Chapter Text
The Mobius you once knew is gone.
Once, its skies had glowed with warmth, its lands alive with the colors of a thousand wonders. Rivers had sung as they danced through emerald valleys, and cities had stood proud as testaments to what life could be. Now, all of it lies in ruin. The monuments of the past stand broken, crumbling stones jutting from the earth like the bones of a long-dead giant, mute reminders of what was lost.
The heroes who once defended this world are gone, their names fading into memory. With them went the last embers of hope — that stubborn dream that one day the wounds of this land might heal. But that dream has lingered in vain. For twenty years, the Nocturnus Clan has ruled unchallenged, their shadow choking the world in silence and fear.
Yet, despite it all, there are still those who believe.
They cling to the fragile idea that Mobius can be restored, that the scars can be mended, and the world returned to the beauty it once knew. Even as the skies grow darker and the land twists into something unrecognizable, their faith endures. They believe that no matter how far into shadow the world may fall, the path will always lead, somehow, to salvation and to the rise of a hero among us.
One such believer can be found in the rusted graveyard of a forgotten city, scouring through heaps of twisted metal and shattered machines.
His name is Silver, a hedgehog with eyes like pale fire, burdened by a present he refused to accept but had to live with.
With a faint glow in his eyes, Silver let the scattered scrap rise into the air, each piece spinning slowly under his telekinetic grip. He sifted through them silently, separating what he needed, what might be useful later, and useless rust. It was a routine he’d done a thousand times before, and by now it felt almost mechanical. Same old gears. Same old rusted junk.
That was, until something different caught his eye, a battered old radio buried beneath a tangle of wires. His expression lit up as though he’d just unearthed a fortune. “Jackpot,” he murmured.
He plucked it from the pile, turning it over in his hands. The casing was cracked, the dials stiff with grime, but it wasn’t beyond saving. He could already picture the missing parts, scattered somewhere in his collection, waiting to make this relic sing again.
“Stop! Please! I’m sorry!”
The faint cry cut through the quiet hum of the junkyard. Silver’s ears twitched. He slipped the radio into his bag and moved toward the sound, careful and silent.
Rounding a heap of rusted steel, Silver froze. Two armored Nocturnus soldiers had the small turtle boy pinned against the scrap, their blasters trained on him like death sentences. The boy’s satchel lay spilled at his feet, his wide eyes desperate and pleading.
Silver’s heart hammered. He could stay hidden, slip away like always. But something in him clenched — the helpless fear in the boy’s gaze was a mirror of his own past.
The soldiers spoke in cold unison. “Access to this sector is prohibited to any being not of the clan. Punishment is termination.”
Silver’s fingers twitched, but before he could act, one soldier’s helmet shifted slightly — a flicker of movement caught in their peripheral vision. For a moment, their heads turned toward the shadow where Silver stood.
Time slowed. Silver’s breath hitched as he summoned every ounce of focus.
ZZZZRRRTTTT!
The soldiers jerked violently, their blasters twisting in invisible hands, then collapsed as they shot each other, smoke curling from their weapons.
The turtle blinked, gasping in confusion, before relief washed over his face as he spotted Silver.
“Go,” Silver urged quietly. “Get out of here.”*
The boy’s fear melted into relief. “Thank you, sir.”
He snatched up his bag of scraps and darted away, vanishing between the mountains of junk.
Silver grabs his own stuff and decides to head back home.
The wind howled through the skeletal city, carrying the rattle of loose metal and groans of collapsing structures. Silver slung his bag over his shoulder and started the long walk back, his boots crunching over glass and gravel. Every few steps, he glanced upward not because he expected to see the sun, but because habit had taught him to watch the skies for patrol drones.
His path wound through streets that had once been full of life, though it was hard to imagine now. Storefronts sat hollow and blackened, their windows punched out, their names faded to ghostly lettering. The air smelled faintly of oil and ozone. He kept his pace brisk, eyes scanning every shadow, every corner.
The Nocturnus had a habit of appearing where you least wanted them to.
Home was not much to speak of a narrow basement carved out beneath the remains of an old transit station. The upper levels had long since collapsed, leaving only a crooked stairwell hidden behind a pile of rubble. Most would walk past it without giving it a second glance, which was exactly the point.
Descending into the dim, Silver flicked on a small battery-powered lamp, its pale light revealing shelves stacked with scavenged parts, wiring, and makeshift tools. The smell of dust and metal filled the air, oddly comforting after a day of picking through the bones of the city.
He set the radio gently on his workbench, brushing away the dirt with the side of his glove.
“Let’s see if you’re worth the trouble,” he muttered, reaching for a screwdriver.
Silver turned the radio over in his hands, studying its innards with a practiced eye. Several components were missing, but he knew he had their twins buried somewhere in the clutter around him. He began gathering them, one from a dusty crate, another from a jar of mismatched screws, the rest from the tangle of wires he’d collected over the years.
Piece by piece, he coaxed the machine back to life. The cracked casing and stiff dials didn’t matter when the relic softly hummed, drawing a rare smile. Static filled the room, sharp and uneven, but it was sound.
He twisted the tuning knob slowly, knowing full well the odds. Most stations had been silenced years ago, their towers dismantled or buried under the Nocturnus’ rule. Still, there was something about the act, the search, that made him linger. You never knew what might be left out there, waiting to be heard.
A crackle broke through the static, faint at first, then sharpening into a voice.
“Hello…this is Lanolin, your host of New Resistance Radio.” The speaker’s tone carried an edge, worn but defiant. “We’ve gotten a couple requests for Mina Mongoose tonight. An oldie, but lucky for you, I’ve got more of her stuff on vinyl than I know what to do with. Can’t blame anyone for asking. Reminds me of when the skies were clear…and the world wasn’t complete shit.”
The first sharp chords of Mina Mongoose’s guitar spilled from the speaker, bright and raw, chased by the steady beat of drums. Silver leaned back, letting the pop-punk rhythm fill the dim little room. For a moment, the rust and ruin felt farther away.
He reached for his sketchbook, the one with its cover worn soft from years of use, and began to draw. At first, it was familiar ground, landscapes he’d passed on his travels: jagged skylines, wind-bent trees, the hollow shells of cities swallowed by time. But when the melody lifted his mood, his pencil wandered elsewhere. He sketched sunsets, dozens of them, layering the page with colors he’d never truly seen, only imagined from stories and scraps of memory.
He tried to capture their beauty, the way light might melt into the horizon, the glow it could cast over a quiet world. But as the lines took shape, the reality crept back in, and the warmth in his chest thinned. The music played on, but his hand stilled.
It didn’t take much to remind him of all he’d never known.
Silver set the pencil down and closed the sketchbook, the half-finished sunset staring back at him like a promise he couldn’t quite keep. He pushed it aside, crossed the room to his mattress, and lowered himself onto the thin bedding.
The ceiling above was a patchwork of shadows in the lamplight, familiar and unchanging. Usually, in the stillness, the dark thoughts came, memories he couldn’t outrun, ghosts of people and places long gone. But tonight, Mina’s voice lingered in the air, threading between the chords of her music, filling the space where silence used to choke him.
For once, as his eyes drifted shut, he felt it fragile, fleeting, but real.
A sliver of peace.
…
Creak.
The sound sliced through the haze of half-sleep, pulling Silver’s eyes open. His door was shifting slowly, carefully just enough to let in a sliver of shadow.
A figure slipped inside.
Instinct took over. In a heartbeat, Silver was on his feet, the air around him snapping with energy. With a sharp flick of his wrist, the intruder was hurled backward.
“GYAH!” The figure slammed into a shelf, sending a cascade of junk clattering to the floor.
“Who are you?!” Silver barked, his voice cutting through the small room. “What are you doing here—”
Before he could finish, a masked wolf straightened, weapon already raised and aimed at him.
“Wait! Whisper!” another voice called out. The second figure, now seen as a lemur, got up and stepped quickly into view, hands raised in a placating gesture. “We’re sorry! We didn’t know someone else was living here.”
Whisper’s aim faltered, the barrel of her weapon dipping slightly before she finally lowered it. Silver’s eyes darted between the two strangers, his stance still guarded.
“I’m going to ask you again,” he said, voice firm. “What are you doing here?”
The other woman stepped forward, her posture relaxed but her movements deliberate, as if trying not to spook him. “My name’s Tangle,” she said, offering a grin that seemed almost out of place in the dim, cluttered room. She gestured to the masked wolf beside her. “This is my partner, Whisper. We’re adventurers.”
Silver’s brow arched. “Adventurers?”
Tangle nodded, her long tail curling slightly behind her as she spoke. “Yeah. We travel across Mobius, see what’s out there. Help where we can.”
“But that still doesn’t answer why you’re in my home,” Silver pressed, narrowing his eyes.
Tangle glanced around at the cramped, cluttered space. “Well…not much of a home, is it? Pretty small.”
Silver straightened, caught off guard. “It’s—” he stammered, gesturing vaguely at the walls. “It’s meant to be small! Now just answer the question.”
“We’re looking for someone important,” Tangle said, her voice losing some of its earlier playfulness. “Someone who can help fix all this.”
Silver’s posture shifted. “Fix…this?”
“Fix the world,” she clarified. “Haven’t you heard the rumors? About him wandering the wastes?”
Silver shook his head. “I haven’t heard anything from anybody. I’ve been…” He cleared his throat, glancing aside. “Isolated. For a while.”
Tangle’s smile dimmed. “That’s… sad.” She took a small step forward. “Why don’t you come with us, then?”
From behind her, Whisper’s eyes narrowed above the mask. “Tangle,” she warned quietly, “what are you doing?”
“Did you see how this guy— wait, what’s your name?” Tangle asked, turning back to him.
“Silver.”
“Right. Did you see how Silver flung me across the room without even touching me?” She grinned, tail swishing. “He’s special, if you ask me. You’ve got some kind of…telekinesis, right?”
Silver rubbed his arm, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. “Yeah… something like that. Had it for as long as I can remember. I think I was born with it.”
“That’s exactly what we need on this team,” Tangle said, glancing toward her partner. “I’m sure you understand, Whisper.”
Whisper’s eyes lingered on Silver, unreadable behind the mask. “No offense,” she said at last, “but it’s dangerous out there even with just the two of us. Are you sure he won’t just be…extra weight?”
Silver hesitated, the weight of years pressing down on him. He glanced at the battered walls around his basement home, the fragile peace he’d built here from the ruins. He had survived alone for so long — avoiding the Nocturnus, staying invisible. But now, with Tangle’s words lingering in the stale air, a knot of doubt twisted in his chest.
Could he really risk stepping back into the world above? Could he trust these strangers?
He looked down at his hands, scarred and steady, then back to the open sketchbook where his unfinished sunsets waited patiently.
“I’ve kept myself safe by staying hidden,” he murmured, voice barely above a whisper. “But maybe hiding isn’t enough anymore.”
He swallowed hard and met their eyes. “Alright,” he said, voice steadying. “If your mission is to stop this regime, then I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t join you.”
Tangle’s grin returned in full force. “That’s the spirit. You ever heard of Riverside?”
Silver shook his head slightly.
“You seem to be familiar with Lanolin,” Tangle said, nodding toward the radio on the table.
“Oh, I just got this radio today,” Silver said, glancing at it. “Is she in Riverside?”
“She’s only the most popular person there,” Tangle replied with a smirk. “We come a close second, though.” She tilted her head toward the door. “I’m sure you’ll like her even more in person. Follow us.”
“Of course, just let me grab a couple things.”
Tangle nodded and stepped outside. Whisper lingered for a moment, her masked gaze holding on Silver as if weighing something unspoken, before she turned and followed her partner.
Silver stood alone, mind racing. He wasn’t sure what to pack or expect — but maybe that didn’t matter. For the first time in years, an opportunity had walked right through his door.
And this time, he wasn’t going to let it pass.
Silver slipped his sketchbook into his bag, tucking it safely between a few other personal trinkets, small things that held more meaning than use. With one last glance at the cluttered little space he’d called home, he stepped toward the door.
“Alright,” he said, meeting Tangle’s expectant grin. “I’m ready. Lead the way.”
“Alright, let’s go,” Tangle replied, her tail curling behind her as she turned toward the open streets.
Whisper followed in silence, and Silver fell in step with them. The three of them headed out into the wasteland, the jagged skyline of the ruined city giving way to the uncertain road to Riverside.