Chapter Text
Sonic had fought Eggman almost a million times before. It was nothing new. So as soon as Tails saw the familiar face, he knew he could count on Sonic to deal with this.
It was almost daily, running out of the house to fight whatever bad guy was causing trouble again, so when Sonic got the news, it didn't even take him a full minute to get his ass up from the couch and out on the streets.
When the blue hero got to the site indicated to him, he found that some of his friends were already there, trying to take care of the problem that Eggman was. Amy was there, and Knuckles, and they both seemed relieved to see the hedgehog arrive.
"Hey, guys!" He exclaimed as he ran up to them, a wide smile on his face. Amy smiled back, while Knuckles simply growled in annoyance. "You started the party without me?" Sonic asked as he looked around, finding nothing but a tense emptiness around them.
"You got here really late for calling yourself the 'fastest thing alive'. " Knuckles said sarcastically, but before Sonic was able to answer, something came up to him out of nowhere and punched him right on the guts, pushing him back against a wall with brute force.
"Sonic!" Amy exclaimed with concern as she saw the blue hedgehog fly backwards as if he were weightless. Sonic soon fell to the floor, but quickly opened his eyes with a groan, and when he did, he found Metal Sonic standing right in front of him, looking down as if he was looking at an insignificant bug that was about to be squished under his shoe.
"Hey, haven't seen you in a while!" The blue hedgehog exclaimed as he quickly held his weight back on his hands and kicked the robot away from him, however, Metal Sonic was quick to react and didn't go far from the hero.
That would've been the first notice. From that moment, Sonic should've been able to tell that something was off. But he wasn't, and neither were any of his friends that were there with him. Amy was quick to run up to the fake hedgehog and hit it with her big red hammer, throwing him several feet away. She took no second to stop and doubt, she immediately helped Sonic to stand up and did a quick check over him.
"Thanks, Amy." Sonic said, but soon his attention went back to his robotic copy. "You go handle egghead, I'll take care of this dude." He muttered to the younger girl.
"Are you sure, Sonic? I could help you!" She insisted, but the hero had already made up his mind.
"You're already doing enough by being here, Ames, let me deal with this." He said, and Amy didn't have time to answer, since Metal Sonic rapidly launched himself towards his counterpart. Sonic was quick to react, and pushed Amy away, only a fraction of a second before the robot pushed him to the ground and also pushed out all the air in his lungs.
Second red flag, Metal was strangely stronger than usual.
“Do what he says, Amy, this is too dangerous!” Knuckles exclaimed as he grabbed Amy’s wrist and pulled her away from the robot and the hero. Amy wanted to protest, however, someone had to take care of Eggman, Sonic and Knuckles were too occupied with Metal Sonic at the moment, so she simply swallowed back her words and nodded with her head before going to look for the doctor, only looking back once to find Sonic being thrown around by Metal Sonic as if it were a kid playing with their doll. However, Knuckles was there and Tails was on his way.
Everything will be okay, she told herself as she walked away.
Sonic coughed loudly after once again being tossed to the ground, and he looked up to see Metal Sonic approaching him slowly, almost as if making fun of him for how much stronger he was now.
“Jeez, what did egghead do to you?” Sonic whined as he pushed himself back up on his feet. He noticed the way Knuckles was quickly approaching the robot, however, he said nothing. Still, even with their silence, Metal Sonic was able to notice the echidna and quickly avoided his attack, only getting Knuckles to collide with Sonic and push him to the ground again.
The blue hedgehog pushed his friend off of him as he looked around, trying to find Metal Sonic, and once he saw the way he was looking at both of them from afar, almost laughing at them, he quickly stood up with the best of his capacities.
“Okay, I’m getting tired of you now!” He exclaimed, and the robot did nothing but cross his arms, waiting for Sonic to make the first move.
And so he did, the hero launched himself towards his robotic copy, ready to kick him down and get over this fight, however, Metal Sonic was fast to counterattack, and when Sonic lifted his leg to kick him, the robot grabbed him and spun around rapidly on his place, to then let go of the hedgehog and throw him against a wall. Sonic felt his lungs get squished against the concrete, his head hitting the wall, and he fell to the floor. He was too out of it already to notice that the wall he had collided against had broken, that is, until one of the pieces fell right on top of his left leg. It hurt, but he didn’t have the energy to scream. He simply passed out, wondering what would happen to his friends now that he couldn’t help them.
But if he were more lucid, he would've screamed his lungs out.
When he opened his eyes once again, he found himself looking at a dark metal ceiling, resting on cold metal floors and surrounded by dark metal walls. He ran his hands through his body to check for injuries, but found nothing. He sat up to look at his leg, but it was fine as ever. He sighed in relief, and then looked around.
It was a place he didn’t recognise, but it looked old, it was dark, it was destroyed, and it was abandoned. It was a mess. On his search for something familiar he found a large window, showing a night sky, filled with stars, however, when he stood up and saw his planet, Mobius, from far away, he realized that it wasn’t a night sky what he saw, but outer space.
How did he even get there? Where were his friends?
As he got closer to the window he realized that he wasn’t alone. There was someone, a dark silhouette sitting right in front of the window, only a small candle next to them serving as a light source. Their fur was a dark, very deep black, and if it wasn’t for the red stripes on their spikes, Sonic wouldn’t have noticed their presence. They blended perfectly with the darkness of the place and the black infinity of space.
Sonic didn’t recognize them either, however, they might know how he got there, so he approached the stranger.
“Uhm, hello.” He said, but the stranger didn’t look up at him. The only sign he got that they were listening was the way their ears pointed to him when he spoke. “I’m sorry, where are we?” He still asked, and the stranger sighed. A second of silence passed before they answered.
“The ARK.” They said, with a low, and quiet voice, almost whispering.
The ARK. Right. Sonic had no idea what that was, however, if he asked where ‘The ARK’ was, he might already have the answer. Space.
“Okay, uhm… And how did I get here?” Sonic asked, hoping that the stranger knew, maybe they were the one to bring him there, but how had they managed to do so?
“You passed out.” They answered, and Sonic nodded with his head even though they weren’t looking at him. He still didn't fully understand, and the stranger wasn't giving him much information.
“Then… How come I don’t have any injuries?” Sonic continued asking, the stranger still not bothering to turn around.
“You passed out.” They repeated, and Sonic raised an eyebrow in confusion.
He passed out, and he ended there? How long had he been there? How did he get to space? Did someone bring him there? Was it this hedgehog? He brought a hand up to his face, and noticed how… Out of his body he felt. How little he could actually feel his own hand in his face. That made him realize.
“I’m… Dreaming…” He muttered. He looked down at the sitting stranger. He still hadn’t seen their face, and started suspecting they didn’t have one. They were part of his imagination, faceless people were a possibility. Still, he sat down next to the hedgehog, also looking out the window. “Are you part of my imagination, then? You and this place?” The blue hedgehog asked as he looked to the side, to the stranger sitting next to him, and was surprised to find that they did have a face.
A very pretty face, on top of that. They were… Dreamy, to put it in some way. It made sense that Sonic might’ve been imagining them, because they were the most beautiful person he had ever seen. They had red, sad eyes that remained half lidded. Tan skin that was so smooth, so soft looking, so perfect. Long eyelashes that simply accentuated their sad look, and white, puffy chest hair that softly rounded their chin and almost caressed their cheeks. Sonic immediately felt the tugging feeling in his chest to lean closer and offer a shoulder, however, he didn't know for sure if this hedgehog was actually sad, or if they just looked like it. Did it really matter? He was dreaming, he shouldn't care that much, he was sure he was going to wake up soon.
So imagine how surprised Sonic was when the stranger shook their head.
“You’re not? How did you end up in my dream, then?” The blue hedgehog asked with confusion.
A second of silence passed. “You ended up in mine.” The dark hedgehog explained, and Sonic hummed. Yeah, that made more sense, he didn’t know this place even existed, and it had too much detail to be imagined.
The disaster that sat behind them, the way everything was thrown around. He looked back, inspecting the mess. The hedgehog next to him clearly hadn’t even touched anything, it remained pure chaos. Unless they were the one who did that...
“Did you pass out as well? What happened to you?” Sonic asked, however, right as he said that, he found a splatter on the floor, such a dark red that it was almost black. Dry, and almost turned to dust.
It was big, and as he looked around, he realized there were multiple splatters of the same color, on the floor, on the walls, even on the ceiling, all trying to be hidden under the mess.
That was when the stranger finally looked at Sonic. Bright, almost artificial red irises burning holes through Sonic’s being, as if looking through him and not directly at him. The hero felt his stomach drop.
“I think I might be dead.” The strange hedgehog muttered.
Sonic felt a knot form in his throat.
“I-I-I-” The blue hedgehog tried to say, but that was all that came out. He cleared his throat as he tried to ignore the splatters now that he had an idea of what they were. “Uhm-You-” He tried again, feeling nervous now that the stranger’s eyes didn’t leave him for a second, they stayed glued to him, red inspecting blue as if dangerous. “What’s your name?” Sonic finally asked.
The black hedgehog seemed surprised by the question, their menacing look and rigid posture faltering to give space for something softer, gentler, more fragile, as their eyes drifted back to the window, and the stars, and the strange infinity of space.
They sighed before answering.
“Shadow.”
Sonic woke up.