Sorry for the slight delay. Here's chapter 7.

Chapter 7

Mobius date: Oct. 21, 3237 – Southern Forest– 9:10 PM

The spare firewood had been gathered and placed nearby the pit. I was sitting right beside the pit, and across from me was Erin, who was beginning to speak.

"Alright, Chris," she said in a deadly serious voice. "Even Sonic – close of friends as we are – doesn't know this stuff. So don't tell him or anyone else, okay?"

"Okay," I responded, and I listened eagerly as she began.

"The first time I disappeared – a year and a half ago, earth time – it was entirely against my will," Erin explained. "I was walking home on a back road when I suddenly fell into a Warp Ring. It led to a prison camp, and I was immediately captured and forced to work in the mines. The punishments they dealt were… severe. I soon lost all of my will to live, and I was soon waiting to die. But my number wasn't up yet – I was found by Dr. Finitevus, and I was nursed back to my healthy self… sort of."

"Whoa," I interrupted her. Although I had understood most of what she had explained so far, there was one thing that didn't make sense to me; Dr. Finitevus rescuing her. From what I had researched, he was a mad scientist with plans to, you guessed it, take over the world. "It was Finitevus who rescued you?"

"Yes," Erin replied. "At the time, I was literally dying; slowly becoming paralyzed as the damage to my nervous system worsened. Finitevus reasons that this," she held up her arm that wore the chaos dampener, "was my best option to live. The effect was instantaneous; it healed my wounds and I became capable of psychokinetic feats." Her face dropped a little as she added, "It… also made me a living weapon."

However, I didn't catch that last part, as I almost interrupted it; I was too impressed by what she had last said. "Psychokinetic feats?" I inquired enthusiastically. "You mean like telekinesis? Can you show me?"

Erin smiled at me. "Of course," she replied, and she took off the glove on her left, more normal hand and set it on the ground. A couple of seconds later, it twitched, and suddenly rose to life from the ground. It slowly floated over towards me, and it lightly poked me on the nose. I chuckled a little bit, highly impressed by what Erin just did. She brought the glove back to her and put it back on as she continued, "I can also alter peoples' brains… memory erasing, emotional control, things like that."

"Okay, that is just made of pure awesome," I told her. I mean, seriously! It was enough that all this shit was happening, but now Erin was psychic? Still, I wanted to ask her more. "But anyways, why did Finitevus take you in the first place?" I asked. "What did he want with you?"

"Finitevus reasoned that females are more logical and passive than males," she explained. "He wanted to use me as a weapon. I can kill someone with a thought, Chris. Finitevus wanted to exploit that to destroy the world, after which he would count on me to help him rebuild and rule it."

I thought that the situation was too serious to insert a "take over the world" joke into it, and even then, I was too engaged in what Erin was telling me. I mean, wow. Every single thing she was telling me just made me more surprised, impressed, and concerned all at once. She called herself a living weapon, for Christ's sake! And all because one insane scientist wanted to use her to, you guessed it, take over the world. "But that didn't happen," I finally responded, as I was still pretty shocked from this whole expositional onslaught. "The world wasn't destroyed, and none of what he planned happened." I suddenly tensed up a little as I added, "Did it?"

Erin shook her head, thankfully. "He realized the whole thing was outside my interests and deemed the scheme a failure, finally releasing me," she told me. "He's actually a nice guy, just a little… out-of-gear. Mention me and he gets all polite and friendly. He kind of sees me as his greatest creation." As she finished her sentence, she casually looked over at the fire and stared into it.

After spending a couple of moments letting the entire thing set in, I shook my head again. "You know, after every crazy thing that has happened in the last few days, you'd think I'd be getting used to it," I suddenly spoke. "But I'm not. Everything that has happened has been mind-fuck worthy, but just as I think I am getting used to it, something else comes along that completely tops it. It's just…" I paused for a second, trying to come up with the best way to describe it. Failing that, I just said, "It's just totally unbelievable."

"It is kind of crazy at first," Erin responded, giving a weak smile. "Excuse for a second," she added, and she stood up and walked over to the wood pile.

I sat back and stared at the fire, just thinking. As I did so, I remembered what Knuckles had told me back on Angel Island:

"I met her years ago, when I was a kid," Knuckles said. "She's a very nice girl."

"Erin," I said as she came back carrying a log, "when I was on Angel Island, I… I lodged with Knuckles for a few days. He was the one who told me that you were in the New Mobotropolis area, and that he met you when he was just a little kid."

"Yeah, that's right," she replied, dumping the log in the fire and checking it. "How is my nephew, anyway? The last I heard, he and Julie-Su were fighting."

"I don't know," I said as I shook my head. "I didn't think it was right to ask about his personal…" I paused, did a double-take, and said, "Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! …Whoa!" After another short pause, I continued, "Your nephew? Erin, what the fuck are you talking about?"

Erin sighed as she sat back down. "How do I explain this?" she said. "I was a baby when Knuckles' father, Locke, was five. We… we were cousins. Locke teleported me to Earth in order to save my life." She suddenly looked very depressed. "Locke passed on a little while ago. Knux wants me to arrange the funeral, once the police release his remains."

I just sat there, my jaw dropping to the ground. I now remembered that Knuckles' father's name was Locke; that's who was in that picture I saw back at Knux's cabin. It was sad that he had died, but I was more concerned with what Erin had said before that. "But if you were Locke's cousin," I stated, "then that means…"

Erin nodded. "I was born on Mobius as an echidna," she finished for me. "Eri-Le Parks is my birth name. In fact, I was born to the House of Edmund; Knux and I share the title of Guardian because of it. When Heather found me on Earth, I was a baby echidna swaddled in Locke's lab coat."

Just great, I thought to myself. Now she's just got me wondering MORE questions! I knew that Heather was her mother; or rather… foster mother, but everything else… This whole thing is starting to sound more like a bad fanfic, I thought. "But… how did you even become human in the first place, if that's true?" I asked, getting more and more agitated. "For that matter, how did you even learn all of this?"

Erin sighed. "I only have basic knowledge on that," she replied. "I've been researching my past ever since Finitevus released me. Apparently, I adopted into a human form within a year after being sent to Earth."

I shook my head; again. "Like I said before, mind-fuck central," I said.

"I didn't understand it back then, either," Erin agreed, and she relaxed her body a little bit. "Okay, your turn," she said.

"What?" I responded, as I was only half-listening.

"Explain your side of the story," Erin explained. "How – and why – did you come here?"

After trying to remember everything for a couple of seconds, I answered with, "I came here because I was looking for you. I called your house to talk a couple of weeks ago, and instead I got your… Heather telling me that you had vanished again. So I started looking."

Erin's expression when I explained myself was odd, like she didn't know whether to be flattered, disappointed, or regretful. Eventually, she spoke, "Well, that's nice of you Chris, but…"

"I know, I know," I interrupted. "You're doing fine on your own and everything. I can see that by what you've told me." In reality, I was still concerned; not about Erin, but about what she did…

Erin seemed to be more disgruntled, now. "And that still doesn't answer how you got on Mobius," she told me.

"Oh," I said, grimacing. "Um, I'm not entirely sure myself. Someone told me that they saw you step into an empty pipe, so I went in as well. There was this… wormhole thingy there." Her face looked shocked as I said this, but I barely noticed. "My curiosity got the better of me, I jumped through, and the next thing I know I'm a fox and stuck on Angel Island…"

"A Warp Ring!" Erin yelled, apparently at the mention of the wormhole. "But how…"

"Warp Ring?" I asked. "So that's what it's called…"

"Chris, this is weird," Erin told me. "I know that I didn't leave my own behind, and even if I had, it would've closed up the moment I went through."

Now I was even more confused! "What?" I asked. "The one I went through never closed up! It just hung open in the air, and I waited there for twenty minutes! In fact, the only reason I didn't try going back through was because I couldn't reach it."

Erin didn't seem like she knew anything anymore. "I have never heard of that happening with a Warp Ring before," she explained.

"Wow," I said. "That is odd."

Both of us were silent for a couple of moments. Eventually, Erin said, "So, is that it?"

"Pretty much," I told her. "I eventually met Knuckles, like I told you, and stayed with him for a while, and that was pretty much it."

"Alright," Erin responded. "Simpler than I was expecting, but thank you for elaborating." She suddenly let out a huge yawn. "Ugh, I'm exhausted," she said. "I think it's time to turn in."

"I agree," I said, noticing how sleepy I was getting and yawning as well. I took off my hoodie and sunglasses, and began to unzip my sleeping bag. Before I got into it, I asked, "Um, Eri?"

"Yeah, what is it?" she responded while unrolling her own sleeping bag.

"I know it's not your real name, per se, but you don't mind that I still call you Erin, right?" I inquired.

Erin smiled. "Not at all," she responded.

"'Kay," I said. "Goodnight." With that I got into my sleeping bag.

"'Night, Chris," Erin replied, and she got into her own. I know that she fell asleep before I did, because I was still thinking; Erin had explained a great deal to me, and even though I still didn't think it made sense that Mobius existed in the first place, at least I was starting to accept everything. But as I began to drift off to sleep, one thought still provoked in my mind:

Erin, I thought as my mind shut down, why did you go back?

Author's Note: Exposition, exposition, brush it out ASAP... but seriously, this was literally exposition chapter. Pretty much everything's been revealed to Chris by Erin... or Eri-Le... but he's still pretty shaken by everything. What's next in store for him?

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