now, I don’t usually ship Metadow, or focus on it at all, but since Metal Sonic thinks he’s the real Sonic, something I like to believe is that, if it’s obvious enough, he’ll start reprogramming himself to match up with sonic (which has been shown before), so if he ever notices Sonic he’s a crush on Shadow, he too gets a crush on shadow.
Ok here’s what’s going on because I didn’t felt like adding dialogue:
They both like the Knuckles. Shadow decides to tell Rouge and was worried she would get angry. Rouge tells him that she already knew and reasures him that eventhough she likes Kunckles too, Shadow is like family and something like that would never change their relantionship.
for a prompt, how about xue yang does the soul summing ritual for wwx, with the condition that he restore xxc’s spirit? your writing is really good!! thank you for answering prompts!!
usually not a Xue Yang fan, but this one was intriguing [Posted to Ao3]
*TW for blood, injury, implied self harm, and canonical death of XY*
The thing about powerful men was that they always thought they were smarter than you. Jin Guangshan, for example, was an honest to fuck moron, and stupid enough to shovel money over to the first stranger that demonstrated a little demonic cultivation.
Powerful men never thought that the homicidal street orphan could be a threat, because said homicidal street orphan worked for them and therefore would remain docile and in his place, subjugated to another rich asshole bloated on women and money.
Jin Guangyao, though… he was dangerous. He knew what it was like to be without power. He knew how those men thought, what they wanted, and how to make it happen.
In the end, though, he too fell victim to the lure of power and the curse of arrogance that came with it.
He forgot that Xue Yang was the most dangerous of them all, because he had no power but enough balls to do something genuinely insane to win.
It wasn’t that hard, in the end. He’d used up all of his goodwill, had been cast aside by Jin Guangshan and politely threatened by a smiling Jin Guangyao, who clearly had plans of his own that he didn’t want to risk Xue Yang fucking up.
So the killing curse wasn’t a surprise. The strength of it was, though; for cultivator with an embarrassingly underdeveloped golden core, Jin Guangyao knew how to put down a threat.
But Xue Yang had something neither of them did— the rambling journals of Wei Wuxian, the Yílíng Lǎozǔ. The greatest demonic cultivator to ever live.
Xue Yang knew no one alive was capable of succeeding in the tasks he’d set forth. So he’d turned to the dead instead, and found what he was looking for and more.
Blood dripped from a smile that bared his teeth as he smeared the array into the ground, shivering as the pain wracked through him. He embraced it. Welcomed it. Pain made him feel real, alive in ways that he’d never experienced without the bite of agony.
Xue Yang laughed to himself as the array came together, triumph burning hotter than the death curse searing through his veins. He knelt in the center, hair a wild, tangled mess around his face, robes hanging half off of him from when he’d needed to make another cut to draw the array.
He was panting now, breath coming short and harsh as the curse reached his lungs. The moon was a fierce, radiant light through the open windows, spearing down onto him. Through him.
It should have felt cold, harsh. Angry. Instead it was warmth and hope, neither of which he deserved. Neither of which he wanted, he reminded himself, but still could not bring himself to withdraw.
“I know you,” he whispered, pausing his work to watch the play of frosted light across his blood-soaked hand. Blood streamed steadily from his mouth as the light drifted across the array, exploring. “Have you figured it out yet?”
The moonlight was soft sorrow against his skin.
“It won’t be long now,” Xue Yang promised. “I figured it all out. All of it, and I made sure he would bring you back.”
If anyone could manage it, it was him. He would inherit the tasks of retribution and redemption Xue Yang had anchored to this body, would seek justice on Xue Yang’s behalf whether he wanted to or not. This summoning was Xue Yang’s final revenge, as a way to shatter Jin Guangyao’s carefully laid plans with the one thing he would never see coming.
After all, who would expect a dead man to crawl out of the shadows? Much less one with gifted Xue Yang’s final ambitions carved into his skin: one of wrath and ruin, and another of atonement and restoration.
One was more important than the other, but not even Xue Yang knew which.
Xue Yang tipped his head back. Let the light of the moon wash over him, embrace him. It was forgiveness that he did not deserve.
He set a small white bag between his knees, handling it with more care than he had anything in his life. He laid a snow-white sword reverently in front of it, the hilt and blade both smeared with his blood. As it should be, he thought with satisfaction.
The killing curse was close to his heart— but not close enough. Jin Guangyao was ruthless, but he should have killed Xue Yang long ago.
Xue Yang would make sure it was his fatal mistake. He would make it his undoing.
Resolved, with a victorious, manic grin, Xue Yang activated the array and embraced his end.
The array exploded into light, glowing so violently the moonlight was thrown back, out of reach. Xue Yang was left to face his death alone, to experience the sacrifice of his forsaken spirit with no one by his side.
He could not help the scream as his soul was ripped from his body, as the array flung it into the ether where it would remain without rest, without redemption. And oh, how it burned.
It felt like vindication.
It felt like salvation.
Xue Yang took his final breath, hand stretched towards the rays of moonlight reaching across the blood-streaked floor, and died with a smile on his face.
The moonlight dimmed as the light faded from his eyes. The sun rose bright and burning in its place, and Wei Wuxian opened his eyes for the first time in thirteen years.
