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Eggman had taken everyone on a chase today, leaving parcels of information all over rather than being immediately confrontational. He couldn't outrun Sonic, he knew that, it was all about delaying him.
Silver had slipped in quietly between one blink and the next. They split up, having found dummy leads, and Rouge had gone ahead of him.
Shadow could catch up in a second. Any badniks were barely worth his attention. A blue glow punched scrap straight through a straggler with a violent burst of motion.
Eggman was being more annoying than threatening, so the silver hedgehog couldn't justify his presence. Shadow had seen some battles with Silver become slapstick from Sonic's perspective, but it had an equal ratio of migraines that didn't cease for hours after the time-traveler appeared covered in blood, char, or both.
He didn't have much to say, which was generally safer than the alternative. Team Sonic had been torn from their lunch, and Knuckles had been the one to initially complain.
Shadow, Silver, and Rouge weren't even at the final confrontation. The rest of the crew had swung back to meet them and had been just as surprised to see Silver.
Sonic tossed an arm around their neck, narrowly avoiding a stabbing, and invited the hedgehog to dinner. Shadow got a stare throw his way, only thinly viewed with amusement, that suggested he come voluntarily or be pestered until submission.
This was a complete waste of his time.
“Of course I hate him.” Silver stared at Sonic in the distance, his red shoes a blur while he evaded Amy. The sun was slowly crawling nightwards. The light that remained reflected off of his eyes in an eerie layer. “Don't you?”
Only a step behind him, Shadow tensed his shoulders back. His mouth formed into a solid line. “I don't think that is the general feeling that most of Sonic's.. friends have.” The scene ahead was contrary to his words until Amy had, for some reason, tucked away her hammer.
She had a scolding posture, and his keener eyesight could barely pick out the sheepish look on Sonic's face. Tails was trying not to laugh at his brother. There was something on his nose.
They were all so bright. The lights around their table kept them warmly illuminated and the cheer accompanied it.
There wasn't any indication when Silver had backed up further and crashed himself into the grass. The rustle that his many quills should make was only half present. Shadow eyed the boots pushed into the dirt and the cuffs on Silver's ankles.
A second too long lingering had faded yellow glancing up at him. “Do you think you're friends, then?” It was offered in the volume Shadow had usually associated with meekness, but it was completely stripped of the actual emotion.
His initial response was defensive, bristling his striped quills. He opened his muzzle to retort, offer something half cruel in response, but Silver had already focused his gaze back on Team Sonic.
It had quieted down, as the commotion slowed back into friendly chatter. Knuckles was missing off to Angel Island, likely. The commotion earlier had stressed the echidna.
Shadow felt strange. Falling back was his normal, no mood into trying to play at all sociable, but he was usually comfortably alone. It felt like Silver's quills were so bright they'd somehow overwhelm the sky, but they had faded darker too.
He had nothing to say, but Silver seemed ready to dump his thoughts on an unsuspecting victim, based on how this had gone so far.
“I really wanted him dead the first time I met him.” The time-traveler wasn't ashamed to say it. It was a fact. Shadow was hardly surprised. Fighting seems to be how Sonic meets far too many people.
He doesn't remember what Silver's motive was. It seems so easy to ignore. Silver didn't really know him.
A blue glow brushed through blades of grass, making a current farther than their arms could stretch. “He was supposed to be the reason that the world ended.”
Silver held a languid tone, body relaxed as far as the anxious hedgehog ever managed, but Shadow had to immediately swivel to look at him. “What?” It felt rude to interrupt him, but Shadow was never going to win an award for social skills.
Sonic was a self-proclaimed hero. He was revered like that. He had adoring fans, unwanted media attention, he was the nemesis to their constant threat of Eggman.
Silver had never told him anything like this. There was a headache building. The off-white hedgehog had implied past-tense, but Shadow made a habit of remembering when world ending threats came around.
It was typically one of the only times he'd voluntarily march over to the moblins in the distance accusingly pointing fingers at Rouge. She probably deserved it.
Tapetum lucidum. That was the explanation for the glow. Hedgehogs didn't have that. Did the ordinary eyeshine somehow evolve in two-hundred years? Were both of Silver's parents hedgehog moblins?
Red blinked back at yellow. Silver momentarily unfolded an expression, but was quickly overcome with hesitation. Shadow stared down at him with his arms crossed.
In response, Silver grimaced. “I'm sorry. You weren't really supposed to remember. It didn't go perfectly well.”
Shadow froze.
The psychokinetic glow had faded and simply left the grass ruffled in its wake. Silver made to get up, folding into a crouch, but Shadow harshly tugged him up the way further.
There was a rumble building in his chest, one that contrasted with the quiet of their spot, and the light voices afar. “You can't just say something like that and expect me to brush it off.” He'd snapped, and the rest tried not to snap at Silver, but he stood his ground without flinching and had only tried to tug his arm away.
The yank clanked Silver's cuffs and his inhibitor rings together as the grip resettled on his wrist.
The other hedgehog frowned, which made something stir in his chest. “Someone lied to me, that's all.” It was defensive, no longer a toneless recounting of an event passed.
Shadow leaned in until the gap between their faces was uncomfortable and he was being given a wary look. “You're a naive fool, but that doesn't elaborate on the part where you mentioned me.”
Silver's pupils were always strangely small, slit like a feline and oddly rectangular. They expanded with light, but hardly. They were fixed on Shadow. “Sonic doesn't remember either.”
Off-white quills shuffled while Silver extended the distance between their faces. Shadow tracked him with narrowed eyes. “The end of the world situation?”
There was a tug against his grip, but it wasn't enough to make Shadow's hand budge. He didn't move an inch. Silver made a second, more frantic attempt, and Shadow released him for all of a moment.
The psychokinetic attempted to scramble away, but was doing so in the opposite direction of the mini celebration. Shadow kicked off in a lunge and only had to go a few broad paces to catch up with him.
Silver jerked around him, and the blue glow started encompassing the time-traveler. Shadow snarled and his quills stood up. “I'll just chaos control wherever you go.”
It wasn't an empty threat, even with the emerald out of his possession. Silver glared, but stayed on the ground. “The world only ended for me.”
Shadow didn't dare avert his eyes away from Silver, waiting for him to try escaping again. He didn't truly know how to respond to that. Shadow was usually the one making statements like those. Silver had been crawling into his territory for every half-hearted remark about his future.
The dark furred hedgehog had the impression that Silver loved the future, but it didn't love him back.
“And is that why you hate Sonic?” It was a rhetorical question. Silver was outright possessive over what happened in his timeline. Whenever something broke, he simply appeared to distribute ominous warnings about it.
But he got a response, glow fading. Silver's gold cuffs with their strange blue line took up his attention as he brought a hand up to rest on it in the air. “He's obnoxious. I don't understand half of his jokes. Arrogant. If he keeps going at this pace, I think he's going to develop a god complex.”
Shadow had to suppress a noise from his chest. “Many of those things could be said about you.” Silver wasn't always kind.
He waved a gloved hand in the air as if to brush away his remark. “I'm not done.” There was, though, a sharp glare jutted in his direction, so Shadow knew it had at least been registered.
Silver hadn't snarled at anyone yet. But his face twisted in the start of one. “Sonic is perfect. He certainly has his issues, but he just overcomes everything and won't even die properly. No one can measure up to that.”
His other hand was on his hip, gripping it more tightly than necessary. With a brief glance down, Shadow was able to notice some tiny craters. Inconspicuous, if he didn't have functioning night vision. If the fur on Silver's chest could puff up, he'd certainly place his bet on that occurring.
Shadow was unfortunately familiar with everything being said. “So. You're obsessed with him.”
That was the first thing he'd said that actually startled anything beyond aggression in Silver. His pupils had fluctuated, and then he threw his hands up towards his snout and giggled.
It was far too easy to poke at him and see it seemingly start from the top. It was like hitting rewind on a tape recorder and letting the same clip play out again.
Silver started shaking, but his eyes had sharpened and trained on Shadow again. “Is- is anyone not?” It was cut with laughter trying to escape, but the striped hedgehog could reluctantly understand.
“No one around here is allowed to have original ideas.” It was laced with sarcasm, but obvious enough that it wasn't one of the occasions where Silver cocked his head in confusion. To make it worse, he leaned back in.
There was a marginal height difference, due entirely to Silver's absurd amount of quillage framing his face and sticking up like a crown. Shadow nonetheless committed.
Neither of them handled touch well, so he hovered his glove over Silver's chest fluff instead of pressing into it. “Your best bet is getting him to somehow chase you around, but it is both difficult and exceedingly irritating.”
Silver smiled more cheerfully than any of his words needed. “If I tried to take your place I'd crush him with a car in a week!”
There was an awkward pause. Shadow.. “Can't say I've done that yet.” He tilted his head up, saw the details involved with having Silver focused on him.
He reconsidered and made contact with his chest. Silver was a waif, but stood still. “Are you going home?”
Shadow received an awkward glance in return. He watched Silver's eyes flit between the beacon of light and Shadow's fur.
It was a stare looking for some presence and finding it lacking. A natural gap between Amy and the end of the bench, passing over Tails to rest on Sonic for all of a moment. Training on the purple dress Rouge wore.
Silver's face softened. “I don't really have anywhere right now.”
Shadow took his own glance back, seperate from tracking Silver's gaze. They'd been fine without the two of them, and would continue that way.
He tightened the grip in Silver's chest fur. “I've got two irritating roommates, but it seems they'll both be out for a while.” Shadow tugged, just to make sure he had his attention. “Just don't break a wall.”
The surprised glance he received made a smug thrill run down his spine. Softly, “Are you sure?”
Shadow gave up on the fluff and snatched his waist. “Keep asking stupid questions and I'll take it back.” He warned.