Chapter 63: Reincarnation

"Silva," Sonic said as he hovered in the air in front of Silva's face. "What are you doing here?"

"I've been waiting for you to return, Iblis Trigger," Silva said sternly and curled his fingers slightly.

This in turn caused Sonic to cry out in pain as his body felt forcefully squeezed. "Iblis Trigger? Then you must be…the reincarnation of Silver."

"Silver? I don't know what you're talking about," Silva responded. "A guy named Mephiles told me that you cause a monster called Iblis to be released which ends up destroying the world. Therefore, in order to prevent that future from happening, you must die!"

"He's lying!" Sonic cried as his body continued to be squeezed. "Mephiles is just using you to get rid of me, and Silver knows this."

"I don't know anyone by the name of Silver!"

Silva then waved his arms forward which caused Sonic to go flying into a nearby building which he crashed into and collapsed as the wind was knocked out of him. But before Silva could finish Sonic off, Amelia suddenly appeared and blocked Silva's path. Her icy glare forced Silva's aura to subside.

"Amelia," Silva said quietly. "Get out of my way."

"No!" Amelia snapped. "If you want to hurt Sonny, then you'll have to get through me."

"But you don't understand," Silva responded. "Your boyfriend will destroy the world if I don't kill him right now!"

"I don't believe you. How can the same guy who was nice enough to let you stay with us when you had nowhere to go destroy the world?"

Silva paused, and then he said, "It doesn't matter what he did for me. What matters more is what he'll do, and I'm the only one who can stop him."

"Then you leave me with no choice," Amelia said as she summoned the Piko Hammer and knocked Silva out with it before he could stop her.

###

"This is terrible!" a Soleanna guard cried out. "The princess has been kidnapped by Dr. Robotnik yet again!"

"Again?" Sonny raised an eyebrow.

"I can explain," Amelia said sheepishly. "After you left, I went out looking for you with Silva. We eventually stumbled upon a cave with robot parts littered about and assuming you'd gone through there I told Silva to keep the girls occupied while I went into this gate-thing and found myself in a white tundra."

"That sounds like White Acropolis, one of Eggman's northernmost bases."

"Yeah, I figured it was an Eggman base as soon as I saw the Egg Carrier emerging from a hidden hangar. So I snuck onboard before it took off hoping I would find you, but instead I ran into Elise. Naturally, she was surprised to see me since I had transformed into Amy by that point but I quickly helped her escape from the Egg Carrier and then we just made it back to New City when I saw Silva trying to kill you. Then after I knocked Silva out, I saw Elise being taken away by Dr. Eggman."

"Did you follow them?"

"A little ways, yes, but then I went back to check on you and the others. Now tell me, where the heck have you been all morning?"

"Well, in short, I went to Wave Ocean beach with Miles to look for clues on Eggman's whereabouts and then—

"I called him after Eggman gave me a message to give to Sonny," Chuck said wearily as he stood behind Sonny.

"It turned out to be a ransom saying that if we didn't give Eggman the Chaos Emerald Elise gave Sonic when she was kidnapped, he would destroy New City," Miles added.

"So we went to Eggman's base at White Acropolis through that cave-gate you found, Amelia, and then right after we gave Eggman the Emerald he turned on this machine and sent us to the far-future. Fortunately, we were able to get back to the present with help from Shadow and Rouge, who were transported there yesterday by Mephiles the Dark, using two Chaos Emeralds."

"Mephiles the Dark?" Amelia wondered. "Why does that name sound familiar?"

"It's probably because Amy remembers him," Miles suggested. "He's apparently a super-powerful being who nearly destroyed everything back in Sonic's time but was thwarted by Sonic, Shadow, and Silver."

"Who's Silver?"

"Sonic told me he was from the future of his timeline and got tricked by Mephiles into trying to kill him," Sonny answered.

Amelia's eyes suddenly widened. "That's exactly what Silva tried to do to you, Sonny. Maybe he's a reincarnation of Silver."

"That's what Sonic thinks, but right now we've got to find Elise. Do you remember which direction Eggman went?"

"I think he went that way," Amelia said pointing north of the plaza she, Sonny, Miles, and Chuck were standing in.

"Ok, thanks!" Sonny said as he took off in that direction.

Amelia watched him go before she growled and dragged Miles and Chuck into the hotel they were staying in. "Why does he seem to care more about Elise's safety than my feelings? He'd better not be falling in love with her."

###

When Silva came to, Blake was looking down at him.

"Hey," Silva said as the top of his head started to ache. "Where've you been?"

"Looking for you," Blake answered as she helped Silva to his feet. "Judging by that bump on your head, you must've gotten into trouble while I was away."

"I had the Iblis Trigger in my sights and was about to kill him when this girl, Amelia, stopped me."

Blake tilted her head sideways. "You know her?"

Silva folded his arms. "I met her last night and then she took me to a hotel where her friends were staying at and to my surprise her boyfriend was the Iblis Trigger himself. When he found out I had no place to stay, he offered that I sleep in his room which I accepted after Amelia insisted. I tried to kill the Iblis Trigger while he was sleeping, but I was unable to for some reason. Then the next day, the Iblis Trigger had gone and so I waited for him to come back until now."

"Sounds like you had a fun time. I was busy running along Soleanna's beaches. So how did this girl stop you from killing the Iblis Trigger?"

"She blocked me from getting to him, and then after I couldn't persuade her to get out of my way she knocked me out with a hammer that appeared out of nowhere."

"That's weird."

"Yeah, but what was really strange was that the Iblis Trigger claimed that Mephiles was lying to me and that I was the reincarnation of some guy called 'Silver.'"

"Now that's funny because I ran into a fat bald guy on the beach this morning with a girl in his custody who kept calling me 'Blaze' as he sent robots to attack me."

"Did you use your pyro-kinetic power?" Silva asked.

Blake smiled. "Yep, I burned all the bald guy's robots and then he took off with the girl in tow."

"Did you happen to get the guy's name?"

"I think he called himself Dr. Eggman if I'm not mistaken."

"That sounds like Dr. Robotnik, and the girl was probably Princess Elise of Soleanna."

"Well, the bald guy certainly resembled the pictures of Dr. Robotnik that are in the newspapers these days, but what makes you think the girl who was with him was a princess?"

"I saw her getting kidnapped by Dr. Robotnik last night and then I found out her name through one of the Iblis Trigger's colleagues since she apparently invited them to Soleanna without telling them that she was the princess until someone found out. That was also when the Iblis Trigger first showed up as he was trying to save Elise from Dr. Robotnik."

"It's hard to believe that the guy who's supposedly going to end the world tried to save a princess from a mad scientist and gave you a place to sleep for the night."

"That's what Amelia said as well, and now I'm actually starting to wonder if we're doing the right thing."

Blake turned to Silva with surprise. "What do you mean?"

Silva rubbed his head again and said, "Do you really think killing one person will suddenly prevent the world from being destroyed?"

In response, Blake shrugged. "It's hard to say, but at least we've been given the chance to make a difference in the world instead of waiting to be saved by heroes who may not come in time."

Silva looked away and said, "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"I also found this," Blake said as she tossed a silver-colored Emerald in Silva's direction.

After Silva caught it, he examined the Emerald and said, "What is it?"

"I'm not sure, though it kind of looks like the Emerald that was supposedly stolen by The Blue Blur a few months back."

"Oh, yeah, I remember that," Silva replied. "Maybe we should try looking for Dr. Robotnik."

"Why? He's not our primary target."

"If he's still got the princess, then the Iblis Trigger is bound to show up and try rescuing her again."

"Good point."

###

Behind a pier near the Soleanna docks, Shadow and Omega appeared out of the white vortex they used to escape from Mephiles when they saw Rouge Baxter standing nearby with the Green Chaos Emerald in hand.

"Thanks for making me worry, Shadow," Rouge said as she walked up to them. "You could've been killed."

"But we weren't," Shadow said as he changed back into Shawn. "Where are Sonic and his friends?"

"I didn't see them when I got here," Rouge replied. "Maybe they ended up somewhere else."

"It doesn't matter. I'm sure they're fine." Shawn then placed the Cyan Chaos Emerald inside Omega's chest-plate while putting the Red one in his jacket-pocket.

"So what's our plan?" Rouge asked as she placed the Green Chaos Emerald in her cleavage.

"You and Omega keep an eye out for Mephiles in case he returns from the future, since he still has a Chaos Emerald on him," Shawn answered as he started to walk away. "I'll be going after Eggman to learn what I can about Project Solaris from him."

"All by yourself?" Rouge walked up to Shawn and held his arm. "You just got back from a close-shave with Mephiles and now you want to take on Dr. Eggman? That's crazy."

"If I don't find out how to defeat Mephiles, he might succeed in destroying our time-space continuum and Sonic won't be there to save us when that happens," Shawn said as he got out of Rouge's grip.

"What do you mean? Hey, wait!" Rouge shouted as Shawn disappeared in a flash of light.

"I think Shawn knows something that we don't," Omega said.

"You think?" Rouge said glaring at Omega. "I'm willing to bet Shadow told him about other things besides Silver and Mephiles."

"Well, Shadow does seem to be the only 'spirit' who remembers everything that happened to him in his previous life, so naturally Shawn would have more knowledge about these events that are repeating themselves in the present than we do."

"But you're a reincarnated spirit too, right?"

"My body is inhabited by the data was left from the original E-123 Omega before he was destroyed, which include memories and personality traits but they do not come to me all at once. I am learning more about my past each day, but it will take some time before I remember everything."

"I see," Rouge said as she pressed a button on her golden bracelet which let off a small ringing sound. "Then we might as well get in touch with G. U. N. and update them on the situation."

To be continued…