Pieces of Solaris

Not a Place But a People

"Whew, that fight was exhausting." Eggman said as he stretched his back.

"You didn't do anything!" Tails said in an extremely aggravated tone. "I was the one that piloted your robots to attack!"

"I know." Eggman agreed carelessly. "It was so exhausting watching you six fight. And after the repairs I need to make to my once glorious lair, I'm gonna have to take a break for a week!"

"But you...!" Tails started to say, then shook his head in defeat. "Never mind..."

Not everyone was paying attention to them, and once they were done their momentary bickering they looked to see what everyone else was interested in. It was Elise, unsurprisingly, since she had absorbed Iblis into her not long before. Her involuntary twitching and convulsions had ceased and now she lay on the ground with everyone staring to wait for her to wake up again.

"Oh, I just had an idea!" Knuckles suddenly said. "Since she's a princess, maybe she needs to be woken up with a kiss. You know, like in fairy tales!"

"I highly doubt that would work." Amy said as she folded her arms. Sonic, who stood near Elise, curiously tilted his head, then slowly started to move closer to her. Silver, who was also close to Elise, saw what Sonic was about to do and in quickly finding a blunt object, telepathically tossed it as hard as he could at Sonic's head.

"Ow..." Sonic said, almost sounding upset as he rubbed his head. "What was that for?"

"If you honestly thought that could work, I think Iblis did more than enough damage to your subconscious that you need to be aware of." Silver told him darkly.

From the ground, Elise finally started to move and give indication that she was going to be alright. With a groan, Elise started to open her eyes and looked around the room. When her eyes fell on Silver then on Sonic, she gave a dazed little smile.

"I'm not dead." Elise remarked. Each taking one of her hands, Sonic and Silver helped Elise sit up. Elise winched a little in pain, but otherwise proved to be fine.

"So Elise," Sonic casually said, "Your soul is no longer bound to a fire demon, what are you going to do next?"

"Well..." the human decided, "I'd kinda like to have a bonfire..."

. . .

The red glow of the sunset never felt so welcoming. Keeping distance away from the others, Silver had snuck a bag of marshmallows and was eating them alone and in peace. Finally, a break that wouldn't break him in return. Silver observed the Sonic Team tease each other before realizing that Elise was not with them. Curious, but choosing not to be concerned, Silver scanned the area and found that she was sitting closer to the shore sitting at a place where the crashing waves would just barely touch her uncovered toes.

"Hey you," Silver said as he walked up to her, "You wanted this bonfire, why are you not enjoying it?"

At first, Elise did not answer as Silver sat down beside her.

"I can't go back." she quietly said. "There's nothing there but smoke and ash."

Silver popped a marshmallow in his mouth and listened, although she seemed to not acknowledge him to begin with.

"Even if I was able to rebuilt the machines for some source of income... I can't bring back all those people that died in my care... I can't even call myself a princess any more. I don't have anything to rule or govern. I'm... I'm just a normal girl now. A lost, homeless, normal girl..."

Silver looked at Elise as he swallowed his marshmallow. He then looked at the bag of marshmallows, he picked a big, fat one out, and he playfully tossed it as Elise's cheek. This seemed to get her out of whatever state of mind she was in as she rubbed her cheek.

"Ow." she remarked, although it hadn't hurt her at all, "What was that for?"

"Let's start this conversation by saying that you need to stop with that 'I' business, it's 'we.'" Silver told her. "Secondly, if you choose to live somewhere else besides Soleanna, I will follow you where ever you go."

"But-" Elise started to say, but was cut off my Silver.

"Close your eyes." Silver told her. Elise gave the hedgehog a wary side glance.

"I don't see how..."

"Just bear with me and close them, alright?"

With a sigh, Elise did as she was told and closed her eyes as Silver instructed.

"Now," she heard him say, "Does it really feel like anything has changed?"

The idea made Elise confused, but she sat back and listened. There were friendly conversations, friends enjoying each other's company, the waves gently crashing on the shore then tickling her feet, and then there was Silver's presence next to her. When Elise opened her eyes again, she was almost surprised to find that she wasn't in Soleanna.

"Like you said," Silver then said, "Soleanna is nothing more than smoke and ash right now. We can rebuild the machines, but we can't bring back lives, so... if you wanted to come back here once we had all that sorted out..."

Elise looked at Silver with wide eyes.

"You don't mean that!" she exclaimed with surprise. Silver looked back her with a smile that illustrated that he wasn't joking. Elise then changed her expression to be more subtle.

"So..." she started, "Do you think she'd be proud of you right now?"

Silver looked back at her and smiled.

"Most definitely, yes."

. . .

"There." Tails declared as he placed the Scepter of Darkness on a pedestal in the temple of the last Ancient. "Now no one will ever be able to find this again."

"And when Elise comes back, she'll have nothing to worry about." Sonic replied with a satisfied smile.

"Exactly." Tails agreed.

"Race you back!" Sonic suddenly declared.

"You're on!"

With that, the two raced out of the temple without a care in the world. But little did they know that someone else was in the temple, someone that they thought was once destroyed. Little did they know that this was just the beginning.