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Shadow doesn’t exactly consider himself a “hero.”
He’s never liked the title. It sounds too gratuitous, too generous, to give to him when he’s never done things for fame or rewards. He helps people because they can’t help themselves, and because it’s what Maria would’ve wanted. He honors her memory by protecting the planet and the people on it that couldn’t help themselves. He keeps himself separate from the true heroes—that being Sonic and his crew—and therefore leads a quiet, solitary life.
Yet he still somehow gets roped into hero missions with them.
When an earthquake rattles Spagonia and sends the city into crisis mode, Shadow responds like the rest of them. It doesn’t take him long to make it to the city. The damage from the quake hits him first. Some buildings are completely demolished. Roads are cracked and beyond repair. Trees are uprooted. Dust and smoke linger in the air and sirens wail. Shadow realizes quickly that G.U.N. needs to respond to this to help out. They need more hands than they have.
He doesn’t stick around Sonic and his friends; he immediately branches off on his own and starts pulling survivors out of the debris. He doesn’t need to be part of a team to do this, it’s easier on his own without any distractions.
But then Eggman starts raiding the city.
After they’re already down.
It rubs Shadow the wrong way. The city has taken a major blow from a disaster they never saw coming, one from the earth itself, and so Eggman takes their chaos and confusion to start attacking? It’s cruel and malicious. Eggman does not get to act this way just because he wants to.
He can hear explosions as Eggman attacks the damaged city. Picking his way through the rubble in the almost unrecognizable streets, Shadow heads towards the noise as soon as it starts. He doesn’t look around for the heroes. He can handle this on his own.
He stands on the top of a relatively undamaged building, two blocks away from Eggman. The guy is facing away from him, engrossed in rummaging through the remains of the museum with a humanoid-looking mech. Shadow doesn’t care if he’s looking for gold or ancient artifacts—he’s not welcome.
Whereas Sonic would usually announce his presence with an annoying taunt, Shadow takes a different approach. With a flash of green chaos energy, he blips right on top of Eggman’s mech. He drops on the cockpit and punches the glass hard. Unfortunately, it doesn’t break.
It does, however, earn his opponent’s attention; Eggman cackles as he whirls his mech in a circle and flings Shadow off. The hedgehog quickly teleports to the ground to avoid getting smashed into the side of a building. “Well, well, well.” Eggman’s mech turns to face him. “They sent in the cavalry.”
“Leave,” Shadow growls. “This city is already damaged. What do you hope to gain?”
Eggman just grins. His humor irritates Shadow; the man is enjoying this while people are no doubt fighting for their lives under this debris. “Not my fault they left these priceless artifacts unguarded!” He leans forward in his mech, casual, confident. “Do you plan to fight me for them?”
“Yes,” Shadow retorts.
“I didn’t take you for a collector, Shadow,” Eggman teases.
“I’m not. Let’s get this over with.” He doesn’t wait for Eggman’s reply before he shoots forward, flames flying from his skates, and slams straight into the mech’s leg. Eggman stumbles back, surprise flicking across his face. It doesn’t take him long to retaliate by kicking at Shadow with the other leg.
The hedgehog easily dodges and circles around for a strike from the back. But Eggman’s mech is surprisingly fast, and he whirls around to smack Shadow away.
He tucks into a ball to absorb the impact as he skids across the ground. He doesn’t even make it to a stop before he uncurls and blasts towards Eggman, his fist sparking with chaos energy.
Shadow’s target, the leg on Eggman’s mech, suddenly erupts with jagged metal spikes. Shadow has to divert at the last moment and skate around to the other side. When the other leg also grows the irritating armor, Shadow leaps up and slams his fist into the side of the mech. Energy erupts across the surface and a few red warnings blare in the cockpit.
Eggman starts wildly swinging and launching missiles at Shadow. He nimbly avoids the attacks, yet he can feel the heat from the explosions. The hedgehog pivots and starts running in tight patterns around the base of the mech to stop the missiles. Spagonia can’t take hits like that.
It puts him at risk for more powerful attacks. Eggman uses both the mech’s legs and arms to try and land a blow on him, all while cackling maniacally. He has to use chaos control to get away from some of them, and he can feel his energy depleting.
It’s time to end this.
Apparently Eggman has the same idea. He suddenly switches his attention away from Shadow and towards the street, where, Shadow realizes in a split moment of horror, there is a citizen running past, covered in dust and casting terrified looks back at the mech. They must’ve been trapped in one of the buildings around them and tried to flee while Eggman was distracted.
Unfortunately, the scientist notices. His target switches from Shadow to the innocent citizen.
Shadow and Eggman both race towards the citizen, who realizes what’s happening with a terrified scream. They shield their face with their arms.
Shadow’s almost to them. He’s faster than the mech, of course, but he doesn’t make it to the citizen.
The mech’s hand appears in the corner of his eye, and something pink behind it. He doesn’t realize that it’s aiming for him, not the citizen, until it’s too late.
The hand slams into him from the side, sending him flying hard into the nearest building. He crashes straight through the wooden wall and a few metal supports. It’s painful even for him and he cries out as he skids to a stop, covered in dust and aching all over.
Before he gets the chance to run back out of the hole he just created in the building, a low rumbling fills the air. The ground suddenly shifts and vibrates, hard enough to make Shadow lose his balance. He crashes to his knees with a confused shout.
The building creaks and groans and the aftershock doesn’t let up. Wood and metal pieces of the building rain down around Shadow. He tries to teleport out into the open but finds his source of chaos energy to be too low for the action.
Just as the horror of his situation dawns on him, the building reaches its limit. Steel supports bend and snap. The stone walls crack and crumble. Then the whole top of the building comes crashing down on top of Shadow.
The hedgehog curls into a protective bundle of spines just as debris lands on him. Wooden splinters make it past his quills and embed painfully into his body. A heavy metal beam crashes over him and pins him down.
The rumbling finally stops, replaced with an eerie quiet. Shadow’s ears strain for signs of life, namely Robotnik continuing to attack, but he hears nothing except a high-pitched ringing.
Dust catches in his throat and he coughs. The hedgehog tries to move but only manages to uncurl slightly. He’s pinned from above and surrounded on all sides by heavy wood and metal.
Damnit, he silently hisses. He’s no use to anyone trapped. He was the only one standing between Eggman and his looting. But now he can’t move.
Okay. Okay. He’s stronger than this. He can push his way out. Brute strength has been his go-to move in the past, after all. So he tries to push himself off the ground.
The rubble shifts at the movement and suddenly the weight above him increases. It forces Shadow back down with an ungraceful huff.
He lays there for a while, trying to recover some of his chaos energy and think of a plan. He tries his communicator but it’s either damaged or has no signal under the rubble. He can’t force his way out without the chance of burying himself even more thoroughly. It’s too quiet; if he can’t hear any noise, calling for help would never reach any nearby ears. And nobody knew that he was fighting Eggman or that he was trapped nearby.
But then he does hear a noise—kind of like crackling or whooshing.
When the orange glow reaches his vision, Shadow’s heart skips a beat.
He didn’t normally get scared for his life. He knew he was powerful and capable of surviving the craziest fights, including a fall from space. He’d rarely found himself in a situation where he was genuinely worried for his safety.
This was one of those times.
By an earthquake of all things.
He’s trapped and the building is on fire.
Desperate now, Shadow tries to push free again. He can feel something shift but the weight doesn’t get lighter. The fire grows closer and brighter.
Oh, Chaos. This is not good. He can’t be bested by fire of all things. He’s run through fire before and came out unscathed. The flames should fear him, not the other way around.
Shadow lets out a furious yell as he shoves himself against the debris as best he can. Then again and again. He can feel the heat from the blaze now and smoke is quickly filling his small cavity of air. It doesn’t affect him like a normal person, but if exposed long enough, he’d start suffering.
The weight above him suddenly gets lighter.
Was it just being burned away?
Panting half from exertion and half from worry, Shadow continues fighting to push the debris off of him. The space around him slowly gets bigger as he is somehow able to push the debris away.
He hears shouting. It sounds like one person, fairly close to him, and oddly familiar. He hears his name.
Someone knows he’s here? How?
It doesn’t matter. Shadow’s efforts concentrate towards the voice, trying to help them remove the rubble. The whole place is glowing orange and the wood next to him has caught fire. He shies away from the flames.
A hole opens up to the sky. Shadow sees a flash of red clothing with white trim.
“Amy?” He calls in surprise.
“Shadow!” The pink hedgehog finds the hole and finds his gaze from within. “You’re alive!”
She hefts off a piece of heavy metal like it’s nothing. Shadow realizes that he should be grateful that of all the people to find him, Amy is probably the best. She’s one of, if not the, strongest people he knows.
Smoke and fire shoot to the sky around her but she doesn’t pay it any attention. She lifts pieces of metal and burning wood and throws it away like it’s simply a paperweight. Shadow helps from below and eventually can make a hole big enough to fit through.
Amy offers her hand to pull him out. She’s covered in soot and her dress hem is slightly singed. Shadow takes her hand and she easily pulls him out, then jumps down away from the fire. Smoke fills the air so thickly that he can’t even see the road. “Let’s get out of here!”
He doesn’t need to be told twice. He follows her down the rubble and into the street, which was cracked even worse than when Shadow arrived. They run a safe distance away from the building before they both stop, panting and coughing.
“Are you okay?” Amy demands.
“Yes,” Shadow replies. He swipes ash off his fur and gives Amy a once-over. “How did you know I was there?”
“I saw you fighting Eggman and got here just as the aftershock hit,” Amy answers simply, catching her breath and brushing off her dress. “I wasn’t about to walk away after that.”
Shadow nods with appreciation. “And what of Eggman?”
Amy brushes quills from her face with a sweet smile. “He tried to reason with my hammer and had a change of heart,” she snickers.
Shadow can’t help a small smirk at her nonchalant attitude. “Thank you for the assist,” he replies. “But for the record, I wore him out first.”
“Of course,” Amy giggles. She adjusts her bracelets and rubs off some soot. “You softened him up.”
Shadow rolls his eyes but sobers up. “Don’t ever tell Sonic about this,” he grumbles.
“I won’t,” Amy promises sincerely. “Only that it was a team effort beating up Eggman.”
He supposes that it’s a fair compromise to not reveal that he was helplessly trapped and needed saving. Sonic would never let him forget it.
The two hedgehogs trade goodbyes and return to saving those who were trapped, especially after the second quake tore through the city.
After all, the heroes have a job to do.