One Choice, Two Worlds (sonadow)

Origins

— Sonic's POV —

*TAP TAP TAP* I tapped my hands on the rickety wooden table as the two stared at me. "So... I guess that means I'm going first?" Tails nodded as Shadow buried his face in his hands, clearly exhausted. I adjusted my seat as I began to talk. "Alright, so I was battling Eggman with Tails, Eggman was shouting at him minions cause I was stuck and he had the perfect opportunity to finally get rid-" I was interrupted when Shadow groaned, "Just get to the point already." Slightly embarrassed, I nodded. "Okay. I found a strange crystal, mysterious, but magestic, and when I lifted it up into the sun, a strange beam shot out of it, and then I woke up here."
"So you're from another universe?" Tails was intrigued now. "Yeah, I guess you could say that" I looked around to find Shadow, almost disappointed. "I guess that explains the whole Sonic being dead situation."

"Tell me more about your universe, what's it's like? You mentioned something about this Eggman guy. Is your world like how ours was before?" Tails was thrilled, while Shadz also put on a small smile. "Well, let's see. Green Hill, the best home I could ever ask for. Palm trees, soft beaches along the coastline, sunny blue skies, golden rings dotted everywhere around the place. I guess you could say Eggman is my Robotnik. Except he's not so ruthless, he's more of a goofball if you ask me. We have a... strange dynamic, I hate him with all my heart, obviously, but we don't actually want to kill each other. He just attacks people and we stop him, and then there's my Shadow. No one really knows where he lives, or what he does, he's kind of an anti hero really, most of the time he's on his own team, but he sometimes teams up with us, if it means that he can smash that egg."

"Us..?" Both Tails and Shadow shared a confused, upsetting look on their faces. "Yeah! The gang? Me, Tails, Amy, Knuckles, Rouge? Where are they anyways? I mean I already know about Ames... you know."
"Yeah." Shadow muttered something else under his breath, but I couldn't hear what, he then continued in a sterner voice, "Rouge and Knuckles were last seen after The Incident, they said they didn't want to live in such a corrupted world anymore, and they went underground, we haven't heard from them ever since, so Miles and I have been hiding out here."

"Well, I've told you guys my story, so you tell me yours. How about we start of with your Eggman, has he always been like this? So heartless and cold." I shuddered as Tails began. "He's always been like this, even before The Incident. He would attack us constantly, he wanted us dead. It got to the point that he started sending out squads to collect all the remaining rings, and all of us being short on rings meant we all sustained major injuries from broken bones to being in comas for days, weeks, even months. That's when we started asking Shadow for help, Robotnik was too powerful." Shadow raised his hand, signalling for Tails to stop. "When Miles asked for help, I immediately knew what it was about. I had seen Robotnik's minions collecting rings, but I never knew how bad it really was. I was able to stop him for a while, but it wasn't enough. Robotnik knew that as long as we had even the smallest amount of rings, he would never be able to accomplish his life-long dream. He disappeared for a while, but what we didn't know was that Robotnik was building 'ring farms'. He had discovered where the rings were spawning, and built farms around every single one, well nearly."

Shadow got out of his chair, and dragged the sofa over to the side, revealing a small door, "In here." He pointed to the tiny hatch, opening it and crawling inside, I followed too as Tails stayed in the main rooms. Inside, there laid 5 golden rings, bobbing up and down. "Wow, so is this how you've managed to survive this whole time?"
"Yeah, we don't go out much, probably only once every few weeks, when we're okay on rings. Come on, let's go back, I still need to tell you about The Incident. " The dark hedgehog spoke as he began crawling back through the tunnel.

"The Incident. You want to do it or should I?" Tails shrugged and Shadow continued on, "Alright, I'll do it then. With most of the population ringless, Robotnik was now the most powerful. He began terraforming Palm Hill into his own empire, Rovotropolis, knowing that no one could stop him. Now I had to side with Miles and the others. Our world was a lot like yours before The Incident, but after, everything changed. We had no other choice but to let him demolish what was left of Palm Hill, as we were all low on rings, we couldn't pick a fight we couldn't win. We watched as the rolling hills became nothing but a ruined world. Our Sonic however, wouldn't give up so easily, he wasn't going to let Robotnik take the second thing he loved most, and so we gave him all the rings we had left, and so The Incident began. A fight that would go down in history began between Sonic and Robotnik, we had spent months planning out how we would win. We gathered all the Chaos Emeralds, we devised a plan on how we could take him by surprise, we did everything we could, and it worked. At least that's what we thought. I still remember his last words so clearly. Shadow, I love you, but please, leave me." I wanted to know, but I wasn't sure if I could even ask such a question. 'The whole point of this is to get to know what happened... right?' Fuck it, I decided to make the most of being stuck in this strange world. "How did he... well... die?" Shadow looked like he was about to break down. Now I felt bad. "It's okay, you don't have to tell me-"
"No, you deserve to know." Tails stepped in, before turning to Shadow to continue speaking, "I'll tell him." He nodded, wiping the tears from his now-red eyes that matched his irises, as Tails started to explain.

"Sonic had 'won' when he knocked Robotnik unconscious, but we thought he was dead, he had to be. We were celebrating as he transformed back from Super Sonic, but in the midst of our victory, Robotnik came out of nowhere and stabbed him in the back before taking the chaos emeralds and running off to rebuild his empire. We tried to stop him, we really did, but since Sonic had lost so many rings in the battle, he immediately fell to the ground after the sudden attack, and before we knew it, he was gone. After Sonic's defeat Robotnik only became more powerful, his ego bigger than ever, I mean after all, he had defeated Sonic the Hedgehog, right? So all our work, our ideas, his... death, it was all for nothing. "

We sat in silence for a few minutes before I spoke up. "If this is some sort of parallel universe, then surely the crystal that brought me here should also exist in this world right?" Tails nodded, before retreating to his room, returning a few seconds later with a small handbook titled 'The Crystal Compendium'. "Tell me about this crystal, in thorough detail."
"Well, I only saw it for about a minute or two, but it was a shiny, amethyst colour, like chrome pigment, and it was about nay big, and nay wide," I continued my description, using my hands to help visualise it as Tails flipped through the pages of his handbook, looking up at me every once in a while. "Is this it?" He showed me a page in his booklet, with a small image of the crystal I had found just the day before. "Yes that's it!" I exclaimed excitedly, but Tails was showing it to Shadow as they both exchanged an anxious look on their faces. "You don't think it's..." Shadow started speaking, but stopped as Tails nodded. Shadow sighed, "This is going to be a lot harder that we thought."

"Why?" All I needed to do was find this mysterious crystal, and point it up at the sun like I did back home, then boom! I'd be back. "There's a small detail that you don't know yet. When Robotnik was just starting on building his ring farms, Rouge, Miles and I were sent out on a stakeout to see what he was up to. His minions were building the farms, but there was a small group of robots digging for something, and they soon achieved their goal, cause they dug up well... that." Shadow paused as he pointed to the picture in the handbook that Tails still held. "We're not completely sure, but we think it's the power source of Rovotropolis, located in the main room. I saw it once while out on a mission, but I only took a glance, I'm not even sure if it's the same one."

"Either way, taking the crystal would be beneficial, right? Even if it's not the correct one, Egg- I mean Robotnik would be powerless, literally. If it is the correct one, then he'd still be without power, and I can get back home." Tails turned to Shadow, who nodded slowly in agreement. "He's got a point, with Robotnik powerless, we can finally restore Palm Hill to its original state, isn't that what we've always wanted?" Tails sat for a moment, thinking, Shadow and I just stared at each other awkwardly, as I continued to tap at the table, before the silence was finally broken when Tails sighed, tugging down at his ears. "It would definitely give us an advantage, but we'd need more if we want to overthrow Robotnik. Even now he gets more powerful as we speak. If only there were some way to harness the crystals energy..." He paused, mumbling something every now and then, before realising that Shadow and I were staring at him, confused, his cheeks turned red of embarrassment before speaking again. "Oh yeah, the crystal. Yeah, it would definitely benefit either way, but how would we get it? We're in no state to fight, and sneaking in wouldn't work, if it's in most heavily guarded room in all of Rovotropolis." Shadow pondered for a moment, before standing up, gently slamming his hands against the table. "It won't be easy, but I know a few someones that could help." He winked at Tails, who's eyes widened and then smiled too. I couldn't quite understand, but I had 'two' guesses who.