Prologue Pt. 3 – Infinite Cataclysm

Everyone gasped as they witnessed the huge explosion.

"Noooo! Sooooniiiiiicc!" Amy cried, desperately running in the direction of the blast. Rouge held her back from going any further.

"Sorry, hon, it's no use…" Rouge held the wailing Amy by her shoulders. Her wails quickly turned into sobs and tears as Rouge pulled her in. She sighed, feeling pity for the crying young woman.

"Oh, no…" Cream squealed, looking in the sky, along with her mewing chao.

"Damn…" Knuckles whispered, only imagining the mass devastation going on up above.

"Oh my… god…" Tails added, staring at the sky, unable to calculate the scope of the explosion. As soon as the sky started to turn fuchsia, he backed away. "Uhh, g-guys?"

"Tails, what's going on?" Cream asked, scared for her life.

Shadow, from out of nowhere, skates close to them, yelling, "It's expanding! We got to get everyone the hell out of here!"

"Shado-woah!" Rouge got scooped up in one of his arms before she could protest. Amy, crying silently, looked up at Shadow sadly as he carried both of them away.

Knuckles grabbed Tails and Cream with no hesitation, running behind him, trying to catch up. "Hey, Shadow! How'd you get here so fast?"

"I was here the whole time," Shadow responded with a tinge of annoyance in his voice as he jumped over the ruins and grinded on the side of ancient temple walls. Holding both Amy and Rouge in his arms, he left a burning yellow trail of fire from his air shoes as the sky slowly turned magenta… violet… lavender… sapphire…

"It's gaining on us!" Knuckles screamed, looking up at the expanding color of the sky. The horrified cream hugged tightly on to Knuckles' left side, with cheese latched onto her wavering right ear. Tails, on Knuckles' right, helped propel them forwards by using his twin tails.

"Geez, Shadow, could you go easier on the grip?" Rouge complained. "I'm almost choking as it is with these tights! Please don't make it worse than it already is."

Shadow didn't respond, giving her a cold, expressionless look.

Rouge turned away and looked back at the faraway Master Emerald, becoming consumed by the whiteness… "Well, so much for the biggest jewel of them all."

"Aren't you thankful that I saved your life?" Shadow harshly questioned. Still looking forwards, he continued, "Don't you think of anything else other than jewels and money?"

"B-But-*sigh*…" Rouge volunteered to say no more.

Selfish… at a time like this… Moving and thinking off adrenaline, Shadow ducked under low-hanging trees and jumped high into the air. Knuckles, having Tails and Cream on his back now, punched right through them.

"Mister Knuckles," Cream said in her tinny voice, looking back at the constantly growing light, "are we gonna die?"

"Cream-" Tails started to interrupt.

"Tails, it's alright," Knuckles cut him off before he could continue. "It's a slim chance that we might survive this… we'll make it out of this some way."

"If we die," Cream questioned further, "do we get to go to heaven?"

There was silence between all of them, for which seemed like an eternity. Shadow, overhearing her question, started to think hard on the subject.

Knuckles, trying his best to come up with an answer, caught a lucky break and a horrible situation at the same time when Rouge yelled, "Guys, looks like the end of the road here!" There she pointed, was the edge of a cliff, hanging over nothing but water.

Shadow slid the metal under his Air Shoes against the pebbles of the ruins, causing him to stop just enough to touch the edge of the cliff. Burnt rocks and granite tumbled down over the edge, falling for what seemed like days before they turned microscopic enough to trick the normal eye that it never existed. "Damn…"

"Give me a lift!" Knuckles, with both Cream and Tails on his sides, jumped the cliff; both Tails and Cream carried him over the deep sea below.

"Rouge, you take Amy and get out of here," Shadow urged, standing them upright.

"Wait!" Amy yelled, grabbing him by the shoulder.

Shadow turned around, giving her his attentive crimson eyes that bored right into her. "What is it, Amy?"

"Why'd you come back, Shadow? All this time you were gone-"

"I had to take care of my own problems…" he simply responded, not wanting to say more about the subject.

Amy, seeming to understand this, asked a different question. "How are you gonna make it across here?"

"Don't worry about that." Strangely, Shadow didn't seem to be annoyed by her many questions.

"What are we gonna do without you and Sonic? You can't just leave us here now!"

"Look, Amy, I came to save you. Sonic probably made it out alive somewhere. Now if you cherish your life, go." Shadow pushed Amy towards Rouge; not hard, just to get Amy's full attention. "I'll manage."

Amy looked on as he turned away from them… She tried to make out his enigmatic body language but couldn't. She tried to figure out if he used the word "you" in singular or plural version… she still couldn't figure that out. But she saw while he turned away, his face. Straddling between his usual anger…
And affection.
Shadow…?
Amy felt Rouge's arms wrap around her as they began to soar away from the infinite cataclysm behind them. She stared down at the ever-disappearing Shadow, who made a quick glance back before hanging his head.
He looked sad… and hurt.
What? Does he… care?

We're going to need a miracle to get past this… Shadow's mind raged as he looked at his hands, halfway staring at the ground. Small pebbles began to move as the vibration from the incoming white energy wave inched nearer.
Maria… My guardian angels… please save and protect us all from this… I know you can hear me out there…
He slowly raised his head, staring at the surge of energy coming his way. He shut his eyes, lending his senses to his thoughts.
If we all must die, please at least protect the one that reminded me of you, and the promise I made… Then I'll be comforted on my journey through Hell. I know I'll be forever unforgiven for being created… and for killing those innocent people… but if I can be known as the protector of all humanity for once in my life, I'll be able to rest with peace of mind. As he opened his eyes, he added, Hmm, almost forgot, please watch over Faker, the guy she's so madly in love with… Make sure he makes it out alright, along with the rest of them. He smiled at his nickname for Sonic.
Focusing his eyes now on the chaos before him, he charged his own chaos energy around his hands, forcing the air around them to turn black… resulting only from the wrath of Black Doom, permanently ingrained in his artificially-made DNA. Holding his hands out, he braced for impact….
Shadow winced from the pain of it slamming right into him, but he kept pain as the least of his worries, as he tried to stop it… His arms felt like they were on fire as he roared out in pain. It pushed him backwards defiantly as he struggled to stay in an erect standing position… The force of white knocked him clean off the cliff, engulfing him entirely.

-

"Tails, hurry!" Cream hollered, seeing the white sea come closer, traveling over, under, and through the water behind them. Tails, having his spinning tails already in overdrive, began to tire out, making the three descend and slow down.

"I-I can't-can't go on much-further!" Tails whimpered, unable to continue. He slumped down and fainted.

"TAILS!" Knuckles grabbed his yellow buddy's leg before he could plop into the water below. Seeing that Cream couldn't take their weight by herself, he commanded, "Carry Tails! I'll jump down from here!"
He handed Tails to her and dived straight into the water from a couple of hundred feet above, making a huge splash. He quickly surfaced and swam behind them as fast as he could.

Rouge, seeing Knuckles down in the water as she caught up to him, asked, "Knuckles, what are you doing?"

"Don't worry about me! Save yourself!" Knuckles waved her off.

"I'm not going to lose you too! You're coming with me!" she defiantly retorted, grabbing his arm and flying off with both him and Amy in hand.

"Wha-" Knuckles sighed, letting her save him. He turned over to the downcast Amy, asking, "Hey, how's it hanging?"

Amy just shook her head.

"Look, Amy, I know the situation looks kinda bad now, but-"

"What do you mean, kinda bad!" Rouge snapped at him, cutting him off with pure urgency in her voice. "That thing is right behind us! We're gonna-wha-f-!"

A huge wave of ocean water engulfed them all, twirling them through and through in the water. Rouge was the first one to go, as she rose back up to gasp for air… It took her completely by surprise. Knuckles, trying to save Rouge from the imminent force, was caught in the rolling white flash, too.

Amy, drifting towards the bottom of the sea by choice, knew it was all over for her. Opening her arms as she accepted the fact, she closed her eyes…
What's the whole point of going on, now? Sonic… he's gone… forever. Sorry, Cream for not being there for you anymore. Sorry, Shadow… although I was never able to fully understand you, you motivated me to try my best at everything I do, no matter how senseless it sounds to you… I know I've been a nuisance sometimes…
I'm sorry, Sonic… for everything… for never leaving you alone, for never letting you go, for never trying to give up marrying you… I know you don't like me, but I was hoping that maybe you'll give me a chance. Now, that chance is gone… and you can live as free as you want, without having to worry about saving me from Eggman or me trying to get you to come on a date… I'm so sorry for all the times I followed you everywhere, even from the time you saved me in Little Planet… I was just so blind back then, and still am. God, I've been so delusional, all this time in my life! I tried as much as I could just to get your attention… now I realize that you just don't want me around. But as long as you're happy, I'll be fine…
Seeing red, then white behind her eyelids, she squeezed them tight as the rumbling sound turned in to a roar of a freight train. She found it increasingly difficult to even clearly hear her own thoughts…
I'm s-ry, So-c! If o-ly I w- a bi- -lder…

The white rush enveloped and overtook her quickly… It continued its path forwards, taking anything inside it.

-

"Tails, please wake up!" Cream pleaded, shaking him in her arms as she held his unresponsive body.
"Chao-cha, chaoooo!" Cheese, joining in the effort of reviving him, pulled opened one of Tails' eyelids, seeing nothing but whites.

Tails, head rotating left and right, finally began to come to. "mmm… I love y-you… er-Wha, huh?" He vigorously shook his head away from his small coma.

"Please save us, Tails!" Cream squeezed him a bit too tight for a hug, making him squawk from the pressure. "I don't wanna go yet, Tails!"

"Chaoooo!" Cheese agreed, holding tight to Tails' arm.

"Can't-breathe-" Tails gasped for air as soon as she loosened up. Looking into her young, innocent, fearful eyes, he quickly snapped back to reality.
"C-Cream?"

Streaks of tears lined her face. "Save us… I don't wanna die, Tails!"

"Cream, you're not gonna die…" he tried to assure her, not at all believing in his own lie. "We're gonna get through this, Cream… Everything'll be okay…"
He knew this was the end. But seeing Cream in her helpless state as she squeezed him for dear life made him feel that he had to protect her from harm… instinctually… at any cost. In his thoughts, he hated Eggman for this, it was all his fault… Nobody deserved this fate, especially someone as innocent as Cream.

"It's coming for us!" She wrapped her arms snugly around his neck and curled up into a ball.

"Chaoooo!" Cheese screamed, getting in between them for safety.

Tails, with his back to the energy surge as he flew with his spinning tails, hooked an arm around her underside and held her head for cover. Cream buried her head deep in his white chest fur, feeling for that moment safe as his arms enveloped around her…
The disaster looming behind them seemed to create a bond from desperation between them as it rushed closer. Tails brung his knees upward, trying his best to cover her away from it. Cream just wanted to stay alive, so bad… and it felt like she could, with him protecting her… She didn't want his clasp around her to end, ever…

Having Cream nestled so snugly in his chest not only reminded him of how fragile life can be, but also gave him some sort of empowerment and purpose… every warm tear that his snow white fur absorbed made him realize how precious life is… her life, in particular. His clutch around her stiffened, hearing the monstrous roar become even louder as his eyes shut closed. More than everything, he wanted her to live, even if it meant giving his own life. All the technology in the world didn't matter now…

The force felt like a blast of wind coming his way before it touched him. Tails cried out…
"NOOOOOOOOOO!"
Cream did the same. "AAAAAAAAHHHHH!"
"CHAAAAOOO- -!" The energy wave took them all, covering them in white nothingness.

-

Before long, the massive blast took over nearly the whole planet, covering it entirely in white. The moon and the Space Colony ARK already took that ride. But, suddenly the white light transfigured itself… and everything vanished, as if it was nothing there.