Disclaimer: I don't own Sonic the Hedgehog or anything associated with him.
A/N: This is kind of a filler chapter for what Sonic remembers about Metal's death and how it leads up to Shadow's. If you've seen the movie, you don't really need to read this chapter (it's not really vital to the story)... but you might want to anyway.
Sonic walked inside the house. He didn't even bother to check on Shadow, who was at the moment asleep in Sonic's favorite chair.
Sonic made his way to the back of the room, where he opened a door that led further into South Island's mountain. He plodded his way to his own room, which had been abandoned for years.
He sat down in his second-favorite chair.
'Metal...' he thought...
~*~
It all started so easily...
Ojisan, that old owl, coming to South Island, telling us that the President, or rather the President of that time, wanted us to come to the capitol...
Instead of the President, we met Eggman instead, who had the President and his daughter Sara hostage...
Eggman told us about a Dark Eggman, who had kicked him out of his Eggman Land. He told me and Tails to go stop the Egg Generator, which would explode at sunrise if we didn't stop it.
We got to Eggman Land... we stopped the generator...
...we met Metal.
~*~
They were at the North Pole. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Eggman, Sara... and Metal.
Knuckles had informed the President, and at the same time inadvertently both Sonic and Metal (for Sonic was listening, and anything Sonic heard Metal could too) about the planet's weak spot, a giant glacier at the North Pole. Below the glacier, and through the ice bridges that held the continents together, ran rivers of magma, like blood vessels throughout a body.
If the glacier was punctured... magma would pour out and melt the glacier and the ice bridges too... the continents would no longer be connected... the planet's rotation would hurl them off into space...
So Metal had taken off for the North Pole, Sonic following closely.
But not closely enough. Metal had already broken a hole through the glacier. And the only thing he wanted now was to destroy Sonic. While the two hedgehogs fought, Knuckles dug through the ground, stopping the magma from reaching the surface of the ice.
The planet was seemingly saved. But was Sonic?
Battered, bruised, and in a lot of overall pain, Sonic finally almost fell to Metal's robotic strength... until Tails short-circuited Metal, using the robot's own brainwaves.
A last Spin Attack... and Metal was thrown far off into the distance.
But at that moment, the President and Ojisan had shown up in a hovercraft, unintentionally crashing into the glacier. The hovercraft's position put it in a dangerous position; if the magma touched it, it would explode...
Sonic tried to make his way to the hovercraft... but an ever-so-persistent Metal blocked his path...
Knuckles, who had finished digging, flew to the hovercraft in an attempt to punch it open.
Sonic finally threw Metal off. Metal crashed into the hovercraft...
When the smoke cleared, Metal was seen carrying Ojisan and the President. He dumped them at Sonic's feet, then fell into the lava pit...
Despite his own injuries and pain, Sonic ran to the edge himself. Knuckles followed Sonic in a panic.
Sonic's eyes widened at the sight of the robot, lying dangerously close to the lava. "Metal!!" He slid down the side of the pit and reached for Metal.
"Sonic, don't, he'll pull you under with him!" Knuckles grabbed Sonic, stopping him from going any further.
Sonic kept struggling. So did Metal.
Their hands almost touched...
...until Metal slapped it away.
In shock, Sonic stared into the red eyes...
...and heard Metal's last thought...
..."There is only one Sonic..."
And the robot slid, maybe helplessly, maybe unable to change his fate, or maybe on purpose, into the sizzling hot lava.
The heat stung Sonic's face as he watched Metal melt into the lava. "Metal!" he shouted, trying again to reach.
Knuckles held him back. Sonic watched helplessly as a part of him died...
...the red eyes faded into the red lava.
"METAL!!!"
~*~
And then, those same, sad red eyes...
"Shadow..." Sonic stared, from the edge of the colony... from the edge of a safe haven...
"Maria... this is right..." Shadow's words left his mouth, as if being dragged by it.
Sonic could see the dark elements of space, trying to undo Shadow's very being... but the aura of the Chaos Emeralds, still, if faintly, powering his Super form, keeping them away...
A purple light seemed to shine from the silver hedgehog himself, until he faded from view... the light disappearing in a quick sparkle.
Sonic swallowed, his eyes not leaving the spot where Shadow vanished, then backed away to report the sad news to his friends.
Shadow the Hedgehog... was dead.
~*~
"Only he wasn't," Sonic said, still sitting in his second-favorite chair. "He lived... how, I'll probably never know, but the faker lived..."
Sonic's words floated down the stairs, into Shadow's ears. He shook his head.
"I've really got to stop eavesdropping..." he muttered to himself.
"Faker..." he muttered. "I..." he stopped, unable to continue.
~*~
Listening to Sonic speaking about that Metal... whoever that was.
History had replayed itself, with both of their 'deaths'...
Shadow walked outside. It had been one day since they'd arrived at the island. The sun was rising.
With the rising sun, Shadow felt rising anger.
"Why am I alive?!" he shouted at the sun. He quickly looked back to make sure he hadn't woken anyone up.
"Why am I alive..." he muttered to the ground.
"Earth is so perfect... so perfect, I don't see how anyone living here could be unhappy. So my mission is complete. I saved Earth... what more could Maria want of me?" Shadow stamped the ground in frustration. "I want to go... I'm tired. I've lived my life, and it was a good life. I saved Earth. I made everyone happy. So why can't I join you..." he asked the indigo sky, which was slowly being washed over with pink and orange light.
"Unless..."
:::"Do you really believe that you're the real Shadow?"
"No doubt..."
"Even your memories might not be real...":::
"If Maria never told me to save the Earth... if I really didn't have a mission... if she never met me...
"...then I have no right to go to her."