Chapter Twenty-Nine: Victors Write the History
Notes regarding my research on the conflict that led to the creation of the Metarex:
The people of Majyk started the war with planet Greengate. When the Seedrians of Greengate spread to the stars to try to sustain what was left of their civilization, it seemed in so many ways that Majyk had won the war. I found texts that agree to just that. But those same texts don't consider how the Metarex factored into that conflict at all. Interestingly, some texts don't acknowledge that the Metarex are what became of the Seedrians. I can't tell if it was because whoever wrote the text didn't know or…
Even the authors who acknowledged that some Seedrians became the Metarex appeared uncomfortable in addressing the subject. The Seedrians were largely peaceful, known for their scientific ventures. However, at the same time, they could also access a state of transformation that allowed them to become formidable opponents in battle, through the transformations could only be sustained for a very short time before the effort cost their lives. It seems like most scholars didn't feel comfortable covering this topic in much detail either, but I can't tell if it's because it was the effort to sustain the transformation that ultimately created the Metarex or because they couldn't reconcile that a peaceful people could have so much aggression within them.
Many of these more particular details that scholars don't seem to want to address I know because of the message the Seedrians left behind on Greengate that Amy and Rouge uncovered during our initial war against the Metarex. The texts I uncovered only cover this in the most surface level of detail.
I guess because it's the victors that get to write the history, in the end. The people of Majyk, rather than the people of Greengate.
But they wrapped up the story too early. The Seedrians lost, but so did the people of Majyk. The Metarex have lost a few times too, to us, but it's not as though we were making sure history got recorded (would such history even survive all the time jumps we've made? Our journals did after the Changed War, but I'm unclear on the rules of how that worked. Or if there are rules in a reality where time is falling apart). And the Metarex have never seemed to be the record-keeping type.
Plus many records from the people of Majyk are now lost too, I guess.
So many of the historians who are keeping score are removed from immediate involvement. It's bizarre to read these records, to read the myriad of ways historians recorded how the war even started in the first place. Nova once told us that it was a resource dispute. As far as I can tell, that's a sort of partial truth. Which makes sense, since the war's spread too far and gone on for too long for such a simple explanation. A resource dispute is probably the simplistic way Majyk characterized it for easy digestion of its people. Or maybe that was just the simple way it was explained to Nova when she was young and she held onto it as her whole explanation.
In reality, it seems that there were multiple factors that led to the conflict. The resource dispute just seemed to be the final excuse. I feel like I must be missing pieces because the pieces I do have don't make sense. It seems like a clash of belief systems may have played a part. Religions, even? The records don't make it clear what that clash was between those belief systems, but I don't have the time to dig in enough to know. It might matter. But at this point, it might not, since the truth of it has been watered down over time.
There were times when the Seedrians initiated conflict.
There were times when Majyk did.
It seems like the two planets were at war for centuries. There were periods even of wary peace, before one side or the other started the war up in earnest once more. Sects of the people of each species sought an end to that fighting. Then those sects became the majority.
As centuries of fighting passed, the reasons for the fighting were lost to time as well. And so some came up with new reasons. Which is how a sect of the Seedrians became the Metarex. Their anger, their need for power against Majyk knew no bounds. And when the Seedrians that fled Greengate tried to stop the Metarex as they were coming into being, it led the Metarex to turn their vengeance against more than Majyk. They determined the entire galaxy to be their enemy.
I guess, if Black Thorn was raised in such an environment, she would be indoctrinated in such a belief system. Maybe that's why she became the leader of the Metarex. Maybe some of the other Metarex know other ways of life, might feel even small bits of conflict about fighting. They would still have memories of being Seedrian. Black Thorn, though, she seems young enough to know nothing but this war, this hatred.
More than anything else, even more than scared, that just makes me feel sad. A life where that girl's known nothing but hatred. Hatred for all the galaxy, hatred of the people of Majyk in particular, if the attack—the genocide against them is any indication. How is that a way to live?
If anything, it makes me think of Cosmo's own manipulation at the hands of the Metarex. When during the initial war against the Metarex, they were able to use the part of her brain that controlled her sight and hearing to make her an unwilling spy against us. Was Black Thorn similarly manipulated? Might someone else be pulling the strings?
In the end, all of this is just exhausting. I keep thinking that I'll be able to think our way out of this. That I'll be able to uncover a reasonable explanation that will provide us a simple answer. As if this war will be as easily solved as an answer on a test. As if the logic of one person controls the fate of this whole thing.
Truth is, none of this is simple. More like a game of chess but with a lot more players manipulating the pieces. Rational logic interlocked with irrational reasoning. The true reason for war lost entirely amid the churning until all that's left is the need to win.
Until all that's left is war and those fighting in it. And who will be left when it's done.
The more I write, the less clear things become. I want to do the right thing, the good thing. I want to protect my friends and bring them peace. I want to end this war and stop the Metarex.
But who do we become if we destroy this girl who has never known anything other than hatred?
The tip of Tails's pencil stilled on the page as he finished his final sentence. He stared at the words he'd written. He hadn't really had the words to describe the thoughts in his head until he found himself putting those words to paper.
He remembered what Knuckles had said a few days ago when C2 had explained who Black Thorn was: "To end this war, we have to kill some kid?"
For days now, those words had vibrated beneath the surface of Tails's skin. Those words were why he used every second of his downtime to research the conflict between Majyk and Greengate that had led to this point. It was certainly better than dwelling on the possibility that time was already wrecked beyond repair and this war might be their eternity.
Still, when Tails closed his laptop, knowing he needed to get to the bridge to relieve Chris of his watch, the weight dropped down on Tails's shoulders as if he was giving up on his search for answers. He squeezed his eyes shut, pressed his fist to his face between them.
He was so tired.
He was so very tired.
But then he lowered his hand, opened his eyes, rolled his shoulders back.
As long as you can keep going, keep going, Sonic's voice reminded Tails in his head.
And so he kept going.
-(-)-
When Tails stepped onto the bridge, he found Chris not alone there. Amy and Nova sat near the front of the bridge, facing one another. A Chaos Emerald sat between them as they chatted over it. Shadow stood some distance away, angled toward Nova but for once attention largely focused elsewhere. In this case, on the screen hanging from the ceiling in front of Chris.
"You got something?" Tails asked Chris as he stepped toward the captain's chair where Chris sat.
"Maybe," Chris said slowly. "It's just…it doesn't make sense. I'm digging into it now."
"What is it?" Tails asked. But even as he asked the question, he turned his attention toward the monitor that displayed Chris's findings.
His heart skipped a beat.
"Is that a Chaos Emerald?" Tails gasped.
"Don't hold your breath just yet; it might be a fake one." Chris tapped away at the controls, triggering additional windows to pop across the screen.
"What doesn't make sense about it though?" Tails asked. As far as Tails could tell, all this meant was that Chris had somehow managed to find the time necessary to repair the Chaos Emerald scanners. While that was a wild development on its own, Tails knew that could not be what Chris meant.
"It's getting closer," Chris explained. He scowled at the screen. "Not at the pace we're moving, like it's just that we're moving toward it. The distance between us and the Emerald is closing faster than we're moving. Like it's moving toward us too."
"Toward us?" A Chaos Emerald could not simply be hurdling through space. Chaos Emeralds were drawn to a planet's gravity. It didn't make sense for one to simply be drifting.
Which meant, of course, it wasn't simply drifting.
"Someone's coming," Tails breathed. A chill scuttled up Tails's spine.
"Seems like it," Chris agreed. On Chris's other side, Shadow didn't say a word. He just kept staring at the screen.
"Any way to tell who?" Tails said.
Chris hummed, a noise that Tails didn't interpret as a positive one. "We're cloaked right now," Chris added after a moment, "but that won't matter if their Chaos Emerald is drawing them to us."
"Is Knuckles—"
"Already notified," Chris said, cutting Tails off mid-sentence. "He's with the Master Emerald and ready to get us more power in a hurry."
Tails pressed his lips together, eyes fixed on the monitor as the scans Chris had initiated continued. The surface of his skin vibrated. Everything ached in him to do something, anything in response to the possible threat. But until they had a sense what the threat was, he couldn't react to it.
A glow lit up in Tails's periphery, and his eyes snapped to the light in an instant. Up at the front of the bridge, Amy now held the violet Chaos Emerald in her palm. The light of the Emerald warmed her rosy closed eyelids. A rare smile spread across Nova's face. Like she thought the glow of the Emerald was Amy's doing and she nothing less than proud.
Tails's eyes snapped back to the screen just as one more window popped up at the center of the screen. So that, at the same moment, both he and Chris breathed, "It's real."
But then, on Chris's other side, Shadow stiffened. Tails only had another moment before an icy chill—almost certainly the same icy chill that Shadow felt—swept over Tails. Amy's eyes flashed open and the brief smile fell away from Nova's face.
"More than a Chaos Emerald," Tails said, for Chris's sake.
"Fake Emeralds," Shadow confirmed.
In an instant, Shadow cut across the bridge to Nova's side. She held up a hand to still him, though she still accepted his help in getting to her feet. Opposite her, the glow of the Chaos Emerald in Amy's palm continued to grow. Steadily at first. Then, suddenly, sparking like a failing light bulb in a power surge. Like it too could feel the approach of the fake Chaos Emeralds.
And it struggled beneath them.
Amy winced away from the light. "What do I do?" Amy shouted. As if it was sound rather than light overwhelming the bridge.
Tails had no answer. He was at a loss for words. He stared at the brightness of the real Chaos Emerald, even as the iciness of the fake ones getting closer and closer overwhelmed his body. Something was coming but it wasn't yet there. There was nothing they could do, not as long as there wasn't anyone to fight.
Tails could barely hear the entrance of the bridge slide open behind him, like the light overwhelmed all his senses.
"Wait!" Angel cried out suddenly. She sprinted through the bridge doors and toward the group of them standing here. "Get rid of the Chaos Emerald! It's a beacon, it's—"
But Tails didn't hear the rest of what Angel had to say. His consciousness fractured. And where there had been impossible brightness, all at once there was
darkness.