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“Y’know… I was there at your birthday.”
Shadow glared at him. The only reason there had been anything to go to on his birthday was because of the meddling of Rouge and Sonic himself.
And besides… even if it had only been for a short while, and even if he’d hardly been… emotionally present for it, he had technically shown up at Sonic’s party after that time monster had been defeated.
“Didn’t your party get ruined anyway?” he retorted.
Sonic grinned. “No need to remind me! Besides… It might have been more fun that way anyway!”
Anyone except Sonic would have been kidding. Perhaps for him, it had been just a fun adventure… Of course, he hadn’t seen what Shadow had been otherwise occupied with, and given the direction their conversation was currently going in, Shadow wasn’t sure he was glad about that anymore.
“For some of us, perhaps,” Shadow sighed irritably.
Sonic eyed him curiously. There was still a casual air to his posture, but something in his expression told a different story.
“Is this about your ‘business’?” he asked Shadow. “If I heard Rouge’s call to you correctly, something about the Ark?”
Of course Sonic had been eavesdropping…
“Tangentially related,” Shadow huffed. “I don’t suppose you’d considered what sort of effects that monster meddling with time would have on other threats already in play?”
“I mean,” Sonic shrugged, “I’d think those threats probably would have just been sucked in and stuck like the rest of us, but I’m guessing that if that was the case, you probably wouldn’t be asking.”
“Black Doom was in the process of attempting a second takeover.”
It was amusing to watch genuine shock appear on Sonic’s face. Was this really all it took to take him off guard? Shadow would have to remember that.
“Your dead-beat dad was back?”
“Please,” he growled, “Black Doom may have been my progenitor, but he is not my father.”
Sonic nodded. “Sorry, the alien overlord who tried to make you destroy the planet for him was back? Yeesh.”
“He was already waiting for me aboard the Ark by the time your mess with time travel started.”
“Y’know, I don’t really think that ‘mess’ you’re talking about was my fault, but alright, yeah, that does sound like it would suck. I wasn’t actually mad, dude. Glad you were able to handle all of that yourself!”
And in time to go and play cheerleader for Sonic at the end of his considerably more fun adventure.
“Black Doom wanted me to be handling it by myself. I can’t say that he’d certainly planned on the intervention of such forces, but he did make use of them, when that opportunity presented itself. I can only hope that he stays gone this time.”
“How’d he even come back, anyway? I thought you blew him the heck up last time,” Sonic asked.
“Perks of being a hive mind species, I suppose,” Shadow answered, pulling a face. “The Black Arms need a leader, so unless they are eradicated entirely, they will continue to have one.”
He suspected that there must have been some Black Arms creature left over on the Ark from Gerald’s research. The Black Comet had been destroyed the first time – of that, he was still sure.
“Uh…huh.”
Well… Part of his DNA may have been of Black Arms origin, but Shadow would hardly say he knew that much about them. When possible, he would really rather not associate with them at all.
“It doesn’t matter how it happened, just that it did,” he snapped. “There. That’s my reason for not being there at your birthday party.”
He was seconds away from leaving, at that point. He’d come here for some peace and quiet to ruminate on… everything that Black Doom’s return and the accompanying time anomaly had brought, but he was hardly going to get that with Sonic talking his ear off.
“Hey, it’s fine, really. I wasn’t necessarily expecting you to be there, and like I said, I’m not mad! Just…” Sonic hesitated. “I mean, are you okay? I came over because you looked like you were brooding again, and after hearing all of this, I guess you probably had a lot going on, huh.”
“I don’t brood,” Shadow muttered.
“Sure thing, man. My question still stands.”
“I’m,” he thought of Maria, finally in front of him again, disappearing just as quickly as she’d tumbled back into his life, gripping his hands, “…fine.”
Dammit. Those memories, why did they still hurt? He’d been getting better! He’d… It had stopped being so painful to think about her finally, but all it took for everything to come flooding back was a few hours in her presence?
He’d said goodbye to the Shadow who defined himself solely on Maria’s good and Gerald’s sins, but he supposed they’d never really left, because the moment he’d been reunited with the people responsible for those attributes, they’d come rushing back to envelope him. There had been a time when they’d been as distant to his identity as his Black Arms heritage. Wasn’t it amusing how both of those things had changed?
Shadow clenched his fist and stared pointedly away from Sonic.
“Sure…” Sonic chuckled. “Bet Black Doom showing back up was exactly how you wanted to spend your day.”
“Black Doom was inconsequential,” he sneered. “I defeated him before, and I defeated him again. It’s a simple matter.”
“Didn’t you have seven Chaos Emeralds before?” Sonic questioned, “I had them all this time, so…”
Not quite all seven, but Shadow took his point.
“I used other means,” he said.
“Wanna elaborate on that?”
“No,” he responded. “It doesn’t matter.”
“I mean, if you were suddenly all powerful, how come you lost to me, huh?” Sonic retorted, smirking.
That arrogant little–
“I wanted a fair fight,” he argued. “And in any case, you hardly won.”
“I took your Chaos Emerald… Same difference.”
Shadow crossed his arms. “Did you?”
“Uh… Is this another amnesia episode or what?”
Shadow hardly missed either of his past experiences with amnesia, but he could also say that they were simpler. In a way, he did envy how his past selves didn’t have to live remembering the full details of his past. Of her.
He knew that Sonic was just trying to keep things light-hearted with him, of course, but…
Hm. Maybe he had been brooding before.
“Unfortunately for you, my memories are still perfectly intact. I take it I fooled you, then?”
“Fooled me how? Into thinking you had amnesia? That was just a joke, man.”
“No, with the emerald.”
“What about it, though? It was a Chaos Emerald.” Sonic said, confused. “I went super with it and everything.”
“Pity,” Shadow smirked. “I would have thought you’d have recognized the replica which saved you before.”
“Tails’s replica? Huh. Wouldn’t have thought that would have worked for super forms… I mean, Chaos Control with it was already pushing it…”
“No, you moron , I had Rouge swap it for the real one later,” he huffed.
A lazy grin came across Sonic’s face. “Sure you did, pal.”
He wondered if Sonic knew what he was doing, distracting him with petty squabbles like this. Rouge loved this trick, but his mind had been more on Maria’s way of doing things, recently. She always knew exactly the right thing to say. Even in her final moments. Why was it that no one else was ever able to be as direct with him as that?
“If I hadn’t, you’d have lost quite badly in our duel, Sonic, believe me.”
It wouldn’t have been honorable to use his Doom powers on Sonic, but it would have been awfully satisfying.
“You say that every time, but… you know, it’s the strangest thing, but you lose every time as well!”
“I could have launched you well off into space, had I wanted to,” he asserted.
“Then why didn’t you?” Sonic grinned, leaning right up into his personal space.
“Because using evil alien powers that I had developed only that very day to kick your ass in a race hardly seemed fair,” curtly, he explained.
“I take it that’s how you beat Black Doom again?”
“Yes,” he nodded. “And I will admit, defeating him with his own power was extremely satisfying.”
Nevermind the fact that he’d had those powers in the first place apparently so that Black Doom would be able to take over his body… He twiddled his fingers; they moved as quickly and responsively as ever. They were still his.
“Care to share any of them? Catch me up to speed and all that on your fancy new tricks so that you can use them against me next time? You’ll still lose, but why not even the playing field a little, eh?” There was a wink thrown on the end.
“Tt, I would, but they seem to have vanished along with Black Doom.”
Sonic made a face. “Buzzkill. You get anything interesting from them?”
“Wings,” Shadow shrugged. “Some upgrades to my chaos powers. A… surfboard…”
“Dude, you can just run across water.”
“I won’t be hearing it from the hedgehog who still hasn’t learned how to swim,” he shot back. “Another year older, and yet you still don’t have such a basic ability…”
“Like you would learn if you had to…” Sonic sighed.
“I would,” haughtily, he replied. “I don’t have the same foolish phobia as you…”
“Hey, we all have our own fears. Water’s just like, my one weakness.”
As abundant as water was on this planet, Sonic was correct that it was quite simple to just run across it. So perhaps Shadow’s own fears and weaknesses were much greater. They certainly held him back more than Sonic’s did. There was no doubt in his mind, if it came down to it, Sonic would swim an entire ocean if it came down to it, and he had to, but Shadow wasn’t certain that he’d be able to face some of his more deep-seated traumas if they reared their ugly heads too directly at him.
…Maybe if it had been Sonic in that time anomaly instead of him, he would have pushed harder to save Gerald and Maria. Hard enough to succeed, even.
“Perhaps if I’d gone to the beach instead, you wouldn’t be bothering me right now, then,” he hummed.
“Haha, very funny,” Sonic laughed. “If you really wanted me gone, there would have been a fist to my face by now.”
Maybe Shadow didn’t want to be alone after everything that had happened. But maybe there also wasn’t anyone he actually wanted to talk about this with – no one he wanted to bear witness to such a gaping wound across him.
“Don’t presume to know my wants.”
“Alright then. Here, do you want me to leave? Actually leave, I mean.”
He really wanted to say yes. He wanted time alone to process – he knew that – but he couldn’t quite bring himself to say that, because the more time he spent alone processing, the more it became clear that what was hanging over him now was just an aching loneliness. Sonic irritated him to no end at times, but he was also here now, making the effort.
Maria wouldn’t want him to send Sonic away. He knew it wasn’t healthy to still base so many of his decisions on her, but she’d been here again so recently, and he wouldn’t know who else to let guide him.
“…No,” uncertainly, he admitted.
“See? No beach necessary!” Sonic shuffled up next to him. “You were saying about those abilities from Black Doom?”
“They don’t really matter, though,” he frowned. “They’re already gone… And I doubt that you’d believe the last of them, anyway.”
Sonic grinned competitively. “Try me.”
“I was able to morph into a squid. This was… useful for traversal. It was slower, but I could grapple from large distances, and cross more perilous terrain.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Sonic began to snicker. Shadow thought he’d put his explanation rather succinctly, but trust his rival to find amusement in it anyway.
“Ah, that’s pretty funny, actually.”
Shadow narrowed his eyes. “You don’t believe me, I take it?”
“Oh, no, I do! I mean, yeah, it’s silly-sounding, and I’m sure a lot of people wouldn’t believe you at all, but I had a similar thing once before, actually,” explained Sonic.
“You… also turned into a squid?”
“Squid? Oh, uh, not similar in that way. Just the transforming to be slower, but more durable, with better grappling potential and all that.”
“Hm,” Shadow said.
“Ahah, now who doesn’t believe who?”
I just simply can’t imagine you ever slowing down,” he returned.
“Not by choice!” Sonic said, flashing him a bright smile. “But stuff happens, y’know? You just have to deal with it, sometimes.”
Maria had faded away right before him today, and no amount of extra power from Black Doom had been able to change that. Was that just something he was supposed to deal with? Shadow felt as though he’d been dealing with that for all of his life now. All of the life where he felt like his current self, anyway.
“How did you do it?” he asked.
“Huh?” Sonic seemed taken aback by the question. “Why’re you asking? Thought your powers were gone…”
“They are,” he confirmed. “I meant… in general.”
His rival studied him for a moment, but then any trace of doubt was gone from his face just as quickly as it had appeared – just as quickly as Sonic did anything, then.
“Just how I choose to live, I guess. No point about getting down about stuff when it’s so liable to change! I think it’s nicer to just find the good stuff that’s still going on.”
What was there to be happy about, though? He’d found a ray of hope in reuniting with Gerald and Maria, but it had been torn from him before he could do anything with it. Everything was back to exactly how it was before, except he had new memories and regrets tormenting him now.
“I wasn’t at your party…” he muttered.
He’d been on the Ark for the start of it, and then he’d left early anyway.
“Uh… No, you weren’t, but… I already said it wasn’t a big deal… I get that’s not really your kinda scene.”
“But would it have made me feel better?” he wondered aloud.
Should he have been attempting to patch back up this hole he felt in his chest since the moment he’d lost Maria again?
“So something is up,” Sonic said, almost triumphantly.
He bit back before he could stop himself, “Nothing for you to concern yourself with!”
“Suit yourself. Just wanted to help.”
Shadow wasn’t sure if he was upset at the nonchalance in Sonic’s voice as spoke – not even bothered by this at all, was he – or glad his rival hadn’t taken it personally.
“No, I…” he sighed, annoyed at himself. “I didn’t mean that.”
“What’s up?” Sonic asked, simply.
“Did you… see more than just places from different times?”
“Huh…? I mean, I guess I saw people too? Mini me, Tails, and Eggman were there. Oh my Chaos, don’t tell me you saw mini you , Shadow,” Sonic replied, snickering at that last part.
“No…” he fussed, tone harsh. “I don’t like what you’re implying there. I was never mini.”
“It’s an expression, dude… Like, y’know, a younger you?”
“Oh, no, I…” he blinked, a little caught off guard. “Nothing of the sort.”
“Shame,” Sonic said lightly. “Would have been fun to meet baby Shadow.”
He held back a retort to that one.
“I imagine that would have been preferable, actually,” he lamented.
His younger self would likely have gotten on his nerves with his ignorance , and because this was the version of him who’d failed to save Maria, but he wouldn’t have dredged back up so many unpleasant feelings. He wouldn’t have forced Shadow’s current self to fail to save Maria all over again.
“Sheesh, who’d you see then?” incredulously, Sonic questioned.
“I… She was…” Why was it so difficult to say? Why could he not bring himself to say her name now? She’d been dead for fifty years. “M– My sister.”
It took Sonic a moment to catch up with his evasive manner of speaking, but the moment where the ball dropped for him was obvious.
“Oh.”
“Yeah,” Shadow nodded, grimly.
“Ah, I’m really sorry, man. That must have been…” Sonic seemed to be struggling for words. “…Unfortunate.”
“Yes, well, I know you don’t tend to think much in your past, hedgehog, but I… I thought I was done having to confront mine as well.”
“I don’t not think on the past,” corrected Sonic. “I just don’t dwell. There’s no point in that.”
“I assure you, I am aware. That just becomes much more difficult when your past is right there in front of you.”
“Yeah…” Sonic sighed. “Was it nice at least? To see her again?”
“I–“ It had been everything, to just hear her speak again, even to just pretend that nothing bad had ever happened to her. “Of course. But it’s… Accepting it for what it was felt like hiding away from the truth. Because she and the Professor are still gone, and were always still gone. To think otherwise was just… pointless wish-fulfillment.”
He’d really thought that there had been an opportunity to save them both right in front of him. Had that been foolish of him?
“Wish-fulfillment implies you did think otherwise, dude.”
“She was right there in front of me. Maria, still alive. She– I was so close to having her back – I really thought that I could change her fate,” bitterly, he murmured. “That was the wish-fulfillment, Sonic. She was right there, and she wasn’t dead anymore, and I did nothing to save her.”
“The context for this story is kinda crazy, and you definitely wouldn’t believe me on it, but… I knew a girl once, who tried to give up everything to save her past. I had to talk to her a little afterwards, ‘cause… all things end! Parties finish, day gives out at dusk, people die… And our best moments end too. It’s kinda depressing to think about, but isn’t it also kinda beautiful? The fact that those things even existed in the first place?”
Maria’s existence, no matter how short-lived it had been, was a beautiful thing, yes, but didn’t it just highlight the unfairness of it all to think of it that way? Maria had been the best of all of them aboard the Ark, but she’d died in such a brutal way. She would have done so much better finally out in the real world than him, and yet she wasn’t the one who made it there.
“I’m immortal,” he said. “If I’ll never end, then what’s the point in me ever having existed?”
“So what if you won't ever literally die? You’re not the same Shadow as the one I first met, y’know? That guy came to a sort of end, and his desires definitely did.”
Shadow flushed and looked away. “I feel as though my past sins still weigh very heavily on me. I don’t wish to notice them, but…”
“No one else is going to judge you for them,” Sonic interjected.
Then why wouldn’t they leave his head?
“You’re not going to judge me for them,” Shadow corrected. “You cannot speak for everyone, though.”
“Are you looking for an excuse to be hard on yourself?” Sonic hummed. “‘Cause I mean, sheesh, dude, it sounds like you came out of all of this having done a lot of good, but all I’m hearin’ from you is about all your mistakes!”
“I…”
“And not even the real ones! I mean, you lost a fight with me pretty abysmally, but you’re more worried about stuff that happened ages ago? C’mon…”
“I told you, I didn’t lose,” he huffed. “I just refused to cheat. I doubt you would have had the same integrity.”
“Haha, who could say?” easily, Sonic responded. “I know I definitely wouldn’t lose to you.”
“You lose to me every time.”
He was aware that Sonic was trying to distract him again, but it was sort of working, and he supposed he had to appreciate the effort.
“That must be what you tell people, but it’s just not true, man!”
“I… Well, I suppose I would have told Maria as much,” he admitted.
He would have if he’d had time to, anyway.
“I’ll have to come after you one of these days for slander…” Sonic sighed.
“I wouldn’t lie to Maria ,” he retorted, scandalized. “How lowly do you think I am?”
“Depends…” his rival hummed. “What if you didn’t think you were lying?”
“You’re calling me delusional? Tt. I know exactly who I am, and I know that I would never lose to the likes of you.” And yet Sonic’s expression brightened at those words. “Why are you grinning?” he hissed. “Are you making fun of me?”
“What? No, no! Just… It’s like you said, dude! You know who you are! You have done for a while now.”
He knew that Shadow the Hedgehog was someone who was created to save Maria. He knew he’d lived by her wishes since as long as he could remember. But… Sonic was right; he’d known he was able to be more than that for a while now. Perhaps since he’d defeated Black Doom for the first time, even.
“Yes, I suppose I have,” quietly, he agreed. “But I… Seeing Maria again reminded me of what I couldn’t be. Though I loathe to admit it, I think you would have done a better job than me, in that regard.”
“Better job at what?” Sonic blinked.
He’d been so focused on Black Doom, so focused on useless anger… If he’d been better at keeping a clear head, perhaps he could have spent his time trying to find a way to save Maria and Gerald. He knew that Maria hadn’t wanted him to try once she’d started to fade away, but would things have been different if it had been an immediate priority for him?
She’d always wanted to return to see the planet from its surface, and he could have gifted that opportunity to her. And healthcare had improved so much in the time that he’d spent in stasis! Professionals now would surely be able to do so much more for her than he or Gerald ever could aboard the Ark. In this modern day, Maria could have even lived amongst everyone – amongst Shadow, amongst Sonic, amongst her family…
Such thoughts were madness, and to let them simmer felt like trudging through miles of mud, head stuck underwater, but they were so hopeful all the same. They dragged back up all of his deepest regrets, but they reminded him just as much of the greatest times of his life.
But he hadn’t been able to save her. Not from her illness, not from the raid, and not even through his second chance today. She’d been lost to everyone for fifty years at this point, and Shadow would do well to remember that. Even if the world did look so much more bleak without her there to light it up.
“…It’s silly, I’m aware, but… if I’d been less focused on my mission today, I think that perhaps I might have been able to save her and the Professor. The opportunity was there, but I wasn’t able to think clearly enough to take it. You… would have fared better than me in that regard.”
“It’s in the past now,” Sonic dismissed.
“It’s… What?”
“Or future? Or… outside of time? Eh, who knows. Time travel makes everything wonky…”
“You don’t think you would have been able to change things either?”
“Meddling with things in White Space doesn’t sound like it’d have been likely to… go so well,” Sonic offered. “If you’d found a way to save either of them, you’d have just been trapped in that moment of saving them forever! And a good triumph’s special because it’s rare! It needs to end! I guess that’s probably not what you want to hear, but I don’t know that I’d have tried either. I wouldn’t want to live the same moment over and over again, so I wouldn’t want you to have to do that too.”
It was foolish of him to forget how Sonic was able to brighten up the world around him as well. What was it Maria had said? That a shadow existed to guide you to the light? Hm…
Was he destined to always be chasing that light, stuck to its side like his namesake?
“I think I should have spent more time with her,” he muttered.
Sonic’s smile turned sympathetic. “You saved the world, Shadow. If you only had limited time, don’t you think that’s what she’d prefer for you to spend that time doing?”
Dammit, why was he right again? It was… It was infuriating, really.
“Then perhaps I’m simply being selfish. I can only feel regret at how much time I spent apart from her, even when she was finally back right in front of me.”
“Give yourself some credit!” Sonic said. “It takes a lot to be able to keep going under those kinds of conditions. Lot of courage, lot of willpower, lot of all those kinds of things.”
Sonic had all of those in droves, of course, but… Hm, he hadn’t been the one there, had he? He’d been off having his fun adventure defeating a time monster, and Shadow had done his part to protect the world from Black Doom once more.
And there wasn’t even doubt about it this time – Maria had been there to tell him what she wanted him to do.
“Dammit…” he whispered.
“I see you’ve brought your favorite word back out,” wryly, his rival remarked.
“What nonsense are you spouting now?”
“You were obsessed with saying ‘damn’ way back when Black Doom last tried to invade, dude,” snickered Sonic.
“I was? Hm.”
“Oh, yeah, all ‘dammit’ this, and ‘damn blue hedgehog’ that… Like you couldn’t have thought of a better adjective to describe me…”
“Damnably irritating?” he suggested.
“I was going more for damn handsome, but hey, you do you!” Sonic smirked.
He was almost tempted to laugh at his rival’s retort. He didn’t know how he could be close to laughing after everything that had happened that day, but perhaps that wasn’t… a bad thing. He’d always admired Maria for being to laugh and smile, even on her lowest of days. And he wouldn’t admit to it, but he found himself admiring Sonic for the same reasons, sometimes.
“Keep dreaming,” he shook his head.
“You took awfully long to respond there,” Sonic teased.
“I was contemplating,” he explained.
“Contemplating my good looks?”
His irritatingly attractive personality, actually, but such a thing was still uncomfortably close to the truth.
“Shut it,” he barked.
“Whatever you say.” Sonic let out a deep, carefree exhale. “Anything else I can do for you, though?”
“For me? Why…” Wasn’t he already doing more than he needed to, in having sought Shadow out? He’d left the party early, and yet here Sonic still was. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, as we’ve established, today mega-sucked for you, for the most part, so I thought I might as well offer.”
There was nothing else Sonic needed to offer him, was there?
Shadow sighed deeply, and finally let himself relax a little.
“No… You’ve done plenty already, hedgehog.”
“Heh. Careful,” playfully, Sonic warned, “that sounds dangerously close to you wanting me to be here.”
“You wish…” he murmured, determined to at least try and keep up some semblance of routine.
Shadow turned his attention up to the stars. It had gotten dark before he’d even noticed, but this view was as entrancing as ever, now that he was looking.
“Nice night though, huh?” Sonic commented.
“It is,” he agreed. “Is it still technically your birthday?”
“My…? Oh! Huh, yeah, I guess it is! Why? Do you want to–“
“Happy birthday, Sonic,” he cut in.
That also seemed to catch Sonic by surprise.
“Yeah, I, uh… thanks, man.”
Hearing him so bashful was eminently amusing.
“You mentioned an unbelievable story earlier, when you were talking about the natural end of all things. Tell me about that.”
It would be best, Shadow decided, to just submit to Sonic’s foolish ideas of how to distract him. Besides, he couldn’t say he wasn’t curious after a hook like that.
“If you insist!” Sonic returned chipperly, bouncing back from his shock as easily as ever. “Though I better not be hearing anything about it all being ‘nonsense’ until after I’m done, ‘kay? It’s… It was all real.”
“I thought you were supposed to be quick?” he tutted. “Stop waffling, and get to the point.”
“Well, you know the stories about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, right? ‘Cause, oh boy, is this all about them…”
Really, he’d just stopped an alien invasion for the second time, today. How was Sonic’s life still crazier than his?