Chapter Text
Cover Art by Electrikitty
‘Grandfather?’ Maria asked. ‘Where do babies come from?’
Shadow raised his eyebrows slightly. He didn’t lift his eyes from his book, and a moment later, he heard the clatter of Professor Gerald dropping his piece of chalk. Shadow kept reading, but his mind began to wander.
He didn’t need to hear the professor’s answer. It had been included in one of the numerous datasets that the man had uploaded to Shadow’s mind before he had first awoken. Shadow had thought nothing of it at first. It was only later on that Gerald asked him not to discuss the information with Maria or Abraham. He’d tacked on an apology for the inadvertent loss of Shadow’s innocence, but to this day, Shadow didn’t understand how he could lose something he’d never had.
Professor Gerald finally gathered his wits and set the chalk back on the ledge below the blackboard. The stars shone outside the window, completely uncaring for the man’s plight. ‘We’re not doing biology right now, children. We’re doing astronomy.’
‘We’re doing science,’ Abraham deadpanned. Shadow glanced over at the boy’s textbook. It seemed like he was ‘doing’ astronomy rather poorly and would rather switch over to a different discipline.
“You can ask your parents,’ Gerald said. He wasn’t looking at the children. He was absently writing something out on the board that had nothing to do with the lesson. Maria glanced at it curiously, and Shadow followed her line of sight. He felt a twinge of discomfort. The equations calculated how fast his healing factor worked, and the written sections of DNA were his own. GUN was running out of patience, and Gerald was running out of time.
Maria poked her fingers together. ‘Asking my parents might be a bit difficult.’
‘You can ask me. Abraham can ask his parents. Class dismissed.’
Abraham abruptly got up and stalked off. He took the opportunity to kick Shadow in the ankle on the way out. The toe of his shoe crumpled against the hard metal plates of Shadow’s air shoes. The boy hobbled away, hissing in agony.
Maria had already gotten up from her chair, and she was idling by the whiteboard, asking the professor more questions. Shadow quietly got up and slipped out of the room, leaving his textbook lying open.
He walked down one of the long, endless corridors that encircled the Ark. Behind the intermittently appearing doors were the scientists and workers who kept the space station running. He half-walked, half-skated, drifting along. He’d walked these corridors far too many times. Sometimes he thought he could see the scuff marks left by the edges of his shoes.
He loosely crossed his arms, turned his head away from the interior doors, and looked out at the stars.
It felt like everyone on the Ark was thinking about Maria’s future, and it felt selfish to think about his own. He slowed to a halt and wrapped his arms around himself. He didn’t need sleep, and that led to many sleepless nights spent thinking about the same ideas.
He didn’t know what he was supposed to do once this was all over, once Maria was cured and once Project Shadow was completed. The professor had told him that he should try to make a new life for himself – even if it was within the confines of GUN’s oversight – and maybe even a new family. It had probably been a throwaway comment, but it had kept him awake more than once. He’d gripped the bedsheets, staring at the ceiling, his brow creased with worry and confusion.
… He was the only one of his kind aboard the Ark. Even when he and Maria returned to Earth, he knew that while he might find someone similar to him, they still wouldn’t be the same. They wouldn’t be immortal. They wouldn’t have alien DNA.
He began to pace restlessly, and his shoes clanged on the metal floor. The mere idea of having a child was something that he didn’t like to think about for too long. It felt unnatural. It didn’t make sense. It didn’t fit. He hadn’t even come to terms with his own immortality yet, let alone the idea of passing that immortality down to someone else—
‘Shadow!’
Maria scampered over to him, waving with one hand and smiling brightly. He forced a smile and turned towards her, but her face fell, and her eyes widened. Maybe he hadn’t smiled quickly enough, or maybe he simply wasn’t good at hiding how he felt.
‘Shadow…’ Maria said, and she gently poked the corner of his mouth, trying to coax a genuine smile from him. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing.’ He looked up at her. Most of the time, their roles aboard the Ark made sense. She was his friend and companion. She was like an older sister to him. But every now and then, he was struck by the disorienting thought that she was a child and he was not.
Shadow turned away from her, fixing his eyes on the stars so she couldn’t see his expression as easily. ‘What’s going to happen to us once we leave the Ark?’
Maria leaned against the window and said, ‘Well, we’ll probably have to go through quarantine, then we’ll return to our families.’ His ears flattened slightly, and she frowned. Then her face crumpled, and she knelt beside him and wrapped him in a tight hug. ‘Don’t look so sad, Shadow. You’re my family. You’ll be coming home with us.’
‘What if you have a new family one day?’
‘Even if that happens, there will always be a place for you. I promise.’ Maria looked up at him, and her eyes twinkled. ‘Besides, maybe you’ll have a family of your own too, one day.’
Shadow went very still. He’d been trying to steer the conversation in this direction, but now that they’d arrived, it felt like he’d been shipwrecked. ‘I… I don’t…’ He tried to mask his emotions, but he knew he was failing. ‘I’m not sure about that.’
‘I mean, you don’t have to.’ Maria gave his shoulder a squeeze. ‘But it could be nice. Heaven knows it gets lonely on the Ark.’
Her words felt like permission, in a sense, and he turned back towards her. His words came in stops and starts. ‘What if I never meet someone? What if we had a child, and it inherited my immortality? What if I’m not… good enough?’
Maria’s eyes flickered, and he felt a flash of guilt. These weren’t questions that a child should have to answer, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask the professor, and he had nowhere else to turn.
‘Good enough?’ Maria repeated.
He felt the rising urge to turn on his heel and walk away, but she was still holding his hand. ‘Your grandfather created me with preexisting knowledge, but there are so many things that he didn’t think I needed to know. I don’t know how to be a parent. I don’t know what I’m meant to do with my life when we return to earth. Whenever I think about the future, it feels like I’m staring into a dark, endless, void, and I’m…’
I’m afraid.
He took a deep breath and exhaled. Maria already had far too much to worry about. He was supposed to protect her, support her, and one day, cure her. He should have kept all of this to himself—
‘No one knows how to be a parent at first.’ Maria smiled and added, ‘You have to learn.’
‘How?’
‘Well, most people learn by copying their own parents…’ Her smile faded, and he averted his gaze. He didn’t have parents, and she knew that full well. ‘You know what?’ she asked, and she grasped his upper arms, startling him. ‘That doesn’t matter. You’re kind and brave and determined, and if you want a family of your own, then I’m sure you’ll be a wonderful father. You’ve been so good to me, Shadow.’
She hugged him before he could respond, squeezing the air from his lungs in a tight embrace. He resisted at first, but then he surrendered and hugged her back. He knew it wasn’t that simple, and she knew it too. But it felt like she was the only person aboard the Ark who was capable of glimpsing who he really was. He wasn’t just a weapon or a cure. He was something both more and less than human. He was…
’Shadow?’
Maria’s voice was taut with fear. His blood ran cold. She stared over his shoulder, and tremors ran down his body. The starlight rippled around them, and he could hear something slithering through space and time, followed by the clinking of gold and jewels. His fur stood on end. He slowly turned around.
Black Doom towered over them, and his shadow spilt over the floor like fresh ink.
Shadow took a shaky breath. ‘It’s all right, Maria.’ He knew that it was futile to try to comfort the inhabitant of a dream, but even after all these years, he couldn’t bear to see her be afraid. He turned back to her and said. ‘I’ve got you—’
She was gone. His arms were empty. Blood poured over him in a tidal wave, and he gasped and spluttered for breath. The starry corridors of the Ark had vanished, replaced by the pulsing walls of the Black Comet. The veined flesh and tissue felt like they were closing in on him. Blood washed around his ankles. He felt a dull pain in the centre of his stomach, and he looked down to see a blackened umbilical cord rooted in his navel. He doubled over and fell onto his hands and knees. His eyes began to water.
Beneath his body lay a female figure – a snow-white hedgehog, half-submerged in blood. Her eyes were closed. An ID tag hung from her ear, and the other end of his umbilical cord trailed from between her legs.
Shadow lifted his head, fighting a rising tide of nausea. Clusters of flesh swirled in the rising tide of blood. They were embryonic remains — failed attempts at chasing shadows. Black Doom watched over him, floating above the carnage below.
‘Enough,’ Shadow growled, and he got to one knee, bracing himself to stand. Black Doom had haunted his nightmares before, but it didn’t matter whether his presence was real or a figment of his imagination. Shadow’s memories of White Space were still fresh and painful, and these were merely his subconscious’s attempt to process them. ‘You no longer have any power over me. This is just a dream.’
Black Doom leaned over him, and the artefacts suspended from the chains around his neck swung like pendulums, with an almost hypnotic effect. ‘Your lucidity cannot save you this time, Shadow.’
The words hung in the silence. Then the world shifted. The flesh beneath the blood began to dissolve, and the woman beneath him began to sink beneath the surface. Her lashes flickered, revealing a glimpse of ruby eyes. Despite himself, Shadow’s hand twitched, stimulated by the compulsion to save her. His “mother” was long gone, but he’d watched far too many people disappear over the course of his life.
She slipped beneath the surface. Then the umbilical cord became taut, an anchor chain dragging him down into a sea of blood, and white-hot pain throbbed below his ribs. He gritted his teeth, bracing his hands against the ever-shifting sea of viscera as the blood crept up his thighs and forearms. He clung fiercely to the knowledge that this was just a nightmare, and he wracked his brain, clawing at the flawed dream logic that held him prisoner, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t wake up. Just as he took a final gasp of air before his mouth was submerged, the umbilical cord snapped.
He collapsed and rolled onto his back, only for Black Doom’s claws to imprison him where he lay, pinning him down. Shadow thrashed and kicked and bit, but to no avail.
Black Doom leaned over him. His blood-red eyes were all-seeing, and the spiked medallion hanging from his shoulder grazed Shadow’s temple. ‘You may have defied me in White Space, but you will never truly be able to escape me, Shadow.’ His voice reverberated in Shadow’s bones, setting his teeth on edge and making his body shake uncontrollably. ‘I will make you my vessel… one way or another.’
Then he inexplicably removed his hand. Shadow remained motionless, watching his every move. It didn’t make sense that Black Doom would simply let him go.
Shadow eased himself upright, shuddering as blood and sweat streamed down his back. It was only once the lingering sensation of Black Doom’s claws faded that he felt a painful twinge in the left-hand side of his lower abdomen. It was hot, sharp, and overwhelming. He scrambled backwards, forcing himself to his feet. He clutched his lower torso, gasping for breath. The pain was persistent, but there was nothing he could do. There was no hand he could bite or weapon he could break in order to stop it. The pain emanated from deep within him, and it was only when a cry escaped his lips that it finally ended.
His hand shook violently. Dream or not, he was a hair’s breadth away from lunging through the blood to strangle Black Doom with his own chains. ‘…What did you do to me?’
Black Doom floated towards him, his chains dragging through the blood and his robes turning crimson. Shadow’s mind was screaming at him to run, but his body wouldn’t obey. ‘You will find out in due time.’ His hands closed around Shadow’s body, and his withered, clawed fingers sank deep into Shadow’s skin and fur. ‘But no matter what, you will serve me and testify to my bloodline. You no longer have a choice.’
As Black Doom’s words echoed in the bloody cavern, Shadow felt something shift inside him. Between his hips, below his ribcage, buried deep within his organs, where not even the light of the Chaos energy in his body could reach, something emerged. It twisted and slithered, pushing against the walls of its confines. Almost imperceptibly, Shadow’s fur gleamed, shifting and ruffling as something writhed beneath it.
Shadow froze. ‘What did you do?’ Terror roiled in his throat, choking him. He grabbed a fistful of chains and hauled Black Doom down to his eye level. ‘What did you do?!’
The chains began to burn, melting through his gloves and searing his palm. Black Doom looked back at him, unblinking. ‘I have given you a new purpose.’ He had no mouth, but the impenetrable folds that draped over his head contorted into something like a smile. ‘I have made you whole.’
‘No.’ Shadow dropped the chains, backed away, and began to run, but the floor collapsed, and he fell headlong into the bloody mire. The embryonic remains that were adrift in the current clung to him, crying, begging him to help them escape, but he had always been and would always be the only survivor of Project Shadow.
‘No, no, no—!‘
Shadow lunged upright, screaming. His world was fragmented — darkened concrete, the sound of Rouge’s voice, and clawed metal fingers holding him like a vice. His head felt like it was going to split open. His body was convulsing. The sensations of Rouge’s fingertips and Omega’s cold hands were like distant echoes. Phantom sensations haunted his body — the throb of the severed umbilical cord, the bloodied flesh beneath his palms, and the lingering pain in his abdomen. He felt like he was still drenched in blood.
He broke free of Omega’s grip and half-fell from his military cot. His room in Team Dark’s shared flat beneath GUN’s headquarters was only so large, but he still left a trail of destruction in his wake as he stumbled to the bathroom tucked away in the corner. He knocked a gun from a nearby weapons crate, and it hit the floor; bullets and magazines rolled and tumbled from his workbench, and a nearby chair toppled with a loud clatter. His shoulder slammed against the wall of the shower cubicle. He wrenching the tap as he fell, and he collapsed onto the tiles.
Ice-cold water washed over him in a torrent. He gasped for breath, and the convulsions began to ease. The last time he’d had a nightmare this vivid had been over a month ago. His dream about the Ark had sent him on a journey to the stars, which in turn had sent him to White Space.
Black Doom’s words echoed in his mind, and he shuddered.
I will make you my vessel… one way or another.
A winged shadow appeared in the water as it swirled down the drain. The tap creaked, and the frigid water turned warm. A moment later, Rouge squeezed in beside him, taking him into her arms and holding him tightly. Her wings curved around his head and shoulders, sheltering him. He slumped against her and allowed her to bring his head to rest on her shoulder.
The shower cubicle was fogging up, but he could see Omega through the glass. Several of his fingers were damaged. When Black Doom had pinned him down in his dream, it was likely that it had actually been Omega trying to prevent him from injuring himself. He stared at Rouge’s bare arms. Her sleepwear was soaked through, clinging to her skin. ‘…Did I hurt you?’
‘No,’ Rouge said quietly. Her embrace replaced the sensation of Black Doom’s withered fingers on his skin, and the scent of her perfume overpowered the lingering stench of blood. ‘What happened, sweetheart?’
‘A bad dream.’ His voice was hoarse, and even though his response had only been three words, his voice still managed to crack. He closed his eyes, focusing on the sensations of the water and Rouge holding him, letting everything else begin to fade away.
‘You’ve been having nightmares for a while now.’ Rouge hesitated, then said, ‘Ever since you returned from White Space.’
He didn’t answer. She was right, but he didn’t want to talk about it. After he’d lost Maria and Gerald for a second time, he’d returned to GUN and resumed full-time duties as a field agent. Each new mission was a bandaid that he plastered over his reopened wounds. He needed distractions. He needed something to focus on. He’d left his past behind, but if he didn’t stop moving – if he risked looking back – then his past might swallow him whole.
Shadow took a deep breath and exhaled shakily. He felt Rouge pat his back, between his shoulder blades. The pain of the nightmare was beginning to fade, except for a dull, lingering ache in his lower abdomen. He reached up and clumsily turned the water off. He couldn’t bring himself to look her directly in the eye, but he could see that her makeup was running from the shower water. He clumsily squeezed her hand and muttered an apology, then got to his feet and limped from the shower to the wall-mounted sink beside it.
He braced his hands against the porcelain. His reflection stared back at him. He looked like a wet, bedraggled cat, but the longer he looked, the more differences he noticed. They were infinitesimal. He wondered if he might be imagining them; if the darkness of his room was playing tricks on his eyes.
His crimson eyes had a faint, golden tint. His silhouette seemed a little more solid. When Rouge stepped into his field of view, and he turned to face her, his gait felt a little heavier. She draped a towel around his shoulders, and he acknowledged it with a tired grunt.
He knew that his body had changed since he’d returned from White Space, but that knowledge was based on data. Rouge’s mission report had caused GUN’s biomedical officers to give him numerous tests. GUN wanted to know whether the vestiges of his Doom Powers would have adverse effects on their strongest weapon. Much to everyone’s relief, his newfound abilities were safely locked away within his body, inaccessible to even him for the time being.
But his genes had still been irreversibly altered by his ordeal. They’d mutated. They’d been pushed beyond their limits. He knew all of that, and he knew that these tiny physical changes were simply his rewritten DNA manifesting. He’d just been so busy with work that he’d failed to notice them sooner. Either that, or the changes weren’t even real. Maybe they were just the product of a troubled mind and an overactive imagination.
‘Are you all right?’
He was about to give Rouge a rote answer, but then he noticed that her gaze was fixed on his torso. He was holding his hand to his side, and he hadn’t realised. ‘I’m fine. Just sore.’
‘Well, you were tossing and turning a lot.’ She arched one eyebrow and said, ‘Maybe you pulled a muscle.’
‘Hmph.’ He rubbed his face with his hands, doing his best to shed the afterimages of his nightmare and move on… but he couldn’t. He turned back to the mirror. He still remembered the sensation of something writhing deep within him. He remembered watching his blood-soaked fur ripple as it – whatever it was – looked for a way to escape.
Shadow took a deep breath and exhaled, centring himself. It had just been a nightmare. His suffering at Black Doom’s hands was simply his subconscious trying and failing to process his experiences in White Space. A sense of grief welled up in his chest, and he dried his fur with stiff, awkward movements. No matter how hard he tried to move on, freedom from his past always felt just out of reach. It felt like he was constantly trying to outrun the shadows of others — his creator, his childhood companion, and the monster that had aided in his creation.
‘Shadow?’
‘I’m fine. I’m just tired.’ He limped back over to his cot, giving Omega an awkward nod of apology. Normally, when he had nightmares, the last thing he wanted to do was sleep. But his ordeal must have drained him, because he felt strangely fatigued.
‘Come with me, sweetheart.’ Rouge took him by the arm and led him into their shared living space. He allowed her to pull him along. He was half blind in the dark. It was only when she sat him down on the sofa and draped a blanket over his lap that he began to protest.
‘Rouge, I’m fine—‘
‘You need proper sleep.’ She sounded exhausted. He had no idea how long he’d been writing in agony before he’d awoken. ‘And for all we know, you probably damaged the frame of that stupid cot you insist on sleeping on. I don’t need you falling and cracking your head on the concrete in the middle of the night.’
His fur bristled, but he lay down and closed his eyes. He didn’t need a real bed, and he didn’t want one. He hadn’t been made to live a normal life. He didn’t want to play pretend. He shifted, trying to get comfortable, and winced at the pain and the irony. He heard the familiar crinkling of a sheet of pills, and Rouge dropped some Tylenol into his palm. He dry-swallowed the pills before she could even get him a glass of water, and she let out an irritated sigh. ‘Get some rest, handsome. I’m not sacrificing any more of my beauty sleep for you.’
He scoffed, giving her a tired smile, and she flitted back to her room. She might care deeply for him, but she wouldn’t baby him. Despite her flippant words, she left the door ajar, likely so she could hear if he had another nightmare. He heard the sound of Omega lumbering out of his room. The robot took up position beside the sofa, standing watch.
If nothing else, it was comforting to know that his team would be waiting for him on the other side of his nightmares, no matter how severe they might be. His past was in the past. It was over. He was safe. Rouge had repeated those phrases time and time again as she’d held him in the middle of the night, and he was gradually coming to believe them.
His breathing steadied, and his eyes flickered shut. He felt exhausted, and he suspected that it wasn’t just from the nightmares. He’d been pushing himself so hard in the aftermath of White Space. He didn’t want to admit it, but he might need to rest.
Shadow began to doze, and in the moment before he drifted off, he felt something. He was too drowsy to truly register or make sense of it. Between his hips, below his ribcage, buried deep within his organs, where not even the light of the Chaos Energy in his body could reach, something emerged... and quietly hid in the shadows within him.