FOR YOUR HEART-BOOM

☆Ch27

Orbot and Cubot entered his room after knocking with their metallic knuckles against the metallic door - like, seriously, did the doctor hear of any other materials?
"Here is your lunch, Shadow," Orbot said quietly while placing a tray of food on the table in the room, noticing the other tray with the untouched breakfast he got worried about the lifeform.
"Shadow... please, it's important for you to eat something in order to regain your strength," Cubot stood in front of the hedgehog while looking up at him with worried expression in his robotic eyes. Shadow finally acknowledged the two robots, as he snapped out of his depressive thoughts and quickly wiped the tears away from his eyes before putting on a neutral mask.
"Not hungry. Leave now," he spoke shortly, his voice was hoarse due to not talking until now.
"You may be able to fool our master, but you cannot fool us. You are starving by now," Orbot replied while moving to stand next to his robotic brother.
"So what!" Shadow snapped and flicked his ear twice in irritation. The two robo-bros exchanged a little surprised look before refocusing on the hybrid.
"It is maybe hard for you to believe it, but our master cares for you deeply and wants you to be strong and healthy," Orbot tried to convince him to cooperate with them, at least in this, if not anything else.
"What for though? Nothing matters now anyways, leave me alone," Shadow scoffed in response and let the depression take over as he laid down and covered himself with the blanket, hiding in it he curled up and quietly teared up again. Orbot and Cubot were helpless and shrugging they both quietly left the room, heading to their master's main laboratory.

"Master, Shadow still refuses to take any meal and acts depressive," Orbot spoke up first, earning a little bump from his brother.
"I was gonna say it too!" the yellow bot complained, Orbot just rolled his robotic eyes.
"It's worse than I thought," Eggman grumbled while working in the lab. After his arrival back to his lair last night, he laid Sonic to a capsule and stabilized him there while connecting multiple wires to his body, so he could monitor his vital signs all the time. The hedgehog was out cold and his heart beated very slow and weak, but he was still alive. Most likely thanks to Lyric's battery launching the reverse effect for a moment before exploding. Some of the chaos energy got absorbed by Sonic's body, but it wasn't enough to fully recover him from the damage. He needed more chaos energy, thus Eggman was now trying to locate any possible chaos emerald or other source of chaos energy. He was fully aware of Shadow having plenty of it, but he first needs to get him recovered from the energy loss, before Shadow would be able to use his chaos abilities again. One of these abilities was healing power, but for that he needed to be fully recharged and healthy. Else, it might be even life-threatening process for him. Eggman believed, that letting the hedgehog rest in one of the rooms will be better than encapsulating him, for he wanted Shadow to trust him. After all, Shadow was the only person remaining from his family tree and he wasn't going to just give up on the lifeform or even go against him.

But Shadow was complex being, highly stubborn and now also depressed, which was very bad and unwanted combination. This is going to be surely difficult for everyone. However, he got one idea, how he could get the hedgehog to cooperate at least a bit, standing up from his seat he ordered the two robots to stay there and monitor the blue hedgehog in the capsule before leaving the lab and heading to the - for now Shadow's - room. He gently knocked on the metallic door before allowing it to slide open, entering the room he glanced at the curled bundle on the bed and sighing he sat on a chair by the table. He saw the lifeform not touching any of the meals, indeed, which worried even someone like the villain now. The mustached man cleared his throat to announce his presence before speaking up.
"Shadow. I have good news for you," he said calmly while watching the bundle on the bed. The lifeform stared blankly at the wall in front of him and hearing Eggman's words he slightly perked his ears up, knocking the blanket off of him he sat up and faced the man directly while raising a brow. Except for starving, the hedgehog also had terrible dark circles under his eyes, which indicated, that he most likely had restless sleep. If he slept at all, that is. Eggman felt bad for him.
"I managed to stabilize Sonic and keep him alive in a capsule. But to fully recover he needs plenty of chaos energy," Eggman elaborated clearly for the hedgie to understand the situation here. Shadow felt a little hope rising in his core, at least Sonic didn't end up becoming the second Maria for him. As the room was taken over by silence, Eggman took it as a cue to speak up again.
"You might be a good help, Shadow, but I need you to cooperate and fully recover from your energy loss. I took you in after finding you unconscious in front of my doorstep," he explained calmly, the hedgehog tilted his head a little, obviously paying full attention to him and listening carefully. The doctor was surely happy deep in his core to see such positive reaction from the hybrid and wasn't going to give up so easily.
"If you want, you may see him," he offered and stood up to prove, that he was serious about it. Shadow looked away afterwards and hesitated. Would it be good for him to see Sonic now? His own betrayal was still freshly in his mind and the nightmares about it were haunting him all the time, not allowing him to relax even a bit. He wished he could change the events, he wished he could take the time back and just... never fulfill Lyric's final command to bring Sonic to the lair. He wished to be stronger rebel back then and instead ask for help. Damn! He let his pride to get the best of him and due to that, here he was. All depressed with Sonic being kept barely alive. All because of him.
"Leave me alone, please," he finally spoke up while hugging his knees close to his chest and burying his face in his arms as he teared up again.

Eggman watched the poor hybrid with sympathy in his eyes hidden behind the round glasses and wondered, how he could help him feel at least good enough so the hybrid would eat something and function, more or less, normally.
"Shadow, you are surely stronger than that. Would you really prefer to give up on Sonic so easily?" he tried to reason with him. If he couldn't do it by the peaceful way, he had to become a little pushy. And he was very well able to push someone's buttons, the years of terrorizing the village always proved that. Man, was he now even thinking, that he should stop attacking the village and just... live peacefully, for once?
"Give up? I straight betrayed him!" Shadow snapped as he glared at the man with tears rolling down his cheeks, having enough of all of this. He wanted to just give up on everything, he wanted to get encapsulated and never awaken again. Coward was he, huh? Wanting to run away instead of facing it. The pain in his heart, no, the HOLE in his heart was too big and he wasn't sure, if it was beyond repair or if he still had some chance to recover from such emotional damage.
"Then we are in this together, because I did just the same, Shadow. Lyric had us under his metallic fingertips and none of us realized," Eggman said with sadness lacing his voice, he also felt a bit guilty for working together with the slick snake, because he kinda had the same fake hope in him like Shadow - that Maria could be brought back to life through science and ancient technology. He believed in the possibility of it, but just like Shadow, got harshly double-crossed by the main villain, who was now luckily gone thanks to Shadow.
"Maybe death was too easy for him!" Shadow scoffed, now wishing Lyric to be still alive, so he could torture him and bring only pain and suffering to him for such treason.

"You saved many people, Shadow. An entire island even! And Sonic too, because by saving me you saved him. I was able to stabilize him in time thanks to you dealing with that reptile in the meantime," Eggman replied, switching hopefully to a more positive tune.
"I know," Shadow sighed, now acting calmer and Eggman could feel a chance to make Shadow feel better and cooperate.
"Come on, I know you have the determination in you. Besides, if you weren't cooperative towards Lyric, who knows what worse could happen. Think about it, for the whole time Lyric was blinded by the perfect view of us working with him, since he did not see any signs of resistance from us. Thus, he let us do the job instead while he just stayed in his base all the time and worked from there. Now, if we showed resistance any sooner, he might do something much worse, he might have come to the village himself and bring terror there. It's also what I warned you about, as I really did not want him to go there and threaten the innocent people of the island," Eggman spoke in serious, but calm tone while gesticulating with his hands in the process, making some points here.

"And yes, I know, bringing Sonic there was a risky move, but in the end, it was worth it! Sonic is still alive and Lyric is gone," he added afterwards, actually seeing it in a positive light. And Shadow now could see it too. Maybe he did betray Sonic, but it was very worth it, because thanks to the turn of events he was able to finally stand up against Lyric by himself and defeat him once and for all. A small smile grew across his face as he glanced at his only family he has, from the Robotnik bloodline, that is. Because he also has a sort of family in Sonic and his friends. He is just too stubborn to admit it.
"Thank you, doctor," he finally got up, putting his socks, airboots and gloves on he approached the table and taking a seat there he finally accepted the meals, starting instantly with the lunch. For breakfast he had some pie and cookies there, so he decided to leave those for a snack time. For lunch he received pasta with vegetables and chicken meat.
"There, Shadow," Eggman hesitantly placed his hand on top of Shadow's head and seeing no negative reaction from him he gently caressed the messy fur and quills before retracting his hand and feeling his own lips spread into a huge smile. Finally, he managed to make Shadow feel better and even got to be able to touch him without Shadow snapping at him for it. Whether it was because of how hungry Shadow was - and thus he focused mainly on filling his empty stomach - or there was actually something genuine in the potential bond between him and Eggman, wasn't certain, but the man was happy for such outcome either way. And before Eggman could even say anything else, an alarm was set off due to the sensors outside his base detecting intruders in form of Sonic's friends, who finally arrived there.....