Shadow's foot held down the last of the hooded council members. "It's over."

They struggled still, hissing curses, but it was about as effective as yelling at a statue to move. Their gun lay smashed in a crater of shattered concrete.

A dark purple portal crackled in the space behind them, its height at least twice that of an average mobian. Electric tendrils of itself stabbed hungrily into the watery teal aura surrounding it.

Silver hovered just above it, his shaking outstretched hands glowing the same teal. Every strike on his aura reverberated as a pulse of pain in his struggling brain.

"Silver!" A blue blur danced around a flailing robot. Its shots scattered near everywhere except its moving target. "We're close, ok?" Sonic sped into the machine's legs, knocking it down. He paused for a split second to yell, "Hang in there!"

"Ok!" The grey hedgehog floating above the portal yelled down, "But- Argh!"

In that distracted second, dark spikes broke through. They ate the air and the portal expanded about a foot to fill it in. Silver strained his mind and the teal aura redoubled, pushing the portal back.

"H-" He panted, hardly able to speak. "Hurry...!"

Sonic dropped down and spun in place; the spin-dash hurtled the robot into the portal. Its sparking surface swallowed the machine whole, and the blue hedgehog bounced back to stick the landing besides Shadow.

"Shads," He said quickly. "Is that the last guy?"

Shadow took his foot from the hooded one's body, hauled them up by their shoulders, and threw them in. "Yes," He answered calmly. "Now what?"

"Show-off." Then Sonic remembered the important thing and snapped up his head. "Now- Silver! Close it!"

The grey hedgehog hunched over in midair made no reply. He moved his glowing hands as if to grip an invisible ball at its sides. The aura at the sides of the portal also intensified. He struggled to crush it, the portal spiking faster and faster to resist shrinking.

His hands clapped together. Teal waves forced the portal shut, leaving nothing but a bright flash in midair.

Silver hovered for a second more. Then he ceased to glow and fell from the sky.

Both the other hedgehogs darted towards him, but the fall was too short for him to be caught. The thud against the concrete hurt, and it didn't help his headache either.

"Oh geez, buddy," Sonic hovered as Shadow wordlessly helped up the fallen grey hedgehog. "That was so awesome, but- Are you ok?"

Silver nodded, winded and on his feet with some help. "I'm fine, just...kind of dizzy." He leaned against Shadow. "Woogh."

"I agree with Sonic," The living crutch said. Silver turned at his voice. "That was impressive."

They grey hedgehog gave him a tired smile. "Thanks, da-"

Gah. He stopped, wide-eyed. Almost slipped again. "Uh- thank you, sir. I- I do my best."

Shadow raised an eyeridge at the switched word and opened his mouth to say something. Instead his ear twitched and he turned his head away, glancing about.

"Somethin' there?" Sonic asked, darting around to look for whatever it was.

"I thought I heard another portal."

Silver groaned. "I hope not."

The air in front of him sparked purple.

It all happened at once. Space ripped open to dark purple and the shine of metal. Silver was thrown aside to the concrete. A bang rang out. Silver flung out his hands to shut this portal too but it was gone.

Sonic recovered first. "What the heck was that? Is everyone ok?"

Silver said "I'm alright," and Shadow made an awful wheezing noise.

The other two looked at him in alarm.

He still looked straight ahead, where the portal had been. Black syrup oozed from a hole in his chest. "It shot me," Shadow said, his voice strained, but rather calm for being shot. He fell onto his hands and knees.

"Shadow!"

"Dad!"

A slip, but right now he didn't care. If Shadow died- If his father who found him and raised him wasn't there, then he wouldn't exist-!

Shadow coughed.

"Calm down," he rasped. He waved at the other two to back away, and rose from the ground. He stood just fine, not even wobbly.

"...H-How are you standing?" Silver stammered, "You got...shot in the heart."

"No. It just missed." He coughed a few times. "Got blood in my lungs." Blood in his lungs sounded like it bothered him about as having to file his taxes.

"Geez, Shads..." Sonic said with a sigh of relief, "I thought you were gonna die for a moment!" A second's pause. "Like, again. For maybe the fourth time."

More coughs. "I have not-" He brandished a finger at Sonic, but choked on his own blood and spat it out part way through. "...died that many times."

He glanced at Silver's face and huffed. "Don't look at me like that. It's not your fault."

Silver sputtered. "I didn't- I didn't say anything-!" Is he that predictable? "They were aiming for me!"

"They didn't-" He coughed a few times and spat out more black blood. "Didn't make me get in front of their bullet."

"But- Why did you do that, then?" From Shadow's perspective, they should be acquaintances. A friend of a friend, maybe. Even with the slip-ups, he didn't think the black hedgehog believed anything more than that.

Shadow looked down at the hole in his chest. If Silver wasn't imagining things, it had shrunk in the moment they'd been talking. The fingertips of one hand drifted up to hover over the wound. "Look away for a moment."

"Uh, you didn't answer my-"

Shadow's hand thrust towards his chest and gloved hands flew over Silver's eyes.

"Hey!"

"Are you kidding me, Shadow? Uh, sorry Silv. It's reaaaally gross and bloody." It was Sonic. "He's digging out the bullet."

"O-Oh." Silver no longer resisted. Not that he hadn't seen blood before, but if he had the choice, he was going to avoid more.

"Uh, try behind your ribcage," Sonic suggested.

Oh god. Silver squeezed his eyes shut as tight as they'd go.

"...Got it."

The hands left Silver's face. The black hedgehog held what looked like a rock covered in syrupy black goop. The skin and fur on his torso just finished knitting back together.

The black stuff was his blood, Silver knew. It had confused him when he was young, even though he'd known he was adopted. Why did he have red blood when Dad had black? Is red blood weird? And it had been patiently explained that most people had red blood. Dad was half mobian and half something else, so his was black.

"In front of Silver? Really?" Sonic said, peeved.

"I t-" More choking on blood. Voice was still raspy. Taking out the bullet hadn't gotten the blood out of Shadow's lungs, after all. "...told him not to look."

"Well- fine, but he asked you a question."

"I'll heal from a gunshot." Shadow said simply. "He won't. Easy."

Oh. Freaking out had been kinda pointless, then. Silver took a deep breath, trying to calm down. That most likely hadn't affected the future at all. They were both still alive, after all.

Shadow coughed a few times more, and turned to Sonic. "I'm going home. You know where I live if you need me."

"You sure?"

"I won't be any use in a-" Cough. "in a fight like this."

"Well-..." He hesitated, but figured arguing would only make Shadow stand there bleeding longer. "Ok." Sonic waved. "Later, Shads!"

"Oh-" Silver raised his hand too. "Bye!"

A green flash and he was gone.

"Do you think he'll be ok?" Silver asked, "I mean, I know he's strong, but..."

"Well- Yeah, I do." Sonic nodded with confidence, staring at where Shadow had been a moment ago. "He's a tough guy. I mean, he fell from space to the earth once...he's good, I promise."

"If you say so." Silver felt a little better. Dad still didn't make worrying about him easy, though. "Er, did you say he fell from space?"

"Oh yeah, totally." Sonic said casually. "Bunch of stuff happened with Eggman and the moon and a giant lizard attached to a laser thing. And then the falling happened." He waved his hands around, bringing them down for 'falling'. "But Shadow turned up a few months later, just fine."

He thought for a moment, furrowing his brows. "Well, ok, he didn't remember anybody. Or who he was."

He glanced at Silver, who looked a little worried. "But, more importantly," Sonic said hastily, "He was alive! And mostly fine. And got his memory kinda sorta back almost. He, uh...well, I mean, you probably already know.

Silver blinked. "Already know what?"

"I mean, if, uh..." Sonic cleared his throat. "If, that thing, that you mentioned a couple times, is true then you like." He glanced around, looking awkward. "Know."

"I...don't understand?" He'd told Sonic about a lot of things from the future. But right now they were talking about the past? What did stuff that had happened to Dad years ago have to do with-

Oh. Silver tensed up a little. Sonic heard him call Shadow Dad too. Chaos, he was bad at keeping secrets. Especially this important one. Way to go, dingaling.

Better get this over with. "Just- Just tell me what you mean." He sounded a little strained.

"If you can't confirm it, that is completely cool," Assuring hand gestures, "but, well, I mean that if Shadow is your dad, he mighta told you stuff. Is he your dad?" Sonic asked. "From the future and…stuff?"

They grey hedgehog didn't speak for a moment, glancing around.

"I kinda messed that up…um, if I said no," He said, looking up at Sonic, "Would you believe me?"

"Yyy-" Sonic tried very hard to say yes. "Yyyno, probably, sorry." He patted Silver on the back. "S'ok, don't worry about it. I won't bring it up anymore."

Silver exhaled in relief and cracked a smile.

"Now c'mon, bud." An easy grin and a thumb jabbed in the direction of home. "We got relaxin' to do."

And they did. Nothing bad happened on the way home, Shadow slept off all the blood-lung and was indeed fine, and Silver got to eat marshmallows. The End.