Blood dribbled from tan lips, the soft pitter patter of it continuously dropping onto the solid metal floor being the only sound between the four friends.
Shadow had become limp after a while, using his last source of Chaos Energy to try and attempt to manipulate this worlds Chaos, but to no avail. This world, this dimension, wasn't like theirs. It was the exact opposite and trying to force their chaos into his body was only causing more harm than good.
It was time to accept his fate.
Shadow the hedgehog had served his purpose: keeping Maria safe.
Even if it wasn't his Maria, he still kept his promise and in turn sacrificed his life to save her. Sonic was going to be okay, he was sure of it. The hero would move on and live his life. Maria and his doppelgänger were back home and hopefully would stay safe.
Rouge was going to be sad, of course, but she'd move on. Find new friends.
That was okay. He was sure it was okay. Even if it wasn't okay, Shadow would act like it was until he couldn't keep his heart beating.
Although he wouldn't admit it, he loved living. He loved life and all it had to offer.
But saving Maria was his main priority. It was the whole reason he was created in the first place.
If his mission was complete after all these years, why did he feel like he was leaving behind unfinished business?
Using a decent amount of his strength, the black hedgehog slowly opened his eyes, looking towards his boyfriend. The blue hedgehog in question stared blankly at the bullet holes and exit wounds. His once lively green eyes seemed dull and bleak. His muzzle was paler than usual and his ears dropped to the sides along with his tail sagging. Shadow's own blood pools were soaking into the knees of his cobalt lover, the hedgehog either uncaring or it was unnoticed.
Using just his eyes to look at the younger dimensional version of himself, he noticed the black hedgehog had been shot once but had since then healed from the minor wound. He stared at Maria, watching her cry at the sight of Shadow lying on his deathbed. Little Shadow seemed unfit to care for her emotionally as he had never really been shown much affection himself.
Turning slightly to look at Maria now, he saw her sad blue eyes dropping tear after tear at the sight of his dying form. Her hands covered her face but he could still see the tears flowing down her cheeks and dropping into the pool of blood below.
The black hedgehog gave out a silent grunt, using all of his strength to pull his Chaos Energy to try and fix his battle wounds once again.
To no ones surprise, it didn't work.
A single tear dropped from the ebony hedgehogs eyes. He could feel his body getting weaker with every passing second. Who knew dying took so long.
As blurry vision slowly started to creep in from the corners of his eyes, he noticed Sonic, the brave hero he fell in love with, was trembling. Tears free falling from his tightly shut eyes. The bio-hog could basically see the pure Chaos energy radiating from the blue hedgehog from his emotions being surpressed.
Wait.
Shadow tried to speak but his body was too weak, tried to reach out to touch Sonic, but that didn't happen either. He tried to tell his cobalt lover that he could heal himself.. if only he could get a hold of Sonic's energy.
In all the commotion and anarchy, Shadow has completely forgotten that Sonic was pure Chaos Energy! Sonic produced his own source of Chaos Energy while Shadow had to rely on the Chaos emeralds or the Master Emerald for his power source. Even in this unknown dimension, Sonic's body was still able to produce his own energy.
The dying male tried to speak again only for his voice to come out as a heavy exhale as his eyes slowly closed. Sleep becoming too unbearable and his body fell unconscious, completely limp.
Maria sobbed harder, feeling what seemed like the life leaving the boys body. She slowly walked over to her dimension's Shadow and kneeled down, holding him close as she cried. Little Shadow wrapped his arms around her tightly, wanting the hug to tell her that she was safe in his arms throughout this tough time.
Noticing the shift in movement from Maria, Sonic opened his eyes to sadly gaze over his presumably dead lover. The cobalt hedgehog crawled on his hands and knees towards his body.
With his ears flat against his head as tears flowed down his cheeks, Sonic placed a gentle hand on Shadow's chest. A weird pulling sensation overcame his palm and Sonic quickly pulled it away, inspecting his palm to see if there was something wrong with it.
Nothing.
Thinking nothing of it, he placed his hand against his chest once again and again, the same sensation. It was soft, gentle as if it was afraid to even pull at whatever it was pulling. As the moments passed by, the pulling sensation became stronger, almost like he had a magnet under his skin that was attracting a similar magnet in Shadow's chest.
Before he could mentally question it, a loud, audible snap came from the ebony hedgehog's chest and red eyes shot open as the said male could feel his broken rib painfully repairing itself inside his body. Although he was able to pull out Sonic's energy, he couldn't pull too much at once otherwise it could put his boyfriend in danger. For now, he fixed the more minor injuries to be safe. A broken rib bone was the most minuscule problem along with through-and-through bullet entrance and exit wounds.
"Shadow!" Sonic yanked his hand away from his lover, unknowingly retracting his only energy source.
This exclamation caught the attention of Maria and Little Shadow who turned towards the duo on the floor. Shadow only bad the strength to look at Sonic, the feeling of his energy source retreating made him groan softly. His eyes begging Sonic to place his hand back on his chest above his heart.
Not catching on, Sonic nonetheless leaned down, placing his forehead against Shadow's and his hand on his chest,"I thought you were gone forever! I'm so glad you're going to be okay!"
Shadow's needing body pulled on as much Chaos Energy as he could without damaging his boyfriend, his voice was shaking as he spoke,"t-touch... me.."
Sonic shot up, his face as red as Knuckles fur,"w-what? Why?"
"No.. y-you perv.." Shadow took a deep beath, his body still trembling,"your chaos.. energy. I can.. use I-it."
Sonic looked puzzled,"you can do that?"
Feeling the weakness resume, Shadow tried to speak quickly,"I can.. but I need you to place your hand on me. I-I can.. only take a little at a time otherwise.. you'll be in danger.."
Nodding, the cobalt hedgehog placed his hand in Shadow's. The now familiar pulling sensation returned and he could feel some of his Chaos Energy draining by as little as possible, almost enough to make him forget he was losing energy at all. After five minutes of slowing retaining Sonic's energy, Shadow was finally able to slowly sit up. His right arm had a bullet pierced though the bone and nerves that he was unable to repair at the moment, so it became noticeably limp as he sat on the floor.
His muzzle was pale due to the loss of blood, but his strength was slowly returning as he held onto Sonic's hand with his left. After ten more minutes passed, Maria and Sonic helped the wounded ebony hedgehog to his feet. He couldn't use Sonic's energy to heal himself anymore, but used it to be able to walk and gain some strength.
"We need to get moving. I might have scared off the guards for now, but I don't know when they'll be back," Sonic placed his arm around Shadow's waist to help him stand and walk while Maria held onto Little Shadow's hand.
"I.. I believe we need to take the escape pods to go down to Earth. From there, I could find Grandpa. He had gone down the day before the soldiers came, I believe he was going to meet with other scientists," the young girl turned to the hedgehog she held on to, he was being more quiet than usual and it made her anxious.
Nodding, the blue hedgehog held onto Shadow tighter,"right. Let's go."
