(IM)MORTAL

02

Worse—so, so much worse—than the gift.

Maria flexed her fingers, unafraid of the destruction within them.

The lightning weaving in and out of her fingers was silver—it had always been silver, since he gave it to her—and the sparks were harmless in this stage. They slithered in and out of her fingers like the fuzzy string-worm toy before disappearing into her veins.

Maria knew little on this power she now wielded; on Chaos. Little but enough. There was positive and negative—blue and red; green was neutral, middle ground, no different than on the actual color scale.

         And gold—she had seen gold once,

(on a boy who resembled him,
so much like him,
but he, she hoped,
was untouched by human hands)

         and it took her breath away.

It was as if he and Chaos had been one—but that could not be, because Chaos was the one screaming, untamed, enraged—for Chaos was sparkling silver and Sonic had been sparkling gold.

Ivo hypothesized that silver was the purest positive, and gold was the purest negative. Maria went by that understanding, because it made the most sense.

But her heart staggered.

What he had given her was silver.

His was green. Lime green. Electrical.

How did absolute purity come from balanced neutral?

How could she have it period, when she was human, an organism that Chaos deemed unworthy to harness His power?

Neither she nor Ivo had those answers.

Maria selfishly wished he did. He had disappeared for five years, gone without a good-bye or a love you or even a note. Gone, then returned, both out of nowhere—and with his return came obsession.

It was Sonic this and meddling hedgehog that. It took Maria weeks to find out where Ivo had gone, what had happened, and who the meddling hedgehog was.

It had been rather . . . dark since his return to Earth. And when he returned, Ivo inadvertently brought the boy who vexed him with. Him and some of his friends.

Thus, Ivo forgot himself.

Ivo forgot his promise.

He had been overshadowed by Sonic. For a year, Maria only saw her cousin through computer screens and splashes of footage on the news; he had become somewhat a villain. For a year, he came home only to make improvements, to do a quick (and pathetic) check on her; like she was a goldfish in a bowl, requiring little attention. For a year, destroying capital cities and building fleets only to have them destroyed by a fourteen-year-old boy.

Then chaos happened—chaos and Chaos.

Silver and gold. Water and lightning. A boy standing and rising alone to battle his creator.

Maria had left the house and watched the battle up close and personal—but she would never tell her cousin that. Not that he was ever around anymore.

         Whilst he programmed his less worthy robots to help with the cleaning up,

(the least he could do,
considering it was his fault
a god was unleashed
and flooded half the planet
in His wrath)

         he disappeared once again, leaving Maria alone—save for robot servants. Oh, and the twins, works-in-progress as they may be. Orbot and Cubot were still in the early (or, let us say, baby) stages of development. Silent and slow, blinking before doing a small task.

But robots did not make good company.

Not the way a human could.

But another year passed. Sonic and his friends, another year old, and had seemed to have decided to stay. Either because they wanted to, or because they lacked the way to get back where they were born.

Maria did not mind.

Watching Sonic from afar . . . it brought both comfort and despair.

Comfort that he was not alone; despair that she could not hold him, have him, love him.

. . . And then there was her cousin's obsession with the blue hedgehog. Obsession on destroying him. For whatever it was that he did to royally piss Ivo Robotnik off.

Maria hoped this obsessive vendetta was not built on something as small as Sonic calling him a dozen names that all related to eggs.

But it was not her business.

But it was, because Ivo forgot his promise.

. . . Until he did not.