Chapter Text
Floating - or more like flying - around the void, Shadow cursed Sonic. Somehow, every time something went wrong in Green Hills, the blue hedgehog was part of the chaos. This time wasn’t an exception.
The voices of Sonic’s little friends reached his ears and, when he glanced at the source, he saw giant figures made of coloured balls of light depicting said friends. Great, Shadow thought. Now I have to support that too.
He tailed his annoying counterpart until they both reached some weird red floating island made of red hexagonal rocks. Sonic fell right through the glowing white, portal-looking shape in the middle, with Shadow hot on his heels. The blue hedgehog was unconscious when he passed through, which meant he didn’t hear Shadow’s strained grunts as he tried to push through to follow him.
Suddenly, he was thrown away into one of the smaller floating rocks of the void. The gateway had…rejected him. Shadow felt a spike of anger. At Sonic or at himself, he didn’t know. Well, probably himself since being slammed into a floating rocks like that had cause the Chaos Emerald to fly off into what seemed like an endless pit. And if that wasn’t something, considering Shadow was already stuck into an infinite void.
Using his air shoes, Shadow flew back to the red rock in which the gateway was and started punching against it. His motions were harsh, bordering on a desperation he couldn’t name the source. Images of a city full of smoke and reeking of despair started flashing before his eyes. Sonic shone like a light in that sad city (and that was a thought Shadow would place in that corner of his mind he had no intention to deal with) and as the images continued to flow, Shadow watched and punched while Sonic spoke, ran and got weird little contraptions from a familiar-looking fox.
To his displeasure, he caught glimpses of Eggman - no, Eggmen, who were watching Sonic run in a sphere as if he was but a mere lab rat. That look was too familiar for Shadow’s confort, memories of scientists poking and prodding at him making anger simmer beneath his skin.
He continued punching as, suddenly, energy started coming out of the gateway. He could see Sonic running in that sphere, generating enough energy to thin the veil between the void and this strange world. Shadow’s punches grew in strength as desperation gave in to determination and, finally, he passed through.
———
“Uhhh…why is there another one?” The young and somehow more annoying-looking version of Eggman asked, straightening up a little on his floating chair as he stared at Shadow.
The scowling hedgehog dusted himself off, staring at the five different Eggmans and, surprisingly, scowled harder.
“Shadow!”
Ah. An unfortunately and annoyingly familiar voice.
Shadow ignored the little leap his heart did when the voice reached his ears, as well as the spike of relief that spread through his body, and turned to glance at his blue counterpart through the window of the weird cage? Exercise room? he was in.
“Sonic,” he growled. If it was a little less angry than usual, that was nobody’s business.
The tired-looking hedgehog ran to the glass of the containment room he was apparently stuck in, putting his palms flat on the glass as he smiled.
“What are you-“
He was cut off by the even more annoying voice of one of the Eggmen, and Shadow had to clench his fists to restrain himself from punching the man in the face.
“Rusty Rose,” he said, turning his head towards a robot that had the appearance of another of Sonic’s friends. “Get that one too.”
The robot turned mechanically and the light that served as its right eye zeroed on Shadow. The now-pissed off hedgehog had to dodge multiple metallic arms and a few lasers as the other robots, those ones yellow, started shooting along with the metal version on the pink girl. But, like all of Eggman’s robots, these went down with only a few spin-dashes.
Shadow turned towards the pink robot, glaring as, suddenly, Sonic got out of the containment chamber. The yellow fox had visibly managed to hack through, Shadow mused as he continued dodging mechanical punches. His blue counterpart joined him and, together (and to Shadow’s great displeasure), they made quick work of the last robots as the grim yellow fox took control of the pink robot.
The Eggmen were yelling at each other, urging each other to call in more robots and to capture Sonic and Shadow. The later levelled them with a steel-cutting glare, although the effect was slightly reduced when Sonic grabbed Shadow in a hug. The black hedgehog froze, his face heating up. Non the wiser, Sonic let him go to run up to the yellow fox.
I really should learn their names, Shadow thought, following Sonic.
“Nine, Shadow. Shadow, Nine,” Sonic introduced them with a wide grin which made Shadow’s heart flutter a little.
Now. Contrary to popular belief, Shadow wasn’t emotionally inept. He was the Ultimate Lifeform, he always knew what he was feeling. Didn’t mean he had to like it. And he really, really didn’t like the fact that his brain decided to have a crush on his annoying rival. Really not.
He had been aware of it for a while, and had hidden away in a cave for a week after realizing it. Shadow didn’t love. He wasn’t made for that. He was a weapon that was made to hurt and destroy. And so what if Sonic could handle him? Despite the blue blur being able to go toe to toe with Shadow, it didn’t mean that he wouldn’t get hurt on the way. Best to just bury and stomp on these feelings, hoping they’ll go away one day.
It’s just a mere crush, Shadow kept telling himself. It will pass. And when it does, I will not miss it.
I won’t allow myself to.
While Shadow was busy having a Sonic-induced crisis, the blue hedgehog had started calling his name.
“-adow, Shadoooow,” he said, making him snap out of his daze.
“Mobius to Shadow-“
“What do you want,” he snapped, crossing his arms.
“Well, jeez, someone woke up on the wrong foot. I was just asking- well, first, are you you or just some weird alternate version of yourself like everything seems to be in this damn universe?”
Shadow blinked slowly, trying to catch up on the rapid pace of Sonic’s voice.
“…yes, I am me. How could you think otherwise, hedgehog?” He said, narrowing his eyes.
“Ahh, there’s the Shadow I know,” Sonic replied with a large smile. “You looked like you were far away a second ago.”
The black hedgehog scoffed, turning away to stare as the yellow fox (Talis? Tair?) typed away on a keyboard. Somewhere along the fight, the five Eggmen ran out of the room, no doubt to get reinforcements.
“Aaand, I’m done. We should have a clear path out,” the fox said, the seven metallic tails (Tails, that’s his name!) reassembling into one big tail.
“Ah, awesome!” Sonic exclaimed, still smiling. “Let’s go!”