IMAGINE AN AU:
A fight between Team Sonic and Eggman goes horribly awry, and the Hero of Mobius is killed by the doctor. No illusion, Sonic the Hedgehog is dead. Eggman is arrested and put away to await execution for his crimes against the world on Prison Island.
But none of that sits right with Shadow. Sonic is dead, yet the world still needs him.
In a desperate, last ditch effort, Shadow secretly gathers all seven Emeralds and uses them to turn back the hands of time and save Sonic, but instead of waking up in his apartment the day Sonic died...he awakens inside his pod...in GUN's custody...many years before. Shadow breaks out, formulates a plan to regather the Emeralds, then stumbles upon a lost and tiny blue baby hedgehog.
Shadow learns very quickly that the greatest danger to Sonic's life may not have been Eggman, and redirects his course to save him by looking after the hoglet here in the new present instead of jumping to the future and warning him. In taking in the little hoglet, Shadow discovers a new purpose and a new path.
It's a second chance, for both of them.
That one AU where Shadow time travels and instead of saving Sonic, Shadow becomes Sonic's dad and irrevocably changes history as a result.
(I was feelin the Dadow and SONic feels and this brainrot is the result. 😅)