Chapter Text
“Home?”
His voice raised a bit, tone incredulous as he practically radiated anger.
“Home doesn’t exist anymore because of you!”
3 seconds.
That’s the only time Sonic had to process what was just said before Shadow practically launched himself at him, fist in hand.
Sonic yelled, scrambling to move but unable to due to the lack of gravity the void around him provided him.
So he settled for trying to block his face with his hands.
Shadow’s punch landed, sending him tumbling back and breaking the rock shard that the ebony hedgehog had used to previously stop him in his tracks to confront him.
Sonic’s head was spinning, his vision dizzy as he continued flying through the air grabbing at the nearest thing in order to find something that would make him slow down or at least take control, sadly, the nearest thing just so happened to be Shadow himself, so that only resulted in both of them tumbling aimlessly through the void of space.
He could hear Shadow yelling at him but he could only hear bits and pieces. Something about it all being gone, that it was all his fault before more punches were being thrown at him.
At least he now knew that this Shadow was his Shadow, the one from his universe and not some alternate version. But he was still ultimately confused.
Sonic gritted his teeth, resulting in fighting back and blocking as much as he could.
“Dude!” He tried to speak between punches.
“Can you just calm down for a sec!”
But it fell on deaf ears, as the other only started punching harder.
Sonic wasn’t sure when it happened, but suddenly the hollow void around him turned into blue skies, the sound of harsh air filling his ears as he fell to the earth’s crust, before his back suddenly hit the ground with so much force that he was sent sliding until his head hit the trunk of a tree.
Sonic groaned, his dizziness even worse now that a headache had been added onto the equation. His back ached and he could feel pieces of dirt and small rocks stuck in his quills.
As his vision started to settle, he suddenly felt something shift on top of him, drawing his vision down to Shadow’s figure that was just now starting to get up with a huff.
He slowly sat up, hand on top of his head and eyes closed tightly in pain, but he was still practically on top of Sonic.
On top of him.
That thought for some reason caused Sonic’s heart rate to speed up as he felt his cheeks begin to burn.
But he had no time to unpack all of… well, THAT before Shadow’s gaze finally landed on him with a gaze so angry he could probably shoot daggers at him at this point.
“….And you’re still mad aren’t you.” Sonic said in a deadpanned tone before Shadow lurched himself at him again.
Now that they were on the ground, Sonic managed to gain more control over the fight, managing to flip them over as they both continued to trade blows.
But that advantage was quickly lost when Shadow flipped them over again and somehow managed to pin all of Sonic’s limbs to the ground. Sonic struggled against him but it was to no avail.
He felt his face burn again, heart not once slowing down. But he tried to ignore these weird… feelings for now in order to try and figure out why Shadow was so angry at him in the first place.
Well, scratch that, he’s always angry but he seemed angrier than usual.
“What is your problem?!” He resulted to say, trying to at least get an idea as to what was happening.
“And what do you mean that home’s… gone?!” He finished.
Shadow’s scowl only deepened.
“You are the problem!” He growled, as he continued pinning Sonic down so the latter decided to cease his struggling for now.
“The home you know. Our home. It’s been… erased. All because of you.” He spat, glaring at him.
“Wh- What?”
No.
It couldn’t be.
Home couldn’t just be gone… just like that.
Shadow seemed to notice his surprise, which only served to make him narrow his gaze at him.
At least, Sonic noticed, he had stopped trying to punch him. So he’s counting this as progress.
“When you broke that… crystal. It seemed to break our reality too.” He explained, tone still enraged.
“No… no no no it can’t be! Home has to be out there!” Sonic said, eyes wide as he looked into Shadow’s red ones desperately.
His gaze went from angry to confused.
“You really didn’t know?” He asked, now in turn surprised but he still held his guard up.
Finally! He’s listening.
“No! I was just trying to stop another one of Eggman’s schemes! I didn’t think-“
“You’re right you didn’t think!” Shadow spat, interrupting him.
But he sighed, resigned.
“But if you didn’t plan all of this then-“ He paused, looking back down at Sonic’s face.
“You aren’t entirely to blame.” He finishes.
Sonic doesn’t know what to say to that, and he just realized that Shadow’s still on top of him so that hinders him from being able to think clearly, flustered for a third time. Thankfully Shadow was too preoccupied realizing that their surroundings had changed in order to notice Sonic’s predicament.
“Is this… Green Hill?” He asks, confusion laced in his tone.
Sonic clears his throat.
“Well maybe if you let me go, we can find out.” He says, tone playful as he prays that Shadow doesn’t notice the red tinting his muzzle.
At Sonic’s comment he sees Shadow’s eyes widen a bit before he silently gets off him, standing up with his arms crossed. It seems he too failed to notice their position until now.
Sonic finally stands up, stretching his limbs the most he can, knowing his aching back wasn’t going to let off for a while.
He finally takes a good look around, noticing the famous loop in the center of it all.
“It is Green Hill!” He exclaims in excitement.
“And it actually looks normal for once!” He adds, speeding around short distances away from where Shadow stood in order to take in his surroundings more.
“Keep your guard up, hedgehog. This still isn’t our Green Hill.”
At that, Sonic quickly sped back to Shadow’s side.
“Right.” He nodded, before looking at him in the eye.
“Usually in all the other shatter verses I went to, they were all set here in Green Hill. But the only way I could travel through them was finding the Paradox Prism shard that was in that specific shatterverse.” Sonic explained, before smiling brightly.
“But seeing as we’re here together, we should work together to find it!”
Shadow’s deadpanned gaze made Sonic’s bright expression fall flat.
“Okay, look. The sooner we find the Prism shard, the sooner you can get away from me. Sound good?” He tried again.
At that Shadow sighed.
“Fine.” He stated simply, which Sonic beamed at.
“Great!” He then looked around once more.
“The Paradox Prism should be around here somewhere.”
The horizon was normal up until this point, and Sonic couldn’t see any sign of the shard around here. Not even his kicks were glowing like they usually did when it was near one.
But when he looked back at Shadow to try and tell him, he noticed Shadow’s eyes were wide as he looked at a certain direction.
“Hey, what are you looking-“
Sonic cut himself off when he saw them.
It was them.
The Sonic and Shadow from this universe, and they had their arms wrapped around each other while they walked. Not only that but they were…. laughing together.
Sonic stared in disbelief, feeling his muzzle burn when he saw the Shadow from that universe snuggle into Sonic’s side with a smile.
Yes, you heard me right.
Snuggle.
“What the-“
Was all Sonic was able to let out, before the Alt Shadow (yes, that’s what Sonic’s calling him now) spotted them both.
He stopped in his tracks, causing his Sonic to stumble as he looked back at him in confusion.
At the lack of response, he turned his head in the direction he was looking in, where Sonic and Shadow stood.
Alt Sonic’s eyes went wide as his mouth hung open.
“Another me?!”