A/N: The first book in the Time Trilogy, Metarex Rule, now has been updated to its final version. Like I mentioned, if you've already read it, there should be nothing major changed. Small details were tweaked to clean up plot that will affect Time Hero and the overall writing quality was updated. However, if you haven't read it but you are reading Time Hero, now's a great time to go back and see how the adventure began! Similar updates to Darkened Chaos (book 2) are coming soon, but I'm still in the middle of working on them.

Though, I guess we have some bigger fish to fry, since Shadow is sort of covered in blood at the moment...


Chapter Twelve: A Tenuous Hold

Blood reminds me of my own mortality. So much of my past exists within a haze that makes true knowledge of my origins uncertain. But the red blood matting my fur, dripping from my limps, splattering to the ground at my feet reminds me acutely of my own mortality.

I am alive. I bleed. And so much that my life might end.

Like so many lives on Majyk already have.

Shadow forced his aching muscles back into order. Each of them pulled tight as he forced himself to his feet. But even with as much demand as he attempted to control his body with, shaking knees sent him taking a stumbling step to the side. His hand tightened around the Chaos Emerald as if it could offer him the stability he sought.

Even as his vision shook and blurred in the tenuous consciousness he clung to, he forced his gaze to the twin two-tailed foxes standing before him. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment to clear his double vision, but when he opened his eyes once more, he saw his lack of success. No matter; his own weakness was the least of his problems.

Never mind the body battered by battle.

The cells of him electrified and stretched by Chaos Control with too few Chaos Emeralds.

Blood pooling at his feet and slickening the floor.

There were far more important things to worry about. And so Shadow would keep pushing forward until his body truly had nothing left to give.

"Why are you just standing there?" Shadow snarled. He looked between the two foxes, assuming Tails actually stood somewhere in the space between. "Is the word 'genocide' not enough to spur you to action?"

"We're already on our way to Majyk," Tails replied, furrowing his brow.

"At the highest speed possible by this craft? Leave nothing to chance," he snapped.

"This is the highest speed as long as the Master Emerald's in pieces!" Tension seeped its way into Tails's voice so that it rose in pitch.

Shadow pressed the heel of his palm into his temple in an attempt to smother the headache beginning to whisper its warnings behind his already blurred eyes. The Chaos Emerald warmed in his hand like a reminder of what he had left behind. How far away from Majyk am I? he thought at its provocation.

Thank goodness he was born from Chaos Energy because his tired focus alone otherwise wouldn't have been enough to use the Chaos Emerald to span such a distance. Not with this level of injury to his body. But the Chaos Energy in his body was enough to trigger the Chaos Emerald in his hand to glow like a beacon, like a radio, to find the Chaos Emerald he had just left behind on Majyk. With Nova.

Where she sought to prevent the genocide of her kind.

When he opened his eyes again, returning to his tenuous hold on reality, he hissed. "Still a day away at this speed," he said under his breath. "And a single Chaos Emerald isn't nearly enough to teleport a craft of this size that sort of distance."

Tails held his hands up in a gesture of surrender. Or rather, one of the two versions of Tails did. The second version of the fox stepped forward with arms firmly at his sides. "Slow down, Shadow. Explain," the fox demanded. Though the voice decidedly did not belong to Tails.

Shadow's side twinged a bit more sharply than before. Previously he had managed to relegate the pain away into a darkened corner of his brain, locked away tight behind a heavy door while more severe matters took the majority of his attention. But the lull now gave his mind time to take stock. Shadow pressed his hand against his side. Only a few seconds passed before blood soaked through the fabric of his glove to the palm of his hand beneath.

Later…later, he reminded himself. His body would survive until then.

Nova's might not.

"The Metarex have returned," he panted to the second fox—no longer caring whether or not it was a double-version of Tails or nothing more than a hallucination. Sweat beaded across his brow. He glanced down to double-check that the inhibitor rings still encircled his wrists. Good—he should remain consciousness for the duration of this conversation. "A vast armada swarmed Majyk the moment we returned to the past. The planet held its own at first but is quickly growing overwhelmed. I was the only one able to escape the planet to seek help. And without help, the planet will surely fall."

"An armada!" the version of Tails that actually sounded like Tails exclaimed. Shadow shifted his eyes to the left in time to see Tails's eyes widen even further. He turned his head to look at the fox beside him—decidedly not an illusion after all then. "How can the Metarex have come back so fast with such huge numbers? We'd just defeated them during the time-space collision at this point!"

The fox beside him frowned. "Like I said before, the Time Whisperers don't believe this was ever meant to be a viable timeline. I don't have any better understanding of how this is all possible."

"And we don't have time to worry about such details," Shadow reminded the both of them in a low voice. "If we don't move quickly, all of Majyk will be decimated, and Nova along with it!"

At least that triggered a wince from Tails. Shadow's legs shook beneath him but he forced them to stiffen if only through sheer willpower alone. The last image he had of Nova burned in his thoughts to fuel him further. Her blonde curls hung limp around her face. Many of the strands had come free from the ponytail holding them contained. Ash and dirt and drops of blood smeared across her pale features. Despite the bloodshed, she had managed to hold strong so far. Perhaps only because she was too far away from herself for her PTSD to gain a hold in her mind. At that point, the pale blue Chaos Emerald was fueling her magic. After days of stand-off, she no longer had reserves of her own to draw from.

If that was what ended up being the last living memory of the girl he loved, Shadow would die shredding apart the remaining Metarex piece by piece. After all, if any afterlife did exist, Shadow had no certainty he'd follow Nova to it. With his origins, could he even have a soul that would be able to pass on?

"Perhaps Sonic can use the Chaos Emerald to teleport ahead, provide Majyk the assistance it requires until the rest of us arrive," Shadow said. He lifted the Chaos Emerald at his side. Certainly, as powerful as that meddlesome hedgehog was, he must be able to perform the feat that Shadow had done. At least Sonic wasn't injured.

But at the comment, Tails's shoulders fell. "Sonic's not here," he said, his volume falling. "The Metarex kidnapped him. Cosmo too."

Shadow's hand slid away from the gash in his side. A low buzzing grew in his ears and from there, the cool slime of numbness spread across the surface of his skin until he could feel nothing more than cold, save for the sharp sparks of his wounds. "How?" he demanded. But then he scowled. "No, we don't have time. If Sonic may already be lost, then we must focus on Nova."

Tails pressed his lips together like he was thinking. Like he was no more than considering Shadow's plea. Had Shadow not abstained from asking assistance prior to this moment? And now, at a time when the entirety of a civilization was at risk, Tails dared to merely consider such a request?

Tails squeezed his eyes shut. "Of course, we'll do everything we can. It's just…I don't think it will be enough."

When he opened his eyes, he turned to the fox beside him once more. Now that Shadow had gotten his bearings, he began to recognize the differences between the foxes and realized the duplication was no trick of the light. But this second fox shook her head. "Again, I have absolutely no insight on this timeline. You're the captain and this is your choice."

Heat burned in the Chaos Emerald in Shadow's hand, rising up in reflection of the heat building up in Shadow's chest. The last of his patience dissipated. "A choice between cowardice and preventing a genocide!" he spat. "If you so much as think yourselves heroes, you cannot look away now!"

"I know that!" Tails snapped back. His shout echoed back at them from the walls of the wide room surrounding them. Tails's shoulders rose toward his wide muzzle, his hands clenched into fists. But after that moment, tension fell out of them. "We're already going toward Majyk as fast as we can move, given the current state of our engine. We'll do our best to help." He sounded suddenly exhausted as he spoke now. When he closed his eyes, he again murmured, "We'll do whatever we can, even if it's not enough."

The other fox, however, did not wear the same distressed expression. Instead, she turned her cool gaze toward Shadow once more. "And we should likely start by stitching that hole in your side."

At the mention of his injury in such a way, Shadow winced. Such comment only reminded him of Nova's fear of blood. The paleness as she continued to fight in spite of the bloodshed around her. It was one of the things he loved most about her.

Shadow refused for such determination to be her downfall.