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“-and just imagine the secrets these ruins could unlock! What was daily life like as an Ancient? What was this temple’s purpose? Was it religious? Political? Was it used to study the stars or does it house the dead bodies of their kings? Just, ahhh! So many questions.”
Amy was very excited about a set of Ancients ruins that had been off limits for some time. Something about structural safety and its location being difficult to reach. Amy had been hounding the lead archaeologist, or whoever was running things over there, to get permission to come to the site and record some of the writing. Sonic didn’t get the big deal, but Amy asked him to keep her company and since he currently didn’t have anything else going on, he agreed.
Originally Sonic didn’t understand why Amy didn’t just go without permission, but getting to this temple had been a real pain. To the point Sonic didn’t understand why anyone went through this the first time just to find some old rocks.
They had been here for twenty minutes now, Amy photographing and jotting down notes on the very first rock they’d come across. They weren’t even at the cool ruins yet. Sonic had given up on rushing Amy and laid down in the grass, looking up at the actual temple.
The temple itself was carved out of the rock of the mountain, most of its structure now covered in soil and greenery. The actual façade of the building did not extend far out of the mountain, which according to Amy meant most of the construction was inside the mountain itself. Most likely containing several tunnels and offshoots. Sonic had to admit the architecture was impressive.
Sonic had zoned out, but a flash brought his attention back to the temple. Sonic took notice of a dark figure walking along the one of the higher terraces before entering the temple. A figure that looked suspiciously like Shadow the Hedgehog.
Sonic got to his feet, “Hey Amy, I’m gonna go check something out real quick.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever that sounds fine,” Amy absentmindedly replied to a Sonic that was no longer there.
Sonic raced up the temple steps before entering at the same place he last saw Shadow. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but when they did they showed Shadow at the end of the hall with a flashlight focused at the foot of a statute.
“Alright Shadow, what the hell does Eggman want with some boring old ruins!”
Shadow instantly turned at the sound of Sonic’s voice, his face going from relaxed to irritated in seconds.
“First of all, I work neither with or for that imbecile. Second of all, what I do is none of your business.”
“Yeah, well, I know you’re up to no good! So spill the beans so I can stop you and get back to what I was doing.”
Shadow groaned. He then turned around and continued further into the temple, “You, hedgehog, are not worth my time.”
“Hey!” Sonic followed after him.
Shadow stopped inside a doorway and brushed some dirt away from an engraving in the wall with his hand. Sonic, already fed up with inscriptions, walked further into the room. There were a few pedestals that looked like they used to hold objects. Sonic walked up to the closest one and started poking around.
“Don’t touch that.”
Sonic startled, quickly pulling his hand back. Shadow continued moving through the room.
“What about-”
“Don’t touch anything.”
“Why not?”
“Many temples like these have traps, believed to be installed during the Ancients’ decline. The last thing I need today is you setting one of them off.”
Sonic groaned, already bored. Sonic crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall… then the stone block behind Sonic also moved backwards with a click.
Sonic’s head snapped around to look at Shadow, both looking at each other with wide eyes.
“What did I just say!”
“I didn’t touch anything!”
“You just touched the wall!”
“How was I supposed to know the wall was off limits!”
“Ugh! Just, don’t move,” Shadow walked passed Sonic and towards the doorway.
“Wait, where are you going?”
“Getting out of here before you bring the whole structure down on our heads.”
“Wait, you’re just gonna leave me here?”
“Yes,” Shadow said, with absolutely no compassion or sympathy at all.
Without thinking Sonic stepped forward towards Shadow so he could tell Shadow exactly how he felt about that, and then the floor opened up beneath them both.
Shadow was going to kill Rouge. Oh, Shadow, something came up and I won’t have time to scope out these Ancients ruins for traps. Would you be a dear and go for me and just get a basic layout of the building? Shadow should’ve said no. He actually did say no, but then Rouge pulled out the Friend Card and then threatened him with blackmail about how Shadow feels about a certain annoying hedgehog. So here he was. In a pit. Because that same annoying hedgehog didn’t know how to stay out of other people’s business.
“Ow, where are we? Shadow?”
Shadow picked himself off the ground and brushed the dust off his fur, ignoring Sonic. They had fallen into a shaft that dumped them into either a tunnel or pit before the floor, now ceiling, resealed itself. Shadow could see quite well with only a little light, but he still reached for his fallen flashlight with the intention of shining it in the blue fool’s eyes.
“Ah! That went right in my eyes!”
Sonic, now well lit, was lying on the floor propped on an elbow. He quickly put an arm up to cover his eyes.
“Dude, seriously, put that thing away,” Sonic pouted. It was cute. Shadow let himself enjoy it for a moment before he teleported away. Only to appear in the same spot he left.
“Huh! Why won’t it work!”
“Oh yay, is it one of those temples?”
“What do you mean! What is happening!” Shadow shone the light on, a now standing, Sonic’s eyes again.
“Gah! Would you stop that!” Sonic walked himself out of the light, “Some of these ruins or temples or whatever, have some kind of power dampener. Which means I can’t run, and I guess means you can’t do your teleportation-thing.”
Shadow groaned.
“So we’re stuck here.”
Sonic brushed some dirt off his leg, “Pretty much, yeah. Unless we can find another exit or figure out what this place wants from us, we’re stuck down here until someone comes looking for us.” Sonic then grumbled, “And given how distracted Amy was when I left, that might take a while…”
Shadow turned himself around and started looking for a way out. His light fell on what looked to be a stone doorway, and Shadow made his way over to it.
“Hey! Where you going?”
“Getting out of here, and getting away from you.” Shadow might find the other hedgehog handsome and a fun fighting opponent but that’s where this little crush of his ended. He could not stand Sonic the Hedgehog’s personality in large doses.
“Well, uh, too bad! You’re the only one with a light which means I have to go with you.”
“No.” Shadow turned back around, “you are not coming with me.”
“Look man, I’m looking for a way out, you are looking for a way out, this tunnel seems to only go in one direction, which means I also have to go in this direction. Either we can find a way out together or I can walk like ten feet behind you.”
“Ugh! Fine! Just stay out of my way.”
Amy was outside the temple’s base, attempting to transcribe the writing that lined the doorway. She scratched out yet another botched translation in her notebook. She was fairly proficient in the newer forms of the Ancients’ written language, but what was inscribed here was much older. She flipped through her dictionary, looking for matching runes. She talked aloud as she worked.
“The problem is even though each individual rune represents a sound, much like English today, the ancients had a habit of mixing up the spelling, even within the same small region…”
So far Amy had worked out the words for “great temple”, “of”, and “union”. There were no spaces between the letters, making it hard to tell when a word ended and another started.
ᚷᚱᛖᚨᛏᛏᛖᛗᛈᛚᛖᚠᛟᚱᛚᛟᚡᛖᚱᛋᚢᚾᛁᛟᚾ
There! That word matched! But wait… “This can’t be right. The Ancients didn’t worship a love god.”
The inscription’s translation was either reading GREAT TEMPLE FOR THE UNION OF LOVE or GREAT TEMPLE FOR THE COOPERATION OF AFFECTION. Maybe the less direct translation was “friendship” or “allies”, as the Ancients didn’t have a separate word for different relationships?
Amy decided to move to the inside of the temple and come back to this conundrum later.
Sonic walked besides Shadow as they made their way through the tunnel. Shadow was not the best conversationist. Sonic had taken to humming quietly to himself, trying not to pester Shadow aka his only source of light and company in this dark, dank hell.
The tunnel was five feet across and extended for what felt like ever. The walls were smooth and covered in barely noticeable paint, having degraded over time.
Finally they came to a fork in the tunnel.
“Which way do we go?”
Shadow shrugged and walked down the tunnel on the right. Sonic followed. This tunnel took several turns and had changes in incline. The incline suddenly got very steep, and Sonic was having trouble not sliding down. As focused as he was on balance and the ground, he missed the giant pit ahead of them filled with spikes. Shadow grabbed his arm and hauled Sonic backwards. Sonic scrambled to stay upright.
“Hey! What was that fo- oh. Thanks.”
Shadow grumbled out a “You’re welcome.”
They made it back to the fork, this time taking the other tunnel. Sonic had started trying to fill the silence again.
“So, why did you come here again?”
“I told you, it’s none of your business.”
“Well, we gotta talk about something!”
“No we don’t.”
“Fine. I have to talk about something so I don’t focus on the fact we’re trapped in a cold, dark, and kinda wet tunnel, where the only sounds are our footsteps. Well, more like yours since your shoes are metal and loud. Where we will probably die. And no one will ever find our bodies. Or the fact that I’m hungry. Or-”
“If I tell you why I’m here will you stop blathering?”
“The more you talk the less I’ll talk.”
Shadow held back a groan. “I am here as a favor, as that person could not come herself.”
Shadow kept staring straight ahead even as Sonic’s head swiveled to face him slack jawed.
“You, Shadow the Hedgehog, are doing a favor for someone? Who? I thought you didn’t do friends- wait! They’re a ‘she’? Shadow, are you trying to impress a girl?”
Shadow had to laugh at that. Sonic’s jaw dropped even lower.
“No. She’s my roommate.”
“You have a girlfriend!” Sonic yelled, following up with a quieter “That’s a weird way to refer to your girlfriend, dude.”
Shadow laughed loud at that, finally turning to look at Sonic.
Sonic had a look of utter confusion on his face. Shadow considered how he wanted to respond to that. His first reaction was a ‘I’m gay as hell you dumbass’, but a ‘no, but we do share a bed’ would probably break Sonic. In the end he decided either option was too personal and might give Sonic the idea Shadow was willing to talk more about himself, so he settled with an amused “She’s not my girlfriend.”
Sonic had admit to himself, and once to Knuckles when they were delirious from seeing who could stay awake the longest, that he liked Shadow’s voice. Sonic liked a lot of things about Shadow, despite only meeting him a few times. He was a thrill to fight, easy to rile up, and very good looking.
If Shadow was cute when confused and sexy when furious, then right now, laughing next to Sonic and letting himself relax, smiling and allowing his arm brush against Sonic’s as they walked, he was stunning. Sonic was screwed.
Amy stood in front of a heavily damaged mural. It was hard to make out, but it appeared to be depicting two people standing next to each other holding hands. A cat couple perhaps? Amy was more focused on the inscription that ran beside it, from ceiling to floor. The inscription was engraved into the stone, but it too was damaged. Chunks were missing, several portions were unreadable, and good old erosion had worn down the words despite being fairly protected from the elements.
The inscription was clearly a story. There were mentions of a king and queen, likely the figures depicted in the mural, and a war.
“It’s a dead end?!”
After walking through the tunnel for hours, their path was blocked by a large, flat circular stone.
“Not if I can help it.”
Shadow handed, in reality it was more of shoved, the flashlight into Sonic’s torso and stalked towards the stone as Sonic struggled to catch and hold the flashlight.
“Wha-What are you doing?”
“What’s it look like I’m doing,” Shadow was feeling along the edge of the stone, “I’m opening the door.”
“Uh, Shads, I don’t know what to tell you but that is not a door. That’s a big rock with a couple pretty decorations on it.”
“Don’t,” Shadow placed his shoulder against the stone’s edge and pushed, “call me that.”
A moment later a scraping sound reverted around the tunnel, and the stone began to roll. The stone rolled along a large groove in the floor Sonic hadn’t noticed until it hit the opposite wall with a bang.
“Huh, you were ri-” Sonic turned back to Shadow. The movement had kicked up dust that was now catching the light from the flashlight as it swirled downward like snow. Shadow was breathing slightly heavier than before and had a proud little smile on his face. The dying light of the flashlight washed over him in a warm yellow color, making the scene soft. Sonic swallowed, “-right.”
Amy had found her way to the excavation area and had struck up a conversation with one of the archaeologists.
“-it’s really quite fascinating what we’ve found here. It goes against so much of what we already know!”
“I was wondering about that. Is this a shrine for some type of love goddess?”
“We thought that too, for a time. But! It’s now looking like a memorial to a ancient king and his queen.”
“Really?”
“Oh yes! Has anyone shown you the ‘Tunnel of Love’? It’s a nickname we’ve given to one of the subterranean corridors.”
“No, I haven’t gone lower than the second level.”
“Oh, well its simply magnificent! Follow me, I’ll see if Larry has a copy of those x-ray photos we took. The walls were covered in murals but the paint has chipped and faded quite a lot in the milinenias since it was last touched up, so we borrowed some fancy machinery and took some pictures. The murals depicted a story-”
The doorway was a entrance to a vast room. Shadow reclaimed his flashlight from Sonic and ventured in. There were several statues of varying heights. Shadow heard Sonic descend the stairs behind him.
“What is this place?”
“Probably a room for sacrifices and ceremonies. Or maybe a tomb.”
“A tomb?!”
Shadow sighed, “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of ghosts.”
“Not ghosts! Those don’t exist. I’m scared of curses.”
“Because those are definitely real,” Shadow laced his voice with as much sarcasm as he could manage. Rouge would be proud.
“Hey man, I used to think the same thing until a couple of years ago when me and Tails went up to- oh my gods is that a puddle of blood?!”
Shadow’s light had fallen onto a large dark spot on a raised platform in front of a large statue. Shadow raised the light up until it caught on the edge of the statue’s hand, which glimmered as liquid dripped from it.
“It’s just ground water.”
Sonic sighed loudly, clearly relieved, and stepped closer to Shadow. Shadow continued to move the light up the statue to see it was reaching for another one, previously hidden in the dark next to it. Sonic then grasped Shadow’s wrist and swung the light around the room, “There’s more.”
“Wow,” Amy was in awe at the preliminary sketches of what the murals used to look like.
“It’s simply marvelous! And of all stories, it’s a love story.”
Amy gasped, “Are you sure? We’ve never seen anything like that before from the early Ancients.”
“See for yourself,” he tapped the papers in Amy’s hand, “what else could it be?”
Amy spread the papers out on the table, putting them in the order of the number circled in the top corner.
“It’s incomplete, which is unfortunate, but we believe it depicts two lovers from opposing settlements. They enjoyed each other’s company, and took to meeting up with one another in a cave behind a waterfall in the mountains every full moon. This figure here, who we’ve labeled ‘A’, appears to have gotten upset that constant regional fighting wouldn’t allow him and figure ‘B’ to be together. A, through incredible effort and many years, grabbed power and put an end to the fighting. A and B were wed and the people prospered along with their marriage. They didn’t want to be separated again, even by death. When A died of illness, B took their own life, and they were buried in the cave where their romance first began. We think perhaps these two were deified after their deaths, and this temple operated as a place to worship them and neutral ground for seeking agreements, both the martial or marital kind.”
Amy placed her hand on the sketch of what was likely the depiction of a wedding ceremony of the day, the couple grasping hands and surrounded by flowers while they kissed.
“Why are all these statues hugging or kissing.”
“Why would I know?” Shadow pulled his wrist out of Sonic’s grasp. The feeling of contact was too nice.
“You seem to know more than me.”
“Everybody knows more than you.”
“Not true! I know more than Knuckles.”
“Congratulations.”
The flashlight began flickering. Shit.
“I knew this place was cursed!”
“The batteries are just dying. They only have a few hour lifespan.”
“Do you have any more batteries?”
“No. Why would I carry batteries around with me?”
“You were poking around a creepy temple! Seems like that might be something you should bring.”
Shadow forced himself to take a deep breath. “No, I did not. I wasn’t planning on being trapped underground for five hours.”
Sonic took a deep breath as well, “Well, what do we do then?”
Shadow remained silent and turned to face Sonic, who seemed to be anxious. “You have an idea.”
“It’s a stupid idea. It would never work.”
Shadow kept staring at Sonic.
“Well, um,” Sonic nervously scratched his neck, “we’re surrounded by statues kissing. Maybe if we… if we kissed, something would happen?”
Shadow.exe has stopped working.
“See, it’s a stupid idea.”
An opportunity to hold and kiss the aggravating yet cute hedgehog that won’t leave Shadow’s thoughts? No strings attached?
“I mean, I sure wouldn’t wanna kiss you- I mean, not that I would never kiss you-”
“Fine.”
“No, no I didn’t mean it like that-”
“No. Fine, I’ll kiss you.”
“Oh. Okay,” Sonic’s face flushed. Shadow wondered if the only reason he saw that detail in this low light was because of his advanced vision.
“How do you, uh, want to do this?”
And the light went out completely.
Sonic held an arm out, “Uh, Shadow? I don’t know where you are.”
“I’m still in front of you,” Sonic felt the air move as Shadow reached up and took Sonic’s hand in his own. It felt nice there. Who would’ve known Shadow the Hedgehog was good at hand holding?
Oh gods, was Sonic really about to kiss Tall Dark And Handsome? Things were so much easier when they were throwing hands instead of holding them.
“For once, you are overthinking things.”
Shadow’s voice had no right to be that sexy when it sounded amused at Sonic’s predicament. But, then Sonic felt a hand hook him by his bandana and it pulled him right into Shadow’s lips, and all of Sonic’s thoughts melted away.
“Agreements?”
“Yes. You could not leave the temple until a dispute had been settled or the party ‘got along’ once again.”
Sonic thought that would be it. Sonic was wrong.
Shadow moved his hand out of Sonic’s and buried his fingers in the quills behind Sonic’s head. Sonic did a half step forward as his body followed the movement of his head, his chest knocking into Shadow’s. Sonic didn’t quite know what to do, but he wanted Shadow closer. Sonic’s hands found themselves on Shadow’s waist, where Sonic dragged them up to rest on Shadow’s ribcage as he pulled Shadow in against him, raising and falling with Shadow’s breaths.
Shadow’s hand relaxed it’s grip on Sonic’s bandana and lightly rested itself on Sonic’s chest.
“Would the temple not let them leave until the disagreement had been settled? I’ve worked on ruins that operate similar to that.”
“Perhaps. Then it would quite literally be, ‘kiss and make up’.”
They shared a laugh. And then the ground rumbled below their feet.
Shadow pulled back from Sonic as he heard gears turning. Sonic followed after him in a daze. The room was flooded with green light, and then they fell though the floor for the second time that day.
Amy and the other archaeologists stumbled out of the tent to see hole at the base of the mountain close up. Right behind Sonic, who was sitting on the ground moving his head back and forth like he was looking for someone.
“Sonic! What did you do!”
Shadow swiped Rouge’s cup off the table and downed it before slamming it back onto the glass surface. Rouge sat next to it in a beach chair reclining in the shade of their RV.
“Hiya hon. How’d it go? You look like a mess.”
“You knew.”
“Knew what?”
Shadow simply glared at her in return.
Rouge pushed her sunglasses up, “I warned you about booby traps. You said you could handle them.”
“Not what I meant.”
“Then what do you mean?”
Shadow turned around and stomped up the steps to the RV and slammed the door behind him.