3.

The voice calling out to him had no meaning, no discernible intent. It didn't belong to anyone he knew. All he knew was that it beckoned him awake, faint and numinous, like a weak gust of wind crept through an open window.

(Shadow.)

He felt cold.

He breathed in mortar dust, releasing a slight cough as the coarse particles irritated his lungs. When he blinked, he came into contact with green eyes. Gizoid eyes. A thin red beam pierced the darkness and repelled those bright green eyes.

Get down.

His body flattened itself on instinct. The beam flew inches above him, hit its target and shattered into such a brilliant explosion that it shot his thoughts back into reality. The abstraction he witnessed morphed into the sight of Omega's flamethrower snarling back a Gizoid as it guarded a limp partner sprawled across the pavement.

Give up, Omega commanded. I have destroyed your leader. Surrender now or be annihilated.

The smoke-encrusted Gizoid twitched its head at an unnatural angle and slaked off sparks—a fatal glitch inflicted by a gash in the side of its skull. Emitting an electronic hiss, it lurched with its head aimed low to butt the other robot.

This tactic failed. Omega knocked it back with a secondary round from his chain gun, leaving it to tumble over its partner.

He turned. You are fortunate I found you before they did.

Shadow looked down in curiosity before clutching his head, riding out a pang that squeezed his skull. "Ugh, my head… Why is it—"

Diagnosis: concussion. Caution advised, or else chances of remission will increase.

"Lovely." As if he couldn't get enough of being comatose. Meanwhile, the strange voice in his mind intensified as he stared at the carnage, sputtering indeterminate white noise in between stabs of pain. Moments passed, and by some small bit of luck it faded out into Omega's drone.

I could not recover your inhibitor ring.

"Don't worry about it. We've got bigger fish to fry."

What do aquatic life forms have to do with our current circumstances?

"More than you think," Shadow said. "For example, a fish out of water must locate another source before it suffocates." Rising slowly, he began walking north, tracking over the rubble toward a distant spotlight. "We've been misplaced as well, into a cesspool of strange energies."

His hand stiffened, prompting him to scowl down at his palm and massage the feeling back into it until his fingers could bend again.

This isn't good. His ring was missing. Energy would now leak from him at a rate he could neither predict nor regulate… If he didn't practice due caution, virtually anything could take its place. It was how the Professor decided his body would maintain equilibrium in the face of such an event, for better or worse.

I've examined these buildings for signs of change, Omega added. Soil samples of the external environment report a denudation rate of 30.83 millimeters per year. According to my data, however, the outer structures of these edifices have eroded at a fourth of that rate.

He dropped his palm to his side. "They're not as abandoned as they appear, you mean."

Plausible, but inconclusive. More investigation is needed.

During their time in the Twilight Cage, Shadow had heard Omega refuse sample analysis for incompatibility reasons (many materials that hailed from the other dimension vibrated at too quickly a frequency for him to analyze), but here he wondered if that meant there was a secret purpose for these artificial buildings, or if Omega truly couldn't explain the gap. Was it possibly both at once?

"Aren't we in Metropolis?"

That is an incomplete assertion. All we may infer is this is not the Twilight Cage.

A voice beyond them said: "For your sake, you should have stayed there."

They whipped around as someone emerged over the rubble. Dense echoes ground under the boots of a Nocturnus.

Of all creatures. Shadow raised his fists, slackening his stance slightly when the Nocturnus raised a hand in truce, palm faced outward, and shouldered between them. There he knelt before the broken Gizoids, his motions calculated and tense as he placed the head back on the inert body.

"Not that it matters to you," said the Nocturnus, punctuating his words with a sharp twist that locked the head into place, "but Gizoids have souls."

Dissatisfied with the result, he shook his head at the carnage, but would have to make do with what little survived. He repeated this process with its twin and then, rummaging through the sides of their skulls, withdrew two tiny chips. He pinched one between his thumb and forefinger and regarded it with the delicacy one would a seashell, his head reclined at a soft angle.

"Even so, you should be commended. You continue to astonish us with your lack of… restraint?" he asked pointedly. "I suppose is the nicest way you primitives would put it?"

Shadow thought, I'll show you primitive, but decided to remain civil for the time being. "Who are you?"

"Someone you're going to regret knowing." He turned, and more eyes pierced the clouds of dust wafting behind him. "I am the Consul, second only to the Doctor himself. And these Gizoids you so carelessly slaughtered here," gesturing to the broken heap, "were two of our city's most thorough sentries. Yet you somehow can't bring it within yourself to care, can you?"

He was liking this punk's tone less with every word he spoke. "For your health, I wouldn't advise you to make us your enemies."

"My heart just skipped a beat hearing that." He thrust a gloved finger at Shadow's chest. "Listen to me, you boor. You destroyed something of ours, and while normally I'd be content to return the favor and go about my merry way, this is a special case. The Doctor wants his Gizoid back."

Omega marched forth, towering above him. I am not a Gizoid.

The Consul drifted his head up, then dropped it as if he hadn't seen him at all. "I'll admit it doesn't bear the markings of one. But I'm not here to argue; I'm here to retrieve what you've stolen. Are you beginning to understand, or need I repeat myself endlessly? Perhaps it would behoove you if I spoke in mon. O. Syll. A. Bles?"

Laughter murmured out of a few scouts. Shadow had heard superior insults from Sonic—who still thought "Faker" was a valid putdown—so he brushed these paltry attempts aside. "You're pretty nuts yourself if you think I'll let you walk off with Omega. Who also has a minor inconvenience called 'free will.' It'll make your mission a lot harder than it needs to be."

"That's nice you believe so. Because I don't recall asking its permission."

Circuitry screamed when a bright green dagger plunged into Omega's carapace, peeling apart shrieking metal as the Nocturnus dragged it down and stuffed a chip inside. To Shadow's confusion, the dagger drew back up and fizzled out into dust. The wound itself clotted and sealed the fissure just as quickly as it had been inflicted. What it left behind was a dripping scar of molten steel and liquid energy. Meanwhile, the arm Omega had lifted to lash out now seemed rusted shut, unable to move.

Shadow rushed to his side, slamming his fist against the wall when he saw his ally rendered motionless. "Damn you! What did you do to him?"

"Nothing that wouldn't have happened eventually."

He sneered. "Wrong answer."

Shadow hurled a brick at the Consul's head at a speed that would have dropped him unconscious had he not deflected it, crouched behind a leech blade.

Sprinting over, Shadow knocked the blade out of that grip with a scissor kick and used the opening to pummel his fists numerous times into the echidna's chest, until something snapped and that odd green substance pooled around his knuckles; he could barely feel it burning over the din in his head.

He crushed his opponent's grip in his own and continued whaling. His blood pounded in his ears. He wanted them more than gone, and cast the Consul down before support could converge on them.

Breathing hard as spots pulsed hard in his vision, he said, "Omega, if you can hear me: aim for that pipe!"

Sh…dow.

Straining against his electrical bounds, Omega gave a broken squawk and fired off a single round. A hole punctured the metal of a rusted pipe lining the eave where the hedgehog pointed, and a smatter of oil splashed down, coating the Nocturnus who stood underneath.

"Excellent," he said, turning toward these sad excuses as they swarmed around him. "As for you—"

He lashed a low kick at the ground, aiming his heel straight at the rush. A large flame jettisoned out of the spurt his heel spit and exploded in a wall of vapor.

However, the shield was temporary at best, a stopgap measure, and they were bearing up much faster than he'd have credited them for—

"Go!" was all he managed to shout to Omega before the pavement slammed against him, rocks biting into his flesh as someone's weight knocked him to the ground.

Fingers reeking of scorched oil clamped around his face and shoved him down. He jerked aside to avoid strikes that gnawed the stone inches beside his head, a leech blade streaming ribbons of fiery steam with each blind stab.

"I'm not letting you off that easily!"

"Don't sound so certain." Shadow grasped the echidna's wrist and wrenched the muscle back with his thumb to loosen his grip; as he cried out, he balled his fists together and drove them into his chest.

The Consul staggered back, but he was still tottering on his feet. To Shadow, that made him fair game. The next swing descended in a tight overhead arc—too high an arc would have opened his vitals for attack—which he parried with a kick.

Their exchanges didn't go without consequence. The energy from the Consul's weapons had latched on in a way Shadow couldn't shake. A small whorl slipped from one of the blades, fanned out from his fingertips and flowed up his arms into the tips of his quills, spiking and ribboning before crawling down his spine.

It felt like an electrocution, only with its initial jolt slowed down to such a massive degree that its heat pooled out, thrilling his blood, squeezing fingers around his heart as it pumped. His entire upper body radiated a film of hot green light, and it distanced the world from him, slowed it down.

His mind still registered danger, however. When he raised his fist to block another strike, a shock hurtled out and repelled the both of them. He saw his opponent float away and eyed the phenomenon with a mixture of caution and curiosity.

Once the shock expended that energy, it gave time leave to resume its natural course. Movement that once seemed suspended in a liquid sort of clarity now blurred: the Consul who was once floating now bashed into the opposite wall, his body juddering thoroughly as a sharp crack announced his impact on the bricks. Shadow likewise flinched as his jaw smacked mortar with the force of a baseball bat, searing white through his vision.

They lay for the next few moments atop the rubble, stunned, while around them swam the repetitive clamor of auto fire. Omega had broken free of the chip's influence for the time being, though his movements remained somewhat rigid, locked in his joints.

Shadow winced. Omega, wait, you're not completely healed. Don't go it alone. Slapping his vulnerable hand to the brick, which tingled along with his sore jaw, he recovered his footing.

Motion flurried in his periphery. Energy flared against his inhibitor ring, the resulting friction spraying sparks into the air.

"Your weapons aren't standard fare… They run on the energy of the Emeralds," Shadow said, panting between words. "But that's impossible. Sonic—" He trailed off.

The Consul barked, "Sonic what?"

He shoved him aside and sprinted toward his ally. He grabbed Omega by the wrist and pulled him out of the fray, his heavy body thankfully able to float on the remainder of his thrusters.

"Pick up the pace, Omega. We've got to find the others before they do."

"Mmm, sweetie." Rouge tapped her chin while she drifted, her wings maintaining a gentle flap behind her. "Hate to break it to you, but we can't have Halloween every day."

"I know you have an Emerald."

Couldn't if she tried.

"Sorry if you don't like it," she said, waving the scout away with a flick of her wrist, "but I'm tellin' the truth. I don't have any candy. And even if I did, I don't like to share." She narrowed her eyes as he stepped forth. "Why don't you try the nice people down the street?"

As he walked, he flicked out his own wrist. A leech blade unfurled from the motion like a fan, curving out into its usual glowing arc.

She fluttered down and tucked in her wings. Smirking, she beckoned him with one finger. Ladies never declined an invitation to tango.

Rouge waited for the boy to charge, lifted one knee and snapped back a terse heel-kick. She built upon the opportunity that blow provided to propel herself off the ground, grinding up another kick that sent the leech blade flying away and flipped her around in a cartwheel. As a result her heels barreled again into the echidna's helm, one-two, with enough force to drop it like a sack of rocks.

She stuck the landing with her arms outstretched while her wings eased her back down, a fine film of dust pluming around her heels.

Rappels whined down the walls.

She piqued a brow at the reinforcement. "Yeesh. Neighbors gave you too many raisins or what?"

Just then an explosion rocked everyone off their feet, scattering bricks in such a frenzy it sent them scurrying for the perpetrator.

Aw, shoot. What now?

When the smoke cleared, Rouge was relieved to find Omega march in through the haze instead of some crazy incendiary cavalry. The grenade launcher embedded in his left arm whirled smoke, and his titanium armor deflected their retaliatory strikes with ease.

Crimson optics trained on her.

Rouge located. A whirring clank replaced his grenade launcher with his regularly-clawed fist, which he used to pluck a brick off his shoulder. When in doubt, decimate all remaining structures.

Climbing back to her feet, she placed her hands on her hips, beaming at him. "Am I glad to see you, too, fella. Trick or treat was getting pretty boring without ya." Her gaze wandering, she noted the jagged scar running down the center of his carapace. "Hey, did you… "

"Out of the way!"Shadow's shout was followed by an echidna flying backward, coming to a hard thud on the concrete before her.

"Huh," Rouge said. "Made a new friend?"

"Hardly," the Nocturnus spat, spinning out of the way before Shadow could hammer his foot down. "The Doctor's Gizoid is an eminent part of his plans, and I'd rather take a thousand blows before I let you creatures defile it further!"

Sorry to say, kiddo, she thought, you've thrown down a gauntlet he couldn't refuse. "Sounds like someone's got an awful high opinion of us."

"This one seems to be suffering from delusions of grandeur," Shadow said. "Says his name is the Consul and that he works for the Doctor."

"Consul?" Rouge asked. "Couldn't have come up with anything better?"

He wheeled around and fired a burning dart from a collapsible mechanism attached to his wrist. Shadow caught the projectile heartbeats before it could pierce Rouge's left wing, crushing it into smoldering energy with his fist.

The Consul tilted his head. "You're one to speak."

Snarling, Shadow cast the dust aside and pounced on him.

Priority one cleared: engage priority two. Omega deployed a bomb that splashed rebar and scattered the rest.

"So rescuing me, that was just a side-note to the main attraction?"

We came as soon as I detected your heat signature.

"That's what I love about you, Omega," she said. "You know just what to say to melt a girl's heart."

For every Nocturnus they beat back, three more sprang into place. They had an inexhaustible supply, or else they were restored into fighting shape too quickly to be depleted through sheer combat alone. In either case, the other side was edging them out for the time being. Climbing through openings, tagging others in, indiscernible combatants dancing that same lethal harmony, more and more poured out, maintaining the illusion of heightened numbers.

And Sparky—there was no way she would give this green-gills any sort of dignity calling him Consul of all things—well, Sparky was enjoying the spectacle, wasn't he, yanking the strings here?

They inched backward, unconsciously gravitated toward the same center, until hedgehog quills met bat wings and titanium armor.

"Shadow," Rouge asked, "you feeling okay?"

"Never better."

"Then let's drop the curtain on these weirdos."

She tossed him her Emerald, and as its glow intensified in his hands, Omega retained second thoughts. Is that advisable?

"Only one way to find out." Shadow hefted the Emerald above his head. "Chaos—"

His command delivered them near a dumpster, its guts torn open and the lot before it strewn with robot parts, though she was hard-pressed to say if the teleportation had done that or if that was its natural state of disrepair.

Her cheek mashed against concrete, Rouge lifted her head. "Shadow?" Knocked out cold on the pavement, stabbing fear into her guts. Oh, no, maybe he wasn't fully recovered…

Query, Omega said. Why did you push his limitations?

She had no good answer, shaking him. "Shadow? You said you were fine, you jerk! You'd better not have been lying!"

He blinked awake, to her supreme relief and frustration. "Keep it down," he mumbled. "They'll hear."

As if on cue, a drone zipped past. Next came the pealing echoes of an explosion softened by distance. Smoke catapulted from a building just over the horizon; these occurences generated enough of an impetus for Omega to follow. These Marauders must be stopped.

"Don't go too far without us," Rouge said. "Sleeping Beauty and I need a word over here."

Shadow looked up at her as she crossed her arms. "What?"

"You know 'what.' Now that Sparky and his school of hardknocks are out of the picture, maybe you can answer my questions."

He pressed a hand to his temple, taking a moment to steady himself. "Then ask."

"Drop the backsass, hon. Doesn't suit you." Taking a long, rueful look at Omega's back, she dropped her tone to a whisper. "When that kid was ranting about Omega back there, he called him a Giz—"

Rouge pinched her lips thin as another explosion trembled out and Shadow turned. How convenient for him, this place fell apart at just the right intervals to warrant the distraction. One of the kids was likely trashing the place. Big Blue, maybe, or Knuckles dishing out his temper on the old man's machines. But that wasn't the point right now.

"—a Gizoid. He meant like the ones we fought in the cathedral, right?" she asked. "And… 'defile'? Who talks like that?"

"Beats me," Shadow said. "Far be it from us to make sense of anything they say."

His recalcitrance made her bear up. "Shadow, now's not the time for riddles. Omega's got a nasty scar on his gut, you can barely stand, and I know you boys better than to think you got that way by cuddling kittens."

"Maybe you should substitute 'Nocturnus' for 'kittens,' then."

"Please. You think they can be bothered to grow claws that sharp?" Explosion number three broadcast a faint puff. She grabbed his arm and whirled him around to face her, forcing him to keep his attention steady. "Listen, I need to know what that Consul guy said. Every word. If he's a link to the old man… "

"He's nothing. The Doctor wants us to know what he's done, he'll show of his own accord."

"If he's a link to the doc," she continued, "and the rest of the world is—"

He must have been as disturbed by that possibility as she was, because he stared her directly in the eyes, unflinching in his stoicism. "I'm telling you the truth," he said. "He didn't say anything worth noting. He appeared and we fought. The rest you already know."

She had a suspicion that wasn't the end of the story. Omega interrupted too soon for them to continue this conversation much further, however.

Shadow has awakened, he announced. His matter-of-fact tone belied relief this was the case.

Naturally, this confused Shadow. "My eyes have been just as open as yours. Did I miss something?"

"Yeah." Rouge tipped her chin at him. "Pinch your arm and we'll know for sure."

Shadow looked between his teammates, unsure if the two of them were sharing another one of their dry private jokes. "Why would—" He closed his mouth and shook his head, having decided it wasn't worth his time to indulge such folly. " …I don't particularly enjoy being unconscious, if that's what you're implying."

"Right." Rouge floated back up and stuck a light landing on the dumpster, her heels thudding into the hollow metal sheet. Sitting upon it with crossed legs as if she were too regal to stand atop one, she looked toward the west, studying the flickering of distant lights in the horizon where Eggman held reign. "Nothing gets past you, does it, Sheriff?"

He responded with a mere hmph and knocked the dust from his shoulders.

Fortunately, their less-than-companionable silence didn't last for long when Omega returned to the shade they inhabited. Rouge's commentary amuses but is irrelevant. Well, pardon moi was her indignant retort. Inquiring status of Ultimate Life Form.

Omega didn't wait for an answer; he took Shadow's wrist and examined its pulse. Either he hadn't successfully convinced him that he was fine, or something else may have been awry.

"He's breathing, if that's what you mean," Rouge said. "Whether he's still the 'ultimate' is up for debate." Some dispiriting thought must have struck her then, for she briefly turned aside and muttered to herself, "Ultimate pighead, maybe."

Both sensitive ears and auditory processors detected her sour note.

I do not understand.

Shadow had to echo his bemusement. "What'd I do?"

He wouldn't get a fully attentive response at this point. Rouge folded her arms, still scanning the horizon for some clue neither of them was yet privy to. Soon her posture followed suit: her shoulders squared more rigidly than they had moments before, and she tapped her heart-shaped toe against the air. "It's never what you do, hon, it's what you don't do. In this case, thinking you could run around the neighborhood without your limiter and slip it past us. Omega?"

Indeed. Temperature range has hiked in this area.

Shadow balked, reclaiming possession of his wrist with a firm yank. "You were taking my temperature?"

"Yep. And now you're whining about it, just like a little kid." Rouge propped her chin in her palm. "I swear, the two of you get into more trouble when you're left alone… "

We must install safety measures to prevent overexertion.

Safety measures. The accused couldn't help but sigh, running his free hand over his head. He hated it when they double-teamed him. "Should I skip the reading and receive my punishment now?"

"Mm, not yet. You could always try for a jury of your peers."

"Not much of a trial if the both of them throw the book at you." He coughed into his palm, bringing up smoke in the fabric of his glove: a leftover gift from Ix's magical curse. His memory reminded him how the fox had inhaled the most. A pale slumberer, oblivious to the Doctor's mutiny. Sonic's fists tightening as the Doctor spoke…

Her lips twitched too sharply upward in her soot-stained face for him to believe it anything less than sly acknowledgement. And yet, a slight contradiction inhabited even that mask; some underlying emotion he couldn't name kept him from buying her humor. She smiled in an effort to preserve something of her old self, before redirecting her attention to the sky.

"It doesn't mean anything, you know." Shadow massaged his palm, which trembled a bit as he curled his individual fingers into a fist. Extending his senses through wandering tendrils of energy, he broke them off with a harsh breath, having strained himself to feel nothing.

This smog is no accident, I'm sure of it, he thought. Though they must use that fake energy to mask something even bigger.

Rouge flicked him in the back with a light kick. "Says you."

"I do say." He glanced around, every direction seeming murky. "Just because I can't feel its presence doesn't mean it's vanished. This place is about as clear as a mud puddle."

A fourth explosion, this time much nearer than its predecessors, spurred Omega into heading for the adjoining street. Abnormal energy fluctuations detected fifty meters west. Initiating pursuit.

"Now look what you did," Rouge said. "Commander ain't gonna be happy to hear you forked your job over to tech support… If he's still here, that is," she added to herself. Both the relics she'd been assigned to recover and her communicator had been destroyed in the blast, rendering her link to GUN near nonexistent. "We're gonna have to hoof it to HQ soon, get a proper debriefing on this Eggman situation. Maybe Omega can clear out the Nocturnus along the way. Get a little payback for that scar."

She sighed as the prince stood idle, massaging his wrist. Whether his tender feelings were still hurt over that babysitting quip, or if he hadn't finished mulling over Sparky, she couldn't tell. You didn't need a ruined world to keep you busy. Between Omega raring to bust heads and Shadow refusing to talk, they'd keep her plenty occupied.

"Well, c'mon, sleepyhead. You gonna brood all day or you gonna join us? We've got some creeps to take down."

She waited a moment, her face softened at his silence.

They seldom worried about losing him. Shadow looked after her drifting form, then sauntered out of the ruined alley. When he at last broke out into a gliding skate, his hovershoes rippled the air underneath them.

"Wait," Rouge whispered harshly, grabbing Shadow's wrist. "Do you want to get riddled with holes?"

"There isn't exactly a key," he replied. He clutched the chainlink fence that separated the alley from the entrance to a sealed-off tunnel where Omega had pinpointed the energy readings. She was getting a bad feeling that he was going to tear it carelessly open in a few seconds. "Besides, they already know we're here."

"Right, and that's why we should invite ourselves in asking the neighbors for more cups of shrapnel. Get your butt back here, Omega," she yanked on his rod belt, halting him. "Listen up, hotshots. I know you've got a beef with them and I won't get in the way of that, but do you really think barging in guns blazing is a good—"

"Idea? Not very. But you so seldom seem to have those, it'd be a waste to grieve."

She rolled her eyes in exasperation as soldiers appeared on the overpass, spearheaded by none other than Sparky himself. "Today is just not our day, is it?"

They pushed the outfit as far back as the alley, where Rouge had hoped to force them into the same bottleneck they'd once been trapped in. There they could reduce the chaos into more manageable components. Although this plan deeply opposed their desire to "teach them a lesson," Shadow and Omega agreed to behave as long as the Nocturnus didn't step out of line.

Whatever that meant. She was far savvier than to take their begrudged word for it. The boys rarely upheld a promise they had no intention of keeping.

Maybe that was why half the alley lay in shambles.

Bless their hearts.

Rouge dropped low before ducking a wild swing from another indiscriminate leech blade and returned the favor with a solid kick to the head. While she preferred to engage her opponents one-on-one, parrying their slashing blades with high kicks, (a self-satisfied huff and That all? often punctuating her altercations) Shadow and Omega's strategy focused more on inflicting as much humiliation as they could, against as many as they could lay their hands on, in retaliation for whatever slight the Consul had committed against them.

Turning around, she caught glimpse of a golden circlet in the echidna's hand. "Shadow, isn't that—"

"You want this?" asked the Consul. "Suit yourselves."

Setting it gingerly on the ground, he hooked one finger through the metal and rolled it in a deceptively straight line towards them. Shadow's ear twitched as it splashed through oil and scraped the cement, coiling to a clinking stop against his skate.

"Fetch."

It exploded.

The ring blinked one tiny red pinprick that wasn't previously visible—the detonation chip shaped too much like a certain face for her liking—shrilled, and blew a hole that rocketed concrete to the sky.

Eventually one soldier pulled back from the others. "Where'd they go?"

A forceful sigh slid through the Consul's vocoder. "Moron." But he added nothing more. He nudged the smoldering crater with the toe of his boot, kicking aside the empty debris before conceding the fool may have had a point.

The quiet street betrayed no signs of living presence. Sewers puffed smoke like cauldrons, his mask not allowing him to broadcast his perplexity while he furrowed his brow. Something was wrong here.

His teeth ground on edge when slow applause sounded behind him, followed by a sultry voice.

"Brava, Sparky."

The outfit whipped around to find the three very much alive. To say Shadow looked angered right then would have been a severe understatement… But at least Rouge now understood the reason for his battle thirst.

"Nice magic trick. Luckily, Shadow here can make anyone disappear."

The Consul caught in the bat's hand a glimmer too bright for spotlights. Twin leech blades sprouted from his wrists.

"The Emerald!" he ordered. "Get the Emerald!"

Shadow cursed under his breath as reinforcement converged on her in an instant. "Rouge! Give me the Emerald again!"

"You're not gonna do anything stupid, are you?"

"Don't ask, just do it!"

"Oh, really? Bark another order in my ear and you're gonna wake up sore, soldier boy."

"Please!"

"Fine." She heaved the gem at him in an overhand pitch and was burdened under Nocturnus. "But don't you dare waste your energy this time, or I'm really going to kick your—"

"I know what I'm doing."

"Whatever you say, sugar." Ultimate pighead strikes again. She delivered a swift chop to the sternum and dropped a would-be flanker. "Omega, you holding up all right?"

Another round screamed out of his wrist and caused a water pipe to burst, gushing torrents into the street that unfortunately contacted nothing but air. These worthless Marauders are starting to annoy me.

"Makes two of us, then."

"Count it three." Shadow swept away a bevy of Nocturnus with a well-timed Chaos Spear, then threw the Emerald back into her care.

When his bombs ran out, Omega switched to automatic fire until both chain guns clicked empty. Primary ammunition depleted, he lamented. Wasted on nothing. It didn't help that a Nocturnus seized upon this opportunity to encircle him in a mocking dance fraught with energy.

"Why don't you come with us, Gizoid?" He dodged a claw the robot lashed out. Just as Omega lurched again, he disappeared, whirling in his periphery. "We'll make you stronger, better!"

"Have you gone mad?" the Consul asked. "Don't engage the Gizoid in this state!"

The command was apt, as Omega reacted by plowing his fist through the concrete immuring the tunnel and bringing down a veritable landslide to flush out those who rushed his way. How many walls must I decimate before you get the point?

Shadow stopped in the middle of a punch and dunked the Consul once more. "Omega!" he shouted. "Forget this! Teach them a lesson!"

Affirmative.

Reverting his claws to their base states, he launched twin rappelling hooks that latched onto the Consul's helm and the taunting Nocturnus'. Swinging them overhead, he cracked them together and threw them down.

Rouge had participated in enough brawls to know that everyone ceasing their sound and fury meant something had taken a very grave turn. Even Omega stood still, waiting, watching. Shadow rose slowly from his kneeling position, a smoke-bearing wind ruffling his quills.

She held her breath, finally seeing the reason why the other Nocturnus edged away. A green substance sputtered in a slow bleed from their armor, turning the neon light within a dull gray. As it leaked onto the concrete, it washed the stone in a soft, frothy loam.

"Consul," the other soldier weakly cried, "help me."

Much to her surprise, he responded to the plea. He heaved himself upright and crawled over to the side of the Nocturnus who was struggling to lift a hand. It dropped to the ground, soliciting a muttered curse.

Dropping his head, he shook the soldier sharply out of his reverie. "For your sake, stop. I can't think if you're blubbering." With great effort, as if lifting a car instead of an inert body, he turned the soldier over, revealing a small orb embedded between the suit's pauldrons. It was split down the middle, deprived of fuel excepting a few drops of concentrate that hadn't managed yet to escape. Liquid freely swarmed the Nocturnus' back.

The soldier moaned. "Don't leave me here with him."

Shadow barred Omega from advancing.

As his superior examined the further damage done to his charge, Rouge swore she detected signs of the soldier struggling to move inside his armor and failing to miserable results. Even so, a fuel leakage shouldn't have crippled them that much.

"Did you hear me?" Panic bristled his voice. "I said don't leave me here with him!"

The Consul shook him harder this time. "How do you suppose I do that, Teukros, throw you over my shoulder? You want me to listen to you when you couldn't spare me the same courtesy? Maybe you fools should keep him company!" Spinning around, he barked at the others, making her flinch vicariously on their behalf: "It'd certainly take a load off my back!"

His words made her realize—these people, they weren't just fighting for Eggman, for the hope of spoils. They were fighting with that hardwired instinct ingrained in all Nocturnus, to overpower, to bully and conquer, and here they had finally met someone who wouldn't lie down to that. Somehow, they feared what they couldn't intimidate. They feared Shadow.

The Consul looked down at his charge and stood, smearing oil into the bottom of his helm as he ground the heel of his palm into it. "Besides," he said, the anger in his voice now wavering into doubt, "you know I… "

His chest heaving with ragged inhalations, he stopped, and went utterly still.

For the next few moments the alley became so quiet, so rigidly dead, that she could feel the phantom sensations of this city rise in their place: the smoke stretching from holes in the pavement, the lungs of distant machinery that strained to breathe within it, the hum of pipes that carried fuel throughout the district like veins. Her heart pounded in her chest, the muscle throbbing blood in time with the eerie light pulsing in his armor.

He turned around, facing Omega. The material in his gloves creaked as he drew out one leech blade, his grip so tight now it rattled the blade. The glow along its curve spilled out, its whorls burning like a flame about to extinguish.

"That's it," Shadow whispered.

The Consul ran full-tilt toward them.

Rouge stepped forth only to find her teammates had formed a shield in front of her, anticipating the clash with a clarity she would otherwise have envied. The boys never told her anything.

"What did you do?"

"It's not what you do," Shadow said, "it's what you don't do."

If looks could kill, she thought, he'd no longer have been immortal.

The Consul swung, cutting air.

"If you kept your eyes open, maybe you could hit something." Shadow ground his fists toward himself and then shoved them out.

It was like a wall of air had caught the Nocturnus and exploded, propelling him back, pelting him with debris. He flew back into the crowd, which caught him and shoved him back into the fight.

A flurry of strikes lit the encroaching dim. The Consul kept swinging, blindly, furiously, only to nick a small wound on his cheek.

"Huh. Not bad." He wiped the light smatter of blood and flicked it away with a terse whip of his hand, a sharp smirk curling the corners of his lips. "Shame you'll have to wait a hundred years to do it again."

"You're absolutely right," said the Consul. His voice was like flint, each word striking hard upon the other. "But who holds the superior numbers here?"

"Hmph. There's no strength in numbers."

"I'll have to have that carved on your tombstone, creature. Vee, fall back! Forward front, move!"

He saw them advance around them, the statues come to life, renewed in their vigor. Pouring out into the street to fight them tirelessly, with no end in sight, again and again—

All he did was throw out his hand, with no conscious intent behind the gesture. A much more reckless, blinding burst of light thundered out, flaring them back.

He staggered, shuddering.

"Shadow!" Rouge ran to his side. "What happened?"

He wavered under her shoulder. "Don't know… " Shaking his head, he pressed his trembling hand to the concrete. "I don't… "

"I'm no soothsayer, but I can tell you what's going to happen here and now." The Consul tossed aside his leech blades and unsheathed his energy dagger. "You thieves are going to get buried together."

Rouge scowled. "Honey, you've got no idea what a real thief can do."

She flew in carrying Omega, having tagged them in his stead. Taking on not only the Consul but the rest of the armament, amid a sea of unstable energy eager to maim.

Shadow leaned against a sheet of torn chainlink, breathing hard. More lashing claws, more kicks demanding extra exertion, more dances wreathed with energy. The paroxysm left him weaker and heavier than he could ever remember being, his limbs aching for rest. But he couldn't have the others fighting his battles.

Clambering up, he walked forth on unsteady feet. He poised his finger at the clasp of his remaining inhibitor.

"Rouge," he ordered, "take Omega and stand back. I'm going to wipe the floor with these pests and their self-appointed king."

Rouge's eyes widened. Meanwhile, the Consul sidled in front of Teukros, his stance coiled to take the hit while he wielded his dagger. "Have at it, creature. Don't look surprised when we bite back."

"Noted."

Shadow kept his inhibitor on, instead deciding his naked hand could still make do. If this fake energy operated anything like its real counterpart, it could be manipulated. It could be stolen. He thrust his palm outward, fingers crimped. Only one way to confirm his hypothesis.

At first, a few Nocturnus simply laughed: their ignorance mixed with condescension.

Soon that laughter dissolved.

Shadow crushed his hand toward himself. The dagger dissolved, and the light in the Consul's armor swarmed out like a liquid jet, swirling in plumes toward him, orbiting his hand.

The echidna grunted as his energy depleted and plunged, his body suddenly too heavy and rigid to move from its place cemented to the ground. He snapped his head up as a translucent shadow blanketed him.

"You still want to play games, Consul?"

He kept his hand as steady as he could, not daring to agitate the energy but not wanting to relinquish control either.

More flowed out. The process grew an instinct of its own, like moths fluttering thoughtlessly toward a beacon.

This strange energy linked them in a way that felt like the boundary between their thoughts was negligible. From the boy himself, there was nothing but a bitter anger so hot it prickled. Even with the exchange tipping in Shadow's favor, he could feel grainy limestone stab into his kneecaps as lucidly if he knelt there himself. How sheer air could crush the flesh at a moment's notice.

He pushed forth. His arm burned, but he jerked his fist again and the common thread they shared yanked the Consul forth like a helpless marionette, forcing him to kneel low in front of his men. The boy inside shivered, humiliation and ire pumping his heart.

"Please don't."

A different voice in his mind startled Shadow. A more desperate voice. Fearful. Concerned.

(crying?)

(since when do Nocturnus cry)

Maybe it was an illusion, some trick between ear and brain, but he swore from the one called Teukros he'd heard muffled, shuddering breaths begging him not to, not to harm the Consul, he didn't know what he was doing. But he couldn't let go, couldn't stop, couldn't breathe until the danger threatening them all was eliminated.

(please don't leave me here)

Another voice. "Hey. Stop this. Stop it. What are you doing?" Forever his voice of temperance, Rouge shook him out of his trance. "Shadow!Snap out of it!"

Upon her touch the link severed, the tether that had anchored the Consul now slithered loose. Pure spite sprang him to his feet, and he intended to repay the favor in full.

Shadow's gut instinct overrode his reason. He put up a hand to shield her from the impending swing. With a cold shock he realized he'd raised the wrong one again, the wrong channel for the energy to flow through—and couldn't correct the error until some foreign thought commanded Begone! and another, even bigger explosion of light erupted from him, engulfing everything.

He wrenched around just in time for Rouge to yell something at him, but he could only hear it as a deep-sea diver registers voices through water. A murky impression of a panicked noise, too late to perceive the danger apparent to those on the outside, those not submerged, those who fear from above the surface.

There was a deafening silence.

"Rouge?"

A hiss answered as coherence swam back to him; at the edge of his vision, a droplet of liquid energy cut a rivulet through concrete and frothed small white bubbles, forcing him to sit up. Asphalt stank in his nostrils, smoldered in a blackened ring of singe around him, and as he shifted, streaks of ash trickled from him as if he too had burned. Just like the aftermath of Ix's magic…

(but that's not possible, it can't be)

At his foot lay a motionless Nocturnus, energy splashed around its armor. The Consul? No, Teukros. Light pulsed through his rivets, though dim. Slow in its cadence.

He touched the helm in a safe place, which hummed and announced in a calm female voice: Auto-recovery in progress.

Truth be told, he'd never witnessed an unconscious Nocturnus before. The vanquished usually disappeared in a convenient blip, called back to the Cage. The soldier inside would be fine as long as he had energy to spare, but…

He raised his naked hand, unable to feel anything within but a prickling residue.

Everyone's vanished. That gnawing sensation of dread made him clench his fist. He had to control the tremors now or else they'd deepen with time.

"Rouge?" he asked with a little more force, his voice echoing off the walls.

Buzzing caught his attention.

"Omega," he breathed, clambering toward the robot that slumped against a pile of broken cement and chainlink. Steam purled in wisps from a gash in the back of his headpiece. Shadow grasped his shoulders, jostling them. "Omega, I'm here. Say something." Only feedback from a severed radio connection replied. His fault. "Omega! Damn it… "

He bowed his head.

And in the remaining silence, the radio crackled.