Sonic Runaways

"Shadow?" Maria's voice asked, staring out the window of the ARK at the whole planet below. "What do you think it's like…? Down on Erius, I mean?" Shadow glanced to her. She glanced to him, before they both gazed back to the sickly red and yellow planet.

"I don't know…" Shadow mumbled. "But it's very beautiful from where I'm standing, even if the planet is sick." Maria nodded in agreement, smiling.

"I suppose it is, in its own way. Grandfather once told me that planet was blue, back when the world belonged to our family," Maria stated as she looked on. The yellow and red colors were hard to make out when reflecting in her blue eyes. "But he never has the time to tell me that anymore, because he's always busy looking for a cure. I want to hear him say that again soon, because I'm still not sure if it was just a dream or not." Shadow looked at Maria again, this time he didn't look back at Erius as quickly.

"I'm still not sure about anything, Maria," Shadow muttered. "I just don't know anything… not yet! Maybe if I go to that planet, I'll…!" He looked up from Erius and put his hands up to the far-off sun, separating his fingers to let the individual rays of sunshine filter through them. "It's so… distant. It doesn't matter if it'll someday take away everything I love, because I will fight to protect what I love no matter what… I'm the Ultimate Lifeform that Professor Gerald created, after all." Shadow pretended the sun was small. He pretended to crush the sun with his hand, similar to the illusion of someone pretending to lean against a far-off tower to feel large. "So how come looking its way still hurts me a little? How come it feels like it's taunting me, laughing at my pain?"

"The sun…?" Maria asked. Shadow fell silent for a moment, unsure of what to say. His hands fell back to his sides, and he looked to the floor. "Maybe we'll be able to go to Erius together someday," Maria offered. Shadow stared towards the planet. "Doesn't that sound wonderful, Shadow?"

"Yeah… maybe someday, the professor can invent a way to make it blue again…" Shadow fantasized. The next thing he knew, Maria wasn't standing by his side anymore. Nobody was in the room but him. He was left staring out the window towards the shattered world of Erius. It still wasn't blue. In fact, there was even an added tinge of yellow to it.

"Why so melancholy?" Eggman asked, stepping towards Shadow and looking out the window.

"It's none of your concern, Eggman," Shadow grumbled. "I am very displeased about you bailing back on Prison Island."

"It's not my fault you're so slow," Eggman replied. "It doesn't really matter, seeing as how you and Rouge escaped in time." Eggman crossed his arms and yawned. "How did you do that?"

"Chaos Control," Shadow answered. "It's a very useful power, allowing me to manipulate time and space within a certain range. It took a lot of energy, but I then managed to warp back here." Shadow turned to Eggman. "Where is Rouge, anyways?"

"I don't know. I believe she's somewhere in the exterior of the colony," Eggman answered. "It's best if we leave her alone, she seemed upset."

"Have you retrieved the Master Emerald shards from her?" Shadow asked.

"Of course! With a little 'sweet-talking', of course" Eggman exclaimed. "The Master Emerald still isn't complete, but surely we can do something with the pieces we have installed to the Eclipse Cannon."

"Yes, we can. It won't be operating at maximum power, but a single blast will still be strong enough to do some serious damage," Shadow explained. "It'll take some time to recharge after, but once we have the whole emerald, you can fire it to your heart's content."

"I don't have a heart," Eggman replied.

"... Sure. Let's get going," Shadow muttered, walking towards the Eclipse Cannon's chamber.

…

There was no fanfare. There was no cheer or joy from escaping the island alive. There's never a grand award for mere survival. The ceremonies being held were not for a hero that never lived, they were only for the fallen who ceased to. The only thing Sonic felt as he limped down the frosty midnight sidewalk in Iceburg, Holoska was the lingering feelings of mental shock and physical burnout taking form in tandem as tremors across his entire body. Amy seemed to be experiencing something similar. Sonic had seen many awful things, but the explosion of Prison Island was up there with the Calamity and the Uprising in Azerbaijanistan as the worst. Except this time, he was not the hero. He was not the villain. All he did was escape with his life. Survivor's guilt is a double-edged sword, it's a gift to still be alive so you can say you have it. A curse to know that others weren't so lucky.

"Oh dang… Sonic, you haven't eaten in a while, right?" Tails broke the silence, leaving behind large metal footprints in the snow with the Cyclone. "We should probably get something to eat…"

"Sure, Tails," Sonic mumbled.

Eventually, the three reached a tavern. They opened the doors and stepped inside. "Table for three, please," Sonic ordered. Nobody was paying attention to them, only the old TV mounted on the walls next to taxidermy wild deer and bear heads. Looked like footage of Prison Island blowing up. Everyone was horrified, their worldviews shaken by just how quickly it all happened, how much had been lost in only a few seconds. Tragedies like this happened all the time on Erius. But it was rare that one of the Big Three were the victims, in fact, they were usually the aggressors. It was easier for citizens of Holoska, an island owned by the United Federation, to relate to the victims. To fear for their lives in case Eggman targeted the UF again. The broadcast switched back to the news anchor as he listed the casualties and damage.

"45 confirmed deaths as of now, due to the explosion on Prison Island," the news anchor reported. He turned to the other anchor and continued to discuss things. Sonic, Tails and Amy uncomfortably walked over to the front counter to order their dinner.

Now sat at their tables with their food, they finally had a chance to rest their legs. The silence hurt their ears, they only realized their appetites were gone when they had to force what should have been a perfectly enjoyable supper down their throat. "I'm still scared," Amy squeaked. Sonic looked to the side as sweat continued to run down his forehead.

"Cheer up, you guys," Tails said, trying to lighten the mood. "We got out of there, that's all that matters." Sonic and Amy spun their heads over to face him, shocked.

"Dude, wh—?" Sonic muttered.

"What the heck, Tails?!" Amy screamed. Some of the other people at the tavern glanced over, Sonic and Tails jolted into the back of their seats. "Don't you have any compassion?! People died!"

"I know, Amy, but…!" Tails exclaimed in his own defense. He paused, Sonic glancing up at the window. There was a good view of the full moon. "Sorry…" He put his head down. Amy grumbled, Sonic's stare growing confused. He could swear he heard whispers in his ear. "Hey, c'mon. GUN was trying to kill us." Sonic looked away from the moon, but the sound kept growing in volume. The whispers were coming from the moon. He covered his ears. "Sonic, are you okay?" Tails asked.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine, but Amy has a point," Sonic sighed, taking his fists off of his ears and hearing the whispers die down. Tails' eyes grew sadder. Sonic leaned into his ear and began to whisper. "Tails, I don't know what it is, but you've been really… cold lately. You didn't just 'defeat' Blade like you said you did on the way here. You killed her, right? That's the only way to turn one of those creatures into pure Dark Gaia Force." Tails' tails frizzed up in anger, as his irises shrunk.

"Exactly, she was one of Dark Gaia's monsters," Tails retorted.

"Yeah, but you didn't know that before you killed her," Sonic muttered. "Even on Angel Island… you didn't seem to care at all. 'All's well that ends well'? Again, almost the entire Knuckles Clan was wiped out. You were never like this before we moved to Giganima. You even stopped me from killing Eggman in Prison Hill." Sonic hesitated to say anything else. "I'm saying this because I care about you, Tails. I don't want to see you become cold and distant. But nowadays it seems like you only care about the end goal, fixing the world." Sonic sat back down and took a deep breath. "And how long has it been since we've just… hung out? Talked? This is the most time we've spent together in weeks and it just kind of seems like necessity."

Sonic looked around at the table. Amy was still clearly pissed off, Tails was despondent, and Sonic himself… had made everything worse.

"This just in, it looks like there's orders from president Michael Krez to bomb the Eggman Empire!" The anchor exclaimed. Everybody looked back to the TV, the tavern burst into murmurs. "This is in retaliation for Eggman's attack on Prison Island as mentioned just minutes ago. The United Federation is officially at WAR with the Eggman Em—!" The broadcast was torn away from the air, as the last second repeated in a glitched state. Sonic got up from his seat and looked up at the TV. The entire screen went black.

"Bwahahahaha, I would refrain from doing anything of the sort, Krezzie!" Eggman's voice announced from the speakers. Sonic gritted his teeth as people around him screamed. "Citizens of the United Federation! Lend me your ears, push your pathetic attention spans beyond their limits or face the consequences later! Listen very closely, my name is Lord Eggman. The world's greatest supreme leader… and soon to be the only one left!" Eggman showed up on the broadcast. He was poorly green screened onto a tacky blue animated background. Text scrolled by in every direction talking about how cool Eggman was. "It may be hard for you undisciplined ignoramuses to remember, but I used to be one of you. Until your military, the GUARDIAN UNITS OF NATION, turned on my entire family despite all we did for you. We are the rightful rulers of this continent, this planet, and beyond. But now look at me! ME! MEEEE!!! Look at ME, about to take it all back by force… the hard way…" Eggman cleared his throat. "Or rather… look at the sky."

Sonic, Tails and Amy dashed outside, the others in the tavern following close behind. They watched as everybody else all around town did the same thing. They all stared up at a humongous rock in orbit. A light blue shine emanated from the center. "Isn't that the ARK?" Tails asked.

Everyone gasped as one half of the rock exploded in a blinding flash of light. They shielded their eyes. When they opened them, a meteor shower was raining down. All of the meteors burned up before they hit the continent, and the explosion died down.

"Is it… over?" Amy meeped. The large structure in the sky now resembled Eggman's face. Almost like the Death Egg.

"Exactly 50 years ago today, GUN raided the Space Colony ARK…" Eggman retold, in a tone not too dissimilar from that of a parent reading their child a bedtime story. "They murdered everybody aboard, including Maria Robotnik, my dearly missed cousin. They did this because they feared the ARK and the marvels of engineering taking form on the colony. The marvels of engineering that they requested, no less." Eggman sighed in gratification. In catharsis. "And now, those fears… those imaginary phobias… are about to be fully realized. By me. Take this as a warning… LONG LIVE THE EGGMAN EMPIRE!" Some kind of energy circle grew at the tip of the ARK's nose. It pointed itself away from Erius.

"He's gonna shoot us?!" Amy cried.

"No… he's gonna shoot the—!" Sonic shouted. Then, the blast fired with an eardrum-crushing sound. Everybody followed the blue energy beam with their gazes as it stretched across the sky. And as it grew closer to…

The moon.

Eggman's laughter, and the crowd's blood-curdling screams, were made inaudible as the blast collided, and half of the moon was instantly destroyed with its force. That half shattered into little pieces, and those pieces floated around in the sky. The core of Erius' moon was now visible. The laser fizzled out. The broadcast ended. The screams continued. The TV screens that were tuned into the hijacked news station switched over to a countdown, a ticking time bomb, a doomsday clock counting down from 24 hours.

…

Shadow, playing a somber song on the Mutual Mandolin, stared out the window of the ARK's escape pod room at the damage the Eclipse Cannon had done to the moon. When he eventually got bored of watching the individual shards dance around the stars, he began to do that very thing himself. Gliding and waltzing around the room with his rocket skates, he silently relished the feeling of his lifelong mission nearly being complete. His promise to Maria, to Hope, was almost fulfilled. He danced to his own song. He danced, looking out towards the same constellation he saw when his life began. The same one he saw when his life had peaked. The same one he saw when his life had ended. He didn't miss a note, all while carrying both roles of a dance meant for two.