“Give. Me. My. Emerald.”

Shadow’s fists were clenched shut, ready to punch the red echidna in front of him.

“No.” Knuckles punched down a robot. “I was charged to protect your Chaos Emerald, so that is what I will do.”

Shadow grimaced. His head was throbbing. It was most likely from bashing his skull on the pavement the other day, but he hadn’t noticed his vision difficulties until that moment. It was difficult to keep up his balance without using all of his focus and energy to do so. He had been well with it for a while, hiding his increasingly worsening symptoms from Amy, but now it was becoming too exhausting holding himself together.

“I don’t want the emerald for the hell of it–” Shadow’s legs buckled under him. He caught himself on the side of a car.

Knuckles glanced over at Shadow frantically. “We don’t know what you– hey, are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” Shadow mumbled, rubbing his head. His body had been feeling weak for days, although it was finally becoming unbearable.

“...You sure? You look kinda… dizzy.” Knuckles jumped over to where Shadow was standing.

Shadow had to give in to his body. He couldn’t keep ignoring the pain he was in, as it was starting to become troublesome to suffer the consequences. First he ignored the cold and ended up with hypothermia, and now this? Why was he feeling so dizzy to begin with? Sure, the weakness made sense, his Chaos energy had been greatly depleted ever since he lost his home, but dizziness? It was as if he had a concussion or something–

Crap. A concussion. Shadow grimaced.

“Echidna.” Shadow’s voice sounded weak. “I need more Chaos energy. Without it, I’ll–”

“Got it.”

Knuckles pulled the emerald from this special spot in his quills that acted as a type of cartoon pocket where he could keep various items.

Don’t question it. It’s canon that they pull stuff out of thin air, both in the games and the shows. I’m simply offering a solution.

It’s canon.

Once Shadow was able to touch the emerald, some of his strength returned. Finally! He could teleport again, use Chaos spear, use–

A large spray of liquid nitrogen blasted towards them. Shadow instinctively pushed Knuckles out of the way. He knew he should have tried using Chaos Control to get them out, but he would not have had the time to say the phrase. And anyway, it was much too late to do anything about it.

At least he had gotten Knuckles out of the way. He himself wasn’t as lucky.

He figured it wouldn’t be a big deal. He was the Ultimate Lifeform. Unfortunately he was entirely wrong.

The spray scalded him.

“AHHHHHOOOOWWWWWW!”

Amy heard a scream from a few blocks away.

“Woah, what was that?” Sonic said in a joking tone, although this was to hide his fear.

After all, pretending to be okay could simulate actual bravery.

Amy’s eyes became pin points. “No…”

She unsummoned her pika-pika hammer and ran as fast as she could to the source of the scream. Sonic dashed to meet her and snatched her off her feet to reach it faster.

The shriek continued to echo through the maze of buildings as Sonic and Amy struggled towards the source.

Sonic’s teeth barred as he held back tears. He was heading to where he had last left Knuckles.

Why, if that damn Faker–

Sonic’s legs crumbled beneath him when he saw the sight.

Knuckles leaned over Shadow, his large fists shaking as tears streamed down his face. Shadow was crumpled on the ground, writhing like a worm on the concrete as a light mist lifted from his body. 

Shadow’s howls continued, endlessly. 

Sonic’s first instinct was to get a towel, although he realized that he needed to actually think. He was the fastest thing alive. It was his specialty to act fast.

Dropping Amy, he grabbed his phone and called Tails. That’s the only thing he knew to do. He wasn’t sure what to do to help Shadow, but his gut-wrenching shrieks were unbearable.

“Sonic, we need to get it off him–”

“Hey, Sonic, what’s up?”

It was tails.

“HOW DO I DEAL WITH NITROGEN BURNS?”

“Flush the area with copious amounts of lukewarm water. Where did Knuckles get burned?”

Sonic hung up.

Amy froze. She wasn’t sure what to do, although the screaming was making it difficult to focus on her racing thoughts.

Shadow. He was in excruciating pain.

Sonic dashed away, unbothered by the robots surrounding them. Knuckles began dealing with the bots closing in on them, tears flying with every punch. But Amy? She was unable to move, ridgid from the severity of the situation.

“GHAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!” Shadow let out another agonizing wail.

Amy blinked. Shadow. He needed her.

She ran over to Shadow, who was convulsing in pain. She was afraid to touch him, although he was developing blisters all over his body. His writhing made his injuries much worse as the pavement tore up his burned skin.

In the liquid nitrogen was crimson feathers of blood.

“GET A BLANKET AMY!”

Amy jerked her head back to find Sonic, dashing back at top speed with a firehose in his arms, water spewing everywhere. He aimed the stream at Shadow, who stopped moving on contact. Amy watched for a moment, then went to find a blanket.

Sonic doused Shadow in water, then tossed the hose aside to help Shadow.

No. He couldn’t lose Shadow. Not before he could get to know him better. Not before…

Not before he got to tell him he loved him.