "It's about that girl, back in Imperious' lair," Silver began as he intertwined his fingers nervously. "Well… what is she to you? You seemed like you really wanted to get her back."

Ghost sighed and nodded slowly, formulating his answer. "Ah, you mean Samantha?" he clarified, giving the woman's name. For a brief moment, he pictured the blond haired, blue eyed woman whom plagued his thoughts and he sighed. "She is… the one person in my life who I really love," he muttered. "She was… I mean she is my girlfriend."

Silver could see the trench-coated human clutching at a small black box in his leather gloved hand. In his curiosity, the hedgehog flew around to get a better look at, but Ghost merely gave him a sidelong glance before putting it back in the pockets of his trench coat. "What's in the box?" he asked, trying to get a bit more info about his comrade.

Ghost only sneered a bit and turned away, floating away from Silver. "Go bother someone else," he groaned, an annoyed tone peaking in his voice. The human tried to hide his face from view so that the red in his cheeks couldn't be seen. He flew off to check a couple of exits in the timeline, trying to find a distortion.

Meanwhile, Silver flew back over to Thunder, the other person on his team that he didn't know very well. "Um… Hey there, Thunder," he mumbled in an attempt to start a conversation. "Um… What's your favorite color?"

The green lion only looked at him apathetically. "You really gotta think of a better way to start a conversation," Thunder noted before crossing his arms. "My favorite color is green."

Silver nodded. "That's nice. My favorite color is—"

"I'm gonna be honest, Silver," the lion said with a furrowed brow. "If you want to know something about me, then ask the serious questions. I don't care what your favorite color is, and I'm sure that you don't care either."

Silver simply sighed and stretched his neck. "Fair enough," he admitted. "How do you specialize in fighting?"

This question caused Thunder to smile. "Now that's a serious question," he responded with more enthusiasm than before. "I like hand-to-hand combat, but I use my claws if I have to."

Silver nodded, thinking of another good question. "What about special abilities?" he wondered. "Do you have anything like that?"

Thunder only shrugged. "I don't particularly have anything special," he mused. "Though I can transform into a more bestial form if I concentrate hard enough."

Silver nodded and then looked over to Ghost, still curious about him. "What about Ghost?" he asked quietly, so as not to be heard by said human. "Does he have any special powers?"

Thunder frowned, glancing at the human. "John, huh…" he mumbled. "You know, in my days of working with him, I've seen him use a variety of abilities, but he's refused to give me a list of what he can do. For all I know, he can do anything."

Silver widened his eyes, glancing to the seemingly normal human and trying to imagine him as almost a god-like figure and laughing inwardly. "Anything, huh?"

"Don't take my word for it, though," Thunder reminded him cautiously. "That's just what I think."

"Hey, ladies!" Knuckles shouted back to them. Thunder and Silver looked up to see the echidna pointing at an exit in the time stream. "We've got another disturbance over here!"

Silver and Thunder soon joined the others as they surrounded an exit in the vestige. "So," Tails began. "Can anyone make out where this is? Or when this is?"

Thunder analyzed the portal that showed their next destination and sighed, giving a shrug. "It's no place on Mobius that I've ever seen."

They all stared intently at the portal, wondering what kind of place lay beyond it. Suddenly, Knuckles floated forward and smirked. "Well?" he asked impatiently. "What are we waiting for? Let's go already!" With those words said, the echidna swiftly dived into the portal.

"There he goes again," Silver groaned as he looked on at the portal.

Tails did the same and stretched his shoulder. "You'd think he would've learned from last time, right?"

Ghost sighed and peered into the world. "Do you think we should go after him?" He wondered aloud.

Thunder only scoffed, laughing a bit at the situation. "Do we have a choice?" he pondered before floating in after Knuckles, soon to be followed by the others.

^/\^|v\/v

Valhalla

August-20-1122

18:13 Mobius Time

The landing in this new place was a bit more coordinated this time around, and everyone landed on their feet. However, upon looking around, they were unsure if they had landed at all. The scene was an odd one, with skies shrouded in clouds and rocks floating about in the air, as if gravity forgot to include them. In the distance, a pillar of orange light could be seen shooting up into the sky from a fortress.

"What a strange place…" Thunder mused. The lion jumped into the air to check gravity, and sure enough, he fell right back down to the ground. "Gravity seems to be okay."

While Tails went to go investigate the floating rocks, the others sat down to discuss what their plan of action would be. "Well, maybe we should investigate that huge light source," Knuckles suggested as he pointed off to the orange beacon. "I bet you that a huge power source must be powering that thing."

"Huge power source, maybe; but it's not our emerald," Ghost claimed, pointing in the opposite direction where a blue beam was shot from the top of another fortress. "It's just a beacon of some kind. Nothing extraordinary."

Silver began looking back and forth between the lights and sighed, shrugging. "So, if it's not powering either of the lights… where is it?" the hedgehog questioned.

Before anyone had time to think up an answer, Tails shouted out, "This is incredible!"

Everyone looked over to the kit, who was still observing the floating rocks studiously. They all gathered around and found that the kit had picked into one of the rocks, revealing a purple crystal core. "Um… what's so incredible about it, Tails?" Knuckles decided to ask.

"These stones have a crystal inside them that's made of a material that can neutralize the effects of the planet's gravity," Tails said. "Not only that, it gives the rock a much larger gravity so it can sustain its own stability."

Though the kit was excited about his discovery, the confused look he received from his comrades caused him to chuckle. "Um, let me show you what I mean," he said before jumping onto one of the floating rocks. "Because it supports its own gravity, I can do this," Tails explained while walking around the rock till his was standing upside down on the underside of the rock. "Pretty cool, huh?"

With the visual presentation being given, the entire group gave a bemused gasp and a few sighs of awe. "That is pretty neat," Thunder commented as he looked at the rock.

The short lived eureka was brought to an explosive end when the rock Tails was standing on suddenly shattered from the explosion of a cannon. The kit barely rolled just in time to land properly so that he wasn't hurt too bad. "What just happened?!" he shouted as he backed away from the place where the rock once was. All of a sudden, explosions wracked the fields where they stood, and great yelling could be heard, coming from directions of the beacons.

All of a sudden, what appeared to be Mobians began to clash in the midst of the field, bearing blades, maces, and all sorts of weapons. In the midst of the clashing, a lone wolf bearing orange lined armor and a war hammer came to greet the small group. "What is this?" he asked. "A lone group of wanderers in this plane of existence? From where have you come?"

Ghost stepped forward to answer for the shocked group of travelers. "We just got here from a different dimension," he said. "Who are you, and what is this place?"

The wolf heaved the handheld war hammer, swinging it around by the strap as he answered, "Why, this is Valhalla of course! Dimension of war to hold back Ragnarōk!" The wolf then smirked with pride and stood tall. "I am Thor, a god in this dimension. And I hereby declare you allies of the Einherjar!"

^/\^|v\/v

Soleanna Castle

September-22-2506

14:36 Mobius Time

Princess Elise of Soleanna sat at her throne, giving a low sigh. She gave a distant glance out the nearby window, wondering for a moment if he would ever return. By he, of course, she meant Sonic the Hedgehog, the hero of Mobius, with the ability to run faster than the speed of sound. The hedgehog had thwarted the mastermind Eggman's plots on many occasions, and Elise could still remember the time when he obliterated Solaris and saved the entire world.

A blush met her cheeks as she remembered the kiss she had given to him that revived Sonic from death—with the help of the chaos emeralds, of course. Her feelings for him were strong; she knew that. She wondered sometimes if he ever felt the same about her, and deep down in her heart, Elise felt that he had a special place for her somewhere in his own heart.

She was aroused from her thoughts when a lone human walked into the throne room, his black bangs covering his green eyes partially. He bowed to the princess, going down on one knee. Subtle mechanical whirs in his joints signified that the man was mostly cyborg by that point in time. "Princess, I looked into the disturbances you asked me to gather information on," he began.

Elise smiled at the man and nodded, standing up and walking toward him. "Walk with me, Jack," she said to the man. "I need to get out of here for a while."

Jack nodded and stood up from his bow and began to walk with Elise around the courtyard. "The new retinal augmentations are working great, your highness," he reported. "I never knew how helpful seeing through walls could be until now."

"I'm glad to hear that," Elise said as she glanced around at the flowers. "So, what are your reports?"

"I have satellite imagery that shows that there has indeed been a strange change in the levels of chaos energy," he concluded. "An unnatural change."

Elise then sat down on a bench in courtyard, leaving a space for Jack to sit down. "Have you identified the cause?"

As the bionic human took his place next to her, he gave a subtle nod. "I believe I have," Jack said as he splayed out a few papers. "Interlopers in the time stream. Eye witnesses identified John Murray and Silver the Hedgehog disappearing through a portal in the cemetery two days ago."

"Silver…" Elise mumbled to herself as she remembered the psychokinetic hedgehog that had pulled her out of a secret laboratory after she had been sealed with Iblis many years ago. She no longer carried that burden now. "And you said John was involved too?"

Jack nodded and he stood up suddenly. "Scientists have begun studying the nature of chaos energy so they can develop a time machine," he said. "I plan to use this to go after John once it is incorporated into my augmentation system. Shall I pursue them?"

Elise thought for a moment before getting up and going back to the throne room. She gave one final glance back to Jack before she said, "Go ahead."