Chapter Text
As he fell back to Earth, the first thing that Shadow thought of was Maria.
It wasn’t particularly surprising. He thought of her often. It was hard not to. He’d spent fifty years where time held no meaning, and the only thing he could remember was searing heat, her hand in his, and then nothing.
It was a similar heat now, he thought. Flames licked along his body, his fur glowed platinum, those strange gemstones still burrowed within his chest, and behind his eyelids burned gold.
His first thought was of Maria. It always was.
His second, though, was a new one. That other alien, the one who looked like him, with blue lightning instead of red, and kind eyes instead of hateful.
(Maria would whack him upside the head for thinking like that. You’re not hateful, Shadow, she’d insist. You’re just different. There’s nothing wrong with that.)
(Maria wasn’t here.)
The blue alien had taken those gemstones and turned golden. He’d been a shooting star, powerful and vengeful and dangerous as he barreled through the Eclipse Cannon and tackled Shadow back to Earth. It was only years of training with Chaos Energy that let him draw the gems out of the other. Those years of training did not make him fast enough to beat the blue alien back to them.
(Blue Menace, the Professor’s grandson had called him. Blue, Shadow had quietly picked instead.)
He’d seen places he’d only ever dreamed of, places straight out of Maria’s television screen or well-loved atlas. He’d been given no time to appreciate the sights though, punch after punch sending him tearing through the sky. In a way, he’d relished in it. It was vindicating, to have this being that was just like him prove that all that talk of ‘who he was inside’ was just that: talk.
Shadow had mocked him, in the crumbling ruins of something that must have once been important. The other alien had glared up at him, and his fury had been palpable, the air raging with it.
He remembered the moment at G.U.N. headquarters, when he’d attacked Captain Walters, only it wasn’t Captain Walters, and then the blue alien was over the human, and Shadow was over Maria, and what did you do?
(What I had to.)
The moment the man’s name left his mouth, Blue let out a yell that reverberated into Shadow’s bones, and slammed into him with more power than he thought he’d ever felt in his life. The world shot past him and then away from him, and he was soaring through space as if it was nothing.
(The Moon is nearly 240,000 miles away from Earth, Maria breathed, kicking her feet behind her as one hand held her book and another ran through his quills. It takes three whole days for a rocket to get there. Isn’t that crazy?)
Three days for a rocket.
Only a few seconds for him.
Shadow had slammed into the Moon’s surface, and felt the power drain from him. As if the gemstones had deemed him unworthy too, Shadow was intensely mortal as the golden alien bore down on him, eyes glowing red in a way he’d only ever seen in the mirror.
He’d held one of the other’s hands to his chest, Chaos Energy pulsing in his veins and stopping him from burning up in the face of such power. “I’m right here!” He yelled, eyes burning and heart pounding beneath his wrist.
(The Eclipse Cannon was going to destroy the Earth, and would go along with it. Shadow was never meant to make it out of this. He didn’t want to.)
(He hoped he’d get to see Maria one more time before he was dragged down to Hell.)
Somehow, though, rather than being the final push the other alien needed, his words had been the exact opposite. Something fractured within those red eyes, and the golden being backed away, staring down at his hands. “ This is not who I am, ” he had murmured, and stepped aside.
The gold faded into blue, taking the warmth with it, and Shadow couldn’t understand. “You won,” he’d insisted. “Take your revenge.”
Blue didn’t look at him. “There are no winners with revenge,” he said.
There was no air, but Shadow’s breath caught in his throat, and he’d found that he didn’t really have a response to that.
Instead, he had turned his head up, and gazed off into space. There were more stars than he’d ever seen, even all those years ago, sitting with Maria atop the mountain that covered the base.
(Look at all those stars, she whispered. He couldn’t see her, but he could hear her smile. They look like diamonds.)
Shadow hadn’t looked at the stars in the days since he’d woken up. There’d been no reason to. No time. No want. Staring at them, he realized that perhaps he’d never looked because he was scared to see the same night sky staring back at him. How could the stars be just as bright and just as beautiful when Maria wasn’t there to see them?
“The last time I sat beneath stars like this,” Shadow had finally said, “I was with her. ” He swallowed. His throat hurt, and his eyes still burned, and his heart had ached so deeply he thought he might die. “I’ve felt this pain for so long, it’s all I know. ”
He hadn’t really expected much. He was alone in this, as he was in all things. Even the Professor, the only person who might know how he felt, didn’t understand, not really. Then, though, the other alien softly admitted that he did. He’d lost someone, just as Shadow had, and had felt the same pain that he did.
“Did your pain eventually… go away?” Shadow had asked. It was desperate, because he didn’t know if he could endure like this. That had been the whole point of all of this, hadn’t it? To show the world even a fraction of what he felt, and then make it so that none of them ever had to feel it again. He couldn’t see another option, one where he continued on and the pain stayed firmly within him, just as raw and angry as ever. If Blue, who had smiled and joked and cared so openly had experienced the same, then surely things must have changed for him.
“No,” the other had said. Then– “There’s something even more powerful than pain: the love we felt for each other.” He’d turned to Shadow, and his eyes were rimmed with red and his voice cracked, but he smiled anyway. “That’s what you need to hold onto, Shadow. Maria might be gone, but your love will always remain.”
Shadow’s blood rushed in his ears, pulsing in time with his heart, and a glow tugged at the edges of his vision. He had stared off over the Earth that Maria had loved just as deeply as she’d loved the stars, and the Sun burst forth from behind, flooding it with light. He thought it might be strong enough to reach into his heart, coating it in a warmth that he hadn’t felt since that night.
It was Maria, he’d thought. She was there, with him, and for once, it didn’t hurt. The love she had for him, that he had for her— he could feel it again, nestled within his chest and holding him close, reminding him that life could be good , too.
His mind had flicked to those words he’d breathed, that night on the mountaintop. “The light shines,” he’d said, “Even though the star is gone.”
Maria was gone, but her light was still here . It lived in him, and for as long as it did, he thought he should try to prove himself worthy of it.
He’d looked out at the Eclipse Cannon, ready to destroy the world that Maria had called her home—their home. “This whole mess is my fault,” he’d said. “I’ve been so blinded by rage I thought… I had no choice.”
Blue had gotten to his feet and reached out a hand. He smiled at Shadow in a way he thought no one ever would again. “You always have a choice,” he’d said. Sunlight danced along his fur, and his eyes shined, and for just a moment Shadow forgot how to breathe. Maria was in his ear, and in Blue’s eyes, and in the stars, and she softly told him to take it.
Shadow had reached forward and grabbed Blue’s hand. “Making the right one is never easy,” the other said, and Shadow wondered how true that actually was for him. He’d believed that no one else understood, but this alien did, and perhaps he wasn’t as alone as he’d thought.
They both wore gloves—and wasn’t that strange, too—but Shadow could have sworn that sparks popped up his arm as he gripped the other’s hand in his.
“One more thing I learned,” Blue had continued, and his smile morphed into something resembling a smirk, “Is that when you really screw something up, you can’t fix it on your own.”
Shadow hadn’t been able to see the gemstones, but he could feel their Chaos Energy reacting to the desire of their wielder. He had taken Blue's other hand, and his body was alight with power.
It was different than the first time though, he’d thought. There was no fight over the energy this time, but rather a mutual share of its splendor. That made all the difference. Shadow could feel the excitement, not around the other alien, but within him. It was as if his senses had expanded, and he was something more than himself, something that extended into the other to make them two parts of one whole.
Blue—now golden—knelt down in anticipation and said, “Gotta go fast.”
Shadow had been almost instantly broken out of the moment. “Don’t tell me you’ve got a catchphrase.”
The other had grinned at him, and the only word that Shadow could really use to describe it was radiant. “That’s right, new hedgehog,” Blue had said. “And everyone loves it.”
Something akin to joy had lit in his chest, and Shadow’s ears had rung before the two of them launched off from the Moon’s surface as one. The golden alien winded around him before the two of them had shot off toward the Cannon as a single comet of blinding light.
The fight against the robots had been thrilling. Shadow didn’t allow himself to dwell on the idea of the Professor so easily turning on him. Gerald had never really cared about him the way that he had Maria. His love for Shadow had been an extension of his love for his granddaughter, and with her gone, that care faded along with it.
(If Shadow had been the one to die, the Professor never would have gone on to destroy the world. Perhaps he would have found a way to make a new one of him, just to try and stop Maria from mourning. Either way, the Earth would not be in danger, because Maria would still be there, so the Professor would have never done a thing to harm it. He would have killed anyone who dared try.)
After the last of the robots had been destroyed, the golden alien led him off toward the Cannon. They reached it just before it had fired, and the force of his own Chaos Energy pressing against him, magnified by the Cannon’s mechanisms, was almost too much to bear. In fact, if Blue hadn’t been there, Shadow was almost certain it would be.
As the Cannon had turned and they had pressed against its beam of energy, Shadow had felt those strange gemstones trying to tug away from him, their power attempting to push out of his reach. He lashed out with his own Chaos Energy, honed for years, and pulled them closer.
A spark of fear had erupted in his chest then, one that wasn’t his own. Over the deafening blast, the other alien had called in a strangled voice that he couldn’t hold it for much longer. Shadow turned his head and watched as brilliant gold faded to dulled blue, bright red to emerald, and for a moment time had stood still. Shadow felt something rip and then shatter within him, and the other’s soul slipped out of reach of his own.
Blue was knocked away, falling back to Earth, so small and so mortal, and Shadow couldn’t stop the Cannon anymore. Its beam just barely missed the planet, striking the Moon instead, but he couldn’t find it within himself to care.
He’d looked down, but in the moment he’d taken to reorient himself, Blue was already out of sight. His heart ached, and his throat hurt, and his eyes burned.
(Of course, his mind hissed. You finally find someone who understands, and you lose him just as easily as you lost her. That’s just what you deserve, isn’t it?)
Perhaps it was what Shadow deserved, after everything he’d done.
(Blue and Maria hadn’t deserved it, though.)
Electricity had popped off of the Cannon, despite the energy beam being gone, and he’d returned to it. The Professor was nowhere to be found, and Shadow hadn’t even bothered to ask. The grandson had gazed off at the Earth, and spoke of a poisoned atmosphere, of dead crops and melted flesh.
Shadow thought of Maria, and thought of Blue. They had both loved the Earth, he thought, and loved the people on it. He couldn’t save them, but perhaps he could save what they cared about.
(Maria would hug him before he dropped down to Hell, he was sure of it. She was kind like that. He wondered if Blue would, too. He wondered if the two of them would do it together. Blue and Maria would be friends, Shadow thought. Good friends.)
(He wished he could have been a part of it.)
The grandson went to try and stabilize the reactors, and Shadow stripped himself of his inhibitor rings. Never take these off, Shadow, the Professor had once said. They’re not for our safety, but for yours. You won’t be able to control your Chaos Energy without these on. It will kill you.
Shadow didn’t need to be safe, though. What he needed was as much power as possible, as quickly as possible. The gemstones had reacted eagerly to the boost, and he’d pushed the station as far as he could as quickly as he could. Images of Maria echoed in his mind, and he liked to believe that she was calling to him, waiting for him, guiding him home.
There was a shudder beneath his hands, and all at once the Cannon had exploded. Shadow welcomed it as he was flung backward through space. He had closed his eyes and accepted the darkness as it came.
He woke up falling.
He thought of Maria first. He always did.
Then, he thought of Blue.
Shadow was still alive, agonizingly alive. The gems within him wrapped him in their power. He had no doubt that they had kept his heart beating, kept his lungs breathing. He remembered as they’d tried to pull away from him, and wondered if they’d been attempting to return to their original wielder. Had Blue been sharing their power with him, only for Shadow to rip it away when he needed it most?
Blue had spared his life, turned him on the right path, and Shadow had thanked him with a death sentence.
(Just another debt he’d never be able to repay.)
He hurtled toward the Earth, and barely had a chance to brace for impact before he hit the ground.
He was in a field. There were hills in the distance. The sun was setting, golden light painting the landscape. The gemstones rattled within him, and ached to emerge. For a moment, Shadow considered letting them. He’d die, he was sure. Whatever Chaos Energy was within them was helping to manage his own, even without the inhibitor rings. If they left him, he was sure he’d succumb before he even had a chance to think about it.
Then, though, he thought of Blue again. He thought of Blue’s family, his Tom, who might be alive or might be dead. He thought of the human woman with them, and the other two aliens, who had called themselves teammates but who might as well be brothers.
Shadow might have killed one member of their family. He’d certainly let another die. He couldn’t just let himself fade away without at least saying that he was sorry.
(Plus , Maria murmured in his ear, You need to find out his name. He knew yours.)
(Blue laughed, high and bright. That’s right! It’s only fair!)
He and Maria might have high-fived, but Shadow had no way of knowing. He allowed himself a small smile anyway.