The mist was floating eerily. The ground was icy cold. The landscape stretched for miles. It was a desert. There was no sign of life anywhere in this strange world, nothing to indicate the existence of sentient inhabitants of any kind. No sign, that is, with the exception of two distinct figures present in the middle of the vast plane of being. One of these figures belonged to a black hedgehog with red eyes; the other, to a blonde human girl with blue eyes. Despite their differences in appearance and origin regarding their current location, these two people shared a very strong connection, and more importantly, a common objective: understanding how they had ended up here, and what needed to be done in order for them to return to their original planes of existence, especially the hedgehog.
Shadow was restless. Unable to remain still as his mind raced, he had risen from his previous spot on the ground to his feet, and was now pacing back and forth through the mist. Maria, who chose to remain kneeling on the floor, watched her friend carefully as he would walk a few feet, turn around, and walk back the same way several times in succession, all the while listening closely to the words he was muttering relentlessly.
"The Chaos Emeralds..." were the words he kept repeating as he paced. "The Chaos Emeralds... A flash of light... The Chaos Emeralds..."
After several minutes of this pattern's persistence, the young girl finally broke it with the sound of her own voice.
"What about the Chaos Emeralds, Shadow?"
The black hedgehog paused in the middle of one of his recurring paths and looked up to stare at Maria. Her blue eyes maintained their consistent calming gaze, but once this particular exercise of logic and reasoning had begun, her friend could swear he now saw a new glint of excitement behind those brilliant irises. Shadow knew that look only too well; it was the very same look the young girl used to get whenever she would stare out the window of the observation deck in the ARK towards the planet she would see in the distance, all those many years ago. The hedgehog hadn't seen that bright blue-eyed gaze in almost a century, and seeing it again brought him a renewed sense of hope.
"That's what I'm trying to figure out, Maria", Shadow replied in an equally tranquil tone. "It just doesn't make sense..."
"Why not?" The phantom girl sat up a little straighter in her spot as she continued to eye her friend curiously. "What doesn't make sense?"
The black hedgehog hesitated for a brief moment to consider the question, choosing his next words thoughtfully.
"The Chaos Emeralds only react with each other when something... 'important' happens, or is about to happen. It usually happens when they're reunited after being apart for a very long time."
Maria nodded slowly in response to Shadow's statements, contemplating his words carefully.
"So something important happened tonight, something big enough to set off a reaction from the Emeralds. Was it because they were reunited after being apart?"
For the umpteenth time in so many minutes, the hedgehog replayed in his head the last moment he remembered of that night's episode, analyzing every detail that came to mind...
"... No. Sonic did break the case holding the stolen Emerald in the Robotniks' laser, but it was only missing for a week. That's not long enough for them to build up the energy it takes them to react like they did tonight. That can't be it..."
A moment of eerie silence succeeded this last phrase. For a full minute, neither of the two friends spoke, both of them thinking about the strange event regarding the legendary gemstones. Neither the black hedgehog nor the phantom girl could say what the cause behind the incident was, although the reasons behind this were very different for each friend.
As her companion continued to immerse himself quietly in thought, Maria let out a soft sigh and proceeded once more to fill the void of silence with her words.
"So it wasn't the Emeralds alone; something else started the reaction. But what could have happened that was so big it set them off?"
In response to this last question, the hedgehog stared quietly into the young girl's blue eyes for a moment, then sighed as well and spoke again in a low voice.
"What, indeed?" said Shadow curiously. "What, indeed..."
Miles Hedgehog paced nervously in the entrance between the waiting room and the corridor. Every few steps, he would glance in either of two directions: towards the large double doors on the other side of the room, or at his wife standing before one of the doors in the hallway. The lavender hedgehog grew more anxious with each passing second, for whatever was going to happen in the very near future involved the love of his life, and he had no idea exactly how the upcoming events would turn out.
As he turned around for what was almost certainly close to the fiftieth time since he had begun pacing, the sound of the double doors being thrust open suddenly reached Miles's ears. The lavender hedgehog looked up abruptly to see a blue hedgehog and a two-tailed fox now hurrying through the doorway into the room. He sighed at the sight of his father and his uncle, for Sonic and Tails were exactly the two people had had been waiting to see for the past ten minutes.
Sonic noticed his son standing on the far side of the waiting room, and immediately made his way towards him. Miles, in turn, left his spot in the entrance to meet his father halfway. Once the two of them were standing before each other, the lavender hedgehog proceeded to speak.
"Did you get it, Dad?"
"Yep", the blue hedgehog replied, and held up the dark blue Chaos Emerald he was holding in his right hand. His son nodded to acknowledge the response.
"Great. Maria is waiting by the door..."
Miles turned around and proceeded to lead Sonic and Tails into the corridor beyond the waiting room. Upon hearing their approaching footsteps, Maria turned to face the three of them. As soon as he was standing before her again, her husband indicated the brilliant gemstone in the blue hedgehog's hand. The light gray hedgehog glanced at the Chaos Emerald, then looked back up at her father-in-law and inquired about it in a serious tone.
"Is that the one that was inside the laser?"
In response to the question, Sonic gave a single nod. Maria smiled weakly and nodded back, then requested that her husband take the gemstone. Once his father had placed the Chaos Emerald in his hand, Miles looked his wife straight in her dark blue eyes and spoke to her seriously, a note of concern in his voice.
"Honey... you still haven't explained what you're planning to do with this Emerald. Why does it have to be exactly this one?"
The light gray hedgehog stared back into the lavender one's emerald green eyes with an equal earnestness in her own stare. She clearly had no intention of revealing too much too soon, though what in the world could be so secretive about her idea was beyond Miles's comprehension.
"You'll find out soon enough", was all she said.
Having nothing more to add to the conversation, Maria turned back to the door and pushed it open, subsequently stepping past it once it gave way. Her husband hesitated for a brief moment before finally following her into the room, leaving the blue hedgehog and the two-tailed fox to stand outside in the corridor, sensing small knots of concern forming in the pits of their stomachs.
Miles walked slowly up to his wife, who had paused beside her father's bed to gaze upon his face once more. Sensing the lavender hedgehog stop by her side, Maria spoke to him without taking her dark blue eyes off Shadow.
"Miles... stand behind me, please."
More confused than ever, the lavender hedgehog couldn't help but question the light gray one's intentions again as he followed her instructions.
"Maria... why?"
"Because..." came her soft reply, "I need you to catch me."
Catch her? Was she planning to fall? Miles watched as his wife reached out and gently wrapped her fingers around her father's. He then looked down at the blue Chaos Emerald still in his hand... and that's when it hit him. Suddenly aware of what she was planning to attempt, the lavender hedgehog sharply turned his head back up to face Maria, and switched from a tone of confusion to one of alarm as he spoke to her again.
"Honey, no! You can't-"
"I can", the light gray hedgehog interrupted sternly, turning around to gaze unblinkingly into her husband's emerald green eyes, "and I will."
"But... what do you think will come of this? Do you think you can use a Chaos Emerald to help pull your dad out of his... coma?"
"I think I can use a Chaos Emerald to figure out what's wrong with him. If I touch it and it gives me a vision about my dad, I can find out how to help him, how to save him."
"Maria, you know what happens to you when you touch a Chaos Emerald to get a vision..."
"I know, Miles. And that's why I need you to catch me."
As the lavender hedgehog glanced worriedly between his wife and his father-in-law, the light gray hedgehog continued to speak in the most composed voice she had used since she first arrived at the hospital earlier that night.
"Honey, please... trust me on this. I know what I'm doing."
Miles hesitated for a long moment, staring fixedly at Shadow as he considered Maria's plea... then finally sighed deeply and turned his gaze back up to his love's dark blue eyes.
"All right", he muttered compliantly. "You win. I'm here to catch you."
At this, the light gray hedgehog smiled weakly and nodded once in gratitude, then took a single step towards her husband and turned slightly to let him stand behind her, all the while maintaining her grip on her father's hand. Miles in turn took a step towards Maria, positioning himself close enough to hold the blue gemstone in his left hand out next to her. The former of the hedgehog pair slowly poised her own hand just above the latter's, and both husband and wife took a deep breath together.
"Ready?"
Maria nodded once in response, cueing Miles to nod back, then grip the gemstone tighter and tense up slightly in preparation for his given task. The light gray hedgehog exhaled another breath, closed her eyes, and lowered her hand to touch the Chaos Emerald.
Darkness was immediate. Within seconds, Maria felt her grasp on the material world around her vanish, to be replaced by a more ethereal sensation inside her. The powerful gemstone seemed to be drawing the strength from her body, and before long, the light gray hedgehog was completely detached from her physical being.
Then the visions came. Suddenly, images began to flash before Maria's eyes, accompanied by strange sounds. She saw a blinding light, and she heard a voice shouting her father's name. This was followed by a vision of Shadow standing in what appeared to be a sea of white mist, a young human girl with blonde hair and blue eyes kneeling beside him. The light gray hedgehog heard the black one in her vision speak in a low voice, saying something about the Chaos Emeralds... Then the image of a glowing gemstone flashed before her, and the next thing she knew, Maria was seeing herself running towards Shadow, throwing her arms around him... She heard the voice again, this time shouting her own name... There was another blinding flash of light... The darkness was closing in on her once more...
And then she awoke. Maria suddenly gasped sharply as her dark blue eyes flew open, her previously steady breathing becoming more rapid as she was pulled from her trance. Now back in her normal state of being, the light gray hedgehog realized she was leaning against her husband, who, as she knew he would, had faithfully caught her when she fell into unconsciousness. Miles helped his currently shaking wife rise to her feet, hastily questioning her as she turned to face him.
"Well? Did you see anything?"
In response to the lavender hedgehog's question, Maria nodded slowly, though she remained silent for a minute as she recovered from her strange experience. When she finally found her voice again, the light gray hedgehog stared straight into her worried husband's emerald green eyes, and breathed a single yet immensely significant phrase:
"Miles... I know what I have to do."
"Think, Shadow!"
"I'm trying, Maria!"
The black hedgehog sighed in exasperation at his friend's persistence. The young girl was obviously determined to make him realize some significant truth behind his unfortunate accident, but the quest to uncover that truth was an exhausting one, and both Shadow and Maria were beginning to run low on patience.
"You know what happened tonight, Shadow", the phantom girl insisted. "You know..."
"Yes, Maria", the hedgehog replied in a slightly irritated tone, "but it doesn't mean anything. It was just an accident, that's all!"
"Was it really?"
At this, Shadow raised an eyebrow in surprise.
"What do you mean?"
"What happened tonight?"
"I told you: I was hit by a laser beam, the Chaos Emeralds reacted, and I blacked out."
"And why were you hit by the laser, Shadow?"
Maria had hit a mark. As it so happened, through all his efforts at logical thinking, this was the one detail that had not yet crossed the hedgehog's mind.
"What... Why was I hit in the first place?"
"Was the laser being aimed at you?"
Shadow thought back on the incident one more time, racking his brain to recall the few terrifying seconds just before he had actually been shot.
"I... I can't remember..."
And then it hit him like a bolt of lightning. The black hedgehog suddenly froze, his red eyes now staring blankly off into the empty distance, and whispered a single word:
"Miles."
Shadow turned his head slowly to lock his gaze with his friend's as the truth behind that evening's events finally began to dawn on him.
"... I dove in front of Miles! Is that it? Is that why the effect on me was different?"
Maria said nothing, but the faint smile slowly beginning to creep along her lips was answer enough that the hedgehog had at last begun to near the right conclusion.
"Shadow's in limbo!"
The five friends of Generation Beta stood close to a corner of the hospital waiting room, intent on remaining out of earshot of their parents, a habit they had all acquired in their teen years. Maria had just finished explaining the vision induced in her by the Chaos Emerald, and Sonia was the first to jump to a conclusion about it.
"'Limbo'?" Miles repeated his cousin's theory with a clear note of curiosity in his own voice.
"Are you sure?" asked Rex in confusion, cueing his vixen friend to nod in response.
"Well, what else could it be?" Sonia continued. "He's deeply unconscious, but he's not in a coma. His conscious mind is still functioning, but he isn't responding to anything immediately around him. Plus, Maria saw it herself: it's some sort of empty, misty world. It has to be limbo."
The other four friends of the group paused to consider the fox's hypothesis. What she said did make sense, though none of them were really ready or willing to believe it might be true. The idea that Shadow could actually be in limbo seemed to push the possibility of rescuing him further away, and no one had a clue what to do next. No one, that is, except Maria.
"I have to go in there."
Miles, Lily, Sonia and Rex turned to face the light gray hedgehog, both confused and intrigued by her words.
"What are you talking about, love?" the lavender hedgehog asked his wife. At this, Maria looked up to stare her husband directly in the face.
"I told you: I know what I have to do, Miles. And that's to follow my dad into that dark world... so I can bring him back myself."
"No!"
Three heads turned sharply from the first speaker to the second, alarmed by this sudden outburst. The light gray hedgehog was clearly taken aback, but the lavender one showed no sign of regret for his abrupt display of emotion.
"Maria, no!" Miles continued, growing more frustrated by the second. "You can't keep digging yourself deeper into this mess. First you wanna see what crazy place your dad is trapped in; now you wanna go in there yourself? What if you get trapped in there too? What if we can't bring you back? How am I supposed to deal with that?"
"Miles-"
"I said no!"
Looking closely in the dim lighting within the corner of the waiting room, one would almost be able to see the faintest trace of tears welling in the lavender hedgehog's eyes. It was only too obvious why he was so aggravated: if his wife, the love and light of his life, were to somehow be lost to limbo, he wouldn't be able to live with himself.
"Maria", Miles continued in a softer tone, "please, just... think about this for a minute. How is this even supposed to work?"
The light gray hedgehog slowly opened her mouth to reply, but before she could say a word, her sister-in-law spoke up first.
"We can help her", Lily interjected, all eyes turning to her now. "There's a way to do it right here in the hospital. We can put her into a medically induced coma. It's completely controlled; she'll be monitored the whole time. It'll reduce the risk of her falling into the same state as Shadow."
The lilac hedgehog glanced to her right at her brother... then slowly took a step back at the livid expression on his face.
"So you're agreeing to this?" said Miles disbelievingly as he glared at his sister. "You think this is a good idea?"
The lavender hedgehog looked around at the rest of the group in search of some support for his side of the argument. His gaze fell on his cousin and his best friend, who retreated a single step from him almost immediately.
"Sonia, come on..." Miles pleaded desperately. "Rex..."
"I don't think so", replied the two-tailed vixen, answering for both herself and her echidna friend. "This has nothing to do with us. We're not getting involved."
Miles took one more look around at his friends, his frustration rising as he realized that he would have no support from anyone, that he was on his own in this discussion.
"I don't believe this..." he sighed angrily, and with that, he turned on his heel and walked away towards the entrance into the hallway.
"Miles..." Maria breathed in exasperation as she proceeded to chase her husband past the parents in the middle of the room and into the corridor. She caught up with him at the door to Shadow's room, and promptly grasped him by the arm to make him face her, her blue eyes locking his gaze. There was no patience left in the green eyes now staring back at her.
"No!" The lavender hedgehog was practically shouting now, a fact that was beginning to draw the attention of the parents still in the waiting room. "Honey, I'm sorry, but this is crazy!"
"Miles-"
"I know he's your dad, and to you this is the right thing to do, but I think I deserve a say in this too. For all you know, it's not even worth the risk!"
"Miles, please..." The light gray hedgehog raised her voice slightly, trying harder to be heard, but in vain.
"He could wake up on his own. You could be putting yourself in danger for nothing! Do you really wanna take that chance?"
"Miles, please, put yourself in my place!" Now Maria was shouting too in her determination to make her point. "What if that were your dad?"
At this, the lavender hedgehog paused, taken aback by this new argument. His ability to speak had suddenly abandoned him; all he could do at that moment was stare completely awestruck at his wife. Maria took advantage of her husband's newfound silence and continued:
"What would you do, Miles? If that were Sonic in there, lying unconscious while possibly trapped in limbo, and you knew you had a chance to bring him back, what would you do?"
Miles remained speechless for almost a full minute, the light gray hedgehog's words ringing in his head like an eerie echo. As he desperately searched for an answer to her question, he slowly turned to look through the small window of the closed door at the black hedgehog lying unconscious inside. After a prolonged silence, the lavender hedgehog finally sighed in defeat and turned back to face his wife. There was really only one reply he could give her…
"I would do everything I could to save my hero."
Maria gazed sadly into her husband's eyes for another long moment, then finally sighed and brought her voice back to nearly a whisper as she took a step forward and gently grasped both his hands in hers.
"I know you're scared, honey. I'm scared too. But this is something I have to do. You know I wouldn't jeopardize my life with you and our kids if I felt otherwise."
Practically exhausted with defeat, Miles did no more than nod curtly at those words, choosing only to listen now as his wife carried on with the justification of her decision.
"My whole life, my dad always did everything for me. He was always there for me, no matter what. I wouldn't be who I am today if it weren't for him. And now... Now he needs me. This is my chance to be there for him. I can't just walk away from that; I could never live with myself if I did."
Another brief pause followed Maria's words, a tear now forming visibly in the corner of her eye as she fell silent. The lavender hedgehog breathed a heavy sigh, moved a little closer to her, and lightly kissed her on the forehead before looking deeply into her dark blue eyes once more.
"Then", said Miles in a soft whisper, finally free of frustration, "you go and be there for him."
The light gray hedgehog gazed back into her husband's emerald green eyes with a renewing sorrow on her own features. The lavender hedgehog took this moment to reach out and gently wrap his arms around his wife, who gratefully accepted the gesture. Miles and Maria remained silently locked in each other's embrace for a long moment – how long exactly, they never knew – as their growing fear twisted itself ever more around their hearts and their hope receded further into the darkness of that tragic night.
The mists of limbo were rarely disturbed. Given that very few people ever came to pass through them, they had inevitably taken on a very consistent albeit aimless pattern for drifting over the endless ground. Therefore, one would naturally expect them to give way to disruption rather fortuitously, and not in the orderly manner in which they now were for the black and red blur currently speeding through their midst.
Shadow ran as fast as his feet could carry him, multiple times the speed at which his heart was pounding. He barely noticed the mist parting before him throughout his path, for his eyes were preoccupied with glancing in all directions, searching for an escape. Unfortunately, it was becoming increasingly clearer that his attempts would all be made in vain, and after what could have been several minutes or several hours of persistent running, he finally slowed to a halt in defeat.
"It won't work", came the ever familiar voice suddenly from behind the black hedgehog, causing him to jump and whirl around in alarm to face the human girl standing just a few feet away.
"Maria! How-"
"You can't run away from this, Shadow. Not when you're so close."
"'So close'?" The hedgehog almost scoffed at his friend's declaration. "I was hoping that was it. There's nothing else to the story."
"So why are you running?"
"I don't know... Maybe the way out of this place opened up around here somewhere, now that I've 'solved the mystery'."
"But have you?"
Shadow was at his wits' end. With every passing minute that he was trapped in this world, he felt a greater urge to scream, to lash out at his surroundings, to break anything in sight with all the power he could muster. But his Chaos powers had not made the transition with him from the material world, a fact he had discovered during his latest attempt at escape. So instead, the black hedgehog inhaled a deep breath and seated himself once more upon the cold ground, Maria following suit.
"OK", he sighed in defeat. "Maybe there is more to the story..."
Maria Hedgehog lay against a comfortable pillow, staring at the blank white ceiling above her. As her sister-in-law attached electrodes to her head, the reality of what she was about to do finally began to sink in. This was it: her last hope of saving her father. If this plan didn't work, there was no alternate on which to fall back. Failure was not an option.
"These are to monitor your brain activity", Lily was explaining as she carried out her task. "You know, so we can follow your brainwave patterns and make sure everything goes as smoothly as possible."
The light gray hedgehog nodded once to acknowledge the clarification, though in truth she was fairly certain that it was more a means of the lilac hedgehog reassuring herself rather than keeping her sister-in-law informed. As the last of the electrodes was being placed over her temple, Maria took a few seconds to look out of the corner of her eye towards the right side of the room, where she could see her father still lying unconscious on his bed a few feet away and her mother standing faithfully beside him. A moment later, she heard her husband's voice speaking a couple of feet to her left.
"So how does this work, exactly?" asked Miles somewhat nervously, obviously directing the question at his sister. Lily took a step back from her "patient's" bed and looked up to address both of the couple.
"Medically induced comas are achieved by introducing barbiturates into the patient's system. We'll gradually inject the drug into Maria's bloodstream, which will slowly decrease her brain activity. The difference between her case and others is that at the same time, she'll be focusing the power of the Chaos Emerald to try to reach the same... 'level of consciousness' as Shadow."
The physician briefly gestured to indicate the blue gemstone currently being held in place on a small stand by her sister-in-law's right side. She then directed the couple's attention to a machine on the light gray hedgehog's other side, from which the electrodes attached to her head were extending.
"This machine will show us the exact changes in Maria's cerebral activity while we're putting her under. If she can manage to match Shadow's patterns, we'll know she's in. If not, we pull her back out of the coma and see where we go from there."
"Which is nowhere", Miles stated plainly, prompting his wife to reach out and touch his arm empathetically.
"Honey, please..."
"No, Maria", said the lavender hedgehog, now turning to face the light gray one. "We agreed that if this doesn't work the first time, that's it, remember? No do-overs."
"Yes, I remember. But we also agreed that if I was gonna get this right the first time, I would need your full support. Can you at least give me that much? Please?"
Miles stared for a long moment into his wife's dark blue eyes, the very same eyes that had been holding a subtle hypnotic power over his heart for the last fifteen years. He couldn't deny her anything she wanted this much; Heaven knew there were few such things for which she ever asked. So, with a heavy sigh, he took her hand and kissed it gently.
"OK, you're right. I'm sorry."
Maria acknowledged her husband's response with a weak smile. The couple gazed at each other quietly for almost another minute, until finally Lily broke the silence.
"Are we ready?"
The lilac hedgehog's question was greeted with slightly hesitant nods from her brother and sister-in-law. Lily nodded once in response, then directed her attention to her patients' respective spouses.
"Miles, Crystal... I need you both to leave now, please."
Crystal obeyed immediately, pausing only to give Shadow a kiss on the cheek before stepping around his bed and past the others out of the room. Her son-in-law, however, was not nearly as compliant.
"What?" said Miles indignantly. "Why?"
"Because I said so", replied Lily authoritatively. "Miles, you have been emotionally on edge all night. I can't have you in here during a delicate operation like this, not if I consider you a risk. Please step outside."
The lavender hedgehog wanted to argue, but deep down he knew that his sister was right. Unwilling to compromise the success of this plan, Miles reluctantly agreed to the request... but not before carrying out one very important task of his own.
"Wait..."
In one fluid motion, the lavender hedgehog stepped closer to his wife's bed, took a seat on it by her side, placed both his hands on either side of her face, leaned in, and touched her lips in a long and passionate kiss. A moment later, he pulled away to gaze deeply into her beautiful eyes once more and whisper the last thing he wanted her to hear from him...
"I love you."
"I love you too."
Miles gave Maria a halfhearted yet sincere smile, and with that, he stood up slowly and quietly left the room to watch the entire procedure through the glass window in the wall by the door, where the rest of the group were already standing and waiting anxiously. As a select few of her interns filed into the room, Lily walked over to her sister-in-law in order to begin the process of inducing the coma.
"You ready?"
In response to the question, Maria positioned her right hand an inch over the Chaos Emerald and replied with all the confidence she could manage at this dangerously uncertain point in time.
"I'm ready."
On that cue, the lilac hedgehog initiated the IV flow to introduce the barbiturates into her patient's system. The light gray hedgehog spared one last look at her unconscious father, then closed her eyes and touched the Emerald, continuing to focus its energy to the very best of her ability as the sounds around her began to fade and she finally became immersed in total darkness.
"I dove in front of Miles..."
Shadow had been dwelling on this fact for a while, trying hard to decipher its significance. His friend, of course, was always eager to serve as the catalyst.
"You stepped in front of Miles", Maria repeated curiously. "And...?"
"And nothing. He's fine."
"So you saved his life?"
"I guess..."
"Why, Shadow?"
The black hedgehog was somewhat puzzled by this last question, and looked up to gaze at his friend in surprise.
"... Why not? It was the right thing to do, wasn't it? He's..."
"He's what, Shadow?"
"He's... family. I mean, he's my son-in-law. He's married to my-"
And that one second was the moment of light to finally validate hours' worth of darkness.
"... my daughter."
As he spoke those words, Shadow continued to stare into Maria's blue eyes, and now as her lips began to curve slowly upwards in content, an equal smile of understanding was starting to form on his own face.
"Of course..." he breathed in immense alleviation. "I did it for her. I saved her husband, someone she loves, someone who loves her. It was always about her. I did this for Maria."
Then came the greatest surprise of all. No sooner had the black hedgehog fully thought this out than he suddenly felt a sharp tugging at his heart, the most real sensation he had felt since he first arrived in limbo. About a minute later, he heard another familiar voice calling him from far away, and more intriguingly so, by his favorite name.
"Dad!"
Shadow turned sharply towards the source of the call, and was thoroughly shocked by the next sight to meet his red eyes: racing towards him at high speed, an equal expression of incredulity on her face, was none other than his daughter.
"Daddy!"
Maria Hedgehog couldn't believe her eyes. She had found him. Her plan had worked, and now she was in limbo, a step closer to rescuing her father. She was so thrilled to finally see him in a conscious state again that the second she spotted him, she had to rush over as fast as possible and immediately throw her arms around him, even if it meant almost tackling him to the misty ground.
Before he had time to fully register her presence, Shadow suddenly felt the wind being knocked out of him as the light gray hedgehog practically charged into him in a powerful embrace. He paid little mind to this comparatively trivial fact, however, for the very sight of her filled him with an extraordinary hope that for most of the night had been feeling painfully elusive. As the black hedgehog gratefully wrapped his arms around his beloved daughter, he managed to recover from his shock just enough to find his voice.
"... Maria? What are you doing here, sweetheart?"
"Dad!" The light gray hedgehog couldn't contain her emotion, and began to cry heavily into her father's shoulder. "I can't believe you're really here! I thought... I thought..."
"I know, princess", said Shadow in as reassuring a tone as he could manage. "I thought too."
A minute passed in which father and daughter remained locked in each other's embrace, then the black hedgehog pulled away to look the light gray one in her dark blue eyes.
"How did you find me here, sweetheart?" he asked in a mix of curiosity and concern; the last thing he wanted at that point was to find out his daughter had suffered a similar fate as he had. Maria wiped the tear streams from her face as she proceeded to explain.
"It was the Chaos Emerald. You're under observation at the hospital right now, as a coma patient. I used the Emerald from the laser that hit you to get a vision, and I saw you here, in... limbo. Then I used the Emerald to get here."
"So you're unconscious too, in the real world?"
"Yes. They put me in a medically induced coma, to help me reach the same state as you. All I had to do was focus the Emerald's energy to bring me here. At first I just woke up in the middle of nowhere, but then I saw this bright light, so I ran towards it and... I found you. And I was so happy to see you, Daddy..."
Overwhelmed with renewing emotion, the light gray hedgehog threw her arms around her father yet again. It was only at this moment, looking over the black hedgehog's shoulder, that she finally noticed the other person currently occupying the space with them. Maria knew perfectly well who the human girl now smiling back at her was; never could she fail to recognize her namesake and guardian angel, Maria Robotnik. A moment later, Shadow released his daughter once more to proceed with his questioning.
"What do you mean you saw a bright light?"
Before the light gray hedgehog could respond, however, the phantom girl filled in.
"You found the connection, Shadow. By realizing why you ended up here, you found your strongest link to the real world, and then you led her here."
The hedgehogs, who had been watching Maria as she explained the strange light, now turned to face each other again.
"So", said the black hedgehog hopefully to his daughter, "I hope you came with a plan to get us back home."
In response to her father's statement, Maria nodded once, then raised her right hand and focused her gaze on her open palm. What she was hoping to achieve next, however, did not happen as she had expected, and this fact left a horrible chilling sensation in the pit of her stomach.
"Uh-oh", she muttered nervously. Shadow did not like this new tone his daughter had just adopted.
"What's wrong?"
The light gray hedgehog looked up to meet eyes with the black one, and now he could clearly see the growing panic on her face.
"I... I don't feel it anymore", she stammered, thoroughly confused. "The Chaos Emerald... It's in my hand in the real world, but I can't feel it here. I... I think I lost the connection."
At this, Shadow's red eyes slowly widened to match the level of fear clearly showing on his daughter's features. It was at this moment that the only person of the group still remaining calm chose to speak again.
"The Emerald may have been what brought you here, Maria, but is it really your main connection to your life outside this world?"
The light gray hedgehog turned to face her guardian angel, focusing on her haunting blue eyes for a minute as she silently searched for an answer to that question... And then it hit her. Suddenly remembering a very crucial detail of her vision, Maria quickly closed her eyes and threw her hands to her head, channeling every last bit of her energy into what she knew could very well be the last hope she and her father had of escaping from the terrifying mysteries of limbo.
Suspense in the material realm was dangerously high. Lily had been staring persistently at the electroencephalograph readings for the past several minutes, hardly daring to blink lest she miss a vital blip in the otherwise steady matching patterns of Shadow and Maria's cerebral activity. Meanwhile, her brother was exercising an equal level of focus as he gazed unfalteringly through the room's observation window at his unconscious wife. The rest of the group of heroes stood beside Miles, watching the people in the room through the long window in silence. For those several minutes, nobody made a sound.
And then the tension broke.
Without warning, the reading on Maria's side suddenly went haywire, rapidly increasing in spikes. At the sight of this, the lilac hedgehog felt her heart rate skyrocket; years of experience in Medicine had taught her that this sort of pattern was consistent with seizures, and though the symptoms of such a diagnosis were not showing in her sister-in-law right now, she was sure it still couldn't mean anything good. To make matters worse, the alarm signal triggered on the machine by the abrupt pattern changes had caught the attention of her brother, whose face was almost white with panic by the time Lily turned around completely to see his reaction.
Miles was desperate. He had no idea what to make of the alarming turn of events, and could do no more than watch helplessly as his sister proceeded to instruct her team of interns to reverse Maria's induced coma. He understood that the intentions behind this act were to pull his wife out of any danger she might be facing of finding herself trapped in limbo, but he still couldn't shake the feeling that somehow it might already be almost too late...
Unfortunately, all signs were now indicating that he was right. After some minutes of withdrawal from the coma-inducing drug with a consistent spiking in her EEG reading, Maria was still not showing any signs of regaining consciousness. While everyone else seemed thoroughly confused by this result, however, the lavender hedgehog was suddenly struck by a strange yet plausible explanation for the abnormal change in his wife's brainwave patterns...
"... She needs help..."
As these words escaped Miles's lips in a barely audible whisper, he felt the scene around him beginning to shift into slow motion. Without a second thought, he turned sharply to his right and bolted for the door into the room, a move that was noticed by everyone standing near him, including his twin. Terrified by the potential danger of his intentions, Lily sprinted for the door in an attempt to stop her brother from doing anything rash.
"Miles, no!"
But Miles would not yield. The lavender hedgehog brushed right past his sister as if he didn't even know she was there, never once taking his eyes off Maria. He reached her bedside in a matter of seconds, at which point, while everyone around him watched completely awestruck, he grasped the light gray hedgehog's left hand in his own, leaned in close to her head, and called sharply into her ear:
"Maria!"
At that exact moment, somewhere deep in the mysterious plane of limbo, Maria Hedgehog suddenly gasped in shock and dropped her hands as she whirled around to face the empty white sky. Her panic had been replaced with a renewed hope, for the voice that had just echoed out across the vast space, calling her name, was the very voice she wanted to hear. A few seconds later, she was prompted to look down at her left hand, where a sharp tingling sensation had begun to spread, the way it hadn't in her right hand minutes before. Yes, she had found the link.
Unwilling to waste any more crucial seconds of her rescue mission, the light gray hedgehog turned sharply back to face her father and threw her arms around him yet again, closing her eyes as she now focused every last thought in her mind on following the growing feeling in her fingers, knowing it would lead her to the real anchor she had in the material world...
Shadow embraced his daughter as tightly as he could, perfectly aware of her intentions. Though he couldn't hear whatever sound it was that had caught Maria's attention, he had noticed when she looked down at her hand, and knew she must have found a way out of this strange world. Looking over her shoulder, the black hedgehog caught one last glimpse of his human friend, a serene smile brightening her face. As Maria Robotnik bid him a silent farewell, Shadow felt a renewed calm overcoming him, and now the scene was beginning to fade, slowly blurring into darkness, until the last thing he could see clearly was a pair of kind blue eyes gazing back at him, and soon not even that...
Miles stood frozen to the spot for several seconds, hardly daring to breathe as his anticipation mounted. He knew it wasn't likely his actions would yield any results, but in that terrifying minute of silence, it was the only hope he had to cling to. The lavender hedgehog stared unfalteringly at his wife for several long seconds, waiting for a reaction that might never come...
And then he felt her fingers closing around his left hand, and every doubt he had of her return vanished into thin air.
Words could not express Miles's relief. The breath he didn't even realize he'd been holding was quickly exhaled as he saw Maria beginning to stir, and his heart rate initiated its steady return to a normal pace as he watched her inhale deeply and slowly open her eyes again. For that minute, it didn't matter to him what had happened in limbo, or if she had been successful in her mission. All that mattered was that she had returned, and more importantly, she was all right. For that minute, just her gentle grip on his hand was the most comforting feeling in the world.
Several seconds after following the call away from limbo, Maria found herself back in the hospital room, staring up at the blank ceiling. It took her a moment to realize where she was, but once she had fully recovered her senses, she turned her head slightly to her left to look up into the emerald green eyes she already knew she would see looking back at her. She couldn't remember the last time she had been so happy to see them.
"Miles..." she breathed in content, a smile now growing on her lips. Her husband's face sported an equal smile of relief as he whispered back:
"Maria... Thank Heaven..."
Her strength slowly returning, the light gray hedgehog accepted help from the lavender one to rise to a sitting position. It was at this point that Maria began to notice everyone else around her, such as her sister-in-law, the small team of interns, and the remaining group of heroes now filing into the room. A few seconds later, Lily stepped urgently around the foot of the bed and approached the patient from her other side, pulling a penlight from her pocket as she walked.
"Look straight ahead, please, and try not to blink."
Maria did as she was told, fixing her gaze on the lilac hedgehog's front coat pocket as a couple of interns briefly rushed over to help remove her electrodes. Lily took a moment to examine her sister-in-law's eyes, then proceeded to shine the light along the rims of her dark blue irises. Once she had confirmed a normal pupillary reflex in both eyes, the doctor switched her penlight off and addressed the light gray hedgehog again in a much more relaxed tone of voice.
"You're fine. Looks like you didn't suffer any brain damage. You should be OK."
At this news, Miles and Maria sighed and smiled in relief. They then turned back to face each other as the husband of the couple proceeded to question his wife about the events of the past several minutes.
"So... did you find him?"
Before Maria could reply, however, Miles found the answer to his question instead in a sudden sharp noise coming from behind him: Crystal, who had been the first to rush into the room after her son-in-law, had just cried out in shock. As all eyes now turned to the white hedgehog, everyone saw that she was running towards the opposite bed from her daughter's, where the black hedgehog who had been mysteriously comatose for most of the night was now showing signs of awakening.
Shadow inhaled a deep breath, hardly daring to believe that when he opened his eyes, he would find himself exactly where he belonged. When he could no longer contain his anticipation, he slowly opened his eyes... and was thoroughly relieved to immediately see the familiar and welcoming face of his wife looking back at him. Though his vision was still somewhat blurred, he could clearly make out tears lining Crystal's bright blue eyes, as well as the faintest hint of a smile on her lips. There was no doubt about it; he was home.
A few minutes later, after regaining enough strength to rise into a sitting position and successfully passing Lily's brief pupillary reflex test, the black hedgehog turned to his left to see his daughter in the next bed, gazing back at him with a broad grin on her face. Standing just beside her was his son-in-law, who was staring back at him with an expression of mixed awe and guilt. Shadow understood the look in Miles's green eyes, and in response, offered him a simple nod of absolution, to which the lavender hedgehog also nodded once and smiled weakly in gratitude. Now that the night's episode was over, there was no more need for guilt.
The black hedgehog took a moment to glance around the room, now noticing the other people looking back at him. He noticed Sonic standing behind Miles, a smile of content on his face; he noticed the Prowers and the Echidnas standing close to the observation window, obviously completely speechless; and he noticed Lily standing by the side wall with her team of amazed interns. It was then that the reality of the rescue plan's brilliance hit him, for clearly, until this point, it had seemed very unlikely to all the observers that it would even be successful, a thought that was confirmed by the next words to be spoken among the group.
"So..." said an astounded Sonic, "it worked?"
"Yeah", was the contented reply to come from Miles. "It worked."
Shadow took this time to face his daughter again, and now he reciprocated her grin with a proud smile of his own, breaking the peaceful silence in a whisper with the first words he had spoken since awakening:
"That's my girl."
Maria gazed quietly at her father for a moment before happily whispering the phrase she had been longing to say all night:
"Welcome home, Dad."
There would be plenty of time for joyful reunions later. For now, both the black and the light gray hedgehog found comfort in being able to fall back on material pillows and easily breathe in the air of the real world, knowing they could close their eyes and succumb to their exhaustion to drift into a perfectly normal sleep that wouldn't leave them trapped in a mysterious plane of semi-existence. They deserved nothing less. It had been a long and trying night for Shadow and Maria, and they were just glad to be home.
The End