Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Most of his days started out relatively the same. Wake up, roll out of bed, bring Tails some food, go for a run.

That last part was always where things tapered off.

He'd run, but where that led was always different. Sometimes it led to a cool new spot, sometimes it was a new adventure, most of the time it was trouble.

And normally that trouble was Eggman.

That's why he wasn't terribly surprised when Tails called in to tell him a group of motobugs and buzz bombers were running amok in Spiral Hill.

"I gotcha! Be there in a sec!" He said.

"Alright, I'll head out." He heard Tails state.

"Woah hang on, you're packing aren't you? No reason for you to have to pause that." Sonic said skidding to a halt.

"Don't worry about it, I'm closer anyways." The kit replied.

A smirk split across the hedgehog's face. "You wanna bet?"

Tails laughed at him. "Race ya'!"

"Deal!" The hedgehog replied the moment the phrase was out there.

Within seconds he had reached the village. Tails was there, already smashing a few badniks.

Sonic smiled, he knew his brother could handle it, he's just glad that he was starting to see it himself.

The overall attack wasn't anything special, rather lack luster actually, Tangle probably would've taken care of it if she'd been around. The whole thing took him back to the good old days. Nothing but the little badniks and their leader up on the eggmobile.

Speaking of which...

Smashing through a few motobugs with ease he jumped up onto a lamppost to get the human's attention.

"Pretty basic setup Egghead! Don't tell me you forgot how to hold a good fight on that island too!" He laughed.

"You wish, rodent!" He shot back. "Consider this your warm up while I test something new!"

He gave him a confused look and tapped his foot against the pole.

Something new? What could be new about such a basic set up of bots?

"Sonic!" Tails yelled at him.

He snapped back into reality and noticed the arrangement of buzz bombers that had now gathered around him.

"Hm."

He jumped up right as they fired where he had just been.

"Too slow! As usual." He smirked as he bounced off the bots, destroying one after another as he went.

He landed himself on top of a motobug, smiling as he felt the crunch from the mechanics below him.

Tails smiled at him and polished off the last remaining bot with a wrench.

Sonic smiled back and gave him a thumbs up but then the kit's face dropped.

"Hey, what's the matter-"

"You know rodent, I picked up more than one thing on those godforsaken islands."

He turned to find himself looking down a large spike-like weapon that was glowing brightly.

"Wuh-oh."

It fired.

He screamed.

The energy from the beam lifted him off the ground. Tails watched from below panicked.

"AAAUUGHH-!"

Searing pain split through his body. It felt like he was being torn apart and put back together over and over again.

"Stop this!" Tails yelled attempting to find a way to shut down the machine.

Sonic grit his teeth in pain.

The human ignored him with a smile and started talking about his work over the sound of the hero's screaming.

"You see, after our little adventure in the Starfall Islands I decided to do some experimenting with their tech and-"

"STOP!"

Tails looked over to Sonic with shock at the screamed out demand that was so angry and loud it didn't even sound like him. Even human jumped in surprise at the command, hitting the button to release the hedgehog in a panic.

He hit the ground hard on his hands and knees breathing heavily.

Tails ran over to his side.

His eyes were clenched shut so he was confused when he fell down further as his arm phased through the ground.

Up to his shoulder on his right side slipped underneath the rocky surface as if he were a ghost. Tails caught him quickly looking frazzled at his arm.

The appendage flickered in and out of existence as if it were glitching. It almost looked like the cyber corruption they had just escaped but- even then his body was solid, it had form to it.

Now it was as if his arm was just a hologram, and a janky one at that.

Tails helped the older up to his feet shakily. He clutched his stomach with his good arm and the other one, the strange one, hung limply at his side.

It wasn't an angry red or blue like the corruption either. When it actually was visible it was a strange opalescent color. Mostly glowing white but also flickering with different colors.

While Tails looked concerned, Sonic had turned his head up towards Eggman who had just been watching them with curiosity the whole time and snarled.

"Well," He smiled wickedly, "as interesting as this has been I think I'll head home now."

Tails growled at him but quickly turned his attention back to his brother who had slumped forward again.

Eggman's smile didn't leave. "I think I have a few adjustments to make."

Tails walked Sonic back to the Tornado and loaded him in before flying home.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Tails asked worriedly.

"Yeah bud, 'course I am." He waved him off.

Tails did not look convinced.

When they got home he'd stumbled around for a bit before eventually getting to the kitchen. 

He felt... Weird. Like all his insides had been scrambled around and rearranged. And there was this weird buzzing going on in his... Everything. Honestly the only thing that didn't feel weird or hurt was the arm that was still only half there.

"Eggman was using tech from Starfall Islands, he must've taken one of the bots with him and modified it somehow." Tails said.

He pulled the Miles Electric out and started clicking away.

"Sonic did you recognize anything about that weapon? Anything that reminded you of something from the island?" He asked pulling out the scanner and turning towards his arm.

"Hm, not sure... There was something familiar 'bout it but I didn't really get a good look before, y'know." He smiled sheepishly and attempted to pick up a can of pop without thinking about it only for it to fall straight through his hand and onto the floor.

The fox's frown only deepened as he scanned his arm.

Sonic sighed. "Dude, seriously, it's fine. I literally can't feel anything at all." He said moving his arm to demonstrate. "Besides, you've got a lot of preparing to do tomorrow if you still wanna leave Friday!"

The fox seemed startled. "Are you joking?"

Sonic smiled nervously, confused. "Uh, no? ...Open this?" He asked gesturing to the can of some energy drink he'd been struggling with.

He wasn't normally a fan of the stuff but he wanted to sleep tonight and they were the only thing that worked.

Tails obliged but sent a questioning glance to the perfectly fine arm that Sonic still had clutched to his chest.

He wasn't injured in the chest area, so he'd put it off but now he was starting to wonder.

"Sonic I'm not leaving. Not while you're in this condition and Eggman has a new weapon."

The blue hedgehog choked on his drink. Coughing into his hand which, wasn't doing much on account of being non-existent.

"What- dude- you've gotta go! I can't be stopping you from getting out there! That was the whole point of you going out on your own!" He complained.

"Sonic there's a new threat, a very strange threat, mind you."

"So whaaat? There's always a "new threat" if you waited until everything was chill you'd never leave."

Tails seemed to mull that over. "Maybe I should call Amy-"

"No!" The hedgehog yelled suddenly before breaking into a nervous laugh.

"N- No, just- don't call Amy. She's got her own stuff going on. I don't wanna go ruining all her plans and disturbing her." He said, his grip on his chest suddenly tightened with a wince.

Tails noticed.

Sonic's eyes fluttered a bit before he started walking towards the living room.

"Look bud, whatever happens will be for me to figure out, don't worry about me. Sonic the Hedgehog always pulls through, yeah?" He smiled, falling down onto the couch.

"Well, I mean, yeah-" Tails replied rubbing his arm nervously.

"Then you've got nothing to worry about" he smiled. "Now go get some sleep."

The kit nodded quietly before padding off down the hallway.

"'Night, Sonic." He heard.

"G'night bud, love ya." He replied.

He let out a sigh when the footsteps stopped and let himself sink further into the couch. He had no plans of going back to his room tonight. He rested his good arm on his chest again as he sat back.

Tails would never leave him alone if he found out the effect on his arm had spread.

Chapter Text

The next morning was... Difficult.

Tails woke up before him, he normally did, but that also meant he had to get out of the house without his brother noticing anything was wrong and something very much was.

He had reassured the fox that he was fine so Tails wouldn't give up on his plan to adventure on his own. But if he's being honest he could really some smart guy tech right now.

His shoulder was gone. His arm had done that weird flicker-into-nothing thing yesterday when he was hit, and he knew it was spreading. By the end of the night he could tell the same thing had happened to his shoulder.

There was a weird energy that went with the sensation, like going super, but something was wrong with it. He felt... Detached. He could feel the way his arm buzzed, and he could move it, but it wasn't there.

Like he was controlling it from a distance.

It'd be solid for a while, he could grab things and it'd look normal for a bit, and then it'd fall through the next second and leave him with a mess to clean up.

Then when he woke up he felt it across his chest and around his shoulder. Panic set in.

He was almost relieved when he realized it hadn't visibly changed the way his arm had.

Almost.

Sure it looked fine, meaning there was a good chance Tails wouldn't notice, but it wasn't actually there. Just like his arm.

Instead of flickering and changing color it looked normal, solid, but when he pressed his hand against his collarbone the area flickered and he could pass straight through it.

Whatever amalgamation of technology Eggman had jammed together this time had really messed him up, and he wasn't even sure how.

"Sonic!" Tails called from the garage.

He cringed and begrudgingly walked over.

"What's up bud?" He asked, he set his elbow up against the doorframe only to have to and stop himself from falling on the floor when it went straight through.

Tails gave him an expression that screamed 'you're a complete moron' before turning back to his monitors.

"I want to run some more tests to figure out what the root of the issue is."

"We know the issue don't we? I got hit by a big laser, case closed." Sonic smirked proudly and Tails swatted him on the head with a paper.

"Sonic clearly this is more than just you getting hit by a laser. Your body is reacting in a way that shouldn't even be possible!" The fox exclaimed swishing a clipboard into his arm only for it to pass straight through.

"Ahh, so what?" He waved dismissively "I do stuff like that all the time! Hero of Mobius hellooo?"

"Sonic." Tails leveled with him and the hedgehog deflated, lifting his shoulders and folding his ears back.

"I'm fine okay? Whatever this is will go away eventually. I'll figure something out like we always do and everything will go back to normal." He spat.

Tails just stared at him with an accusatory look.

"You've done this before." He stated almost angrily. "How many times are we going to have to do this before you learn?"

"I feel like it's gonna be at least eighteen." He said with a smirk.

Tails glared at him with fiery blue eyes. Sonic rolled his eyes and shrank in on himself, sitting down on the swivel chair Tails had set out for him.

The fox sighed at the lack of response.

"Look, I'll just do some scans and then you can run off for a while. I'll get my info and I can keep packing and you can go do your thing."

The hedgehog's face lifted at that. "See? That's more like it!" He smiled and Tails rolled his eyes as his brother spun around on his seat.

Scanning always seemed to take forever despite the fact that Tails probably had the fastest tech in all of Mobius.

His arm was jabbed and prodded (not that he could feel any of it) for what felt like hours. Eventually Tails set down the Miles Electric in favor of the bigger display screen.

"Thank Chaos, FINALLY."

"Sonic it's been ten minutes." His brother said flatly.

"Ten minutes too long." He simply stated in response.

"Oh yeah? And what exactly was I keeping you from?"

"Y'know...stuff!"

"Ah, my bad, I had no idea I was keeping you from something as important as, stuff."

"You could stand to lose the tone young man." Sonic reprimanded with a smirk. His brother just stuck his tongue out at him and turned away.

"Well this is strange." He muttered. Sonic peaked over his shoulder at the screen.

It wasn't like he could actually read any of it, there was a lot of lines and numbers, but he could at least look at what Tails was examining.

"Whassit say?"

"It's... confusing. It's like nothing even happened to you. Your internals are all stable, as if nothing has changed. Your weight, mass, heart rate, blood pressure, all of it is completely normal."

"Welp, you're right, that is definitely confusing." Sonic stated and received a frown in return.

"What I'm saying is your body hasn't reacted to whatever happened to your arm at all. In fact it's functioning as if it was still there."

"Well I mean, technically it is-" The hedgehog said grabbing the pen Tails was holding.

He twirled around his fingers a few times before his arm flickered and it fell through his hand and onto the floor.

"-occasionally." He finished with a dulled look.

"But it shouldn't be possible." Tails said exasperatedly "if something was wrong- which it is- your body should be reacting in some sort of way in order to accommodate."

There was a beat of silence as the hedgehog thought and the fox turned back to his charts.

"So what you're saying is-" Sonic turned to him with a smile and the younger already knew where this was going. "-even your charts say that I'm totally fine."

The fox gave him another fed up look but the hero's smile didn't waiver.

"Sonic I swear to Chaos don't even try this with me right now."

"Try whaaat?" He asked coyly, standing up with a shrug. "I mean, if all your readings say nothing is wrong then, well, who am I to doubt that!"

"Sonic you know that's not how this works!"

"How what works? Last I checked there wasn't anything wrong." He turned to leave the room.

"You know there is!" Tails yelled breathlessly and the hedgehog stopped.

He let out a deep sigh, too far.

He turned back around.

"Tails look-" the older brother gripped the younger's shoulder and knelt down to eye level with him. "Whatever's going on clearly isn't a normal problem."

"No kidding." The fox snapped back at him.

"But, that doesn't mean it's a life or death issue that we gotta figure out right here, right now."

"But what if-"

"Ah, ah, nope! My problem, my method. You're going off on your own, you're gonna have your own adventures now. That means that I can't be there to help you with your issues," his eyes flashed over to the packed up Tornado, "And you can't be here to help with all of mine."

Tails rubbed his arm nervously and looked away from him.

The hedgehog sighed. "As bad as I am at it, I'm gonna have to start figuring some of this stuff out on my own. Which means-"

"-No help from me, I get it." Tails rolled his eyes but smiled. "Just put a little more effort into your own well-being for once."

"You got it" He smiled "Am I good to go now?"

The fox rolled his eyes.

"Yes, fine, I release you! Sonic the Hedgehog you are now free to do as you please!"

The blue hedgehog just smiled and took a bow before speeding out the door.

The village was only a few miles from their house, lovely place. Something about it was just so bright and alive while but still calm and quiet.

It was also where a lot of his friends lived.

"Hey Vanilla! Hey Cream!" He greeted, skidding to a halt outside of a small café.

The two rabbit Mobians smiled and waved at his arrival.

"Hello Sonic, what can I do for you today?" Vanilla asked kindly. She was currently setting some flowers out on the front desk.

"Hi Mr. Sonic!" Cream exclaimed, jumping to try and get a better look over the counter.

"Oh nothin' much." He laughed. "Just wondering if Shadow was around, I was hoping we could race."

Vanilla fluffed up the pale blueish-purple flowers (hyacinths?). "I'm afraid I haven't seen him in a while, off on another mission, as usual."

"Yeah!" Cream cried "he's out on a top secret mission and he's letting me take care of Reaper while he's gone!" The bunny exclaimed proudly.

"Aw that's so cool! Where are they now?" He asked, looking around for the dark chao.

Cream made a face like she was in deep thought before giving him an "I'll be right back." And disappearing through one of the double doors.

Vanilla sighed with a laugh before turning back to him. "They're in the back playing with Chocola and Cheese."

"Ah, I'll just let 'em play then." It wasn't nearly as fun to love up on the creature when Shadow wasn't there to be pissed at his chao's affinity for the blue hero.

"So, how're things going with Tails?" She asked, changing her attention to the coffee maker behind her.

"Oh y'know, he'll be headed out tomorrow  if all goes according to plan."

Vanilla hummed and started making something.

"He's been real flighty about staying though. He's worried something'll happen to me after he leaves because of a mishap from yesterday."

"Spiral Hill?"

"Yep, got hit with some weird Eggman beam, now my arm's made of sparkles." He confirmed waving his ghostly appendage.

Vanilla inspected it for a moment before humming again and turning back to whatever she was making that smelled so good.

"Well, it certainly looks like it could be an issue."

She replied, taking Tail's side, "but are you sure you even want him to go yet?"

"What? Of course I want him to! He needs to do this for himself!"

"But if he did stay because of you, then it's no longer his choice?"

Sonic grumbled and flopped his head down on the table.

The older mobian set a plate of cheesy eggs and two flaky croissants in front of him. He shoveled them into his mouth with a grumpy expression.

"How do you always know?" He asked exasperatedly. Vanilla was an awesome mom, he just wished she would stop using those powers on him.

She laughed "oh please, you always come looking for a race with Shadow whenever you want a distraction." She smiled.

"Uuuuggghhh" he groaned and shoveled another hunk of food in his mouth.

"Why do you always have to ask the hard questions?" He sighed and the older giggled lightly.

"Just trying to help you think it through dear." She smiled and patted his head.

He finished off his food with a thank you and left a small bag of rings on the counter.

He stumbled at the door, having tried to open it with the hand that was very much useless before he was gone again.

Tomorrow would be a better day. He knew it. He had a gut feeling on this one.

Chapter Text

Sonic was acting strangely.

That isn't to say he's not weird, he's definitely got his quirks, but after being by his side for so long Tails could pick up when something was off.

His brother was gone by the time he woke up. That wasn't anything new, sometimes he just did that. But there wasn't even anything set out, Sonic always took time to cook something for him.

He could do it himself, he wasn't gonna complain, but... he thought he'd at least stay for the morning of his last day here...

He'd be lying if he said he wasn't a little hurt.

Not to mention he was being dodgy about what happened yesterday.

Tails still doesn't understand that whole conundrum.

Whatever Sonic had been hit with must've caused something to change with his chaos signature. That was the only answer he could think of.

But the weirdest part was the way his readings were reacting.

Normally a disturbance with chaos energy meant less of it, or a change in the frequency and wavelength of it.

It didn't mean more.

Once Sonic was hit it was like his chaos energy had been supercharged. His levels were on par with a chaos emerald itself.

That was the most confusing part of this whole thing.

Why would his chaos energy skyrocket? There's no way that Eggman meant for that to happen, furthermore why didn't Sonic seem affected?

He should feel better with more chaos energy, not tired or indifferent.

And yet, he managed to fall asleep that night, and even before that he seemed fine.

There was a new pop-up on his computer. He made his way over to his desk avoiding bags and boxes of things he'd been sorting through and organizing. The results came in for the scan he did of Sonic yesterday.

Except... They couldn't possibly be right.

He scanned through the results over and over again but they still didn't make any sense.

By all accounts, according to the bioscan, Sonic was completely and totally fine.

As if he hadn't even been hit in the first place.

If they could just figure out what kind of robot Eggman had used maybe it'd all click into place. He'd been scrolling through the database he'd collect on angel island for hours now.

It wasn't any of the titans, that was for sure. He was also pretty confident that it wasn't any of the bigger boss ones either though. Unfortunately that left all the mini robots and there were a lot of them.

Something about that beam seemed familiar though. Like he could almost remember what bot it was from...

"WOOOOOO!" he yelled as he ran straight off a cliff.

The wind rushed through his quills as he fell.

The sun was out, it was the perfect temperature, honestly there's nothing more he could've asked for.

He tucked into a dive sailing faster and faster towards the ground.

He'd never get over this feeling he swears it. Heart racing and wind battering against him.

It wasn't like Starfall Islands, sure it was cool to have new terrain to run around but it was all business while he was there.

And... y'know the whole "dying" thing but that was whatever.

He landed and his spin shot him forward like a rocket.

It wasn't until he tried to uncurl that it went wrong.

Normally he planted his hands, flipped, and landed on his feet to keep running.

This time, he stuck his hands out, one went straight through the ground, he got tossed to the side and faceplanting on his side.

He brushed the dirt and sod out of his quills and off of his face with an aggravated face.

Okay this was starting to get annoying. He can deal with dropping a few things and looking a little stupid when he tries to grab things, his pride would survive, but he draws the line at interfering with his runs.

What exactly did Eggman do to him?

He keeps trying to think of what robot his laser reminded him of but he just can't place it. There were so many on that island and a lot of them looked ridiculously similar.

He brought his hand to rest over his chest.

But which one had a beam like that?

Plenty of them had lasers...

A small noise caught his ear. He turned his head to a rustling bush and waited until- a chao fell out.

"Woah- what are you doing out here bud?" He asked lifting up the small creature. It was a neutral chao, same as Cheese.

The chao chirped at him excitedly before diving back into the bush. He followed behind, with some difficulty. He was shocked when he managed to wrestle his way out though.

"Woooah" he gaped.

Crystal clear water surrounded by vegetation more vibrant than anything for miles stood before him. Trees with strange fruits hung over the water and chao floated all around the area.

"A new chao garden" he breathed staring at the scene. "I had no idea this was out here."

Knuckles would love this... He walked carefully around the small pool.

He didn't notice all the little eyes that followed after him.

Every chao in the garden had turned its head to stare and any of them he passed seemed to be following after him.

Then one flew up to him and latched onto his chest and snuggled in.

"Ha! Oh man you're really friendly huh?"

Then another one jumped on him... and another, and another. Chao normally liked him but this was starting to get excessive.

"Okay!" He flung himself up, "everybody off!"

They didn't listen. Shocker.

He lost his balance and fell on the soft grass in a heap.

He looked up at the endlessly blue sky.

Was Vanilla right? Was he just doing this for himself? Maybe he could still ask Tails for some help- just for this one last thing?

That sounded like a slippery slope though, especially if he was supposed to say goodbye today.

Oh yeah brother of the year over here, my little brother wanted to see the world and at the last second I asked him to stay. Because that definitely wouldn't make him a total ass.

She can't ask Tails for help now, not when he already made such a big deal out of it.

A sharp ring from his quills was the only thing that managed to startle all but one of the small creatures.

"Tails, lemme guess-"

"Do you really even need to?"

"Nah, I know it's Eggman."

"Yep, see you there?"

"Obviously,"

He took one last look at the only chao that was still clinging to his weird ghost arm. A small purple and yellow one. He smiled at it before gentle setting it down and taking off.

He came to a screeching halt at Tail's side. He was late but that was more so because when he was running it occurred to him that he never asked where Eggman was.

The answer, had been Station Square. Real original.

"Alright, let's get this over with yeah? We've got stuff to do!" He called out to Eggman.

"Oh I assure you rodent, you won't have to worry about any of that when I'm through with you!" He smiled. An army of badniks slowly started emerging from the alleyways around them.

"I've calibrated all of my robots with the same energy that my Starfall weapon has."

A small spike of anxiety flickered through his system as he looked into the now purple colored eyes of all the robots around them.

He glanced at Tails, who stood confidently at his side, and quickly looked away when the other caught him staring.

Why is he scared? He's done this stuff before. They're just badniks-

"You lead some away and I'll get the others?" Tails smiled but grew concerned the longer he went without a response from the other.

"Sonic?" The fox asked. "Are you okay?"

The blue hedgehog swallowed a lump in his throat and grinned "Yeah! Course I am! Ready for one last fight?" He smiled.

Tails gave him a concerned look before turning back to the fight.

Eggman smiled darkly as more purple eyes appeared from the dark.

"Let's see how long you can last."

He took off down an alley in an instant.

He could hear lasers hitting behind him and engines rumbling as they tried to keep up.

Tails had already started wailing on some of the other badniks when he ran.

He turned corners and jumped over cars. Badniks smashed into things behind him as he outmaneuvered them.

They were persistent though and at one point when he grabbed a light pole to turn he felt it.

A burning sensation nicked him in his good arm and he stopped for a moment to watch the area slowly fractalize and chip away.

Not his best move.

Bots surrounded him and a small bead of sweat rolled down his forehead.

There were two exits and badniks were blocking both of them.

It's fine. He's got this... he's got this.

The army of badniks descended on them in an instant. He watched his brother take off through the streets with a swarm going after him. That left him here with the remaining ones and Eggman.

It wasn't that difficult to smash through the ones that tried attacking him, and dodging the beams from Eggman were relatively simple.

A few things he'd already learned were that:

1. The machine had moving parts to it that detached when he was getting ready to shoot.

2. The beams from the main machine weren't as volatile as the badniks, which were more concentrated.

And 3. It took him nearly four minutes to charge up a single shot.

That last one was especially useful considering that it made dodging it easy.

More buzz bombers surrounded him and he waved through them, smashing whatever was within reach.

He smiled to himself as another one went down. That is, until he got hit.

A blast slashed his arm and he lost balance, toppling out of the sky like a plane gone out of control.

He hit the tar and rushed to inspect his arm as soon as he got his bearings.

Even if Sonic insisted he leave he wouldn't be able to if his arm- his arm... his arm was... fine.

Sure it was a little singed from the hit but it wasn't glowing or flickering the way Sonic's had been.

But then- what was wrong with Sonic?

First the beam and then the chaos energy what could it-

Unless-

Maybe...

He looked back up at the spire on the eggmobile.

Only one way to test it out. He needs to let himself get hit.

"Shit- Shit- Shit- don't get hit- don't get hit- don't get hit-"

He scrambled around the corner of another building, the mechanical drones following closely behind.

"Shit- Shit- AH-"

He fell to the ground.

No- please chaos no-

They hit his leg.

They hit his leg.

He watched, with paralyzing dread as the area behind his knee cracked and flaked away. Slowly, it spread like an infection as it took over his appendage.

The buzzing behind him barely hit his ears when he tried to start running again. He booked it around a corner. Several lasers hit him as he tried to regain speed.

Corner after corner he ran and turned. He needs to get back to Tails.

As the buzzing faded away he took a second to lean against a building and catch his breath. He panted heavily, sweat dripping through his quills. His hand slipped through the building walls and he swore as he started running again.

He dashed through the street, the sound of mechanical wings started to fill his ears again. Blasts went off beside him.

"AUGH-" he fell to his knees as his leg sunk through the ground.

He fought to drag his limb back to the surface and when he did it was a shot in the dark if it would stay up a second time.

At some point he finally turned and took a swing at one of the bombers. Thing is, he took a swing with his right arm.

The arm that was nothing more than a pearly silhouette.

But it worked.

The second his fist collided with the machine it went straight through and the robot fritzed out so badly it spiralled straight into the ground.

"Woah-" he looked up at the swarm. "I can work with this."

He smashed through the swarm as best he could but eventually he'd been hit far to many times.

His entire right arm and across his collarbone had been turned and so had his entire left leg, the middle of his left arm to his shoulder, and his upper right thigh.

With three buzz bombers left, he ran to find Tails.

Just keep running just keep running-

He took another turn and ended up in an open area.

Tails was there, there were only a few badniks left, and Eggman was there.

And he had his weapon aimed directly for his little brother.

Tails was determined and staring straight into the machine as it whirred and charged.

He didn't even give it a second thought.

He needed to protect his brother.

Everything when wrong when he caught the blue movement out of the corner of his eye.

Sonic.

He tried to yell out and warn him.

"SONIC STOP! IT'S-!"

The weapon went off.

The beam fired.

The blast knocked him to the ground. A figure was outlined in the light the laser created.

"-capture" Tails murmured with tears in his eyes as he looked up from the ground to see his brother standing directly in the path of the beam. Taking a hit he was trying to take on purpose.

Sonic stood with his arms out illuminated in the purple and white light. He turned his head to look back at him.

He was sitting there in shock staring into his brother's eyes as his arms and body began to dissolve and flake away.

"Hey! Hey!" Sonic shouted to him. "Up here, eyes are up here. Look at me."

Tails did, taking his attention away from the fact that his brother was literally disappearing before his very eyes.

Sonic smiled.

He smiled at him.

Even with his body being torn apart in front of him.

"Everything's gonna be okay," he grinned and closed his eyes, speaking in a voice so gentle and soft.

"You've got this."

And then his face faded away into nothing with the rest of his body.

Silent tears slipped trailed down his muzzle.

In front of him, instead of his hero brother who he'd known as his best friend and only family since he was five, there was a crystal.

A gem floating in the air glowing a brilliant opalescent white.

In a panicked state he tried to rush up and grab it.

Instead the emerald flew through the air and straight into Eggman's machine.

The scientist smiled and shouted something he couldn't hear before flying off.

Tails fell to his knees on the tar, alone in the middle of the dark streets of Station Square.

Amy Rose was enjoying herself.

Sure it was late, the sun had gone down well over an hour ago, but nothing seemed to be able to kill her mood today.

Soft pop songs could be heard quietly through her home and the smell of a soon-to-be pie wafted through the air.

She hummed quietly to herself as she mixed some dough together in a pink bowl she had cradled in her arms.

She had just spent two weeks on a camping trip with some friends, Jewel, Tekno, Sally and Nicole. Tangle and Whisper would've come but they were of doing their own thing together (they'd heard plenty about it from Jewel).

She was taking a few days to recuperate in her own home before she'd try and set out again. Maybe make a trip with just her and Stix? She didn't always get along with some of her other friends but she wanted to make time with her.

Plans bounced around in her mind until she was startled out of them by a knock on her door.

Of all the things she expected to see when she opened the door, it wasn't a snivelling little fox kit bawling his eyes out and hugging himself on her doorstep.

Chapter Text

The kit was in a sobbing mess on her couch when she first welcomed him in and it only got worse after she asked where Sonic was.

She wrapped him up in a blanket and gave him some tea. She worked on the pie she'd been preparing in the kitchen until the soft sobs quieted down.

"Ready to talk?" She asked gently.

The fox kit nodded.

"So, what happened with Sonic?" She asked.

The boy sniffed before starting. "Eggman attacked. Sonic got hit with some new tech he salvaged from Starfall Islands."he said dejectedly.

"And you guys didn't tell me?!" She cried indignantly. She was around, she could've helped!

"He didn't want me to!" The fox defended, "you know how he is."

She sighed loudly but nodded. Oh yeah, she knew how he was. He was stubborn, bullheaded, and self sacrificing. He was the perfect storm of avoiding help.

"Anyways, when he got hit it turned his arm all weird and ghostly, it was kind of glowy and white and it would flicker randomly." He described.

"He was insistent that it was fine, and all my scans said he was clear." He said with a huff.

"Even though his arm was gone?" She asked.

"Exactly! That's what I thought, it was weird." He replied with an uncomfortable look on his face.

"For sure," she agreed, "but what happened after that?"

"Well we got into another fight a few days later and we got separated for a bit. When he came back he took a hit from the machine again for me and..." He tapered off.

The pink hedgehog waited patiently with expectant eyes. Tails shook his head before continuing.

"He- vanished. His entire body dissolved into the same opal color his arm was and then disappeared. When everything died down there was a chaos emerald floating where he'd been standing." He finished.

"No way." She gasped.

Tails nodded. "I tried to grab it but before I could even reach it Eggman's machine sucked it up and he flew off."

Amy wrapped her arms around the fox. It was a lot to take in, one of her best friends had been- like- disintegrated apparently and she hadn't even been there to do anything.

Even worse that very same friend requested that she didn't know because he didn't want her there.

But Tails needed support more than she did right now. And she always had plenty to give.

"While sonic was off distracting some of the Buzz Bombers though I think I finally recognized what robot Eggman was using." Tails suddenly tacked on.

"Really?" She asked, pulling away.

He pulled out the Miles Electric and started tapping away at it until an image of a strange robot showed up.

It was shaped almost like a UFO... or a weird penguin.

It had a flat top that funneled down with two curved arms at the side. The spire also had ring shapes around it that could pop out.

"What is that thing? I didn't see any bots like that on my island." She asked thinking back to the droids on Kronos and Rhea.

The fox hummed and nodded.

"This, is Capture." He stated. "They only showed up on Ares Island and Ouranos."

Amy nodded along.

"They didn't attack, but they did steal the emeralds Sonic had by attracting chaos energy." He said.

"No way- seriously?" She asked.

Tails nodded his head and pulled up a video he'd managed to transfer through cyberspace.

"Okay wait- Sonic didn't have an emerald on him, how does that work?" She interjected.

"That's where my theory comes in. I think- I think the machine turned him into one."

Amy looked horrified. "How- How is that even possible? There are only seven Chaos Emeralds and we don't even know how those were made!"

"Mhm, but if Capture attracts chaos energy and Eggman modified one of those machines, it's possible that a blast from it could've concentrated the chaos energy in the target." Tails said.

"When I got hit nothing happened, but when someone like Sonic, who has overwhelming levels of natural chaos energy, got hit-" he continued.

"It tried to draw it out." She finished for him.

"Exactly. So when the beam hit Sonic it condensed all of his chaos energy into a new emerald!" He exclaimed.

"But then... how do we turn him back?" She asked, the mood dropping instantly.

Tails seemed to think it over. "We'll ask Knuckles. He's got a connection to the Master Emerald, he knows more about the emeralds than anyone. He'll be able to turn him back."

Tails sniffed again beside her. For a second she thought he'd started crying again until she looked at his face.

"Is something burning?" He asked.

She ran for the kitchen before he could blink and the fox kit giggled lightly.

"We'll wait for Eggman to reappear to get the emerald." She stated coming back from the kitchen with smears of soot and smelling like smoke. "I'd say let's go after him now, but with a new power like this and Sonic gone he's bound to show up soon."

She threw herself back onto the couch. "Don't worry." She stated with a smile, "we'll get your brother back."

The gem wasn't anything overly special. Not the way he'd been expecting.

Granted, he hadn't been expecting this at all. It was more like a very welcome surprise.

His capture spire hadn't quite worked the way he wanted. It was meant to hit the hedgehog and leave him with no chaos energy left.

But he'd take turning his nemesis into a rock over that any day.

He wasn't really quite sure what to think at first. Clearly the gem contained chaos energy, it came from Sonic after all. But he expected it to be similar to a fake emerald, or have slightly lower readings than a real one. He didn't expect it to be on par with an authentic chaos emerald.

Again, he'll take it.

He'd have to do more testing, see what this gemstone really hid behind it.

He smiled to himself, flipping the stone in his hand before setting the rock down in an analyzer and leaving the room.

In the darkness, underneath the glass casing, the lone emerald pulsed.

Three days.

It took three days for Eggman to show up again.

He'd shown up with an army of robots as usual, and a new attachment to the Eggmobile powering them.

He'd attacked their own village too. Vanilla called them in a panic to tell them and they'd gotten there as fast as they could.

Eggman sat on the eggmobile as usual, surrounded by badniks, but now the craft had something new built into it.A large glass dome in the center of the cockpit, with the emerald inside.

"Not so high and mighty without your hero now are you?" He laughed out to no one in particular.

"Wrong! I've got a hammer with your name on it that says otherwise!" Amy called out and Tails stood beside her with a set expression.

"Oh ho ho well now, if it isn't the rodent sidekick squad, missing your friend?" He jeered.

Tails growled beside her.

"Not for long." She smiled and jumped at him.

The human didn't even have the decency to look surprised.

A Buzz Bomber jumped in front of her path with speed she couldn't even see, and blocked her. It was smashed to bits, but she lost her momentum and ended up back on the ground.

"Nice try there Ms. Rose but I'm afraid you'll find that my robots have gained a little advantage by use of the power your friend is providing me."

He was so busy mocking the pink Mobian he almost didn't hear the younger of the two as he cried out in effort before swinging his wrench directly towards the man's skull.

The older sunk into the seat of his machine with a scared "Eep!" barely dodging the attack and quickly moving out of range with a huff.

Badniks attacked the two but the pink hedgehog and yellow fox were on a war path. Any robot that came their way was crushed, somehow the kit even managed to hijack three of the villain's buzz bombers and now they were shooting at him instead of for him.

Hits came in waves, the eggmobile was getting pretty dented. With each hit they went further and further from the town, the attacks driving the three back into the woods.

The emerald pulsed inside the machine.

"Enough of this!"

Egg pawns deployed around them. Amy hit one to Tails who smashed its head in with his wrench.

A second one was hit so hard it flew straight into the eggmobile. Eggman was growing more and more red with frustration than before.

The glowing got brighter.

Caterkillers, motobugs, buzz bombers, all of them were getting crushed.

"Tails! Gimme a boost!" Amy yelled, jumping off a motobug and into the air.

Tails caught and swung her around towards the eggmobile.

The emerald pulsed and flashed like a strobe light.

Hammer readied, smile on her face, Amy Rose flew on a collision course for the emerald.

"THIS IS FOR SONIC!"

"YOU INSOLENT LITTLE-!"

CRRRRK-BOOOM

The cockpit exploded.

"Ugh- What-" Amy sat up from the ground, trying to shake the dull ringing in her ears. "What happened-?"

Bots were laying all around in various pieces.  The eggmobile sat cracked on the ground with its driver still caught in the seat.

Tails was laying in the grass next to her.

"Amy? Was- was that you?" He asked, trying to sit himself up.

It was like the entire world had gone white for a second.

"No- no that wasn't me." She answered, rubbing her head.

There was another groan and a creak and suddenly the emerald they'd all been fighting for floated gently into the air.

It hovered between the two warring parties, flashing like a beacon.

"What the-"

A white glow slowly wrapped around it, changing and taking form.

First a blob around the main part, and then more glowing white fizzled out in pixel-like squares and the shape became more defined as it sprouted more and more features.

Her eyes went wide and so did Tails' as the form solidified and the bright white faded leaving a new shape in its place hovering nearly three feet off the ground.

Two opal eyes turned to look at them.

Chapter Text

When the glowing faded a new form stood in its place. Or... floated.

"S-Sonic?" Tails managed to ask.

It looked like him... kind of.

It was a Mobian hedgehog with the same face as Sonic, but... everything else wasn't.

He didn't have shoes or socks or gloves, leaving him with bare pawed. His quills were pointed upwards as if he'd gone super. And the most drastic change of them all was the fact that his entire body, aside from his bare skin, had turned the same opal color that his arm had. Even his eyes, which were now pupiless, had turned that shimmering mix of white and pastel.

His entire body was glowing too, giving him an almost ethereal look as he hovered in the air effortlessly. Almost like- like he was a living emerald.

"Woah-" Amy breathed.

He looked around the area with wide eyes. Every moment he made was so fluid and graceful it was strange. 

His face didn't show any emotion, nothing but a blank expression, but his eyes were full of confusion.

"Sonic?" Tails called out quietly.

The figure turned and looked at him but there was no recognition behind his eyes. He was just reacting to the noise.

He looked...lost. Like he was confused and didn't know what was going on.

"Ugh-" Eggman groaned from his place on the ground.

He was still hooked into the eggmobile which had a cracked windshield. All together not that bad for literally exploding.

"Well, that was fun while it lasted." He spat, sitting up and letting the eggmobile rise up from the ground.

"Alright, whoever's left ATTACK!" he yelled, pointed to the mobians.

He and Amy were expecting the robots the leap forward and attack. So did Eggman.

So they were all surprised when it was Sonic who shot forward instead.

Amy barely had time to react before she was being thrown backwards into the dirt.

"AMY!" Tails screamed only to be met with a hit of his own.

In a flash of light the hedgehog had appeared at his side, leg already in motion. He spun and slammed his heel into his shoulder.

Tails' body skipped across the turf like a flat rock against water. He came to a harsh stop by Amy on the ground.

On wobbly arms he slowly lifted himself. He looked over at the pink hedgehog. She had flipped herself over and propped her body up on her elbows. She had a grimace on her face and she spat blood into the dirt before forcing herself to stand up and open her eyes.

"Okay," she breathed raggedly "that hurt. I don't know who or what you are, but nobody hurts my friends!" She yelled.

She ran forwards with her hammer and the other hedgehog met her there.

She swung and the other dodged, delivering a punch to her shoulder that rocked her to the side. She turned around and tried again only to receive a kick in the back that sent her into a tree.

"Sonic" started to hover towards Amy who was still reeling over the previous hit.

"Hey!" He yelled. "Over here!"

The figure turned and looked at him.

Instead of attacking he paused, head swiveling to look to Eggman who was watching the scene with glee.

"Well, what're you waiting for?" He yelled with a smile. "I said 'attack' didn't I?"

The hedgehog turned back to Tails. The fox got set, expecting a hit.

Instead a hammer slammed into the side of the attacker's head. Amy had a triumphant smile on her face.

It didn't last long.

The hit didn't do... anything. He didn't even move. He turned his head and brushed the hammer off.

Blank eyes turned to stare down at Amy.

"Ah shi-"

There was an echoing boom as the pink hedgehog was slammed into the crust of the earth. Chunks of rock flying up from the crater she'd been made into.

"Hey! What happened to attacking huh? I'm right here!" Tails yelled, once again catching the other's attention.

He ran into the forest that surrounded them and the powered up hedgehog shot after him in response.

They both dodged and waved through trees, one having a much more difficult time than the other. Surprisingly, the one struggling was Tails, it was like the hedgehog had a map of where everything was already laid out in his mind.

"Just a little further-" the fox muttered to himself. He smiled when he saw a clearing up ahead and made a beeline for it.

"I'm right here, SO COME AND GET ME!" he yelled.

The expressionless face of the other locked on him and darted towards the fox fully prepared to blast him into next week. The kit had a plan of his own.

Or he would have, if one of his friends hadn't decided to jump in front of him again.

Amy came out of nowhere and was tossed to the side with the hit before he could even attempt to disrupt the chaos energy of their attacker.

His friends really needed to stop taking hits for him, especially when he was doing it on purpose.

"Seriously?!" The fox snapped at her. "How did you even get over here so fast?" He asked incredulously.

The other shrugged, taking his hand and coughing up dirt as he helped her.

"Why would you even do that?" He asked frustratedly.

"If you get hurt while I'm on watch Sonic is gonna kill me!" She replied. There was a loud crunch beside them as the hedgehog in question appeared back out of the trees.

"Pretty sure he's trying to do that anyways!" He replied as the two dove out of the way of an attack in separate directions.

"That's besides the point!" She snapped, narrowly dodging another lunge.

"What were you doing anyways?!" She called. "Were you trying to get hit?!" She asked sarcastically.

"YES!" he cried indignantly.

"Wha-?"

"Lookoutlookoutlookout-!"

The other form had risen high up into the air and dove down with mach 10 speed.

In a panic the pink hedgehog shut her eyes, grabbed her hammer, and swung.

The weapon collided directly with the chest of its victim and with a crack like a baseball meeting a bat the other was sent flying.

The sheer amount of power from the collision sent wind blowing through the twos' quills and fur respectively.

"You-" Tails paused "you hit him!"

"I hit him? I hit him!" Amy gasped. "How- How did I hit him?"

"I don't know!" The younger replied

"I don't know either!" The older snipped back. "When I hit him before it didn't do anything!"

"I know!"

"So how did I hit him now?"

"I don't know!"

"But-"

"Amy! This conversation isn't going anywhere." The fox deadpanned.

"Well- yeah but-" she stuttered before the figure re-emerged from the trees it had been thrown into, leaves rattling around it.

It seemed to be attempting to regain its bearings and Tails squinted at the figure.

She hit it in its head and it didn't work, she hit it in its chest and-

Sonic. Sonic had been clutching his chest before he got transformed.

While the form held still, still trying to regain balance, the fox looked closely.

There, in the center of its chest you could see it. The chaos emerald that had formed the new being.

"The emerald- the emerald is in its chest! Amy! Next time he comes at you keep aiming for his chest, that's his core. What we're seeing as sonic is just a construct formed around the emerald!" Tails exclaimed.

The pink hedgehog nodded and got set as the other hedgehog snapped out of its stupor.

It squinted at them, the first bit of emotion it had ever shown, before attacking.

This time it fought just as viciously as before, only now, it wasn't letting Amy get close to it.

She was losing. Badly.

The kit tried to step in and help but the other seemed aware of their plan and knocked both of them out of the way.

At some point Amy had fallen and it's focus shifted to Tails. He couldn't even fly to gain an advantage, the other could fly just as if not easier than he could.

This was terrifying, was this how their enemies felt fighting Super Sonic? Fighting a force with such unimaginable power that you couldn't even think before you were being attacked.

In a last ditch effort he tried to spindash into the other only to get caught in hands that had no heat behind them.

The figure had one hand clutched onto his head and suddenly he moved at break-neck speed, his own body unable to move from the force of the wind, and slammed him into a sheer rock hillside.

"Sonic-" he managed to gasp out to the other. It was a desperate move, but he fit that description.

"Please" he begged, but no compassion came from the other. Not even a glint of recognition or remorse. No but of empathy behind those opal eyes.

An exhausted battle cry sounded from behind them as Amy attempted to get one last swing.

The figure didn't even look before turning sharply, grabbing her by the collar and throwing her to the ground in front of Tails.

She struggled to get up and Tails knelt down to help her.

Neither of them could take any more of this. Their endurance had been spent long ago. How do you fight an unlimited source of energy when you'd used all yours up?

Tired blue eyes stared up at the other Hedgehog as he rose up higher and higher into the air. Preparing for one last bone crushing attack.

Tails shut his eyes and Amy stood up and pushed him behind her. She held her hammer as if she was getting ready to hoist it up, despite the fact she knew she didn't have that in her. She faced the distant silhouette as it rose higher still in the sky, glowing like a new star on the bright blue background.

And then he rushed forward with one fist leading him.

The sound barrier broke as the figure became a blur headed on a collision course straight for them.

The smudge of the missile his friend had become got closer and closer and dread and weak adrenaline filled her system and then-

"STOP!"

A shockwave blew debris and dust all around them violently. All the force from the would-be blow blasted the earth around them creating clouds of dust as their attacker halted on a dime.

Amy slowly opened clenched eyes as she realized she hadn't been hit.

The iridescent hedgehog hovered, inches away from her face with a fist still outstretched but frozen in place. He stood stock still, limbs limp other the the arm he'd held out in preparation to hit them before being commanded otherwise.

Speaking of which, her eyes focused onto the figure in the background who'd called out the order.

The red echidna was hard to miss as he ran over towards them.

He slowed his pace to a walk as he got closer and paused at Sonic's floating form before simply walking around it. The hedgehog just hung there in silence, not moving an inch.

"So," the echidna looked from their shocked faces to the floating Mobian. "What'd he do this time?"

For a second they just blinked at each other. Tails shook himself off faster than the pink hedgehog. "Knuckles? What are you doing here?"

He shrugged "Sonic invited me to visit him so he could show me some sights as a kickoff to getting off the island."

He looked at the aforementioned hedgehog's form. "Clearly I'm gonna have to wait." He huffed.

"Really? He didn't mention that to me" Tails said.

"Mhm, last I checked you weren't supposed to even be here though, I'm guessing for the same reason I'm not gonna get to see Casinopolis?" He replied, jerking a thumb back in the direction of Sonic.

"Oh uh- heh yeah... I guess but-" Tails started.

"Hey, why're you just floating there anyway? Can't you move or something? You're freaking me out." He said to the hedgehog, cutting the fox off.

To their surprise the other actually responded. He relaxed from his frozen state and floated over to Knuckles' side.

The echidna quirked a brow. "S'matter? Can't talk or something?"

The hedgehog shook his head 'no'.

"Knuckles, how are you doing that?" Amy gasped.

The echidna looked confused. "Doing what?"

"Getting him to listen." Tails responded.

Chapter Text

"I don't get it." Knuckles said, looking back at the floating Mobian that had taken up residence at his side.

The echidna was surprisingly dressed up compared to his normal look. He had his quills up and a patterned scarf around his neck.

"I mean, he doesn't listen normally, but it's not like he doesn't understand basic questions. And how come he looks like Hyper Sonic?"

"Knuckles," Amy started. "He's been completely unresponsive. Sonic got hit by a blast that turned him into an emerald, that emerald turned into this," she gestured to the hedgehog, receiving a head tilt in response.

"And he's been attacking us nonstop on orders from Eggman for the past-" she glanced from the sky to Tails.

"What time is it exactly?" She asked and received a shrug in response.

"Well either way, he was only listening to Eggman no matter how hard we tried to get through and you just-" she waved her hands frustratedly at the other.

Knuckles hummed in thought. "I felt something weird going on with chaos energy, I didn't think it was this." He glanced at the figure beside him.

"So he literally turned into an emerald?" He asked.

Tails nodded. "Possibly an imitation of one but he had all the same signature and energy readings as a real chaos emerald."

"Hm." The echidna circled around the other. "Strange."

He tilted his head and the other mirrored the action.

"Is there anyway for you to go back to being an emerald?" He asked.

Without so much as an answer the hedgehog's form popped out of existence and flittered back into the emerald and dropped. Knuckles dove forward to catch it and stood back up, brushing the dirt off his stomach.

He inspected the crystal and the other two watched him in fascination.

"I mean, it definitely looks and feels like an emerald." He spoke, "but that shouldn't be possible. You can tell when an emerald is fake but-"

"It feels identical." Tails finished for him. "That's what I thought too, it's strange."

"For sure." The other nodded. He handed the emerald to Tails who fumbled with it nervously.

"So this little thing is Sonic huh?" Amy said looking at the emerald. "Gonna be honest, I thought it'd be blue."

"I was thinking red." Tails said rolling it over in his hands.

"Really? I totally would've thought green or yellow or somethin." Knuckles stated, adjusting his scarf around his body into a sash.

He held a hand out to Tails who hesitated before handing the gem to the echidna. He deposited it into the cloth and tightened it there.

He stopped and looked at Tails who glanced at him nervously. "So... Do you think you'd be able to change him back?"

Knuckles shook his head. "No, I can't, honestly I'm not even sure if this is something I can fix."

The fox's ears folded back and Amy placed a hand on his shoulder.

"But," he smiled and looked down at Tails "I think I know who might."

"Ugh! There you rodents are!" The gravelly voice of Eggman broke through the clearing as he appeared on his craft.

"Y'know it's kinda rude to just scamper off in the middle of the fight like that. What if something happened to you? I would've missed it!" He cried.

Each member of the trio had an equally fed up look for the doctor.

"Alright, Knuckles can you take this? I'm a little worn out." Amy sighed, arms hanging under the weight of her hammer.

The other nodded and bumped his fists against each other.

"Oh great, Knuckles is here." The doctor deadpanned. "And what did you do with my newest little emerald?"

Tails snorted and laughed "oh, yeah, right, cause we'd tell you."

"I'd think you'd like to consider it." He smiled. With the soft sound of a button robots slowly crept out from the woods.

"Uggghhhh" Amy groaned. "Can't you just go home?"

She was ignored.

Knuckles had run forward and was promptly punching anything that got in his path. Making his way closer to the eggmobile.

He sunk his spiked gloves into the craft and looked up only to be met with the sneering face of the human.

"I wouldn't get to close if I were you." He snickered and with a BOOM the echidna was tossed off and into the dirt by his friends.

"Knuckles!" Amy held out a hand to him.

"We've already seen what it's done to that pesky little blue bur," he called and the eggmobile slowly shifted to reveal the remains of the capture canon, "but with the adjustments Sage helped me make after seeing the fox walk away from it,"

The weapon lit up with an ominous glow.

"I think I'd like a do-over."

CRRK-THOOM

Once again there was nothing but bright white light.

But slowly, Tails opened his eyes and came to the shocking realization that he wasn't dead.

Standing in front of the three of them Sonic's emerald form stood with one hand out and an iridescent forcefield blocking the hit.

The light faded and Eggman stood undeterred.

"There you are!" He smiled. "Now be a good like thing and attack why don't you?"

Amy braced herself and Tails flinched but the hedgehog didn't seem to have any intention of following orders.

He blinked owlishly at the scientist and looked back at Knuckles.

"What?" He asked dumbfoundedly and Tails ran over to his side.

"Knuckles, listen, tell Sonic to do something." He urged.

"Like what? 'go kill Eggman!' yeah right." He joked only to be surprised when the hedgehog took off. "Uh oh."

The hedgehog smashed into the eggmobile, colliding directly with the capture cannon and causing the entire front of the craft to crumple inward with a crunch.

Then he sent a kick to it and it went skyrocketing straight up into the air. Then Sonic disappeared from where he'd been floating and suddenly appeared over the eggmobile in the air and with another kick sent it barreling down. It was launched so fast that once it hit the ground not only did the rest of it crumple but it left a crater in the turf

Eggman came stumbling out of the, now abandoned, eggmobile. He coughed and wobbled as he tried to regain some sense of self. When he finally managed to he looked over and noticed the state of his invention.

"Impudent rat! You expect me to walk back to my base or-hurrk-!" A hand latched itself around the human's throat and started to squeeze.

Eggman clawed and grabbed at the other's arm only to receive blank eyes and a tightening hand.

"Woahwoahwoahwoah- stop! Stop!" Knuckles called and almost instantly the hedgehog dropped the man and turned to the echidna who had Tails trailing behind him.

"I wasn't being literal! Chaos, now I know how you guys felt when you first met me." Knuckles rubbed his eyes. Tails pursed his lips and nodded.

"Okay, don't kill him. I just meant like- beat him up or something!" He tried to elaborate.

Instantly the other had lifted the -still gasping- man up by the collar of his shirt and punched him with enthusiasm straight across the clearing.

"OKAY! NOPE! Not like that either. Okay I think you've done enough bud." Knuckles sighed.

The hedgehog looked almost happy with his work, as happy as he could be without showing any facial expression.

Knuckles held out a hand and the other plopped down into his open palm as a harmless emerald. The echidna tucked it back in his scarf and looked over to Eggman who was laying face down in the grass, robots looking down in confusion.

"Welp, he's dead." Knuckles stated plainly.

"Eh," Tails waved a hand flippantly, "he's fine, the badniks will drag him home."

Amy tossed her hammer at the first motobug that dared to check on its master. Smiling happily when the handle of the weapon slowly fell and clonked against the head of the human.

"Welp," she dusted her hands off "I think we best head back, yeah?"

Knuckles nodded his head quietly and held the emerald closer to his chest.

"I still don't see why we couldn't just use Sonic to chaos control to Angel Island." Knuckles said from his perch on the wing of the tornado. He kicked his legs back and forth, tossing the emerald in his hand up and down.

The gem flickered in the fading sunlight. The orange horizon lighting it up in the colors of the sunset making it look almost as if it were on fire.

"Knuckles we already went over this," Tails said exasperatedly, "We don't know for sure if the emerald really is a real emerald! We could possibly mess something up or hurt Sonic. For all we know chaos control won't even work with that emerald!"

Amy spun herself in a swivel chair that sat at Tail's workbench in the hangar. "Plus, don't call it 'using Sonic' it sounds creepy. You sound creepy." She stated.

Knuckles sighed loudly. "I'm just saying it'd be faster!"

"We're not using Sonic to teleport!" Tails finalized. Knuckles rolled his eyes.

"Tornado's all ready." The fox reported and Amy nearly fell out of the chair she was on.

"You seriously still wanna go tonight?" She asked incredulously.

"Well, yeah!" He smiled as if it were a completely normal suggestion. "The sooner we get Sonic back to normal the better."

"Uh huh. Yeah, no." She said flatly.

"You sound like your brother." She stated, grabbing his shoulders and pushing him towards the door to the main house. "We're taking a night. Non-negotiable."

"Whaaat?" The kit whined. "Are you serious? But we're ready now!"

"Mhm. And I'm tired and the sun's almost down. We're gonna go in the morning even if I have to rip apart that plane to make you stay."

The kit huffed and frowned, crossing his arms but allowing himself to be pushed by his heels by the older hedgehog. Knuckles came up behind them, marching dutifully with the emerald in pocket.

"Where are you guys even gonna sleep? The workshop house only has a room for me and Sonic." The disgruntled fox asked.

"Cuddle pile in the living room. Obvi." She replied easily.

"Sweet!" The echidna said, and did a small fist pump with one hand.

"Aw what?" The fox whined again but Amy knew full well he enjoyed them just as much as she did.

"It's not gonna kill you, or Sonic for that matter. He'd be pissed if I didn't make you sleep the night. Plus I have to make a call before we can leave."

The fox made another huff, but relented and gave in to the pile of limbs and blankets they'd made.

Amy made popcorn and Knuckles fiddled with a movie, failing miserably to get the CD in the machine. 

Amy left the room and he could hear her talking to someone before coming back out. She brought the bowl of snacks and a few drinks and sat down at his side.

He'd finally taken the CD from Knuckles and inserted it himself.

The echidna had made a little blanket pedastal to rest Sonic's emerald on and put his scarf back around his neck. 

The movie started and snacks were eaten. Amy and Knuckles fell asleep sandwiching him in the middle. 

He stared at the multicolored emerald, the movie fading into the background. He watched the colors of the gem swirl and flicker as it glowed in the dark. 

He looked at Amy, sleeping with her head on his shoulder. Her quills were falling out of her hair tie messily. Her face was still scuffed in dirt and she had a few bruises. Honestly he's amazed that's all she had.

Knuckles was on his left with his head leaning back. Mouth wide open displaying sharp teeth as he snored quietly.

He looked back to the emerald. It's soft pastel colors moving almost hypnotically as they lulled him into a much needed sleep.

Chapter Text

The next morning was filled with tired groans and the smell of pancakes from the moment he woke up.

He briefly took the time to wonder where Amy had gotten the mix for it before his sleepy brain decided it wasn't relevant.

They had Sonic's emerald, they had the Tornado, and they had Knuckles. He was ready to get his brother back.

It's times like these when he wonders if he was ever even meant to leave his side. The moment they're apart it's like something bad happens to Sonic.

Maybe they were just cursed. Maybe Gaia had created them to be at each other's sides and whenever they were apart it would cause a catastrophe.

But that wasn't very scientific of him. He knows how odds work, but sometimes with a pattern like this he starts to wonder.

"Y'know," Knuckles mumbled, stuffing another massive chunk of pancake in his mouth, "there's still time to-"

"Nope." Amy and Tails answered in unison.

"Not happening." Amy said, setting down another plate.

The echidna mumbled under his breath grumpily.

Tails was getting tired of having to deny his request of trying to chaos control with his brother.

"Okay but hypothetically-"

"NO."

"I called Rouge and let her know we wouldn't be able to handle Eggman for a while!" Amy shouted over the wind. "Team Dark should have it covered!"

"You didn't tell her why, did you?" Knuckles asked fearfully.

"No, even if I did I'm sure she wouldn't be interested in stealing Sonic." She replied

"You don't have to worry about her showing up to tease you." She added with a smile and giggled as the echidna made a poor attempt to hide his embarrassment.

He shuffled the gem closer to his body.

Knuckles had explained his plan to them, it was a decent one, but he was starting to worry about what they'd do if they ended up needing a backup plan.

"Angel Island! Dead ahead!" Tails called to his passengers.

Tails safely let the tornado down on an open field. He wasn't a fan of Eggman, and he especially didn't appreciate what he had done to Angel Island so many years ago, but he was grateful to be able to land without hurting any of the wildlife.

Angel Island was as beautiful as ever. The trees were more green than any on the mainland, the water was crystal clear in a way that made it seem unreal, and the air was crisp and fresh completely void of any pollution.

Knuckles immediately started to march down the path to the Master Emerald the moment they touched down. Tails helped Amy out and they followed closely behind.

They reached the shrine and all three of them were all startled when Sonic's emerald form suddenly popped back into existence.

Knuckles looked at him nervously for a moment, his iridescently colored form hovered silently and stared unnervingly, before continuing forward.

There was something so deeply upsetting about seeing Sonic like this. Blank, a complete clean slate.

Sonic was always running around, making faces, being obnoxious, refusing to shut up. Everything that made him the most incredible person he'd ever met. And then there was... This. He just floated silently, eyes wide open and unblinking. Not a single thought behind them.

"Tikal!" Knuckles called out crudely as they arrived at the shrine.

The Master Emerald lit up with a bright green light that faded and left the ghostly form of the ancient echidna in its place.

Her pal form turned and smiled at them.

"Hello Knuckles." She greeted.

"Tikal, we've got a problem." Knuckles said quickly, straight to the point.

"Something happened to Sonic and-" he gestured with a perturbed grimace to the hedgehog that floated up beside him.

"Base?!" Tikal clapped her hands over her mouth but it was too late.

Everyone froze and glanced between the echidna and the hedgehog she was staring at in shock.

Tails took a timid step forward.

"Tikal do you- do you know him?"

Chapter Text

For a moment it felt like time had stopped.

"Now before you freak out! Let me explain." Tikal quickly blurted, interrupting his train of thought.

"It goes back thousands and thousands of years. In the beginning there weren't just seven chaos emeralds, there were eight. The ones you know," she then held up the iridescent emerald, "and this one."

"Instead of remaining as an emerald, this one took on a new form, the hedgehog you've grown to know as-"

"Sonic." Amy finished for her with a breathless gasp.

It felt like the entire world as he knew it was crashing down on top of him. He was wrong about Eggman's beam, so horribly wrong. His brother had been- he'd been- and he didn't even-

"Did he know?" Was all he managed to make out.

"Huh?"

"All this time, all these years, did Sonic keep this from us? Did he know? Did he know he wasn't really- that he wasn't actually-"

Tikal seemed startled once she picked up on what Tails was trying to say.

"No no no no no!" She frantically waved her hands, the emerald floating beside her.

"Look, the emerald may take this form but the person it becomes never actually knows. And their bodies still live, breath, die, and bleed the same way all of you would." She assured him.

"Sonic is just as real as any of you are."

"But he's an emerald." Knuckles stated flatly.

"Er- yes." She fumbled.

"...So technically-"

"Knuckles, I swear to Chaos. Don't you dare." Amy stared at him with intense eyes.

"So technically," he continued "we could have used him to chaos control?"

Amy slapped him in the back of the head so hard the echidna nearly lost his balance and faceplanted.

Tails chuckled half-heartedly but wasn't really in the moment, he was focused on what Tikal had just revealed to them.

Sonic was an emerald.

Sonic had always been an emerald.

Everything clicked into place all at once.

"It all makes sense." Tails muttered.

"Huh?" Amy questioned beside him.

"It all makes sense!" He repeated louder. "Think about it, if Sonic was an emerald, and he got shot by a machine that's meant to extract emeralds-"

"Then- it would try to extract the only one there!" Amy realized with him.

"Exactly! And think of all the other things, his speed, his durability, his resonance with chaos energy."

Tikal giggled at their realization. "Did it ever occur to you that the only time anyone goes super, is while in his presence?"

Tails' eyes went wide. "You're kidding."

Tikal shook her head.

"You do need all the emeralds present... Or at the very least their support."

"That's crazy! This- this was crazy. All this time?" He hummed for a second.

"So the reason Knuckles could control him-?"

Tikal smiled warmly with closed eyes. "I'm afraid the Chaos Emeralds really only listen to a few things, their holders, Master Emerald, and-"

"And it's keeper's, the echidnas." Tails finished for her with a smile. "That's why Knuckles was able to make him stop when we couldn't."

"Mhm. " She replied.

"Wait- wait- wait a minute." Amy suddenly stepped up, looking deep in concentration, as if something new just occurred to her.

"So... the reason Sonic can't swim?"

Tikal smiled sheepishly.

"No. Freaking. Way." A smile split her face.

"Swimming isn't exactly a rock's best skill." Tikal smiled wearily.

"AHHHH!" Amy cried stamping her feet "Oh Chaos that's hilarious! All this time!"

Tikal laughed with her until everyone grew silent again slowly.

"As funny, and frankly confusing, as this is, do you think you could...?" Knuckles gestured to the emerald.

Tikal smiled again but it was that sad one, the one that was hiding something buried deep down.

"Of course." She walked up to the podium and placed the smaller emerald above the larger one allowing it to float just above it.

It still felt like he was missing something though. And it wasn't just the fact Sonic wasn't here. Something wasn't right with Tikal's story. Like she'd left out a few details.

There was a huge hole in this whole thing that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

Glowing light began to rush between the Master Emerald and the Chaos Emerald. It flashed and in the same way Sonic had left, a body began to materialize from the emerald.

Shapes of light formed a chest and arms and legs. And then-

Two long quills that reached down the figure's back with another shorter one at the top of his head. Then shoes and gloves and a large scarf formed.

The form shifted and solidified before the figure dropped down. The light dissipated and revealed a Mobian who was very much not Sonic.

He had two long quills the way Silver did but without the fan of smaller ones on his forehead. He almost had more light purplish quills on top of that. Like a washed out blue, with grey and lavender mixed in.

His clothes were different too. He had shoes that looked like they came straight from science fiction. They almost looked like the shoes sonic had worn during their ARK days when they first met Shadow but more high tech. They were dark brown with lines of glowing blue shooting through them and a strange platform covering the divet that would've been used for rail grinding.

His gloves were the same brown. They were fingerless with little black and green plates covering each of his knuckles.

On top of all of that he wore a large brown scarf that had two cape-like trails coming off of it in the back.

A pin was also attached to one the side of the scarf. It was a shape that had no meaning to him, but one they all recognized well.

It was the same symbol they'd found everywhere throughout the Ancient's ruins. The same symbol that appeared in the sky whenever one of the koco passed on.

His eyelids flickered once, then twice, and then opened.

Once again, two opal irises met them.

Chapter Text

Tails looked over at Tikal for some kind of answer, he didn't expect what he was met with.

The echidna looked surprised for a moment and then...

"EeeeeeeahhhHahaHAhAHA!" She squealed and ran towards the other.

"Tikal?" The new voice exclaimed. "TIKAL!"

The hedgehog threw himself into the other's arms and Tikal spun him around, twirling him in the air and laughing before letting him go and it took Tails a moment to realize he was floating above the ground.

The giddy expressions weren't well hidden between the two as they both smiled so brightly it could put the Master Emerald's glow to shame.

"Ahaha! Look at you! It's been so long!" She gushed.

"Look at me? Look at you! Took your whole guardian duty a little too seriously did we now?" The new hedgehog joked.

On top of all the weirdness this new hedgehog radiated, he was also hovering in the air in a graceful and effortless way. Like gravity itself didn't even bother with this guy.

He lounged and moved around in the air the way Rouge would, but without any of the effort she put in with her wings. In fact, he didn't touch the ground at all. As if it was more natural for him to be in the air than touching the earth.

"How are you here? How is this possible?" She asked the hedgehog delightedly.

"I'm... not sure, I saw a really bright light and I reached out for it and then suddenly I was here."

The echidna couldn't seem to wipe the smile off her face. "I just- I can't believe it, after all this time-"

"Ahemm-?" Amy cleared her throat loudly, drawing the attention of the two. They snapped out of their own little world and turned to them.

"H-hi" Tails greeted with an awkward wave.

The hedgehog's face lit up in surprise upon seeing them and then quickly smiled.

"Are these-?" He knelt and pointed to them, then turned to Tikal who smiled with pursed lips.

She cleared her throat, trying to stifle the excited giggles still creeping out. "Sonic, these are your friends."

He smiled again but didn't look at anyone but Tikal.

"Sonic? Is that what my name is now?" He spoke quietly and Tikal gave him a nod.

He turned to the rest of them. "Hi there! You must be...?" He prompted.

"Amy, Amy Rose." The pink hedgehog greeted.

"Tails" he gave a greeting if his own. "And Knuckles," he pointed to the shy echidna who nodded gruffly.

"Knuckles? A bit on the nose for a member of the Knuckles tribe isn't it?" The hedgehog laughed lightheartedly.

The echidna in question froze and seemed even more shocked that the stranger actually knew the name of his tribe.

"Uh hi." Tails stated simply, "Tikal, wanna explain what's going on? And also," he turned to the hedgehog "why you're floating?"

"Oh! Yes! Of course!" Tikal replied happily, pulling the hedgehog back into a side-hug.

"Guys," she spoke proudly gesturing to the other, "this, is the best kept secret in over ten thousand years."

"Hello there! My name is..." He glanced at Tikal, "Sonic." The hedgehog said carefully.

"No you're not." Knuckles stated plainly and Tails choked in surprise and started coughing.

"Knuckles!" Amy scolded.

"Whaaat?" Knuckles complained "he's not!"

Amy looked embarrassed but the other hedgehog just laughed.

"No no, he's got a point." He smiled. "I'm not Sonic, but... I kind of am, in a way. We can figure out a different nickname if you like." He offered.

"Why not just your real name?" Amy asked.

The other let out a dramatic sigh, as if he'd been expecting the answer.

"Unfortunately I'm not allowed to reveal my real name or much about my personal life, in order to better preserve our secret."

"Our secret?" Knuckles questioned.

The hedgehog turned to Tikal and made a face communicated a silent "do they not...?"

She shook her head "no" and laced her fingers with the other's. "I wasn't sure if I should. You might be better at explaining that though, now that you're here."

"Haha, yeeeah." He laughed.

"Who are you?" Tails finally asked, stepping towards the other.

"I, am the first incarnation of the eighth emerald." He smiled.

"I was created by my people as a learning tool. See, they weren't Mobians, they were-"

"The ancients." Tails gaped.

The other grinned, "so that's what you guys call them, I was kinda wondering."

"No. Freaking. Way." Amy spat.

"I thought we were done with those guys!" Knuckles groaned loudly beside them.

The hedgehog snickered. "Yeeeah haha, surprise! My people were powerful controllers of chaos energy, some of the first actually. To put it simply, when they landed here they used one of their emeralds to create me." He said proudly.

"I lived for decades growing with them and living peacefully... And then..." He trailed off looking at the ground sadly.

"The End found you." Tails added for him.

The other looked startled.

Tails supposed it must've been surprising, coming back to a world where the End should be gone only to find a small mobian that knows about it.

"Yeah..." He replied instead, his tone sounding a bit stilted.

"But, in the time I'd been alive," he continued, "my people had made friends with the only other civilization they'd found," he said, "the echidnas."

"When the End returned they sent me to live with them, in order to protect me." He explained.

"And now you're the only one left." Amy finished for him sadly.

"I know how that feels." Knuckles said sullenly and Amy was quick to his side, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"What?" The hedgehog asked suddenly and loudly. He turned to Tikal in a panic.

"Tikal did- did they-?" He stuttered.

He seemed alarmed, scared even. As if even he didn't have the whole picture.

Tikal looked away with a pained expression.

"They- they did, kinda, it's all ancient history now. Knuckles here is the only one left." She replied sadly.

Something new washed over the hedgehog's face and he swiftly floated over to the last echidna.

Knuckles looked up at him defiantly.

Tails had seen him do this before. He struck a pose and made a face as if to say "That's right, I'm the last one and I don't have to prove anything to you".

But when the hedgehog came to a stop before Knuckles and looked him up and down with those unsettlingly multicolored eyes, he smiled.

"They would've been so proud of you." He said quietly teary eyed.

The echidna didn't show it much, but Tails knew how hard that must've hit his friend. Knuckles' entire posture dropped a degree and he suddenly started fidgeting with his hands.

He can't even imagine what Knuckles must've been thinking or feeling. Knuckles was always more stoic, harder to read, but to have someone so ancient just appear and tell you that they knew your tribe, and then tell you they'd be proud of you. There was an overwhelming validation that he knew must come with that.

"Sooooo, why do you float?" Tails asked suddenly and there was a loud CLAP as Amy smacked her hand against her face.

The hedgehog snorted and laughed, tumbling back slightly in the air as he giggled.

"No, no, fair question. Okay so, Chaos Emeralds are crazy powerful right? Powerful enough to create something like me." He explained.

"But they've also got this kind of self preservation to them, a deep need to protect themselves. So every incarnation the emerald takes gets its own individual power." He stated.

"My ability is obviously flying, but there are different ones for every single version, each of them unique. For example I know one had wind, another one could connect with nature, some of them had some really crazy powers, and others had more easily disguised abilities like-"

"Like super speed." Tails said breathlessly.

Everything that Sonic is and was. Everything that gave him his philosophy for life and for freedom. Everything that built him into a hero. Everything that made Sonic, Sonic.

"Exactly," he shrugged, "just a little power leak from the emerald, consider it a gift."

"I- I'm sorry, not that you're not lovely and all but... Where is our Sonic?" Amy finally asked.

The hedgehog looked surprised that Amy even asked and Tikal looked shocked as if she'd forgotten.

"Yeah, I'm a little confused on that part too, did something go wrong?" Tails asked.

It had to of, why would this version be brought back instead of Sonic?

"Something must've... I'm... I'm not sure what though." Tikal muttered to herself.

Tails noticed how silent the other hedgehog had gone, just watching what Tikal was doing silently.

"Sonic, was there anything strange that you know of that could've caused this?" She asked, turning to the hedgehog who took a second to remember she was talking to him.

"Potentially, but shouldn't it have just gone to the next cycle?"

Tikal shook her head "Sonic's cycle was... Interrupted. Forcibly. I meant to restore him..." She trailed off.

"What's a cycle?" Tails asked.

"Each incarnation of the emerald, every hundred years the Mobian form the emerald has taken "dies" and then it comes here and gains a new form." Tikal replied helpfully.

"Hmm... Oh!" The hedgehog suddenly perked up, "You've been making sure to return it to the cave each cycle right?" He asked.

Tikal stared at him blankly. "The what?"

The hedgehog blinked owlishly. "The story cave...?" He tried to lead, "where you bring the emerald to deposit its data before you restore it..?"

"Oooooh..." Tikal cringed. "Ummm..."

"Wooof- No wonder you couldn't restore him right! Tikal, you have to bring the emerald to the cave every time it comes back! How many times has it been restored now? There must be what, five, six, lifetimes trying to be stored in the emerald now?" He said incredulously.

Tikal got really, really quiet.

"What?" He askedat the silence and it suddenly dawned on Tails what he was unintentionally implying.

"You... Don't know how long it's been... Do you?" He asked carefully.

"What?" The hedgehog asked.

"If you were around at the time of the Ancients... But not for the fall of the echidnas..." As he calculated the math in his head he didn't notice Tikal shaking her head and urging him to stop. "That's at least forty versions from you to Sonic."

The other hedgehog seemed stunned and then, he started to laugh.

"No, no, that can't be right." He laughed him off. "Forty versions would mean four thousand years and that can't...that can't ...be..." he trailed off as he turned to Tikal.

She stood there with a guilty expression on her face, not looking the other in the eye.

"By the masters-" he muttered, eyes wide.

The words 'I'm sorry' ghosted over Tikal's lips and the two were left awkwardly staring in silence for a minute.

The hedgehog took a deep breath.

"Four thousand years," he muttered before and uncomfortable look crossed over his face.

"It- it doesn't matter." He said with resolve. "What matters now is that we unload all the emerald's data and get it into the story cave."

"Right." Tikal said brightly with a very gentle smile.

"Okay everybody, looks like we're going on a field trip!" He said happily, clapping his hands together.

"A field trip?" Tails asked, "where?"

"Well, it's been four thousand years," he shrugged "I think it's time I go home."

Chapter Text

"Home?" Amy repeated, "As in the Starfall Islands?"

She'd be lying if she said she didn't want to go back even a little, the Starfall Islands had been so interesting. There was so much well preserved history behind them she was just dying to know.

This whole story was fascinating too, Sonic not only being an emerald, but also the fact they were now talking to an actual Ancient.

"Yep. The place I was created. ⶴዐጮቹ." He said wistfully, floating down off the altar.

She didn't recognize the last word he said, it sounded strange, probably the ancient's language.

"Which one did you come from?" She asked curiously, looking him up and down. "...Ares?"

The hedgehog cackled "Haha! Oh gods no!" He tilted back and kicked his legs in the air.

"Although," he considered, taking a deep breath, "I did like to visit there, the oasis were beautiful at night during star showers."

"I lived on Kronos and Rhea, although, the islands had different names back then." He smiled.

She gasped and jumped a little. "Me too!" She cried excitedly and the other made a confused, but not unhappy, face.

"Oh, ha, sorry. That was the Island I woke up on and spent my time at while we were there." She explained.

"Oh! So you already have a lay of the land! Wasn't it beautiful? All the trees and blooming flowers" he sighed happily.

"Oh my gods YES!" She cried stamping her feet happily. "The fields of poppies and dianthus were incredible!"

The floating hedgehog smiled giddily and did a small flip on the air. A new emotion passed over his face and he tensed and turned to Tikal with a wide smile.

"Hey, where's Puyo by the way?" He asked happily, suddenly looking around like he was waiting for someone to jump out.

As happy as he was though, Amy didn't miss the way Tikal took a sharp breath in and suddenly looked scared.

"Puyo?" Tails inquired.

"Yeah! Puyo, my star chao!" He smiled.

Amy turned to look at Tikal, she seemed...worried. Was she scared of whatever he was talking about?

Amy glanced at the other hedgehog and back again. Or maybe...what his reaction would be? But why-

"What's a star chao?" Knuckles asked. The other hedgehog's face dropped.

"What?" He asked in confusion.

"I've never heard of a star chao," Knuckles explained bluntly. "What is it?"

It was definitely the reaction Tikal was worried about, she observed. The female echidna was watching the hedgehog closely, fidgeting with her hands nervously and twitching with unease.

"Uh, the chao that come from the stars, y'know, the eggs look like meteors, they come down during star showers, those star chao." He scoffed like it was a ridiculous question.

"Puyo is white with cute purple stripes on their wrists and little purple triangles on the sides of their eyes. They've got two long horns like most star chao, a blue star on the top of his head, and of course a star on his chest like all of them." He tried to describe to Knuckles, whose eyes darted around in confusion.

Everyone just stared at him with empty expressions and Amy could see the moment he figured it out as his face turned sour. His overconfident smile and relaxed posture turned to something concerned and worried. Like he realized something was very wrong.

He whipped around to female echidna. "Tikal, where's Puyo?" He asked again with more urgency.

"They wouldn't have left, this was the last place they ever saw me." He talked, mostly to himself, looking around the garden at all the other chao that flittered around

"L- Sonic. Puyo is... Gone. He's been gone for a long time." The echidna explained gently. "The star chao went extinct a long time ago."

The hedgehog backed up incredulously.

"They what? No-" he stuttered in disbelief.

Extinct? She knew chao were kind of rare, mythical even, but they'd gone extinct before?

She glanced over to Knuckles who looked equally as shocked at the information. He'd grown up on an island full of chao, some of them had gone extinct before and he'd never even known?

"No- they can't be- Puyo can't be gone!" The hedgehog stated as if it were a fact as she turned back to the scene. Tikal's face only offered pity.

"I loved them! I took good care of them! They should've reincarnated!" He stated vehemently.

"I know you did," Tikal replied softly, "but that was a long time ago, Puyo was alone for a long time." She tried to reason with him.

The other slowly floated down and sank to his knees.

"They're... gone?" He said more than asked to no one in particular.

Tikal walked over and knelt down, pulling him into a hug and quietly petting his quills down in a comforting motion.

This was getting... hard to watch.

She could feel a pain deep in her chest as she watched the scene play out.

He had to feel so confused and out of place. Living for thousands of years, and then waking up one day in a world that was no longer your own.

There was something so deeply tragic about that idea. She couldn't imagine taking a nap and then waking up the next day only to find out the entire world was different and all her friends and family were gone.

"We'll leave you two alone for a minute." She said to Tikal and turned to the boys.

"We will?" Knuckles asked dumbly.

Amy shot him a look and said "Yes, we will." Through gritted teeth before grabbing the echidna and the fox by the arm and dragging them off.

She made a loud huff and sat down on a rock in the clearing they went to.

"Well, this kinda... Sucks." She stated and Knuckles nodded in agreement.

Tails, however, stayed silent. He was wringing his hands together and his tails kept twisting and untwisting.

"Tails? You good?" She asked and the fox seemed startled, like he forgot she was there.

He was anxious, more worried than upset. And he only did the twisting thing when he was thinking meaning whatever it was he was thinking about what was worrying him.

"I- yeah. It's just-" he grimaced and seemed conflicted for a moment. "It's nothing. There's just something bothering me about this guy."

She tilted her head. "Really?" She asked. The kit nodded but didn't elaborate.

"Is it because he's here in place of Sonic?" She asked. She could understand how awkward this must be, calling a hedgehog who looked nothing like his brother by his brother's name.

"Yeah...Maybe... I dunno, it feels like there's something else." He said, chewing on one of his glove fingers.

That was another thing she could get behind. This guy had a vibe to him that was just- strange. Normally she considered herself to be quite good at getting a read at first glance but it was like she just couldn't pinpoint the other hedgehog.

"Well... at least we'll get some answers now! We might even get to learn more about the ancients! We'll be learning the history from a literal first hand source." She said and the fox cracked a small smile.

"That is true." He started.

"Of course it is, I'm fantastic." She said dramatically and Knuckles snorted.

They all waited a bit before going back to the altar where Tikal and "Sonic" were still waiting.

"You doin' okay?" She asked the hedgehog who gave her a gentle smile.

"Yeah, yeah I'm okay." He said and stood (or moreso floated) up.

"It just boggles my mind just how much everything has changed." He said wistfully.

"What was it like last time you were around?" Amy asked.

"There were star chao everywhere, I'd go out flying with Puyo whenever a meteor shower happened. Angel Island was still connected to the Starfall Islands, well, for a while at least." He said.

Amy sent a confused glance to Tails who just shrugged.

"The air was better too." He said with a wrinkle in his nose. "It wasn't so... Stuffy."

Tikal giggled beside him "I keep telling you the air here is the freshest you'll find." The hedgehog shook his head and made a "blegh" noise.

"Well, considering how much the world has changed, how do you Mobians get around nowadays?" He asked. "I'm sure you're all missing your friend and you must've had some sort of craft in order to get up here."

Amy smiled at him and turned to Tails and the fox led the way to the Tornado.

"Wooow" Sonic breathed as he saw the craft. "It's like a tiny fleetship! But more open and...colorful."

"Haha, yeah basically. It can't go into space, but it'll fly us out to the islands just fine."  Tails said.

The hedgehog flew up and set himself down on top of the wings. Amy stared as he looked out on the horizon.

"Finally going home, after all this time." He whispered to the air before turning back to look at them.

"Well then everybody, let's set a course to Kronos Island."

Chapter Text

"So Sonic," Tails heard Amy ask, leaning over the side of the plane to face the hedgehog who was flying alongside it.

"What was Kronos Island like in your time?" She asked.

The hedgehog was flying on his back with his arms behind his head. A wide smile broke across his face.

He always seemed so excited and upbeat about everything, maybe that's what was throwing him off. Tails wanted to like the guy, he really did, but there was just something about him. Something in his stories and his expressions that just made him uneasy, no matter how lighthearted or harmless it was.

"Oh it was beautiful" he said dreamily. "We were a farming island, Ares was for militarization, Chaos was for engineers and inventors, and Ouranos was for all the important people, leaders, elders, councils, the whole works." He said.

Tails took note of the strange way he said "Chaos" like he had choked on the word trying say it.

That was another thing he'd been wondering about, they hadn't seen Chaos, the god that is, it was strange. They were normally with Tikal for everything.

"But Kronos and Rhea," he continued "They were about life." He breathed.

"Learning about the land, using it to help us gain resources and giving back to it when need be." He explained.

"Kronos and Rhea was the Island where you went to live. To spend your life being happy, making friends, finding love. Kronos Island was about something more simple than a hierarchy or a military. It was about the people." He sighed.

"Did... You have a family on Kronos?" Amy asked, and Tails could tell she was trying her hardest not to be insensitive.

"Mmm, not really I guess. My creator lived on Ouranos but on Kronos I just kind of went with it, y'know? I talked with anybody I saw, spent nights wherever I liked, and did whatever I wanted to." He replied.

"Ha!" Knuckles laughed from his place on top of the plane. "I might've been wrong, maybe you are Sonic." He chuckled.

For a second he thought he saw the hedgehog's expression twitch out of the corner of his eye.

Tails knew what knuckles meant though, for as not-Sonic as this guy was, he knew his brother well enough to easily hear those same words leaving his mouth.

"Kronos Island dead ahead!" He called as the blip on the horizon suddenly grew.

"Sonic" turned to look ahead of them at the approaching land.

The hedgehog's eyes got wider and he steered himself over to grab onto the plane as Tails landed it in an open field covered in a canopy of small pink and white flowers.

They each stepped off and waited, the blueish hedgehog the last one to float off the plane.

It was a strange feeling, watching the first incarnation of the emerald step out onto the ground. He did so carefully, like one little misstep might cause the entire island to crumble to dust.

"So," Amy asked quietly, "how does it feel to be home?"

The Ancient was silent for a long time before a gentle smile slowly spread across his face and then-

KR-THOOM

He ducked his head at the sudden gust of wind and the familiar boom of the sound barrier breaking. When he opened his eyes he saw the ancient had shot off like a rocket.

Tails stared as the other flew at mach speeds over the surface of the ocean's waters, a wake forming around him as he twisted and turned.

A noise caught his ears and he saw a smile break out on Amy's face as they realized the other was laughing.

The hedgehog laughed hysterically as he ran his hand along the surface of the water and closed his eyes, feeling the mist spray his face. He opened them and set a determined face. He picked up speed and then with a sharp turn shot straight up.

The Mobians stared with a gleam in their eyes. Watching the tower of water that rose up to follow the other once-alive Mobian. He whooped loudly  and hung in the air for a moment.

He reached a hand out to the sky, as if he were going to grab the sun out of the air before letting himself fall back down towards the water, only catching himself seconds before they would've collided and shooting in their direction.

He whooshed past them and Amy smiled and ran after, trying to follow him. Tails and Knuckles followed behind, running into the middle of the flower field.

The Ancient flew in circles and Amy giggled and twirled, dancing in the petals the other was turned up in the wind.

Even Knuckles must've had to admit that there was something whimsical about it as petals of pink and white swirled around them in a vortex, accompanied by laughter that could only come from someone experiencing true happiness for the first time in many, many years.

The Ancient stopped and hung in the air again for a moment before softly drifting down like one of the petals he'd kicked up.

He let himself rest down in the field of flowers, giggling softly to himself and closing his eyes, soaking in the sun.

A lone petal drifted down and came to a landing on the hedgehog's nose and a laughed. Amy came down to sit beside his place on the grass, knuckles joining a second later slightly less elegantly. Tails continued to stand behind the three with a small smile.

The hedgehog took a deep breath, a muffled cough going with it.

"I was created three hundred years after we first arrived on this planet." He breathed, staring at the clouds happily. "We'd finally gotten comfortable with this new world and a few of the ancients wanted to do something more than just create a new life."

"They wanted to learn, they wanted to find out more about this new place that was so different from where we came from, but so beautiful at the same time. They wanted to learn about its people, about it's history, about the life forms that called this place home long before we ever did.

"My creator, an ancient named Iizuka went to one of our elders with an idea, a way to learn about these lifeforms without being discovered or interfering with them.

"They had enough power with the seven emeralds that they could spare one. They took it to another ancient named Ohshima, one of our best architects and a powerful controller of chaos energy.

"With Iizuka's idea and Ohsima's control they programmed the eighth emerald, coding the chaos energy to take the form of a Mobian. Ohshima wanted to make a Mobian that was similar to the echidnas, but different enough that it could fit in with others due to the echidna's famous reputation for secrecy. He gave it a color that was distinct enough it could be recognized by them if need be, even if the color did change slightly with each form.

"In the end they'd created a perfect, multigenerational tool for learning the ways of Mobian life, one that could learn on its own and go undetected... Almost forever. My people had always lived feeling detached from reality. They couldn't ground themselves like you all could, but they could get close, through me."

The hedgehog went silent for a very long time as he stared at the sky with an unreadable expression.

"That was my purpose," he said, "I was an educational tool, meant to live amongst the other Mobians and learn what it meant to them to live and be alive."

"Wow" was all Amy managed to breathe out as a response.

They all stared off into the horizon for a while, the pale blue sky was fading into the color of orange flames as the sun dipped down.

The Ancients were such an advanced race it boggles his mind. They figured out cyberspace, they learned to utilize chaos energy, and more than that they felt real.

They felt like more than just pictures on a wall, or an advanced object of admiration to look up to. They had curiosity, they had dreams and ideas.

They were alive.

The Ancient hedgehog opened his mouth and spoke but Tails didn't understand the words that came out.

"𐌔ⶴꝊሠ ጮ𐌄 𐌕ⶴ𐌀ፕ ፕ𐋅ቹ ነ𐌕ል𐌐ነ ል𐌐ቹ ነ𐌕ጎ𐌋ረ ፕ𐋅ቹ𐌐ቹ, 𐌋ቹ𐌕 𐌕ⶴ𐌄ጮ ቻ𐌀ረ𐌋." The hedgehog breathed and smiled after he'd spoken.

The sun finally ducked below the horizon and the hedgehog closed his eyes and rested his arms over his chest.

Amy gasped beside him and Tails looked up at where she was staring.

The sky had turned into different pastel shades and light had started streaking across the sky.

"It's a Starfall." Knuckles said, leaning back on his arms.

The hedgehog smiled from the ground and suddenly brought himself up. He stood for a moment and then jumped and took to the air elegantly.

He dived and weaved through the falling pieces of light, dancing around them with ease. He smiled and quietly laughed. He found a gap for a moment and let himself hang there, he looked to his side with a smile but then something in his demeanor changed. His smile was still there as he drifted to the ground and picked up a fallen star.

He cupped it in his hands and stared at it for a moment. His smile had turned into something sad, the corners of his eyes filled with tears that refused to fall. He closed his eyes and pressed the star to his forehead.

"𐌉 𐌂ል𐌌ቹ ፪𐌀ር𐌊, ጎ'ጮ ነꝊ 𐌔ዐ𐌐ዪ𐌙 𐌉 Ꮤል𐌔 𐌕ዐꝊ 𐌋ል𐌕ቹ, 𐌉'ᕓቹ ፪𐌄ቹ𐌍 𐌃ዐ𐌉ክᏵ Ꮤⶴ𐌀ፕ ሃꝊ፱ ል𐌔ኡ𐌄ጋ" he spoke softly as the star dissolved into light.

He took another deep breath and looked back to the sky. "Forever and always." He spoke in english.

"We'll go to the cave in the morning." He said gently, turning to them. He looked around for a moment before his eyes landed on some ruins.

He held his hand up, "𐌐ቹ𐌅ዐ𐌐ጮ, 𐌍ዐᏔ." The air fizzled for a moment and glitched before the ruins started to lift themselves up and clack together until standing before them was a strange structure that looked very much new. It was solid but the walls were open, like a terrace made of stone.

"C'mon" he gestured to them as he walked under the strange canopy.

Amy and Knuckles walked under and Tails ran his hand against one of the pillars as he  followed along.

Amy and Knuckles had already found a place to lay down but "Sonic" sat down on the edge of the area, staring up to the sky.

He must've sensed him staring because he turned and gave him a soft smile.

"You miss them, don't you?" Tails asked sitting down next to him.

The hedgehog chuckled and looked to the stars. "Every day." He replied.

He turned to look at Tails with those opal eyes. "You miss him?" He stated more than asked.

Tails turned his own attention up to the stars.

"Even when he's here."

The hedgehog smiled sadly at him.

"I like you, little fox, even under these circumstances."

Tails gave him a quiet nod, they sat there in a comfortable silence for a long moment before the scene was broken by a yawn from the younger.

He stood up and turned to go join Amy and Knuckles who were already sleeping in a corner.

He hesitated for a moment. "Goodnight, Sonic." He said the name stiffly, in a way that the other knew wasn't meant to be his.

The hedgehog smiled. "Goodnight, little kit, ልክ𐌃 ጎጮ 𐌔ዐ𐌐ዪ𐌙."

Tails only nodded once again and went to lay down with the others. The form of the ancient slowly faded away, outlined in the light of the falling stars.

Chapter Text

"Goooood morning everyone!" A cheery voice greeted above him. Tails sluggishly opened his eyes to the form of "Sonic" leaning over the top him.

Tails groaned and rolled over. Amy and Knuckles were up and stretching out their sore muscles with a chorus of pops and cracks.

"Everybody ready? We've got a pretty long trip to get to the shrine." The hedgehog said looking out on the skyline.

"Long trip? We could've just flown closer if you'd told us where it was." Knuckles grumbled.

Despite the echidna's rigid schedule he wasn't a morning person. Even Sonic went out of his way to not deal with him until at least nine.

"Well, yeah, but I wanna show you guys all the amazing things about the island that you don't know about!" He said excitedly.

Tails felt to bad to argue with him on that. Not to mention Amy would probably be more than happy to sit and listen to him talk about the island's history for hours.

"Alright then, what's up first? We aren't that far into the island." He said pointing out toward the path to more of the mainland.

"Oh just you wait, once we're past the main entrance it'll be so incredible you'll never wanna leave." He smiled and twirled.

He felt skeptical. Were the islands incredible? Yes. Were the islands what he was describing? Not really.

They walked for a while, "Sonic" eventually leading them to a bridge he was overly excited about.

"This was actually built for the echidnas" he explained. "In case we needed to meet with them." The blue lines running along the bridge seemed to glow brighter as he passed over them.

Getting over the hill was much easier than expected. "Sonic" floated easily to the top. Tails just picked Amy up and flew her over and Knuckles was used to climbing mountains.

The top of the hill gave them an incredible view of everything, he could see out into the rolling fields from up here.

"Sonic" had yet to turn around though, admiring the machinery that was sitting at the top of their hill. Next to them was one of the emerald vault. It seemed much easier to reach than any that were on his island but the design was the same.

The hedgehog seemed nostalgic looking at the first containment vault, brushing his hand down the side of the machine.

"Well everyone, welcome to-Woah" He started then stopped himself abruptly.

"What?" Amy asked "what is it?"

Tails quickly shuffled up to his side. The ancient had a strange mix of shock, sadness, and pain all wrapped together in one on his face.

"It's- It's-" he stuttered "what happened?" He choked out painfully.

His eyes scanned the horizon again for a moment, "A-Asura?"

The Echidna beside him squinted out at the horizon towards what the other was looking at.

"The big robot?" Knuckles asked.

"No-! Yes- she- She was one of the guardians of our island but-" there was a rising panic in his voice, a growing fear.

"why- why is she still out? And-" the ancient stopped half way through speaking and broke down in a coughing fit.

Amy put a hand on his shoulder in an attempt to help but the hedgehog hardly seemed to notice.

Eventually he took a few ragged breaths and managed to stand back up.

"She- Asura, was supposed to protect our island and disappear when the threat went away." He closed his eyes and took a breath that seemed to pain him. "ጌሁፕ ጎፕ ክቿሀቿዪ ዕጎዕ ቻዐ ልሠልሃ, ዕጎዕ ጎፕ?" He said it quietly, more quietly than the rest.

"And- and what about all the plants?!" He cried in outrage, "what happened to all the flower fields and the crops and the tree groves? What's with all this dead grass and shrubbery?" He asked, turning to Amy.

"I had a feeling it wasn't always like this while I was on the island." Amy mumbled to herself before turning to the other.

"Whatever The End did to this place the ecosystem still hasn't recovered, I'm sorry Sonic." She consoled him.

He closed his eyes and breathed for a moment.

"It's- It's in... your past." He said, letting out a long sigh.

"I'll just show you all the cool things that are left, even if a lot of it has been destroyed." He finalized before continuing forward.

It wasn't even a few minutes later, hiking down the long sloping hills, when some Soldier droids appeared from the ground.

Knuckles grunted and ran forward with his fist ready but before he could even reach it "Sonic" put himself between the echidna and the robot.

"Woah woah woah!" He held his hands out with a wildly confused look.

"What are you doing?!" Knuckles asked him angrily, stumbling back.

"I could ask you the same! Jeez-" he turned to the robots and snapped his fingers. All five of the Soldiers turned blue and made a clicking noise before disappearing.

"What was that?" The hedgehog asked when he turned around.

"Are you serious? Those things tried to kill us like 24/7! Why wouldn't I attack it!?" Knuckles raged.

"Tried to- ohhh" the hedgehog suddenly turned and held his hand out to the air. It rippled and a soft blue glow seemed to come from his palm.

"ዪቿቻጎዪፕቿዪጎክቻ ክቿሠ ሀጎዪጎፕዐዪዪ: ልጠሃ ዪዐዪቿ, ጕክሁርጕረቿዪ ፕዘቿ ቿርዘጎዕክል, ልክዕ ጠጎረቿዪ የዪዐሠቿዪ." He spoke and when he was done he released his hand and a blue pulse spread throughout the entire island.

"There you go. You shouldn't have that problem anymore, not on this island at least." He said nonchalantly.

"That's it?" Knuckles asked skeptically. "That's all we had to do?"

The hedgehog smiled "kinda nice knowing someone who can control ancient's tech right?"

"Yeah... You could say that again." Tails said hesitantly.

They walked for a while, passing different fields and structures. The ancient hedgehog led them like a tour guide through all the different ruins.

The place really was beautiful, it reminded him of a rockier version of Green Hill. It was strange though how different it was ecologically from the other islands. Chaos island was full of volcanic activity and sulfur deposits and Ares island was a desert through and through. The entire archipelago was kind of an ecological mystery.

The scientific developments of the ancients were  impressive as well, even more so when he had an explanation for them. Large towers worked as communication towers, as well as lookout areas. Many houses and structures were built from cyberspace tech, rather than physical materials, in order to minimize the impact on the environment. They even found ways to graft cyberspace into the geological structures.

The ancients were everything that Eggman wasn't, in a way. They had advanced technologies and incredible innovations, and they still worked around the pre-existing environment. Instead of changing the biological world to make a place for themselves they worked with it to make a place for both of them. It was kind of perfect. It was everything he wanted to be able to do with his inventions.

They reached a small grassy area and stopped, all of them hungry and tired. There was a small structure, the very base of an old building with grass growing throughout it.

Amy pulled out some fruit snacks and handed some to Knuckles. He gratefully accepted a water bottle from her.

"So, Sonic," Tails started, he really hated calling him that. It felt wrong, for more reasons than one.

The ancient hedgehog was reaching down into the grass, searching for something and shoving it into his quills when he found it.

"Yeah? What's up?" He asked turning to Tails.

"I'm curious, what exactly are the plates for on your gloves?" He'd been wondering for a while and it seemed like a good topic to generate something with the other.

"Huh? Oh! Oh you'll get a kick out of this, they're for climbing." He answered excitedly.

"I'm sure you've noticed that they've got the same patterning as some of the cliffsides and towers yeah? Well, if I ever felt like climbing instead of flying these plates will connect will the tech in the cliffs and lock me on." He explained.

"Seems overcomplicated," Knuckles huffed behind them and held up a gloved fist "spikes and a little power is all I need."

The ancient laughed and Tails ignored him.

"Fascinating." He breathed examining the plates on the other's hand.

"How does that work exactly? I'm assuming they'd have to have some sort of connection to another piece to allow for flexibility, otherwise you wouldn't be able to shift while climbing." He asked.

"Oh easy, all the of my people had a neural link with cyberspace, even me. So long as we could connect a piece of tech with cyberspace we could control it mentally. It's the same technology that's in my shoes actually." He said pointing to his glowing pseudo-sneakers.

"Really? That's incredible. And what function do your shoes serve? Is there some sort tech inlaid to give you higher speed or vertical?"

The other laughed, "oh no, these are for the rails."

He waved a hand and a short grinding rail appeared next to them.

"See the hole where the arch is? Watch this."

He pressed a foot against the bar, and the solid bottom of the shoe retracted into the sole. Then when the bar was pressed against the inside of the arch it snapped shut again locking the other on.

"Incredible" Tails said. "They remind me a lot of Sonic's old Soap shoes but with an added technological aspect."

"Yeah, basically. The problem you would typically have though is the lock on controls. The cyberspace link is what fixes that, that way you aren't left stuck hanging upside down or something."

Tails smiled and they all started walking again.

It was insane just how casually the ancients used such incredible advancements in tech. It was so casual for them. Mobians and humans evolved with age and became accustomed to technology with time, the ancients were already living in that casual future.

At one point "Sonic" got to talking with Knuckles and Amy decided to hang back with him.

"Does something feel off to you?" She asked him quietly.

"Huh? What about? I've still got that weird uneasy feeling but even that doesn't seem as bad anymore."

"I don't know, just- the island? In general? Something feels kind of strange, don't get me wrong, I'm loving this tour but..."

"But something doesn't feel right?" He finished for her.

Amy nodded, "And there's nothing to even feel weird about, which is the weirdest part! Logically I can look around and it's the same Island I was at before. But then I look for a bit too long and something feels missing."

Tails thought about it for a second,he didn't really get that feeling here, he hadn't been on the island before, but she was right, something did feel like it was missing.

"The koco!" Amy suddenly gasped.

"What?"

"That's what's missing! I haven't seen a single koco since we got here and the island used to be full of them! Where could they have gone?"

"Sonic rounded up a lot of them for the elder koco, there probably isn't going to be that many wandering the island anymore." Tails reasoned.

Amy hummed and he could tell she wasn't really satisfied with that answer.

"Plus, it might be better that we don't see any." He said.

"What?! Why? They're so nice!" Amy exclaimed.

Tails glanced forward at the hedgehog who was talking vehemently with the echidna about something.

"The koco are basically the leftovers of his people Amy, I don't really wanna see another meltdown." He whispered.

"I suppose you're right, he's already been freaked out enough with all the changes in the island and the environment."

Tails nodded and kept walking. The hedgehog in front of them caught him looking and gave him a smile and a wave, accented by a small coughing fit.

It was probably another hour before their party suddenly stopped again. It was still plenty light out, they'd left early.

"What is it? What's going on?" He asked looking ahead of them.

"Sonic" had some kind of violently disgusted expression plastered onto his face. Looking at whatever was ahead of them.

"What, is that?" He asked with a light snarl to his voice.

He finally managed to see what he was looking at and he could understand the anger.

"That's an eggbase." Knuckles stated "Eggman set a bunch of em up across the islands while he was trying to hack into cyberspace."

"Hack into cyberspace?" The hedgehog repeated with frustration.

"Don't worry though, we got rid of him and I doubt he'd be coming back to the islands so soon after what happened." Amy jumped in, noticing his distaste.

"Right... Okay." The other said coldly before reluctantly keeping on.

"Hey, Sonic, we seem to be getting closer and closer to passing into Rhea's territory." Tails pointed out as the spires came into view.

"Huh? Oh yeah, sorry about that, the cave is on Rhea Island." He said.

"Really? Why didn't you say so before?" Amy asked.

He shrugged, "I forgot to, it's kinda weird y'know? This is all just one island I don't know what Mobian in their right mind gave it two names, it's not like they're separated."

"Oh, yeah that makes sense."

"Yeah, the only difference is that we used the lower lands for agriculture and the Highlands for defense. Same island, just two different regions of it y'know?"

"It is interesting, the way things have changed simply because of different people looking at things." Amy remarked.

"Yeah, it's strange, like in my mind the names we gave things made sense but then, well, Kronos and Rhea? I don't even know what those words mean! It's wild." He said and Amy laughed with him.

Something caught his eye, "Alright everybody looks like our journey is nearly over." He exclaimed.

The hedgehog moved to the side and he finally saw what they'd been walking toward.

It was a small hill with a strange temple-like ruin that looked more like an ancient gazebo than anything.

"Wow" Amy breathed and ran up to the middle of the structure. She looked over the side and down the cliff. "Nice view from here."

Tails was watching Amy when he heard a loud sniffle to his side. Everyone turned to look at the pale blue hedgehog who was wiping watered up eyes.

"Augh, sorry, sorry! It's just- you've all been so nice to me." He smiled.

"Aww, it was nice meeting you!" Amy replied. "You've been so fun to talk with, I'm glad we got to meet you."

He gave her a warm smile and waved gestured for both him and Knuckles to follow him up to the gazebo.

Knuckles was looking up at the open top of the structure and even Tails turned his back to the hedgehog to examine the ancient pillars.

"So, how do we get Sonic back?" Knuckles asked.

There was a long pause and a breath from the other.

"I'm so sorry."

His blood ran cold and he whipped around.

"What?"

With a loud BOOM the other shot off into the distance ditching them at the ruins.

Chapter Text

For a moment he was paralyzed before he turned toward Knuckles and Amy, who looked equally stunned.

"He... Left?" Amy muttered "he- he left!" She said again, now panicking.

"Oh Chaos what do we do?! What is he doing?" She scrambled, tugging at her quills.

Tails' mind was going a hundred miles an hour. He ran off? Why would he run off? He had to have a motive. What would be a motive to run off? Okay flew off would be better, he flew off, but why?

"What was the point of dragging us all the way out here just to ditch us!?" Knuckles raged, kicking a rock into a pillar so hard it cracked.

Then, it clicked in his mind and a new wave of fear washed over him. "To lead us away from the Tornado."

Amy and Knuckles stared at him before the pink hedgehog broke the silence.

"Oh no."

Next thing he knew they were running, Amy was in the lead with Tails following close behind and Knuckles trailing behind.

"C'mon!" Amy yelled "saw a portal we passed this way! They should all still be open from when Sonic went through them!"

Sure enough after their sprint Amy led them to a teal blue glowing portal. She pressed a hand against it and it started glowing.

"Hurry! C'mon!" Amy shouted and the three dove inside.

Cyberspace always felt weird, even if it was better now that they'd gotten rid of The End's corruption. There was a strange buzzing feeling to it, like you could feel energy rushing beneath your skin.

They popped back out of cyberspace at another portal. "C'mon let's g-!" Amy said again rushing forward

"AMY!" Tails shouted and grabbed the pink hedgehog, pulling her backwards as a giant metal hand slammed into the ground before them.

Amy looked dazed, staring at the cratered place she'd been standing seconds before.

"What the-?" She muttered. "Asura?"

Sure enough, the guardian was towering over them but much active than she was before.

The guardian was stomping around picking things up and throwing them everywhere.

"What's going on? I thought the bots were done attacking us!" Amy yelled.

"Maybe he undid whatever code he entered to the island?" Tails guessed.

"No, I don't think so." Knuckles said and Tails turned to him with surprise. "Look at it, look at what it's doing." He gestured to what the Asura was grabbing.

"She's not attacking us, she's destroying the egg tech" he said and he realized Knuckles was right.

Asura wasn't even looking at them, it was focused on the bases and pathways Eggman had placed down. He watched the guardian rip a platform out of the cliffside and throw it far out from the island.

"He must've ordered the island guardians to destroy anything Eggman put here. He was so angry when he saw that first base." Tails said, watching a Squid appear by the river and blast at a runaway it normally passed under.

"Let's keep moving, be careful." He urged before running forward toward another portal he saw behind Asura.

The three bolted across the new no-man's-land, ducking and dodging as more shrapnel errupted and explosions went off.

"Does he even realize that he's destroying the island too?" He heard Amy whisper behind him.

He cringed but powered forward. He made it to the portal first and he and Amy pulled Knuckles up as he arrived and they jumped into the portal.

The next portal they came out at was next to the hill near where they'd spend the first night.

"There!" He shouted and pointed as he spotted the blue hedgehog, sailing toward them. Or, he thought so, until he realized he was aiming for the Tornado in the field beyond.

He let out a sharp gasp and ran forward as fast as could, Amy and Knuckles following behind him in their race to the biplane.

They were close, they were so close, but not close enough.

"Wait!" Tails screamed.

The hedgehog hesitated for a moment above the aircraft and turned to him before yelling out "I'm sorry! But I can't go back, I need to make things right!"

The blue hedgehog took something out of his quills and threw it into the cockpit. The next thing Tails knew he was watching and feeling the heat, as the plane he got from his brother exploded in a massive cloud of flames.

The blue hedgehog took off again, shooting out over the ocean and disappearing into the horizon.

Tails fell backwards stunned and blasted by the shockwave of the explosion. His run turned into a disbelieving stop as he watched red paint from the mutilated plane crack and chip away in the fire.

He hardly felt the soft pink arms that wrapped around him, or the warm heavy hand that was placed on his shoulder. All he could see was the mangled F and the name Sonic, bubbling and melting away in a plume of orange.

Tears welled in his eyes but didn't fall as he watched his pride and joy burn down before his eyes.

After a while the flames went out and the plane was left in a smoking heap.

"Tails?" Amy asked gently.

The fox let it a long sigh. "It's okay, I can fix the Tornado. Right now we need to focus on getting off the island."

It was true, they needed to have their priorities straight and he could always fix the Tornado, he'd done it before he could do it again... even if it didn't feel like it right now.

"How are we supposed to leave the island if the plane is... Y'know." Knuckles gestured awkwardly, Amy swatted him on the shoulder.

"I'm not sure yet." He was still wrapping his mind around what just happened.

He knew something was wrong about the ancient, he knew it! He should've done something sooner, he should've urged Amy more or taken a second to assess him. Now they were stuck on Kronos and Rhea and he- he-

A new horror dawned on his face.

"Hey...guys," Tails said shakily turning to the other two, "did we ever tell him what the islands were named?"

Amy thought for a moment and Knuckles looked confused.

"No, I don't think so, why?" She asked.

"Because if he hasn't been around for over four thousand years, and none of us ever told him, how did he know what the Mobian names for the islands were?"

Amy's face turned white as a sheet.

The ancient said it himself, the islands used to have different names, but none of them had told him about Kronos and Rhea when he brought it up. That was what he was missing, that's what had been throwing him off this whole time. His story was inconsistent, even before the islands he mentioned knowing some of the other incarnations powers, how would he have known that?

"Something's really messed up here." He stated and the echidna nodded.

"Okay, okay, we need to get off the island and we need to do it fast, really fast but how?" He said out loud to himself.

"Knuckles!" He cried suddenly.

"Huh?! What?" The Echidna jumped.

"Knuckles, how did you get to the Starfall Islands the first time, you said you went through a portal right?" Tails urged.

"Uh yeah...?"

"So that means there's a portal on Angel Island."

"Yeah, in the sky sanctuary, kinda how the portals work." Knuckles stated simply.

"If there's a portal on Angel Island then there's a portal here we could use to get there!" He yelled jumping into a hover.

"Well sure but I woke up on Ares, we'd have to find a way there first."

"No, that wouldn't make sense. Remember what he said about Ares, he didn't go there often and it was a militarized island. If he was meant to live on this island then they wouldn't have put the portal on Ares." Tails smiled.

"He could've just been lying." Knuckles pointed out.

"No, I don't think so, not about that anyways." Amy backed him up.

"And... You said before you woke up on Ares you saw got in a fight and saw Asura right?" Tails asked.

"Yeah?"

Amy suddenly broke into a smile "and Asura is only on this island."

Tails was shaking with excitement. "Knuckles, you arrived on Kronos Island, if we can find that portal-"

"We can get to Angel Island first and maybe even warn Tikal." Amy finished.

Knuckles smiled. "Alright then! And I know exactly how to find it."

Knuckles led them to a cliff face that overlooked where Asura was. There was a pile of rubble at the bottom and the cliff had a strangely uniform drop off.

"You're sure this is it?" Tails asked.

Knuckles glanced back over his shoulder at the cliff.

"Positive."

"Then let's go!" Amy cheered and jumped in.

Tails followed after and so did Knuckles. For a long time he felt the rushing feeling of cyberspace until finally light came into the picture.

The portal spat him out in a small stone room with Amy waiting for him at the doorway.

She was smiling and he ran over to her. Floating ruins surrounded the sky around them.

"It worked!" Tails cried and Knuckles appeared behind them.

He looked around for a moment before laughing quietly.

"What are we waitin' for?! C'mon!" He yelled and ran out.

Tails flew Amy across the ruins while Knuckles glided and weaved around obstacles.

"Over here!" He called and Tails veered left to meet with him.

"Hang on" he said grabbing his and Amy's hands.

"What do you mean hang o-" Amy cut off as the Echidna tapped a red bulb on the floor and they suddenly disappeared.

It felt like his head was spinning and Amy looked sick and dizzy when everything stopped. They were surrounded by plants and trees again, another moss covered teleporter next to them on the ground.

Before another word was said Knuckles ran forward. Tails took a moment to steady Amy before running off after the other.

"Tikal!" Knuckles yelled as the Master Emerald came into view.

"Knuckles?" The orange echidna asked as the group hurried up the stairs of the altar.

"What happened? I didn't hear your plane come in- Where's Sonic?" She asked.

"He-"

"He went nuts!" Knuckles shouted, interrupting Amy. "He dragged us all over the island, blew up the Tornado, and then ditched us!"

"He what?! He- oh no nonono-" she murmured and started fidgeting with her headband.

Amy reached out for a second but the echidna took a deep breath and suddenly stopped before taking on a deadly seriousness.

"Did he say anything, anything about why he was doing this?" She asked, turning to him.

"Um, he said he "wasn't going back" and that he "needed to make things right"." Tails answered.

Tikal chewed at one of her gloves for a moment. "I don't like this. I don't like any of this."

"Tikal," Tails asked "do you know any reason why he might be doing this?"

Tikal made a pained face for a second, "yes, I think I do, but I'm not sure-"

She was cut off as a huge gust of wind billowed across the altar. Dust blasted off the ancient structure leaving clouds in its wake. When the plumes of dirt finally cleared, there was a blue hedgehog floating above them.

Chapter Text

"Tikal! I'm-" He shouted looking around but stopped short when he noticed the three of them standing by the emerald.

His face dropped, stern glare staring them down for the first time rather than a forced smile.

"What are you doing here?" He asked in a cold voice that was dripping with seriousness.

"Sonic what are you doing?" Tikal broke in. "You left them on the Island and destroyed their plane?"

"I had to! They were going to follow me back if I didn't! And clearly it didn't work anyway!" He exclaimed. "How did you get here?"

"We used a portal" Amy said "it brought us straight here."

The hedgehog looked stunned for a moment.

"No- no you didn't. That's impossible I destroyed that portal, they- they made me destroy that portal." He stated.

"Well it doesn't look real pretty," Knuckles said, "but it still works just fine."

The hedgehog went silent, staring at the other.

"It doesn't matter anyway! Sonic what are you doing?" Tikal asked.

"What am- what am I doing? Tikal I'm fixing things! I'm fixing everything that got messed up all those years ago! You of all people should know that." He said floating down closer to their level.

"Fixing-? What do you mean you're fixing everything? All you've done so far is break things!" Knuckles cried.

"No no no, you wouldn't get it, I'm fixing a mistake in the cycles." He said as if it was the obvious explanation. "I'm fixing what got messed up, three thousand years ago, when I "died"!"

He saw Tikal wince out of the corner of his eye and turned back to the hedgehog with confusion.

"You can't-" Tikal started.

"Why not? It wasn't meant to be this way!" He interrupted "Don't you get it Ti? The fact you didn't know how to manage the emerald is just more proof!" He said smiling at Tikal, as if he was trying to reason with her.

"Proof of what?" Tails asked tentatively, catching his attention.

"That the cycles weren't meant to be started! Proof that I shouldn't have died, that Sonic shouldn't have existed."

"What are you talking about!" Knuckles demanded.

"Look, it was all a huge accident, the cycles were never supposed to start. This whole incarnation thing shouldn't have happened. I should've still been around, doing what I was meant to do!" He explained.

"Okay... so, they made a mistake," Tails said, humoring him, "what then?"

"I'm gonna stop this ridiculous cycle thing once and for all." He said with determination.

"I can keep doing what I was meant to do, I can make my people proud! I can learn about this world and life for them, even if they aren't here. I'll do better, I won't mess up this time." He said with a starry-eyed expression.

"And how do you plan to do that?" Amy asked warily.

He seemed to consider her for a second.

"I'm gonna destroy the cave."

"WHAT?!" Tikal and Tails yelled at the same time.

"If I destroy the cave then I'll be able to stay! I won't be able to die again! The emerald won't have something to fall back on" He reached forward and Tikal started backing up.

Everything about his demeanor screamed desperate, like he was trying to convince them all of something he didn't even understand.

"All I need is a little help from the emerald." He reached a hand forward with a dazed look in his eyes.

"No way!" Knuckles yelled jumping in front of it.

"If you destroy the cave we'll lose Sonic!" Tails yelled.

"I- I know, and I was trying to spare you from that, but Sonic shouldn't exist! He should have never gotten the chance to be created in the first place, I know you're attached to him but this isn't how it's supposed to be, I shouldn't have died."

He said it gently, as if he was trying to explain it to a small child. As if he was talking about a pet that had to go away rather than killing his brother.

"What do you mean you "weren't supposed to die" everyone is meant to die at some point." Amy said boldly.

The other tilted his head and made a sympathetic face.

"Did you really think Sonic was the first one to get knocked out of his cycle?" He asked.

"And what gives you the right to replace Sonic?" Tails asked angrily.

"What gives you the right to bring him back instead of me?" He snipped back. "I wasn't meant to die! I was never supposed to die! Sonic screwed up and got himself shot! I wasn't given the choice to run away!" He shouted.

"Tikal?" Tails asked, turning toward the other.

She wouldn't even look at him, he eyes locked on the ancient hedgehog with a mix of pity and dread.

The hedgehog frowned for a moment before trying to walk forward toward the Master Emerald

"Not so fast!" Knuckles yelled, pounding his fists together.

"Sonic may be a doofus but he's my friend too and I'm the one in charge of the master emerald. If you want to get to this emerald you're gonna have to go through me and one pissed off water monster."

"Water monster?"

"Knuckles don't-!" Tikal yelled.

"Yeah! A friend of ours named Chaos!"

"Chaos?" The hedgehog looked taken aback.

There was a shift in the energy around the hedgehog.

"Chaos, is still, ALIVE?!" he screamed.

His irises disappeared as his eyes started to glow and white energy formed and crackled around him.

"I'M GONNA KILL THEM! WHERE ARE THEY?!"

"Of... course Chaos is alive, they're a god." Knuckles said cautiously.

"A god? A GOD?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME? CHAOS IS A TRAITOR! THEY'RE A LIAR AND A FAKE AND-"

"And they used to be our friend." Tikal interrupt. The hedgehog seemed about ready to fall from the sky at those words.

"No-" he said incredulously, "No! You saw what they did. THIS IS ALL THEIR FAULT! They ruined EVERYTHING!" He shouted.

"Wait- wait- hang on. What are you talking about?" Amy asked and suddenly she had all the attention in the world.

"You don't know?" The ancient asked. He looked to Tikal and then fell back in a sort of breathless laugh.

"Ha- hahaha! Of course you don't know- how could I forget? I'm just some stupid SECRET that NO ONE CAN EVER TALK ABOUT!" He raged in frustration.

"Sonic-" Tikal said, reaching out a hand.

"STOP CALLING ME THAT! YOU KNOW MY NAME!" He cried almost pleadingly. Tikal got quiet and backed up.

The ancient took a few shaky breaths before locking in on them again.

"Why don't we take it back then shall we? A true history lesson of the fall of the echidnas from someone who was there." He asked with a deadly calm, staring at Tikal with challenging eyes.

"Three thousand years ago, the day I was killed by my best friend."

Chapter Text

It was four thousand years ago.

I'd been living on Kronos Island with the rest of my people. I didn't look much like them, but they never treated me any differently.

""ⶴቹረረዐ ሃልነ፱ⶴልዪል! ረዐህቹረሃ ጋልሃ ዐ፱ፕ ጎነክ'ፕ ጎፕ?"

"ህቹዪሃ ጮ፱ርⶴ ነዐ! ዐክ ሃዐ፱ዪ ሠልሃ ፕዐ ነቹቹ ጎጎጊ፱ኡል ጎ ፕልኡቹ ጎፕ?"

"ዐቻ ርዐ፱ዪነቹ, የዪዐጮጎነቹ ሃዐ፱'ረረ ነልህቹ ነዐጮቹ ነፕዪልሠ፪ቹዪዪጎቹነ ቻዐዪ ጮቹ?"

"ጎ ሠጎረረ ጋዐ ጮሃ ፪ቹነፕ."

We weren't struggling by any means, our technology worked well with this world and we were always quick to adapt.

All my meetings with Iizuka were on ፱ዪልክ፱ነ Island, the island was the more political of the four. It's where important meetings were held and visits with the echidna chieftains were conducted.

It was also where I was created and tested. Iizuka had a lab where he tinkered with the emerald's programming and tested my physical capabilities.

Things were different though when I came in that day.

Instead of the lab they asked me to arrive at the main conference room. I went of course but when I did I found myself faced with something very strange.

"ርዪልክቹ, ነክልኡቹ, ፕጎፏቹዪ, ጋዪልፏዐክ... ሠⶴልፕ'ነ ፏዐጎክፏ ዐክ?"

"ⶴቹረረዐ, ረጎፕፕረቹ ቹጮቹዪልረጋ" Crane smiled at me, of all the leaders she was always my favorite. She was kind and strong.

But aside from the leaders of my people there were also members of the echidna clan.

They introduced me to them. Beforehand we had mostly dealt with the Nocturnus tribe, but these new echidnas were the leaders of a tribe he had only recently met, the Knuckles tribe. They had formed themselves around the giant emerald that had brought us here in the first place.

"ፕⶴጎነ ጎነ ርⶴጎቹቻ  ክልጊርል ልክጋ ⶴጎነ Ᏽዪ𐌀ክ𐌃ጋ𐌀፱Ᏽⶴ𐌕ቹ𐌐 ⶴቹጎዪ ፕዐ ፕⶴቹ ርⶴጎቹቻፕልጎክ ዪዐረቹ."

I asked them what this was about and though they seemed nervous they told me they were simply establishing a portal to the part of the island that had broken away with the emerald on it.

At the time I didn't think much of it, I should have known they were hiding something from me.

It was only a year later when things started to get worse. I knew everyone had gotten more tense but I couldn't tell why, Iizuka hadn't met with me in a long while and I heard no news from anyone but him.

What I didn't know was that he had been taken to ፕ፱ጮ፱ረፕ island to work with engineers there in creating new weapons faster.

My life continued like that, a constant state of unease fueled by a lack of information.

It was just me and Puyo, I found them during a starfall. When the stars came down every one in five of them would emerge as these little star Chao. I had gone down to the river and watched a star crash straight into the water.

Star Chao couldn't swim and neither could I but the water wasn't too deep for me to try. For all I knew the star could've just been a rock, like most of them, guess I got lucky. When I made it back to the bank holding the star it started to change, it got brighter and then shifted and morphed until two little eyes were looking up at me.

Puyo was special to me, lots of ancients had "pets" but Puyo felt like more than that to me. They were the only thing that could keep up with me and the only one who could never leave me. Puyo couldn't die, neither could I, I finally had a constant in my life and better than that one that could fly with me.

I can't even remember all the nights we spent in the air, weaving in between the stars as the flew past us. It was something no one else could have, something that was just ours.

Despite it though I still knew something was wrong. They wouldn't let me go to ጮልዪነ island anymore, in fact they wouldn't let me go to any islands anymore. They tried to be discreet but it was obvious something was going on when the military island was on lockdown.

What that something was I had no clue.

The day I finally learned though was one of the worst days of my life.

I'd been out with Puyo looking for new kinds of flowers when I finally saw Iizuka for the first time in months. He was running towards me and wouldn't even speak. He simply grabbed me and Puyo and ran.

The sky has turned a shade of bloody red and Iizuka finally set me down in front of the portal to the echidnas.

I was confused, I didn't understand what was going on but I knew my creator was scared, he kept glancing at the sky in fear. There was screaming echoing from the strawberry fields as we ran.

He set me down at the door of the portal and despite his fear he smiled at me. He pushed Puyo gently into my arms and told me he needed me to do something, something important.

He told me that I needed to go through the portal, and never come back. He told me that once I was on the other side I needed to use a bomb to blow up the receiver.

I asked him why but he just smiled and tilted his head. He put a hand to my face and told me that I was going to do great things, that I just needed to keep living the way he'd always planned for me.

I didn't smile at the time, I was too frightened by everything going on. He urged me toward the portal and activated it. As it pulled me back the last I ever saw of my people or my creator was Iizuka looking up to the sky before being engulfed in white.

When I woke up I was clutching Puyo and laying in front of another portal.

I never outright admitted to myself what happened to them, but I knew. The shockwave was strong enough to be felt even from Angel Island.

I took the bomb Iizuka had given me, threw it into the portal chamber, and never had it in myself to return.

A few days later I ran into the echidnas and they welcomed me into their home.

I was a constant in the echidna clans for a while. I was never completely loyal to any one tribe, I simply wandered the island day by day and appeared every now and again.

For one thousand years I was simply a presence, a ghost or a spirit that wandered from clan to clan. I watched tribes rise, fall, merge, I had forgotten all about the Knuckles tribe that visited us so long ago.

That is, until I met you.

I made a habit of visiting the emerald every few weeks... Or maybe it was years, honestly I don't remember and couldn't tell at the time either.

One way or another when I came to visit it one day instead of a quiet, untouchable, pedestal I found you. I found a little echidna girl hanging out by the emerald sharing flowers with the chao.

At the time I wasn't sure what to think, it was strange. Nothing new had happened in over a hundred years, at least not anything that caught my attention.

All I knew was that Puyo liked you, and that was good enough for me.

Puyo smiled and flew over to your side and you marveled at how strange and beautiful they looked. You had never seen a star Chao before, they didn't live near here.

They zipped around you and you were so distracted you didn't even hear me approach.

You were startled when you looked up and saw me staring at you. You didn't know anyone else could go through the barrier.

On top of that I looked much different than you. That's one of the biggest differences of living with the echidnas. They may have treated me like and equal, but they still looked at me like an outsider. Despite everything I was still different. I was made to fit in, but made to be different from them.

Somehow a hedgehog among echidnas garnered more suspicion than a hedgehog among water aliens five times my size.

"ⶴቹረረዐ"

"𐋅ቹ𐌋ረꝊ"

I don't know why I greeted you in my language. I knew all of yours, I was made to adapt to new languages easily.

There was something different about you. The energy of the world flowed through you so easily, like chaos energy was at the core of your being.

You introduced yourself and for a moment I was stunned, you didn't look at me any differently than you did others. I saw in your energy, you were confused, but not afraid.

The emerald liked you, and I was starting to understand why.

I decided to stay with you after that. I stayed in the Knuckles tribe because I was scared that if I left I'd lose track of time again and you'd be gone by the time I came back.

I couldn't risk that, for the first time I had a friend. Not a creator or acquaintance, a friend. Someone who enjoyed my presence that I wanted to be around just as mutually. Someone that made me laugh and smile and understood.

In my hundreds of years I never had that.

I didn't live in your village, I don't know why. Maybe it was the tied down feeling of it all, or maybe it was your father. The son of the female echidna I'd met so long ago. I had met him only once, when he was as young as she had been.

He didn't like me, but it was mutual. There was something deep and twisted inside him, something that radiated anger and hate. Like malice had wrapped itself around his soul. He remembered me, though he never said it out loud, the language he spoke through his eyes was obvious enough.

I taught you things, things about my home, my people, even taught you some of our words. I told you things I couldn't tell anyone about things I was never supposed to reveal. You promised me you'd keep it all a secret and I believed you with everything in me, never doubting you for a moment.

You taught me things about the island and your people, things I'd never slowed down to learn. You were patient and kind and mindful.

I told you the truth about me, that I wasn't like you, I wasn't like anyone. I was crying that day, I hadn't cried in front of anyone but Puyo before. I had wanted to run away, I couldn't stand the thought that I would outlive you. I didn't want to see you die.

It never occurred to me that it might be the other way around.

One day, I was telling you about Iizuka and Naka and the rest of my people and you said you had something to show me, something you'd waited to show me for a while.

You brought me to the emerald and I didn't think anything of it, I knew the emerald, we were connected. What could you possibly have to show me that I didn't already know?

You told me to wait at the steps and you called out a name, one that didn't even sound like a name at first.

"ር𐋅ልꝊነ!"

I thought you were being weird, usually that was my job. But then you came out from behind the emerald, guiding someone that nearly made me collapse.

Puyo flew ahead of me, chirping loudly and buzzing with excitement but I- I felt paralyzed.

They were- they were one of my people. One of my people. They were smaller than any other ancient I'd met but they were undeniably one of us.

I couldn't breathe, I think tears formed in my eyes. I hadn't seen my people in over a century, not even a depiction of them. The only thing I had to remember them by was my memories full of haze and the nightmares that plagued me at night.

I ran forward and flew around them at speeds that made them nervous. I tried to hug them but when I did I went straight through. I was surprised until I realized he didn't have a koco.

My people used them to ground ourselves, they were honorary, carved from the island without the use of cyberspace. They connected us to this world, made us tangible, whole.

Then you explained that they really weren't one of my people. For a moment I didn't understand, but then I looked up at my brothers and sisters, glowing brightly on their pedestals, and I understood.

They were a gift, a gift from the emerald, charged to protect it.

You were worried I would be mad, you'd been hiding them from me, but how could I be mad when the truth outweighed any anger I could've had?

Suddenly instead of one friend I had two, and none of us looked the slightest bit alike but I loved you both more than life itself. For the first time in my long, long, life I finally had a reason to live.

"Ooooh Tiiiiii!" I called as you wandered through the grass. You never had to search for me, though you tried, I always knew how to find you.

I smiled at Puyo and they zipped off to rustle a bush, while you were distracted and came up behind you and grabbed your shoulders. "TI!"

"Jeez-! Augh, you should know better than to scare me like that!" You cried indignantly, but there was a smile on your face.

"But it's sooo fuuun!" I whined, turning upside down in the air.

You nudged my nose with your finger and pushed me backwards and I laughed.

"Where do you want to go today? Sanctuary? Chao garden? Rummaging in the stuff your dad told us we couldn't eat?"

"I was thinking of just reading the texts again"

"Whaaat c'mon you're always studying those dusty old books! Those things have been around since before I even got here."

You rolled your eyes at me and shook your head with a smile.

"Just because they're old doesn't mean they aren't important."

You told me that a lot. I know you didn't think much of it, but I always loved that phrase. It made me feel like maybe that was true about me.

"C'mooonnnn let's go somewhere! Have fun for the day! It's nice out! Chaos actually looks- uhhhh bubblier? Than normal?"

"This isn't the time for fun!" You reminded, "my father has been declaring war on countless other tribes all for this emerald! I need to learn as much about it as I can!"

"Uuuuuugggggghhhhh-" I whined, childish? yes. But it was how I felt.

"C'mon please! There's only so much time before Chief pain-in-the-ass drags you away for war council or something, let's just enjoy the time we have while we can!"

Puyo backed me up, zipping around your head and chirping.

Honestly I just didn't want to lay around while you read the book again. I loved that you were always so interested in learning the ways of the master emerald but it just wasn't my thing. Ironic huh?

"Ooooh I know something we should do!"

Even Chaos looked skeptical of me, I don't know why you two were always doubting me, we always had fun when we went on one of my trips.

"And what exactly is that?"

I smiled at you, I always had a hard time controlling my face so I knew I was doing that dopey grin that always made you nervous.

I glanced at Puyo and they smiled at me.

"Follow me."

I led you far into a more wild area of the island, the jungle was dense, no echidna had come that way in a long time.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" You asked me, to you it was just a spooky part of the jungle, I knew better.

Chaos said something from behind you. I didn't hear them but I knew them well enough to know they were nervous, we both did.

"Come on Chaos! Trust me, you'll love this place."

Chaos was oddly skittish for a being who could turn into a monster when provoked. They were always so anxious around new things but they trusted the two of us enough to try anything as long as we were confident. 

"The entrance should be somewhere around here-" I mumbled to myself. I was looking for the lever that would open a door I knew about.

Instead you got a surprise.

"What even is this place anyWAY!" You screamed and I barely turned in time to see you disappear below the ground as it caved in.

"TIKAL!" I yelled and jumped down after you.

I was quick, catching you really wasn't an issue, but once you caught your breath all the fire lit back up in your eyes.

Puyo flew down to meet us, they were concerned about you and they could give us a little light in the abyss.

I apologized and tried to explain but while you were hanging there in my arms there was a flash of blue and green that went flying past us.

"Chaos!" Both of us yelled, we knew they'd be fine, it's not like they were gonna break a bone or anything but they were still our idiot who had tried to jump down after us.

I took us both down further into the grotto, there wasn't much light from where we were. Only Puyo could give us a dim idea of our surroundings.

You started squirming and glared at me, "I told you this was a bad idea!"

"I know" I wailed, trying to make up for it.

"Put me down!"

It was kind of mean of me, but when I looked down and saw what I already knew was there I couldn't help myself.

"Fine, fine, okay" I said with a smile before I dropped you and stars you were so mad at me. You screamed all the way down, right until you fell on the chute of water below us.

I went with you, laughing the whole time while you kept screaming. Puyo was flying alongside us and they may have been your friend, but they were my chao. Puyo was laughing just as hard as I was.

At one point you realized we were fine and took the time to turn around and punch me in the shoulder and call me a jerk. I deserved that much, plus I knew you didn't mean it.

You never could stay mad at me, or Chaos for that matter, even when we were being idiots.

We continued down the chute for a while, water flowing underneath us carrying us down. Everything was pitch black except for Puyo at least... until the cavern suddenly opened up and you got to see what I brought you here for.

The black grotto turned into an expanse of different chutes and slides pouring water. The cavern was lit with yellows, blues, and pinks from massive crystals and holes letting in sunlight.

You gasped and there was this light in your eyes that I couldn't help but be proud of.

"Welcome, to the aqueducts!" I called out, I knew there was an echo and I always did like dramatics.

You gasped and gaped. You couldn't tear your eyes away from it all, even as we were sailing down the slide of water. Your screaming turned into cheering as the duct we were on picked up speed and suddenly dropped us.

We flew off the slide and down toward a massive pool of deep water far below us. As we were free falling the water churned below us.

"Chaos!"  We both yelled excitedly and two smiling eyes appeared in the water. The water reached up and broke our fall before we fell into the deeper pool. I couldn't swim but I wasn't worried, I knew you'd drag me out and even if you hadn't Chaos would've.

You brought me over to a shallow spot. A little sand bank stood out in the middle of the grotto.

"HaHaHa! WOOOO!" You shouted and laughed and drops of water fell from the ceiling of the cavern like rain. I laughed with you and Chaos swirled around before joining us, wrapping their arms around our shoulders. Puyo landed on my head and rocked their feet back and forth.

"This place is incredible!" You said, "like- like a massive hydraulic city!"

"The Uma tribe made this place abooout 6? 7? hundred years ago, before they all got divided into other tribes and dispersed. It was meant to be a giant aqueduct system to keep water within their tribe and make them more powerful."

"That's fascinating, the Uma tribe... I've never even heard of them."

"Not surprising, they spent so much time making their traps and defense systems it was faster for the other tribes to just find water other ways. It defeated the original purpose of the city."

"Wow... all this history forgotten underground."

"Hey! I like to think some people remember me."

You lightly punched my arm. "Not you, you rotten chao fruit." You joked back, I always loved when you accidentally slipped those bits in, made it easier for me to joke.

Puyo suddenly chirped and Chaos seemed intrigued.

"Chaos? What is it?" I asked.

They stepped forward and Puyo flew out over the water.

Then something started approaching. It took a bit for them to stop looking like blobs but when they did i understood the excitement.

"They're aquatic chao!"

About ten of them swam over to Puyo and then further on to greet us. They were all full of excitement, a bunch of dark aqua  chao.

"They must've made a colony down here! This is incredible!" You said, lifting up one that gestured for you to pick it up.

Puyo struck up a conversation with a few of them and Chaos was a fan favorite. A few were interested in me but I knew it was more because they could sense my energy. Chao always had a knack for that.

They swam back after a few hours. You sighed happily.

"Hey, thanks for bringing us here." You smiled "today was amazing."

"When will you learn I'm always right?" I jeered and you rolled your eyes.

I flew you out of the grotto and Puyo followed us, Chaos made their way up seeping through the ground. And then we all headed back to the village.

That was one of the last fun days we'd ever had. Because once we got back you found out your father had declared war on all the other tribes.

After that everything changed, everything got more tense. You never went out anymore, never went on any of our trips, any time you had you spent with your face shoved in a book or rambling about war meetings you were forced to go to. You hung out by the emerald more, but now it was for a different reason.

But I think the day we both felt the true shift was a few months later. The day your father banished me.

He arrived at my house one day. It was the smallest shack in your village but it was mine. It was the first permanent home I'd ever had. I only built it to be closer to you.

You were gone that day and he knew it, we both knew it. He arrived at my door and demanded to speak with me. I told him that was stupid because he was already speaking... he didn't have your sense of humor.

He threatened me. He knew I was powerful, knew I was different, and that's why he demanded I fight for him. He wanted to use me as a weapon to wipe out other tribes and take their land. Told me that if I wasn't going to fight for him he'd make sure I couldn't fight for anyone else. When I denied him he said so be it and left.

He wasn't the only one that left, I never went back to the village after that. I'm sure he had planned to drown me, or have some else drown me, stars know he couldn't have killed me any other way. It didn't take him long to move on either, my shack was destroyed and taken down the day after.

When I told you about it you seemed even more stressed than before and I understood. Because it meant your father was becoming power hungry, and if he couldn't have me, we knew what the alternative was.

Chaos started changing too. It wasn't as noticeable as you, but they became more agitated, more protective. They'd always taken their duty very seriously, the only Mobians allowed near the emerald were you and I but they were taking things to a more drastic degree.They started to attack anyone who so much as came near the shrine.

We both knew Chaos was a time bomb. You warned me a week after I'd met them. The prophet who wrote one of your books told of a creature that could turn into a massive being of water, an unstoppable one that would level mountains to protect the emerald.

If your father tried anything, Chaos could explode and they wouldn't just hurt the warriors, they'd hurt anything around them. The innocent villagers, the animals, the chao, they'd destroy it all if Pachacamac didn't stop.

We tried to warn him of that too, I even came into the village with you once to attend a meeting. He refused to believe anything we said. He reminded us that the emeralds were in his territory, said they "rightfully" belonged to him.

Maybe that was part of why I hated him. Because he treated the emeralds, me, like property for him to exploit. And he knew too, anytime he mentioned the emeralds being his he'd glare at me. Like I was supposed to be his obedient little pet. Like I wasn't a person.

Everything just got worse and worse until- until that fateful day arrived.

I had left early in the morning to deliver Puyo to a chao garden where all the other star chao lived. Puyo had gone into their cocoon and while I normally looked after them myself it was safer for them to be stashed away on an untouchable island than it was on the mainland at the time. I knew they'd come find me afterward, Chao could see chaos trails and follow them. For now I just wanted Puyo to be somewhere safe and the star Chao garden was just that. It was far away, far from danger, and far from Pachacamac. Far enough that the sun was setting by the time I returned to the island.

I could feel the stress in your energy from miles away, it flared out of you like a beacon. That was how I found you. That was how I knew something was wrong.

When I went into the village it was deserted, there wasn't an echidna to be found, all except for you. You were locked away in a hut. Screaming for anyone to come help you. I tore the door open and you came bursting out into my arms. Your face full of panic. You didn't even give me a chance to ask.

"He's going after the Master Emerald!"

We ran to the shrine as fast as we could, I flew you half of the way just to save time. Still, I could see the firelight of torches approaching the shrine as we got close.

"You help evacuate any chao that are still here! I'll try to talk Chaos down!" I said, letting you go.

"I'm gonna try talking to my father one last time!"

I don't know why you bothered but I didn't argue. Arguing would've just wasted time and we really didn't have any left.

When I reached the shrine Chaos was already there, standing in front of the emerald. They were upset, they had their eyes closed and hands clutching their head in pain. Their body was swelling and jolting out and then back in. Like they were trying to stop themselves from transforming.

"Hey, hey, Chaos, I'm right here okay? It's me, don't worry. I'll help you protect the Master Emerald, they won't even get close. You just need to calm down."

It worked for the moment, they looked up at me and their body stopped swelling for a moment.

A moment, that is, until we heard you scream. Both our eyes shot up and we watched as your father and your village trampled you. Walked over your screaming body as if you were dirt.

"Tikal!"

I flew over to you and helped you up.

"I'm okay, I'm okay." You insisted, but you were bruised and beaten with dirt. I flew you around to the top of the shrine, next to the emerald.

"What about Chaos?" You asked, "what happened?"

"If they were okay before, they aren't now." I said and we looked out and saw what was happening.

Chaos had started assaulting the echidnas, plowing through their lines only for them to be replaced by more and more.

"We need to stop this!"

"Yeah but how? Is there anything you can do with the emerald? Anything in your books?" I asked.

"I- I don't know- maybe- maybe-"

Suddenly Chaos let out a loud guttural roar and we watched fearfully as they began to grow. Their body gained more and more water, streams coming up from the trees and woods, some of it streaming in all the way from the Uma ruins. We watched as the other emeralds flew from their pedestals to Chaos and joined them as they grew. Echidnas had begun to fall back, becoming disorganized. But as panicked as they were they still tried to attack and then- and then-

"Tikal?" I asked quietly and I knew my voice must've wavered. When you turned to me your face turned into one of horror and you let out a loud gasp.

I looked down at my arm, staring at my hand, as I watched my body begin to dissolve. My fingers were disappearing, turning into water, pulling me toward Chaos, and I could feel a deep pain in my chest unlike anything I'd felt before.

"No-nonono-" you muttered in a panic as more and more of me vanished.

"Ti? What- what's happening? What are they doing to me?" I asked and I could hear my voice shaking.

I was so so scared in that moment. I'd spent my whole life never knowing the true fear of death until that day. I'd been hurt before, but I always knew I'd heal but this time- this time I wasn't so sure.

"I- I don't know-" you said, panicked, as more and more of my arm began to disappear.

"Chaos! CHAOS!" We both shouted, trying to get their attention but they ignored us. They were too busy going after the echidnas to hear us.

It was the emeralds, Chaos was calling on them, calling on me, to transform him. And I was being forced to comply. I was being pulled toward Chaos, stripped of any freewill or control.

Chaos was turning me into a weapon. Trying to strip me of my life so I could be used to destroy. They were doing to me exactly what I ran from Pachacamac for. They were breaking me down into a tool to be used, without any of the personality. Turning me into something that would listen and fuel their rage, regardless of my own opinions. Something that was obedient.

"Ti what- what's gonna happen to me?" I looked into your eyes, terrified beyond anything I'd felt before. I looked to you, because for the first time in my life I had no idea what to do.

I was watching as my body tore itself apart. No matter how much pleading either of us did, no matter how much we begged our friend to stop doing this to me, to stop tearing me apart, we were ignored.The force Chaos was emitting only got stronger, pulling me up into the air, yanking me out over the dark sky toward them.

I had always loved flying before but this time it was different. This time I wasn't flying for fun, I wasn't flying to feel free, I was flying because I was forced. I was flying, to lose any freedom I had.

You ran after me. You reached out your arms and grabbed onto mine trying to pull me back. I could feel the tears welling in my eyes and I knew it wasn't just the water.

I looked into your eyes and I could see my reflection in them. A reflection of my own paralyzing fear as I tried desperately to keep my hold on you. Your face had morphed into something just as scared. Something desperate, so terrified and painful that it burned the image into the back of my mind.

When I saw your face I saw Iizuka's, but this time, the only one dying was me.

And then I felt my heart drop, I felt a cold sense of dread, like a shot of ice through my body, as I felt my hands slip. My entire world seemed to stop as my lifeline to you was cut by the only other person I could've ever called a friend.

I was pulled away from you, dragged into a storm that tore my body from the power source that had for so long sustained it. I lost my humanity as my only other family turned me into the crystalline fuel of their rage and you screamed out my name so loudly that it echoed and burned in my ears.

You were the last thing I ever saw before my body was destroyed, ripped away and melted into the swirling force I could once call my friend. Torn away from the emerald to fuel Chaos' rampage.

You were the last thing I saw,
before I died.

For a long time it was nothing. There was nothing. I was nothing. The world just went blank.

And then I woke up. And when I woke up there was still this all encompassing nothing. It was just me and a vast, black expanse for a long time.

I felt different, changed, and all I knew was that you were gone. You were gone, Puyo was gone, Chaos was gone, I was supposed to be gone. Instead there was nothing.

Or maybe... Maybe I was gone, and this was all there was afterwards. I had always been taught that when we died we would get to go home. We'd get to fly up and reenter the universe. We'd get to become stars and become a part of the expanse we so long watched from below.

Instead there was nothing. Nothing but only black for as long as the universe stretched.

I waited for a long, long time, or... maybe it wasn't that long. Its hard to keep track of time when you're deprived of all of your senses. All I had was my mind. Me and my thoughts alone, for long enough to drive anyone insane.

Then at one point something appeared. It was like watching the world through another person's eyes. Images of the world appeared in the in the abyss in a large bubble before me. Echoes of words from voices I didn't know stretched throughout the expanse.

They'd cut in and out, and in that time I realized what had happened. The cycles had been started, I was watching other incarnations as they went through their lives, bits and pieces of them.

I could only see them when they were near an emerald, or had a rush of chaos energy. They couldn't be holding the emerald though, that one was easy enough to figure out. Whenever one found one and touched it the pictures disappeared.

I thought the emerald was torturing me. That this was my punishment for failing in my job, failing you.

And then Sonic happened.

Sonic changed it all. Because Sonic met you.

He greeted you and saw you as a friend and I, I got to see your face. And I thought that maybe, maybe I could endure this torture if it meant that I still got to see your face.

I never got to see you for long, but I was satisfied with any split second I had where I got to look at you and see the only face I cared about out of every version of me the emerald concocted.

Then, while I was waiting on the black one day something happened to Sonic, all of a sudden I got to see every second of his life, listen to every word. It was short, maybe two days before it all went dark again but it was strange.

And then- and there was something new.

A bright white light appeared, it was unlike anything I'd ever seen in the abyss.

It got brighter and brighter and I heard a voice. I reached out to the light and then the next thing I knew I could feel again.

Chapter Text

They all stood, stunned to silence for a long, deafening moment after the hedgehog stopped talking.

He and Amy stood dumbfounded at the new information but the echidnas were a different story. Knuckles was staring at Tikal with a mix of betrayal and disbelief. Finding out that one of the only people who knows the history of your culture had been leaving such a huge part of it out couldn't exactly be easy. And Tikal... Tikal looked horrified.

"You've- you've been awake? Alive inside the emerald this whole time?"

"Every second for the last three thousand years." He replied plainly in a joking tone. He waited a second before glancing at Tikal again and cracking up.

"Oh I know right? Trapped with nothing for that long? Alone with only your thoughts, that's enough to drive anyone INSANE isn't it?!" He laughed.

"Relax Ti, my sanity is intact"

"Debatable" Knuckles muttered and the hedgehog frowned.

"I had plenty of experience being alone with myself beforehand, you of all people should know a thing about that Knuckles." He shot back. "Another few thousand years alone wasn't anything new." He rolled his eyes.

"But that's horrible!" Amy cried indignantly.

"No! What's horrible is watching new incarnations go about the world while you sit there rotting! You don't know what it is to watch the world move on through brief flashes of another person's life. Knowing the world is changing while you're stuck living on the whim of another person! That's what's horrible!"

"That's how you knew the islands' new names... You heard us talking while Sonic was collecting the emeralds." Tails realized.

"Of course it was," he said in an exasperated tone, "please, I've known you all for years! I've known you, Tails, since you were just thiiiis tall!" He laughed cheerily flipping upside down to display the height.

"Although, Sonic's life is an oddity amongst them all." He smiled "I've seen more while he's been around, but everything is always so brief. You know how Sonic is, he never just sits around to stare at the emeralds from afar." He laughed.

It was so unsettling to hear this- this stranger talking about his brother as if he'd know him forever. Knowing that he'd been inside all along, watching them. Seeing them through his brother's eyes.

"None of it would've happened though if Chaos hadn't ruined my life! They ruined everything!" He screamed.

"I was meant to help people! I was meant to teach people new things! I was made for learning! Not to be used as some weapon! Out of anyone they should've understood that and they turned their back on me!"

"Chaos didn't mean to!" Tikal blurted out. The hedgehog looked at her for a moment before letting out a loud exhausted laugh.

"And that's the worst part isn't it?" He asked in a hurt voice. "I wasn't even enough of a thought in their head for them to realize they had killed me. "

"That is not true!" Tikal stamped her foot passionately. "Chaos would never have hurt you on purpose! It was the emeralds that overwhelmed them! Chaos never would've done that to you on purpose and they certainly wouldn't have condemned you to the emerald if they knew! They couldn't think straight with all the energy rushing through them!"

The hedgehog looked shocked, surprised at her outburst as if he wasn't expecting her to defend the other.

"But... how could you know that unless..." His eyes went wide with a sickening horror as a new idea dawned on him. "Unless you've been talking to them."

Tikal gasped slapped her hands over her mouth as she realized what she'd done.

"And- and Knuckles knew them, so that means that- that they really are still alive. Chaos is still alive and... And you're still friends with them" he said wistfully, pointing to her and floating back.

Amy pulled Tails back a bit and they watched as the hedgehog started to break down.

He curled up in the air, one hand around his stomach and one gripping his quills as things started aligning. An uncomfortable laugh bubbled out of the hedgehog.

They had all started backing up as he continued to laugh, all except Tikal. The hedgehog's laughing went from hysterical to distraught, sounding more like sobbing.

"Oh- oh my stars- All this time! All this time I've been twisted up over outliving the two of you when the truth is, I'm the only one that died! You still stuck together! My best friend and my murderer! With each other no matter what!" He laughed hysterically.

"No- no it's not like that-" Tikal stuttered, reaching out to the other."

"That's why you didn't want them to mention Chaos!" He said, putting the pieces in place. "You knew I'd get upset so you tried to hide it from me!"

A confused look passed over him and suddenly he stilled in the air, a deep sadness settled over him.

"Are- are you really that scared of me? You thought if I knew I'd try to hurt you or something?"

"Well- I-"

"Oh my stars- you- you really- So I get murdered by Chaos and I'm the one you're afraid of?" He laughed "...What did I do that made you think I'd try to hurt you? Hurt anyone!?" He asked, sounding hurt himself.

"You didn't do anything!" Tikal jumped to say "I- I just thought that after all these years- everything's changed- I thought maybe you'd-"

"Turned into a monster?" His words were sad with a bitter edge to them. Tikal just looked down in shame.

"Y'know... not- not everything that comes from the emeralds is bad" he said quietly.

"What? No! No! That's not what I thought at all I-"

"I'm not just an emerald, you know that right? I- I'm a person! I'm real!" He insisted, looking scared.

Tikal stayed quiet. He wanted to shake her and tell her to say something but he really couldn't blame her. Everything about this hedgehog was just so erratic, unpredictable. Like he couldn't make up his own mind on how to think or feel. His mind was like a whirlwind of emotions.

"Y'know," Knuckles suddenly spoke up and everyone turned to him. "Sonic is real too."

"Well-" the ancient hesitated blinking his way out of his panic "yes. But- but he wasn't supposed to be! I just told you that!"

"That doesn't give you any more right to keep him from existing! You had your shot, it's over now!" Knuckles yelled.

"Well fine, if we're running on that thought, then why should you get to bring Sonic back?! He had his own shot- several of them! He spent his entire life dancing with death! At least I tried to keep myself alive!"

"Hey!" Amy cried angrily "Sonic was standing up for what he believed in! He risked himself because he knew no one else would!"

"Yeah, at least he spent his time trying to change the world instead of watching where it would end up!" Tails added.

"Watching, watching, watching- I'M SICK OF WATCHING! I'VE HAD THREE THOUSAND YEARS OF WATCHING! YOU WANT ME TO CHANGE THIS WORLD? I'LL DO IT BY RIPPING THAT STUPID INCARNATION CODING OUT OF CYBERSPACE MYSELF!" He screamed back.

Everyone stood back for a moment and the hedgehog blinked at them once, then twice, before falling back a bit with his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Augh- no wonder you thought I went crazy. Look- I don't want to hurt you! I never wanted to hurt anybody!" He said, suddenly becoming aware of what this all looked like to them.

"I just want my life back! I just want to do my job! ...And I can keep doing it if I just-"

He reached a hand out for the master emerald and before Tails could even react something changed.

There was a bright flash of green light and a small boom. Suddenly the hedgehog was much further away from them and the emerald and Tikal was-

"Ti?" The hedgehog asked in a confused, almost frightened voice.

The echidna stood beside them with her arms out, a soft green glow surrounding her body, keeping the forcefield around the Master Emerald.

The hedgehog just stared for a long moment as he realized the only one she had blocked out was him. Tikal had created a shield to protect the Master Emerald, from him.

The echidna looked up at his with regret and sorrow smeared across her face.

"I'm sorry, but it isn't right." She said softly.

"You want me gone too." He whispered quietly, so quietly he almost didn't hear it. He could tell though from Tikal's sudden flinch that she had.

"No- nonono- you're just like them! You're just like Pachacamac!" he broke down, his breathing was getting faster and faster.

Tikal flinched harshly at the mention of her father, suddenly looking more hurt and scared than before.

"You- none of you- none of you think I'm real- you all think I'm just another ghost! Just an emerald you can manage and shape!"

"NO! No! That's not what I think at all!" Tikal tried to interrupt his spiral.

"I- I'm real! I am real! I'm a person- I'm a person!" He repeated in a broken mantra, talking more to himself than them.

"I know you're a person, you are real, you're just like the rest of us." Tikal tried to soothe. It worked for a moment, the hedgehog's quills settled and he looked at Tikal with a timid expression. Tails got the impression this wasn't the first time she'd done this.

"You are real... But so is Sonic, and right now this isn't right. Let's just talk about this, please."

"Sonic, Sonic, Sonic, it's always about Sonic." He jabbered "Can't you just let me do this To? Can't we please just go back to the days when everything was fun?" He pleaded. "When everything made sense?"

Tikal sighed and for a second Tails was worried.

"You know I can't do that." She stated plainly.

The hedgehog's face morphed through several emotions. First shock and confusion, then sadness, then anger.

"Fine!" He yelled at her. "You know as well as I do I don't need the Master Emerald! Not as long as I can get the others!"

"Oh yeah?" Knuckles asked, "and how exactly do you plan to find the-"

The hedgehog snapped his fingers with an unimpressed look and in a flash of bright light the chaos emeralds stood floating around him in a circle.

"A- oh-" Knuckles stuttered out.

"You really thought I would be able to get to them? I'm an emerald to! We're brothers and sisters! We're connected to one another! If one of us sends a message, the others come running!"

"Oh really?" Tails asked squinting up at the other. A smile broke across his face.
"Then why are there only six of them?"

Chapter Text

"Then why are there only six of them?"

The other's eyes suddenly went wide. "What? Huh-" he spun the emeralds around staring intently at the blur of color. The emeralds whirled around for a moment before stopping abruptly.

"No. Nononono- Green- where's Green!?" He yelled and white energy fizzled all around him.

He panicked over it in the air for a second before suddenly his head snapped to the side towards them.

"WHERE IS IT?!" he demanded, his voice gaining a strange echo.

"What?" Amy asked in confusion.

"Don't play dumb!" He snapped "I know one of you has it! The green one is missing! If it didn't listen to me that means someone has it!"

"We don't have any emeralds" Tails said but the other didn't look convinced.

"DON'T LIE TO ME! You have to have it! There's no one else... Who..." He trailed off and turned away lost in thought.

"L- Listen," Tikal spoke up gently. "They don't have the emerald. Just- can we please just talk about this? Without all the yelling?"

The ancient looked at her with a face full of hurt. Like he was actually considering it for a moment before turning away.

"I don't know. You've made it pretty clear that you've made up your mind about me." He stated with a watery voice.

"That's not-" Tikal started.

"Just- just stop." He said gripping his head, his voice dripping with sadness. "Stop acting like you're not just going to try to convince me I should die again. Don't try and pretend that you still see me as the friend I see you as."

He sounded like he was on the edge of tears. "I was doing this for us-" his voice quivered "I thought you'd be happy to see me again but you aren't- you just want Sonic."

"That's not true- I am happy to see you but-"

"But you want him instead." He finished.

Tikal withered a little and reached a hand out toward him before backing away.

The hedgehog sniffed loudly and brushed a hand across his face. "I haven't had anyone for three thousand years, I don't need anyone now."

He turned to Tikal "I don't need you." He spat but it sounded so halfhearted even Tails wasn't buying it.

His eyes went white, his pupils disappeared, and there was a loud crackling in the air. The emeralds spun around him with a high pitched whine. He stared out at nothing, muttering nonsense. It was as if he was speaking to the emeralds.

On a dime it stopped. His eyes returned and a new, angered expression split his face. He turned in the opposite direction, and shot off with another loud boom.

There was a long, silent, pause. He wasn't quite sure what to feel. It felt like a win, they'd delayed him. If they could keep him from that last emerald, wherever it was, they could stall. They could come up with a plan. They could win.

Tails had almost started to smile when he caught Amy rushing past him out of the corner of his eye and heard a soft thud.

When he turned around soft sobbing filled his ears.

"Tikal?"

The echidna had fallen to her knees at the foot of the shrine, burying her head in her hands and crying. Amy stood beside her, resting her hand on the echidna's back.

There was a soft glow from behind them the Master Emerald was pulsing with a pale unsure light. He watched some of the dew on the grass started to float and ripple. He took a closer look at the massive gem. Behind the green glow, between crystalline lines, he made out the shape of two eyes of a different green.

"Chaos?" Tails spoke curiously as he watched the eyes swim nervously inside the emerald.

So they had been hiding, watching the entire time, he realized. Chaos knew the ancient was there and refused to come out. They were hiding their existence the same way Tikal had been. Was it for the same reason? Were they worried they'd upset the ancient? ...or was it out of guilt?

The expression the hedgehog wore when he had talked about meeting the god for the first time wasn't one of anger. It was wistful and sad, enough to convince him they truly had been friends. And the betrayal in his voice talking about chaos was so hurt.

Chaos must've feel terrible, if they really were friends then Chaos had to live knowing he'd killed the other, knowing he couldn't bring him back. And then to have all those thoughts thrown back at you by the very person they were about. And not only that but to know your best friend hated you for the very mistake you'd agonized over.

He wasn't sure he could look at Chaos the same way now. Before Chaos was- he wasn't sure what they were. A novelty maybe? At first Chaos was terrifying, the same monster they'd been so long ago, but then they turned into something more gentle. Something he could understand, a being who was only trying to protect.

And what were they now? Was he still that same god? Were they still the same creature that was just trying to protect the emerald? Were they still the same when they'd killed one of the closest people to them in a blind rage? Were they still the same when he knew they'd had friends and a life so long ago?

Were they still the same when they were the reason Sonic existed?

The eyes in the emerald seemed indecisive. Tails knew Chaos could easily leave the emerald, the same way Tikal could, but they seemed caught between leaving to comfort Tikal and staying in to not upset her further.

Knuckles noticed what he was staring at and turned to Amy. He mouth the word 'Chaos?' to her and she shook her head at him with bewildered eyes. Knuckles passed on the disapproving head shake and the god silently slipped back inside the emerald.

Tails turned his attention back to the older echidna. The crying had gotten louder, and despite Amy's presence she didn't seem any more comforted. Tails walked up beside her carefully.

"He didn't mean that, you know that. I'm sure he didn't mean it" Amy said quietly. "He doesn't actually mean anything he said about you.

"I know! It's just-" Tikal's sobbing became uneven and she finally looked up from her hands.

"He wasn't lying!" She cried through broken sobs.

"Every day with him was always so fun." She smiled wistfully, tears still streaming down her face. "If I hadn't had him I probably would have never put those books down and enjoyed my life!"

"What happened?" She cried, her voice watery, "He wasn't always like this, I swear to you, he wasn't always like this!"

"He used to be so lighthearted. It was all just harmless fun! He used to enjoy flying around and exploring and showing me Angel Island from above and- and- " her words hiccuped into sobs.

Knuckles looked dumbfounded staring at Tikal. The wise, ancient echidna priestess who guided him through life, a sobbing mess on the ground.

"This is all my fault!" She moaned "I just- I didn't know how to handle the emerald! He was always all secretive about it! I didn't know he was trapped inside it!"

"When I finally got Chaos calmed down and I woke up as a ghost he was just- just an emerald! It didn't even have a pedestal, it was just laying there on the ground. If I had just known more maybe I could've-"

"Tikal no- you couldn't have known, it's not your fault." Amy soothed.

"I messed everything up! He's just so different- he's not making any sense! He won't even listen to me!"

"He's been through a lot, he's probably got a lot running through his mind." Amy replied, patting her back.

The echidna's sobs slowly quieted down and although Tails could tell she didn't want to she took the moment to derail the moment.

"For now though, we really need to focus on getting him under control." She spoke gently.

"Right... But- but-" She sniveled miserably. Her crying sputtering out.

"...Tikal?" Tails asked timidly. "Why does he want the emeralds so badly?"

Tikal made a loud sniff and turned to look at him. "He can't destroy the cave without them."

"Well yes, but why? What's stopping him?"

The echidna took a deep breath. "That's one of the things about him he doesn't like to talk about. He doesn't- he doesn't have any destructive powers of his own. He's literally harmless. He was programmed that way."

"What? But he destroyed the Tornado, we saw him!" Knuckles cried.

"Yes, and I was quite confused about that. You said it exploded?" Tikal asked curiously.

"Yeah, he moved and suddenly it went up in flames." Knuckles elaborated. Despite this the other echidna just made a perplexed look.

Amy let out a sudden loud gasp that started all three of them. "The Koco bombs!" She cried.

"What?" He asked.

"When we stopped at those ruins, he picked something up and shoved it in his quills. I'd been there before though. When Sonic and I were looking for the emeralds, there were a bunch of koco with bombs right where we took our break. He must've stopped us there so he could find one!" She explained.

"That would make sense, he couldn't cause something like that without a tool or weapon." Tikal spoke.

"But couldn't he like- I dunno- make a tornado or something? Spin around somethin' real fast?" Knuckles asked

"Yeeeeah no." Tikal cringed. "His flying doesn't really have anything to do with wind, it's just something he can do. Like how the other emeralds can float."

A small giggle escaped her, "we actually tried it once. Spinning around someone really fast just makes him dizzy. He tried it and started wobbling around everywhere, he was crashing into trees and bushes all over the place."

"So he couldn't even use it to fight?" Tails asked.

"That's half of why he wouldn't join my father in battle, despite all his power he couldn't fight the way my father would've wanted him to." She explained. "It would've just made my father more frustrated and gotten him hurt. Most of his "fighting" just involves him taking people really high up and dropping them. It's not exactly a useful tactic against a bunch of echidnas who can glide."

"He never even like- learned how fight? Without his powers I mean." Amy asked and Tikal shook her head sadly and sighed loudly.

"He really wasn't lying, he never wanted to hurt anybody. Even back then. It's one of the things I loved about him. He only wanted to do what he was made for, discovering the world." She said, shifting to rest her arms on her knees.

"Okay but still, what's stopping him from gathering up a bunch of koco bombs and wrecking the place?" Knuckles asked.

"I'LL TEAR THAT INCARNATION CODING OUT OF CYBERSPACE MYSELF!" The words rang in his head.

"Because it's connected." Tails realized.

"What?"

"The cave is connected to cyberspace! It's not about the cave itself at all! It's about the coding that's linking the cave to the emerald! If he destroys the coding the emerald won't be able to unload its collected information. He won't be able to be removed from the emerald, he'll always have the chance to come back. And the only way to destroy a part of cyberspace is with a power like the chaos emeralds." Tails explained.

"Well... That's good news for us." Amy remarked.

"How is that good news?" Knuckles asked.

"Because it means we have a chance! As long as he doesn't have that emerald we can find a way to beat him."

"But how are we supposed to beat him to the emerald? He is one! You saw his little stunt back there!" Knuckles exclaimed.

"Well, maybe-"

There was a loud noise and a bright flash of light behind them. Tails and the rest of the group turned around to see the source.

There was a low, annoyed sigh.

"What did that moron do now?" The black and red hedgehog asked as he appeared from the light.

Chapter Text

"Shadow?!" The three of them cried at once.

"Um hello." Tikal said with a small wave.

Shadow regarded her with a face a mix of confusion and disgust. "Do I know you?" He asked in a flat annoyed tone.

"Uh- ah- n-no." She stuttered, shying away.

"Shadow!" Amy cried again, running up to him and pulling him into a hug that was quickly shut down.

"Oh my goodness! What are you doing here?!" She asked excitedly.

"Yeah... What are you doing here?" Knuckles asked suspiciously, backing up toward the Master Emerald and sending paranoid glances at the sky.

"Relax, Rouge isn't with me." He stated with an eyeroll.

"That's what she wants you to think" Knuckles mumbled, scanning the clouds.

"Shadow, what are you doing here?" Tails asked.

"Long story." He replied gruffly. "Sonic. Where is he?" He asked.

"Longer story." Tails shot back.

The hedgehog stared him down with a glare for a while, challenging him. He and Shadow had a... strained relationship. Even in spite of Sonic's complicated friendship with the self proclaimed Ultimate Lifeform.

Tails and Shadow could get along well, they had similar interests to an extent, and their personalities worked well together (according to Amy) there was just one problem. Something inside Tails was always deeply pissed off at the other. He doesn't even know why, the feeling was mutual though. What can he say, a few kicks to the skull can really form a grudge.

"Hmph, fine." He conceded. "Rouge and I were just at GUN headquarters when one of the emeralds we had collected shot out of the building. We found a massive chaos energy anomaly and I figured that if anyone was idiotic enough to cause something like that it was Sonic."

He glanced around at their group. "And based on your current situation I'm assuming I was correct."

"Uh yeah... Kind of." Tails muttered and the dark hedgehog raised an eyebrow in suspicion.

"Your turn." Shadow stated.

Tails sighed, "earlier this week Sonic kinda got shot by Eggman and... Died?"

"What?" Shadow's widened just slightly enough to look disturbed and he blinked owlishly for a moment. "Well I hadn't heard anything about Sonic dying." He said incredulously, as if they must be wrong.

"Yeah... sorry Shadow, I know it's probably pretty upsetting for you to hear." Amy lamented, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"What? No!" Shadow yelled indignantly, yanking his arm away from hers. "On the contrary I'm rather... Delighted. That he's gone. Good riddance." He said with a lilt in his voice that was uncharacteristic for the hedgehog.

He was met with four disbelieving faces. Even Tikal looked skeptical.

"Uh huh. Right. Sure." Tails said before continuing.

"Anyways, instead of actually dying," the black hedgehog's ears perked slightly, "he turned into an emerald or- turned back into an emerald. As it turns out Sonic is some kind of reincarnation? Part of a learning project made by an ancient civilization. The problem is, when we tried to bring him back we ended up bringing back the first version of the project, one from over ten thousand years ago."

Shadow blinked and hung his head with a soft growl. "I'd say this sounds unlikely, but I know who we're talking about." The hedgehog said with a disapproving shake of his head. Amy nodded and Knuckles made a noise of agreement.

"To clarify," Shadow said rubbing his temples "there are eight chaos emeralds? And one of them is that damn blue moron?"

"Uh- yeah, that about sums it up." Amy said awkwardly.

"And he hid this, how? I've seen that idiot choke on ramen before and try to wash it down by chugging the rest of the noodles!" Shadow cried disbelievingly.

Tails actually remembered that day. He had shown up at Vanilla's to pick something up from Sonic. When he walked in Shadow was in the middle of slapping Sonic's back in an effort to help his desperate attempts to hack up the noodles. Instead of the broth "washing it down" all the noodles left in the bowl just joined the others in his esophagus. Sonic gave him a shuddering smile and a shaky thumbs up before helping clean up the mess.

"Well I mean- he didn't actually know he was an emerald." Amy replied with a shrug.

The black hedgehog stared at her for a moment, dumbfounded, with a twitch in his eye.

"So on top of everything else," Shadow took a deep breath "he was also so oblivious that he didn't know he was an emerald?!"

"Uhh... Yes?" Amy replied.

Shadow sighed, "that makes much more sense, he's so stupid he didn't know in the first place."

Tails just hummed and made a soft clicking noise before continuing.

"Anyways, that hedgehog, the other Sonic, he kinda went... nuts. Now he's trying to get the chaos emeralds so he can destroy the thing we need to get Sonic back."

"I wouldn't say he went nuts exactly," Amy said, "But his mind is definitely a little jumbled, I think he's having a hard time processing."

Shadow gave her a bored look "Whatever. What's stopping you from getting Faker back now?"

"Well we can't get Sonic back unless we stop this Sonic from getting the last emerald he needs. This Sonic-"

"I'm gonna stop you right there." Shadow said holding up a hand. "This is too confusing. What's this hedgehog's name?"

They turned to the orange echidna who was curled up in a sad ball next to the emerald. "Tikal? Do you wanna share with the class?"

Tikal didn't even seem to hear him, her head still facedown on her knees. He really didn't understand what the whole name deal was, but he really didn't want to upset Tikal any more than she was already dealing with.

"Alright then... Any nickname ideas?"

"Hm..." He really didn't know what name to give the other. He'd never really been good with naming.

"Blue?"

"He really isn't blue though, more like a bluish silver with a bit of purple."

"Fine, Ancient?"

"What kind of a name is that?"

"I don't know! You think of one!" Tails shouted and gave up.

"What about Havoc?" Shadow suggested.

"Havoc? Really? ...why?" Amy asked.

"Seems obvious to me, he keeps messing everything up doesn't he?" Knuckles stated. Shadow just waved a hand toward Knuckles.

"Alright then. We can't get Sonic back unless we turn Havoc back into the emerald first and bring it to the cave, the same one Havoc is trying to destroy." Tails continued with his explanation.

"So why aren't we there now?" Shadow asked.

"Well actually we aren't there because, you're here."

"What?"

"Shadow, how did you get here?" He asked with a smile. Shadow gave him an inquisitive look but Tails' smile only grew larger when the hedgehog pulled a chaos emerald out from his quills.

"You have the green one!" Amy gasped excited.

"Yes? Why is this surprising?"

"Shadow, Havoc can't destroy the cave unless he has the master emerald or all of the chaos emeralds. Tikal is protecting the master emerald," he looked over and the echidna gave a miserable thumbs up, "but Havoc has all the other emeralds except for yours."

"How did he manage to get all of them?" Shadow asked incredulously.

"He's more in tune with the emeralds because of his knowledge of his own. It lets him use them more efficiently." Tikal suddenly explained.

"Huh, okay," Tails remarked. "In any case, all he has to do is snap and they go to him."

"Unless!" Amy interjected "it has a holder." She said smugly gesturing to the one Shadow was holding.

"Hmph, that explains the anomaly." Shadow mumbled.

"Shadow you have to help us with this." Amy drawled pleadingly.

"What? Why?"

"Becaaaause, you have the other emerald! Plus, now you know about the whole deal so you're obligated to." She replied.

"I'm not obligated to do anything!" Shadow yelled angrily.

"Then how about this," Tails interrupted, "help us, because as long as you have the emerald, you're Havoc's target."

The hedgehog looked unimpressed. "Am I supposed to feel threatened?"

"Also, Sonic will die forever if you don't." Amy added.

The hedgehog pursed his lips into a thin line and gave Amy a frustrated glare. He seemed to think about it for a moment before grumbling a sigh. "...fine."

"Haha! I knew you'd do it for Sonic!" She cheered.

"Not for Sonic!" Shadow attempted to defend himself. "I'd have to do more work if he died!" He fumed while Amy bounced around chanting "you like him! you like him!"

"You're frieeeends!" Amy jeered.

"No!"

The two continued to go back and forth Tails rolled his eyes at the scene. "Can we focus?"

"Of course." Amy suddenly stood straight with a pleasant expression while Shadow still looked aggravated and disheveled.

"We need to know more about his structure, what the experiment he was a part of actually was." He began to talk pacing back and forth, tails twisting and untwisting behind him.

"From what it sounds like Sonic and the other forms are a result of a fluke in the coding. If we don't take Havoc down properly we run the risk of destroying the mistake that created Sonic in the first place, potentially destroying him permanently. If I know more about how he was coded in the first place I should be able to find a way to decode him."

Tikal's attention turned over to him once he'd gotten the word "decode" out.

"Can't we please just try to talk to him? He- he might listen to me if I could just-"

"Tikal," he sighed "with all due respect, he hasn't listened to you at all so far. And after all... That. He doesn't really seem like he wants to talk to you right now." Tails stated tired and harshly.

Tikal stood up with her mouth open ready to argue but hesitated and then withered back down.

Amy looked between her and Tails before setting a look on her face. He knew that look on Amy, he'd seen it before. Normally it was effective, but it was also normally a pain.

"You don't really need me and Knuckles for your tech mission right?"

"I mean- I guess not?" Tails replied.

"I think I'm with Tikal on this one, kind of, I want to see if there's any other way we can take him down." She said.

"Hm, I suppose that would work." He said. "Okay then, Shadow you and I will go to Starfall Islands and try to find the lab where Havoc was made. We might be able to find some more information on him there. And Amy and Knuckles, you guys can do some looking to see if there's any personal weaknesses you can exploit."

"WOO! Team Emotional Manipulation! Yeah!" Amy cheered giving the Knuckles an enthusiastic high five while he stared at her with concern.

"How exactly are we getting to this island?" Shadow asked.

"Well the plane was destroyed... You could use chaos control"

"Bad idea." Tikal called.

"What?"

"Bad. Idea." She stated. "He can tell when one is being used. If you use chaos control you might as well wave a giant flag with "emerald right here!" written on it."

"Hm. Then we'll have to use the portals. Do you know of any portal that could get us to Ouranos Island?"

"Nope." She replied plainly fidgeting with her quills. "I didn't even know the portal he came through was still functional."

"Hmm" he hummed how did Sonic manage to get between the islands? He had to somehow.

From what he'd seen Sonic had essentially just been thrown between them or flown but that didn't make any sense. Even with the force of the titans Sonic shouldn't have managed to make that much distance.

And Havoc had mentioned crossing between the islands for visits before... Although that could've been because he could fly. The other ancients couldn't fly though, so they had to have some way to pass between the four.

"Uh Tails, I can see the gears turning in your head but I might have an idea." Knuckles spoke up.

He blinked a few times clearing his head. "What's that?"

"Well, Havoc is going to find out if we use the chaos emerald, but he already knows we're using the Master Emerald." He pointed out.

"You think you could send us to Ouranos with the Master Emerald?" He brightened up.

The echidna shrugged, "I mean why not? It's how I normally get to the mainland. Getting you back is a different story though."

"Hmm, well, send us to Ouranos. I'm sure I can figure something out once we're there. And if not we could just chaos control back, as a last resort."

"You're sure?" Tikal asked. "Do you even know where Iizuka's lab is? What L- Havoc, finds you before you get back?"

"I'm not to worried, I think I already have an idea for the getting back part, as for the lab..." He thought about it for a moment.

Where would a respected ancient have a lab on Ouranos? He was a coder, a scientist, so it's not likely he would've worked near a political building. But Havocs' general existence was secretive it seemed so it wouldn't likely be out in the open.

If he was making an experiment like that he'd want a controlled location, one that was accessible but not to the public eye. Granted he'd never been to Ouranos Island, he assumed it must have a similar structure to Kronos and Rhea.

"Wait didn't- didn't Havoc mention a few other ancients that knew him?" Amy asked.

"Yes, Naka and the guardians at least." Tails answered "Why?"

"Well if none of them left Ouranos when The End attacked... Wouldn't they still be Koco?"

"You're right!" He shouted excitedly. "I was so focused on analyzing where he'd put it I didn't think of that! We could just ask them for help!"

"Ugh, are we sure we need Sonic back this badly?" Shadow asked and Tails just gave him a bored glare.

"Tikal, what are you going to do?" Amy asked politely.

The echidna gave her a weary smile. Tikal always had this wise but youthful expression before none of it seemed present now though. She just seemed... tired.

"I'll stay here. Someone has to keep this shield up right?" A guardian even in the afterlife.

"Well, Knuckles and I won't be far if you need help!" Amy said proudly. "I have an idea or two."

"Well then we'll meet you both back here once we find what we're looking for, Tikal?" Tails alluded but the echidna just shook her head.

"Knuckles? Can you take this one?" She asked. Knuckles nodded silently and walked over to the emerald.

"Alright you two, ready?"

Tails nodded vehemently and Shadow just shrugged with his arms folded.

He placed a hand on the emerald, lighting up with a green glow. A wide smile broke across his face.

"Then let's do this!"

Chapter Text

The green glow that surrounded Knuckles engulfed them and suddenly the entire world seemed to stretch and warp.

He hadn't been through chaos control many times but he typically didn't enjoy the feeling of it. The Master Emerald wasn't any better.

It felt like being thrown upside down, tossed in the air, squashed, scrambled, reassembled, and then having all of your insides rearranged. He'd rather just fly.

The world swirled around for a moment longer after the light faded. He tried to recollect himself and when everything stopped spinning he found himself in front of a massive field of flowers.

"Woah-" the area was so wide and the island seems to stretch out with ruins and nature everywhere.

There was a massive pyramid-like structure behind them that towered into the sky and a row of large stone rings in the distance.

"Mmph." Shadow grumbled beside him scanning the area. "Where are these Koco you mentioned? I don't want to be here any longer than we have to."

Tails rolled his eyes at the other. "Yes, yes, I know, the "Ultimate Lifeform" is too high and mighty for something as plain as scenery."

Shadow turned and growled at him "Did you not want to get your brother fixed as soon as possible? And for your information this entire place is causing an irritating prickling sensation. Excuse me for not wanting to be somewhere where the air stings."

Tails furrowed his brows "that might actually be cyberspace that you're feeling. These islands are woven with it. You're the first person to enter one without being connected to it so it's possible that's the cause." The hybrid only huffed.

"How interesting" he drawled, "I'll ask again. Where are these Koco?"

Chaos this was gonna be a long day. They've been together for ten minutes and he's already sick of Shadow.

"Well," Tails said, forcing a smile. "They're kinda spread all over the place, on the last island we actually didn't see any, it was strange."

"Mm."

Again, Shadow, always such a great conversationalist.

He really doesn't understand how his brother can stand the guy. Shadow was so... Unexpressive. He just grumbled and complained and insisted on being better. He was so negative constantly and it was so draining to put up with. Meanwhile Sonic was always energetic and kind of airheaded. How the combination of enthusiasm and apathy managed to work was beyond him.

"Let's start by searching this structure." He said gesturing to the pyramid. "Havoc said this island was for diplomats, it's likely a large political building."

"Mm, yes, let's follow along to the instructions of the person we're trying to kill. Fantastic idea." Shadow remarked and Tails promptly ignored him setting off toward the structure.

As they searched he started to become more and more concerned about this plan. Would Naka even be on this island? Iizuka was on Chaos island, he was moved there after the End appeared, what if they'd done the same with Naka?

His searching became more frantic, Shadow was seemingly uninterested and lacked any effort in his search. Although, it could've just been that he didn't know what he was looking for.

There was a lot of weaving and ducking involved before finally they found a single Koco.

So then the missing ones on Kronos had to have been because of Sonic...

"Hello!" Tails greeted "we're looking for Naka, is there any chance you'd know where he is?"

"You are aware you are talking to a rock correct?" Shadow chirped behind him. He flicked an ear in annoyance. Chaos he could feel his blood pressure rising.

Despite the other's comment he small Koco seemed excited by the interaction, jumping up and down.

"Yes! Yes of course! The great designer!"

Tails smiled and turned to Shadow. "She knows Naka."

"You can understand it?" He asked in confusion.

"Oh, yeah, right. When we were on the islands Amy, Knuckles, and I were connected to cyberspace. It allowed us to make a link and understand the Koco's language."

The hybrid just maybe a humming noise and diverted his attention again.

Tails turned his own attention back to the Koco. "Do you think you could show us where Naka is?"

The small rock-like creature nodded exuberantly before rolling off into the distance.

"C'mon!" Tails called and the hybrid followed closely behind as the little Koco led them around the pyramid. The Koco jabbered on about something as they went. Something about being an assistant or the like.

"So these little pebbles are the "great ancients" you mentioned?" Shadow asked sardonically.

"They're what's left of them. They used to be much larger and made of water."

"They look more like garden ornaments."

"Well we can't all have fancy headstones can we?" Tails shot back and the other rolled his eyes.

The assistant led them inside the temple and into an open hallway.

"...now what?" Shadow asked and suddenly the room lit up. Bright purple and blue ran along lines in the strange black stone and the chamber they were in started to rumble down. Eventually it stopped and opened into a larger room that was filled with Koco.

"Woah..." Tails gaped at the space. There were over a hundred Koco scattered around the room, some of them shaking and others yelling in a panic. And others were disturbingly empty, eyes closed and toppled over.

The room itself looked similar to the tunnels Sonic had described going through on a few islands. Walls of black rock with a strange shimmer and corners made from old stone. The ceiling had the large symbol on it that they'd seen all around the island.

"This must've been some sort of safe house." He remarked, carefully stepping into the crowd.

He heard Shadow mutter a quiet "doesn't seem like it was very effective." Behind him.

He searched through the crowd trying to keep track of the assistant Koco before she stopped near a Koco who was off to the side, pacing near a corner in a toddling fashion.

"Naka!" She exclaimed "You have visitors!"

The other stopped his pacing and turned. "Is it Ohshima? Does he have any news?"

"Mmm, nope! Look!"

The Koco seemed startled at their presence before hurrying up to them.

"You- you're Mobian! Incredible!" He exclaimed teetering around them in an excited manner.

"Oh uh, thank you? It's nice to finally meet you."

How should he go about this? He didn't know anything about Naka, Havoc hadn't really talked about him that much. He knows Naka designed the outline of the emerald's appearance but how strict was he with the secrecy surrounding the project?

Would it even matter? The Koco didn't seem to have very advanced thinking aside from looking forward in time. Most of them were stuck with the train of thought they'd had when they died. What was Naka thinking about that day? Would he even be helpful if it wasn't remotely close?

Maybe if he led with all of their knowledge of the experiment in a casual way the other would just follow along with it.

The Koco had seemed to ignore his last statement, still inspecting Shadow with such immense scrutiny he seemed to be picking him apart with his eyes.

"Oh um, that's Shadow..." He started. "He's not a part of your experiment."

The Koco seemed startled, turning to him and then turning away with a scoff. "I am well aware, I can recognize my own handiwork after all. They are all supposed to be various shades of blue, I programmed them that way. I was simply reviewing how well my work looked in comparison to a real Mobian hedgehog."

The Koco seemed proud but Shadow seemed to be getting more uncomfortable by the second.

"Although a good question is, how you know of that experiment in the first place."

So him not noticing wasn't gonna work.

"I... was friends with one of the incarnations," he relented, "but something went wrong Naka, we need to find Iizuka as soon as possible." Tails urged

A new expression passed over his face. "You do not know of Iizuka's whereabouts either?"

Tails shook his head no. Naka's tone was crestfallen, devastated, even.

"Then something truly is wrong."

"What?"

"He needed to correct a flaw in the experiment we'd been working on." He explained.

"A flaw?"

The Koco nodded "he was convinced something was wrong with the program that he couldn't see, a crack, I kept telling him there wasn't anything wrong but he was insistent."

He shared a glance with Shadow. A crack in the programming? Is that what caused the issue that started the cycles?

Naka was turning out to be a remarkable resource. He had much more intact information than any of the other Koco he'd talked to. He didn't even seem convinced he was still alive.

"Even though I knew it was pointless I helped Iizuka escape Chaos Island... He's supposed to meet with me any minute now,"

And there it was.

"But... no one has heard a word from him, and now Oshima has disappeared too." He said, the Koco hung its head low, a deep sorrow in his eyes.

So Naka had died alone, waiting for his friends to arrive after helping them as much as he could. No one ever came though, they'd both died along the way.

"Naka... We don't know what Iizuka was trying to fix, but there is a problem with the experiment right now that we can. We just need to know a little more about the project."

He seemed to ponder it for a moment. "Mmm, I will be of no help to you in this. I only did the structural work of the experiment."

Again he paused, looking at Shadow and then thinking it over. "I may not be able to tell you where Iizuka is, but I can tell you where to find his lab."

"Really?! That would be a huge help." Tails exclaimed.

"What's he saying?" Shadow asked beside him.

"He knows where the lab is" Tails translated.

"Indeed, Northeast of here. The smaller Island connected to this one. It has a web-like structure in one of its valleys. You will find Iizuka's workshop underneath it."

"Thank you so much Naka. I promise you we'll fix was Iizuka was working on."

The Koco smiled softly. "No, thank you, little fox." He replied, and as Tails dragged Shadow out of the chamber he tried not to flinch, and tried to ignore the bright fading light he saw out of the corner of his eye as they left.

The portal gate spat them out on the island and Shadow shuddered violently at the experience.

"I think I'd rather use the emerald and risk being caught." Shadow grumbled trying to regain his footing. Tails was working hard to stifle a laugh at the hybrid's discomfort.

The valley where the lab was supposed to be was just southeast of the portal gate.  The web-like structure Naka mentioned was one he recognized, there was another just like it on Kronos island. The connection was one so obvious that he missed it. Havoc said Iizuka only ever checked on him on Ouranos and Kronos and they were the only two structures the islands had in common. He felt foolish for not realizing the pattern earlier. In hindsight it was also one of the few major structures Havoc hadn't talked about on their tour.

"Alright, now's the easy part." Tails stated as they came up on the web. "All we have to do is get down-"

VWRRRR

He was startled as something exploded in front of him throwing him back. He groaned as he sat back up, he thought he felt his head pounding over and over until he realized that whatever it was was still blasting at the ground in front of him.

"Fox! What is that!?" Shadow yelled at him, getting into a fighting stance.

He finally stood up and looked at his attacker. "Ugh- Red Pillar. One of the smaller guards of this island, Sonic fought a bunch of variants of them while he was here! But... why is it attacking? I thought-"

"On this island at least"

Oh. Right.

There was a sharp whirring noise in his ears and he shot up. "Shadow! Move! Now!"

The ultimate lifeform swiftly jumped to the side as the robot slammed into the ground.

"Now wh-" Shadow was cut off by sharp spikes erupting from the ground and throwing him a good distance away. The red and black hedgehog landed flat on his face on the ground. He let out a not-so-subtle growl and jumped back at the tower.

"Shadow wait!" He shouted but the other promptly ignored him.

Shadow ran at it, this time dodging its missiles before launching a kick at the other. When the two collided one layer of the robot exploded and disappeared but when Shadow went in for a second time the spinning ring came down on top of him. Blunt spines smacked into his head and launched him away again.

"Shadow! Seriously! Just retreat for two seconds!"

He was, again, ignored. Why did he even bother? Seriously Shadow was just Sonic except instead of making a joke about why he wasn't listening he just pretended he couldn't hear you.

He rubbed his head for a moment before running at it again, this time when he went to kick it there was another small clunk and a flash of red as spines jutted out of the machines sides, protecting it. He was almost so incompetent it was exhausting.

"ARGH! SERIOUSLY?!" Shadow grunted as he was, again, thrown back.

He finally paused for a moment, the frustration was radiating off the other.

"Fine." He spat at him. "How did you beat these things before?"

"Well I'm not exactly sure, there has to be some kind of trick, a weak point you could hit or a breach in its defenses. We should be able to find and exploit it with some trial and error. Sonic would just spin around them in circles until they blew up"

"Hmph, that's because your brother's a dumbass." Shadow grunted before running back at the machine.

He thought about the pillar's configuration as he watched Shadow bounce off the machine again. How did Sonic fight these things again? Shadow's problem was mostly his lack of cyber energy he assumed. Sonic had more attacks to use against the robot, Shadow didn't.

It was a painful dance to watch, Shadow would find a new way to attack, and then get thrown back, then the cycle repeated.

At one point he managed to dodge the missiles, the ground spikes, the surface spikes, and the spinning spikes... Before being hit by a bright beam that shot out of its base.

"LASERS? MILES ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" He yelled angrily at the fox who was watching in indecision.

Shadow was hit backwards again, "OKAY, THAT'S IT! CHAOS-!" The hedgehog gathered a large beam of light in his hand.

"Shadow- NO!"

With his concentration broken the strike dissipated. "WHY?!"

"If you use your chaos emerald Havoc is gonna know what we're planning!"

"aaarrgAUUUGH!" Shadow screamed angrily. Honestly Tails was surprised he didn't just explode and take the pillar out with him.

"Wha-UMPH" Shadow started to speak before being hit by another missile and tossed back next to Tails.

He pried his face out of the ground and gripped onto Tails' shoulder with a threatening strength.

"Fox. I swear to chaos. If I get hit by this thing one more time I am going to have a two-tailed shield blocking me the next go around."

Tails huffed half annoyed and half nervous, he really didn't doubt that Shadow was being genuine. He'd once seen him pick Sonic up and throw him head first at a badnik rather than attack it himself.

"I know, I know, I just need a plan-"

"Well what do you want me to do? Clearly I can't take it apart bit by bit!" He seethed.

He thought about it for a moment. Bit by bit... No, that wouldn't work anymore... But it had at one point. If the loss of one level could be replaced so easily that meant the layers were entirely expendable.

"Shadow, do what you do best."

"Be more specific, I'm the best at most things."

Tails sighed loudly, okay, he walked into that one.

"Shadow," he looked at the hedgehog with a deadly seriousness, "kick it in the head!"

The other looked him up and down for a moment and his eyes squinted up in a subtle, hidden smile. Something he'd only picked up on because Sonic had pointed it out once.

He rushed back toward the pillar and when the spiralling layer came down, this time instead of kicking it Shadow pressed a foot down on it launching himself into the air.

He flew up and with a loud cry of effort he twisted himself and slammed his foot into the top segment of the machine.

There was a loud thud and with a sparking noise the entire pillar crumpled down on itself. Then with a blast of light it disappeared and a small gear plinked out of it.

Shadow huffed and regarded the object. "The hell is this?"

"It's-"

"Actually, I don't care, it's mine." He said decidedly, shoving it in his quills.

Tails just sighed.

The two of them carefully descended below the web. There was a large circular platform below it that connected to the web with some stone columns.

"Well this is where Naka said to go but I don't see any lab." Tails remarked looking around the area.

"Well your information did come from the reliable source of a small rock. However I doubt it would be out in the open, if it is here at all." Shadow stated. Half of that was true, the other half was petty, but the first half was true. The whole "secret project" thing made it unlikely to be this open.

"Here, hang on I want to try something." Tails said holding a hand up. He tried to concentrate, focusing on the cyber energy around him. He strained trying to make something happen until finally a strange ripple formed in the air around his hand. It was weak, not like Havocs where it was bright and powerful, but he could tell it was there."Okay, I think it was- Um... Ꝋየ𐌐ል? Ꝋየ𐌄ክ...? ዐየቹክ ረል፪?...የረቹልነቹ?"

The ground stayed silent for a moment before rumbling, as if deciding to take pity on his poorly strung together Ancient. Then he failed to stifle a sharp yelp as sheets of iridescent black stone shot out from each of the eight pillars. They came out from one side and connected with the next until the whole space was shuttered and closed off. The two were plunged into complete darkness.

"Well that was effect. Now when he comes for the emerald it'll be in a nice enclosed space only he can open." Shadow huffed.

"Okay YOU KNOW WHAT-!"

Suddenly bright purple light lit up the floor. It travelled down the walls through the lines on the ground until wrapping itself in the triangular indent in the center of the room. It flashed briefly before making a hissing noise and the rest of the shape fell deep down into the dark.

Tails glanced at Shadow and shrugged, the other just set his expression and jumped down into the dark, Tails slowly lowering himself down after him.

When they reached the bottom of the tunnel he gasped as the room opened up into a massive cavern. The triangular platform locked down into the ground with a dull thunk and the light shot out from it following lines along the ground and up the sides of the cavern until the space was fully lit.

Once they had light he could see just how large Iizuka's workshop was. The room was messy and it felt like being inside a time capsule. Everything in the room had been preserved perfectly, exactly the same as if had been four thousand years ago.

"Incredible..." He ran his hand along a table. A thick layer of dust clinging to his glove as he did so.

There were several work benches throughout the room and each of them were covered in tools and ancient papers. There was an odd machine in a corner that looked like a cross between one of the emerald storage units and the capsule Shadow had been sent down from the ARK in. Another half of the room seemed dedicated to something else entirely. It was wide open and devoid of any clutter, creating a ring of the room empty of any kind of visible technology.

"I don't like this place." Tails heard Shadow say quietly. He wasn't sure what exactly Shadow meant. This place seemed incredible, full of knowledge and wonder. So many answers all in one room, answers that could hopefully bring Sonic back.

Shadow reached over one of the benches to touch a scroll and Tails yelled out to him not to touch it just a second too late. Watching the paper crack and the faintly drawn shape of a Mobian crumble to dust.

"Look around for any kind of file on the emerald project and be careful. Don't touch anything organic."

Shadow grunted and nodded in response. They both searched for a while, there was plenty of ancient tech but not many explicitly written answers. Where would Iizuka have recorded his work? Did he archive it when The End arrived?

"Fox." Shadow called to him and he hurried over. "What is this?"

The thing Shadow had found seemed to be a port with a small symbol above it. Lying next to that was something that made his skin crawl and the fur on his neck raise.

A Koco husk, a strange looking one. Its eyes were an empty black and it had markings along its sides.

Then to his horror Shadow reached out and picked it up.

"What are you doing?!" He demanded as the Ultimate Lifeform simply pushed the Koco's body into the port with a soft click. To his surprise it actually did something. A loud whirring noise came from all around them and small shutes in the walls opened up.

There was a buzzing noise as small black orbs hovered out from the walls and scattered around the room. For a moment he thought for sure they were about to be attacked. Then instead, the entire room was flooded with a pale blue light.

Each globe floated in the air, shining brightly like a large blue firefly.

"What is this?" He asked no one in particular, craning his head to look at the lights. His awe was cut short as Shadow suddenly reached out and pushed Tails behind him.

"What? What's going on?" He asked in confusion, looking around the hedgehog to see what he'd gotten ready to fight.

Before them, towering above the two Mobians, was an ancient. A Koco in its chest, a body made of hardened water, bright glowing eyes, and tendrils softly waving down from its head.

For a second it blinked and then a smile formed in its squinted eyes.

"My name is Iizuka, I am on Ouranos Island, and this is log number one of my emerald learning project."

Chapter Text

"Okay, log one, here we go" the ancient seemed to clear his throat. "I am Iizuka, master programmer and aspiring Mobian behavior researcher, and today I have been approved to begin work on my greatest project of them all. The inner emerald project."

Tails watched curiously. It was a projection of sorts. One that appeared to record and play out exactly what the ancient had both said and done within the room at the time. It was like he was truly there with them.

He was also impressed that the projection was automatically translating. Iizuka had to of spoken the language Havoc sometimes did, and Tails knew it wasn't just him because Shadow was watching attentively.

A proud smile appeared in the Ancient's eyes and he stepped to the side to reveal a large containment unit. The projection was overlayed on the capsule he'd been looking at before. Now though, instead of being hollow it appeared to be glowing, a bright white emerald shining inside.

"I cannot believe this, with Tiger's endorsement the elders have actually approved to give me one of the emeralds and begin my project! All my skills have finally paid off, all these years of climbing up the ladder, I can finally do what I want with my abilities."

"The basis of my project is to study the people who natively inhabit this planet. They're called "Mobians" from what we've found and they are absolutely fascinating. I want to study not their biology, but their cultures, their emotions, their minds! They're so complex, they feel in a way that we cannot. They're connected to the earth in a way our people could never achieve. My hope is to understand their habits, how their minds work. And I'm going to accomplish it with this."

"So he was an anthropologist. He just wasn't aware of it." Tails observed. "They didn't have a word for it like we do but that's exactly what it was."

Shadow nodded behind him gruffly,
The image faded away but the globes were still glowing.

Then another image of the ancient slowly made itself appear.

"I am currently on Ouranos Island and this is log two of my inner emerald project." He was pacing around with a scroll. "I want to design a being that can seamlessly integrate into Mobian life and live as they would. They need to be able to function as a regular Mobian, they need to grow up as one, this project will need to be truly Mobian in both body and mind to be able to simulate Mobian behaviors most accurately. From the few studies I have done it seems their personalities vary drastically and can even change rapidly along with changes in their environment."

"So to get the most accurate assessment I have devised a plan." Iizuka paused and smiled again. "The cycles."

Confusion washed over him. The cycles?

"But... Havoc told us the cycles were an accident, they weren't meant to happen."

"So he lied." Shadow stated plainly crossing his arms.

"...somehow I don't believe that." Tails murmured.

"Log three from the Ouranos lab. I've carefully crafted a perfect solution. The cycles will be a process, the average Mobian lifespan based on my observations is about fifty. However, in order to be careful not to draw attention to the project the cycles will be set on intervals of one hundred years. Every century the emerald will take a new form, a unique and new one with an entirely different genetic makeup and appearance. That form will grow and learn, gaining its own personality entirely unaware of its true nature! The body will function and behave exactly as a normal Mobian would including all the um... Squishy parts. I don't exactly know how any of that works so the first try won't have any of that, but the emerald will learn! It will be perfect, a clean source of information unaffected by prior knowledge."

"Once the interval has ended the emerald will return to my data collection housing facility on Kronos. This process will allow every future generation to view all the aspects of Mobian life openly as each iteration adds its data to the stockpile. Once done it will return itself to the Master Emerald and gain a new form continuing with a new cycle." He said hurrying himself towards the end. "Now, the fun part! Designing."

There was a pause and suddenly a loud crash from behind them.

"LOG SIX-" crash, "OURANOS ISLAND-" another crash, "GAAH! NO!"

The footage fritzed out as something bright slammed into the walls of the room, a childlike giggling echoing off of it as Iizuka tried to contain... Whatever it was.

In the next entry the emerald was back in its containment unit and Iizuka sat at a work bench staring with a tried and fed up look.

"Log eight, Ouranos Island." He said in a deadpan tone. "Truthfully my knowledge of emerald programming is... Limited in terms of design. I understand how to make it do what I need it to but lack the ability to design a stable, functioning vessel. In order to produce a more successful outcome I've employed the help of one of the island's master designers, Naka."

The entry featured a much more excited Iizuka, buzzing around some papers with a smile.

"Naka truly is a genius! He has devised a perfect concept for my project. Basing its design off our allies, the echidna tribes, we've selected a Mobian species that will pay homage to them while still making it recognizable as our project. Naka has chosen a hedgehog. We've been studying a wild Mobian subject for our concept, a black hedgehog that I've followed around the mainland for quite some time."

"Ours will be different though, one that will change to be unique throughout the cycles while retaining two constants, firstly that it is a hedgehog, and secondly each iteration will be a color variant of blue. His reasoning is truly sound, everything is so well articulated! The blue color will be recognizable amongst the echidna's red variants, and will look more similar to us. Naka's design for the first iteration even mimics our appearances by using the quills to simulate our tendrils!"

"That is... So creepy." Tails stated. "They're- they're describing Sonic. Everything about Sonic was meant to replicate- meant to convenience- them."

"They're scientists." Shadow flowered at the flickering form of Iizuka. "They don't always think about what their creation is going to want."

"Log nine, Ouranos. Naka has pointed out why my first attempts were so... Unstable. The emerald cannot handle trying to recreate a unique being every time. It needed something more to go off of. Naka has helped me create this-"

He stepped aside and floating silently behind them was the same opal colored hedgehog that Eggman had been commanding.

"Base?" Tails whispered.

"What?" Shadow asked turning to him.

"That version, the bright glowy hedgehog, we fought against it earlier. Before Havoc came back. It was... Disturbing."

"Hm." Was Shadow's only response.

"This is core one! The blueprint for every future incarnation of the emerald. It truly isn't part of the project at all, while it appears Mobian this form is, in essence, just the base emerald wrapped in a default form. It serves as a means of return to the Master Emerald. Once the century has ended there will be a short cool down. Once the emerald has regained enough energy from the life around it it should return itself to the Master Emerald. Truthfully I am not sure what would happen to the emerald if someone were to find it and procure it while in its gem-like state, but it shouldn't be an issue!"

"That's why it exploded?!" Tails couldn't help but yell.

Shadow gave him a bewildered look again.

"Sorry, sorry, when we fought it was just a plain emerald Eggman had stuffed in his machine, then while we were fighting it blew up and turned into- that." He said gesturing towards Base. "It was creepy, it followed all of Eggman's commands without blinking, the only reason it didn't kill us was because Knuckles could override it."

Shadow looked genuinely surprised, "that doesn't sound like Sonic at all."

"It wasn't," Tails replied, "It was devoid of any thought or personality at all."

Iizuka suddenly continued on his rant.

"Is there any way we could skip the unnecessary parts?" Shadow asked in a bored tone.

"I could try..." Tails said reaching out and trying to connect with cyberspace again. There was a soft glow and in the next log a new form had appeared.

A hedgehog blinked owlishly at the camera. He was so... different. The face staring at them was Havoc's but... Not the one they knew. This was one that came before Tikal, before the End, before Chaos and Puyo, and three thousand years alone in the emerald. This was a Havoc that looked... Happy.

He had bright eyes that shimmered with changing colors and bright almost periwinkle quills. He didn't have that giant scarf and despite being the same height as he was currently he looked much, much younger.

"Log twenty three, Ouranos Island Labs, introducing our first incarnation. He'll function as our testing phase. He'll stay with us and go through trials of my design so I can make tweaks before I truly begin the project. Because he is so vital I've made sure that nothing can harm him and he will not naturally die after a century unless I explicitly start the cycles. He'll be an outlier in the experiment but an extremely important one at that!"

"So the guy we're fighting can't be hurt and can't die. Great. This is gonna go so well." Shadow drawled.

Tails skipped ahead a little again.

"Log twenty six, Ouranos. As it stands there was one slight... Glitch. It would appear that Incarnate One-"

"Not my name!" An airy voice called out from the open space of Iizuka's lab. He had his scarf, gloves, and shoes now but he was still missing that symbol pin he wore. "That's not my name." Havoc stated.

Iizuka's eyes dropped down into a more fed up look. "Yes, well, I'm just trying to be more formal for the experiment log." He replied in an exhausted voice. "We can go back to using your little villager nickname once the recordings are done."

Tails heard Shadow growl softly beside him and he turned in surprise trying to read the agent's expression. He seemed... Distant, and angry, but he normally looked like that.

"In any case, Incarnation One has the um, ability, to fly. I am unsure if this is caused by leakage of the emerald's excess energy or if it's a defense mechanism concocted by the emerald. Neither should be possible, the emerald should be cloaking itself well enough that even our sensors would not see it as such. I'm sure it is just a fluke, it shouldn't be the case in any future incarnates."

"Aww, why not! I like flying!" Havoc said in an upbeat tone. Iizuka's face seemed to soften a little.

"We've gone over this, you're an exception. It's fine for you to have these powers but the others can't. They need to appear normal. They need to be convincing so people believe they are actually Mobian."

Havoc's brows squinted for a moment and his expression morphed into something of confusion. "Yeah... Okay, I guess so."

The next entry had was what appeared to be some kind of training. Iizuka would test how Havoc handled against some robots and scribble things down on his chart. When he was done the hedgehog turned to him and smiled and the ancient congratulated him, ruffling his quills with a smile. "You're going to do so many great things" Iizuka said, "you're going to change the world for us one day."

The smile on Havoc's face was so genuine and bright, nothing like when he'd talked about his purpose on Angel Island. This smile was so prideful and excited, the one he'd seen reeked of desperation.

There were a few more clips he bumped into, ones of Iizuka telling Havoc stories and ones where Havoc was dodging and weaving through his training course.

That one was interesting to him. Not because he hadn't seen something like that, but because he was destroying them. One course was to test how many he could take out in a set amount of time and he twisted through each drone punching and crashing through each one. But... how?

Tikal said he couldn't fight, that he didn't know how. How could that be true if he was specifically trained for it? When he reached out trying finding an answer in the logs the lighthearted atmosphere dropped.

"Log thirty two, Ouranos. Recently One has been-"

"Why did you make me?"

The voice came out steely and cold and Tails moved around Iizuka to find Havoc standing behind him. His expression was cold and angry but there was a hint of something else there, confusion.

Iizuka seemed almost hesitant, scared to turn around. "What do you mean? You know why you were made-"

"No. Why did you make me."

Iizuka turned around, he was scared, definitely scared. He backed up slightly leaning only to realize he was blocked by his work desk.

"I... do not follow. You were made to learn. You know that."

"No! You never listen! I'm not-" Havoc took a deep breath in. "Why did you make me, me. Why did you make me the way I am knowing I wouldn't fit in with anyone here?" Now Havoc sounded sad, hurt even.

"Oh, well, that's because we needed to know our hedgehog model would work. It wouldn't be logical to create another one of us, we wouldn't have a way to know if our Mobian would turn out." Iizuka answered and turned away from the other, seeming to think they were done with the conversation. Havoc just stared incredulously at the audacity of the other.

"So that's it?" Havoc asked in an unsatisfied voice. "I'm like this because I'm supposed to- to prove something to you? Is that it?"

Iizuka clearly didn't seem to pick up on the dangerous edge in the other's voice. "In a way yes, a better phrasing would be to say you are like this to collect data."

Havoc's entire body shook with a mix of anger and frustration. "So that's all I am? I'm just a testing phase for you to- to what? Take notes on?"

"I suppose essentially, yes!" The ancient said happily.

A dumbfounded breath escaped Havoc as he tried to comprehend the complete oblivion coming from the ancient.

"Wha- I- I can't believe you!" He cried frustratedly.

"Well I mean you should, I'm not lying, that is why you were made." Iizuka answered plainly and it only serves to infuriate the other more.

"NO! JUST- JUST LISTEN TO ME FOR ONCE! IIZUKA! PLEASE! Just- just tell me there's something more to me... Please tell me I'm not just- Please tell me I'm more than just- just a trial phase."

Iizuka furrowed his brows in confusion.

"Why would I lie to you...?"

Something in the other snapped. Havoc lunged for his creator with a loud cry, sailing through the air towards him at speeds that rivalled his brother's.

Havoc reached out a clawed hand and just before he reached the Ancient's face a blue screen appearance under the Ancient's hand and Iizuka slammed it into the side of the other's head.

The hedgehog flew across the room falling limp and rolling on the ground like a ragdoll before coming to a stop on the training arena's floor.

Whatever Iizuka had hit him with had almost seemed to dissolve into his head when he was hit. Now the hedgehog was just laying on the ground, deathly still.

Iizuka carefully wandered over to look down on the hedgehog's body before letting out a sigh.

When the log ended and the room got dim again Tails suddenly became aware of Shadow. He was standing away from him, eyes intensely fixed on the ground and shaking with clenched fists.

"Shadow- are you-"

"Just. Play. The next. Log." He commanded.

Concerned rippled through him but he complied.

"Log thirty three. Ouranos Island." Iizuka's voice was grim. "I am still unsure of what went wrong with Incarnation One the other day. I have analyzed the footage and still cannot identify what went wrong with him. I have however, taken precautionary measures. As much as I did not wish to I have added a new protocol to One specifically despite Naka's grievances. I have removed any of his harming capabilities. While the rest of the cycles will have the ability to retaliate and learn how to be combative One will have no means of defensive or offensive capabilities."

Something struck a cord in Tails. Wrong, his brain screamed. This is very wrong.

"Stop talking about me like I'm not here." A quiet voice spoke.

Shock shot through Tails as he moved around the projection to find Havoc sitting behind Iizuka again. This time though, it wasn't voluntary. Havoc was sitting on a chair with four small needle-like pillars floating around him, beams of electrically charged light fencing him in as they floated around him in a slow circle.
Iizuka turned to look at the other and Havoc lifted his head to glare at him with eyes pouring with tears.

"I know there's not anyone on the other side of that thing. Just stop pretending I'm not here."

Iizuka didn't even answer him as he turned back to the camera. "I am going to try doing some readjusting with Incarnation One's mind in hopes of resolving whatever glitch has occurred."

Havoc's spines flexed in distress and the hedgehog started shuddering. He jolted violently as Iizuka turned and approached him.

"No- no!" Havoc screamed and the chair rattled as Iizuka reached out towards him and he tried desperately to escape. "NO!"

A blue pop up appeared above the other and he slumped against the chair. Eyes going dim and half lidded, staring out at nothing.

Something about it, something about the way Iizuka handled the other, something about the way the log continued as he reprogrammed Havoc to ensure he captured the process, made him feel miserably sick.

It felt like centuries later when Iizuka finally let the blue screen fade away and Havoc slowly blinked back to life.

"One?" Iizuka asked carefully.

"I- Iizuka? What's going on? Why am I in a containment unit?" He asked innocently.

An eerie smile graced Iizuka's face again. "There was a minor glitch in your programming. Do not worry! It has been resolved."

"Oh. Oh! That's good! That's great! So everything's okay now?"

"Yes. Everything is running well." He replied and the log ended.

The next few logs were so- normal. It went back to the points where it was just Iizuka teaching Havoc and Havoc blissfully smiling and giving him his full attention. That is, until another argument happened. It continued like a cycle, he'd be fine for a while and then there would be a fight, Iizuka would change him and it repeated. Over and over and over again, Havoc would slowly regain that fiery anger and Iizuka would blow it out like a candle.

"Log forty, Ouranos. He- One has become more stable but- the cracks haven't gone away entirely. There are days where he seems fine, conversations where he seems normal, and then in the next moment it's like-" Iizuka sighed and looked behind him where Havoc was sleeping peacefully on a work table. "still looking into a solution." He finished.

"Cracks? What does he mean cracks?" Tails asked, zooming through more of the logs. "Like faults in the coding?"

"...No. not physical cracks."

"...Shadow?" Tails asked, stopping his search and pausing on a log that was mid fight.

The hybrid was standing so close to the image of Havoc he was almost face to face with the projected hedgehog. A look of sharp intensity meeting one of anguish and fear.

"Just emotions he doesn't have a name for." Shadow said bitterly.

Tails waited for a moment before unpausing the fight.

"What am I?!"  Havoc yelled.

"I've told you this! Time and time before! You're an emerald, one of eight!" Iizuka yelled back.

"No! I mean what- who- What am I? Who am I? The part of me that isn't an emerald!"

"All of you is the emerald!" Iizuka responded frustratedly, "That is what you are!"

"Is that all that I am? Is that it? Nothing more?" Havoc asked in a scared, terrified voice.

"Of course!" Iizuka threw his hands in the air. "What else would you be?!"

Havoc stumbled backwards and fell. His hands were gripping tightly onto his quills. He sat on the ground rocking himself back and forth while crying, as if he was trying to go into a defensive ball but couldn't quite understand how.

"I- I've had this conversation before."

"What?" Tails turned his head to the black and red hedgehog on he opposite side of him. "Shadow what are you talking about?"

The hybrid combed a hand through his quills and tore his eyes away from the projection.

"With- with Gerald- he- he-"

Iizuka sighed and walked up to him, crouching down to his level.

"Wait don't-!" Tails yelled, he doesn't know why, he knew they weren't real. He knew he couldn't help.

Iizuka reached out with one finger and Havoc met his eyes, before he could even ask a question that blue screen appeared and his face went blank. Tears stuttering to a stop as his body slumped forward again.

Tails quickly moved a few logs forward.

"Log forty seven, Ouranos Lab. Alright One, diagnostics." Iizuka said and Havoc happily flew up along side him.

The ancient ran a few tests that were eerily similar to modern health checkups, noting notes on a clipboard and then setting it down.

"Although I do- I do feel something..." Havoc said quietly after a question about muscular pain.

Iizuka suddenly looked curious. He looked curious in a way that made Tails want to vomit. "What kind of feeling?"

"I feel- I feel worried? And afraid? I think? I feel like some part of me is wrong and I feel worried like I won't ever be whole. I want to do my job, I want to help you learn about Mobians but what if- what if that's all I am? What if there's nothing more to me than that?" Havoc said slowly growing more and more distressed.

Iizuka sighed and reached a hand out toward the other but this time- this time Havoc noticed.

"What- What are you gonna do?" Havoc asked warily and looked up at him, concern seeping in as he glanced distrustfully between Iizuka's eyes and his outstretched hand.

"Adjust your personality a bit," Iizuka stated casually, "just to get through testing easier."

Iizuka continued to reach his hand out further and Havoc jolted out of his seat, flying to the other end of the room.

"What- What if I don't want you to adjust it?" He asked fearfully.

Iizuka paused. "What do you mean?"

"What if I don't want you to change my personality? What if I want to stay this way? What if I like who I am." He stuttered.

"Who you- One you're being unreasonable just let me fix it."

"It? Me? Why are you being so calm? Oh- oh my stars you've done this before haven't you? You've- you've changed me before!"

"Of course I have" Iizuka stated with casual confusion.

"Stars- How- how many times? How many times have you changed me?" Havoc looked downright terrified. He was shivering as Iizuka slowly stalked closer.

"Whenever it was deemed necessary." He stated, looming over the other like a dark cloud.

Havoc looked up at the ancient towering over him and whimpered quietly "Please... Don't-"

And then he was gone. And Tails felt sick.

"Log- log entry fifty four. Ouranos Island Laboratory." Iizuka was the only one in this entry, the hedgehog nowhere to be seen.

"I- I am beginning to think Naka is right."

Tails was surprised to find that the Ancient's voice was tinged with sadness.

"I've tried everything over and over to solve this glitch but no matter what I do it always leads back to the same thing. I am starting to wonder if these...cracks are problems in the coding at all. ...I think I've done something terribly wrong."

"As if that wasn't obvious." He heard Shadow mumble, voicing his own thoughts.

The next log was quick, Iizuka went to speak then hesitated and ended it.

The log after that though...

"I- I think I've made a horrible mistake." Iizuka stated. His hands were clasped together and there was sadness in his eyes. "I have created something so Mobian that- that even I do not understand it. The breakdowns are happening more often, these... tantrums, are becoming more frequent. I've created a being that can think and feel but- but I believe Naka may have been right. There is no glitch in my creation. The knowledge I've given it of itself is tearing it apart. I was a fool to think allowing one being to have this much knowledge would not have consequences on its mind. I- I want to avoid doing anything drastic just yet but-" Iizuka stared off for a while before shaking his head.

"I'm moving him to Kronos and Rhea. Maybe being around more commoners will help stabilize its mental state..."

There was a log pause in the logs before the room shifted. A holographic map spread through the lab until it had transformed into an entirely new location.

"Log sixty two, Kronos Laboratory. The normalcy of this island has proved to be extremely effective in the improvement of One's mentality. The outbursts have dwindled although... They are still present. This place is good for him, for now, until I can finalize the coding."

The next log he landed on Iizuka was muttering on about some plans for the coding and just as he was about to skip it Havoc suddenly burst in the room right behind him. The hologram phased through him with a weird sensation as he excitedly ran over the the other ancient.

"Iizuka! Iizuka!" He cried with a smile.

The ancient in question turned to look at him with a smile. "Yes? What is it?"

"Look!" He held up a small white creature.

"Ahh, a star chao" Iizuka said with interest. Like a parent who didn't want to upset their toddler who had just proudly displayed a dead bug to them.

Havoc nodded proudly and his smile was bigger than any he'd seen on him before. "His name is Puyo! And look!" Havoc jumped in the air and the chao followed him. "He can fly too!"

Iizuka laughed gently, "yes, I can see that."

"Wow, so that's Puyo." Tails marveled at the small creature.

"What's a star chao?" Shadow asked, staring at it as well.

"An ancient species of chao that fell from the sky on Starfall Islands." Tails explained and the log continued with Havoc and Puyo flying happily around the room. "They're extinct now and Puyo passed away after Havoc died and wasn't around to care for them anymore. I think it's part of what got him started on his downward spiral after he came back."

Shadow just hummed in recognition. Tails couldn't help but think back to Shadow's own chao, Reaper. He knew the hedgehog was fiercely protective of it and that he had Vanilla look after them while he was gone. Sonic was always so proud of the fact that Reaper loved him so much too, of more so that he could shove it in Shadow's face.

As the logs went on things seemed to get better and he couldn't help but wonder if maybe it was because of Puyo. There were still fights, but less. And there were happier times in-between them... For Havoc at least. Iizuka however seemed to be delving further and further into despair with each log.

It was after another argument that Iizuka came back in the log with a teary voice.

"I think- I think I may need to reset him. I've- I've grown quite fond of him and his personality, cracks and all but- ...I was cruel to make this experiment. Bestowing this much knowledge onto such a fragile mind has compromised him. I truly, truly wish there was another way but I do not think there is." The ancient choked a little and broke down.

In the next log Iizuka's voice was cold as stone but still sad to its core."Log sixty five, Kronos Island. Before I let him go I will activate a code that will begin the cycle process. Within one hundred years he will pass away and as soon as the code is active he- he'll forget everything about us. His memory of me and anyone else up until that point will... Will be erased."

"Log sixty seven, Kronos island. I am faced with an unsurmountable decision. There is a part of me that so desperately wants to give in to my desire for him to continue in this life, a part of me that cannot stand the thought of erasing him. ...And another part that knows that he cannot continue on. A part of me that can see just as well that this life is tearing him apart. It is cruel and unjust to allow him to keep on, and I know I should've reset him long ago but I still find that I cannot bring myself to do so. I need to believe that when the time is right he will make the proper decision, that he will allow this lifetime of his to rest, but for now I believe I have become far, far too attached." Iizuka paused for a long moment before letting out a despaired moan and burying his head in his hands.

"Oh what am I to do?" He sniveled miserably "What am I to decide when my options are to kill him or to allow him to live a miserable life, a cruel existence, how- how have I become so vile? I only wanted to create something good, something beautiful- I only-" he broke down crying again and somehow it was becoming just as hard to watch as the earlier stages.

There was a long pause in the logs and then the room changed again.

"Log seventy three, Chaos Island." Iizuka spat with a righteous fury in his tone. "The End is coming. I've been moved to tumult island along with any other scientists in order to help the other inventors create a way to stop it. I've been ordered to end any work on my project until the End is defeated." With each statement Iizuka seemed to grow more infuriated. "Truly I do not see why I am here, I've never been an inventor of weaponry. My apprentice is much more brilliant than I in this regard... even if they tend to lose parts." He smirked. "I will continue to update these logs, goodbye for now."

However despite his promise there didn't seem to be many logs left. And the next one was one he knew the ending of.

"Log seventy four! The end is coming! There is no stopping it! Despite my orders Naka has agreed to help me flee to Kronos and Rhea and evacuate One. I need to reset his code and help him escape! If I do not he will live on and everything I've worked for, including him, will be meaningless."

The next log flickered to life and the room changed.

Iizuka was sitting on the ground, his back leaning against a portal's stone side as he look up at the blood red sky. For a long while he was silent and then without turning to the camera a quiet voice broke out of him.

"I have failed." He stated. "Even in my final moments I could not do it."

Tails took in a sharp breath.

"I rushed both him and Puyo to the portal that would send him to the echidnas and gave him a means to keep the End from following him but- But when he looked up at me he looked so scared, so worried, and I couldn't bring myself to erase him. And now the End is here. I will die, but he will live on forever. A miserable existence gifted to him by his cruel creator. I can only hope that he will have a better life, once I am not a part of it." He finished and closed his eyes as bright red slowly absorbed him and the world and everything faded away.

"So that's it? No way for us to kill him, no way to get Sonic back? All because he was too cruel and failed to finish what he started." Shadow seethed.

"I- I don't know." Tails stuttered.

"I hate scientists." Shadow spat and something pinged in Tails quietly that made him start to reevaluate just how exactly Shadow saw him.

"Hello?"

A shiver ran up his spine.

Havoc? Did Havoc know they were here? But how?! And how did he-

"T-Tikal? ...Anybody?"

One glowing blue figure suddenly drifted into view.

Shadow shot a confused look at Tails and the fox looked around the room in a panic until he realized that- there was no room at all. It was just black.

The projection was still going.

"Are these... Havoc's memories?" He wondered out loud.

"Tikal! TIKAL! PLEASE SOMEBODY ANSWER ME! ...please..."

This must've been what happened after he died. The black void he'd talked about. Tails tried to speed through it, but there was just so much nothing for so long. Finally he stopped to take a break and nearly jumped out of his skin when he found Havoc staring dead into his eyes with a look of hatred. His eyes were entirely white, no iris or pupils, an unsettling blank that was locked in to him.

"You're not actually here? Are you?" Havoc asked him accusingly. Tails' heart froze over with ice. How could he- this couldn't be real-

"You're not actually real." Havoc spat. Then an unsettling laugh filled the space, echoing off the walls and reverberating in his chest. "You're just another little delusion my brain made up!"

Suddenly his laughter snapped off and he lunged at him. Tails shrieked and jumped away only to find that a hologram had taken him place. Havoc had lunged on Iizuka.

The projection of the ancient was skewed, blurry and flickering. He shocked the delusion violently.

"WHAT IS THIS?!" he demanded. "Is this some kind of punishment you programmed into me?! The consequence I get for not doing my job?!"

His head whipped to the side to look at Shadow.

"And you." Havoc marched over to him. "You did this to me!" He screamed, but when he did he was looking above Shadow. At a projection of Chaos.

"I was trying to help you! It was working- we could've done it together and you- you still killed me-" his voice broke as he said it. "I- I thought we were friends-" his voice cracked high and squeaky as he weakly pressed a fist against Chaos' chest. "I would've traded my life for you and you still took mine."

The hedgehog sank to a ball in the ground and out of the dark more flickering projections swarmed him. Iizuka, Chaos, Puyo, and Tikal all facelessly gathered around him as he cried into the vast expanse.

As he sat there something changed, a bright light erupted from one wall and vaporized the delusions.

Havoc stood and curiously walked over to it. From the screen an image finally appeared. There was trees all around them and a small Mobian who was talking at them. Spouting words that didn't mean anything until the image turned and found a chaos emerald. There was excitement and laughing but once whoever was seeing it touched the gem everything went back to black.

The first vision.

"This is what Havoc meant- this is how he knew so much about us even though he died." Tails spoke.

"But if that's true," Shadow muttered turning towards the projection, "how was he recording this?"

"I-"

Havoc looked over at the spot where the image had been for a while. His face was twisting in confusion, as if he was trying to decide if what he saw was real or not.

But then, to Tails' horror, it just kept going. There was nothing happening, nothing strange going on, but they weren't doing anything. Just stuck watching as the vision continued.

"Can't you skip through this?" Shadow asked.

"I- I'm trying but it's not-" no matter how hard he tried the vision refused to speed forward. "I think something's wrong!" He shouted to Shadow.

"We're stuck! If I can't get rid of this it's going to trap us here for centuries!" 

Shadow started darting around the expanse trying to find something to break them out while Tails continued to try and fiddle with the cyber energy.

"Shadow what are you doing?" He called to the other as he watched the hedgehog stride over to the projection of Havoc.

"I'm trying something!" He called back gripping on to the projection. He watched as the hybrid grasped onto something on the projection's shoulder- a part of the hologram he couldn't see- and squeeze.

There was a loud popping noise and an electrical fizzle before he watched part of the image break. Suddenly there wasn't a shoulder on Havoc, or the background behind it. It was like a crack in reality that let them see back into the lab they'd been in.

"The drones!" Tails cried "good idea Shadow! Break up as many as you can!"

The hedgehog grunted and in a flash he started ripping around the room. The space filled with popping noises and the illusion became more and more distorted as he continued.

The form of Havoc started to glitch and the room spun, trying desperately to cycle through the last few visions.

As Shadow continued more and more of the lab became visible until all that was left was a few patches of black and the half broken form of Havoc. Shadow kept going, breaking down drone after drone. 

And then, in a moment of horrifying clarity the hologram turned to look at him. Havoc looked straight at him with fear in his eyes and for a moment it felt almost real. Then he turned to the side and a new blue form flickered to life. It was wispy and blurred but Tails watched it take shape until the thing turned to him with a bright smile and he felt his breath leave him when he recognized the form standing next to Havoc.

"Amy-? SHADOW WAIT-!" 

He was too late, the hybrid broke through the last drone and with a loud pop the projection disappeared.

Chapter Text

"What, was that?" The hybrid panted, landing back on the ground.

The hologram of Amy had flickered away along with the drones and he doubted there was any fixing them without losing far too much time.

"I- I don't know." Tails stuttered in response. "But that was Amy. If she's in one of these things... Should that even be possible?" He was ridiculously confused by the ordeal.

It just seemed so- random. What did Amy have to do with anything? All the logs had been about Iizuka and Havoc and then just Amy? Out of the blue?

"Mm..." The black and red hedgehog just stared with a far away look at the pile of drones. They stood silently for only a moment before the hedgehog flicked an ear and turned to look back at the machine that had started all of this. "What is that thing?" He asked.

"Huh?" Tails turned to what the other had pointed at.

The machine they'd placed the empty Koco into had powered down. All the glowing blue had faded out of it and instead trickled down, leading to a new line that ran on the floor that crept across the lab. The channel swept through the room until it led to something that was shoved underneath one of the work tables.

Shadow wandered over to it and looked down at it with curiosity. Tails came up quietly behind him and Shadow glanced at him before shuffling slightly to the side awkwardly.

The line reached the... What was this thing? He thinks he's seen them around the islands before but he never really knew what they were then either. They had a flat pedestal with a large button sitting in its center and the pedestal itself held a large black sphere.

Shadow stepped up and pressed one foot against the button with a dull thunk and after a moment nothing happened.

"Hmph, it's busted." He grumbled stepping away.

"Here let me try." Tails said stepping up. He did the exact same thing that Shadow did only this time the button sank down and lit up with a teal green light.

"I hate this stupid island." Shadow grumbled behind him as lines of green wove up and around the ball.

When the sphere was finally etched with green all the way around it flashed subtly and slowly dissolved until it revealed what was inside.

With the casing dissipated he could now see the little Koco it had been holding inside. The form blinked sluggishly and turned to them. The Koco was similar to the other ones but instead of having an arrow-like shape at its top, the lines wove up and together in a loop creating a gem-like shape. And despite being locked inside... whatever this thing was, there were patches of moss and some little blue flowers growing out of it.

"Myosotis sylvatica" he heard Shadow mumble quietly.

"Well hi there!" Tails exclaimed excitedly at its appearance.

It blinked a few more times at them before smiling proudly and exclaiming... Something.

"What's it saying?" Shadow asked gruffly.

"I don't know." Tails replied in confusion.

"You could understand the other ones." The hedgehog stated.

"Yes Shadow, I know, I was the one talking to them." Tails replied through gritted teeth.

Shadow rolled his eyes at him. "So what's wrong with this one? Did you suddenly lose your ability to talk to rocks?"

Tails shuddered with barely contained rage. "I don't think so. The other Koco, when they talk, it's like their language gets automatically translated in my mind because of the cyberspace connection, but this one is strange. All its words just end up sounding garbled and weird."

"Hmph, well that's not helpful at all."

"Yes Shadow, I'm aware."

Tails tried again to try and talk with the other but the result continued to remain unchanged. The Koco normally talked with noises that sounded almost like little bells or like a xylophone, this one... It just made the laughing noises that some of the Koco occasionally used and it was mixed up too.

"Ᏽr𐌄e𐌕! ክeሠ lልክd- f𐌋ሃ g𐌀t𐌄! Bልርk ⶴዐme-" it cheered and ran around him in circles.

"Strange rock aside," Shadow said with a huff, "how do you plan to return us to Angel Island without chaos control and without your plane?"

"Oh- well, I think there should be a way back on the mainland Southeast of here." He stated, continuing to watch the little Koco run around him in circles.

"You think? You don't actually know if we have a way back?"

"Well I- No? It's not like I've really had time to test my theory!"

Shadow stared at him and his eye twitched slightly. "You brought us out here, with no definite plan for return?"

"...yes?"

Shadow let out a loud groan and buried his face in his hands. There was a stream of noises after that that was a mix of curse words and rage spitting. "You are exactly like your brother!" He managed to make out in-between the aggravated sounds.

Then very suddenly Shadow took a sharp inhale in and sobered up. "Alright, let's go."

Tails nodded moved to follow after him before Shadow stopped him short.

"...what are you doing with that?" Shadow asked pointing to the Koco Tails had scooped up to carry.

"I'm bringing them with us." Tails stated simply.

"Yeah I can see that but why?"

"Why not? If it was in Iizuka's lab then they must be important. Plus, I'm curious what's causing the speech issue."

"It's a talking rock, it's heavy, it's a distraction, and it's going to slow down our efforts."

"Hey! Stop calling them rocks! All the Koco were people once, you can stand to show them a little more respect." Tails huffed.

"Ah my bad," Shadow rolled his eyes, "it's a ghost rock."

Tails let out a soft growl at the other. Shadow didn't truthfully seem all that intimidated.

"I'm bringing it with us whether you like it or not. Suck it up ultimate lifeform." Tails sneered and powered past Shadow he bumped his shoulder harshly against the other which, truthfully probably hurt him more than it did Shadow, but he was making a point!

"Let's go. There should be a walking trail up there that we can take." He stated and with a twirl of his tails he flew up past the web structure and over the ridge. Shadow awkwardly jumped up the side of the ridge, grappling with the rocks to climb over it.

For a moment he was surprised with the hedgehog's seeming difficulty with climbing before he thought about it. As much as Shadow proclaimed to enjoy his solitude he worked with Rouge. If he really needed to climb she probably would've just carried him and if not her then Omega, and if neither of them were there then he could use chaos control. The guy had options and none of them applied to his current situation.

He was thinking about more it as the two of them held a decent pace on the trail. "Shadow does- does Rouge know what you're doing?"

The hybrid spared him a glance and shrugged. "Probably not."

Tails sputtered at the other's complete lack of urgency. "Pwa- you- what! Don't you think she'll be worried?! Shouldn't she know where you are?"

Shadow gave him a weird look as if he was confused and offended by the insinuation. "No? Why should she? She's an adult, she can handle herself."

"Well yeah, but don't you think she'll be wondering what's happening with you?"

"Wondering, yes, but here's the difference between us and your little group of friends," Shadow turned to stare at him. "I can trust that Rouge will be fine handling herself while I'm not there, the same way she can trust that I'm handling myself here." He stated. "The two of us can trust in each other's ability to manage without the other. Don't mistake our lack of defensive urgency for indifference, fox. While you lot may be able to trust that when the time comes you'll have each other, we can trust that even apart we'll push through any challenges that arise."

Tails went quiet for a while as they began to cross a bridge connecting them back to the mainland. Was- was Shadow right? Well, of course he was, he was talking about himself but- was he right about them?

He thought back to everything that had happened in the past week. Amy getting in front of him when they fought with Base, Knuckles rushing in to save them when things took a turn, the two of them turning to him when they needed a way off the island.

It was true that whenever they needed each other they were always there, they could depend on each other but- but did they really trust each other? At least in the way Shadow was talking about?

He couldn't help but find that the answer was undeniably no. They had their moments, at least, Sonic did. Moments where he'd ask about someone or something and Sonic would flippantly tell him "they've got it covered" or "they'll be fine" and he'd always thought it was a form of unconcern but maybe- maybe it wasn't. Maybe he just trusted that things would work out.

And maybe- maybe that lack of trust, or their weakened state of it, was what really got them into this mess. When Eggman turned on that laser he trusted his skills enough to know if he was shot he wouldn't be hurt. But it was Sonic who didn't trust he had a plan, Sonic who jumped in front of him believing Tails wasn't managing the situation. And then it had happened again with Amy. He knows it's not really a fair comparison, it had all happened in the heat of the battle, but maybe Shadow was right. Maybe they didn't have as much faith in each other as they thought they did.

His mind flashed back to the odd trio who's broken up members they were fighting so hard against. If they'd all trusted each other more would they have ended up where they were now?

Tikal had trusted that Havoc intended to show them the story room, but didn't trust him to know Chaos was alive; Havoc trusted that Tikal would believe in him and stand by his side, but didn't trust that she truly saw him as more than an emerald or that Chaos hadn't meant to hurt him; and Chaos- Chaos hadn't trusted that Tikal and Havoc could stand up for themselves against the Knuckles tribe. Even though the three of them loved each other as much as they did they never completely trusted each other.

Was that what they were destined towards? Their lines of trust getting tangled up until one of them got hurt? The way Sonic had already gotten hurt.

Tails padded through the island fields up a hill towards some ruins.

With a small smile he realized that no. They were, and this was, different. Because even though the four of them would always fight to be at each other's sides, they were still going off on their own. Even though Sonic would always try to protect him, he was still trusting him to go on his own adventure.

Because even though Sonic had jumped in front of him,

The two Mobians came to a stop in front of a large stone structure.

Even though Sonic didn't realize he'd had a plan.

"So," Shadow asked, "What now?"

He'd still trusted Tails would be able to fix things.

He turned to Shadow with a determined smile.

Even on his own.

Sonic's voice echoed and rang, spreading through his head like a hug, like sunshine enveloping him in warmth.

"You've got this."

Chapter Text

Angel Island really was as beautiful as all the legends had said. She'd come here alone with Knuckles a few times to do some archeology work. Stix would probably love it here too, no people other than Knuckles, it was the kind of seclusion she'd always sought after. Angel Island was kind of a dream of hers in a way too. There was so much history here, even more than she knew according to what Havoc had talked about.

She really wasn't quite sure what to do once this was all over, she'd been taking a break from everything, she'd wanted to take a break from everything but- but this was just so much. Her plan was to take a break, then go back to her studies, back to working towards her certification as a historian, back towards her archaeology degree.

But the more and more they found out about the ancients the more her "break" was starting to feel like an annoying chore.

Amy was humming quietly as she and Knuckles walked down one of the trails of the island. They were headed towards the portal gate to Kronos. Knuckles was leading her to the portal and occasionally helping her up to parts of the island she couldn't just jump to.

"Sooo... how are you feeling about all this?" She asked him as they walked through a more overgrown part of the jungle.

Knuckles glanced at her with a flint of mistrust in his eyes. "Which Amy am I talking to? The concerned friend, or the psychologist one that's about to pick my brain apart and examine it?"

"Eh, both" Amy replied with a noncommittal shrug.

"About what part exactly?" Knuckles closed his eyes and sighed.

"Y'know...Sonic"

Knuckles shook his head. "I always knew there was something wrong with that moron. I just didn't know it went this deep."

"I know what you mean, Sonic has always had something about him but this? I mean, really?"

Knuckles grunted with a nod. "You think you know a guy."

"Yeah, turns out we actually know an ancient experiment made from a long lost chaos emerald. I've heard every friend group ends this way." She sighed dramatically and smiled when she earned a small huff of a laugh from the echidna.

"Sonic is a moron there's no doubt in my mind about that." He said surely. "Can't say I don't miss the moron though."

"Yeah, I mean, I know we were all going to do our own things but it doesn't feel right not having him to go back to."

Knuckles made a huffing noise that she chalked up to agreement. "Why didn't you guys just call me when something went wrong? I would've come." He asked and she was surprised to find a layer of hurt underneath his words.

"I guess I really don't know? There was a lot going on, but I should've taken the time to contact you. I'm sorry Knuckles."

"It's... Whatever." He said tilting his face out of her line of sight. "But it could've been a lot worse if I hadn't gotten there. I only showed up because I had plans with that blue dummy ahead of time. If I hadn't... You got lucky."

His voice trailed off before flattening again. She always managed to forget how much she liked talking to Knuckles. For as gruff as his exterior was he was much easier to have a meaningful discussion with than Sonic. The echidna wasn't as emotionally stunted as he appeared to be. At least with him you didn't have to hold him down and try to bat down a bunch of emotional barriers the way you would with Sonic. Knuckles was much more open with how he was feeling, stating it outright bluntly more often than not.

"Well, for now we're all intact, thanks Knuckles."

He nodded and they continued on. The silence stretched for a while again as she waited. She knew there was something else there, something Knuckles was still mulling over.

"Do you think- Was she-" Knuckles made a huffing noise again and started gnawing lightly on one of the spikes of his glove. "Do you think she had a good reason? To lie to me? Tikal, I mean."

Amy didn't feel as surprised as she thought she should be. "Hmm. Well, I don't know if it was a good reason. But I'm sure there's more to it than you think. Tikal is going through a lot more than we know and a lot more than we're giving her credit for."

"Yeah... I guess... That whole friend group is a mess." He said shaking his head.

"No kidding, I think they're worse than we are!" Amy laughed lightly, earning another small chuckle from the echidna.

"What are we looking for on the island anyway? We were just there." He asked hoisting Amy up as they approached the portal gate.

"Honestly I'm not quite sure yet, anything with a connection to him would be nice, although I do have something in mind." She said happily, jumping up and activating the portal.

She blinked away the blue glow when Kronos Island came back into view.

"How are we supposed to find a connection to someone who was supposed to have his record wiped from the face of the earth?" Knuckles asked as they strolled across the plains again.

"It doesn't have to be directly to him, just maybe something he would've liked. Something to remind him of his old life."

"Wouldn't that just make him upset again? That didn't really work to our advantage last time."

"You never know," Amy said spotting a few empty Koco lying beside a pillar. "Sometimes people can surprise you when they're faced with something familiar."

"Well I think he needs a familiar beat down." Knuckles stated with a huff.

Amy rolled her eyes and smacked him in the shoulder lightly. "Oh stop, besides, I think I know what I'm looking for."

She did not know what she was looking for.

The two of them ended up scouring the island for a few hours, searching for anything that might help. There were plenty of knick-knacks around but nothing was really sparking her interest.

She was trusting that when they found whatever they were looking for the vibes would be enough for her to know.

"Hey, check this out." Knuckles called her over.

"Oh!" What Knuckles had called her over to see was an area she'd found once before. It was a small delta-like area where the river that came from the waterfall finally tipped over the edge of the island.

"I found this before! It's one of the containment units for the emeralds.

"Yeah, looks the same as the ones on Ares island." Knuckles said. "Do you think there's a way to use one of these things to take down Havoc?"

"Hm, maybe, that sounds more like a Tails question though. I'm not qualified for that." She joked.

"Hmph," Knuckles huffed and looked around the landscape.

The water that surrounded them was shallow, only enough to reach above the ankles. The grass was greener around the area too, truthfully the island was much more desolate than she remembered, she knew the ecology was damaged but looked around with fresh eyes she could see how excessive it was. Part of her was glad Havoc never had the chance to see it until now, she can't imagine what the island looked like in the earlier stages of its recovery.

"You ever wonder what the world looked like back then?" Knuckles asked as if reading her mind.

"All the time, the way Havoc spoke about everything, it all sounded so beautiful. He got to see a side of the world we could never imagine. Can you see it? An Angel Island even more beautiful than it already is?"

"I wonder if grapes tasted different back then."

Amy let out a snort "that's seriously what's got you intrigued?"

"Can't blame a guy for being curious."

"Heh, I suppose not, it's very strange though, there's just... Nothing here." She said looking around at the scenery again. "There's not even animals."

"There was at one point though" Knuckles stated. "Angel Island was a part of the Starfall Islands at one point, in a way Angel Island is a part of the Ancient's history that wasn't affected by the End."

"That's true... I bet there used to be all kinds of flickies and fish here back then."

"Yeah, and Chao too." He looked up at the sky and Amy stared up at him and nodded.

"I can't believe a whole species of Chao was wiped out that we didn't even know about."

Knuckles grunted in agreement, "or at least hadn't seen, I guess I kind of knew."

Before she spoke again her mind hit a wall and went blank. "Aeh- wait what?" She blinked up at the echidna.

Knuckles nodded again like it was some kind of answer and she really wanted to shake him like a pop bottle she would hand off to Sonic. She'd had enough vague answers this week for a lifetime.

"I think I've seen a story about one before. There's a chao garden on the island, an old one. It's got some ancient carvings around it that tell a story about a chao. The story is depressing but what I always noticed was the picture of the chao. It was weird looking, not like any I'd seen. It had this spiky shape above its head and unique markings around it. I always assumed it was a dark chao and the carvings were warped making it look strange. But with Havoc's descriptions I realize it may have just been a star chao they were depicting."

Amy stared at him again for a long time until something clicked on her brain. "Knuckles... What was that story about?"

"Huh? Oh it's been a while but, it was something about a lonely chao that people brought offerings too? They couldn't get it to move though, something about waiting."

Her eyes went wide and she shot up from her spot sitting in the grass. "Knuckles! You have to take me to that chao garden!" She demanded yanking the echidna back and forth.

"Huh?! What- why? This really doesn't seem like the right time for a ruin trip."

"Knuckles!" She exclaimed in exasperation. "Don't you get it? I bet that star chao was Havoc's!" She said buzzing with excitement. "Maybe the reason we can't find any information here to use on Havoc is because there isn't any for us to find!"

"Eh? So- actually I have no idea where I was going with that, what?"

"Knuckles, if we can't find anything here, maybe we can find it back on Angel Island! Havoc lived there for over a thousand years too!"

"Well yeah, duh, he told us that."

"She seriously said that? Is she insane?" Knuckles exclaimed as they got closer to the portal. Amy's sprint hadn't lasted very long and she'd fallen back to gossip with the echidna.

"I know!" Amy gasped dramatically "and she didn't even realize it! I tried to tell her she messed up and that she needed to go back and explain but I ended up having to explain that to her too!"

Knuckles shook his head, "those two are impossible. She can't really be that oblivious can she? ...actually yeah she probably could."

"Oh she one huuundred percent is." Amy nodded along. Their walk back to the gate had mostly been filled with gossiping about Amy's friends.

"And then, Nicole- eh" she stuttered to a stop. They were still a distance away from the portal but when she looked at the side of the thing she noticed something... Off about it.

"Uh- hey, Knuckles, do all the portals have that part there?" She asked pointing a finger at a small stony cluster that was on the side of it. The echidna squinted at the gate and the strange addition to it she'd pointed too.

"Uh, I don't know, I don't think so, most of the portals look identical. It's probably just some debris."

"Mmm" She glared at the abnormal heap that was next to the gate.

It truly didn't look like much, just a stack of rocks propped up against the side of the portal. There were small willow branches growing out of it but she couldn't help but feel like something was wrong.

Amy hurried over to the pile to examine it more. She was surprised when the rocks and rubble started to break away after she'd touched it. "Knuckles, help me dig through some of this would you please?"

The echidna looked confused but complied and started quickly scraping away at the pile. He wasn't even through most of the dirt when suddenly it shuddered and whatever was buried there started to move.

Another layer of dirt fell down and Amy couldn't help letting out a surprised yelp when she realized two eyes were blinking up at her.

She jumped back a ways and scrambled for purchase. The Koco they'd excavated looked at her and blinked again before suddenly crying out and shooting out from the rubble.

"Woah!" She cried as she fell back again, this time Knuckles caught her.

The Koco jumped out and started dashing around the portal gate running in panicked circles while screaming.

"Woah woah woah! Slow down!" She yelled, but its panicked state didn't deter.

"NO NO NO! NEED TO FIND HIM!" it yelled.

She watched it in a blur, each movement it made around the portal made her dizzy.

"Stop! STOP!" She commanded, she brought out her hammer and held it in its path. Hitting it just hard enough to make it stumble and jar it from its panic.

"You! You have to help me find him!"

Amy glanced at Knuckles, both of them shared the same look. "Find who?" She asked.

"ONE!" it cried in despair. "I made a mistake! I need to find him!"

"Okay, okay... Just calm down." She sighed but it did next to nothing to quell the other's panic. Sometimes the koco were a little exhausting to deal with. All of them were in such a panic when they died, they were scared, desperate, and they couldn't break out of that cycle even after they'd died. It broke her heart to see so many of them stuck like this, living in a constant loop of fear and terror, it was like how she had felt trapped in cyberspace.

The hard part though was trying to calm them. Trying to soothe a being that's convinced it's still stuck moments away from an endless nightmare, yelling and rambling about requests that had long since passed.

She sighed loudly. "Why do you need to find... One."

"I changed my mind!" It cried pitifully. "I want to take it back!"

"Take what back?" She asked gently.

"I was WRONG!" It wailed and she was quickly realizing that the conversation was getting nowhere fast.

"He needs to know. I need to find him!"

"Why don't we just tell him for you?" She tried in her 'It's okay! We'll fix it!' voice.

"Nooooo! It won't work! I need to see him it has to be me! It has to be me or else-" the Koco seemed to realize something. "Or else he's on his own." It said sadly.

"Alright, slow down, what exactly happened to your friend?"

"I let him go, I shouldn't have let him go without starting the code, I changed my mind." It sniffled. "I need to find him and change it, otherwise it's all up to him."

"Well, why is that such a bad thing?" She asked sweetly.

The Koco glanced up at her with a look that spoke out in so many volumes it hurt. Like there was an entire universe inside that she wasn't comprehending.

"I've ruined him." It driveled simply.

She cringed and looked to Knuckles as if he'd have an answer. Amy didn't think she had the emotional capacity to handle this though and she doubted he did.

"I put the key inside him, I wanted him to have a choice. I was wrong."

Amy stared down at the Koco. Even with its limited expressions the thing looked downright miserable. Willow branches that protruded from it wilting with its mood.

"Well where is your friend now?" She asked.

"Gone." It sniffled "I was too late."

"It's never too late," she smiled at it "tell you what, if we find your friend we'll come back and we'll let you know."

The thing looked up at her for the longest time, she could see in its' eyes that it didn't really believe her.

"Yes, alright." It relented anyways, walking back to its place against the portal and she felt like there was something so... Familiar about this.

"We'll be back soon," she told it, turning towards Knuckles and starting to climb up onto the gate. "We'll make sure to look for your friend."

She and Knuckles stepped up onto the portal and readied it to travel back. She looked down again at the miserable little Koco. It turned up to meet her eyes again.
"Please," it croaked, "leave me. I've already done far too much damage."

She narrowed her eyes as the blue light rose up and the scenery of Kronos Island disappeared.

The world around them changed into columns of pale blue light and she glanced at Knuckles. "Think that had something to do with Sonic?"

Knuckles huffed as the light got brighter. "What doesn't at this point."

"Knuckles!" Amy called jumping up to him.

The echidna caught her easily and hoisted her up onto the next chunk of the island. They'd been jumping through crumbling part of Angel Island for around ten minutes.

The two worked in tandem, jumping from one part to the other. Amy tossing Knuckles into the air with her hammer, Knuckles gliding into cliff faces and throwing her up to a new piece, dodging and weaving through ruins.

"Phew! Oh man I haven't done something like this in a while!" Amy panted excitedly as they stopped for a break.

"Here." Knuckles plucked a fruit off a tree and threw it to her.

She caught it easily and sank her teeth into it. It was one of the sweet pink and yellow ones that were shaped like a teardrop with pale yellow inside.

"Hey-" she mumbled through her chewing "-isnt this- mhm- a chao fruit?" She asked, juice dribbling down her chin.

Knuckles cringed at her sloppiness but she only continued eating unabashedly. "Yeah, it is, we're almost to the garden. Also, if you didn't know what I was handling you why in Chaos did you try eating it?!"

Amy shrugged and took another large bite. "Eh, sixty-forty odds it wasn't poisonous, I can gamble."

Knuckles stated at her a second longer. "Well- don't! I- No! What?"

Amy shrugged again, finishing off the fruit and licking her fingers clean.

Knuckles stomped his feet and waved his arms in exasperation before sighing loudly and marching forward.

She heard him mutter something like "and they think I'm the dumb one" under his breath.

They worked their way through the brush in the direction of the garden. "How old do you think this one is?" Amy asked.

"I haven't had the chance to get Rouge or Tails to carbon date it yet but it's from around the same time as Chaos's rampage, if not older." He replied and Amy took the time to digest the information.

"You said there were carvings?"

"Yeah, those are newer, definitely post rampage, they don't have any signs of drastic water erosion."

"Gotcha, what language?"

"Fairly old, nothing you should struggle with, same period as those experts I translated with you about the rampage aftermath. A little more modern than those even."

"Around the cultural revive?"

"Yeah, early on."

"Wait-" her ears flicked as she heard something behind the plants they shuffled through and the rushing water.

She pressed a finger to her lips and Knuckles nodded in understanding, crouching down to sneak towards the garden.

Amy took the lead stealthily working through the brush until she found a spot she could look out at the garden from a safe distance.

Knuckles came up behind her and helped push away the grass. She had to squint to see but when she realized what she was looking at she couldn't contain her gasp.

Havoc.

He was sitting dangerously close to the edge of the chao garden's pool. He had his back turned to them and his legs were hanging into the water.

"Maybe we could just push him in" the echidna whispered.

"Knuckles!" She missed thwacking him lightly.

"Whaaat?" He whined in a hushed tone "seems like it'd save us some trouble."

She huffed at him and he rolled his eyes before leaning away from their view point. The two huddled together and did their best to keep their voices down.

"Okay, here's the plan. I'll stay here and watch him, you go back to check on Tikal. Make sure nothing has happened and warn her." Amy said.

"You sure? What if he tries something?" Knuckles asked and she could see the worry from the furrow in his brow. She replied by setting a determined look on her face.

"Don't worry, I don't think he'll do anything." She said confidently. "Besides, if something has happened to Tikal you're the only one who can control the Master Emerald. I'll be back before even Tails and Shadow can arrive."

Knuckles nodded and stalked off in the direction of the shrine and once he was gone Amy slowly crept back to her hiding spot on the ledge.

From there she could see the way Havoc's body slumped forward and a sigh echoed through the garden. The noise shot a chill of fear through her spine.

"You can come out now, I know you're here."

Chapter Text

There are eight chaos emeralds.

One of the emeralds is Sonic.

Sonic has always been an emerald.

Nothing in his life made sense anymore.

Not that anything really made sense before, but it was definitely more odd now.

After everything on the Starfall Islands he'd finally felt ready to go somewhere new. He finally decided it was time to branch out from Angel Island.

He made plans, had a travel itinerary, packed the very few things he owned. He called Sonic to help set up a list of places to see and travel too, Sonic knew more about the mainland than anyone else that lived on it. Chaos knows he's seen more of it than anyone else.

And then just to get him used to everything he'd made a promise with him. The first stop on his journey would be a trip to Casinopolis with Sonic. Sonic had jabbered on about how great it was going to be and how much he was going to enjoy it.

Truthfully half the reason Knuckles had agreed was because he knew Tails was supposed to be leaving a few days beforehand. For as much encouragement Sonic had been giving all of them about going their separate ways Knuckles could see the cracks in his façade. He knew how weird it would be when he didn't have anyone to come home too. Knuckles knew more about being alone than any of them.

Then when the day came and he'd called Sonic there was nothing. No answer, no text, not even an irritating surprise appearance on the island.

It was like he was dead.

At first he refused to do more than that purely out of spite. He didn't want to give Sonic the satisfaction of  knowing Knuckles was worried about him. If he did that and Sonic was okay then he'd spend the entire trip to Casinopolis having to see that stupid smirk on his face. Then after a day he tried calling Amy and Tails and received nothing in response. On day two he broke.

He went to the Master Emerald with the full intent to teleport to Sonic and smash his dumb face in for making him worried. Except when he tried all he received was a weird crackling response and it terrified him. It sent fear deep into his bones because it was as if even the Master Emerald couldn't find him.

Something was wrong, something was very, very wrong.

If he couldn't find Sonic, he'd go for the next best thing.

"Tails! Show me Tails and Amy!" He commanded. The emerald hummed to life and he was met with an image of the two fighting... something. It was moving so fast that he couldn't really make it out. Then Amy was shot back and he finally saw who the two were fighting.

"Take me there! Now!" Knuckles yelled. Within moments the world around him swirled and warped until he was in a clearing with sounds of fighting not too far in the distance.

He ran to them, noticed the situation Amy was in an in a panic he'd yelled 'stop'. And from that point on everything had gotten insane.

Now he had to get back to the shrine he'd been trying to leave days ago.

Knuckles was haphazardly charging through the brush on his race to the Master Emerald. Havoc was here, on Angel Island, had he even left? Knuckles wasn't sure. He did know one thing for sure though, it was bad. If Havoc was here that means that he's been here. What if he'd done something to the emerald? What if he'd attacked Tikal while they were gone? Anxieties swirled around in his head.

He needed to get back to the shrine. If Havoc hadn't done something already, he couldn't let him now. His only hope was that Amy could stall him. He felt bad about leaving Her behind with Havoc but he knew she could handle herself. Amy had her hammer, and a hell of an arm.

Finally he turned at a column and burst out into a clearing, the clearing. He heaved a sigh of relief as he saw coral orange quills next to the glowing green of the Master Emerald.

He slowed his pace down to a walk, catching his breath as he made his way up the shrine. He bounded up the steps and over to Tikal.

"Hey! Tikal!" He panted, coming to a stop in front of her. He smiled as he looked at her. She seemed to be doing okay, she wasn't hurt, just staring at the ground.

Quickly he glanced around to assess their surroundings, nothing seemed out of place... yet.

"Tikal-" he panted again "It's Havoc, he's on the island he's-"

"I know." She stated, her tone had finality to it.

"Oh... You uh- you do?"

She nodded her head quietly and they fell into a deafening silence. With the panic of Havoc's appearance settling down new emotions started welling up inside him. Emotions he'd been feeling build ever since Tikal started revealing all this new information to them.

Information she'd known his mind whispered. Information she'd kept from you, information she's been hiding from you all your life. Information she'd could've told you from the moment you met Sonic.

Resentment. That's what he was sure this was. He was... Mad, at Tikal. Throughout his life he'd had a few constants, the island, the emerald, and her.

The mentor who'd raised him alone on this island. The echoing voice that had guided him and taught him everything he knew since the day he hatched. He had relied on her voice for everything as he grew up.

She made him who he was. Tikal had been the one to teach him about his people, the only reason he knew his own culture was because of her. There was always this disconnection when he looked at the murals and artifacts around him. When he hatched he hatched alone, and into a world where his own people were history even to him.

Knuckles may be the only echidna alive, but he certainly wasn't the last. No, the last echidna had died long before he existed.
Everything about where he came from and what he was,  it came from Tikal. And she'd lied to him.

She raised him, watched him, looked into his eyes told him their history and lied about it. And suddenly that unchanged constant was crumbling.

It was crumbling because now he knew. Now he could look back, think back, on all of his memories all the times she'd helped him or told him a story, and he could see it now. See where she warped things, changed the stories, changed the history. What right did she have? What right did she have to decide what echidnan history was? He was an echidna too! Didn't he- didn't he deserve to be one too?

And now his friend were hurt. They were scattered and frazzled and dead. All because she hadn't warned them, she hadn't told them. She hadn't known. Some traitorous part of him whispered. And there was an even worse part of him that doubted that.

There was a part of him that couldn't help but feel this burning inside. A burning that came from the fact that he wasn't stupid. For as emotionally constipated as he could be, and for as bad as he is at reading social cues, Knuckles wasn't stupid. That's why when he was able to connect the dots he could help but feel betrayed. Because now he knows, that when she sent Sonic off the fight Chaos a second time, she knew there was a chance he'd die.

She'd watched her friend be torn apart by Chaos and she sent Sonic to follow the same fate without ever telling them. And something about that just ate away at him from the inside.

Without thinking about it his fists clenched at his sides. He opened his mouth to speak but the words died in his throat when Tikal raised a hand to him.

"If you're going to yell at me just- just don't. Scream at me and yell at me and blame me all you want but trust me Knuckles no one thinks I'm more of an idiot than me right now." She said firmly but there was a quiver in her voice and Knuckles took a second to look at her, really look at her.

Her knees were pulled up and hugged to her torso and she had her head buried in her arm. When she lifted it to speak he could see the deep , bone-tired lines underneath her eyes. Something Amy had once told him about "emotional awareness" or "situational  awareness" rang in his head.

"I- don't think you're an idiot." He argued weakly. Even he knew it sounded unconvinced and Tikal let her head roll to the side, shooting him a look like "really? c'mon".

"I have ruined everything, for everyone, all because I never bothered learning about my own best friend! Never questioned him, never thought 'hey, maybe I should get a little more information about the living secret experiment I made friends with'. And then- and then I just expected him to be the same! After being dead for thousands of years it didn't even cross my mind that somethings may be different now."

"I'm not just an idiot," she groaned, stuffing her head back in her arms, "I am history's biggest idiot."

Knuckles stood awkwardly for a second before letting out a long sigh.

"Here," he said holding out a hand, "let me take over the shield for a bit."

Tikal looked at him with starry eyes before slowly nodding. "Here, I'll show you."

She stood up and carefully guided him through the process. Letting the shield down and then channeling the emerald's power, imagining a bubble welling up around them.

It was finicky, and Knuckles was sure his wasn't as strong as Tikal's based on the way it dimmed and flickered in some areas, but it was functional for now.

"Hey, Tikal?" He asked quietly after they'd sat in long silence.

Tikal turned to look at him, her eyes were screaming volumes. Turquoise irises were weary and pained. She waited for his words as if she were preparing to be attacked.

"What-" he faultered. "What was it like? Back then I mean, before everything happened?"

The echidna seemed taken aback, like she hadn't been expecting a genuine question. Her eyes were distant for a moment, as if for a second, the world had been transformed back into the one she was dreaming of.

"It was... Wonderful." She breathed. "Even before I introduced him to Chaos."

Tikal laughed half heartedly. "Believe it or not, there was a time when he wasn't always worried about being seen as just an emerald, at least... not out loud. For a while after we first met I didn't even know. He didn't tell me."

"Really? You couldn't even tell with the Master Emerald's power?" Knuckles asked.

"You couldn't tell Sonic was," she pointed out, "actually, it was a lot like Sonic."

"For a while it was like I was normal, we were both normal. I wasn't a priestess in training, he wasn't an experiment. We were both just- us." She said in a starstruck voice.

"He'd lift me up and fly me way high out into the sky and then he'd let go and I'd get to glide alongside him through the clouds. I always laughed and smiled, I couldn't help it. I was higher than any echidna had ever been and I knew it."

Knuckles felt a bout of quiet panic surge through him when he realized Tikal had started crying again. Her smile melted off and she paused, staring out blankly as if something had just hit her.

"I... miss gliding." She said, staring up at the clouds for a long time.

Suddenly she blinked out of her trance. "S-sorry what were you wondering?" She asked.

"So he didn't even tell you right away?"

"Oh gods no! We'd been friends for at least a year before he told me. He was so nervous I thought he was gonna puke!" She laughed.

"When he did finally tell me though he was very... Selective about what he'd say. I knew he trusted me, but I think some of it was just hard even for him to understand."

"He told me how he was meant to learn about us, how he was going to make his people proud. Then he told me that one day there would be other versions of him, ones that wouldn't even know who they were. Then I took on the role of future priestess and he was so excited to teach me more about chaos energy... I don't think he really understood that it wouldn't be what he thought."

"I had to start studying and learning. I had less time for fun... less time for him. I felt bad, I did, and I knew it made him sad too. No matter what he always tried to be by my side through it all, even though I knew it broke his heart... I guess we stopped flying together at some point."

She zoned back in to reality again and jumped slightly, startling herself with how much she was talking. "A- and you know the rest after that, for the most part."

Knuckles nodded quietly. Did he know the rest? It was a lot to take in and honestly as bad as it made him feel he couldn't really trust that Tikal was telling the truth. Amy had a better sense for those things.

"How do the incarnations work? Did you get to design them?" Knuckles decided to ask instead. It was a good change in topic, and he was genuinely curious.

"Hah, no," she smiled and started tracing designs in the dirt around them. "Actually, it was a pretty hands off process. See, we both died on the same day, that's important to remember, he just didn't get to see my end of things. After Chaos... killed him, I got so so upset. I think that surge of anger is what really helped fuel me when I decided to- to-"

"To sacrifice yourself." Knuckles finished.

"Uh- ye- yeah..." She stuttered rubbing her arm. "We all kind of died that day." She said quietly.

"How did you do it?" Knuckles asked, "how did you ever forgive Chaos after what he did to you, after what he did to both of you?"

Tikal gazed at him for a moment. "You want to know why I turned out like I did, and he turned out like he did huh?"

Knuckles nodded shyly "You're so calm about- everything. How can you just forgive Chaos for being the reason you and Havoc died? As much as I hate to agree with him Havoc seems like he had a more reasonable reaction."

"Ha!" Tikal barked out the most genuine laugh he'd heard from her in a while. "What, you think I wasn't as mad as he was at them? The difference is that I was trapped with Chaos."

Tikal glanced over at the Master Emerald. Knuckles wasn't always good at reading the room, but he could see the silent resignation in her face, looking back at the crystalline prison where he knew the god was hiding.

Tikal breathed out again. "I was as mad at them as he was once, but I had 3,000 years to see they didn't mean it." She looked sadly to the ground "He had 3,000 to see what was taken from him."

"But- but ah- yeah, the new incarnations. When I finally gained enough control back to move I tried to reach out to the emerald, I thought I could bring him back if I could just get to it but- I wasn't strong enough. I just... watched him for a while."

"Then one day, it changed, the emerald started glowing and it took shape. I thought he was coming back but instead it was... Base."

"That hedgehog that looked like Hyper Sonic?" Knuckles asked. Tikal nodded.

"I hated him so so much." She said through gritted teeth, twisting the fabric of her skirt.

"Base wasn't anything like him! He had no personality, no smile, no laugh, he was just- blank. Completely devoid of any bit of my friend. Eventually I learned that it wasn't his fault, it's not like he could help it, but at the time I wanted to tear him to shreds."

"So... what did you do with him?"

"Well, I didn't really do anything. Once he noticed me he turned into an emerald and flew towards me like he was expecting me to do something. I took him to the Master Emerald and it just- lit up! There was a bright light and once it was done the emerald just shot out on the horizon."

"I thought he was gone for good but then, a hundred years later, Base came back. The cycle just continued like that for a long time. I never really knew where the emerald went until-" She laughed quietly and a warm smile spread across her face. "Until I met Sonic."

"When I saw Sonic I knew. I don't know if it was the connection to the Master Emerald, or the fact he was wearing my best friend's face. But I knew that some part of him deep down was my friend, one of the reincarnations. I wanted to cry when I saw him. He looked so much like Le-" she stopped herself.

Knuckles truthfully wasn't sure how to feel now. The way Tikal spoke about Havoc made him sound like some- some hero.

"Tikal," Knuckles started with trepidation, "what exactly is the deal with his name? Why won't you just tell us?"

Tikal looked down sadly for a moment. "Because... I promised."

Knuckles gave her a confused look. "Promised? Promised what? Why?"

She laughed, "It's... part of the experiment, he made a joke about it once. He told me "the identity of the experiment needs to be kept a complete secret for it to work, so don't go telling any people from the future what my name is!" He said it in such a funny voice. I laughed and I told him I promised. I promised I wouldn't tell anybody..." She chuckled softly. "Guess that joke didn't age very well huh?"

"How could a name ruin the experiment? I'm pretty sure everyone knows Sonic's name." Knuckles said.

"Only his name, he said after he was gone it wouldn't matter. The truth was meant to die with him. If you had his name though you could trace him back, hypothetically, not that it would uh... really matter now."

"But then- why do you care so much about this promise? Why bother when it doesn't even matter?" He asked.

Tikal looked down sadly again with a smile that was tired and resigned. "Because I already broke the other one." She stated.

"...what was the other promise?" He asked carefully.

"I promised him that no matter what I'd always be by his side. I promised him that we'd stay together, no matter what happened."

Knuckles felt the beating in his chest pick up violently at the confession.

"I couldn't keep that promise." She said meeting his eyes. "I'm not going to break this one."

The beating increased, it was pounding and pounding threatening to swallow him whole. Because somewhere, somewhere in her tone he could feel it. The genuine care the other held for Havoc. A being they'd literally named after the destruction and chaos he was causing. He could feel that deep down, somewhere where she didn't want them to see, Tikal wasn't on their side.

And it scared him.

"So Sonic is what? Just someone who replaced him?" Knuckles asked a little bitterly.

"I- no...?" She replied weakly.

"You don't sound real confident." Knuckles snuffed.

"It's not- it's not like that Knuckles." She restated.

"You can't let him win. You can't help him get rid of Sonic." Knuckles urged further, he felt a spike of fear rise up in him.

"No! Just- listen!" Tikal fumed and Knuckles finally stepped off a bit. "Look I- I know what he's doing is wrong, and I'm trying not to feel bad for sticking with you guys but-" she swiped at her eyes, tears forming in the corners of them.

"Knuckles can you even imagine what this is like from my side of things?" She sobbed. "Can you imagine if it was Sonic, and you had to fight to help me get Havoc back?"

"I know you see me as this great, ancient priestess who's centuries older than you but- seeing- seeing him again, it's reminding me of what it was like, what I was like back then, back before everything, back before I died. I wasn't- I wasn't much older than you, none of us were! I mean he was, technically, but I don't think he- he never seemed like it I just-"

Knuckles looked at her, really looked at her. He looked at the stress lines on her forehead, the worry in her tired eyes, the faint green glow that had been there from the day she died.

She really had lost everything hadn't she?

She was inside the emerald ever since Chaos's rampage. She was awake inside the entire time, the same way Havoc was. She was more like Havoc than he even realized. She'd been trapped, she'd lost her life early because of chaos, she'd watched the echidnas, her people, fade away into... Into him.

And for as betrayed and angry as he felt, he could still remember all the times she'd watched over him. All the times she'd kept him safe and cared him as he grew. She was all he had, they were all each other had.

"I- I'm sorry. Just, just give me a second."

Maybe it was time someone cared for her.

"...Sure Tikal... Whatever you need."

Chapter Text

"You can come out now, I know you're there."

She tensed in shock for a moment before exhaling and setting her face with a look of suspicion.

His voice sounded different, haggard even, it was rough and had a slight crackle to it.

She thought about it for a moment before slowly making her way down the hill towards the garden.

He turned to watch her and opened his mouth "Hel-" he was cut short as his body lurched forward in a massive coughing fit.

"Are you okay?" She asked with genuine concern. The hedgehog sounded much worse than he had adventuring the islands. It was the kind of coughing that absorbed all of your energy, racking your whole body, and hurt just to listen to.

"Yeah I'm- ahgeogh- f- auchg- fffine-" he said shakily.

She came to a stop at the edge of the pool and he glanced up at her. She sat down beside him, carefully taking off her shoes to dip her feet in the cool pond.

"Uhh- c-careful by the way. It's me, not Sonic, don't come running in with a hug."

He laughed and for a second she was taken aback with confusion. A furious blush spread across her face when she realized what he was talking about.

"You know about that huh?" She asked in embarrassment.

The other laughed raspily, "Found you Sonic! I've been looking for you forever!" He jeered. And as humiliating as the joke was, shock overrode the embarrassment because the voice that came out wasn't his, it was hers.

"Woah! How did you-"

He shrugged, "Part of being the prototype. I don't have one developed voice set for me because I don't have vocal chords. I can just pick up voices I'd heard before."

"Oh, so then who's voice do you have?" She asked curiously.

The hedgehog looked down at the ripples on the water, "I don't know... Just another part of me that isn't real."

"Oh... Well... does that mean Sonic could do that if he tried?" Amy asked innocently, trying to steer him away from the path she could see forming.

"Huh? What? Oh- no, no he wouldn't be able to, he does have vocal chords."

"What? How does that work? I thought he wasn't actually a Mobian."

"Well no, Sonic is, I'm not."

Amy stared at him blankly for a moment before he let out a raspy breath.

"The incarnations work kind of like holograms, but real? I'm not quite sure how to explain it." He thought for a moment. "You know how the emeralds have the ability to create anything, y'know, thought to reality?" Amy nodded along.

"Well, the emerald basically creates a fully functioning Mobian when it makes an incarnation, all the organs and bones and that, the only difference is that it's all wrapped around the emerald. That's why if one gets hurt they'll still bleed and feel pain. They are Mobian."

"But how does that make sense? Wouldn't it show up on chaos energy trackers? Or x-rays? I know I've dragged Sonic to plenty of those."

The hedgehog gave her a thoughtful look. "The emerald infuses itself with us when we're made. Like how you can take one-" he held out his hand and she watched as the purple chaos emerald materialized.

"And do this." He stated, holding the emerald to his chest. The gemstone glowed for a moment and dispersed into a cloud of energy that flowed inside him. "It's the same way Sonic absorbs them when he goes super." He explained. "So don't go getting any ideas about stealing one!"

Amy smiled nervously and held her hands up in surrender, despite the other's joking tone.

"Honestly it is a miracle you guys didn't figure out about all this sooner. I mean, seriously, that time Eggman's extraction machine destabilized his form and turned him into that werehog monster?"

"That's what that was?!" Amy gasped and the other laughed raspily.

"Yeah! I can't believe you all seriously thought Dark Gaia could mangle a normal organic being that horribly"

"Oh my Cha-aaaaa-aaayyy! Nevermind!" She trailed off noticing the sharp look she was receiving from the other.

"I can't believe we went so long without ever even realizing all this. It seemed so obvious in retrospect." Amy said.

The hedgehog shrugged with a sly smile. "If an emerald doesn't want to be found, it won't be."

"Mm," she hummed, "is that why you're still here? I'm not gonna lie I thought you would've flown halfway across the continent by now." It was a point that was confusing, but understandable. She thought he'd be looking for the emerald, but Angel Island was familiar, and it was probably the only place that hadn't completely changed.

The comment evoked a small laugh from the hedgehog, a sad one.

"I tried," he said pensively. "I was flying towards the mainland but then the closer I got, well- aeughahgahk" he slumped over coughing again and Amy placed a gentle hand to his back. His entire body shuddered as he attempted to regain his breath. "T-that." He said flatly.

"I hit a wall of smog so thick it knocked me out of the air. I barely caught myself before I would've fallen in the ocean. Honestly I don't understand how you can all live there, it felt like the air had turned into slime mixed with rocks and nails." He shivered.

"Heh, I guess our bodies just adapted to it over time." She half-heartedly chuckled.

"That's disgusting." He replied plainly.

"There are even places like the big cities where you can't even see the stars anymore." Amy said, though she's not entirely sure why.

"They- they what?"

"Oh it's uh... It's called light pollution? So many lights are on in the city that they make this sort of haze, y'know? And that haze makes it too hard to see any of the stars at night."

The other looked down right horrified and he wrapped a hand around his stomach and carded the other through his quills.

"So," she said after a calm stretch of quiet, "not to be rude or anything but what are you doing here?"

He looked at her quizzically. "Sorry," she said quickly, "let me rephrase, what are you doing, here?"

Despite her asking, she had a good idea of why. She could see it in his eyes, the way he stared at the water, the way the lines on his face deepened as he watched chao pass by.

"If you came back to recover why not go anywhere else on the island? Why not fly to the other side when you knew we were here?" She pried gently.

"I wanted to see if- if..." He stared out and paused for a moment. "I don't know."

"If Tikal was wrong? To see if it was true. If- I-" he hung his head lower, "I just- wanted to be here again." He relented. "This was where I left them, the same day I died."

"I just wanted to make sure I came back, even if- if-" he sniffed loudly, "but all I found was this." He said, voice taking on an emotional tone as he swung his hand to gesture across the pond. On the other side of the water a wall of stone overlooked the area. It was overgrown with vines and moss but you could still see the intricate carvings. Revival era echidnan art laid out on the rock, covering the entire wall.

The designs were complex, but one that stood out was what looked like a chao, sitting patiently in front of the Master Emerald with flowers and life surrounding it.

"Is- is that-?" She asked him tentatively and he nodded his head quietly.

"It's a star chao at least. But-" a noise that was half laugh half sob escaped his throat.

"You know what the worst thing is?" He laughed and Amy looked over to him patiently. "I can't-" Another upset laugh escaped him, "I can't even read it." He stumbled as if the revelation was breaking his heart with every word.

"After all my time with the echidnas- after everything I've lost, the last connection I have to them is this-" he held his hand out again. "And I don't even recognize the words."

He'd mentioned before, if she remembered it right, that he'd known several of the echidna languages. It was brief but he'd brushed over it, 'I don't know why I used my language, I knew all of yours'. He'd died, and the world had changed to a point that was literally unrecognizable.

"I can read it for you, if you like." Amy offered happily. The ancient looked at her as if he might break into shards of glass at any moment.

"Please" he managed to choke out.

"Mind giving me a lift?" She asked politely, holding out her hands. The other hedgehog nodded and took her hands into his before flying the two of them across the pond.

She was shocked at the casualness with which she felt around the other. It truly didn't feel like she was talking to a villain, not that she ever thought he was one, but the amount he reciprocated was surprising. He didn't display any malice, and he didn't even look that surprised when she asked for his help.

Normally when she asked for help from someone they were at odds with they were surprised, they knew it should've been odd for her to trust them. With the ancient though there was none of that. As if the thought of betrayal hadn't crossed his mind, much less the thought that she might expect it. It was honestly odd, it's not as if he hadn't betrayed them, he'd lied and manipulated them and left them stranded on an island. But here, now, it was like there was nothing wrong.

She examined the carvings, running a hand across them as the ancient hedgehog set her down.

She carefully brushed some of the vines out of the way to get a better look at the image. Knuckles had been right, the erosion on the stone wasn't as drastic as older carvings and the style of the artwork was closer to the more recent works they'd found. That, along with the language put the wall relief in the earlier portion of the echidna cultural revival. It was a period when they had just started rebuilding their arts and culture after Chaos had wiped out their means of leisure. That put the carving at about 2,400 years old. Honestly it was in impressive condition.

The ancient hedgehog walked up beside her, placing a shaking hand onto the carving. Running his thumb along the image of the chao.

"What-" he took a shuddering breath "what is it?"

She looked back at the relief and scanned it with her eyes. "It's... a story." She replied quietly. The hedgehog's eyes widened.

"It- it tells the story of a chao from their time." She began to decide as she followed the carvings.

"A white Chao with purple and blue stripes, there were no others like it. It sat on the shrine of the Master Emerald every day. It was unknown where the chao came from or who it belonged too. The chao had been around for hundreds of years, seen by many for generations never moving from its spot, as if waiting for someone to return. Many echidnas brought it offerings, food and flowers, attempting to get it to move but it never did. Some even believed it to be made of stone. The only time it ever changed is when it entered its cocoon, and even so it came out undaunted and unaffected by the transformation. Years and years went by, the Chao remained unmoved, never eating or flying, not even when other Chao arrived. The years went on, plants had even grown around the small, unwaivering Chao. Until, one night, it entered its cocoon and- ...and never came out. Some say it faded, turning to dust over night and blowing away in the wind. The next time someone arrived at the altar, there was nothing but a blank patch of stone surrounded by a ring of flowers and gifts."

Amy finished, suddenly regretting offering to read the ancient the story.

"I'm so sorry- are you-" she gasped sharply when she turned to see the ancients face. He was staring at the rock with a blank look in his eyes, and tears silently pouring down his face.

Shakily he reached up and pressed a hand to his cheek, surprising himself when he realized his fingers were wet.

The air felt heavy in her lungs as he slowly walked back the the carving of the chao, shining brightly and surrounded by offerings.

Her heart was pounding with a mixture of regret and fear. He looked so... broken. And she's not sure if she was scared for him, or if it was because she was seeing this face on someone who looked so much like Sonic.

And just when she thought she couldn't take it anymore a ragged voice crackled out from the other.

"𐌔ዐ ፕ𐋅𐌉ነ 𐌉ነ ሠ𐋅ቹ𐌐ቹ ሃꝊ፱'ህ𐌄 𐌁ቹ𐌄ክ ል𐌋ረ ፕ𐋅ጎ𐌔 𐌕ጎ𐌌ቹ Ꝋረ𐌃 𐌅ዪ𐌉ቹ𐌍ጋ? 𐌓ል𐌕ጎ𐌄ክ𐌕ረ𐌙 Ꮤል𐌉ፕ𐌉ክᏵ 𐌅ዐ𐌐 𐌌ሃ ዪ𐌄ፕ𐌵ዪ𐌍. ጎ ል𐌓ዐ𐌋ዐᏵጎⱿቹ, ጎ ርꝊ፱𐌋ጋ ክꝊፕ ዪ𐌄ፕ𐌵ዪ𐌍 𐌅ዐ𐌐 𐌙ዐ𐌵, ጎ ሠ𐌉ነ𐋅 𐌉 𐌂ዐ𐌵ረ𐌃 𐋅ልᕓቹ ፪𐌄ቹ𐌍 Ꮤጎ𐌕ⶴ ሃꝊ፱. 𐌉 Ꮤጎ𐌔ⶴ ጎ ርꝊ፱𐌋ጋ ⶴ𐌀ህ𐌄 𐌄ል𐌔ቹ𐌃 𐌙ዐ𐌵ዪ ነ𐌵ቻ𐌅ቹ𐌐ጎ𐌍ፏ. 𐌉 𐋅ልᕓቹ ርꝊጮ𐌄 𐌁ል𐌂ኡ ቻꝊዪ ሃꝊ፱, 𐌌ሃ ነ𐌕ል𐌐." His voice was quivering so badly the words were even more unrecognizable. There were stutters and pauses where there hadn't been before.

Words that meant nothing to her in the first place cracked and pitched and she got the intense feeling that she wasn't meant to be hearing this. That this was a conversation meant for someone very, very far away.

"ጎ ዪ𐌄ፕ𐌵ዪ𐌍ቹ𐌃. ጎ ል𐌌 𐌔ዐ𐌐ዪ𐌙 Ꮤል𐌔 𐌕ዐꝊ 𐌋ል𐌕ቹ. 𐌉'𐌌 𐌔ዐ𐌐ዪ𐌙. ጎ'ጮ ነꝊ 𐌔ዐ𐌐ዪ𐌙. ጎ'ጮ ነꝊዪ𐌐ሃ- 𐌉'𐌌 𐌔ዐ𐌐ዪ𐌙! ጎ'ጮ ነꝊዪ𐌐ሃ! ጎ'm ነꝊr𐌐y! ጎ'm sꝊr𐌐y!I'm sꝊrrሃ! I'm sꝊrry! I'm sorry! I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I'M SO SORRY!"

The hedgehog's speaking picked up and grew louder and louder until he was wailing, screaming as he sank to his knees with a hand still pressed to the carving.

"I'M SO SORRY!" He screamed and cried until his lungs sounded like they'd begun to tear apart. It felt like someone had stuck a knife into Amy Rose's heart and twisted it with each pained cry. The hedgehog let out a final agonized scream before quieting back down to his soft sobs. It took her a moment of staring and a heat on her face for her to realize she had a single tear making its way down her cheek.

Amy crouched down beside him and placed a hand on his back. From this distance, closer to him, she could still hear him faintly murmuring his weak mantra of 'I'm sorry' and for all she was worth Amy Rose had no idea what to do. She only sat there, next to him, as Chao from around the clearing turned to watch the ancient experiment break down, shadowed by the carving of his lost friend.

After what felt like an hour and no time at all the ancient took a deep breath and composed himself. He held out a trembling hand and flew the two of them back to the other side of the pond. They say down, feet dangling in the water just as before. Amy turned to say something to the other but her voice died in her throat. She returned to the cool surface of the pond, watching the ripples branch out and widen, reaching the other side where the carving still stood, mockingly.

"Amy?" The hedgehog asked, voice suddenly breaking through the silence, startling her with the haggard sound of her name.

"Y-yes?"

"I think- I think I hate the place that this world has become." He admitted softly. The words washed over her mind like a cool wave, seeping into the rocks of the shore.

"There's- there's nothing left of the world I fought so desperately to be a part of. How can- I can't find anything left of the world I called home. Not even in Tikal." He whispered, staring out at the water before a pained expression passed his face and he cowered again. "She won't even say my name."

"Well... you could tell me your name." She said with a caring smile but the other only shook his head.

"I- I can't" he said quietly.

"I- I know it's important for the experiment but- you're more than that, and I know you believe that too. It's... Okay to tell me." She offered.

"No- no you don't understand. I- I can't" he sobbed, "I- I spent so much time trapped in that void I can't- I can't remember what it was."

Something in Amy Rose died.

"How messed up is that?" He asked with a cough that sounded more like a sob. He was gripping the sides of his head near painfully. "I can't even remember my own name. I can remember people saying it but whenever I try to reach for it there's nothing there. It's just muddled sounds."

"How am I supposed to be a person if I can't even remember who I am?" He sniffled. "I don't deserve to have my own name if I can't even remember it. Iizuka was right to call me One."

She prayed that he was too distracted to see the wide look in her eyes.

"I need to find One!"

"Hey it's- it's okay- I'm sure Iizuka didn't mean to make you think that." She tried to console the other.

"I know" he sniffled "Iizuka would never have done something like that to me on purpose. He made me, he- he loved me. ...And now he's gone too." He said wistfully, looking up at the sky for the longest time.

And let it be known that if it weren't for the situation, and if it wasn't Sonic's life on the line, Amy would not have ever said what came out of her mouth next. The words felt disgusting on her tongue. Like acid clawing it's way forward. She knew she had to do this, but it felt so wrong. Rather than talking someone off the ledge, she was trying to convince them to let her push them. She's begun to wonder what she wouldn't do for Sonic and her friends.

"...Don't you want to see them all again?" She asked gently.

The hedgehog turned to look at her with surprise before turning back to the sky. The sun was setting, the horizon was turning into bright hues of orange and you could faintly see the first few stars of the night begin to appear.

"More than anything." He breathed.

"I tried, once."

Her eyes widened at the admittance.

"I flew up higher and higher but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't reach them. I thought that if I flew high enough then maybe, just maybe, I could see them again." He had stretched his arm out, reaching towards the sky with a distant look in his eyes.

"I thought, if I flew high enough, then something had to change." His face relaxed and gained a resigned edge to it. "And if the world fades away then maybe that's a mercy. Both onto me, and this universe I was wrongly placed into."

"So then... Why do all this? Why do all of this if it's causing you so much pain?"

"Because- because..." he looked confused for a moment and for a second she swore she saw something crackle in his eyes. "Because I don't want to die!"

He took a moment to breathe. "Dying is so easy for you Mobians. You all know that when you're gone, at least for a little while there will be someone who remembers you, someone will know you existed. But me? No one will remember me when I'm gone. And what's worse is that no one will care. My one solace when I died was that I at least had Tikal and now I know that she doesn't care about me either, not in the way- not in the way I thought she did."

"That's not true-" Amy says, speaking before she can think about what she's saying. "Tikal cares for you, so much more than you're willing to realize. I'm sure if you could just sit down and talk to her-"

The hedgehog made a 'hmph' noise and muttered to the ground in his own language "𐌕ⶴ𐌄 𐌔ፕ𐌀ዪ𐌔 𐌂ል𐌍 𐌍ቹᕓቹ𐌐 𐌐ቹ𐌀ር𐋅 𐌕ⶴ𐌄 𐌄ል𐌐ፕ𐋅."

She stared at the other "The world hasn't forgotten you."

"Hasn't it?" He asked challengingly. "Look around you, theres no trace I ever was, no sign I ever existed. Your world, it's moved on already, far beyond me. History has already forgotten me once. It will do so again. The nature of this world, the nature of my being, it is for me to cease. When I die it will mean nothing. I will be nobody, to everyone, just like I am now. I was made to end up this way."

"Well- well then- I'll remember you!" She proclaimed vehemently. "When this is all over I won't forget you. I'll make sure that at least one person knows." The other looked at her with something similar to fear, but closer to shock. She stood up passionately and smiled so brightly the sun seemed to bend around her. "This, I promise." She stated.

I promise.

There was something shining in his eyes similar to hope, a light that quickly faded. This time she saw it for sure, for a moment a bright blue lit up his eyes and the color surrounding his pupils crackled and... glitched. The strange occurrence had him suddenly clutching his head as if hit by a sudden ache. He shook himself as she sat back down.

"Thank you," he said, continuing with the conversation, "but I don't see how you're going to do that."

"What do you mean?"

He smiled quietly. "When this is over, and if you do succeed, you will see. I believe you'll run into more problems than you'd expect."

"Hmph, maybe so, but I've dealt with my fair share of "problems" you included. I'm sure it's nothing I can't handle with my friends!" Amy said proudly.  The other laughed in a way that was so genuine she was stuck staring at him for a moment.

"Your cause, it is noble, I'll give you that much. But I will still be trying to destroy that cave." He stated with a smile.

"Aww, c'mon man really? Whyyy?" Amy whined.

I- I can't lose everything again. Not again." He said quietly.

"But... Do you have anything left to lose? Who are you going to go to when this is all over? Do you even have any real friends left in this world?" She asked genuinely.

"What about you?" He asked with gentle, sad eyes "you've been awfully kind to me in spite of everything. Are we friends?"

"Hmm, no." She hummed and gave him a soft considerate smile, "it's a common misconception, but don't mistake my compassion for friendship. I can understand you and treat you with kindness even in spite of our situation, but don't believe that it makes us friends. Don't mistake my caring for the fact that I'm still against you in this."

It was a question she was quite prepared for. No matter what challenge she faced the one thing Amy was always sure of was herself. Her emotions, her morals, they were hers. And she would display them unabashedly because no matter what, she knew who she was. She would be confident in her emotions because she knew at her core it was what made her a person. It took her a long time to get there, but her greatest strength wasn't the hammer she used and she knew that.

"How can you possibly understand me? You have no idea what I've seen."

"I said understand, not that I know, there's a difference." She scolded lightly with a smile. "Y'know, for someone who's been alive for so long to learn about life you sure don't know a lot about it huh?"

"And that's why I have to do this." He said standing up from his spot on the grass. "I can't end my story disappointing the only people who ever gave me a purpose. This is my last chance to make things right."

"They can't make you do anything. If this isn't what you want..." She urged him and he stared back to her, focusing intensely on her words. "Whatever you want... The key is inside you." She said.

A soft, gentle smile ghosted over his face and he released a small humming noise. "Thank you, for everything."

But despite her words he floated up into the air and she could see in his eyes she was losing him. He turned back to her with another soft smile. "After this is all over I do hope you can forgive me. Maybe we could even still be friends."

She couldn't breathe out a single word.

"So long, Amy Rose." He smiled before flying off into the distance and leaving her alone in the quiet glow of the chao garden.

It was dark when she made it back to the Master Emerald shrine. From the distance she could hear the voices of all of her friends. As she got closer she brushed aside some leaves and then she could see the scene at the shrine.

Tikal was sitting on the steps talking excitedly as Tails and Shadow approached the altar. The two were discussing something with each other and the echidnas, likely have just gotten back from the island. One of Tails' ears flicked and he turned his head noticing her. A bright smile lit up his face and he waved her over. The others notice the action and reacted similarly. Knuckles jumped up and grinned, relieved to see her okay.

She looked at the shrine, filled with people she loved and cared for, her friends. There was only one person missing.

She greeted them excitedly, waving back enthusiastically. She ran over to join the group and talk about everything they'd all seen in their time apart.

They lit a small campfire and she looked up, watching the smoke rise into the air. Small embers fizzled and burned out to blend in with the bright night sky. Thousands of stars pinholing the vast expanse above them as everyone settled down together to talk and eat.

This was Amy Rose's family, and she'd do anything to protect them.

Chapter Text

"Amy! AMY!" Tails couldn't help but cry out excitedly when he saw the pink hedgehog approaching the shrine.

She laughed up on noticing his excitement and ran the rest of the way to the monument. Tails jumped at her with a smile and the hedgehog scooped him up in an embrace, twirling the both of them around before releasing him into the air with a laugh.

"You're okay!"

"Of course I am, why wouldn't I be?" She giggled lightly.

"What happened? With Havoc? What did he do?" Knuckles interrupted. He was smiling too but his seemed more out of relief.

Then the pieces began to click together in his brain. "You were with Havoc?!" He cried in distress.

"Well- yeah, but Knuckles is making it sound worse than it was, trust me, we just... Talked."

"Seriously?" The echidna asked in disbelief. The hedgehog nodded genuinely.

"It's kind of a lot to unpack. Hey wait- how did you guys even get back here?" She asked curiously, turning her attention back to the fox and the hybrid who looked distant.

"Oh well- that's also a lot to unpack? We saw..." He trailed off as he thought back to all the different parts of Havoc's past they'd witnessed.

The mindset that led to his creation, the hedgehog's looping descent into fear, the horrifying gaze of Iizuka as he towered over the other and annihilated his ability to even defend himself. The way the two laughed and smiled together, the way the elder moved Havoc to make things easier for him, the parent-like relationship the two had, the way Havoc changed Iizuka into a more compassionate person the longer they were with each other.

"... A lot."

Amy tilted her head in confusion and looked around at their group of five- er- six.

"Oh my Gaia who is this!" Amy squealed excitedly noticing the Koco Tails had neglected to introduce.

"Oh! This is... Uhhhhhh..."

"𐌍ል𐌌ቹ ክ𐌀ጮ𐌄! ⶴaⶴ𐌀! L𐌄ሠOክe!" The Koco giggled boldly and danced around the other in a circle.

Amy looked startlingly confused and turned to him as if to ask what in the world the other was saying.

"I'm... Just gonna call him Blue." Tails sighed loudly, gesturing to the little blue flowers sprouting from the Koco.

"Alrighty then Blue, it's nice to meet you!" Amy greeted him happily. The Koco made a joyous noise before releasing a loud gasp and trotting up the steps of the shrine towards Tikal.

"𐋅i ⶴ𐌉! ⶴቹረlዐ! 𐌋ዐng ፕ𐌉m𐌄! w𐌀ፕ𐌄ዪ ፏoጋ! 𐌁ዐom!"

Tikal looked increasingly more distressed with each excited noise the alien let out. "W- what? What is this thing?" She asked nervously.

"It's a Koco," Tails explained with a sigh.

"It's a talking rock with a speech disorder." Shadow supplied helpfully.

Amy shot him a look and Tails had never felt more gratified and couldn't help but smirk when the hybrid turned his eyes to the ground and muttered a quiet apology.

"They're remnants of the past, of Havoc's people." Amy further explained. "They're harmless."

"Well, looks like we've all been busy and we've all got something to say, but it's late so I propose an idea." Amy said happily, clapping her hands together.

"What were you thinking?" Tails asked.

"Campout!" The hedgehog cried excitedly. He heard a loud groan from Shadow and Tikal looked intrigued.

"Um well... Yeah? Where else are we supposed to go? Knuckles asked in confusion. Amy waved a hand at him flippantly.

"We'll all gather around and share what we've got then come up with a plan over some food. We've had a long week, we deserve it! Not to mention we'll need everything we can get if we want to beat Havoc."

As much as he was itching to get something done and work towards their goal Amy was right. They really couldn't go like this for much longer. Not to mention the idea of Amy's cooking sounded tantalizingly good right now.

The next few moments passed in a bit of a blur. In a whirlwind Amy had begun setting up a makeshift campground.

She'd ordered Knuckles to gather up some logs for seating and she'd managed to pull a large pot and supplies from seemingly nowhere.

They all chatted with each other mindlessly as Amy prepared the food.

"What are you making?" Tails asked. He was attempting to be inconspicuous while he secretly watched Shadow who was actually having a conversation with the ancient echidna priestess.

"You'll see when it's done." Amy answered, clearly only in this spot for the same reason he was.

It was about an hour later when Amy ordered everyone to gather around the circle of benches she'd created while she passed out bowls.

"Wait we're having ramen?" He asked.

Amy nodded with a smile "yep! Good ramen. Not that ridiculously fake microwavable crap you're always telling me is 'perfectly acceptable' because I know damn well there's nothing nutritional in that." She stated pouring some of the soup into his bowl.

He grumbled lowly at the jab. Microwavable ramen was easy, why should he be bothered to cook something extravagant that takes so long when the option was right there?

"But how come Shadow doesn't have to eat any?" He asked, trying to deflect.

"Because I gave up with Shadow, he's a lost cause." She stated flatly. Knuckles started at the hybrid with a look of horror as he bit into a raw brick of dry noodles with a sickeningly loud crunch.

The fox shuddered.

Once everyone had been served and Amy sat down with her legs crossed she started.

"Alright, first order of business!" She shoved a load of noodles and vegetables into her mouth. "How did you guys get back here? Tikal beam you up or something?"

Shadow let out a huff.

"We-" Tails paused and stared at the black and red hedgehog with a violent burning as he watched the alien empty a seasoning packet directly into his mouth.

"We used a wormhole!" Tails said excitedly. "Remember how when we tried to approach the islands I suspected a wormhole had taken us in? Well my theory was correct! In order to remain separated from the mainland I believe they integrated some kind of cyberspace based wormhole technology to meet with the echidnas!"

Despite his prior experience, and delight at being proven right, wormholes were probably the least enjoyable mode of travel he'd experienced. Maybe even worse than chaos control or- he shuddered- Knuckles' driving.

"I believe the wormholes were set to take visitors to specific locations based on their intent, and there had to be a way back and that would assumably be in a fixed location. I just sent looking for where a disturbance might be."

"𐌙ay! ሠ𐌀ዪp rጎng! 𐌵ክ𐌔ፕ𐌀blቹ, rቹ𐌔ፕricፕeጋ! 𐌍ቹw pዐrፕ𐌀ረ!" Blue cheered happily from Tikal's side. The echidna reached down and patted the Koco on the head.

"Hm, and what about him? The little guy seems a bit... Off." Amy asked, gesturing to the Koco with her utensils.

The stone creature giggled and babbled again as if it was aware they were talking about it "𐌔t𐌐ልngeዪ! Ꝋክe Ꝋቻ ል kiክ𐌃! ል ሠ𐋅ዐle ክ𐌄ሠ ፪𐌄inፏ!"

"That I'm really not sure, it was in Iizuka's lab but I don't think it's him. It was sealed in one of those sphere containment units, and while we were in the lab we caught a glimpse of where Iizuka died and it was on Kronos, not Ouranos."

"Hm," Amy hummed "well if that's the case then it's definitely not Iizuka because I'm pretty sure I met him."

"You did WHAT?!" Tails cried jumping up from his seat.

Knuckles laughed, "Amy's been pretty busy while you guys were gone."

Amy herself nodded. "On Kronos we met a Koco who was running around and freaking out about being to late to fix somebody named "One" and saying he needed to find him."

"One? That's what Iizuka used to call Havoc in his logs" Tails remarked.

"Mhm." Amy nodded "I found that out too, when I was talking with him."

See now that, that was distracting.

"What do you mean you talked to him? Did he attack you? Where did you even find him?!"

"Well, when Knuckles and I went out we didn't find anything, well, anything except Iizuka, so we came back to look around for any clues here." Amy explained

Knuckles nodded "But on our way to something promising we ran into Havoc. Amy stayed behind to watch him while I went to warn Tikal."

"I had already known, but I wasn't worried." Tikal whispered.

"But anyway," Amy continued "I stayed back and we actually just talked to each other. I really feel bad for him... None of what happened is really his fault, but he's handling it in the wrong way. We actually found out what happened to his Chao and how his experiment worked. He... Really misses his life."

"Hm" Tails mumbled and he didn't realize he'd made noise out loud.

"Tails? What's up?"

"Well when we were going through Iizuka's logs something weird happened, we saw you, Amy."

The pink hedgehog looked startled. "Me? How is that possible?"

"I don't know, but I think I might have an idea. You said he mentioned Iizuka?" Tails asked tentatively after a long quiet.

"Oh, yeah, he uh... He really misses him. I wish I could do something for the two of them, maybe I could reunite him with the Koco? Would that be enough for him to let go? They really loved each other." Amy said sadly.

"Yeah right." Shadow spat with his seat "We saw what those two were like. That wasn't love."

A dark look passed over Amy's face "what are you talking about?"

"I- it's complicated" Tails stuttered. "There was... A lot that happened between those two. Showing Havoc Iizuka might just complicate things more."

"Hm, well then I'm really not sure, I know Havoc doesn't really want to stay here," At that Tikal looked up and then let her eyes drop sadly. "But, he feels obligated to somehow. Something about him being the first incarnation is making him believe he has to live like this."

"Which is not true, he isn't even an incarnation." Shadow pointed out before taking another bite of his brick of pasta.

"He's not?" Knuckles asked.

Tails shook his head. "He's actually more like a concept. The first incarnation was going to come after Iizuka perfected him."

"But... Does he even know that?" Tikal asked "he's never mentioned that before, not even when I was alive."

"I think he does" Amy stated simply, cutting him off before he had the chance to speak. "I think he's in a bit of denial more than anything, you'll see."

Shadow raised an eyebrow, chugging down a cup of boiling water to complete his horror show of a reverse meal.

"You know, Sonic being one of these emeralds actually makes more sense than him being Mobian looking back on it." The hybrid stated.

Amy giggled lightly "you know Havoc actually said something similar to me."

Shadow briefly had a disgruntled look flash across his face before taking another swig of the steaming water.

"Only something born of pure chaos can be as annoying and attract as much danger as he does." Shadow pointed out. "Him being a gem also explains why Rouge gets along with him so well."

Knuckles barked out a loud laugh from across their circle and Tails swears he sees a brief smirk flash over Shadow's face. He couldn't help his own snicker escape him (because Knuckles' laugh was contagious definitely NOT because Shadow's joke was funny). Amy let out her own laugh and soon everyone (sans Shadow) were giggling, even the little Koco.

Knuckles grew flushed as he realized he was the one who started the uproar. He coughed awkwardly "uh- Amy! This food is good. Thank you." He stated gratefully.

Knuckles was a total sucker for the female hedgehog's food and the hedgehog in question always ate up the praise. It was actually how they convinced Knuckles to attend most parties. He was always "I have a sworn duty" until someone mentioned an Amy Rose bundt cake, then all bets were off.

When the laughter quieted down and food was finished Tails switched his brain back into gear. "Amy, was there anything else Iizuka said to you, anything that seemed relevant at all?"

"Uhm..." She tilted her head back and narrowed her eyes, glancing at Knuckles who was filling his fourth bowl of ramen.

"Didn't he say something about starting a code?" Knuckles called.

"Oh! Yeah you're right! He mentioned something about starting a code, he said the 'key was inside him' because he 'wanted him to have a choice' and something about it being 'up to him now' he was really distressed about the whole thing.

"Hm. It sounds like Iizuka probably put a code inside of Havoc to begin the cycles on his own time."

"Wait really?"

Tails nodded "if I had to guess I'd say Havoc could probably just let the cycles restart using that code if he chose to."

"Mm, problem is he's not just going to activate that code is he?" Knuckles remarked.

"Uggh-" Shadow groaned loudly. "Can't we just shoot the guy?" He complained with a wave of his hand before returning it to its crossed position.

Each piece snapped into place.

"THAT'S IT!" Tails jumped up startling the group aside from Shadow who simply raised a brow at the fox's antics.

"Shadow you just gave me the best idea! C'mon Knuckles," the fox said jumping over to the echidna. "You and I are going to Ares!"

"Ares? What? Why?" He questioned, the fox simply walking in place as he attempted to drag the other.

"We can't beat Havoc by convincing him, but we do know how to turn him back into an emerald!"

He could see the moment the words locked into place in Amy's mind.

Tails smiled at the older, "we're gonna take a page out of Eggman's book." He smirked.

Amy had insisted that their mission to Ares wait until they'd all gotten some sleep. The next morning everyone was bursting with a new kind of energy.

The trip to Ares had provided him with everything he's needed after Knuckles had taken down one of the capture bots for him.

As soon as he'd returned to the island he started working on his own abridged version of Eggman's light cannon.

He'd tinkered with the design all day and only paused to talk things over with the group or eat.

"So how does this work exactly?" Amy asked staring at the, admittedly, chunky looking contraption.

"This is a handheld version of Eggman's light cannon, this part will cover the user's entire forearm and the trigger is located inside. This part here can anchor to the ground to help stabilize the user too if needed." He began to explain in what Sonic had coined his "teacher voice".

"This machine is going to take a lot of power though, the emerald will go on this compartment here," he pointed to a small containment area the size of a small tupperware bin, "and it's extremely important that we nail him first try. We've only got one shot with this machine because as soon as Havoc notices the emerald isn't being held anymore he's going to take it back."

"So hit him, hit him hard, and don't miss." Amy summarized.

Tails nodded "and the one using the machine will be Shadow."

"What? Why Shadow?" Knuckles asked surprised.

"Well, he's got the most experience using a gun and higher accuracy, he's also got a better understanding of chaos control and is powerful enough to withstand the recoil."

His grin wilted slightly and one of his ears drooped. "He's uh... Also the least likely to hesitate." He pointed out at the manically gleeful expression on the hedgehog's face at the idea of shooting the Sonic look-alike.

"When the machine is ready Shadow will send out a flare in his chaos energy to alert Havoc to our location. Then we'll get the drop on him." Tails finished, going back to tweaking the weapon.

"Uh Shadow? I know I'm not one to say anything but you were listening right?" Knuckles asked and Tails' head shot up to look at what was confusing the echidna.

Shadow looked confused as everyone's attention turned to the faint green glow that was now emanating from the other's quills.

The hybrid reached up and pulled out the emerald. The gemstone was lighting up with a pulsing green, almost like...

"Well that's certainly not good." Amy remarked. A pulse of energy shot out in a shockwave.

Almost like...

Seconds later there was a loud BOOM that echoed and a cloud of dust that erupted from the edge of the clearing.

Sand forced him to cover his eyes but through the haze he could make out the details of something, someone, fighting their way into a standing position from within the smog.

Haggard breathing spilled out from the cloud, tearing through the silence. Two glowing white eyes split through the haze.

"There you are, coward."

Like a homing beacon.

Chapter Text

My name-

My name is-

I am-

I'm... Not sure.

He's... He's not... Sure.

It's been so long, so long since- everything.

So long since he lost his people, so long since he lost his friends, so long since he lost his life.

It's been so long.

Far too long.

So when he feels the sun on his skin again for the first time in centuries, he's not sure if he'd ever felt it in the first place.

When he saw others out in the sun from in the void it was different. From the void everything was cold. There was... nothing.

So when he opens his eyes again and finds that the world has depth, that the colors aren't hollow, that the sun is warm, he thinks maybe he had finally slipped away.

Maybe the void has finally swallowed him whole and taken him home.

And then he saw her face and he knew that wasn't what happened. And it only takes a second for him to remember what he had been planning for years.

So when Tikal pushed him away, and the emerald didn't come back he knew for certain that he hadn't been taken home.

Home was where he would finally have peace, and finally get to see everyone again and nothing would ever go wrong. Home was where his family would take him back and tell him they were proud.

He knew he wasn't home because home was warm, like the sun. And the air didn't burn inside the void. When his chest expanded and rattled as it deflated he knew he wasn't home.

He knew he wasn't home because home was warm, and his entire existence had been cold and pain. Every moment he'd spent alive was plagued with burning and aching and hurt.

That's how he knew he was alive again. Because being alive meant pain, and home meant warmth, and each breath reminded him of exactly where he was right now.

He wasn't home. He wasn't in the void. He was in pain.

And pain was much closer to being alive than home was.

And he knows that he needed to go along with being "Sonic" when he saw Tikal but it hurt. It hurt because he knew it was wrong but couldn't say why.

His memories are blurry at times, and sometimes they were painfully, painfully lucid. He wishes he knew why, he wishes he could determine what made them that way.

It was confusing, because why could he see Iizuka's face, see the fear and the pain and the red glow of the sky behind him as if he was there, and then turn around to a memory of Tikal laughing and calling his name only for it to be painted in a watercolor blur where her form became fuzzy and he couldn't see her face? Her words tumbled around, out of order with no semblance of unity or sense.

Tikal had happened much more recently than Iizuka, and he'd rather remember her soft laughter than his Creator's heart wrenching fear the day he died. So why would that be?

It didn't make sense, he could still remember Tikal at other times, he could still remember every detail of the day he'd lost her, the smell of smoke from the torches the Knuckles clan wielded, the cold that soaked him to the bone as his body turned into nothing. He could remember so many things so clearly, why were some of them untouchable?

It had only been recently that he noticed this problem too. He'd had nothing but his memories for a very long time, he went over them constantly, anything to fill the void, anything to distract him from his hallucinations. But then, how had he lost so many without even noticing? When he saw Tikal again he tried, his mind had jumped at the chance to reach back for all the good memories he had of them just having fun, being alive.

And there was nothing.

Just a terrifying, cold feeling as he realized they were gone. That his memories were no longer there to be found. He had some, he had a few, but as vivid as his memories of losing her were, as easily as he could feel the pain that losing her gave him, there wasn't much left of why it hurt him so badly.

And some part of him is hurt more by that than the pain itself.

But he had a chance now. A new chance, a better chance! A chance with Tikal, a chance without Chaos, a chance where the world hadn't even met him yet.

A fresh start.

A chance to make new memories and hold them. He could keep them safe this time. He wouldn't lose them all again.

All he needed was the emeralds. Or... The emerald.

And that's what led him here. After he had talked to Amy he had gone out searching again.

Green was out there somewhere, he knew they were. The other emeralds all swirled around him. Their energy crackled and whispered in his ears, voices only he could decipher. In a strange way the emeralds were the closest things he had to family. They were also the only constant he had throughout his time in the void.

No matter how much time had passed, whenever the world opened up and let him see beyond the black the first face that always greeted him was that of an emerald. It was like seeing a sibling after a long time apart and knowing they had given you this rare gift.

And now one was missing. Green, the only one that really earned the name "emerald" and the only one who looked most similar to the Master Emerald.

As much comfort as the gems brought to him, they were also an uncomfortable reminder. A reminder that that was what he was at his core. That the pulsing he felt in his chest wasn't a heart, it was energy. A pure energy that radiated from inside him and made him what he is.

He couldn't blame them though, they had nothing to do with it. Iizuka didn't need to make more than one of him and quite frankly it would've been a risk too. No, he couldn't blame Iizuka for it and nor could he blame the emeralds. Maybe if Iizuka was still around he would ask why he'd chosen to make him, chosen his emerald, but he wasn't.

"City" the magenta emerald whispered softly in his ear and he saw a trail light up before him.

It was a faintly glowing swirl of green, flowing in the air like a wisp of smoke. It was the same one he'd followed before, the same one that led him to that wall of brown smog. The air that he could see ripple and miscolored the skyline. A barrier he couldn't cross, his lungs couldn't take much more of it. What a cruel thing, make something ambiguous enough to not have a voice or the need to sleep, but real enough to feel stabbing pain as if the air could actually kill him.

So he had a problem, how to get into that large town without dropping out of the sky on a dime.

He was sure Tails could figure out some sort of contraption for that, he probably had before.

...Tails.

In all honesty he didn't know what to think about many of Sonic's friends. Amy, he liked Amy. She reminded him of Tikal in a way, but she was also very different. Amy was more chaotic and fun, she had less anxiety and more confidence.

Knuckles reminded him of, well, the Knuckles Tribe, which in all honesty he never hated. He knew how this world changed people, he knows that there is an order to the way clans worked. The problem never lied in the Knuckles Tribe, it lied in Pachacamac.

The other echidnas simply followed him. He loved the tribe, he really did, the way some of the town's children would dress him up when he was in town, the food they made, the art and festivals they had. And Knuckles himself was so strong for the way he tried to embody it all. Knuckles reminded him of the tribe before Pachacamac, the warriors that stood for honor and compassion for nature, rather than warmongering.

But Tails...

How should he feel about someone he's known all his life, and never talked to once? Sonic and Tails had met when they were chasing after Eggman, who was attempting to gain an emerald and succeeded. The same day Sonic met Tails, so had he. And he had never ceased to know about the fox since then.

It was hard sometimes, separating himself from the people he saw through the void. In a way he was living these lives too. He had watched Tails grow and triumph just as Sonic had, every time the images went away he would have to shake himself, remind himself that they didn't know he was here.

Tails was Sonic's little brother, not his, the fox didn't know him. And now he did, and he resented him for it.

His excitement when he got to meet them had been real, even if not knowing their names was a ploy. He'd known those three longer than any of them even knew. It was how he knew Knuckles liked grapes and needed Sonic to teach him to read. It was how he knew Amy loved to prepare food but couldn't stand the smell of most of it. It was how he knew... How he knew Tails.

How he knew that in a different life the two always managed to find each other, how Sonic would ease up on him in races when he was younger, how the fox hated cinnamon but loved mints, how he planned to leave Sonic the week he got shot.

That made him more upset than he would have imagined, they were all just- leaving him? Why? What had he- what had Sonic done to push them away? Hadn't they- he- hadn't he fought for them hard enough? What was he supposed to do if they were gone? What was- what was Sonic going to do if they were gone?

In another life he wishes he could've met Tails. He wishes he had his own version of the fox like many before Sonic. Because now he had Tails, and he knew Tails, but he was a stranger.

He wishes he could have met Miles in a universe where he wasn't an obstacle. Where he didn't have to see someone he'd known for so long treat him like he was dirt beneath his feet.

He knew Tails. That's why he let himself get attached to the version that met him, that's why he needed them as far away from that plane when he ran. Because he knew Tails, and he knew Tails would do anything for Sonic. And he knew Tails had never known him.

He's really ruined things between them before they could ever begin. His existence alone did that for him. No matter what he said, if he was here in place of Sonic he would never be anything to Tails. He would never be anything more than the man who wasn't Sonic.

And he really wishes, he really wishes, that he didn't know Tails.

In fact... there were only a few other people he'd seen more than Tails... One person to be exact.

Energy crackled around him as the emeralds fed off his excitement, buzzing with the new idea.

Oh no, he wouldn't be able to fly to the city, but so long as he knew one place there, he could find who he was looking for.

A smile graced his lips as he raised a hand and snapped.

CRACK! FZZZzzzt-

When he blinked his eyes he found himself standing in a room. It was dark, the fading light barely peeking in, through the windows of the apartment. It cast the room in an eerie monochrome light as he stood in the small kitchen, trying to get his bearings. He took a deep breath, stinging filled his aching lungs and grounded him to the world he was in.

"Shadow? That you hun?" A rich feminine voice came from down the hallway. "Did you get any pictures of Knuckie for me while you were on Angel Island? And don't try and tell me that's not where you were because he sent me a text telling me 'not to come because nothing was wrong.'" Rouge huffed loudly, "I'd go bug him if he didn't seem so stressed about it."

He didn't respond, he knew Rouge could tell he wasn't who she was expecting. He'd met her enough times to know that she'd recognize him as a stranger the second he entered. She wouldn't recognize his breathing, or the way he stood or walked. Rouge was intelligent and observant, she was a spy, she just didn't know that he knew that. And further more she wouldn't care. There was a soft click and a faded yellow light turned on in a far corridor. It was enough to turn her into a silhouette and enough light to let her vaguely make out his appearance.

She rubbed her eye with the hand that wasn't currently clutching a coffee mug. "Sonic? That you hun?"

"Yes." No.

Rouge the bat, the one person he had seen the most of in Sonic's time, not Eggman, not Tails, not... What was that other one's name this time around? She'd just said it... Whatever, either way.

Sonic and Rouge certainly hadn't known each other longer than most but there was one thing he knew about Rouge. She loved gems. And more specifically she loved to wave them around, especially when she was teasing someone. Having a chaos emerald? That was probably one of the easiest ways to tease Sonic, whether incentive or just to show how easily she could get them.

"Mm, what are you doing here Hun?"

Mm, so now she knows, he knows she knows. It was almost funny, the way they were able to match each other.

He flew forward into the living room where she could see him better.

She simply quirked an unimpressed brow and took another sip out of the mug he knew was empty. If she needed to distract him she could pretend to toss scalding liquid at him, making him flinch and giving her time to attack with the factor of said liquid being in her way.

"Not from around here I take it?" She asked calmly. Her ears twitched, she could hear how damaged his breathing was. Her eyes flicked to his scarf, she could tell his pin was from a different race.

"No, but in a sense yes. This planet, but not the time or place."

"Mm" she hummed contemplatively. She was still wearing what he presumed was sleepwear, a short grey top that didn't cover her stomach and large, blue pants with a flannel pattern. She wasn't wearing makeup which was unusual, but the rest was just what he'd seen her wear casually on the occasion she had Sonic over to watch movies.

"So, you're not Sonic, you know him though." It was a statement, not a question.

"I do." He answered anyways.

She closed her eyes and released a pleasant smile "Ah that Sonic! Always running around, saving the day," She exclaimed proudly. Not praising him, stating a warning, 'I know someone powerful, someone you're connected too, if you mess with me you'll make things worse'. Rouge was cunning, more than she was often given credit for.

He nodded with her, "yes, he's... Quite the hero."

She smirked again. "So what is it you're looking for stranger?" She was interrogating him, not in the way she would a threat, she was asking him to get a better understanding. She had already recognized him as someone who wasn't here to fight. But not as someone who'd taken Sonic's place.

"The emerald... The emeralds." He attempted to cover his slip but he knew there wasn't a point. She'd already taken and catalogued the information.

"Well, I'm afraid you won't find them here," he knew that, he'd known as soon as he entered and didn't sense it. And Rouge didn't have it because she had nowhere to store it on her. That was half the point of this outfit, let whoever it is think you're unarmed, let them think you've been caught off guard, don't let them know you are the weapon.

"But you already figured that out yeah? So why are you still here?" She asked.

"I-" he searched piercing, teal eyes for the answer she already knew and he didn't know himself. "I don't know."

"...so how do you know Sonic, look-alike?" She asked carefully.

Something stung at the words, look-alike, did he?

"Do I?" He asked out loud.

Rouge snorted "oh honey, sweetheart, come here," she said walking over to him. She stopped a few feet away and snapped a picture with the weird rectangle he'd seen many people use this incarnation. She slung an arm over his shoulder, 'I'm in control here, I'm just playing nice, you are where I have you'.

He loved Rouge, if not for her interesting personality, out of respect for her ability to manage a situation.

On her... Phone? She showed him first a picture of him, something he hadn't seen in a very long time. When had he last seen his reflection in a mirror? Certainly not when he was with the echidnas. And then she swiped to the side to show him a picture of... Him. Of... Sonic.

He didn't usually get to see what an incarnation looked like until after they died and were stored in the emerald. But this- this was what Sonic looked like, this is who everyone wanted instead of him.

His quills were a more royal shade of blue, his ears were a bit shorter, his quills were more untamed, his eyes were the same green as the emerald he was searching for.

It was like looking in a mirror.

And seeing everything you weren't.

Everything you couldn't be. Everything that someone else got to have that you could never imagine grasping.

A reflection where his eyes weren't sunken, where the light in them hadn't been covered in darkness and blood, a reflection where his smile stretched without cracking.

Sonic was everything he used to be, and could never be again.

"Hun?" Rouge shook him lightly as he stood, trembling at her side.

"I'm-" what was he? Who was he? He wasn't Sonic, he certainly wasn't Sonic.

"Oh man 𐌋ቹ██ 𐌍!  You should see yourself! Haha! They really did a number on your quills huh?" The watercolor memory of Tikal flashed through his mind.

Please just- just let me hear you-

"I suppose I do, look like him, that is," he choked out. Rouge tilted her head to the side.

He caught a glimpse, a flash out of the corner of his eye. A large window, leading to the dark world outside.

"May I- May I please step outside for a moment?" He asked quietly and he could see Rouge was quickly losing her grasp on what this situation was about.

Rouge shrugged and walked over to the balcony's sliding door, pushing it open for him.

Stepping outside was like hitting a brick wall again. The air was heavy in his lungs and breathing felt like swallowing glass. He was almost tempted to hike up his scarf to cover his nose and mouth in an attempt to filter out some of the smog. But there was one thing even more startling that kept him from doing anything.

He took slow, careful steps out onto the edge of the deck, wrapping his hand around the railings. And then he looked up, he looked up into the sky and saw nothing.

For a moment he forgot how to breathe.

There was nothing in the cool night sky but a dim red glow and a moon that looked oddly different from how he remembered it.

Amy Rose had not lied to him. The world really had forgotten the stars.

"They're our people, █ቹ██ 𐌍 . When we die we move on, our bodies will stay but our minds, our spirits, they will return to the sky. They become the stars and we will all gather there together and search once more for our home."

Everything in him wanted to scream. Wanted to run, hide, fly away, go where the voices and the memories couldn't follow him. Wouldn't be swallowing him whole.

That place used to be Tikal.

That place used to be in the arms of his friends.

Now he has no one.

...

Why was he here?

Rouge sauntered out after him, setting herself down on the railing beside him and leaning all her weight on the bars. She made groaning noises as she stretched out her wings. You can't push me off, I can fly, even if you try to run I could chase you.

"Ah that Sonic," she sighed, turning around so her back was facing the horizon. "Such a gem isn't he?"

"How'd you know?" He asked in surprise, turning to look at her in wonder.

The bat gave him an oddly confused look.

"He's a good one, fun, nice, he can actually manage to get Shadow out a bit too. That's an impressive feat on its own." She nodded.

"He's... Touched a lot of people." He said quietly, still staring up as if it would bring the stars back from their hiding.

"Mhm," Rouge hummed, "saved a lot of lives too. Without Sonic, our world would've been toast a long time ago. We're all a bit more competent now, but the truth is a lot of us still rely on him. This world is strong, but it's strong because he's in it. Without him, well, who knows. Maybe we'd be fine... Or..." She turned to stare at him.

He finally looked back at her, she had a smug but gentle look on her face. As if she was trying to point something out to him.

"He... He really is the hero of this world isn't he?"

"Hah! Not just ours, there's a lot of worlds that owe him thanks, planet wisp, the Sol dimension, I mean, sweet Gaia at this point the whole universe probably owes him."

"Yes. I suppose it does." He replied but the words were hollow in a strange way. He turned to her again and tilted his head to the side with a smile.

"Thank you, Rouge." He said before shooting out onto the horizon.

The bat sat there in the balcony for a moment, staring off in the distance before turning to head back into her apartment.

"YO! OMEGA! I think I just met a fucking ghost or some shit!"

He flew for a long time. Wind wrapped around him and swirled along with him like a missile. It was comforting in a way, the gusts enveloped his body and he could pretend for a moment that someone was comforting him. Wrapping him in a big hug as the speed carried away the tears falling from his eyes.

He flew and flew and flew until suddenly it wasn't as dark out anymore, and in his panic and exhaustion something in him gave out, he wasn't paying enough attention, he didn't realize he was shooting down.

He arced in the air at high speeds and didn't realize where he was going until his body slammed into the water and it started dragging him down.

The water was cold as his back broke the surface tension and the depths opened up for him. The liquid seeped into his scarf making a heavy weight around his neck. He panicked for a moment tossing and turning because he can't swim none of them can and then- and then he looked up.

He looked up and saw the blue light slowly growing more dim as he sank further and further below the surface. He watched the bubbles rise around him and the darkness growing the longer he waited and... And maybe this wouldn't be so bad.

Maybe if he sank here, allowed the depths to swallow him he could pretend that the creatures around him were stars and he was finally going to the home Iizuka had talked about. He wouldn't die down here, he couldn't drown. But maybe if he just stayed at the bottom of this lake forever it would be better.

It wasn't that different from his first death.

Bright blue eyes flashed through him memory, smiled that were bright as the sun. Laughter echoing around a cavern that only they knew about as they played in the water.

Eyes that were blue as sapphire and filled with tears. Screaming out to him as water engulfed his vision and took over his body.

He used to love the water, what happened to him? He used to love being able to splash around and know that someone would care enough to help him if he needed it.

But now he was alone.

Now he was alone and Tikal wasn't coming, and for a brief moment he even imagined green eyes appearing in the water beside him. He shook his head, no, no water was safe for him now. There was no one left to care if he sank.

If he let his back hit the bottom of the depths a wouldn't try to escape. If someone were to dredge him up he knew it wouldn't be for him. It would be for Sonic, it would be for the emeralds, it would be for the advancement that he stopped from happening. A stepping stone until the end. And so like one he would sink, he would let the silt below wrap around him and wait every day in a void of his own making. At least he would get to choose this one.

Maybe he could teach the future generations about the lake's wildlife. Would Iizuka still count that?

Who knows, maybe he'll actually remember something.

Slowly he shut his eyes and released the air filling his lungs, letting his chest inflate with water and soothe the ragged insides. This was kind of nice, at least he wouldn't have to breathe in that horrible air anymore.

And then he felt something. He heard something. He heard someone and suddenly there was a yank on his scarf. Suddenly he was looking down on an abyss that was getting further and further away by the second.

...no... He reached out for the depths.

And then he was harshly plunged back into the light. "Woah!" A deep voice shouted as he was pulled back onto the surface.

He gasped so loudly and harshly that it even surprised himself. And then he let out a series of ragged coughs as air tried once more to take its place inside him.

He staggered for a while retching copious amounts of water over the side of the dock he'd been unceremoniously plopped on.

"Woah there fella, take it easy, it's a good thing I found ya here huh?" He could finally register the deep and... strangely slow, voice above him. With another few breaths he finally found the strength to turn and look up at his savior.

He had no idea who this was.

The guy was huge, bigger than any Mobian he'd ever seen. He looked like some kind of cat, purple with fluffy white and bright yellow eyes. There was also a very strange looking... Frog? Was that a frog? Sitting on his shoulder.

"Oh man, it's a good thing me and Froggy," okay yeah, definitely a frog, "decided to come fishing here today huh?"

He found himself just staring at him before attempting to push himself up.

"Uh oh, careful there, here." He said, reaching for his scarf and pulling something out of the fabric that was connected to a line.

A fishing rod? Had he fished him out of the river?

"Who- who are you?" He asked, slowly forcing himself to sit at the end of the dock with the other.

"I'm Big" he said with a smile, casting out his line.

"No kidding" he said glancing at the other who let out a light chuckle.

It was a strange noise, the Mobian spoke as if time had been slowed around him.

"Big the cat," he said leisurely, "hey, how'd ya end up in the lake anyways?"

He blinked slowly, his body was shaking violently. "I was- I-"

He was what? Spiraling out of control? Trying to escape his problems?

"Woah now, you don't have to answer. I don't mind. Just curious."

His shaking didn't stop, but the large cat wrapped a massive hand around him and pulled him close to his side.

"You should take your scarf off, let it dry a bit. You're real cold."

He couldn't help but nod quietly and pull the wet cloth over his head. The second it was removed he almost fell backwards. He wasn't used to feeling the wind on his neck, he felt bare without the thing. When was the last time he'd taken it off?

The scarf made a wet splat as he plopped it down beside him.

"Hey, did ya see any fish while you were down there?"

He was caught off guard by the ridiculous question. So caught off guard that all he could do was respond with "uh- yeah, yeah... Over that way more"

The cat smiled and moved his line.

"I like fishing." He stated sagely "It's a great way to relax."

He turned to stare down at him with those big eyes, his weird frog sharing the sentiment. "You look like you could use some time to relax huh?"

"Re- relax?" He stuttered. How could he relax? He couldn't afford to! Not when everything was on the line, not when he knew his time could be cut short again. He had a job to do!

"Yeah, relaxing is the best part of life."

"It is?" He asked incredulously, the large cat nodded.

"Mhm."

Relaxed? When was the last time he'd felt relaxed? Had he ever been relaxed? Looking back he decided he had, back when the world made sense and he still had Tikal and Puyo and... Chaos.

Every memory he had of the water God was coated in a poison this enough to burn. Chaos was his friend, was. And in the end he was the reason for all his suffering and his pain. So much of his hurt had been caused by a friend who hadn't given him a second thought. His once grace was that he thought he'd died with him. Now he knows that not only was that not true, people treated Chaos as some kind of- god. Something to be respected and revered, while he rotted away from everyone's memories.

Relaxing wasn't a word he'd been able to grasp for a long time. Maybe he would again, some day, when this was all over.

"I find that when things get messy, the best you can do is just-" Big took in a large gulp of air and released it "-breathe."

"HOW?!" he practically screeched. "The air here is made of FIRE!"

Big chuckled a bit at that. "You're a country guy too huh?" He laughed "the air is pretty bad near the city." He stated and for a moment his brain paused.

So he could feel it too?

"It's best to stay away from the big towns to fish anyway. Less noise."

He stared up at the cat. So he could- so he could also feel and head it all? There were Mobians who could feel what he could? Feel what he did when he breathed, and his lungs sparked with pain, when he waited for a silence that never came.

"So- you know that this world is full of poisons, and you still persist?"

Big tilted his head slowly, "I suppose, it's just a part of life."

A part of life? This pain that plagued this new world was just another part of life?

Well if that was true, if any of it was true, he hated it. What he had told Amy Rose came back to him in full force. He hated what this world was now. He hated this state that he was found in.

And he hated the fact that he would have to endure.

Because if this was part of life then it was a part he had missed. It was a part in which he failed Iizuka and he couldn't afford to wait anymore.

He needed to do his job he needed to prove he was worth being real. He needed a way to justify the pain that filled his lungs and the hurt that wrapped around his head.

He sat there was Big for a long time, until the sun had started to dip and his scarf had dried out.

Big was gone but his thoughts remained, swirling and warping in his mind.

When the sun reached even lower he stood.

He took a deep breath in.

Fire ignited inside his chest. Dryness cracked through his alveoli. His lungs became an arid, polluted wasteland like the world around him.

He released the air and it dragged with it every ounce of moisture left inside. It clawed it's way up and out of his throat like pulling cacti through his windpipe.

He took a deep breath and the world lit up around him.

It flared until he knew only one place where the emerald could be.

He shot off into the sky, chasing that breath of air that had taken with it every chance of a new life.

Iizuka created him to learn. Iizuka created him to be something for others and grow with the world around him. He was created to exist whether it forced him into pain or not. Being alive meant pain and he was not home. Being alive was cold and home was warm. Home meant warmth, and being alive meant being cold. And he has been burning for far, far too long.

He was-

I am-

I am-

I am so tired.

Chapter Text

"There you are, coward."

The silence that follows is so intense Tails can feel each and every one of his muscles tighten.

There's a long pause where ragged breathing fills the space, there's a pair of white eyes that cut through the haze with such intensity he can feel the hate emanating from them.

The heavy clouds lightened enough for him to see the silhouette of the hedgehog inside. His legs wobbled and buckled as he forced himself to stand. Once he had he keeled over and another coughing fit overtook the deafening silence.

His ears flicked when he heard a faint metallic hum and suddenly six glowing gems floated up into a circle surrounding the ancient. There was another crystalline TING and with a flash the smoke and sediment vanished.

He could feel the others around him bristle as that white-eyed gaze turned on them.

"Hand it over." He growled, shoving his hand out. "Now."

Every ounce of sweetness had fled his voice and Tails became acutely aware that even up until now, the other had been holding back during their interactions. His tone was cold, like ice that was jagged and heavy, each word, crawling out of his throat. The only thing he had to compare this voice to was when there had been that sudden rage as he found out Chaos was alive.

His eyes flickered over to Shadow for a moment, and then the emerald he was still holding.

"So it is you," he growled, voice dripping with rage, "I should've known. Hello Shadow, long time no see."

"Have we met?" Shadow shot back defensively.

Havoc stared at him for a long time. "No, I don't believe you have."

"Then it should have stayed that way."

The ancient hedgehog narrowed its eyes at the other. "I don't want to do any of this." He said with a shake of his head and his voice gained a tired quality to it. Then he turned to look at Tikal "I'm exhausted, this day has been far too long and I'm done being patient. Please just give me the emerald." He said and with the way his lungs retched out the word Tails believed him.

Tikal responded to his plea with an abounding silence and while the ancient hedgehog did look disappointed, he didn't seem surprised.

"Fine then," he released, turning back to shadow and regaining that sharpness in his eyes that only seemed to soften for the echidna.

"Give it." He spat, and it took longer than Tails would like to admit to realize he was talking about the emerald.

No one moved, it felt like all the air had been stolen from the area.

"GIVE IT TO ME!" He yelled again, Tails could feel himself shaking. Something was very, very wrong here.

At their resounding silence the hedgehog's quills bristled in agitation. Then, from beside Tails, Shadow stepped forward.

"Why don't you try and take it from me." The black and red hedgehog pried.

"This is no matter of trying, this is a matter of when." He snarled.

"I am going to live. And I am going to do it regardless of whether you step aside... or not."

Still the group remained locked in a standstill. The ancient's body shook violently. "Don't you get it? You don't have the upper hand here. You don't have any leverage in this situation. I know your tactics far better than you know."

For a moment the ancient's eyes flickered to Tails, and then to the cannon, and they widened by a fraction. So small, so unnoticeable he didn't even pick it up. But Shadow did.

"Fox," Shadow began lowly, "Run."

"What?" Tails asked in surprise, fumbling with the unfinished weapon in his hand.

Tails' mind might have been moving too slowly to comprehend, but the other two hedgehogs seemed to recognize the same thing at the same moment.

"MILES! RUN!" Shadow shouted and shot out and grabbed the fox, wrapping his arms around his waist. At the same time Havoc shot forward and pounced, slamming into the ground where he'd been only seconds before.

"I need more time! The cannon isn't ready yet!" He shouted as the hedgehog raced away from the other with the fox in his arms still tinkering with the machine.

Glancing behind, the ancient was gaining on them. Rocketing at them with impressive speed.

"Hang on!" Shadow yelled, and for a moment Tails had the passing thought of 'what? Why? You're literally holding me what am I gonna hang on to?' before his stomach twisted and they were no longer on the island.

Ah, chaos control, that's what he meant.

What surprised him more though was that Shadow hadn't slowed down. He was still running as if the other was behind them.

FFFZZZZZT-CRACK !

Ah, spoke too soon.

The ancient hedgehog appeared behind them again huffing before continuing the chase.

"What is he after?!" Tails shouted.

"I thought you were the smart one?! You're holding the only weapon we have that'll work against him and I've got the emerald!" Shadow yelled back.

The cannon. He knows what the cannon is for.

Tails could only continue to work on the cannon in a panic as the hedgehogs began what he could only describe as the universe's worst amusement park ride. They rocketed at high speeds and at random they'd blip into a new location, never slowing down to adjust, just constant movement.

At one point Havoc ended up in front of them and forced Shadow to try and turn sharper than any physical being should be able to.

"Do you really think you have any kind of leverage here?!" He hissed loudly "the only reason you have any chance of beating me is if I go to you. If I wanted to I could vanish. I have been around for a very, very long time. I know patience. If I wanted I could disappear and you would never be able to find me. I could wait and collect that emerald from your rotting bones. If I so choose"

Tails felt a wave of uneasiness as he realized that was absolutely true. But then another thing nagged at his mind. Then why don't you?

The cannon still wasn't done and he could tell from a look that only one of the two hedgehogs was going to be able to continue, and it wasn't going to be Shadow. They need to reevaluate. They need a strategy.

With an inhibitor ring pressed into his side he could feel the way the metal was heating up with overuse. Shadow himself was starting to look a little worn down too.

He needed to tell Shadow to stop, to slow down, because he wasn't gonna last much longer. He also knew very well that if he said that, Shadow would do everything in his power to not listen.

"Shadow! I can't work on the machine like this! We need a new strategy!"

"Well what do you suggest?! I'm clearly open to options here!" He grunted as they teleported again. "There has to be some way to slow him down!"

Tails blinked at him for a moment and then a plan started forming when he looked back on the other.

"Shadow! I've got it!" He yelled. "Take us to Station Square! Now!"

The dark hedgehog looked at him grunted and then with a POP they landed in the center of the city.

"Now what?!" Shadow shouted, wasting no time in running off.

"Just wait!" He called back and as expected another figure appeared in the air where they'd been seconds ago.

Only, it didn't stay in the air very long. Havoc form and immediately fell to the ground.

"GAAAHHHHHH!" the frustrated scream rang out across the metropolis. Shadow has slowed down to look back.

The blue hedgehog started coughing and retching immediately.

"Don't stop!" Tails commanded Shadow who immediately followed, shooting off down the busy streets.

The ancient locked onto them and attempted to follow. Attempted.

His movements had become uncoordinated, confused. He was crashing into buildings and looked as though he was struggling to keep aloft.

The ancient was clamouring, disoriented. Shadow turned a corner, the ancient slammed into a building, pushing himself off with a cough. He fell to the ground and cars nudged and stopped, bumping into him.

"What- what is this-" The ancient pushed himself off the asphalt, bracing himself on a car and wheezing into his hand.

"Shadow! Head to the roundabout!" Tails called. And the dark hedgehog nodded.

The ancient followed them with a new rage. As the two raced into the roundabout. "Don't stop going around!" Tails called again and with the ancient following they spun in circle after circle until a whimpering noise sounded behind them. "Stop!" Tails commanded and Shadow came to an abrupt halt.

The ancient, on the other hand, had come out of the circle flying. He shot past them violently and flew straight into the buildings surrounding the square. One after another he bashed into billboards, light poles, offices, and street signs until finally he dropped pathetically to the ground in the center of the road in the now-abandoned roundabout.

Tails and Shadow both edged forward quietly. Approaching the ball of quills with caution.

Sympathy started to take hold though after he stood above the other.

The ancient below them was an absolute wreck. He was a mess of wheezing and his entire body was shaking violently. His eyes were clenched tightly closed and his hands were gripping, pressed so tightly against his ears, that thin trails of blood followed along his claws. He was spewing out feverish muttering between gasps and hadn't even seemed to notice they were above him.

"What- what is this- why- so bright- why is it so loud-" he whimpered and that's when Tails noticed Shadow tensed beside him.

"What-?" He turned to ask the dark hedgehog but the hybrid's eyes were locked on the other.

Tails turned back to the blue hedgehog and tried to spot what was making Shadow so still. As he lay there, convulsing, with tears pricking his eyes, the fox watched the hedgehog's feet pushing against the ground beneath him. There was no force behind it, he wasn't trying to push himself away or up. In fact, it almost looked like he was trying to curl in on himself. Almost like he was trying to curl into a ball... But... But couldn't.

"Oh." Was all Tails could reply with as they watched the hedgehog fidget. Desperately trying to find any defense from the sensory onslaught they'd purposefully dragged him into.

They stood for a while before the ancient blearily seemed to latch on to their presence. "It doesn't-" he hacked loudly "it doesn't matter- what you-" another shuddering pause as he wheezed "what you do- no matter what you do- to me-  I'll always be there- you can't get rid of me- I'll just come back-"

Tails blanched, staring down at the other's raspy words.

Again? Was that true? Could that happen? Would this all just start over the second something went wrong with Sonic's chaos energy again? How were they supposed to escape him? They could bring Sonic back but then- wouldn't that just mean they'd send Havoc back to being in the emerald again? But why? What if-

"Miles." Shadow's cold voice broke him out of his thoughts.

"Huh? What-?"

"I'll teleport you back to the island. Finish the cannon. I'll watch him." He said flatly.

Tails glanced again from the dark hedgehog to the ancient on the ground.

"Oh- okay..." a hand gripped tightly onto his shoulder and in a flash they were back on the lush grounds of Angel Island.

"Tails!" Amy called and ran to him. "What happened?"

"We-" a flash behind him signalled that Shadow had already left. "It's fine for right now. Havoc is... Trapped at the moment."

"Thank goodness." Amy sighed and ushered Tails back to his makeshift work station.

Numbly he continued to work on his cannon but something was bothering him now.

"Tikal?" He asked and the echidna turned her attention to him. "Do you know where the rest of the incarnations are stored in the emerald?"

The echidna seemed taken aback for a moment. "As far as I know they all have a sector of the emerald their stories are stored away in... Why?"

Tails glanced down at Blue, who was still diligently following the echidna and babbling. "Kቹሃ ኡey! ርዐde ኡeሃ!"

His mind was whirling, around a possibility that could mean disaster.

"Why..." He started "why would Iizuka want Havoc trapped away from other incarnations?" He asked himself more so than the three who were watching him closely. "Unless... Unless he didn't."

"Unless..." The little Koco turned to stare up at him with expectant eyes. "Iizuka made a mistake."

Chapter Text

When Shadow arrived back in Station Square everything was still in a quiet state of chaos.

Horns were still blaring and smoke was still rising out of cars that had swerved or crashed during their street chase.

Despite their very brief meeting Shadow did not like Havoc. He hated him in fact, hated everything about him.

This is probably the part where Rouge would point out that that was likely due to how similar they were.

It was... Unsettling. It was unsettling how similar Havoc was to Shadow. Down to even the finest details they were the same.

Two immortal hedgehogs both born as experiments, tested and warped by the scientists that surrounded them. And both of them found freedom in the form of a friend, a friend that both of them lost. They even had their own respective chao.

And all that similarity is exactly where his contempt formed. Because while they were similar, Havoc was everything that he moved past. Someone running blind and fueled by anger. A mind so caught in a loop of its own rage that it couldn't move forward.

And let it be here recorded that Shadow the Hedgehog, the ultimate lifeform, was not doing this for the blue idiot Havoc had replaced. He was not doing this for Sonic. Sonic was brash, loud, aggravating, and headstrong. He would much rather the ancient replace him actually. He would be entirely unbothered if Sonic were to be gone because he was not friends with the other as Rouge and Amy continuously suggested. The rush he felt when racing with him was entirely that of irritation and his continuous meet-ups with the hedgehog were surveillance to ensure he didn't do something stupid.

His motive was simply the fact that it would be more difficult to keep the world in balance without him. Saving Sonic was a tactical decision.

Totally.

He hadn't waited long after dropping off Tails to return to the city. Havoc was dangerous, despite his non-combative programming there was a dangerous instability that Shadow could sense. It was heavy in the air and latent in everything the ancient did.

So when he arrived in the city he immediately took notice of one drastic change.

The ancient was gone.

Analytical eyes scanned his surroundings for any kind of disturbance. Despite the noise, the city was eerily quiet.

He can't have gone far, he reasoned, Havoc may be powerful and fast but his weakness was apparent in the form of violent coughing.

His ears flicked back and forth as he searched for and sign of the other's ragged breathing.

The silence was deafening as he waited, waited, there.

Two eyes lit up with fury from the alleyway behind him and the ancient suddenly lunged out of the dark with a predatory violence.

The ancient hedgehog was nearly as annoying as his modern counterpart. Apparently being a massive nuisance was a running theme among incarnations.

Shadow shot off the the side as Havoc rammed into the building beside him. He crashed through a window and leapt out again in an instant.

"You want this?" Shadow growled, "try me."

The ancient's eyes narrowed and he launched forward with a renewed ferocity that was only aided by the ominous way the environment seemed to frame him. As they gave chase Havoc bashed and slammed into all manner of structures, each time plumes of dust and debris erupted and concealed him, leaving violent glowing eyes to beam out of the haze.

Shadow ran down streets and alleys, the other flying haphazardly after him, never in the air long before crashing into something that brought him to the ground.

"AUUGH!" the ancient roared from behind him. "I DON'T CARE WHICH ONE YOU ARE! Umbra, Terios, Shadow, JUST GIVE ME THE EMERALD!"

The ancient leapt toward him and Shadow turned around quickly to counter the attack. He grabbed onto Havoc's scarf and spun, launching the other further down the road and plunging him into the asphalt.

"Nice try." He spat, striding up to the other.

The ancient looked up at him angrily from his place on the street. He snorted at the hybrid in frustration. "Long time no see." He huffed before he snarled and jumped again at the hybrid, this time with admittedly less force. Shadow simply stepped back and watched the other flop to the ground.

Shadow only stared at him for a moment, contemplative.

"Give me- the emerald" he wheezed and Shadow only curled his lip.

How did he even get up in the first place if taking him out was this easy? It didn't make sense, Shadow swiveled his head around, searching for whatever secret the other was hiding. There had to be something, it didn't make sense.

His answer came in the form of a loud crackling and whirling.

The air around the other's head seemed to ignite and power surged around him. Energy floated off of his quills as a vortex wrapped around Havoc's head. The ancient then took a loud deep breath and the energy seemed to flow inside of him.

Purifying the air with the emeralds he realized and jumped back as the other lunged again.

"The emerald! I need it!"

The ancient pounced at the hybrid and Shadow rolled out of the way again.

"Why are you doing this?" He finally asked. "I saw what Iizuka did to you. I went through the logs. What reason do you have to remain loyal to someone who failed to help you even once?"

The Havoc's eyes blew wide at the mention of the ancient. "No. No, Iizuka wouldn't do that to me. Give me the emerald!" He shouted and jumped again at the other. Shadow shot back in an instant avoiding swipe after swipe from the other.

"Iizuka loved me! We didn't always agree, but he was good. He made me, and he did it for a reason. I owe it to him! I owe it to all of them! I owe it to myself! He wanted me to be happy! I'M TRYING TO BE HAPPY!"

"Why are you so adamant about that?! That he "loved" you, that he didn't hurt you."

"He didn't hurt me!" He screamed "Iizuka would never hurt me! You- You don't know what you're talking about!"

"What? Are you unable to recognize that what he did was harmful? The way he changed your programming to make you more complacent, the way he tried over and over to make you into something more pliant?"

"I- what? I don't-" the hedgehog looked confused as he paused his barrage. "I- You're a liar!" He screamed

"I saw what you two used to be around each other! I know about the arguments, the way you were treated!"

The way he erased your mind of the events every time, his brain helpfully supplied. The way the hedgehog was defending Iizuka, the confusion, it wasn't confusion at all he realized with horrifying intensity. The other genuinely didn't remember any of those fights, over and over Havoc had been reset and relapsed after being around Iizuka. So what happened when Iizuka wasn't around by the time Havoc would've realized?

Over all the fights and rage he had seen the other hold in the logs it was easy to forget that right now Shadow had more of Havoc's memories than he did.

"Give me- give it." He panted.

"And what reason would I have to do that?" Shadow spat.

The other clenched his fists.

"It's mine! I- I deserve it- it's mine"

"You don't deserve anything." The black and red hedgehog snarled. "You haven't earned a damn thing. What? You think the emerald is yours just because you've had a hard life? Misfortune justifies nothing." He spat.

"And you're one to talk about that?"

Shadow's spines bristled at the comment.

The ancient huffed out a laugh, "and even if you were wrong, there is no one on this wretched planet that has more experience in "misfortune" than me. I have witnessed and felt more loss than you could ever understand. My existence is a form of cyclical death" he spat.

Rage built itself stronger and stronger and ignited his bones. The hybrid opened his mouth to speak but stopped short when the other let out a laugh.

"Maybe you're right about Iizuka, but if you are, so what?" He laughed and Shadow went rigid.

"So what?" Shadow parroted incredulously.

"So what if he really ruined me? So what if I am this way because of him? At least it felt like love, that's far more than I have now. And even if you're right what do I care? What will hating someone I've already lost gain me? What good will it do? What will that fix?"

"I-"

"I envy you, project of the ARK. You grew up with something I never had. You had a mind, a personality, thoughts and feelings all your own! I- I didn't get that. You never had to deal with that, you never had to worry if your personality was your own. You had the chance to think about what you wanted and you chose the right things, I never had a choice. I thought what he wanted, I was what he wanted me to be, whether it was my choice or not. And I still want to be what he wants so badly.'

'And isn't that great?" He laughed, "even now I don't know if my motivations are my own or just his, programmed into me. For now though I want to pretend, I want to pretend that this is me making a choice."

"What kind of a choice is this?" Shadow spat, "doing what he wanted all along, in what way is that you choosing anything!"

Havoc's head snapped to him. "It is my choice to live. It is my choice to stay on the disgusting planet that wreaks of death and decay. I have nothing to live for anymore, no reason to exist! And if I have no meaning in my life than the fact I remain is a choice in itself. I've never had a choice before, so I'll choose life."

'You call us faker right? Heh, you have no idea how right you are. He's just as real as I am, nothing at all."

Shadow bristles where he's standing and a small growl escapes him.

"I mean, what if nothing about me really is real? What if even away from the emerald I'm just... nothing. I already have no meaning, what if I have no substance? How can something exist without purpose or substance? What if every part of me, every thought, every feeling, what if it's all just him? What if I'm not even me? If I'm not an emerald, and I'm not him, what's left?"

Christ- why can't Amy be here instead of him? This is her department not his!

"What if I really am just the gateway? If I really was only ever meant to be a testing phase?"

"...What if I can't ever be anything more than that?"

His eyes were distant and cloudy. Despite himself, Shadow could feel his body beginning to shake for a reason he didn't fully understand.

"What do I do if I can't ever be anything more than the ancient emerald experiment? A miserable failure concocted by a scientist who didn't have enough time to make his little monster perfect. ...I really am just a mistake aren't I? The product of poking around an unfinished project."

There was a faint chuckle out of the other again.

"Sometimes I can't tell if I want to live... Or if the emerald just doesn't want me to die."

A wicked smile grew across the other's face.

"If my mind was ever my own then that means I led myself into this madness, and if that is the case then at least that can be a testament to the fact that I may have, at some point, been more than what I am."

"And what exactly are you?" Shadow finally spoke.

"What am I? What am I?" The hedgehog doubled over in laughter "oh! Oh what a joke! Hahahahahaha! Oh my stars- oh little project, when you figure that out please let me know!"

The ancient took a deep breath and let his smile grow sharp and wicked.

"I am the emerald, I am Iizuka, I am the last ancient, I am the evil that has taken Sonic." He began to speak. "I am One, I am none, I am the ancient emerald experiment!"

He rolled onto his back and reached a hand out to the sky "I am the stars, I am the observer, I am the record keeper for the death of all who were ever held dear!"

"I am nothing! I have lost everything over and over again! I am nothing, and I have no one."

"I-" his mouth felt as if it had dried up. "I understand." Shadow stated simply and the world was, for a moment, silent.

But then the silence grew, it changed and shifted. It became something heated and sharp, filled with a palpable rage.

"You can't understand, how could you!" Havoc gasped and pressed a hand to his head. "You were created to heal, I was created to be a stepping stone for everyone else! I am the blueprint for a million lifetimes of happiness but my own! I am something you can't even comprehend because there is nothing in the history of this universe that has ever had less of a reason to exist than a thrown away experiment created for the betterment of a people who have already gone extinct. You could never understand, you don't know what that's like."

"I do know!" Shadow yelled angrily. "I know exactly how that feels!"

"No you don't!" Havoc screamed back, "you can't!"

"You're not the only one who lost someone! I've lost people too!"

"No," Havoc stated quietly, his hand curling into a fist and pressing into the ground as he pushed himself up. On shaky legs the other rose from the ground.

"No-" Energy crackled around his body and the ground, tears in the corners of his eyes. His volume rose with each word. "No- you lost one girl, I lost my whole LIFE!"

He screamed and the air itself erupted. Fissures cracked along the rock until the street was a mess of broken asphalt and chaos energy erupted out of the cracks. Multi-colored energy shot up from the ground around the ancient creating an intimidating silhouette. The hedgehog floated above the ground, quills raised and eyes white with electricity arcing and crackling into them and feeding his rage. And then he shot forward.

For a moment Shadow's body goes weightless. Everything around him slows down and then he begins to fall.

For a moment he isn't even sure what just happened. He doesn't even realize how high up he is until the ground begins to meet him at an increasing rate. Building windows flash by and it very suddenly occurs to him that he's been thrown. And very soon he will be coming to a quick stop.

With a rush of adrenaline he yells out for chaos control, moments before he can slam into the concrete. The force of the fall is so violent that he comes out of the teleportation sideways and finds himself rolling down the sidewalk at a violent, choppy pace. The back of his head slams into a fire hydrant and he comes to a screeching halt.

The street around them is completely destroyed and it's a good thing it's evacuated as water begins to gush out of the destroyed hydrant. He rubs his head and groans, vision trying to right itself blearily.

Havoc lands in front of him. His chest is huffing in and out erratically as the emerald around him attempt to provide him with breathable air. There's an electrifying wind that rushes around the ancient that gives off the illusion that he's gone super or hyper especially with the way his quills float above him, defying gravity. Parts of his body seem to buzz and glitch.

Two multi-colored orbs fade in from the haze of his eyes and turn slowly down to look at Shadow with a face devoid of emotion. When he speaks it's with no hint of humanity, only cold and harsh.

"If you won't give it to me, then I'll go find a way to make you."

Then a light erupts with a crackle and it's Shadow who is left alone in the destroyed street.

Chapter Text

"A mistake? What do you mean a mistake?" Amy asked.

Tails had stopped dead in his tracks where he had been working on the cannon. It was finished, and as the last screw had been tightened, so had the last clue in his brain. Now the cannon may not even be usable.

"I mean he- when- ARGH! Iizuka may be the most frustrating person I've never met!" Tails grunted in frustration, slamming his screwdriver down.

"Oh this is bad, this is really really bad!" The fox muttered frantically, pacing around the cannon.

"Tails, use your words. Not everyone understands." Amy reprimanded.

The fox let out an exasperated breath. "Look, this entire time we've been running in all the wrong directions! First Havoc lied to us, then we assumed he was lying to us because we found information that made it seem like he wasn't telling the truth. But what if he was just assuming things too? Maybe he didn't have the information we did because it wasn't relevant to him specifically!"

"What?" Tikal suddenly gained interest.

"I still don't get it, dumb it down." Knuckles spoke.

"Okay," Tails began, "we know how the incarnations are supposed to work, we know they were all meant to die, one hundred years, blah blah blah, but maybe Havoc doesn't consider himself to be an incarnation! If the incarnations are supposed to start AFTER Havoc's code was complete-"

"Then he's not an incarnation at all." Tikal realized.

"Because he was never finished. And if he's not an incarnation, then those rules don't apply to him." Tails stated, validating Tikal's realization. "We assumed he was lying to us or in denial, but maybe he wasn't tricking us at all."

"What are you saying?" Amy insisted.

"I'm saying Havoc wasn't lying! He wasn't meant to die!" Tails proclaimed "He was never completely finished! That is why he has a different section of the emerald he was stored in! The hidden key this Koco keeps talking about, the key inside Havoc, I think it's the code Iizuka mentioned in the logs. I think Iizuka hid a program inside of Havoc for him to choose when to start the cycles! They made a mistake though, Iizuka only programmed him to reset on his own terms. He never predicted Havoc would get killed because it shouldn't have been possible and therefore didn't program anything for that eventuality! The emerald put him on a sort of hold, the cycles starting was a fluke the program defaulted into."

Tails shuddered and rested a hand on the cannon. "If we shoot him with this-"

"We send him right back to that void space, all of this could happen all over again." Tikal spoke, her tone darker than he thought it could go.

Tails nodded, it would send Havoc right back to a fate of watching the lives of all the incarnations, living a still life inside the emerald. Alive, but not in any way intact.

"So what does that mean for us?" Amy asked and he knew what her implication was: "we can't use the cannon" but the alternative was something they may not be able to accomplish.

"It means that Havoc would have to choose to activate the code, and let himself go."

"Welp, we're screwed." Knuckles stated astutely, throwing his hands up.

"Hang on but why does the Koco know about this key code?" Amy asked, confused.

"I think I figured that out too, Amy, at one point the logs we watched turned into Havoc's memories and at the very end he had a memory with you in it. Like Havoc was still connected to the system."

"And that means?"

"I think Iizuka connected Havoc's memories to this Koco without him knowing as a kind of external storage. He knew Havoc's memories would take up too much space in the emerald, so some of them were siphoned into this Koco. It would explain why he keeps contradicting himself and why some of the things Tikal said he was saying don't make sense. He doesn't fully understand them either, I think Havoc really is just guessing." Tails explained, picking up the Koco that let out a delighted cheer.

"What do we do then? We've tried talking it over with him but he doesn't listen." Amy asked, concern flooding her voice.

"I... I don't know." Tails admitted. "Maybe-"

Behind them there was a strange noise. A violent crackling that filled his ears. "What-?"

When he turned around there was a figure walking towards them. The silhouette powering past the plant life and our into the clearing. Each footstep echoed strangely and crackled as it met the ground. The figure stumbled and tilted to the side occasionally, creating a ragged pattern as he marched forward.

He stepped out from the cover of the trees and everyone stared for a moment as Havoc emerged. He saw Havoc when he looked bad, or so he thought. But this, this looked wrong. The little koco ran and hid behind Tikal.

His eyes were white and filled with iridescent power. It snapped around and jumped from him to the grass below. His scarf was ragged and torn on the end. And as jarring as it was to see him on the ground, what made it even more terrifying was the fact that the ground seemed to split open beneath him. Wherever he stepped the grass was replaced with the same colorful power that leaked out of his eyes. An ominous trail glowing behind him that grew with every misstep.

"Just let me-" his voice croaked, "just let me use the emerald."

He sounded defeated, tired almost. Like all his energy had left him.

"You know we can't do that." Knuckles spoke.

The ancient released a quiet growl.

"L- look we realized something, we know how to fix all this, but we really need to talk to you." Tails reached out.

The ancient hedgehog shook. "There's no fixing what I am. You can't take back four thousand years. I've lived this long, I'm not giving up now. Not now that I'm so close."

"I know you think you were meant to live forever, but just think about it for a few seconds." Tails spoke, slowly walking outside of the forcefield. " You think you were meant to be a Mobian right? All Mobians die eventually! Iizuka knew that when he was making you. If you weren't meant to die then maybe Iizuka really did make a mistake."

"No... no... Iizuka- he- he was careful with me. He didn't make mistakes he just made me a bit... different. And- and why do you keep saying 'you think'- I- all your people get to make mistakes! I am supposed to be a Mobian! I should be allowed to make mistakes too! Why am I the only one who has to be perfect?!"

"You don't!" Tails snapped. "You've deluded yourself into believing you were meant to be some sort of god!"

"I-!" he cut off his own shout. "What is that?" He asked, voice riddled with disgust.

They all looked around confused for a moment before they saw what he was pointing at.

"It's... A koco." Amy answered tentatively.

"I KNOW THAT!" he snapped. "It's mine."

He floated down and picked it up. The creature giggled and rocked in his hand as he inspected it. "Why is it alive?"

"It's... Yours?"

"Yes. Crane gave it to me as a gift. It was a present to make me feel like... Like I was one of them."

A present from Crane? That's... That's not possible, Tails thought. It had some of his memories, Iizuka had to have made it that was the only explanation.

"All the Koco are alive... They came to life after The End, they follow around their old memories, trying to figure out what happened that day." Amy explained.

"But- but that can't be right- why would mine be-" water started leaking down his face silently.

Because a part of you died that day too didn't it?

Tails stepped forward again as Havoc carefully set the Koco down and watched it run back to Tikal happily.

"Did it ever occur to you, that when he told you to keep living he didn't mean stay alive forever, maybe he meant for you to live your life rather than just trying to survive." He asked.

"You don't understand! Iizuka- he- he can't have made a mistake. He can't. He made me for a purpose. I know he did!" He screamed, his voice raw with emotion. Koco forgotten in the heat of his anger.

"As sad as it is to say it you don't have a purpose anymore! There's a point where one being just can't learn anymore! Your purpose has been fulfilled!"

"No- no I won't let you throw me away like trash! I won't be tossed aside like I'm nothing again!"

"Don't you get it?!" Tails yelled. "There isn't anyone left for you! No one needs you anymore! But plenty of people still need Sonic!"

"Oh what? People like you?" He hissed.

"Yes!" Tails cried vehemently.

"Then why were you about to leave him?!"

The ancient panted and the words hung in the air, angry and charged.

"If you all still need him, if he's still of so much use, then why was everyone about to leave him behind?" The hedgehog choked, Tails couldn't help but stare as tears started to float out from the corners of his eyes. "Why were you all ready to leave him like me? Why were you all so eager to go off on your own without him?"

"Because that's how WE learn!"

The ancient stilled. The energy surrounding him stopped crackling and fizzing. And for a second, he thought he got through to the ancient.

And then there was a flash, Havoc slammed into him and grabbed him before shooting up. He heard his friends voices screaming his name and fading into the distance as he was rocketed further and further into the sky.

The wind lashed at his face and ears until they were so high the others were blots of color on the ground. And then they stopped. The air around them became unnervingly still. Havoc clenched his hands into fists on his collar and jolted him so they were face to face.

"You have no idea the amount of death and destruction I've witnessed. The amount of mortals I've seen blink out of existence like it was nothing! The countless lives that I've seen ended in the span of four thousand years. I've watched everything! I've seen buildings collapse to the ground and turn to rubble! I've watched my own people be slaughtered and forgotten! Don't you get it? There is no living after that! Do you really think that in this mangled mix of history that I have had to endure for centuries, that you and I are anything more than an inconsequential blip in all of existence?! WHY?! Why can't you just let me do this?!"

Tails thrashed in his grip. "Because I have people I'm fighting for!"

"So do I!"

"No you don't!"

There was a deafening pause where even the world around them didn't seem to exist anymore. And then the ancient let go.

He felt himself go weightless for a moment before the wind picked up and he started falling.

He flailed in the air silently, trying to reach out for something that wasn't there. He's never known the sky to be so... Terrifying. He's been flying his entire life, whether by tail or by plane. But now- now is plane has been destroyed, and he's falling so fast that even attempting to use his tails would just snap them. With wind rushing through his fur, he's never felt so scared.

And then he hears someone scream, and he expects the noise to be from his friends below who are watching him fall. But it isn't, the voice comes from above him.

"TAILS!"

From the ground they watched the ordeal with a terrifying helplessness.

"Tikal? What- what do we do?" Any stuttered watching the hedgehog take Tails up higher into the sky. It was getting harder to see them. The sun dipping lower and plunging the sky into darkness.

"I- I don't-"

Crackling sounded from behind them and Amy whipped her head around. The air snapped and popped until a black and red hedgehog came tumbling out of the air.

He fell on his side and painted for a moment before looking up at what had captured all of their attentions.

"The cannon-" he panted. "Is it ready?"

"Well yeah but-" Amy was cut off by a sharp gasp as she watched the blur of orange that was her little brother start tumbling down.

"What do we do?! What-"

"LOOK!"

Tails got closer and closer for a moment before the ancient hedgehog suddenly dove and caught him. The two of them continued to tumble down a little further before coming to a stop in the air. The ancient clutching the fox close.

She heard Shadow grunt and turned to find him jamming the emerald into the cannon.

"Wait! Shadow you can't!" She tried to exclaim.

"No time!" He growled, shoving the weapon onto his arm and charging his shot. He shoved one of the spires into the ground and started to take aim. "Besides, it won't hurt the fox anyway." He muttered.

Amy tried to run to him, and push him out of the way but she wasn't fast enough. The hybrid lined up his target, and pulled the trigger.

Weight slammed into him and he came to a halt in the air. They're closer to the ground now, he can make out the terrified blurry faces of his family below him.

"I'm sorry- Tails I'm sorry- I didn't mean to-" the ancient gripped him in a hug that was so desperate it seemed more out of fear of dropping him again.

The fox slowly pushed the ancient away. Not  so that he was out of his arms, but so that he could really see his face.

"Just...  just think about this." He pleaded. "You're fighting to keep doing your job by destroying its sole purpose. If you were made for teaching why are you destroying the one learning tool you were connected to?"

"Because- because-" he could see in the ancients eyes that he was grasping for something he didn't know. There was a desperation in those eyes, a fear that tried to reach out for anything it could cling to.

"Because you're afraid," Tails answered for him, "because you're panicking, because after everything you've been through you don't know what will happen next. It's scary. Trust me, I know. But this?" He gestured to the open air around them "Destroying things so that you can have less options? It's not going to work, you're only going to find more pain if you go that way."

The ancient hesitated and looked him in the eyes.

"You've been suffering for a long time and that's not okay," he breathed "but neither is this! So please," he gripped the other's hands tightly, "please don't do this."

That terrifying opal glow was slowly edging its way back so he could make out two colorful irises and white pupils through the fog.

Tails smiled gently for a moment before the glint of something shiny on the ground caught his eye and he glanced down to see Shadow.

"No- wait-!"

The ancient seemed to notice it at the same time and shoved Tails back as well as pushing himself away. A shot of bright opal blasted between them where the two had been only moments before. Missing them both. A panic overwhelmed him and he took in a sharp breath. White lit up the ancient's eyes again and a snarl overtook his face. In one swift movement he used the momentum from his push to spin around, reach a hand out and the final emerald came flying to him.

He got the crystal with enough force that he spun before it joined the others. Tremors overtook the entire island, power blasted out of the ancient and he let out a deafening scream.

Tails dropped down to Shadow and the others at the shrine.

"What happened?! Why did you do that?!" He screamed, ripping the cannon away from the hybrid.

Shadow's excuse was swallowed by the loud buzzing of overwhelming energy as the ancient came down to float above the shrine.

"Now do you get it? How pointless all of this was?" His voice echoed and washed over the entire island in rivulets. "How pointless everything is?"

His quills had turned the same iridescent color his eyes had been glowing and they floated up. It wasn't the same as when sonic went super though. Parts of his body clipped and fractured into boxes, like he was glitching.

"You can't destroy the cave!" Tikal stepped forward and pleaded.

"I've seen too many people die Tikal! I can't do this anymore! I need to do something to change things! I can't keep doing this!"

"Havoc please!" Tikal begged.

.

..

...

"Wait... what? What did you just call me?" There was an edge to that tone, something dark and dangerous, lifted by confusion.

The echidna slammed her hands over her mouth with a gasp. Amy turned to stare at her with fear in her eyes.

"Havoc?" The ancient parroted in a tone that held the sharpness of a blade. His eyelid twitched something dangerous flashed in those opal eyes. "HAVOC?!"

"No," he laughed bitterly. He pressed a hand to his forehead and shook his head in disbelief. "You know what, no. This isn't about you anymore, for once this is gonna be about me."

"Not the emerald inside of me that everyone thinks I am, actually me. The one history forgot! The one no one is left to care about! The one who everyone turns their back on!"

"What would your people-" Tikal started.

"My people? They sent me away to live with the echidnas! And I knew, I knew right then and there that they were all dead! All of them! But that was fine because I had Puyo! And then I got tossed around for years and years until finally, I met you, and I met Chaos, and it seemed like just for once everything was going to be okay!

But then, one of my best friends in the entire world killed me! And I spent years watching these other incarnations live their lives and make new friends and have families and it meant nothing to me! Not... not until Sonic met you. And suddenly everything changed again. I could see you again even if- even if it was brief, but it meant the world to me. And then I finally got a chance to come back and now you're trying to kill me too!

Tikal flinched and turned away, too ashamed to look at her friend.

Then a loud sniffle rang out over the shrine. Her head shot up again to find tears. The Ancient had gone limp in the air, arms hanging weightlessly at his sides. Blobs of water dripping out of him and floating in the air around his head as gravity betrayed itself.

"Is my existence really that cursed? I was only trying to do what I was made for, am I really so bad at this that even the people I care about most feel like I shouldn't be alive?"

"No!" she gasped, waving her hands. "That's not what this is at all it's just- it's complicated-"

"We were actually friends, weren't we?" He asked in a voice that was so fragile and quiet despite the way it rang out through each of them. "You were my best friend in the entire world I loved you with everything I had. There's no one else I would've rather died with but then- then- why? Why do you all want me gone so badly? Didn't I do what I was supposed to do? Didn't I find what I was meant to? Did I do something wrong? I know I'm not perfect and I never can be but- but I tried so hard what could I have done wrong? I don't understand." He sobbed and gripped his head. "Did I not do a good enough job? I swear I was trying! I was trying my best to do a good job!"

"But your "job" was to live your life, don't you see? This isn't living, your job is done, it's been done. Is this really how you want to be remembered by the few people left who will?" Tikal spoke.

"I just wanted to make you happy!"

"Look around you!" She snapped angrily, tears sprung at her eyes. "No one is happy! Not even you!"

That seemed to catch the ancient off guard.

"I-"

"You're tired."

"Huh?"

"You're tired, I know you. It's been so long since you've rested hasn't it? Aren't you tired of it all? Don't you want to relax? Finally rest, after all this time?" Tikal asked, stepping out of the forcefield and reaching out to hold his face.

"W-what? No! No I'm- I'm not! I'm not tired! I can keep trying- I can do a better job this time! Just please don't send me back there! PLEASE! I don't want to spend another four thousand years alone!"

"What do you think you're going to do if you stay here?"

"What- but- I thought-" The ancient looked surprised, fearful even.

"They're gone Lew, Puyo is gone, Chaos is gone, I'M gone. What are you going to have left if you succeed?"

"But... but I don't want to die, I don't want to be alone again." He whimpered, leaning his cheek into her touch.

"No one ever does. But you won't be alone, you'll never be alone again," she said gently, "not unless you stay. You need to let go, move on, see them again and start a new chapter."

"Oh what's the point?" He moaned and tears started to fall harder. "You won't be there."

"You don't know that." She replied softly.

'Yes I do," he whimpered. "I've been on both sides of this remember? I die, but you'll live on, I'll never see you again."

"That's not true, there will be a day when I pass away too. Nothing lasts forever, not even people like us."

"You- but you're here."

"Am I? I'm connected to the emerald, I age every second I spend outside of it. I died the same day you did, our world did. The only reason I'm still here is to protect these emeralds."

"The... Emeralds?"

"Yes," Tikal sighed, "and one day they'll have Knuckles and my time will be up too. So why don't you just let go?"

"...No"

"What?"

"No. No I can see what you're doing now. You thought I wouldn't notice but I can tell what you're trying to do!"

"And what is that exactly?" Tails asked, stepping forward.

"Now just listen-" Tikal started again with urgency.

"No!" He screamed so loudly it sent cracks through the shrine. They all cried out, tumbling around as the ruins shook.

"The emeralds listen to you, I don't! I'm not just an emerald I'm a person!"

"I- I know you are-" Tikal started tentatively, as if she was confused with the sudden turn in topic.

"No-" he muttered, "No you don't! You say you believe me but you're lying- lying- all lying! If you believed I was real you wouldn't be throwing me away! You pretend you think I'm a real person, but you don't actually believe it! No one ever does! I'm just another obstacle, just another thing in your way! Just another STUPID EMERALD! IM NOT! I'm not just some magic rock you can use and like whenever it's convenient! I AM REAL!"

"I have always seen you as a person! I was one of the only people who did! You told me that yourself! Don't try to convince yourself that I've always been against you! You are real to me! You always have been. I know you're more than an emerald." She yelled, sounding almost angry that he'd even come up with the idea.

"No you don't, you always said you did, you always acted like you did, but you never actually believed it did you! No one ever does! What am I to you?! Just another stupid emerald for you to guard?! Just another power source for you to protect?!"

"What?! No! You're my friend!" She yelled frantically.

"Then why?! Why do you want me gone?!" He yelled, tremors splitting through the ground.

"I DON'T!" Tikal yelled with a stamp of her foot.

The silence that spread through all of them was cold and deafening.

"...I" she stuttered "... I Don't. If I had to choose, I would bring you back and forget about Sonic in a heartbeat."

Tails could feel his heart beating in his chest, suffocating and terrifying with each word from Tikal's mouth.

"...then... Why...?"

"Because it's not right," she stated, "it's not my choice anymore, it's not your choice anymore, it's not our time anymore."

The irises were starting to come back out from his white glowing eyes.

The echidna took a deep breath "...One of your incarnations once said, "every world has its end. And I know that's kind of sad, but that's why we've got to live life to its fullest in the time we have." 

"...who said that?" The hedgehog asked in a timid voice, floating down to the ground slowly.

The soft silence and the sad, gentle smile on Tikal's face was answer enough.

"Our world, it ended. We can't bring it back, it's not ours to bring back. It ended a long time ago, it's time to let go."

The ancient came to a stop on the ground. He stared down for a while, frown etched across his face, but holding no anger.

"I think..." He spoke " I think I want to go home."

"To the islands?" Tikal asked, startled. "But-"

"No Tikal, home, with my people." He whispered quietly, "I don't want to live in a world that's forgotten the stars. That is my choice."

The emeralds drifted out and floated in a soft circle around him. The power that was overflowing faded away until he turned back into a soft blue. Each emerald slowly drifted around the shrine, heading to their pedestals until the only one left floating around him was the green one he'd fought so hard to gain.

The hedgehog turned and slowly walked over to Tails who was shaking with fear, holding the light cannon on his arm close to his chest.

There was a soft chiming noise and the ancient turned back to see the Koco standing beside Tikal, waving to him happily.

He got closer and closer to Tails until they were standing only a few feet away. The ancient then held up his hands and slowly removed his gloves. The ancient tiles on them clacking together.

"Here, these are for you." He whispered, handing them to Tails.

Then he tugged on his arm silently pulling up the cannon until it was pressed to his chest. In an almost serene manner he held out a hand for the green emerald to float into and pressed it into the charging port of the weapon. It whirred quietly as light began to charge through the machine.

The ancient that looked so much like Sonic, but in no way the same, met Tails eyes from the end of the gun. Tails' were wide and hollow, dull and filled with fear, and the ancient's were full of light, spiralling with beautiful opal colors.

He smiled, it wasn't big and it wasn't proud but for the first time since meeting him it was genuine.

Light spilled out of the end of the cannon.

"For all your adventures." The ancient whispered.

Then, near silently he spoke "fire, please."

It would be hours before Tails would realize he had never pulled the trigger, and the ancient had been talking to the emerald.

Force burst from the end of the barrel and flooded the Mobian's chest. When the light died down the ancient stumbled away, his entire torso turning into a fracturing light that had once consumed Sonic's arm.

He smiled again before turning and walking back to the shrine.

He stumbled, opal light spreading across his body with each step he took until he collapsed at the foot of the Master Emerald, falling into Tikal's arms.

The echidna held her friend in her lap and kneeled down on the ruins.

She held one hand in her own and stroked his head gently with her other.

The hedgehog looked at his other arm, which had been crossed over his chest. "Hah... Disarmed again... What is that- the third time?" He joked.

Tikal let out a loud laugh.

The hedgehog closed his eyes and leaned back "there's that smile." He whispered.

"...do you" he whispered, "...do you think... I'll see Puyo again?" He asked and it was so genuine it twisted his stomach into knots just hearing it.

"I don't think they'd ever stop waiting for you." Tikal replied with a crack in her tear-choked voice.

The ancient was almost entirely covered in light now. Opal colors creeping up his neck.

The Master Emerald started softly glowing and Amy let out a quiet gasp. Water started to form around the shrine, pooling next to Tikal until it took form.

Chaos kneeled beside Tikal. One large hand holding her shoulder, and the other reaching out to a friend they'd lost so long ago. One final goodbye, to someone they had wronged so completely.

The Ancient blinked his eyes open at the sound. His face was entirely covered, his body illuminating the entire shrine in the darkness of the night.

He turned his opal covered face over to the alien-like creature. "...Iizuka?" He asked with a starry-eyed voice, staring up at the water god.

The ancient received no answer, but turned to look again at the echidna with a smile.

"Goodbye, Tikal."

And as he closed his eyes she leaned in, her own smile shaking, she whispered so quietly that only the ancient could hear.

"Goodbye, Lewin."

The small Koco ran over to the incarnation and laid down against his side.

The hedgehog's body fractured apart and dissolved until only a small ball of light was left. A similar, but smaller, orb floated up from the Koco and the two swirled in tandem until joining together high above the shrine and lifted up into the sky.

The ball of opal colored light floated up, gently, and quietly into the distance until it joined with all the rest of the stars in the dark night sky above Angel Island.