Work Text:
She was dead. Over the rattle of the escape pod, the scream of it entering the atmosphere, that phrase repeated in Shadow's head. Over and over and over. She was dead. She had sacrificed herself to save him. She was dead. She was his world, the only thing keeping him sane between rounds of experimentation. She was dead. She'd given him a new purpose, but it wasn't enough. It would never be enough.
Shadow brought a shaking hand to his face, wet with tears that he couldn't hold back, and tried to form a plan for when he crashed onto the planet that Maria had told him so much about. He couldn't manage to gather his thoughts. It was just a litany of that same phrase, drowning out anything logical.
Fire screamed around the pod, and Shadow could almost feel the flames licking at his skin. Wished they would, just so he could see her again. He never would. They hadn't found a way to kill him on the ARK, and likely never would. So all he had was her wish, her final plea to him, his promise. He needed to— he choked around a sob. She was dead. What was the point of any of it if she was—
The pod crashed into soft earth, the impact leaving a long crack along the glass and throwing Shadow onto his side. He lay still for a moment, sobs still wracking his body as he tried to get a full breath. The world around him was silent for a long moment before it sprung to life, a chorus of insect chatter and birdsong. It was beautiful. It was overwhelming. Shadows ears flicked back and forth to capture the noises, even as a part of him longed for the cold silence of the ARK, urged him to pin his ears back to block it all out.
Shadow broke the glass with a harsh kick, and everything went silent again. He climbed out, glass cutting into his skin, and blinked in wonder at the scene around him. It was a forest, thick with greenery fighting for limited sunlight. Shadow startled as something brushed against his fur, reaching to bat it away, but it was gone as soon as it came. Then it was back, and as Shadow saw the bushes around him sway slightly, he realized that it was wind. Something that Maria had told about him when he'd asked for more knowledge about the planet below, hungry for any connection with the place that she held so dear.
It was an odd sensation, uncomfortably ruffling his fur. He didn't care for it. It should have been her, instead of him. She deserved to feel the touch of the planet just one more time. Even if leaving the pod would have killed her, she would have—
There were voices, harsh and loud, to his left. Shadow instinctively swiveled an ear toward the sound, trying to gauge proximity. A branch snapped close by, too close, and the cocktail of grief and exhaustion and adrenaline left little room for him to form a real plan. There were humans approaching. They likely meant him harm, or worse, planned to capture him for GUN. The only solution his rattled brain could reach, at the moment, was to flee.
He was careful not to push himself too hard, didn't want to burn a trail to follow. His tears dried, the salt stiffening his fur as he crashed through greenery. He stumbled several times, unused to the sheer amount of obstacles in his path. Shadow only made it so far before he tripped over a fallen tree, crashing into the ground. He curled into a ball, claws gouging into his knees, and tried to ground himself. He needed to focus. He couldn't fulfill Maria's wish like this. He couldn't fail at that, too.
Shadow slowly uncurled, then stood, blood dripping sluggishly down his calves. He strained his ears, but couldn't make out any voices. He'd run far enough, after all. He glanced at unfamiliar surroundings yet again. He was still crowded in by trees, but they were less impressive, and the shrubs had thinned out considerably. Shadow took a deep breath, catching a faint hint of salt, and realized that he was likely approaching an ocean.
The open terrain of the coast would make him easier to spot, but he would be able to move much faster. He needed to get as far away from the crash site as possible before they started searching for him in earnest. Was it worth the risk? His frayed nerves said 'yes, of course,' and he took off toward where the salt scent was strongest, listening for something like the sound of crashing waves that had sometimes been piped into examination rooms on the ARK.
Shadow slid to a stop on the edge of a cliff, and once again was overwhelmed. Brilliant, deep blue stretched before him, as far as the eye could see, waves crashing against the rocks below. The endless beauty of it was terrifying, an expanse so unlike what he had grown accustomed to. He didn't have time to properly take it in before his brain kicked back in to gear, and he set off up the coast, pushing himself as fast as he could manage.
His sprint along the coast gave him time to formulate a proper plan. He needed to get out of the United Federation's territory, at least, if not halfway across the world. They would likely be searching for him no matter where he went, but if he did good in a country far from here, he might have a chance of freedom. If he tried to fulfill Maria's wish here, GUN would be able to find him near-instantly. They couldn't kill him, but they could continue experimenting on him, or, worse, force him to be wielded like the weapon he'd discovered he was made to be for them.
Shadow blinked away the tears that threatened to come back. It was like a dam had been broken, all the pain and sorrow that he'd pushed through on the ARK for her, always for her, flowing out. She'd left him with that wish, that dying request. He couldn't fail her, not again. He needed to keep running until he could skid along the ice caps of Holoska, needed to keep going until he found the edge of the ocean on the other side of the world. Then, he could begin to fulfill her wish.
He quickly came up on a human city, and veered back into the forest. He didn't know how quickly they'd manage to spread the word of his escape, or if they ever would, but he could not risk the possibility. Every human was a threat at the moment, and would be treated with the appropriate amount of skepticism.
Shadow had to slow for a moment to catch his breath, more from rising panic than from exertion. Where could he even go? GUN had bases littered around every human civilization on the planet, and they'd be searching for him the second the soldiers on the ARK spread word that he'd managed to escape. No matter how he tried to keep Maria's hope alive in his heart, that fact kept threatening to topple him.
His ears flicked at a quiet rustle, trying to pinpoint its location as he scanned the greenery around him. His eyes eventually snagged on a furry lump of brown, from which scared eyes peeked out at him. Shadow froze. They were like him. He'd never met someone like him. The ARK only ever housed humans.
"It's okay. I won't hurt you." Shadow tried to sound reassuring, but his voice came out hoarse and cracked from overuse. The other— what was the word Maria had used— Mobian only tried to hide themself deeper in the brush. Shadow tried again. "Could you tell me where I am?"
They squeaked, hiding behind a fluffy tail that Shadow hadn't noticed until now. After a long moment, when they realized that he wasn't going to leave, they whispered, "Please don't hurt me."
"I won't. I just need to know where we are." Shadow tried not to let his brain linger on the bodies he'd left on the ARK, slowly draining of life after a chaos spear or deadly kick to the chest. They had wanted to cause her harm. They deserved it. This child was innocent. He wouldn't hurt them.
They squeaked out, "I-I'm sorry, mister, I don't know."
Damn. Knowing his location wouldn't help him all that much, but it would make it easier to work from the mental maps he had. He turned away, wanting to keep moving, but was stopped by a tug on his wrist. His quills instinctively flared, fur bristling.
"I'm lost too," they said, voice quivering. "My momma told me not to…but I got too far out, and…" They were taking gasping breaths, and Shadow turned to see that their eyes were wet with tears. Damn it. He needed to keep moving, he didn't have time to babysit. Still, something rooted him in place.
Shadow sighed, but asked, "Do you know which direction you came from?"
They pointed a shaky hand toward a deeper section of forest, and Shadow huffed out a breath. Northeast. At least it was the correct direction.
Shadow started walking, the child tightening their grip on his hand, and hoped that this would be quick. They couldn't have gotten that far from home. After a few quiet minutes, they spoke up. "Do you have a name, mister? Mine's Loam."
Should he tell them? They were a child, barely past toddler age if Shadow had to guess, so they wouldn't keep their mouth shut if someone came asking. At the same time, he knew that Human-Mobian relations were rocky at best, and they'd likely already been trained to be more reserved around humans. But their parents might deem it necessary to put aside any issues they had in order to help capture a dangerous science experiment. He couldn't trust them.
After a pause, Shadow answered, "Terios." One of the many names they had considered for him, before Maria had chosen 'Shadow'. It was true enough, but GUN likely wouldn't find the discarded name without digging through the ARK's files, which could take weeks. It gave him time.
Loam let out a little hum behind him, but stayed silent. What felt like an eternity later, they came up on a small shack nestled under a small cliff. Loam started running toward it, pulling Shadow with them, but he planted his feet. He should leave. He couldn't afford to linger here, and the less people who saw him, the better.
Before he could shake the child off and get moving again, the door to the shack swung open, revealing a woman who must be Loam's mother. They ran to her, releasing his hand, and he should have taken the opportunity to leave. For a reason he couldn't fathom, his feet stayed firmly planted on the ground.
Loam's mother looked up at him, eyes wide and scared, and Shadow abruptly realized the state he was in. Dried blood stuck to his shoes and flaked off his fur, both the nearly-black green of his own and the rust red of the GUN soldiers he'd killed. His quills were in disarray, ruined by the crash of the escape pod and his frenzied sprint, and itched like he had caught debris in them. He knew his eyes must be red, fur on his muzzle sticking in all directions from the salt in his dried tears.
She opened her mouth, and he thought she would scream. What actually came out shocked him more. "Are you okay?"
He shook with barely restrained emotion. He should leave. He needed to leave, to keep moving, to… he took a step, stumbled over uneven terrain. His body couldn't be failing him already. He needed to keep going. He barely registered their whispering through the rushing heartbeat that thrummed in his ears.
A hand gripped his arm, fingers digging in, and he froze. He could shake it off, should shake it off, but he couldn't get his limbs to obey him.
"At least let me thank you with dinner. You can get cleaned off, too." Shadow shook his head, words failing him. Loam's mother continued, "Really, it's the least I can do. You might have saved his life. If he'd gotten any closer to that city, he might have," She choked on her words. "It's good that you found him first. Let me—"
"Okay." Shadow turned, legs stiff. The longer he wasn't running, the worse his body ached. He was exhausted. His superior engineering could only keep him upright for so long without rest, and he'd been awake for three days before GUN had raided the ARK. It would be wise to rest here, nestled away in a thick patch of forest, before he was far enough north that there was only open plain.
Loam's mother led him to the shack, face beaming. "You and Loam can get cleaned up while I'm making dinner." She handed him a few rags and a bar of soap, shoving him back out the door before he could protest.
He trudged over to where Loam was waiting, and was led to a small creek nearby. He washed the blood off of himself quickly, methodically, trying not to look at how it stained the creek red whenever he dipped the rag in. Exhaustion tugged at his limbs, the cold water doing little to prevent it.
Now that he had accepted the possibility of sleep, worry gnawed at him. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw flashes of blue and red and soft eyes staring into his as he pounded on the glass between them. As ashamed as he was to admit it, he feared that sleep would bring them into stronger focus.
After no time at all, Loam was leading him back to the shack by his hand, tail swishing back and forth. Shadow couldn't parse what it meant. He'd read about Mobian social cues on the ARK at Maria's insistence, but tail movement meant something different for each species, and regardless, Shadow hadn't read more than was required to subdue his own instinctual behaviors.
When they made it back, Loam's mother had prepared something. Shadow wasn't quite sure what it was. He didn't eat often on the ARK, and when he had, it had been simple. Nutrient pastes, ration bricks, whatever could be most easily consumed. He didn't care, as long as it was nutrient-dense.
They ate in silence. Shadow enjoyed the food. He didn't need to eat it, not really, but it would save some questions if he did. And the way they both smiled at him, gentle and trusting, made it difficult to say no. When they finished dinner, Loam and his mother almost immediately curled up together on a mat laid on the floor, sending a spike of longing through Shadow. If only things had been different, he might be curling up with Maria right now, her gentle hands combing through his quills as he tried and failed to suppress a purr.
He shook the memory off, blinking away the tears that threatened to fall. Not right now. They had told him he could sleep wherever he felt most comfortable, so he settled into a corner of the shack, knees pulled close to his chest. He'd always found confined spaces comfortable. Like the predictability of the tests done on him, with the knowledge that Maria would be there to comfort him if they were too much. His claws dug into his knees, pressing them tight against his sternum. He didn't know how to exist without her. He had supported her physically, yes, but she had supported him emotionally. What was the point, if she was gone? How could he stand to live in a world without her?
He couldn't linger on this any longer. He needed to rest. There was no time to waste on pointless what-ifs. Shadow squeezed his eyes shut tight, pressed his face against his knees hard enough to hurt, and willed himself to sleep. Exhaustion tugged at him so insistently that he somehow managed it.
Shadow woke some time later, curled into a tight ball on the hard dirt floor. His face was tacky with drying tears, again. He rubbed at his face, eyes bleary, as he sat up, but froze when he noticed Loam's mother standing above him, staring down at him.
"You poor thing," she whispered to herself, "what hells have they put you through?"
Had he woken her? Shadow could only hope that he hadn't been screaming. He thought that he'd grown out of that long ago.
She crouched down, a hand hovering over his shoulder before she seemed to think better of it. "Are you from the lab in Empire?"
Shadow stared at her, shocked. How did she know that he was a lab animal?
"We've had a few come through here. Quiet, withdrawn, don't use their ears when they're talking." She answered his unasked question. "They're usually not as gory as you were."
"What happened to them?" He asked, suddenly curious. That there were others like him wasn't a shock, but he still wanted to know if— if any of them had been able to live, after.
She fixed her jaw, gaze leaving Shadow as she considered what to say. Likely finding a lie that was softer than what Shadow expected to be true. "They don't stay long. They're always determined to get as far away as they can manage. There was one girl who stayed with us, but she—" Loam's mother swallowed heavily, tears forming in her eyes, "she couldn't handle the pain she'd been through. I'm just glad that Loam was young enough not to know what had happened."
Shadow didn't have the luxury of being able to off himself. He'd hoped that there would be some other answer she could offer him. He stared down at the dirt floor for a long moment, finally mumbling out, "I need to keep moving."
She sighed heavily, but replied, "You should go soon, before Loam wakes up. He'll try to talk your ear off now that he's not exhausted."
Something occurred to him, something he had forgotten. "Where are we?"
"An hour northwest of Empire City, if you're walking."
Shadow rose from the floor, body immediately protesting being upright. At least he was rested. He'd likely pressed up against the limits of what his superior engineering considered well-rested, but he was rested. Empire. That was on the northeastern edge of the Federation's territory. He hoped that it would be less likely they would find him once he crossed a few borders, but GUN was persistent, incredibly connected, and willing to leverage those connections to capture him. It would be nothing but wishful thinking.
"Thank you." The words felt foreign on his tongue, but he felt that they needed to be said. "You should have turned me away."
"You helped my son. I was only repaying the favor." The way she smiled at him, soft and kind, directly contradicted her words.
Shadow couldn't find the words to reply. There was something welling up within his chest, the weight of it threatening to distract from what he had to do. It insisted that he stay here, bask in this kindness for as long as it was offered. A foolish instinct.
He left without another word. He had confirmation that he needed to keep heading north, and he took off without a second glance. Even if part of him, one that sounded suspiciously like her, insisted that he at least give them a proper goodbye. He couldn't afford sentimentality, not with one of the most powerful forces in the world hunting for him.
Shadow dodged trees for hours, unwilling to venture back out to the coast now that he knew there were likely more human settlements there. It was far from his natural habitat, the thick undergrowth snagging on his ankles and slowing him significantly. Soon, he would reach less disabling terrain. He had a destination in mind now, a massive mountain range that Maria had shown him in one of her books, then pointed out on the planet below. Its highest peaks were uninhabitable, their atmosphere so thin that it was nearly impossible for humans to breathe. Shadow had a much lower limit on his oxygen intake. He could survive there for months, easily, and either frustrate GUN into leaving him alone or disappear so thoroughly that they assumed he had died.
Hiding. It was the coward's way out, but it felt as if there was no other option. GUN had annihilated an entire team of their top scientists to capture him and bury any of the research that had led to his creation. They likely had other teams working to devise ways to control him, ways to defeat him. It was almost impossible that the more gruesome experiments didn't serve the dual purpose of seeing what he could recover from while also cataloguing the ways in which he could be impeded, should he leave their control.
If GUN pinpointed his location, they would be relentless. With no information on what they might wield against him, and not knowing just how well they knew his limits, it would be foolish to attack them outright. Unfortunately, even if it rankled his pride, the correct option was to wait. To gather information, see what exactly GUN knew about him. Perhaps he could find a chaos emerald along the way. That would make it easy.
The trees had begun to thin, and sharp boulders jutted out of the ground at irregular intervals. Shadow braced himself for the possibility of discovery, and pushed himself to a full sprint as he emerged from the trees onto a vast tundra.
The sheer beauty of this world was still settling into his mind. A shame he wouldn't be able to take it in properly, too set on moving as quickly as possible to register more than shades of red and green and gray as he sped past. Perhaps one day, he would be able to. She would encourage him to catalogue the small differences in the shrubs he was sidestepping, their leaf shape, their growth patterns. She would want him to have the chance to enjoy it.
As he pushed himself toward the top of the world, everything around him was oddly peaceful. Equal parts dread and elation threatened to overwhelm him as the sting of cold air worked its way through his lungs. As tundra transitioned to a barren land of ice, that sting worked to ground him, prepare him for the difficulty ahead. Even with his superior engineering, the climate was harsh. Inhospitable to all but the most specialized life. Though Shadow was built to withstand most conditions, his comfort through them was not necessary, and so the cold bit at him all the same.
With the cold came an eerie silence, one only broken by harsh cracks as his shoes created fissures in massive ice floes. Even so, the quiet brought with it the comforting knowledge that he was well and truly alone for the first time since he had landed on the planet. There was a certain peace to it, one that he rarely achieved on the ARK. One that was all too often broken by a scientist calling him for another experiment, a disaster stemming from the experimental weapons, Gerald needing him for something more personal. His life, now gone. Shredded, like the bullet had shredded Maria's lung.
Shadow wasn't sure if the stinging in his eyes was from the chill or tears that refused to fall. The ache of loss, still fresh, ate at his heart. Even here, it would be dangerous to release it. To scream, to cry, like his body insisted it must. Despite the apparent isolation, he could not risk alerting anyone of his presence more than he already had. And as the ice connected itself to patches of land, he knew that this short-lived peace was coming to an end, much like it always had.
It lingered for a moment, spring having not yet arrived this far north. A good sign. It meant that the mountains he was angling for, difficult to scale even in warm months, might well be impossible enough that he could find somewhere safe to hide before he was followed. Before long, the wintry chill faded, replaced by something that stuck to his fur, and he wove through patches of coniferous trees, hoping to quickly reach the steppe that would indicate proximity to his goal.
As a vast mountain range peeked over the horizon, blanketed by snow, he let himself hope. Hope that Maria's wish would be fulfilled, that it wouldn't all be for nothing. Then, there was a sound like nothing he had heard before just above his head, followed shortly by an earthshaking boom that sent Shadow off his balance for a second before he recovered. What was that?
Shadow took the risk of turning his head to look behind him, mind churning at what he saw. There was a massive hole where he'd been just seconds before, smoke rising from the ground. That was their plan, then. To incapacitate him by any means necessary, even if it required picking up what pieces of him remained and hoping that he could recover from such extensive damage when they had him in captivity.
He fixed his gaze on the mountain range ahead of him, pushing himself faster. Miles upon miles of steppe stretched in front of him, climbing ever higher until it transitioned into steep slopes. He could lose his pursuers there, survive in that harsh climate until they gave up on finding him.
Something whizzed past Shadow's ear, and he tried to locate the source. A jet flew above, barely keeping pace with him. They must have shot at him from there. He started to summon a chaos spear, not wanting to focus more of his energy toward it than was strictly necessary. He should shoot it down.
Suddenly, there was a sharp pain in his side, which made Shadow's pace stutter for a moment as he glanced down. A tranquilizer dart. He'd recognize it anywhere. They'd used the same kind on him when he was younger, whenever the chaos energy had overwhelmed him, made him erratic and terrifying. GUN had likely copied the formulation, too. Enough poison to kill a herd of elephants, meant to keep him down for hours. They must not have realized that his resistance to it had increased over time.
His limbs started to feel more sluggish, but he pushed on. Only a little further. Even as his vision started to waver slightly, he kept his gaze fixed on the snowy peaks drawing ever nearer. Attempted to ignore the thump of footfalls behind him, gaining ground.
Another dart lodged itself into the skin of his back, but he had to keep moving, no matter how many poisons they shot into his bloodstream. He had a promise to keep. It couldn't end like this. Her sacrifice couldn't be for nothing. He wouldn't allow it.
He kept going. He had to keep going. Just a little more. Just a little farther. It was so close. He had been so close. It couldn't end like this. He couldn't fail now.
Pressure, vertigo, then the sensation of his muzzle being pressed into the dirt. They'd… they'd caught him. He had failed. No, he wouldn't accept this fate, had to keep fighting. He kicked and thrashed, but for every pained noise and retreat of pressure, it was doubled a moment later. There were too many of them, he had been weakened too much by the poison, it wasn't working its way out his bloodstream fast enough, he couldn't get his limbs to obey him even as the cornered animal part of his brain screamed and begged for him to do something.
Shadow felt the pinch of a needle breaching his skin as he thrashed, the numerous hands pressing him into the dirt becoming bolder as he weakened from the multitude of sedatives they'd pumped into him. There was one thing he hadn't tried, a last ditch effort that Gerald had urged him to never, ever do unless it was the only option. Shadow gathered up all the chaos energy he could grab, releasing it from his body in a massive blast of force.
The hands disappeared, and Shadow heard a sickeningly wet thump as one of their bodies landed on the ground nearby. He rose on shaky legs, eyes refusing to focus, and trudged toward the mountain he'd been aiming for before they'd caught him. They wouldn't be able to follow him there, the altitude was already causing their machines to struggle.
Shadow's head exploded with pain, and he brought a shaky hand to his temple, only for it to come away wet with blood. He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing away the headache that threatened to topple him, and kept moving. The bullet lodged in his skull shot a spike of pain through him every few seconds as his chaos energy attempted to regrow his body around it. It was agonizing, but nothing new. This had been something they'd tested on the ARK, after all.
But another burst of pain staggered him, and then another, and another. Shadow hit the ground, teeth rattling with the force of it. He choked out a sob, not for the overwhelming pain consuming him, but the knowledge that he had failed her again. He hoped that she might be able to forgive him.
He whispered a litany of apologies as darkness consumed his vision, and the world fell away.