The workshop was exactly as Sonic-brain remembered it.
Perched on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean, the building was a chaotic blend of aircraft hangar, machine shop, and cozy home. The Tornado—that beautiful red biplane with the hand-painted flames—sat in the main bay, polished to a mirror shine despite its owner's grief. Workbenches cluttered with half-finished projects lined the walls. A corkboard covered in photos hung near the kitchen entrance.
Shadic tried not to look at the photos.
He failed.
Sonic grinning at the camera, arm slung around Tails' shoulder. Shadow standing in the background of what looked like a birthday party, trying very hard to pretend he wasn't enjoying himself. A group shot of everyone—Amy, Knuckles, Tails, Cream, Big, Rouge, Omega, and the two hedgehogs at the center of it all.
A family.
A family that no longer existed.
Hey, Sonic-brain said softly. You okay?
"Fine," Shadic muttered. "Just... processing."
Focus on the task at hand, Shadow-brain advised. Sentiment can wait.
"You know, for someone who literally died protecting his friends, you're really bad at acknowledging emotions."
I acknowledge them. I simply choose not to wallow.
That's called repression, buddy.
It's called efficiency.
"Both of you, please shut up."
Tails appeared at his elbow, twin tails swishing nervously. The young fox had been running around the workshop for the past hour, setting up what he called "diagnostic equipment" but what looked to Shadic like a mad scientist's fever dream of wires, sensors, and things that beeped ominously.
"Okay!" Tails clapped his hands together. "I think we're ready to start. Shadic, if you could stand in the center of the scanning array?"
Shadic eyed the circle of devices suspiciously. "Is any of this going to explode?"
"Probably not!"
"That's not reassuring."
"It's the best I can offer."
Sighing, Shadic stepped into the center of the array. The machines immediately began humming, lights flickering across their surfaces as they scanned him from every conceivable angle.
Amy watched from a safe distance, arms crossed. Knuckles had positioned himself near the exit, apparently still not entirely convinced that Shadic wasn't a threat.
"First things first," Tails said, pulling up a holographic display. "I need to understand the fusion itself. How exactly did Sonic and Shadow combine? The Chaos Emeralds should have been drained after they went super against Nazo. They shouldn't have had enough power left for something like this."
Shadic considered how much to reveal.
The truth was complicated. He wasn't just a fusion of Sonic and Shadow—he was something else entirely, a third consciousness that had somehow stabilized the merger. But explaining that meant explaining where that consciousness came from, and he wasn't sure how to say "I was a guy who died reaching for Doritos in another dimension" without sounding completely insane.
Just tell them about the fusion part, Sonic-brain suggested. Leave out the weird reincarnation stuff.
Agreed. The full truth would only confuse matters.
"The fusion happened during the final clash with Nazo," Shadic said carefully. "Sonic and Shadow were losing. Their individual super forms weren't enough. So they... combined. Merged their Chaos Energy signatures into a single entity."
Tails' fingers flew across his keyboard. "That matches the energy readings I detected during the battle. There was a massive spike right before Nazo was defeated—unlike anything I'd ever recorded. But fusion like that should be temporary. The strain of maintaining two souls in one body..."
"It was unstable," Shadic confirmed. "At first. The two of them were fighting for dominance, pulling in different directions. But then something... clicked. A third element entered the equation. Something that balanced them out."
"A third element?" Amy leaned forward. "What do you mean?"
Shadic tapped his chest. "Me. Shadic. I'm not just Sonic plus Shadow. I'm something new. A third consciousness that exists because of the fusion, not despite it."
Silence filled the workshop.
Knuckles pushed off from the wall. "So you're saying... Sonic and Shadow are gone, but you're not them?"
"They're part of me," Shadic said. "Their memories, their instincts, their feelings—I have all of it. But I'm not just replaying their personalities. I'm my own... person. Entity. Whatever."
That's a pretty good explanation, Sonic-brain admitted. Mostly accurate, too.
The deception is minimal, Shadow-brain agreed. Acceptable.
Tails stared at his readings, brow furrowed. "That's... actually fascinating. The data supports it. Your brainwave patterns show three distinct signatures—Sonic's, Shadow's, and a third I can't identify. They're not competing; they're... harmonizing."
"Like a chord," Amy murmured. "Three notes making one sound."
"Exactly!" Tails' eyes lit up with scientific excitement, momentarily overriding his grief. "The fusion isn't unstable at all—it's MORE stable than either Sonic or Shadow individually! The third element is acting as a... a bridge, I guess. Filling in the gaps where their personalities would normally clash."
Hey, that's us he's talking about, Sonic-brain said. We clash all the time!
We disagree. There's a difference.
Is there, though?
...
That's what I thought.
"What about power levels?" Knuckles asked, cutting through the scientific chatter. "You took down Nazo. The Nazo. The guy who almost destroyed the planet. How strong ARE you?"
Tails' fingers danced across the keyboard again. The holographic display shifted, showing a series of graphs and charts that meant absolutely nothing to Shadic.
"Let me run some comparative analysis..." The young fox muttered to himself as he worked. "Sonic's base power level was approximately 850 terajoules at full output. Shadow's was higher—around 1,200 terajoules, thanks to his Chaos-enhanced physiology. Super forms multiplied those by a factor of roughly fifty..."
He trailed off.
The color drained from his face.
"That's... that can't be right."
"What?" Amy moved closer to the display. "What can't be right?"
"The readings. Shadic's base power level." Tails tapped frantically at the keyboard, recalibrating his sensors. "It's showing 47,000 terajoules. That's... that's higher than Sonic and Shadow's COMBINED super forms. And that's just his BASE state."
The workshop went very, very quiet.
"Run it again," Knuckles said.
"I did. Three times. The numbers are consistent."
"Then your equipment is broken."
"My equipment is NEVER broken!"
Shadic raised a hand. "Uh, quick question. Is 47,000 terajoules a lot?"
Everyone stared at him.
"A nuclear bomb," Tails said slowly, "releases approximately 0.0004 terajoules. You are currently outputting the equivalent of over one hundred million nuclear explosions just by STANDING THERE."
"Oh."
"JUST STANDING THERE, SHADIC."
"I mean, I don't FEEL like a hundred million nuclear bombs—"
"Well, you ARE one!"
Dude, Sonic-brain breathed. We're JACKED.
This explains how we defeated Nazo so decisively, Shadow-brain observed. Our power output was exponentially higher than anticipated.
Shadic looked down at his hands. The same gloved, five-fingered hands he'd been staring at for the past three days, trying to reconcile them with the hands he remembered having.
Hands that apparently contained the destructive potential of a small apocalypse.
"Okay," he said, keeping his voice carefully level. "So I'm... powerful. Very powerful. Is there an upper limit? Like, if I go super or hyper, how much stronger do I get?"
Tails was already running calculations, his earlier fear replaced by manic scientific curiosity. "Based on the multiplication factors we observed with Sonic and Shadow... your super form would put you at approximately 2.35 million terajoules. And hyper..."
He stopped.
"Tails?" Amy prompted.
"I can't calculate it."
"What do you mean you can't calculate it?"
"I mean the numbers exceed my equipment's capacity to measure." Tails looked up from his screen, and for the first time since Shadic had met him, there was something like awe in his eyes. "Your hyper form is effectively unlimited. There's no ceiling. No maximum output. You just... keep going."
Silence.
Then Knuckles let out a low whistle. "No wonder you kicked Nazo's ass."
"I didn't know any of this during the fight," Shadic admitted. "I was just... reacting. Doing what felt right."
And screaming internally, Sonic-brain added helpfully.
And screaming internally, Shadow-brain confirmed.
"The point is," Shadic continued, "I don't actually know how to USE this power. Everything I did against Nazo was instinct. Borrowed reflexes from Sonic and Shadow. If I had to fight something like that again..."
"You'd win," Tails said flatly.
"Yeah, but I might also accidentally destroy a continent in the process. I can't even walk down a street without breaking something. How am I supposed to control power like THIS?"
Amy stepped forward, her expression thoughtful. "That's why we're here. To help you learn. Sonic didn't master his speed overnight, you know. And Shadow..." She hesitated. "Shadow trained for years to control his Chaos abilities."
She's right, Sonic-brain said. We all had to learn. You will too.
The power is meaningless without control, Shadow-brain agreed. We will teach you.
Shadic nodded slowly. "Okay. Okay, so... training. Where do we start?"
Tails grinned, his earlier grief momentarily forgotten in the excitement of a new project. "I have some ideas! First, we need to establish a baseline for your reaction time. Then we can work on fine motor control—"
"Actually," Knuckles interrupted, "I have a better idea."
He cracked his knuckles meaningfully.
"How about we skip the science stuff and just see how hard you can hit?"
They found an empty field about twenty miles from the workshop.
Well, Shadic found it. The others followed in the Tornado, which was somehow still airworthy despite Tails having spent the past three days doing nothing but grieving and scanning strange hedgehogs.
"Okay," Tails called from the plane's cockpit, hovering at a safe distance. "Knuckles is going to throw rocks at you, and you're going to try to dodge them WITHOUT breaking the sound barrier. We need to calibrate your reaction speed at lower velocities first."
"Rocks," Shadic repeated. "Knuckles is going to throw rocks at me."
"Boulders, technically." The echidna was already standing next to a pile of massive stone chunks he'd apparently punched out of a nearby hillside. "Don't worry, I'll start small."
This is going to be fun, Sonic-brain said.
This is going to be painful, Shadow-brain countered.
The first boulder came screaming toward Shadic's face at approximately two hundred miles per hour.
He dodged.
He also accidentally moved at Mach 3, reappeared a quarter mile away, and carved a trench through the landscape that would probably confuse geologists for centuries.
"TOO FAST!" Tails shouted through a megaphone. "WAY TOO FAST!"
"I KNOW!"
"TRY AGAIN!"
They tried again.
And again.
And again.
Two hours later, the field looked like it had been hit by a meteor shower, Knuckles had run out of boulders to throw, and Shadic had successfully dodged exactly zero attacks at a reasonable speed.
"This is impossible," he groaned, lying flat on his back in the crater his latest dodge had created. "Every time I try to move slowly, I just... don't."
It's a mental block, Sonic-brain observed. You KNOW you can go fast, so your body defaults to it.
You need to trust that you can move slowly, Shadow-brain added. Speed is a choice, not a compulsion.
"Easy for you to say. You're not the one wearing this body."
Amy appeared at the edge of his crater, looking down at him with a mixture of exasperation and sympathy. "Maybe we should take a break. You've been at this for hours."
"A break sounds good," Shadic admitted. "A break sounds really good."
He hauled himself upright, brushing dirt from his fur. His dark blue quills had accumulated an impressive amount of debris over the course of the training session, and his white chest tuft was more brown than white at this point.
"There's a lake about a mile east," Tails said, landing the Tornado nearby. "You could clean up there while Knuckles... finds more boulders."
"I didn't sign up to be a rock delivery service," Knuckles grumbled.
"You volunteered!"
"I volunteered to punch things. That's not the same thing."
Shadic left them to their bickering and made his way toward the lake.
He walked.
Actually walked.
One foot in front of the other, at a pace that could charitably be called "leisurely." It took concentration—a constant mental effort to NOT move at supersonic speeds—but he managed it. Each step was a small victory.
Hey, look at that, Sonic-brain said. Progress!
Your form is terrible, Shadow-brain critiqued. You're putting too much weight on your heels.
"Can't you just let me have this?"
No.
The lake was beautiful—crystal clear water surrounded by trees, perfectly peaceful. Shadic knelt at the edge and began washing the dirt from his fur, watching the grime swirl away into the depths.
His reflection stared back at him.
Dark blue fur. White chest tuft. Red-tipped quills. Golden inhibitor rings. Air Shoes.
He still wasn't used to it.
Part of him wondered if he ever would be.
You're thinking too hard, Sonic-brain observed. You do that a lot.
"Someone has to."
He's not wrong, Shadow-brain admitted. Excessive contemplation can be counterproductive.
"Did you just agree with Sonic about something?"
I agreed that you think too much. That's not the same as agreeing with him.
Aw, c'mon Shadow, just admit we're bonding—
We are absolutely not bonding.
Shadic smiled despite himself.
It was strange. Three days ago, he'd been... someone else. Someone ordinary. Someone who'd died in the most embarrassing way possible and somehow ended up here, in this body, with these powers, with two dead heroes living in his head.
But it didn't feel wrong.
It felt like home.
Like he'd always been meant to be here, doing this, BEING this.
Maybe that was just the fusion talking. The harmonized blend of three consciousnesses convincing itself that everything was fine. Or maybe—
His ears perked up.
Something was coming. Moving fast. Faster than a normal person should be able to move.
Incoming, Shadow-brain warned. Airborne. Approaching from the southwest.
I recognize that energy signature, Sonic-brain said, and there was an edge of nervousness in his voice. Oh man. Oh man, this is gonna be bad.
Shadic stood, turning to face the approaching threat—
And caught a heel directly to the face.
The kick sent him skipping across the surface of the lake like a stone, bouncing three, four, five times before he managed to catch himself and hover above the water.
He looked up.
A bat hung in the air before him.
White fur. Teal eyes. Wings spread wide, silhouetted against the afternoon sun. She was wearing a black bodysuit with a pink heart on the chest, and the expression on her face could have curdled milk.
"Where," Rouge the Bat said, her voice deadly calm, "is Shadow?"
Oh no, Sonic-brain whispered.
Oh no, Shadow-brain agreed, which was concerning because Shadow-brain NEVER agreed with Sonic-brain.
"I—" Shadic started.
"WHERE IS HE?!"
Rouge dove at him, and suddenly Shadic understood why Tails had called her one of the most dangerous fighters on the planet.
She was FAST. Not Sonic-fast, but close—and unlike Sonic, every movement was precise, calculated, designed to cause maximum damage with minimum effort. Her kicks came in rapid succession, each one aimed at a vital point: throat, temple, solar plexus, knee.
Shadic dodged them all, but barely. His reflexes were the only thing saving him.
"Rouge, wait—"
"Don't you DARE say my name!" Another kick, this one clipping his shoulder and sending him spinning. "You show up out of nowhere, radiating HIS energy, wearing HIS colors, using HIS moves—"
"I can explain—"
"EXPLAIN WHAT?!" She caught him with a spinning heel strike that would have decapitated a normal person. Shadic's head snapped to the side, stars exploding behind his eyes. "Explain how you STOLE my partner?! Explain how you took his power and left him to DIE?!"
She thinks we killed Shadow, Sonic-brain realized. She thinks we're some kind of parasite—
She's not entirely wrong, Shadow-brain murmured, and there was guilt in his voice. Actual guilt. From her perspective...
Rouge's assault continued, relentless. Kick after kick after kick, each one driven by grief and rage and the desperate hope that if she hit Shadic hard enough, Shadow might somehow come back.
She was crying.
Shadic realized that with a start. Tears were streaming down her face even as she fought, even as she screamed.
"He was my PARTNER! He was my FRIEND! And you—you—"
She threw everything she had into one final kick.
Shadic caught it.
His hand closed around her ankle gently, carefully, using just enough strength to stop her momentum without hurting her.
Rouge's eyes went wide.
"I didn't kill him," Shadic said quietly. "And I didn't steal his power."
"Then WHERE IS HE?!"
"He's here."
Shadic tapped the side of his head.
"He's been here the whole time. Watching you fight. Feeling guilty for making you cry. Wanting to tell you that he's sorry—that he's so, so sorry for leaving without saying goodbye."
Rouge's struggling stopped.
"What... what are you..."
"The fusion wasn't supposed to be permanent. When Sonic and Shadow combined to fight Nazo, they expected to separate afterward. But something went wrong. Or... maybe something went right. I don't know." Shadic released her ankle, floating back to give her space. "But they're part of me now. Both of them. Their memories, their feelings, their... everything."
"That's impossible."
"So is a bat who can kick through steel, but here we are."
Rouge hovered there, wings beating slowly, processing. The rage was draining out of her, replaced by something more complicated.
"Prove it," she said finally.
"What?"
"Prove that Shadow is in there. Tell me something only he would know."
Shadic closed his eyes, reaching for Shadow-brain.
What do I tell her?
There was a long pause.
Then, slowly, Shadow-brain offered a memory.
Shadic opened his eyes.
"Three years ago. After the Black Arms invasion. You found Shadow on the roof of G.U.N. headquarters, staring at the stars. He'd just learned the truth about his past—about Maria, about the ARK, about everything. He wanted to be alone."
Rouge's breath caught.
"But you stayed anyway. You sat next to him without saying a word, and you stayed there until sunrise. And when the sun came up, Shadow told you..." Shadic's voice faltered, because the emotion bleeding through wasn't his but he felt it anyway. "He told you that you were the only person who'd ever seen him as something other than a weapon. The only one who looked at him and saw a friend instead of a monster."
Tears were flowing freely down Rouge's face now.
"He never said it out loud. He was too... Shadow to actually say it. But he considered you family. You and Omega. The only family he had left after Maria."
Silence stretched between them.
Then Rouge's wings gave out.
Shadic caught her before she could fall, pulling her close as she sobbed against his chest. Her whole body shook with the force of her grief—grief for a partner she'd lost, grief for words left unsaid, grief for a goodbye she never got to give.
"You stupid hedgehog," she choked out. "You STUPID, selfish, self-sacrificing IDIOT. You were supposed to come BACK. You were supposed to—"
"I know," Shadic murmured. "He knows. He's sorry."
"Sorry doesn't FIX this!"
"No. It doesn't."
They floated there above the lake, the bat crying and the fusion holding her, and Shadic let her grieve.
It was the least he could do.
Eventually, Rouge's sobs subsided.
She pulled back, wiping her eyes with a practiced motion that suggested she had a lot of experience pretending she hadn't been crying.
"Well," she said, her voice only slightly unsteady. "This is humiliating."
"I won't tell anyone."
"You'd better not." She fixed him with a look that was equal parts threat and exhaustion. "So. You're really... both of them? Sonic AND Shadow?"
"And something else," Shadic admitted. "A third element that stabilized the fusion. It's... complicated."
"Everything involving Shadow is complicated." Rouge's wings fluttered, carrying her back to a more dignified hovering distance. "Does Omega know?"
"I don't even know who—"
E-123 Omega, Shadow-brain supplied. Our other teammate. A robot built by Eggman but reprogrammed to destroy him. He's... enthusiastic.
That's one word for it, Sonic-brain said. "Murder-happy" is another.
"—actually, I do know who Omega is. Shadow's memories. And no, I don't think he knows."
Rouge's expression grew complicated. "He's going to want to shoot you."
"That seems to be a running theme today."
"I'm serious. His first reaction to any problem is 'apply bullets.' His second reaction is 'apply MORE bullets.' I'll need to talk to him before you two meet, or there's going to be a lot of property damage."
Shadic thought about his own track record with property damage over the past three days.
"Fair."
They flew back to the others—well, Rouge flew and Shadic did his best approximation of controlled flight, which mostly involved falling in a specific direction very quickly.
The landing was less than graceful.
"What happened?!" Amy demanded, rushing over with her hammer ready. "We heard explosions!"
"I got kicked in the face by a bat," Shadic said from his position in yet another crater. "We're friends now."
Rouge landed beside him, somehow looking elegant despite her tear-streaked fur. "We're not friends."
"We're acquaintances who've shared emotional vulnerability?"
"...Acceptable."
Tails was staring at his scanner, eyes wide. "Rouge, your attack actually registered on his power levels! When you kicked him in the face, there was a 0.003% fluctuation in his Chaos Energy output!"
"Is... is that a lot?"
"For him? That's like a normal person getting hit by a freight train!"
Rouge looked down at Shadic with newfound respect. "And you just... took it?"
"I didn't really have a choice."
You could have dodged, Shadow-brain pointed out.
Or blocked, Sonic-brain added.
"I was trying to have a MOMENT," Shadic grumbled.
Knuckles approached, eyeing Rouge warily. The two had history—something about jewel theft and mutual distrust—but right now, that seemed less important than the larger issues at hand.
"So," the echidna said. "You're not here to fight?"
"I WAS here to fight," Rouge admitted. "Now I'm here to... I don't know. Figure out what this means." She gestured at Shadic. "He's got Shadow in there. And Sonic. And apparently something else that makes the whole thing work."
"We know. Tails scanned him."
"Of course Tails scanned him."
"His power level is off the charts."
"Of COURSE it is."
Amy stepped forward, planting her hammer on the ground like a scepter. "Look, we're all processing a lot right now. Sonic and Shadow are gone but also NOT gone. There's a new guy wearing their face who can apparently destroy planets by accident. We've got grief, we've got confusion, we've got whatever Knuckles is feeling—"
"Anger, mostly."
"—anger, mostly. But standing around in a field isn't going to help anyone. We need a plan."
"A plan for what?" Shadic asked.
"For YOU." Amy fixed him with a determined stare. "You've got unlimited power and zero control. You've got two sets of memories and no idea how to use them. You've got a world that's scared of you and friends who are grieving what you represent. So here's what we're going to do."
She held up a finger.
"One: Training. Lots of it. Until you can walk down a street without breaking anything."
Another finger.
"Two: Public relations. We need to introduce you to the world properly, not as a scary monster, but as a hero. The heir to Sonic and Shadow's legacy."
A third finger.
"Three: Figure out what that 'third element' is. Because if you're going to be our new powerhouse, we need to understand what we're working with."
She lowered her hand.
"Any objections?"
Shadic looked at Tails, who shrugged. At Knuckles, who grunted. At Rouge, who raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
"No objections," he said. "But I do have one question."
"What?"
"Can we get food first? I'm REALLY hungry."
FINALLY, Sonic-brain cheered. I've been dying for a chili dog!
You can't die. We're already dead.
It's an EXPRESSION, Shadow!
Amy sighed, but she was smiling. "Fine. Food first. Then we save the world."
"I didn't agree to save the world."
"You inherited the legacy of the two greatest heroes this planet has ever known. Saving the world is literally in the job description."
Shadic considered arguing.
Then his stomach growled loud enough to register on Tails' equipment.
"Food first," he agreed. "World-saving later."
And together, the strangest group of heroes ever assembled made their way back to the workshop, where a refrigerator full of chili dogs awaited and the future remained terrifyingly uncertain.
But for now, that was enough.
Author's Note: Rouge got her emotional catharsis and Shadic got kicked in the face. Balance has been achieved. Next chapter: Omega shows up and immediately tries to shoot Shadic, public opinion starts to shift, and a familiar egg-shaped scientist takes an interest in the new "Ultimate Lifeform."