"They're dead!"

Shadow stared at his two hedgehog companions as they heard what Espio said. Their initial reactions were exactly the same.

"What?!" Sonic and Silver both had mixed looks of surprise and horror on their faces. They glanced at each other. Sonic motioned for Silver to start off.

"But that's not possible!" Silver exclaimed. "They can't all be…" He stopped himself before he said 'dead', not wanting to put the word out.

"They can and they are!" Espio insisted sorrowfully. "There's no way around it."

"This is a joke," Sonic exclaimed. "This is some sick joke that been cooked up to spook us out." The cobalt hedgehog turned to Shadow, pointing at him accusingly. "You thought this up, didn't you? Didn't you!" Shadow considered knocking some sense into Sonic, but decided against it. No matter how annoying and unbelievably dull Sonic was, the stress of the situation allowed him some leeway. Some.

Instead of the usual cold or threatening answer that Shadow would have given, he instead answered softly, his voice without an edge. It was the closest he could get to sympathetic. "Sonic, calm yourself. This isn't a joke. I know this is hard to accept…" Sonic made a scoffing sound, right in the middle of Shadow's sentence.

"You know? What do you know you stupid grouch! You're still trying to play me like a fool! But the joke's on you now!" Sonic started a forced laugh, flat and false. It was a tragic sound.

"Listen to yourself!" Shadow yelled. "You know you're wrong! Why can't you understand that?!" Sonic ignored him, and just kept laughing even harder. "Sonic." The speed demon just kept blocking him out with his terrible laugh. "Damn it Sonic!" Shadow went back on his own word, coming up and punching Sonic in the chest hard enough to knock all the air out of him. Sonic crumpled over, his laugh replaced by a sort of croak. He made no attempt to get up. Shadow felt a pang of guilt at doing what he had to Sonic. He remembered how he'd first reacted when he'd heard that Maria was dead. He'd cried until his tear ducts were empty, and after that he'd tried his very best to destroy every living thing he saw, so that nothing could ever feel the sadness that he did. Or had it been so that nothing could feel better than he did?

Silver had been standing stock still the entire time, staring straight at Espio, completely frozen. His jaw was slack as his mind tried to comprehend what it was feeling. It kept jumping between anger, sorrow, and disbelief. Finally it decided to settle on stunned. And now that it had, there was one question he needed to ask.

"All of them?" Shadow and Espio turned to him, their attention previously focused on Sonic. They glanced quickly at each other, both seeming hesitant to answer. Espio took the bat.

"Yes Silver. Everyone. Including Blaze." The white hedgehog's entire body shivered, as if it was trying to fight off what it had just heard like a virus. It couldn't be happening! Not to him! Not again!

"No," he whispered, because that was all his brain was screaming at him. Tears welled in his eyes, overflowing down his cheeks in torrents. Misery took control of his limbs, and his knees failed him, his hands gripping his head as if he could tear his thoughts out of his mind, forcing them not to be true. "Please," he sobbed, to any higher power if they existed. "Not her! Not again! Please, don't let me have failed her again!" His fists pounded the ground, bruising the knuckles. "Don't let me have killed her again!"

He felt someone shaking him, and he looked up at Shadow's face, blurred by his tears. "It's can't be your fault!" he heard him say, as if from a long way off. His voice had more compassion than it had with Sonic, like a normal person. Did he really look that pitiful to break even Shadow's spirit? "You weren't even here, you couldn't have done anything." Silver began shaking his head in the black hedgehog's hands.

"Yes it is," he said with conviction. "It is!"

"Why?"

"I…" Silver shuddered as a new wave of tears flowed through him, cutting him off. "It's my fault she was even here!" he half cried, half yelled. "She didn't want to come on this holiday. Said she had some royal business to take care of and didn't have time to spare. But…but I pleaded with her. I basically begged her to come. And she did, just to make me happy. And because she came with me, she's dead. She dead because of me, just like Iblis!" He was remembering the Soleanna incident, and the Iblis future. In this future, Silver's world was engulfed by a monstrous magma half god called Iblis. He and Blaze had gone back to the past to erase the Iblis trigger, the one who had released the burning atrocity. A being called Mephiles had told them this was Sonic, and Silver had tried to kill the supersonic hero multiple times, nearly succeeding before they found out that killing Sonic was what would trigger the spirit of Iblis, trapped inside the soul of a human girl called Elise. As it turned out, Mephiles was Iblis' mind and will, and he wished to release him from Elise so that he could bond with him and inevitably destroy all time. In his future, Silver tried to seal Iblis inside himself so that the creature could be contained. But his soul couldn't hold the flame of disaster, and because her soul could, Blaze sealed the flame inside herself and her body disintegrated as a result. In the end, the combined Mephiles and Iblis were wiped from all time and the events were rendered inexistent, meaning that Blaze survived. Even so, Silver still blamed his own weakness for the pain Blaze had felt. And now it was happening all over again.

Shadow, unable to find any way to console his friend, stepped back. Silver curled up weakly, sobbing desolately into the floor. The ebony hedgehog turned to Espio, who was staring dejectedly at the two pitiful forms of Sonic and Silver.

"Do you see now?" the ninja whispered sadly. "Do you see why I didn't want to rip away their ignorance?"

"It was unavoidable," Shadow muttered.

"Unavoidable?!" Espio yelled. "That's all you can say! Completely shattering their souls beyond repair was unavoidable?!"

"Yes, and stop deluding yourself that it wasn't! Facts are facts. This is reality Espio, not a fairytale where everyone ends up happy! Live with it!"

"When?" Shadow and Espio turned at the sound of Sonic's voice. His voice sounded empty, like the emotions had been stripped away to leave only the bare core. Shadow also noticed that Sonic's fur looked like a cloud had passed over its usual blue. Not a good sign. Sonic had a tendency to loose control of his emotions under stress, allowing his suppressed darkness take control, releasing an incredible powerful anti-Sonic. Dark Sonic. Based of recent events, Shadow was struck with the thought of how similar Dark Sonic was to the heartless, drawing immense and uncontrollable power from darkness. Was it possible that the two were related? "When did it happen?"

"Right after you left," Espio told him. "The chaos attack you three did destroyed the first Darkside, the giant heartless, but the Superior just came back and summoned another one. Without the chaos emeralds you three took with you, it was undefeatable. The heartless took Knuckles and Vector within seconds, Amy and Blaze followed after they tried to suppress it. Cream and I managed to evacuate half of the city, but then Cream was taken when Leon and Cid came to pick us up. It was such a close thing. She was so close, she…" Espio trailed off forlornly.

"You coward!" Espio's neck nearly snapped at how fast his head came up.

"What did you say?!"

"You heard me!" Sonic spat. "You're a coward! You let everyone else die, while you were safe 'evacuating' the city! Where are all those people you saved now?" Espio clenched his fists so tight trying to maintain his composure that the bones showed through his gloves. The entire population of Station Square had been ambushed shortly after they'd escaped. There were no survivors. Espio knew that blaming others was Sonic's last resort to maintain his sanity in a situation like this and he tried to keep in mind how bad Sonic was feeling. He'd already questioned his motives about what had happened during the attack on Station Square, and Sonic pointing out his own fears didn't help. On top of that, he was starting to feel sort of fuzzy. The corners of his vision were sort of blurry, like a curtain was closing. What could that mean?

"Sonic, calm yourself. You know this isn't Espio's fault." Shadow was trying to reason with the rapidly deteriorating Sonic, but the speed demon wasn't listening.

"I don't give a damn Shadow. Someone's going to get blamed for this, and he's the best fit."

"That isn't logical."

"Screw you!" A dark aura was surrounding Sonic, and his fur had gone nearly pitch black. Sonic pushed Shadow aside and attacked Espio. Knocking Shadow back at all usually took the strength of large construction machines, so Dark Sonic thought Espio was going to be easy. In this form, he was nearly as strong as he was as Super Sonic, relying on darkness to fuel him instead of chaos energy. And in a soul as bright as Sonic's the suppressed darkness had phenomenal power. But as he tried to punch Espio, the chameleon caught his blow easily in his black right hand. Dark Sonic was momentarily stunned that something had stopped him, and even more stunned when Espio slammed his dark palm into Sonic's forehead. The jet black hedgehog was thrown back into one of the walls, knocking him unconscious instantly.

Shadow groaned as he pulled himself up off the floor. He'd forgotten how strong Sonic got when he went dark, or how much getting his ass handed to him in a fight hurt. He looked up, expecting to have to stop Sonic from doing something stupid, but instead he say Sonic unconscious against the wall and Espio standing where he'd been before, breathing heavily and gripping his infected arm. "What did you do?"

"I don't know, and that's what scares me." At that moment Leon broke down the door with his gunblade raised. Yuffie flipped in over his head, her shuriken ready to strike. The two noticed Sonic, his fur still darker than normal, and nearly blew their lids.

"Heartless!" Leon leveled his gunblade at the unconscious figure before Espio stepped in his way. Likewise, Shadow stopped Yuffie from causing Sonic any arm as gently as he could which, quite frankly, involved holding her arms up over her head in a master lock.

"It's OK! It's just Sonic."

"That's Sonic?" Yuffie said disbelievingly. She squirmed a bit in Shadow's hold, but the crimson streaked hedgehog was far too strong.

Leon lowered his weapon slightly, but still didn't look convinced. "Are you sure he hasn't…, you know?" Espio nodded.

"He's gone into this state before. It's completely reversible, and not related to the heartless." Espio thought for a second. No, that wasn't exactly true. At least, he couldn't be certain it was true. There were many technical links between Dark Sonic and the general consensus they had about heartless. It was possible that the two were linked. But that was a debate for another time.

Leon lowered his gun/sword hybrid completely, slinging it over his back. Yuffie followed suit, dropping her shuriken to the ground with a clang. Shadow obliged by releasing her from his grip. The black mouse made a face in Shadow's general direction. Then she finally noticed Silver's crumpled, crying form over in the centre of the room, with his long cloak swirled round him like folded wings. "What's wrong with him?"

Espio glanced quickly in the psychic's direction. "Don't worry," he said, with a hint of sadness. "It's the better outcome."

"Better than what?"

"You two tell me. You're the one's who assured me it was." Yuffie's eyes widened in recognition as she realized what had happened in the room, and why the two hedgehogs seemed to be having mental breakdowns.

"You told them?" Espio nodded forlornly. Not wanting to dwell on the matter, Espio put up a façade of unattachment.

"Get these two moving. We need to get going before heartless start swarming this area."

Moving the hedgehog's was easier said than done. It took a good ten minutes of stuffing smelling salts from Espio's utility belt in Sonic's face before he woke up. Once he did, drugged and delusional as he was, remnants of Dark Sonic were still hanging around him, making him unsocial and ill-tempered. Silver was a different matter. He seemed to have sunk so deep into his own sorrow that he couldn't hear anything going on around him, probably why he hadn't reacted to the slamming door or the sound of Sonic hitting the wall. All attempts to snap him out of it, from Espio's rational reasoning to the yelling an agitated Sonic, were pointless. Eventually Leon and Shadow volunteered to carry him back to the Highwind. It was a sad and sorry party that left the premises of the deceased Dr Ivo Robotnic, nothing like the enthusiastic members that had dived in from the sky less than two hours earlier. Cid had landed the giant airship in the nearest clear area that he could, and was waiting for them at the open cargo bay.

"What'd you find?" he asked Sonic, the first to arrive. The midnight blue hedgehog gave no reply besides a rough grunt and pushed past the raccoon. "Jeez, what wrong with you, hotshot?" Sonic made no verbal answer, but he did rip one of the metal side panels on the airship's corridor and pegged it back at Cid. The throw was off by a good meter, embedding the mutilated metal square deep in the hanger wall. Cid dived for cover, but Sonic had lost interest in the old animaloid and walked into the room he'd been assigned when Cid had first shown him round the ship.

"Don't mind him," Espio said as he passed. "He's had a bad day."

"No kidding!" Leon and Shadow passed, Silver hanging limply between them. Cid was going to ask what had happened, but thought better of it. If Silver was as angry as Sonic, let's just say he didn't want to lose any of his anatomy. Silver was a far better shot than Sonic. Leon and Shadow carried Silver to his room, placed him on his bed, and left.

Sonic's room was very plain, just a bed, a cupboard and a mirror, plus some directions in case the airship caught fire. All it said was that the balloon's gas would explode violently if even the slightest spark touched it, so by the time you realized there was a fire, it would be too late. A small gun and directions on how to fire it at your own head in the most painless way was placed below. In his rage Sonic had already torn half the bed apart, leaving just the mattress, shattered the mirror and splintered the cupboard. Sonic was lying on his bed, or what remained of it, thinking. Well, he was more jumping to conclusions while ripping the bed frame apart and throwing the parts at the wall.

"So everyone's dead," he thought. The idea no longer scared him as it had. The dark part of him had accepted the fact, even if normal Sonic couldn't. "It's a pity. There was so much left to do. Will I miss them? Probably. I guess I'll miss listening to Vector talk about his crazed get rich quick scheme. That croc only ever had one thing on his mind. He'd never have even made the money he had in that detectives business if it wasn't for Espio though. And Cream trying to convince me that hurting Eggman isn't the best way to take care of him. She always thought she'd be able to talk some sense into that old man. Maybe she could have, eventually, given the chance. And yeah, I'll miss messing with Knuckles' head. That old gullible fool never could keep his temper down. It was always either 'those are my emeralds' or 'you crashed Angel Island' or 'I'm going to kill you Sonic!' Hehe, stupid old Knuckles. But he was always a good friend. And I will miss Blaze, even if she was way too uptight. I guess having the constant knowledge that you have to run a country will do that. Silver was the only real way she ever had any fun. And she was the only way Silver managed to accomplish anything. They make the perfect couple, even if neither of them realizes it." Unbeknown to him, Sonic's fur was beginning to return to its usual cobalt blue as the memories of his friends extinguished his anger. "What about Rouge? Well, I definitely won't miss her attitude, or any conversation I ever had with her. Not that any of them didn't end in her trying to knock my head off! But I think I'll miss…oh damn it! The only thing I will miss about her is that she stopped Shadow from spending all his time alone. If he did, I recon I'd be dead by now. But I'll definitely miss Amy. Her face, her eyes, heck I'll even miss her chasing me! The smile she had whenever she caught me, man that was beautiful. I never did let myself see that enough, and now I never will again." A few tears ran down his nearly normal blue face fur. "And then there's Tails. Tails…" Half a second of thinking about the young, joyful, genius kitsune erased all the good rationalizing his other friend's lives had done instantly. "He had so much to live for, so much promise. He was going to do so much when he grew up!" Sonic's fur went as black as the night's shadows, and his pupils disappeared, leaving only the whites of the tortured hedgehog's eyes. His body writhed as more darkness then it had ever endured before flowed into it. "Everyone I've ever known is dead. Anyone I've seen in the streets, met in a town, adventured with, fought besides, against and for. All their dreams, their ambitions, their ideas, all gone! Damn whoever did this! Damn them to hell! No, damn them to meet me! Then I'll show them what I do to those who harm my friends. Wait, I know who's done this! Organization XIII. I'm going to kill them all, one by one. Then I'll find the Superior, I'll pull off that stupid hood of his and make him stare into my eyes. Make him stare into my eyes and see that I will show him no mercy. And I'll rip his throat out with my bare hands. I'm going to find them, and when I do I'll make them pay for all of this!

Cid managed to catch Espio as he was walking around the ship. The ninja hadn't stopped pacing since he'd gotten back onboard. Cid had known Espio long enough to see when he was trying to avoid him, or anyone else. He'd just keep moving, never staying in one place, just like his training had taught him. If you stayed in one place for too long, people began to lock your position in their mind and went there to find you later. If you kept moving, no one ever found you unless they tried. Espio did it subconsciously, because if he was trying to hide then he'd simply make himself invisible. Once he did that, you never found him.

"Hey Espio!" Espio started, as if he'd been torn out of deep thought. It was obviously a subject that troubled him otherwise he would have noticed Cid behind him.

"Hmm?"

"What happened down WOAH!" Cid noticed for the first time the massive black swelling on Espio's arm. "What the blazes is that?!"

Espio glanced down at his infection with disinterest. "IX cut my hand and I had to restrict the resulting change before it hit my heart. Nothing major."

"Nothing major?! That thing could kill you!"

"Wouldn't that be sad. I join all those others who have deteriorated into the darkness of their souls. Would it make that much of a difference?"

"Espio stop talking like that! It's not like you!"

"I mean, what are we really achieving by staying alive? Are we just prolonging the inevitable? What can we accomplish, really? There's no known cure to being a heartless, no way to stop their spreading, nothing we can do." Cid began backing away from his ranting friend, scared by Espio's submissive and hopeless attitude presented in such a calm way. "Maybe the best course of action would be to just give in to the darkness." Cid stopped moving completely, his toothpick dropping from his shocked lips.

"You've lost it," he concluded. "You've finally lost it." Espio shook his head.

"I've just seen the truth."

"Truth my ass! Yere giving up! Maybe I'll just knock some sense into you." Cid made a wide swing at Espio. The chameleon swayed, dodging the punch easily.

Bang!

His right arm shot out at the brown raccoon to strike him down. Had his arm been in the centre of Espio's body, it would have hit him too, but it wasn't. It was his arm after all. But whatever possessed Espio's limb didn't realize this, and the punch missed to the right, denting the wall. Cid was stunned at the sheer power, and Espio looked about the same.

"This is getting out of hand," he whispered.

"Damn straight!" Espio removed his offending fist from the wall, and run away. Cid let out a breath he didn't realizing he'd been holding. Two minutes ago he trusted Espio with his life. On his word, he would have marched to hell's gate for nothing more than a hunch. But just then, he'd seen something. Another side. And now, he wasn't so sure. Now…

Bang!

"Damn it Espio! Stop mutilating my ship!" The ninja/detective was already running round the corner towards him. Cid put up his hands to protect himself, but Espio made no attempt to attack him, stopping right in front of him.

"That wasn't me."

"Well it sure as hell wasn't me!" Cid pointed to the mark Espio had made a few seconds earlier. You don't see another one of these, do ya?

Bang!

"Then wh…" Espio and Cid both came to the same conclusion right then.

"Sonic!" They began sprinting before they'd even finished speaking, through the airship's twists and turns towards the living quarters.

When they got there, Shadow, Leon and Yuffie were already standing outside Sonic's door. Leon and Yuffie were sweating a bit, but were otherwise completely fit, unlike Cid who came in panting like a bulldog.

"I've…gotta…get back…inta shape," he gasped.

"Damn straight!" Yuffie said in a perfect imitation of Cid's own exclamation. No one laughed. "Sorry. Couldn't resist." Espio put his finger to his lips, the universal sign to shut up. Pointing to the door, he raised three fingers to Shadow and Leon. Both GUN members nodded, Leon pulling his gunblade off his back. Espio put up two fingers. The three of them stepped back. One finger. As one, they charged at the door, shoulder charging it down. As they fell through they all fell into different fighting stances: Leon stood straight with his firearm straight down the middle of his body, Shadow fell low and summoned Oblivion in his left hand, holding it at his waist ready for a quick horizontal attack, Espio jumped and stuck to the wall with one hand, the other holding his shuriken between two fingers and his forearm covering his face. The warriors looked over the room methodically. It looked like a bomb had hit it, pieces of the bed and cupboard littering the floor everywhere. The small mirror that had hung in the corner was now a pile of glass slivers. And in the centre of it all was what remained of the mattress…

…with Sonic lying flat on it.

The hedgehog was his normal blue self, but paler, like he was sick. His quills, jeans and jacket were soaked with sweat. His fists and eyes were clenched closed. He looked haggard and worse for wear. But there was no sign on him or the room that he had been the one who'd made the noise.

Sonic opened one eye a crack, looking over at the uninvited guests in his room. "Hey guys," he muttered in his normal voice. "Wussup."

"Did you hear a loud noise?" Shadow asked. Sonic nodded, and jabbed his thumb over his head.

"Yeah. Broke into my trail of thought. Good thing too; I was this close to going completely dark." Shadow was already out the door, running towards the last possible place the sound could have come from.

Silver's room.

Without waiting for any of the others, Shadow barged through the door. The room was like a hurricane, everything blowing round the room like some insane deity was throwing them all at once. The cupboard had shattered against a wall, now going round in deadly pieces. There was a giant hole in the floor where the bed used to be, going through three levels out towards the ground.

And Silver was gone.

I had a little trouble writing a mental breakdown, both knowing if I did it right and just bringing myself to do it. If anyone does know how it was supposed to sound, tell me how I did. Hope you all like it! Antares out!