Chapter Text
Silver’s pinkie felt weird.
Absentmindedly the psychic rubbed at his finger, like he’d been doing over and over since Sonic had intertwined it with his own. A promise… It didn’t make much sense to the psychic. But Sonic had seemed like he knew what he was talking about, so Silver had decided to just not focus on it anymore. No way Sonic would be able to show him adventures were fun.
Speaking of, the speedster was certainly managing to entertain himself aplenty. Somewhere in the distance Silver could discern a blue streak, rushing madly past the plentiful loop-de-loops and corkscrews that littered Mountain River Zone. Looking for the entrance to a Special Stage, he’d said; but as the streak came racing right at Silver before skidding into a halt, Sonic shook his head.
“Nothing. No big ring for it anywhere.”
“Darn it,” Silver grumbled under his breath. “I’ve got no idea how to make one appear.”
“Emeralds and Special Stages are plenty finicky. Sometimes the big rings appear out of nowhere, sometimes you need a whole bunch of smaller ones before one might spawn,” Sonic explained, dropping onto the ground on his butt. “But that does leave us in a bit of a pickle.”
With a huff Silver took to the air instead, bobbing up and down as he rubbed his chin. “Any other idea where we can find an Emerald, other than a Special Stage?”
“Not yet, but I’ve been thinking. You said others sometimes collect them, right?
“They do, yes. But I don’t know from where.”
“It would be most convenient if someone had them already,” Sonic nodded back. “Is Shadow still around?”
Promptly Silver tensed. “Hm,” he shrugged back to win himself time, eyes scrunching up as he thought the question over deeply. Because the answer to that was yes: Silver could attest to multiple days of hunting the black hedgehog down with no respite until he’d found him, alongside some giant robot who seemed to consist of about eighty percent ammo and bullets. But could he say that to Sonic? Shadow seemed pretty reclusive, considering how hard it had been to find him to begin with. And more importantly, who knew what such an answer could do to the timestream? “I shouldn’t tell you that,” Silver thus settled on.
Green eyes twinkled mischievously as Silver sent them a dry look back. But Sonic’s smile was warm still, his hands digging into the grass as he leaned backwards. “Then I won’t pry. What about GUN?”
Had Silver been tense already, now he tensed only more… because a deep-seated sourness took him in its hold, and he scowled at the speedster. “They are. They’re on the news sometimes, with a lot of propaganda about how they’re keeping us safe and stuff.” And promptly Silver’s arms crossed so tight it made his ribs hurt. “They’re doing a really bad job at it, though. A collection of incompetents, the whole lot of them. It’s awful.”
That… earned Silver a laugh. A full laugh, Sonic’s head tipping backwards and his eyes shutting. It proved quite interrupting to Silver’s sulking, because he couldn’t tear his gaze away from it: people didn’t laugh at what he said, usually, or at least not in a way that looked like they thought it was…
Funny?
But not bad funny.
“That sounds just like GUN from the past,” Sonic winked at him.
“Yeah, well… I guess. They’re… working on it, but not very well. They’ve never managed to capture my nemesis in full.” Which promptly made Silver grouse only more, his eyes narrowing. How idiotic could GUN be, letting Eggman Nega escape even after Silver handed them the card that evil scientist was trapped in? They’d asked for it with the promise Eggman Nega would be facing justice and going straight to jail the moment they got him out of the card, and yet days later he’d already broken out of it himself with not a single lick of justice served. At the very least the army had helped Silver go to the past again to chase after the madman anew. It was little to repent for their stupidity, but they also could not have helped, and the world would have been overrun by the Ifrit then.
Which did make him wonder… “GUN used to have two Emeralds, actually. But they don’t anymore,” the psychic mused.
An inquiring look got sent his way at that. “How do you know?”
“It’s because of those two Emeralds that I travelled to the past the second time. The first time I was on Onyx Island already. But the second time, Eggman Nega was already gone and things were a lot in disarray, so GUN found two Emeralds and used them with me for Chaos Control.”
“Yes, but why did they lose them?”
“Oh,” Silver hummed, “I asked them what they were going to do with the Emeralds after sending me to the past, and they said they’d send them on their way too. Swore it, even.”
Sonic’s lips twitched again. “And did they do that?”
“Yes, of course! They promised it. Not with a pinkie, but they swore they would.”
“Because I don’t think any promise made by the army can be counted on to be followed.”
“But they said they were going to do it,” Silver insisted.
Sonic, however, shook his head. “Did you see them do it?”
“No. I had already jumped in the portal.”
“And did they reach out to you afterwards about it?”
“…No. But-!”
“GUN is not a group that’ll follow their word if that is less convenient for them, Silver,” Sonic said gently. “I’ll betcha those Emeralds are both safely tucked away in a GUN base, for them to use again whenever they see fit.”
With a grumble Silver dropped to the ground, his mood souring far too quickly to keep up flying for fun. “I hope not for their sake,” he spat back, “because you don’t want to know the things I’ll do to them when I find out they lied.”
“You know,” Sonic grinned, “I think I’ll be seeing that with my own eyes really soon.”
His hand got extended to Silver.
With a more curious flick of his ears Silver regarded it. “In what way?”
“Because I suggest we change our Emerald-hunting plans a bit. This sounds like a way better lead to look into. Are you in?” got winked at him, Sonic’s fingers splaying as he stretched them out more. A suggestion for Silver to shake it, for whatever reason. With a frown Silver studied his own hand, mind whirring… But yes, he did have to agree with Sonic that the people he’d been talking to had been rather disingenuous about the fate of the Emeralds. And considering everything that had happened with Eggman Nega, Sonic raised quite a good point about GUN being untrustworthy.
In one fell swoop, their hands clasped, and Silver’s brow furrowed into the most focused of frowns as he shot Sonic a nod.
“Let’s go.”
☆☆☆☆☆
GUN, which didn’t surprise Sonic in the slightest, had not kept their Emeralds in the location Silver had last seen them.
“But this is where we opened the portal!” the psychic protested, fur bristling indignantly amidst his mad pacing through the base. An empty base, more specifically: Sonic had to stifle extensive sneezes at the dust getting flicked around by Silver’s steps. It didn’t help that they had made their way through the entire place in their search, psychokinesis raising open endless heavy metal doors that slammed shut again the moment they’d entered through… And yet every room had been empty, cleaned up in full and with no traces left that there even had been anyone in the first place. Ominous, and the way Silver’s voice echoed against the walls intensified that feeling only more. “Why aren’t they here anymore?!” got added in a full yell of rage, Sonic stifling a wince at the sound assaulting his eardrums.
“GUN works with secrecy a lot,” he informed his companion, a bit muffled from where he stood squeezing his nose shut like mad. “That comes with the territory of being the army. And besides, this base is nothing impressive. Far too tiny. I don’t think they’d keep their Emeralds safe here.” Perhaps they’d even wanted to keep them away from Silver, though Sonic couldn’t think of any reason why, other than the fact the psychic seemed like someone quite liable to turn on GUN the moment he sniffed out he’d been deceived. And like someone who stood a decent chance of overpowering them, even with two centuries of technological advances at the army’s side. No doubt GUN had not missed that either.
But whatever the truth, one thing the speedster was sure of: GUN had to have lied.
Some grouses and grumbles followed as both hedgehogs pondered and thought this conundrum over, one on the brink of exploding and the other also, if only because of allergies. But eventually Sonic snapped his finger and grinned at Silver. “I got it! How about their main headquarters?” he beamed…
Before realising he removed the fingers previously clamped over his nose.
Which meant his words immediately got followed by him beginning to sneeze in earnest.
Some mad gestures and gasped-out fragments of sentences were needed to show Silver, who stood staring at Sonic’s hacking and wheezing with a mixture of worry and incredulousness, that Sonic had to get out of here right now and thus could Silver raise up the door that kept them stuck in this specific room pronto, please. But as Sonic turned around to go blast off to the lands around the ocean inlet the moment Silver would do that…
He instead yelped, because cyan enshrouded him, pulled him backwards most unceremoniously, and dropped him right into grey-furred arms. “Hold on,” Silver hummed, gingerly clutching Sonic close. Sonic merely gasped something back, because he’d been put right by that mane and the whisps of fur tickled his nose only more-!
But then Silver raised up and the world shifted and turned in cyan three, four times in rapid succession. Rushes of speed and motion intersected the cyan, and in mere seconds dank stale air had turned crisp and Sonic got put down on a rocky slope at the edge of the ocean. The speedster didn’t find it in himself to figure this was the same shifting as when Silver teleported him away to Sky Park Zone on Onyx Island, though. He was a bit too busy sucking in the fresh air seconds before the massive sneezing fit holding him in its grasp would be his last.
“Thanks,” Sonic rasped once he’d finally caught his breath a few minutes later, wiping his nose on his glove. “Whew! That base has been abandoned since the last time you went there, that’s for sure.”
Silver had been hovering around Sonic a mite awkwardly, eventually having settled on half-rubbing, half-smacking Sonic’s back while the speedster had been hacking his lungs out. But as Sonic spoke, his face darkened, and some words that Sonic figured were curses got spat out next. Madly the psychic took to pacing, hands balled and the occasional poor seashell or rock getting psychokinetically picked up to be flung at the ocean with enough force to make water spat up a full three meters. “What will we do?! I don’t know where their main headquarters are!” got snarled out inbetween.
“It’ll be okay,” Sonic smiled back with what he hoped Silver would see was gentle assurance. “We’ll figure out something, you and I.”
“I’m going to kill all of them,” was the approximate response Sonic got over another plunk! of a rock returning to the waves. With a shake of his head Sonic decided to give Silver some space, green eyes studying their surroundings. The city glittered across the waves in the distance, shining in the light of the noon sun… Sonic had yet to go there in all of his exploring.
And cities, as a undeniable fact of life, often had many people in them who could be talked to and who had information on all sorts of goings-on in the surroundings.
Maybe they just had to go into the city, Sonic mused, and a plan begun forming in his mind at lightning speed.
A while later, once Silver had calmed down enough to not fling a whole beach-worth of stones and shells in the ocean, Sonic padded beside him through one of the underwater pipes he’d seen in his previous exploring. On the mainland, a road with a hiking and cycling trail had led towards the ocean’s edge, where a glass canopy had started and formed a half-pipe the deeper the road dropped underneath the water’s surface. They were truly walking right on the ocean floor, like Silver had said. Sonic found himself quite preoccupied with marvelling at the underwater world beyond the glass, though Silver marched on with zero pausing. “I’m not sure this will work,” the psychic muttered. “Surely GUN won’t just… put the location of their secret headquarter base somewhere in the city? Or would they? Or are their headquarters in the city?”
Sonic, amidst his staring, caught Silver’s words barely in time. “Ah… I doubt that. The one in the past isn’t, at least. And GUN might not put its location for anyone to stumble across, but there’s more people out there than just them. There’s always conspiracies, or those in the know, or even just people who accidentally put something in the newspaper that they shouldn’t,” he informed his pal. “Other people are our best shot here, and there’s surely tons of them in your city.”
“Millions, yep. That’s why they had to expand into the ocean.”
“It looks amazing,” Sonic smiled. With Silver at his side he ambled through the walkway, studying the ocean outside the half-pipe with no small amount of curiosity. Tons more smaller pipes were connected to the one he and Silver were in, leading to all sorts of buildings visible through the glass… Sonic whistled in awe. “These are the buildings we see above the water too?”
“They are,” Silver nodded back. “You can enter them and go up and down with elevators. Above the water there’s tons of pipes and bridges and stuff as well to walk between them, but the buildings were built right on the ocean floor.”
“That’s really neat.” With his hand trailing past the glass of the half-pipe they were in Sonic peeked all over, the ocean’s blue-and-white flickering outside of their walkway making him marvel only more.
Beside him Silver knocked a knuckle against it. “The pipes are very sturdy, too. People didn’t want a disaster with having them break all the time.”
“Can they break?”
“Anything can,” Silver shrugged. “But they’ve got whole systems in place for that. You see how the pipe is made out of segments? Each can be closed off with a trap door of sorts, that can fall shut and close off a broken part of the pipe, once everyone is out. It’ll keep the water contained, and the pipe can be repaired from the outside and drained.”
Following the finger pointing upwards, where the glass indeed was intercepted by a thick line of grey, Sonic nodded. “You know it well.”
“Of course! What if one of them breaks and I don’t know what to do about it?! I read it all in the library.”
Sonic’s ears gave a flick. Silver had mentioned that before… “That is also a botanical garden, you said?” he prodded, regarding his pal closely. He could have sworn a little glimmer of joy had formed in those oh-so-serious golden eyes, matched by the firm nod of Silver’s head…
“It is! It’s incredibly neat,” Silver agreed. And then he opened his mouth anew, and…
Sonic could only stare in surprise at the utter tsunami of words that spilled out.
“So the problem with books is that they’re all paper, right? And you don’t want paper to get humid. Or computers, for that matter. Except plants transpire and water evaporates from their stomata so the air can get quite moist if you’ve got a lot, and the library has thousands of plants. So what they did is that they very carefully looked at all the species of plants that could work in libraries, and they selected a whole bunch of them that are good for air purification and that help keep the temperature down and that won’t ruin the books with excessive moisture. There’s a lot of cacti and they’ve also got succulents and ferns that are all placed in pots and stuff, and there’s also plants placed against the bricks so it makes a green wall. The roof is a dome made of glass and there’s a huge open space in the middle of the library so all the light can go down! And the parts of the roof that aren’t glass are terraces that you can go onto, and they’re all full of plants too to help keep the temperature in the library down, and they also attract a lot of insects with the flowers. And every floor of the library also has a reading nook with plants that hang from the ceiling, so it’s really nice to be there,” Silver produced in what Sonic swore was a single breath, somehow.
It was both the most he’d ever heard Silver talk in one go, and absolutely the most eager.
“Whoa, really? That’s so cool!” Sonic made sure to urge the other along in his talking, lips twitching up into a warm smile. Silver looked cute in his eagerness like that, with haphazard hand movements that made his entire body flow along in his chatter. Dozens of plant names came by next, accompanied by their function and why they did well in this specific library, in a gushing chatter that made Sonic wonder how Silver wasn’t running out of oxygen…
And all the while, he just couldn’t tear his eyes away from Silver’s face.
Because he could have sworn a smile was visible on tan lips while all the furrows and creases of his face had evened out entirely, and in a way, Silver looked sunnier than every summer day Sonic had lived through so far.
How very odd, the speedster mused. Maybe it just caught his attention because it was about the first time he’d ever seen Silver genuinely happy. But as it stood Sonic was given little time to think it over: the half-pipe angled upwards, the world lightened around them, and Sonic threw a hand in front of his eyes at the sunlight hitting his face as he and Silver stepped onto cobblestones. “And that is why they use ivy to coat the banisters and the stairs,” Silver concluded his spiel. “And welcome in the city. We’re right in the city centre here.”
Sonic couldn’t stop himself from bouncing in excitement. “Whoa… It’s gorgeous! It looks so old!”
“Apparently this city centre hasn’t changed much in the past centuries. This place is well over a millennium old,” Silver nodded. Sonic could believe it: the facades of the houses were most charming and old-fashioned, little cafes tucked away in corners of the streets and plentiful canals stretching out as far as the eye could see between them. The only thing that did tip him off about being in the future were all the high-tech screens and fancy hoverboards and robotic creations Sonic couldn’t even guess the function of, that gave everything a soft neon glow. Though, his marvelling got interrupted by Silver, who pressed his fists into his hips. “What now? How will we find info about GUN?”
“Shhh. Keep your voice down,” Sonic told him, winking to show Silver he wasn’t mad. GUN had more ears around than he liked in the past; surely the future would not be much different. Slowly the speedster set off onto the street, past houses and shops while keeping his eyes peeled.
A huff followed behind him. “Do you even know what you’re doing?”
“Quite so.” And Sonic’s amble slowed to a prompt halt as his gaze darted past what he’d been looking for. Over the years the speedster had found himself rather familiar with all the signs someone needed some help: worried faces, wringing hands, pacing and muttering to others…
Precisely what a guy in a fancy green uniform with a big hat was doing at the very corner of the street, the man alternating between frenzied walking and leaning close to mumble in the ear of a lady dressed so inconspicuously normal all Sonic’s senses of suspicion got triggered immediately.
“I wonder what they’re talking about,” Silver hummed, looking over into the direction of the duo as well. “That guy… His name is Ermanno, I believe. This city has a whole guard that’s keeping it safe… well, allegedly. And that lady I don’t know. But she’s a GUN agent.”
That Sonic had not expected, and the speedster shot his pal a curious look. “How do you know?”
“They all stand like that. All stiffly, see?” That the lady did, Sonic suppressing a pained grimace at the ramrod-straight way her back was held. That had to hurt. “And when they’re not in uniform they wear those clothes too. It looks casual, but like… way too much. Plus, they’ve all got a super-tight bun or short hair. And do you see her glasses?” Silver continued, Sonic’s eyes trailing upward to the woman’s face. Indeed, it was adorned with a pair of them, Sonic studying their square appearance. “All GUN people have them. They’re fancy vizors with heat vision and stuff, one guy told me once. He said they could shoot lasers too and freeze people on the spot in ice and send out electric shocks with as much volts as the power grid, but I’ve never seen any of that myself,” the psychic concluded, ears twitching.
Even for a technologically-advanced future, that reeked of nonsense, and thus Sonic snorted. It seemed more likely that the guy in question had been having some fun with lying to the world’s most honest psychic. Sonic wasn’t going to point that out now and risk Silver gutting the nearest GUN agent he could take his ire out on, however, and thus the speedster nodded inconspicuously towards the duo. “Let’s go ask them, shall we? Not about the lasers or the ice or electricity, but if they need help.”
Silver stiffened. “…What’s the point of asking if they need help?” got growled out with so much venom Sonic swore it made the cobblestones tremble and shake. “We gotta find the GUN base. I don’t want to help the army again, they suck at being the army!”
Stifling a snort at that very succinct summary of GUN’s track record, Sonic shook his head. “They might have the info we need. And people are more talkative if you’re nice to them, no?”
“…Huh. I mean, I do suppose,” Silver responded slowly, rubbing his chin in pondering. Sonic had to hide a smile at that, remembering very well how he’d met Silver. The psychic had ran up to him, both times… and both times that had been accompanied by snarling, yelling, flared quills, glaring eyes, bared teeth, and generally a lot of unpleasantness from Silver’s side that had not at all been nice.
But that was in the past, and things were going far smoother between them. Thus Sonic opened his mouth to discuss how to best do this-
Before jolting as Silver kicked into motion, right towards the two humans. “Wait!” Sonic realised, reaching out to snatch Silver’s arm and pull him back. If the psychic introduced himself the way he had to Sonic, they could forget getting any info out of these people-!
The moment his fingers curled around Silver’s arm, though, the psychic jumped. Most promptly Sonic got scorched in a deathly glare, some of those signs of un-nice-ness showing anew as Silver snarled. The cobblestones quivered only more from the deep reverberations. “I’ll handle the talking,” the speedster promptly decreed over the growl sent his way. “How about you pay attention to how that lady’s acting, and see if she reacts suspiciously?”
“Let go!” Silver snapped, arm yanked right out of Sonic’s grasp. “That… Sure.”
“Sorry,” Sonic hummed back placatingly, taking a little step backwards. He got glared at still, but at least Silver’s growls quieted down while the psychic madly rubbed the fur of his arm. “Let’s do this,” the speedster added before prancing over, Silver’s eyes burning a hole in him still as he followed a good distance behind.
Both humans had been talking to each other throughout that all, Ermanno frantically and the woman with one-word responses. As a silence fell into the conversation Sonic stepped forward a bit louder, both humans flinching and whirling around towards the two hedgehogs. “Hello,” Sonic nodded towards them both. “You guys look like there’s trouble abound.”
“Oh-! Uh, greetings, pal. And hi, Silver,” Ermanno responded. “No, all is well… for now.”
The woman shot him an irked look, though Sonic’s ears perked up immediately. “For now?”
“It is of no concern to you, civilian,” the icily stiff response came from her side. “I can assure you all is well.”
Sonic’s ears twitched slowly. Tough crowd indeed. But this was the exact situation he and Silver needed… In a split second the speedster weighed his options, before grinning. Being bold had always brought him far enough. “Sir, are you a guard of the city?” he inquired, gesturing to the fancy sword attached to Ermanno’s belt.
“Er… Yes, indeed.”
“I do quite feel like things are not so well if a guard and a GUN agent are talking together so secretly.”
Ermanno grimaced deeply, and the lady stiffened. “Apologies? A GUN agent?” she retorted, possibly even more cold than before. “I can assure you that a mere civilian like you has no idea whether they are talking to someone of the army.”
Sonic opened his mouth to retort… before his head snapped to the side at the scoff coming from there. “You are of the army. You’ve got their glasses, and their clothes and their hair bun,” Silver huffed back, crossing his arms. “So what’s going on?”
Ermanno opened his mouth as if he wanted to intervene, but nothing came out. Instead the lady crossed her arms just as tautly as Silver’s were. “I reiterate: this does not concern two children. Leave now, before you both get in trouble.”
“Actually,” Sonic spoke up, “this is Silver, and he’s a hero and very brave and strong. If anyone can solve your issue, it’ll be him.”
Golden eyes snapped over to him, genuine surprise coating Silver’s features. But what caused it Sonic did not know, nor could he ask. “Well… Yeah! I am,” the psychic hummed anyway, before turning his glare right back to the GUN lady. “And this is Sonic, and he’s a brave hero as well.”
Sonic’s interest got piqued immediately at the way the lady had raised an eyebrow behind her glasses throughout these introductions. First she studied the speedster, before shaking her head minutely. But then she looked at Silver… “Silver, hmm,” followed. In a mere second her stance shifted ever so slightly, the woman’s head angling down to the psychic as if he suddenly had become the most interesting person in the whole world. Perhaps those vizors could do more than detect heat and probably not shoot lasers, ice and electricity, Sonic figured. “Weren’t you the boy GUN asked to go back in time to chase down Dr. Robotnik?” got added slowly.
“The boy?” Silver repeated with such a level of indignance Sonic had never had to fight so hard to keep a straight face.
“And he succeeded,” he made sure to intercept before Silver would roundhouse-kick a GUN agent, “and that man is now…”
“Trapped in a burning hell dimension and hopefully getting long having gotten eaten alive by the Ifrit.”
“Exactly, so if there’s a single person who’d be able to protect your city, it’ll be Silver. We’ll show you.”
“We can use all the help we can get,” Ermanno piped up meekly, hands wringing as he shot the GUN lady a pleading stare. “Silver’s always here in the city to help out the guard… If you’ve got good experiences with um, him, as a hero and such, maybe it’s, er, okay if he and his friend… lend a hand?”
“We’d be happy to. The people who live here deserve to be safe. That’s why GUN exists, right?” Sonic pushed a bit further. And slowly but surely, the lady’s lips pursed only more…
“Hm. I suppose the situation as it is now will be a cinch to solve for someone with your feats, Silver. And this Sonic…”
“Has a lot of feats too,” Silver dryly added. “Tell us, now.”
Sonic’s glare of warning came just a second too late… but mercifully Ermanno opened his mouth before the GUN agent could stop him in turn. “At the warehouses on the industry terrain,” came stuttering out; first hesitantly, then more and more frantically till the guard was altogether rambling. “There’s noises, skitters… People are terrified! They’re walking out of their jobs because they’re feeling watched by something! Everyone swears that there is a… a creature or a being or a what-have-you hiding there, but nobody has seen anything! And the shipments-! We’ve been trading for centuries, but all the competition is doing so much better these days all of a sudden! It’s almost like there is something surveilling the warehouses, spying on everything and everyone, and-!”
“And we can fight whatever it is and destroy it!” Silver interrupted with the subtlety of a fully packed freight train. “Sounds great! We’ll go and see right now.”
With a muffled chuckle at the ease with which his pal jumped to this plight Sonic nodded. “We’ll have this figured out in no time,” he agreed, cheekily saluting the GUN lady and Ermanno. And then he lightly curled his fingers around Silver’s hand and tugged him away from the corner, giving it a squeeze as another hiss followed. “Before that ice queen can change her mind,” he muttered over his shoulder, which did make Silver blink ponderingly before nodding with his angry noises dying down.
“Warehouses are this way. Follow me,” the psychic said instead, hand wrenched out of Sonic’s grasp with slightly less hostility than he had his arm, and the two hedgehogs blasted off deeper into the city. Eagerly the speedster followed in Silver’s steps, the streets quieting as they made their way towards the ocean, and all the while Sonic’s enthusiasm grew all the more.
Solving this problem would be a cinch indeed.