Sky followed Knuckles and Silas inside a small room with a chair similar to a dentist’s. “Please, sit down.” said Silas, gesturing to the chair. He nodded and hopped on, getting comfortable. “Okay, just gonna put these… here…” muttered the doctor, placing a few electrodes on his temples. “Very well. Now, I’m just gonna go to the other room, turn on the machine and start getting some readings. Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing.” said Silas, patting the hawk’s arm.
“I trust you, doctor! Let’s do this!” he said, jumping up and down the chair, visibly excited.
Silas chuckled a bit, his spirit reminded him of his son’s when he was younger, and went back to another room, separated from the current one by a one-sided mirror. Once behind the complicated machines, he turned on the speaker. “Can you hear me?” he spoke through it, seeing him look around.
“Loud and clear!” he said, showing his thumbs up.
“Very well. Now, I’ll just...” Silas muttered again, turning on the machine and starting the MRI on his brain. Already, he was getting some impressive results. “Incredible… The electric signals from the neurons to the nerves are off the charts! His body produces bio-electricity at twice… nay, thrice the pace as a normal Mobian! This may be key to his ability to perform electrokinesis on such high levels!” said Silas to Knuckles, excitedly.
“Is that… a good thing?” asked Knuckles, blinking. He wasn't that good with this whole sciency stuff, only getting something about electric signals.
“Very good indeed, sir! This kid alone is able to create electric arcs which, potentially, could be stronger than the ones created by Sonic himself!” Silas nodded.
“Woah woah woah, you saying this kid’s electric whatchamacallit is stronger than Sonic’s?!” Knuckles gasped slightly.
“Hypothetically speaking, yes. I have his charts on and Mister Sonic doesn’t generate the same voltage when he runs at top speed than Sky does just by breathing! Theoretically, amongst other things he’d be able to achieve, he’d be able to reach greater speeds than the “average” speed of sound, and reach the speed of light!” Silas was clearly very excited, and Knuckles wanted to understand the hype, so he just politely nodded. “Now, let’s test it out…” he said, pressing a button which gave Sky a small jolt, meant to stimulate the area in his brain that controlled his emotion, specifically anger and frustration.
“HEY!!” Sky winced and, doing that, he sent a few lightning bolts cracking on the walls. “What the heck was that?!” he grunted.
“Woah…” Knuckles mused. “Did that... hurt him?”
“Trust me, he’s fine. Those jolts are merely meant to irritate him at best.” said Silas, doing that a few more times to get some better readings. Every few minutes, he’d increase the power of the jolts, which in turn increased the power of the electricity leaving Sky’s body with each wince, which also made Silas even more excited as time went by. Finally, they stopped and both Silas and Knuckles left the control room, rejoining Sky who got off the chair.
“That… was unpleasant…” he grunted, pouting slightly.
“Sorry kid, but we had to see what you were capable of.” Silas snickered, then cleared his throat. “It appears your body is capable of generating high levels of electricity, which you could be able to manipulate freely with some training.” he said, reading on his chart.
Sky looked at his hands in awe. “...Really?” he asked.
“Yeah, but we have to do a few more tests, to see if your electrokinesis also applies to external sources. Follow me.” said Silas, heading to another room of the laboratory. This one contained what looked like a huge dynamo. “This baby is capable of generating enough electricity to sustain a small neighborhood for fifty years. I would like to see you being able to pull electricity from it and see if you’re able to manipulate it.”
“Uh, isn’t that a bit too much for his first day, doc? I know you’re excited, but…” Knuckles mused, having a gut feeling that something so big might’ve not been in Sky’s league yet.
“Science is risky, sir! We wouldn’t have invented anything if we didn’t risk a little bit! Besides, this is really Sky’s call to make, right son?” asked Silas to Sky, who didn’t look too sure himself, but… one of his idols counted on him, so he had to at least try. He gulped and got closer to the dynamo, feeling the sizzles coming out of it, and timidly stretched his hand towards it. Immediately sparks began to be pulled towards Sky’s hand and arm, coursing through him. He closed his eyes, expecting to feel pain... but it didn’t come. Slowly, he opened an eye and saw the electricity swirling around his arm and, as he pulled his arm away, he kept seeing it and feeling it on himself. Every time he’d move his fingers, he’d hear sizzling and crackling and small blue bolts course through his digits.
“W-Wow…” Sky muttered, stretching back his arm and breathing with his eyes closed. His feathers puffed up a bit as he drew more electricity onto himself, hearing it crackle and roam around and through him.
Behind a desk, Knuckles watched with an impressed face while Silas took notes like crazy. “Fascinating… So fascinating…” muttered the doctor as he kept writing and instructed Sky to get closer to the dynamo. Sky nodded slowly and moved closer, focusing on drawing as much electricity as he could from the dynamo on himself. His feathers began to puff up even more, his clothes began to float and he too was starting to levitate, all the while crackles and sparks began to be more frequent. Sky stretched his other arm, drawing even more electricity from the dynamo, which started to beep irregularly and flash a yellow light.
“Uh… What’s that sound?” asked Knuckles, raising a brow in concern
“Oh, that’s just the dynamo alerting us that 50% of its power has been drained… WAIT, WHAT?!!” Silas gasped suddenly. The dynamo began to whirr and beep even more as Sky kept draining it of electricity. More sparks came out, flashing around and almost hitting Knuckles and Silas, who took shelter behind the desk, the latter with a yelp.
“HGH… SKY!! CAN YOU HEAR ME?!!” Knuckles called out to Sky, the bolts coming out of him cracking everywhere in the compound loudly. Sky opened his eyes and they flashed in an azure light, sparks crackled from them too. It was like he was in a trance, floating several feet in the ground and surrounded by electricity going haywire. “SKY!! SNAP OUT OF IT!!” Knuckles shouted, punching the ground to try and reach out to him. Sky suddenly came back to his senses, squawking as he fell down, followed by a cascade of sparkles raining down on him.
“Gah! W-What…?!” Sky groaned, looking around. He then turned to see the dynamo and gasped: it had been completely drained of power and part of it had even begun to melt down. It was absolutely fried! Sky looked behind him, seeing Knuckles helping Silas up and saw a few patches of burnt fur on him. Tearing up, he thought he hurt them, so he got up shakily and ran out of the compound, not even realizing how fast he ran or the shocked expressions on Knuckles and Silas’ faces as he did. He stopped right on the border of the barrier, catching his breath… until he noticed he wasn’t really tired. It was more of a force of habit. Sighing, he began to walk around the perimeter, looking at his hands with confusion and fear. “...What have I done to them? What is happening to me? Why now?!” he asked himself, clenching his fists. “Even if I could help, I’ll probably do more harm than good. How useful can I be when all I’ll do is cause explosions to blow up cities? If I don’t get this under control…” he whimpered, sitting on a nearby rock, his hands under his beak as he sulked.
Sky watched Sunset City as the ruins of Eggman’s army continued ravaging whatever that got in their path. Sky could hear faint yells of resistance fighters helping civilians or bravely defending against the mechanized war machines. Sky filtered them out, getting stuck in his own head. He wished he could think of a way to figure out how to wield these powers, how to control them.
But the anxieties just left him lying still, not feeling entirely there, banging his head over his hands telling himself to do better.
Sky just wanted to focus and find any path that would start him on his journey to control his new nature.
It was then that he heard some noise coming from outside the barrier. He turned his head and widened his eyes: he saw none other than Silver the Hedgehog running towards the barrier! His fur was all messy and he himself didn’t look so great. Then, from behind the rubble came out a battalion of Egg Pawns, charging at him. Panting heavily, Silver tried to attack them with his powers, but he must’ve overexerted himself earlier so nothing happened. Grunting, Silver resumed running as the robots began to gain on him.
Sky gasped: of all the heroes, Silver was by far his favorite one! Heck, he even made a Silver fanclub with the other kids of his neighborhood! He shook his head: Silver needed help and with no other heroes around, only he could give support to Silver! All anxieties seemingly vanished for the moment as he rushed outside of the barrier, inadvertently turning into a literal lightning bolt and crashing onto the robots, Silver barely had time to throw himself on the ground to avoid being struck by him.
“Whoa! What the heck…?!” Silver asked, looking back and seeing Sky, panting slightly as he stood in the middle of the robots, fried by the high voltage he released which had been increased by all the energy he stole from the dynamo. Silver blinked slightly, Sky’s figure was… familiar to him, somehow. He shrugged it off, getting back up and dusting himself off as he headed towards Sky. “Kid… That was incredible!” he said, making Sky wince and stiffen up, slowly turning his head towards Silver with his eyes wide open.
“...Th-Thanks…?” he asked, absolutely not believing that this was happening: he was talking to his most favorite hero of all time! And he was praising him! Even though he didn’t show it, his heart was exploding with enthusiasm!
“You blasted those Badniks like, well… a lightning bolt.” said Silver, nodding and walking towards the robots, kicking them slightly. He used the scanner on his bracelets to examine the robots, gasping slightly as he saw that their circuits were now completely useless for Eggman. “Amazing… Wait, don’t tell me you’re the walking battery Knuckles told the Resistance about?” asked Silver, looking back at Sky, who drew circles in the ground with his foot.
“I-I guess…” Sky stuttered, unable to look up to see his hero in his eyes.
“...Is this your first time handling these things?” asked Silver, sighing and sitting on one of the metallic carcasses to catch his breath.
Sky blinked and looked at Silver, saying: “I beg your pardon?”.
Silver smiled at his politeness. “I can tell you’re just discovering these powers of yours. I’ve had that exact same look you have when I began to explore my psychokinesis. That feeling of… not knowing if you can trust your body… or your mind. That fear of hurting those you care about with it. I’ve been through it a lot.” said Silver, leaning back on the robot.
“R-Really?! B-But you seem so.. natural with what you do! Which, by the way, it’s amazing!” Sky said, slowly getting the confidence to at least talk back to him.
“Thanks, but… trust me, I fumbled over myself BIG time when I started. Heck, I didn’t know how to fly until days before I first traveled back in time!” Silver explained, stretching a bit.
“...Really? And… how did you master it?” asked Sky, twiddling with his fingers.
Silver opened one eye and smiled again. “Well, to take a page from Sonic’s book. It’d be faster… if I showed you?” he said, making Sky look up.
“Y-You mean…?!” he asked, his voice cracking a bit at the prospect of getting to be trained by Silver himself.
Silver simply nodded, got back up and patted his shoulder. “First, we both will need a quick recharge. Then you’ll start showing me where you’re at with your abilities.” he said, sliding his arm around Sky’s shoulder so he could help him walk back to the base. Sky swallowed and nodded, walking back with Silver.
As it turned out, Knuckles and Silas weren’t really hurt nor scared of him, just impressed by his ability’s reach. Silas also admitted he had been a bit too eager on Sky, wanting him to test his power on something so big from the start, when his powers’ true reach had yet to be discovered. From there, Silver took control of Sky’s power training and he proved himself to be exactly the type of teacher Sky needed. “Remember,” said Silver, “start small. There’s no point in overdoing yourself, you’ll only tire yourself out. Always pace yourself to where you have just enough to either defend or fall back.”
Living by that mantra, Sky continued to train his powers with Silver, while also remaining around Knuckles so he could learn some fighting techniques both bare-handed and with the Wispon, of which he found out to prefer the Lightning Wispon, being able to incorporate it into his power and ballet style into battle perfectly. Time three months, and Sky had already proven himself to be just as good a study for military training as he was for science, having already memorized most, if not all, of his two teachers’ training.
“I can’t believe I’m sayin’ this, rookie, but… you’re ready! You’re officially part of our army as a C rank soldier!” said Knuckles, patting Sky’s shoulder.
“Thank you, sir!” said Sky, the time under Knuckles and Silver had really done wonders for him, making him become way more confident in himself and in his abilities.
“And just in time. We just received some intel from Rouge. Apparently… Sonic is not dead!” said Knuckles. The other members of the Resistance gasped and cheered hearing this.
“That’s great! If he is, maybe my parents are still alive too! Where is he being held?!” asked Sky, excitedly.
“...In the most dangerous place known to Mobius.” said Knuckles, dramatically. “The Death Egg.”. Hearing that name, most gasped: they had heard that those who were brought into the Death Egg were forced to be subjected to the most grueling, inhumane experiments Eggman had ever done to anyone.
“He was up there all this time? Crap… Imagine what terrifying things he had to go through…” Vector groaned, rubbing the back of his head.
“I’m… I’m sure Sonic was able to withstand everything that that monster has thrown at him!” Amy replied, slamming her fist down. “I mean, COME ON! It’s Sonic! He never wavers!”.
“Amy’s right! So, lucky for us, we have managed to get a ride up to the Death Egg thanks to an outside help. Are you ready for a trip to space, Sky?” asked Knuckles.
“You can count on me, sir!” said Sky, smiling and nodding vigorously.
