Twelve hours felt like an eternity.
Shadic spent most of it training—pushing his body through combat drills with Knuckles, practicing precision movements with Tails' target systems, working on his Chaos Control timing until he could teleport across the workshop without leaving scorch marks on the floor.
It wasn't enough.
Nothing felt like enough after seeing that other dimension. After seeing what Sonic could have become. After feeling the rage that had nearly consumed him.
You're thinking too hard again, Sonic-brain observed.
"Someone has to."
Preparation is wise, Shadow-brain countered. But obsession is counterproductive. Rest would serve you better than another hour of training.
"I can't rest. Every second I waste is a second Nazo gets closer to reforming."
Nazo's gonna take months to pull himself together. You pushing yourself to exhaustion isn't going to change that.
Shadic didn't respond.
He knew they were right. Both of them. But the image of the Commander—that twisted, broken version of the hero whose legacy he carried—kept playing behind his eyes every time he tried to relax.
Was that what happened when heroes failed?
Was that what HE would become if he couldn't stop Nazo?
You're not him, Shadow-brain said firmly. Different circumstances. Different choices. Different outcomes.
Shadow's right. That guy had years of... whatever turned him into that. You've got us. You've got friends. You've got support.
"He probably had friends too. Once."
Neither voice had a response to that.
Dawn came eventually.
The team gathered around the dimensional breach generator once again, faces grim but determined. Tails had spent the night refining his instruments, trying to get better readings on the second target dimension.
"Good news and bad news," the fox said, pulling up holographic displays. "Good news: I've got a clearer picture of what you're walking into. Bad news: it's not pretty."
The display showed a world in ruins.
Shattered buildings. Scorched earth. Skies choked with ash and debris. No signs of civilization, no lights, no movement except the occasional dust storm sweeping across barren landscapes.
"What happened there?" Amy asked softly.
"I can't tell for sure. But based on the energy signatures, I'd guess some kind of massive Chaos event. An explosion, maybe. Or a weapon." Tails' expression was troubled. "Whatever it was, it basically sterilized the planet. Most life signs are minimal to non-existent."
Great, Sonic-brain muttered. From evil empire to nuclear wasteland. Our vacation destinations are really improving.
At least there won't be organized resistance, Shadow-brain observed. A dead world means no armies to fight.
"There ARE some life signs," Tails continued. "Scattered. Weak. But present. So there are survivors—just not many."
"And the Emerald?" Shadic asked.
"Somewhere in what used to be a major city. The readings are strong but unstable—like the Emerald is damaged or corrupted somehow."
"Can a Chaos Emerald even BE damaged?"
"Theoretically, yes. Extreme trauma could crack the crystalline structure, causing energy leakage. It wouldn't destroy the Emerald, but it would make it... unpredictable."
Unpredictable Chaos Energy, Sonic-brain said. That's never gone wrong before.
"Sarcasm noted," Shadic replied.
He stepped toward the generator, the Dimensional Anchor secure on his wrist. Amy's charm hung against his chest, a warm reminder of home. Rouge's communication beacon was clipped to his belt.
"Same as before," Tails said. "Five minutes for calibration. Time flows differently, so what feels like hours might only be minutes here. And Shadic?"
"Yeah?"
"Be careful. A world that dead... there's usually a reason survivors are survivors. They might not be friendly."
"I'll keep that in mind."
The generator hummed to life.
The breach opened.
Shadic stepped through.
The smell hit him first.
Ash. Decay. Something chemical and wrong that burned the inside of his nose and made his eyes water.
Shadic stumbled out of the breach onto cracked, gray earth, coughing as he adjusted to the atmosphere. The air was thin—breathable, but barely. Every breath felt like effort.
This place is dead, Sonic-brain said quietly. Really, truly dead.
Not entirely, Shadow-brain corrected. I sense life. Distant, but present.
Shadic straightened, looking around.
The landscape was apocalyptic. Ruined buildings stretched toward a sky the color of bruised flesh—purple and brown and sickly orange, choked with clouds that looked more like wounds than weather. The ground was covered in ash and debris, with occasional patches of something that might once have been vegetation but was now just twisted, blackened husks.
And everywhere, EVERYWHERE, there was silence.
No birds. No insects. No wind except the occasional dust devil that stirred the ashes into ghostly spirals.
Just silence.
The Dimensional Anchor beeped: 4:45.
"Okay," Shadic muttered. "Find the Emerald. Get out. Don't breathe too deeply."
He reached out with his Chaos senses, searching for the Emerald's signature.
There.
To the north, maybe five miles away. The energy was erratic—pulsing irregularly, spiking and fading in patterns that made no sense. Tails was right; something was wrong with the Emerald.
Shadic moved.
Even at reduced speed—he didn't want to kick up ash clouds that would signal his presence—he crossed the distance in minutes. The ruined city grew around him, buildings rising like broken teeth from gray gums.
This had been a major metropolis once. Shadic could see the bones of it—the skeletal remains of skyscrapers, the crumbling infrastructure of roads and bridges, the occasional rusted vehicle half-buried in debris.
And bodies.
Not many. Whatever had happened here had been thorough. But occasionally he passed remains—bones, mostly, picked clean by time and whatever scavengers had survived the initial disaster.
I hate this, Sonic-brain said. I really, really hate this.
Focus, Shadow-brain commanded. Grief accomplishes nothing. Find the Emerald.
The energy signature led Shadic to what had once been a plaza—a wide open space surrounded by collapsed buildings. At its center, rising from the ashes like a monument to catastrophe, was a crater.
And in the crater, pulsing with sickly light, was the Chaos Emerald.
It was the cyan one—Shadic recognized its color even through the corruption that had taken hold. Dark veins of something that looked like crystallized shadow ran through its surface, and the light it emitted was wrong. Flickering. Unstable.
"That doesn't look good," Shadic muttered.
It looks REALLY not good, Sonic-brain agreed.
Approach with caution, Shadow-brain advised. Corrupted Chaos Energy is unpredictable. It may react violently to contact.
Shadic descended into the crater slowly, his senses on high alert. The Emerald's energy washed over him in waves—hot, cold, electric, numbing, all at once. It was chaos in the truest sense, uncontrolled and uncontrollable.
He reached out—
"STOP!"
Shadic spun, dropping into a defensive stance.
A figure stood at the edge of the crater, silhouetted against the bruised sky. As Shadic watched, more figures appeared—emerging from the ruins, rising from hidden shelters, surrounding him in a loose circle.
Survivors.
They were... hard to look at.
Not because they were deformed or monstrous, but because they were so clearly BROKEN. Thin to the point of emaciation, dressed in rags and scavenged scraps, their eyes hollow with the kind of despair that came from years of hopeless survival.
And they were armed.
Makeshift weapons—sharpened pipes, clubs studded with nails, the occasional actual firearm that looked older than most of them.
"Step away from the Emerald," the lead figure commanded.
It was a woman. Mobian, Shadic realized—a rabbit, her fur gray and patchy from malnutrition. She carried a spear tipped with what looked like a shard of Chaos Crystal, and her eyes held nothing but suspicion and barely contained violence.
"I'm not here to hurt anyone," Shadic said carefully. "I just need the Emerald."
"Everyone needs the Emerald." The woman's voice was flat. Dead. "Everyone who comes here wants to take it. Use it. 'Save us.'" She spat the last words like a curse. "And every time, things get WORSE."
She's been through this before, Sonic-brain realized. Others have tried to take the Emerald.
And failed, Shadow-brain concluded. Spectacularly, by the sound of it.
Shadic held up his hands, showing he was unarmed. "I'm not like whoever came before. I'm not trying to use the Emerald for power. I need it to stop something—something that's threatening my world."
"Your WORLD." The woman laughed—a bitter, broken sound. "Let me guess. Another dimension. Another reality. Another place that isn't HERE, that hasn't suffered what WE'VE suffered."
"Yes. But—"
"Do you know what happened here?" The woman stepped forward, her spear leveled at Shadic's chest. "Do you know WHY this world is dead?"
Shadic shook his head.
"A hero happened." The word 'hero' dripped with venom. "A hedgehog. Blue. Fast. Powerful. Sound familiar?"
Shadic's blood ran cold.
No, Sonic-brain breathed. No, that's not... I would never...
"He came to save us," the woman continued. "That's what he said. He was going to use the Emeralds to stop the invasion—to push back the enemy that was consuming our world. And he DID use them. He gathered all seven, went Super, and..."
She trailed off.
"He lost control," Shadic finished quietly.
"He EXPLODED." The woman's voice cracked. "All that power, all that Chaos Energy, released at once. The enemy died. So did everything else. The blast wave circled the planet. The survivors—WE survivors—are the ones who happened to be in shelters. Underground. Shielded."
She gestured at the corrupted Emerald.
"That's all that's left of HIM. All that power, all that heroism, condensed into a broken gem that leaks poison into the ground and drives anyone who touches it insane."
Shadic stared at the Emerald.
At the twisted, corrupted remains of a hero's failed sacrifice.
That could have been me, Sonic-brain whispered. In another timeline... that WAS me.
No, Shadow-brain said firmly. That was a POSSIBILITY. One of infinite. We are not defined by what we COULD be.
"I'm sorry," Shadic said. And he meant it. "I'm sorry for what happened to your world. For what he did—what he was TRYING to do, even if it went wrong. But I'm not him."
"You're close enough." The woman's spear didn't waver. "You have his energy. I can FEEL it. The same signature that corrupted the Emerald, that poisoned our land, that killed everyone we ever loved—it's IN you."
"I'm trying to prevent something like this from happening in MY world. There's a being—Nazo—that will destroy everything if I can't stop him. The Emeralds are the only way."
"And what happens when YOU lose control?" The woman's eyes blazed. "What happens when YOUR power explodes? When YOUR world burns? Will your survivors stand in the ashes and tell the NEXT hero that it's okay, they're 'sorry,' they just need the magic gem to save THEIR people?"
Shadic had no answer.
Because she wasn't wrong.
He had power he barely understood. Power he'd only begun to control. What if he pushed too hard? What if his Hyper form destabilized? What if he became another cautionary tale, another dead world's origin story?
You won't, Sonic-brain said. You're not alone like he was. You've got us. You've got your friends.
The fox monitors your energy output, Shadow-brain added. The training has improved your control. The risk is not zero, but it's manageable.
"I have safeguards," Shadic said aloud. "People watching me, keeping track of my power levels. I'm not flying blind like he was. I'm not going to make the same mistakes."
"That's what they ALL say."
The survivors shifted, weapons raising. The woman's spear gleamed with crystallized Chaos Energy—a fragment of the corrupted Emerald, Shadic realized. Dangerous. Unpredictable.
"You have two choices," the woman said. "Leave now, empty-handed, and never come back. Or try to take the Emerald and die here."
The Anchor beeped: 2:30.
Two and a half minutes.
Shadic calculated his options.
He could fight. These survivors, for all their desperation, were no match for his speed and power. He could disarm them in seconds, take the Emerald, and be gone before they could regroup.
But that would make him exactly what they feared.
Another powerful being, taking what he wanted, leaving devastation in his wake.
Don't, Sonic-brain said. Don't prove her right.
But we NEED that Emerald, Shadow-brain countered. Without it, Nazo reforms. Our world dies.
There has to be another way.
"What if I could prove I'm different?" Shadic asked.
The woman's eyes narrowed. "How?"
"Let me touch the Emerald. Just touch it. If I lose control—if the corruption takes me—you can do whatever you need to do. But if I can handle it... if I can STABILIZE it..."
"Stabilize it?" For the first time, something other than suspicion flickered in the woman's eyes. Something like desperate hope, quickly suppressed. "That's impossible. The corruption is part of it now. It can't be cleansed."
"Maybe not by someone from this dimension. But I'm not from here. My Chaos Energy is different—stable. Balanced." Shadic took a careful step toward the Emerald. "Let me try. If it doesn't work, you lose nothing. The Emerald stays corrupted. I leave or die. But if it DOES work..."
"Our land might start healing," another survivor breathed. A young mobian—a fox, not unlike Tails, but smaller and more ragged. "The poison might stop spreading."
"Quiet, Miles," the woman snapped.
Miles? Sonic-brain's mental voice caught. That's... that's Tails' name.
Shadic looked at the young fox more closely. Same species. Same intelligent eyes, dulled by hardship but still sharp. In another life, another timeline...
"Please," Shadic said. "Let me try. Not just for my world—for YOURS. If I can heal the Emerald, I can undo at least some of the damage that was done here."
The woman stared at him for a long, tense moment.
Then, slowly, she lowered her spear.
"If you lose control," she said quietly, "I will kill you myself. And I will use that corrupted crystal to make SURE you never come back."
"Fair enough."
Shadic turned to face the Emerald.
Up close, the corruption was even worse than it had looked from a distance. The dark veins pulsed with sickly light, and the energy radiating from it was chaotic in the worst possible way—no pattern, no rhythm, just raw power screaming in every direction at once.
Okay, Sonic-brain said nervously. How exactly are we going to do this?
Channel our own Chaos Energy into the Emerald, Shadow-brain suggested. Overwrite the corruption with stable patterns. In theory.
"In theory?"
It's never been done before. But neither has most of what we do.
Shadic reached out.
His fingers touched the Emerald's surface.
The world SCREAMED.
Pain.
Unimaginable pain.
The corruption surged into Shadic like a living thing, clawing at his consciousness, trying to tear him apart from the inside. He felt the other Sonic's agony—the moment of the explosion, the horror of realizing what he'd done, the guilt and despair that had crystallized along with his power.
HOLD ON! Sonic-brain screamed.
PUSH BACK! Shadow-brain commanded. DON'T LET IT OVERWHELM YOU!
Shadic gritted his teeth and PUSHED.
His own Chaos Energy flowed into the Emerald—not fighting the corruption, but surrounding it. Containing it. He wasn't trying to destroy the other Sonic's power; he was trying to HARMONIZE with it.
I know what you felt, he thought at the presence in the crystal. I know the fear of losing control. The guilt of hurting people you wanted to protect. I carry it too.
The corruption writhed.
But you don't have to be poison. Your sacrifice meant something. It stopped the enemy. It saved the survivors—even if there weren't many. And now you can do more.
Slowly, painfully, the dark veins in the Emerald began to recede.
Let go. Let ME carry this burden. Rest.
The corruption shuddered—and dissolved.
Cyan light, pure and clean, erupted from the Emerald. The sickly energy vanished, replaced by the steady pulse of stable Chaos power.
Shadic pulled his hand back, gasping.
The Emerald floated before him, pristine. Healed.
Behind him, the survivors stared in disbelief.
"He did it," Miles whispered. "He actually did it."
The woman—their leader—stepped forward, her spear forgotten at her side. She looked at the Emerald, then at Shadic, then at the ground beneath her feet.
The ash was receding.
Not quickly—not dramatically—but visibly. The gray was giving way to something darker. Richer. Something that might, in time, support life again.
"The poison," she breathed. "It's... stopping."
"The Emerald was the source," Shadic said, his voice hoarse. "With it stable, the corruption can't spread anymore. It'll take time—years, probably—but your world can heal."
The woman turned to face him.
Tears were streaming down her face.
"Why?" she asked. "Why would you help us? You could have just taken it. We couldn't have stopped you."
Shadic considered the question.
"Because I know what it's like to feel helpless," he said finally. "To watch the people you care about suffer and not be able to do anything. I wasn't going to add to that if I could help it."
He picked up the healed Emerald.
"I still need to take this. I'm sorry."
"Don't be." The woman wiped her eyes. "You've given us something we haven't had in years. Something we thought we'd never have again."
"What's that?"
"Hope."
The Anchor beeped: 0:15.
Fifteen seconds.
"I have to go," Shadic said. "But... if I can find a way to come back, after all this is over... I will. To check on you. To help if I can."
"We'll hold you to that." The woman extended her hand. "I'm Vanilla. And on behalf of everyone who survived... thank you."
Shadic shook her hand.
"I'm Shadic. And you're welcome."
He activated the Anchor.
The world dissolved into light.
The transition back was easier this time—or maybe Shadic was just getting used to having his atoms scrambled across dimensions.
He stumbled out of the breach onto familiar grass, the cyan Emerald clutched in his hand, and immediately collapsed to his knees.
"SHADIC!" Multiple voices, multiple hands helping him up.
"I'm okay," he managed. "Just... tired. Really tired."
"What happened?" Tails demanded, already running scans. "The dimensional readings went haywire—there was some kind of massive Chaos event—"
"I healed a corrupted Emerald," Shadic said. "Long story. Tell you later."
He held up the cyan gem.
"Two down. Five to go."
Amy took his arm, helping him stand. "You look like death warmed over."
"Feel like it too." Shadic managed a weak smile. "But I met some people who had it worse. A lot worse. And I was able to help them."
"That's what heroes do," Knuckles said gruffly. But there was respect in his voice.
"PROBABILITY OF MISSION SUCCESS: INCREASED BY 12.4%," Omega announced. "TWO EMERALDS ACQUIRED. MOMENTUM IS FAVORABLE."
Rouge examined the cyan Emerald with a professional eye. "This one's cleaner than the first. Stronger, too. Whatever you did in there, it worked."
"I talked to a ghost," Shadic said. "Convinced him to let go."
Everyone stared at him.
"Like I said. Long story."
Tails took the Emerald carefully, running it through his scanners. "The energy is completely stable. No signs of corruption or damage. This is... this is incredible, Shadic."
"Can we hold off on the celebrations until after I've slept for about twelve hours?"
"Fair enough." Amy tightened her grip on his arm. "Come on. Let's get you inside."
As they walked toward the workshop, Shadic looked up at the sky—the clear, healthy sky of his adopted home—and felt something settle in his chest.
Two Emeralds.
Two worlds touched by his presence.
One had shown him the darkness that heroes could become. The other had shown him the hope that heroes could bring.
He knew which one he wanted to be.
That's the spirit, Sonic-brain said warmly.
Acceptable growth, Shadow-brain agreed.
Shadic smiled.
Five more Emeralds to go.
Five more chances to make a difference.
He could do this.
Author's Note: Shadic learned that being a hero isn't just about punching things—sometimes it's about healing wounds that seem impossible to fix. Next chapter: The third Emerald lies in a dimension where physics don't work right, and Shadic discovers that not everything can be solved with speed and power.