#the. The. THE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[son1c]

what lies beneath

falling stars fic masterpost

The manta ray battleship was a prototype. It was easy to forget that fact while lounging in the cabin, but down on the lower deck, it was impossible to ignore. It was stuffier, for one thing. And it reeked of budget cuts.

Eggman was a man with very clear priorities. He would allot as much time and money to things as he thought they deserved. And when it came to something that was never supposed to leave the garage, he skipped out on lights for the underbelly.

It wasn't like he was going to answer the door if the Federal Aviation Administration came knocking for a safety inspection.

The oppressive darkness of the lower deck was assuaged only by Omega's eyes. Twin red beams cut through the blackness, revealing a space cluttered with walkways and skinny guardrails. Thick metal tubes snaked around the space as well, and far off, beyond the reach of Omega's eyes, the three Team Dark members could hear the pulsing sound of the engine as it kept the manta ray airborne.

Rouge stretched her hands above her head. "Well, boys," she said. "Let's get to work."

Omega, being a robot, had no problems seeing in the dark. And Rouge, being a bat, also didn't have much trouble. Shadow, however, was cursed by his hedgehog genes to struggle, so he let the two of them lead the way as they explored the lower deck.

Shadow kept his ears standing straight up, listening for anything that might sound out of the ordinary. What he heard was a lot of whirring mechanisms and hissing pipes. The heavy clanking of Omega's footsteps also filled his ears as they descended deeper down the outer staircases. And as they approached the engine, the sound of its roars nearly drowned out everything else.

But not entirely.

Shadow's ears swivelled. He stopped in his tracks, his hands clenching the guardrail as he stared out into the darkness. But the black wall didn't move. There was nothing there. He let go of the guardrail, only to stop for a second time, his finger catching on a nick in the metal.

"Omega," Shadow called. "I need your eyes."

Omega rotated his head like he was an owl, illuminating the guardrail that Shadow was still standing in front of. Now bathed in red light, the metal revealed a secret: two sets of five lines gouged into the metal. They were thin and straight, almost like someone had dragged their fingernails across the guardrail. But even the toughest claws would need to apply a lot of pressure to dent metal.

Rouge walked up to Shadow. When she saw what he was looking at, she muttered, "How kind of the Doctor to put together this surprise for us…"

"Be on your guard," Shadow said. His ears twitched again. "We're not alone down here."

Beneath them, the landing gear shuddered. Omega looked down at it, and through the lattice of the staircase, everyone could see a dark shape dart across the wheel. Shadow lost sight of it when it left the scope of Omega's gaze, however.

Omega started to get excited. But before he could draw his weapons, Shadow said seriously, "Hand-to-hand only. We can't afford to damage the engine with stray projectiles."

Omega's shoulders slumped. If he had a mouth, he'd be using it to pout right now. "FUN LEVELS DROPPING," he said. "EXCITEMENT DECREASED TO 'BELOW AVERAGE.'"

"Oh, please," Rouge said. "Aren't you forgetting about something? Or were you being too generous before, and those hands of yours can't really crush cars between them?"

This reminder perked the robot up. With newfound excitement, he scanned the space below them, but whatever had been there before was gone now. The only things caught in the red beams of light were dust particles and the dirt stuck to the landing gear.

A sudden bang made everyone turn to look at the engine. Standing on top of it was the figure from before. It glared menacingly at Team Dark, its black body glinting when the red light from Omega's eye beams hit it. It focused its orange gaze on Shadow. Even from this far away, Shadow could feel the coldness of its stare.

It was the Shadow Android.

Upon closer inspection, it became clear that the claw marks weren't just on the guardrail. They were all over the landing gear too. The fake hedgehog must've clung to it when the ship had taken off, and made itself a stowaway within the bowels of the manta ray.

And now it was raising its hand up, preparing to smash down on the engine.

"Omega!" Rouge said, her eyes wide with alarm as she realized what the Shadow Android was planning. "Throw me!"

"QUERY: WOULD YOU NOT COUNT AS A PROJECTILE?"

Rouge stomped her foot. "Oh, for the love of--"

Shadow intervened. "I won't miss," he said as he picked her up. Then, he threw her at the Android. With his superior accuracy, he managed a direct hit, and Rouge knocked the fake hedgehog off the engine right as it was about to ram its fist into the power core.

The two of them disappeared over the side of the large engine, locked in an intense struggle.

Shadow and Omega leapt over the guardrail and chased after them a moment later. They landed on the landing gear, and the mechanism shuddered from their sudden weight. But Shadow ignored the creaking metal--his eyes scanned the darkness, his ears held as high as they could go.

Then, he heard it. The faint sounds of someone choking.

Shadow didn't hesitate. He raced toward the far end of the lower deck, where the noise was coming from. As he got closer, he could begin to make out the orange glow of the Shadow Android's eyes. It illuminated Rouge's face as well as the pinched expression she wore. The Android had her pinned up against the wall with its hands wrapped around her throat, squeezing.

Rouge's fingers weren't strong enough to pry the Android's metal ones off of her. Thankfully, Shadow's were, and he wrenched them free before the bat's lungs could start to burn from a lack of oxygen. She gasped, her heels clicking when they reunited with the floor.

The Android swung around to face Shadow. In the low light, it almost appeared to be glowering at him, the darkness creating the illusion of a vitriolic expression. Shadow matched it with one of his own, his heart clenching painfully as he stared back at his own face.

Why should this thing exist? Shadow still wasn't sure who he was, or who he was supposed to be. To create an imitation of him was to paint a picture of nothing.

But this Android wasn't nothing. Unlike Shadow, it knew its purpose. The machine was comfortable in the knowledge that it was a pawn. Shadow, meanwhile, despised the thought of bending to Doctor Eggman's will.

And yet, the Shadow Android still had something that Shadow didn't.

And it made Shadow sick.

The dark hedgehog slammed the fake into the floor. The force of the impact dented the ship, but the Android remained unharmed. It attempted to break free of Shadow's grasp with a kick to his stomach, but Shadow wouldn't be shaken off so easily. He held firm to the Android's neck with one hand, and drove a punch into its jaw with the other.

But again, the Android was unharmed. Its head whipped to the side, but there was no dent left in its cheek, and when its eyes returned to meet Shadow's, it was as if to say, Is that all? Pathetic.

The Android's stripes began to glow. Its body grew hot, too hot to touch, and Shadow was forced to let go, his glove smoking from where it had been grasping its neck. Then, the Android slid back before jumping onto its feet, its whole body shimmering like the hood of a car that had been left out in the summer heat.

Shadow got back to his feet and balled his hands into fists. He wondered how long the Android could keep up this impression of an oven before it started to melt.

The fake hedgehog surged forward, still radiating heat. It raked its claws at Shadow and managed to graze his cheek, the superheated metal slicing through his skin like it was wet tissue paper. With a hiss of pain, Shadow backed further away, realizing he wouldn't be able to rely on the Android self-destructing. He needed a new plan, and fast.

Omega chose that moment to rejoin the fight. The large robot grabbed the Shadow Android with his big mechanical hands, unfazed by the extreme temperature the Android was letting off. He then tore one of the Android's arms off, and the detached limb sparked hideously when it hit the floor.

"HOSTILE HAS BEEN DISARMED. LIMBS PENDING REMOVAL: 3."

A second later, the Shadow Android slammed a kick into Omega's chest, and the subsequent clang rattled the robot enough that the Android was able to wriggle free from his hands' iron grasp. Now on the floor, the Android grabbed its detached arm with its one good hand before hurling the broken limb at Rouge's head.

The bat easily avoided the arm. But the Android hadn't actually been aiming for her--instead, it was trying to hit the button behind her on the wall. And when its detached arm smacked into it, the mechanism holding landing gear in place released, and the floor of the manta ray ship suddenly had a great big hole in it.

Wind rushed up from the gap in the floor, and the air inside the engine room was pulled out, toward the hole. With nothing to hold onto, the four combatants struggled to retain their footing as they were all dragged across the deck by the wind.

And then the Shadow Android grabbed Shadow's shoe. Taking advantage of the hazardous conditions it had just created, the Android kicked itself up off the floor, and flung Shadow at the landing gear. But Shadow wouldn't go without a fight, and he snagged the Android's wrist at the last second.

The two of them sailed through the air, the suction from the outside of the ship drawing them in like water to a drain.

"Shadow!" Rouge cried, but her voice was drowned out by the wind.

Thinking fast, Rouge reached into her pocket and pulled out a big green gem. How something that large had managed to fit inside of her pencil skirt's pocket was anyone's guess. Maybe she had picked up a trick or two from Amy, and developed her own sort of hammer space. Or maybe it was just a really good pocket.

Regardless, she now had the gem in her hand. With a pained expression, she thought, He owes me big time for this.

Then, Rouge threw the gem to Shadow, hoping it would reach him in time, and that he would catch it. Thankfully, he saw the flash of green over the Android's head and reached up at just the right moment.

The Chaos Emerald smacked into Shadow's burned hands like an oversized baseball. And he could feel it--that mystical, familiar energy. Unlike the kind his own body generated though, the energy emanating from the Emerald was soft and warm. He knew it wouldn't hurt him to use even before he tapped into it.

And as the gem hummed between his fingers, he remembered something.

A phrase.

He said it now.

“Chaos Control!”

The Android attempted to knock the Chaos Emerald out of his hands with a kick, but Shadow was faster. He let the Emerald's Chaos Energy fill his heart, and he kneed the Android in the chest with a javelin of green energy. It pierced the Android's metal chest plate and short circuited the imposter, its orange eyes flickering out instantly.

Dead.

The sight of it unnerved Shadow. He hoped he would never have to fight another fake of himself again.

And then the wind pulled Shadow and the corpse of the Android out over the gap in the floor. Shadow kicked the Android downward, where it was taken by the wind and presumably fell to the desert far below.

Before Shadow could meet that same fate, Rouge grabbed his arm. With her other hand, she held onto one of Omega's fingers. The robot had torn a hole in the floor with his other hand, keeping them all anchored.

"Sorry, sweetheart," Rouge said to Shadow, "but I've had enough of your dramatic exits for one lifetime!" A bead of sweat rolled down the side of her face, but she still managed to wink.

It gave Shadow pause.

Rouge’s words. Her actions.

Because Shadow didn't need her or Omega to save him. With the Emerald, Shadow could've easily teleported himself back onto the ship if he fell. And yet, it was only because of Rouge that he now had the Emerald in the first place. And that meant something to Shadow.

It meant that when she held his arm, he didn't try to wrestle himself free, and instead he allowed her to hold him there, dangling precariously over the ten thousand foot drop.

Then, the landing gear groaned as it pulled itself back up into the ship, and the three Team Dark members quickly followed suit. They all turned to look at the wall where the button was, and Omega's eye beams revealed Sonic standing there with a buzzy bomber hooked under his arm. Once the wind was no longer ripping through the lower deck, he released the buzzy bomber, and it hovered by his shoulder.

The blue hedgehog waved at his friends. "Not too shabby," he said. After speeding over to them, he knocked Rouge on the shoulder. "Maybe there's somethin' to this 'team' thing after all. You ain't half bad, Rouge."

Rouge puffed up, a little indignant. "Obviously!"

Shadow asked, "If you're here, then who…?"

"Don't sweat it! My copilot's the best there is." Sonic snickered at the stares he received. "What? You guys were takin' awhile, so I figured I'd teach Buggy the ropes. And it's a good thing I did, too, cuz Mr. Ivo forgot to install the switch for autopilot!"