Chapter Text
Shadow leaned against the wall, staring at the doors of the high-security detention cell block beneath GUN’s headquarters. Heavily armed guards stood on either side, holding semi-automatic rifles. ‘How long do I have?’
’Seven minutes,’ Rouge said. ‘Do your worst.’
The security cameras above his head looked like red eyes in the dim light. And with a sharp flash, they went dark, lowering one by one. Shadow lunged forward and crashed through the doors with his shoulder before the guards even had time to shoot. As they pivoted to fire on him, he slammed both feet back against the double doors, sending the two men crashing into the corridor wall.
‘This would go a lot more smoothly if you used Chaos Control,’ Rouge said pointedly.
Shadow strode down the hall, ignoring the screeches, yells and calls of the inmates. ‘If the cameras are down, then none of this ever happened –’ One guard stepped into his path, and Shadow sent him flying into a cell door with a swift roundhouse kick.
‘Stay focused,’ Rouge warned.
‘You stay focused,’ Shadow growled. ‘I need you to keep the systems from rebooting.’
He slammed open the door of an interrogation room and hauled the supervising officers out of their chairs, ripping off their headsets and throwing them out of the room.
There was a lone female officer on the other side of the one-way glass, sitting at a steel table, opposite the shooter. Shadow held up one of the confiscated headsets, and her frustrated voice crackled in his ear. ‘Listen, I’ve been doing this for a week. If you keep this up, I’m going to hand you off to one of my colleagues … and they won’t be so patient.’
‘If you have someone who’s capable of making me talk, then why haven’t you sent him in yet?’
With a green flash, Shadow appeared in the interrogation room, standing behind the shooter, and clamped one hand down on the man’s shoulder. ‘… I was indisposed.’
The officer recognised his silhouette, and she turned pale. ‘You’re not supposed to be here. You’re not one of our interrogators.’
‘You must be new here.’ Shadow gave her a glare. ‘I’m the one they call in when your best interrogators come up short.’
She bristled, folding her arms over the tabletop. ’We have limits for a reason.’
Shadow bared his fangs at her in a sharp, humourless smile. ‘You might, but GUN doesn’t. And this man still has all ten of his fingernails.’ He circled around behind her and hauled her to her feet. ‘Get out.’
‘I-I was told to instruct you to leave if you came in here.’
‘And I’m instructing you to leave through the door before I throw you through the one-way glass.’ Her hands began to shake, and Shadow lowered his voice. ‘The cameras are down. You can tell them I threatened to kill you. Go.’
With one last look at the shooter, she strode out of the room, and Shadow slammed the door closed. He glanced at the shooter, and he realised the man’s face was pallid. ‘What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
‘Y-You’re supposed to be dead.’
Shadow stiffened. ‘Unfortunately for you, I’m not.’ He raised one foot to the steel door, and blue flames whorled from his shoes, welding the door shut. He turned and stalked over to the table, bracing his hands against it.
The man looked … normal. Average build. Dark hair. Caucasian. Nothing that would distinguish him in a line-up. He didn’t look dangerous, yet his wrists and ankles were clamped to a steel chair.
Shadow took a seat at the table, and his chest burned with anger. If Maria had known that people like this existed, would she have still wanted him to give everyone a chance to be happy? … But she had known. She had died of a gunshot wound, but her dying wish had remained unchanged.
‘I’m not going to give you a chance to be happy,’ Shadow said, slowly, tapping one finger on the table. ‘But I’m going to give you a chance to tell me everything you know.’
‘Y-You’re going to kill me anyway. Why should I tell you anything?’
Shadow removed one of his gloves, examining his claws. He didn’t need a gun, a knife … or even a pair of pliers. ‘I can give you several reasons. 10 of them.’ He glanced down. ‘Or 20.’ The man began to pant shallowly, revealing a sliver of crooked teeth. ‘… Or 52.’
‘A-Are you really just going to do GUN’s dirty work for them? Like their loyal dog?’
‘Don’t change the subject,’ Shadow muttered. ‘And you’re one to talk about dirty work. You’re just a brat with a rifle. I’ve seen the interrogation transcripts, and I know you’re not capable of acting independently. You’re someone doing someone else’s bidding, and you had one chance to tell me who that person is.’
‘… Had one chance?’
Shadow lunged across the table, and a syringe glinted in his fingers. He stabbed it into the man’s forearm, depressed the plunger, and a green liquid disappeared into his bloodstream.
Rouge was a thief first and foremost, after all. Stealing a vial of the neurotoxin that GUN’s scientists were analysing was child’s play for her.
A scream rang in his ears, followed by a heavy banging on the door. ‘Agent Shadow?’ Commander Tower’s voice came over the intercom system, and Shadow knew that he must be standing on the other side of the one-way glass. ‘You’re not authorised to engage with this suspect.’
Shadow sat on the edge of the table and snapped off the needle in the man’s arm, breaking the syringe with his fingers. Shards of glass tinkled on the floor. ‘I’m not authorised to engage with any suspect, but somehow I always find myself back here when one of your damn prisoners won’t talk.’
‘You’re too emotionally invested in this case –‘
The intercom crackled and died, and Rouge’s voice filled his ear again. ‘Sorry, sweetheart. I figured I’d better let him do his spiel so he can have plausible deniability.’
‘I gathered as much –’
A loud slam made his fur stand on end, and he looked back to see a dent in the metal door. The guards must have found an enforcer – a portable battering ram – and were trying to break down the door. He didn’t have much time … but neither did the man sitting in front of him.
‘What have you done?’
Shadow leaned forward, sinking his claws into the man’s forearms. ‘You already know. You’re just too afraid to admit it to yourself.’ Chaos Energy seeped into the man’s arms, crackling as it violently reacted with the very toxin that he had tried to kill Shadow with. ‘You took my sight, my hearing, my agency … you nearly took my life. You targeted my teammate.’ His claws sank in deeper. ‘By the time I’m done with you, you’re going to wish that I had sent you to a black site instead.’
‘D-Don’t do this.’ The man’s eyes were already turning grey, and his hands were twitching. His nerves were frying, and his senses were failing. ‘Can you hear me? Don’t kill me, please. Please!’
A rhythmic banging punctuated the silence. Shadow slowly tilted his head. ‘… You want to live?’
‘Of course I don’t! No one wants to die!’
Shadow’s shoulders slumped as he watched the man in front of him begin to decay in front of his very eyes. ‘Believe it or not, sometimes death can be a mercy.’ Then he withdrew his claws and narrowed his eyes, severing the flow of Chaos Energy. He materialised his Chaos Emerald in his hands. ‘… Chaos Control.’
The world turned grey, then gold, and a clock began to tick as time reversed. He watched in silence as the effects and traces of the toxin disappeared, and once time resumed, he got off the table.
‘… Had one chance?’ the man repeated.
‘Yes.’ Shadow drew his glove back on and glanced back at him. ‘.Thanks for your cooperation.’
The man stared at him in horror, then looked down at the broken needle in his arm. ‘… I told you?’ He began to sweat, shaking so violently. ’He’s going to kill me once he finds out what I’ve done. Kill me. For the love of God, kill me. Make it quick –’
‘He?’
The man blinked several times. Then he threw himself forward, and the steel chair nearly toppled. ‘You mangy cur; I’m going to tear your throat out –‘
With a final slam, the door buckled. But it wasn’t due to the aid of soldiers with an enforcer. It was Omega. He tore the door off its hinges and entered the room, bending and breaking the metal doorframe. ‘Hedgehog. I have been instructed to defuse the situation.’
Shadow and Omega stared at each other. ‘… And how exactly do you plan to do that?’
‘By reminding you that you must not kill the target before we acquire additional intel.’
Shadow glared at the one-way glass. Omega’s job had been to keep anyone from interfering before Shadow could kill the shooter. But Abraham had to look like he was attempting to stop Shadow, and Omega couldn’t completely ignore the man’s requests.
‘I’m not going to kill him,’ Shadow muttered. He stalked past Omega, glaring at Abraham, who was leaning against the glass with a weary look on his face.
‘What? You don’t want to do the honours?’ Abraham asked flatly, and Shadow could tell that his words weren’t an invitation.
‘The situation has changed.’ He nodded at the headset in Abraham’s hand. ‘You heard what happened in there. He needs to be interrogated further before he’s executed … if GUN chooses to execute him.’ Shadow hesitated. ‘And I …’
Omega looked up. His lenses zoomed in, focusing on the broken door. ‘The situation may have changed. But my priorities have not.’
Abraham narrowed his eyes. ‘Excuse me?’
With a loud, mechanical clunking, Omega strode through the broken doorway and braced the fallen door against the hole, welding it shut again with a blast of fire that turned the interrogation room into a furnace.
Abraham slammed one hand against the console outside the interrogation room and turned the intercom on again. ‘Omega, stop this –’
Shadow’s heart began to pound. He grabbed Abraham’s arm, pulling him back from the glass. ‘Don’t.’
‘It’s one thing for you to be insubordinate, Shadow, but –‘
‘You don’t understand.’ Omega’s footsteps shook the walls, and Shadow’s chest began to heave. ‘He was created to keep me in check. And after everything that happened, I’m not in any condition to stop him. And if I can’t stop him, then no one can –‘
Artillery fire ricocheted behind the glass, and Shadow tackled Abraham to the ground. The glass above their head began to crack. Rouge’s panicked voice exploded in his ear, mingling with hoarse screams coming from inside the room. He caught a glimpse of long, clawed shadows reaching across the wall inside the interrogation chamber, and Omega’s hands closed around the man’s head.
The glass shattered, and Shadow felt a pair of gloved hands cover his ears. He looked up, expecting to see Rouge, but no – it was Abraham. The shoulders of his jacket were covered in broken glass, and despite the man’s best efforts, Shadow could hear the faint sounds of bones and sinew slowly being torn asunder.
With a loud snap, blood sprayed through the broken window, drenching them both. The two of them sat in stunned silence. Abraham let Shadow go and held up one hand, warning the soldiers in the external doorway to stay back. The welded door collapsed, and Omega emerged. His exterior was drenched in blood. He rotated his head, staring down at Abraham and Shadow.
‘… Omega?’ Shadow whispered.
‘I said that I would assist with dispatching your assailant. I have completed my objectives.’
‘We hadn’t even learned who he was working for –’
Omega whirred loudly. ‘I obtained the necessary data. Tell the bat to review the audio files.’
‘… We can tell people that you were operating under outdated directives,’ Abraham said, and his voice was measured. ‘But that was still an unsanctioned execution.’ He got to his feet and hauled Shadow up. ‘You committed murder, Omega.’
‘Irrelevant. I have always intended to murder Doctor Eggman when the opportunity arises. And I require the hedgehog to be fully functioning in order to aid my efforts.’ Omega looked down at Abraham, then walked off, dragging Shadow with him by the arm. ‘Threats to the bat and the hedgehog will be summarily dealt with.’
The sounds of horrified whispers arose from the soldiers flooding into the interrogation room, and Shadow gave Omega a wary glance. ‘… And?’
‘Elaborate.’
‘You weren’t merely trying to further your own goals in there.’
Omega whirred, almost angrily. ‘You and the one known as Gemerl have the same weaknesses as those meat sacks. I wanted to let you deal the killing blow, but you refused.’
‘I made a choice –’
‘As did I. You have a conscience. I do not.’
‘I wasn’t just created to kill and destroy –‘
Omega clamped his hand down on Shadow’s shoulder. ‘But I was.’ Blood dripped from claws, soaking Shadow’s fur. ‘You do not have the luxury of ignoring threats. You must learn to delegate.’
Shadow closed his eyes and continued to stumble forward ‘There could be consequences,’ he murmured. ‘GUN could try to reprogram you.’
‘… They may attempt to do so. I will terminate their software technicians with extreme prejudice.’
Rouge stalked around the corner, and he caught a glimpse of a knife in her hands. ‘Well?’ Her voice was hardened. ‘How did we go, boys?’ She took one look at the blood on Omega’s exterior and the glass shards in Shadow’s fur, and her face paled. Then she swiftly hid the knife behind her back and forced a smile. The blade reflected her shaking fingers.
Shadow’s eyes widened. It dawned on him that this had never been about whether he chose to let the shooter live or die. The fact that someone had nearly killed GUN’s undying soldier could never be made public … and one way or another, everything and everyone related to the case had to disappear, whether by his hands, Omega’s or Rouge’s.
Rouge sauntered up and fell into step with them as more soldiers ran in the other direction, towards the interrogation chamber. ‘Looks like you two should hit the showers. Those cameras aren’t going to stay offline forever.’
They passed beneath a dead security camera, and Shadow eyed it as they walked past. Some things about GUN never changed. As long as there was no record of the organisation’s atrocities, it was as though those atrocities had never occurred.
But some things had changed. He had a choice. He was capable of protecting the people he cared about, but they were also capable of protecting themselves. But either way, their misdeeds would light up the night sky of Central City every so often, like a bloody firework that disappeared as quickly as it came.
‘… Thank you. Both of you.’
Omega’s lenses flashed, and Rouge glanced at him, twirling the knife in her fingers. Then she grinned, and the three of them disappeared in a flash of green light, leaving a trail of blood that ended at the doors of the detention cell block.
Cover Art by Electrikitty