The Challenges of a Father

[sterlingmod]

Silver had stopped short of the water's edge, eyeing both the surface of the lake and the hero's monument that resided over it as he waited for the guardian to catch up. The boy did not bother looking back to make sure of if he was being followed by the right person, or if he was even being followed at all until he heard some large footsteps behind him, knowing that they belonged to that whom he intended to lead over. Upon seeing the crimson echidna come into his peripherals, he turned his regard to him and looked to his crescent mark for a couple beats.

"You said that you protect this place, right?" He eventually asked. The little hoglet looked over his shoulder for a moment as he reached into his quills, pulling out something that could best be described as a glass tube. "I found this in the water..." he started to explain. His tiny hand did not do much to cover up the object completely, but it was fully revealed when he unraveled his fingers from it. The object looked old, the glass stained and smudged, undoubtedly from spending time hidden in the lake. Despite its relatively shabby appearance, it still glowed with a faint yellow energy, signifying that it was at least still active.

"My dad says it's a chaos... something." He searched for his words, not completely remembering what the thing was actually called. He quickly glanced back at where said father was almost involuntarily at the mention before looking back to his possession.

The boy actually summoned the guardian over alone out of worry. He worried both for the fact of telling Knuckles about what they had taken from their island, and that they would get in trouble for this object being here in the first place seeing as how it was explained to him earlier that it was the hog's enemy who used this thing.

The hedgeling did not realize that, by it's condition, the chaos drive had obviously been there much longer than the two hogs have visited however, and was hoping that by speaking to the protector of the island alone, it would be a bit more civilized than if his father had been around. Despite the risk he felt of getting kicked off the island for thinking that they brought possible danger here, he still felt the obligation to let the guardian know of it being found here.

Silver figured that his father didn't tell him much of everything about this strange object, knowing that the old hog was short of words and often did not fully explain most things to him, much less this. The boy had partly hoped that by showing it to the elder echidna though, he would get a little more information on it out of him as a bonus.

[Sterling]

The echidna's face lit up with surprise as he eyed the glowing container in the pup's little hand, and he leaned a little closer to get a better look. "It's been a while since I've seen one of these." he murmured. Even though it was weak, the mobian could easily feel the ebb of chaos energy from inside the drive like a weak heartbeat.

Knuckles held out one of his obnoxiously large gloved hands toward the hedgehog, and he smiled somewhat awkwardly down at him as he gaze fell back over the child. "It's uh... Silver, right? Mind if I see it?"

Without waiting for the pup's answer, the guardian gently plucked it from his hands and raised it to his face to look it over more properly. "It's called a chaos drive." He informed Silver, "The human military uses them to power their machines by harnessing chaos energy. This one looks pretty old, however... G.U.N.'s made several attempts to surveillance things up here."

The echidna offered the drive back to the pup, "You see, chaos energy exists all around us. A lot of people just can't feel it. Some places it's more concentrated then others, like here on Angel Island. The Master Emerald gives off an amazing amount of chaos energy, and so this island is rich in it. So are places that the chaos emeralds have been and spend a lot of time at. But with this, you have a little bit of chaos energy wherever you go."

[Arthur]

"It's a little like the chaos emeralds only thing is once it's used it's gone, and to use high level abilities like Chaos control and Chaos blast, you need several and you can only get it from destroying G.U.N bots or more recent model Eggman bots, but since the Eggmans defeat many years before you were born, only G.U.N bots remain." Said Shadow as he seemed to now be sitting across from the two mobians on the railing of the bridge, Shadow was good at appearing out of nowhere and then disappearing without a trace, he often dumbfounded the chameleon ninja Espio on how he did it but Shadow simply ignored the chameleon for his annoying questions.

[sterlingmod]

The little hedge's hands reached up slightly at his souvenir being plucked from him without a say, but he softly placed his hands to a neutral position at his sides as the elder spoke. The whelp huffed a little in frustrated disappointment when the echidna started telling him things he already knew.

His attention was grabbed once more as the guardian abruptly handed the item back. Silver looked back at him a he kept talking, this time about a new concept to the little hedgeling. Chaos energy. It sounded much less useful when it was explained before than how the echidna is letting on now.

The pup jumped at the sudden interjection of a dark, very familiar voice coming from behind the two. The little one turned to look at the older hog leaning casually on the rail not far from them, but relaxed to see the usual neutral expression the old hog wore.

"But you said that people can't use these." The hedgeling recalled from his earlier talk. The concept that only those who had in-born chaos abilities could utilize these had not sunken into the young one yet. He did not know there was a difference.

[Sterling]

"Well, some can. Usually people who can feel chaos energy are also those who can manipulate it. But this ability may need to mature with time." The echidna explained, kneeling down onto his knee so that he was his eye level was a little closer to Silver's.

"Concentrate on the drive. Can you feel it? The little heartbeat from it. If you can, then you are feeling it's chaos energies."

[Arthur]

"The boy is four years old Knuckles, I've tried to have him feel the chaos energy around him, I thought I'd try it again when he's a bit older but if you think you can help him, go ahead." he said shrugging, like knuckles said himself, the Guardian, formerly Sonic and perhaps even silver could feel the chaos energy around them, the ebb and flow of the god energy.

Shadow suspected that since the seven chaos emeralds were now being used as power sources for human cities that the chaos energy would increase and eventually some of the humans may develop abilities to sense or even manipulate this energy but the dark hedgehog suspected it would take several more centuries before that happens with human evolution taking it's course.

[sterlingmod]

The boy stared at the echinda intently. It wasn't often that people would bother to kneel to speak to him, but it was kind of nice being able to speak at eye level with someone. The youngling listened to the elder's words, turning his head when his father spoke a moment. He remembered the brief lessons on trying to feel chaos energy, but those attempts were a while ago... well, in comparison to his short life they were a while ago, so they proved to be unsuccessful.

The hedgeling seemed a bit surprised that his father encouraged this acquaintance to try to teach him anything, but he supposed that the dark hog did know this other spined male for a while anyways.

Silver looked back to the echidna when he urged him to concentrate on the drive, but the look of reluctance overtook him. "I don't know if I really should..." He replied. "It kinda hurt when I touched it before; I don't want to end up doing it wrong." The boy was referring to the earlier experience of when he first touched it, the jolt of energy feeling like a minor shock really, but it was still enough to make him uncertain about it.

[Sterling]

"You're not going to give up that easily, are ya kid? C'mon, be tough!" The echidna said, a hint of laughter in his tone. He gave the pup a reassuring smile, "It could run out of energy soon. It's best to use it while you have it."

The guardian blinked, and his face wiped free from expression for a moment. Suddenly, a grin spread across his muzzle, "Hey, why don't we go recharge it for you? The Master Emerald should do the trick." Knuckles proposed, giving a soft 'hup' as he stood again to his full height.

"What do you say, Shadow? We finished rebuilding the Master Emerald's shrine some time ago. It's quite a sight, if I say so myself." Pride was as thick in the echidna's voice as red was in his veins.

[Arthur]

Shadow raised an eyebrow at the echidna "You wanted to kick us off not even five minutes ago now your ready to take me and my son to the Master Emerald? Going senile on us are you?" he shook his head as he walked over to the child.
"Sure we can go to the Master Emerald, what do you think Silver? Might even get to see if daddy can go super to show you what it looks like."
((Sorry about the short post))

[sterlingmod]

The hedgeling was used to being told those words, but not in such an encouraging and jovial manner. This did not help his reluctance any, however. The boy simply inspected it with a scrutinizing look.

That is until the echidna made a suggestion rather excitedly. The pup looked over in time to see the red brute standing himself up. The boy's father said just what his own sentiment was, but things were going much better than he expected them to so he had no room to complain. This guardian is friendlier than his first impression gave off, it seems.

The hoglet seemed a bit confused at he mention of the Master Emerald though. Was it supposed to be some kind of attraction? Silver looked excited at what his father had said and perked right up. He wasn't quite sure what 'super' meant, but the elder hedge seemed about as exited about it as a normally cranky old hog can get so it has to be awesome.

"You bet I wanna see! What're we waiting for?" He jumped at the opportunity, his fists balled in excitement. If it made them both forget about their former hostility there's no reason not to want to go.

[Sterling]

"Senile? Heh, you wish. You're even older than I am, Shadow." the echidna chuckled, brushing off the dark hedgehog's call to his sudden change in attitude. His attention was pulled back to Silver as the child exclaimed in excitement, and a sharp, toothy grin spread across his muzzle. "That's the spirit, kid!"

Knuckles motioned for them to follow as he began in the direction of the altar he had mentioned, and his pace seemed a little faster than a casual walk. "You haven't seen the Master Emerald's shrine yet, have you, Shadow?" the red mobian asked, not bothering to glance back.

[Arthur]

"Once or twice over the years, most of the time it was with eggman...But that was a long time ago." he said as he followed after the echidna expecting his child to follow him "Though in recent times no I haven't, you've done some renovations or something?" he asked as he walked alongside the guardian now.

[sterlingmod]

The little white hog watched in excitement for a moment as the large red male led on, an open mouthed smile apparent on the child's face. He spritely followed the two elder males' lead, following them until he got a bearing for what direction they were going and got enough confidence in such that he bounded in front of them, taking the lead himself. Even though he wasn't quite sure where they were going, he made it quite hard to tell by looking at him.

"Say mister, what is this supposed to be, actually?" He asked, looking over his shoulder at the red mobian as he tried his best to keep his steady lead with his shorter legs. He was normally told by his father to stay behind the black hedgehog's back when they traveled, but with the light attitude of the two, he just couldn't help but take the chance to be in front. Besides, with the promise of visiting such an apparently cool thing, he couldn't keep himself patient.