Chapter Text
The day was quiet, broken only by the rhythmic hum of the wind against the metal walls of Eggman’s latest fortress. From the outside, the base was a sprawling maze of chrome and light, as if Eggman had welded together his arrogance and paranoia into one massive structure.
I crouched low behind a ridge of steel plating, eyes scanning the perimeter. Ahead, the main entrance flickered with red security lasers that pulsed like a heartbeat.
“Looks clear enough,” Sonic whispered beside me, his grin audible as he spoke. “Almost too clear.” He jested, nudging my shoulder.
The corners of my mouth barely turned upwards the way he somehow always seems to do to me. Nonetheless, he was right about one thing. Eggman never made anything simple.
Rouge came to a crouch on my other side, adjusted her visor. “Sensors show motion deeper in. He’s got drones cycling patrols on a two-minute loop.”
“Plenty of time to slip by if we’re smart,” Tails murmured, checking the data pad in his hands.
Knuckles cracked his fists. “Or we could just bust in and-”
“-and trip every alarm in the place,” Amy cut in before he could finish.
He scowled, but fell silent anyway.
I glanced at Sonic, and our eyes met for a second too long. Just one look, a spark, a wordless exchange between two people who had shared far more than battles. Underneath his rich blue fur, I could still see the faint curve of his grin before he turned back to the others.
Five months. Five months since that first reckless kiss after a messy battle. Five months of stolen moments between fights, of quiet laughter where no one could hear, of dates far out in the middle of nowhere, of pretending not to care in front of everyone else.
And it was exhausting.
Not the love, that was the one thing that felt simple. It’s the pretending.
He was the world’s hero, the face plastered across headlines and talk shows. The famous Blue Blur. The savior of Mobius. And I’m… not. I was the weapon turned renegade, the one who can’t walk into a city without whispers following behind. If anyone found out, the media would devour him. They’d call it scandal, danger, or corruption. All the things they already called me.
And if our friends find out. Nay, if his friends find out, how would they react? Their best friend, Sonic the Hedgehog, is dating his longtime rival? I don’t deserve Sonic, and they know it.
So we kept it hidden.
“Shadow,” Rouge’s voice cut through my thoughts, “you good?”
I blinked. “Fine.”
“Then let’s move,” Sonic said softly. “We’ve got plans to steal.”
The teams slipped into motion. Team Dark on one flank, Team Sonic on the other. The place was a labyrinth of white light and echoing footsteps. Every turn, every dark shape could be a trap.
Rouge hacked into the door panels, Omega covering the rear. “Two minutes until the next drone passes,” she whispered.
“Plenty of time,” Sonic replied, edging closer to peek around a corner. His movements were smooth and confident. He always looked so alive in moments like this.
I shouldn’t have been watching him. But my eyes seem to pull towards him regardless.
Every time he smiled, something inside me unraveled a little more. Every time he rushed ahead, my chest tightened with the same old anxiety. Not that he’d fail, but that one day, I wouldn’t be fast enough to catch him if he fell.
The thought twisted in me like a knife.
We reached the central hallway leading to the data core. Eggman’s designs were stored on a vault server deep in the base. All his new weapons, his blueprints, everything. One wrong move and the whole place would go on lockdown.
“Rouge, get that panel open,” Tails whispered.
“I’m on it.” Her fingers danced across the screen.
But before she could finish, there was a faint click.
A red light flared above us.
Then came the blaring alarm.
“Aw, great,” Knuckles groaned.
“Security breach detected,” a robotic voice droned overhead.
Panels slid open along the walls. Dozens of Badniks pour out, glowing eyes scanning for targets.
“Here we go!” Sonic shouted, springing forward in a blur of blue light.
The room erupted in chaos.
Omega’s cannons lit up, Tails worked furiously in the base system, Amy’s hammer making a few of them flat, and Knuckles was already smashing through the nearest bots. Rouge leapt into the air, dodging beams of plasma. I joined the fray, chaos energy flaring around my gloves as I tore through the metallic swarm.
But even in battle, my eyes found Sonic.
He was everywhere at once, bouncing from wall to wall, striking with perfect rhythm. He laughed as he fought, like he always did, as if danger was just another game to him.
Then his voice rang out through the noise, “I’ll lead ‘em away! You guys get what we came here for!”
“Wait-” I started, but he was already gone, a flash of blue tearing down the corridor, half the Badnik army chasing after him.
“Damn it, Sonic!” I growled, kicking a drone into a wall.
“Shadow, focus!” Rouge called out. “We need those plans before he gets himself killed!”
I forced myself to move, to think. Sonic knew what he was doing; he’d done this dozens of times before, but that didn’t stop the panic building in my chest.
Tails and Rouge hacked the main terminal while Omega, Knuckles, and I held the line. The fight was brutal. A storm of sparks and metal.
When Tails finally pulled the drive free, his tails spinning triumphantly. “Got it! Let’s move before this whole place collapses.”
We took off down the same direction Sonic had gone. The halls were wrecked, with scorch marks and debris everywhere. The air smelled of smoke and ozone.
Then, from deeper inside, came a thunderous crash.
My heart seized.
We sprinted. The metallic clangs grew louder until the corridor opened into a massive chamber.
And there he was.
Sonic stood in the center of the room, panting, bruised, his fur scuffed with oil and dust. Eggman hovered above in one of his hovercraft, surrounded by shattered badniks, and behind him, a still half-built and bolted to the floor, a towering prototype machine. Its frame sparked with exposed wiring, its limbs unfinished, but the energy radiating from its core was unmistakable.
Eggman sneered down at Sonic, voice booming through the chamber. “You just don’t know when to quit, do you? You’ll make an excellent test subject for my newest creation!”
The machine hummed to life, its half-complete eye flickering to life.
Sonic darted forward, spin-dashing into a cluster of Badniks. They exploded into metal shards, but the prototype roared to life, swinging one unfinished arm at him. The impact sent him flying back across the floor.
“Sonic!” I shouted, chaos energy crackling through my gloves.
He pushed himself up, coughing, a smirk somehow still on his face. “You guys sure took your time.”
“Quiet,” I growled. “You’re bleeding.”
“Let me see,” Amy said, coming up behind me and pulling Sonic towards her.
Rouge and Omega fired on the remaining Badniks while Knuckles charged the base of the new machine. Tails joined Rouge, throwing EMP grenades to disrupt Eggman’s targeting systems.
Eggman cackled, slamming his controls. “Oh, please! You think you can stop my perfection? Once I have finished this weapon, it will be my masterpiece!”
The machine’s chest opened with a bright light building within. I recognized it instantly.
“Laser!” Rouge shouted.
Sonic barely had time to move. The beam erupted in a deafening blast of white energy, tearing through the floor. He twisted to the side, but not fast enough. The edge of the blast grazed one of his sides and back. A searing streak of light that scorched fur and singed quills.
He screamed, short, sharp, and full of pain.
Something inside me snapped.
“Sonic!”
Chaos energy burst from me in an instant. I didn’t think, I just moved.
I teleported in front of him, intercepting the next beam with a Chaos Shield. The force rattled through my bones. Sonic staggered behind me, gripping his side, his fur smoking in places.
My vision tunneled. I saw red, not from the flames, but from the fury building in my chest.
“Knuckles!” I roared. “With me!”
He didn’t hesitate.
We charged, me in a blur of chaos light, Knuckles with fists that cracked like thunder. We hit the machine’s core together. My Chaos Spear struck the energy conduit as Knuckles’s punch shattered the stabilizer into pieces. The entire prototype convulsed, sparks flying.
“NO!” Eggman screamed, yanking at his controls. “You’ll ruin it!”
“Good,” I growled. “You’ve already done enough damage.”
Knuckles ripped out another cable, and I struck again. Chaos Spear after Chaos Spear, until the machine erupted in a shower of sparks. The explosion tore through the room, smoke and light swallowing everything.
When it cleared, Eggman’s hovercraft was stuttering toward the ceiling, smoke trailing behind it. “You think you’ve won? You’ll regret this, you miserable rodents!”
He disappeared into a retreat tunnel, his maniacal laughter echoing off the walls.
Silence followed, broken only by the soft hiss of burning wires.
I turned. Sonic stood there, breathing hard, clutching his burned side. The fur along his back and arm was charred in streaks, the tips of several quills blackened or burnt off entirely. Even now, he tries to grin.
“Yay, we won,” he said, voice hoarse and missing its usual enthusiasm.
Amy was already at his side, catching his arm before he could fall. “You could’ve been killed.”
He winced but chuckled weakly. “Well, I didn’t plan on being burnt.”
“You never plan,” I snapped, though the words came out softer than I meant them to. The smell of burnt fur coming from Sonic stung my nose.
His eyes met mine for a brief moment, tired, vulnerable, full of quiet apology. “Don’t worry, Shads, I ain't going anywhere."
That sentence gave me a little bit of comfort.
I wanted to hold him. To tell him he was a fool, that he was my fool. To tell him I didn’t care about the mission, not when he looked like this, hurt and still trying to smile to spite it all. I wanted to tell him that I love him.
I love him…
What a thought. But a true one all the same. I love that blabbering idiot.
But before I could say anything, Sonic's knees buckled. Amy pulled him back up before he hit the ground. His legs began to shake again as he swayed on his feet, eyes lidded and half-closed.
“Sonic-”
“I’m fine,” he muttered. “Just… dizzy.”
“Don’t lie to us.” Tails said, coming closer to Sonic’s side.
He tried to respond, but his legs gave out. Slumping against Amy’s side, Amy’s hands were suddenly there, steadying him, blocking me from view without meaning to.
“Tails, get the med kit!” Amy rushed to hold him tighter. “Sonic, can you hear me?”
“He’s out cold.” Knuckles hovered close, frowning. “We have to move now!”
“Let’s get him out of here,” Tails said quickly, already opening his pack.
They lifted him carefully, Tails’ spinning tails as he supported Sonic’s weight. I reached out, my hand almost on his shoulder, but stopped halfway.
Amy and Tails didn’t even look at me as they hurried down the hall.
I stood there, frozen, my hand still in the air.
I stepped back. Watching as Amy and Tails lifted him together. Watching as they spoke to him, touched him, helped him. While I stood apart, burning with everything I couldn’t say.’
I wanted to tell him to stop being so reckless, to tell him I couldn’t stand watching him get hurt, and most of all that I loved him.
Rouge’s voice came quietly to my shoulder. “You okay, handsome?”
I said nothing. Because no, I wasn’t.
Watching him be carried away, my Sonic, my boyfriend, my heart, and being unable to do anything but stand there while the others tended to him… it tore something out of me.
When they carried him toward the exit, I caught one last glimpse of him, his face slack, his chest rising shallowly, smoke still curling faintly from his fur.
All I could think was that if I’d told them… if they knew what he was to me… I could have stayed by his side.
But I’m the reason our relationship is a secret.
And now I can’t be with him.