A big flash erupted in Sun's proximity. Their lungs were immediately filling with unimaginable heat. Both hedgehogs caught their throats, needing a few seconds to get used to it. Black Doom squirmed, roaring and chaotically throwing energy balls. He felt his energy was draining was. He had to teleport away! He tensed his body to make a big jump away from the burning star when his stomach wBlack Doom was in so much pain, he didn't notice Shadow's fur once more changed a color. Now it was whitish, and sparks were coming from his body. His crimson eyes were glowing with energy, and as he was flying there were afterimages left behind him.as penetrated. A bellow escaped him, and his hands tried to catch Shadow who was responsible for it.

The hive-mind leader grabbed many of them, not realizing Shadow was already gone. Every futile attempt to catch that hedgehog resulted in Doom becoming furious. He threw towards him numerous plasma balls, but this time the grim hedgehog was capable of turning them into a dust with a mere touch.

"What's this?" Black Doom demanded, not understanding how can someone like this exists.

"Your end!" Shadow answered, diving into his body, creating another hole.

"You can't!" He refused to acknowledge he was losing. "I'm the only one-!"

Shadow roared as he was getting closer: "You are just a heartless monster!" A big punch broke a number of monster's ribs, and blood burst from Doom's mouth, evaporating in the next seconds. His body started to burn as his power was depleted, leaving him without protection. The comet was slowly dragged toward the Sun with the struggling alien.

While was Shadow making sure Black Doom wouldn't miss his date with the Sun, Silver was dashing through the comet with the emerald hovering behind him. Inside was hot like in a frying pan, and he was glad the super transformation protected him from the worst heat. The psychic didn't notice his fur turned whiteish too, but he was too concerned about Eclipse and his wisps to pay attention to a cosmetic detail.

He burst through walls and black mass that was turning into a dust upon his touch, and finally, he had found the place he left them. The psychic gasped as the black mass was just inches from the cave opening, and he quickly destroyed it.

Once all the mass was gone, he covered them with his psychic powers, shielding them from the heat. Silver made sure to check all of them, thankfully, they all were breathing. With this, he completed the easier part of the plan Shadow entrusted him. Before he left to deal with Black Doom, he instructed Silver to find an escape pod. They should be located on lower levels of the comet, but the psychic had no idea where. He took a deep breath, heading down. There was no time to lose.

He dug into the floor, going deeper and deeper, trying to find anything that remotely looked like a small spaceship. On his way he was passing by those gel-cocoons when they started to explode, sprinkling him with the filling substance. He shrieked as he freaked out, hurriedly getting rid of it from everyone. But this wasn't his only worry, the corridors started to bubble, indicating the whole ship was getting fried. He burst through a wall, finding himself in an open area.

"This is it!" he shouted, seeing the place had launching pads, and each had an escape pod. He was glad they were pretty big able to hold tens of people. He swiftly picked one, inspecting the opening mechanisms. To his luck, he only needed to press a single button for the door to open. He put Eclipse and his Dark Arms inside, making sure they are comfortable before closing the door. Then he lifted the whole ship, heading outside. Before he left the room, the walls started to crumble burring everything.

"That was close," he gasped as a shiver ran down his spine. "Now to finish this!" He sped up, hoping Shadow wasn't in big trouble.

His super friend wasn't having any problems. He just finished putting the fifth hole in Black Doom's body, rendering him completely powerless. His attempts to capture the hedgehog had gotten so weak they were almost laughable.

"Shadow!" called him approaching psychic.

"Perfect!" he replied as he turned around, glad to see their ride to safety.

Seeing them together with a way to escape made the dying alien furious. He moved all his power in his mouth, turning the comet into dried plum, and a big ball of energy started to form between his mandibles.

When Shadow opened the door of the escape pod, he looked over his shoulder, clenching his fists and frowning. "Go ahead!" he told his companion, moving a bit forward. "Guess somebody still needs one last finishing touch!"

Silver looked at his back. Something was a bit off. His eyes widen as he noticed his back quills were slowly turning black. His super form was disappearing. Before the ebony hedgehog could rush toward the enemy, Silver grabbed him, tossing him into the escape pod.

"What?" barked the hedgehog as he hit the opposite wall.

"You go on ahead!" shouted Silver, closing the door. He pushed the pod with his power forward, facing his enemy as the beam was just seconds from firing. He balled his fist, lifting it in the air, and his power responded with manifesting it above his body in thousand times bigger version.

"Knock it..."

The beam was fired at the same time Black Doom's back started to dissolve.

"OFF!" he yelled, jabbing, and the punch flew forward, shattering the beam, continuing until it smashed the alien's body to pieces, ultimately sending him into the Sun. His weak roar was soon gone.

The time-traveling hedgehog gasped, feeling the power was escaping from his body too. 'Gotta move back,' he weakly thought, noticing his body was becoming numb. He flew in the direction he sent the pod, but the Sun was pulling him back. He put everything in his escape, but his mind was sluggish as the stress was taking its toll.

Out of blue, a flash engulfed him, and before he knew it, he was on all fours, coughing and feeling cooling metal under his limbs. He looked up, seeing gasping Shadow.

"Dang, it!" his friend uttered. "Don't have such stupid ideas!"

Kneeling Silver weakly smiled. "Didn't know you make a reservation."

The other smirked, gently nudging him in the shoulder. "Nice work, kid."

The psychic was too tired for an answer, so he showed him a thumb up. Shadow helped him to his feet, moving him closer to a wall. "Hold on tight, I'll do one last jump closer to the planet," he informed him before leaving to the cockpit, leaving him in the storage room.

"O-okay," he murmured, feeling the sweat was soaking him as they were still too close to the Sun. He was so glad whatever technology Black Doom had was shielding them from the worst.

In the cockpit, Shadow took a deep breath before taking down his golden rings on wrists. They weren't just part of his modest attire but functionated as limiters for his Chaos Powers output. Without them, he would drain his body too quickly, and that could result in death. Even taking them down for a short time could leave him severely drained, but this wasn't time and place to worry about such detail.

He had to move the whole ship as far as he could. He concentrated on the lingering energy left by the super transformation that was still inside of him. "Chaos Control!" he shouted, and the whole escape pod was engulfed by a green flash of light. The room vibrated, but that was all that happened during the travel.

Once they warped, he felt tired and wobbly, but he still had to pilot this alien ship, or they will crash land or end up drifted in the space. He quickly put his inhibitors rings back, taking the seat and trying to figure out how to pilot this thing.

'Well, Eclipse was able to fly this in my world, so it can't be that difficult.' With this thought, he took the wheel.

Meanwhile, Silver let out a deep breath since the teleportation was successful. The vibrations surprised him, and for a moment he was afraid the spaceship would break, but that didn't happen, so he could finally relax a bit.

He would fall asleep, but his eye caught a glimpse of lying Eclipse. He crawled to him, inspecting his body, making notes of many bruises, scratches and light wounds that covered his small body. He gently patted his head, and that made the Darkling jerk. His yellow eyes shot open like he had awoken from a bad dream. They weren't focusing on anything at first before locking on Silver's face.

The hedgehog smiled, but the other shivered, gasping: "G-Go away!" He lifted his weak body, dragging it away.

"Don't move!" The psychic held his shoulder. "You are badly hurt!"

"No! No! Go away!" he continued to cry, trying to take his wisps with him.

"Don't worry," the psychic continued, soothing him, "nobody will hurt you. You can relax." He caressed his quills, hoping it will do the trick. To his delight, it worked, and his cries turned into silent sobbing.

"You lied!" Eclipse muttered after a while. "You said... you would be... my 'brother'! Traitor!" he barked at the end.

"I'm sorry, I had to lie." Silver was feeling bad for what he had done. Using somebody's trust for their own goals was selfish and cruel.

"Why?" the young alien plead. "You said you will be my brother."

"There is... a place I want to protect that is really important to me." His home wasn't perfect, but there were his friends, and the future of all people might be resting on his shoulders with the whole Genesis Portals problem.

"You would bring your family to extinction because of that?" Eclipse bared his teeth, swinging his arm to push Silver away, but it only made him stop petting him. "Why do you care then? We aren't family!"

The psychic needed a few seconds to know what his answer was. "Because you are hurt." He again patted his quills. This gesture was unknown to Eclipse, and for some reason it made him feel safe. The psychic continued: "You genuinely love your wisps. I don't think you are a bad person, and I'm not gonna be idle when there is injustice happening in front of me!"

The hedgehog softly smiled, looking down at sleeping wisps. "I'm truly sorry, I have lied to you," he repeated. "I don't know if we share blood or not, but I know one thing for sure," ha made a slight pause, "Black Doom wasn't part of your family," he said firmly looking into his yellow eyes.

"How can you say that?" the alien barked, feeling tears to appear in his eyes. "He is our master!" The way Eclipse said it indicated he wasn't fully aware of what was happening just hours ago.

The psychic slightly shook his head. "Family isn't about blood relationships, although I can't speak for myself." He took a deep breath. "I never met my parents, I don't know if they are still alive, if they loved me, or if they abandoned me." His eyebrows knitted a bit. "But I know my friends are like my family because they helped me to feel wanted. They gave me the feeling of belonging somewhere, and I'll do anything to protect them."

The alien angrily growled: "Even hurting your real family!" A couple of tears slid down his cheeks.

"We may not share blood, but we share something more valuable and stronger," he continued patiently. When he saw a confusion on Eclipse's face, he answered: "It's a trust. We take care and support each other. It's something you build with your own hands, it's not something that's given to you. That's the reason why it's so strong because it's built by multiple people at the same time."

The hedgehog softly smiled, nodding in the direction of sleeping wisps. "Isn't it what you share with them?" The alien looked at them too, feeling a strange sensation in his body. "They trust you since you take care and protect them."

Eclipse gently touched them, occasionally wincing with a pain, but he was endlessly grateful they weren't seriously hurt.

Silver continued: "You love them so much you went against Black Doom and helped us to beat him." When he finished the sentence, he knew he shouldn't have said it.

Eclipse's eyes widen while his pupils shrunk and started to twitch. It looked he wasn't able to breathe as hoarse sounds were escaping his lips. He caught his throat, curling into a ball. "I... I...!" It seemed he was getting a panic attack.

The psychic hugged him, loudly saying: "You didn't do anything wrong."

Darkling's body jerked, and with one swing he pushed surprised hedgehog away, tossing him on his back. A saliva was escaping alien's mouth, and his movements were jerky and disoriented. He lifted his body on shaky legs, trying to run away, but after one step he fell on the floor, curling up.

He kept uttering words like traitor, impossible, extinction, and others until he dug his claws into his forearms, hurting himself.

"No, stop!" called him Silver who tried to break his grip, but his anxiety was too strong it gave his body unexpected strength. But staying like this would only harm him. "Eclipse, listen to me!" He shook with him, but there was no response it only made his claws dig deeper.