Ruined world, outside at the edge of the base

Nothing Shadow or Rouge said could have prepared Sonic for the gutpunch of witnessing what had become of the outside world.

It looked how Sonic imagined a place hit by a nuclear bomb might appear - everything seemed scorched, devoid of life both floral and faunal. The hillside the base stood on was completely barren, and worst of all, the city down the hill looked like nothing but a shell, the buildings empty and burned, long ago abandoned. A lid of dark clouds covered the sky, not a speck of blue to be seen, and the air was hot, far hotter than it should have been for summer.

"This is the distant future - far removed from our own timeline. Be prepared for what that means," Shadow had told Sonic and his friends before they left the interior of the base. But Sonic had always imagined the future to be filled with wondrous new technologies and thriving cities, not… this.

He forced himself to swallow the nausea that had risen up in his stomach and turned back to the others, still staring out at the devastated landscape with looks of horror and dismay, and cocked his hip to one side.

"Eggman's got some nerve dropping us here," he said, putting a hand on his hip. Tails glanced at him and Sonic watched his fluffed-up fur flatten a little. Good. Sonic's nonchalant tone seemed to be reassuring him, even though inside Sonic felt just as disturbed by the sight.

"And that down there," Knuckles said, looking from the city back to Shadow and Rouge, who were simply watching the others' reactions, "that's Soleanna's New City? That's what - what's left of it?"

Shadow nodded, and Knuckles' gaze darkened. He kicked at a rock nearby, sending it flying down the slope, the clattering somewhat loud in the silent landscape.

"Wonderful. So how can we get back to our own timeline?"

Shadow's brow furrowed, and he stared for a moment out at the skyline. "I've never actually willingly time-traveled before, Knuckles."

Sonic shook his head. "C'mon, Shads," he said. "There's always a way outta a bad situation."

Shadow's gaze turned skyward for a fraction of a second, and Sonic realized what he was thinking of - Sonic's own escape from certain death a year ago, in the pod ejected from the Space Colony ARK.

He looked back to the group, expression unreadable, and said, "My guess would be we need a space-time rift, but creating one requires a lot of energy. You say the doctor's machine can control time, but clearly it's no longer functional, not in this timeline."

Rouge nodded. "Completely busted."

Sonic cocked his head at Shadow. "So are you saying that using your Chaos Control can…?"

Shadow folded his arms, his gaze unnervingly piercing as always. "Yes - but my abilities alone would be insufficient."

Sonic waited a few seconds for him to say it, but Shadow kept quiet, their eyes meeting in a battle of will. Finally, a smirk crossed Sonic's face, and he relented. "All right, Shadow. Looks like we're gonna have to work together to make that happen."

Shadow nodded silently, and Sonic caught Rouge's eye - she was grinning too, though doing her best to hide it.

"Guess that means we need to find Chaos Emeralds, huh?" Knuckles said, breaking the moment. "In a future like this, would they even still exist?"

"Chaos Emeralds are powerful objects connected to this world and separate from time and space," Shadow said. "That's why they are so easily able to manipulate it. If they exist in the past, they exist here still."

"I think Knuckie's just worried I'm gonna find them before he gets a chance to flex his treasure-hunting muscles." Rouge winked at Knuckles, whose face went beet red.

"I think you're just worried I'm a better treasure hunter than you," he said, glaring at her. She only continued to smile, unfazed. Sonic stifled a snort.

"Hey, guys," Tails said, and Sonic realized he'd been quiet this whole time. While the others had been talking, he appeared to have been tapping away at the small device on his wrist, normally hidden just beneath the cuff of his glove. "If we're looking for Chaos Emeralds, we're in luck. I'm getting a faint reading from the city down there - it's a bit weird, there's a lot of background interference, but there's definitely something powerful down there. It might do us good to check things out."

"Sounds good to me," Sonic said, already casting about for a fast way down the slope. He could always run, but that ran the risk of tripping and tumbling down the hillside painfully, not to mention the factor of Tails and Knuckles being able to keep up…. His eyes alit on a flat, partially rusted scrap of metal nearby, obviously having peeled off the base's outer wall from age and heat long ago. He grinned and strode over to pick it up.

"Sonic," Knuckles said, watching him with some amount of apprehension. "If you're doing what I think you're doing…."

Sonic twisted his upper body around to wink at Shadow, still standing in place with his arms folded, watching him. "Don't be late," he said, and dropped the scrap on the ground, placing his foot on it.

"Same to you," Shadow said behind him - then Sonic kicked off, sliding down the slope, whooping and hollering even as the city drew rapidly closer and the sheer amount of destruction became starkly apparent.

What happened here…?

Shadow watched the others race off after Sonic, Tails lifting Knuckles in his hands and gliding down the slope in a hurry in the direction of the ruined city. After a moment he realized that Rouge was no longer at his side.

He turned to see her some ways away, sitting on the hood of a dusty, ash-covered vehicle he hadn't noticed previously, staring at him. The vehicle looked to be some sort of GUN buggy, an all-terrain model, open air and just the right size for a couple of Mobians - built for their use, clearly. Shadow paced up, looking it over.

"I heard about these in the past," Rouge said as he walked around the buggy, inspecting its state. "But they hadn't been developed yet. It was only recently that GUN started actively recruiting Mobians at all - that's why you don't see many of us around in the bases."

"This looks like it might still run," Shadow said. "We could use it to get down the slope more easily." He climbed into the driver's seat and began feeling around for a set of keys while Rouge twisted around to lie on her stomach, watching him at work.

"Flying not work for you, handsome?"

"I assume you don't want to carry me all the way down, and unless you've figured out a way to give me wings in short order, I don't think that's a viable option." Shadow rooted around in between the seats and came up with the keys he was looking for. He stuck them in the ignition and turned - and the engine sputtered to life, sending Rouge leaping into the air like a startled cat as the hood vibrated beneath her.

"Hey, you coulda warned a girl first." She flapped her wings and plopped herself into the seat next to him as Shadow found the gas and sent the vehicle rolling forward.

The slope was steep, but the buggy made things more tolerable. Skating might have been faster, but Shadow had to admit he enjoyed driving. If anything, it made this alien place just a little more comfortable for him, a bit less treacherous, a bit less unfamiliar. With Rouge sitting at his side, one arm out and staring out at the landscape, he could almost imagine they were on a simple mission for GUN out in the wilds of their own time. The feeling faded quickly, however, as he drove them closer to the city, and they got a good look at how much worse it appeared up close.

Every building was a mere empty shell, most windows shattered - even the concrete looked scorched. Shadow gritted his teeth at the sight and Rouge went somewhat quiet next to him. However, he didn't find himself truly caught off guard until they reached the city outskirts and he had to slam on the brakes to avoid rolling off a dropoff.

Shadow locked the brakes and he and Rouge hopped out, staring at the drop beneath them into the city.

"Looks like we won't be taking a drive along the old streets," Rouge said, leaning forward to see how far down it went.

Something was bothering Shadow, like an itching in his spines - something felt wrong about this place, now, but what could it be, what is it what is this weird nagging at the back of my mind….

Next to him, the buggy exploded.

Rouge leapt into the air to avoid the worst of the blast, but Shadow only had time to throw up a hand to shield his eyes. The sting of hot metal burning as it shattered and hit his arms and torso made him hiss in pain. He dropped his hand and stared into the inferno consuming the buggy - an inferno that was taking shape, forming a head, strange orange mandibles, a serpentine body of fire….

Heat erupted around him on all sides, and he whirled to see more of the fiery worms, at least three times taller than him, erupting from the ground, surrounding him, hissing and crackling malevolently, balls of molten rock and fire forming in each of their throats. Shadow bared his teeth and wasted no time, firing one Chaos spear straight into the mouth of one, dodging a fireball from another - and as he rolled back to his feet he suddenly found his wrists seized in a tight grip from above. For a split second he kicked in an automatic defense, then realized what was happening as the ground fell away from his feet, the monsters letting out distorted screeches as Rouge whisked him away high into the air.

He had barely opened his mouth to protest when she cut him off, eyes focused straight ahead. "Don't argue, if that's what you're thinking - we're here looking for a Chaos Emerald, not a fight. The last thing we need is to have you burning yourself into a coma before we get out of here."

Shadow considered this for a second, then nodded, dangling high above the ground by his wrists as he was. "Thank you."

"No problem, sweetheart." Rouge rose higher into the air, carried aloft by a draft of unexpectedly hot air, until she was level with the roof of a nearby skyscraper, still standing tall even despite the damage. She set Shadow down lightly on the roof and alighted next to him a moment later, and together they walked to the edge, studying the scene laid out in front of them. Shadow swallowed at the sight, and he heard Rouge's sharp intake of breath.

Staring out together at the deep, glowing pits of lava bubbling in the giant cracks running through the streets of the city, Rouge said softly, "I think we might have our first clue about just what kind of apocalypse this was."

"The whole city's on fire!"

Sonic had surfed the slope into the city only to find himself plunged into utter chaos. Fires raged amidst the buildings, lava boiling in deep cracks separating chunks of the city from each other, and perhaps worst of all, the place was crawling with monsters - monsters made of smoke and fire and hot, melting rock, in the shape of phoenixes, lizards, giant worms.

He found out the hard way not to touch them when a simple homing attack left one of his spines scorched, the side burned off completely.

"Sonic!" he heard someone cry from behind him. Tails and Knuckles had managed to catch up, and together they stood in a line, facing down the monsters Sonic had tried to take on alone.

"You okay?" Knuckles said, glaring at the worm and the strange lizards accompanying it, which were hissing and sparking while the air around them shimmered with heat.

"I'm fine," Sonic said. "But we can't touch 'em directly unless we wanna get burned."

"Sounds like fun."

Sonic tapped the toe of his shoe against the rough pavement and charged the monsters again, this time aiming a kick at the worm's face. The soles of his shoes were built to withstand the friction generated by his speed, and he was hoping that was enough to prevent them melting on contact with the hot rock of the monsters' bodies.

Slam! With a screech, the worm crumpled and dissipated into nothing but smoke and flashes of fire, fading into the air around it. Sonic landed and whirled immediately - one of the lizards leapt at him, and on instinct he dropped to the ground, holding his body up with his hands on the ground behind him and kicking upward. His feet launched the thing over him entirely and sent it flying into a broken light post, where it too dissolved into nothingness.

Rings exploded to his other side, and Sonic turned in time to see the last lizard vanish, hit by one of Tails' Chaos bombs. Tails landed next to him, his eyes wide, as Knuckles strode up from further down the street where Sonic had left him. "What were those things?" Tails said, his voice wavering slightly.

"I dunno, buddy," Sonic said. "But I have a feeling there's a lot more where those came from."

"This whole place is messed up," Knuckles muttered, glancing around. "I've never seen anything like it."

"I think we're gonna have to handle things a little different than we normally do," Sonic said. "I'll handle most of the fighting - looks like my shoes can handle the heat - but we should probably avoid those things whenever we can. Tails, you chip in with a bomb now and then, but you should stay up high, scout ahead, find us safe paths to take. And Knuckles, you're on emerald detail. Those are all we need to get outta this mess and go back home."

Knuckles nodded, though Sonic had a feeling he was a little bitter about being unable to properly fight.

"We just gotta stick together." Sonic flashed the others a smile, and Tails perked up just a little. "We've made it through tougher situations, right? No problem!"

"Sure," Tails said. "Like… when Chaos destroyed Station Square!"

"Yeah! Now let's get goin' - unless you want Shadow and Rouge to beat us to the punch, Knuckles."

"No way." Knuckles brushed past him, and Sonic grinned.

"That's what I like to hear."

Rouge was sweating profusely within a minute of entering the city limits. The heat was unbearably high, even this far above the lava pits. She and Shadow stayed mainly near the tops of the skyscrapers that still stood intact, Rouge scouting from overhead and giving Shadow a lift from building to building when needed, always keeping her eye out for the glimmer of Chaos Emeralds amidst the wreckage.

For the most part, she found herself following wherever Shadow led. She doubted he even realized it himself, but he seemed to be following a path, having some unconscious, intuitive sense of where the emeralds were, probably due to his own innate connection to Chaos energy. More than once she noticed him fiddling with the rings locked around his wrists as though they itched.

She tried to remain focused, staring around, keeping her eyes peeled, but something nagged at the back of her mind, and she finally found herself unable to keep quiet.

"Shadow," she said as she carried him, hands gripping his tightly as she flapped her way over a gap between two buildings, "I wanted to ask…."

"The wind is picking up," he said, dropping from her grip a few feet above the roof of the building and landing easily. Rouge frowned and landed next to him.

"Shadow," she repeated, and his ears twitched as though uncomfortable. "Do you know anything about this Mephiles character?"

"No," he said, his voice somewhat tight, a tone she recognized. "I know nothing about him." He turned away from her, scanning the horizon.

Rouge stepped into the corner of his vision. "All right, big guy, just asking. He just… talked like he knew you. And well, he looked like you. It was more than a little creepy."

"Like looking in a mirror." Shadow's eyes were unfocusing - he was getting in one of his moods, faraway, brooding, mind full of jumbled thoughts and confusing noise. Rouge stepped closer, further into his line of sight, and he took a breath, appearing to calm somewhat.

"I've never seen him before," he said, his voice somewhat steadier. "But we know from this venture that he can control time, at least to some extent." He glanced over at her. "Perhaps I meet him for the first time in this timeline, or some other. We have no way of knowing at this point."

Rouge nodded and sighed. "Yeah. We should probably just focus on getting out of here."

Shadow opened his mouth, and then his eyes flicked past her and darkened. Rouge spin just as he drew back his hand, and watched at the phoenix that had been flapping up to her silently from behind was speared straight through the chest with a bolt of energy. It poofed away in a flash of smoke and Rouge coughed as the wind blew it back into her face.

"Hey, thanks, handsome," she said, turning back to him. That was when she realized the wind was still blowing. Shadow was right, it had been picking up a bit before, but now….

"I think we should get down," Shadow said, grabbing her hand. He began to pull her to the edge of the building, and that was when she saw it - the sight chilling her blood even as the heat and ash of the city caught in her throat.

A massive tornado, made not of air but of flame, tearing its way through the city, sucking up all manner of debris in its wake, heading this way….

A direct shot of adrenaline hit Rouge like an arrow to the heart, and she gasped for air, seizing Shadow's wrists in her grip once more and taking off like a shot, diving as soon as she'd cleared the edge of the roof. Shadow grunted in surprise, but she pulled up and managed to reverse course, shooting with him straight through a broken window and yanking him back from the opening as soon as her feet touched the ground.

He stumbled a little, but seemed to realize her intentions, backing up with her until they'd rounded a corner away from the window, the noise and heat picking up outside. They crouched on the floor against the wall, Rouge's ears straining to hear anything above the sheer cacophony from the tornado, ash and dust whipping through the building's interior and stinging her skin as the tornado passed the building by - and then Rouge noticed Shadow staring at the opposite wall, once again fiddling with his inhibitors.

Even despite their situation, a small smile crossed her face.

Sonic had grabbed Tails' and Knuckles' wrists, one in each hand, as soon as he'd seen the tornado coming their way. Both had made little noises of confusion, followed by yelps of shock as he took off, increasing speed as gradually as he dared, already gunning hard for Mach 1 once again. He hoped they could handle the acceleration - but they had to run.

He didn't want himself and his friends to end their existences in the flames of the apocalypse.

"Sonic!" Tails cried from behind him, his voice high, whether from fear or discomfort Sonic couldn't tell. And he couldn't answer, instead swerving crazily to avoid the flying, smashed debris of a car that had just inexplicably crashed from the sky into the pavement just in front of him. Breathing quickly, heavily, Sonic chanced a glance back - and what he saw made his eyes widen, pushing his speed even higher, almost to its limits.

"That tornado's carrying a car!" he shouted above the deafening noise.

Smash! Another car, then another, then a chunk of debris, a pane of glass that shattered on impact, slicing a clean line along the top of his right shoe - not just one car, but dozens, everything in its path, every bit of loose debris in the area. Sonic glanced desperately from side to side, looking for somewhere else to turn, but by some awful stroke of fate, the tornado had caught them on a highway stretching along high above a pit of lava, devoid of curved, of escape routes.

So Sonic ran, and ran, and felt the boom as he crossed the speed of sound once again, and everything was smooth as he flew down the road faster than he ever had in his life, leaping over any debris that the tornado threw in his path, skidding to one side to collect the golden rings -

- wait, rings?

He saw his chance flash by in a split second and took it - a highway exit, leading down into the cityscape, and skidded so hard the pavement smoked in his wake. Sonic collapsed to the ground just behind a building, choking and panting, Tails and Knuckles lying in a disheveled heap just behind him. On the highway they had just left, the tornado roared past, still flinging debris, but leaving them untouched from where they sat.

Knuckles coughed heavily and shook his head, disentangling himself from Tails. "Sonic," he said, his voice strained, "do not ever do that again without warning me first."

"I second that," Tails said, brushing his fingers through his fur to remove any stray debris, "but I also have to admit, that was pretty exhilarating."

Sonic grinned at the pair of them. "Hey, see, Tails knows where it's at."

He got to his feet, the rings gone by now, their energy absorbed into his body. On a hunch he tugged Elise's handkerchief off his arm. The cloth was crusted with dried blood, but his arm looked almost back to normal, the rings working their magic and healing his injuries.

"Is that… a royal handkerchief?" Knuckles said, staring at it. "Elise gave that to you? Looks like you got hurt pretty bad."

"I doubt she's going to want it back in that state, Sonic," Tails said, getting to his feet and wrinkling his nose at the blood on it. Sonic frowned.

"Yeah, you're right. Seems wrong to just leave it behind here, though…."

He tucked it away on his person and glanced around. "There were rings back there. If I know anything, that means Chaos Emeralds, somewhere nearby. I think we're on the right track."

Tails fumbled with his watch, and his eyes lit up. "You're right! The reading is stronger here - I think there must be one within a few blocks, at most!"

Sonic and Knuckles exchanged a grin. "Good going, buddy," Sonic said.

Knuckles chuckled to himself. "Oh, I can't wait to see the look on Rouge's face when she realizes we found it first…."

Tails muttered something, still staring at his device, then abruptly spun and began to follow whatever it was telling him. Knuckles shrugged and followed after him, with Sonic bringing up the rear, still a little on edge about more rogue fire tornadoes. Tails led them through the streets, turned a corner, going back the way they'd come while running, a scorched-looking cliff rising above them. They must be all the way back at the city limits, some distance east of where they'd started, if Sonic was reading his surroundings right.

Tails suddenly sucked in a breath and veered right, into an alley that gave Sonic the strangest case of déjà vu. They entered a tunnel carved into the rock wall, and Sonic was just opening his mouth, suddenly realizing with a jolt where they'd ended up - when a voice cut him off.

There were others in the teleporter room.

Sonic stepped in front of his friends, Tails nearly running into his back in his intense concentration on the locator signal, and put a finger to his lips. Then he crept up to the door, flattening his back against the wall just to the side of it and listening intently.

He could hear a faint hum, as though from a concentrated energy source, followed by what sounded like two people gasping in shock. "What… was that?" asked a voice - a voice that sounded all too familiar.

"That was the Iblis Trigger," said a deeper voice, one that sent a shiver down Sonic's spine for reasons he couldn't quite describe. "Your target - if you accept this task."

"Silver." Another voice, this one higher, more feminine. "We've been searching for a way to end this nightmare for years. Now we're being given a chance to end it before it even begins. I say we take his offer."

There was a pause, and Sonic's curiosity got the better of him. He edged to the side, peeking his eyes just over the edge of the doorframe to peer inside. He was right, it was Silver, and standing alongside him, a cat in a tattered purple coat, and….

Shadow?

No, not quite - the voice was off, and this hedgehog looked as though all the color had been sucked out of him - but the gloves, the shoes, even the shape and markings on the spines were identical. Sonic couldn't see his face from here, but the resemblance was downright eerie. And he was holding a Chaos Emerald - the purple one….

Silver looked troubled, biting his lip, his ears drooping, as though considering something painful. But after a second, he raised his gaze. "All right. We'll do it."

"Agreed," the cat said evenly.

Not-Shadow nodded and said, "I will send us back in time to the point when the Iblis Trigger was still alive. But you should know - I can only bring us to his last known location before the disaster. You will only have three days to complete your task - else, the Flames of Disaster will be released at sundown on the third day, and our chance at saving this world will be gone."

Sonic watched as Silver swallowed. "And uh, saying we do fail the first time - could you just bring us back to… try again?"

Not-Shadow gave him a piercing look, and Silver's gaze dropped again. "I would hope that you're not anticipating failure before your task has even begun, or else I have chosen the wrong champions for the cause…."

Silver averted his eyes. "Uh - no, of course, uh…."

"We won't fail," said the cat.

"Then prepare yourselves."

Then Not-Shadow raised both hands in front of his face, and a ball of strange, swirling purple energy appeared in the center of the room. It grew, spreading over the forms of the three other Mobians, and flashed brightly. Sonic flinched, and when he opened his eyes once again, the room was empty.

He glanced over at his companions, who had also taken up positions around the door and watched the scene alongside him. After a few moments of silence, they all relaxed, and Sonic led the way as they stepped cautiously into the now-empty teleporter room.

Time and abandonment had not treated the room well, but I t appeared to have been mostly shielded from the devastation of the outdoors - the computer was still humming against one wall, data still displayed on its monitor, and the metal of the floor and walls was rusted but intact.

"What the…" Knuckles muttered, glancing around. "Who was that guy?"

"He looked just like Shadow," Sonic said. "And I don't mean 'looks kinda sorta like him so let's accuse him of a crime he didn't commit and throw him in jail in Shadow's place,' I mean… almost exactly."

"Guys - th-this is terrible!"

Sonic and Knuckles' heads snapped around. Tails was already tapping away at the console in front of the display, and his voice was tinged with horror.

"Whoever that was left a lot of information open on this computer," he said as his friends stepped up beside him. "According to the data, back in our time, the princess died when she was kidnapped by Eggman. Apparently Eggman's battleship e-exploded…."

Sonic's stomach dropped unpleasantly.

"When?"

"Two days after the Festival of the Sun," Tails said quietly, looking sick.

Sonic stared up at Elise's picture on the screen, shaking his head, awful feelings creeping up throughout him. Of all the days….

"So if we don't return to before that moment," Sonic said, "Elise will die on board Eggman's battleship. And that just so happens to be the day that…."

Sonic trailed off, frowning at the look on Tails' face.

"Hey, don't worry," he said, changing tactics and putting a hand on his shoulder. Tails looked up at him through blue eyes full of poorly-concealed fear. "We're gonna make it back, and we're gonna stop it."

"Definitely," Knuckles said, punching his fist into his palm. "And then we're gonna celebrate! Uh, right?"

"Yeah," Tails said after a second, nodding. "Okay." He pulled his glove cuff back again. "I think we should contact the others. The emerald we were following disappeared along with those others, and I'm not getting any other strong signals nearby."

Sonic glanced back at the screen, back at Elise's picture, and bit his lip with worry.

"Man," Knuckles muttered behind him, "I sure hope that after we lost that emerald, Rouge doesn't turn up with one of her own…."

"Ahh-ha-ha!"

Rouge hadn't felt this happy since Shadow had blasted her way into Eggman's stolen base after her. She practically skipped at his side, the green Chaos Emerald held up in front of her face, gazing reverently at her prize. She'd found it lying in a dusty corner of the building they'd taken shelter in once the tornado had passed, abandoned and forgotten by time. So far, Shadow hadn't asked her for it despite her inability to harness its powers, but that was just fine with her.

"My precious Chaos Emerald," she cooed as they walked through the streets of the city, which seemed to have cleared of monsters once the storm had passed. "You are all so beautiful."

The only point of beauty in a world otherwise devoid of it, a gorgeous spark of shimmering green in a cityscape of brown. She almost didn't notice as Shadow slowed next to her.

"Your mysterious brilliance…."

"Rouge," Shadow said suddenly, putting out a hand to halt her progress. She dropped the hand holding the emerald to her side, a little annoyed, but then her eyes widened at the sight of why he'd stopped her.

Unmoving in a shadowed corner, almost obscured behind a pile of rubble in the street, sat the familiar form of Omega. The red paint on his chassis was scratched and faded, and he was covered in a layer of thick dust and ash, but the form was unmistakable, the yellow Apotosi symbol on his shoulder still clear.

"Omega?" Rouge said, an unpleasant shock running through her. "What's he doing here?"

She rushed forward for a closer look. Omega's eyes were dark, weapons retracted. From behind her Shadow approached as well and paced around to the back, where he crouched and pressed at a panel set into the smooth metal. She knew that Omega had once taught him, far in the past, how to run diagnostics on his system. So she stood by, hugging her arms rather close in worry, the emerald in her hand momentarily forgotten.

After a few moments, Shadow sat back on his heels and let out a breath. "It seems he's in standby mode."

Rouge stared at him, at Omega, at the two closest friends she had in this world - one still fighting at her side, the other sitting discarded and ancient in a pile of rubble - and tucked the emerald away bitterly. For one brief moment, the wall she'd built to hold back her fears and worries about this world cracked. "What could have possibly happened to create this future?" she said, her voice breaking slightly.

Shadow just shook his head, his gaze fixed on the ground.

A beeping emanated from Rouge's wrist, and she automatically pressed a finger to it, to the button on the communicator resting underneath her long glove. "Yes, this is Rouge," she said, forcing herself to remain composed.

"Hi, it's Tails," the voice said through her hidden earpiece. "Listen, we found something, but it's a bit complicated. From what I'm seeing you're about the same distance from the edge of the city as we are - we should meet on the outskirts. I'll send you the coordinates."

"Understood. We'll be there in a minute."

Rouge cut the call and turned to Shadow, who hadn't moved. "It looks like Sonic and his friends have found something too. They want to meet up close by, at the edge of the city."

Shadow glanced at her, then his gaze slid back to Omega.

"Shadow, it's not like we can do anything for him now but move on."

His mouth twisted - he seemed to be biting the inside of his cheek - but after a few moments he nodded. "Yeah."

Whatever grief his facial expression lacked was conveyed through that one simple word.

Hard, so hard to leave a friend behind….

He turned and brushed past her, not unkindly, just sadly, and Rouge found herself hesitating before she following, sparing one last glance for her friend, sitting abandoned in a city long since burned to ashes. Her fists clenched at her side.

Whatever it takes, we're ending this.