"The song is ended but the melody lingers on." - Irving Berlin

He had almost forgotten where he was. As he looked around, everything seemed almost surreal. He couldn't control his movements, couldn't even turn his head, but somehow he felt calmer than he had in months. He knew why; this was home! He'd never been so relaxed to see the arching rock figures of his homeland, but he tensed as he felt a graceful paw on his shoulder and a slender muzzle pressed against his neck. Without his own volition, his head tipped down and his left paw reached up to the body near him.

"Hi..." Familiar gold eyes glimmered.

Amara...

He instantly tried to kiss her and pull her close, wanting to run his claws through her hair, but at the moment he regained control of his body, everything shot into blackness. Disappointment and sorrow instantly struck through him as he remembered where he actually was.

A painful pulsing shot through his upper chest, and he tried to lift his left paw again to touch it, being prevented however by wires. His ears twitched as he heard a beep, and he felt himself stiffen.

"Can't have you moving around, you may mess something up." A voice boomed into his ears. "But you'll be free soon enough as my greatest creation!" Infinite heard him bellow with a burst of nearly maniacal laughter. "Finally something even that blasted hedgehog can't defeat, for every single feature of a living being is present!"

Maybe that's because I am alive? Infinite grumbled in his mind.

Eggman glanced at the vital stats on the monitor before looking back at Infinite. "Yes, this is perhaps my greatest accomplishment!"

As Cubot watched Infinite's motionless form, Orbot followed his master as he began to monologue.

"Sonic. How I detest him. And all of that loathing has been concentrated into this one instrument of destruction! Every defeat, every single ounce of humiliation dealt by that hedgehog will now be returned a thousandfold! With my new invention, I will now be able to extend my Empire and even conquer the globe! Nothing will stand in my way! Not even those blasted rodents!" As his verbal scheming evolved into maniacal laughter, the robots gasped, realizing their creator's full intentions.

"The boss is serious this time!" A klutzy sounding voice, belonging to Orbot, spoke.

Eggman shoved past the two robots, then pressed a button on Infinite's control panel, returning movement to his head and allowing his eyes to open.

That's a lot better... Infinite stretched out his neck, relieved.

"Now... time to test this new creation."

Nothing but this gem is new... I've been alive twenty-seven years... well, twenty-eight if you want to be really technical about it.

Infinite heard the liquid suspending him begin to drain. Once the liquid drained enough to allow Infinite's paws to touch the ground, he felt both shaky and empowered. He heard the compressed air inside release as the door opened for him.

After taking only one step, Infinite lost his footing and face-planted onto the ground.

"Please don't tell me you were this clumsy before."

Infinite tried pushing himself up, shaking from having to support his weight after a long period of suspension. "You'd be the same."

Orbot and Cubot rolled under him to help push him upright, accidentally getting slightly smashed together when the jackal regained his footage.

Once upright, the latter approached the window where the scientist was standing, a few inches from rivaling his height. "What act of mayhem to do you have in that little mind of yours to test the reach of this power?"

Dr. Eggman turned his head slightly to his right, bringing Infinite into his view. He smirked slightly, almost pleased. "Oh, ignorant Bloodpooliean, your hate of Mobius is present in every ounce of you."

Infinite twisted his head to the left to do the same, face staying expressionless. "It is both bred and deserved." He furrowed his brow and jerked his head away, looking at the ground in front of him. "Perhaps if your government didn't run around, slaughtering our innocents and children, it wouldn't be so."

"You and I both know I have no association nor affiliation with them. I am more so like the common Mobian in that I have no contact or cause with your kind."

"Yet you are satisfied in this actless state of nothingness instead of attempting to do at least something for us exiles. Our state is undeserved, but they don't want anyone to grasp that. By doing nothing, you allow them the victory."

"Then I think you'll like my proposal. Testing the Phantom Ruby on the blasted G.U.N. agent that killed your precious Squad."

He felt his ears perk up, highly intrigued by the offer. He once again looked at the scientist. "Just him?"

"Him, and the other two members of his unit. All three high enough ranked to have something to do with the Bloodpooliean persecutions."

Infinite smiled, touching the ruby now implanted into him, chuckling a little. "Let it be so." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before the Phantom Ruby activated; lifting him off the ground with the accompaniment of an odd, foreboding hum.

Eggman smiled, then picked up a metal mask that was based off an ancient Bloodpooliean battle mask, the armor of Infinite's ancestors. He gladly presented it to Infinite, who took it from him.

With a heavy breath, Infinite slipped on the mask, clasping its bottom to the rim of his shock collar. The mask's eyes lit up with an eerie red and only Infinite's yellow eye shone through; as if it was informing the world that he'd finally accepted his Bloodpooliean destiny. As the leader of Bloodpool, as well as its ruling clan's last surviving member, it was now Infinite's role to bring his people to the world stage on their behalf, reminding Mobius of their existence.

Since the beginning, the Bloodpoolieans and Defieds had been chased, killed and persecuted until their exile was set in stone; their lives abandoned by the world. Infinite, however, now had the chance of a thousand lifetimes laid straight into his paws.

He would confront G.U.N; he would make them rue the day they ever laid hands on his people and the ones that he loved, he would make the world remember and recognize the Bloodpool Canyon people.

He was done suffering in silence.