we're in the endgame now.


XXIII.

zenith (zēnəTH)

[noun]

the time at which something is its most powerful; a culmination.


To be warped into a small clearing along the side of Red Mountain, not a few miles out from Station Square, left him struck with a twisted familiarity that he'd almost forgotten.

Through the city streets, a dark, angry sea thrashed into and out of buildings and infrastructure, and red electricity pulsed beneath the waves. At the center of it all, Perfect Chaos towered over the tallest skyscrapers, bellowing out a ruptured and agonizing roar that Sonic felt pang in his bones. The god was sickly with the Phantom Ruby's power, far gone from its holiness and wisdom—reduced to a mindless beast, just as it was all those years ago.

Sonic turned his back to the scene to face his allies. There was no point bringing the entirety of the rebellion to a flooded city when only this team had any real powers or capabilities that could withstand a chance against Perfect Chaos. Shadow, Tails, Amy, Bunnie, Espio—even Rouge and Vector, despite not yet at a full recovery—met Sonic's gaze back with determination. Antoine was here too, having refused to leave his wife's side, as well as Gadget. The six Chaos Emeralds in their possession were displayed in their harmonious glory within their ramshackle circle, vibrating with dormant power in the grass.

"Hey!"

Nearly everyone flinched at the exclamation, but were relieved to turn and see Silver scaling down the mountain; supposedly, the other rebels that came with him were sent back to Knothole where they'd be safe. Silver looked elated to see his friends awaiting him, and he began to lose his focus as he stumbled down the mountainside, sometimes flashing turquoise to control his descent when needed. In his hand thrummed the steady, assured glint of an emerald.

"It's good to see you all!" Silver said energetically, tossing the emerald to Shadow, who placed it gently beside its brethren on the ground. Silver did not falter in his stride, marching through the small crowd and past Sonic, to point at the city. He was already down to business, no time for pleasantries, and Sonic could appreciate that. "You guys see that?"

His only real response was a mixture of murmurs as everyone inched closer and squinted their eyes in search of whatever Silver was referring to.

"That dome-shaped building," Silver supplied, and surely enough there it laid, nestled close to Chaos and hidden low behind clusters of skyscrapers; almost invisible. "I recognize it—from when I traveled to that other future. It's where the Null Space was last time, and I'm sure it's still in there. See how the roof almost seems to be caving in?"

He paused again for everyone to get a good look, and it was easy to notice how the tinted glass and dark walls composing its spherical structure were crumbling, buckling under some sort of pressure.

"I worry that means it's not contained at all this time around," Silver continued, an edge to his voice. "We'll need to go investigate it and make sure the portal doesn't expand any more. Who knows what'll happen if it does."

Silver then turned back to face the rest of the group, and he and the others continued to discuss who should go where, who should do what, and how the Chaos Emeralds came into play. But Sonic lingered close to the edge of the clearing, which dropped off to descend further down the mountain, and he watched.

Something was off. Had to be. Where was Eggman to gloat? Why would Perfect Chaos be left unattended, solely to wreak havoc on a city long abandoned since Eggman's takeover? Unless—something could have gone wrong…

His eyes flitted from the dome to Chaos, and then—he saw him.

Sonic narrowed his eyes, almost sure he was mistaking himself, but it had to be. A streak of red rocketed out of the dome and into the sky, not much larger than a speck in comparison to the behemoth that was Chaos. It stopped where it was, midair, motionless, and if Sonic didn't know any better he'd say that speck was staring back at him.

Infinite.

Bloodlust surged through him and he thought of everything—everybody lost to the war, all the damage done to the planet, the hurt brought upon his own friends and family, the arm that was stolen from him—and there was an unearthed simplicity, a beat of understanding that resonated through him.

He knew what he had to do.

Infinite wouldn't get away this time.

In a thoughtless, habitual practice, something untapped for so long and yet so soothingly familiar, Sonic called upon the Chaos Emeralds. He felt their heat and energy fire through the ground as they gravitated toward him, encircling him in light. Distantly, he knew his friends were yelling his name, demanding for him to stop, but he couldn't. Not when he was gifted another chance at fixing his mistakes.

Gold poured over him, and Super Sonic launched through the sky in a blast of might.


The tension that snaked between them was nearly impenetrable. Gadget shifted his feet and toyed subconsciously with the grappling hook on the cuff of his left glove. After everything that happened at the Chemical Plant, the mechanism had gotten jammed; Tails helped him fix it with ease, and yet nervosity dwelled in his chest from the precariousness of it all. Anything could go wrong, it was only a matter of time.

Like—like right now, as the group sat in this sort of stunned silence that he deliberately ignored, concentrating his eyes on his wrist instead and fiddling with nothing.

"Dammit." That voice would be Shadow's. His tone was always dangerous and low, but this time there was a particular bite to it. It was enough to make Gadget jump and glance up at him. Shadow began pacing.

"Why did he—" Rouge frowned, flexing her wings in anticipation, although one wing lacked a noticeable range of motion compared to the other. "What do we do now?"

All eyes were on Shadow, the new leader in Sonic's stead since he had just taken off without them about ten seconds ago, and for a split second Gadget felt bad for so much to be placed on others' shoulders. He didn't think he could ever handle that pressure.

Part of him wished he were more capable, anyways. He wanted to be reliable, and wasn't that something he was striving to achieve? Didn't he prove that, on the train? His plan was basically useless, a waste of time, and yet—

And yet, still, Amy had told him afterwards, that was some quick thinking back there. She had told him, you have some really good ideas in that head of yours. And maybe that was enough: to try, and to push.

"Is this not good?" Antoine inquired. "Sonic can beat Infinite, no?"

Shadow drove his palms against his temples. He grumbled out, "This wasn't the plan. He wasn't supposed to…"

Gadget didn't really know how Chaos Emeralds worked or what it was really going to take to defeat Infinite, but he knew enough from seeing all these people on the news growing up. He was in middle school when Perfect Chaos was defeated for the first time. Whenever the world seemed to be coming to an end, there was always a glowing hedgehog or two around to put a stop to it. And from what he heard—which really hadn't been very much to go off of—about what went down when Knuckles died, Sonic had come pretty close to beating Infinite. For the first time, ever. Which was pretty game-changing, all things considered.

Although from the looks of it, Gadget could surmise that Shadow had been hoping that Sonic would not be facing him alone this time.

"He can," Amy said to Antoine, and she stood so closely to Tails that their shoulders brushed, and Gadget could see how stiffly Tails carried himself. How his eyes were glued to the ground, and his jaw was set tight. "He can handle himself."

It was really a declaration to everyone. A reassurance against the wavering resolve of the group. Shadow looked at her, a war in his eyes, like he wanted to believe her but was also just—so scared. He nodded, though.

"I know."

For the first time since arriving here, Gadget found his voice, and it felt scratchy in his throat. He echoed Rouge from earlier. "So what do we do now?"

He looked out over the city again. Two distant streaks of gold and red flickered through the sky, clashing like comets.

Shadow grasped a ring on his wrist, twisted, and with a spark it fell to the ground. He did the same for the other, and energy began to lick at his fingertips like candlelight. He surveyed everybody with rising conviction.

"We improvise." Shadow met his gaze and Gadget felt his heart leap into his throat at the sudden attention on him. Shadow was—intimidating, to say the least. "You still have that grappling hook? You good at swinging around with it?"

Gadget swallowed thickly. "Um. Yeah, I think."

"Good. We need to take down Chaos, cut off Infinite's influence over it. You and Silver will stick with me. We'll take Chaos head on; just stay high up, don't get caught in the water below." Shadow then turned to Tails. "You take the Tornado," —because they'd brought the Tornado with them when they Chaos Controlled here— "and cover us."

Tails was already making to get into the pilot's seat when Amy grabbed his shoulder, tugging at him. "I'll go with you," she told him.

"The rest of you," Shadow finished, indicating Rouge, Espio, Vector, Antoine, and Bunnie, "are going to try to get to that dome and assess the situation with the Null Space. Don't draw attention to yourselves. Ideally, Infinite and Chaos will be too preoccupied with those of us on the offensive to notice you."

Espio anxiously flicked a kunai around in his palm. "You think Dr. Eggman is in there?"

Shadow looked over his shoulder, as if he could pinpoint the man amidst the flooding, ruined city, and then made an uncertain gesture. "I don't see him or any badniks out there, but who knows what he's up to. Be ready for anything."

"Everyone remember to use their ear pieces to communicate!" Bunnie hollered as they all began to split up into their groups. "We may be apart but we're a team, through and through!"

Those heading towards the dome began to descend down the mountain as an attempt for a more subtle approach. Amy was already climbing into the passenger's seat of the Tornado, but Tails hesitated, wandering to Shadow first.

Gadget heard Tails mumble to him, "Are you sure Sonic can handle Infinite alone?"

Shadow drew his brows into a hardened expression. "We have to trust that he can for now. No one else can turn Super now that he has the emeralds, so we would just be cannon fodder if we tried to step in."

Tails' face contorted into something approaching anger, but he said nothing more to Shadow. He did, after a moment, catch Gadget looking at him. The kit approached him slowly, and then held out a small, electronic contraption. It was the handlebar to his electric wispon.

"Trade with me," Tails said, and Gadget withdrew his flamethrower uncertainly. The weapons were swapped without his full awareness. Things felt like they were moving so quickly and Gadget felt like a marionette dangling by frayed threads, watching it all happen without any full control over himself. "It can be used as a whip or a sword. Toggle them with that switch on the handle," Tails explained, and then he started to tread backwards toward the plane. "It'll find much more use with you. I need to focus on flying, and fire is useless against water."

It took a second for all his words to sink in. Gadget felt a smile barely reach his face, and he nodded. "Thank you. Be careful."

"Same to you."

The Tornado took off into the sky within seconds.

Shadow and Silver were waiting for him by the edge of the cliff. Gadget felt a lump in his throat at the notion, but he stepped forward, trembling all the same. He wasn't sure if it was fear or eagerness. Probably both.

"Can you fly?" Silver asked him with furrowed brows.

"Um, no, but if you could just carry me to the nearest buildings I can take it from there."

"You got it."

Shadow glanced between them. "Ready? Just follow my lead."

Gadget's blood burned through his muscles and flesh, and he burned as Silver grabbed his hand and the three of them flew into the city, and he burned as they made a mad dash toward the wrathful god awaiting them.


Chaos energy always brought him a sense of calm. The red it drew out in his eyes was never angry, just a sharp, defined power. And his fur always ran a vivid, pure gold under the emeralds' influence. He, adjacently, felt like he was swimming through gold. Like he was breathing stardust.

He felt light and fast, like the entire universe itched beneath his fingertips, like he only needed to reach out just a little further to understand everything. And as he soared through the sky, bright gold and light and fast, it was almost like before. Before, before war, before pain, before anybody had to get hurt; before anybody had to die.

Infinite awaited him from across the battlefield, and beneath his stirring rage, Sonic just felt a rush of despair, a longing for the before.

He was so tired of fighting.

He was so tired of—just the way things always had to be. Because he couldn't lose anything, anybody else. He couldn't, he couldn't, he couldn't—

He needed to make it all stop.

Infinite, as it were, sounded like he was talking. To himself? Or perhaps to Chaos, trying to command it, while it snapped disobediently against the skyline and into the clouds. He hardly moved, simply drifting through the air, although he threw his focus frantically between Sonic and Chaos as Sonic drew closer, and Chaos did not relent in its tirade against the city.

Whatever he was saying, it was ultimately irrelevant. In seconds, Sonic was pushing straight into Infinite with his full body weight and velocity, as he hooked his arms around the villain's waist and stole him away. He felt Infinite thrash against him in protest, but Sonic persisted, careening the two of them forward until they crashed through an already half-shattered window of the nearest building in his path.

He lost his grip in the impact, and they both toppled to the ground as glass sprayed around them like crystalline rainfall.

Infinite got to his feet faster, though he paused as his knees nearly buckled and he attempted to briefly reacclimate himself. Sonic analyzed him from the floor. Infinite said, like he was in the right here, like he knew better, "You can't stop this."

Succinctly following his words came a twist of his wrist and a wave of red flickering cubes. Sonic rolled to his feet and swept himself out of the way, countering with a burst forward and a solid kick to Infinite's skull. If the hardness of Infinite's mask left any bruising on Sonic's foot, it was negligible to the adrenaline tearing through him, numbing his nerves.

Snatching himself some space, Infinite made a strange pulling motion at the Phantom Ruby in his chest, and the stone reciprocated by conjuring a red scimitar that materialized from thin air into his hands. He flicked it out at the ready, glitches and all, and Sonic squared up his stance and bared his fists.

"That's where you're wrong," Sonic exhaled, a razor grin on his face. "You never let me finish the job last time."

Infinite lunged forward with his blade and Sonic bent back, the swing of sharp red missing him by just a hair. The emeralds made him faster, and it almost wasn't enough, but he just had to make it work. Almost wasn't enough rang through his head again as Infinite warped behind him and, unable to react in time, Sonic felt the hilt of his sword jam into his back. He was shoved forward and Infinite swung his scimitar again just in time to nick Sonic's arm.

A thin seam of blood blossomed along his bicep and he ground his teeth, forcing himself back and kicking off Infinite's chest to regain some distance. The kick was enough to propel him back through the window, and then Sonic was outside again, hovering hundreds of feet over a merciless ocean, blocked in by a disintegrating cityscape.

And he waited. He held his breath, the interior of the building before him almost too dark to see into from out here; Infinite was still inside, and Sonic anticipated him to launch back out after him any second now. Except—except, he never did.

Sonic let his breath go and frowned.

"See, this is where you're always at fault," a bodiless voice intoned, and Sonic whirled around instinctively but he was utterly alone, entirely at the mercy of Infinite. Where the fuck was he—"You need to look at the bigger picture, hedgehog. This is so much grander than just me and you, the empire and the rebellion. This is about purging everything, cleansing the universe, setting things right."

Sonic spun around once more, and this time, Infinite awaited him. No, a thousand Infinite's awaited him, an army of identical jackals, red stones embedded in their chests, scimitars in their hands, silver masks angled towards him. And he knew, he knew, they had to be some illusion, but Chaos, they looked real. An army conjured from nowhere, completely enshrouding him; unstoppable.


"Those rings," he heard Gadget mumble, like he was scared of being heard by Shadow. "The ones he removed before we left. What were they?"

"Inhibitor rings," Silver answered, more focused on levitating all three of them to the nearest rooftop. "They help the user keep a lid on their powers, in a sense. Gives them more control. My glove cuffs function pretty similarly by letting me streamline my psychokinesis."

Gadget didn't say anything for a moment, like he was considering this information carefully. "So why did he remove them?"

Now, Silver's voice had garnered a hush to it, like he too, conspiratorially, was trying to maintain this conversation unbeknownst to Shadow. Neither of them were doing a very good job at it. "He rarely does; inhibitor rings give you more control but they also hinder your powers. I'd imagine he wants to be at his full strength for this."

"If you're done with the history lesson," Shadow groused, just as their feet touched down onto cratered cement and the green light carpeting them all dissipated, "we need to go stop a literal god from destroying the whole city and killing us."

Not wasting another second to dawdle, Shadow rocketed forward, his hover skates leaving dark streaks of cinder in his wake. Perfect Chaos wasn't much further, and it growled and moaned to be stopped, to be rid of the red lightning flashing through it. Shadow decided that he would be sure to do so. If not for their own sake, the emeralds', Station Square's—then for Chaos' sake. He hadn't been there to witness it before, but he'd heard the stories: Chaos was already manipulated once before under the will of evil, and now history was just repeating itself.

(Chaos was also stronger now, more erratic, and as Shadow studied the violent red coursing through it, he wondered, drearily, if he could repeat history too by defeating it again.)

Silver and Gadget lagged behind him but he kept a steady enough pace for them to keep up. Silver glided through the air beside them, glowing turquoise, and the uneven beat of Gadget's footsteps pounded behind Shadow against the rooftops. Whereas Shadow could effortlessly cross each building, over each gap, with brute speed alone, he felt his ears twitch at each click, whirl, and pop of Gadget's grappling hook that he used to continuously pull himself forward and keep pace.

The three of them converged onto Chaos wordlessly, focused only on their path forward and their labored breaths. Shadow kept a close eye on the Tornado flanking their right, hundreds of feet up above, shadowing their trail.

Eventually their wealth of flat rooftops ran out and the next building was too high to leap to; its roof extended upward into a needle, which meant Gadget probably couldn't grapple onto it either. Shadow would be fine, and a small part of him felt he should help the kid out somehow—but the more weary, calloused part of him decided that Silver could give Gadget a hand if needed. Shadow was on a mission, and it wasn't to babysit the guy who tagged along despite barely being able to keep up with the rest of them.

He swerved to the side of the roof as they neared the edge, not slowing for a second, and dove off. Before falling more than a few meters, however, Shadow balled up his fists and condensed swells of Chaos energy into his palms. He thrusted out his wrists, and measly, controlled Chaos Blasts crackled from his hands, effectively propelling him through the air. His rocket skates aided in his flight, and as humid air brushed past him, he tasted the vengeful flavor of reclamation, domination, on the tip of his tongue. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like after all this time.

Blinking, almost forgetting about his allies, Shadow looked over his shoulder to see how Gadget was keeping up, and if Silver had stopped to help him with his psychokinesis again.

Instead, he was rather pleased to see Gadget leaping off that same rooftop after himself, firing his grappling hook out to the nearest vantage point. There was a definitive fear in his eyes, a tumultuous terror; but he moved with a focused understanding that there was no space for that fear here. Gadget swung past Shadow, retracted the grappling hook while at the peak of his swing, and then fired it again to continue flying through the city as if he'd just sprouted wings.

Shadow glanced over his other shoulder to see Silver drifting by, and the psychic shrugged with a twitchy smile at him, as if to say, who'd of thought the kid had that in him? To push forward in the face of destruction, defenseless as he was? And Shadow couldn't help but grin back a grin that was greedy for the rush of heroism, adventure, and triumph that he had missed so sorely for so many months.

The three pushed on in a deluge of determination. Silver flew in a clean line, straight toward the target, while Shadow and Gadget bounced around more, between swings of the grappling hook and bursts of Chaos energy. The Tornado stayed close.

When they drew nearer, Shadow tapped a finger to his ear, activating his communicator. "Tails, Rose. How does it look from up there?"

For a few beats, only static answered him. Then, cautiously, Tails said, "Not much better than it did from the mountain. The Phantom Ruby is definitely agitating it, but I don't know how to stop it from doing that."

"So what do we do?" gasped Gadget in between his swings. Even though he was practically side-by-side with the wolf, Shadow couldn't hear him over the wind rushing past them, so his voice, funneled through the comms, sounded as grainy as Tails' did.

"We've beaten it before—or, Sonic has," Tails said. "Its brain is its weak point. Obviously it won't let you get there easily, between its jaws and its tentacles. Sonic would breach it at the base and fly up inside its body to get there, but I'm not exactly sure if we can replicate that here."

Because Super Sonic was presently busy, went unsaid.

They needed a gameplan quickly. They were already almost there, and Perfect Chaos had already taken notice of them. It was becoming more angry, evidently: the waters beneath them intensified and Chaos unleashed a straining, bending cry.

Shadow looked between Gadget and Silver, as he trailed just slightly behind them now, and felt, suddenly, like a cog within a well-oiled machine. Assured and steadfast and always, always moving forward. "Okay, we'll work with what we got. Tails, I need you two to keep Chaos busy. Gadget, you too. Silver," and he hesitated, feeling less sure of himself at this next idea, "I need you to try your best to contain it. Keep it still."

Silver said nothing for a while, like he was deciding for himself if he was able to do that. "I'm not so sure that I can—"

"Please," Shadow pressed, huffing out another breath as he twirled past a splash of water spiking through the air. "I need you to try."

"… Okay."

"Thanks." Shadow nodded inwardly, knowing that nobody could see him right now anyway. "I'll go for the kill. Hopefully it doesn't notice me till it's too late."

And then they were upon it. Blemishes in the air before a god that reached up for the heavens, that almost seemed to wane with poisonous red. The Tornado began circling overhead, and a spire of flames blasted out from the passenger's seat—likely Amy's doing as Tails piloted—that was used more to grab Chaos' attention than anything else. Gadget tried to follow suit with the distractions, but got caught up by some tendrils of water that almost seemed to have a mind of their own, whipping against buildings as Chaos grew more frustrated with the Tornado's taunting. Gadget moved clumsily but sufficiently enough through the air, snapping his electric whip against the tentacles when needed.

Things were going… decently so far.

Silver stopped in place, hovering in midair, and he held out his palms and concentrated deeply as his eyes closed shut. Shadow kept his gaze on him, ready to jump in if needed, but then green light began to spread up along Chaos' convulsing form. It wavered and struggled but the energy spread, gingerly as it did, and Chaos quickly began to lose its control over the situation.

Now to strike.

Rocket skates flaring up, Shadow launched himself higher, and then connected with the nearest building to scale up the wall a little ways. He pushed off and arced through the sky, embellished in fireworks of Chaos energy that guided his path toward Chaos' head. Holding one hand to his chest, he braced his fingers into a snap before tilting his wrist out toward the infected membrane before him; the friction of his snap launched a barrage of Chaos Spears through its transparent head.

Bullets of light collided into the brain, and Shadow waited, waited, to see their effect. It wasn't quite what he wanted: Chaos grimaced, even whined and shook its head, still entrapped in teal and dizzied by the Tornado and Gadget's efforts, but it was like the Chaos Spears were just absorbed into it; lightning against rubber.

Damn.

Shadow let himself freefall back down, staring at Chaos like if he did so for long enough that he'd crack the solution, before warping himself onto a nearby rooftop to recuperate for a moment. The others seemed pleased enough with their little experiment, even though Chaos was still standing—Gadget especially.

Gadget whooped out to Shadow in euphoria and he almost would've smiled. The kid was a blur of red swooping through the air, and he reminded him of those early days of glory. The days where they could stop Eggman in a matter of hours just by wrecking a few badniks, and it would feel exhilarating to rip through metal, to tear down his sinister plans like they were nothing. Shadow thought, wistfully, that maybe they used to be a little too naïve.

The ghost of a smile was swept from his face when Gadget, too caught up in their pointless, miniscule victory, did not notice the tendril of blazing water in time before it thwacked straight into him. In an instant, Gadget was a dead fly against a swatter, and he was spiraling down fast, too fast, toward the dark, unkempt flooding below.

He would drown, surely.

"Shit," Shadow hissed, and he knew everyone else had seen that too, but nobody was moving because nobody knew what to do. Saving him meant dissolving their plan. Silver's arms shook as he struggled to contain Chaos, red in the face and looking miserable and helpless as he watched Gadget spiral down to the rapids.

A moment later he fell in, and highlights of scarlet raced through the explosion of water that sprung up in his collision. The waves swallowed him whole.

Shadow scowled to himself. Shit. Shit.

"Go help him," he ordered to Silver.

"What about—"

"We will deal with Chaos. Just go save him." Shadow crouched down and released the inhibitor rings on his ankles. Untapped energy lapped against his bones hungrily, waiting to be released. He felt an aching rush come alive within himself; invincibility winked just over the horizon at him.

Silver nodded in his direction, relinquished his psychokinetic hold on Chaos, and dropped down after Gadget.

And Shadow look up at Chaos. And Perfect Chaos looked down upon him with an unhinged, red-hot look that could kill. Shadow returned it tenfold.


They made their way to the dome like they treaded a thin bed of ice resting over a murky lake. Rouge half-wished that were the case; stagnant ice was preferable to the torrential ocean filling the streets that slapped against buildings and threatened to sweep them all away in its fierce current.

She mentally scorned herself for still being too weak to fly yet. It would've come in handy right about now.

Her crew hobbled behind her anxiously. Or perhaps she was projecting. No, she corrected herself with an assuring flicker of her gaze back at the others—they walked anxiously, but with sharp, confident posture. Rouge felt like the true weak link here, still on the cusp of full recovery.

Nonetheless, Shadow trusted her to do this and so she would. The dome, although swathed in Chaos' flooding, was not a completely isolated island. Scraps of the collapsed Station Square glided through the waves, and after skirting around the perimeter for a while, they found a feeble support beam standing lonesome in the air, on the corner of a building that had never seen the completion of its construction. Vector and Bunnie hefted the iron beam down so it lay horizontal, a joke of a bridge to their destination. Rouge would take it.

"What exactly do we do once we find it?" Vector asked from behind her, as they balanced tentatively along the beam, single-file, amidst the rolling waves; very slow, very steady. All of them lost their footing at various moments, and it was a miracle they made it across unscathed (yet soaked to the bone, anyway).

Espio rolled his shoulders as they moved along the dome's walls after reaching the other side, searching for an entrance. "You mean the Null Space? We aren't even sure it's in here."

"Oh, there's somethin' in there," Bunnie said. The walls wobbled like flags in the wind, and it didn't seem to be from Chaos—the waves couldn't even reach up here. "Y'all feel that, don't you?"

Rouge pulled a terse look, picked up a piece of scrap metal out of impatience and smashing it against the dome's roof. The paneling fractured and fell into the interior's depths. A serviceable entrance. "Eggman could be waiting for us. We need to keep our guards up."

And as they all slipped inside, one after another into the dome, alarms began to blare in Rouge's head. This—this wasn't right. Something wasn't right. What was it? What were they planning?

If she didn't know any better, Rouge would say that this building had been taken in Station Square's original downfall when the empire first began to conquer the world, but that couldn't be it. This dome wasn't always here. It was clearly some newly forged base of operations for the doctor, so why would he have left it in ruins? Why, during Chaos' rampage?

Unless this had just been collateral.

It was odd, though. They quickly came across what looked like an underground loading bay, filled with abandoned pods and ships. Most of the lights were out, aside from the rare flicker of incandescence overhead. No robots in sight, except for the occasional badnik that was broken in some way or another.

It was… eerie, and concerning, and it made her stomach turn.

She could feel it, what Bunnie had been talking about. And she was sure they all could. It was undeniable in here. That dark, alluring feeling that seemed to wait behind each set of doors they pushed through, even when they opened it to more abandoned, unlit, ripped apart halls and labs. Something was hiding at the heart of this base, something deeper within, and it spelled trouble. Perhaps Silver's hypothesis had been right.

A weight hung from her heart like the Null Space was the feeling of torment and dread come to life, clinging to them all, dragging them toward its depths as though it hungered for them.

"I think that maybe Dr. Eggman ran away from here," Antoine suggested, a hint of shakiness in his voice. "And maybe it would be wise for us to follow suit."

"Maybe," Rouge entertained, narrowing her eyes as they proceeded through another set of doors. No security systems were in place. No robots awaited them. Certainly no mad doctor. "Or maybe, whatever this Null Space is won out against him."

There was no stopping now. Rouge was tired of losing battle after battle, coming out more weak than the last. Shadow had trusted her with this, and she couldn't be a let down again.

The final set of doors waiting for them whined on their hinges as an unnatural wind seemed to tug at them, drawing them to whatever was on the other side. And Rouge felt it pulling at her too, thick in the air—the corporeal desolation, the dryness in her lungs. The well of negative Chaos energy that seemed to float around whatever had congealed in that room.

Rouge started forward to the flailing doors, but a hand pulled at her shoulder, stopping her. She glared back at Espio, who stared at her coolly.

"Silver's described it to us before, and it seems even less controlled this time around," he told her. "There's a vortex in there. You'll just get sucked into it."

She looked at him, and then back at the doors, and breathed in through that dark feeling in her chest. She exhaled and pressed a finger to her ear piece.

"Guys? We found the Null Space."


The army of Infinite's clones swarmed him like a pack of wild animals. He felt them all dogpile him and forgot, briefly, that Infinite was nothing more than a single, despicable man. Red overtook him and Sonic curled into himself, sharpening his spines and protecting the Chaos energy drumming in tune with his heartbeat, but he was overwhelmed by them all nonetheless.

They fell through the air like angels, a comet's tail of magnificent light twining after them. Infinite's clones melded back together into one as Infinite clutched Sonic's shoulders and sent them down, down, down, rushing toward the ocean below, destined for collision.

He shut his eyes and anticipated the putrid embrace of red-tainted water.

He did not expect hard paneling to fracture against his back instead. It cut against his body but it was almost welcome in place of the water. Sonic's eyes snapped open as he tried to take in what was happening around him, but they were moving too fast. Infinite continued to push him down with the strength of an army, even now as he reformed into a singular entity, no more illusions, and they continued to fall. They crashed through a floor, and then another floor, and then another.

The fall stopped in a room that was far too cold, far too decrepit and empty. Infinite maintained his position atop Sonic's prone body, claws still gripping his shoulders, as the atmosphere around them seemed to sink in. And then Infinite rose to his feet, as if Sonic wasn't even his focus at the moment, like Sonic hadn't come here to kill him, like Sonic didn't matter. The fucking nerve—

Infinite inhaled briskly, as though sniffing at roses. Sonic snarled and, still on the ground, turned his head to see what he was looking at.

A soulless black hole stared back at him; broken shrapnel from around the room shot inside in shattered flecks, and Sonic could sense its pull. Even with the Chaos Emeralds' strength grounding him, pulsing gold through his blood, he could sense the portal's thirst.

The Null's thirst.

What was perhaps the worst of it, was that it seemed to be expanding by the second.

Infinite held out his arms in deference to the thing, and Sonic felt a pull of disgust at the sight—at the evidence before him of Infinite's true uselessness, the truth of how he was nothing more than a puppet in the grand scheme of things.

"See, now this-!" Infinite murmured dazedly, not even looking in Sonic's direction. Sonic shakily clambered to his feet, glaring daggers at the back of Infinite's head. "This is what this all amounts to. This is my purpose."

"That portal is devouring everything in this room," Sonic observed, feeling, coldly, as though he weren't even in his own body. He looked at Infinite blankly. "It's—it's just going to keep growing, isn't it? It won't stop."

"No," Infinite concurred, and he stepped closer, his white locks of hair lashing through the forceful vacuum of the Null's gravity. Sonic crouched lower the ground, bracing against it, but even he began to slide closer. Infinite turned his back to the Null to face Sonic, and he tipped his head up. He sounded—something akin to peaceful. Sonic, in some severely fucked up way, envied that peace. "No, it won't. Isn't it marvelous?"

"Sonic?!"

He spun on his heel at the sound of the voice and was surprised to see Rouge standing in the doorway, clinging between them to keep herself from being sucked into the portal. Without any magical stones to power her up, apparently, she couldn't exactly just stand there and chat like him or Infinite were. The Null Space was already growing far too out of control.

Rouge stared at him with large, desperate eyes, and Sonic looked back at her, before turning to Infinite.

Infinite laughed and stepped backwards into the vortex. It was an invitation, Sonic realized, as black mist overtook him—as pure, negative Chaos energy overtook him. He inched closer after him.

"Sonic!" Rouge called again. Over her shoulder, he could now spot a few of the others outside the room. "Don't—don't even think about going in there!"

"Hey!" came a new voice, over their comms, and Sonic flinched at its sharpness. He had been completely ignoring everyone's discussions over their radio network since he went Super, and he knew it was selfish, he knew they were all probably pissed at him, but he had good reason for it. He just—he couldn't drag them all down with him. He couldn't.

He had to do this on his own.

"Hey!" the voice yelled again, Tails' voice. "The hell is going on over there? Rouge, did you say you found the Null?"

Sonic turned his back to Rouge. Even if he could hold his ground, the portal was broadening, and it would eventually engulf him anyway. That was, unless he got out of there immediately.

But he couldn't just—he couldn't just get out of there. He couldn't let go that easily.

And he didn't want to open up a discussion with Tails about this, but he spoke anyways, his words soft and brittle, almost against his will. "It's growing."

"Sonic? Is that you?! Where are you, are you okay? What's happening—"

"It's okay," he breathed. "I'm okay."

"We need to get out of here Sonic! It's too dangerous," Rouge called to him over the roaring gale of the portal's pull.

He ignored her, and clenched his fists.

"Sonic!"

"What's going on?" Tails pressed, raggedly. "What's he doing, Rouge?"

"I have to go after him," Sonic said simply, levelly. He trembled all over, and he wasn't sure if it was the emeralds or something baked into him, some raw, high-strung emotions spinning out of control.

There was a pause, before Tails asked, appallingly, "You mean—you mean into the Null Space? Do you not remember what Silver told us about it?! You could—you could die in there—"

"I have to do this." His face burned. He swallowed the heat in his throat. "You need to let me do this."

"Infinite's already dead in there for all we know! There's no need to—!"

"Tails," he rasped. The Null grew and grew and it showed no signs of stopping. "I need to finish this."

"Love," and that was Shadow; he sounded out of breath. He was in the middle of a battle, uncomprehending of the situation at hand, most likely. "What's—what's going on-?"

"Don't be stupid, Sonic," Amy's voice cut through, reprimanding, an edge of biting calm to her tone.

His lip quivered, because he didn't know what to say. And so he managed out as he lost his grip on everything else, "I'm sorry."

"Sonic. Sonic." Tails sounded like he might have begun to cry. "I can't lose you again."

His heart skipped a beat; he found himself, despite everything, smiling. "Tails, you're—you're so strong. You're so brave. Even when you thought I had—even when you were all alone, you kept fighting, and you made it. You help people. You fight. I… I wish things didn't have to be like this but that's how it is, and I need you to understand. I know you understand."

"Why is it—why does it always go like this? Why does it have to be you?"

"Because I know I can finish this, and I need to try and be as strong and brave as you are. I need to do my part, or else I'll never forgive myself. If I have even just a sliver of a chance, I'm gonna take it, no matter what."

Tails sobbed aloud. "Can't—Can't you just be selfish? Just this one time."

"You know I can't be, buddy. And I know you wouldn't be either. You're too smart for that."

He waited for another response. There was none. The Null crept closer.

"… Protect them all for me, 'kay? Keep them safe." Sonic sniffed. "I love you all."

And he let the Null Space take him. The dark matter ate him alive, and he heard voices of protest muffled through his ear piece, out the doorway behind him, but as he entered through the other side they all faded to static.

And then he was utterly, desolately alone.


(haha shadow's little chaos blast flying trick definitely wasn't based on bakugo or anything. haha. i'm not a weeb i swear)

anyway well hi there! hope you all are well. just wanted to say, this fic is approaching its conclusion. i've spent the past month and a half writing about 26,000 words worth of an ending to this story, and seeing as that's an obscene amount of words, it will be broken up into multiple parts that i will be posting throughout the coming days.

this chapter was act 1 of the finale. there are 2 more parts to come, and then there's an epilogue chapter. i wanted to write everything in full before posting because i wanted to make sure i got everything right, so just bear with me haha

thank you all for sticking with me for this long — whether you've just discovered this story or you've been reading since 2018. i hope you'll stick around just a little longer to see it through; it's been years in the making and i'm so excited to share it with you all. see u soon :)