When he had been young, Shadow had seen many awful days. There had been days when he had passed out from hunger, and days when he had been soaked to the bone thanks to merciless, uncaring rainfall and a lack of a home. There had been days when he had screamed to the skies, desperate for someone to listen and to help.

He had been lonely, but that had been all he had known. It hurt, but it was a hurt he wore like his skin, something natural that he doubted he would ever be able to truly shed. Loneliness was woven into his DNA, solitude was the gift that he could never give away. Even as he grew and learned how to be independent, how to turn his life around, how to climb up and take what he wanted, it never left him, no matter how hard he tried. He could never understand it, this loneliness that seemed to be a part of him, nor could he comprehend the distance that always seemed to exist between him and others.

But he knew it. As sad as it was, he was used to it.

And this was thousands of times worse.

If there had been spare parts around him that he could throw or crush between his hands, he would have done so in an instant. Red hot rage flared up to the sky, while stone cold betrayal threatened to pull him down into the abyss of space, and Shadow felt stretched beyond his limits, ready to tear, and there would be no putting himself back together.

How dareshe? How dare she lieto him like that?

Eyes squeezing shut, Shadow let out a scream and fell to his knees, slamming his fists to the ground. His spines raised as high as they could while his body trembled, and only dry sobs made his shoulders and back convulse; he had no tears left to shed.

He had burned his bridge with Rouge, he had had the upper hand for once in his dreadful life, and still she had found a way to spit in his face from the other side.

"In case you were wondering… that intruder that the doctor mentioned… I can sense him. It's Sonic. It seems as though he survived."

"BULLSHIT!" Shadow roared, pummelling his fists against the cold, unforgiving ground. "BULLSHIT BULLSHIT BULLSHIT!"

Rouge, who had saved his life and made it seem like he was cared for, had been the one to take the knife and twist it. Sonic was dead. Sonic was dead, and Rouge was dead to him. Shadow had to face the facts, he was destined to be alone.

He rose to his feet, the rage winning over and pushing him forward, his hands pulsing with pain, and staggered over to the core where the emeralds sat. Six out of seven. Always just shy of being complete.

He wasn't meant to have everything.

...But maybe this time?

Shadow was about ready to slap himself for thinking that. He needed to cut his losses and take what he could. He knew that, the moment Eggman put the final emerald in, earth would be as good as gone. The chances of him claiming all the emeralds and still having a planet to go back to were as good as the chances that Sonic was still alive.

...But what if Rouge hadn't been lying?

He hated that the thought made his hand still, hated that he was entertaining the impossibility that Sonic was alive, and that Rouge had cared enough to tell him. He couldn't…

He wouldn't be able to handle it if he let the hope grow and then die all over again.

Shadow stared at the emeralds. The emeralds seemed to stare back at him. Just one more from Eggman and he could leave with them all...

And Shadow turned on his heel and sprinted out of the room empty-handed, Rouge's threat to his life burning in his mind.

Fuck you, Rouge, he thought, feeling the betrayal overtake the rage once more. Fuck you.


Rouge's mind struggled to think of cold things.

She had only been on the planet's surface for a moment, but the sensations had all been new to her, not overwhelming yet, but a myriad of novelty. Temperature control had been there for almost her whole life, or at least, from the bits and pieces that she could remember.

If those were even real memories…

Fake.

Even without much experience, Rouge knew about ice. Hard. Cold. Unyielding. Only the sharpest of tools could break through it, only the strongest of fires could melt it. Rouge wished she could replace her warm, beating heart with ice, safe from tools and fires by her toughened exterior, built to withstand anything that dared try to break in and destroy it. The bat grit her teeth, trying to think of the cold winds on her first night on earth, but memories of all the different places assaulted her, from the big bright city, to the vast deserts and canyons, and the gorgeous islands in the middle of endless blue-

Stop. Stop right now. She couldn't afford to do this again.

Rouge had finally found a clear flaw in her design, her one weak spot, her kryptonite. Her heart, soft and warm, could become so damaged not by force, but by words. By actions. By being a fool and letting people in, only to lose over and over. Such an easy piece of her to exploit, so she had to freeze it. Harden it until its sole purpose was to make blood flow through her veins and nothing else. Rouge thought of wind and of stone and the empty but efficient machines that kept the ARK alive, and breathed out. She felt nothing. She would learn, right now, how to make all these feelings stop and die.

She felt nothing at all as she walked outside the colony into the edge of the airlock and saw a mess of cerulean spines.

"It looks like you didn't die after all," she remarked, gaining the hedgehog's attention. She saw the way his eyes widened in recognition and a degree of joyful eagerness, and did her best to not feel the same in return.

It was tough, but she swallowed down any good feelings she might have had about Sonic. He was an obstacle now, nothing more. No longer a peek into what might have been true for her, in a better timeline. There was only now, and she had just one goal to accomplish. After that, well… maybe she could freeze herself indefinitely. Go to sleep and never wake up. Become the ice that she should have always been.

"You know, what can I say?" Sonic said with an easy shrug. "I die hard."

The two began walking down the path toward the emptiness of space. Cold began to trickle in, and Rouge embraced it, leading it toward her heart. She needed to make sure that not even a speck of warmth remained inside her for her plans to succeed.

"You actually saved me, you know."

The one sentence was enough to knock the winds from her sails, to make her falter. Rouge looked over to Sonic in astonishment, and the boy tossed the fake emerald in his hand up in the air before catching it. "Watching you on that island made me want to give Chaos Control a try," he continued cheerfully. "You told me yourself that you thought I can do it, so what do you think? Did I pass the test?"

"So you used the fake emerald?" Rouge realized, too stunned to remember that she was supposed to be suppressing her emotions. "But that's impossible. There's no way you could have activated the Chaos Control with an emerald that's fake!"

Both sped up to a light jog as Rouge's understanding of the world fell apart, only adding to the crises of belief that she was having. "What are you, anyway?" she demanded, feeling a chill that had nothing to do with ice or space.

He couldn't possibly be…

Sonic's smile was bright like the sun. "What you see is what you get," he answered, turning to look forward. "Just a guy that loves adventure! I'm Sonic the Hedgehog!"

And it was such a simple answer, so readily given, and Rouge felt envy at this boy who was so comfortable with himself, with what he knew and who he was, who didn't search for answers from the past or the future. Sonic was not like her, a mess of questions and confusions given power and a name.

He just…was.

"I see," Rouge replied softly, turning to look ahead again. The outside was fast approaching, and the cold reached out to her, reminding her of her conviction, prompting her to choose and become whatever she decided.

Rouge chose Maria, and hardened her heart once more.

"But you know, I can't let you live."

This would be Sonic's final adventure.


Fighting Sonic felt different this time. Rouge was no longer surprised that someone else held the potential of manipulating Chaos Energy. She was not surprised by his speed, nor that their battle was, in part, a race. She was not caught off-guard by his attacks, nor did she hold her own back.

With every strike she dealt, she thought of Maria.

With every blow she took, she thought of Shadow.

Why? Why was she still thinking of him?

Rouge dodged more often after that. Measured her speed so she could attack from behind. She saw Sonic growing weaker, his body already at a limit from teleporting himself with a fake emerald, and yet he was still pushing forward.

How? How could he be so…

She had to kill him. She had to. Her teeth grit together as she made another attack, and her blood boiled as Sonic dodged and laughed in response. He was trying to bait her, and she knew it. Logically, springing for the bait was always a bad call, but she could see his chest heaving, and his body drooping with exhaustion.

She was right behind him. She wouldn't miss. One more hit and she could take him down before ending it all.

Rouge concentrated on only the blue blur before her. She was so close, so close to taking down one more obstacle in her path…

But then, Sonic did something she didn't anticipate.

He stopped.

Rouge was the Ultimate Lifeform. Her reflexes were impeccable. She knew what was going to happen if she kept running.

But she didn't stop, and she darted ahead of Sonic, suddenly a prime target.

What was she doing?! She needed to kill him! She needed to-

Sonic crashed into her back the very next second, and Rouge was knocked to the ground, and everything else was knocked out of her; her breath, her coldness, her motivation, her sense of purpose...

With this loss, Rouge felt as good as dead.

"Don't take this the wrong way, Rouge," Sonic said, his voice grating on her ears in the most unpleasant way, "but I've got a world to save, so I'll catch you later."

And with that, he sped off, a communicator suddenly in hand, and Rouge was alone, surrounded by the coldness that she failed to make a part of herself.

Failure.

Why?

Why was she doomedto fail?

Why was the Ultimate Lifeform so… so… weak?

Fake. Fake fake fake fake fake...

Rouge didn't bother standing up until she felt the ARK tremble. Even with the growing evidence that said that she wasn't who she thought she was, her motivations hadn't changed. The world would still pay for what happened to Maria.

Eggman had collected all the emeralds, and though Rouge felt emptier than she ever had before, her feet moved back to the colony.

Like it or not, true or false, purpose or a complete lack thereof, she was seeing this through to the end.

What else did she have?


The central control room was empty, which struck Eggman as odd. He expected Shadow to be in there, eyeing the emeralds if he hadn't already run off with them, but all six were there, shimmering with every flash of light that came from the machines around it.

The doctor laughed, figuring he shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. "This completes my plan to take over the world!" he hooted, taking out the yellow emerald and holding it aloft. "Now begins the glorious era of the Eggman Empire!"

With that, he tossed the final emerald into the core, and a surge of energy made the room tremble before the core rose upwards. Eggman laughed, his voice echoing off the walls, a grand testament to his victory, until a siren blared, a red light flashed, and a warning appeared on the holographic screen in front of him.

His villainous laugh died in his throat as the ARK began to shake and tremble, and he made his way to the console, eyes scanning the text that was appearing faster than most could read.

"Argh… What the… What's going on?!" he demanded aloud, furrowing his brow as he hit a few keys, trying to find his way to an answer, while all around him, the promise of disaster continued to fill the room. "Why doesn't the cannon fire?"

He found no answers as he typed away, searching and searching until a video flashed onscreen.

"What? What's happening here?" Eggman wondered, setting the video to fullscreen, and gaping once he saw who was in it. "It… It's my grandfather, Gerald Robotnik!"

Unease pooled into his gut, in the same way that it did whenever he typed that password in. His finger hovered over the playback button, and he hesitated. He had a feeling that he wouldn't like what he found out.

The ARK gave another heavy shudder, and Eggman's finger went decisively down.

The video began to play.


Shadow legged it as another tremble shook the ARK, peeking into room after room, looking for absolutely anyone at this point. The world around him was literally and figuratively collapsing, with no answers or fragments of truth to be found.

What was real? What could Shadow believe in?

His ear twitched as he picked up voices, too faint to make out words, but he hurried in their direction, barrelling through the door and…

And…

No way…

Shadow gaped, his eyes taking in windswept blue spines and bright green eyes. Those eyes blinked back at him, equally caught unawares, before softening as Sonic the Hedgehog, alive and well, flashed him a grin.

"Hey Shadow," he greeted. "Long time no see."

"Shadow," came another voice 一 Knuckles 一 and from the side, a red figure started walking toward him, "look, about what happened out there, and what I said… I just wanted… to…"

Knuckles trailed off as Shadow walked past him without so much as a glance, focused on Sonic, on how his eyes were blinking and his chest was moving and he was breathing, seeing, alive, right in front of him. His hand reached forward, fingers trembling until they landed on Sonic's arm.

Solid. Warm. Real.

It was him.

"You bastard!" Shadow whispered, more amazed than angry or upset, and Sonic laughed, the sound freeing one of the weights from Shadow's soul.

"My greatest escape to date, right?" he joked, and Shadow was about ready to cry again.

Rouge hadn't lied.

"You idiot." Shadow began laughing as well, feeling lighter than he ever thought he would feel again. It came out, peals of laughter, unforced and rather unhinged, and for a moment Sonic looked concerned before it faded away and he simply looked glad.

Shadow, meanwhile, was ecstatic, and if he had even less self-control he would have thrown caution to the wind, wrapped his arms around Sonic, and pressed his lips to his cheek.

But he kept a grip on himself, content with the small bit of contact he had with Sonic's arm, and Sonic seemed grateful that Shadow hadn't gone any further than that. Shadow wanted more, he always wanted more, but he respected Sonic too much to overstep a boundary.

His hand went back to his side, and he basked in the feeling of having a part of his shattered heart fuse back together.

The ARK quaked again, and all three boys stumbled. "What's that vibration?" Knuckles wondered, spreading his arms to keep balance.

"Sonic!"

The voice came from outside the room, and the next moment, Tails and Amy barged through the door, eyes wide with terror.

Almost immediately, Amy ran to Sonic, throwing her arms around him, and Shadow bit down the jealousy that burned within him like acid. Sonic, on the other hand, looked uncomfortable at the sudden, anchoring contact. At least Shadow could take some pride in knowing that he hadn't lost his composure and ruined what little he had.

"Tails," Sonic called over, "what's going on?"

"It's the space colony!" the fox cried out. "I tracked its movement and trajectory, and we're heading straight for earth at incredible velocity!"

"What does that mean?" Knuckles demanded.

"It means we're going to crash into the planet if we don't save ourselves, and fast!" Shadow snapped, on edge again at this newest revelation.

One step forward and two steps back… just like always…

Sonic let out a chuckle. "Luckily for you, fast is what I do best!"

Shadow managed to smirk at Sonic's playful banter, but before he could think up a retort, Knuckles interrupted his train of thought.

"What's that on the screen?"


Next chapter: Gerald Robotnik fills in the blanks and everyone rushes to do their part to save the world and themselves.