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Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic's arch-rival, the Dark Hero, the Ultimate Life Form, was now applying a cream to his muzzle and showering in cologne. Preparations for a night out were a totally different ball game from going to a mission, especially when a favorable impression was sought. Heightening and exciting the senses required different kinds of treatment compared to when you’d want to stay in shape and relatively inconspicuous, and fortunately, Shadow knew a thing or two about looking presentable over and above just letting the wind comb his hair. The smell of perfume was making him slightly sick, but it was too late to rinse it off at that point.
He adjusted his cuffs after putting on comfortable and soft cotton gloves instead of more practical leather-like gloves, per the recommendation of a certain bat, despite how weird it felt on his palms. He turned his head towards the tuxedo he had borrowed from the local tailor and considered putting it on, but ultimately chose not to. He then made his way out of his apartment, though not before taking one look at the mirror, the reflection of his combed quills and deadened excitement stealing a sigh out of him before he made his way towards the garage via the elevator. He could run to the place, but getting himself slick in sweat and grime after all that effort would be counter-productive; instead, he would hop onto the Dark Rider and onward to the streets.
The nightly wind caressed his fur as his motorcycle rushed towards the appointed place, the engine grumpily growling as he went from point A to B with GPS-like accuracy. Trudging through other commuters on their way to enjoy the Station Square nightlife, some going to clubs, others to bars, when he himself had a restaurant to be.
After parking the Dark Rider right outside “Geoffrey’s”, Shadow made his way inside the middling establishment, its black and white walls trying too hard to be fancy. At the same time, there wasn’t even a reception to keep track of reservations, and the only staff member he could see was a brown hedgehog idly doomscrolling. Moving on from the entrance, he pulled the instructions from the one who had paid it all from her pocket; “Sit at the table at the top left corner”, which he assumed was from the door. He found the appointed table with a plastic plaque saying “reserved” and sat down. The idle chatter of other patrons turned into a monotonous, unintelligible blathering, while he also felt goosebumps of disgust at the aura of mediocrity emanating from their dishes and wafting into his nose.
Shadow waited, and waited, condescendily staring at the clock as it hit 19:03, 3 minutes after the appointed time, his tapping at the table slowly increasing its speed as his patience began to drop. He thought that perhaps he’d be considered a tryhard for arriving 15 minutes early, but instead, all he earned was time to reflect on whether or not he should’ve taken Amy up on this deal. It wasn’t like he had much else to do other than train with a phone nearby, ready for the next mission when it arrived, but that tedium was preferable to the tedium of relying on a stranger’s poor manners.
“This dress is friggin’ killin’ me!”
Shadow’s ears turned towards the booming voice, taking his eyes off the clock and turning towards the entrance as he was met with one hell of a sight. A woman clad in a black dress, tantalizingly contrasting with her green fur and the long quills streaming down her shoulders. The dress clung to her waist, creating a curvy silhouette that seemed uncomfortable for the poor girl trapped inside, yet alluring nonetheless, especially when paired with a cut that showcased a little of her legs and her high heels. A look fit for a socialite out to eat in a dining place where you’d know the name of the chef before you even stepped inside, a description that absolutely did not fit either the miserable woman or the unfortunate location of their…date.
He suspected she was his partner for the night, and it was confirmed when she looked at a piece of paper like his and slowly walked toward him, lifting her eyes to scout the area shortly after.
Their eyes met for the first time, each pair fixated on the other for a moment as the woman took her sweet time taking in his features, while Shadow felt paralyzed by the heavenly blue of her irises. He was acutely aware of the sudden irregularity in his heartbeat. Still, he took a deep breath as the woman approached his table, a smile forming on her lips while she twitched her head, as if trying to extricate herself from her prison, distorting her expression.
“So are you my date for the night?” She asked, resting her arms on the table, her shark-like teeth flashed by her smile.
“I believe I am,” Shadow replied, his hands clasped together as he looked up, empathizing with her discomfort. “Surge the Tenrec, I presume. Your exploits have quite a…reputation.”
“So my reputation does precede me! And so does yours, Shadow the Hedgehog. A little friend of mine told me you’re the reason the moon has a ring now! I’m glad to see that Amy set me up with an actual man for a change instead of you-know-who.” Surge said before pulling a chair for her to sit down with so much force that he’d assumed that she closed her eyes not to see the scratch she made on the floor, the noise making him wince, while she conveniently ignored it and sat down with a nervous chuckle.
“Alright!” She said, exaggerating the “A” while stretching her arms, trying to make herself comfortable but almost tearing the dress in the process. “I’m stumped. Are we supposed to like share hobbies or something? How does this work?”
“I’ll be honest, I’m only here for the food,” Shadow replied, menu already in hand and mostly scanned. “Food that is utterly not to my taste, have a look,” Shadow said before handing the menu to Surge.
The tenrec let out a pensive “hm” as her hand flipped through the menu and her eyes flicked back and forth, trying to make sense of the pretentious leather-bound booklet, letting out more tentative “hms” as her lips silently contorted before she let out a defeated sigh and dropped the thing on the table in defeat, restrained her fist from banging on the poor piece of furniture at the last second.
“I can’t read it.”
“What? Are you illiterate?”
“No, I can read, I can’t read it. What the heck is a ‘hors douve’ even supposed to be?”
“Hors d’oeuvre,” Shadow said with an immaculate pronunciation. “Fancy word for appetizer. If you’d like, I could try figuring out the rest so that at least one of us can have a meal.”
“Nah, appreciate it though, it’s probably too fancy for me anyway. But tell me,” She said, resting her chin on her hands. “How do you know that?”
“When you spend enough time with members of the upper class aboard a space station, you pick up that stuff very quickly.”
“Eh? So you’re a fancy boy then?”
“Don’t ever call me that again,” Shadow replied, the hint of a scoff curling his lips. “And no, I like to travel light and make do with the bare necessities. I’m not ‘fancy’, nor a ‘boy’, tenrec.”
“I don’t know,” Surge rolled her eyes with a smug grin, audibly sniffing. “You smell like someone threw you inside one of those big water containers filled with perfume, and your quills are glistening with gel! If you aren’t fancy, then why did you go through all this trouble to come out swinging with yer good looks, Edgy? Can I call you Edgy instead?”
Shadow let out a sigh in defeat and didn’t bother replying to her latter question before speaking. “We’re being watched. Look to the opposite corner, and try to look inconspicuous.”
Surge let out a confused “eh?” as she took her eyes towards the opposite end of the restaurant. Besides seeing the window that looked at the parking area behind the restaurant, there was an image that caught her eye, a figure cloaked in a jacket, with a dingy little cap on their head and aviator sunglasses, trying too hard to be discreet, but unable to do so with his bright yellow fur and the double tails poking from his chair. Surge took her eyes back to Shadow as she stifled a chuckle at the spy act, while being somewhat impressed by the fact that he caught it in the first place.
“Any idea why the sidekick is watching us?” Surge asked, going back to resting on her hand.
“If I had to guess, Amy’s simply keeping tabs on us,” Shadow replied, pushing his back against the chair to at least appear more relaxed. “I had a fear something like this would happen as the first person she called after inviting me was Sonic. I had to look somewhat presentable or else she’d get angry, and the rest of her…group wouldn’t ever let me live it down.”
“Huh, didn’t take you to be the kind of guy who’d want to appease others.”
“I’m not. But when you’re the subject of one too many jokes by a certain blue hedgehog, you too would start to get a little appeasing from time to time. Plus, don’t be fooled, that hammer of hers has the weight of a car, and she can swing it like it’s a spoon.”
“Point taken! But how did she rope you into this in the first place? You don’t look like the type of guy who goes on dates.”
“You’re being too comfortable making a lot of assumptions about me.”
“Well, the whole point of a blind date is to meet your date, isn’t it? Well, I came for the food, but that isn’t happening anytime soon, so I need sumethin’ to keep me entertained for a while!”
With no more sighs left to give, Shadow replied. “I had a tricky mission two weeks ago, something that required discretion, enough discretion that I can’t tell you where it was.”
“Oh, one of those ‘if I told you I’d have to kill you’ type deal?”
“Exactly. All you need to know is that I was supposed to get in and get out without being noticed and without leaving evidence, tricky when there’s an entire battalion guarding the location and layers upon layers of high-tech surveillance and security gizmos on your way. Spent an uncomfortable amount of time working with my limited intel, trying to find a CoA, before Amy barged in with a Chaos Emerald, making it all the more simple with me having access to Chaos Control. In exchange for her favour, which saved me time I did not have to locate an Emerald in the first place, I asked her if there were anything she’d want me to do in return, and that’s how we got here, once she proposed a ‘blind date.’”
“Huh, interesting! Does she rope you into this stuff often?”
“More often than you’d think, or rather, I walk into it more than I’d like to admit. I gave her concert tickets for her birthday, and she chose me as her partner. Couldn’t reject the wish of the birthday girl, so I went with her.”
“But did you enjoy yourself?” Surge asked with a smug grin.
“I may or may not have sung along, and I plead my right to stay silent on any further questions.”
“Has anyone told you you’re too grumpy?”
“Multiple times, what is your point?”
“You seem to enjoy yourself when you go out! Why don’t you just let loose more in a while? It’s kinda a waste to see someone like you just rot away lonely and miserable.”
“The fact I ‘enjoy’ those outings doesn’t change the fact they’re distractions. I’m not Sonic; I can’t afford to slow down and enjoy the flowers and wait until things start to explode to fix the problem. I need to be ready to strike before Eggman or any other fool builds a superweapon instead of waiting until they turn a city into a crater to know where it is and shut it down. One or another distraction won’t kill me, but someone may get hurt if I’m not there when I’m supposed to be there.”
“And yet everything turns out fine, no matter how many chili dogs that moron eats or how many parties he attends. One more, huh, what’s the fancy word for it…rendevouz per week would do wonders to your temper!”
Shadow didn’t have it in him to correct her spelling and just went straight for the reply. “I’m not interested, thank you.”
“Why? Afraid you might like it? What’s the point of saving the world if you don’t get to live in it?”
“But could you live with the idea that you were unable to save someone because you were too slow, too unprepared? Too distracted?”
Surge rolled her eyes. “Beats me, but is this how you wish to live your entire life? Hopping from mission to mission? From rescue to rescue?”
“I’m not sure you’d understand, but yes. This is the destiny I chose.”
“But does it make you happy?”
“Whether it makes me fulfilled or not is besides the point. Someone needs to do it, and I chose that person to be myself.”
Surge rolled her eyes. “Edgy, that wasn’t the question.”
“And? I’m not going to be taking advice on how to live my life from the woman who spends hers thinking of ways to outdo and/or kill a single man, where her betters have already tried and failed. There’s a moment when you should know when to quit.”
Surge clenched her fist and stifled a growl. “You wouldn’t understand it either.”
“I think I would,” Shadow replied, leaning forward. “Your past taken from you, your future written by someone else, and being unable to live in the present, chasing a goal that makes you neither fulfilled nor happy. Am I on target?”
A muted gasp of shock came out of Surge’s mouth, but no words could be formed. Shadow took it as a yes and continued.
“I was once like you, driven by nothing but the desire for revenge, ready to make the world burn, out of the test tube and straight into planning Armageddon, but it made me feel nothing. All I saw was darkness, but I learned to see more.”
“I don’t need your help,” Surge said, her lips quivering while one side was pulled in a sign of contempt.
“I’ll assume you do need it,” Shadow replied, with Surge letting out an unenthusiastic chuckle before he continued. “Why do you want to end Sonic so ravenously?”
“Because it’s his fault!” Surge shouted, almost standing up from the chair, while earning a lot of turning heads, bringing down the volume of the background chatter as everyone else at the restaurant turned to look at her, making her recoil in the chair in shame, while Shadow looked as impassible as ever, hands clasped together.
“I assume it’s because of Eggman and Starline?” Shadow asked while Surge crossed her arms.
“...Yes,” she whispered back.
“I see, so it’s revenge?”
“What are you getting at?” She asked, her eyes flicking up.
“So you want to end Sonic because he didn’t take out Eggman when he had the opportunity, which led Starline to him, who, wanting to impress Eggman, created you. Am I correct?”
Surge groaned before replying. “Yes, but what are you trying to say?”
“I’ll get to the point. You should quit, quit before it is too late. There’s no fulfillment, no satisfaction, and no happiness on the other side of revenge, not even from the thought that everyone who wronged you has received their comeuppance. All you have is the realization that you chased a meaningless goal and wasted your life. The pain doesn’t leave you; you just dump it on someone else before it comes back thrice-fold. You can say I don’t understand-”
“That’s because you don’t,” Surge replies, jolting forward. “You have a past, I don’t. I have nothing to return to, no friends, no family, no home, more than a decade of my life before Starline found me erased. I know nothing other than hate and how to dump that hate on someone else. You at least have faces; all I have are two, one is dead, and telling me to kill the other. So get down from your high horse before you lecture me about whether or not I should vindicate myself.”
“Is this what you want? Vindication? All you are doing is vindicating Starline. Do you really wish to spend all of your life in the service of his idea, instead of finding your own?”
“Well, you sanctimonious bastard, how the heck am I supposed to do that?”
“You can figure that out on your own, if you try,” Shadow said, leaning closer. “You have no past, yes, but that also means you are untethered from it. That might be a blessing many would envy. You can be whatever you wish, whomever you wish, and no one alive will be able to question the path you follow. It would be a waste for you to simply walk down the path to hell built by someone who never cared about you, other than your usefulness.”
“Sounds easier said than done,” Surge replied, leaning back on her chair and crossing her arms.
“That’s because it is, but it is worth it, even if it takes all of your life to do. No one other than yourself can take those pretty eyes of yours to look forward and seek your own wishes.”
Surge let out a chuckle. “Wait, was that a flirt?”
Shadow’s body tensed up. “Was that how it came out?”
Surge ignored his question and moved on with her own, a smirk forming on her lips as she proudly raised her chin. “So you think my eyes are pretty?”
Shadow gulped and looked away, a little bit of red appearing on his muzzle as if it had been drained out of his quills. Surge's smile grew wider as she pushed forward, “C’mon, just answer this question for once!”
Shadow closed his eyes and took in the mother of all inhales, letting out a very muted and discrete “yes.” Surge was not satisfied, “What did you say?” She asked, with Shadow starting to fidget with his cuffs, his glance moving between the windows and her as anxiety started to grow. Suddenly, he clenched his fist and blew open the dam.
“Yes, I do find your eyes pretty, and although you look extremely uncomfortable in that dress, you look very good in it. Your quills are a beautiful shade of green, which matches the rest of your black fur perfectly, and the way your quills stream down your shoulders is a sight for sore eyes. Need I mention that your sharp teeth look cool? Because they do. Are you happy now?”
Surge felt as if a knife had been driven into her heart and stuck her to the chair, the blood from the wound gushing into her cheeks and making them almost pop like a tomato being crushed by a car. Meanwhile, Shadow's expression soured as regret and shame began to hang over him as he took on the anxiety-inducing sight in front of him, questioning if confessing what he felt was courageous or the epitome of foolishness, his hands hidden under the table as he nervously tapped his feet while his pupils widened, fixated on Surge’s expression as each second passed on like an eternity, with him becoming acutely aware of every micro-expression her face was performing, or rather the lack of such expressions, as if he had turned into a gorgon and turned her into stone.
Then she raised her hand to her mouth and giggled. “You are not good at this, are you?”
Shadow looked away, almost tucking into a ball right there. “...No.”
Surge bit her lip while Shadow’s thought process turned into an electrified frenzy as he tried to interpret the signs, with her fixed expression telling him so much more than any words, so much that he couldn’t even parse the meaning behind the gesture. All he could understand was that his heart began to pound against his ribcage as his mind blanked out, no self-questioning, no remorse, no regret, nor satisfaction, just the image of Surge’s twisting into something completely foreign, radiating a weird aura of sincerity if he allowed himself to go that far. The way his brain reacted felt alien, a feeling of yearning so long deadened that moving such an emotional muscle felt robotic and painful, but also liberating. His pulse quickened further as he felt sweat stick to his gloves and a mysterious heat being transmitted across his body. Even the air-conditioned interior of the establishment wasn’t enough to comfort him; he needed to do something, he needed to get out.
“Hm,” he started, stammering before calming himself down with a deep breath. “Would you like to go somewhere else?”
“Where to?” Surge replied, still staring into his eyes with her half-lidded ones, resting her chin on her hand.
“A place where we both could get something to eat, I know a couple.”
“Like…?”
“A pizzeria.”
“Now we’re talking!” Surge said, excitement pushing through the rest of her emotions. “But, uh, could we make a stop at my place for a bit? Don’t wanna ruin this borrowed dress with cheese and tomato sauce.”
Without trying to weigh in on any implications, Shadow replied, standing up from his chair. “No problem, just tell me the address, and I can take you there.”
Following his lead, Surge stood up, stiff from the cloth stifling her movements, but energized from the thought of getting out of it. “Do you think Amy will mind leaving here without getting an order?”
“I’d rather leave before our handlers get in contact with her and we find out. If push comes to shove, I’ll just reimburse her to get her off my tail and our tracks.”
“Good thinking,” Surge said with a smile, rubbing her chin before taking the first steps towards the exit. A worm dug itself into her mind as she felt an urge to reach out to his hand, stopping herself right before the act.
Shadow raised his eyebrow as Surge’s smile mellowed out into an embarrassed visage. Excitement burst forth while she simultaneously appeared to want to retreat into her clothes like a turtle into its shell. That sudden action puzzled him, but he decided not to push her further, especially once a stir began to catch his attention at the corner of his eye. Jacketed figures with familiar fur, pretending not to look at them while frantically typing into their phones. They had to be out quickly before it turned into a bigger mess. Without thinking twice, Shadow stole a gasp from the tenrec’s throat as he took her hand and rushed out of the establishment.
Without many words, Shadow sat on the Dark Rider with Surge right behind, arms wrapped around his waist, before he stepped on the pedal and vanished into the horizon, just as some came running behind them, screaming “Wait!” one second too late, or perhaps just in time for Shadow to ignore their plea and vanish into the nearby intersection.
That person was none other than Amy Rose, who had been coordinating the watchers all this time, hidden in the opposite corner of the restaurant, now merely watching her quarry drive off into the night with a dejected frown.
Taking off the cheap spy getup, someone else came up to her, one of many of her accomplices, and in fact the first one; Sonic himself, rubbing his forehead before speaking up. “Tough luck, huh? All this for nuthin’.”
Amy let out a sigh. “Yeah, at least they went out together instead of burning the place to the ground. Anyway, call everybody off, party’s over.”
Rolling his eyes, the blue hedgehog sent a message in their “surveillance group chat” telling the target had escaped, and everyone was free to go before his eyes returned to Amy. “What now?”
“No idea,” she replied with a shrug. “Maybe just wait until tomorrow and see if I-hey!”
Amy gasped as she was yanked back inside the restaurant, as the rest of her little cohort made their way out of the place: Tails, Knuckles, one of the waiters, a red badger from the Resistance days, and Rouge, who immediately began to run after her own method of transportation to secure the dress she lent to the tenrec. She was shocked by the sudden pull, but the real shock came once she realized its source, Sonic’s hands tightly grasping hers as he pulled her into the now vacant top left table.
“Figured it would be a waste to let this reservation go unused,” he said. “How ‘bout we make use of it?”
Amy looked away with a bashful smile. “T-this isn’t what I had in mind…”
Sonic smirked, bewitched by the sight, before replying. “Perhaps you should look further than what’s in your head.”