Colors

Silver touched down in the rose garden. He had taken it upon himself to keep an eye on Mephiles, checking on him regularly and every time Silver returned to his green future. There was no way half-god wasn’t plotting some terrible revenge to be enacted the instant Silver let his guard down.

Today the garden was awash with a warbling chorus and a flurry of rushing sprite-like motes.

“Wisps.” Silver’s eyes grew wide as he watched the cadre of the colorful creatures zipping through the air. Some hovered through the roses while others seemed to be playing lively games of tag. They weaved through the many resplendent blooms with ease, giving the garden an enhanced level of splendor.

As he approached, he was spotted and several wisps broke from the group to circle him, their incomprehensible voices filling the air with alien music. “What are you all doing here?” He asked. This wasn’t right, he was sure. “Didn’t Sonic take you back to your planet when he saved you from Eggman?”

The group that surrounded him seemed disappointed at his lack of recognition, their expressive eyes drooping. “He does not know you, yet.” Mephiles’ unearthly voice filled the garden and Silver snapped into a fighting stance, his power gathering in his hands. The wisps took his lead and crackled with their energy, forming a circle around him.

Mephiles reposed against the stone, unmoved since the last time Silver saw him. And the time before that. And the time before that. It was a trick though, Silver was certain. The moment he let his guard down, Mephiles would strike. But Silver would never relax. So long as he drew breath, he would protect this world from Mephiles and his evil!

Silver slowly approached. This summer a trio of yellow and white variegated roses bloomed from the crack in Mephiles’ chest while an entire bouquet of blue leaned over side of his head like a delicate laurel. “What do you mean I don’t know them, yet?”

The acid green lazily rotated to face him. “Do you know these creatures?”

Silver frowned and examined the gaggle that still held defensive positions around him. “Well, not these ones in particular.”

“Then my statement stands.” Only Mephiles’ eyes ever moved. The roses changed with the seasons and jostled one another for place and purchase, but Solaris’ dark will remained unmoving. Moss and small plants grew on the rock behind him, but nothing grew on his poisonous crystal body. “Something to look forward to, no?”

Silver growled. “What are you talking about?”

“When you know them and they do not know you.” Mephiles chuckled lowly. “Perhaps you’ve experienced the feeling already, time traveler?”

Silver’s chest tightened. He had and it hurt badly. “Blaze.” He grimaced. She hadn’t known him when he finally saw her again in the strange amusement park Eggman had built in his plot to enslave the wisps. They’d fought together so seamlessly that Silver was sure she had remembered him. When she introduced herself, to hide his own sharp disappointment, he introduced himself right back.

“That pernicious feline.” Mephiles’ voice took on a rare hint of malice. Only one topic seemed to summon the slight show of emotion in the demon: Iblis. “She took my flame. Stole him to light the dark recesses of her heart.”

Silver’s hands lowered and the wisps relaxed around him. “Is that why she didn’t remember me? When Elise blew out Solaris, Blaze went with Iblis?”

“She’s hardly special. Haven’t you noticed by now?” His eye, pupil slit like a snake’s, focused on Silver. “They must think you mad.”

Silver swallowed.

No one else remembered. Even when he returned to the past, every familiar face required him to introduce himself. It was as if everything having to do with Solaris had been expunged from existence. Silver might have thought that he was going mad, that he’d made the entire ordeal up, where it not for Mephiles.

Mephiles the Dark, the only other being in existence that Silver could talk to about what he’d experienced in that erased timeline. And if no one else remembered, then no one else knew the danger Mephiles represented. All the more reason for Silver to remain ever vigilant. If Mephiles got to him, then there would be no one to stop him from threatening the whole world.

“That doesn’t matter.” Silver spat bitterly. “I’m happy no one remembers!”

Mephiles chuckled again. “All those remaining souls in the burning future erased. Forgotten.”

“Reborn!” Silver shouted, startling the wisps, bringing a sudden silence to their warbling song.

“But not you.” Mephiles’ eyes followed a wisp as it flew past. Silver grit his teeth. “And not me.”

“I know what you’re doing and I told you it’s no use!” Silver bared his dull fangs. “You’re trying to make me curious. You’re trying to make me think I need you! That’s there some great mystery to solve.” He shook his head. “But there isn’t!”

“I’m not doing anything other than watching the roses, Silver.” Mephiles said in an infuriatingly level voice.

“You’re lying!” Silver’s power flared around him, roughly jostling the roses and wisps.

“Believe what you wish. It changes not what I am doing.”

Silver snarled and launched into the air. The flurry of wisps followed in his wake, spirally around him in long streams of color. Silver ignored them. He would figure out Mephiles’ game if it was the last thing he did!