Finding the bridge wasn't hard, the villain had put arrows on the walls directing him to it.
It was ignoring Dark and Ring's voices that was difficult.
So you rescued your little doll, big deal!
Just quit while you're ahead!
Sonic shook his head. "Leave me alone...!" He slowed his pace a little, "Dark Gaia, Chaos, Erazor, the Metarex...They all stood before me and fell... You two are not going to beat me either."
He knocked the door down then stepped forward, managing to stand upright despite a bout of dizziness threatening his equilibrium. "Eggman...! You've crossed the line!"
"Aww...is the little rodent upset about a little destruction?"
"You bombed those cities...for what!? To get my attention!?"
Eggman grinned madly. "You think you can stop my global conquest...you're wrong. Even if you stop me now, those scars will always be there...you'll always have me haunting you...!"
Sonic yelped as his nemesis knocked him from his feet in an unusually rapid move for the villain. He fell backward, his head hitting the wall and his eyes went blurry for a second. "Ugh...!"
"My my, Hedgehog. You don't seem well at all...fine by me. It makes this a lot easier..."
Eggman took a step forward, and Sonic pulled the gun from his holster.
He leaned against the wall, his body trembling from the draining energies as he pointed the gun at Eggman. "I c-can't let you h-hurt anyone else...!"
Eggman cackled. "Put the gun down, boy...we both know you don't have the guts to fire that thing. It's not in your nature!"
Put holes in that sucker!
He's right, Sonic...let us big boys handle mauling him!
Sonic struggled to focus as the negative energies ate at his strength and focus. This was it. Willpower was his greatest strength, perhaps that was enough. "You will no longer control me...! I'm not who I was before this started... Now GET OUT!" He screamed, then pulled the trigger.
Pain seared his body as the energies were expelled, screams like nobody had ever heard leaving his throat. Energy resembling white fire burned around him in a fiery orb, disintegrating the dark energies as they tried to escape, and he leaned his head back against the wall.
Be still, Master... The voice was soft and gentle, and Sonic saw a glittering, ghost-like form floating in front of him that resembled his super form. ...I will handle things from here...
"W-Who..."
Sonic's voice trailed off as his body slumped, and then in a flash, he vanished from the bridge.
There came a loud crash as the door was blasted open, a result of Shadow coming back for his doppelganger. He winced as he entered the bridge, the heat from the fire still lingering. "Sonic, I..." He looked around, but the only thing of Sonic he saw was the singed remains of his shoes.
He'd gotten Amy safely onto the shuttle, she was safe now. But it was too late for Sonic...He wasn't fast enough.
Eggman was dead in front of him, shot with the gun he'd given Sonic to use in case of an emergency. But his face was still smiling.
The whole thing was enough for Shadow to collapse onto his knees.
"Sonic...!" He whispered.
Shadow, what's going on? Tails asked.
Shadow hesitated in his response, not sure how Tails would react to his answer. "...Eggman's gone..." He whispered. "...and so is Sonic."
There was a long pause, during which Shadow looked for the Chaos Emerald Sonic had. It was nowhere to be found. "...The emerald's not here. Maybe he Chaos Controlled elsewhere."
Y-You think so...!? Tails' shaky voice told Shadow he was close to crying.
"...I hope so." He held his own Chaos Emerald, then closed his eyes, and pressed a button on the console before warping away.
The computer activated, red lights coming on. Self-Destruct Sequence initiated. Detonation in five...four...three...two...one.
The world both rejoiced, and mourned for many days. Their enemy was finally gone, but they'd lost a brave soul in the process.
A week passed, and Sonic hadn't shown up anywhere. His friends clung to hope, though. That was all they could do. Sonic was still out there, somewhere...
Tails sat at his desk, looking over the picture of him and his friends. Sonic was always smiling, always upbeat. That hadn't been him the past few weeks.
Then a soft thump and a yelp from outside caught his attention.
Could someone be identified by their yelps of surprise and shock? Yes, and Tails hadn't heard that one in a long time. Not since the Metarex Incident...
He stood up and hurried outside, staring at the shape in his yard. "...Cosmo!?"
He'd lost her to the galactic fight a few years before, and she'd left him a seed that had grown into a small tree.
But now here she was, standing right where the tree had been that morning. She'd fallen backward because her feet were buried in the dirt up to her mid shin, preventing her from moving.
She'd been the tree the whole time. And Tails could now see she was unclothed.
"Oh!" He looked away, then grabbed a tarp and wrapped it around her carefully. "Cosmo, you're back!"
"I... Guess so, Tails...!" Cosmo replied, blushing as Tails started digging her legs out. "What happened, exactly? Is everyone alright?"
"Uh...long story!"
She looked down at herself, blushing more. "Tails...what happened to my clothes!?"
"Don't really know." He finally got her feet free from the dirt, then took her hand. "Come on, I've got some extra clothes you can wear."
"Tails, what's going on? Is everything alright?"
Tails paused, looking back to her. "No...It's not alright... Eggman bombed cities, Sonic's dying and lost somewhere, Amy won't talk to me...!" He blinked back tears. "Everything is falling apart...!"
Cosmo hugged him tightly, ignoring her current near-nakedness. "Oh Tails, I'm so sorry...!"
"I'll be okay, though...I got you back...so Sonic must be okay...!"
Cosmo nodded, wiping away tears of her own. "Right...Uh, the clothes?"
"Right. Follow me."
A/N: One thing to know about me. I have a really hard time killing people, and even keeping people that are canonically dead as deceased.
