Lesser of Two Evils-Chapter 1: Only A Dream

Complete carnage.

Those two words were but a gross understatement. Those two words could not even describe a portion of what lay before him.

Once tall, proud skyscrapers reduced to a pile of concrete, glass and steel. The streets cracked, broken and littered with debris. Even the sky, once so brilliant and blue, was now dark and desolate, so grey it was almost black, with a toxic red tinge.

And it wasn't just the echidna's sight that was being overwhelmed. All five senses were working overtime, attempting to drink in all that was before him. His hearing, pounded on relentlessly by cries; of fear, of pain, of death. His skin, pushed to its limit by the excruciating heat from the raging inferno engulfing almost everything. His sense of smell and taste were being overwhelmed too. His nose so overloaded with the smells of destruction, despair and death, he could practically taste the smoke, soot and blood on his tongue.

Tremors, further adding to the hellish madness, knocked the echidna off-balance. Regaining his footing, he gazed upon a behemoth that towered almost up to the ominous clouds, still hammering missiles upon the city's surface, hell-bent on complete destruction, as if its sole purpose was to send a downpour of death to all within its reach.

And standing in between the echidna and the giant was another, younger echidna.

Recognizing the younger echidna, the elder called him out, but to no avail, for it was as if his voice was lost amongst the armageddon that surrounded them.

Even with the behemoth towering above him, the younger echidna positioned himself into a fighting stance.

The colossus, somehow noticing the comparatively miniscule echidna that foolishly tried to challenge it, began to draw back a gigantic metal fist. Surely, even a tap on the head from a fist that size would induce a major concussion and severe brain damage. However, mechs, particularly enormous, battle-ready weapons of war, unfortunately have no concept of holding back.

Desperately trying to reach the younger echidna, the elder one had tried to run, but with so much debris in his way, he could only manage a frustrating half-jog as he avoided cracks, pieces of buildings and the occasional dead body, in an effort to reach the younger one.

No! Not my son, he pleaded.

But his efforts were in vain, for the titan's hand, heavy though it may be, had started coming down at an alarming rate, faster than what the older echidna could hope the younger one would be able to avoid.

All he could do was scream, and then, a flash of brilliant white light.

"NOOOOOOO!"

Sudden darkness engulfed his vision, though the image of the younger echidna-his son-looking back and smiling at him just as he had cried out, was still burned into his eyes.

"Locke, honey, what's wrong?" asked an apprehensive female voice beside him.

It was then that the echidna named Locke realized that he was sitting bolt upright in his bed, having woken up both him and his wife, Lara-Le from their slumber.

Lara-Le turned on the lamp on her nightstand, gazing at her husband's terrified face with worry.

"Only a dream, Lara," he began, sweating and panting profusely, "yet more than a dream."

Lara-Le knew what he was referring to, for it had been the same dream he had dreamt and woken both of them up with several times for the past few months.

So, without saying anything more, she embraced the love of her life tightly, praying to *Aurora for some sort of relief to Locke's anguish.

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A/N: I own neither hide nor hair nor circuit nor shard of any of the Mobians/robotic mechs/objects of power mentioned in the above story. SEGA and or Archie Comics do.

*Aurora is one of the apparently numerous celestial beings/deities that exist in the Archie multi-verse, basically existing on the same plane as the Ancient Walkers. She is often portrayed as a pink echidna (she actually used to be a Chaos energy research scientist in Albion, until she and her then-romantic partner Enerjak became servants of the Ancient Walkers, allowing them both to ascend into the Chaos Force and essentially become gods), though she apparently can appear to others as they imagine her to be, no matter the species. Most prominently in the comics, she is portrayed as the deity that most, if not all non-Dark Legion echidnas worship. Places of worship dedicated to her are called "Aurorariums." She would later succeed the Ancient Walkers, along with Athair (Locke's grandfather who also had close ties to the three beings), and Merlin Prower (Tails' uncle who practices magic, having once been the Wizard of the Acorn Kingdom), becoming the Neo Walkers.