Preview: Silver & Zero Finale

Sometimes, delays happen. (Also, a new Fire Emblem game came out. Same thing happened last time.) Nonetheless, The final chapter of Silver & Zero is finally on its way! Here’s the preview!

Kronos Island, Starfall Islands — Tens of Thousands of Years Ago 

Mephiles floats down from the sky above onto a shrine made of stone and purple crystal. Ten Temporal Sapphires orbit around him. He lands atop the Master Emerald. 

Silver and Zero run towards him. As they do, Ancients scatter away in the opposite direction. They’re terrified. One shouts in an alien language, “Run for your life! The enemy has returned! The end is here!” 

Mephiles shouts, “Scatter like the ants you are!” The Sapphires orbit around him faster and faster. 

Silver shouts, “Mephiles!” He telekinetically lifts a pillar of stone and crystal out of the ground and hurls it at Mephiles like a giant spear. 

But before it can hit its mark, a sinister pulse of shadowy energy rips out from Mephiles and disintegrates the pillar. Silver and Zero brace themselves but are still forced to skid back several feet. 

When the pulse subsides, Mephiles has taken on a new form, resembling the crystalline form he originally took in the erased timeline. A sinister purple aura enshrouds him. He looks to his own hand. “A perfect fit.” 

Silver gasps. “With ten sapphires, he was able to regain his main form! He’ll be more powerful than ever!”

Mephiles looks to Silver. “Not just more powerful than ever. Powerful enough to tip the first domino. Not even the Scepter of Darkness could contain me now.”

Zero shouts, “No!” He lunges forward to deliver an earth-shattering punch to his foe. But all Mephiles needs do is swipe a hand to raise a barrier of shadows which blocks Zero completely and forces him back.

Mephiles announces, “The final act has begun.” He raises his arms into the air and begins to glow intensely. 

Silver worries, “What’s he doing?” 

Zero struggles to get back up as he says, “I don’t like this…” 

In vaults scattered across the island, the Chaos Emeralds begin to glow. One by one, they snap out of existence. Six of them reappear and join the ten Sapphires in an orbit around Mephiles. Both they and the Master Emerald glow even brighter. 

Silver questions, “Wait, six emeralds? Where’s the seventh?” 

Suddenly, a titanic fist comes down from above over Mephiles’ head. Silver and Zero had been paying so much attention to Mephiles that they failed to notice when the Titan Giganto had landed behind him. 

The gigantic robot is so massive that it looks as if not even Mephiles could stand against it. But Mephiles, without even turning to face the robot, casually puts one hand up and catches the fist, many times his size, in the palm of his hand, stopping it entirely. Mephiles chuckles. “Giftwrapped and delivered.” Suddenly, purple crystal spikes explode out from Giganto’s hand, tearing it apart. 

The Titan pulls its hand away from Mephiles to look at it with concern. The purple spikes start to spread. More of them burst from its arm, then upper arm, then torso. At this point, the entire thing collapses to ground, causing an earthquake. On the very top of its head is another vault which holds the purple Chaos Emerald. With the Titan defeated, the Emerald is freed from the vault and joins the others around Mephiles. 

Zero gasps, “He just destroyed the single largest robot I’ve ever seen in two seconds…” 

With all seven Emeralds around Mephiles, they begin to glow brighter and move faster. He announces, “A new world awaits!” There’s an intense flash of light, then Mephiles and the Emeralds are gone. Where he stood above the Master Emerald is now occupied by a vortex. 

Silver and Zero are stunned. Silver asks hesitantly, “What…happened…?” 

“I don’t know…but he got away…”

Thinking the exact same thing, they look to each other and say at once, “We have to follow him.” Without any hesitation, they leap into the vortex.

The gems have been gathered, and the stage is set. But what is Mephiles planning? The final act begins in Silver & Zero: Part 8 and Part 9, coming soon…

Review: Season 0, Episode 13

Well…I lost count after two months spent writing this episode, though I’m pretty sure it came close to three. Between the Holiday Season (Thanksgiving as well as winter) and a general increased work load that I had to deal with, I practically wrote this entire episode one paragraph at a time. Hopefully that didn’t mess up the flow too badly. This also marks the lengthiest episode yet at 8600 words, even more than the last finale. But, as with last time, I wanted nothing important left unsaid, and I didn’t want to split it into any more episodes. But enough about that boring stuff.

I promised some background for King, so I guess I’ll start with that. He started out as just about the most flat, unoriginal villain that could ever exist. He’s only there because I needed our superhero to face off against a villain. As for what he would do and how he would do it, I took some inspiration from various depictions of Marvel Comics’ Kingpin villain, and the naming is not unrelated. To be honest, I really had no idea what I was doing. But as I was writing King’s first scene, I first decided to hide his face, make it seem more menacing, like Shadow had a real reason to be so concerned with him. I was still unsure at that point whether or not I wanted to make King a real wolf, but I decided last second to give him a mechanical arm that he constructed himself, so that I wouldn’t have to make that decision and reveal his species right then and there, as well as to show off some of his engineering skills that had been talked about at that point, but not very well shown. (I decided for certain that he would be a wolf by the time the scene was over.) The rest of his character grew from there. I was able to expand just from that one scene that he is obsessed with his own technology and its perfection over biology, that he has a loathing for most humans, and that he was affected in a deeply personal manner by the Black Arms invasion (and Shadow by extension). The specifics came as time went on.

I suppose one other point from this episode to mention is the role that G.U.N. has been playing so far, an almost antagonistic one. The reason why I’m revealing all of these facts seeming to suggest that they’re corrupt and untrustworthy…I suppose it’s all rooted in the fact that they have played so many similar roles in the past, despite supposedly being a force for good. In both Sonic Adventure 2 and Shadow the Hedgehog, G.U.N. hurt you a whole lot more than they help you, despite being the hero. Sonic 06 is the only G.U.N. appearance that seems to be completely benevolent, and even then I always felt that it seemed a little shady how they seemed to be stealing the Scepter of Darkness more than they were “retrieving” it. Anyways, after all of the times that G.U.N. nearly killed Sonic and/or Shadow, it certainly seems reasonable to me that neither of those two would be particularly interested in working with them, which is why it surprised me a little bit to learn that Shadow was working for G.U.N. for the first time. But I think I got it to work in a way that all makes sense. Point is, after making so many questionable actions, it would’ve seemed wrong to me to make them completely in the right now. So, I thought it would make for good story for all of the characters involved to have a lot of friction between them. Of course, this little sub-plot of G.U.N.’s evolution is far from over. Speaking of G.U.N. and Sonic 06, there was one ridiculously obscure reference I threw in there at the last moment. Rouge mentioned how she had to be trained in hacking King technology by “Old Frances from the decryption unit.” This refers to one of the Town Mission NPCs from that game, who introduced herself as the head of the G.U.N. Decryption Unit, and wanted to test the player’s IQ for candidacy to join the unit. This reference was not in the original episode, but I added it just before publishing, because these random obscure references to other games is exactly the kind of thing I want to use in order to help tie the whole Sonic game universe together.

Now, there’s one big thing I haven’t talked about yet. The Black Cloak arc is inspired by a theoretical game idea, just like all of the others of Season 0. Of course, this is the only arc that I didn’t conceptualize until after coming up with the whole Season 0 idea, but I still made it to fit in with the rest. Anyways, this, like many other Sonic games, would be much different as compared to previous ones. Rather than an adventure game, or a high-speed platformer, this game would function a lot more like…well, a superhero game. The number of “levels” as compared to most Sonic games would be relatively few, but that’s because a vast majority of the game’s content comes in the form of a huge hub world, that of Westopolis. Between levels, the player would be allowed to freely explore the city, playing as either Sonic, Rouge, or Black Cloak, depending on the point in the story. This hub world would be full of various NPCs to speak with (not unlike 06), and missions to complete, such as the fighting of randomized crimes including robberies, muggings, etc, as well as specific quests provided by some of those random NPCs, in addition to a few familiar faces (helping Big find Froggy, anyone?) Anyways, each character has their own advantages for playing. Sonic travels through the world the fastest, obviously, and can get on top of most buildings using wall jump and parkour. Rouge can fly and climb walls, giving her complete access to every location, though she is the slowest of the three. Black Cloak is the best for fighting, dealing more damage and having a wide variety of attacks, including long-ranged ones. His other tools, such as the grappling gun, are also useful for reaching difficult areas. In addition to these, certain NPCs might only be able to interact with certain characters and not others, encouraging variety. For example, a police officer might only be willing to speak with Rouge, while a serious opposer to King might only be willing to speak to Black Cloak, and…the owner of the hotel Sonic stayed in might only be willing to speak to Sonic. Speaking of the hotel, this game would also theoretically feature the return of Chao Gardens, seen at the top floor of that hotel. (I have found myself wishing that this location had more impact on the actual story, but once I was done with it I had no further need for it except in these silly game mechanics.) Anyways, unlocked by beating the game is the ability to switch between characters in the hub world freely, in addition to a few more of those less-than-totally-canon quests for familiar faces. The only other thing to point out about the game would be the soundtrack, focused heavily on more dramatic orchestrated music, much in the style of modern superhero movies. Much of this music would be dedicated to remixes of themes from Shadow the Hedgehog, and, to a lesser extent, Sonic Adventure 2. And…I suppose that’s all I have to say for now.

Next time, witness the tale of the one called Sunlight, the New Ultimate Life Form. What is this life form, and why has its existence been kept a secret? Soon, Darkness will fall upon the Light.