Chapter Text
This was bad. The stakes were too high. Eggman had the entire village under his control. A small, peaceful little town, and that evil genius could and would wipe it out with a single button press. And what did Sonic have? One chaos emerald. Countless lives were at stake and Sonic didn't know what to do because he didn't have the skill required to control chaos energy.
But he had to try, right? People were depending on him. Even now, he could practically hear them. "Don't worry, Sonic will save us! He always knows what to do!"
How many people were in danger and yet not even fearing for their lives because they believed he could save them?
He couldn't give up now.
So he did what he always did: he smiled. He put on a false air of confidence and smirked at Eggman, even though he could feel the pressure of the lives he was putting in danger weighing down on his shoulders. He was fine.
"Pretty bold move, Egghead! I gotta say, I'd be impressed if I weren't annoyed." Annoyed . It almost sickened him to act this cocky. Eggman was ruining families and Sonic just said that he was annoyed .
"I wouldn't be so cocky if I were you, hedgehog. Give me the chaos emerald and I'll leave these people alone."
The offer was tempting, but Sonic never gave up. Giving Eggman the emerald was only prolonging the inevitable. Because what would he do with it, once he had it? He would make it part of some grander scheme that would put even more people in danger.
"Not a chance! You may have power, but I have speed ." It was the one thing he did have, that he knew he could use. So Sonic did what he always did, and he started running. He felt the ground shaking as Eggman tried in vain to shoot him down, and Sonic did his best to avoid any damage to the village itself, or the people in it.
He tried to attack Eggman, but he was blocking himself with a forcefield.
Damn it. It seemed that the emerald really was his only option.
Sonic was already on thin ice, so he had no time to debate the pros and cons. Without any further hesitation, he shouted, "Chaos control!"
It teleported him, like he thought it would, right behind Eggman, on the other side of the forcefield. But there had been a sound before he'd been transported, a sound that he didn't have time to think about. In a moment he was attacking Eggman's hovercraft, sending him flying off into the distance, and probably giving him a few injuries in the process.
Sonic landed on the ground, expecting to hear applause from the villagers, but when he regained his focus, he saw a giant crater in the center of the town, and several homes in the vicinity reduced to rubble.
Was I not fast enough? He thought to himself. I was sure Eggman didn't push the button…
But then he noticed the horrified looks on the faces of the villagers. Directed at him .
Oh no…
He swallowed thickly. "Was that me?" he asked, his voice cracking, much like his composure.
A few of the civilians nodded, and he felt his heart drop into his stomach.
"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to cause so much damage! Is anyone hurt?"
One of the villagers approached him with a pitying smile. "Don't worry, dear," she said sweetly. "You have nothing to apologize for. You saved us!"
And just like that, the horrified looks were replaced with sighs of relief, smiles, and cheers.
But Sonic couldn't forget what he'd done.
That night he had trouble sleeping. He was tossing and turning, and what little sleep he managed to get was plagued with nightmares of him hurting innocent people. In his subconscious mind, Sonic was a monster.
After several hours of this, Sonic decided to give up on sleeping. Thoroughly exhausted, he hauled himself out of bed and headed down the stairs. Maybe he would watch some TV…. No, because there was a chance that the news would be reporting his so-called victory. Perhaps it would be better to read a book…
Before he could make his way to the bookshelf in the living room, his thoughts were interrupted by a whirring noise coming from the garage.
Tails.
The two of them shared a house. Sonic was a very lenient older brother for the most part, but he did have very strict rules about Tails staying up late. He'd had to put them in place about half a year after the two of them had moved in together, because Tails had started to lose sleep from working on his inventions until the wee hours of the morning. His sleep schedule had gotten worse and worse, until he was practically nocturnal. This, of course, became a problem when Sonic needed backup on certain missions, and Tails would be far too exhausted to think clearly.
And yet there were some nights when Sonic still caught Tails breaking his curfew, working on things that he "just had to finish."
It seemed like this was one of those nights.
With a sigh, Sonic opened the garage door, and was unsurprised when Tails didn't notice him.
"What're you working on, little buddy?"
Tails nearly jumped out of his skin. "AH! S-Sonic!" His face flushed and his ears drooped. "Sorry, I was working on this before bed and I –"
"Just had to finish it?" The fox nodded, and Sonic walked over to ruffle his hair. "You lost track of time again, huh?"
He laughed sheepishly. "Yeah, I guess so. What time is it, anyway?"
"About 3 am."
Tails' eyes widened. "What?! Oh gosh, I didn't realize I'd been working that long! I –" but then his eyes narrowed and he looked up at Sonic. "What are you doing up at three in the morning?"
Sonic laughed and scratched the back of his neck. "I uh… I couldn't sleep."
A look of understanding and pity crossed Tails' features. "Were you thinking about the village?" Sonic didn't say anything, and Tails knew he'd guessed correctly. "Sonic, that wasn't your fault! The damage would have been so much worse if you hadn't done anything. You saved those people."
"I know! It's just…" Sonic walked over to the bed situated in the corner of the garage and sat down. Tails had his own room in the house, of course, but they'd moved his bed into the garage because he so often worked there late into the night (despite his curfew) that at some point Sonic had figured it would be better if he were at least able to go to sleep easily instead of having to go all the way upstairs. It at least provided him with some incentive to go to bed instead of working all night. "It didn't have to be that way, y'know?"
Tails scooted his chair away from the workbench and walked over to sit next to Sonic on the bed. "What do you mean? You did the best you could."
"That's exactly the problem, though! I did the best I could, sure. But what if I could do better?"
Tails raised an eyebrow. "By definition, you can't do better than your best."
Sonic shook his head. "No, I mean like… what if I could get better? If I could learn how to control chaos energy, this kind of thing wouldn't happen anymore, right?"
"I guess that makes sense…" Tails replied, "But how would you even go about doing that?"
Both of them were silent for a moment as they considered this.
Then, seemingly at the same time, they realized the answer. The two brothers looked at each other and voiced the only conclusion they could think of.
"Shadow."