Chaos Bond

A Fight For Your Life

Shadow caught up with Silver soon enough and found him pacing about between the trees of the forest grove in the general area they had arrived in. 

"What do we do?" Silver asked loudly between his panting breaths, the little blue hoglet moving along with his heaving chest which caused him to uncurl and bury his face in the pretty white fur in front of him. "Shadow, what do we do?" 

"Well for one thing, we don't shout," Shadow snapped, pushing away from the tree he had briefly paused to lean against as he rubbed away the bruises from their battle. He didn't have any real desire to mimic Silver's pacing but his feet were moving of their own accord as he turned and tried to find some alternative way to vent off the build-up of adrenaline that had slowly been bubbling up since their arrival to this time zone. He dug his shoe into the root of a shrub and pushing his fingers through his quills as dozens of thoughts overlapped in his mind, none of them making sense. He was about to pull at his own ear when he stopped and glanced at Sonic, his toe tapping in frustration. "This isn't how things should happen... He has to go back."

"Back? Back to those scientists?" Silver almost found himself laughing and he covered Sonic's ears. "Those scientists are dead and... and I'm sorry but I'm not actually feeling bad about that right now."

"We'd need to go back again then," said Shadow quietly, "and make sure that everything that just happened doesn't get an encore." 

"Are you being serious?" Silver hissed.

"Well of course we could let things stay changed, wait for ourselves to disappear from existence and let our friends deal with an altered timeline, sure!" Shadow hissed back at him. 

Silver twitched his nose and let his free hand fall away from Sonic's little ears. "...You said 'friends'."

"I might say something else in a minute that won't be appropriate in range of young impressionable ears." Shadow was trying to limit how long he looked at Sonic. Every time he let his gaze linger on him too long, he felt his heart twist coldly and Maria's sad whisper in his memories. 

"But... Shadow look at him. He's a child," Silver said, his face creasing in sympathy as he used his finger to stroke Sonic's face gently. "I couldn't... I mean, I can't bear it..."

Shadow's firm grip took a hold of Silver's upper arm and he leant very close to Silver's ear, his voice dropping down into a growl of warning. 

"He's not a child. That is Sonic. 0-800mph in the time it takes your brain to remember what a 0 looks like. He's single-handedly raised a Fox, he's travelled to other planets, he's befriended two hedgehogs that once tried to kill him, he's survived numerous falls from space, almost 3 decades worth of Dr Eggman's constant attacks, 6 months of torture and he's cheated death - more than once. Last week he ran around the planet fifteen times before breakfast and last month he accidently ran at light speed when he took a sip from Vector's energy drink by mistake and subsequently damaged parts of the environment, set a field on fire, and caused blackouts throughout Westopolis and the Western hemisphere before I had to restrain him. He has a dark side that, I'll be honest with you, terrifies me. He's nearly 30 years old, married with 3 kids, plays the guitar and won his 11th World Breakdancing Championship five months ago."

He paused to catch his breath and he leant back to look away.

"...But he won't be that hedgehog if we try and change things. He might not ever meet Tails. He might not ever cross paths with Amy. He might not ever find Knuckles. He might not ever becomes a hero and fight against Eggman. Then what? This goes beyond just you and me."