Chapter Text
Shadow and Eclipse walked down a hallway in one of the buildings on Prison Island, the Dark Arms and Crim following them. Eclipse still had bandages wrapped around his abdomen from his last stay here although the incision was mostly healed already. It had been suggested as a reminder for Eclipse to take it easy until he was completely healed. He absentmindedly rubbed the area.
"You didn't have to come," Shadow said, noting Eclipse's fidgeting.
"If there are more Black Arms here, I want to know," Eclipse responded, focused determination spreading across his face. "Besides, I'm not the only one with bad memories here."
"Hmph." Shadow couldn't say he wanted to be here either, but the commander had wanted to make sure Snively hadn't left any surprises behind and since G.U.N. still had their hands full with rebuilding, Team Dark had been asked to. Omega and Rouge had split off from them to cover more ground.
Eclipse looked away. Shadow had recently opened up to him but now seemed closed off again. Despite everything, Eclipse still felt like he was little more than a begrudging obligation to his brother. He had to keep reminding himself that Shadow had come to his rescue and had fussed about him getting checked out, that Shadow cared about him in his own way. Even so, doubt would creep in anyway.
The Dark Arms bumped into Eclipse and chirped, trying to lift his spirits. It had been terrifying for them to wait, knowing he had been kidnapped by Snively, especially for Iveryte who knew the mad scientist's cruelty firsthand. Then they had to wait even longer while Eclipse had been taken to G.U.N. for treatment.
"I'll be alright, little ones," Eclipse assured, forcing a strained smile. "Really."
They weren't convinced but settled down anyway. Although they had been through much, they were still young and not entirely sure how to help Eclipse. All they could do was be there for him, which was why waiting for others to rescue him had been so fretful.
Silent minutes passed before they encountered anything. Something small moved through the shadows and Shadow assumed it to be a sizable rat. It wasn't until it slid into the dim light that its form was clear.
"A larva," Shadow observed with a grimace. The three claws and central eye were unmistakable.
Eclipse's forced smile became genuine, and he strode over to the larva, then squatted down. He reached a hand out to it and stroked it around the base of the claws. "It's alright, little one. We're here now."
Shadow loomed over the larva, a scowl etching itself into his face as he recalled the larva on the ARK and the larvae on the Black Comet ordered by Black Doom to consume his allies. His more amicable relationship with Eclipse didn't diminish his repulsion.
"I can't believe our luck. The future of our kind-" Eclipse cut himself off and his smile faded as he looked up at Shadow. He frowned and let his eyelids droop in annoyance. "You don't have to look so disgusted when we both started out looking like this."
Shadow huffed and crossed his arms, his quills bristling. "The professor created me with Black Doom's blood. I was born in this form."
"And I was born in this form," Eclipse countered. "After Black Death cultivated a larva in a growing pod. You've told me yourself that Gerald wasn't always honest with you."
Shadow's body relaxed, not in relief but in sorrow. It was true that Gerald kept things from him and wasn't even always honest with Maria; he had learned as much from the journal entries he had found. "Why only bring this up now?"
"I assumed you knew," Eclipse admitted, absentmindedly letting the larva grab onto his hand with its claws, his eyes growing distant. "In fact, well... A larva can be split, and those parts will regenerate into separate whole larvae. So, this one larva could become many more of our kind, not just one."
Shadow listened, oddly interested to hear more about, well, his kind and felt a little remorse at his hostile reaction. Only a little.
"Black Death told me," Eclipse continued, "that our larvae were split from the same original larva, then you were split off from the half that was given to Gerald. So, we're not just brothers, we're identical twins."
Shadow's eyes widened at the revelation and he unfolded his arms. "I am you, in a way," he recalled from Eclipse's introduction the first time he had met him on the New Black Comet.
We're of one blood, you and I! "Chaos Control" is just part of who we are!
The truth had been staring at Shadow all along, he had just refused to see it. If Shadow hadn't been spliced with hedgehog DNA, would he look just like Eclipse? Did it even matter that Shadow had hedgehog DNA?
"That's right," Eclipse confirmed, regaining some of his smugness. "I wasn't just being dramatic when I said that."
Shadow's eyes narrowed.
"Okay, so I was being dramatic," Eclipse admitted, diverting his gaze. "The point is, we both started out as larvae just like this one. Also, Gerald splicing in different genes to control your development is no different than what we do to create all of the different breeds; you're not a hybrid to us."
All of this new information had Shadow reeling, though he kept most of that hidden. It had already been a long rough road for him to finally accept being Black Arms, even if he still didn't like it most of the time. It had been a long road for him to come to terms with Eclipse and decide to help him rather than eliminate him.
Say something, you fake hedgehog!
Sonic hadn't known just how right he had been all that time ago. Shadow wasn't a hedgehog created with alien blood. He was a full-on alien masquerading as a hedgehog. He may as well have been a tenrec; even that was closer to being an actual hedgehog than he was.
"Shadow?" Eclipsed asked cautiously. A part of him began to wish he hadn't said anything. "I realize you still don't like being Black Arms, it's just—"
"Forget about it," Shadow dismissed, turning away and continuing down the hall. "It doesn't change who I am."
Eclipse stood there, wishing he could help his brother. The dismissal made it clear that Shadow didn't want to deal with this new revelation. While Eclipse had come to terms with humanity, he still blamed them for Shadow's self-hatred. Though, he couldn't ignore Black Doom's, Black Death's, and even his own role in reinforcing the idea that the Black Arms were nothing but monsters by trying to control and manipulate Shadow. The irony that Eclipse's attempt to spare his brother had only made things worse by all accounts.
The Dark Arms nudged Eclipse gently.
Eclipse sighed. "We'd better catch up," he said softly so that only they would hear him. "He just needs time; I just need to be patient." They had already come such a long way already. Before the events in White Space, Eclipse could only dream of this.
Regaining confidence, the darkling moved forward, taking long strides to close the gap rather than running. The Dark Arms and Crim floated behind him. The larva scooted along, following Eclipse like a duckling.