An uneasy feeling had been sitting in Silver's stomach for some months. It had started like flashes of images in his mind, a mind so full of so many lives it was unstable to begin with. He had learned to cope at a young age with the time travelling and what it did to his memory. He was an enigma; Silver did not reset even though the world around him did and he had seen half a dozen broken worlds and destroyed futures.
He had been calling it the future even though it was his real time. He had come back to Sonic's time five years ago and had settled in a way he had not expected. His challenge had been to stop the one who betrayed the freedom fighters. He had done so all that time ago when he had halted Mecha Sally just as she was about to kill Sonic.
That was what he assumed had fixed his future. Sally had been deactivated for her own safety and had remained that way for the better part of a year. Sonic had remained his ever hopeful self while Tails, Rotor and Uncle Chuck worked diligently on adapting the krudzu to help Sally take back control of her own mind.
That time period between Sally's revival and potential destruction was when Silver found that world more comfortable than he should have. Elias was reinstated as King when Naugus' true nature was revealed and he fled. In the years that followed Eggman took heavy blow after heavy blow and though they were sure he lived, he slunk in to a dark cave never to appear.
Sally regained independent thought and took up royal duties alongside her brother, but she was to forever remain a robot. It was what had finally broken Sonic, who had both found and lost the love of his life in such a short space of time. He would have accepted Sally whatever her appearance but she had rejected any romance with him to concentrate on protecting her people. The Blue Blur was lost without a Princess to love and an Eggman to defeat. He had grown up being a hero to all and an icon to history but without the need to save the world, he was simply just a hedgehog.
If Silver were to be honest with himself, it was because of Sonic he was still in their time. He knew he had developed emotions for his cobalt peer that were more than admiration. Along with Amy they had struggled to regain the Sonic they had once known, and though he was still different there was still the old spark left in him too. Knowing romance would never be on the cards Amy had returned to Knottingham when she turned eighteen to help Rob rule their Kingdom. Shadow was back and forth in his duty as a G.U.N agent, Tails made up for lost time with his family, 'Twan and Bunnie started a family of their own and Rotor was a royal aid. The Freedom Fighters were disbanded.
Silver and his Sonic grew closer out of their isolation. Sonic had family sure, but sitting at home would never be who he was. Silver had wondered if his own family history would reveal itself while he was back in time, given he had been raised an orphan. Given her subtle psychic powers he had wondered if Amy was his ancestor, perhaps along with Sonic, but the first time he and Sonic kissed he knew that was almost an impossibility.
It had been a moment out of a storybook, and almost just as unbelievable. Sonic had run while Silver had flown, to higher and higher peaks until the air got thin and the temperature dropped. It was there, huddled together looking out on the vast expanse of Mobius, that Sonic had taken Silvers jaw in his palm and kissed him.
“I didn't...I didn't think....,” he had stuttered.
“No you don't too often,” Sonic had chuckled in reply.
Silver had blushed a crimson hue, “you're still mocking me for thinking you betrayed the Freedom Fighters?”
With a sultry lick of his lips, Sonic had simply nodded and said, “I always will.”
*****
Silver now stood with the Time Stone in his hand. It was strange to see his mentor, Mammoth Mogul, as he was. Running a casino, dealing with shady characters and gangsters. It was almost soul wrenching to not talk to him and even worse to steal from him. But the Mogul from his time had said it was the only way as he had been a darker soul in Sonics time.
It had taken days to finally tell Sonic he was returning to his own time. They had fallen so deeply in love it was like they were on the precipice of a cavern and that one push could trap them in that hole forever. It was exciting and terrifying all at once. With tears in his eyes Silver had told Sonic it could not carry on and that he would have to go back to his own time. Sonic had not shed a tear but with a burst of anger he had told Silver he had never felt anything for him at all,and that their relationship was built on desperation. The words had burnt him, but he knew Sonic had not meant them. The Blue Blur still had trouble with his emotions.
Not wanting to cause either of them any more pain, Silver decided he would leave without a goodbye to any of them. He was a stronger mammal after years of their solidarity surrounding him. The fear that Sally would turn was long gone and with the war becoming a distant memory Silver had no reason to stay. Or at least, his reason to stay was too selfish to stick by.
Closing his eyes he thought of his home, and a familiar tug pulled at his insides. The world around him began to warp and shift, melting away in to a water colour painting. But amongst the incoherent movement he felt a strong hand grip tightly to his upper arm. His golden orbs met emerald, and as they travelled through time and space the two hedgehogs embraced with ferocious passion. For seconds that felt like hours their lips and limbs intertwined without hesitation. Time literally froze around them.
So lost were they in each other, that they did not initially notice the world around them. Them smell of oil and metal replacing flora and fauna, the clank of machinery becoming what used to be bird song. The sky they would lie and stare in to together was now a sickly yellow tone, unnatural clouds of gas making the air thick and stagnant.
The hero in Sonic leapt out the moment he heard the whir of a Badnik wheel. With speed and accuracy he destroyed it with one spin. The second one Silver stopped and threw against a wall. The following few dozen sent them running for cover while they tried to get their heads around the situation.
“What's going on?” Sonic cried as he ran, Silver next to him.
“I don't know! This is a different future to the last one!”
“I can't even make out the horizon for all the buildings.”
They carried on running until more of the toxic sky showed against the outline of the metallic city. Faded posters of Eggman spouting messages of obedience dotted the roadside while robotisized Mobians marched in unison.
“This isn't possible,” Sonic mumbled, “we ended him.”
Silver grabbed hold of his hand and they both floated high in to the sky, the fumes stinging their wide, fearful eyes. They spotted what looked to be an empty blot of land and Silver flew them to what they hoped would be a brief second of safety. They had both known danger like this and they knew how to find a safe place swiftly.
There was no grass,but neither were there any Badniks, and they settled down next to an abandoned building. Hand in hand they gasped for breath, more out of shock than exhaustion.
Silver snarled and buried his face in his knees.
“I was meant to have fixed this,” he snapped, “I stopped Sally before she could harm any of you. Eggman no longer had control over her!”
“This isn't the time to blame yourself,” Sonic whispered harshly, “we have to figure out what exactly is going on.”
“Going on? We're two hundred years away from what was. There had been decades of going on but we know how it started!”
Flaring with anger Sonic when to retort when he heard a mechanical voice.
“Living creatures, you have been detected. There is no need for alarm.”
They both ducked down, “yea right,” Sonic muttered under his breath.
“Does that voice sound familiar?”
Sonic snorted, “it's a damn robot, they all sound that way.”
“Omega, what is it?”
They both coughed with the shock of the new voice. Carefully they peaked from behind the remains of a wall, to see him appear over the brim of a broken down tank.
“I have detected signs of life close by,” Omega said in his metallic notes.
Shadow rubbed at his forehead hard. Though no older than they knew him, the years had still taken their toll. His fur was dusty and ruffled. His spines stuck out and strange angles while the snowy white fur of his chest appeared stained with oil. His pose was weary.
“There hasn't been any life in these parts for fifty years Omega,” he sighed, “We'll need to check your sensors again before we....”
Shadow sniffed the air, but before he could call them out Silver and Sonic appeared in front of him. His face remained still for a matter of moments, before he howled the most animalistic, guttural sound they had ever heard him make.
“Woah Shads,” Sonic laughed nervously, “I didn't think you would miss me so much.”
The black hedgehog snarled, while Silver took hold of Sonics hand for moral support.
“This? This is why you vanished all those years ago?!” Shadow barked.
Silver flared up, “you were all getting on with your lives. I had stopped the one who destroyed the Freedom Fighters.”
Shadows jaw opened, and a bitter grin spread across his muzzle. He ran his tongue across his fangs, one noticeably chipped.
“Eggman was biding his time. While myself a Team Dark did nothing but try and hunt him down, you forgot he even existed. When word spread that Sonic the Hedgehog had vanished off the face of the planet, he rallied his fallen troops,” Shadow mumbled, tail flicking angrily, “we fought, but one by one, kingdom by kingdom, we fell.”
Sonic let go of Silvers hand, burying it instead in his spines, “everyone.”
“Gone! Well before their time. Sally fought for years but even the lonely Princess fell without her greatest night by her side,” he sighed, “it will not be found in writing, Nicoles records were obliterated one hundred years ago, but I can tell you now.”
Drawing up to his full height, signs of tears in his ruby eyes, Shadow curled his nose at them.
“The one to break the team, to end Sonics protection, to help end the world as we knew it, was you Silver the Hedgehog.”
