#bas02 is the file name of the stage in shth by the way!

[one-way-dream]

BAS02 & Ashes

Rating: General

Words: 880+

Media: Sonic the Hedgehog, Shadow The Hedgehog (2005)

Characters: Shadow the Hedgehog, Maria Robotnik (Mentioned), Rouge the Bat (Mentioned), Sonic the Hedgehog (Mentioned), Black Doom (Mentioned)

Tags: Character Introspection, Second-Person POV, Experimental <- doesn't know what they're doing, Dark-Dark Route (Shadow the Hedgehog 2005), Conflicting Feelings, Guilt, Guy who is too far gone and maybe regrets it

Warnings: Canon-typical violence

Chapter: 1/1

Link to the original work

AO3 Summary/Except:

"Had Maria’s wish ever mattered to you? Or have you already fulfilled it that day you became one with the stars?"

-

Very messy and very experimental. I've never written anything this short and unpolished in my life. ❤️

The cold, dry, air of the fortress blasts against your face, almost as if it was burning, until the air becomes still. It’s stale against the tip of your nose and you think that sensation should’ve pulled a familiar chord in your heart as it once would have.

It’s a feeling akin to nostalgia that strikes you, one that you shut down immediately, but for those fleeting moments they reek of a spacecraft so desolate it could be mistaken for a moon; one that the girl in your dreams might have charted, believing it to be a star during your nights side by side, warmth and gentle lavender-vanilla radiating off of her.

But you’ve never been able to reciprocate heat the way humans do, because you were merely a leech – you’ve never been a warm body yourself.

Factory lights flicker overhead, the click of machine guns reloading in the distance, and the desperation of human beings hangs thickly in the air.

It's such a familiar scene.

But…

The loneliness has already rotted you to your core, and those feelings don’t mean anything to you anymore. All that matters is seeing it through to the end.

After all, this is pure.

This is vengeance in its entirety.

Green catches your eye before you notice that it was a soldier’s gaze – murky fear and hostility blend together until they cannot be pulled apart. It’s almost an amusing sight, but the word pathetic comes easier. That look is so painfully human, and you once thought you knew what it meant to be human; but you'd thought wrong, because with each passing second the idea of humanity for an ultimate weapon slips away, pooling at your feet in the form of bullet shells and smoke that clings to your vision.

It’s too much trouble to get rid of him, so instead you rip your gaze away from the man first when it starts to burn; because it’s too much to take, because there’s no time to waste, and maybe because you’re almost reminded of the time someone had once tried to teach you to love humans despite their flaws. But a weapon shouldn't be capable of that to begin with. It’s a hindrance and a flaw in what is meant to be flawless; a bug in your programming – the only thing left for you to do is patch it. Destroy it.

A voice suddenly reaches your ear amidst all the chaos of battle, realizing that someone is yelling at you, scalding, desperate as you feel the wind from their wings.

(You think you know who she is, but you tune it out anyways.)

It's too late for second chances, too late for half-baked truths. Not when you're already so far gone beyond the point of return. You feel a laugh escaping over your dry tongue, wondering why Sonic and the others even bother trying anymore.

The bitterness coils in your gut like a venomous snake, wrapping around like a ribbon and squeezing until you’re a breath away from a pained groan. It’s not real, you remind yourself, deliriously half-laughing under your breath, until the serpent strikes, and you find yourself tripping on your own two left feet.

But there's no time to hesitate. Not when you're so close. Not when you're at the final frontier of humanity – a pathetic excuse for a shelter meant to give an inkling of hope to the last soldiers.

All it'll take is one shot to end it all. It has to be swift, though you're unsure if it should be painless. For whatever reason, bile nearly rises to your mouth with a choked hiccup at the thought of making those worthless humans suffer any longer than they already have.

As soon as that thought crosses your mind however, a heavy sigh leaves your lips as you skip to a stop in front of the last gun turret.

Yet another defect found in your system. What a pain.

(It can't be afforded.)

You have no goal but to be perfect, after all. Perfect carnage. Perfect destruction. Perfect revenge. That’s what you were made for, and you have a debt to repay with your life.

‘A life for a life’, as Black Doom had once said – but you still have yet to ask him what exactly he means.

It’s unknown whether everything will go out with a bang or a whimper; should everything bleed into nothingness until everything is still and stale, like the air on the ARK, and it still won’t matter.

Had Maria’s wish ever mattered to you? Or have you already fulfilled it that day you became one with the stars?

Was pretending to misremember her words and her feelings the easy way out? Or was it just the most sensible?

Sometimes your mind, or whatever is left of it, wanders - the little doubt you have left festers in the back in your brain like poison as you wonder if any of these thoughts are even your own, or if perhaps, Black Doom dug his claws into your spines at some point, like the puppet you were always meant to be.

But you are and always were a tool; regardless of whether these thoughts were your own or not, you are a means to an end. A means to humanity's end.