Chapter Text
“Aw, come on!”
Silver kicks a piece of the charred rubble, kicking the ancient foundation a few feet away. The sky is a brilliant red, spilled blood across the horizon, while the sun peeks out from behind clouds of ash, a menacing vermilion eye peering over the earth. Ruins spread for miles, collapsed and dilapidated buildings lining the crust of the earth like stalagmites covering a cave floor.
Fires churn, a vortex of flame seen from a distance, spinning like a tornado as it tears into a city miles away from where Silver was. There was hot magma flowing onto the surface a few yards away from him, while buildings continued to turn to ash from centuries old fires.
Silver hasn’t seen an apocalypse this bad in who knows how many timelines. It gets bad, sure, but it’s more of an industrialized ruined future- abandoned factories line the streets, flora and fauna having been long wiped out in favor of sleek buildings, skies filled with the waste of callous machines. This... looks like Mother Nature decided to wipe out the entire earth in one stroke, a slash and burn across the entire world.
In essence, Silver was in the middle of hell and brimstone.
“I literally just got back!” He shouts, knowing damn well no one’s around to actually hear him.
From the looks of this future, he can’t help but wonder if there were any survivors this time. There’s usually at least a small group of survivors who roam the earth, but the devastation he sees... it’s hard to imagine there’s any one who could have survived whatever caused this.
He had just gotten back from another silly adventure with Sonic and his friends. Honestly, he doesn’t know why he bothers seeking help from them- they don’t ever take the job of saving the future seriously. All Sonic ever does is cause bigger problems, and then at the last second, manage to fix them. It’s infuriating, how little he seems to care about actually saving the world.
And it seems like in just a few minutes of absence, they’ve already gone and fucked up all of his hard work again.
Silver groans, running his fingers through his quills. He just got done saving Sonic and his friends- couldn’t they wait a day or so before they get themselves into more trouble? Does the integrity of the entire Mobian and human race mean anything to them?
Considering the nature of this apocalypse, he doubts it.
He clenches his fists, trying to sense the Chaos emeralds. Finding two of them is always a pain, but Silver isn’t very confident in his Chaos abilities- perhaps, if he was as attuned to them as Sonic and Shadow, he could figure out a way to Chaos control with only one. But Silver, despite all his traveling through time, hasn’t quite figured out a trick like that yet.
There’s definitely Chaos energy around, but strangely enough... it feels like it's emanating from the earth’s core.
Silver’s brows furrow as he peers at the ground. The earth did look to be ravaged by earthquakes- that’s how the magma seemed to have reached the surface- but surely the Chaos emeralds aren’t in the literal center of the earth? Why would they be all the way down there?
Gaia was the deity who resided at the core of this planet, if Silver’s knowledge on deities was still up to date in this timeline. Dark and Light Gaia, two halves of a whole, destined to awake from their millions of years of slumber over and over again to duke it out. But it’s definitely not time for either of them to wake up, so it can’t be them.
Then why would the emeralds be at the center of the earth?
Silver frowns, activating his telekinesis and flying above the ruined earth. The soil was charred a sickening black, marred only by the gray specks of ash that covered parts of the land like a blanket of snow, while other parts had magma cascading over the crust. It was a brilliant image of oranges and dreary grays and blacks covering the landscape.
There’s no way he’ll be able to reach the center of the earth, not without burning to a crisp. It’s moments like these that he wishes that pyrokinetic cat was still around- Blaze, he’s pretty sure her name was. She always seemed familiar to him. But he sure wishes he had her powers right about now, in this world full of fire and brimstone.
So that means he’s going to have to seek out a different manner of traveling to the past. Silver crosses his fingers, hoping that the time stones were still an option...
He peers up at the sky, searching for the familiar little planet that orbited like a moon around their planet. It was usually visible even when it wasn’t about to crash into Never Lake, but right now, Silver can’t even see a faint outline of it. The smoke and ash must be clogging the atmosphere. There’s no way whatever destroyed this planet also reached a whole other planet, right?
Silver settles himself on top of what used to be a brilliant skyscraper, now reduced to a shamble of melted steel and broken glass. He searched the horizon for any celestial bodies he was familiar with, other than that blazing red sun. There, in the corner of his eyes, was the moon-
Silver’s eyes widened. A ginormous chunk of the moon was missing.
Look, Silver knows that a piece of the moon is missing from an adventure with Eggman and some space station. He doesn’t know the details, but he knows that part of the moon was destroyed. But this is not only the wrong side of the moon, but far larger, too. If he didn’t know any better, he’d almost say the moon was split into pieces, just barely holding on together.
Silver jumps off the building, floating up as high as he dares. He can’t really tell, but he’d wager a guess that part of the apocalypse had to do with some of the moon chunks crashing into the earth.
Well, if the moon was destroyed, Silver can’t help but think Little Planet was probably in even worse condition.
Great! Now what’s he supposed to do? Is he really going to have to try and journey to the center of the earth?
As if on cue, the earth below him began to rumble. Silver watched as the building he had just rested on started to collapse, steel beams finally caving in, glass shattering as the entire structure began to sink. Many other buildings in the area began to follow suit- anything that managed to remain standing after two hundred years of hell slowly began to give way.
A pit of lava became visible as the earth began to shift and settle. The crust was cracking like an egg before his eyes, and Silver watched as burning orange began to cover the soil like a chocolate drizzle on a cake.
A ginormous burst of hot air was all the warning Silver had before lava shot straight into the air like a geyser. Silver dodges just in time to avoid getting roasted alive, watching the lava sink back into the ground. But in its wake was a gigantic creature, twice the size of a skyscraper, peering over the dilapidated city.
It was made of fire and lava, with beady, reptilian green eyes. Its body seemed solid, magma cooling as it reached the surface. Parts of it were still scalding, and fires ran across its arms like a tasseled jacket.
Silver stares at the monster for a few moments. The monster stares right back.
With a mighty roar, the monster waves its hand, sending a volley of piping hot molten rocks right at Silver. Silver lets out a small shriek before dodging, flying up, down, and sideways to avoid being hit by one of those rocks, before grabbing the last one telekinetically and slingshotting it right back at the ugly monster.
The monster roars and disappears into the lava. Silver remains in midair, spinning around, trying to keep track of the beast. There’s something awfully familiar about that thing, though Silver has absolutely no idea why. He remembers most of the apocalypses he’s woken up in, and none of them have ever included a giant fire lizard. Well, ignoring the Ifrit. But that was a whole different beast, more of a dragon than whatever this is.
Actually, they do kind of look alike.
“You wouldn’t happen to be the Ifrit, again, would you?” Silver asks, still trying to figure out where the beast slunk off to. It’s a lot more helpful to know what actually ends the world when he time travels to fix it.
Lava erupts into the sky, and Silver only barely manages to dodge in time, a few of his back spines getting burnt in the process. The gigantic monster leers over him, a blistering heat emanating from its almost scaly body. Its green eyes pierce into Silver, and he prepares himself for another attack.
“You don’t remember us?” The beast asks, voice distorted and strange.
Silver freezes in place. The Ifrit most definitely could not speak the last time they fought. “Am I supposed to?”
“How disappointing.” Without another word, the monster flings a volley of rocks once more. Silver dodges, managing to avoid getting hit, before sending one right back. There’s obvious power to the beast, but it’s not so graceful. Silver might stand a chance. Well, hoping that the monster doesn’t have a high stamina.
“Would you mind catching me up to speed, then?” Silver huffs out. The monster slaps the surface of the lava, creasing a giant wave that nearly sprays Silver. He dodges in time, but the monster’s also released a new wave of molten rocks, and this time Silver does get hit by one, sailing through the air into a building. “Oh, that’s gonna hurt in the morning. Actually, it hurts right now, too.”
He shoves the rock off of him, listening to the creaking of the metal building. A tsunami of lava begins to wash towards the building he was in, and Silver scrambles to get out, watching as the lava eats away at the steel beams like acid.
“Pitiful,” the creature says, and Silver huffs, wiping his mouth as he jumps onto the roof of another building. Once more, the creature sends a wave of rocks towards him, and Silver dodges, grabbing three of them telekinetically before slingshotting them right back.
The beast has noticed his pattern, however, and manages to catch all three of them before sending them right back. Silver’s eyes widen, and he dodges two of them, but the third one strikes his left side, causing him to go skittering into the ground with a loud moan.
“All these different timelines have made you soft,” the creature says, moving closer towards him. It leers, eyes boring down at him, and Silver looks up at it only literally, his own eyes sharp and defiant.
“We’ve met before,” Silver states. “Then you know that I’m pretty stubborn.”
“And foolish.” The creature almost seems to smile for a moment. “And mortal.”
The creature simply kicks a wave of lava towards him. Silver activates his telekinesis, shooting up towards the sky only to get slapped by a ginormous hand, swatted like a fly. Silver’s pride burns a bit as he goes tumbling through the air but manages to catch himself. He dodges another volley of rocks, this time leaping from rock to rock before jumping right towards the creature’s face.
It roars at him, about to swat him away, but Silver’s just a fraction of a second faster. He sends out a wave of psychokinetic energy, slashing the beast right in the face. It screams, lashing out, and Silver’s smugness lasts for a moment before he gets slapped again, tumbling onto the roof of another building.
“How’s that for foolish!” Silver shouts, grinning as the monster locks its heated gaze back on him.
“I see you’re just as naive as you used to be,” the creature murmurs, before disappearing into the lava once again. Silver jumps off the building just in time to watch as a tsunami of lava erodes at the base, lapping across the land like the wave of an ocean. Silver flies overhead, eyeing the river of magma, trying to sense it.
That’s when he feels a wave of Chaos energy flood his senses.
Silver dodges out of the way of a burst of lava, watching as the beast reappears. It clicks into place- the Chaos energy is emanating from the beast. Silver’s not given enough time to ruminate on that, though, as more chunks of burning rocks are tossed his way.
Silver dodges, tossing one of them back. The monster slaps it back, but Silver was expecting that. He launches another rock before ducking under the one launched at him. The rock hits the monster in the face, and it shrieks, ear splitting and enraged. Silver isn’t deterred, though, and flies right towards it, sending another wave of telekinetic energy to slice across one of its eyes.
Being up close, Silver feels the pulsing Chaos energy beneath the fires of the beast. So that’s where the Chaos emeralds are, then.
Silver can sense all seven of them, resting within the great beast. There’s no way Silver can snag all seven away from it. Silver’s manipulation of Chaos energy is... admittedly very basic and very unrefined. He can’t use it like Sonic or Shadow, and manipulate it to his will except to leap across time. Trying to go super would probably kill him, honestly- he highly doubts he’d be able to control all of that ancient energy flooding his veins.
But maybe he could just snatch one of them away. Guess now it’s time to learn that trick of time traveling back with only one emerald…
Sonic’s performed all sorts of bizarre miracles with these things. Maybe the gods above can grant him one, just this once.
The beast claws at him, a hand ripping through the air. Silver dodges and flies right back towards its face. The heat emanating from it is almost unbearable, like Silver was trying to get cozy inside an oven, but he persists, once again moving towards his face.
“Who are you?” He shouts, before throwing himself at the ginormous monster. He can feel the Chaos energy now, and tries to tap into it, drawing a bit of it away from the monster to power up his next attack.
He lets out as strong of a gust of psychokinetic energy as he can muster, falling on top of the beast's muzzle from the effort. The power manages to rip across the beast’s third eye, and Silver watches with interest as it actually manages to slice it. The beast screams in pain and Silver takes this time while it’s distracted to try to snag one of the emeralds.
The Chaos emeralds work like magnets, Tails and Sonic had explained to him once. It’s why they can combine together in one person, when they’re attracted to each other, but separate as soon as they’re done going super, becoming repelled by each other. It’s how Sonic uses them to find each other, and how Tails uses them in his trackers.
Silver twists on the Chaos energy inside the beast, grabbing on to the energy waves as tight as he can, like grabbing the reins of a horse. It hurts, for a few moments, the Chaos energy trying to reject him, having already found a suitable host who was most certainly not interested in sharing. It sears like a hot iron across his entire body, angry Chaos energy flowing through him before trying to dissipate, but Silver holds on.
The beast flails with him on top, gripping tight against his magma muzzle, knuckles white from his grip. The Chaos energy doesn’t speak to him without a fight, burning him from the inside out, until the heat begins to simmer and Silver knows he’s caught their attention.
He manipulates his own innate energy, trying to send it back to one of the emeralds, trying to change the Chaotic magnetism of just one of them. He’s grabbing one of the emeralds with his Chaos energy, flooding it with his own into something unrecognizable, and eventually, the Chaos emerald turns on its peers, repelling away from the other six.
At last, a bright light flashes across the hellscape, and a singular emerald appears, floating above the beast and Silver. The beast makes a move to grab it, claws slashing through the air like knives, and Sliver races the beast, shooting up into the sky with the last wisps of his telekinesis.
Silver grabs it first, right as the hand of the beast begins to curl around him. He’s got one shot to make this work, or he’s about to be crushed like a bug in this monster’s grasp.
His fingers graze the emerald just as his surroundings begin to grow dark. The connection is made, though, like a jumper cable making contact with a battery. His innate Chaos energy still cocoons the emerald, and Silver prays that it’s enough of a jumpstart for a singular emerald to Chaos control him through time. Energy jolts through his body and Silver shouts, “Chaos control!”
A flash of white, and the beast's hand is now empty. It opens its palm, before shaking its head, melting back into the pool of lava. “Still as naive as ever.”
-
A flash of white later, and Silver drops like a stone in the middle of a street. A street!
For a split second, Silver’s overwhelmed with pure joy. He managed to get back to the past! He has to warn the others of the terrible fate of his future, and try to figure out how to prevent it. It definitely wasn’t the Ifrit, but who else could it have been?
He’s ready to seek out Sonic’s friends when the realization of his surroundings strike him.
The scenery is industrial, bland buildings covering every available square foot of the city. The usual trees that adorn the sidewalks are replaced by light poles, and all of the grass has been paved into pure concrete or asphalt. The sky was dreary gray with pollutants, and Silver sees almost a factory on every corner, pumping out some awful, black, noxious fumes that seem to be covering up the sun.
Citizens mill about, faces grim as they scurry around him. Silver’s eyes flicker over the city. There wasn’t necessarily something wrong here, other than the complete industrialization of what Silver thought was Station Square. All of the natural beauty the city tended to had been replaced by mechanical structures. The people, who usually wore bright smiles and would offer to give him directions to places wouldn't even glance his way.
That’s when Silver sees it- billboards upon billboards, ordering people to remain calm and ordered, or face robotization. A few other ads included directions to the nearest Bucket-O'-Sushi or amusement park, and others included areas to avoid due to toxic wastes being dumped there.
Eggman’s face was stamped on every single ad.
“Uh oh.”