[Author's Disclaimer: This fanfic will technically be AU as I've combined elements from Silver's future both from how it's shown in the comics and also the events that occurred in Sonic '06 to a degree; the chronology of the events that occur will become known so you may see inconsistencies here and there that will be explained. Just wanted to clarify that before I launch right into this! Hope you all enjoy my first official Sonic-based fanfiction. A couple additional quick notes: this fanfiction is rated M because there will be some strong language, violence and sexuality in further chapters of it. Though it's centered on Silver and Blaze as well, other characters and pairings will eventually be involved in the plot as time goes on. I'll make them known as they come along!]

Prologue: ~Solecism~

He had never strove blindly for a utopia; all he had ever wanted were some answers. The "hows" and the "whys" of his world had been shrouded in such mystery for so long that now that he had uncovered what had happened, there was still an emptiness that for some reason nagged at Silver inwardly.

In the past, he'd uncovered the truth of how the Freedom Fighters had dissolved thanks to the ominous presence of Mecha Sally, but they had managed to stop her before it had reached the point that it had in his timeline, thus reversing the damage her "betrayal" had caused. The destruction, however, he had discovered was not just the fault of Dr. Eggman nor any of his other incarnations…instead, the demonic creature Iblis had preyed upon the already damaged world and ravaged the war-torn cities and broken people that had been left behind after decades of unresolved conflicts.

Iblis had simply been the catalyst of a long spiral of destruction that the world had already been set upon, he realized; even if the creature had never somehow found its way to his timeline, the world would have likely fallen into ruin regardless. There probably would have been a lot less fire, however…

Fire…

Silver uncrossed his arms, looking over the expanse of the city. He remembered standing here ten years ago, when he was only fourteen, looking across what seemed like an endless sea of boiling magma, the city half-suspended in the intense heat somehow. Now, there were veins of cobblestone roads that had been built years ago over the obsidian crust left behind after Iblis was removed from their world.

The buildings that had once been left to ruin had slowly become livable again, and Silver was amazed at how much progress had been made in only a few years. Then again, he'd spent so much of his childhood and life before time-traveling in the ruins of Crisis City, now renamed Renascentia, an ancient Overlander word for "rebirth." Silver found it fitting, though he felt he could never pronounce it correctly.

He'd spent the last ten years in his own timeline and world helping it be rebuilt; with the scale of his powers, he knew he could provide the most help here, and now that he'd solved what had caused his world so much of its anguish, he had much less need to use the orange time stone to continue his pursuits. Edmund often warned him that he couldn't allow his curiosity to potentially cause time paradoxes and potentially ruin all of the progress that he'd achieved in going back and forth; he'd given the stone to the aging guardian for safe keeping Onyx Island, which itself was also being rebuilt.

He credited the people of his world often for their survival; with his isolation in Crisis City and Onyx Island, he'd never known that there were far more beings left alive in his world than he'd accounted for. And the population was already beginning to grow now that beings were coming to these hubs to discover and amass brighter futures for themselves. When he'd walk the streets, he was always seeing new infants and children out and about; now that the world was once again stable, it seemed that people felt comfortable once again settling down and having kids. He couldn't blame them for having no aspirations to bring offspring into a world that was once covered almost entirely in so many flames and so much destruction.

Flames…

He knew he should feel happy, but deep down inside…he wasn't, and it bothered him more now than his uncertainty ever had. He didn't know why at first; he had so many things on his mind when all of this had first started coming together again. He had begun as an almost unofficial leader in this new world back when he could barely keep his powers under wraps without aid and constant meditation and communing alongside Edmund and Mogul. Ten years later, and he'd matured quite a bit and had gotten a far better grip over his powers, though there was still a defined part of him that maintained that naïve innocence. His appearance had changed a bit; as he'd aged he'd lost his lanky prepubescent form and had become more toned, and his quills had lengthened and thinned slightly, becoming long enough that he now smoothed them back and wore them tied back in a queue. He also wore some clothing now at times; with the seemingly eternal fire gone, the seasons were beginning to return, and even having a thick coat of fur could only go so far. For the most part, he stuck with wearing tight-fitting black robes akin to the ones he'd worn while a part of the Secret Freedom Fighters; that time felt so long ago now. He also still wore his power-inhibitors; he could get by without them, but he didn't enjoy the mental strain of keeping his powers in check, especially when he was stressed.

Edmund had used to bicker at him about how brash he was, how uninformed…and yet now, now that he'd come a long ways, his mentor had warned him not to lose it.

But part of him wondered if he already had.

Now it felt like so much of him was driven by an obsession with making the world that sort of perfect utopia that had only existed in the confines of fleeting dreams for so long. It wavered between the colorful and blissful images of tattered childhood stories he'd find in the rubble to some of the generally peaceful timelines that he'd entered and helped to forge. But it felt like, no matter how much he did to help those around him, he never felt the kind of contentment that he'd always imagined. When people would thank him profusely for what he'd done, for all his aid, he'd feel sheepish and awkward, not proud nor even humbled by everything that had happened. Mogul had told him it was because he was a selfless being, but he felt like it was really because in spite of all of this…he felt like what he really wanted was missing.

He'd only recently figured out what it was.

Deep down, he felt guilty that he'd come this far only to forget something, or rather someone, so crucial to everything that had happened. He supposed he couldn't be faulted entirely, because his memories and knowledge were often so skewed because of his constant time-traveling and his being decoupled from the stream of time because of it. But still…he had his memories, and he realized that throughout all of this prosperity he'd buried much of what he'd remembered of perhaps the person who had helped him most to make this world what it was. Someone who was truly humble and had never been recognized for what she'd done to help this world, in spite of having her own home to return to.

The ache deep inside of him had been gnawing at him for weeks, maybe months now, and no matter how hard he worked or tried to distract himself, it would not leave him. At first he'd been angry about it; didn't he deserve a break after so much time had been spent getting his world back in order?! Then when the realization had hit him, he'd felt saddened, even sickened with how oblivious he'd been.

Even now, standing over the city that was once again flowing and changing with so much hope, he found himself closing his eyes, and seeing the mixture of the darkness of smoke, and the embers of the conflagration that had consumed Crisis City for decades upon decades.

Yet amongst the charred smells and the suffocating plumes, the dismal blackness mixing with the intense and perpetual light of fire, that image had come back to him.

A smile, faint but genuine.

I'll take Iblis…

That glint of tenacity in a set of amber irises.

Don't worry…my soul is already alit with flames…

The iridescent sheen of the fire glimmering off her violet form and clothing.

I will be accepted…

He could faintly hear himself protesting, and feel the chilling despair that had coursed through him when she'd seized the two chaos emeralds from his hands, forcing herself ahead of him and towards Iblis's monstrous form.

We agreed…to save the world at any price…!

Silver gasped a bit, not realizing that he'd been holding his breath while remembering all of that. He felt his eyes glazed over slightly with the sting of tears that had been on the cusp of emerging had he not been jolted from his reminiscing by the sound of shouts from down below. He suddenly realized that the smell of smoke he'd thought he was imagining was real, and could see what looked like a fire in the distance, just outside the city limits, on the edge of the returning tangles of vegetation that were growing all over the planet's surface, fed by the nutrients of the indigenous soil.

He immediately launched himself off the rooftop towards it, feeling a single half-manifested teardrop dissipate from the corner of his eye as he looked ahead at the distant glimmer of the flame.

…Blaze…