Mario and Sonic: Super Eclipse and Determination

A tenderly moment

__Sonic watched as the large black shell continued to spin and spew black Paint everywhere. He ran towards Mario as Princess Peach was next to him. "What is that thing!?"
__"When Bowser comes in contact with the corrupted black paint, he turns into Fury Bowser!" Mario exclaimed. "This happened once when Bowser Junior was playing a harmless prank by painting on him with that stuff and came to me while I was in Lake Lapcat where we had the Giga Bells to bring him back! But that's way too far and we can't transport the bells! Their uses are done!"
__"Isn't there anything else we can do!?" Tails shrieked as he joined them.
__Sonic looked over at the device and flattened his ears. The machine grew even louder as it formed a protective barrier, even around the Chaos Emeralds and Dulcy. Over to the side Doctor Eggman and Metal Sonic were also surrounded by a shield.
__"I think not!" Knuckles shouted as he ran over to the shields. He tried punching and kicking the shield, but to no avail. The doctor laughed as Knuckles sank down in defeat and glared at him. "You coward!"
__"Everyone!" Princess Peach shouted. "We must leave now!"
__"How!?" Wave shouted. "That black paint is even covering up the lava!"
__"There are plenty of airships! We must hurry!" Peach then began leading everyone, including the CCO, towards one of the broken hallways.
__Sonic did not move.
__Tails noticed this and ran over and started pulling on his arm. "What are you doing!? We have to go!"
__"Then what?" Sonic looked down at him. "The doomsday device is still active."
__"Yeah but..." Tails seemed to have lost his words.
__Sonic pulled his arm away. "I'm not leaving. Bowser may have been a bad guy, but he just risked his life for me. Besides destroying that device, I have to bring him back."
__All of his mobian friends started coming back. The rest had hesitated before doing the same.
__"Exactly how do you plan on stopping this!?" Princess Daisy asked skeptically and worriedly. "We have no way of reverting Bowser back, we have no way of breaking through those force fields, so we have no way of destroying that machine! Face it, Sonic! It's over! We've lost!"
__Sonic looked down at his feet. She was right. At the moment, they didn't have anything. They were as good as dead.
__Sonic heard shadow sigh before he groaned "You're all so quick to give up." Everyone stared at Shadow in confusion.
__"Because there's nothing else!" Luigi retorted.
__"We have one thing," Shadow said while closing his eyes.
__"And what is that?" Princess Peach asked softly.
__Shadow then proceeded to grab his left wrist ring. Panic flooded Sonic's heart and mind as he grabbed Shadow's arm and pulled it away. "Don't you fucking dare!" He shouted.
__"Let go," Shadow said calmly.
__"No!" Sonic growled, making everyone stare at him in shock. "The last time you unleashed your full power you died on me! I'm not allowing you to do that again!"
__"That is not your decision to make!" Shadow growled back as he yanked his arm away. "You're not my leader! You don't get to decide if I can or can't sacrifice myself!"
__"Shadow, don't!" Rouge pleaded, but Shadow ignored her.
__"This is my power!" Shadow yelled. "And like you said, I choose who I am and what I do!" He tried to remove his ring again when Sonic punched him in the face. This made everyone gasp and back away.
__Sonic kept his fist clenched as Shadow fell over. "I'm not going to let you kill yourself!"
__Shadow got back up and punched Sonic in the face and pinned to the ground. Sonic retaliated by bashing his forehead against Shadow's and kicked him off of him before tackling him. Everyone watched in horror as they fought. Sonic used his homing attack on Shadow while he threw his chaos spears at him. They kept punching, kicking, spin dashing, pushing, pulling. Neither one of them wanted to back down. Cuts and bruises were made, blood pouring from those cuts. Even the stitched claw marks on the left side of Sonic's head reopened and began pouring blood. Cream and Cheese and Charmy were crying as they hid their faces within Amy, Gemerl and the other two Chaotix. Bowser Junior was hiding behind Mario and Kamek, staring at the two hedgehogs fighting brutally. No one dared to stop the two.
__Eventually Sonic and Shadow began to grow tired. Sonic threw a weak punch at Shadow's face and just stood there panting. He prepared for Shadow to punch him in the face but he saw something break in his eyes as he slammed both of his hands on Sonic's chest and lowered his head.
__"You idiot!" His voice trembled. It took him a while before looking up and grabbing Sonic's shoulders while shaking him. "I can't watch you all die!" He shrieked. "Not when I have the power to prevent that! Why!? Why won't you let me save you!? You even said I always came to your rescue! Let me do this! Why won't you let me do this!?
__Sonic spit out blood to the side before grabbing Shadow's shoulders and shouting. "I can't watch you die in front of me again! I can't! You're not just my rival, you're not just my friend, you're my brother! I won't allow you to do this for us again! There's no guarantee that Eggman will bring you back after learning from his mistakes!"
__"He's right!" Doctor Eggman shouted with a happy smile on his face. "I wouldn't!"
__Sonic bared his teeth and glared at the human. "You shut your damn mouth! You're not helping!"
__"Not trying to!"
__Sonic growled before pleadingly looking at Shadow while tightening his grip on his shoulders and trembling. "Please... you don't have to die on us. There's always another way."
__Shadow, too, began trembling. It looked like he was holding back tears as he flattened his ears. "Why?" He asked quietly.
__Sonic loosened his grip and pulled Shadow into a tight embrace. It took a while for Shadow to accept the hug as he wrapped his arms around him. Neither of them spoke, as did the others. The silence said everything.
__Sonic then pulled away and locked his gaze with Shadow's. "We still have the Chaos Emeralds. We can still do this."
__Shadow then sighed in defeat as he lowered his hands and backed away slowly. "I'll fight with you, brother."
__Sonic smiled, but that moment did not last long before Amy stomped over and punched Shadow in the face. "What is wrong with you two!? You're both so inconsiderate and immature! Why bother fighting when it's the end of the world!?" Before Shadow could even say Sonic started it Amy put a finger on his mouth and growled. "I don't wanna hear it!"
__Mario had finally brought himself to walk up to Sonic. He stared at the stitches that were now poking out, to which Sonic covered with his hand and tried giggling. "Sorry about that. Shadow and I always seem to make everything extreme. But that's just how we are: family."
__Mario smiled before frowning. "How do we get those Chaos Emeralds? We can't break the force field."
__Sonic pondered for a bit. How would they break the force field to get to the Chaos Emeralds? Something sparked as Sonic looked at Mario and then at Dulcy. Bingo.