FOR YOUR HEART-BOOM

☆Ch26

⚠️mention of death, nothing too severe or explicit, but just warning for safety matter⚠️

Lyric watched the data growing in size in the computer screen due to the device perfectly extracting Sonic's chaos energy and charging a big battery of his cannon, which he planned to use against anyone, who shall dare to oppose him, once he will be ready to conquer the island. The snake was very amused, while Sonic suffered from a critical damage caused by the painful process of his chaos energy rapidly leaving his body and soon enough exhaustion started taking over him, as his vision was becoming blury and he felt an urge to give in to the tiredness. To just simply fall asleep finally and never wake up again, so his soul could be finally at peace.
'I love you, Shads... I love you even if you don't love me back..' he thought before his eyes closed shut and he ceased screaming due to losing consciousness. Shadow watched him in pure horror, the weight of guilt now laying on his heart was too heavy and hardly bearable, tears streamed down his cheeks and he desperately tried to somehow beat his way out of the ball prison, to no avail of course, since the field blocked his chaos abilities and he wasn't physically strong enough to break through the repulsive walls of it. He was trapped and currently tortured in the most terrible way possible by having to watch Sonic becoming pale blue, as the life was slowly leaving his already too weak body.
"What h-have I done..." Shadow whispered to himself as he fell on his knees and let the tears roll down his cheeks like miniature waterfalls, as he sobbed and pressed his palms on the wall of the ball prison, helplessly just watching the poor azure hedgie fading away right in front of his eyes with him unable to do anything to stop this process.

"Enjoying what you see? Hahah, look at yourself, weakling~" Lyric dared to mock the lifeform, when he saw him crying over the speedster's fate, not having even a tiny bit of sympathy for any of them, as all he cared about was his own gain. And soon enough he will have the whole island under his fingertips!
"I thought more of you, Shadow. You are just a disappointment, you know," he continued, when Shadow just kept crying in his prison, now even hugging his knees close to his chest, wishing to be the one slowly and painfully dying instead of Sonic. Lyric's words faded away for him, as he got lost in the spiral of thoughts, he replayed the nice memories he had with Sonic in his mind and it also made the guilt grow bigger in his core, where it pressed his heart so tightly, that it threatened to crash it into pieces and completely destroy it.
"Tsk, tsk, I expected something more from you, Shadow. I never thought you would be this fragile. No wonder you were so easily manipulated, haha! Pathetic!" Lyric still kept pushing the lifeform's buttons - or at least he believed he did - while watching him in amusement. Sonic's fur was currently completely pale and his heart now beated so slow, that he was right at the death's doorstep.
"Ohooo, I see you finally caught your prey!" Eggman's voice suddenly echoed through the hall, the mustached man entered in his eggmobile and floated in the air, seeing the pitiful sight of the two hedgehogs he got actually shocked. One almost dying, the other crying his heart out. Well, Eggman was maybe bad, but not THIS bad actually, as this wasn't a pleasant sight even for someone like him. He imagined anything, but not Sonic actually, truly dying. Who will bother him from time to time and fight against him during his attacks on the village? Or who will have a secret talks with him in the background, since they were frenemies for life? Eggman might have a black heart, but he still had some dignity and respect for life. The sight of his only family member, Shadow, being so broken in his cell was the very last drop for him, as he made up a quick plan how to hopefully save both hedgehogs from the inevitable fate Lyric prepared for them. Once Sonic would be dead, who knows what the snake planned to do with Shadow afterwards!

"Why yes, isn't it a pleasant sight for you, doctor? Just watch your dream now coming true, you always wanted to get rid of the blue nuisance, didn't you~" Lyric replied, unaware of Eggman secretly pressing a button on his wrist device, which sent out nano-bots and navigated them towards the main source of power, that charged the round field cells.
"Oh, but of course, you did a phenomenal job, Lyric. It's been a pleasure to work by your side," Eggman formed the infamous smug grin on his face, pretending to still be by the villain's side while double-crossing him and making the nano-bots enter the system of the main computer and causing damage inside of it in order to make it malfunction. Sonic's heart made its last beat before it fully stopped and his body limply fell on the floor, only to lay there motionless, completely still and now also cold, since his body heat was quickly vanishing to the thin air around him. And that was finally the moment the machines started malfunctioning, the now charged battery launched a reverse process and some of the chaos energy flowed back towards its source in form of the motionless pale blue hedgehog before it exploded and caused the two ball field cells break apart, releasing the two lifeforms.
"WHAT?! WHAT JUST HAPPENED?" Lyric widened his eyes in shock and cowered to the ground, so he would avoid getting hit by one of the battery pieces after it exploded. Eggman used advantage of the chaos and quickly picked Sonic's lifeless body, securing him in his eggmobile he then faced Shadow, who looked up at him with numbness in his eyes. He became emotionless due to yet another loss of someone he actually deeply loved, standing up he wiped some last tears away from his eyes and frowned at Eggman as deeply as he could.