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“You’re awful hard to run into these days.”
Shadow—having already heard Sonic approaching from behind by recognizing the sound of his footsteps—doesn’t turn from where he looks upon the blue sky’s horizon, standing on a floating platform of grass. “Yet you’ve run into me, anyways,” he says to the guy, the big thorn in his side. “Long time no see.”
Sonic jumps from one platform to the next, walking up next to Shadow and raising his arms behind his head. “Long time no see, indeed,” he says with a smirk, turning to look at Shadow. “What’cha up to?”
“I found out that the doctor has a small bunker-base fifteen miles up ahead,” Shadow says and crosses his arms. “It’s been mostly left abandoned, but there are a few badniks roaming about. Nothing of particular note from what I know, but I thought I’d check it out, anyways.”
“Huh, funny coincidence. I was bored and Jewel gave me coordinates to the same exact base,” Sonic says, and the grin on his face only grows bigger. “Race you to it?”
“What kind of stupid question is that?” Shadow finally turns and looks Sonic in the eye. “Of course.”
A whisper of a moment passes, and the two hedgehogs take off without a word.
They run and make their way through nature's trails. Obstacles are nothing unfamiliar to the two; even while collecting rings along the way, they're quick to jump off platforms that crumble and fall to the ground a second afterwards, and they (Sonic especially) traverse to avoid falling into any pits of water. The two of them share the narrow track of a dirt and grass loop-de-loop with their shoulders almost touching and for the fragment of a second, they turn to look at the glimmer of determination in the other's eyes.
The summer sound of cicadas rings in their ears, and the landscape they navigate through transitions from an open grassy field to the humid, packed jungle the base they scout out is located in. Thick vines hanging from tall trees offer themselves as a means of getting from one place to another. Shadow swings above a river and a gaudy, toothy grin spans across his face as he feels the adrenaline and thrill rush through his body.
“Woohoo!” he hears Sonic yell from another vine, big and loud, between the sounds of flowing water and singing birds and Shadow’s heart pitter-pattering fast inside his chest. The two of them land on the grass side-by-side, turning to look at each other again without a word and instead reading the almost theatrical look on the other’s face that says I’m gonna beat you. Sonic’s feet once again begin going a mile a second, Shadow’s rocket skates whir, and in the midst of all the gallantry of battle and rivalry they nearly forget about the base they were after in the first place.
It's like this every time. It always is. Stars align and Sonic and Shadow run into each other again, after a long while. When Sonic taunts, Shadow gets all wrapped up in it; Sonic does too and they spin in circles like a dance, reading each other's next move like words on a page, drawing blood and leaving bruises with no holds barred. Shadow hates it; it’s nauseating and makes his stomach feel funny and twist and turn. He hates how easy Sonic can rile him up and distract him from his other objectives, yet he can't help but devour the feeling of every single fight and crave it when it’s not there. No matter which way he cuts it, Sonic resists and counters and withstands, and the manner in which every single one of their competitions ends in a tie almost seems like the simplest thing in the galaxy.
Sonic is the only other person to match up to Shadow and give him a fight like that. The thrill makes Shadow feel alive.
Here it is, happening again, when the hedgehogs skid to a stop right before a wide, open clearing and arrive at the doctor’s abandoned bunker at the same time.
“Who won? I totally won, right?” Sonic asks, dragging out the ‘o’ in ‘totally.’ He kicks a small rock along the path as they begin walking into the clearing and towards the front entrance of the base.
Shadow scoffs in an attempt to hold back a smile. It mostly works. Mostly. “The winner was clearly me,” he says with a roll of his eyes.
“Keep convincing yourself, Shadow, but we both know it was me,” Sonic says and gives the rock a big kick. It hurtles a couple feet too far ahead in the direction of a bush, and when it hits something and lands, there’s a suspicious metal thud sound.
The metal in question—being a Motobug that had been hiding behind the bush—powers back on and uses its claws to move leaves out of its way, its programmed instincts immediately rolling it in the two hedgehogs’ direction. A few other badnik variations hidden deeper among the bushes reactivate in response to the noise of the Motobug and proceed to follow its tracks.
“Woah! Hey, you were right about the badniks!” Sonic yells out in amusement. He takes a fighting stance and begins doing arm circles. There’s a smug grin across the blue hedgehog’s face, ever-so-happy to once again beat up a small fleet of Eggman robots. “Mind if I take this batch?”
“I do, actually,” Shadow says, taking a fight stance as well. “You take that right half. I’ll take the left.”
Sonic lets out a ‘heh.’ “Right, can’t hog the fun all to myself!”
For enemies of this size and skill, the beat-up is nothing long or complicated for the hedgehogs. With nearly mirrored actions, the both of them roll up into ball form and perform quick homing attacks to get rid of the badniks.
“Woo!” Sonic heaves out once he’s bounced back in the air after destroying a final Buzz Bomber on his side, then lands back onto the grass on two feet. “Those things are always fun.”
“I can’t say I disagree,” Shadow says, kneeling down to examine the insides of a Crabmeat, trying to find its power source. Chaos drives.
“Oh, these have Chaos drives in them, huh? Glad there’s at least a few more free flickies out there,” Sonic says as he walks over. “You taking any of these drives back home for—what’s their name? Rusty, right?”
“Yes,” Shadow replies, not all too surprised at Sonic remembering his dark Chao’s name. “I don’t see any green ones, though…” he mutters a bit quieter, unable to help being a little disappointed at the selection of Chaos drives splayed in front of him. He’d be lying if he said the Chaos drives weren’t one of the reasons he came after this base in the first place.
Sonic hears him nonetheless. “The running-type ones, right? Maybe there’s badniks inside that have some of those,” he says. “We should go check it out. I’m already getting bored out here.”
Shadow rolls his eyes again at Sonic’s impatience, but nods and stands back up. He takes a proper look at the front entrance of the bunker, unsubtle in its Eggman-ness with the doctor’s logo plastered big and bright red on the rusty front doors. They’re metal and look tough, but nothing that seems too hard to get through; Shadow’s seen worse and he knows Sonic has, too. The building seems to have been abandoned long enough for nature to begin its process in reclaiming itself, with small splotches of moss beginning to grow on its side, weeds peeking underneath the doors, and the branches of the trees that surround the building framing it in what looks like the offering of a hug.
Sonic stretches his arms forward as the two jog towards the doors. With what Shadow feels is the other hedgehog’s tenth smirk of the day, he looks over at Shadow and says, “Time for a break-in.”
They spindash into the metal doors until big metal chunks come down and land on the inside floor of the bunker. The hedgehogs roll out of their spindashes and once they’re inside, they take fighting stances to nothing but dark and quiet.
“…Hm,” Shadow hums. The sound echoes in the near-empty room, save for a few shelves full of boxes and robot parts scattered around. “That was one of your weaker lines, by the way.”
Sonic, not expecting Shadow’s criticism on his one-liners, nearly gets whiplash turning his head so fast and snickers. “What? Seriously? You gotta admit it was cool, though!”
“With your track record, it could’ve been better.”
“Oh, so you’re saying I’ve had good material? You’ve been entertained by my cool quotes before? Charmed, even?”
I can’t stand this guy, Shadow thinks with a furrow of his brow, crossing his arms and his stomach churning with a flutter. “What I’m saying is—” he starts, abruptly trailing off when his ear flicks and he spots something behind a shelf in a corner. “Hold on.”
The silence only lasts for a brief moment. The eyes and mouth of a deactivated Eggpawn can be seen powering back on in the corner, and mechanical joints go clunk-clunk-clunk when a few others follow suit. The room now seems bigger than it did before, a squad of a dozen Eggpawns reactivating within the areas untouched by the light from outside and walking towards the hedgehogs.
“Hey, there’s more guys in here!” Sonic exclaims. He homing attacks one that had been coming up to him from the side. Another one swings a spear at him, and he grimaces and ducks just in time to avoid it. “Shit—kinda crowded, don’t you think?”
Shadow jumps in and spin-kicks the same robot, then takes hold of its spear once it’s down. He swings the spear towards another incoming Eggpawn. He notices Sonic just stands and stares for a moment, so he says, “Behind you.”
Sonic’s awkward smile falters as he turns his head and sees another pair of Eggpawns behind him. “Oh, shit!” He quickly drops to the ground, and using his hands on the floor to support himself while upside down, he spins and performs a breakdance move to swing his legs and attack the badniks. They knock backwards and hit a few others, including one way in the back that had been holding a machine gun.
Shadow spots the weapon and leaps over the small Pawn squad in front of him to go grab it. He drops the spear he had been holding and uses the gun—even in all its Eggman tackiness—to shoot at the last few remaining badniks. “That’s all of them.”
“Thanks for the warning back there,” Sonic says, jogging to the back of the room where Shadow stands. He looks down and kicks an Eggpawn in front of him. “Hey, this one’s got a green drive!”
Shadow squats down to take the Chaos drive out of the badnik. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were distracted,” he says, looking up at Sonic with a raise of his brow. It’s only half a scolding. He has to stop himself from smiling too wide, too soft, too delicate.
“Hm? Dunno what you’re talking about,” Sonic says, placing his hands on his hips and diverting eye contact. He seems to be attempting (and in his natural, spunky radiance, kind of failing) to hold back a too-wide smile, too.
Shadow’s heart can’t help but thump-thump-thump at the sight, the betraying thing. He’s almost afraid it’s loud enough for the one at fault to hear.
After revising the Eggpawns for green Chaos drives, Shadow lands a good amount. He stashes them into his quills and holds onto the Eggpawn’s gun in one hand. With tension in the air so thick you could cut it, the hedgehogs walk further into the base together. Less of the outside’s brightness touches the farther insides and minimal light is given by the dimmed lightbulbs hanging above, but the hedgehogs can see that the next section seems emptier in the amount of shelves it holds, and the amount of scattered badnik parts and building materials is greater.
“Geez, doesn’t this guy know not having any windows is a fire hazard? OSHA violation, much?” Sonic complains as he squints his eyes to try and see better.
Shadow spots something big and spherical up ahead. “What… is that?”
Sonic follows Shadow’s line of eyesight and sees the thing, nearly the height of the two hedgehogs. “Magenta, yellow and spikey? Is that—the ass of a giant Caterkiller or some shit?” he says, holding back a snicker.
“Will you be serious for one second?” Shadow says, not all that much bite behind it. “I have an idea.” A small Chaos spear fizzles into his palm and emits a bout of green light. Without firing it, he points it in the direction of the supposed Caterkiller body part, and seeing it in proper light confirms Sonic’s suspicions.
Sonic looks around the room. “It can’t just be this one, then. There’s gotta be…”
“…More,” Shadow finishes, pointing the Chaos spear as he turns, revealing more of the magenta-and-yellow spheres that had been hidden in the darkness.
“Then where’s its hea—”
Sonic is interrupted by a mechanical sound. The two turn around to look for the sound’s origin, and said Uber Caterkiller’s eyes light up. Its head sits alone behind them, but three of its body spheres around the room roll in towards it and the giant badnik quickly becomes four times the size of the hedgehogs. As it sways from side to side, it throws its lowermost body segment to attack them and it bounces across the floor, causing the ground to shake.
Shadow fires the Chaos spear he’d been holding at the body sphere, but it effectively does nothing. Both hedgehogs quickly sidestep to avoid getting hit, and the sphere knocks over a shelf behind them instead.
“We have to aim for its head,” Shadow quickly deduces.
“Figured that much!” Sonic says. “Weirdly enough, this is not how I imagined myself fighting one of these…”
Another of the Caterkiller’s lower body segments detaches from itself, but this time it only rolls across the ground. The hedgehogs jump to avoid it and while in mid-air they find themselves at eye level with the giant badnik.
“Now!” Sonic yells. He lets himself fall closer forward and takes a kick at the Caterkiller’s head.
Shadow makes another Chaos spear fizzle into his hand and he shoots it between the Caterkiller’s eyes, then falls backwards onto the ground. Its final body segment bounces across the floor and another three roll across the room to connect to it and make it tall again.
“Oh, so you’re a six-hits typa guy,” Sonic smugly quips at the badnik when the two land back onto the ground. “No problem, you’re dealing with two of us!”
Shadow hates how much he’s charmed.
The Caterkiller repeats its attack pattern. It throws a body sphere, they dodge it, it rolls the next one, they jump above it together and attack the head.
“Wonder why this guy’s here of all places,” Sonic asks in the middle of dodging the last sphere before another three roll forwards again. “You think it’s hiding something?”
“I doubt it, but I have an unlikely hunch,” Shadow says, dodging another bouncing sphere. “Only one way for us to find out.”
“You’re right,” Sonic says, jumping towards the Caterkiller’s head upon jumping to dodge the rolling body sphere. “Let’s smash this thing to pieces!”
They land the final blows on the Caterkiller’s head and touch down onto the ground close together to watch it malfunction and explode, engulfed in smoke.
“Hell yeah, we did it!” Sonic says excitedly when he turns to look at Shadow, a bit too close, and the tension in the air from earlier looms above their heads. Faces flush and gazes drift down to lips once they realize their current proximity. Shadow can do nothing but watch as the heart that threatens to come up and out of his throat only causes him to hope this is going where he thinks it is.
“Shadow, can I—“ Sonic starts with another awkward yet endearing smile, then swallows in what Shadow can only place as nervousness; a rare sight to see from the blue hedgehog. “Can I kiss you?”
And shit, Shadow thinks there’s nothing more romantic than sharing a kiss right in front of a pile of robot wreckage they caused, the adrenaline of battle still rushing through their bodies.
He says nothing in response and only grabs the sides of Sonic’s face to pull him in and collide into him himself, swallowing a gasp before it can fully escape Sonic’s mouth. Sonic is left stunned for a moment before his hands make themselves known on Shadow’s waist and arm to shift his body closer. Truthfully, it’s messy and the same teeth they bare during fights clumsily clack against one another, but Shadow can’t find himself to care anymore and drinks Sonic whole.
Shadow kisses Sonic and does his all to devour the feeling just like he does for the one of a fight. He kisses Sonic and he wishes it’d leave a mark for the times in between, for his times in the mundane of standing in a corner store and falling asleep on an apartment couch while knowing Sonic would have the same mark somewhere on the opposite side of the world, waking up on a tree branch and zipping through rooftops. And he feels Sonic kiss him back just as fervently, momentarily breaking apart to gasp for air and crashing back in just as eager to consume the dark hedgehog in his entirety.
The sound of metal from the Uber Caterkiller’s head breaking in two and sliding across the floor causes them to jolt apart.
“Oh,” Sonic shyly heaves out with a chuckle, running his hand down Shadow’s arm. “Nearly forgot about that thing.” Before fully releasing his hold on Shadow, he leaves a chaste kiss on the corner of the dark hedgehog’s lips for good measure. Shadow feels his ears heat up at the tender action and he lets go of Sonic’s face to go investigate the back of the room.
Sonic walks over to the destroyed Caterkiller head. “Aw, just a couple Chaos drives as its power source,” he says and kicks at the immobilized and completely-dead thing. “And no green ones? Boo.”
Shadow makes his way to the back of the room, finding nothing but even more scattered badnik parts. “I was right about this place containing nothing too extraordinary. I thought there’d at least be a computer with an Eggnet connection, but there’s nothing back there,” he says, walking back to where Sonic stands. “I wouldn’t have known my way about using it, anyways.”
“That it? I thought some sort of new Eggman freak plan blueprints were hidden back there,” Sonic says. The two hedgehogs make their way back to the entrance of the base to leave. “We got to work together and destroy some badniks, at least! That’s somethin’, right?”
Even right after kissing him on the mouth, Shadow thinks he’d rather explode than admit out loud the fact he had fun with Sonic. “Please, I did most of the work,” he snarks back, looking away to prevent Sonic from reading too much into his treacherous, flushing face.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever helps you sleep at night,” Sonic says with a smug smile. Shadow knows damn well the blue hedgehog can see right through him.
They exit the building from the way they came in and the sky has changed from its bright blue to a hazy, deepening amber. Sunlight dapples between the leaves of the tall trees and golden hour shines bright on the hedgehogs as they step back into the open clearing.
“Hey, you know that cliffside up north?” Sonic says softly, taking a look up at the orange sky and then to Shadow. “Bet you can’t beat me to it.”
Shadow can’t help but smirk at the offering, unable to stop the curving of his mouth from becoming too tender, unable to bring himself to keep caring too much. “It’s laughable how you think you’ll win against me,” he responds.
“We’ll see about that!”
Sonic dashes off like the wind and Shadow follows right after, knowing well how to dance this waltz. They navigate through the jungle once again and make their way out of it, reaching an open valley full of flowers. It’s a quick race this time and the hedgehogs reach the top of the tall hill, the winner being impossible to determine as they arrive together once again.
“Another loss goes to Sonic,” Shadow says with a smile. He places a hand on his hip and stops before the cliff’s edge, a clear view of the large flower valley and horizon ahead.
“That looked to me like it’s yours,” Sonic retorts with an equally-as-soft grin. He places the opposite hand on his own hip and stands close next to Shadow.
“Whatever you say, hedgehog.”
Shadow can’t actually focus on the sunset at all. He feels Sonic's pinky finger fidget and tap lightly against his own, and when the guy doesn’t fully hold his hand quickly enough, Shadow rolls his eyes and makes his arm known around the blue hedgehog’s shoulder instead. Sonic giggles and returns the action, and Shadow’s pretty sure the other hedgehog’s tail is wagging. Shadow feels an unexpected kiss on his cheek and with wide eyes and a reddening face, he nearly gets whiplash when he turns his head to look at the shit-eating yet somehow sweet grin on Sonic’s.
He hates how much the butterflies in his stomach have cozied in and made a home for themselves, how much that damned face makes them flutter every time.
He retorts by kissing Sonic’s cheek back and Sonic only giggles. The blue hedgehog presses a quick kiss to Shadow’s lips again, and after his initial surprise, Shadow can’t help but kiss him back. The two hedgehogs stand together and continue to watch the burning red sunset; a sentiment Shadow feels can apply to his own heart.
“Think I’m gonna head for a visit to Spagonia again,” Sonic says in the quiet of the hilltop. “I’d ask if you wanna come with, but I assume you’re going back home?”
Shadow nods. “I’ll have to inform Rouge and Omega we should look elsewhere for a connection to the Eggnet,” he says. “Plus, Rusty will be happy to acquire another batch of their favorite Chaos drives.”
Whatever this is, Shadow doesn’t care to name it. He knows very well that Sonic, running with the flow of the wind and obeying his own rules, shares the thought. They both know their routine will continue; they’ll look for excuses to seek out the thrill of battling each other again, refusing to admit the enjoyment in each other’s company despite what lingers in the air. For now, though, they’ll go their own separate ways as they always do. Shadow knows the stars will align and allow them to meet again. It’s the way it is every time, and the way it’s always been.
“Guess I’ll see you later, then!” Sonic says, stretching his arms upwards. “Don’t be a stranger, yeah?”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Shadow says, placing a hand on his hip again. “Trying to avoid you would be hopeless.”
“So you don’t actively try to avoid me. Good to know!”
“Don’t put words in my mouth, hedgehog.”
The two glare into narrowed eyes for a moment, then simply smile.
“I’ll see you around, Shadow.”
“Until we meet again, Sonic.”
The sky has faded from fiery crimson to the azure blue of early nightfall. The moon shines not too far high in the sky yet, and the Ark can be seen trailing extremely close behind. The stars are easier to see from the flower-scattered, colorful valley compared to the window of Shadow’s fire escape. Sonic gestures a final goodbye wave above his head at Shadow, and Shadow watches as he zips through the hills and disappears beyond the horizon with the sun.