#toxic sonadow

It starts with an accident. I haven’t fully worked out all the details, but to defeat a world-ending threat, they make a bomb-like thing with Sonic’s speed. Mistakes are made, and a lot of our main cast dies alongside the world-ending threat: Tails, Amy, Knuckles, Eggman, Rouge, Vector, Espio, and kind of Omega (his body is destroyed but his consciousness is backed up and later put into a new body) and Metal (while his consciousness is also backed up, he refuses any body that isn’t ‘his own’). On top of this, Sonic no longer has his speed

Sonic is angry at Shadow in the immediate aftermath, but he quickly sinks into depression. He gets drunk a lot (because he can now without his speed). He has no care for his life

Shadow, on the other hand, desperately needs to keep Sonic alive. He isn’t fully aware of why, but he just needs to prove that he can save people, isn’t a monster, doesn’t lose literally everyone.

That goes on for a bit where the two of them are basically punishing each other (I have a line in mind where Shadow asks Sonic, “why are you punishing me?” And Sonic responds with, “you’re punishing yourself.”)

Their first turning point is after a few hang-out sessions with Cream and Charmy, Sonic tells an angry, grieving Charmy that what happened was an accident. This acceptance doesn’t cure everything. He’s still angry and blames Shadow for being weak, but it’s a step in the right direction

They keep taking steps. Shadow and Sonic move to Angel Island to protect the Master Emerald. Vanilla, Gemerl, and Cream step up to completely clear away Badniks and dismantle Eggman’s empire. Charmy reforms the detective agency with Mighty and Ray. Year by year, they all heal and move on

And then—because I’m a coward, remember—everyone who “died” comes back. They find a completely different world. Everyone they knew is older. People like Sonic are far more somber. It’s a very confusing experience

And oh boy is it angsty as hell. Sonic and Charmy need confirmation that the brought-back person they’re talking to isn’t a hallucination. Speaking of Charmy, he has this whole dynamic with Mighty and Ray, and it’s definitely a trick to seamlessly pull Vector and Espio back into it. Shadow is like 10x more protective. Cream is, too, actually. After losing a lot of her friends and then seeing the remaining ones deteriorate, she’s got issues of her own to work on

Eggman almost immediately starts rebuilding his empire, but Sonic just leaves him alone. He hasn’t had his speed in years, hasn’t fought in a while, either. He just leaves it to the others until he’s encouraged to start running again and has to deal with all of that

Curious on Little Red AU...