Walk Away from the Sun, a sonic the hedgehog fanfic

A/N: YESH! FINALLY!!! I GOTS IT FINISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111111 :D
Kay, enuff of that bush.
Shadow and Maria aren't mine; they're Sega's. They won't share, so I'll content myself with mah plushies... -huggles plushies tightly- Anywho, Swift the Hedgehog is MINE!!! Ask or get smacked... fool.
This is a songfic. The song is "Walk Away from the Sun" by Seether. Lyrics are property of Seether. :D
Is it obvious my brain has melted? Are you sure you want to read this? Please review post-reading!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!1!1!!!!!1111111111

Walk Away from the Sun

I stole her. I took her away from the life she had built up in those fifty years of my absence and I made her into just the monster I was. I killed her.

I killed her.

Figuratively speaking, of course, but still…

"Sh-shadow?" She asked, her voice barely heard from her perch atop a tall pile of rubble. I knew by the sound of her that she was falling apart.

"Yeah." I replied, crouching down to examine a shimmering dark green shard. Wrapping my hand around it, I lifted it to my eyes to inspect it further. However, a rustling noise from above tore my eyes from the splinter and I looked up towards her again. Against the rising dawn, she was barely visible, save for her eyes; her navy and black fur melted into the sky. "Swift?" I tried for her attention, to fail for the moment. Her concentration was fixated on something in the distance.

It had been only three days since I was awakened. That meant three days since I had peeled Swift from the concrete in Station Square after GUN had managed to blow her out of the sky and that pathetic faker had considered her dead. I thought the idiot had known her better…

"The sun's coming up soon." Swift whispered, casting a look down at me for a brief moment.

I had taken her back with me to The Doctor's base. The Doctor panicked when I brought her in and proceeded to tell me of many tragic endings she had caused for him. Though he disliked her, to say the least, he changed his mind when she came to. One look into those caramel irises told me I had already triumphed over the 'hero' bonds that were fifty years deep.

The Doctor, whom she referred to as Eggman, sent us out to gather the lone Chaos Emerald that had appeared as of yet, after instructing me to strengthen her alliance to us. Little did he know, I was the one calling the shots. I allowed the red echidna to bloody me up a bit before I alerted Swift. She rushed over and defended me while I remained "helpless" and on the ground. She defeated the echidna with little trouble and gave me a weak smile as she pulled me to my feet. The fact that her old friends came to resist and she was forced to tell them that she was siding with me only added to my success.

"Walk away from the sun, come slowly undone
I can see in your eyes I've already won
I could bleed for a smile, I could cry for some fun
Walk away from the sun, and tell everyone."

A light breeze meandered through the mangled mass of destruction, and I lifted my nose to the wind for a sniff. Life hung heavily on the air, but whether it was life or just an eidolon of it, I would discern once we eliminated it. Swift's intent glare to the horizon only asserted her position within this perfect disaster.

"There's so much left in the air
So much to tell from a stare
There's so much left to defend
But I am no fun."

If only you knew how deep your part in this ran, little one. I sighed as I identified the shard to indeed be a splinter of Rouge's kryptonite, the Master Emerald.

"You hurt them all…" The Doctor whispered in Swift's ear. "You are nothing… You are the one who killed them."

Like I killed her?

"So turn away from the ones, you hurt everyone
I can tell by your smile you're coming undone
I could bleed for a smile; could die for a gun
Walk away from the sun and kill everyone"

She eliminated the Chaotix with little objection. As if she had never known them at all, save for an obstacle to be crossed… and destroyed.

Swift danced from the top of the pile of rubble, which was once the tallest building in the phantom of existence, but was now reduced to the tallest heap of debris around. She flitted by me, movement almost effortless, and strode to the top of the skeleton of an office building. Her grace was almost painful to me; striking chords in my breast I didn't know I was capable of feeling. I gritted my teeth and grinned as she passed, praying that I would find something more deadly than a shard of the Master Emerald within the fractures of a ghost town. As well, another something awoke inside when she strode away: fear. However pathetic it seemed to fear at that moment, I did. I feared every corpse lying amongst the wreckage, every oddly placed shadow, and, most certainly, every drop of blood smattering her body with crimson.

"So tiny dancer beware, we're medicated and scared
This smile is so hard to wear, but I have no gun."

Surely, she would break. I could feel it. I knew it… and I knew the cause.

I knew I had ruined her.

I could still see the look on the faker's face as a crimson puddle began to form at his feet. As he immediately turned his questioning emerald eyes upon her, stunned surprise slicing through him like the bullet I had gladly fired. Until I saw Swift's expression…

She had killed every single mortal up until him. No mercy had appeared inside her mind, no regret or conscience had plagued her until him.

She stopped dead, finally showing me just what cracks were created in her.

Just what cracks I had delivered to her very soul. Just what kind of damage my inadvertent blows could cause.

"Maybe we can fit one more in before sunrise." Swift called down to me, a small smile across her muzzle.

It was not the smile I once cherished and would do anything to bring onto her face. No, this was the smile that could kill. A hybrid glower-grin of such burning intensity that I could barely stand to look.

"So turn away from the ones, you hurt everyone
I can tell by your smile you're coming undone
I could bleed for a smile; could die for a gun
Walk away from the sun and kill everyone"

Swift was dying. Bit by bit, her life crumbled into a hundred million glowing pieces of the silicon and stardust I believed she was made of. However, her heart had stopped beating long ago.

It only beat for me. And that's what murdered me.

"And you're fading with every day
(you could've been the next one, should've been enough for me)
You're fading with every day
(you could've been the next one, should've been enough for me)
You're fading with every day
(you could've been the next one, should've been enough for me)
And you're fading with every day... whoa"

But, could she see that she was fading?

The flame in her eyes said that she was alive, but it was a façade. It was a dark, twisted fire that I had ignited inside of her, the same that writhed in me. The kind of blaze that cannot be soothed into ashes… the kind that could destroy planets.

It was almost amusing that the only way I could achieve her salvation would be to give up my ambitions of revenge. After all, we hadn't eradicated every little bit of life yet. We could protect and cultivate it, somehow bring back the gentle side we possessed when we were home… Home… ARK…

Vengeance was my top priority… until I saw what it would take.

The doppelganger crawled toward her with such determination it scared me. With my inner voice screaming to pump him full of lead before he could hurt her, but the tears streaking down her blood-and-dirt-stained face convincing me otherwise, I could only shakily aim for his heart.

We could shield it all, but I couldn't care less.

"There's so much left in the air
So much to tell from your stare
There's so much left to defend
But I am no fun"

Through all of the bloody recollections, I couldn't discern a clear image of myself. Swift was even more unraveled, her outline in my mind vague, as if someone was erasing edges here and there.

She used to be whole, but I had ripped her into something incomplete and raw.

I could sense it. Everything was about to come crashing down. Not that I had built it so carefully, though.

. Something. Had. To. Break.

Paranoia set in. The onslaught cleared for a brief enough instant to allow me a glimpse of Swift's face as it contorted into agony when she thought I wasn't looking.

She fell to her knees before the bloody animal, heaving wracking sobs as the tears poured and intermingled with his blood. He stretched his hand out for her and she reached for him.

An impulse. A split-second, knee-jerk reaction. Blood was everywhere. Swift looked even more horrified and grief-stricken than an instant earlier. He shook for a few seconds on all fours, and then collapsed in a heap of blood and mangled cerulean fur. Screaming filled my ears as she drew him up into her arms, begging him to speak again.

It should have been enough that Swift remained, though Maria did not.

The first streaks of daylight peered above the blackened hills with malevolent intentions.

"Swift." I called anxiously, watching as the fractures were illuminated.

She looked down at me; eyes wide as something began to smother their fire. She jerked her head around to try and distinguish the cause of the shattering she could finally see. Realization dawned on her as the orange-yellow rim of the sun began to clamber above the horizon.

She could never face the light again. She had become just what she had tried to avoid by building her life around those pathetic mortals. Damaged goods. Another broken toy. But, I didn't want her as a toy or an item. She was a being, not an object. Yet, I demolished her.

She scrambled down the carcass of the offices, careful to avoid the sun's rays.

Perhaps she really did see something more in those mortals than just a the glue to keep her from breaking… I would never know.

"The light." Swift whimpered when she came to my side. "I don't understand… Or maybe I do, but I don't want to. What have I done?" She turned to face down the sun, half of her face lit up with the glow, the other shrouded in shades created by the wreckage.

Not you. Me.

"C'mon. We'd better wait for dusk." I gently gave a tug at her arm, but she didn't move. "Swift."

You must let go of the light.

Finally, she allowed me to pull her into the subway tunnels, as far away from the sunlight as possible.

"What's happening to me, Shadow? What's wrong with me?" Swift asked as we began our trek through the inky blackness beneath the world, voice coming apart faster than she was.

I am. I'm what's wrong with you. I'm the one who destroyed your every hope and dream. I'm the one.

I killed you.

"Walk away from the sun
(fading with every day)
(you could've been the next one, should've been enough for me)
(you could've been the next one, should've been enough for me)
(you could've been the next one, should've been enough for me)
(you could've been the next one, should've been enough for me)"

I initiated your walk away from the sun.

A/N: Yesh, this is another one of those WHAT IFs, like Carnival of Rust, but this one is the opposite of what happens in Shadowed Reflections. Personally, I think Carnival of Rust was better, but I'll let ya'll decide that. Lemme know if you liked this or CoR better! PLEASE DROP ME A REVIEW!!! Love ya'll! .Rock'nRoll.

-When darkness falls, heroes will rise-
-Swift-