⚠️mention of death, nothing too severe or explicit, but just warning for safety matter⚠️
Lyric watched the data growing in size in the computer screen due to the device perfectly extracting Sonic's chaos energy and charging a big battery of his cannon, which he planned to use against anyone, who shall dare to oppose him, once he will be ready to conquer the island. The snake was very amused, while Sonic suffered from a critical damage caused by the painful process of his chaos energy rapidly leaving his body and soon enough exhaustion started taking over him, as his vision was becoming blury and he felt an urge to give in to the tiredness. To just simply fall asleep finally and never wake up again, so his soul could be finally at peace.
'I love you, Shads... I love you even if you don't love me back..' he thought before his eyes closed shut and he ceased screaming due to losing consciousness. Shadow watched him in pure horror, the weight of guilt now laying on his heart was too heavy and hardly bearable, tears streamed down his cheeks and he desperately tried to somehow beat his way out of the ball prison, to no avail of course, since the field blocked his chaos abilities and he wasn't physically strong enough to break through the repulsive walls of it. He was trapped and currently tortured in the most terrible way possible by having to watch Sonic becoming pale blue, as the life was slowly leaving his already too weak body.
"What h-have I done..." Shadow whispered to himself as he fell on his knees and let the tears roll down his cheeks like miniature waterfalls, as he sobbed and pressed his palms on the wall of the ball prison, helplessly just watching the poor azure hedgie fading away right in front of his eyes with him unable to do anything to stop this process.
"Enjoying what you see? Hahah, look at yourself, weakling~" Lyric dared to mock the lifeform, when he saw him crying over the speedster's fate, not having even a tiny bit of sympathy for any of them, as all he cared about was his own gain. And soon enough he will have the whole island under his fingertips!
"I thought more of you, Shadow. You are just a disappointment, you know," he continued, when Shadow just kept crying in his prison, now even hugging his knees close to his chest, wishing to be the one slowly and painfully dying instead of Sonic. Lyric's words faded away for him, as he got lost in the spiral of thoughts, he replayed the nice memories he had with Sonic in his mind and it also made the guilt grow bigger in his core, where it pressed his heart so tightly, that it threatened to crash it into pieces and completely destroy it.
"Tsk, tsk, I expected something more from you, Shadow. I never thought you would be this fragile. No wonder you were so easily manipulated, haha! Pathetic!" Lyric still kept pushing the lifeform's buttons - or at least he believed he did - while watching him in amusement. Sonic's fur was currently completely pale and his heart now beated so slow, that he was right at the death's doorstep.
"Ohooo, I see you finally caught your prey!" Eggman's voice suddenly echoed through the hall, the mustached man entered in his eggmobile and floated in the air, seeing the pitiful sight of the two hedgehogs he got actually shocked. One almost dying, the other crying his heart out. Well, Eggman was maybe bad, but not THIS bad actually, as this wasn't a pleasant sight even for someone like him. He imagined anything, but not Sonic actually, truly dying. Who will bother him from time to time and fight against him during his attacks on the village? Or who will have a secret talks with him in the background, since they were frenemies for life? Eggman might have a black heart, but he still had some dignity and respect for life. The sight of his only family member, Shadow, being so broken in his cell was the very last drop for him, as he made up a quick plan how to hopefully save both hedgehogs from the inevitable fate Lyric prepared for them. Once Sonic would be dead, who knows what the snake planned to do with Shadow afterwards!
"Why yes, isn't it a pleasant sight for you, doctor? Just watch your dream now coming true, you always wanted to get rid of the blue nuisance, didn't you~" Lyric replied, unaware of Eggman secretly pressing a button on his wrist device, which sent out nano-bots and navigated them towards the main source of power, that charged the round field cells.
"Oh, but of course, you did a phenomenal job, Lyric. It's been a pleasure to work by your side," Eggman formed the infamous smug grin on his face, pretending to still be by the villain's side while double-crossing him and making the nano-bots enter the system of the main computer and causing damage inside of it in order to make it malfunction. Sonic's heart made its last beat before it fully stopped and his body limply fell on the floor, only to lay there motionless, completely still and now also cold, since his body heat was quickly vanishing to the thin air around him. And that was finally the moment the machines started malfunctioning, the now charged battery launched a reverse process and some of the chaos energy flowed back towards its source in form of the motionless pale blue hedgehog before it exploded and caused the two ball field cells break apart, releasing the two lifeforms.
"WHAT?! WHAT JUST HAPPENED?" Lyric widened his eyes in shock and cowered to the ground, so he would avoid getting hit by one of the battery pieces after it exploded. Eggman used advantage of the chaos and quickly picked Sonic's lifeless body, securing him in his eggmobile he then faced Shadow, who looked up at him with numbness in his eyes. He became emotionless due to yet another loss of someone he actually deeply loved, standing up he wiped some last tears away from his eyes and frowned at Eggman as deeply as he could.
"Get out of my sight!" he snarled at the mustached man, threatening to hurt him with chaos spear he created in his hand.
"Hold it, Shadow! I came here to save you two from him! We need to get him for what he did to Sonic!" Eggman hastily explained while raising his hands in defensive manner, Shadow luckily listened to him and then turned to face Lyric, who now recovered from the explosion and glared at the two.
"You TRAITOR!" the snake hissed at Eggman and aimed an ancient looking gun at him, instantly pulling the trigger he was determined to straight kill the man at sight, but Shadow reacted faster than the deadly bullet could reach them and teleported Eggman a few meters away, saving him from a certain death.
"Look, who calls who a TRAITOR!!" he yelled angrily while his body started dangerously charging energy, causing it glow bright red. The sorrow from losing Sonic, mixed up with rage from the huge betrayal, created a very dangerous combination in him and thus he was now like a ticking bomb setting off its countdown.
"Go, doctor! Now!" he hissed towards the mustached man without looking at him, since Lyric was now his only target here. All Eggman could see before fleeing was Shadow taking off his inhibitor rings, so the hedgehog could reach his full potential and use it against the snake.
"You're doing a great mistake, Shadow the hedgehog!" Lyric hissed at him and started a battle between them, as he shot deadly lasers towards the lifeform, who was able to easily dodge them all thanks to the quick teleportation method, while also sending chaos spears charged with dark chaos energy at the snake. Thanks to their huge size differences Shadow was soon on the winning side, because Lyric was more robust and thus less agile and unable to dodge every attack from the fast lifeform. However, Shadow used a smart tactics, where he kept using attacks with minimal damage, for he wanted to exhaust Lyric first before applying the final blow at him. And such plan worked perfectly, for the snake was blinded by his own rage now and did not realize, that he got outsmarted. About an hour later, the huge snake was finally at the edge of his strength and often heavily panted. Shadow was relatively fine, slowly getting tired too, yet he still bravely stood on his feet and gathered all his dark chaos energy in his core, making himself glow fully bright crimson and in such state he was also temporarily invincible, as Lyric soon found out, when the bullets and lasers just repulsed from the hedgehog's body.
"IMPOSSIBLE! NOOOOOOO!" the snake let out very last scream of pure shock and horror before getting fully wiped out by the massive explosion Shadow caused by releasing the raw dark energy all around him. Along with the villain he also completely destroyed the entire base and soon only stood in the center of a debris, his eyes hypnotized the now dead snake laying a few feet in front of him.
"Pathetic," the lifeform scoffed quietly while putting his inhibitors back on his wrists, so he wouldn't lose any more energy. His body trembled and he soon started getting lightheaded, so he used the last bits of energy left in him to teleport himself in front of the entrance of Eggman's base before fully falling unconscious. His body collapsed on the ground and since then he laid there motionless at the doorstep.
~•~
It was around midnight, when Sonic's friends all gathered in Amy's house. They all were unable to sleep due to Sonic's absence and they couldn't even contact him through the communicator, for he left it at his place. Sticks, who went to check Shadow's cave, brought bad news about the hedgehogs not being even there and it sent everyone to the edge. They all tensed up and thought about any possible outcomes, that could happen after Shadow led Sonic away in the afternoon.
"I swear, if he hurted him!" Sticks growled while clenching her fists, Amy came to the room with a tray of cookies, which she set on the table in her living room and then made Sticks sit down on the couch, since she was the only one standing.
"Calm down, Sticks. We don't know, what might have happened. And since the two seem to like each other, maybe they're just somewhere in private, so none of us could possibly interrupt them," she tried to comfort her friend and the others maybe too, as they all listened to her carefully. Tails frowned a bit while Zooey held his hand and gently rubbed it with her thumb to soothe her partner.
"Yeah, but still!" Sticks scoffed while crossing her arms, disliking this situation so much.
"Guys, I think we should maybe try to.. somehow get some sleep and see, if Sonic returns in the morning," Tails suggested a temporary solution for their problem, even if it wasn't much. He had a point though, because if they all remain too tired, it won't help anything and it will only make everyone easily annoyed.
"I think he's right," Knuckles agreed with his friend's idea and yawned, as if on cue.
"Yeah.. I guess it's probably the best we can do now," Amy also felt the tiredness taking over her and softly yawned while covering her mouth in polite gesture.
"I am sure, that Sonic will be fine. He survived a lot already," Zooey tried to add to the comfort, earning a soft smile from her lover.
"Yeah, maybe we're just too paranoid," Tails chuckled a little nervously before standing up along with his partner. Knuckles followed suit, while Sticks seemed to be too stubborn to just leave and go to sleep.
"Sticks, come on," Amy said tiredly and here it was, she was slowly getting annoyed due to the sleepiness.
"Yeah, yeah, going!" Sticks hissed and standing up she stormed out of Amy's shack, leaving the surprised friends behind.
"Alright, have a hopefully peaceful night, guys," Tails said to the rest before leaving with Zooey, tonight he stayed over at her place for a sleepover. Knuckles hugged Amy for a moment before pulling away and almost tearing up, for he missed their hedgehog friend already.
"There, Knuckles. You can take a few cookies if you want," Amy patted his back and offered him the midnight sweet snack, which he accepted and took at least seven cookies to his arms, hugging them as if his life depended on them he accidentally cracked a few of them.
"Thank you. See you in the morning," he replied to the hedgette before leaving her shack as well. Amy sighed after remaining alone in the living room, sitting down on her couch she took a cookie and slowly ate it while thinking about the whole issue. She had a bad feeling deep down, it was probably her sixth sense. The intuition in her core just kept whispering, that something bad happened and she couldn't shake off the uneasiness taking over her form. It even made her fur stand up a bit. Eating another cookie she went to brush her teeth, wash her face and fix her quills afterwards before laying in her bed and closing her eyes she tried to get some much needed sleep.