Chapter Text
Omega hovered along through the collapsing void, his jets moving him forward. He turned his head to see a sobbing Eclipse and his anxious Dark Arms urging him to move in vain. He faced forward before turning his head back again. The robot diverted his path and scooped up Eclipse in a hulking hand before continuing toward the exit.
When Eclipse realized what was happening, he was enveloped in darkness. He saw two golden lights battling the same huge purple and gold monster from earlier, the one who had dragged them all here in the first place. Omega sat the darkling down next to him on a platform. He noticed Shadow on another platform with Rouge, watching the fight. He was masking his pain far better than Eclipse was.
"Why...?" he asked, his voice raspy, as he clutched his Dark Arms. "Why'd you help me?"
The robot could have easily left him to his fate, whatever it would've been. Neither Team Dark nor G.U.N. would have ever had to worry about him again. Not a soul would miss him and his Dark Arms.
"YOU PULLED SHADOW, ROUGE, AND I OUT OF THAT WRECKED ELEVATOR. WE ARE NOW EVEN AND I WON'T BE IN YOUR DEBT THE NEXT TIME WE FIGHT," Omega droned. "AND IT WOULD BE A SHAME TO LOSE THE CHANCE TO PROVE MYSELF STRONGER THAN YOU."
Eclipse didn't want to think about a "next time", to think about the possibility of nothing changing despite choosing to abandon revenge against Shadow. Rouge hadn't been informed, so maybe Omega hadn't either. It was enough that he brought him along, enough that he wasn't attacking him now.
"Why isn't Shadow helping?" the darkling wondered. He couldn’t imagine that he was weary from defeating Black Doom, though he didn’t know the extent of the effect those new powers had on him.
"UNKNOWN. LIKELY BECAUSE THE TWO SONICS HAVE ALREADY USED THE CHAOS EMERALDS' POWER TO ACHIEVE A "SUPER" STATE,” Omega reasoned. "HOWEVER, SHADOW HAS LEFT THREATS FOR SONIC TO DEAL WITH ON HIS OWN BEFORE, USUALLY WHEN HE HAS AN OUTSTANDING MISSION. CASE, LEAVING SONIC TO STOP EGGMAN WHILE HUNTING YOU DOWN ON THAT INTERSTELLAR AMUSEMENT PARK."
Eclipse continued to watch the fight and thought back to everything that had happened in the void. Finding Black Death alive, meeting Maria and Gerald, nearly being killed by Black Death in what he would later learn was a fake-out, attempting to kill Shadow again only to be stopped by Maria’s caring words, and watching Black Death disappear to face his demise again. So much had happened in such little time, not that time functioned properly in the void.
Before Eclipse knew it, the monster was defeated. The golden lights had hit it with a final attack, and it exploded. Everything went white again. When color returned, the darkling found himself back in the sparsely wooded area where he and his Dark Arms were before the monster had attacked. He looked over at the party table, which was back to the way it was before and surrounded by the partygoers, plus a few more.
Shadow was among them, but he hung back from the group, staring off into the distance. He was probably still reeling from his own experience in the void. Eclipse looked beside himself to see that Omega wasn't there anymore, seemingly having already left to resume whatever it was he had been up to before he had been pulled into the void. He turned back to look at Shadow again to find the hedgehog staring at him.
Eclipse's brows drew up and he frowned. He held up a hand, then lowered it. After another moment of them both staring, the darkling turned around and took off for a denser standing of trees, warping here and there along the way, his Dark Arms following him. He had just made up with Shadow or so he thought; he wasn't sure how his brother saw it and didn't want to wait around to find out.
He needed time before facing Shadow again.
...
Shadow sat in a field of white lilies near a downed, long-dead tree atop a cliff overlooking clear water. It was the dead of night, the only light from the broken moon and the countless stars. He was reminiscing about his time with Maria on the ARK and what could have been, what they had planned.
He thought back to recent events, about seeing her again. He wished he could've spent more time with her but focusing on defeating Black Doom again had taken most of his attention. Spending more time with Maria would've been meaningless if it had meant letting the alien warlord win.
Shadow had fought to sever his bond with Black Doom once and for all. Was he now to forge a bond with someone who had the same claim of blood relation even though it was meaningless to him? Eclipse had ceased fighting Shadow in the time anomaly and had claimed he didn't want to fight anymore, had apologized.
He still didn't feel a connection with Eclipse, but Maria had asked him to look after his "little brother", to guide him. "He just needs someone to show him the way", she had told him. Shadow wasn't sure how true that was, but Maria's insight had been helpful to him, and she had been right about Eclipse not wanting to kill him.
It had been so unnerving to watch Maria hug the dangerous alien with the power to kill him and so odd watching Eclipse excitedly tell her about the Dark Arms. Shadow wondered how different things would have been if Eclipse had been created alongside him on the ARK. Sometimes he had felt lonely being the only one like himself even with Maria's company, but companionship had been the furthest thing from his mind when he had encountered Eclipse on the New Black Comet.
He didn't know how he was going to reconcile "guiding" Eclipse with his promise to give everyone a chance to be happy. He supposed Eclipse was a part of "everyone" now, but he couldn't be sure that the darkling not wanting to fight him meant that he had abandoned his plans for humanity. He may have made a mistake in letting him go earlier.
He still needed to hunt Eclipse down, just not to end him this time.