It was a hot evening on the Angel Island. No doubt, one of the hottest days of the year. Almost all of the population of the city was hidden inside, trying to avoid the heat. Most offices and work sites were even closed because of the heat. The thousands of Mobians who inhabited the island were all just lazing around, trying to keep cool. Well, aside from three of them.
"Cummon, just hit me, it isn’t that hard!" yelled Mighty the Armadillo, spinning out of the way of yet another unsuccessful punch being thrown at him. Chris, the blue coloured fox he was sparring with, simply responded with a growl of annoyance, and charged forward again, swinging a fist at the armadillo with abandon. Mighty easily ducked underneath the blow, and responded by reaching forward with one hand and simply flicking the fox in the chest.
Chris cried out as he flew backwards a few meters, slamming his back into the dusty ground and rolling over backwards, before coming to a stop with his face in the dust. "Owww…"
He was helped up a moment later by a red echidna who had been standing behind him watching the entire fight. Once Chris was up and had dusted off his fur as best as he could manage, he said to the echidna, "Thanks Knuckles."
"Anytime," Knuckles, guardian of Angel Island told him. He looked over at Mighty, who was standing several feet away, wiping the sweat off of his forehead. "Maybe we should hold the combat training until after it’s cooled down a bit. Besides, we haven’t even started his chaos training yet."
Mighty looked up, wiping his brow again, "Sure, I need a break anyways. Man, this sun is killing me!"
Knuckles and Chris walked back into the house which Knuckles occupied. Mighty insisted on training for combat outside, for risk of destroying anything with his own considerable strength and Chris’s developing power. They walked into a large room which was for the most part plain and empty, save for a well beaten and burned cement block in the middle. Knuckles called this his "Chaos Room", the room in which he practised his chaos generated powers.
Once they were inside this room, and Knuckles closed the door, he turned to Chris. "So, have you had any more moments when your hands have done that blue mist thing again?"
"Yeah, I guess once or twice."
"When has it happened?"
Chris thought about it. "It seems to happen… whenever I’m angry, I guess."
Knuckles shook his head. "That’s what I was afraid of. Generally, what you need to do is make sure you can control your emotions enough so that you can call it up whenever you need it, and also send it away or prevent it when you don’t."
"Wait," Chris interrupted, "Why is it bad if I only ever do it when I’m angry? The only time I usually get angry is when I’m fighting against any of Robotnik’s robots with Mighty. Isn’t that good enough, then?"
"No." Knuckles said simply and bluntly. "If you rely on your emotions to control your abilities, you might end up hurting someone who doesn’t deserve it. Before you speak," he said quickly, noticing Chris about to respond, "think about it a bit. What if you and Mighty got into an argument and you accidentally, oh, froze him solid because you couldn’t control your anger?"
Chris’s muzzle dropped open, shocked by the idea. He knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he were to hurt anyone, especially Mighty.
"And besides," continued Knuckles, seeing that his words had had the desired effect, "You can do so much more with chaos when it’s under your control."
Chris looked up at him. "How so?"
In response, Knuckles walked over to the cement block in the middle of the room. He let out all of his breath, then lunged forwards and punched it, leaving a shallow dent in it. Next, he seemed to relax and stand there for a moment, allowing himself to calm down. This time, when he lunged forwards, flames burst into life on his balled up fist, and the echidna hit the block. When he removed his paw, there was a dent at least twice as deep, not to mention the burn marks which the flames had left behind.
"You see? As long as we’re in control of our emotions, we can focus on what we need, and the power of chaos will aid us with it."
Chris began nodding in understanding, but stopped suddenly, shaking his head instead. "But that’s not fair! I didn’t ask for this power, and now that I’ve got it I need to use it, and now there’s all these restrictions!? Why do I need to be in control of my emotions when everyone else just works purely with them, like Sonic?"
"You seem to have forgotten that I as well have to be in control of my emotions, and I didn’t ask for it either."
"I know that, but you’ve been trained for this since you were born! I’ve had to come to terms with it just after having my old life destroyed, my humanity lost, and my family killed!" Chris shouted back.
Knuckles’ violet eyes softened. He knew how his young friend felt; he’d dealt with these ideas on his own as well. "You’re right, you know that? It’s not fair; we didn’t choose to have this power or these restrictions. You didn’t ask to be thrust into this, and I didn’t ask to be trained for this since I was born. However, we have these powers nonetheless, and we can choose to either let these powers run rampant and become dangerous to those around us, or we can learn to use them and help the innocent, restrictions or not." He paused to let Chris digest that. "So, what’s your choice?"
The fox was silent for a while. "So, how do I do one of those punches?"
Knuckles smirked. "Alright, now I need you to remember what it feels like when you get angry and that blue mist comes around your paw."
Chris thought back to the few times he’d managed to conjure the mist onto his paw. "It always seems like… it’s almost as if… as if I’m drawing from within myself. It always happens when I think of just after my family died and how empty I felt. Then, there’s some sort of feeling inside of me, and I take the energy from that."
The echidna gulped. He’d hoped that wouldn’t be it. "I wish it wasn’t like this, but what you need to do then is come to terms with your family’s death, and think of it without emotion, good or bad."
Chris did a double take. "Wh-what! How could I possibly do that? I-"
"I didn’t say you had to do it right now, but for your own sake and the sake of your new power, you need to come to terms with their death. I won’t blame you if it takes a long time, just so long as you try."
Chris nodded slowly. "Is there anything else we can do until then?"
Knuckles chuckled to himself. "Of course. This room is reinforced, that’s why I do my chaos training in it. Why don’t you practise doing an ice punch on my block over there?"
Without a word, Chris walked over to the cement block. He tried to isolate the feeling he’d felt the other few times, but couldn’t. So instead, he replayed his family’s death in his mind again, for the thousandth time, and felt the anger rising within him. Unnoticed by him, the strange blue mist had gathered around his paws, which were clutched in tight fists. He lunged forward with his right fist, far faster than he had with Mighty, and punched the block. As his fist and the block collided, the mist rolled away from his paw and into the cement in a constant current. Chris pulled his paw away, surveying the damage to the block.
What he saw delighted him. There was a small dent from his punch, nowhere near as deep as any of Knuckles’, but a dent none the less. Also, around the dent the cement was a deep bluish colour, and it had become brittle and weak with its freezing. He turned around to find Knuckles surveying his work, smiling.
"Nice work kid. Pretty good for a first try."
Chris’s muzzle split into a wide smile, knowing how difficult it was to get a compliment from the stoic echidna.
"Come on, Chris, let’s go have a drink to cool down, then we’ll call it a day. It’s getting late, if you hadn’t noticed."
Chris readily agreed, being quite hot despite the coldness he had just generated on his hands. They went into the kitchen section of Knuckles’ house, where Mighty was waiting for them. They each drank a glass of water as Chris told his friend of what he’d accomplished. Mighty was thrilled.
"That’s great Chris!" Mighty exclaimed. "It seems like you’re shaping up quite well!"
Chris, truth be told, felt great pride at the complement, but he shrugged it off, trying to act modest. Soon, the three were done their drinks and Mighty and Chris started towards the airport on Angel Island, where they’d left their bi-plane. Mighty had recently been taking lessons on how to fly planes from Tails, since he and Chris had to do so much commuting in between Angel Island and Starlight. Once they’d finished diagnostics, Mighty jumped into the front and Chris pulled himself up into the back, and they took off, heading for Starlight City.
***
Chris looked around. Where the hell was he? Looking around, he noted that he was outside of Mighty’s house, and it was the middle of the day. He looked around and saw, to his shock, his parents were standing to his left.
"B-but, you’re d-d-dead! This isn’t possible!" Chris yelled at them.
"You failed us, Chris." They were both staring at him, their lips not moving, their eyes cold.
"No," Chris said, thoroughly confused now, "There was nothing I could do! Cyber Tails attacked, and there was no chance for me to-"
"But you didn’t try, did you?"
"N-no," Chris muttered, unsure.
"You failed us, you failed everyone. And you WILL fail again. Mighty isn’t safe with you around…"
"What are you talking about!?" Chris screamed, staring around him.
As he looked, he saw Mighty standing several feet away from him, fighting off a horde of monsters. Chris tried to run to him, but couldn’t move. He watched in horror as his friend and mentor fell beneath the press of robots, dying as one slashed him across the face.
Now he could move. "NO!" he yelled, running towards his fallen friend. However, just before he got there, Mighty disappeared, and his hands sank through air as he reached down to shake him. He spun around to his parents, tears in his eyes. "Why are you doing this?"
"We aren’t doing anything; it’s you who’s not doing enough to help your friends." As they finished ‘saying’ this, Chris saw Helen, Frances, and Daniel, his friends from school, being overrun by robots; Tails, Sonic, and the other Freedom Fighters he’d come to know being attacked unexpected by Robotnik and his goons; the other Mobians at Emerald City, Knothole Village, and the other cities he’d been to falling to the Eggman Empire.
"You will fail."
"No, I won’t!" Chris yelled at them.
"Others you know will die from your failure."
"I won’t let it happen!"
"You will watch as all you care about slowly die, one by one."
"NO!" he screamed, lunging at them.
Chris woke up, sitting up in bed. He jumped up and looked around, his chest heaving. No one was there. Slowly, the fox allowed himself to slip down onto the bed. What the HELL was that? he thought into the night.
The dream had been the weirdest thing he’d ever experienced, aside from being turned into a blue fox, of course. His parents would never say that, besides, he truly never had the chance to do anything that night, the most he could have done would be to get himself killed, too.
Maybe that would have saved one of their lives, though, a dark part of his brain told him. But he quickly shook that feeling off. Cyber Tails was there for blood, and that was what he got. Nothing he could have done would’ve changed that. Yet as he lay back down, the doubts still hung in his head, bothering and scaring him.
He lay in bed for half an hour trying to sleep, but couldn’t. Finally, Chris sat up and decided it was too hot right now to go to sleep. He walked over to the screen door in his room which lead outside. Opening it, he decided to go for a walk to cool off his nerves and his body. He slipped outside into the still-warm night and started walking for the down town area.
He walked fast, trying to leave his dark thoughts behind him. But they always followed, and he kept avoiding them by focusing on his walking. What with his mind so preoccupied, he didn’t notice the dark figure on the roofs and the walls, shadowing his movements as he walked.
Chris did note, however, the gradual increase of the size of the buildings as he walked closer and closer to the down town center of town.
It was then that the massive robot that was following him jumped out in front of the fox, and a very long night began.
***
Tim wasn’t sleeping lately. Not much, at least. Part of it was the heat, and part of it was his own thoughts. It had nothing to do with Chris really; he was enjoying his time with his young friend. It had to do with when he’d kissed Tiara, and the things Kyle was talking about lately. Kyle had been claiming for a while that Tails’ memories kept flooding his mind, and that he might lose his mind to Tails’ at some time.
Tim, however, hadn’t experienced this until he’d kissed Tiara. It was then that thoughts of her, Mighty’s thoughts, bombarded him. It wasn’t the way Kyle had made it seem. It was actually… nice, somehow. Tim wasn’t sure whether he wanted the thing to stop and leave him himself, or for it to take control so he could forget his life.
It wasn’t the greatest tale, the story of his life. He loved his friends, because they were the one thing he had to hold on to that was good, but his family life hadn’t been the best. When he was still very young, his parents had decided to give him up because they were too young to take care of him. His parents had only been 18 when they’d had him, so they really had no choice in the matter. He’d lived his life quite well after that, until a few weeks after he’d turned 18. On that one fateful day, his parents had gone to the store to pick up some groceries. As they’d gotten out of their car, a mugger had held them up, right in broad daylight! Apparently, they hadn’t had enough money for him, so he’d shot them, then hopped into a car and driven off. He’d been of legal age, so there hadn’t been the need to relocate him. His foster parents had left him the house, and thus he’d been fine financially. But he still missed them all the time almost, and he just wished they’d come through the door one day and say it was all a giant bad joke. But it didn’t work that way.
It was about then that he heard Chris get up and go outside. He wasn’t concerned; besides, Chris definitely needed some time to work out his problems. Tim thought back to when he’d lost his parents, and knew it would be a while at the least until Chris got over it and could forgive himself.
He continued his reminiscing for a while, until he realised that Chris had been gone too long. He got up and walked outside, looking around. He noticed something glinting at the top of a nearby house, and using his speed and strength, quickly jumped up to the top of it. He saw three robots, not made for combat, made for observation.
Tim, now allowing Mighty’s instincts to take over, rushed them, punching two of them in one side and out the other at once. Next, he grabbed the last one and ripped the recording device from its head, and quickly destroyed it as well.
Not even a bit worn out by his fast little rumble, he rewound the recording device a half an hour, and watched. What he saw made him sick. Chris walked out of the screen door attached to his ground level room, and a large, new model robot quickly followed him. He looked around, already knowing there would be no trace, then quickly ran and jumped back to his home, and grabbed the phone.
***
"Who are you!?" Chris yelled to the robot.
It didn’t respond, but Chris did notice a small decal on it that said ‘Zero’. Next to that decal was a small logo. The logo of the Eggman Empire. Chris’s blood went cold, literally, and blue mist spread across his hands. He looked up straight at the robot, just in time to see its fist fly forward and smash him in the chin.
Chris let out a small cry of pain as he spun aside and to the ground from the impact. This was no normal robot. He picked himself up, then hopped over the second fist, this time being able to see that its hands were extendable. That was how it had punched him from so far away. The mist on his hands intensified, and he ducked two more punches. Finally he reached it, and pulled a combo much like Knuckles’ double punch upper cut technique, before being swatted to the side and into a wall by the thing’s hand.
***
"Hello?"
"Ray?" Tim asked into the receiver.
"Mighty? Hi, what’s going on?"
Tim let out a little sigh. "Are you still staying at that village, uh, what is it, Fallbat?"
"Fallbase," Ray corrected on the other end. Fallbase was a small, barely known community about an hour’s walk north of Starlight. Ray had been on a long vacation to several places ever since something happened to his apartment. Something that involved Tricky, a cannon, and a ton of toothpaste. Ray hadn’t elaborated when he’d explained it to Mighty on the phone, and he was quite sure he was glad he didn’t know. But, long story short, Ray was spending time away from Emerald City while his apartment was being rebuilt, repainted, and the ceiling was being replaced.
"Good. Could you get over here, like, now?"
"What’s wrong?" Ray asked, suddenly serious.
"Chris is missing, and I found Robotnik monitor bots outside my house."
"I’m already gone!" Ray yelled from the other end, and Tim heard a window scrape open on the other end. Then he hung up, and scribbled a note for Ray saying that he was already looking, and that he should start as soon as he got there.
Tim, once again letting Mighty take over, ran out the door and sped off into the night.
***
Chris slid down from the wall to the ground, pain racking his body when he hit the ground. But he got up nonetheless, knowing his survival depended on it. He ducked suddenly, allowing another fist to fly by overhead, decimating the wall and sending bricks everywhere. A few bricks rained down on his head, before he leaped away to the side to avoid yet another punch. This was getting dangerous.
Chris wished for a moment as he jumped over the cable attaching Zero’s left hand that Mighty would show up and just end this thing, but shook his head quickly and landed another mist covered punch on his opponent’s metallic skin. He had to do this on his own. No one else could get hurt or be put in danger by his own lack of ability to defend himself.
He was shaken from his thoughts suddenly as another two punches flew in at his head and legs. He jumped up and spun horizontally to avoid the fists, but was clipped on his left side. Even though it was a tiny hit, it sent the young fox flying backwards to hit the ground, rolling head over tail and stopping as he collided with another wall.
Chris got up and dived forwards under a punch, then rolled to the right as a fist slammed the ground and smashed up the concrete. Small fragments rained against his fur, but he ignored it, instead getting up and running again, trying to avoid the punches. Slowly, he made his way closer and closer to Zero, ready to hit it once he got the chance.
Just as he was about to deliver a hit on it, both of the robot’s hands rushed forward and slammed Chris in the chest, throwing him back into the pillar of a nearby building. Chris tried to get up, but found a hand pinning him down to the ground. He looked up to see another fist about to hit him in the face, and closed his eyes, waiting for the inevitable.
It didn’t come. Just as Zero was about to destroy Chris, a laugh of delight could be heard echoing throughout the tiny street. Then, Ray the Flying Squirrel plummeted from the sky at full speed, yelling as he did. Zero moved away from Chris to engage the new threat, and Chris took a deep breath of air. It was hard to breathe underneath a massive mechanical hand.
Ray knew he couldn’t fight the robot. He wouldn’t be able to dent the steel shell if he were to continue punching it all day. All he could do was act as a decoy until Mighty showed up or this thing needed recharging.
He flew as fast as he could, keeping himself just out of reach of his opponent. At one point he actually stopped flying and simply dropped. When the robot punched at him and missed, Ray grabbed onto the cord which held the hand, and swung around it to get himself back up into the air and flying.
After one painfully close punch, Ray looked down for a moment to check on Chris. He seemed alright, and was starting to get back up after his vicious pounding. Sure that his friend was safe, he brought his attention back to his own fight.
It was then that Zero’s left hand smashed him straight in the chest. He cried out in agony and dropped from the sky, not intentionally this time. He smacked the ground on his already injured chest, letting out another cry. He just managed enough energy to look up at Zero, and think, So, this is how it’s going to end, before he passed out.
Chris watched all of this in horror. With a massive effort, he managed to pick himself up, ready for one last battle before Zero ended both of them. "Come on," he yelled to it.
It rushed him.
"No you DON’T!"
Mighty ran onto the street faster than Chris had ever seen him travel. He came in and punched the robot, sending it flying into the remains of a wall.
"You don’t hurt my friends. NO ONE hurts my friends!" he screamed rushing at it again. Just as he punched it though, an electric blue flash covered Zero. In fact, that was exactly what it was: electricity. As Mighty’s fist made contact, the light spread across from robot to armadillo. The energy coursed through Mighty and bent him forward double. Chris wanted to run forward, but couldn’t. It was just like the dream. Mighty was in trouble, and there was nothing Chris could do about it but stand and stare.
After a few more seconds, the energy stopped flowing, and Mighty fell over backwards onto his shell, smoke rising from him. Now Chris was the only one standing; the only one with any power to help them. He took a few steps toward Zero, before the robot easily slapped him out of the way to the ground. Then, the robot turned to where Ray had fallen, and grabbed the squirrel. He extended his hand quickly, slamming Ray into a pillar of a building and crushing him against it. Luckily, the squirrel was unconscious, or the pain would have been unbearable.
Chris stared at Ray and the machine, then his gaze wandered to Mighty, lying on the ground several meters away, still smoking. His thoughts flashed back to the day his family had died, and he didn’t feel anger; didn’t feel sadness, didn’t feel anything. If Mighty and Ray died, he knew that he’d feel a million times worse than that.
Suddenly, he was filled with resolve, and power. He looked at Zero, still crushing Ray into the pillar. Blue mist, much more and much thicker than ever before, covered his fists, and he approached the robot. It didn’t even notice him, too intent on its prey. Chris managed to get right up next to him before it noticed.
Zero looked down at Chris.
Chris looked up at Zero.
The fox punched the robot, and it flew through the air. Not as far as when Mighty had punched it, but far nonetheless. It landed, making a veritable crater in the cement. When it got up, it looked back to see the blue fox standing next to the fallen squirrel. There was light blue mist all over his hands, traveling up his arms. His eyes were emotionless.
Chris watched as the robot ran off into the night, leaving the ruined street behind him. Then the mist died away, and he looked down at Ray. He was still breathing, and that was a good sign. He grabbed the squirrel and hoisted him over his right shoulder, then staggered forwards to the place where Mighty lay.
I can’t carry both of them on my own… he said to himself. I just need a bit more focus, just a bit. He concentrated as hard as he could, but couldn’t manage it. "No," he cried out, refusing to give up. He tried again, but just couldn’t summon the strength. He was about to give up, when Mighty let out a slight groan.
"Chris?" he said weakly.
"Mighty!" Chris kneeled next to his friend, whose eyes had opened. "Can you walk?"
Mighty forced himself to stand, staggering slightly until Chris caught him. "I’ll need help."
"I can help, just keep walking. We’re not far from the hospital, just keep on going." Chris threw an arm around Mighty’s shoulders, and the two walked away from the battle scene where all three had nearly lost their lives.
***
Mighty opened his eyes and looked around. He remembered stumbling into the hospital beside Chris, who was carrying Ray around his shoulders, then everything went dark. He sat up in his bed, and found that he was in a hospital room. Checking everything, he found two other beds beside his, one empty but quite messy one to his right, and one other one on his other side with a familiar figure lying in it.
"Ray!" Tim jumped up and ran over to the bed, noticing that he felt much better than when he’d staggered into the hospital.
Ray’s eyes opened. "You’re finally awake? Man, you sleep a lot, and you snore so loud that it hurts."
Tim laughed with relief. "How long was I out?"
"Two days, twelve hours, five minutes, by my guess."
Tim shook his head. "Can’t you be serious even after a near death experience?"
"Never," Ray shook his head, "I hang out with Tricky, remember?"
"You could always come and stay with me when you get out, you know, what with your apartment being, uh, unavailable for a while."
Ray shook his head, but more with laughter than to say no. "You know, if I went there, it would seem like you’re starting an orphanage for kids whose parents have died."
"Look," Mighty sighed, "I just don’t want Chris to grow up without a father figure."
"Well, I dunno, I turned out pretty well, didn’t I?" Ray asked, smirking.
"Yeah, I guess you did. But don’t you think it might have been better if you’d had parents? Besides, it’s fun having him around."
"Hey, I’m not going to talk you out of harboring him. Oh, and thanks, but no about coming to stay with you."
"So, when are you getting out of here?" he asked his young friend, changing the subject.
"They said five more days, but it’ll be three if I can force that window open. Chris left today," he answered the armadillo’s unasked question. "He said he had a flight to catch."
Tim blinked. "To where?"
"He said he had to go Angel Island."
***
Knuckles opened his door, to find Chris standing on the doorstep. He was surprised to see the fox there; he’d heard of the fight and the consequences of it the day before.
"Hey Chris," he said awkwardly, "Not to sound rude, but how did you get here and why are you here, exactly?"
Chris smiled. "Tails said he had some business to do on Angel Island today and he agreed to bring me along. As to why I’m here, well, I want to learn how to use chaos better."
"Chris," Knuckles sighed, "I told you, you have to resolve your-"
"I have," he said, "But I still wasn’t strong enough. Mighty almost died because I wasn’t strong enough, and I’m here to prevent that from happening again. Please, just help me to become strong enough to help people."
Knuckles stared at him for a moment. "When’s Tails coming to pick you up?"
"Five hours."
"Get ready for five hours of the most intense training you’ve ever had. If you want to learn this, you’ve got to be ready to work for it."
Chris nodded. "You have no idea how ready I am."
~fin~