"The emerald… it rejected my call..."
Knuckles' dejected and perplexed expression tugged at Sonic's heartstrings in a way he didn't expect. Perhaps it was due to the fact that Sonic knew how much the Master Emerald and his duties meant to him. Sonic couldn't begin to comprehend the thoughts running through the echidna's head after his ancestors had turned away from his pleas.
The worst part of it, however, was that Sonic didn't have an explanation for it either.
Sonic pondered what to say, but was it wise to say anything? He doubted comforting words would do much good, especially when he didn't really know what he was talking about.
"I think… we all need some rest, Knux." Sonic told him quietly.
"Y-yeah! That might do the trick!" Tangle offered up, trying to be helpful as she smiled with a pretence of confidence. "We'll come back to this tomorrow! Could just be a… huh, what's the opposite of a fluke-?"
Sonic turned his head back to the lemur. "Tangle." He said simply, trying to make sure that his face somehow got across the message that talking wasn't going to do much for now.
"Right, um-" She got the message. "Whisper!" She suddenly exclaimed, turning to the blonde wolf beside her. "Wanna come back to the base with-?"
"I'm happy to take the hammock again." Whisper responded quickly.
"Oh! Yeah, pshhh – whatever's best for you!" Tangle smiled brightly. "Have a good night!"
Whisper nodded and wasted no time hurrying down the stairs away from the group. Sonic could easily sympathise with her – suddenly ending up stuck in a team with people she had never intended on joining in the first place must be overwhelming.
"I'm…" Tangle's eyes darted around, looking for an excuse to leave and grant Knuckles some privacy, "Oh! I'm gonna wake up Lanolin and let her know that we're back! And then we can all go back to sleep and yeah- deal with this in the morning."
Of course, the stress Tangle was under couldn't be underestimated either. The revelation that Shadow was on the path of trying to destroy the world wasn't an easy thing to stomach. Sonic watched as the lemur bounded soon bounded away.
Only now did he realise he still had his hand on Knuckles' shoulder. Even still, the echidna hadn't pointed that out, or tried to pull away. Knuckles, on his knees, stared dead ahead at the Master Emerald – shining as brightly as it ever did.
"You gonna be okay?" Sonic asked, his concern evident on his face.
"Don't." Knuckles said, his voice finally cutting through the air. "Just… don't-" He sighed as though he didn't really know what he was saying anymore. "This is punishment from my ancestors – for failing and losing the emerald."
"That can't be right." Sonic defended him immediately. "They have no reason to do that."
"I have been deemed unworthy of its power, Sonic." Knuckles' impatience grew as his brow furrowed. "It is telling me I need to get better."
For the first time in a while, Knuckles turned and finally looked Sonic in the eyes. "Rouge was the closest thing you guys had to a leader before, now – we lack any sort of direction. From now on, I will be coordinating our efforts."
Sonic was admittedly taken aback at how Knuckles had announced himself as the new leader despite not having consulted anyone on that front. While surprised, Sonic found he had little reason to oppose him. In fact, a voice at the back of Sonic's head told him that Knuckles was probably best suited for it.
His tactical fighting knowledge and understanding of the emeralds made him more than qualified. Sure, his social skills weren't all that great – but that was something that he could easily learn. Sonic had seen it once before, so he would see it again.
"That works-" Sonic began before Knuckles cut him off.
"Which means I immediately forbid you from running off without permission!" Knuckles made clear, standing upright, and prodding the end of one of his mitts into Sonic's chest – after all he didn't exactly have a finger to poke with. "And please, please run all your nonsensical ideas by me first – so I can stop them before something stupid happens."
The corners of Sonic's mouth slipped upwards despite himself. "You got it, Knucklehead." While Sonic couldn't realistically promise that he was never going to get ahead of himself – he absolutely was going to try and make the effort not to.
Knuckles' eyes narrowed. "I feel like you're not taking this very seriously." He accused.
"Nah, it's just cool seeing you step up and be assertive, reminds me of…" Sonic's voice trailed off. The Knuckles of my timeline, he had wanted to say. Ugh, what was he supposed to say now? "Never mind." Sonic shook his head. "Get a good rest tonight, won't ya?"
Sonic was in a hurry to leave before he got anymore questions sent his way, but Knuckles called after him. "Just one thing!"
Sonic stopped in the middle of turning, looking over his shoulder back at Knuckles.
"If… you end up communicating with my ancestors tonight, can you… well, can you ask them why they didn't-? Well, I mean I know why it's just… I want to hear it confirmed from them. I want to know they at least listened…"
"Of course, Knux. If I meet them, I'll find out for you." Sonic smiled softly, but the guilt inside him was beginning to grow heavier. There were no ancestors he was communicating with, not unless you counted Tikal, but he didn't know how much she knew about this either – especially considering she and Silver seemed to be doing their own thing now. "Goodnight, dude."
"Goodnight… Sonic."
Sonic was finally free to rest.
…
Sonic had been laying in bed for only a few minutes until Tangle hopped into their stone room, and practically collapsed onto her bed and then proceeding herself to wrap herself in her blanket like it was a cocoon.
"Lanolin knows we're back." Tangle spoke in a whisper, knowing that Sonic was still awake – but not wanting to jostle him out of the falling asleep process with her loud voice.
"Good stuff." Sonic replied.
The room became quiet, and Sonic had thought that would have been the end of their conversation until the lemur spoke again.
"Sonic?"
"Yeah?"
"You know that… Shadow guy?"
Sonic had a sneaking suspicion he knew where this was going. "What about him?"
"You two look like you could have been brothers…" She whispered in fascination.
Sonic sighed heavily.
"Goodnight, Tangle."
Metal Sonic was the first to stand, both hands raised as though he were about to pull off an elaborate karate move on however was upstairs if they came down. On the other hand, Silver and Tikal got up with much more caution - refusing to look anywhere but up.
"Silver... should we exit?" Tikal asked him with uncertainty, a hand anxiously placed over her chest.
"I..." Silver thought about it, but shook his head. "Come on, what's the likelihood of it being that bad? The other house was fine." He smiled at her, hoping his words were comforting her on the matter. Her posture seemed to relax just slightly.
A door opened. Footsteps were heading down the staircase, getting louder as their mysterious figure was getting closer.
Thankfully, Metal Sonic had read the room and ditched his previous pose - although he got out of it rather slowly, and was probably ready to jump back into it at a moment's notice if they turned out to be hostile.
Silver gasped as he saw them for the first time.
It was a face so famliar yet... different. The man had a rotound body but a distinct face with a large nose and a dramatically large, grey moustache. He was wearing a white labatory coat with the collar of a red turtleneck sweater peaking out from underneath, and a small pair of dark glasses on that covered his eyes.
While there was some sort of resemblance in body type, it was the face that was so strikingly similar.
The man stopped in his tracks in the middle of the flight of stairs, staring back at the trio just as they were gawking at him.
"Eggman... but old?" Silver breathed out, and the pout that formed on Tikal's face let him know quickly that it was a stupid observation.
"Gerald Robotnik." She said, staring at the hedgehog.
"Gerald-" Silver blinked. "That Gerald?"
Tikal nodded slowly.
"I-" His brain failed him. "Hold on, how is that-? He's-" He pointed to the man. "You're- dead- He's very dead..." Anxiety rose within him, staring back at Tikal with wide eyes. "Are you sure I'm not dead and that this isn't the afterlife?!"
"Silver, I have little reason to decieve you." The echidna spoke firmly.
"Right, right - yeah, of course." Silver sighed, but his ears perked up at the sound of Gerald speaking for the first time.
"You gain very little by standing there and talking in circles." His voice was gruff, impatient. He walked down the rest of the steps and the the three smaller mobians stepped back to make way. They now stood in the same room, disturbingly close.
"Um, hi?" Silver's voice cracked. What was he even supposed to say? Gerald Robotnik - what did he know exactly? Well, he was Shadow's creator and Eggman's grandfather. As far as he knew... the man sort of went crazy after the... incident, and then somehow programmed Shadow to try and destroy the world?
Recalling all this now... Silver was quickly realising that Gerald was unlikely to be their friend.
Yet again, having a genius working with them - wouldn't that help things along? Perhaps it was worth a try.
Gerald let out a huff as he walked past them and into the kitchen, Silver just now realising that Gerald had been carrying a mug this whole time. Silver followed behind him, and so too would Tikal and Metal. Silver was surprised when he saw Tikal's face - her generally softer face was twisted into a glower as she stared at the scientist.
She had seen it all, hadn't she? She had seen everything. If she knew everything there was to know about him and all his friends, then surely she knew of the ARK and the things that transpired.
Silver debated on how to start this conversation as Gerald flipped the switch to boil water in the kettle, ignoring everyone around him. It was still bizzarre to him how the kitchen just seemed to be miraculously stocked with everything you could need - even as the world was falling apart.
"Soooo..." Silver began. "I know your grandson-"
Tikal breathed in through her nose. Metal turned his head incredibly slowly until he was looking straight at Silver.
"Nice to meet the man who... helped birth his father and then... you know, by extension help bring him... into the world-"
Tikal closed her eyes as Metal Sonic face-palmed, loudly beeping in the process.
Silver turned to the robot, indignant. "You got any better ideas, Metal?!" He huffed. "Sorry I never rehearsed how to talk to a dead guy!"
"Do you know what is going on, Gerald?" Tikal asked, interrupting the bickering. Her voice was steady and she didn't keep her eyes off of the scientist.
"The dead and the alive are reconvening, this realm was broken due to a space-time anomaly - but something is trying to piece it back together." Gerald explained indifferently, mixing his coffee with the hot water - and reaching into the fridge for milk.
Silver blinked. "And that... means?"
"I don't know how else I could possibly further simplify that." Gerald replied with a slight snap in his tone.
Tikal took the reigns of the conversation once more. "Your grandson, Ivo Robotnik, has used a weapon of great destruction to craft a new timeline of his own design. This world is what remains of the fragment of the old, but that makes little sense - does it not?"
Gerald scoffed. "So even my own descendant has grown to be selfish... creating whole new timelines because the world isn't as he wants it!"
Silver found that there was something oddly satisfying about Eggman's own grandfather being disapproving of him.
The professor continued on. "For this sort of event to occur, Ivo created a new timeline - but is very purposefully keeping the old one still in-tact, existing alongside the new one he has created."
So, this was certainly no oversight on Eggman's part - it was purposeful. "But why would he want to keep it...?" Silver wondered out loud, hand to his chin. "Surely he'd want to erase everything in the old timeline - so it has no way of intefering with his new one - right?"
"That would be most logical." Gerald agreed surprisingly, dropping a tea spoon of sugar into his freshly made cup of coffee.
Silver rubbed his temples. "This is so confusing... dealing with Mephiles' time stuff was somehow easier than this..." Still, he wasn't about to give up trying to wrap his head around it all. He was one of the few individuals with the power to try and do anything about this time conundrum.
"Okay-" Silver sighed slightly. "Let's go over what we've learnt. Metal, can you record logs?" He asked the robot curiously.
He nodded.
"Then record one for me."
After a few seconds, the robot gave a thumbs up - which Silver supposed was the indication to start talking. "We know that this realm is the old timeline we're familiar with, purposefully being kept in-tact by Eggman - we don't know why yet, though. All we know is that this old timeline is messed up in weird ways - even dead people and alive people are existing together."
When Silver was done, he gave his own thumbs up to signal to stop the recording. After waiting a few seconds, Silver grinned. "You have your uses, Metal. I'll give you that."
Silver looked towards Tikal, still smiling. "Helps us keep track of where we're at!" He told her. Tikal nodded in achknowledgment, but he wouldn't allow her to say anything as more questions dawned on him. "Wait, so you're really telling me that everyone that has died is just- randomly chilling now with everyone that's alive?"
"No." Tikal told him, closing her eyes in contemplation. "Most of the dead die with complete souls - they are satisfied with the life they led, they are happy - even if it might have been cut unfortunately short. These souls move onto a higher plain... one which I have never been able to reach. However, there are spirits who die with malice, wrath, and greed coursing through their veins. They die, incomplete - dissatisfied with the life they led so they cling to life, refusing to move on - and instead becoming a ghost - invisible to all, trapped in a realm of darkness, and never finding peace - just... there to wallow and weep."
Silver's mouth fell open slightly. "Oh... jeeze, I had no idea-" Processing that information was going to take some time. The fact that some people never truly passed away... the thought made him shudder. "So all the dead people we're going to be walking among are gonna be people that were all nasty and refuse to move on?"
"To put it simply, yes." Tikal said.
"Yikes..." What else was there to say? He couldn't find it within himself to articulate something more profound.
"Your plan to doom the world failed, Gerald." Tikal suddenly said. Silver's heart started beating a little faster, was she seriously going to tell Gerald about how Shadow decided to save the world in the end? Was there a point to that? "Shadow saw the light, and works to protect the planet from the forces of evil. In many ways, he is a shield for the people. He broke away from the path of cruelty you sent him upon. Tell me, Gerald. Are you anything like him still? Can you find it within your heart to love humanity again, and aid us in piecing back the world?"
Gerald placed his mug on the counter. Despite the emotion behind Tikal's preaching and pleas - the doctor wasn't moved by it in the slightest. "So... Shadow betrayed me." The old man said.
"Huh-? No!" Silver immediately rose to defend his friend, glaring. "I think you're the one that betrayed him! You were the one that altered his memories and programmed his brain to undertake a revenge plot he never wanted!" The hedgehog stepped closer to Gerald, and the human finally turned around to look at the creature far below his height.
"There is no hope for humanity, they will find themselves always caught in the same cycle of greed and destruction." The professor said darkly, his voice like a growl. "I died a broken man upon finally coming to that realisation. Now, I have had 50 years to accept the world as it is - and my resolve has only strengthened. This world needs to end."
"You're... you're an awful- person!" Silver stuttered out, too angry to form a coherant sentence. "You seriously think you have the right to decide the fate of everyone on the planet?!"
"Silver." Tikal cautioned, placing a hand on the hedgehog's shoulder - shaking her head solemnly, before glaring back at the doctor with a look of disgust. "It is clear that he will not aid us. We would gain more from leaving this house, rather than debating with a mad man."
"But-!" Silver's frustrations didn't fade, but he certainly realised Tikal had a point - what was yelling at him going to achieve anyway? Silver wanted to defend humanity, defend Shadow against any sort of claims he made - but it simply wouldn't be worth their time. "You're right..." He finally admitted to the echidna with a sigh. "Let's just go. We've been here enough-"
Tikal nodded slowly. "Let us witness what lies beyond this street... and pray we uncover the answers which we seek."
Sonic was alone. He was just a tiny hedgehog, floating in the never-ending universe - surrounded by nothing but the twinkling stars.
"Sonic!" Shadow's voice echoed through the darkness.
"Shadow!" Sonic called after him, twisting himself around in all directions - trying to identify where his voice was coming from.
There was no sign of him anywhere.
"SONIC!" The black hedgehog now cried in a loud, desperate plea - the sheer emotion of the call disturbing Sonic to his core, he wasn't used to hearing that tone from Shadow. It was fear - fear coming from a man he often viewed as fearless.
"Shadow, where are you?!"
Sonic suddenly found himself falling - space blurred, and his surroundings began to transform. He felt the ground, soft grass crunched beneath his feet as he shifted his weight. Suddenly, tall trees were hanging over him - bright and vibrant.
"Happy birthday."
Sonic's heart skipped a beat as he turned his head towards Shadow again. Shadow stood in front of a long wooden picinic table, it was the exact same set up as his surprise birthday party - write down to the chocolate cake.
The only difference was - his friends were absent. Everyone except Shadow, who had never went to that party in the first place.
"Shadow-" Sonic's ears drooped. "What are we doing here-? This is..." Sonic's shoulders dropped down as he heaved an exhausted sigh. "Come on, this is a dream. I just want to wake up-"
"You are certainly eager to avoid your problems." Shadow stated, folding his arms.
"I know you're not real, Shads." Sonic countered, fully prepared to walk away and hope the dream wasn't going to play out any longer. That was until Shadow spoke again.
"I understand we don't see eye to eye." Shadow began, and Sonic's mouth hung open when the Shadow of his dreams produced the handwritten letter that he had written to him for his birthday. "But I believe I... thought you cared more... than you actually do."
Sonic flinched as Shadow suddenly tore the paper in half, the sound grating loudly in his ears as he watched helplessly.
"Despite knowing me for years... you are unable to convince me to join your side. What's wrong, don't you know me well enough by now?" Shadow questioned. Sonic found himself speechless. "I guess you just didn't care to know me more. That's fine. I suppose for a hero of your callibre only has enough room in their heart to care for so many..." The dark hedgehog speculated.
"Still, I wonder why you have chosen, all this time, to dismiss me so... it's not out of dislike, is it? I don't think it's...hatred exactly."
Why was this dream Shadow rambling on like this? When was this dream going to be over already? What was he trying to get at? Still, Sonic found himself rooted despite how much he wanted to leave.
"It's something else." Shadow's tone was too careless, too mocking. "Perhaps you've avoided getting close to me for a reason. Yes, could it have something to do with the fight in space, Sonic?"
The blue hedgehog's face lost its colour.
"Perhaps... you couldn't face up to it. You just can't accept it, can you? You don't want to admit the truth..."
Sonic's breathing hastened.
"You left me to die."
Sonic was woken up by the sound of a large scream.
The hedgehog scrambled out of bed, and in the middle of the process caught sight of Tangle doing the same. They rushed out of the entrance of their room and out into the camp, right as the sky was just starting to lighten.
Dread swelled within him as he saw Vanilla in the middle of the camp grounds upon her knees - crying out in distress. Lanolin, the sheep he had only exchanged brief words with before, was placing a hand on her shoulder in an attempt to soothe her nerves.
"Lanolin!" Tangle gasped, skidding to their side. "What's going on?!"
The sheep was clearly distressed herself, sweat beading down her face. "Well, uh- Vanilla woke up and... well, she found a note-"
As Lanolin had said that, Sonic spotted that Vanilla held a piece of paper in her hands. "They're gone!" The rabbit suddenly exclaimed. "They've ran away- and- oh, no they're never coming back. They're never coming back, are they?! My baby... my poor baby-"
"Oh no..." Tangle said softly. "Vanilla... we are going to do whatever it takes to fix this. But please, may we see that note?"
Vanilla, with a shakey hand, lifted it up so both Sonic and Tangle could see it clearly.
We've gone down below to help search for Chaos Emeralds! :)
- Ray, Cream and Cheese
Sonic and Tangle exhanged a wide-eyed glance. "Yeah..." Tangle repeated. "It shouldn't be too late. They can't have gone far, Vanilla! I assure you - we'll set off right away!"
"We'll get them back, Vanilla. Promise." Sonic tagged on for assurance.
"Lanolin, can you watch over-?"
"Already on it-" The sheep pointed out, rubbing the rabbit's shoulder - Tangle nodded to her in gratitude and stepped away from the duo, now seeing that more people had been woken up by the sounds of the wailing, Sonic followed right behind her.
"Aaaaaaaaah, okay-" The stress and frustration getting to her now as she grabbed hold of the sides of her head. "So, the world's about to end, and now we've got runaway kids on the loose- This is fine, this is totally manageable-"
"We should split up." Sonic offered up, as the calmer one of the two - he could offer something more logical. "If Knux and I continue our hunt for the emeralds and stopping Shadow, maybe you and Whisper could try finding the kids and then join back up with us? That sounds like the best idea to me so we can split ourselves up and tackle both these problems at the same time."
Tangle snapped her fingers. "Smart thinking."
"I'm gonna run this by Knuckles, though. He... kind of elected himself leader last night." Sonic mentioned.
Tangle accepted it without issue, she actually seemed pretty grateful for that revelation. "You know what? Awesome. I trust him with that, he's cool." Tangle said quickly, before her voice quivered. "Those poor kids... they aren't going to make it long on their own-"
Sonic couldn't quite figure out why he wasn't as worried compared to Tangle or Lanolin on the issue - perhaps because he knew Cream was actually far more capable of defending herself than one might expect - especially when she had Cheese with her. "Those kids are strong, they'll be able to hold on a little while before we can get to them." Sonic told her with confidence. While he knew they weren't defenceless, it didn't make Sonic any less eager to set off to find them.
"You're right..." Tangle said finally as it sunk in. "Now go talk to Knuckles, I'll find Whisper."
"You got it!" Sonic gave her a nod and finally dashed away.
"Get up!"
"You're oversleeping again!"
"Don't make us throw you!"
Where was he?
His ears were swarmed by the sounds of voiced he didn't recongise, and most bizzarrely of all - they were speaking in Ancient Echidna tongue. Knuckles' barely concious brain tried to assemble his thoughts.
He had been at Sonic's birthday party, and then Eggman and his new weird creation came and messed everything up, More vividly now, he remembered as his rage had eneveloped him, before witnessing himself fade away out of existence.
Chaos, was he dead?
Knuckles' eyes opened, and he soon forgot to breathe.
Several faces were peering down at him with playful smirks or impatient frowns, and if that wasn't overwhelming enough - one thing was abundantly clear.
They were all echidnas.
Most of them shared a red-to-orange fur pallette, but Knuckles was surprised to find a few other fur colours standing out such as grey and green. However, they were all distinctly echidnas - broad shouldered with white markings, with long flowing dreads.
"Fucking hell-!" Knuckles exclaimed suddenly, sitting up in a nest made of leaves and flowers - trembling and gawking before them. Echidnas, actual echidnas - but how, and why?
"Nightmares?" One of them inquired, a little mockingly. He was considerably largely built, making Knuckles feel hopelessly small and weak in comparison - like cornered pray.
"He looks as though he's seen a ghost." Another observed with considerably more concern. Despite this, most of the echidnas chuckled at the idea.
It was all too much, Knuckles' breathing came to be ragged as he stared helplessly like a deer caught in headlights. The other echidnas seemed to catch onto the fact that something more was going on with him, and that perhaps joking around wasn't the best solution for it.
"Speak!" Another large echidna commanded. His fur was as bright as a flame. "Why must you act cowardly before your superiors?!"
"I... don't know where I am-" Knuckles finally panted out, pressing his back against the stone wall. When everyone met him with blinking, bewildered faces - he realised he was speaking the wrong language. "I don't know where I am!" Knuckles exclaimed finally.
They all raised their brows, looking between each other and murmuring.
"Stop speaking nonsense, Viracocha!" The echidna from earlier snapped in a huff.
Who the hell was Viracocha? Well, they were clearly speaking to him so... was he Viracocha? That didn't make sense at all!
"There's been some... some sort of mistake." Knuckles finally found the strength in him to communicate clearly, rather than stutter random things out. "I'm not Viracocha, I don't even know who they are- Or why I'm here-"
"Did he hit his head?" One of them asked bluntly.
"Perhaps he ate something poisonous." Another suggested.
"Or-" Knuckles jumped at the sound of a voice that was suspiciously close to him. In fact, Knuckles realised that he was actually sharing a sleeping nest with someone else. They were sitting up, more composed than everyone else in the room and looking unimpressed by all the speculation. "He's had a bed dream and needs some time to wake up properly. I'm sure you have more important things to do than stare."
The relief he felt after that echidna was able to make the others gradually decide to turn away came down like a tidal wave. Knuckles gazed at the other echidna clearly - their fur was a unique shade of grey - paler fur on his body but fading into darker areas on the ends of his limbs and dreads. It was like he was the personification of a strong gust of wind.
Something was so familiar about his green eyes.
"Are you alright, Viracocha?" His voice was much walmer and calmer, sympathetic even.
Knuckles didn't know how to respond. One moment, he had been at a birthday party - the next, he woke up surrounded by people of his own species... people that were long dead, and they were all claiming he had a different name. Just where exactly was he?
Maybe the question was when.
As much as he'd deny it to others, Knuckles often wandered about what it would have been like to live among his own species... to be surrounded by a community, a tribe. To not be alone... it was like that wish was suddenly coming true.
"Viracocha?" That echidna asked again, looking into his eyes intently and placing a hand on top of his own.
What a weird chapter, am I right?
It's been a busy past few days again but guess what? I've got accepted into some of my uni choices! Aaaaah, so excited - this is proof that you should always chase your dreams, kids - because if a Sonic fanfic writer can get into university, you can too.
While new Knuckles declared himself leader of the team, our old timeline Knux has found himself... in the past? Maybe? He's still trying to figure that out. Sonic continues to be haunted by nightmares and his feelings of guilt. The In-Between heroes met a certain old man scientist, and Cream and Ray have ran off to take matters into their own hands.
This chapter was a bit on the shorter side compared to the latest updates, but don't worry - the next one is a CHONKER. And will be very different from what you've been used to, I really hope you'll enjoy it :)
Let me know what you thought about this one! Shocked at the revelations? Or hey, any critiques - let me know 'em! Feel free to drop a review! As always, thank you for the support my lovelies - I'll see ya'll later!