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Just as he’s walking over to the two emeralds on the floor, a bright light suddenly fills up the room he’s in and when he opens his eyes once more (when did he close them anyway-) the bonds of reality itself are breaking apart.
Shadow surveys the area, noticing the seemingly neverending void and hundreds of parts of buildings he didn’t even recognize surrounding him. He didn’t think he’d see that he was still with Rouge and Omega after that, seeing as the last time he closed his eyes for a long time was when Mephiles brought them hundreds of years into the future, away from everyone he ever knew. And frankly, he didn’t expect to see so many of Sonic’s friends surrounding him.
“What is this?” Tails asks in shock, turning his head to see Amy and Knuckles with him.
“Where are we?” Amy asks, looking left and right in confusion. “What’s going on?”
“Is this...because of that light?!” Knuckles yells more than asks, gaining the attention of the other two.
Silver doesn’t seem to pay mind to them, looking at his own hands, “The Chaos Emerald...has disappeared…!”
“Silver?” Amy says in surprise at the sudden appearance of the hedgehog.
Shadow watches them look at each other once more, their confusion mixing together.
Silver even says as much, “This is all so confusing…”
Before anyone else can say something though, Shadow already crossing his arms in annoyance, Rouge cuts in through their conversation, hand on her hip, “It’s all because of Solaris.” She says and everyone whips their head to see the entirety of Team Dark being there the entire time.
Shadow nods in agreement as they all look to see Eggman looking up at the sky, hands raised. He makes a quick explanation, saying something about a “spatial distortion” and “Iblis’ seal” before turning his head to the left.
“...due to Mephiles’ manipulation.”
Shadow doesn’t even hear that last part, because he’s too busy walking closer and closer to Elise, eyes completely fixed on Sonic’s limp, lifeless, body.
“Shadow…” He hears the sound of Rouge’s heels clicking on the ground, signaling that she’s coming closer to him, but just as he feels a hand begin to touch his shoulder, he immediately shakes it off. Rouge makes no effort to stop him and backs off, understanding that Shadow didn’t want her pity.
“Sonic?!” The others cry out, running the short distance to his body. Tails’ expression is full of horror, while Knuckles stared at Sonic with his mouth agape, hands once clenched into fists going limp. Amy knelt beside Sonic’s body, a small whimper leaving her.
They all turn to look at Shadow, his eyes wide, face pale, and expression still surprisingly difficult to read, as if every painful emotion possible had managed to find a way to his face. His mouth opens as if to say something, but it closes, and opens, and closes again, repeatedly.
He gently kneels down beside Elise. The princess looks at him and she seems to understand the connection he and Sonic shared (a connection they can’t share anymore because he’s dead-) and she slowly scoots away from Sonic’s body until Shadow is able to fill her position, Sonic’s head leaning on Shadow’s body, almost as if he were just asleep by the same tree they went to almost every day.
Shadow stays like that for a good few minutes, only staring in shock at Sonic. Sonic, who had beaten Eggman numerous times, beaten robots numerous times, beaten gods numerous times (Shadow was even sure that there were some out there Sonic had beat but never mentioned to anybody), dead , limp, cold, lifeless.
Shadow knew that there would come a day when he’d see Sonic’s smile one last time, but he didn’t think that their last meeting before they split up would be that day.
(“Sonic.” Shadow says and the blue hedgehog turns to him, smiling at him as they look for Chaos Emeralds together while they were stuck two hundred years into the future. The original plan was for Team Dark and Team Sonic to split up, but Sonic had been so happy to see Shadow again that they all just agreed to give the two alone time while they searched in other places.
“Yeah?” Sonic simply replies, throwing more trash away when he saw something shine in the pile, sighing in disappoint as it turned out to be a tin can.
“Are you sure you still want to rescue Elise?” Shadow asks as he continues to focus and feel the emerald’s power he was sure is nearby.
“I- of course I do!” Sonic says, a little surprise in his voice, “She’s in trouble! And we gotta make sure she’s alright!”
“Okay,” Shadow responds and goes back to rummaging through the rubble.
He hears Sonic stop rummaging and listens to the sound of his shoes hitting the asphalt, placing his hand on the black hedgehog’s shoulder, “What made you ask that all of a sudden?”
“It’s just...I’m worried,” Shadow whispers quietly enough for Sonic to not have heard it had he been any farther from his boyfriend.
“Worried? About what?” Sonic asks.
“Mephiles. I...I know you yourself haven’t really seen him, but just from that aura of his, I can already tell he’s dangerous. Far more dangerous than anything we’ve encountered."
He hated to admit it, but when Mephiles first appeared when he stole his shadow, he felt a sudden pang of fear and dread run through him, making him freeze for a few seconds. He didn’t know if Rouge felt it as well, but Shadow could tell that the being couldn’t be trusted with anything.
Sonic paused, eyes closed for a few seconds in contemplation before he looks at Shadow again. “Listen, Shads, I know we’ve both been through a lot and...I know this is scary, for the both of us, but…” He grabs Shadow’s hand and intertwines their fingers, “If we don’t do this, nobody will, and I can’t let someone die if I could have saved them. I know you get what I mean.”
Shadow gives one nod to Sonic, remembering the fact that Sonic never gave up on him, no matter how distant Shadow tried to be. Another reason why he loved Sonic so damn much.
“I understand.” Shadow says, leaning forward as their foreheads meet, “But please, be careful, okay?”
“Of course! When we get home, I’ll even snuggle with you!” Sonic promises, making Shadow chuckle and Sonic smile brightly as they kissed.)
And just right now, with one of his hands intertwined with Sonic’s cold one, Shadow was proven to be right.
He leaned his head down, letting his forehead connect with Sonic’s, and lets out a shaky sigh he didn’t know he held in.
His shaky sighs turn into muffled whispering that didn’t really make any sense, and muffled whispering turns into whimpers as he leaned his head even closer, and whimpers turned into quiet sobs. He feels tears sliding down his nose and falling on Sonic, but he doesn’t care.
Sonic is here and he’s dead dead dead and there’s nothing he can do about it he should have been more careful should have kept an eye on Sonic shouldn’t have left his side he’s so stupid he’s so stupid-
He hears Amy fall to her knees, sobbing loudly, Tails doing the same as both Knuckles and Rouge shoulders rose up and down-far too fast to be just breathing-turning away from the body (to hide their tears, maybe? Shadow wasn’t sure) and look up at the sky. Even Elise was sobbing, hands covering her eyes as she wiped her tears over and over again. Shadow doesn’t say a thing, but his sobs get noticeably louder.
Eggman starts to speak again, but nobody really listens to him, and Shadow wishes that he had taken that scepter with him when he was in the past. He wanted to kill Mephiles with his own hands. He didn’t care if it caused paradoxes or whatever the fuck. Anything would be better than having Sonic dead.
Once Eggman stops speaking, the only sound heard is the sound of them mourning. Reality was breaking into pieces, the area they were in was already beginning to collapse, but they couldn’t care any less, because Sonic, a friend, a boyfriend, and a hero was suddenly gone just like that.
A few more minutes later and Shadow’s sobs begin to quiet down along with everyone else, though they refuse to move.
“Sonic...he’s...he’s really-” Tails stutters out, Amy holding him in a tight hug, “He’s g-gone.”
“It...it can’t end like this!” Silver yells, slamming his hand on the column next to him, “Everything we’ve done...it can’t just all go to waste now!”
“But Silver,” Amy says, “What are we going to do? One of the only ones who can defeat Solaris is…”
“No! No, there has to be some way we could-”
“The Chaos Emeralds!” Elise suddenly yells out loud, making Silver yelp in surprise. She looks at him apologetically, “I...I suddenly felt Sonic’s presence...in the wind!" She stares at all of them, eyes filled with a new layer of hope, "He’s not dead yet! We have a chance!”
“And how will the Chaos Emeralds help us at all?” Knuckles asks.
“We can use it to bring him back! I know we can!” Elise responds, fire in her eyes.
Silver snaps his fingers, “We can use their power to bring him back! We just have to focus our thoughts!”
“But how are we going to find all of them in a place like this?” Omega inquires.
Heads turn to look at Eggman as he does something with his glasses, a small screen appearing on them, “Solaris flung the Chaos Emeralds to the distant corners of this distorted world.”
“To collect them all in time, we have to split up!” Tails exclaims, hope filling his voice as well. They all nod in agreement, some of them shouting as their spirits lifted.
Rouge turns to Shadow and takes a few steps closer to him, “Shadow, we can still save him. We still have time and we can do it.” She says, clenching her fist.
Shadow slowly looks up and sees the hope behind Rouge’s eyes. He looks back at Sonic, leaning his forehead on the blue hedgehog, promising to return to him as soon as possible. Elise offers to hold Sonic until then and Shadow thanks her, knowing she herself couldn’t go find the emeralds.
With that, he lets his shoes boost up, the sound of them beginning to function, and vanishes into the void.
When Shadow sees Sonic’s super form, he wanted nothing more than to sob into his boyfriend’s arms.
It worked. It really worked.
Elise was leaning on Sonic, tired from using her energy to bring Sonic back. Sonic thanks her and turns his head to see his friends as they gathered around to hug all of them in greeting. Then, he turns to Shadow, and Shadow sees his bright, beautiful smile and feels as if he’s fallen in love all over again. Sonic’s smile widens as he dashes up to Shadow.
Shadow instinctively opens his arms, letting Sonic immediately hug him. The impact has them both spinning, but they both ignore it as Sonic raises Shadow off the ground.
Sonic is immediately kissing Shadow as they held each other in a tight hug, Shadow whispering “Thank you.” and “I’m so happy to see you.” over and over again, Sonic returning the same feelings as he whispered words of happiness.
“I thought you were really gone.” Shadow whispers to him and Sonic kisses his face over and over again, making Shadow chuckle.
“I have way too much stuff to do, Shads. It’ll take more than some guy stabbing me on the back to stop me!”
“And thank Chaos for that.”
Sonic immediately starts laughing and Shadow, after all the stress and pain he’s felt vanishes as he hears that bubbly laughter, starts laughing as well. He feels the two of them spin as the Chaos Energy surrounding the two of them began to gather around him, too.
He allows it to do so, the Chaos Energy mixed with the Chaos Emeralds allowing him to shift into his Super version as well.
Sonic stops them from spinning and they slowly descend, landing perfectly on the ground, still hugging each other.
The others stare at them with awe and Rouge’s big smile doesn’t go unnoticed to Shadow.
“Well, what are you waiting for, Silver?” Sonic asks, “Let’s go beat this god’s ass up!”
Silver smiles and nods, turning into his Super version and flying up to the two of them.
As they fly up, Sonic and Shadow’s fingers intertwined again, they smile, knowing that just like any other asshole that got in their way, Solaris was absolutely fucked.