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He had miscalculated. He had significantly miscalculated.
Omega’s optic sensors were broken, and his electrical systems were shutting down, but he had enough processing power left to discern that he wasn’t on the battlefield anymore. He was being offloaded from one of GUN’s transport trucks. The world had turned into ugly red slivers of reality. He was in a vehicle bay of some sort. He was surrounded by concrete on all sides. Technicians and soldiers milled around him like ants, rushing to and fro.
‘Circuits are fried –’
‘Check his black box –’
‘Start running diagnostics –’
Omega jolted, and he struggled to rise, breaking and buckling the mechanical arm they had used to get him off the truck. ‘Do not.’
‘We might have a situation here,’ someone muttered. ‘Commander, requesting permission to –’
Omega raised one arm, and with a horrific screech of metal, his broken fingers retracted, replaced by his rotary canon. The barrel spun erratically, snagging on its damaged external casing. ‘DO NOT.’
The technicians at his feet scrambled back, and their cries sounded distorted. ‘Stop! Shut him down, now!’
‘D̸̢̛̻̟̻͓̳̦̩̬̱̭͔̻̒̆̍͂͆͘O̶̥̫̮̟͐̂̀͐̊́͑̈̿́̽̔͊͂͆̎͗̾̎̈͛̕ ̵̰͂̃̔̀͂̂̾͝Ņ̸̢̻̺̲͓͕͚͉̥̰͈͍̭̬̖̞̠̇̓́̾͋̎̌̓͊̑̓̋͂̈́͆̍ͅŐ̸̡̬͎̥̮̰̦̥̺͚̺̪͚̱̏̈̋̽́̉̎̋̎̑͐̂̈́̂̇̆̄̈͠T̶̳̩͉͉̬͖̣̝̜͙͎̤͒̊͜—’
‘Back off!’
Omega’s broken lenses refocused. His world was still in pieces, but he recognised familiar visual data points – metal shoes, inhibitor rings, and dark, obtuse angles.
Shadow stood between Omega and GUN’s technicians, gripping the handrail on Omega’s shoulder so tightly that the metal threatened to snap. ‘You all know that he never lets you repair or service him. Are you out of your damn minds?’
‘Look,’ one of the technicians snapped. ‘We need the data from his black box, and if his condition keeps deteriorating, then your little friend here could self-destruct. That box has geospatial coordinates from over a dozen of Eggman’s bases –‘
‘You’ll get your damn coordinates,’ Rouge said, flying into his field of view and landing at Shadow’s side. ‘Just give us room to work. Get out of here. Now.’
‘But –’
Shadow snarled violently and grabbed Omega’s arm with one hand, aiming the rotary cannon down the middle of the vehicle bay. ‘I don’t know how much ammo he has left, but I know that he never starts a fight unprepared. Who wants to play Russian Roulette?’
Distorted screams echoed as the technicians fled, and an error screen with endless text filled Omega’s vision.
‘D-Do not… Let them…’
Shadow turned, searching the shadowed recesses of Onega’s faceplate to glimpse his broken lenses. ‘You’re going to be fine. Just hold on—‘
But Omega never heard what he was going to say next, because his audio processors cut out, and his systems finally shut down.
When he came back online, the vehicle bay was deserted. He was hooked up to countless machines, sitting upright thanks to hydraulic support.
He began to struggle, only to feel someone rap their knuckles sharply against his exterior. ’Stop that.’
‘You could be a little nicer to him. This is probably his equivalent of coming out of a coma.’
‘Rouge, you know he doesn’t like it when you try to humanise him.’
One of his lenses had been repaired while he had been powered down, and Shadow came back into focus. He’d cracked open the service hatch on Omega’s torso, and he was half-in, half-out, lying on his back and tinkering with something that Omega couldn’t see. The hedgehog was spattered with grease and oil, and the bat was sitting on a nearby tool cart.
Rouge looked up from her laptop, which was connected to one of the countless cables trailing from his torso. ‘Welcome back, big boy.’
He ignored her and scanned the vehicle bay. GUN’s technicians had fled.
‘We’re the only ones left,’ Shadow said quietly. ‘At ease.’
Omega felt the urge to pick him up by one leg and shake him around. ‘Do not patronise me.’
‘I’m not.’
‘I let GUN repair me once. They attempted to reprogram me to make me more docile and compliant. I will not make that same mistake again.’
‘I know.’ Shadow eased himself out and sat up with a wince, holding a screwdriver in his hand. ‘I had to save them from you, remember?’
‘You should have let me kill them.’
‘Probably.’
‘Shadow,’ Rouge scolded, looking up from her laptop. ‘Don’t encourage him. We can’t afford to rock the boat like that.’
Shadow sighed and ignored her, looking up at Omega. ‘I get it, you know. If one of GUN’s biomedical officers got too close to me, I’d kick their teeth in.’
Omega let out a disgruntled whir, and Shadow lay down on his back again, hauling himself partway through the service hatch. Omega had seen him like this countless times, though it was usually when he was working on his bike. He switched on the internal cameras that he used for self-repair, watching Shadow warily as he worked. The hedgehog had no reason to sabotage him, but it was still unnerving to know that he could rip out his hard drive and internal workings at any given moment.
It was strange. He didn’t recognise expressions in the same way as Rouge and Shadow, but he could quantify visual datapoints, and Shadow had the same look on his face as he did when he worked on his bike in GUN’s garages. He looked… happy.
‘You appear to be enjoying yourself.’
Rouge cackled, and her fingers flew over the keyboard as she cleaned up Omega’s corrupted programming data. ‘Phrasing, Omega.’
Shadow hit his head on a support bar, swore, and glared upwards. ‘Seriously? I go out of my way to help, and this is the thanks I get? Damn you, both of you.’ He sat up again, wiping his fur with a grease-stained rag. Heat was escaping from Omega’s broken components, and sweat trickled down his back. ‘Where’d I put the soldering iron?’
‘It’s right in front of you,’ Rouge muttered. ‘Did you blind yourself with it earlier?’
Shadow grumbled under his breath, put the face shield on, and disappeared back into the darkness once again. A moment later, sparks started flying, and a low buzzing sound seeped from the open hatch.
‘You’re going to set yourself on fire,’ Rouge said.
‘I’ll set you on fire,’ Shadow shot back. ‘Let me work.’
Omega perked up and said, ‘I can assist.’
‘Neither of you is setting me on fire!’ Rouge snapped. ‘Just how bored are you?’ She lowered her laptop lid, looking up at Omega. ‘I’ve restored your files and gotten your black box data, but you still need to debrief.’
Omega whirred angrily and said, ‘No.’
‘Yes. I’m your team leader. Debrief. Now.’
He attempted to raise one arm to knock her from her perch, but he wasn’t fully operational yet. Actually, the arm in question was still in pieces. He stewed over the question for a moment, then slammed his working fist against the ground. ‘I miscalculated.’
‘Clearly. What happened?’
‘I was searching for Doctor Eggman. I was travelling from one base to another, forcing the minions at each one to give me the coordinates of the next.’
Shadow pulled back, staring at the half-welded gashes in Omega’s torso. ‘… You’ve been gone for three days. Have you been fighting for 72 hours straight?’
‘I was winning.’ Omega’s voice glitched, and he said, ‘I even found the doctor, but the defences at that location were too great. I was ripped apart.’
‘You were in pieces when we found you,’ Rouge said, and her ears drooped.
‘It will not happen again.’
‘It will if you keep going off on solo missions,’ Shadow countered.
Omega whirred angrily and attempted to hit Shadow with his working arm, but Shadow yanked his legs inside the service hatch just in time. ‘Neither of you wish to assist me with this kind of endeavour. I must do it alone.’
‘I’m not going to help you kill the doctor unless I think it’s necessary,’ Shadow said, and the soldering iron buzzed to life again.
‘It is necessary!’
‘Omega, sweetheart, the world isn’t hanging in the balance right now,’ Rouge said. ‘I know you want revenge, and we want to help you… But we need a little more motivation to put our necks on the line.’
Omega fell silent for a moment. His processors whirred in the background. ‘… But I want revenge.’
‘Don’t we all?’ Shadow said, climbing out, standing, and stretching. He flipped his welding mask up and took the bottle of water that Rouge offered him. ‘But revenge isn’t worth it if you just get yourself killed.’
Omega wanted to argue. He was already formulating numerous responses, but he had never won an argument with Shadow. The probability of doing so now was nonexistent.
The bat was easy to motivate. She wanted jewels, but he was ill-suited to acquiring them for her. He couldn’t say the same about Shadow. The hedgehog was willing to fight until he all but dropped dead, but only in specific circumstances. Mainly after he’d had nightmares about a small blonde child from 50 years ago.
‘…The doctor is to blame for you reliving your past in White Space.’ Shadow stiffened, but Omega kept talking. ‘If he had not awakened the Time Eater, then you would not have lost your loved ones a second time—‘
‘Omega!’ Rouge snapped. ‘Stop it!’
‘It is the truth.’
‘You’re manipulating him—‘
‘No, he’s not,’ Shadow said bluntly. ‘He’s not exactly being subtle. And he’s not wrong, either.’ He turned his attention to Omega’s broken arm, welding the few remaining broken pieces back together. ‘But Ivo wouldn’t be so obsessed with remaking the world if his family hadn’t been murdered, and they wouldn’t have been murdered if Professor Gerald hadn’t decided to play God.’ His grip tightened on the soldering iron. ‘If you keep going down this path, Omega, it’s never going to end.’
‘You are projecting. Your own newfound lack of purpose is not my concern—’
Shadow plunged a hand into Omega’s chest cavity and grabbed a fistful of wires. The look on his face said that he was one wrong word away from ripping them out. ‘If you want us to help you,’ Shadow said in a deep, pained growl, ‘I suggest that you watch yourself.’
Omega abruptly stopped talking. Shadow had threatened him countless times, but he hadn’t heard Shadow use that tone of voice before. He couldn’t quantify it.
‘…I shall desist.’
Shadow let him go and went back to soldering. ‘Good.’
Omega watched him warily, then lowered his speaking volume. ‘Do you not want revenge?’ His voice sounded too small, and he immediately decided that it was unbecoming of him.
‘The people who wronged me are all already dead,’ Shadow said, and he set the soldering iron down for the last time. When he removed his mask, Omega noticed that he looked physically exhausted despite having exerted little effort. ‘And the fact that they’re dead brings me no joy.’
‘I don’t care about joy—‘
‘I’m aware. All you care about is revenge.’ His expression tightened. ‘Once the doctor’s dead, you won’t have anything to live for… and you can’t die. I wouldn’t be in such a rush to kill him.’
‘… You’re telling me to strategise.’ Omega clenched his fist. ‘You’re telling me that I should prolong his life so that I can end it at a more opportune moment.’
‘I’m telling you not to antagonise your only remaining allies.’ Shadow sat down on a nearby weapons crate, uncapping the water that Rouge had given him. ‘Make of it what you will.’
Omega examined his newly repaired arm, considering. Then he noticed that Rouge was giving him a dirty look, glancing repeatedly between Shadow and the tools that he had been using.
‘… Your efforts are appreciated, hedgehog.’
Shadow glanced at him. Then he nodded and yanked out a drawer of the tool cart that Rouge was sitting on. ‘Come on. Let’s finish putting you back together before you say something that makes me pull you apart.’
‘Threat acknowledged.’
His optic sensors detected a rare pattern on Shadow’s face. It was a brief, faint smile.