see a new world worth fighting for [pt2]

BEFORE VOID EVENT, THE GRIM

Nine paced by his computer, as far away from the others as he could get within the Citadel and trying as hard as he could not to listen to them.

"How will we know if he's made it?" Batten was asking in a hushed tone, like she was speaking at a funeral. Her words encapsulated the collective fear.

"He'll make it," muttered Knucks, with the kind of confidence Nine wished he could share.

It was agony. The corners of his eyes prickled but Nine shoved the feeling down, the way he'd done when those bigger foxes had bothered him for years when he was a kid. If Sonic didn't make it back to Green Hill in time - if his body couldn't hold together without the prism energy - it was Nine who had extracted that energy, it was Nine who let the shatterverse crumble -

Stop it, he chided himself. Sonic wouldn't let you think that way.

He couldn't stop the intrusive thoughts, but the reminder that his friend wouldn't begrudge him anything, no matter what, washed over him with a warmth he'd rarely experienced in his short life. It was like Sonic had given him permission to be okay - even if that permission was granted from beyond the grave.

It took an age for the Kraken to re-emerge from the darkness, navigating carefully around rocks and debris. Several people whooped and ran to the edge of the Citadel, eager for news. Nine edged forward, his pointed ears pricked, as the vessel pulled up alongside them.

"Aye, he made it," Black Rose beamed, anticipating the unasked question weighing down the air. Several people cheered while others hugged. Nine felt a cube of ice he didn't realise he'd been carrying around in his chest melt a little. "The Kraken was losin' power, but Shadow got him the final way," Black Rose continued. "We saw him pass through the gate."

"I have repaired the Kraken," Rusty Rose announced in her montone voice from the control panel. Nine noticed Thorn Rose kneeling beside her giant Birdie, comforting her with uncommon gentleness. "We can now return you to your own shatterspaces."

People began to board, chattering excitedly. Nine twisted his hands together, watching them, wondering if he'd ever felt so alone.

"What about him?" Knux grunted, jerking his head back towards Nine while looking at Rebel. As if Nine was just a thing, to be discussed but not included. A problem to be solved.

Anger flared in the young fox. His ice cube refroze.

"Leave me," he said flatly, turning away from them. "I'm not returning to New Yoke."

They were a lot quicker to accept that than Sonic would have been. Without even a feigned word of protest, the people of the various shatterspaces boarded the craft. Rusty Rose jabbed a few buttons on her control panel and the Kraken lifted off, heading towards the glowing green Boscage Maze gate first. They dropped off the scavengers with hugs and waves, then whooshed over to the red New Yoke gate to return the rebels home. Finally, the Kraken soared through the blue No Place gate and vanished, leaving Nine alone in the shatterverse.

Alone. Completely alone. Like he'd wanted.

Nine stared at the twin palm trees where he'd hung a hammock for Sonic, watching it sway gently from side to side.

Alone. Sonic had asked them to leave him alone. Live out his life in peace.

He exhaled. Released his hands from fists and then reballed them again. Slowly, Nine walked to the edge of the Citadel which now represented the Grim in its entirety, a barren rock in space. Nothing else of this shatterspace remained. He looked down at the darkness of the Void, then glanced back over his shoulder. Other than the hammock, all he had left was his computer, the energy-extracting machine it connected to on one side, and the empty podium for the missing paradox prism on the other. Without the prism, Nine had no way of making anything else. No food. No water. No nothing.

He turned back to the darkness and looked across the field of debris to the glowing red New Yoke gate, its light pulsing with neon anger. Without meaning to, Nine's blue eyes shifted to the gleaming white light in the distance. Green Hill.

Sonic couldn't exist in the shatterspaces without the prism energy. But maybe Nine could exist in Green Hill?

He turned, lifting himself onto his mechanical tails, and darted, spiderlike, back to his computer. Nine tapped furiously at the keys, scanning the screen, searching for any sign of residual prism energy. A blue spark flickered briefly over the podium which had once held the paradox prism. There! A spark - a spark was all he needed.

Nine's fingers flew across the keyboard with a new energy, writing code, recalibrating his machines. He jumped up onto the podium and leaned across the computer, one of his mechanical tails hovering over the green button on the keyboard.

"I'm coming, Sonic," he muttered, eyes narrowed.

He hit the button.