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At the heart of the Onyx City science center, Gold sleeps peacefully in her room at Professor Von Schlemmer’s laboratory. Her blankets steadily rise and fall with her breath as she loses herself to her dreams. A voice suddenly rings out in her head, desperate and afraid. Gold’s face contorts in discomfort. Despite her attempts to ignore the cries, they only echo louder. She starts tossing and turning in her sheets. A sense of recognition hits her. It was Silver’s voice. Her dreams become haunted by his screams of agony. She reaches out to help him, to save him, but there’s nothing to grasp on to. One final scream crescendos and causes her to gasp awake.
“Silver!” Gold struggles to catch her breath. Her face is covered in a cold sweat. She looks around, trying to ground herself back to reality. That’s right, she’s safe at the professor’s place. But Silver…
Gold tosses her blanket off and dashes out of the room. Her footsteps echo through the metal corridors until she stops in front of the door to Silver’s room. She calls out for him as she frantically knocks on the door. No answer. She places her hand on the panel next to it and the door slides open. It’s completely empty, looking as if there hadn’t been a soul inside it for hours. Gold’s breathing becomes unsteady as her racing thoughts start to get the better of her. What’s happened to Silver? Where could he be? What should she…the professor! He’ll know what to do! With her mind made up, she runs in search of Von Schlemmer. The German scientist in question is found hunched over his desk with drool on his face.
“Professor!”
“Vhat?! Who-?!” he snorts awake, still a bit disoriented. “Oh ya, zhat’s me. Vhat's ze matter, fraulein?”
“It’s Silver! He’s not in his room and I had a vision of him screaming in pain. He could be in trouble!” The professor looks over at the clock for the time: it’s 6:00 am.
“He hasn’t come back from patrol yet?” He ponders. “Zhat is quite worrisome, but do not fret. Luckily, I just recently discovered zhat a tracking device had been installed into his identification cuffs as vell as each of our own implants.”
“Wha-?! Why would you not tell us about that?!” Gold protectively covers up the mark on her forehead.
“I thought I did.”
“No?!”
“He he, whoops,” he chuckles and shrugs innocently. “Must’ve slipped my mind.” Gold tries her best not to freak out and makes a mental note to resume this conversation later. Right now she needs to focus on the task at hand. The professor pulls out a tablet from the mechanical warzone he calls a desk. “Vith this ve should be able to track his exact location within a thousand mile radius. Now let’s see here.”
With a push of a button, the screen comes to life and displays a map of the city. Three markers appear: two that represent Von Schlemmer and Gold in the lab and one for Silver…at the top of the Research Facility.
“Oh nein.”
“He must’ve been captured by the Council!” Gold blanches. She hoped that she’d never have to set foot into that awful building again and now her friend has been taken straight to the lion’s den. Filled with a new sense of determination, the professor pockets The Bits in their ball form and grabs his delicate laser device from his desk.
“Zhen let’s get him back!”
__________________
The duo find themselves gaping at the wreckage that laid before them. Civil Protection Robots are strewn all throughout the halls, broken beyond repair. Exposed wires and loose panels stick out from the ceiling. The usually stark lighting was replaced with the eerie red glow of the emergency lights. It was hard for Gold to imagine that the facility could somehow be more foreboding than it already was to her.
“What happened here?” Gold whispers.
“Our young hedgehog friend must’ve put up quite a fight,” The professor takes a moment to look down at the maimed robots. “Although, zhis looks a lot more…visceral than his usual attacks.” He pulls out his tracker tablet, his face suddenly illuminated by a blue light. Silver’s marker rhymically blinks on the screen.
“He’s on zhe top floor. Let us make haste.”
“R-Right.”
It’s unnervingly silent as they walk through the halls, the only sources of noise being their footsteps and the beeping of the tracker. Gold yelps when her foot accidentally bumps into a robot’s severed arm. The rest of it was wedged into the wall with its chest ripped to shreds. Could Silver really have done this much damage even while captured? She supposed the thought brought her more comfort than it being caused by someone else…or something else.
“Aha!” Von Schlemmer exclaims from around the corner. Gold was so lost in thought that she hadn't noticed she was falling behind. She picks up the pace and finds the mad scientist being the most excited she’s ever seen anyone be about an elevator.
“Thankfully some of zhe backup power has been directed towards zhis elevator. Zhis should take us to zhe top and straight to Silver!”
Ding!
The doors open up for the two of them. Fortunately, there didn’t appear to be any sign of damage done to it. The one thing saved from Silver’s apparent rampage.
“Are you sure this is safe with the power being out?” Gold worries as she steps inside.
“Of course!” He joins her inside. “The Council built zhis place to be zhe heart of scientific innovation. I’m sure zhey have systems in place in case of a blackout. Besides, ve’re both vell acquainted with zhis building and zhe elevators have never failed us before, ya?”
“I guess that’s true.”
The door slowly starts to close.
“At least no times zhat I can remember.”
Gold’s eyes widen just as she misses her only opportunity to escape.
The elevator steadily makes its way up. Gold doesn’t allow herself to relax until they are about halfway up the building, although she still found herself shifting uncomfortably in place. Something in the back of her mind was still making her skittish. She almost chalked it up to it being her own anxieties, but that didn’t feel quite right.
“It’s strange,” She comments. “Not a single robot has come to stop us, or even a council member for that matter. Something doesn’t feel right about this.”
“Zhat is rather unusual, but at least it makes it easier for us.” He chuckles lightheartedly. Despite the professor’s best efforts he can still see how tense his friend was. “Although, I can’t say I blame you for feeling uneasy. Our last visit vasn't exactly zhe most pleasant, especially for you.”
Gold cringes at the memory of her being strapped to that table, forced to unleash that monster against her will. Von Schlemmer’s comforting hand on her shoulder brings her back to the present.
“But zhis time we are much better prepared. Ve'll find Silver and be out of here before you know it!” Gold couldn’t help but smile at his comforting words.
“Thank y- woah!”
The elevator suddenly lurches to a halt, making them lose their balance. As they recuperate, Von Schlemmer looks down at his tablet to see where they stopped, just a few levels short from being at the top.
“W-Why did we stop?!” Gold stutters.
Before the Professor could come up with an answer, an unearthly groan could be heard through the metal walls. The two immediately silence themselves. Gold feels a chill run down her spine, suddenly having the frightening sensation that something is very, very wrong. The moaning becomes mixed with a cacophony of screeching metal as the elevator is slowly and forcefully pushed back down.
“Ve need to get out of here!” The Professor urges. He tries prying the doors open but it won’t budge. Von Schlemmer gives it up and curses under his breath. “Gold, you’ll need to use your powers to force zhe doors open.”
“What?! I’m not nearly as good at it as Silver. I can barely make a spoon float.”
“I’m afraid now is not zhe time to be modest.” The professor looks up at the collapsing ceiling with concern. “Just give it a try.”
“Ok,” Gold reluctantly agrees. She closes her eyes and focuses her energy on the doors. The mark on her forehead glows yellow, her psychic energy flowing from it. The doors become covered in the same aura and slowly creak open.
“Yes, zhat’s it! Keep at it, Gold!”
Gold squeezes her eyes shut as the effort starts to put a strain on her. With one last push, the doors swing open. She opens her eyes and sees that that elevator was stuck between floors, but there was a small opening that was just wide enough for both of them to slip through.
“Time to make our escape, fraulein!” Neither of them waste any time squeezing through the slim opening. Right as they make it through, the elevator’s cables snap and send it careening all the way down to the bottom floor. It takes a few seconds before the two hear a distant, brutal crash from the darkness.
“Phew! Zhat was a close vun.” Says the professor.
“A bit too close. What was that?”
“I’m not quite sure,” he answers as he checks his tablet. “But it vill not stop us from reaching Silver. I’ve always preferred zhe stairs anyway.”
“Wait, Professor.” Gold grabs his lab coat before he can step away.
“Something zhe matter?”
“Look.”
Von Schlemmer looks over to where she’s pointing and spots a blue glow coming from further down the hall.
“Silver?” The professor yells down the hall. “Is zhat you, mein friend?”
No answer.
The two give each other a concerned look before cautiously making their way down the hall, the glow becoming more intense as they get closer. When they finally make it around the corner, Gold lets out a gasp. All over the walls is a thick blue slime with a glow pulsating like a steady breath. More broken robots are strewn across the floor, covered in the same slime.
“Vhat on earth?” The professor exclaims. He digs into his coat pocket and pulls out the Bits, currently in their travel size ball form. They pop up in the professor’s hands and await his commands. He brings his hand closer to the slime. “Bits, I need one of you to analyze zhis specimen for me.”
The tiny robots look at the slime in disgust. They play rock paper scissors with each other to see who has to do it. The yellow one slumps over as the other two celebrate their win. It drags itself over to the slime, swabs a bit of it on its finger, and sticks it in its mouth. It gags from the awful taste while the other two point and laugh at its misfortune. A second later, a long stream of paper prints out from the back of its head which the professor takes and reads over.
“Fascinating. I’ve never seen readings like zhis. Vhatever zhis is has traces of some sort of dark, ancient energy. Vhat has zhe Council been messing vith?”
Gold glances over to another wall and notices that one smear looks like a hand dragging along the wall. A chill goes down her spine. Suddenly, the groaning noise returns much louder this time as it causes shaking the walls. The Bits retract to their ball form and jump in the professor’s pocket in terror. The tattered robots on the floor start to twitch and jerk erratically as a purple smoke emits from their bodies. One by one they come back to life, all lurching towards the pair.
“Stand back!” Von Schlemmer yells to Gold who is more than happy to oblige. He takes out the delicate laser device and fires at the robot closest to him. A red beam shoots its arm clean off and causes it to stagger back a bit, yet it still approaches. He shoots for the legs but it uses its one remaining arm to crawl towards them. The device is suddenly snatched away from his hands by another robot and crushed within its metal grip.
“Please tell me you have another one of those,” Gold pleads.
“I’m afraid I’ve left my considerably less delicate laser device back at zhe lab,” He laments. “It seems zhere is no way out of zhis one.”
“No, no, no, no, no!” Gold hyperventilates as the robots close in on them. The markings on her forehead glows brightly as her emotions become too much to bear. She lets out a terrified scream and a yellow shockwave of energy knocks the robots off their feet. The groaning stops completely, the walls begin to still, and the robots power down once more. Von Schlemmer and Gold take a moment to catch their breaths, the latter nearly collapsing on the floor from all of the stress.
“I’m beginning to zhink that ve are not welcome in zhis facility.” The professor determines. “Vhat on Earth is happening here?”
“Professor, this might sound crazy but what if it’s a ghost?”
“A ghost?!” The professor echoes with a raised eyebrow. He’d be tempted to laugh if they weren’t in such a dire situation.
“Think about it! The groaning, the objects moving on their own, the slime on the walls. What else could it be?”
“But zhe Council is scientifically minded. Vhy would zhey dabble in zhe paranormal? It doesn’t make any sense.”
The two jump when they hear a crash coming from a floor above them. The professor is quick to shield Gold from the bits of ceiling raining down on them.
“Vhatever zhe case may be, ve need to find Silver and get out of here now!”
Gold anxiously nods in agreement. They run towards the nearest set of stairs and make their way up the stairs as fast as their legs can carry them. They’re almost completely out of breath by the time they reach the top floor, but rest was a luxury they couldn’t afford at the moment. Silver needs them. Gold and Von Schlemmer run past several doors with the latter paying close attention to the tracker pad.
“Stop!” He says as he screeches to a halt so suddenly that Gold nearly bumps into him. They’ve stopped in front of a dented door jammed halfway open. “Zhe signal is coming from in zhere.”
With some effort, they manage to push the door open, revealing a room shrouded in darkness. Von Schlemmer activates a small flashlight on the back of his tablet. Gold recognized it as one of many rooms the Council would use to run experiments, although this one has certainly seen better days. Burn marks and cracks cover the walls as if an explosion had gone off. There was a desk with several monitors that ranged from miraculously still functional to destroyed beyond repair. The observation window looking into the other room has completely shattered with its glass shards spread across the floor. They crunch beneath the duo’s feet as they walk inside. They freeze in place when they spot four robed figures slumped against the wall.
“The Council,” Gold whispers with a shaky breath. Neither of them could immediately tell if they were alive or not because of the masks covering their faces. Her mark glows once again as she closes her eyes and reaches out with her telepathy. “It’s faint but I can sense brain activity coming from all four of them. They’re still alive.”
“For better or vorse,” The professor adds dryly as he glances back down at the tracker and walks towards the door to the next room. “In here.”
He turns the knob and the door slowly creaks open. It’s pitch black inside, just like the other room. The professor shines his light into the room and finds a lone operating table. The scorch marks surrounding it suggests that it’s where the explosion originated from. Two large laser cannons hang limply from the ceiling, now broken beyond repair. Both of them were pointed at the operating table. Neither Gold nor Von Schlemmer liked the conclusion this scene was leading them to, but Silver’s signal was still in this room. He had to be here.
“S-Silver, are you in here?” Gold calls out.
No answer. She wishes that for once she could hear his kind voice answer back and give her a glimmer of hope that her friend was ok.
The professor follows the signal to its exact location until he’s right on top of the marker. A golden glint catches his eye from the floor. He sets the tablet down from his view to look but he doesn’t see Silver.
Only his broken, abandoned cuffs.
They are both mortified. Gold falls to her knees and cradles the cuffs in her hands.
“Oh, Silver.” Gold cries.
The professor doesn’t know what to think. He hasn’t known Silver for very long but after everything they’ve been through with the Second Devourer, he considered him a close friend. Family, even. But now he’s gone with nothing to remember him by but a pair of broken cuffs, a symbol of his oppression at the hands of the Council.
No. No, he won’t let it end like this. Silver is still alive, he knows it.
He hurries over to the computer with the least broken monitors and starts looking for any video surveillance. If he knew the Council, they would have footage of every experiment, including what happened in this room. Maybe there was still hope.
“Zhere!”
“Did you find him?” Gold asks as she rushes over to him. At the computer, she sees that the professor has pulled up the lastest video file labeled 111808_Silver.
“No, but ve can at least find out vhat happened to him.”
He clicks on the file. They gasp when they see Silver strapped to the operating table, struggling to break free from his own cuffs that were being used to restrain him. Off screen they hear the voice of the lead council member. Hearing him again sends a chill down Gold’s spine.
“Experiment 111808. Test Subject: Silver the Hedgehog. Several days ago, we discovered a highly reactive substance trapped deep within the earth. After some testing, we have reason to believe that it has highly corruptive and mutagenic capabilities. Research suggests that it is a fragment of energy from a greater being, although the legitimacy of these allegations are left to be determined. Today we will be attempting to recreate an experiment performed 200 years ago by a scientist by the name of Dr. Ivo Robotnik.”
“Wait, Eggman?” Silver seemed to recognize that name.
“If the data on this energy’s mutagenic properties are correct, then the test subject’s body will undergo a drastic, painful transformation and his mind will convert to that of animalistic savagery.”
“WHAT?!”
“Preparing energy cannons.”
Two large laser guns start to lower from the ceiling of the room, pointing directly at Silver. The hedgehog struggles even more than he was before.
“Stop!” He yells out. “You don’t know what you’re doing! Eggman was a lunatic who tried to conquer the planet!”
“Silence, hedgehog.” The leader says coldly. “The results of this experiment will prove beneficial to the progress of science. And if it doesn’t, we’ll at least have one less pest to deal with.”
“Yes.” The voices of the other Onyx City Council members drone in the background.
The cannons crackle with sickly purple energy. Silver tries with all his might to break from the restraints, even attempting to use his telekinesis despite knowing that his cuffs have rendered him powerless, but it’s no use.
“Firing.”
“AAAGGGGHHH!” Silver screams at the top of his lungs and convulses as the electricity painfully flows through his body. Gold is forced to look away from the screen. Somehow, the screams were worse to hear in person than they were in her dreams. The professor grits his teeth in anger and disgust. The Council has gone too far this time. After an agonizing minute, Silver starts to change.
His once silver quills turn a translucent electric blue, neon marks cover his body, and his eyes turn black with glowing pink irises. His body is forcefully levitated off of the table, his electric restraints going taut and keeping him chained down. Everything in the room starts to float as cracks start to spread across his cuffs.
“No!” The Council leader panics. “This isn’t what was supposed to happen! Turn off the cannons!”
“I can’t! Nothing’s responding!”
With one final, agonizing scream, the cuffs burst apart and send out a shockwave that knocks the cameras out. The video ends with unnerving static.
“My vord,” The professor gasps.
“What…” Gold struggles to find her voice. “What did he turn into?”
“A monster.”
They turn around at the sudden new voice and see the barely conscious Onyx Council leader looking towards them. Von Schlemmer marches over to him and picks him up by the collar.
“You! Vhat have you done to him?! Vhere is he?!”
“P-Professor…”
He looks over his shoulder and sees Gold quivering in place as she points at the ceiling. A drop of blue slime falls on his shoulder. He follows her line of sight and sees a new trail of neon slime that stops right above them. Gold and Von Schlemmer jump back as something drops to the floor with a wet thud. Slimy footsteps hobble towards the group until they stop right in front of them. The creature uncloaks itself and reveals itself for what it really is, a glowing ethereal hedgehog.
“Silver?” Gold asks in disbelief.
He looks in her direction, then the professor’s. His eyes, now pure black with purple irises, seem to look right through them as if he was in a daze. Neither of his friends dared to move a muscle.
“Professor, what do we do?” Gold whispers, shaking like a leaf. The professor gulps nervously then cautiously walks towards Silver with his hands up. No matter what he’s turned into, their friend was still in there somewhere.
“Silver,” The professor starts, “I know you must be in a lot of pain right now. You’ve undergone a terrible transformation, but we can make you as good as new back in my lab. Ve’ll fix zhis whole mess, I promise you.”
He reaches a hand out towards Silver. The ghostly hedgehog stares at it for a moment as if trying to determine if he could trust it. Von Schlemmer is elated when he sees him starting to reach out with his own hand. This was going to work. They were going to save him. Then Silver sees the Council leader on the floor. His hand recoils and clenches into a tight fist.
“You.” Silver speaks with so much venom and anger in his voice that his friends have never heard before. His eyes, no longer glazed over, glare intensely at the man on the floor. “You..did this…TO ME!!”
All of the lights in the room turn on at once, covering everything in a foreboding cyan light. The ground rumbles with such intensity that one could easily mistake it for an earthquake. Everything in the room starts to float in the air, including Gold and Von Schlemmer who are helpless to stop it. Silver curls in on himself, gripping his head, before letting out a bloodcurdling scream that blasts a hole in the wall, revealing the night sky. Everything and everyone caught in his telekinesis now spin around him like a tornado powered by pure malice. His friends flail around, desperately trying to grab a hold of something. Thankfully, the professor grabs onto a loose pipe and catches Gold with his free hand.
“Ve need to stop him or else zhe whole building vill come down!” He yells.
Gold looks sorrowfully at Silver. She sensed nothing but pure hatred coming from him, but she couldn’t help but think about how he reacted to the professor. Even if it was for a brief moment, Silver recognized him. He was still in there somewhere. She takes a deep breath as she makes up her mind.
“I have an idea but I need you to let me go!”
“Are you sure?”
“Trust me!”
Von Schlemmer thinks it over for a moment then nods his head. He has to let her try. He lets go of Gold’s hand, sending her careening back into the vortex. She yelps for a movement before composing herself. As she closes her eyes to focus, the mark on her forehead starts to glow. Soon her whole body is covered in a yellow light and she is no longer being pulled by the whirlwind. She opens her eyes and quickly ducks as flying wreckage whizzes past her. Her attention is brought to Silver who is writhing in pain in the eye of the storm. She steels herself. It’s now or never.
She levitates herself through the storm, weaving through the debris, and heads straight towards Silver. He turns around just as she grabs his face with both hands. He angrily thrashes around in her grasp as he tries to break free from. Gold’s eyes glow yellow as she speaks into his mind.
“Silver.”
He immediately stops struggling and looks into her eyes.
“I know you’re still in there. Come back to us, Silver.”
A sense of calm washes over Silver. His shoulders relax as he feels that he is no longer being cornered by an enemy, but in the warm embrace of a friend. Gold gingerly sits them both down on the floor and pulls him into a hug. The whirlwind slows to a stop and everything starts to gently float back down.
“Come back.”
Silver’s breathing slows down and he closes his eyes in peace. The lights dim down and the room finally stills. As soon as the professor’s feet touch down, he rushes over to check on his friends. Silver groans and clutches his head. When he looks back up at his friends, his eyes are back to normal.
“Gold? Von Schlemmer?” He looks down at his see through hands, feeling slightly nauseous at the sight. “What happened to me?
“Ve will tell you in due time,” The professor promises. “First, let’s get you out of zhis horrible place.”
The group stands to their feet and notices the morning light pouring in from the hole in the wall. Silver grunts in pain as purple smoke comes out of him. There’s a bright light and he’s suddenly back to his old self, cuffs and all. His friends are in utter disbelief at his sudden transformation, not even the professor could explain what just happened. Silver chuckles and weakly smiles.
“Glad this isn’t permanent.”
His knees suddenly buckle but his friends are there to catch him.
“We’ve got you,” Gold reassures him. “Let’s go home.”
They walk out of the room with the Professor carrying Silver in his arms.
__________________
Some time later in Von Schlemmer’s lab, the professor is punching in some commands into a large machine with a cylindrical room. Oddly, the machine resembled something similar to a stand mixer you would see in a kitchen.
“Are you sure this will work?” Gold asks in concern.
“Vell, ve shall see.”
He pulls a lever and the large cylinder starts to spin in place. Silver can be heard yelping from inside as it gets faster and faster. After a few seconds, the professor pulls the lever again and brings the machine to a slow stop. A door opens and Silver dizzily stumbles out.
“Are you alright, Silver?” Gold quickly catches Silver before he trips on the floor.
“Yeah, that ride was fun! Let’s go again. Ha, ha.”
“Success!” The professor holds up a jar of purple gas. “By modifying my all purpose exercise machine and juicer, I have successfully drained all of zhe dark energy from your body. You should be back to your old self, mein friend. How’re you feeling?”
“A lot better,” Silver answers as the dizziness finally wears off. “When I was that…thing, I felt like I wasn’t all there. Just so lost and angry. You guys really helped me snap out of it. Thank you.”
“Of course, Silver,” Gold says with a warm smile. “You would’ve done the same for us.”
“I’m going to contain zhis substance vhere it’ll never hurt you or anyone else ever again. In zhe meantime, you should get some rest. Your body has been zhrough a lot in the past few hours.”
“Phew! No need to tell me twice.”
Silver crashes on the armchair and immediately takes a nap. Gold and the Professor can’t help but smile, happy to see their friend back to his old self. Gold puts a blanket on top of Silver and leaves him to his well deserved rest.