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shatteredprison

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From:

shatteredprison

[Shadow walks in, food bag in hand. He looks Nine over.]

Still recovering, I see.

From:

shatterdriven

It turns out research isn't as good at fighting fatigue as raw emotion. The injuries are mostly healed though.

[He shrugs and takes the bag.]

Make yourself comfortable.

From:

shatteredprison

[Shadow nods and moves to sit at the table and pulls the food out.]

Hm. Fair enough. Did you learn anything interesting about the emerald, at least?

From:

shatterdriven

I've actually been sleeping more than I planned for, but yeah. I learned that chaos energy and paradox energy are a bit like oil and water. Chaos energy would be the denser of the two, so they can't truly mix, but both have potential with few limits, including together.

It's really fascinating.

From:

shatteredprison

Interesting. That might explain why I couldn't enter the gateways. I used the Chaos Emerald to teleport away when the Paradox Prism was shattered. I was oil and separated from the water.

From:

shatterdriven

That or you teleporting removed you from reality just as it shattered. Either way, it would have been easy enough to fix I'm sure. Probably a device opposite in purpose to the regulators I gave Sonic.

From:

shatteredprison

Hm. Not that it matters now. I doubt gateways like the Shatter Spaces will be a problem ever again.

From:

shatterdriven

True, but it helps me keep my mind sharp to consider things like that. I'd like to study the emerald more, but I thought you should keep hold of it in the meantime, instead of having to come here anytime you may need it. But that's not the main reason we need to talk.

[He takes his food out of the bag and starts eating.]

I talked to Sonic the day we got back.

From:

shatteredprison

[Shadow starts eating as well.]

I see. Then what do you actually want to talk about?

From:

shatterdriven

The sense of guilt you feel.

From:

shatteredprison

I do not know what good it will do. Very well.

From:

shatterdriven

For all I know, it could be pointless.

[He's still going to try though.]

So, you're blaming yourself for what happened. Why exactly? Is it because you actually messed up somewhere, or because you couldn't do anything?

[It's as much a question for Shadow to think on, as it is so Nine knows what he's getting into. He doesn't deal in people...but he knows how important it is to listen.]

From:

shatteredprison

Both. [Shadow says before he takes a bite of food.] I should have realized we missed something. Then I couldn't stop that...thing before it was too late.

Our world is gone. I swore I would keep it safe and I failed. I would think guilt is an expected emotional response.

From:

shatterdriven

It probably is to an extent...specifically not being able to keep your promise.

[Nine does the same.]

But...how much did you actually learn about the Paradox Prism and the Shatterverse that might have given some insight? What do you think you might have caught? And what would you have done if you did notice something?

Because, not to insult your intelligence, but I barely need both hands to tick off the number of people with even close to that amount of knowledge. So I'm asking seriously and without judgement.

From:

shatteredprison

[Shadow is quiet for a moment. He wants to scoff but Nine isn't wrong. He had some understanding of the prism and the Shatterverse but nowhere near the level of Nine or the Chaos Council.]

Something was still wrong. We overlooked something. I overlooked something. The decay. Why did it only start to happen after you took the shards? Why not before when the Council had them? I never stopped to question that.

From:

shatterdriven

Oh it started before then. The tremors we felt even in Ghost Hill were evidence of that. It's a large part of why I finally took action when I did.

It's likely that my use of the nearly constructed Prism simply ripped open the fraying caused by the decaying portals. But the simple fact is that no one was really considering that it was already happening, because I was the one who accelerated it and I didn't really care about getting anyone other than Sonic to listen. And you weren't...present when I told anyone that.

[He does have the sense to look apologetic at that last part, even if they both know that was probably the safest way to escape Shadow ripping him apart.]

From:

shatteredprison

Decaying portals. What portals?

[Shadow has a feeling either Sonic or the Council is to blame for these portals. The sending him down a death pit can be addressed another time.]

From:

shatterdriven

[As usual, Shadow catches on pretty quick.]

The Chaos Council used the four shards they gained to forcefully open and start terraforming both the Bosc Cage Maze and No Place. And they left them open against my warnings. It's likely that they stayed that way until those two Shatterspaces collapsed. Bosc Cage was still standing when Sonic returned to the Grim, so the last I'd seen that portal was still open for certain.

From:

shatteredprison

[Forcing open portals to terraform. Of course it was the council. A mistake even the Doctor would make. If they led to the decay and were never closed...]

Would the portals have remained after both spaces were shattered?

From:

shatterdriven

It's a possibility I've been considering. The portals were there while their worlds existed, so it's possible they were reformed in the same state they would have been before the decay was accelerated.

From:

shatteredprison

Which would lead to the same decay as before. Which may explain what happened with the Prism. Keeping it out of the doctor's hands did nothing.

From:

shatterdriven

That's the most reasonable conclusion. The Rebels likely didn't have the technical know-how to shut off the system if they thought to, and I wasn't thinking about it because my first concern was Sonic.

Additionally, Green Hill may have been affected first in a reverse of the energy being siphoned from the Shatterspaces to the Prism, the portals were attempting to siphon the energy back from the Prism to sustain themselves. But with Green Hill and the Prism gone, there was nothing to draw from.

[It's a sobering thought.]

But the fact remains that you had the least information to work with. It's possible you would have thought to ask about the portals had you known, but you didn't. So of all of us, and I mean ALL of us, you have the least fault in this. For a number of reasons.

But I understand losing everything you were working to protect now. After fighting for it with everything you have. That's why I wanted to talk to you about it.

I wanted to give you some time first though.

From:

shatteredprison

Your logic is sound. [Shadow admits that first. It's true. Perhaps he does hold the least amount of fault, of blame. Yet he can't help feeling guilty. That he couldn't keep his promise to Maria. That he failed, ultimately failed, to protect the world she loved so much.]

It doesn't affect how I feel completely. The guilt is still there. I broke a promise I used to keep going for years now. It was...all I had. Now what I have is this world. Is you and Sonic and the others I've met here. Yet all were second to that promise.

I have to live without that now. And I never thought I would have to.